The video showcases the work of South Hills Church Community in Las Vegas, a city known for its excesses and struggles. It highlights the impact of these struggles on children growing up in homes affected by addiction and neglect. The sermon emphasizes the importance of surrendering to God and giving Him our all. The video also shares the story of the church's growth, starting with just a few people and eventually attracting a significant number of attendees, including a famous baseball player.

We celebrate this God, this glorious God who has been faithful to us. I told a congregation recently when we talk about the faithfulness of God, we're not talking about someone who is faithful to people who are faithful to him. If we'd been faithful people and God was also faithful, no big deal, just reciprocity. I'm faithful to those who are faithful to me, but what makes God truly amazing is that he is faithful to men and women and boys and girls who are scoundrels, who are not always faithful to his cause and loyal to his name. I want us this night to open our time together by declaring God's faithfulness. Would you please stand, I'll feed you the words of this well-known hymn. Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, great. There is no shadow of turning. Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not. As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Let's talk about the witness of nature, summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, sun, moon, and star. All I have needed, thy hand. Great is thy faithfulness. Most faithful holy God, thank you for your fidelity, your mercy, signs that for the witness of nature to your faithfulness, the rise and fall of the sun, for the rising and setting, each bird dares sing you, teach us to do the same, to give you the glory that is due your magnificent name, to heap praise upon you, we shall ever adore you. Thanks evermore in the strong name of Jesus. You may be seated. Have you sing again in Spanish Psalm 92, some of you asked if you could just hear that one more time, so we shall do that. Psalm 92, and you'll see in front of you the words, it is good to praise Jehovah, to sing psalms to your name. It is good to praise Jehovah, to sing psalms to your name, to announce in the morning your mercy and your fidelity or your faithfulness in the evening or at night or of night. And then I will ask you, who is he who saves? And you'll answer, Christ is he who saves. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who reigns, who is he who heals, who is he who lives, who is he who is coming, viene, and I invite you to simply celebrate this glorious God. It is good to praise Jehovah, to sing psalms to your name. It is good to praise Jehovah, to sing psalms to your name. To announce in the morning your mercy and your faithfulness in the evening or at night. To announce in the morning your mercy and your faithfulness in the evening or at night. And then I will ask you, who is he who saves? And you'll answer, Christ is he who saves. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who reigns, who is he who heals, who is he who lives, who is he who lives. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who heals, who is he who lives. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who reigns, who is he who lives. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who heals, who is he who lives. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who reigns, who is he who lives. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who reigns, who is he who lives, who is he who lives. And then we'll use other verbs, who is he who comes, who is he who comes. To announce in the morning your mercy and your faithfulness in the evening or at night. In news to Jehovah, to sing psalms to your name. I'm gonna start a party. Oh, but can't pass. I'm gonna turn on Anusa pala manana to be there. He called it to an alien. I didn't know she Anusa pala manana to be there. He called it to an alien. I didn't know she Can this LK Salva? Can this LK rain Can this LK be Can this LK Santa I Don't happen. I mean, I'm not doing that. He called it up to be daily. Dutty. No, she But it's a hymn of gathering Oh Lord Christ We do now gather and I wrote students gathered in the name of our Lord to declare themselves to be a community of faith And I invite you to do I've used Franz Joseph Haydn's wonderful melody the called the Austrian hymn You would know it as the tune to which we sing glorious things of thee are spoken you I'm gonna invite you to stand and sing this hymn of gathering now I want to warn you there's a line in it where you Describe God as father mother and somebody once said to me. Well, God is only father. He's not mother I remind you that Jesus said to Jerusalem Oh how I would long to have gathered you like a hen gathers her chicks. That's a maternal image by the way So God is both father and mother in the way he cares for us Would you please stand and let us declare that we gather in the name of our Lord? You You You You Take from us the desire to be entertained and teach us to ask the right questions Not so much. What did I get out of it? But what did I put in we invest ourselves in the pursuit of The holy if there be anything that stands in the way of our experiencing the this that when we leave this place We may be able to say we have been with Jesus We have heard and we have seen and we have felt and we have known him blot out every transgression That we may love thee as we ought to love thee is our prayer in the strong Name of duty for us to affirm our faith tonight I'd like you to affirm your faith in the singing of the Apostle joyful joyful. We adore thee. Let's affirm our faith You You Full faith in which we stand Lord Christ. We thank you for Jesus For the Holy Spirit. We thank you God for sending us all we need We affirm with angels and archangels you pray that as we continue to worship you He's our prayer in that name the towers above every and the people of God said our thanks to the Burchfield brothers in Richmond Our farmer for being our worship leaders, and they'll both Be back in just a few minutes now. Let me ask you I'm Ron Gifford I'm a pastor in the Southern District and aren't you glad that God brought us together in the Southland for this week? Hey Have we treated you all right? You're being looked after. Okay You know, I would Joan and I live just a few miles from the Gulf Coast in LA they say lower, Alabama and There's there's a bar down on the beach and Gulf Shores named Bahama Bob's and It says on their sign the lower the latitude the better the attitude Huh, you picked up some of that this week Good. We're at our best to serve you. Well we're going to give Jim Davey our assistant moderator moment to Address you all I think that you'd like to know the results of the elections And this is where we're going to fit this in and how's your attitude Jim? Very good Thank You pastor Gifford When business concluded a little before five o'clock this afternoon the report of the tellers had not yet arrived being from Florida I suspected butterfly ballot But it was a hanging Chad that did it Tomorrow morning in the session. There will be a time of installation and solemn setting aside to God of the newly elected officers and board members But we thought you needed to have this information tonight and in a moment. It's going to be scrolled for you I'm very happy to announce the election of dr. David pressure as vice president for advancement and the Re-election of dr. Peter Nan felt as our president and would invite dr. Nan felt and his wife Jerry to come to the podium at this time for just a brief comment and then the remainder of the election Results will be scrolled for you as soon as dr. Nan felt Comments are concluded and it looks like there are more family members coming including Brooke Would you welcome them? Thank you very much Jim for this opportunity to just say a brief word I'm very humbled by your Expression of confidence and certainly want to serve you well over the next three years The one comment I wanted to make and I hope Jerry doesn't kill me But you know It's seldom. I have an opportunity to do this and I I just wanted to express Appreciation to you Jerry for the way you have served so well Jerry has gone with me to over 40 conferences district conferences visited over 40 Alliance churches she's preached at seven or eight women's conferences she's gone with me on four overseas trips and Has entertained groups in our home Sometimes well over a hundred people and so I'm just really proud of you and thank you for that Jerry. Appreciate it And I just have two other very special ladies that I want to introduce to you tonight the first Lady over on my left is our daughter Tammy Who I'm so proud of and I'm so glad that she could join us at council this year Tammy and her husband Raleigh attend The North Springs Alliance Church in Colorado Springs and are on the worship team and this little lady here is Brooke My little granddaughter Brooke, and I know that a lot of people have been asking me about her and this is what Brooke looks like So I'm so glad that Brooke had come to council too. And thank you for welcoming her I have no idea how to segue from that to introducing a man from Las Vegas I My my sample pull of what's the first thing that comes to mind when you say in Las Vegas? I Came up with these things gambling and gambling and gambling and then I went to sin and Frank Sinatra and Wayne Newton and Prize fights and wedding chapels and oceans 11 That about it and that's what you see on the billboards It takes a different kind of vision to see something else There are a million and a half people in Las Vegas who serve the entertainment industry there are people with families and children and marriages and Stresses and too much to do and working crazy hours and people who need the Lord Las Vegas has the fastest growing school district in all the country And I'm going to introduce to you a man who sees beyond the billboards and sees people who need the Lord actually in recent years people have been coming to the Lord in Las Vegas in remarkable numbers and Here's Brett Johnson to come and tell you about a special church plant in Las Vegas Thank You pastor Ron very much about a year ago the video team out of the national office came to Las Vegas to record What God was doing at? South Hills Church community and to record a little bit of our story and This video that you're about to see will be featured on the next Alliance video magazine, so I know Robbie said a pictures not worth a