In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of believing in Jesus Christ as the Son of God for salvation. He encourages listeners to pray for and share the gospel with those in need, as Jesus has the power to transform lives. The speaker also highlights the fact that the early disciples were ordinary, unschooled men, yet they were chosen by God to spread the message of Jesus. He warns against being knowledgeable and hardworking but lacking a personal relationship with Jesus. The speaker urges parents to prioritize their own prayer life and personal connection with God as a means of influencing their children's faith. He also encourages listeners to support and connect with missionaries who face battles and discouragement in their work. The speaker concludes by reminding believers that God is at work in their lives and calls them to live a life that goes beyond being average Christians.

Not very many places where they have such serious emphasis on missions. And just look around and see all the many displays here from so many mission organizations. And I'm so grateful. So I encourage you to take time to go and visit all these booths and get materials. You know, if you look at these brochures, four-color brochures and materials and books and CDs and DVDs, they're all quite costly to produce. Often things we get free, people don't value that so much. But I would tell you this is a very unique opportunity for you to pick up these materials and do read through that and you will find plenty of information that you can turn that into prayer requests for the country, for the people, and their faces, names, and all these things you see. And then pray the Lord give you understanding as to how you can invest your life personally or your resources, your time, and whatever else you can do to be involved. And the other thing is that there's no way you're going to have these kind of displays and materials be brought to your home or your church where you are. Now you are here in one place, you have the opportunity to grab all this stuff. And then you run into missionaries who've been overseas, spent two, three, four, five years. If you think they are superstars, they are special creatures with a huge amount of anointing on them, please don't make a mistake. They are in the midst of huge battles, struggles, discouraged and lonely, and sometimes they feel like giving up. And many of them, I imagine, resign every year 10,000 times, but they keep moving on. And it is good for you to link your life with some of these people. Take their name and address, where they are, talk to them, and buy them a cup of coffee or steal some coffee from somewhere. Spend time with them. These are very special opportunities the Lord is giving you. Often we forget to see what God is doing because we are so busy with what we want to do or we want to get accomplished. So those are just a few words of encouragement for you. May I ask how many of you are actually missionaries here? People that you're working overseas or somewhere here in America overseas, you're serving God, you just happen to come to the conference. Would you raise your hand? Let me see. Well, blessings on you. Now, we got a handful of hands went up, and so all the rest of you should gravitate toward these people. And, you know, make them your friends and your prayer partners and whatever else. And ask them what you can do for them. Maybe they say you need 10,000 dollars. Well, give them 20,000. No, just kidding. Whatever. These are very special opportunities. I just came back from India a couple of days ago, and I was scheduled to come back earlier, but because of the... Oh, thank you. The Lord bless you. Because of the crisis we are faced with, the persecution. How many of you heard about what is going on in Orissa at this time in Northeastern? Wow, great. You know, I was on the radio doing interview from India, with Modi and almost three, four radio stations every week, both in Europe and Australia and United States. And they kept asking me the one question. So what is this persecution so special or so unique or so different? Because so much has been talked about. And I said this, in my 40 years of serving God, I have never witnessed, read about or seen anything so huge and intense in terms of the seriousness of persecution in such a short time that we are witnessing in Orissa. And as you know, about 10 years ago, missionary Graham Stain and his two little boys were burned to death in Orissa. They were working among the leper colonies, sharing about Christ and taking care of the most rejected, neglected people in rural communities. And the radical Hindu fundamentalists sought them out and threatened them, but nobody expected that they will someday come and pour kerosene on them and burn them to death. And that's what happened. And that made news all over the world. And his wife being asked by the media, so they killed your husband and your two young boys. What are you saying about it? She said, my husband and I, we love these people. We came here to serve them. Jesus loves them. And I hold nothing against them. I forgive them. And became a