Revival Brings Forth Godly Missions

And also to you. Yes, good video, good audio. So that's what we're grateful to hear. Hey, before I turn it over to you, we have a moment. Matter of fact, I got one minute. So let me ask you, maybe for these that are listening and what you see, where are we at as far as this coming to the solemn assembly? I've expressed if we do don't prevail in these weeks, it might be our last window. That that's a urgent, desperate view, not accepted by a lot. You have a far greater pulse on the churches and ministries nationwide, worldwide, actually, your contacts, so far more than mine. And so maybe you just might, if you would share on that, and then just remainder of the time, it's yours. And as the Lord has led you, I just want to express my gratitude to you publicly, Doug. You've always been an encouragement to me and a blessing. And we've done this a couple times. You came here in West Virginia with me. I don't know if it was you or whether it was Ron Hough that said for me to bring the Church of God, Assembly of God and the Baptist and put us all together at the same time. I had to be nuts. But those were blessed days. And of course, Brother Ron Hough passed away. But just thank you so much for joining us last time. And then this time, me and you shouldered the double sessions, and I couldn't get most of the rest of them to do that. So I'm very grateful for you to just be willing to do whatever I needed. And I thank you for that. Okay. Well, hang with me for just a moment. Yes. I think you probably emphasized the return on Saturday, September 26, the mall area, and also the march of Franklin Graham, that Sunday from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol about two miles. And Daniel Bernard's 50 days of prayer. Terry Teichel, I think, is helping him with that. And I looked at the list the other day of so many national leaders. It's going to be a 50-day call to prayer leading up to the election every day at noon. And so they're all kind of prayer initiatives. And thank you for what you're doing here and for promoting those others. Let me respond to your question. The short answer is I don't know. Where are we? I wish I did. And I pray for more insight. I will not forget being at the Cove a few years ago, and I was leading a prayer session in that beautiful, beautiful chapel that's there. And I was taking it from Josiah's Reform. And Richard Owen Roberts was there. You know him well. And I looked at him, and his head was bowed, and the people were praying. And I walked back to him, and I said, do you have something to say? And he said, would you allow me? And he wandered up to the front, and he took the mic, and he made an astounding observation. He said, the Reform of Josiah came too late to save the nation. It seeded, it framed what was necessary in generations that would follow and return after the exile. So I think the question that we have to ask is, are we in time to see a spiritual awakening that would save the nation? Or is what we're going to see, if we see anything in terms of a national spiritual awakening, only going to seed something after some kind of, sadly, some kind of revolution here? Or will God simply walk away, as he seemed to do in Europe, and just leave them to become utterly pagan, and to see the Crusades take place again, that they turn back September the 11th, years and years ago, and to see the nation completely transformed, the whole continent as being non-Christian? I wish I knew a clear, crisp answer. I do feel like we have been, for some years, on the warning track. And we are approaching the point where the brim of iniquity will insist on the judgment of God. And I think we've seen three times in this new century, with 9-1-1, with the banking crisis of 2008, God spoke to me just before that happened, and he said, I'm about to bring the nation into a valley of trouble. I will place there a door of hope. But we didn't go through that door of hope. And now we're in strike three. And I'm reminded of the words of God to Hosea, for three and yet for four. There's a point at which God will say, no more. I've tried to stop you. I've put the barricades up. You've run the barricades. All right, to your own end, you reap the consequences. And I don't know. I don't know if that's where we're at. I'll tell you what, I've been so encouraged in the last few days watching videos that have been produced by James Robinson. One was with the former head of the Assembly of God, and I can see his face and can't think of his name. I'm sad. I'll think of it late tonight, and I'll call you in the middle of the night. Another one was with Jensen Franklin. A number of these interviews in which George Wood, one was with George Wood, in which they've talked about about 30 to 40 leaders that are regularly gathered in the White House. And they did it just recently and prayed for President Trump. And here's what they say. They say, these are unusual. They said the last one, there were words that came forth. There was passionate prayer. There were people that were speaking to the president and saying, no, no, no. I mean, they were being respectful, but they were being forthright. And he was saying, no, don't stop. Keep praying. And there were hands laid on him, and