thousand words, but it's worth something So enjoy as we preview this video music the city commonly known as Las Vegas last wages Last civilization is very much excess from the food to the neon to the height to the glitz Everything is to excess. We have an exorbitant amount of not only teenage pregnancies, teenage suicides. We have the highest percentage of those as well as the highest percentage of deaths per suicide in any other state in the union. Welcome to fabulous Las Vegas. Very rarely when someone thinks of Las Vegas do they think that, well here are all these struggles that adults may be facing. But there are kids that are growing up in those homes who are affected by those struggles or those addictions. And many of them are being neglected. Many of them aren't being parented or disciplined or loved. Because the parents lack that themselves. I'm trying to realize unto myself, I work every night. And my biggest concern should be a single parent of three bringing money home. But it's like a hooker. I have money in my pocket. It's a gambling town. We all work nights. Do we come home with money? Most not. And if I'm successful at gambling, unsuccessful at drinking, unsuccessful at staying out all night, the family will destruct. Las Vegas is an interesting place in that almost everybody here has come from somewhere else. There's very few native Las Vegans. People are also looking for a home. They're looking for a place to belong. We were surprised when we came here as we talked to people. Within five minutes people would tell you their life story. They'd tell you their darkest secrets. They would tell you that they're on their third marriage. And they would tell you that they were abused as a child. As soon as I heard their story, I would tell them my story. And then really tell them about God's story. People are so open that they just really want to feel connected. And they want to feel like they have friends. And so I think that's why they share so much when we meet them. The most we can do would be just to show people that love. I mean it's just absolutely been incredible. The authenticity, the realness, the transparency of the people of South Hills. I love the fact that we don't have a building. I love that. That wherever we meet is church. And it's not like I'm going to church. It's a bunch of us gathering. And so it has been based on relationships. And we're not doing anything spectacular. We don't have a great program. But we're just loving on kids and sharing Christ with them. And kids just respond to love in incredible ways. This one kid came up to me one time and said, Rob, you know, you love me more than my own parents do. There are people that we were, you know, continuing to see and they weren't coming to church. That's fine. Whatever God's going to do is fine. I'm going to keep on inviting people. But I'm going to keep on loving them too. Whatever way God allows. This lady, when we first moved out here, we met her at a garage sale. We were garage selling. And she just, I could tell something was wrong with her. Something was up. And I just shared with her, hey, what's going on? And she was like, I'm going through this nasty divorce. My husband's actually restraining order against him. I got to move out of this house tomorrow. And I'm like, wow. So you know what? Well, we can help. We helped move her whole house. And she was just blown away. She was just blown away. She couldn't believe that, you know, this is what Christianity was really all about. A lot of what we're doing is youth ministry for adults. I mean, the whole principle of relational ministry, the whole principles of discipleship and all that stuff that you use in youth ministry are being done here at this church. We want to be real. We want to be genuine. We want to touch where, we want to touch on issues where people really are coming from and deal with issues that people are really grappling with. And part of that just flows out of our heart. We want to make the faith, we want to make being a Christian real, genuine, and accessible. Everything you see in front of you is Clark County, Nevada. This is just a great place to see the entire valley and to see how many people live here and how many people need Jesus Christ. The light that comes from Las Vegas is a false light. It's just electricity. But the church really is the true light. It provides life and it has its own attraction. And we love it. I would just love it if the Lord would, with his light, with his power, draw people to himself the way Las Vegas draws people to itself. Las Vegas really is a needy city. You heard the story of the taxi driver in that video. If there's anything that is bad, Las Vegas leads in it. I live in a city of 30,000 prostitutes. 50,000 when big conventions are in town. We lead the nation in teenage suicide and alcoholism and gambling addiction and broken marriages. Somebody would say, well, people have asked me, Brett, why would you go to Las Vegas? I would say to those people, I say to those people, why not go to Las Vegas? Isn't the gospel about changing people's lives and bringing hope to people? That's why you go to Las Vegas. And can I make a very important announcement? Where God leads you, he makes it great. We have a great ministry in Las Vegas. And God is doing incredible things. Two years ago, on this day, I was a 41-year-old successful associate pastor in a large church. But God made me very uncomfortable. And he put in my heart a vision to plant a church. And not only plant a church, but to plant a church that would plant churches. I didn't know about the CNMA. I'm new to the alliance. I didn't know about church multiplication movements. I just read my Bible and I sought the Lord in prayer. And here's what the Lord put on my heart. I believe with all my heart the Lord spoke to me and said, Brett, I want to take you to a place and I want you to plant 20 churches in 20 years that will lead 20,000 people to faith in Jesus Christ. At this time, we were in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we would go up on a hill and we would pray over the city. God gave me that vision, praying over the San Francisco Bay Area. Then he led us to Las Vegas. And at the end of June 2000, almost two years ago, my family, my wife and three children, and five people in their 20s, moved to Las Vegas. We didn't know a soul. After five weeks, there were 40 people meeting at our home. On Thanksgiving of that same year, five months later, 70 people were eating dinner in our home. We had our grand opening in January, six months after we had been there. 192 people were at our grand opening. Jesus is going to build his church. Let me tell you one great story that came out of our grand opening. We watched with great anticipation, as you can imagine, the people that God would bring to us. One family that walked through the door, we were kind of blown away by. A man who is easily recognizable as one of the great baseball players in history. He's a member of the Hall of Fame. He came with his wife and his 15-year-old son. They were having trouble at home. They were looking for something. They got our flyer in the mail. And to the wife, the Lord spoke and said, this is the place where you're supposed to go. Raleigh Fingers played with the Oakland A's and the Milwaukee Brewers. And they've been coming to our church every week since we started our church. Let me tell you a great story. Two months ago, Raleigh went to New York with other Hall of Famers for the premiere of the movie, The Rookie. While they were there, the Walt Disney Company said, we want to give you Hall of Famers a donation to your favorite charity. Well, they said, our favorite charity is South Hills Church Community. Ladies and gentlemen, the Walt Disney Company is supporting our church. Isn't that great? There's another guy, a friend of ours, who went to college with one of our teammates, and he got signed by the San Diego Padres. He made a commitment in college that he would tie this signing bonus and his first year salary to our church. You know what I say? Thank God for Major League Baseball. God has provided for us all the way. It's been so wonderful. It's so scary to plant a church, and yet God is so, so faithful. And so we're on our way to plant a church that will plant other churches. We live in the south part of Las Vegas. Everything south of the 215 freeway, we're told, was not there five years ago. Today, 100,000 people live south of the 215 freeway. 100,000 people. Ladies and gentlemen, there is not one evangelical church building south of the 215 freeway. 100,000 people, not one evangelical church building. There's ten Mormon buildings, no evangelical church building. Is that a shame or what? But the Alliance is doing something about it, and we have been positioned strategically to plant a church and build a building for the glory of God and for the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray for us. Let me share one challenge that the Lord has really been laying on my heart. I want to start a church multiplication movement out of our church, but the Lord has said to me, Brett, you need to be a multiplier. You need to lead men and women to faith in Christ, not just from your pulpit, but from your neighborhood. Not just in your church, but on the golf course and where you meet people, in the store, and in our street. I'm so excited. I'm more excited about what's happening on my street, almost, than what's happening in my church. Our neighbors across the street, he's a police officer, Metro PD. Works the night shift, very dangerous. Three doors down, Jeremy, a Nevada Highway Patrol. Had never gone to church. His wife started coming, his little girl came. Jeremy today is one of my best friends, and Jeremy is coming to Jesus Christ. Let me just say thank you so much to the Alliance, especially to the Central Pacific District, to Ted Klein and Randy Berg for believing in a vision that I brought to them, for going out on a limb financially to make this happen. For many of you who have told us you're praying for our church, we don't even know you. And Lord God in heaven, thank you for the promise that you will build your church, and for demonstrating your faithfulness and your goodness to us. Amen. Well, now it's time to prepare your offerings, and the Birchfield brothers are going to come back and do some offertory music. And I told them after they prelude music, this isn't the grand old opera, you can't have that much fun here, this is church. And they said, well, something's gotten into us. All right, if it hasn't gotten into you