In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the lack of desperation and unbelief among Christians. He uses the example of a man trapped in a sinking car, crying out for help, to illustrate the level of desperation that should be present in our prayers. The preacher then discusses the importance of daring intercession, which begins with desperation and a refusal to settle for anything less than what God has promised. He encourages believers to take hold of God and seek revival and souls being saved, rather than being focused on personal satisfaction and comfort.

Well, it's so good to be back with you tonight. I want to mention we have a few of our bi-monthly newsletters. My brother called me a pastor, and I guess I do still have a pastor's heart, but I'm in full-time revival work now. We started, launched out about a year ago, this time last year, and have been very busy ever since. And if you're interested in just getting some information on how to pray for us, it's on the back table back there. Tomorrow night we'll have a few books that I was able to bring with me in my suitcase. I usually bring a truckload of books full of goodies. What do you mean, preacher? The kind of books that drive you to your knees. The kind of books that you'll read the rest of your life and never live up to what's written. The majority of books that are written these days are so light and frothy that a devil could live up to it. Do you know why the books are light and frothy these days? Because they're written by people who don't know God, the way the old writers did. And we need some people that have been tried and tested and who are so burdened that what they write comes out of the travail of prayer. And every word's written down by God. So when you read the words, they grip your soul. And I'm convinced that you determine the greatness of a person by two things. By the people they choose to fellowship with and the books they read. Amen? That's right. And the book they read. This is the main thing. But there are books that help you understand this book. And there are people you need to get around with because they'll rub off on you. Yes. I like to get around people that are about 20 years down the road, further down the road than me. Why? Because they show me where I've got to go. I don't get satisfied, complacent, dead, lukewarm. They get me under conviction. I've got some friends, they're prophets. What are they? People who won't tell you what you don't want to hear. But they're good for you. If you always hang around people with a gift of mercy, you'll never get under conviction. That's why prophets are so misunderstood. Amen. But we need all the gifts. Don't get me wrong. If you've got the gift of mercy, exercise it and thank God for it. But mercy must kiss with truth to be balanced. That's what it says in Psalm. Mercy and truth have kissed. That means you've got to have truth and speak truth and love, but still be merciful to people. And I'm so grateful for your presence. I appreciate you praying. How's your faith tonight? I'll ask that every night. The brother asked me how's my faith. It's a little still, but that's enough to get by. Faith of a mustard seed can drop mountains out of the way. Faith is the hinge that the door of Christianity swings on. Faith is the hinge that the door of Christianity... How will you say? By grace through what? Works or faith? Faith. And I'm grateful. Sometime this week, I will be sharing in one of my messages, my personal testimony. I haven't had the liberty to do it today. For some reason, God's holding me off. But I will be sharing how God, a little over 17 years ago, saved this young man in one of the awfulest messes you ever got into. Long hair streaming down to here. Smoking pot till my fingers went brown. Snorting cocaine till my nose would bleed in the morning. Even got involved in demonic worship. On the bed of suicide. And God saved me out of that mess. Set my feet upon a rock. Put a new song in my mouth. Even praised and cheered our God. And many have seen it and feared and trusted in the Lord. And I think Paul shared his testimony before he went. And I think it's good to rehearse what God's done for you, so you realize where you came from. Sometimes if you've gone a little way with God, you think you're something. And God has to remind me, Son, look how far you've gone. And it's all because of what I did for you. And there are people all over this city. I took the opportunity this afternoon to exercise a little and walk up the street. And I said, Lord, I wonder how many people on this street and in this city need Jesus. I just wonder, oh God, who's travailing and praying for this crowd. There's some charley oars in this city. They could care less about God than if you told them. If you told me about Jesus, I would say you're looking at Him. That's how mean I was. I'm surprised God didn't strike me dead with a lightning bolt. You know why? Because I was a sinner. He understands that a man's heart's desperately wicked. But see, when the Holy Spirit comes, a lost man doesn't have any problem finding out where he stands before God. And I'm so grateful for Jesus tonight. And just be praying much this week and believing much, calling people up and making sure you're here. The night you miss may be the night God shows up. Wouldn't that be awful? But I've got to play out my garden, preacher. Do it before you get here. Get your spotlight and do it after church. Amen? I mean, listen, pay the cost and be here. I believe we're going to see a marvelous moving of the Spirit of God. Now tonight, let's open our Bibles to the book of Isaiah, chapter 64 tonight. Isaiah, chapter 64 tonight is our text. And I want us to look at this subject tonight, there's none that stirreth up himself to take a hold of God. There's none that stirreth up himself to take a hold of God. The prophet Isaiah is writing, O that thou wouldest rent the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence. When thou didst terrible things which we look not for, thou camest down, and the mountains flow down at thy presence. I want you to notice three times in the first three verses, the prophet Isaiah uses this term, at thy presence. Twice he says, when thou camest down. You know, folks, you know what we need more than breath tonight? You know what we need tonight more than good preaching and good singing? We need the presence of God to meet here. Have you come here to meet with God? You know, a lot of people come to church, they come to get entertained. They come to get their back scratched and their ears tickled. They come to preach or make me feel good. How can you make somebody feel good that God wants to discomfort? Amen? Had a couple come to me in the church I pastored, and oh, I could tell they had bad rapport. And they said, preacher, we just want to let you know that we're praying about going to another church. And I