In this video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of trusting in God and encourages the listeners to deepen their relationship with Him. He mentions a film called "The Centerville Awakening" which is a central part of their ministry and aims to cover the nation with prayer for a spiritual outpouring. The speaker also shares his personal physical progress, mentioning that his heart is beating normally for the first time in 14 years and he has been taken off all blood pressure medication. The video concludes with the speaker mentioning that the message was delivered at a church in Panama City during a prayer meeting, and he believes it will be a blessing to the viewers.

Greetings friends, it's certainly a joy and a privilege to be back with you again this month. This particular tape that I'm sending you this month is a message that was brought at the First Baptist Church, Panama City on Sunday morning, in a meeting where actually the church had prayed for about 10 days, according to 2 Chronicles 7.14, and I just felt impressed at the last moment to bring a message along this line, and so it was something that I had not done before, even though there might be an illustration of something you may have heard me give at time pass in the message, but I think it will be a blessing to you. I certainly trust that all is going well with you. I gave a lengthy report last month of how I was doing physically, and I don't think I'll do much more than just simply say that this month, at this time, I am doing extremely well. I have been even taken off of all my blood pressure medication, which is an unbelievable, unbelievable situation. It's just incredible, and I am really doing well. My strength is gaining back, and I guess my only real physical dilemma is that I'm having trouble resting. My heart is beating back to a normal fashion again, and which it hasn't done that for about 14 years, and I'm just, my body is just having a difficult time getting adjusted to what would you consider normality or something like that, but anyway, we are rejoicing beyond words about how well I'm able to go and do and different things, and we are praising the Lord. When you receive this tape, it will be well into our last few weeks, I guess you would say, of time for the conference in Europe. Naturally, it will be the last of January, but we have to close it out a month ahead of time, and we have the assurance that God is going to raise up the people He wants to be there. We're getting all kinds of invitations and requests, and we're excited about it. For instance, one seminary is going to bring the entire student body to the conference, and that's going to be a unique blessing, and at this time, we are praising the Lord that the money is, you know, settled. Now, we do not have the money in the bank for all the scholarships that we require, but we do have assurance in our hearts that God is doing it, and we're praising Him. We are praising Him for it, and we have more requests than we anticipated, but we are cutting it off at a certain level, and so we're just rejoicing, and it may be that at this point, God may be putting it in your heart to even go with us or something of that nature, and if that's the case, you still have time. We can get you in as possible as latest, about 25 days before we leave, and so you can check on that if the Lord's leading. I trust that you'll continue to hold the ministry up. We have and are learning that the Lord is our source, and boy, I'll tell you, it is a beautiful, beautiful experience, and I don't want to put the experience ahead of any light from the Word of God, but it's just wonderful to be able to trust the Lord as the source of all that we need. I'll tell you, there's no freedom like being able to trust Him, but it's a very difficult, difficult thing to do, and so I trust that all of us will come to know Him as we should, and may this message be a contribution towards enabling you to come to trust Him more. Let me just say this one word before I stop and turn you into the message, and that is this. Be praying earnestly about the film, The Centerville Awakening, which that phase of our ministry is becoming a very, very, very central part of all that we're doing. God has laid us out the strategy whereby we believe that this nation can be literally covered with people praying for a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God, and also we believe that Europe can be, and God has laid out the strategy, and it's working, it's operational, it's working right now, and we're excited about it. You might check with us about what we're doing if you are in question about it. I don't know that I have said enough on these tapes or anything for you to even know much about what's going on, but it all centers around revival and a film that we have titled Centerville Awakening. Well, may God bless you as you listen to this tape. Thank you so much for being our friends and staying with us by the staff. And God tells Solomon, he said, if I shut up heaven, it won't rain, or if I send the locusts, they'll eat up the land. In other words, I'm sovereign in this whole business, but whatever kind of condition is going on, if my people, which are called by my name, whatever