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A Vision of Revival
Sammy Tippit

Sammy Tippit (1947–present). Born in 1947 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sammy Tippit is an American Southern Baptist evangelist, author, and founder of Sammy Tippit Ministries (originally God’s Love In Action), established in 1970. Converted to Christianity in August 1965 at age 18, he began preaching soon after, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1968. That year, he married Debara “Tex” Sirman, with whom he has two children, Dave and Renee, and five grandchildren. Tippit’s early ministry in Chicago’s high-crime districts targeted gangs and addicts, earning him a role in the Jesus Movement. He preached globally, infiltrating the 1973 Communist Youth World Fest in East Berlin and holding Romania’s first evangelistic stadium crusade in 1990 post-revolution. His crusades in war-torn Burundi, post-genocide Rwanda, and Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa (1999, with 300,000 attendees) spread hope. Tippit authored 18 books, including The Prayer Factor (1988), a bestseller in Brazil and Mongolia’s first Christian book, Unashamed: A Memoir of Dangerous Faith (2018), and Twice a Slave (2014), a historical novel. Since 2016, he has used Skype and social media for evangelism, reaching millions monthly across 12 languages. Based in San Antonio, Texas, he was inducted into the Southern Baptist Evangelists’ Hall of Faith in 2024. Tippit said, “Prayer is the key to seeing God’s power transform lives.”
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Sermon Summary
In this sermon, the speaker shares a powerful story of a spiritual revolution that took place in Romania. Despite facing tanks and machine guns, the people of Romania experienced a spiritual awakening that led to a revolution. The pastor of the First Baptist Church of Timishwara preached the gospel amidst the chaos and was interrupted by shouts of "There is a God." The speaker highlights two key characteristics of the revival in Romania: a deep sense of praise and worship, and a strong emphasis on prayer. The sermon also addresses the impact of atheistic teachings in Romania and the role of pastors in spreading the gospel.
Sermon Transcription
It is a joy to be here with you, and I'm excited about being here because I've got some good news about what God's doing in our world. I want you to know something, folks. God is still on the throne, and He's still working today in a marvelous way, and revival is not a thing of the past. Revival is happening today, and God's wanting to send it right in our midst. I think I need to give a word of explanation. My wife is here with me. Her name is Tex. She got the nickname Tex. She moved from Texas to Louisiana in her senior year where I grew up, and I met her then as a freshman in the university, and so she got the nickname Tex because she was the girl from Texas. But you don't have to worry, just because I live in Texas now, they don't call me Louise. But she's here, and she's my best friend, and I love her with all of my heart. Would you stand up, honey, right now? I want you to meet my wife, Tex. This is Tex. That's the prettiest Tex you'll ever meet. And I also have two friends who, outside of my wife, I consider to be my best friends on this earth. They're not from the United States. They are from the nation of Romania, Dr. Titus Coltia and his wife, Gabi. Would you just stand up for a moment? I want to tell you that Titus, the book, The Prayer Factor, was mentioned, which is the second to the last book I've written, and I dedicated that book to Titus. And Titus is a medical doctor in the nation of Romania, one of the deepest men of God I have ever met. You don't ask him what verse of scripture you're memorizing this week. It's better to ask him what chapter or what book of the Bible you're memorizing. He's a man that God has used in bringing revival He grew up in Romania in the church where the Second Baptist Church of Oradea, the largest Baptist church in the nation, where the Spirit of God in the early 70s visited in a mighty way. His father was a deacon in the church, one of the leaders of the church, and his pastor would come over to his home. And I asked Titus, I said, Titus, how did you get a burden for revival? How did your heart begin to beat for revival? And he said, Sammy, he said, my dad used to come to my home, or my pastor used to come to my dad's home. And when I was going to bed, I remember going to sleep and I would hear my dad and our pastor weeping for souls and praying for people to come to Christ. And God left an impression upon me. My dad's gone on to heaven to be with Jesus, and that pastor was exiled from our country, but God left a deep impression on my heart. He and I have traveled throughout that nation preaching. I know that many difficulties have come his way for his traveling with me and interpreting for me, but he has a burden for the nation. And just recently, the revolution came to the nation of Romania, and I'm going to tell you about it in just a moment. But when that revolution came, the masses of people came to the streets, and no one knew anything about democracy. For 45 years, they had not had democracy practiced in that country. They were only, the only place that you could find