said, oh. Yeah, preacher, every time we come to church, we feel awful. Well, that really makes you feel real good. Now, if I didn't know them well enough, I got real concerned, but I knew that there was a movement of God, and I knew there was a crowd seeking God, and I knew there was a crowd really on fire, and I knew their lines. And I said, well, you know, you've just got to do what you've got to do, but Jesus never flattened the flesh, and I'm not either. And if someone can't feel comfortable in our church, they best go to somewhere where they can, where they have icicles from the ceiling, and you can ice skate down the aisles. Amen? And the prophet Isaiah is saying, I want to seek the presence of God because only the presence of God can get spiritual things done. And what we've done in this country, we have manipulated people to do things in the flesh that only God can get them to do that last. We've emotionalized people rather than spiritualized people. Now, notice what else he says, for since the beginning of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath I seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared to him that waited for Him. Thou meetest him that rejoices and worketh righteousness, those that remember Thee in Thy ways. Notice who meets God. The one that's rejoicing, the one that's working righteousness, and the one that's remembering God in His ways. That's the kind of people who meet God. Behold, thou art wroth or angry. We have sinned, and in those is continuance. We shall be saved. We are all as an unclean thing. All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We all fade like a leaf. Our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take a hold of Thee, for Thou hast hid Thy face from us. Thou hast consumed us because of our iniquities. But now, O Lord, Thou art our Father. We are the clay. Thou art our potter. And we are the work of Thy hand. Now, I want you to notice what He said in verse number 7. There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take a hold of Thee. Now, what is the prophet Isaiah saying? The prophet Isaiah is simply saying this. In order to gain God's presence, in order to get God down in our presence, there's going to have to be somebody that pays the price to get a hold of God to the point that God knows we mean business, and then that's when he'll throw the switch of heaven. And it's a price to be paid to get a hold of God because you just don't walk into the presence of God. I was in this deacon's house several weeks ago and he fixed me up a big hamburger dinner and he was back slidding as his dog, just to be honest. Now, I'm just being honest. This fellow, he wasn't a bit of God all over, but he was a nice fellow. He said, you can be nice and not be spiritual. That's our trouble. We want nice people. Well, and the preacher said, we're going to have a prayer meeting. I got pretty excited about that. I said, praise God. About five or six men around that table. We'd had a little meal together and this deacon said, well, let me lead us in prayer. He prayed about five minutes and he asked God to bless the sick and the shut-ins, those who couldn't have been in service the other Sunday, to bless the pastor and his family and the best of the men, and then in one sentence he said, and God bless our revival meeting. Amen. Can you imagine trying to? God didn't even bother to hear that. By the way, he took his vacation early because the heat got hot in the kitchen and he would have had to repent. Let us pray together. Lord, in the name of Jesus, remove any distraction. Move upon this service with such power that they will know that Thou art God. Grab us deep in our souls, God, and drive us to Thyself tonight. Give us the gift of repentance. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen. A. W. Toza wrote in one of his books, and I would encourage you to read as many of A. W. Toza's books, especially, The One Pursuit of God. But in the book called The Root of Righteousness, A. W. Toza makes this statement. What we need today in the church is a baptism of seeing clearly. A baptism of seeing clearly. And folks, I believe there's so much spiritual fog, spiritual substitute, spiritual deception in the church today that if God showed up in most churches, they'd swear up and down as the devil. Why? Because when God comes down, God messes up your rose garden. God pulls the garbage lid off the garbage cans of our lives and shows us the hell in our hearts. God shows us what's not of Him and shows us what is of Him. What we've got today in America is man-centered religion. Not God-centered religion, but man-centered religion. What do you mean, preacher? We've got a religion that man gets satisfied with. How do we get people saved? Well, let me tell you seven things Jesus will do for you. And most people say, well, tell me one more and then I might get saved. Do you know why? Because Jesus has become an addition rather than the whole sum. How can Jesus make me happy? Let me tell you how Jesus can make you happy. Let me tell you how Jesus can get you to heaven. Let me tell you how Jesus can thrill your life. Folks, here's how you get them saved. Tell them how dirty and rotten and filthy and ungodly and hellbound they are. And I tell folks, it's a miracle that God's even talking to you, friend. And you can't do a thing to save yourself and God won't save you unless you totally surrender to Him. He won't bother messing with you if you're not willing to repent and to believe on Him as Savior and Lord and let Him absolutely be the master of your life. He won't bother talking to you. And then I tell them what He did for somebody as sorry as that. Then when people get saved that way, they make God the center of their life rather than themselves. Most people come to a church and say, what can the church do for me? What kind of program have you got, preacher? Have you got a softball team? How's your singing? Do you have trips for the senior citizens? What do you have for the youth? Rather than saying, listen, the reason I'm joining here, preacher, is because I want to be a servant of Jesus Christ and serve Him. And get behind you and follow you, preacher, and see revival and souls get saved. That's what I want, preacher. Most people, if you don't pacify them and satisfy them and burp them and pat them on the back, they leave. I'll preach on that one night on spiritual emphasy. Amen? We'll get to that one night. It's time to grow up. I've got one son. Get us all under the pew. It's time to grow up. What we want today is recreation rather than agonization. What we want today is entertainment rather than energization of the Spirit. What we've got today are people who want to have their own way rather than God's way. And most people have no concept of true spiritual prosperity, do they? Most people think nickels and noses prospers the church. The devil will give you both of