In this sermon, the preacher addresses the issue of passivity and gospel imbalance among believers. He emphasizes the importance of not just leaving things to God, but actively cooperating with Him to accomplish His purposes. The preacher shares his experience of visiting a church that had teachings on the deeper life and revival, but lacked trust in God. He also talks about his recent trip to Switzerland, where he witnessed God's work in different countries. The sermon concludes with a focus on the verse Malachi 3:10, encouraging believers to bring their tithes to the storehouse and trust God to bless them.

Well, greetings friends. It's certainly a joy and a privilege to be able to come to you again this month and share with you the message that's on my heart. Let me just say this, that the message that's on my heart that's on the tape for you this month is a message that I believe the Lord really wants me to send to you. I'm really running into a lot of passivity and gospel imbalance. And I, you know, I feel like that I am probably one of the worst in this area. But I'm finding people saying, I'm going to leave this thing to God. And they do not cooperate with God to accomplish God's end. And so I want you to listen to this tape and listen carefully, that it might really enable you to see maybe where you have been passive. And if you haven't been passive, you know, show you where some of your friends and loved ones may have been passive. The Lord led me to a church that had the deeper life teaching, the victorious life teaching, revival teaching. But they just were, they were yielded, but they were not trusting the Lord for anything. And so the Lord gave this message in the Lord would speak to your heart through this. It's been very difficult to get this message out. We made the introduction and everything was set up before we went to Switzerland. And I thought everything went well, but somehow, some way the tape got messed up. And we're almost late in sending it out. And by the way, we have now returned from Switzerland. And that was quite a trip. We had about 140 people to go from over here and about 65, 70 people met us from over there. And we had a meeting twice in the morning, twice in the evening. And we just had preaching, preaching four times a day. And we had the rest of the time to get to know the people from Russia and about 15 foreign countries. And it was quite a time. God really allowed us to see what he's doing across the world. The man from Russia got up and preached a message on how to be filled with the spirit. It sort of shocked all of us that God would be leading people in Russia to have the same message that we were having over here. We got deeply tied in to some people. And it's going to be quite an interesting experience to see how God brings us through and brings us out, brings us into victory over this. I am really excited about two things as I talk to you right now. I just finished a meeting, just a regular church meeting, where I went to a church, preached the gospel to the church, and the people heard it and responded. People got right with God and people got saved. And that thrilled me. And that's really my cup of tea. I mean, it is really my cup of tea. And I just rejoice in it so much. And I do praise God. And the other thing that I'm rejoicing in is how the Lord is blessing this work in Switzerland. So I just praise God for the opportunity of sharing with you. I trust that this message will really be a blessing to you and be looking forward to being with you again next month. I want to start out with a very, very familiar passage tonight. I feel like this passage is known more by Baptists than any other group. I've never tested this, but I know in my own heart I wasn't saved six months until I was confronted with this verse of Scripture. And I'm going to confront you with it tonight. And I'm going to show you something I learned about the truth out of this verse just by illustrating the message, and then possibly we'll go further than that. But if you were turning to one of the five top verses of Scripture in the Bible to a Christian, where would you turn? Five of the top verses in the Bible for the Christian. Now, don't try to be spiritual. Be Baptist. Now, y'all are trying to be spiritual. Malachi 3.10. Amen? That's right. Malachi 3.10. This message is what the Lord has shown me for this church. I wasn't given the message to preach last night. I'd have preached it. But I believe that this message tonight is for this church. And if you're a minister, you just hang on, because there'll be enough left over for you. But this message is a message for this church. It says, Bring ye all the tithe into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house. And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. What a promise. He said, I will rebuke the devourer for your sake, and he shall not destroy the fruit of your ground. Isn't that blessed? Twelfth verse, That all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. Boy, he just keeps on talking about blessings. And it all starts out, Bring ye all the tithe into the storehouse. Prove me now, saith the Lord. God showed me something out of this verse one time. I do not feel that I can't remember preaching on this verse over five or six times over the last 30 years. But I am impressed, not to preach a sermon, but just to give you a message out of this verse of Scripture. And I believe it will be so applicable to you. I'm going to first tell you how the Lord let me have this Scripture illustrated. And it will just open it up to you. And this is my style of preaching, and I like it like this. Back before I ever learned what it meant to trust Jesus, the Lord tried to teach me, and I was so stupid that I rebelled on God, and it took him eight more years later before he showed me what he wanted to show me. Now, I'm not pulling your leg. I'm being very serious about it. I'd ask the Lord to really teach me the truth about trusting, and the Lord shut me up into a circumstance where there was nothing left to do but trust him. And I trusted the Lord for about six weeks. I mean, just trusted him. Every day was a supernatural day. I mean, there was no explanation for it except God. Hundreds of people got saved. I mean, everywhere I went, people just got saved. