In this sermon, the speaker discusses the opportunity and simplicity of sharing the word of God. He emphasizes that God will provide the words for us to speak and encourages listeners to not be afraid or worried about what to say. The speaker shares his favorite witnessing verse, Psalm 81:10, which reminds us to open our mouths wide and allow God to fill them. He also emphasizes the importance of rejoicing in Jesus and being a vessel for God's work.

My two sessions today, if the Lord would honor us, are to talk, first of all, about the Holy Spirit using us in standing tall, and how today is a very, very, very, very, very special day in the history of the world, and how the Lord is going before you in your witnessing today. Because, you know, when we go out and share faith, or at least are open to sharing our faith, it's a scary thing for me. And Ross makes me some expert, literally. I'm just like you. I mean, I'm as nervous as you are when it comes to sharing my faith. But I've seen God work in marvelous ways. And I know as we look at what God is doing in the world, that He's doing some new things. He says in the Word of God, in Isaiah, in the last days, I, God, will do some new things. He's doing those new things. In Joel 2 and Acts 2, God says in the last days, I will pour out my spirit. And that's what He's doing. So we can talk about witnessing all day long, and until God goes ahead of us and begins to prepare hearts, and then as He prepares our heart, and then in His sovereignty, and in His providence, opens our eyes to people around us, then we could miss them. When I was in seminary, one of our professors said something like that. And he said, why don't you pray for the next two weeks that God would open your eyes to the lost and pray that God would guide you every single day to someone to share with. Now, that doesn't mean they'll come to Christ. That doesn't mean that that's their day for that final decision. The Southern Baptists, they analyze everything, and they've analyzed how many gospel presentations it takes for a person to receive Christ on average. And I've read two different Southern Baptist reports. One said eight. The other one said 24. Big difference. But one of the things we can always count on, and this is what I do, I just take the 24, is maybe I'm number 12 for this person today, or maybe I'm number 14, or maybe I'm number 16 if the Lord opens my eyes to them and allows that opportunity. So in this first session, I just want to talk about the opportunity today. And then in the second session, I want to talk about how do you actually do this thing called sharing that's really simple and really easy and not threatening, and you don't have to be afraid of it, and you can do it anywhere, anytime. And my prayer would be that as all of us go out of here this morning, we would all say God is going before us. And secondly, I'm not worried about what I'm going to say. God tells us in his word that he will put the words in our mouth. Psalm 8110. Psalm 8110 is my favorite witnessing verse for me, the inadequate Mississippian, because God says, open thy mouth wide and I will fill it. So all God wants is obedience and he'll put the words in it, but we'll talk about how to do that. So in seminary, this professor said, just for two weeks, pray. So I started praying, okay, God, give me somebody today to witness to. And it came from D.L. Moody. D.L. Moody witnessed to somebody every single day. And we hear about this great evangelist, D.L. Moody, and we forget that he was a shoe salesman. We forget that he wasn't the most attractive guy in the world. He was not Billy Graham. He was kind of short, kind of portly. We forget that he did not have good English. His grammar was so bad. How bad was it? His grammar was so bad that when he spoke at places like Harvard or Cambridge to the students in England, they would literally laugh at him for the first five minutes until the Holy Spirit started falling. And then, you know, of course, scores came to Christ. So it doesn't matter who we are. God wants to use us to tell other people about this best friend, Jesus Christ. D.L. Moody one night laid down in the bed to go to sleep. It was about eleven thirty. And all of a sudden his wife said he bolted upright and she said, what is wrong with you? He said, I have not witnessed to anybody today. And he got up, threw his clothes on, went outside, started walking up and down the sidewalk in front of his house, and some poor unsuspecting man came along about eleven forty five. And of course, D.L. Moody saw here he is. You know, this is my laboratory today. And he went over and started talking to the guy. And of course, the guy recognized Dr. Moody and he knew what was going to happen, like Billy Graham coming up, somebody would know or Bill Bright. And he led the guy to Christ. But Bill Moody was a shoe salesman, uneducated shoe salesman. So here I am in seminary. We had a song in the Southern Baptist Convention. God, lead me to some soul today. Teach me, Lord, just what to