yet, wait until after the preacher's done with you, and something will get into you before we're done tonight. Will you prepare your offering, please? Dr. Nantell, these people believe in the Great Commission Fund. Thirty-four million dollars is a big stack of George Washington's, isn't it? And I'm so impressed with that. And I'm going to show you something on page 98 of appendix D of the operations slash finance part of your report. This is what it costs to run council every year in Milwaukee and Portland and Tampa and Columbus. And this is how much came in the offerings. And this is how much was left over that we covered out of the Great Commission Fund. All right? $393,000 and $466,000 and $433,000 and $422,000. Brothers and sisters, we can do better than that. If God's given you something this week, dig down and give something back to him, and let's pay for council out of our pockets this year. Do you want to do that? Well, I heard an amen, and it was a little weak. But we'll read your amens in the total of the offering tonight. Lord Jesus, you are so generous with us in every way. And out of full hearts, we give to you expressions of our love and our gratitude and out of the hard currency in our pockets because we love you, Lord. And thank you for calling us to be your children and your servants. We love you, Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. So good to be here. It's such an honor for us to be with you this evening, and it's such an honor to be able to worship the Lord through the instrumental music of the classical guitar and that thing right there. Many years ago, our parents traveled from church to church playing their musical instruments, And today we're blessed to be doing the same thing our parents did and to follow in their footsteps and worship in the same way. Nashville is our home but I'll never forget the year my brothers and I decided to relocate here to become involved in the music community. We got in my old car and that's how I just knew the Lord's hand was with us on that trip. We got our instruments and our luggage and we took off down the highway to come to Nashville. And halfway there my old car caught fire and burned up and I've thought about that many times. As I think back about that I feel like I probably should have pulled the car over and stopped it but we were making good time so we kept driving. The car filled up with smoke and it was hard to see but as we were trying to find the source of the fire Benj and I were in the front seat. Our brother Mark was in the back seat sound asleep. And as I look back there I saw all the smoke was rolling off the jeans he was wearing so I thought that's kind of odd and I thought maybe I should wake him. So I said Mark wake up you're on fire and he never did get real excited about anything so he woke up and said you're right I am. Why don't we stop? So we stopped and put Mark out and we all got in the front seat. The back seat is totally burned out it's nothing but ashes. It turned out the exhaust ruptured right under where Mark was sitting and caught his seat on fire. And he saw the light that day but we still made it to Nashville but I'll always remember this part. As we pulled into Nashville just on the outskirts up here on Bradley Parkway I remember how discouraged we were feeling at that point. The car was very homely by then the paint was rolled off and we pulled off to the side wondering where are we going to go now. As we sat there looking at the city map this beautiful car pulled up in front of us. And this old fella got out and he walked up to us. I remember as though it were yesterday he had silver wavy hair. He came up and spoke to us and he began to talk to us as though a father were talking to his children. He was encouraging us and as we talked I said sir we're musicians and he said I know I can tell by your car. And then I had no idea that he was on his way to the Grand Ole Opry because he was the host. His name was Roy Acuff and it turned out the first person we met was probably the most well known fiddle player in this state. Since then all those years ago we've done many travels and there's a song that we do about traveling. Our father built a home mission church in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. And as little children we would gather in there and sing those old gospel songs. This one in particular I'll always remember learning in that little church. It's called I Feel Like Traveling On. And we have Surrender. What we as we've gathered here this week we must give ourselves to the one who calls space we should see and we If you have your Bibles, please turn to the 34th Division of Psalms and let us stand together beginning with verse 1 I will bless the Lord at all times His praise shall continually be in my mouth My soul shall make its boast in the Lord The humble will hear of it and be glad Oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears They looked unto Him and were radiant and their faces were not ashamed This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all of his troubles The angel of the Lord encamps around about all those who fear Him and delivereth them Oh taste and see that the Lord is good Blessed is the man who trusts in Him There is no want to those who fear the Lord The young lions lack and suffer hunger But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing May the Lord infuse His word in our hearts tonight Would you take your seats please But stay loose because I'm going to ask you to stand in just a moment Jim would you come and join me at the podium please I just want you to know that you're among friends here and we're going to demonstrate that for a minute, okay So watch this I don't know if this is going to work at all but let's try How many of you have read one of Jim Cimbala's books Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, Fresh Faith or Fresh Power Would you stand on your feet please Just stand where you are So I don't need to tell you all that our guest speaker this week has a heart that beats with ours Do I? Okay, this one's a little harder How many of you have one of these books You've never read it but for sure you're going to read it as soon as you get home Would you stand on your feet please Everybody stay standing Some of the rest of you Thank you, they just all bought them downstairs this week and they're going to have great reading and I don't need to tell them that we're vibrating with you this week We're going for more Alright, next How many of you have a CD or a tape of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and it's Blessed Your Soul Would you join those who are standing please Lots more And so I don't need to tell you that our speaker comes from a movement that is rooted in worship Okay, how many of you have ever been to New York City Would you join these people please Yeah, just stand right up, okay Then I don't need to tell you because you recognize that sometimes when the Lord wants to do something strategic He starts it in a strategic place and it's a marvelous thing to watch how God has placed you Now you could have been placed in lower Alabama and nobody would know you were there but He placed you in New York City It's a wonderful thing to watch Will all of the rest of you stand please And let's thank the Lord for bringing this man and his ministry and the blessing of God into our lives this week Will you please Thank you There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb There is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb For it reaches to the highest mountain and it flows to the lowest valley In the blood of His name From day to day It will never lose its power Lift your right hand up and sing with me It reaches everyone For it reaches to the highest mountain It gives me strength From day to day Repeat now It will never lose Sing it again It will never lose One more time It will never lose Its power Let's put our hands together and thank the Lord for the blood of Jesus Amen Amen I stand, I stand in awe of You I stand in awe of You Lord, talk to us tonight through Your Word We don't want to be disappointed by Your Holy Spirit We don't want merely an intellectual word But we want a word that gets down in our heart, Lord Draws us closer to You Didn't You say in Your Word that if we would draw nigh unto You You would draw nigh unto us So now we open our hearts and we open Your Word today Speak to us Help us to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church For we ask it in Jesus' name And everyone said, Amen You may be seated, thank you folks It has been a joy to be here with you This has been a real honor to be invited here And I want to thank the leadership of the Alliance to have me here My wife sends her love to you If I'm ever invited back, I promise I'll bring my wife She's my better half And you know, my wife is very interesting She can't read or write music She's never been trained, so she still can't read or write music Both Jim Hammerly back here and Phil Armenia Both are gifted keyboard players And they can read, they're real keyboard players My wife can't read or write music And she never studied music, the piano But she directs the choir and God's blessed her And the joke in our church is she doesn't know what she's doing She just keeps doing it every week And she blesses a lot of people And a number of you grabbed a hold of me And said what her music has meant to you And I'm going to bring that back to her to encourage her And I hope someday she can meet you I want you to turn in your Bible to the book of Acts Would you please, Acts the first chapter And let's talk about the church of God The church of Jesus Christ I want to talk to you about the thing that's so precious to God On this earth, which is what we make up The church of Jesus Christ Turn to Acts 1 And I'm going to begin to read in a moment from there And what we want to talk about and think about Is this subject, the Christian church Which we're involved with Luke 1, 1 In my former book, Theophilus I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach Until the day he was taken up to heaven After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit To the apostles he had chosen After his suffering, he showed himself to these men And gave many convincing proofs that he was alive He appeared to them over a period of 40 days And spoke about the kingdom of God On one occasion, while he was eating with them He gave them this command Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait For the gift my father promised Which you have heard me speak