kind of condition is going on, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and so on, he said, I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sins, heal their land, and he said, my eyes will be constantly upon them, my heart even will be given to them, where there will be a perpetual presence of God all the time. You just couldn't, you couldn't have a greater promise in all the world than that. And God just tells us how to do it. He said, if my people, I'm sure this verse has become very familiar to you during these days, and I'd like to point out some things about that verse. First of all, it says, if my people. Now, if I understand that correctly, he's talking about the people that are recognized in a town that's God's people. You know, somehow, sometimes we get carried away and we forget that people really know people. Even a little child, if you go around a two or three-year-old child, in a moment, they know whether you're good or wicked. And if some of the elderly have forgotten, these young people can tell you right in a moment whether you're real or plastic, just like that. And you may not believe it, but the people of this world out here in this city, they know whether you are real or plastic. They know. On the job, at school, wherever you are, anyone can come up here to this church house three or four hours a week and act like a saint. But it's the crowd out there in the world that really, really knows you. Right. Your family at home, they know you. And this passage says, if my people, which are called by my name, in other words, the people that are so much like me, that people recognize them as God's people. He said, if that crowd, hey, that's the in crowd. If that crowd will meet the conditions, I will hear from heaven, sin of mighty revival. Because sometimes we get the idea that it's not us that need it. It's the crowd out there that needs it. And the meeting here is for them. But if I understand this passage correctly, the meeting is for us, that it might reach them. But first and foremost, if the people which are called by my name, the people that this city recognizes as God's people, if that crowd, if that crowd will meet my condition, and I'm sure that includes the people that are here this morning. He said, if that's the crowd he's addressing, my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves. You know, Jesus took his disciples aside one time and gave them one of the greatest messages that's ever been preached. It's known to us as the Sermon on the Mount. That message has always fascinated me. Because it seems that God is constantly, through Jesus Christ, demanding the impossible. And the amazing thing about it, when you look at it humanistically, that's exactly what he's doing. He is demanding the impossible. But when you look at something in the eyes of God, and through the eyes of God, and see it as God sees it, God calls on man to do the impossible, that he might come to know Jesus who makes it possible. And so the objective of the Sermon on the Mount is to shut us up to Jesus Christ. And while doing that, bringing us to the end of ourselves. So when he says, humble yourselves, the meek shall inherit the earth, or when he says, the weak shall take the prey, he's talking about there in the Sermon on the Mount, be perfect as I'm perfect. He's talking about being brought to the end of ourselves, humbling ourselves, admitting we're incapable, admitting we can't, admitting there is no way apart from him. And that is the very basic principle of learning to walk with God, is to be brought to the end of ourselves. I can't, he can, let's go. That's right. As long as we can, and he'll help us, we can. Moses, and you'll have to pray for me because I'm one of these preachers that have, I've been preparing my sermons for almost 40 years and they're not messages, they just keep extending, you know. But I think about Moses, that great man of God, that obviously was one of the great intellects as well. I think about him, and he knew that he was the man God had chosen to deliver Israel. And one day he stepped out and he saw an Israelite and an Egyptian battling and he took over that little problem himself and killed the Egyptian. He did a work, he was wanting to deliver the children of Israel, but he did a work in the flesh. And he ran for his life, spent 40 years in the wilderness, and at the end of that 40 years God spoke to him out of the burning bush and said, Moses, I want you to go down and deliver my people. And you know what Moses said? You check it out. Seven times he said this, not in the same words, but the message is there. Seven times he said, I can't. I think God smiled and said, son, your education is over. Now that you know you can't, you can. Let's go. And when he says, if my people will humble themselves, I believe he's saying to us, if we allow ourselves to be brought to the place where we know we can, it's in the hands of a sovereign God that shuts up the rain, sends the locusts, it's in his hands. But even that it's in his hands, if my people will humble themselves. And you know, we're such unique people that we may even need God to help us get humble. There's some humbling we can do, but we need to be brought to the end of ourselves