democracy practiced in the nation of Romania was in Baptist churches and in some Pentecostal churches. And because he knew something of democracy, he spoke to the crowds when there was a great vacuum left within the country. And to the 100,000 people gathered in the square of Oradea, he spoke, and Titus was elected and is now a part of the new transitional government in Romania. There were 40 people elected to that new transitional government in the state where he comes from. Five of them are evangelical Christians. Out of that 40, there were nine who were chosen to be sort of an executive committee. Two of them were evangelical Christians. Of those nine and of the two who are evangelical Christians, Titus is a part of that group. Also, the man who is over the police, who has so persecuted the Christians, is now the director of the police for that state, is now a member of the Second Baptist Church of Oradea, Romania. And God has moved. God is doing great things. When the revolution took place, a friend of ours had one of these computerized telephones and he put it on to Titus' number and it dialed for 48 hours before he ever got through to Titus. And Titus told him, he said, tell Sammy to come to Romania. The time is right. Two years ago, I was arrested and kicked out of the country for preaching the gospel. We had a wonderful time. The glory of God was everywhere. When Wayne mentioned the situation with the Youth Evangelism Conference, that's common practice in the Romanian churches. For people to be everywhere, standing up the stairs, outside the buildings, on the streets. And we had been preaching and God had moved. And as a result, when I came to the border, I was kicked out of the country. I tried to get back into the country. They would not allow me back into the country. I was held under guard night and day and then shipped back to the west. My heart broke. And then when the revolution took place, I never imagined that in January 1st, 1990, I would begin my ministry in this new decade in the nation of Romania. I went to the border. I was nervous because I had been held under arrest the last time I was at that border. And we pulled up to the border crossing. And before, when those border guards interrogated me and held me under guard, this time we pulled up to the border. A border guard came up to our car. He asked me to get out of the car. And when I got out of the car, the first question he asked me was, are you a Christian and are you a Baptist? And I said, oh no, here we go again. And I said, yes I am. And he threw his arms open wide and said, welcome to Romania. I didn't know it, but Titus and Gabi, my dear friends over here, were waiting at the border to meet me. It was such a wonderful reception. I went into a place. Where the glory of God is. For 45 years, when a child enters the school, he has been taught Marxism, atheism, and scientific evolution. My generation, the post-World War II generation, has been taught all of their lives, there is no God, and they have been brainwashed with that teaching. But I want to tell you, in Romania, the Spirit of God has been resting in many of the churches in that nation for many years. In the early 1970s, there was a pastor whose license was taken away for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was not allowed to preach. And what does a preacher do when he can't preach? Well, I'll tell you what he did. He prayed. And he became a man of intercessory prayer. And he was later allowed to preach. He pastored the church that Titus is a member of, the Second Baptist Church of Oradea. And while he pastored there, he did two things. You see, in Romania, the believers, the evangelical believers, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, and the Brethren, and an evangelical branch of the Orthodox Church called the Lord's Army, they are called repenters. And he began to preach that the repenters must repent. And secondly, he began to teach the people to pray and call for prayer within the life of the church. And the people began to pray. And the Spirit of God began to move. And that church in Oradea became the fastest growing and is perhaps, if not the largest, one of the largest Baptist churches, one of the largest evangelical churches on the entire continent of Europe. And in the midst of persecution, it grew. I remember before the revolution took place, the last time I preached a crusade in Titus' church, I preached one night. Every seat was taken. People were standing down the aisles. The doors were open. People were outside in the streets in sub-zero temperatures. And I preached. Atheists were converted to Christ. There were the daughter of the colonel and the Securitate. The secret police was converted to Christ. Jews were converted to Christ. Many people gave their hearts to Jesus. And after the service, a man came to me. And he said to me, he said, Sammy, did the Lord work? I said, what do you mean? Didn't you see how many people were here? Didn't you see the people who gave their hearts to Christ? And he said, you don't understand. While you were preaching, I was in a room with 100 men and we were praying the whole time you were preaching. And there was another room with 100 women and they were praying the whole time you were preaching. It's that kind of prayer that has brought