about For John baptized with water, but in a few days You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit So when they met together, they asked him Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the dates That the father has set by his own authority But you will receive power When the Holy Spirit comes on you And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem And in Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes And a cloud hid him from their sight Let's see the fulfillment of what happened Acts 2, turn the page to Acts 2 Verse 1, when the day of Pentecost came They were all together in one place Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind Came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting They saw what appeared to be tongues of fire That separated and came to rest on each of them And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit And began to speak in other tongues As the Spirit enabled them Look up here for a second And then you know, a crowd gathered because of the noise People from all over the known world around there Who practiced Judaism And that gave Peter an opportunity to preach Because the folks thought that everyone was drunk They were in some kind of ecstasy And these unknown tongues were some ecstatic utterance That gave an opening to preach the gospel Look at me at verse 40, same chapter With many other words he warned them And he pleaded with them Save yourselves from this corrupt generation And those who accepted his message were baptized And about 3,000 were added to their number that day Not a bad day, would you say? They devoted the Christians, the new Christians, the church They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching The word of God And to the fellowship To the breaking of bread Which probably included meals and the communion celebration And to prayer And everyone was filled with awe And many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles Look at me, please You know, in the book of Revelation Where Jesus is seen walking He's not walking as the painting has it Knocking on the door of the UN He's not down in Wall Street Where Jesus' interest lay first Is among his people Because he's the head of the church Which is his body Whatever's going to happen on the earth Is going to happen through the church God's not using angels to talk to people He's not going to have a voice come out of the clouds For whatever his reason God has chosen to manifest himself to the world Through his church, his body He's the head, we are the body So, whenever you wonder about And say, I wonder what's going to happen in the years to come In Christendom and whatever What's going to happen with the building up of God's kingdom It all depends on the temperature and the status And the spiritual health of the church What a great responsibility that puts on us Who are leaders When the church just about died out In terms of the real gospel and spirit-filled living The dark ages came upon us And history tells us of the hundreds and hundreds of years Where the truth was lost to people who needed to hear it Because of the state of the church Now, if you could take the body of Christ into a doctor's office And have it examined the way we have our annual physicals If there was an x-ray, a spiritual x-ray machine Where Jesus, Dr. Jesus could Give us the state, the temperature of the church The vital signs of the church That'd be very interesting because it would tell us Where we're at collectively I'm not just speaking about your movement and fellowship But I'm talking about the church of Christ The body of Christ, universal Because there's only one body Jesus doesn't have 30 different groups He's only got one group Which is His church We have these human distinctions on earth Jesus knows nothing about them He only has, there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one body And we're part of it We all are Now, in the last 10 or 15 years I've been invited, especially the last 10 years I've been invited to places that I never dreamed I would go Some couple of years ago I was in Salt Lake City speaking for My brothers and sisters In the Southern Baptist Convention I was the first non-Southern Baptist That anybody could remember Being invited to speak At their main finale there Their main night session In Salt Lake City And I've spoken for the Wesleyan church And the Nazarenes Their millennial celebration Out in Kansas City some years ago And with the Wesleyan Methodists The Assemblies of God The Lord has opened some wonderful doors For me to travel, both in this country And overseas And I've met so many beautiful Christians Like I've met so many beautiful Christians In this place I feel such a kindred spirit with you I'm certainly not Dr. Jesus But I would like to make my observations Which I think can be borne out by some statistics I'm going to give you About the state of the church Whether it applies to your local church Remember, there's only a couple of things That God recognizes in the New Testament There's the universal body of Christ Which is the universal church Which no one has ever seen at one time Because it's made up of all blood-washed, born-again believers In the world No one's ever seen that And then there are local churches that are addressed No group beyond that Is ever recognized in the New Testament There are local churches To the church at Thessalonica To the church at Ephesus To the church at Corinth, etc Jesus wrote letters to seven churches Local churches that had leadership And he's found Walking among them Because the state of the church is everything And that's why Paul Is, I travail like a mother Giving birth Until Christ be formed in you I couldn't wait to see you again You might be out of sight But you're never out of my mind He tells the church at Thessalonica So I'd like to tell you My observations If they bear witness with you, that's fine If they don't, that's fine But I would like to offer them It seems like If you go by the Bible Which is our only rule of faith Not what you saw growing up or what I saw growing up Or what the church growth people say But the Bible The church of Christ Instead of being characterized by spiritual things And the supernatural Is more and more now being characterized By solely intellectual forays About facts from the Bible And doctrinal positions That people are fussing about I think more and more The church of Jesus Christ Is being characterized Unlike the New Testament Where it was characterized by spontaneous Manifestations of the Holy Spirit Read 1 Corinthians 12 And 1 Corinthians 14 Read the book of Acts You never know what's going to happen next Because the wind is blowing where it wants to Rather than spontaneous Manifestations of the Holy Spirit We are now much more characterized By man-made programs And tradition-driven services That's become the norm That's become institutionalized That is now like a machine That you can hardly break into And people who have just been born In the last 30, 40, 50 years They think it's always been that way But if you read church history And any history of revivals You'll know that much of what we do And count as normal People in past centuries Would never even know what we're talking about Instead of being characterized By being led by anointed men of God The church now Is being dominated by clever Church growth technicians And their ideas which they gather From the world About relating to people How you measure a church's success It's not coming from the Bible It's not coming from men like A.B. Simpson And R.A. Torrey And Moody and Finney and Wesley And Spurgeon and so on And so forth It's being dominated by clever people Who if you ask their own track record And what fruit do they have spiritually That you could match with the Bible They get very quiet I know that because I've tried it But they have ideas And they're coming up with a church growth industry Where every two years there's a new way To build your church And they're making loads of money off their books But it's an industry And pastors who are Forlorn and confused Are going to these conferences to get the newest way To grow your church As if God didn't give us enough in the Bible That's how it seems to me From my travels From being a house of participatory prayer My house shall be called A house of prayer I think it's, you won't even argue with me That the church instead of being A house of prayer Characterized by a house of prayer Is now a house of spectators With entertainment on the platform Whether it's speech oratory That works up the crowd Then when it's over they all dismiss They all go home and say Wasn't he great You know among the old holiness groups That A.B. Simpson hung around with In the late 1800s You know those camp meetings They had an old saying If they knew the camp meeting was good This is among the Baptist camp meetings And holiness Methodist groups They would say this If people went home Talking about the preacher Then you knew it was a bad meeting But if people went home talking about Jesus And forgot who preached Then you knew it was a good meeting Well Right now we have Spectators Even with worship In many places now It's performance oriented It's the cleverness of the speaker It's his Way he presents the truth And the attention is on him He doesn't get lost the way he's supposed to So Jesus can get center stage He somehow holds center stage Or the singer Or the group or the choir or whatever And instead of a house of prayer I talk to well known authors If I mention their names Because they're friends of mine And well known preachers Who tell me sometimes with clouded eyes Of tears over a cup of coffee And they say Brother Jim I can't have a prayer meeting In my church nobody would come Now it would make me think Well then how powerful is your preaching How wonderful is your ministry If you can't get people to come Just to be with Jesus It always has to be a song Or a clever presentation Or some theatrical thing It's a long way from the book of Acts In that upper room From a church characterized By transformed lives Like in the book of Acts Converts pricked in their hearts Putting their faith in Christ Being baptized by the thousands Now we have George Barnard's Depressing statistics in his book Whatever happened to the church It was a couple years ago I can't think of the exact title But you can find it He did a study in like 30 categories Comparing people who go to Evangelical churches every Sunday And people who don't go to church at all And have no confession of faith And he found that in 30 some