those friends. He'll give you crowds and he'll give you money as long as you don't miss in his kingdom. Most churches I go in, I get a little discouraged when I go to big churches. Why? Because they don't need God. A friend of mine, a dear revival speaker, went to this church. They baptized over 200 years. Ran 1,500 Sunday school. Just built a 1.5 million dollar building. Paid cash for it. Lovely choir, beautiful singing, great preaching. And my friend got in the pulpit and said, Folks, I'm pretty impressed. Just paid cash for this building. He baptized 200 years. Got a full crowd. Got a good preacher. Got a good choir. You folks don't even need God, do you? It's rare that you walk in a church where folks say, If we don't have God today, we're dead. And here's the prophet Isaiah saying, There's somebody that needs to stir himself up to take a hold of God. How can we stir ourselves up to take a hold of God? The first thing, we've got to see our desolate condition. Our desolate condition. And he says, There are three ways we see it. Verse 5 and 6 gives us the first. Verse 6 really, We are all as an unclean thing. All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. We all fade like a leaf. Our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. You know what he says? First of all, we've got to see the depth of our sinfulness. Now, he makes some pretty bold terms in the Hebrew here. We're like an unclean thing. He's talking about an unclean animal that they wouldn't eat. And, you know, there are certain animals that if you ate, they'd shrivel up and down and you'd die from them. We're all like a filthy rag. That's talking about a rag that went around the arm of a leper. And they'd wrap that rag up and the pus and all that watery stuff would come down in there and would crust up. And it would get so hard that when you pulled the rag off, you know what would happen? The stench would make you throw up. One time I picked up a hitchhiker when I was in college. And that was the back of the days where you could pick them up without getting killed. Amen. You don't pick them up now. You might get killed. I would if God told me to, but my wife told me if I did, she's going to leave me. So I don't know what to do. No, I'm just kidding. Well, me and this fellow were going to a rock concert. We picked this fellow up. He had long hair and the minute he got in the car, he had this suitcase. We knew we were in trouble. Why? Because he smelled like a goat. Obviously, he hadn't bathed in two months. We had to roll down the windows and that didn't help a bit. I was going... We made about three eggs and had to let that dude out. Amen. I can still smell it. It ain't making me sick. Think about it. Amen. Now think about this, folks. When we begin to see our sins as stench in the nostrils of God, we might do something about it. How in the world can we live with lukewarmness? How can we live with prayerlessness? How can we live with bitterness? How can we live with selfishness? How can we live not in the Lordship of Christ? I'll tell you why. Because we are not being convicted of our sins. And when we are, we buck up and say, well, I want my way and God's way. But you can't have both. Folks, we're in an age and a time where there's pride and pretense and pollution in the church. You hear about a preacher falling about every week. I can tell you some horror stories and some things I've seen break out in churches of things that come out of people's lives you would not even know was there. The sensuality, the materialism, the religion in America, the rebellion. Do you know there are over 30 million avowed homosexuals in America that march up and down the street and say it's okay for a man to rub his whiskers and that's another man? Rock music's rampant. A multi-billion dollar drug scene. The sexual scene. And folks, we're sitting here in the house of God with the answer to life and what we're doing, we don't have enough power to blow the wings all night because we don't believe sin has a sting of death. We're satisfied with the devil's blessings. And that fellow said, somebody's got to stir because sin has grabbed the hope of God's people. Brother asked me, he said, do you know of any place where revival's stirring in this country? I don't know of a place right now. Revival's simply normal Christian living, folks. That's just normal. We had a breakout of God in a Christian school last week on Thursday. I couldn't even preach. God got in that thing and had kids lining up weeping and crying and hugging and praying and getting right. And I said, folks, this is just normal. And they looked at me funny. This is the way it ought to be all the time. Folks, we haven't seen anything normal because if somebody's normal, we think they're abnormal. Their sinfulness, number two, their prayerlessness, there is none that calleth upon thee. Now, boy, during the Persian Gulf War, this country went to praying. Even liberal denominations started praying. In fact, in Hagerstown, Maryland, they had a prayer vigil on a Sunday night where 1,500 people held hands with candles around the lake and prayed for victory in the Persian Gulf. You know what I told my crowd? God's not even out there. What do you mean? How can somebody who doesn't believe in the deity of Christ even pray in the blood atonement? How can people who are not right with God not even pray? You know what we exhibited in America during the Persian Gulf War? A spirit of selfishness. What do you mean, preacher? Well, if somebody would have had enough sense, we ought to have prayed that thing got so bad that it dropped the bottom out economically so God would have got the attention of this country so people would have turned back to God. Now, what if your pastor would have stood up and said, folks, let's not pray for victory. Let's pray for war that lasts about two years so none of us have anything so everybody would start to seek God. Oh, I bet that would have made the front page of this paper. Amen? Yes, amen. I touched that a little bit, but I saw them all get kind of angry because their sons and daughters were over there. I said, folks, the reason God sent most of them over there to get their attention and they had more people saved over there than they've had many churches in America because folks were on the reality of death. And they were on fire, Christians, preaching and having prayer meetings and Bible studies and that crowd couldn't get any liquor in their system, they couldn't get any pornography because that country does have a certain amount of morality. Women dressed like women over there, amen, cover themselves up all over, right? And we're sitting here praying. You know what happened? The minute we won the war, you couldn't find a prayer meeting anywhere in that city. I told my crowd, folks, there's a war going on in this country, in this church, that's much greater than the Persian Gulf War and