the glory of God to the nation of Romania. When I went in after the revolution, at the close of the revolution that took place, Titus was talking today at lunch and he said, I don't like to call it a revolution. A revolution is something that's planned. This was not planned. It was the sovereign hand of God that moved on the nation of Romania. Romania is different from the other countries. I travel all through Eastern Europe and people ask me, can the revival, can the revolution happen in Romania? And I said, not without bloodshed because the security forces were so harsh and so fierce and so cruel in Romania that I knew that Ceaușescu would never allow it. A reformed Hungarian pastor was going to be arrested. Men, women, and children in the city of Timișoara went to his home and circled around his home to protect him from the arrest of the Securitate. They fired on men, women, and children. They began to kill the population. And the blood of innocent children flowed in the streets of Timișoara. And when that blood flowed in the streets of Timișoara, that blood cried all the way to heaven and the very wrath of God was unleashed on the cruel dictatorial regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. And the people took to the streets. Children stood in the face of tanks. Children stood in the face of machine guns. It was hopeless. And the people knew it was hopeless. But I want to tell you something. The spirit of God moved on that country and a revolution erupted that was spiritual in nature. And the people took the country. And when the television station was taken in Bucharest, the first words that came over the television station were these words, Dumne zeo este cunoi, which means God is with us. Pastor Peter Dugulescu, the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Timișoara, in the middle of the revolution with hundreds of thousands of people on the street, with 200,000s of people gathered in the square, Pastor Peter Dugulescu went and stood and preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he was interrupted by shouts of Există Dumnezeu, Există Dumnezeu, there is a God, there is a God, there is a God. And the head of atheism was cut off from the nation of Romania. And the cloud that has been over the nation where the masses have been taught there is no God was cut off. When Pastor Dugulescu finished preaching, 200,000 people knelt in the square of Timișoara and prayed with him the Lord's Prayer. God moved mightily in those days. Some Christian singers went to the streets and began to teach the people a song about the second coming of Christ. And the second coming of Christ became the theme song of the revolution in Timișoara. I went just not long after the revolution, I was in Timișoara and teachers and I went there to visit some of our friends. And I told Peter, the pastor of the First Baptist Church, I'd like to do an interview with you on video. And so we took our video camera and we were going to interview him. And so we were interviewing him. And as we were talking back and forth, crowds of people began to gather around. And as the crowds began to gather around, I asked Peter, I said, Peter, can I preach? He said, this is the new Romania, why not? And I said, amen, and I began to preach. And as I began to preach, I sensed the same thing that had happened during the days of the revolution as the cry from the crowds of the people gathered around us was there is a God, there is a God, there is a God. I preached the gospel and asked everyone to bow their heads and many prayed to receive Jesus Christ that day on the streets of the square of the revolution in Romania. And after they prayed to receive Christ, the entire crowd began to chant, God is with us, God is with us, God is with us. And oh, ladies and gentlemen, I want to say to you, God so deeply touched my heart and moved on my life in those days that I've just come back from. As you can tell, my voice is extremely weak. I've been, for the last several weeks, been preaching about three times a day. But I want to tell you something, folks, God is at work in our world. And the glory of God is moving. I left there and went to Columbia, Bogota, and preached a national conference for pastors and Christian leaders. They called me and they asked me back last July if I would come for a city-wide meeting in Bogota. And then in September they said, Sammy, our situation in Columbia is desperate. Would you come? And it was a meeting on prayer and spiritual awakening. They said, would you come to Bogota and would you make this a nationwide conference? Could we make it a nationwide conference on prayer and revival? And I said, yes, we can make it a nationwide conference. I went there on Monday, Sunday and Monday, I preached of last week. On Tuesday, I preached and we prayed for a particular people group in that nation. And then that afternoon, I went walking with a friend of mine and we went out for a brisk walk and we were commenting to one another, why Columbia, there's, well, you know, what's everybody upset about Columbia for? And when we came back, we found out that on the news that within two blocks of where we had had lunch that day, they found the Mercedes Benz with 1,100 pounds of dynamite ready to go off. The Bible Society in Columbia was blown up just a few weeks