categories There was no difference Between people who go to church every Sunday And people who don't For example the rate of divorce Among people who don't go to church Is the same as the rate of people who go to church The number of people who play the lottery Who don't go to church It's the same exact number Percentage who go to church The same percentage of people Who are depressed in society Who don't know Jesus The same percent are depressed Now this is not an agnostic Or an atheist poster This is a Christian This is one of the good guys So he's not skewing the results To make a point He's weeping over them Same percentage of depression I mean if I was an unbeliever I would say if Jesus is so wonderful How come you're so depressed If the Bible says rejoice always And again I say rejoice What's the story with you The same percentage of people That watch R rated movies Who don't go to church Same percent who go to church Watching the same filthy movies And making illustrations about it From sermons I've heard preachers Refer to R rated movies What in the world That's a long way from A.B. Simpson Isn't it Imagine movies that glorify sin And murder and have filthy words in it People are paying money To take that into their hearts and spirits Same percentage Barna says And instead of a church Characterized by simplicity And humility that you see In the book of Acts Simplicity upper room Just a meeting Now we have churches which are characterized By productions And human ego Just watch Christian television It'll depress you You know the ostentatious display of people All in the name of Jesus Who was the lowly meek Lamb of God Boy that's a long trip Preaching about Jesus The lowly Son of man son of God But with a proud egotistical Spirit that says look at me More people are turning To crack in the cities than to Christ That's just a fact More people are turning kids are turning To crack than to Christ There is an Absolute Plague now among the clergy Of major denominations Of divorce Leaders from two major denominations Have told me we don't know what to do And the number one reason in one leading Denomination that ministers are leaving In droves and the leaders told me We have more empty pulpits now than in the history Of our movement Our denomination the number one reason Is pornography on the internet Two of the two largest denominations Two of the largest denominations Have been in zero growth for three years Zero growth With all These sinners around us 9-11 has just happened People are now more aware of eternal values And the shortness of life The brevity of what we call Our existence here on earth There are empty pulpits And churches are just going nowhere And nobody is saying well wait a minute What about this methodology And this cleverness and all these new Techniques we have what is it Producing maybe they're to blame Nobody's asking that they just keep buying Into the next new fad that lasts for about 18 months or two years I've met pastors who have quit now Because they went down one road for two years That ended up nowhere Another road for two years Then they had home meetings Then it was this Then it was illustrated sermons As if God is dead and there's no Holy Spirit Change the program How to have a better sign outside your church Oh my stars As if that has anything to do With what God wants to do And what's happened is Because of the excesses in the charismatic movement We have had A total mess up Of the subject of the Holy Spirit Where people are claiming The Holy Spirit is doing things that are not In the Bible It goes beyond what is written It's nonsensical manifestations People are disobeying basic rules That let everything be done Into edification So people are howling like wolves And screeching like owls And roaring like lions And rolling around on the floor And contorting and doing things That you never would imagine The Apostle Paul or Jesus doing And if you want to talk to them Like I have and said Where do you get that from the Bible They'll tell you oh brother Don't give me that old stuff Where is it in the Bible God is doing a new thing Well if it's so new It's not in the Bible That's too new for me How many say amen Come on let's put our hands together And affirm that If the Bible says try the spirits To see whether they be of God And test the spirits What can you test it with If you don't test it with the Bible So if it's in the Bible I don't mind talking about it But if it's not in the Bible Forget about it Well because of these aberrations Which are usually linked to huge egos And usually ripping people off On their money and the Lord told me 500 people are supposed to give me 5000 dollars and all that business Like they have a running phone call With the Holy Spirit And if God really told them Why doesn't he give them the name So we can stop wasting a lot of time But we all know what that is It's a scam It's a scam There are a lot of crooks out there Christian TV is littered with crooks They're crooks They're robbing people Preaching that godliness is gained From such turn away Now because of that a good part of the Evangelical church, a good part of the Christian church Has backed away and said If that's the Holy Spirit I pass If that stuff is the Holy Spirit I pass So now what we have And they get deader and more intellectual And more dry So now we have the body of Christ In many places, not in all Characterized by either insane Asylums or cemeteries You either go to places where they're Flying off the walls Or you go to places even if you even lift Your hand to praise God the usher will take you right out And say that means you want to go to the bathroom I'm taking you out right now Fanaticism Or dead orthodoxy Gotta be something better And we can't fool around with this Because Christ is coming soon There's a lot of people Out there Who the Lord wants to reach Through us How else is he going to do it So all the pastors and leaders are here Remember you're going to be with me and Carol We're going to line up And appear at the judgment seat of Christ To give an account of the quality of our work Just don't tell me you've been faithful Not the quantity The quality Were you a competent minister of the new covenant Not of the letter that kills But of the spirit that gives life Paul says I don't need Any letters of recommendation From you or to you Because you are my letters of recommendation God wrote in your heart by the Holy Spirit Through my ministry You're the proof that I'm the real deal So that's my goal in life I want to be a competent minister of the new covenant I read book of Acts and I I hear that certain men from Cyprus And Cyrene went to Antioch And the hand of the Lord was with them And multitudes turned to the Lord Hey, I want to know more about that hand of the Lord Being with me Whatever that means I want the hand of the Lord with me I'd rather live 2-3 years with the hand of the Lord Powerfully with me Than just take up space for 20 years and say I was in the ministry Well let's go to the source now Because Jesus is the head of the church It's not your church or my church It's not Luther's church Or Wesley's church or A.B. Simpson's church It's Jesus' church So let's go to the original documents And find out What is this thing called the Christian church How was it born What are the characteristics Of this church and what can we learn of them The first I only want to give you three and this will be brief Sorry for the long introduction But I wanted to get your attention And I think all of us are interested How many want to go back When do you go back? Sunday? Does this end on Sunday? How many want to go back and see God do great things in your churches Wave your hand at me Come on, wave your hand at me, I want to see it Ok, so we're all together Because I want to go I go back tomorrow morning on a 6.30 in the morning flight And I face a Sunday A big Sunday Our second week in this new building And we're trying to reach people with the gospel Notice the unusual word In Acts 1, wait Isn't that an unusual word When you think about it Jesus has risen from the dead He's the risen Christ He's talking to the apostles Now notice this, look at me The world is lying in darkness The world is lying In spiritual darkness The only people who have the gospel In the entire world Are these disciples that he's with And possibly a few others Men are dying and women are dying While Jesus is with those people And if I were there I would say Now listen Go right now, get the biggest arena you can Go from door to door, go You've eaten with me You've touched my body You've seen the nail prints in my hand Now, go Go and tell everybody Because this is it, you have it You've seen me, you're my chosen ones Now go And Jesus says, don't go, wait What sense is that Where's his passion for souls Where's the immediacy Of getting people the gospel with Jesus He's telling them to wait He tells them to wait For a gift To be received Not to work themselves up Or earn something He didn't tell them Now you've got to get your life together so you can earn something No, he said it's a gift Like salvation is a gift He said you've got to wait for it Wait for a gift, what gift The gift that the father has promised The gift that my father has promised In other words God's provision for his workers In a hostile environment It's as if Jesus was saying I know you guys want to go And I know the world is a needy place But I know what Satan is about I know how dark men's souls get I know what spiritual warfare is about I know the demonic forces That you're going to have to combat I know your limitations as human beings I know all about you Thomas I know all about you Peter, so don't go anywhere Although you have the right message You don't have the right equipment Wait, wait Because you need power You need a dimension of God's almighty power Operating in your life Because it's a hostile environment They bring up a prophecy question A lot of us are consumed And distracted by secondary matters We want to know what the mark of the beast is We want to know about a secret rapture And mid-tribulation This and post-tribulation And pre-tribulation And Jesus said something we need to remember It's not for you to know The times and the seasons That's not your business Here's your business But you will receive power When the Holy Spirit comes upon you And you will be my witnesses You will be energized by God And you will do the work that I've called you to do But it will happen after you wait And you receive the promise That the Father made of this power That word power, as you know, is