that's war for the souls. I mean, we can't see that because we're spiritually blind. You call a prayer meeting, you can't get a corporal's guard. You have a barbecue, you get everybody in the neighborhood out. I know of a church recently, I'm glad they shut it down after I was around there for a few days, they had a Halloween party. And the deacons told the preacher, well, Ken, there's a preacher, that's how we reach out to people. We had thousands of people come through here and they see our church. And they had demonic symbols and witches and stuff and all the kids dressed alike, demons and warlocks and came in there. I said, friend, you need to cleanse this building of demons and shut that thing down. I told them that week and the preacher said, we're not going to have it anymore. I said, how in the world can Jesus even show up in a church where the devil has three eminence? Halloween's a cultic. But my kids go trick or treating. You ought to study the history behind that junk. And see who you're worshipping that night when you do that. Oh, it's innocent. That's exactly how the devil operates in innocence. Our prayerlessness. Number three, our valuelessness. In three ways they had lost their value. First of all, they lost their communion. Verse number seven. There is none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take a hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from us. Now, I want to ask you a question. How valuable is somebody's life as far as spiritually when God's head has turned his back on him? When you and I lose our communion with God, we've lost touch with the one who keeps the spiritual. What if you walked into your house, sir, and for a whole month you spoke to your wife and your wife did like this. You asked her, what for supper? She'd go, mmm. You'd get in bed and the minute you got in bed she'd flip over like a pancake and go, pff. For a whole month. What if you called up on the phone and she'd say, hello? Hello, this is me, honey. Hang up the phone on you. How would you feel? You'd probably think she had another man. I wonder how Jesus feels where for months, because of our sins and our selfishness and our heart for the world, he has to turn his back on us and we can't even find him. Wouldn't it break your heart if your child ran away when they got to be 18, 17 or 18 and ran away and started living like the devil and every time you tried to reach out to them they wouldn't talk to you. Wouldn't that break your heart? I wonder how God's heart breaks when he's so close and yet you don't even say so many of you here and yet you don't even bother to even say hello Jesus every morning. How much less seek his face. A loss of communion. Number two, a loss of protection. Notice what it says in verse number seven. Thou hast consumed us because of our iniquities. Verse number nine. Be not wroth, very sore, O Lord, neither remember our iniquity. Behold, see we beseech thee, where are thy people? Our holy and beautiful cities where our fathers praised thee is burnt with fire and all of our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself from these things, O Lord? Wilt thou hold thy peace and afflict us very sore? You see, when you lose your communion you lose your protection and you lose your possessions. You know what happens? God takes the hedge of protection around you down. The devil can get to you and your children. The devil can get to your church. The devil can get to your city. The devil can get to your money. The devil can get to your health. When the hedge of protection is down, we're at the mercy of the devil. Now a church that's lost the communion with God, lost protection with God, and lost their possessions before, I'm talking about spiritual possessions too. That's not worth much value, is it? You know what Isaiah saw? Isaiah saw the thing that was so bad that somebody had to do some desperate praying and seeking. Bill McCloud made a statement. I think it's true. God's never blessed a church that wasn't marked by severe sacrifice. You know what most people think? How little can I do for God? What can I get by with? Don't we complain, well, look how much I'm doing for Jesus. Friends, we haven't even scraped the bottom of the barrel in sacrifice. We know nothing about it. We in America are pampered and spoiled and selfish and self-centered and we live for ourselves and when somebody talks about living for God, we've already got to figure it out exactly how much we can afford to give to Him and not hers. I want to ask you a question. Does this desperate condition get you upset? See, I had the privilege of going to different churches all over the country and I'll tell you folks, it's enough to make a man cry walking in these churches. Now yours is a lot better off than most, but you've got a long way to go. I'm letting you know. I'm not going to flatter you and try to make you feel good because that's not my role. But most of my... I said, you might as well put a tombstone in front of this church the preacher is dead. Oh, but we have lovely people, yeah, and full of themselves. I told the church the other Sunday morning, Easter Sunday morning, all the Easter lilies came out to bloom for one time of year. You know what I mean? And I said, folks, I'm going to preach this morning because it's the last time I'll see you and God will see you for a year. I said, you certainly are impressing God being dressed up the way you are being in the church. I said, you're so impressive that you can go to hell dressed up this way. Preacher, you made them mad. No, I shook them up. I had an Easter service at our church in Maryland about two years ago and a lady made a cross and put two nails in there and it looked like the blood was coming off. They were singing, I will glory in the cross. And God said, get that cross and march down the aisle and point to the cross and tell them about me. Huge crowd. I grabbed that cross and started weeping. I said, look to Jesus. Look what He did. Look at Jesus. You know, a bunch of folk got flying mad at me. Preacher's showing off. He's embarrassing us in front of all the visitors. A lady wrote me a hot letter. Told me what happened to her dear pastor. She knew. Losing his mind. Marching down the aisle weeping. There's the crowd shouting. They started getting in line behind me and shouting with me. Amen? What's wrong folks? We got a bunch of folks that don't want it. They don't want to repent. They don't want to pray. They don't want revival. They want to live like the devil and be blessed too. Folks, you can't have both today. You can't have it. You can't have God and the devil. You can't have God and money. You can either want all of God or none of God. People don't want to be disturbed, Preacher. Leave me alone, Preacher. Put a do not disturb sign on their heart. But I want to be blessed. God's always disturbing me. Waking me up. Shaking and rattling my cage. Getting