ago. On Wednesday, we met together and after my first session that morning, we all gathered together and evangelical leaders from every denomination joined hands and for about an hour, we prayed for the drug cartel and we prayed that God would work a miracle to stop all of the senseless killings. That was Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon, the drug cartel sent a letter, a formal letter to the government saying we're ready to stop our killings and they released four hostages. I received a paper this morning from the Houston Post that was published on Thursday following that saying, the drug cartel concedes defeat in Columbia. Folks, I want to tell you something. Our God today is a God who answers prayer and our God is ready to work. Our God is the same yesterday, today and forever and the God of Romania is the God who can work in our own country and I believe that we have let evil run rampant for too long and we need to go before the throne of God and we need a prayer movement to sweep this nation that will turn back the forces of evil in this country and if we are going to reach America and Oklahoma with the gospel of Jesus Christ and the light of God is going to penetrate our cities, we must have revival and in order to have revival, we must be a people of prayer. If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to Judges chapter six. Judges chapter six and beginning with verse one. The Bible says some interesting things and while you're turning there, let me give you a little background on this passage. From the time of Joshua until the time of Gideon, there was a pattern that developed in the lives of the children of Israel. If you remember Joshua, young Joshua who had studied at the feet of Moses and young Joshua who had been used of God to cross the river Jordan with the children of Israel. He had gone into the promised land and city after city after city after city was taken for the glory of God. But we find that between the time of Joshua and the time of Gideon, there is a pattern that develops in the life of the nation of Israel and this is the pattern. The children of Israel become apathetic and they always sin and they go into sin and sin pervades the people of God and then sin leads to suffering and as they suffer, finally after a period of time, they begin to seek the face of God and when they seek the face of God, then they see the salvation of God and here's the pattern. Sin always produces suffering. Suffering brings people to seeking God and the seeking of God brings the salvation of God and you find this cyclic pattern in the life of the nation of Israel and so it is in the book of Judges chapter six. Let's read together beginning with verse one. Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian and the power of Midian prevailed against Israel. Because of Midian, prevail against Israel. Because of Midian, the sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. Now before we continue reading, just consider this. Here these people are. They are the children of God. They are God's special people. They are God's chosen people and now they are living in a sub-normal existence. They are living in the caves. They are living in the dens. They are living not the way the people of God were intended to live. They are living a sub-normal existence and I believe that most of the church of Jesus Christ in America today is living a sub-normal existence. And how did they get there? Well, it's interesting. I hear a lot of talk about the devil today and we'll deal with that a little later. But I want to tell you something, folks. The devil cannot do anything except God allow him to do it. And the Bible says right here, it's an interesting thing in verse 1. The Bible says, Then the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian. God turned them over to Midian. God just turned them over. Now, God allows suffering and pain and hurt and evil many times in our world that it might be his instrument in turning us from our sin in order that we might now seek the face of God. And it's many times when we talk about revival, I find that in America today, there is a strange idea about what revival is. I.S. Hessian says, Roy Hessian said that he experienced the revival in Kenya in East Africa. And when he came back to Britain, his own country, he said he came back there and people had the strangest idea of revival He said they thought that revival was the top blowing off. He said it's not the top blowing off, it's the bottom falling out. Because when the bottom falls out, we need God. We need God. And you see, what we've defined revival today is the spectacular, the super, the big flashy stuff. And I want to tell you something, folks, when revival comes, when revival comes to America, it may not come through the flashy and the splashy, it may come through the bottom falling out. I have news for you also. You may not know it yet, but the bottom's already falling out in America. Had a radio announcer interviewing me over one of my books, he asked me, he said, Sammy, what's the difference in the church in Romania and the church in America? And this was my response to him. I said, you see, the church in Romania is a needy, hurting church. And they know it. The church in America is a needy, hurting church. We just don't know it