In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of church meetings and being led by the Holy Spirit. He shares a story about an evangelist who felt a strong conviction not to board a plane and how listening to God's voice can have a profound impact. The preacher also highlights the significance of Samuel in the Bible, who as a young boy, learned to hear and obey God's word, ultimately changing the nation. He concludes by urging the congregation to have an ear to hear what God is saying and to be still in His presence.

Our speaker tonight really doesn't need any introduction. Jim Bissimbala, is known not only here in the church world in America, but literally around the world. There are a lot of accolades one could use to describe this man and his dear wife Carol, but I would choose to use these statements. He was a man sent from God to Brooklyn, New York, to establish a Pentecostal church. If you ever go to Brooklyn, you must go to the Brooklyn Tab. It has been established not on program, although they have program. It has been established not on reputation, although God has given them that. But Brooklyn Tab has been established on prayer. Let me say that again. The foundation of this church and its ministry is prayer. Multiple services every Sunday. In just a few months, they will have the joy of moving into a brand new facility God is miraculously providing for them. I want you to welcome Jim and Carol Bissimbala from the Brooklyn Tab. Would you welcome them, please? Jim and Carol, we love you and thank God for you. Thank you very much. It is such a joy and a pleasure to be here tonight. When I look across this vast audience and see all of these people, all of these children of God, people lifting up their voices and worshiping him, I just say praise the Lord and how pleased our God must be as he looks down and sees his people worshiping and loving him and praising his holy name. You know, tonight I have a lot to be thankful for. And just before my husband comes and speaks, I just want to share something with you briefly. About two years ago, my my mother, who is with us tonight, she's sitting on the first row here. She was diagnosed with stomach cancer and the doctors told us that she had two and a half months to live. And we went to praying and we went to believing God for a miracle. And my mom is 82 years old and she came with me. She's with me tonight. She's sitting in the front row and I want her to stand, Mrs. Hutchins. And the last she just had another checkup about two weeks ago and she is totally cancer free. There is not a trace of cancer. And I am so thankful tonight that God still answers prayer. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He will never change. He is the same. I love him. It's wonderful to be here tonight. And let's just lift him up in this place tonight and glorify his precious name. Amen. It is a joy, as Carol said, for us to be here. It's a real honor. I want to thank Brother Trask and. All of the general counsel that part of our invitation, this is a real privilege for Carol and I to be a part of this great celebration, and as we were praising the Lord over here along with you, we have a lot to praise God for tonight. How many by uplifted hand have a lot to praise God for in your own individual life? Well, you know what? The singers are going to sing for you, but you know what I want to do? I want to do something before they even sing. I want everybody to stand. Come on, everyone stand up. We sometimes do this in our church. You know, the Kansas City Chiefs play football here. The University of Missouri, University of Kansas football. They scream at football games. They cheer baseball, basketball. Our country is sports crazy. People go wild and yell, make a noise. Nobody says they're fanatics. But the minute God's people begin to make a little noise, everybody says, look, they're crazy. But I'm not ashamed of praising the Lord tonight. How about you? I'm not ashamed of praising the Lord. So listen, here's what I want you to do. Here's what I want you to do. When I tell you, I want you to begin to clap as loud as you can, but I just don't want you to clap. I want you as you're clapping, which is biblical, clap your hands or your people. But as we clap, I want you to lift your voice as loud as it will go and begin to praise God out loud with hallelujahs and praise the Lord and begin to thank him. So we'll clap and shout to the Lord with the voice of triumph at the same time. Are you ready? Let's do it together. Come on, everybody. We praise the Lord. We magnify your name. We bless your holy name. Oh, Lord, we bless you, Lord. Hallelujah to God. Hallelujah to God. We bless you. We praise you. We exalt you. And everybody said, amen. You may be seated. It's good to praise the Lord and God inhabits what? Not the praises of his people, not the murmurings or the complainings, but the praisings of his people, the praise of his people, the Brooklyn Tabernacle singers are going to sing some songs. We want you to clap along. The last thing they want to do is entertain you. They're not here. Entertainment should never be a part of the Christian church. Christ Christ didn't die on the cross so we would entertain each other. He died on the cross so we could minister to one another and encourage each other. Let's put our hands together and welcome the Brooklyn Tabernacle Singers. Welcome them. Thank God for every mountain he's brought us over. You may be seated. We're so happy to be here. If you are interested in getting any of the singers or the choirs material, it's available as you leave. And we'd be so happy to meet you back there. The singers will be back there. I want to talk to you about the future because that's the topic for tonight. What will the Holy Spirit do in our churches? What's going to happen in the Brooklyn Tabernacle