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of them. And financially, which evangelists, a lot of evangelists have a difficult time with the finances. In that six weeks' time, God so supernaturally blessed, there was no explanation for it but God. But after that six weeks' time, I lost the truth that God showed me because I rebelled about $250. I got in the flesh over it, and God's glory forsook me in that area and did not come back for eight years. Eight years. So I want to share with you what I learned, and it's the message for this church. Are you getting that? Okay. I was in the First Baptist Church, Westlake, Louisiana. And this church was a big church then. It's much bigger then than it is now, I think. But it was a nice-sized church. They ran about a thousand or more in Sunday school. I did not get in churches like that very often. And the pastor had never had my style of an evangelist in the church. And my brother-in-law and sister-in-law belonged to that church. And here I was, invited to come to this church and preach a revival. Now, in those days, people did not invite me unless they were prepared for a revolution. That's right. And so everyone was scared. They were afraid, you know, that what might really happen. And I went in this meeting, and I knew that the key to this meeting, because this was right at the time God was opening my heart about trusting Jesus. I knew the key was that I had to trust the Lord, but I didn't know how to trust Him. And I got into this meeting, and the need was to trust the Lord. And I got desperate. I got extremely desperate in this meeting to trust Jesus. And I didn't know how to trust Him. In this verse, Malachi 3.10 became a reality to me. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house. And prove me herewith, saith the Lord of hosts. I said, Lord, I am paid up. That's exactly the words I said to God. I said, I'm paid up. Meant, meaning, that I had given all to God He required. He says, bring ye all the tithe into the storehouse. Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord. I said, Lord, I'm paid up. He said, look at that again. I looked at that verse again. It says, bring all the tithes into the storehouse, and prove me now. In other words, do not only surrender, but act on the faithfulness of God to the degree that God will have to perform a miracle to keep His word. And I saw something I'd never seen. A bird has two wings. And if one of those wings do not work, that bird can't fly. I saw that I had spent many years of my life yielding, but none of them trusting. And I am saying to you tonight that there's a lot of people across America in these churches that want God to work so badly they can't stand it. They've done everything they know to do to surrender. But friends, it takes surrender and trust. It takes both wings. You can act in obedience to all you know and surrender everything. But if you're not trusting, you're not going to fly. I saw it. I'd been yielding for years. Teaching the spirit-filled life, all of that. But I'd been yielding, but in my life I was not trusting God for a thing. I said, well, Lord, how can I prove you now? And I saw that I could announce what God was going to do in that meeting. Not after He did it, but before He did it. See, I was yielded, but I wasn't trusting. I was working on one wing, not both. I was yielded, but I wasn't trusting. I said, I never shall forget. I said, well, Lord, I choose to trust you. And I got up in the morning service, and I said, folks, we're having revival. And that bunch looked at me like I was a dumb mule. An awkward mule at that. They didn't know what to say. I got up the night service that night, and I said, folks, God is sending revival. The devil had himself a time that day laughing at me. I said, if revival does not come, then I'm a false prophet. But it's on the way. It's here now. Revival is coming. He says what? Bring y'all the tithe into the storehouse. That's surrender. But he also says what? Prove me now. Amen? Prove me now. I found out I had to declare that revival was on. I got in the second morning service after I declared revival was on, and I heard a few people crying. Boy, it was just like a little wind in the mulberry bush. I got a little glimpse. But now here's this big old traditional church. I got that night, halfway through my sermon, a deacon waved me down. He said, preacher, can I get saved? I'm telling you, folks, it was on. I mean from that, brother, it was just keeping up. It was just keeping up. It was just keeping up. But what I saw, I have never gotten over. I saw that there are two wings. There's yield and there's trust. You not only have to yield to God, but you have to trust him. For the next six, almost nine weeks, really, one supernatural experience after another, God just works supernaturally well. Now, what are you proving, God, folks? I believe that this is one of the most surrendered churches I've seen in a long time. But I think, brother and sister, you're no more trusting God. Amen? I mean, you love him. I believe that. You love him. You admire him. You respect him. You serve him. You yield to him. But you're not trusting him. Trusting him is proving him. He said, don't only yield, but prove me now, and then I will pour out the blessings. Amen? Prove me now you're with Seth, Lord. For he'll pour his blessings out. I know, at this point, I'd be afraid to tell you what to do as to how to get with God. But, folk, until you come to the place that you prove God, you're not going to see the glory of God. Right? And I have found so many people yielding but not believing. Those two wings are necessary. Now, in Hebrews 11 chapter, Hebrews 11 chapter, I'll add some foundation to what I've said. It says, second verse, For by it the elders obtained a good report. Now, this little verse indicates that these great men and women of God had a witness born to them. And because of this witness born to them, they received a good report. Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, these people that's mentioned in this seventh chapter of the book of Hebrews, literally pleased God by the fact that they trusted God. That's the thing that really blesses God is for us to trust Him. Without trusting Him, it doesn't please Him. For without faith, it's impossible to please God. Right? Let me just bring you into this auditorium for a moment tonight. Stand you back there at the door. And you look over these chairs and pews. And you conclude that these pews can hold you up. They were built, designed, purchased for the purpose of holding you up. But there you are back there at the door. You conclude that these pews can hold you up. You conclude that. So there you stand with the pews back right here. And there you are at the door. Now, you believe this pew can hold you up and you want the pew to hold you up. But you're standing at the door. Is the pew literally holding you up? All right, finally you decide, well, I'm tired. I know the pew can hold me up. I want this pew to hold me up so bad I can't stand it. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to sit in the pew. Then you make a choice in your heart to sit in that pew. And when you make a choice in your heart, your whole or entire human personality reacts to that choice. Reacts to that choice. So here you come down the aisle and you sit in the pew. After the choice or before the choice do you sit in the pew? After the choice. After the choice, your body is at the disposal of the pew. Now, beloved, Jesus wants us to prove Him, try Him. Put Him on the spot. You say, well, I don't believe in being presumptuous and putting God on the spot. I'll tell you what. If you're sincere and your heart is right with God, I don't worry too much about you trying to put God on the spot. Amen? Very likely, any spot you can put God on, He was working to get you there before you thought about it. Prove Him now. Prove Him now. I like to tell the story that the first time I really got into this message, which was eight years after the incident I told you about a few minutes ago. Eight years later, God brought me back to this truth. Eight years later. And I was flying out of Memphis, Tennessee to South Carolina through Atlanta. And I just learned that you must believe in order to receive. And I said, well, Lord, if you've got to believe in order to receive, what in the world can I trust you for now? I didn't realize that Proverbs 16, 3 was in the Bible. It says, commit thy works unto the Lord, and He'll establish thy thoughts. But my works were committed to the Lord, and He was establishing my thoughts, and I wasn't even aware. I just wrote down on a sheet of paper what I'd like to see God do in the next three meetings. Well, I got to Atlanta. By that time, I realized that I had to act in obedience to God to the degree that if He didn't work a miracle, I sunk. So what I did was I wrote my wife, and I said, before I see you again in three weeks, God will have done these things. She said, preacher, what if you'd fail? I'd rather fail trusting Jesus than sit around and let the world go to hell like everybody else. Amen. I just said, well, I wrote my wife, and I said, God will have done these things when I see you again, before I see, or when I see you again. And she got the letter, and if God had not done those things, I'd have been in trouble. But I'll tell you, I'd felt real good about that letter until I dropped it in the mail drop in Atlanta. And boy, when I dropped that letter, all hell turned loose. And I discovered what the Bible talks about when it talks about the fight of faith. You see, I had believed, I had acted in obedience, I was proving God. And boy, when I turned that letter loose, the devil then decided to prove me. And I mean, he worked on me, and he worked on me. He worked, he did the best he could to get me to doubt. And my faith got so weak that it just got to the place that I said, God, I refuse to doubt. Amen. I just refuse to doubt God. In other words, I simply could only choose to trust Jesus. I just chose in my heart to trust him. I refuse to doubt. Now, Pastor, precious brother, he didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't tell him because he tried to beg those people out of a bunch of money. And that wouldn't have been a blessing. And he couldn't make people get saved. And I was trusting God for 20 souls, and that church only ran 40 in Sunday school. And I was trusting God for several hundred dollar offering, and they only ran $60 a week in the offerings. And the deacon came by and said, you know, preacher, we had the greatest meeting, last meeting we ever had in this church. He said, we had seven people saved. I know the devil sent him by me. You know, for three solid days, I just walked around that church like they walked around Jericho, not seven times. But I just walked around praying, refusing to doubt. Because I'd stepped out to prove God. To prove God now. And, beloved, as I stood out there, no man could stand with me. Just Jesus and me. Saturday night, the glory of God came through that church and saved 19 people in one service. Oh, brother, it wasn't hard for me to believe him for one more. And I'll tell you something. Financially, God just supernaturally met the need. It was so beautiful. I mean, it was so beautiful, I'll just tell you a little sliver of how God worked. I was reared in Portnages, Texas. I was born in Mississippi, and I'm proud of that. It's about the best state I know of. And that's the final word. But I was reared in Texas. I pastored a church three years in Texas. And I had not seen this family in nine years. Nine years that I'm going to tell you about. This family had had a death. There was some inheritance money. The man, it was on his side of the family. His wife was praying during the week that I was believing God. His wife was praying. And God showed her to send me some money, $85. And send a boy in the seminary $85. She said, well, Lord, it's not my money. You tell my husband. He came in that