huge testimony to Christ's love and his name throughout the nation of India and the subcontinent. But then missionary Stain's and his boys' death only became kind of a door for people to see what more was happening. We've been working there for two decades. And it was a normal thing for missionaries to get beaten up, abused, literature burned. By the way, you understand my English? Thank you. I keep telling myself, go slow. You know, I speak in tongues when I get talking faster. I just want to slow down. Bob, I'll do that. But then the radical Hindu government called the BJP took over the state of Orissa. It's a very primitive, one of the most poorest communities in India. And large numbers of tribal people. And the upper caste Hindu fundamentalist began to plan out the strategy of killing Christians and burning down churches. And last December was a significant time when they decided they're going to stop Christians from celebrating Christmas. And they created a huge amount of problem that the government has to declare the thing called Law 144, which means no gathering of people anywhere. And their intention was to stop Christmas celebration among the Christians in Orissa state. And that one month of December, they destroyed over 175 churches and abused Christian workers, missionaries. And at that time, they actually raped one of the Catholic nuns and killed her. So that became huge news at that time. But January on, persecution increased substantially. And all of a sudden, about two months ago, one of the senior Hindu priest, an old man, and his five followers were murdered by radical communist Maoist. This was a tribal war they had with these people. And so when this man was killed, the Hindu radical fundamentalist called the Sangh Parivar, they are the group people, VHP, another group, they went public and said this was done by Christians. And within hours, all over the state of Orissa, people were going about identifying Christians, beating them up, and burning down their homes, and the rampage, the cruelty that was displayed so publicly was unbelievable. Today, as far as I know, about six of our people were brutally murdered. They were cut into pieces in the daylight. And over 1,000 homes of Christian believers were completely destroyed and demolished. These are believers from our own fellowship. And total, just I read yesterday, nearly 5,000 Christian homes were destroyed in the state of Orissa. And a Catholic nun was gang-raped, and another one was burned to death. And lots of missionaries were abused, and we have over 1,000 children that we take care of in the state of Orissa, and all the workers were beaten up and driven away. And it is estimated now there are some 30,000 Christians in refugee camps. And for the first time, the secular media began to say this is ethnic cleansing. And the news now being leaked out, these people have studied Hitler's method of killing of the Jewish people, and even the refugee camps are set up in such a way to starve people and make them renounce Christ and burn their Bibles and return to their Hindu faith or whatever religion they had before. And there seems to be no stopping of this. I have, along with other Christian leaders, appealed to the government of India, the prime minister, and other responsible people, pleading with them to do whatever they can. And the state government is very, very slow responding to the situation, and still we have huge crisis taking place. What they're doing now is going from village to village, identifying Christian homes and marking them. Then the next day they come back and say, you renounce Christ, put our Hindu gods in your house, we will spare you. If you will not, tomorrow your house will be destroyed. And that's what they're doing. And brothers and sisters, I don't think in this country we can possibly subjectively understand or emotionally feel the suffering unless God gives you some better understanding. We never experience any persecution here. Of course, the biggest persecution here is they take out the Ten Commandments from the school and ask you not to pray in the school or have a Bible study. They are very cruel thing to happen, I imagine. But I think it is good for you to remember as a believer, it is told to us in the book of Hebrews that we are called upon to share in the suffering and the pain of the body of Christ. And it is an active thing you do. You know, there are people who go about divorcing their spouse, husband or wife saying that, you know, I don't feel anything anymore for him or for her in me. I don't feel love. And you don't need to feel anything, you just love. It's a choice you make. And so, if you don't feel the pain of 50,000 or more believers in the state of Orissa that are in the forest, in jungles, in refugee camps. I read about the story of one of our missionary whose wife was nine months pregnant and their brother was not home, the missionary was not home and their other child was at school and they came after her. And she ran into the forest and for days nobody knew where she was. And we prayed and cried out to God, the Lord rescue her. But then to find out, she