say. Friends of mine are lost in sin and cannot find their way. And that was from him. That was from his example. So for two weeks in Louisville, Kentucky and in Indiana, where I had a little weekend church, I prayed, God, guide me to somebody every single day to share my faith with. Tell about Jesus. And every day for two weeks, literally it was a miracle. Every day I had somebody like ready to talk about Jesus on the street, in the grocery store, all kinds of places. And at the end of those two weeks, I said to dad upstairs, pop, tell me something. Where have they been? I mean, like I pray and every day they're there. And God said, Tom, it's not where they've been. It's where have you been? Because unless I prayed, I mean, I was going to school full time in seminary. I was working full time in seminary full time. I was the foreman of a maintenance crew that took care of sixteen hundred apartments all over southern, eastern and western Louisville, Kentucky. And so, man, I worked until eleven or one o'clock at night, depending on what I had to do. I had to put in 40 hours when school full time had to study and had a church on weekends. So, I mean, I didn't think about other people. I just thought about getting through every day and God honored that. But all of a sudden there they were. And the Lord just said, hey, Tom, it's not where they have been. They've been here all along. Where have you been? Where have you been? And that's what I'd like to ask you today is just start saying, God, you know, I'm really inadequate. How many of you feel inadequate witnessing? Maybe I'm talking to the wrong crowd. Oh, man. Well, then I have brothers here. I may have a doctrine in evangelism. Brothers, when it comes to the Holy Spirit using you, I mean, those those things I studied in seminary on evangelism were courses, not how to share your faith with somebody. So that title is immaterial. God has prepared them and God has prepared me. And I am the most inadequate of inadequates. Like Paul said, I'm chief of sinners. I am chief of inadequates. I am as insecure as anybody here. So I just pray, God, you open their heart and you open my heart and you put us together. And he did it. And sometimes it's it's just not even what you would expect. When I was 16 years old, I went downtown for my mother. I told this story one Sunday when I was preaching here a long time ago. And my mother asked me to go to the grocery store rather on Saturday. Sorry. And she said, I need these five items for tonight. Now, boys in the South didn't go to the grocery store with their mama after about 13. It was the woman's place, not the man's place. Things have changed. I understand. I go to I go shop a lot for my wife. I buy the things she doesn't want, but I get the things she wants, too. And so my mom said, Tom, I really need you to go get these five things. We've got guests tonight. I said, mom, I don't want to do that. I'll be embarrassed. I was in high school. You know, I had lots of girlfriends, not dating, but girlfriends. One of them sees me. I'll be embarrassed. And the Lord just said, the reason I'm telling these stories is just to talk about the normal guy like me or you just being obedient and being there for God, just being a vessel. That's all. So finally, mom said, Tom, I don't have time. Will you please go for me? Now, this is a small town, 13000 people. I mean, if my girlfriend see me, gee, it'll be all over the high school. Tom's shopping for his mom. That was a bad thing. So I said, OK, mom, I loved her. I still love her. She's still alive. Great mom. So I went down there. I got my little list. I'm walking around and I'm walking down the aisle. And here's this really attractive young lady with her little child. And she's in the cereal line. And God said, go tell her that I love her. I mean, I heard that as clearly as a human voice. Now, being a Baptist, we don't hear voices from God, but but I heard it and I knew it was God clears the bell. And God said, go tell her that I love her. And I said, but God, she's buying her cereal. He said, just go tell her that I love her. Oh, foot, that's my Christian cuss word off foot. And I went over and I thought this is this is I mean, I'm already embarrassed just being in the grocery store. And I went up to this gorgeous gal and I'm like 16 and she's like 21 and she's just really pretty, which made it even worse. And I was I mean, I'm Mr. Wallflower in high school, you know, the guy with the I didn't wear the pocket protector, but but I had the slide rule and all that other stuff. And I went up to it, I said, we say, ma'am, in the South, I used that one time in Canada, the woman thought I was calling her a prostitute because ma'am and madam. So I had to stop doing that in Canada. But I went up to her and I said, ma'am, she stopped and looked up at me and. I said, you're you're not going to understand this. I don't understand this. All I know is God just told me to tell you he loves you. And she went like this. She just screamed, started crying just like