and he'll help us. And then he said, and pray. How in the world how do you explain prayer? The greatest prayers in the Bible didn't take but seconds to pray. I mean, sometimes we have the idea that praying is X number minutes, X number hours, X number talking to God. How in the world do you explain prayer? When I find a person that really has a great deal of pride about their prayer life, I always like to ask them two questions. Have you prayed? They say yes. I say, well, you talked to God? Yes. That's the one question I asked him. Did you talk to God? Yes. Well, what did God say to you? And it's strange what kind of answer you get when you ask that side of it. Prayer is so unusual. Even people tell me, you know, well, I'm such an immature person, I don't even know how to pray. Do you know that's one of the best candidates for prayer? Romans 8 tells us if you don't know how to pray or what to pray for, the Holy Spirit is there. There's so many ways to look at this business of prayer. I like to say that prayer is communion, which I believe covers many, many aspects of prayer. And what I mean by that is prayer is not only man talking to God, but God talking to man. And my friends, when you have prayed, it's not only a releasing your life to God, but it is God also releasing His life to you. One man said he always got his prayers answered because his prayers were originated in heaven. He said God put the prayer in his heart. He said in the name of Jesus, He offered it back to the Father. And since it started with the Father, he always got an answer to his prayer. Why not? The Bible says, I give you the keys of the kingdom and whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. But you go to a real strict translation of that verse, and you know what you'll find? You'll find that whatever you bind in earth must be what is already bound in heaven. Whatever you bind in earth must be what is already bound in heaven. And that sounds like what Jesus said to His disciples when He taught them this, Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is being done, where? In heaven. You see, prayer is that kind of experience of man, with man, where man is brought into unity with God. And where God is brought into action with man. Someone has said that prayer is like laying a railroad track so God the steam engine can come down it. Someone has said that prayer is saying amen to what God wants to do, and God is waiting on that amen. He said humble yourselves and pray, and pray. Folks, the most heathenistic people in the world I run into know how to pray. Now they may not know how to pray to Jesus, but they know how to pray. Amen. I mean the worst people in the world, I'm sure you check it out, they don't know how to pray. Now I'm not saying they know how to pray to Jesus, but what I am saying is to pray means that in that desperate moment of absolute nothingness where you find yourselves to where you need God to come in on the scene, there's a cry from the life to God that is in such submission to God that it so harmonizes with what God wants to do in your life, that God is able to answer and respond and work in and through your life. So if my people will humble themselves and pray, and then he said seek my faith. The continuation of this message, please turn the tape to side two. You know I'm glad that Christianity is more than a religion. Religion is a set of regulations or forms set out by individuals where you have to do something. But Christianity is more than religion. You see Jesus Christ the Son of God not only died on the cross, rose again, ascended to the right hand of the Father, but he sent the Holy Spirit. And when a person is born of the Spirit, when a person is saved by the grace of God, the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit inhabits the believer. I mean literally takes up his residence in the believer. God the Father has a dwelling place, God the Son has a dwelling place, but where is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit? In you and me if we're saved by the grace of God. That's right. And you can determine the difference between religion and Christianity by this. Who initiates your involvement in life? Just that simple. If God initiates your involvement in life, it's Christian. But if any other factor initiates your involvement in life, it's religion. And religion is formal, but it's lifeless. The most religion can do for you is stimulate your emotions and inform your intellect. But Christianity can do more, because Christianity is made up of a person, and that person is the Lord. And that Lord lives in the believer. And we do not go out here and set out to measure up to a bunch of rules and regulations. We are to seek the face of Jesus, the person. We're to seek Him before we seek experiences. In our day when subjectivism is so prevalent, everyone's seeking this experience and that experience. If you don't believe it, you just stand around and listen to the experiences. He says, before that, you seek my face. In other words, you pursue me. You keep knocking. You keep seeking. You keep asking until you literally see my face. You say, I don't quite understand. Well, maybe this verse will help us. When the Holy Spirit is come, John 16 