in March of next year? Should the Lord tarry? We're going to be moving into a new, a new theater that was built in 1918. When it opened, it seated 4,100 people. It's the largest theater of its kind in New York City. Only Radio City Music Hall and the Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden is larger than it. I just want to say it as an aside, the help and blessing that this fellowship has been headed by Brother Trask without their God sent assistance. I don't know where we would be tonight. I want to thank them. We're going to have a chance. We have four meetings now in a nice size theater that we're in, but we'll have the chance to reach with overflow now in some recent developments. We could get 5,000 or 6,000 people into the area that we're aiming at now. It's three buildings and another we've just spotted, multiplied millions of dollars for an inner city church. God's been providing. What's going to happen? We can now in three services reach 10, 12, 13, 14,000 inner city people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Isn't that going to be wonderful? Let's thank God for that. I want to praise him publicly for that. Well, God knows there's enough sinners out there. I don't know where you live, but where I am, there's lots of folks out there that need the Lord. Well, what's going to happen in the future? You hear people talk like that. What about what is God going to do in the future? Well, you know, to really do careful exegesis in the scripture. A lot depends on you and me to make blanket statements about what God is going to do. Really, you can't find that in the New Testament. When Paul writes to the different churches that he addresses, he doesn't say blanket statement. This is what God's going to do. He says, if you do this, this is what God's going to do. When Jesus writes seven letters to the church in Revelation, he doesn't ever say, and this is what I'm going to do among you. He says this. If you'll do this, if you'll take one step toward me, I'll take 50 steps towards you and I'll shower you with blessings that you can't even imagine. But it's the old Thomas in the Bible that says this. Draw near unto me, God says, and I'll draw near unto you. So the future of our churches, yes, it's in God's hands, but he is a rewarder of them who what? Diligently seek him. So I don't want to live in some fantasy faith world of sloganeering where I just throw out sentences. Well, praise God he's on the throne. I know he's on the throne, but he was on the throne at the time of the Laodicean church and they were lukewarm. I don't want to be there, do you? I'm only want to be on fire for God here in these last days that we have. Well, I want to bring before you, I think the key element about what God will do in the future in our churches. And he's going to do great things as we understand what he's looking for. Among our leadership and our and our assemblies and our congregations, and typically this is a story in the Bible that's long to be read. I don't want to read the whole story to you. I want to just take a sentence and then you'll trust me and I'll give you the reference and tell you what's happening before and after. But in the book of Second Chronicles, we read this in verse seven, but a man of God, look at me, please. But a man of God came to him, King Amaziah, and said, OK, these troops from Israel must not much march with you. They must not march with you, for the Lord is not with Israel, not with any of the people of Ephraim. Even if you go and fight courageously in battle, God will overthrow you before the enemy. That's amazing. Even if you fight courageously, you're going to lose. For God has the power to help or to overthrow. Now, this story in Second Chronicles 25 is about one of the kings that we don't talk too much about. He's not as famous as David and Solomon and Josiah. But King Amaziah, there's some great truth in his story. King Amaziah was the son of a real loser of a king by the name of King Joash. His father was really wicked after God blessed him and helped him when he was young. Joash turned his back on the Lord and Amaziah having a dad like that really starts his reign on a wonderful foot, kicks it off in great fashion. For as he becomes king at the age of 25 years old, he reigned 29 years. He never saw his 55th birthday. As he gets on the throne, the Bible tells us that he reigned righteously and he did what was right, basically, in the eyes of the Lord. His father, Joash, had been assassinated and Amaziah knew that the assassins had to be dealt with and punished. And the Bible is careful to tell us that when Amaziah became king, he executed the assassins, the killers of his father. But he obeyed the word of the Lord and did not kill their sons. Being a king back in those days, you could wipe out whoever you wanted because you had that kind of power. It was typical in those days that when you were upset with somebody and you wanted to wreak vengeance on them, you wiped out the whole clan. But not Amaziah. He remembered what the Lord said in Deuteronomy, the children should not be punished for the sins of the fathers and the fathers should not be punished for the sins of the children. So all he did was he listened to the word of God. He obeyed. He heeded. He had a sensitive heart and he said, even though I could wipe out them out, look what they did to my dad. He said, I'm going to do what God said in Deuteronomy 24. I am not going to punish the children and wipe out the women and all of that. I'm going to do what God says. Well, Amaziah went from there and began to develop an army and he began to reorganize the army and he began to muster the troops of the southern kingdom. Now, by the time Amaziah was king, of course, the country had been divided for hundreds of years. The northern kingdom, the ten tribes were called