In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the need for a personal encounter with God. He highlights that simply acquiring knowledge about God is not enough; we must truly experience His presence. The preacher challenges the audience to break free from the limitations of their church's theology and doctrine and seek a genuine encounter with the Holy Spirit. He shares the story of John Wesley, who experienced a transformative encounter with God that ignited a passion for spreading the Gospel. The preacher calls for repentance and surrender to God, inviting the audience to cry out and ask, "What shall we do?"

Phinney could go to a town and not make an altar call for the first 28 nights. He didn't say, come on, come on, come on, out, go home and have a sleepless night. Do you know why they had two or three sleepless nights? So they wouldn't have a million sleepless nights in hell, that's why. It disturbed their consciences, it disturbed their memories. He made them realize that God is a holy just God and nothing's going to bribe him. And I believe God is holding back until like that thing David wrote this morning, Lord, I can't live another day without the fire of God. You need the fire of God to pray, you need the fire of God to see visions, you need the fire of God to recognize there's no help for us. I don't want to cry as I've done so long. Like David in Psalm 80, O thou that dwellest between the cherubims, Lord, don't stay there, come down here. We need God here. Does it matter if it breaks your heart today? You can have a million millenniums in eternity. There'll be no sorrow there. You can't patch up your prayer life when you get to the judgment seat. You can't sacrifice when you get to the judgment seat. You can't weep when you get to the judgment seat. It's all between here and there. This period we're in now is a dressing room for eternity, that's all it is. It's not to get more knowledge, we have enough knowledge. You need God this morning. I need God this morning. Some of you disobeyed God all the week and this is the day, the valley of decision. You'll go back more after today than have you done in your life unless you obey God. Most of our preachers need to get free from redomination. You go to church, what do you hear? Do you meet God? No, you meet your church's theology. You meet your church's doctrine. How often do you go and come out breathing, gasping, God the Holy Ghost is that meeting and I'm absolutely shaken to my feet. We don't do that. We'll have to do it. We will do it because God has a controversy with our generation. What happened on the 24th of May in 1738? 24th of May, 1738, about a quarter to nine, John Wesley says in his diary, my heart was strangely warm. That was the first move of God in his life. He didn't stop there. He read the Word of God. He said there's something more than a warm heart. I don't want a warm heart, I want a heart on fire. And so he preached the entire sanctification, the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. Listen, you can give Jesus a lot of joy this morning for the simple reason he's coming for a bride. He's not coming for a widow. He's not coming for the church in its lousy condition, which is poor and wretched and naked and blind. I don't care how rich it is. I don't care how churches are minor. So John Wesley at 24, just the introduction of Martin Luther's. He hasn't even got into it. He's loaded with scholarship. He wrote four dictionaries in four different languages, gifted men on earth. He's high up in the scale. Everybody in the Church of England says we've got Wesley and his brother. We're going to shake the world to his temple. And that's how he came to Wesley. He came and he put the date down the 24th of May, 1738, about a quarter of an hour. It did not happen. He got up and came to a country called America. He heard about the Indians and the need. He got off a boat in Georgia, walked into a forest, went to sleep. He was tired out. Woke up in the morning, frozen to the ground. He couldn't get his arms up. So he pulls one arm out. Then he pulls the other arm out. And then he gets one leg free. Then he gets the other leg free. Okay, but this is what he said. Lord, I want to be on fire. Listen, I'm going to ask this. I don't care whether we go through the meeting or not. Why is it that fire is so attractive? Listen to Charles Wesley and John Wesley singing a hymn together. All thou who camest from above the pure celestial fire to impart. Kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn with inextinguishable grace. And trembling to its source return with constant prayer and fervent praise. Jesus, confirm my heart's desire to work and speak and think for thee. Still let me guard the holy fire. He got a new baptism of fire. And if you don't keep fire going, it goes out. He says, still let me guard the holy fire. And still stir up thy gift in me. Ready for all thy glorious will. Thine acts of faith and love repeat. Till death, thine endless mercy seal. And make the sacrifice complete. Then he says, this awesome thing enlarge in flame. And fill my heart with boundless charity divine. So shall I all my strength exert. And love them with a zeal like thine. And turn them to a pardoning God. You see, he's not asking for a theological definition. He says, I want a fire. Listen, if our God is a consuming fire, and he is. If he takes up residence in you, you'll burn to the dying. God won't die in you. And all he's asking you, this money, is to let the walls down, let the fire in. Isn't that awesome? That a man with such a colossal intellect, but background. He said, day by day, enlarge. And fill my heart with boundless charity divine. I can't live in coldness anymore. I can't live in blindness anymore. I can't be indifferent to a dying world. Every preacher who has lost the fire, you should be on your face down here. You used to burn, but you got so busy with organizing, the fire has gone out. Come on. I believe God's going to breathe on us this morning. I believe you're going from this place. I believe you're going to have to say, I'm in the valley of decision. Remember again the word of Jesus. I would that you are either hot or cold. So because you're neither hot or cold, I'll spew you out of my mouth. God isn't going to beg at your door. He's been begging all week. He's not going to keep knocking, knocking, knocking. It's merciful. He knocks this morning. God consuming me. Everything that's on Christ's life. Consuming me. Everything. Like David says in that, consume me. Todd, should we come on now? Let's join these