tells us, when the Holy Spirit is come, He will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. I'm going to just take the middle phrase, of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more. When he's talking about seeking the face of Jesus, he's not talking about having some vision of Jesus on a screen or even in a picture somewhere. He's talking about the Holy Spirit revealing the holiness, the righteousness, the glory of Jesus to our lives. Right. That's somewhat mystical, but it shouldn't be to a Christian because a Christian is a mystic. A mystic is one that's inhabited by God. Sure that's beyond the intellect. Surely that's beyond the emotion. Amen. That's why I'm Christian and not religious. I can be Christian and religious, but I can't be religious and have it right. You have to be Christian. In other words, when you're Christians, there are certain religious things you do. Amen. But there are certain religious things you do without Christ, folk, and it's form. It's dead. It's lifeless. It has the power of God. It doesn't have the power of God. It has the form of God, but it's not without the power thereof. Amen? To seek His face. Maybe this little story is such a simple story, and I love simple things. They to me are the profound things. It's not difficult to be profound. It's profound to be simple. And a few weeks ago, my wife and I were in a meeting in South Carolina. I did something I like to do. I took a country church 20 miles from the city and ran 95 in Sunday school. And I have been recovering over kidney failure and things, and I'm doing so well that my blood pressure dropped so drastically this morning that I couldn't finish my first message. But it was no surprise. It's just the goodness of the Lord. There's a lot of good things happening. But I got out there in that meeting, and actually, technically, I was over-medicated because I'm doing so well. And I didn't know what was happening, but my God got in that place. And a little nine-year-old boy had been told that week his real mother was dying with cancer. And in fact, the parents that had adopted him decided that they should let him know her since they found out she was dying with cancer. And they took that child to meet his real mother. She wanted to meet him. It was all beautifully set up. And she had cancer, and she knew she was dying. And this little nine-year-old boy said, Mother, do you know Jesus? And she said, No, son, I don't. And he told her about Jesus. And that day when he walked away, he said, I don't think he called her mother, but he referred to her as his mother. He said, I want you to meet me in heaven. And he left. Now this meeting came about, and this woman went into a coma without knowing Jesus. Now this little boy knew this, and on Sunday morning, the glory of God came in that little old country church. And by the way, it was country folk, but it wasn't poor. I mean, those people were well-fixed, you know, but it was country. And the little boy came to the pastor, and his mother was in a coma. And he said, Pastor, I want you to pray with me that Jesus will save my mother. Now that pastor knew that lady was in a coma, and he almost did not know how to handle this. How do you deal with a nine-year-old boy saying, pray with me that my mother will be saved when she has just gone into a coma? So they got down on their knees and prayed, and people were getting saved all over that auditorium that morning. I mean, we had every personal worker in the whole house dealing with lost people in that church. And that preacher and that nine-year-old boy got on their knees and prayed. And that afternoon, they got the rest of the story. About almost exactly the same time, that woman became conscious. And when she became conscious, God, I don't know who the person was, had someone there, and they led her to Jesus. And the last words she said was, You be sure and tell Casey I will meet him in heaven. And went back into that coma. When he said, If you will humble yourselves and pray and seek my face. My dear friends, it's not talking about seeking some kind of an image on a screen or some kind of imaginary thought in your mind, but it's talking about seeking Him to reveal His glory in your given situation. And that little boy was seeking His face. Amen. And then it says, Turn from your wicked ways. You know, if we all looked at ourselves, we would see nothing but failure. It's an amazing thing about how we judge ourselves. We never judge ourselves correctly. We never say we're nothing. We say we're something when we actually know we're nothing. And we never really judge ourselves right. And if you look on yourself, you will get introspective. That means you will start making self-judgment. And here he's saying when it says, Turn from your wicked ways, and I believe it's in its proper context here, in its proper order, is when you seek the face of God, allow God to put His finger on your life and show you what's not right. And as He shows you what is not right, then turn from that. My wife and I were in one of those fabulous mountain, North Carolina mountain churches years ago. In fact, our children were just babies. I don't even think the last one was even born at that time. In fact, I know he