he was saying, I need this. I need this. I need this. And I was impressed by what James Robinson talked about, by his candor, by what he saw, about how his position had shifted completely with regard to the current president, and how he had come to see with Ben Carson's urging, you need to get closer. You need to see what's going on here. He had come to see that this man, despite his flaws, despite whatever, he is searching. And Dan, let me tell you something that God spoke to me this weekend. In fact, yesterday, since I was on with you Friday, I was praying. And the Lord said to me, with regard to Trump, and I won't name names, but others that are around him. One of these people around him came to me at a meeting in January, and we met outside a hall where he had just addressed a group of national leaders, 120 leaders or so. And he stepped out, and I stepped out to meet with him. And he said to me, he said, I was a pastor. And he said, I went through a terrible thing in my life. And he said, I learned humility and brokenness. And he said, I thought I was finished. And then he said, he talked about how God brought him back and elevated him to the place of working. I don't think his office is in the White House, but he's actually a faith advisor. Pretty tall grass that he's in. And I, yesterday when I was praying, the Lord said to me, I have chosen broken people to heal this nation. Not the perfect, not the this upright, I've chosen broken people. Now, and you know, there are times that God will say something to you, and he says more than what he's saying to you. I mean, you get this idea that he's God. He said, what business is it of yours? I've done this. I have chosen broken people. And I think, you know, there is that moment in which God chooses broken people to whom, and in that moment, they can't get the glory, they can't get the honor, they can't get the praise, the glory has to go to God. And you stand back absolutely astounded by his grace. And even more by the instrument he chooses. And I would just say that to people out there. Maybe there's a pastor who used to be a pastor. Maybe there's somebody whose life came apart. Maybe there's somebody who started out and they had the idea that will never happen to me. And everything that they said would never happen to me has happened to them. Maybe they've had a profound fall from grace that embarrassed them, that made them want to change their name and identity and go somewhere else. And now God is speaking to you again. Now God is speaking to them again and saying, this is the season in which I've chosen broken people. You know, we have to remember, it wasn't the Jerusalem elite. It wasn't the educated. It wasn't the degreed. It wasn't the certified. It wasn't the stellar leaders that Jesus chose. It was a ragtag band of disciples who were so divided. They quarreled all the time within themselves. One is a tax collector and the other is a revolutionary. I mean, this is a diverse group. And he chooses these men as the elders of his mobile synagogue. And Jesus, the rabbi, starts out to change the world. And I think he's still looking for ragtag, broken people. And so this may be the time just for those people. Where are we? We're somewhere on the warning track. I don't know where. Well, that's one of those questions I know that there's a lot of speculation goes into it. And there's a lot of other things to consider in that. And I didn't mean to cut into your time, but I had it on my mind. And so I wanted to ask you, but brother... Ask Sammy. He will know. Well, you know, again, Bill said it yesterday morning and me and Sammy was in discussion on this when we did the test run. And he was quoting Dave Butts as well. Never has there been a time in the United States where there has been as much prayer from the Christian church as what there is now. And why would God set us into motion to pray if he wasn't willing to do something? However, even as you said, you brought up Josiah. Manasseh was before, dead and buried. And God spoke those words in 2 Chronicles 36, which I've preached quite often and taught quite often until there was no remedy. And how can you murder 60 million babies and not pay a price? Every kingdom and empire that is butchered around, God has brought them to naught. And so there's a lot of things to consider. Brother, I don't want to take no more of your time. You have 90 minutes and as the Lord leads you, brother, it's yours. So God bless you for this evening. And when you're finished, just holler and I will come back and we'll conclude. All right. Dan, thank you for doing this. Thank you so much. So, Father, we just ask you in these next few minutes to meet with us and illuminate our minds and our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. On Friday, during my time, I went through what I call seven elements of a solemn assembly. And I pointed out that we tend to get to about stage two or three. We have a precipitating event. We have a sense of frailty. We're overwhelmed by it. We start in some kind of back to God discernment or whatever, but we never get to the place where we thoroughly reckon with God about any sin that might have created it or whether or not this thing is his judgment or what he is saying to us. And I