dunamis We get our word dynamite from it The Amplified Bible translates it Might, divine might Or divine ability When will it come? It will come when the Holy Spirit comes upon you It won't happen with somebody preaching It won't happen during a concert All those things have their place But the power that you need Will come as you pray And wait in my presence You will receive the promise The gift The gift of equipping The gift of dynamite Spiritual dynamite So you will be people that you won't even recognize yourselves Thank you, Jesus Now, let's talk about the Holy Spirit for a moment And stop briefly We know the Holy Spirit is in every believer Romans 8 tells us this If anybody hath not the Spirit of Christ He doesn't belong to God Every believer who's born again Has the Holy Spirit living within him Or you're not a Christian But obviously, not all believers And not all preachers Are filled with the Holy Spirit No matter how you juggle your theology around And are afraid of fanaticism Or putting too much on experience It's obvious that you can be a believer And not be filled with the Holy Spirit Why then in Ephesians 4 of 18 Would Paul be saying Keep on, and literally in the Greek Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit If everybody's filled Why would he say Keep on being filled Don't be drunk with wine Don't be filled with wine Wherein is excess But keep on being filled You know how somebody gets drunk? The drunk doesn't last forever They take some drink in Some bourbon, some scotch Some wine, some beer They have enough, it sets them off They're drunk They go into a kind of other personality But it wears off And to get drunk again, they have to drink again And the Lord likens that To the Holy Spirit He says, keep on being filled, keep on drinking Not of wine, that'll mess you up Keep on drinking of the Spirit And keep being filled Now obviously Not all of our churches are spirit filled Why would Jesus write a letter to the church In Laodicea and say I know you, you're neither hot nor cold But you're what? Lukewarm, and because you're lukewarm What am I going to do? I'm going to vomit or spew you out of my mouth Now, if you tell me That the Laodicean church was a spirit filled church Then words don't mean anything If you're telling me That Jesus is about to vomit out A spirit filled church Then nothing means anything And how about Demas, that minister Who traveled with Paul Paul says, Demas has forsaken me Having loved this present world He couldn't have been living a spirit filled life Was he a believer? Yes, did he have the Holy Spirit Living inside of him? Yes Was he moving in the power and the anointing And the fullness of the Spirit? Obviously not So Jesus says, because this is so important I want you to wait Wait, the truth of God Is absolutely necessary We're only to preach the word of God Preach the word, the Bible says But the word of God Has to be accompanied by a filled vessel Both are needed And this truth is so important I say this obviously in reverence to Christ But let's face these facts When Jesus was on earth What did he produce in three years of discipling? And people say, you've got to relate And get close to the people Well, what did Jesus produce after three years? When he was arrested What kind of maturity did he instill In these disciples? People say, you've got to pour your life into somebody Well, what did Jesus pour into them? When he was arrested They all fled Judas was one of the twelve Peter cursed and lied And said he didn't even know who he was Thomas doubted to the very end So at the end of three years Jesus being with them, he didn't produce very much You won't see any changes In these people until the Holy Spirit Comes upon them And now Peter goes from a failed fisherman To a mighty preacher of the gospel No wonder Jesus said Wait, remember what he told them? It's good for you that I leave They must have been saying to him Don't ever say that, it's good for us that you leave Being with you means everything to us No, I am with you But the Holy Spirit, when he comes He'll be in you Your problem is inside And the only thing that can solve it Is the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit You know, Samuel Chadwick The old Methodist preacher Said it best Christianity is hopeless without the Holy Ghost A.B. Simpson taught the same Christianity is hopeless Do all you want Be sincere, cry a river of tears Endure hardship Like a good soldier But without the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit We are incapable of doing What God wants us to do My wife and I lay it down as a first principle We're always looking for people Who are pressing into God To live spirit filled lives Because those are the people God's going to use in our church Those are the people that are going to go out And make a difference for Christ But pastor, you have to be sincere I agree with you But we need a lot more than sincerity We need power Can I get an amen? We need power Don't be afraid of the word I'm not going to let those crazy people Who are abusing the Holy Spirit rob me of the truth Some of you are backed away From the dimension of the Holy Spirit Because it's so linked in recent times To extravagant things Crazy things People tell me, I meet pastors They say to me, what's your vision for the church? They want to tell me about their vision for their church I didn't know we were supposed to have a vision I thought, it's Jesus' church How could I have a vision for His church? I thought the Bible gave me the vision for the church They continued steadfastly In the Apostles' doctrine In the breaking of bread In fellowship and in prayers And you train those? I mean, why did God give us 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus And the book of Acts and the Corinthian letters If we were supposed to get our own vision for the church? It doesn't make any sense to me My goodness, don't lay your vision on me I'm not even doing what's in the Bible yet But this is, we're leaving The moorings of Scripture And going into fuddy-duddy stuff Just fantasy, you know, my vision for the church It's not your church You didn't die on a cross What right do you have To have a vision for Christ's church? He has the vision for the church It's His church I'm only working for Jesus and so are you Just follow orders All the egotism Of preachers today They have a vision for Christ's church He died on a cross He's the head of the church But they're going to tell me the new thing That they're going to do in their church And usually it's prayerless And unholy And nobody gets saved But it's their vision I don't want their vision I want God's vision You know what happened to D.L. Moody I'm putting a picture of him in one of the lobbies Of our church, a mural Of these people who restored our building They did the Disney Theater on 42nd Street Where Lion King has been playing for years Same company, Evergreen Did such beautiful work I found out their artists are so good So I gave them five historical pictures Of the church Since the 1800s And one of them is Moody Preaching in Brooklyn Not 20 blocks 15 blocks from where our building is At a rink That's seated about 3,000 people And you see Sankey over on this little Pump organ And you see Moody there With his hand up preaching the word of God That was the first meeting he had When he got famous Over in the British Isles He was there for a couple of years And God used this man who you could only call Mr. Moody because he never got ordained The greatest evangelist of the 19th century Never got ordained Had a speech impediment Was not nice to look at Rather homely looking Touch over weight But he turned the world upside down And you know what he said was the difference He was working with the YMCA He was working bringing street urchins in To churches in Boston In Chicago He was on fire for the Lord As I mentioned the other day He's semi-illiterate Read a great book If you want to read a great book It's called Love Them In The something theology of D.L. Moody Written by a friend of mine Who used to teach at Moody Bible Institute And he researched Moody's life He shows a letter that Moody wrote About 8 years before he died And when I read it He just reproduces it on a page The proclamation theology of D.L. Moody Love Them In That's what it's called By Stan Gundry And when I read the letter I fell on my carpet in my study And I started to weep Because I saw Moody's handwriting No periods, no commas, nothing He was illiterate He'd be laughed at today Moody would be a joke today With all the cleverness And everyone trying to get their MDiv And everything And here was a guy who couldn't spell MDiv You know what the difference was? They had a big Chicago fire You know about it And some ladies in Chicago Had been telling Moody Moody we're praying for you And he was so busy working for God He said why don't you pray for yourself They said no we're praying for you Because there's something missing in your ministry So because of the fire He was sent to Brooklyn He was at a church On Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn But he had no heart to raise money To help with the Results of the fire He got hungry for God He was longing for an endowment of power Because he wanted more from God So somehow he got to Manhattan back in those days And he walked up and down On Wall Street And Moody writes he hardly spoke about it But he said as he was crying out to God And waiting before the Lord On Wall Street The Spirit of God baptized him And came upon him in such a way He rarely spoke about it But he had to actually ask God To stay his hand Because he thought he might die He went to preaching the same sermons And suddenly people got converted left and right People would run Same sermons Same Moody Same speech impediment But a new Moody because God the Holy Spirit Had come upon And don't tell me that can't happen again Show me one Bible verse In the New Testament Before you dismiss these scriptures And say that was for that day Tell me one verse that tells us And this is only for a little while And then forget about it Show me that verse and I'll agree with you But don't you say that because cursed Is everyone who takes away from that word We're not to add to it And we're not to take away As I close it was not only the unusual word wait Notice something from heaven Suddenly a sound Like the blowing of a violin wind Came from heaven In other words my point is here Something sent from almighty In heaven Was sent upon the church when it was born Something came from heaven They were sitting there And something