was. And my wife and my three children at that time came out of Atlanta up to this church on Sunday morning. And if you've been up there in some of those churches, they are so beautiful, colonial, almost all of them are colonial, so beautiful. And this church is on the top of a mountain that's just, you can see the Blue Ridge Mountains from it. It's just fabulous. But for years that church had been just religious, not very Christian. And the reason was, one of the reasons, there were many reasons, there were two deacons in there that were brothers that had not spoken in 35 years. My wife showed up that morning with our children, and she's sitting on the front pew, and it was a tough meeting. It was awfully tough meeting. And the Lord impressed my wife to do something, and she obeyed the Lord. And when she did, one of those deacons got up out of his seat, went to his house, and got a halter. Now, when you mention halter to this generation, most people think about the little that some people have on. But in my generation, if you mention a halter or even shorts, you know what you're talking about? Foods you fed a pig, and something you put over a mule's head. Well, this man went home and got a halter that was leather, and it was rotten, came back to that church and went to that brother and said, I want you to forgive me. Had that old halter. Now, I'm going to tell you something. Revival broke out. I mean, people just started getting saved everywhere, all over that church. Because here was a deacon, after thirty-something years, God put His finger on him, some wickedness in his heart. He went straight to the house and got that halter, and went straight to his brother, and got wiped. He turned from his wicked way. And most of us would misjudge ourselves, but God, if we seek His face, will put His finger on this problem and that problem, sin and our life, and we can turn from it by simply confessing it, making it right with God the Father and with each other. Because we're no more right with God this way than we are with our fellow man this way. You can't be right with God this way and out of sorts with your fellow man this way. No, your holiness before God is always depicted by your righteousness before man, always. It's an equation that is absolute. Turn from your wicked ways. You see, God has to show you what's in your life that really is a hindrance. And He said, if you'll do this, He said, I'll tell you what I'll do. He said, I'll hear from heaven, I will forgive their sins, and I will heal their lands. And He said, my eyes will be opened, my ears will attend to the prayers that's made into this place. And He said, my heart shall be there perpetually. Boy, that's revival, isn't it? I mean, He said, I'll just constantly bless you, just constantly bless you. Rivers of living water, just wells bubbling over where people are constantly getting saved, where people are constantly getting right with God. And God can do more in our midst in ten minutes. Believe me, folk, He can do more in our hearts in ten minutes than man can do in ten years or a lifetime. So, let me read that verse to you again. If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from the wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and heal their land. And it goes on. Are you willing this morning to pray the prayer that the psalmist prayed in Psalms 139? He somehow sums it up by saying, prove me, see if there be any wicked way in me. Really, God, I'm not able to get to this place I should be by myself, but I am making the decision today to let you have my life. Paul put it this way, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present yourselves. You would be surprised how closely revival is related to a choice. I may not be where I'm supposed to be this morning, but if I realize I'm not there and I make a choice this morning for God, by His grace, to get me there and help me get there, I'll assure you, folk, when I get to glory, I will find out that that's where revival began. You'd be shocked how closely related revival is to the choice. God said, now don't you forget I'm sovereign, but if you do these things, I will move. I do not believe the sovereignty of God violates the responsibility of man, and neither do I believe that the responsibility of man violates the sovereignty of God. So, if my people, what will you do with that today? 2 Chronicles 7, 14. You have been seeking His face. Would you continue? Today, would you make that decision to get up on—get in on what God's up to? Make that kind of commitment, Lord, here is my life. I want to get in on revival for myself and for my church. And if you're here and you're lost without Jesus today, Jesus said to you, come unto me all ye that labor and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. One of those times, he was talking to the lost person who needs Jesus. He said to you, I'll give you rest. He said, as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God. As many as received him, to them gave he the power, listen, to become the sons of God. Isn't that amazing? He said, as many as come to me, he said, I don't know why he's cast out. And today if you're lost without Jesus, you know you're a sinner, let me invite you to come to Jesus.