think in a sense, that's the question is, what is God saying to us? And as a result, we never, not having discerned his voice and not having been broken before him, we don't reconsider the changes to our attitude and our actions that bring an alignment with his purposes and put us back on the course of fulfilling our destiny. That's the seven elements, the seven steps that God takes a people through when he begins to deal with them in some kind of judgment. And my experience is we get to stage three, no further than stage four, and we bail out of the process. And we think things will be better. They'll be okay. One of the reasons I think God may be after broken people is that they are more sensitive to being broken before him. And professional Christians, you know, we've got it all down. Our wineskins are hardened, and we're not as easy to be broken. The wrenching message of David Wilkerson a few moments ago, I tuned in and listened to it. I mean, this just, this anguish that he's talking about, this is not common in the pulpits of America. It's not common in even our prayer closets of intercessors. But I want to do something. I want to go in a very different place. In my attempt to bring some level of balance. There is a sense in which all of this depends upon our response to God in repentance, in righting ourselves with God, in aligning ourselves with his righteousness. If my people called by my name will humble themselves or repent, one translation says, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, seek my face, not just my hand, not just something from me, and cry out to me. If my people for things he lays out there, then I will grant them a hearing in my courtroom. And that's the essence. I will forgive them and I will heal their land. And so if you look at this from the Old Testament, this very much depends upon our response. But I want you to notice that, I don't know how to say this without going down the deep, into the deep weeds of theology here. That is very much Old Testament. And it's very much mechanistic thinking. And I'm granting that there's truth there. Otherwise, I wouldn't have shared it with you. But I want to come over to the New Testament and just make this declaration. There are some things to which God is committed, whether you and I come along or not. There are certain purposes that God has committed. He gave his son. He is not going to give up on those purposes. The center of prayer has moved from the earth. God wanted that there was no intercession, therefore his own arm brought salvation. He came to the earth to pray. He wrapped himself in flesh and came to the earth to pray. He started his ministry praying and he ended his ministry praying. In the morning, he's praying. In the evening, he's praying. He's praying through the night. He dies on the cross praying. We are saved because Jesus died on the cross praying. Not simply because he died on the cross, but because he died on the cross praying. Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. He left the earth to go to heaven to start a prayer meeting in heaven. Now, if you could get your head around this, you see there was a tabernacle in heaven not made with hands. It was the ultimate pattern for the tabernacle of Moses and the tabernacle of David, the temple of Solomon, the temple of Zerubbabel, but it was only a type. It was only a shadow. It was presided over by a priesthood that proceeded from Aaron, but the New Testament reaches back beyond Moses to Abraham. It reaches back beyond law. It reaches back beyond works and man's righteousness. It reaches back beyond circumcision, the seal of faith. It reaches back to faith itself. Faith as a response to God when God calls Abraham to come and follow me and go to a new land. And just before that moment in Genesis 12, you have the Genesis 11 moment. And the Genesis 11 moment is interesting because you've got two princes there and you've got this priest by the name of Melchizedek. You see, Jesus is not, his priesthood does not stand in the order of Aaron. It stands in the order of Melchizedek. He is not merely a priest. He's a son and he's not a priest in the house of ordinances and washings and rituals. He's a priest in the tabernacle not made with hands in heaven. And he sprinkled there the vessels with his own blood and sat down next to the father and whispered, they will not be able to make it by themselves. Send the Holy Spirit, not to be with them, but to be in them. And this is the ghost of Jesus. This is the Holy Spirit coming. The Holy Spirit's already been in the earth. He's brooded over the earth. He's been a creative force in the earth. He's coming to the earth. He's not new in his coming out of the office of Jesus. He's coming in the name of Jesus. He's coming to complete the work of Jesus, begun in the incarnation, begun in the redemption, the cross, begun, ratified in the resurrection, now settled because Christ is enthroned in heaven, seated next to the father. Jesus went to heaven to pray. The man Jesus, I say the man Jesus, went to heaven to pray. We have a man praying in heaven. He's leading a prayer meeting in heaven. So the center of prayer has moved from the earth to heaven. Worship has moved from the earth to heaven. The 24 elders with