came Not manufactured by men Not worked up No musical instruments No microphones It was totally divine Something came from heaven And that's how the church was born Brothers and sisters Don't you think we need something from heaven In our churches Look at me Look at me honestly Do you think we need more bible translations Do you think we're lacking books Do you think we're lacking literature Do you think we're lacking computers We have all of that stuff We're missing something from heaven Where people come in and say I don't know exactly what this is But surely god is in this place I'd rather have a church Filled with something from heaven Than be in the fanciest cathedral in the world Because that's how the church was born Something not from man Not worked up Not manufactured Not contrived Not planned Not by psychology or eloquence Or cleverness But something from heaven They had a wait And as they waited God blessed them with something from heaven You know what Let me be kind of bold with you That's what you and I need tonight You pastors and wives and all of that Stop moaning and groaning how evil the world is We need something from heaven Stop talking about how mean the devil is And all the things that are going on in society He's the devil That's what he's supposed to be doing People tell me Oh this just so saddens me I'm in meetings sometimes And I just have to put my head down When I see the foolishness that goes on Oh if we only get back Where do they have prayer in the schools How about prayer in the church How about prayer in the church Where does it say I'm all for prayer in the schools But where do they have prayer in the church In the early church Where do they have prayer in the early church With Caligula and Nero being emperors Transvestites some of them Do you ever see Paul wringing his hands and say What are we going to do The Roman emperor is worshipped as God Woe is me There's no prayer in the Roman schools Oh come on Let the devil be the devil but let the church be the church Let the church be filled with the Holy Spirit And take on the devil Alright devil that's what you can do Now we're going to show you what we can do That's listen That's the spirit of the early church Oh brothers and sisters Doesn't it shame you a little bit They had no new testaments to hand out It hadn't been written They had no microphones, no buildings No legal religion No moral majority No friends in the Roman senate They had nada, nothing And they turned the world upside down And you and I are making excuses about President Clinton or Bush or secular humanism It makes you cry When you hear people talk like that The world is supposed to be wicked Haven't you read the bible The whole world lies in darkness But let the church Stop complaining about the world Someone said to me Pastor Semble where this new building is On my staff Just like our brother said from Las Vegas I'm so proud of him and the Lord And that sister from Indonesia And everyone I've heard here I'm so happy that I've met you But I hear people even on my staff say You know Pastor Semble it's different Where we're going further downtown We're right across the river from where the World Trade Center was People walked right across the Brooklyn Bridge When the towers came down Walked right by our church on Flatbush Avenue Now we're closer In fact the soot from the two towers coming down Actually the debris Came across the river and coated the outside Of our building which was being worked on then There's gangs, there's drugs There's black Israelites On one side street over there people are urinating It's beautiful Where else do you think the light is needed Remember who your founder is What do you think he was looking for A nice place Read his biography a little closer God does his best work Where it looks hopeless So that he can show the world How great he is And he chooses the weak And the foolish And the people that are not To confound the wise He's not looking for people with degrees All you young men who are studying If God leads you to study, study But I can assure you this Nobody's waiting in Chicago or in Philadelphia Or in the hood in L.A. Or any place else in Atlanta And saying, oh I hope somebody with a degree Comes and talks to me All you need is Jesus in you The Bible in you And the Holy Spirit upon you And you can do business for God That's all you need Listen, I'm not putting down Go to school, do whatever the Lord leads you to do But if you think that by having a degree You're going to be better qualified to work for God Forget about it It's not by might, nor by power Nor by degrees, but it's by my spirit Sayeth the Lord That God does his work I'm passionate about this because I'm preaching to myself now Lastly Jim, if you go to the keyboard Notice they were filled They waited Something came from heaven And they were filled Notice, the sound Filled the place The sound that came from heaven Filled the place It wasn't just heard a little bit, it filled the place All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit Not touched by the Holy Spirit Not 10% injected with the Holy Spirit Filled God's only measure Is filled Abundance, plenty Running over so others Can live off of the overflow of God Full faith Full of love Full of power, full of wisdom No scant, meager, eking out Provision from God God says, I'll give you what you need, I'll fill you Filled with God They were all filled And Peter Who you and I wouldn't even have in our churches Made 3000 converts With his first sermon Post-Pentecost Would you have him in your church? His recent Resume Is that on the night Jesus was arrested He not only fled But later He lied and didn't even say who the Lord That he knew the Lord, three times He denied the Lord, three times And 40 some days later He's preaching A sermon to beat the band Is it a fancy sermon? Oh, brothers and sisters Do you think the world needs Fancy sermons and oratory? Oh, come on Read that sermon, a first year Bible school Student could preach it It was the simple gospel, but with the power Of the Holy Ghost, that's why they were pricked In their hearts This is why Finney said, I go off in the woods And I pray until God fills me Because I don't want to preach without the arrows Of God's truth getting into the hearts Of those who are listening Without the Holy Spirit, sinners just sit right in our meetings They're not even convicted Now Peter preached full Full of the Holy Spirit Now, what does that word mean? What's the potential of that? If the Holy Spirit is God God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit is fully God Could you please tell me what the potential is And what is the meaning In all of its depth of this word Like we read of Peter Peter stood up before the Sanhedrin Full of the Holy Spirit Paul on his first missionary journey But Paul, full of the Holy Spirit Said, what does that mean? If the Holy Spirit is God What does it mean to be full of God? Now in New York We have people full of the devil But that's a counterfeit Of God's plan For his people The devil mimics every gift of the spirit And almost everything God does Satan has a counterfeit Satan's people are operating very well Under a satanic anointing They have power Watch what these crack dealers do And how the ingenious ways and the risks they take To get cocaine into our country And what boldness they have Some of the Colombians in New York Or Dominicans If you cut a deal with them And you cheat and take some money They shoot you right in the head They're bold, full of the devil, full of hate But the church isn't as full of God As the devil's folks are full of the devil Look what they achieve They're full of the devil Look at the pornographers Ingenuity, billion dollar industry And here we're eking out Oh another Sunday I hope I can get a few families from another church Listen, the angels don't rejoice When somebody leaves another church To come to your church The angels only rejoice when a sinner repents Aren't there enough sinners Aren't there enough sinners to go after That we have to bother with other people's members What a sorry way to end your life Trying to draw people away from another church But you know why We don't want to confront the world On its own terms here Because we're lacking that boldness That comes from the Holy Spirit We're lacking wisdom Paul said to Timothy Do the work of an evangelist How do you do the work of an evangelist In Las Vegas How do you do it I talked to some of these bikers What an ingenious thing How God has led them to talk to other bikers And they share Christ How do I in this new building How do I share Christ in downtown Brooklyn With all that stuff happening There was a line outside the building on Sunday Somebody flipped out because they couldn't get in They grabbed one of our ushers Threw him down on the ground Listen, that comes with the turf You have those things happen in New York But how can I get people in front of me And other speakers so they can hear the gospel Do we go to them Do we bring them in the building How do we do it I don't know what you should do I have no formula for you But I'll tell you one thing The Holy Spirit knows what you should do If you're full of faith and full of love Full of boldness and full of the Holy Spirit Oh, but somebody let me down I've been disappointed in life Are you going to let the devil rip you off Of what God wants to do with your life Because somebody let you down Think of the potential You can be full of God Think of that I can be full of God I can go in the pulpit this Sunday and be full of God What's the potential in that I haven't preached to you anything but the word of God No wonder They were full of God So what happened They did things they couldn't do They spoke in other tongues Forget the manifestation for now That's not what I want to talk about They did something they couldn't do Whenever God fills you You're unable to do things you can't naturally do You become a supernatural church A supernatural people There's a new little believer in our church Her name is Valini She comes from a Hindu family She was born in Guyana In the Caribbean Northern South America Excuse me But near the Caribbean It's the hardest case I could ever imagine She just came to us She just became a new member of God Save But boy has God filled this girl And she has the weirdest background Because she was sleeping with this guy And running around with this Puerto Rican guy Named Luis And She came to me After she became a member And said may I speak to you And I said yes And she said I have to tell you my story And the