around folk that make statements that make me feel like a dog. I don't want to be Why does He do that? Because He wants to make me and you like Jesus. He wants to make us productive. He wants to make us useful in His kingdom. He wants to be glorified through our lives. But folks, until we see the awful desolate condition of our churches in this country, nobody's going to wake up, Preacher, and seek the face of God. I'd like to go into a church one time on a Saturday night and drive up in front of the church and find about a hundred automobiles out in front and walk in the back door of the church and look down there and find about a hundred people weeping and crying and falling and say, Oh God, if you don't come down, God, if we don't have a revival, we're sunk. God, if you don't get ahold of us tonight, we're dead. Oh God, get that preacher, get him right with you. Fill him with the power of the Holy Spirit. Break him open like a double-barreled shotgun. Wring him out with the blood of Jesus and fill him up with the power of God and preach him. Oh God, preach him. Now you walk in and you can't find anybody to pray with you. And if you do, they're so full of unbelief and going through the motions that you wonder why they're even praying. And we say we're men and women of God. We say we're bought by the blood of Jesus. We say we mean it. Folks, we're thinking liars and thieves and we don't mean business. If we did, we'd be doing more to get this thing going. The desolate condition. Number two, the daring intercession. Here's a fellow that got daring. It begins with desperation. Notice, Oh, that thou wouldst rent the heavens. We beseech thee, oh Lord, oh God. Here's a crowd that absolutely want it bad enough they got desperate. Now, what happens when somebody gets desperate? They won't settle for anything less than what the product is. What if you went to the doctor tomorrow for a routine checkup and the doctor said, I've got some bad news. You're eating up cancer. And you've got three months to live. Well, you sit there and say, Well, thank you. And walk out. How are you doing, honey? Oh, just fine. I've just got a little tons of cancer all over my body. Everything will be just fine. I said, Let's go on vacation in two months. He said, I might be damned, but everything's just fine. Aren't you going back to the doctor? He said, No, I really don't believe he knows what he's talking about. You know, I just think I'll just, you know, I'll be fine. Everything's fine. What would you do if he said that? Probably emotionally you'd break down. And some of you have a nervous breakdown and begin to weep and cry. And say, Oh, my God. He'd say, What can I do, doctor? He said, Well, here's what I want you to do. You have to take radiation or you want to take chemotherapy or we might have to take this part of your body out. And he said, If we do that, you might live. And you'd call all your relatives. You'd call the preacher and say, Brother Jules, pray for me. Can you get the church to pray for me? Burn the prayer lines down. I'm going to die, preacher. I'm going to die. Oh, my God. What am I going to do? I'm going to die. My kids are going to lose me. I'm going to leave this world. You'd be absolutely consumed with the fact you had cancer. There's a cancer eating out the gut of people all over this country. It's called sin cancer. And God's people care less about getting the cure of the blood of Jesus on them because we don't see the true true condition. And I don't see desperation, preacher, in many people's lives. What you mean? The kind that won't let you cut on the TV set and won't let you eat for days and won't let you hardly think about anything but seeing God move in and you move your hobbies and you move your entertainment out of the way and you adjust your schedule to adjust to the whims of God. And you say, God, I'm not going to get away from you until you do something that absolutely honors your name because there's nothing around here that does it. Oh, God, we're desperate. No, you get around people that desperately usually aggravate you. Amen? Desperate people got to have it. If they don't have it, they're going to die. No, most people can live without revival. And if it comes, they're going to say, I wonder how long it's going to last this time. And that shows how desperate you are to get it. E.J. Davis, E.J. Daniels went to Korea a number of years ago before he died, that great evangelist. He walked in the Korean church and there were 150 people at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, two hours before service, crying and weeping and crying and weeping. And he said, he said, what are they praying about? He said, they're praying for America. Why are they praying for America? Because they know as long as America is true and strong to God and revived, that America is strong enough to protect them. He said, they've got tunnels on the DMZ zone and those North Koreans can come down and those communists can take hold of South Korea at any moment and they know America is the way to protect themselves. But they see America corroding and they said, go back to America and let them know we're praying for them because we see the church eroding to the place where God's getting angry at America. Folks, are you seeing in America the economic situation? Listen folks, when you can have corrupt politicians rip this nation off and they're still in Congress, homosexuals like that fellow from up in New York that had a call service out of his office for male prostitutes and he's still in Congress, folks, when you have people applauding rock musicians, applauding country music singers, applauding filthiness in America, bringing that stuff in the house, a God of all things. Folks, we need somebody that said, let's wake up tonight and get desperate enough to seek the face of God. Don't bother me, preacher. That's your problem, friend. You need to get saved and get woke up to the call of God and say, Revival's the only answer to this nation. As long as we've got our pockets full of money and health and our families well, we don't need God in this nation. Folks, if we don't see it coming in the next ten years, this nation's going to have its gut eaten out by sin. Why you want to age is getting into public schools. I talked to a public school official. They said he has two cases of AIDS in a small country county in West Virginia. It's God's judgment on the immoral nation. That's all it is. I wish somebody would tell it without getting Well, we're afraid we're going to fend the homosexuals. That crowd's reprobate anyway. And y'all have that crowd yelling at you. They got desperation. Number two, they're confession. You see, Isaiah got down to the fork and said, We all have sinned. We're in all as an unclean thing. All of our righteousness are as filthy rags. We do all fade like a leaf. Our iniquities like the wind take us away. You want