was one of the hundreds, hundreds of women, old people, young people, grandpas, little children running away for their life because they've been chased with weapons and sword and other means to kill them. And of course, you know, a couple of weeks later, you know, they found she was safe and God's mercy was there. And I heard she delivered the baby also. But these are informations that Lord is allowing us to hear, to read about, not for us to feel the sorry for these people, rather for us to understand this is Christianity in the making today around the world. And ask the Lord to give you the feeling that you need to feel so that there'll be that understanding of pain and suffering for the body of Christ and then we'll do what we can, fasting, praying, sharing, whatever we can do to be a part of this generation. And some of us who are in the midst of this kind of pain, we cry and sometimes don't know what else to do, other than say, Lord, thank you for the grace you gave to our people to stay strong in the midst of battle. I heard stories after stories of Christians in Orissa right now. They were asked to take their Bible and burn it and subject themselves to their Hindu worship, whatever, and they refused to do that. And one young man said, I'd rather you kill me than renounce my faith. And the secular media picked it up. And I'm glad the testimonies like that we are hearing. And so I appreciate your praying for Orissa at this time. But now the persecution began to spread to other states. In Karnataka state also now it has become quite serious. Three of our own churches were destroyed. And in many places, not just our group, but dozens of missions and church movements are faced with huge crisis at this time. But this kind of will strengthen the body of Christ also. The strange thing, I've been telling people, if the devil thinks bringing persecution is the way to stop the work of God, the devil is the most stupidest human being there is. And because I know in the early days of my own life and ministry in North India, in Rajasthan, I mean, along with others, I've been beaten up, abused, and kicked out from places numerous times. But today you go to the place, a place that was known as the graveyard of missions, now you cannot go hardly to any large village or town or city where you will not find a dozen churches, people worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ. So God is at work. Amen. Now, I want you to turn your Bibles to the book of Acts just for a few minutes and look at just a couple of verses and see what we can learn from it and some applications. So, can we take a minute for prayer? And especially prayer for Orissa and what's going on in India today. Our Father, we come before you as your sons and daughters and we ask you, Lord, that you will continue to show mercy and your grace, especially for our brothers and sisters that are going through a huge amount of suffering in this state Orissa. Lord, none of us can imagine going back from Las Vegas and then find our houses burned down, our cars destroyed, our clothes all burned up, our children are no more there. Lord, we cannot even imagine those thoughts. Yet for thousands and thousands of our brothers and sisters, they have no more a place they call their home. Many of them, Lord, and lots of them lost everything they had here on earth, which to begin with is so little. Lord, we think about the missionaries that are being beaten, abused, and we think about the suffering of your people there, Lord, and hundreds of churches being destroyed. Lord, God, we pray that you will intervene, especially we pray for the rulers, the governors of these states, and especially the chief minister and his people in Orissa state. Dear God, we pray that you will touch their hearts and reveal yourself to them, oh Lord, in a way. Lord, you can do the same thing you did with Saul and see a whole bunch of these people get converted. Dear Lord, we pray that you will cause these problems to be the reason for multiplied millions of people to turn to Christian faith and come to know you. I pray for us, oh Lord, that we will learn more and more about your body and our responsibility to share our life with the suffering church around the world. And we thank you today for this special privilege you gave us to gather like this, to study, to learn, to hear other stories, and be given the opportunity to become part of what you are doing around the world. And we thank you so much in Jesus name. Amen. Alright, we are in the book of Acts chapter 1. Now what I'd like to do is to take you on a journey through the book of Acts. I don't know if you're going to get through this whole book, but you heard enough teaching from it. I'm not going to take you through verse by verse and all that. But book of Acts is kind of a 30 years history of the church. This is not a book of theology. This is a storybook of people that followed the Lord. You know, there's a kind of thinking among some people. Missionaries, they are super human beings. They are a special breed of people. Yeah, those missionaries, yeah man, they can go to Africa and do all those things. And