crowns on their heads, some level of dominion and authority, who sit on thrones and are the custodians of our yes but not yet prayers, that ascend before the throne and God affirms them, hears them, and grants them, but says, no, not at this time later. And they're accumulating in heaven, and there will come a time. And there are times, I'm convinced, all throughout history when there's certain prayers that are gathered up for this family or this church or this city or this nation, and they're cast back into the earth. I'm wanting to say to you that there is this glorious and wonderful contradiction that you can't resolve. And if you resolve it, you miss it all up. It's a tension. If my people call my money, we'll do this. But then on the other hand, there is this, I'm determined to do this. I'm sovereign. I'm God. You want to come along? Fine. This is what he said to the Jews. Want to come along? Don't want to come along? Okay. I'll raise up the Gentiles. Want to come along? He says to one denomination. Yeah, and we do for a while. And then we don't. And then we don't. And so he says, all right, I'll raise up this group. I'll raise up this group because I am committed to my purposes. Oh, hallelujah. You see, when you pray and you feel like you're all alone, the only way you pray effectively is with Jesus. You join him in prayer. Heaven is having a prayer meeting, and you and I are being invited to join that prayer meeting. At the end of the book of Romans is one of the most fascinating prayers. I've written a book on Paul's prayer on prayer and mission out of the book of Colossians. Another one on prayer requests out of the book of Philippians. And I've gone through, and somehow I had missed the power of this prayer until last year. And I began to look at this prayer. It's actually the benediction for the book of Romans. I'm going to read it, and then I want to come back to it. If you've got a Bible, you want to grab a Bible. I'm reading from the New King James, and I'm reading from Romans chapter 15. And here's what it says. Here's the prayer. Now, Paul says, may the God of patience and comfort, may the God of patience and comfort grant you, talking to the church, to be like-minded towards one another. According to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth, one voice glorify the Father. This is the great call of the church, is that together in unity, we come to this point of agreement. And this is the John 17 moment, that Father, the glory that I had with you before the incarnation, before my glory was veiled, I'm asking you to restore that glory. And then he says an amazing thing. He says, in this glory, I want you to give to them, the church. I am convinced increasingly, that there is an impartation of God's glory. Or maybe there's just an unveiling of the glory that's in us, that's obscured by sin, obscured by our lack of unity, obscured by our lack of clarity, obscured. Something needs to happen to the church. Something needs to happen to me. Something needs to happen to you. And here's the good news. On the Old Testament side, I need to humble myself and to repent and to turn from my wicked ways and so forth. But on the New Testament side, on the New Testament side, there's a dynamic of grace that's working to me, toward me, and perhaps through me, if I again will yield to this, that God is saying, I am determined to do this. I am absolutely committed to do this thing. And what is this thing? That there would be glory through the church unto Christ Jesus in the last days. The glory of the latter house will be greater than the former house. There is coming somehow an impartation or a revelation or an unveiling because of our own clarity, our own unity, our own determination by grace to do what God is asking us to do before a watching world. I want you to glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, therefore, I want you to do this deliberately. Work on receiving one another. And of course, Paul has nothing to do with denominations like we have today, but we should hear this. Work on receiving one another, Baptists and Pentecostals and Cessationists and those who believe the gifts continue and Pre-Tribbers and Mid-Tribbers and Calvinists and Armenians. God is calling us together to come together and receive and receive one another in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as Christ also received us. The same spirit of openness and the same spirit of reconciliation and all of that to the glory of God. Somehow our unity, and you see this in John 17, somehow our unity, our humility, and the glory of God dance together. Joe Aldrich, who is arguably the father of the pastor's prayer summit movement that touched 50,000 pastors in the 90s and into the 2000s, still continues, but not with the same oomph that it had. God called the pastors, I think, to a place of unity in cities that we never experienced. These prayer summits became wonderful prayer retreats, but we didn't follow through with the plan of God. You see, I keep saying all over the place, there are civil elders in every city, town councils, but they're not sacred elders. And so without this unity of government, without the unity, we don't speak with one voice. We don't reason in the spirit. We don't pray