Israel or Ephraim. And in the south, there was Judah with the capital of Jerusalem. And that's where Amaziah reigned in the southern kingdom, two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. And he marshaled the forces of the army. He reorganized them and he got them ready for a big winging against the Edomites. He was going to go to war with the Edomites. So he reorganized the army and he mustered them and he built them up to a huge number. And then on top of that. It's always good to have more troops than less in the battle, he figured. He hired 100,000 men from the north, from Israel, and he paid them. They were mercenaries. He spent almost four tons of silver. Four tons of silver to hire them to fight because he figured the more the better when the battle starts against the Edomites. So Amaziah is ready to go to battle and out of nowhere, a man of God appears to him and the man of God says to him out of nowhere with no seeming logic. The man of God says to him, Amaziah, get rid of those 100,000 troops. Amaziah goes time out. What is this about? I need those men. No. By this time, Israel had gone into idolatry and God's hand was against them, the northern tribes. So the man of God says God is not with Israel, the northern tribes. God is not with these men. They have a wicked king. They've turned away from God and they're serving idols. Don't hire them because if you fight with them, you'll lose. In other words, more is less if God doesn't bless. He's saying, are you trying to tell me to let go of 100,000 men who would fight for me? The man of God says, that's the word of the Lord. Let him go. Cut him loose. He says to the man of God, I've paid almost four tons of silver to hire these guys and I've already paid them. What am I going to do with that? Get that money back. And the man of God says, write it off. God can give you much more than that. So how many know we serve a great big God? If we obey him, he'll give us whatever we need. So the Bible tells us that this tender, young king listens not only to the word of God in Deuteronomy about not killing the children. He listens to the spirit of God as it is manifested through the word of the Lord, through the prophet, the man of God. And he dismisses 100,000 troops that would have fought for him. And he loses money to boot. He writes off a hundred thousand men and four tons of work just because God told him to do it. I'd say that's a pretty good king. He goes to fight against the Edomites and wouldn't you know, he wipes the deck with them. He just massacres them. The Lord fights with Judah and, and, victorious beyond anything he could think or imagine because God is with him. You know, brothers and sisters, the important thing is not how much money we have in our bank or how big our buildings are. The biggest thing is, is God with us. If God isn't with us, church is out. You can go through the form. You can make a lot of noise or be quiet. It's just form. The important thing is to have God with you. And God was with Amaziah because he listened. He listened to the word of God. He listened to the voice of the spirit and then brothers and sisters, you go home and read it tonight. But if it wasn't in the Bible, I I'm, I'm embarrassed to even tell you what happens next. It's unthinkable as Amaziah is coming back from victory over the Edomites and everybody's high-fiving and saying, Amaziah, you're the man. While he's with the Edomites, he sees some idols that they worship and he gets some sick fascination with the idols of the Edomites and he brings them back home and he sets them up in his house and he bows down to the idols of the Edomites and he begins to worship them and burn incense to them, which violates the word of God, which said, you shall have no other God before me and you're never to bow down to another God. But something has happened to Amaziah. He's now full of himself. You know, when you're full of the devil, that's not so bad because God can cast the devil out. But when we get full of ourselves, we get real problems. Amaziah is not listening anymore as he's worshiping his idols. Wouldn't you know it? God sends another prophet to him and the prophet walks in with the word of the Lord, the anointing, the mantle of the spirit on him. And the prophet says to Amaziah, yo, what is up with you, Amaziah? Well, that's not exactly what he said, but it was close to that. The prophet said to him, why are you worshiping idols that are loser gods? They didn't even help the Edomites. You defeated the Edomites. Why would you worship the gods that couldn't help them? Makes sense. Why do we pursue the things in the world that don't make the people in the world happy? The world's unhappy, and yet we're pursuing what they're pursuing. So, so the Bible tells us the unthinkable. While the prophet is talking, Amaziah says to him, he's really full of himself now, he says, shut up. Why do you want to get killed? He's going to kill the prophet. Now, listen, the prophet starts to step back and he says these words. And this is the key to the future of the Brooklyn Tabernacle and the assemblies of God and James River Assembly of God and the church that you represent and the orchestra here, great playing orchestra, great singing choir. But here's the future for all of us. The prophet backs up and says, now I know you're doomed because you wouldn't listen. As long as you would listen, as long as you would hear the word of the Lord, as long as you would listen to the voice of the spirit, there's no telling what God could do for you. But now you're full of yourself and you won't listen. I know you're doomed because when we stop listening, God himself can't help us. Did you know that later on at the end of the chapter, Amaziah is still full of himself, picks a fight with the northern ten tribes, and the Bible tells us before they go