that. I have no idea what was happening in her life, what she had been through that day with her husband or what. But God didn't tell me to hang around. He just told me to tell her that he loved her. I mean, I mean, I got out of that place as fast as I could. I had no idea what had just happened, but something as I drove away with my five items, I paid for them as I drove away with my five items. I thought, oh, she did God use me. I have I mean, I have I mean, I don't know what was going on in that lady's life afterwards, but she certainly had been touched and I had been touched. So all I'm saying is obedience is so important when you think you're nobody. It's the very worst circumstance you have. I mean, I didn't I didn't quote any scripture. I didn't even know what to quote if I had had to quote something. And yet God had done something in that lady's life, and I don't know what had been happening, but it was bad. And telling her that God loved her drove her to tears and a scream. I mean, I'm not I'm not counseling her. I'm gone. So I don't have a clue what went on after that. Take your Bibles and turn with me to Psalm eighty five six. How many of you have been here when I've shared just one verse, when I've shared about revival? Boy, my heart is revival, revival. What in the world is revival? When I grew up in the South, a revival was nothing but an evangelistic campaign misnomer called revival. And we had these things after the crops were planted in the spring and after the crops were, quote, harvested in the fall, and we did them at those two times in an agrarian society because that's when people had time. And we reached out into the community and brought our unsafe friends and the evangelists would come in and would have good music and we would see a lot of people come to Christ. We had great, quote, revivals. But the reason they were called revivals is back in the early 1800s, they had been a move of the Holy Spirit. Across the South, starting in Kentucky, that had literally transformed, literally transformed society as God, the Holy Spirit had, first of all, reconfirmed in his kids the power of the Holy Spirit and had renewed his own kids. Then when the people of God were right with God, listen to me carefully. When the people of God were right with God, then magnetically, the unsafe saw something different in their lives and were drawn to the scriptures, were drawn to the church, were drawn to their friends because something was happening in the lives of their friends that they needed, and they needed it desperately. I was with a dear friend who's president of one of our major denominations in the U.S. a couple of years ago. And I wrote this down when he said it, he said, America is desperate. America is desperate. He meant by that America is desperate spiritually. And we know we are we are fragile and every person you're working with is fragile. They're fragile spiritually. They want to know, is there a God? Does that God really love or does he hate? Does he want to kill the unbeliever or redeem the unbeliever? The two polarities of what's called little G God and big G God in our world today. So out of that desperation, people look and they look at us. Come on, look at me. You've got to be kidding. I am nobody from nowhere. Don't look at me. And yet the apostle Paul said, look at me. He said, look at me. He said, follow my example. And that same man could say the good that I would, that I do not, the evil that I would not, that I do. Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And two verses later, two sentences later, he says, Jesus, how far ahead of someone do you have to be to lead them? One step. And I guarantee you, man, you're one step ahead of your brothers who are hurting your sisters who are hurting and they're looking to you. Now we need. We need a revival. We don't need an evangelistic campaign yet. They're OK to have. I do them all the time. That's what Ross and I are about. But we nationally and internationally need a move of the Holy Spirit. The word revival comes from the Greek word on that. Oh, a.n.a.z.a.o. a.n.a.z.a.o. And it means to bring back to life that which is dead, comatose, slumbering. And God is saying to us, look, Tom, you prayed every day that I'd lead you to a soul. I awakened your eyes. That's what the word revival means. I awakened you. And you saw what you had not seen before, though they were there all the time. But you, Tom, are so focused on work and school and your church that you're missing the lost. Now, that broke my heart when I realized that I was focusing on my work, which was to support me to get through seminary, my school, which was learning to be a preacher. And my church, which is supposedly reaching the lost and discipling people, and I'm missing the very ones around me that God put with me every day, and I didn't even see them because I'm so task oriented doing the things of God that I missed the people of God. It broke my heart. So maybe God would break our hearts today. Psalm 85, 6. The psalmist said, look at five first. Oh, Lord, will you be angry with us forever? Man. We've killed 45 million babies in this nation. We call it abortion. We call it pro-choice. It's murder. Forty five million. We can give it any euphemistic name we want to give it doesn't change the way God sees it. And in the final analysis, it isn't going to change the way God judges it, is it? Lord, that's just one thing we do in this nation that's bad. We do a lot of good things, too, but that's one thing that's bad. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? We pulled the Bible and prayer out of the schools in 1962 and 1964. That made God mad. And we are we are reaping the return on that decision. Those decisions that I just mentioned, all of the three of them. Our youth have no moral mooring today. Will you prolong your anger to all generations if we don't change our nation? God help us. If God doesn't change us to change our nation, God help us. Will you not revive us again that your people, Christians, your church may rejoice in you? Tiny little verse, tiny, tiny, little verse. Listen to this little statement. In Christian history, no phenomenon is more clear than the recurrence of revivals. At times, a passion for repentance, turning from sin, turning to Jesus, sweeps across specific geographical areas. Oh, God, do it in Southern California. Many people who had been unaware of the supernatural. Become keenly aware of it. People who've ignored God, been indifferent to God, kicked against God, put down people who were Christians, all of a sudden the Holy Spirit begins to move. They become keenly aware. They are stopped during their jobs as their minds are gripped by a terror of wrongdoing and a fear of coming judgment that has happened over and over and over and over in the history of man, throwing all else aside. They desperately, desperately search for a way of salvation. And my thought that I'm trying to put across this morning is we're there. Man, you don't have to be afraid to share your faith. Yeah, somebody might reject you, but I found that the guy that rejects you thinks about it afterwards. You might be number 12 out of 24 opportunities for him to hear the gospel. So you've got to be bold. You might be spit on. I've been spit on. You might be hit. I've been swung and I ducked. Having started these movements spread like wildfire and are seemingly carried in the air. It's the Holy Spirit breaking out in unexpected places. They produce a strange phenomenon and awake forces that have lain dormant. 9-11 awakens some forces, the spiritual longing in the heart of men and women churches two months only filled. No more 9-11 churches empty. Now, this is a different church. I work with thousands of churches. I guarantee you this is a different church. This is like heaven. I love to preach because it's like heaven here. Vance Havner, a great old Baptist preacher, said this, a work of God's spirit among his own people. What we call revival, a work of God's spirit among his own people. What we call revival, if my people call by my name will humble themselves. Hard for us to do, guys, me especially humble themselves, pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways. And remember, God's not talking about the lost. He's talking about us. If my people call by my name will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, repentance. There's not a one of us in this room that does not have wicked ways. There's not a one of us in this room that's not tempted by lust. The stimuli today is unbelievable. Stay away from the computer. I made our IT guy put everything on my computer. I said, I want every security piece that can go on here. I don't want pop-ups. I don't even want to be tempted. Just stop them. Turn from our wicked ways. Anger. Bitterness. Lack of self-control. I'm being autobiographical. I got all these flaws. Maybe you do to turn from their wicked ways. God says, I will hear you. Can you imagine the king of the universe hearing Tom Phillips or you? This is amazing that God would promise us this. He says, I'll do this if you if you if you if my people call by my name, humble, pray, seek and turn. I will hear you. I will hear you. I can't believe God would hear a kid from Mississippi. I can't believe God even has an ear for anybody from Mississippi. Someone called me recently and said, did you hear that all the Mississippians are being asked to come back to the state that have left? I said, really? Yeah. He said you should get a certified letter soon. We're getting Mississippians here. OK, you might get a letter soon. This is a joke. This is a joke. I thought he was serious. I said certified letter. They said, yeah, from the State Department of Mississippi, from the government. I said, why? He said, well, they want everybody to come back that's left and they're going to put a 22 foot electrified, electrified chain link fence around the state. I said, why? He said, man, to preserve the gene pool, we've got all this genius that's left the state. Now, if you know