yet. And there's something about what happened in this passage of Scripture that grips my heart. Notice what the Bible says down in verse six. It says, so Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried unto the Lord. You see, Israel was desperate. Israel was hurting. Israel got so low that there was no other place for them to turn. They had to turn to God. They were a needy people, and they knew that they were a needy people, and there was nowhere else that they could go. The only place that they could go was to God. Now, revival is simply a manifestation of the life and the glory of God. And that's why a prayer movement always precedes revival. A prayer movement is simply the seeking of the face of God. And if you want to know what revival, there's going to have to be this desperate, this desperate seeking of God. Now, I know as I preach on prayer and as I talk about prayer, I hear you saying amen, and the people in your church will say amen. We need to pray. Prayer is a part of the Christian life. But folks, I'm afraid we haven't gotten desperate yet. We really haven't gotten desperate. And if we're going to see revival, we're going to have to get desperate in our praying. We're going to have to see that there is no other hope. You see, what we've done is we've filled ourselves with comforts and conveniences that the hurt doesn't hurt so bad. And we've sort of filled ourselves with a comfortable Christianity in the Western world where we don't sense our desperation. We're desperate. We just don't sense the desperation because we've inoculated ourselves to it but by the comforts and the conveniences. I tell you something, in the United States today, we do not have a lack of great preachers. Some of the best Bible expositors I've ever heard are in this country. We do not have a lack of great musicians. We have some of the greatest musicians I've ever heard. We don't have a lack of technology. We are on the cutting edge in the world of technology. There is not a church anywhere in the world that has the technology like the Christian church in the United States of America. We do not have a lack of technology. We do not have a lack of buildings. And you say, oh, Sammy, you haven't seen my building. You haven't seen the buildings that I've been in and I've preached in. We don't have a lack of buildings. We've got some of the best facilities in all of the world. I tell you what we have a lack of. We have a lack of the knowledge of God. We have a lack of people who have the mark of God on their souls. And can you see how desperate we are? Can you see how desperate we are for the first time in the history of this nation? The sins of evangelical Christians have been written across the headlines of every major newspaper in America. You say, but Sammy, that's not Baptist. That's not what's happening with the Baptist. I wish to God that the same kind of sins were not going on in the life of our Baptist people. But I hate to tell you, we've got as much sleazy stuff going on as anybody else. And there's as much adultery and lust and fornication in our churches as anywhere else. No, we're desperate. We're desperate. But when are we going to see how desperate we are? You say, oh, I'm desperate. You are? Well, let me ask you this question. Do you know what happened when they got desperate in the Bible? Let's go back to the Scriptures. See what happened when they got desperate. Verse 6 says this, So Israel was brought very low because of Midian, and the sons of Israel cried unto the Lord. When they got desperate, they began to seek the face of God in a fresh way, in a new way. Do you know why I can stand here and with all of my heart speak with conviction that we are not desperate? Because the poorest attended meeting in a Baptist church in the United States of America is the prayer meeting. And we can get crowds. We can bring in singing groups and superstars, and we can get people in attendance. But you call a prayer meeting and nobody shows up. And I'll tell you something, folks. If we're going to have revival, we're going to have to get so desperate that we're going to begin to seek God in prayer in a new way, in a fresh way. And I want to issue a call to Oklahoma Baptists today if we're going to see the glory of God in our land, in this state, in our churches, in our own lives. There must be a spirit of prayer that sweeps over the people of God that we begin to call unto the Lord in a desperate way where we see that God is our only hope. When we see that happen, we'll begin to experience revival. Oh, I tell you, as I travel to different parts of the world, I see something happening. It's historic. The gospel of Jesus Christ has gone from Western Europe and North America around the world. But I want to tell you something, folks. The great thrust of the gospel going around the world is not from North America and Western Europe today. Don't kid yourself. The great thrust of evangelism are coming from third world countries, are coming from countries that are poor, countries that are needy, countries that are hurting. Friend of mine, evangelist friend of mine just returned from Korea and he told me, he said, Sammy, the Korean Baptists have plans to send missionaries to the United States. I want you to know God's not so impressed with our beautiful buildings