to war that a wicked king, Jehoash, from the northern tribes, a wicked king says to him, you know what? You're full of yourself because you had a victory over the Edomites. Why are you picking a fight with me? Why do you want to die? Why do you want to get in trouble? But Amaziah is not listening to anyone. He's not listening to the word of God. He's not listening to a prophet. He's not listening to God putting up all the red alerts, all the signs. Stop. He won't listen. And the Bible tells us that he goes to war against Israel and Israel, which is wicked, wipes the floor with Amaziah and the army of Judah. The army is routed. Amaziah is captured. He's brought back with a hook in his nose to Jerusalem. They go into the temple, the holy temple of God. They steal all the silver and the gold instruments and vessels in the temple. The treasury is raided. All the money is taken and hostages are taken and little girls go to bed at night that night without their daddies anymore because they've been hauled up as captives to the north, all because one king wouldn't listen, listened at once, listen at the beginning, was tender and humble and sensitive to the word of God and then just thought, I don't have to listen anymore. I can do what I want and God will follow me. Listen, God doesn't follow you where you go. You go where God leads you. And then he'll put a blessing over you. You won't be able to even contain. Let's put our hands together and thank God for his promise of being with us as he leads us. Amaziah was the man that God wouldn't listen. I want to turn this to make this positive in just one second, because the reverse of this truth is very thrilling, but I want to go back a number of years. If I could, Amaziah wasn't the first nor the last man who wouldn't listen. I guess it was 20 years ago or more. You'll pick up the date. Some of you better. You'll know the story. We have a Sunday night service at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. It was an unusual service. The presence of God came down in that building. We were supposed to take communion that night. We had two singers from Nashville, Tennessee, who were supposed to sing. I was supposed to preach. Nobody preached. We couldn't take communion. Nobody got to sing. When God came down, the glory of God came down and we began to worship God and weep and wait and just I can't even describe what happened. It's the only meeting since Carol and I have been at the Brooklyn Tabernacle. I couldn't interrupt it to take the offering. Now, you know, God is moving when you don't take an offering, right? That's right. I realized I realized if I stopped this for any reason, that'll be it'll be a sin. I just got to let this go, God. And I was lost in it. And the meeting started back in those days at what, 7, 730. We left Carol and I about 10 to 11. People were still praying in the church. It was just pure, pure spirit of the living God. No offering, no sermon, nothing. But trust me, God did some heavy duty business with all of us. We got home that night and my wife's habit in those days was to turn on the television late on Sunday night and world and watch the world's at that time, the world's most famous televangelist. And that's what she did. We came home from this meeting. She flipped on the television. I was washing up in the bathroom and I remember coming to the door of the bedroom. The TV was on. She was already in the bed. I had a towel over my shoulder and the televangelist, the most famous of them all was preaching a message. And I had been troubled. And so had Carol been over the last few months, because his messages weren't so much biblical anymore. They were just storytelling. And he was getting a very harsh tone, very harsh tone, making fun of other Christians. You know, when you're filled with the love of God, you don't make fun of other Christians. But I wasn't ready for what happened that night. And I stood in the doorway. The televangelist was preaching and he brought up some example about someone who molested a child. And it must have been in the news. It was a crusade of his in an auditorium that seated about 10,000 people. And the televangelist said, I'll tell you what I would do with a guy who molested a child like that. I would line him up against a tree and open a shotgun into his chest. And when he said that 10,000 people, as God is my witness, 10,000 people jumped to their feet and started applauding. And my wife and I had just been in the presence of God for hours. My wife let out a scream and she just said, turn it off. Tears jumped to my eyes. I was groaning. I mean, I've been around church since a little kid, even though I wasn't always serving God. I backslid a lot, but I've been around enough. I've never seen a meeting where you're cheering somebody getting killed. That's a long way from Calvary. And as he was pacing back and forth and whipping the crowd into a frenzy, my wife and I flipped the TV off and she began to weep. And I, I had the tears rolling down my eyes because we had seen this man really used of God. This man had been really used of God. At least I felt so. And my wife said to me, because we had just made a new friend in the last year or two, but a well-known ministry himself, a national ministry. She said to me, Jim, why don't you call brother so-and-so and talk to him? He knows this televangelist. Somebody's got to get to this guy. Something's really wrong. And I said, you know, what was this? 1980, 81. I don't know. I can't remember the years now, but, but, you know, who was I to call this new friend that I had had, who had had had shown favor to me and preach in my church now. And I've been out to his house in Texas. And who was I to call him to talk about the world's most famous televangelist? You know, that was beyond me, but I was troubled all week long. There was