to say, let's get down and get real with the word confession of sin. You can't pray to confess sin. That word confession means to agree with God. I get tickled and say, Lord, forgive us for all our sins. That just means somebody's not getting honest. I get tickled. These people say, Lord, and please forgive us for all of our sins. That shows me somebody hadn't gotten honest with God. You know what God tells me? He says, Preacher, that was an exaggeration. Preacher, you have bitterness in your heart. Preacher, you weren't honest. Preacher, you got angry for the wrong motive. Preacher, you said the wrong thing the wrong way. God nails it down. He calls one sin at a time and nails you on it and convicts you to get you to repent and do whatever you got to do to get under the blood of Jesus and then sometimes make restitution. Oh, but that would kill me. That's exactly what God wants to do is put you out of business so he'll be in business. But that's painful. That's exactly what Christianity is painful to the flesh. You know what keeps us from repenting? Pride. Pride. Confession. And when you confess, that means you'll go to any means to get right. Would you be willing this week if God spoke to you to go to somebody and ask them to forgive you? Do you come in here and say, Lord, if there's anything dirty and filthy in my life, God, show me a place I don't want to be unclean before you. I know of a girl in the church. She's a pastor's wife. Bless her heart. She said, the week before the revival comes, she always tries to confess as much as she can so she doesn't have to repent so much. You know what she's saying? I don't want to come clean of the real sin. So, during the meeting, God corralled in every revival meeting this girl without her salvation and most people let her off the hook what her real problem was. And the pastor came to me and said, my wife wants to talk to you. I said, brother, do I have your permission to get honest with her? Oh, sure, brother. Amen. Sure, brother. Amen. And so she came to me and was crying, you know, and she said, I don't think I'm saved. I said, oh, you're saved because she was saved. But her problem was she had another God who wasn't her. She was Miss Fashionplate, Miss Jane Fonda. She'd buy $100 worth of material and make her a $500 suit. And she had a lot of things in her life that were important to her and wasn't important to God. What did you tell her? I told her that. I said, I don't think you even have how can you know God when you're too busy running around doing your own thing? And I said, you have things in your life that I don't think God's very impressed with. What'd she do? She broke. But not to the degree where she repented. Well, she broke her, but she didn't repent. Why? Because she took a business trip two days later and went out of town doing her Bible. What'd you do? I just preached to all of them. Had that church down to 20, Brother Preacher, by Wednesday night, but God showed up. Sometimes you've got to get them down to 24, God's Bible's showing up. I said, what are you talking about? I'm talking about getting right with God, folks, where you get right and I get right and confess our sins. Get honest with the community. Get honest. Until we repent of our sins, God won't hear a prayer we pray. Then there's consecration. See, when you get right, who becomes your Father? God. Who becomes the potter? God. Who becomes the clay? Us. Have you ever said, you're the potter, we're the clay. What does that mean? We're nothing but a lump of clay in the hand of God. When we consecrate, we're so yielded to Him that whatever He wants to do with that clay, He has a right to. That means we quit having to say so. He has all rights. You know what that means? That means God can take these old earthen vessels and fill it with the excellency of His knowledge, of His glory. That means He can crush us if He wants to. He can throw us up against the wall. He can send us to Russia, Czechoslovakia, send us to this place. We don't have a right anymore. Yieldedness. Yieldedness to the purposes of God. Access to all of our lives, consecration, desperation, confession, consecration, then expectation. See, somebody that's yielded is in the position to get something from God that gives them faith. What does He say? For since the beginning of the world, men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath I seen. O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waited for him. This boy began to have faith. What do you mean? He began to say, listen, I'm expecting God to do something. But the circumstances dictate differently, preacher. That's what faith does. Faith says the circumstances isn't the real world. It's what God says is true. The Word of God is the truth. This world lies to us. What I see, feel, think and sense may not be what's really going on in the spiritual realm. A lot of Christians I meet look like cheerleaders for an accident. Down, depressed, defeated, downhearted, downtrodden and just can't be happy. Just can't be joyed. If you find somebody overjoyed, praising the Lord, hallelujah, glorious, God, wonderful. How are you doing? Well, everything's going wrong, but praise God anyway. What's wrong with that person? Why can't they be miserable like me? Most Christians look like they've been sucking on exhaust pipes. You know what I mean? Sired up, cruel faced, unhappy. What are you believing God for tonight in your own life? There's some things that God's been talking to me about that I'm believing for. I can't tell you. He won't let me. But I'm believing and I'm seeing things break. In my family's life, in my wife's life, in my life, victory, a brokenness, openness, doors. I mean, I'm seeing it. Because God gave me some promises I'm believing. Amen. Some promises I'm believing. What are you believing God for in this meeting? Is there an expectation in your soul when you pray? Do you pray believing? Oh, if it happened to be that crowd that's praying for Peter, came to the door, said, it's a ghost. Reveille came. Oh, I can't believe Reveille came. Why not? We asked God for it, didn't we? We prayed the other meeting the other week. We noticed the pianist wasn't anointed. She was bitter and I knew she'd killed the meeting and the meeting I was in. So we asked. A couple of preachers came down from Ohio that was burdened for the meeting and prayed for part of the day with me. And we said, God sent us an anointed pianist and singer. That night, God's surprised, sent us a blind Pentecostal singer that was full of Jesus. Head men tore that keyboard up and no performance, son. Holy Ghost singing. Holy Ghost praying. Singing, brethren, we admit to worship and to adore the Lord our God. Son, I came unglued. I jumped up and shouted like a dog. Glory to God. Sing it, brother. He played the invitation. These hymns just get all over the place and just be praying that music. Old hymns that just begin