and I thank God for them. He's not so impressed with our great abilities and skills to speak and all of this stuff. I want to tell you what God's looking for, hungry, desperate hearts for him. And he said, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. And if we're to see the righteousness and the glory of God return to this land, we're going to have to seek God. We're going to have to be hungry for God. We're going to have to be thirsty for God himself. And when we get to wanting God and desiring God more than we want anything else, then we will see the glory of God. In 1987, I attended a conference in Singapore and I met a couple of young men. They were leaders of the Baptist movement there in a place called Nagaland. Some of you may not know where Nagaland is. It's perhaps the greatest evangelical revival in all of the world today. And God has moved in the mid 1800s, Baptist missionaries went to Nagaland, brought the gospel of Jesus Christ there. Some people received it, but it was a very small minority. And in Nagaland, if you go to Nagaland today, you would go and you'd find a big city and then you would find outside that big city, a small city. And the small city is where the Christians live because they were run out of the big city. The Naga people, the Naga people are an animist group of people, they are head hunters. And they worship in a form of animism. And in the 1950s, there was great political strife and turmoil in that part of India, in that far eastern region of India. And the Naga people thought that they would be exterminated and many of them ran and literally lived in the forest. And while they were in the forest, those few Christians began to call on the name of God. They got so desperate, they saw that they had no hope except that God be with them and they began to call on God. And as God sent revival to the Naga people, they began to proclaim the message of Christ. And many, many people came to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. The revival lasted for about four years and then it began to wane. And then in the mid 1970s, because of the volatility of the situation, people from the outside are not allowed into Nagaland. But in the mid 1970s, 1976, Billy Graham was given a visa for 24 hours. He went in and preached the gospel and the spark of revival took off again. I spoke with one of the young men who gave me his testimony as to what had happened to him. And this is what he told me. He said, Sammy, he said, one night, one Friday evening, I was going out and he said, I was going to drink some wine with my friends. And he said, some friends came down the road and my friends, when they came, instead of having wine bottles, they had Bibles. And they began to witness to me and they asked me, they said, if you were to die right now, do you have the assurance you'd go to heaven? And he said, no, I don't. And they witnessed to him. They brought him into a little widow's house, stayed there praying with him until two in the morning when he finally gave his heart to Christ. He said, the next Monday morning, we went to school. And at school, we went in and at the recess period, we led 200 people to Jesus Christ. He said, God began to move into our school until the entire student body had been converted to Christ. He said, school got out at 2.30, but none of us ever got home before 7.30. Because when school let out, we prayed from 2.30 until 7.30 every day. And the revival began to spread and the revival began to move throughout the city. They began to bring the message of Christ to the other schools. And as they did, the Lord moved mightily. The entire population came under a sense of the presence of God. Came under a sense of the presence of God. He said that rock groups that were called the blood suckers had been converted to Christ and changed their names to the living waters. God moved throughout Nagaland. And today in Nagaland has perhaps one of the highest percentages of an evangelical population of anywhere in the world, between 80 and 90% of the entire population claim to have a born again conversion experience with Jesus Christ. God has moved in that nation. I asked him, I said, what's it like in the revival? What's it like there? What's it like in the churches? He said, there are two great characteristics of the revival. He said, the first characteristic is the characteristic of praise. He said, I don't know how it started, but in our Baptist churches, before we sing a song, we shout three times, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. And when we finish singing, we shout three times, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. And there's a great sense of praise and worship among the people. He said, the second thing is this, that there's a deep sense of prayer. With every church building and auditorium, there is a small building adjacent to it. And the small building is the intercessory prayer building. And day and night, every day of the week, you can find people in that intercessory prayer building praying and fasting and weeping for the glory of God in the nation. We've read about it in history and we preach about it. But folks, I want to tell you something. The God of history is the God who is making history today. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be on the sidelines of history. I want to be a history maker. But if you're going to be a history maker, you're going to have to be a man. You're going to have to be a woman who seeks the face of a holy God. They got so desperate. Israel became so low that they cried unto the Lord. So I ask you today, have you gotten desperate enough that prayer is the priority of your ministry? That prayer is the priority of your church? That prayer is the priority of your personal life? Let me define prayer and let me define revival and then I'll close. Martin Lloyd-Jones gave perhaps the best definition of revival that I've ever heard. He said this. He said revival is when God is known as God. Revival in your life is when you begin to realize and experience God as God. Revival in your church is when your church comes under a new awareness that God, He is God. Revival in your community is when that community is open to the awareness of God as being God. Revival in a nation like Romania comes when the nation is under the awareness that God, He is with, He is God. Now in order to be aware of God, you need to understand what prayer is. Prayer is intimacy with God. Prayer is intimacy with God. It's not just asking Him to bless me and bless this and bless that. It's getting to know God. And that's why prayer and revival always go hand in hand because prayer is intimacy of fellowship with God and as you get to know God, as you get to know God, you experience revival. And that's why the sovereign hand of God moves in the affairs and the history of mankind. He moves to bring us to the place where we see our need for God. The church that is in a position to experience revival is the church that is desperate and says, I need God. The pastor, the church worker, the church leader that is in a position to see revival is that pastor or worker or leader that says, Oh God, I'll be a failure without you. I need you. And I tell you, when we get in that desperate position, we'll see revival because prayer is the branding iron of God. Prayer is bringing us into that place where we see and know God, that the mark of the character of God is placed on our souls. I tell you, the church in this generation needs anything. We need men and women in leadership who are men and women of integrity. D.L. Moody said that character is what you are in the dark. And you see, you can do all sorts of public things, but when you're in the dark and when you're alone and nobody else is around, God knows. And the Bible says that he who sees in secret, those who seek him in secret will be rewarded publicly. It may take 45 years like in Romania, but I want to tell you what, the glory will come. The glory will come. What God's called us to do is to be faithful seekers of Himself. That we might become men and women of character and men and women of integrity. And when that happens, the glory of the Lord will fill the house of God. The glory of the Lord will fill the people of God. And the ministers of God will be ministers of flame. We need God. That's the need of this generation. Let's pray together. O God, O God, work in our hearts a sense of desperation for You. And Your sovereign moving and working. I pray that You would bring us to the end of ourselves. That we would seek You in a fresh way, in a new way. That we would get to know You and that in getting to know You we would be able to make You known to our lost world. O God, in this hour, in this moment, in this conference, visit us, I pray. Lord, let it not just be another conference. But God, let us meet with You in such a way that we go back to our churches different men and women. Broken, desperate, seeking Your face and that that fire would be caught throughout the churches of Oklahoma. Thank You, Father, for what You're going to do. In Jesus' name, amen.
A Vision of Revival
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Sammy Tippit (1947–present). Born in 1947 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sammy Tippit is an American Southern Baptist evangelist, author, and founder of Sammy Tippit Ministries (originally God’s Love In Action), established in 1970. Converted to Christianity in August 1965 at age 18, he began preaching soon after, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1968. That year, he married Debara “Tex” Sirman, with whom he has two children, Dave and Renee, and five grandchildren. Tippit’s early ministry in Chicago’s high-crime districts targeted gangs and addicts, earning him a role in the Jesus Movement. He preached globally, infiltrating the 1973 Communist Youth World Fest in East Berlin and holding Romania’s first evangelistic stadium crusade in 1990 post-revolution. His crusades in war-torn Burundi, post-genocide Rwanda, and Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa (1999, with 300,000 attendees) spread hope. Tippit authored 18 books, including The Prayer Factor (1988), a bestseller in Brazil and Mongolia’s first Christian book, Unashamed: A Memoir of Dangerous Faith (2018), and Twice a Slave (2014), a historical novel. Since 2016, he has used Skype and social media for evangelism, reaching millions monthly across 12 languages. Based in San Antonio, Texas, he was inducted into the Southern Baptist Evangelists’ Hall of Faith in 2024. Tippit said, “Prayer is the key to seeing God’s power transform lives.”