me, no. Yeah, I heard about this guy selling their house and their big cars and trimming down their life. Very simple lifestyle. And they no more go to Neiman Marcus. They go to Salvation Army and look for older clothes. What is wrong with them? Yeah, I mean, man, they are real Christians. Yeah, you know, I'm like them with spiritual muscles and huge amount of special anointing. Yeah, I might do something like that. But you know, I'm just not like that. And we talk like that. But you know what? The Christianity we see in the book of Acts. People that followed the Lord, they are really ordinary people. They are normal people that really got to the place of understanding Christ and his Lordship. And it turned their life upside down. And so I take time once in a while to read through the book of Acts with my pencil. And see, you know, this kind of Christianity, how these people lived and walked. In Acts chapter 17 verse 6, we read that verse. These people who caused so much trouble, they have come here also. In Philip's translation, these world revolutionaries have come here also. In some translation, those who turned the world upside down, they have come here also. What a testimony about Christians. And here in the book of Acts chapter 1, we read of course, you know, to begin with. You know, Luke is writing about the gospel he wrote about Christ. What he began to do and teach and all those things. And then he says, well, I just want to continue the journey and write about, you know, about following the Lord and what it's all about. And book of Acts obviously is the fulfillment of what all Christ talked about. And now in verse 8, we have this verse 7. But he said to them, it is not for you to know the times of dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will become my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You see, these Christians who gathered together, they were not theological students. They were not people who had all the DVDs and CDs and consultations and exegesis and systematic studying verse by verse, Hebrew and Greek and explanations. And they didn't have 10,000 commentaries sitting in their home. These were people that met the Lord Jesus Christ and their lives were so impacted with the fact that they are new creatures in Christ. They fell in love with the Lord. And now what happens, they are given the power of the Holy Spirit and said, you, as you receive the power, you will become my people who will be going around telling about me. And as a friend of mine said, the Holy Spirit gives a holy goal. No matter where you are, just keep in mind. I mean, if you are working at a, you know, in and out burger shop. You have in and out here? Oh, great. I need to go there. I mean, or, or, you know, Starbucks or wherever, or you go to the shopping center or wherever. I mean, obviously a whole bunch of you are not missionaries, you know, coming back from Africa. Wherever you are, keep in mind the call of Christ on your life. If you know him, it is to be his witness and the Holy Spirit. Unlike some people think Holy Spirit didn't come to give us goose bumps. You know, make cartwheels, you know, and jumping from here to there. I mean, if that happens, that's fine. I mean, that's what you want. But I'm telling you, the real reason of the Holy Spirit coming upon us. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. The empowerment of the Holy Spirit is to give us the boldness to face anyone, anywhere and say, Jesus is Lord. He died for you. He died for me. He rose again. You can repent and forsake your sin and know him. And there's a heaven waiting for you. And that is the call of the Lord upon our lives. And if that be the case, whether you go as a missionary or you stay here, your life seems to have this DNA, this coloring. Like, you know, you inject some kind of colored ink through your vein. You know, somebody said about a little baby that belonged to one of our staff in Dallas. You know, this little baby. And somebody said, you know, you can see every vein in that baby. It's so white. Obviously, it is not from Indian couple. And said, it's so transparent. Now, can you imagine injecting some kind of colored ink or something into the baby? The whole baby is colored with blue or red or whatever. A follower of Christ need to have this DNA, this coloring within you. And that is the way you are. I am supposed to be. Obviously, you know that. You know, they waited and the Holy Spirit came upon them. And, oh yeah, they spoke in tongues. And, of course, you know, they had tremendous amount of power given by the Lord. And the next thing you know is that wherever they went, no matter what happened, they were witnessing and sharing the faith. And chapter 2, when he come there, he will see that Peter, who got, I mean, was really scared about getting persecuted. He said, I don't know this Jesus. Who are you talking about? And here he got filled with the Holy Spirit. And he is standing up in verse 14 on. You know, I mean, he said, you guys, you better repent. And I didn't know he was a theologian, by the way. You read this thing and he knew his Bible. And he explained