people or else kneel where you are and you cry to God. What should we do? You've been repenting during the week. This is a day to receive. He's coming in now. He's coming in with vision. He's coming in with power. He's coming in with revelation. God is brooding over us. Don't insult the Holy Ghost. Yes, Father, come. Let me remind you right here as we're bowing in prayer. Last day of the feast. And it was the last day of the feast. Jesus said, if any man will come. He stood at the door in revelation, said, if any man will come. I don't care how backslidden you are. How disobedient you are. There's enough fire in the Holy Ghost to burn up every bit of dross in you. Every bit of unbelief. Every bit of failure. Every bit of coldness. God wants to put that fire right now. Say, God come in fire on me. Not on Vinyard, but on me. Not on John Wimber or Jack or Todd, but me. God needs a torch of holy fire in your house. He wants a fire in you to read the Word of God to your family. He wants the fire of God your neighbours will know. This church is turning the corner this week. We know that. It's having a new birth. It's not going to be like the Vinyard of last year or last week. Every man that stands up will have an anointing. I've claimed this from God. I'm sick of theology and words. We need God to move in our midst. Like he moved in the midst of the seven golden candles. What does it matter? Surrender everything. Either stand up and raise your hands and say, Lord, I surrender everything. Or get down and kneel there and believe God. Father, we bow before your throne tonight. Recognizing thee as a high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. Lord, we thank you. We thank you tonight that when you were a far off, without God, without hope, outside of the camp, when there was no eye to pitch us, your eye pitted us. When there was no arm long enough to reach us or to lift us, your arm lifted us. Lord, we strung it so often out of my bondage, sorrow and night. Jesus, I come. We thank you found us as slaves and you set us free. You found us dead, but you gave us life. You found us in darkness, but you gave us light. You found us hopeless, entangled in the machinations of sin. Deep some of us, some drunken here, some that were once deep in drugs, some in prison. But Lord, we thank you came to set the captive free. Whether he's a dignified bishop, whether he's a colossal intellect or an ignoramus. We thank you, Lord Jesus, you stretched it in that fantastic, measureless word that whosoever will may come. Lord, we believe tonight in about a thousand tongues around the world, somebody's telling the story of redeeming grace. We thank you for everybody who's been born of the Spirit this one day. They pass from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified. Lord, that we thank you for what it means now to belong to Christ. The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred streets before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets. Lord, we bless you. We've sung it often to here. I'm not ashamed to owe my Lord not to defend his cause. In a world that's crumbling, we thank you that we are on the solid rock. There's no dynamite or atom bomb can blast the rock of ages. We thank you there's nothing that can hinder the coming of your kingdom. We bless you, you're not coming for a weekend and we're not going to the kingdom for a weekend. We're going to reign with him forever and ever, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. And the government shall be upon his shoulders. He's going to rule the world in righteousness, in holiness, in justice. God, what a world to live in where there's no crime, no misery, no uncleanness, no sin, no diseases. We thank you that in him, Christ, the tribes of Adam boast more blessings than their fathers lost. And we thank you we do have an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith. It is in Jesus Christ. We thank you for your holy word. We thank you as we read today, holy men of God's, by the Holy Ghost. We know it's not a fabrication. It's not a Shakespeare that wrote it. It was written by the Holy Spirit of God at the hands of like the herdsman of Tikur, a poor man, a farmer, at the hand of King David, at the hand of Isaiah, who had such fantastic revelations of the glory of God. I had a preview of the atoning work of Jesus in that wonderful chapter in Isaiah. Lord, tonight, lots of people would feel so uncomfortable here, feel we're crazy. Well, Lord, if they're saying we don't want to be anyhow, their values are wrong. They've no hope. They're without God. They have no horizon in eternity. But Lord, again, we bless your holy name. Thank you for everybody who's ever helped us, Sunday school teachers, parents that have influenced our lives, hymns and books. We pray for all who have been in this prayer meeting from the first time over there in Brown's house, people that are still right. You go to Brown's prayer meeting. We thank you that you've birthed it there. And then it's come here. We pray that you'll continue, Lord. We come up due. We ask you to pour blessing. We ask you to take us deeper, deeper, deeper in the love of Jesus, deeper in the wisdom of Jesus, deeper in the authority of Jesus, deeper in the revelation of Jesus. Lord, get us out of water to the ankles, get us waters to the knees, and then to the loins, and then waters to swim in. Lord, we know in who we believe tonight. There's no despair in the gospel. He's able to say to the uttermost, it says in Hebrews, to the uttermost, all who come unto God, if they've sinned enough to damn a hundred people, he still accept them. If they come with the deepest of pollution and the vileness, we thank you. There's no heart you cannot purify. There's no will you can't put into subjection to yourself if we're willing. We will pray again tonight. This dear lady said in the letter, I've never heard of others praying for those in, not just the heathen, but those in slave camps in Russia, or in Afghanistan, or in China, or in Albania. Lord, we sang, O light that followest all my way. Lord, I think tonight of millions who are in darkness. Why are they in darkness? Our light hasn't shone there yet. Lord, I pray do something, as I prayed last Friday night, bring something to birth in this meeting, whether we see it or not, because you're a faithful covenant-keeping God. So Lord, we come to your holy word and ask you to bless it. Give us ears to hear what the Spirit says, not what I say, what the Spirit is saying. And then give us a grace of obedience in Jesus' name. Thank you, be seated.