a heavy gloom in my spirit. I couldn't shake it. My wife would tell me every day, Jim, aren't you going to do something? This guy is going to self-destruct and he's going to hurt a lot of Christians. I said, Carol, I know. I mean, we had just been in the presence of God. You know, God's spirit is pure love. God is love. When you're in God's presence, you get, you get immersed in love. So when that man said that, it was like somebody stick a sword in my spirit. Eight days went by. And on that next Monday night, for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to call. And who was I? Anybody? Anyway, I mean, what was, what's going on? But on that Monday night, I was sitting in the bedroom next to the phone and my wife looked at me and she said, Jim, you know, we've got to do something. We're nobody, but we got to talk to somebody. Jim, can't somebody reach this man? He's going to hurt himself. Something's wrong. I picked up the phone. I hit my friend's number and I got him on the phone right directly, right through to a study at his home. I said, hi, brother. He said, oh, hi. I said, I don't know how to tell you why I'm calling. And I hemmed and I was nervous. I said, look, it's like this. We were in this meeting. The presence of God came down. We nobody could do anything but worship and wait. And we came home and this televangelist said this crazy remark. And the crowd cheered the thought of a murder. And nobody's saying yes on the other end of the phone. So I went, excuse me, brother, are you there? He goes, keep talking. So I said, well, OK, I will. So we came home and this is so troubling. My wife and I and we're nobody. But we know you know him. You preach in his Bible school. Brother, I don't have all the answers, but that's way off. And then I'm sure that I hear my friend cry. He's crying on the phone. So I thought I had called at the wrong time and the Lord is my witness. I said to him, am I calling at a bad time? He said, no, you're calling at the exact time. He said, God had you call. I said he did. He said, yes, I was at that Bible school two weeks ago. And he said that televangelist is out of the loop. He has built such an empire. He has so many TV obligations, crusades. He's got so much on top of him that he has no time to pray, no time for the word of God, no time to listen, no time to be with his wife. And my wife and I were we're just there for a couple of days and we came home and we've been burdened and burdened. We've been weeping. But he said, that's not all. Two nights ago, he said, I was praying for him and God gave me a prophecy for him. Three letters, three page letter, a prophetic word for this brother. And the message in the letter was this, shut it down. Shut it all down, shut everything down, get back to the word, get back to prayer, get back to waiting on God, get back to your wife, get back to seeking the Lord. And don't say I can't afford to shut it down, because if you don't shut it down, God will shut it down. And my friend is trembling and he's crying on the phone and I'm crying. My wife doesn't understand what's going on and my heart is pounding. And he said, I wrote this letter, but I didn't send it. And today's Monday and I finished, had my secretary type it, but I told her, don't send it out. And it's sitting on the desk, Jim. But I went to prayer tonight and I said, God, if this is really you, because this could cost me my friendship with my with this televangelist, if this is really you, give me a sign, have somebody call me, have something happen that I'll know this is you. And as I was praying it, the phone rang and there you were. We both cried. He sent the letter. The response wasn't very good. It was basically, you don't understand the anointing that I have on me and you don't understand what God has raised me up to accomplish in the earth. Shut it down. I'm taking in almost a million dollars a day. How could I shut it down? If I'm in the trouble you think I'm in, why is the money coming in? So I'm not shutting anything down. And I want you to know your word from the Lord is way out in the left field. But it wasn't very long before the televangelist wished he had shut it down, because when you stop listening, bad things begin to happen. And now his word is an adjective. Imagine he's sleeping somewhere tonight and his name is an adjective in New York City, it is. If you want to talk about somebody fraudulent and immoral and not real, his name is now an adjective in the English language. And it could have been spirited if he just would have listened. Isn't God persistent? I was just a lot younger than a young minister just learning a lot of things. But I thought to myself, God, you're amazing. You're following this guy and making people call each other and write letters and prophecies. But what can God do when nobody's listening? In other words, God is speaking, but nobody was listening on the other end. That's what happened to Amaziah. That's what happens to pastors who run churches by computers instead of hearing from the Holy Ghost. Listen, that's what happens when we read church growth journals instead of seeking the Lord's pastors. Look, look at me, everybody that's here. You do understand that every single one of you is going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. Brother Cass, I know, understands that so does brother Crabtree. You do understand that you're going to stand at the judgment seat of Christ. Carol and I are going to stand there to give an answer for the quality of the work that we do, not the quantity, the quality of our work. You won't be judged by the church growth journals or by denominational headquarters. You're going to be judged by the king of kings and the Lord of Lords, whose eyes are like fire. And won't it be just horrific in that day if we find out that God was calling and trying