the gospel and calling people to repent. And a whole bunch of them repents. You know, I remember years ago. I mean, this is going back before most of you are born. I was in Punjab in northwest of India. About two years of my life serving the Lord with this youth movement. And, you know, I was called upon to speak many times in meetings. And I remember one time in Amritsar, that evening meeting, I was to speak. A couple of thousand people there, mostly lost people. And I felt so dry, so lost. I remember going to the little room. I was staying and I knelt down beside the little bunk bed. And I said, Lord, I am so lost. I know the Bible. I know the outline. I got the illustrations. But there's nothing in me. Please give me the power that you promised. And I was not looking for signs and wonders and lights and thundering and tongues and any of those things. I so bad wanted the ability to communicate the gospel to these people. I know before I knew it, the Lord filled me with the Holy Spirit. And I was speaking in languages that I never learned. I was totally confused. Because my orientation was basically like a Plymouth Brothers background. So if you know that, it's diametrically opposite. But I tell you what happened. The love of Christ was so intense. And then I had to say, Lord, stop it. I can't handle it. And a little later, I was out there speaking. I don't know what I said to the people. But I'm telling you, hundreds of people got up weeping, coming forward, kneeling down, repenting, asking Jesus to come into their life. I said to myself, what happened to me? Well, obviously, it was not my, you know, illustrations and stories and three-point whatever. It was the Holy Spirit. The words I spoke, honestly, you know, I think it was not a brilliant message like that. Maybe, you know, just words that didn't even make sense to some people. But whatever, the Holy Spirit used it. Now, just to pause and make a point. You know, Gisela and I, my wife and I, we, you know, it's her name. We talk about it. We talk about some individuals, people who have problems. And, you know, we counsel them and talk to them. And then once in a while, she says, if only, if only they understand the reality of the Holy Spirit and be baptized in the Holy Spirit, things will break. There will be a new beginning. It is not imitation, baptism of the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about the real thing. And that happens not by going to some meeting and somebody says, I'm going to give you the Holy Ghost. Or throw their coat on you. No. I think you read this, you'll find out there's a bunch of people who decided to obey the Lord Jesus Christ and wait. Which means what? It's a time of honestly surrendering their life and all there is and saying, Lord, all I am, whatever I am yours. And I think this is the beginning of understanding of a life that is yielded to Christ and how God can use our lives for his glory. And so if you are a missionary out there, if you are here, home, working, wherever you are, may I encourage you. If you are not baptized in the Holy Spirit or you're not filled with the Holy Spirit. May I encourage you to read God's word? Think about it. And he's faithful. It is your birthright. This baptism of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, you know, we have, you know, some 64 Bible colleges, some 7000 students in all these 11 nations. And I keep telling my leaders, you know, whatever you do, please make sure you teach about the Holy Spirit and baptism of the Holy Spirit. Make sure they experience this. Why? Because they are going into the very dark regions with the name Christ and it is not a joke. And this is nothing strange for one of our missionaries to get to a village. And people come to him and say, would you please come and pray for my wife? Pray for my son, pray for my brother or my sister. And what is wrong with them? It is not cancer or flu or cold or TB. You find out many times they're demon possessed. Sometimes they're tied up to a tree. Sometimes they're locked up in a room. And then you come and start praying for them and you find out it's not just one or two demons. It's just hundreds of little demons in this individual. I remember being involved in praying and casting out demons from one skinny little individual. This guy is so skinny you can't believe. Yet 15, 20 people could not hold him down. So much power this creature had. He just throw them off like that. My goodness, I can't believe so much power in a little human being when they're possessed by demons. And when we start praying for this guy and fasting and demons start talking, we are going to leave this guy. He is ours. We are 74 of us in him. We didn't get into him by our choice. He asked us to get into him. Then he started telling stories about the temple worship and breaking coconuts and offering incense and the name of the gods and deities. I said, I can't believe what I'm hearing. But when you face a situation like that, face to face with the devil and darkness, and how do you deal with it? He cannot say, I got three bible verses, here it is. And this is extremely important, especially