Mississippians, you understand what I'm saying. So Vance said a work of God's spirit among his own people. What we call revival is simply New Testament Christianity. The saints getting back to normal, what we're living in in Southern California with all the stimuli we have is not normal. It's abnormal. And when we get right with God individually, that's revival, which is normal. Otherwise, we're comatose, asleep or dead in sin. Which is abnormal to the human mind and body and spirit. So God is saying, look, guys, you've been living in this environment so long you think it's normal. But for you to see the great return on your life spiritually, you've got to believe I'm at work. Number one. Number two, you've got to believe I'm going before you. Number two. Number three, you've got to believe I can use you as inadequate as you are. Me, too, chief of inadequacy, and I've got a great thing coming. Martin Lloyd-Jones said the essence of revival is that the Holy Spirit. God's precious spirit comes down upon a number of people together. Why not us right here, right now, this morning? Upon a whole church. Upon a number of churches. Upon districts or perhaps a whole country. It is, if you will, a visitation of the Holy Spirit. Men, could we fall to our knees? In our hearts and just say, oh, pop. You've never failed me. Holy Spirit, you're my daddy spirit. I need you so desperately. Our world needs you. Our children need. Our families need. Our parents need you so desperately. Our schools need you so desperately. Would you, Holy Spirit, do a new thing? Would you start with me? Henry Blackaby, in his book Foundation of Revival, said this. If society, big if, huge if, big old circle around a massive if. If society as a whole seems to be getting darker and darker, and God help us, it does. It's not the problem of the darkness. The darkness is just acting like its nature. That's what darkness does. But it is that the light no longer dispels the darkness and the salt no longer preserves. It is time, men, for the light to say, if things are darker, the problem is with us. Amen. Now, God said, OK, kid, I was 22. Sure, you're studying for the ministry. Sure, you got a church on weekends. A couple of things happened in my life right then. Made me feel so un... what's the word I could use? I felt so embarrassed that I said, God, I'm going to quit being a preacher. He said, you stupid boy, I'm just trying to teach you something. Don't run away from it. Learn from it. You prayed by faith that you would have a soul to speak to every day. I gave you a soul to speak to every day. And it was natural, it just worked. I didn't have to go hunt them and I didn't even have to think about what to say. And only a couple of those that I had the privilege of leading in Christ, because maybe I was 10 out of 24 gospel presentations. So I'm teaching you, if you will be obedient like you were when I told you to tell the lady about I love her when she's getting her Cheerios. I'm there. I'm real. So don't run from me. Let me use you, though inadequate you are. Yes, I agree. But my son Jesus lives in you. He is not inadequate. He's totally adequate. So one little tiny verse is a deep verse for me in my life. Will you? Number one is will. I cannot, men, you cannot do this thing called revival in your own heart. You can go through the steps that God requires, requires if my people called by my name, humble praise, he can turn. That's the part we do. But the revival, wakening, pulling us out of a slumber and sleep so we don't see our jobs and our families and our work, we see people lost, but we don't even have to hunt them. God brings them to us. Try the experiment. It works. If my people, this is will God, will you? I know, I know, I know, I know. Tom Phillips cannot do this. Will you? And it's not anybody but you. The second point will. God has to do it. He's the only one who can, but he won't do it unless we do the prerequisites. If my people called by my name, humble, pray, seek and turn, that's easy. God just wants us to do it. Obedience. The devil doesn't even want us to know the verse, much less do it. So will you, God, revive us? Will you awaken us a thousand guys? Oh, what would happen in Southern California? What would happen at our work and in our families, even with our enemies? Someone once said, God says it's so, so act like it's so, so he can make it so. I heard a guy say that one night about loving other people. And I thought, wait a minute, that just sounds so trite. God says it's so, so act like it's so, so he can make it so. He said, just go find somebody you don't like. God says you love them because Jesus lives in you. God says it's so, so act like it's so, so he can make it so and start acting like you love them. I said, that's hypocritical. No, go do it. So I picked out this person I didn't like at all. She didn't like me either. I started loving her. She's one of my best friends today. God says it's so, so act like it's so, so he can make it so. So as you're thinking about standing tall for