to get through and talk to us, but nobody was listening, that he gave us his word, but instead of preaching it, we preach some insipid nonsense because the world says you've been with sinners. Why would God give us the gospel if he didn't want us to preach it? Sure, some people are going to get mad and walk out, but I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. How many are with me? Say amen. I'm not ashamed of the gospel. We got to preach. Paul told Timothy, preach the word. Don't preach your vision. Preach the word. Preach the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Don't preach current events. Preach the word of God. Listen to it. Let's get it in our hearts, brothers and sisters, because when you honor the word of God, God will honor you. You know how God answers prayer and why some people are powerful in prayer. You read the story of E.M. Bounds or Andrew Murray or some of these great men and women of God. And here's the way God looks at it. If you listen to me when I talk, I'll listen to you when you talk. But if we're not listening to God, what right would we have to come into his presence and say, I need this and I want this? Of course, I'm not listening to what you need. And it makes no sense at all. The future of my church and your church is based on this very fact. Why do you think all the seven letters are different in the book of Revelation that Jesus wrote? But why would they all have the same ending? He that hath an ear, let him. When we stop listening and hearing what God is saying to us through his word and by his spirit, I don't care how many are running. It's not a Christian church. You can juggle numbers and steal people from other churches, but that's not a Christian church. A Christian church is where God's word is honored and people are listening for the voice of the spirit. They believe in the say of the Lord. This is almighty God talking to us. It's not a place for charlatans and personalities and flippant behavior. This is serious business. Just the other day, this last Sunday, we learned that a man, a godly couple in our church came to one of my associate pastors and said, I've invited my neighbor twice. He's come twice to the church. He's not a Christian. He's a wild man, but he got him in there twice. He fights like a cat and a dog with his wife. Pastor Combs, would you see this couple, even though they don't come to this church, even though they're not Christians, would you take time to see him? Pastor Combs said, I'll see him on Tuesday. A week ago, yesterday, a couple of days ago, this past Tuesday, a week ago from that, I'll see him at six o'clock, six o'clock. They don't show at the end of the prayer meeting. This godly couple from our church comes with their head down to Pastor Combs and says, you know why they didn't come? He killed her yesterday, strangled her and then took an overdose of barbiturates and fell on top of her dead. The detectives found him laying on her and he, and he, and he actually taped her last sound. So the police have the last sounds of her screaming as he took her life. Some, you know what brothers and sisters meetings are important. I kicked myself that the man was twice in the church and we could, maybe my message wasn't right or something wasn't right. But, but brothers and sisters, you know, momentous things are happening when we have our church services. We got to preach the word of God and we got to be listening for the spirit of God to lead us and direct us. We can't have these little program meetings that have no life in them. We got to be led by the Holy ghost. How many are with me? Say amen. Listen, if God could lead the Israelites for 40 years, can he lead you through one service program down to the minute with no opportunity for the Holy ghost to come down and talk to us ministers, getting their sermons out of books, instead of waiting on the Lord and hearing what God wants to say to the church, plastic sermons, it's not going to cut it today. There's too much evil. The devil has a satanic anointing on the people who are serving him. We've got to have the anointing of the one that's greater than the evil one, but we're not going to do it. Listen with smoke and mirrors, we're going to do it by listening to God. And it's not always hoop and holler. There's a time for hoop and holler. I'm all for hoop and holler. But do you realize that a whole nation was changed because one little boy began to have an ear to hear what God is saying? Read the history of judges. It's the most depressing book in the old Testament. Then you go to Eli, the high priest at the beginning of first Samuel and his miserable sons. It's a mess. Everybody doing what was right in their own eyes. God was on the throne, but you can't go running around sloganeering. God is on the throne, but nobody was listening until a little boy named Samuel was taught to say, Lord, behold, your servant. I'm listening. Speak. Tell me what to do. And the Bible says that from that little boy, the word of the Lord came to Samuel and it changed the entire nation because one little boy who grew up began to hear the true word of the Lord. Do you know the greatest? As I close, you know, the greatest missionary journey that you can ever read about is in starts in Acts 13. Do you know how Barnabas and Saul got sent out as they were ministering to the Lord and worshiping? The Holy Ghost said, separate me, Saul and Barnabas and Saul to the work that I have for them to do. But that means they had to have an ear to hear what the spirit was saying. We get so over organized, so over pumped up. Some of the song services are like aerobic meetings. And the minute it gets quiet and you want people to wait, everybody gets nervous. That's not the way of the Holy Ghost. There's a time to make noise. There's a time to be joyful, but there's also a time