for people who are serving God on the mission field or people even here. I'm not one of those people who believe there's a demon under every bush. But I'm telling you, in America there's a whole bunch of demons that are controlling people. They look normal and sober, but their lives are completely messed up. And they learn the bible, they go to church, they're baptized, they know all the answers, but they continue to live in sin with lust and greed and dichotomy in their life. There's no victory and they can't be a witness for Christ. Maybe through legalistic compulsion they will give out a gospel tract to someone or join the choir or something like that. My brothers and sisters, I'm telling you, the authentic Christianity is a fantastic world of victory and breaking down the powers of darkness and declaring Jesus as Lord. And people say, you are spooky, and you are. And that's what they said, these guys are drunk. And Peter said, no, you're making a mistake. This is what God is doing. And as a result you'll find people's lives are completely transformed. And I think we need to understand more and more the call of the Lord upon our life as the body is not just to be average somehow Christians living and making it to heaven. No, we are called to be revolutionaries and that's what we find here. Well, we need to move on to chapter three. You find the crippled beggar, you know, gets healed. And of course, in the whole bunch of commotion and problems, again, another opportunity for people to come to know the Lord. As a matter of fact, I can tell you, people ask, how do you explain so many people come to Christ? And I say, one of the most beautiful thing is that our missionaries go to a village and look for opportunities to pray for a sick buffalo or a sick cow or a sick chicken or a sick woman or whatever. And the amazing thing, Jesus shows up. You know, we have this ministry to the children, some 53,000 children that we, you know, care for and lead them to the Lord. And we call it Bridge of Hope. And in the northeast of India, I remember this amazing story. You know, this one school we opened up for children of the Dalits and untouchables and the tribals. Children will never go to school otherwise. And there was a little boy called Naboon, and he was, you know, the first grader. And so he learned every day, like all of the children, Jesus is God. He came to this earth and he lied for us. And when he was here, he healed the sick. He cast out demons. And of course, he learned these choruses, Bible verses. So he goes home and tells his father, Father, Jesus can heal mommy. His mother was sick and dying, laying in the hut, you know, in their little, you know, village. And Naboon's father thought, we had a medical doctor named Jesus. And so he comes next day to our school and tells, can you have Jesus, your doctor, come and help my wife? And of course, you know, how naive and innocent he was. And a couple of our missionaries went there and explained the gospel and laid a hand on this dying woman, prayed for her. And Jesus healed her right now there. And the whole family gave their life to Christ. And the neighbors hear more about it. And we are the first church planted among that people group as a result of little Naboon. And now going and telling about Jesus to his father. And the woman that was sick and dying gets healed by the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, he's still healing people. Maybe he's healing more people there than here. I don't know. But I'm telling you, Jesus is alive and real. And he's able to do more than we can imagine or think. And of course, you know, this kind of thing can take him to the extreme. There are some people say, you know, name it and claim it and everything about healing and this. I mean, I heard this guy over the radio some years ago. You know what? Paul had all the problems and he was sick and all this starvation he had to deal with because he didn't have enough faith. And I got mad. I almost destroyed my radio. I said, this guy is a creep. So what I'm trying to tell you is that these things Jesus did and much more. John writes so that you may read these things and you believe Jesus Christ, the son of God, and believing you may be saved. So look for opportunity to pray for people who are need, who are sick, who are helpless and share the gospel. And you'll be surprised how Jesus can show up and change people's lives. And the goal, the objective is that people may know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Now, chapter four, we will find persecution, big time persecution. And one interesting thing, verse 13, chapter four, they say, I mean, these guys, they didn't go to theological seminar. They didn't get their PhDs and master's degrees. You know, common people, fishermen and unschooled ordinary men. Hey, look in your Bible. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. And they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Now, I know when I went to seminary, got my degrees and, you know, not against education. We have quite a good number of good institutions we teach and people get degrees. But, you know, brothers and sisters, if you notice in chapter four, they noticed, they took note, note that they were rich and famous, had great buildings, they articulate, they had good looks. Although I think maybe they were good looking people or whatever. But they said, there is something about these people. They spent time with Jesus. They were little Jesus walking around. And then the persecution comes, what they do? They go to prayer. Verse 23 on. And they prayed. It's interesting. They are not saying, Oh God, please can't you see how much suffering we are going through. Do something about it. Just kill these bad mean people. Lord, save us, protect us. There is nothing here. All about their prayer. Lord, Father, see what they have done to your son. See what they talk about him. And for his sake we ask you, Oh God, give us courage and boldness. And all of a sudden, they are given the empowerment. And they keep on going on and the persecution comes. And of course, you know, they are scattered all over the place. They keep on preaching. And I am looking at my watch that is running ahead of me. I read a study the other day, I mean not the other day, a month ago. That was released, I think in Atlanta or somewhere. I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard it from so many places. Average Christians in America pray less than 8 minutes a day. Average pastor pray less than 12 minutes a day. Please listen to me. You can memorize the Bible. You can know all the theology. And you can be the most hard-working, sacrificing individual in terms of your time, your resources, and your hard work. Yet, you'd be blind and deaf and cold and outside the door without knowing the glory of Jesus and experiencing his life. The Bible is given to us so that we may know him. And you cannot know him unless you learn to be with him. Parents, you can brainwash your kids with all the right doctrines and systems and homeschooling. And warn them with everything in the world about all these stupid wicked things in Las Vegas or wherever you are living. You can send them to the best Christian school, but what will change them? It is going to be during the night times when everybody sleeps, you are on your knees, your face buried in your hands, and often wiping your tears. You are with him. I testify this to you because of my mother, who spent three and a half years every Friday fasting without telling anyone in the world. My father called one of my sons to become a missionary. My wife and I, from the day our children were born, every single day we prayed, Lord, save them as early as possible and call them to serve you. We never told them they should become missionaries, never ever. But the Lord answered our prayers. They are serving the Lord on the mission field. The curse upon the evangelical Christianity and the mission world in America, we are a people that are pragmatic, activity, power, the know-how. We think we can go to any country and change them with our money and our intelligence. And we missed it. I don't want you to raise your hand, but just want you to hear this. When was the last time you spent an hour before the Lord alone? When was the last time you spent at least a full day fasting? When was the last time you took a week to fast and pray and ask God to give you a burden for some nation, some people group, some neighbor, or whatever? I do not know what we are heading for in the United States, but now the word depression is being used frequently. Am I looking for depression like in the 30s that I hear about? No. But if that is what it's going to take to break us down and destroy everything we are clinging on, that you will not have even gas to put in your car to go to your church to hear another set of teaching, all you can do is to be there and pray and wait upon God. And I can tell you somehow deep inside me I feel the Lord's coming maybe nearer than we know. And I think the Lord is preparing a bride to reign with Him forever and ever. And the bride is made ready on the inside first. And if that be the case, you will become the answer to this nation. To the nations that the Lord is calling you to. And I pray that all of us will once again maybe go through the book of Acts and ask the question, how do these people live and what am I doing with my life? And not again promoting work of the flesh or legalism. No, but the gentle Holy Spirit who will point you constantly to the Jesus of the New Testament. And you will walk with Him. And once again, this generation will know He is Lord. And that happens through your life as it happened through those early Christians. Let us pray. Lord, these feeble words that you allowed me to share with my precious brothers and sisters, I ask that you will take whatever is yours, that somehow it will bring forth fruit that will remain. And what a blessing, what a privilege you gave us, Lord, to be here. To hear the stories, the testimonies and be instructed. And I pray, Lord, that you will send us out from this place changed, renewed, having understood you better. And thank you for what you're doing in our lives and among us. In Jesus' precious name, Amen.