to convict people's souls. All week long he was there except for one night. I had to get him. We prayed and believed. What do you believe God for in your marriage? Teenager in your own life? If you don't believe, you don't have it. You know what will kill this meeting? Unbelief. You look at me long enough, you'll get discouraged because I can't bring it, folk. I don't have the ability to bring it. I can share what God's putting on my heart, but you had to believe as well as me for it to come. Then there's agonization. When you stir yourself up to take a hold of God, you get a hold of God and you won't let go until it comes. That means you pray with fervency, you pray with accuracy. You've heard of Charles Finney, haven't you? Have you ever heard of Father Nash? You know who Father Nash was? He's a fellow that'd go in and we'd rent him a motel room and stay there for two or three weeks and pray him fast and pray him fast until God gave him the assurance that revival was coming. He'd send a telegram to Finney and say, come in, God's already here. He's the guy that got the work done. Finney had the easy part. You heard about praying Pastor Morgan? When he died, you know what they found beside his bed? Grooves that he'd worn in the floor by rocking back and forth on his knees praying. Most people get on their knees after five minutes. They're ready to get up because that's the first time they've gotten on their knees in a long time. We had a lady in the church I pastored in Maryland, 84 years old, would have half nights and whole nights of prayer and that dear lady had arthritis and was real weak, would get on her knees and stay there for three hours. I said, Miss Laura, why don't you sit up? She said, Preacher, if you boys can get on your knees, I can too. I said, also Jesus, I love him just as much as you do. Shew! That humbled me. I heard her pray in Hyde at the Punjab Indian Conference. It said, After praying Hyde, it was evident to all that he was bowed down in sore, travelled soul. He missed many meals and when I went to his room, I would find him lying as in great agony or walking him down as if an inward fire burned in his bones. Have you seen anybody pray like that lately? Charles Finney says, I once knew a minister who had Revival 14 winners in succession. I did not know how to account for it till I saw one of his members get up in a prayer meeting and make a confession. Brethren, he said, I've been long in the habit of praying every Saturday night to midnight for the descent of the Holy Ghost upon us. And now brethren, he began the week, I confess that I neglected it for two or three weeks and the secret was out. The minister had a praying church. We're under deep conviction. And what was remarkable is that they dated their conviction at the hour the old man was praying in the shop. Agony of soul. When's the last time you prayed and broke a sweat? You prayed and you were so weak you could not even move under the constraint of the Spirit of God. We pray as if we're talking to some God that, you know, everything's hunky-dory, it's fine, oh Lord, thank You, Lord, thank You, Lord. When's the last time God gripped your heart and you sobbed and cried and yelled at God and said, God, if it doesn't come, I think I'll die, oh God. Let me ask you a question. If you were at a lake and you saw your child had about 20 feet swimming and all of a sudden you saw him going and you saw him go under and go under once and go under twice, would you say, where's the lifeguard? My son's drowning. Hang on, we'll come get you. No, you'd be crying, you'd be screaming, you'd be yelling. Some of you ladies would be pulling your hair out and you'd say, oh my God, I saw on the TV the other week a car on a video and a car ran off a dock and you saw the man at the dock, this man who had left his kids and his family in the car, and the car had either driven off and rolled off into the lake and at the bottom of the lake he was going, help, help, help, help, help, help, help, help. Just screaming. Folks, that's what we ought to be doing before Almighty God tonight because of the condition we're in and we're sitting here like we're at a picnic. When's the last time you saw somebody pray and break down in church, Brother Jules, and could not pray anymore because they were so burdened for things? Had this young boy that got saved out of crack addiction and God had really worked on him for two years and one Sunday morning I asked him to pray over the offering. God got a hold of that boy and for ten minutes he beat the podium and said, God, wake up the dead heads. God, save the lost. God, get a hold of us. Oh God, oh God, and wept and cried. What did you do? I said, God, get it on him. Finally somebody prayed for the offering and the Spirit for once in my life. What happened? When we got through there was a marked sense of the presence of God in the room. have you agonized for this meeting? Have you agonized over your own life? Have you gained a place of intercession when you know it's settled before God? See, an intercessor isn't satisfied until they have the answer in their hand or either in their heart. The desolate condition, the daring intercession, lastly, the divine intervention, the power and presence of God. I want to tell you three things that happens when God shows up. Number one, there is a tearing up of barriers. It says here, Oh that thou wouldst rent the heavens. Now that's symbolic of when you have barriers between people and barriers between churches and barriers between Christians. You know, we can't break down any barriers until, what? We get God down to break it. Is there anybody in this world you're out with tonight? Is there any Christian in this city you're upset with? Is there any preacher you've been upset in the past? Is there anybody you have business with you're bitter at? My friend, you can't have bitterness and be right with God. Barriers are broken down. Number two, strongholds are torn up. The mountains are melted as it presses. How would you like to see people freed of long term habits? Of cigarette smoking? Of addiction to lust? Of compulsive habits? Of addiction to pornography? How would you like to see things like that torn up, brother pastor? Amen. How would you like to see people get so clean that they're so right with God they bring Jesus in with them when they come to church? You know what most people bring to church with them? The devil. The sin. The self. And no wonder God's grieved. When's the last time you saw a community so moved by God that bar rooms shut down and dope addicts couldn't get dope anywhere because the dope dealers got saved and the illegal politicians got right with God. Folks, in real revival when it comes, it shakes hell up. It breaks down strongholds. When we saw a move of God in Hagerstown, we saw people so full of pride and bitterness and arrogance and families that were breaking up and coming