to be still and know that I am God. And did you know what, brothers and sisters? Listen, that's the forgotten element of prayer that has made prayer so hard for people. The main part of prayer is not so much talking. It's listening. God already knows what you need before you start praying. So tell him it. But if you think Jesus was up every morning, walking around and praying for hours, saying, Father, I need this. Father, I need that. Listen, he was bringing petitions to the father, but he was listening. He had to get direction because Jesus said. In myself, I can do nothing unless the father shows me. Jesus never knew how long he would stay in the city. He didn't know what sick people he could. He couldn't go up to just everybody and lift them up. He could only do what the father showed him to do. He said, the words I speak, it's because I heard them first. When did he hear those words while he was waiting and listening? If Jesus had to wait and listen, how about you and me, preacher? How about you and me, sister? If Jesus had to listen and get instructions, who are you and I that we don't that we don't need to hear what the spirit is saying? Some of this church growth stuff is just a curse. People are trying to build churches by the trust on formulas instead of hearing from God. They come to listen. They come to the Brooklyn Tabernacle. It just saddens me. Sometimes they come to our prayer meetings and they're sitting with a pad right in our prayer meetings and they're writing down the lights are low. He doesn't use the platform as if if you copy that, that makes it a prayer meeting. There are no formulas. You're not to copy anybody. You're to get on your face and hear from God and God will tell you what to do. Come on, somebody saying, man, let's praise him. The world has still yet to see what God could do through a preacher or a woman, a man, a church that would really listen and wait and not move. I want that. I'm not there, but I want that more than anything else. Yes, we're moving to those buildings and that's going to be great, but I don't care about this building. God's going to burn up those buildings one day. That's not what those buildings won't satisfy me. I want to hear from God. I want God to tell me what to do. Did you know when the devil's working in your congregation minister, if you would listen to God, he would give you the sermons that would cut the devil off at the past before the devil would even start because God knows everything. If you just go by some preaching chart, you've made out for six months with no consulting God, no waiting on God. And then the devil's wrecking havoc. And you're in the book of Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon is fine to preach from, but don't you believe God has a word for every meeting, for every Sunday, there's a word that if Jesus were in the pulpit, that's what he would want me to preach. But to do that, I got to listen. I got to slow down and I got to say, speak. Your servant is listening. And when you begin to wait and listen, that's when the Holy Ghost really begins to do great things. You know, sister Hutchins, I'll close with Carol. Cream, if you would come to the keyboards and singers, if you would come back up. My mother-in-law has really been used by the Lord in prayer. And when I just met her family, Carol's almost five, four and a half years younger than me. So I met the Hutchins family when I was 11. So Carol was just a little kid, had no teeth in the front here. Yeah, wasn't pretty. She's beautiful now, but it wasn't love at first sight, I can assure you. Well, a man, a man mightily used of God that brother Trask knows of and brother Crabtree knows of. He went off toward the end of his life, unfortunately, but when he was at his very best. You could stick all the evangelists from one end to another and pile them high. Nobody was ever used by God like this one brother in the late 40s, early 50s, mid 50s, late 50s. And I was I was 14 or 13 when he came to my father-in-law, my late father-in-law's church. And I'll never forget those two nights because it was that combination of humility and brokenness and listening that releases divine power. No tricks with the microphone cord and the pulling down the tie and all this stuff. It was he was like a lamb, but he was like a lion. Because when you listen for God, I met a man some years later who told me this story. He said that this event, this evangelist minister, I don't know how to quote to call his ministry, but he was flying with some friends to go to a service in a Midwestern city. And they made a stop at a small airport and they got off the plane as the plane refueled. These were the old days, no jetways. And he got off the plane. They went in and had some coffee or something, and they were walking back on the tarmac just to go up the steps to this small plane to make the last little jump. And as he's approaching the plane, he turns to the three or four men that are with him and he says, I can't get on this plane. I'm not supposed to get on this plane. So the friends knew that this guy listens to God and God would speak to this man. So they thought if he's not getting on this plane, that could only mean one thing. His baby's going down. But he said to them, no, it's not going down. You get on the plane. I'll catch the next one to the city. But I can't get on this plane. But go. The Lord is with you. Just go. The brothers nervously got on the plane, not knowing what's going on here with our brother. Plane taxied. And as it's taxing away, they see their friend just walking to the end of the tarmac and then down the side of the airfield toward a road. The plane takes off and he's just walking in a city that he never knew he'd stop at down the road he'd never been before. Later, they learned that as he had walked about a mile, some houses