gist of it is without going into details That when she found out That he had been arrested on a murder charge And he got convicted Second degree murder He shot somebody She married him Before she knew the Lord She married him He's going away for 12 years He got in more trouble while he was waiting to be sentenced So now it's up to 16 years So he's in prison for 16 years She's 22 and she's full of God She is full of God My wife took her in the choir because we knew We bent the rules a little bit Because we knew she needed fellowship And all of that She sings just fairly well But brought her in the choir And my wife says Jim I gave her the microphone one day to pray If you heard this girl pray She brought down heaven on the whole choir practice So I'm trying to figure out what her status is With this guy who's up in a slammer In upstate New York And she had told me You know I witnessed to him And I'm not supposed to go for conjugal visits But I want counsel from you pastor I don't want to do anything Jesus doesn't want me to do But you know what I witnessed to him and he told me he's received the Lord I said really So I sent up an associate pastor And another guy to visit him last week And they came back and they were ready to lash into the guy And say we have your jacket We have your police record And you talked this girl into marrying you And how can she wait for you for 16 years And when he walked into the waiting area They said it was like a shaft of light walked in there He's full of Jesus She led this guy to the Lord He's full of the Bible All he would talk about is the Bible And how wonderful Jesus is And the Latin King gang that's very strong in the prison Has approached him and said you got to join us He said no I can't join you I've already joined Jesus I'm in his gang I'm following him This girl Valini she's dynamite Well of course You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you Wait Don't run wait I found the ministry is nothing else But waiting and going and then come back and wait And then go and then wait and then move And then wait and act and pray And go If you just go go go you get shallow If you just wait wait wait you get weird Some people are not doing anything for Jesus Because they're having devotions all day long That's not found in the New Testament We wait And then as God meets us we go Let's bow our heads I know this is a different kind of message Forgive me if you found it Over confrontational But this might be the last time I'll ever speak to you And I have to answer before Jesus This is what he laid on my heart I felt I want to hear him say good Well done good and faithful servant This is the secret To the race problem they can have all the Councils and conferences they want Just let people get full of the Holy Ghost They won't know black from white from brown From yellow from red Without that the whole thing becomes Cultural black culture white culture It's so boring so predictable Black style of meetings White style of meetings Southern style of meetings And meanwhile people are going to hell in a bread basket We need something from heaven I want every pastor And be bold Even if I done something wrong tonight It's my last night All they can do is not invite me back But it's my last night Every pastor and teacher Male or female every worker Who preaches or teaches the word of God Get up out of your seat and come up here and pray with me Come Holy Spirit I Need you Come Sweet Spirit I Pray Come In thy Strength And thy Power Everyone sing together Come Holy Spirit I Need you Sweet Spirit I Pray Come In thy Strength And thy Power Spirit I Pray Come In thy Strength And thy Sweet Spirit And thy Power Best I know how With these very faltering lips But I'm not ashamed because Paul said I didn't come to you with the wisdom Of men's words But what we want tonight is a demonstration Of the power of the Holy Spirit So that our faith would not stand in the wisdom Of men, the cleverness Of men, but in the power Of God Lord I need a new infilling Of your Holy Spirit Lord Can't go back to Brooklyn, Lord Without fresh wind Fresh fire, Lord Falling upon us Lord, we can't preach We can't pray without your Holy Spirit We don't even know how to lead people We can't see conviction of sin in our churches We don't have wisdom How to be leaders the way you want us to The thing The dimension that we're missing in our churches Is we need an invasion Of your Holy Spirit, Lord I confess that for myself What everyone else is confessing, Lord, that's up to them But we need in the Brooklyn Tabernacle I need, Lord, a visitation Of your Holy Spirit I thank you for the blessings of yesterday We have seen your Spirit move But, Lord, you have something better for us You have something greater So we humble ourselves before you And we ask, Lord, come Come, Holy Spirit Get rid of our dead traditions Get rid of our pride And our egotism Get rid of our independence As if we could do this without your help We are hungry, Lord, all of us To preach better Teach better, lead better Pastor better, be better missionaries We want a supernatural dimension In our ministries, Lord We're not telling you What the manifestations are You take care of that All we're asking for is what you promised You said we would receive power That's what I want, Lord, I need your power And my brothers and sisters Are with me We need power, Lord, the devil has power But greater is he that's in us Than the one that's in the world But we want a manifestation, Lord, of that power We just want to go through life quoting verses That aren't being realized In our lives, Lord We want you to come You came in the Great Awakening You came in the Second Great Awakening You came overseas You came in the Welsh Revival God, you visited China You visited places And you shook the whole land, Lord With your spirit We want electric prayer meetings Filled by your Holy Spirit, Lord We want preaching that comes Like we speak as if we're speaking The oracles of God, Lord None of this just folksy sharing We want to speak with authority That comes from the Holy Spirit, Lord We want sinners to get converted Or get out, but Lord, don't let people Just sit week after week, month after month And dilute our churches And compromise our ministries, Lord So Lord, please Save them or get them out Do something, Lord But let something come from heaven This Sunday in our churches This Sunday, Lord, in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, I'm asking you publicly Let something come from heaven, Lord While we're singing Or preaching or praying Or during the offering, Lord, you do it your way But let something come from heaven upon us So the people know That you're alive We don't want to just talk about What happened once a hundred years ago Or what's going to happen Before Jesus comes Lord, we're living now, we need you now, Lord The fields are ripe unto harvest But spirit-filled laborers They are few We don't want to be part of the statistics that we read Lord, we want to be part of the answer, Lord We want to become models In a spiritual way So we can inspire others That God answers prayer That God is alive Holy Spirit, I ask you finally Forgive us for grieving you Forgive us for quenching you Forgive us for these programmed little meetings That don't give you a half of a second Of a chance to do anything Help us not to be afraid of silence And waiting upon you Give us the faith To move spontaneously When the wind is blowing We praise you, Lord Would you join hands with the person next to you Throughout the building, everybody stand Everybody in the building stand And join hands with the person next to you Begin praying out loud For the person you're holding on the right hand Right now, begin praying out loud I don't care if you know who they are For the one who's on your right-hand side Begin to pray Pray this way, God, fill him now with the Holy Spirit And power Fill him with the Holy Spirit and power, Lord Ajudanos, Señor Ajudanos, Señor Oh, gracias, Señor Thank you for your Holy Spirit, Lord Quicken, my brothers, my sisters, Lord So we can do your work in power, Lord Begin to pray now For the one on your left hand Come on, lift your voice up to heaven And say, God, fill my brother, fill my sister I don't know what they're facing But you do, God They need the Holy Spirit and power, Lord Come on, somebody's praying for you Now you pray Oh, we ask your blessing, Lord Bless my brother, Lord Anoint my brother, Lord Help him in his work for you, Lord Father God We thank you tonight for your word And just like last night We drew a line in the sand And we're recovering stolen property Tonight We covenant with you That you are gonna visit Our ministries and our churches Like we've never dreamed Lord, I've never said anything like this publicly But I ask it for your praise and your honor, Lord And for your glory But God, I can't help but think I know he's with you now But how happy A.B. Simpson would be, Lord Who believed in this And preached this I'm not saying anything new, Lord What I'm saying is so old, it's new Oh, God, for his sake And for the way he laid down his life To spread the gospel Throughout the world Make his heart glad In heaven, Lord, as you pour out your spirit Upon us Let all honor And glory go to Jesus We praise you, Lord Let's lift up our hands And just praise the Lord out loud Would you do that right now? Just give God praise Hallelujah Hallelujah Spirit of The Living Fall Fresh On Me Spirit Of The Living God Fall More On Me Spirit Spirit Of The Living God Bring More On Me Fill Me Spirit Fill Fill More He touched And all The joy That floods my soul Sing it Something Happened And now I know He touched Me and made Me whole Sing it now Oh yes, he Touched me Oh I believe your presence I'm so grateful That your promise is that your presence Goes with us Help us to sense you As we go The grace of the Lord Jesus Continuing sense that Everything that's come from you Is not at all deserved or earned But only because that you will make us To be gracious people And I pray that the love of God will go with us Dear Lord I pray that There will be a renewed sense In every heart open before you right now That we are loved by God And make us people who Have a fellowship of the Holy Spirit Go with us A close sense of your presence Holy Spirit A renewal of the nudges And the Shaping of our thoughts And the directing of our ways That preciousness of your Indwelling presence Go with us And I pray that you'll renovate the fellowships Of our churches As we fellowship with you So go with us As people said Amen Go in God's peace