together to come to the place where we have one mind and we have a prophetic word for our city or a prophetic word for our nation. And this is, I think, what James Robinson was talking about with his evangelical council that's gathered around Trump, and they've experienced extraordinary unity. I mean, and you've got extreme diversity of the group, settled non-Pentecostals and Pentecostals praying together in the spirit. And this is what I saw in the prayer summits. I would see pastors come together and they would be speaking prophetic words over one another, even though they wouldn't have called it that. And I would see others move to humility when an Episcopalian priest led a communion service. And suddenly we realized that in our diversity, there was a unity, there was a core theology that brought us together around the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ. They're things that we argued about and they are important things, but the centrality and supremacy of Jesus Christ, as Dave Bryant so often says, this is the thing that brings us together. This is the thing that, and this is the thing upon which God wants to put his glory, to emphasize that Christianity is not a mere philosophy, that Jesus Christ is not a mere mortal, that he was God come to the earth. Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the nations, the Gentiles, might glorify God. Now this is the mission. Jesus Christ came to further what started with the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but it got stalled, it got stopped. And so this idea of mission to reaching the Gentiles, to reaching the nations, to a global harvest 2,000 years after the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, enthronement of Jesus Christ, we've still not finished. We've still not finished the Great Commission. And so here's Paul's point, here's Paul's point, that this is about mission, and I would argue that Solemn Assembly is about mission, that ultimately it is about the rectifying of things in us in the church, that those things might be set right, that we might come back to the appropriate center, which is Christ himself, and that we might have credibility in the message that we preach, that the proclamation of the truth that we offer would be partnered with the incarnation of the truth we live, and that somehow, and that somehow in the middle of all this, God would begin to dance upon the church with the glory of God. So this is not merely a morbid thing, as Richard O. Roberts says, this is a vehicle of grace that God has given us, that we might come together and consider where we've been and where we are and where we must be, be, where we must go. What is it that God has called us to do? Well, here it is. Here's what Paul says. I'm reading the prayer of Paul. He says, he says, for this reason, I will confess you, Jesus Christ, among the nations, among the Gentiles, and I will sing your name, and this is my role, and this is your role. My role is to be a witness. My role is to confess Christ. My role is to carry a song in public, not in the church. I don't do this like I should. And again, I say to you, rejoice, all nations, with his people. The first wave is witness. The second wave is that nations began to come together with the people of God, and our voices are raised together in glorifying and praising God. Step number three, praise the Lord, all ye nations. We cannot stop. Some of the Gentiles come together and begin to rejoice with us as God begins to move in nations to think about this. See, our idea of revival is a little week meeting, two-week meeting. Well, that's the way it used to be. Now it's a three-day meeting. Now it's a Sunday meeting. But he's saying nations will be joined to the Lord. This is the word of Zechariah. Nations will be joined to the Lord. Whole nations coming under the hand of God. We need to lift our eyes and see the vision that God has. It begins with some Gentiles praising God, but then it ends with praise the Lord, all ye nations. Not until every tongue and every tribe has been reached with the praise rising from every tongue and every tribe and every kindred group on the face of the earth is God satisfied. And is this prayer of Paul answered? And again, Isaiah says, there will be a root of Jesse. What is his name? His name is Jesus. All of this happens, not around our denominational emblem, not around our special, specific theology, not around some experience that we have, not around whether we baptize in running water frontwards or backwards or triple dunk as the apostolic church used to do. No, no, no, no, no. All of this comes around the simplicity of the person of Jesus Christ. There will be a root out of Jesse and he will bloom. He will bloom in the last days. He will rise to reign over the nations. This is a reign of a spiritual kingdom. And this will ultimately be a geopolitical kingdom because Christ is going to come back. But we pray even now, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Someone said in earth, in earth, in me, as it is in heaven. And this is the alignment that East Stanley Jones talks about. That in prayer, you align yourself to the purposes of God. And he is then able to do things through you that could not otherwise be done. See, what a