started to appear, but they were really ramshackle, little wooden houses, very poor people. And as he walks a mile, a mile and a quarter, there's a little rundown wood house on the right with an African-American woman, a black sister, just rocking. But as she sees him walking down this road going who knows where she gets up off the porch, walks to the front gate, and as he's coming by, she says to him, You're the man of God, aren't you? He said, I am a man of God. She said, My son is dying inside of some terrible disease. But I was praying. And the Lord said, If I stood out here at this time tomorrow, he would send a man of God by who would pray for my boy so my boy could be healed. He walked in the house, didn't have to say but just a few sentences, because when you're following the Holy Ghost, you don't have to have a lot. You just speak the words. And the boy was healed and he walked back to the airport and just sat there waiting for the next flight. I don't know about you, but that's what I'm hungry for in my life. How many are with me? How many want to hear from God, be led by God, hear from God's truth? You know what it takes? It takes us humbling ourselves. Let's close our eyes. It takes us humbling ourselves. Even pastors with big churches, sometimes we're the most in danger because we get full of ourselves. We think we're the answer. We're not the answer. God is waiting for someone to be like little Samuel who will say, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. If we just humble ourselves and become tender and soft and listen, I promise you he will release things in our churches, things, there will be lines outside your building. I want to tell somebody listening to me today who's discouraged, don't be discouraged. There'll be lines outside your building. If God begins to work in your midst, you won't be able to fit the people in when people know that there's a living word being preached. Then we're going to sing this little song that says singing. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It's very simple. And it's the kind of song maybe they were singing in Antioch when they ministered to the Lord in Acts 13 and the Lord began to speak to them. If you're here tonight and you're a pastor or worker of some kind, and you want to make a fresh consecration of your life. God, I'm with pastor Simbala. I want to hear from you in a new way. I don't want to be like Amaziah. I don't want to be like the televangelist. I don't want to be like the man who wouldn't listen. I want to be tender to every breathing of your Holy Spirit. I want to be soft and listening. I don't want to be hard and set in my own ways. I don't want to be full of churchianity and Pentecostal culture. I want the real Holy Ghost. Pentecostal culture will not cut it. There's Pentecostal culture, and then there's real Pentecostal power. He that hath an ear, let him hear. Those of you who are hungry, just get out of your seat. You'll come. I don't care if two came or two thousand came. Men, women, young people. Pastor, I need a word from the Lord. In my church right now, you read me. I need a word from the Lord. I need to hear what God wants me to do. I got fighting in the church. I got division. I don't have enough money. Don't know how to raise the money. Don't know how to draw sinners into my building. I only draw church people. How do you reach the sinners? God has an answer for every single problem. God, the Holy Ghost is alive. God, the Holy Ghost is alive. The Holy Ghost is alive tonight. The Holy Spirit speaks. We bless you, Lord. We bless you, Lord. Lord, as we wait in your presence, we ask you to forgive us for our self-will, for our mechanical ways of doing your work instead of listening for the voice of your spirit, for being over-organized and under-spiritualized. But we believe in the Holy Ghost tonight, Lord. Holy Spirit, we welcome you into this place. You have to help us at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Holy Spirit. You have to help all my brothers and sisters. You have to help the general council. You have to help Brother Trask and Brother Crabtree. Lord, without you, we're all helpless, Lord. Without you, we can do nothing. We humble ourselves before you and we ask you to show us the way that we should walk, solve the problems of our churches. Give us messages that cut to the quick. Give us wisdom in selecting personnel. Show us what your plan is, Lord, so that we won't just struggle along in our own strength. Help our strength to be in you, Lord, and not in ourselves. Lord, we thank you for books. We thank you for computers. We thank you for sound systems. But nothing can replace your Holy Spirit, Lord. Take some of us pastors and humble us, Lord. If any of us are full of ourselves, Lord, empty us tonight. Don't let us be like Amaziah. Take us back to a childlike spirit, Lord. We pray. We bless you. We bless you, Lord. We bless you, Lord. We praise you. We bless you, Lord. We praise you, Lord. Hallelujah, Lord. Hallelujah. We're not alone. We don't have to do this alone. You are with us, Lord. We praise you. Whether you're kneeling or standing, just lift your hands and open your mouth and begin to praise God for his love for us. Come on, wherever you are, just open your mouth and begin to praise him. Let's just minister to the Lord. We worship you, Lord. We praise you for your word tonight, Lord. Your word has cut us to the quick, Lord Jesus. Oh, God, how we let praise you. We love you. We adore you. We worship you, Lord. I'll say, yeah. I'll say, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I want you to grab ahold of another man and begin to pray out loud one for another God. Give us your voice. Help us to hear what the Spirit is saying. If you're a lady, grab another lady and begin to pray out loud at the same time one for another.