afternoon, or late afternoon, evening, from work. He said, honey, God told me where to give that money today. She couldn't wait. She said, where did he tell you to give that money? He said, he told me to give Arliss Bingaman in the seminary $85. And he told me to send Manly Beasley the other $85. Now, folk, I hadn't seen these people in nine years. My sister called me and she said, you got an $85 check this week in the mail. Well, when all the offerings came together, it was exactly what was written on that sheet of paper. Exactly. And here's what I'm trying to say to you. Folk, God worked in those three meetings abundantly above what I'd ever ask of God. Now, you know where we're missing it here in this church tonight? You're not missing it in surrender. I have really, really seen some surrendered people in this church. But you're like an eagle with one wing. You surrender, right? But you're not proving God. Prove me now, herewith saith the Lord. Amen? Will you prove the Lord? You're not afraid to stand up and say to a lost man, you're a sinner, you need Christ as your Savior, you'll never be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You aren't afraid to tell a lost man that. Why then should I be so afraid to tell you? Dear saint, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Amen? There's something to be saved from more than hell, death, Satan, the world, all kinds of adversities. God wants to save you tonight. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I mentioned this the other night, and somehow the Lord keeps bringing it to my attention tonight, and I'm going to mention it again. The children of Israel walked out of Egypt with a cloud by day and a fire by night. And they murmured and complained and did all kinds of rebellious things against God. But each time God showed the children of Israel that Jesus Christ was all they needed, and that they could just trust Jesus. The bitter water was turned to sweet by the tree being put in that bitter water, and that tree was Christ. Boy, just one example after another. In fact, ten examples. They got to, or they were being prepared to go into Canaan. And Canaan is not heaven. Canaan is a level of Christian living whereby you become a co-laborer with Christ to accomplish God's end. And God was preparing that church, or that group of people, which was an example of the church, for that great moment. And they got to the border of Kadesh Barnea, at Kadesh Barnea, the border of Canaan, and they sent the spies over to spy out the land. And the spies came back. And they gave their report. And the people began to doubt. And Caleb and Joshua stood up and said, God has given us the land, let's take it, let's take it, let's take it. And the people believed a lie rather than believing the truth. And they said no to God. And the glory of God departed from that crowd. Now, if that same crowd had listened to the same report, and fallen down on their face and said, God, we've come this far, and we are not going to turn back, we are going on in to the land with you. And if we perish, we perish. But we're going to prove you now. We're going to trust you. We're going on in with you. What would have happened to those people? You know what would have happened. God would have blessed them. I believe he would have shown them how to let him be their faith. I believe they would have had the victory. If they had simply made the choice to go on in the land with the Lord. You can be surrendered as you know how to be, and still be just crippled with one wing. Right? Just one wing. Right? You can be just as surrendered as you know how to be. But if you're not trusting. And trusting is not believing God can. Trusting is not wanting God to. Trusting, proving God, means you're acting in obedience to God on his word. To the degree that if God doesn't come through, you are sunk. See, I'm afraid to get out there. I'm afraid I'll sink. You probably will. But I've got news for you. You're going to sink like you are. Amen. You're going to sink standing on the banks. What God says whatsoever is not of faith is what? Sin. So you're going to sink. I'd rather sink trusting Jesus. Than not sink. But I think it's just better to go ahead and trust Jesus. John the Baptist's daddy was told of God. About his baby. And he wouldn't say what God said. He wouldn't trust God. Do you know what happened to him? He became deaf and dumb. And I'll tell you folk, when you can't hear God, you haven't got anything to say. So what I'm saying is, when God gives you a chance to walk on in. Walk on in. You may not know all the ramifications. But boy, you can say, Lord, if I perish, I'm perished. But I'm going to trust you. I am simply going to trust you. And I'll tell you, you come to that attitude. And you'll hear Jesus say like he said to Peter, come on. And he'll meet you. And he'll minister to you every need. To every need you have. But he'll help you walk on that water. You'll move out with him in glory and power. Amen? There's two wings to that bird. Yield. And trust. I found, I found through the years, a lot of people who've yielded everything they know to do. But they aren't trusting Jesus. Prove me now. He will set the Lord. He said, then I'll pour out the blessings. Would you bow your head with me? Do we know that song, I have decided to follow Jesus? Do you know that? Is it in there? I have decided to follow Jesus. Did you find it? Do you know it, lady? I want us to stand for a word of prayer. We're just going to sing a couple of stanzas. If God has shown you tonight, some light. I mean, if he's shown you some light tonight, just obey him. Many, many visitors here tonight. God may have spoken to you. And just respond. These altars are open to you. Just come. Just let Jesus have his way. Many of you may say, boy, brother, maybe I've yielded as I know how to be. But are you proving the Lord now? What act of obedience have you taken on the basis of the light of God's word? It's brought you to the place that God has to perform a miracle to keep you. Amen? I preach out on what you talk about. I'll ask the Lord to show you.