to church to sit together and there's so much hell in the home beginning to melt together with the power of God. Then there's a boiling up of the saints. You know what happens when people get on fire? It says, When the melting fire burneth and the fire causes the waters to boil that make thy name known that thine adversaries of the nations may tremble at your presence. What do you mean people begin to have normal Christianity and have fire on them? Now preach God's message. Now the devil fought this message for some reason. He fought it awful bad. We must be on the right trail of preaching for the devil to fight this message like that. Because God's here. He was in the song service. He's still here. But it's going to cost some of you folk dearly to get a hold of God because you've got to confess your sins. You've got to clean out the magazine rack. You've got to admit to God you haven't been a faithful steward of His money. You've got to throw away some of that music you listen to. That includes country music. I like Garth Brooks. You like the devil too. But the Oak Ridge boys sing hymns. Yeah, they left God a long time ago folks. They used to sing gospel music. See, God's going to point out your sin. He's already told you about it. You knew about it before you came to church but He has intensified the conviction. See, there's going to be conviction of sin this week. But you've got to have conviction of sin before you have repentance and cleansing. And then once you get cleansed, you yield. And when you yield, He gives you faith. And when you have faith, you're going to pray. You won't pray to have faith. You will try to but you won't have real praying unless you pray in faith. Believe Him. And let Him use you as a vessel of intercession. And then we'll see the break. The tearing up of barriers. The breaking down of strongholds. And the boiling up of sins. That's revival. You folks have seen it. That's your problem. You've seen it. The worst church I go into, brother, you know what it is? Not the dead ones. Because you get them sick. It's the ones that have seen it and they're disillusioned by it and they don't want it again. Because you saw everything the devil did rather than what God did. Because there's always, when you see revival, listen folks, I know a little bit about it. When you see revival come, there's, on an equal parallel, a demonic revival that tries to get you out of the flow. See, nobody can keep me from being revived but me. I'll only ask you a question. How revived are you tonight? How on fire are you tonight? How much this afternoon were you gripped by God to pray for this meeting and came here and said, boy, I can't wait to get here. Rather than say, well, I wonder who that fellow is, that southern boy we heard about. I didn't bring any satchel, folks. And as soon as I came in here, I didn't get on the plane and I didn't go home. But I'm here, I'm waiting around and God shows up myself. I'm pretty excited about this meeting. Especially with the devil acting the way he did tonight. He's defeated. He's a liar. God let him cut up a little bit just to show you on the right trail. Teach you how to have warfare. You see, the stream can go deeper and wider and further each turnaround in revival. You've had touches, but have you seen the flood? The kind that gushes and changes. Well, somebody this week needs to take a hold of God. Why do you preach? Preacher, you preached on counterfeit Christians and now you preach on taking a hold of God. Because somebody's got to pay the price so we can get in the flow to really do some digging. See, the most dangerous places are those who've had some light and aren't living up to the light they've got. Hello? Disillusioned. Skeptical. Critical. Wondering what's going to go on around here. Would it be like it was last time? No, it won't. God's unique and different. He does it a different way every time. If you expect it in a certain way, He'll do it the opposite just to foul you up in the end. But see, some of you have sin and you were revived last time around, but you let the devil come in and you won't admit you're so far gone. Because if you're not in faith... I'll ask you this. Are you full of the Holy Spirit tonight? And are you full of faith tonight? If you're not, you're in sin. But preacher, I don't talk about people and I'm not bitter. You don't have to be. If you're full of unbelief and you're not full of the Holy Spirit, you're full of sin. Because you're full of you. And that's the epitome of sin, you and me. There's none that stirreth hith themself to take hold of God. Are you committed to agree with God in prayer and fasting and believing? And waiting upon God and coming out and letting God speak to you? And then obeying God for whatever light He gives you? And then seeing the break come? I believe it's coming. I see a crowd about the size of a man's hand out there. It's beginning to rain. But we won't see it unless somebody pulls the switch in prayer. We won't see it. We won't see it. Because you know, the devil won't back off to you unless you tell him to back off. And you've got to have authority and faith to back him off. You can say, you can say, devil be gone, but if you don't have God on you, he just laughs at you because he knows you don't have any power plugged into you to give you the authority to do that. You've got to be rightly related to God to pray properly. And there are people here, if God led me to preach this, there are some of you who need to go to prayer room and not get things straight with Jesus. Because you're useless to God in this meeting. You're just a hindrance. You're a hindrance and you brought a hindering spirit in here and sitting here having analysis paralysis with these preachers preaching. Rather than wanting to hear from God, you're trying to figure me out. Nobody can figure anybody out, especially me. Only God knows my heart. You know, I'm just here, a crooked stick with God trying to draw a straight line. I bet you want it. You want it bad enough to repent tonight? Turn loose that sorry attitude? Some of you watch some things on TV, you ought to be ashamed of. There are some people here preaching, they don't read their Bible just out of habit, not out of devotion. And you say you want revival? I'm just posing the question. I think there's a remnant that wants it fairly bad. I don't know how bad. Better than most, but is it bad enough? That's my question. I'm just asking me some questions too. How bad do I want it? Am I willing to pay the price and obey God? I might be a hindrance. God knows. The prayer room is available. What you might need to do, say, Lord, show me what you see in me tonight. If you meet with Him, you yield to Him, there'll be some faith, there'll be some prayer, and then we'll move this meeting out. Let's bow together in prayer. God has spoken to you. The prayer room is available. Our pianist is going to play.