solemn assembly does is it begins to realign. It realigns attitudes. It realigns theology. It realigns us with the righteousness of God. It honors the holiness of God. It's this realignment. And this realignment is what creates agreement between heaven and earth. Oh, how has it been said we're like a satellite dish? We catch the beam of heaven and direct it there. No, there, no, there, no, no, there. There is this alignment. And in this alignment, while we pray here, God works there. While we pray now, God works then. Just this one point of agreement creates a voice from the earth that's heard around the throne in heaven. And somehow God is looking, I don't understand this in the mystery of his ways, he's looking for voices from the earth to agree with heaven and say, Lord, assert yourself, manifest yourself, do this in the earth, glorify yourself, move in a mighty way. And if necessary, even though we pray this reluctantly, bring judgment, do what you must do to accomplish your purposes. There will be a root of Jesse and he will rise to reign. And Paul knows this root has manifest. This root is in the earth. The incarnation has taken place. Jesus Christ, the root of Jesse has bloomed. And though, and though, and though that tree was cut down, Christ was crucified. Nevertheless, that root is in the earth and we are rising as the shoots that rise out of this. It will reign over the Gentiles in him. The Gentiles will have hope. And this is how he ends his prayer. This is how he ends his prayer. Now may the God, I want you to notice how the prayer begins. Now may the God, now may the God. This is sovereign. This is what God does. And Paul is, Paul is urging God to do what you will, to act in the way that will further your purposes, to act in the way that will bring about your will on the earth. Now may the God of hope fill you and me with joy. That's the noisy fruit and peace. That's, that's the agency of reconciliation out of, out of an inner spirit of peace. I become an agent of peace in faith, in believing, and may we abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. We're not alone. We're not alone in what we're called to do. The ghost is working with us. The ghost of Jesus is working with us. The Holy Spirit is working, is working with us. I want to show you this in a little different way. I just want to kind of track with you as we move toward this, this, this, this prayer. The book of Romans is, is, is, is the letter, listen, it's the letter to the church that lives at the center of global power. And you see, in a sense, America is the church that now lives at the center of global power. And that's why this book becomes important to us. We don't norm, we think about this book in terms of its scope of theology, about soteriology or salvation, about redemption. But, but this is really the overall, the backdrop is mission. And I would suggest again, that the purpose of solemn assembly is not just an internal kind of thing. It's not just a church thing. I think it is, it is necessary because something has disrupted the purpose and the mission of the church and has prevented us from accomplishing the mission of the church. And we, and we, and we have this solemn assembly before God, because things are happening around us that are indicators of the judgment of God and his displeasure. Something has gone wrong here. And it is not the world that we would expect, the nation that we would expect to have a solemn assembly. Sometimes families need to have a solemn assembly. Sometimes the Jacob needs to take his family back to Bethel, the place from which he fled, like the place where Abraham built an altar. And he tells them when he goes back there, get rid of all of your earrings. And he finally says to them, all these years, they've had idols. Jacob's family has been riddled with idolatry. And he tells them, you got to get rid of your idols. And they buried them under the, under the tree at Shechem. And then they journey up, up to Bethel. This is a family solemn assembly. At times that churches are called to solemn assembly. This is really the essence of the letters to the church in the, in the Revelation, chapter two and three, when Jesus sends the message to the church and calls them to repent, something has gone wrong. Though there may be some righteous people among you, you're about to miss your purposes in Ephesus and, and, and, and, and Thyatira and, and, and Pergamos and, and Laodicea and, and Sardis, you're about to miss your purposes. And so he's calling them back to, to, to, to repent. This is why nations have solemn assemblies and cities have solemn assemblies. It's about God moving in our life in a way that re-centers us according to his purposes so that his purposes can be accomplished in us. And right up front, right up front is this big idea that we cannot be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think for 60 years, we've been increasingly ashamed of the gospel. You can't pray. Okay. I can't, I can't, I can't pray in that name. Okay. I can't bring my Bible to work. Okay. I can't wear this pin. Okay. I think, I think increasingly we've been backed into a corner to, to be silenced by our faith, uh, our, our, our, our, to allow our faith to be silenced. And I think right up