Christ, why don't you just pick out the very worst one? God, leave me for some soul today, but I'm going to start praying for this woman, this man at work. He doesn't like me. I don't like her. Whatever. Revive us again. God's done it before. All through the Bible, he's revived his people. He's awakened his people that your people, Christians called by your name may rejoice where in him, not rejoice in our new car, not rejoice in our house, not rejoice in our job, not rejoice in our children. That's okay. All good things. If we get them in you, but joy is what magnetically brings the loss to us. It's joy. The joy of the Lords are what it's our strength. And when the world is in desperate need of something, they don't even know what it is, but they know it's called God. And they look around and they see us and we're quiet. They don't know. You might say, well, they'll know me by my works. There are a lot of lost people have good works. You need to open your mouth, open your mouth wide and I will fill it. So I made it 110. It's the gospel that saves. We'll come back to that in my next session. Okay, listen, I'm inadequate. You may not even like my accent. You may not like anything about me. Don't even think about this inadequate kid. Just think about the truth of God's word. Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in you. And when the world sees us rejoicing in Jesus, that's revival. When the world sees us happy, that's revival. This is a happy church. And I'm sure when you go back to work because of what happens here, you're ready for the week. Let it shine. Let it be seen. Talk about Jesus. Love Jesus. Because people don't want to know about the church and they don't want to know about Christianity, but they want to know about whom? Jesus. Jesus. That's that's statistically proven the youth of the world don't want to know about the church, don't want to know about Christianity, but they want to know about Jesus. They like Jesus, but they may not know him, but they like it. The Apostle Paul said that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. The same guy that killed Christians and present Christians is now beseeching God to know him, to know his son. That's what it's all about. Just a recent magazine, a guy that we all would know. I'm going to read you a couple of quotes. A spiritual waking is something that can be cannot be planned or organized by man. It must be orchestrated by God. What can we do to cooperate with him? We must pray for God to raise up those of the gospel, both laity and clergy who are on fire for him and whom he can use to ignite spiritual fervor across the country. Skipping a couple of paragraphs. What do we need? What we do need are more men and women full of the Holy Spirit, speaking the word of God, carrying the presence of Jesus to a lost and dying world. We need radical men and women of faith who are God pleasers, not men pleasers, and who are interested in building not their own kingdoms, but the kingdom of God. The focus of the next great awakening must be souls. We must set out to reap a harvest and to see the nation shaken by the power of God. I believe that if we press into God, humble ourselves, submit to his word in his spirit and allow him to change us and obey him in spite of whatever persecution we may experience, he will send a nationwide spiritual awakening that will affect every area of our society. We must go beyond simply attending Sunday services and start to have an impact on every city and every state until this land is shaken by the glory of God. When it is, many areas of our society will change, beginning with the government, from local levels such as town councils all the way to the House of Representatives, Senate. God will once again be on the lips and in the thoughts of the people and not just in times of trouble. The economy will be impacted, the educational system, the media will be transformed. Just think about what would happen if God were put first. And it's built one brick at a time. Guys, where are those bricks? As inadequate as we are, God's going before us. He's telling us, I'm already doing it. You pray. I'll open the door to the right person every day. You can give a gift of love. It may not be a gospel presentation because he may want you to deal with that person, but trust him and he will not let you down. And then we'll see God do something we've never dreamed could happen in this nation. It's already begun. Your church is a little breathing example of the breath of life in this nation. So when we go out of here, I hope I come back and just share a couple of ways of doing this thing called sharing that's comfortable for you. But God's at work. Agreed? I'll pour out my spirit in the last days. Father, we are so inadequate. Thank you for taking these very inadequate vessels and breathing, breathing your life into us that we could even go up to the woman buying her Cheerios because you've told us to and you could prove your point that you're in charge of our lives in Jesus name. Amen.