front, Paul makes it clear to fulfill our mission. We, we, we cannot be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And what he's doing here is he's urging the Romans and I would argue he's urging us to affirm publicly our identity to Jesus Christ. And this goes back to, to, to second Chronicles 7, 14. If my people called by my name, we have to openly identify with Christ, with, with, with, with, with God, with, with, with the faith, with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why? Because this is the power of God and salvation. There is no other name. There is no other way. This is the only hope of the nation. This is the only hope of the world. And this is the point that he's making in, in Romans chapter, in Romans chapter 15. So at the end of the book, we come to mission. And, and, and, and, and at the beginning of the book, you see one of the most profound assertions anywhere, the whole world is under wrath. You know, the love message that we preach in the church now, without the backdrop of wrath, without the backdrop of judgment, it means that the love message is meaningless. I mean, you say to somebody, you know, God loves you. And they say to you, oh, certainly he does. Yes. Yes. I'm, I'm a lovable, I'm a lovable person. He loves everybody. And, and, and, and it's good news out of context. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's wrench free of its teleological anchor. I don't understand it because I don't see the backdrop. I don't see the backdrop of wrath. I don't see why I should be and why I am under judgment and why God would in the final analysis say to me, no, I, I, I'm not going to let you into my, my heaven. No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that. I can't, I can't see the whole nation can't see that anymore. And so not, not being able to see that we can't see how amazing grace is, how unbelievable the love of God is. And so with wrath as a backdrop, Paul begins his letter to the Romans with bad news, the worst announcement possible. And as he grows and he goes through Romans, the narrative becomes even, even darker. You meet God's unmitigated anger. You meet a world without hope with, with, with, with, without good, without good news. And the bookends of Romans are, are precisely the opposite. Wrath chapter one, hope chapter 15. My, my, my, my, my. And what's the bridge that transitions us from wrath to hope? It's the gospel. It's the good news, but it's the gospel understood not as cheap grace as Bonhoeffer said, but it's the transformation, the transformation that comes to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. So Father, we just stop and pray. We just stop and pray that we would understand this amazing gospel. We, we, we stop and pray that we would again be shocked by grace. We, we stop and, and, and ask again that we see the gospel as power to transform a life. We stop again and ask that you would open the blind eyes of America that cannot see the holiness of God and the fact that this nation should be judged. They've dismissed this God and they've made another God to their own liking. We just pray open, open, open their, their, their eyes, open their eyes. We pray, Lord. We ask this in the name of, of Jesus Christ. So what Paul does in, in, in between Romans one, Romans 15, he takes us on a tour of humanity and it begins with the Jewish people talking about their offense to the holiness of God. And then he says in chapter three, all have sinned, the whole world sinned and come short of the, uh, of the glory of God. And then he brings us to Abraham chapter four, and he points out that the thing that made Abraham different was faith. He isn't saved by the law. He isn't saved by good works. He isn't saved by circumcision. Circumcision comes after his believing. No, no, no. It is faith that manifests as obedience. It's hearing the voice of God and believing and responding to God and packing up his bags and leaning home and following God, going to a new land, following God, pursuing God, not even knowing where he was going, looking for a city. Oh, hallelujah. And it is this faith, yes, yes, engendered by the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. It is this faith that his salvation begins with God. We know that's true. It begins with the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of sinful man, but in responding to God, in listening to God and recognizing that as a voice of God and by the act of our obedience, inspired, enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit, we touch the grace of God. And this is not static grace. This is transforming grace. This is not faith plus works. It is faith that works. It is faith that plants a seed in us and begins to change us and transform us. Let me come back and say it again. Abraham's faith is manifest as obedience. And see, if that were simply true in my life, in your life, if my faith inspired radical obedience to God, radical obedience to Christ, radical obedience in following and responding to the voice of the Holy Spirit, then everything else would sort out. I would be under the reign of Christ, tethered to him, not by law, but by love. I would be a bond slave, not bound to him in some legal way, but obligated to him by my heart. And this is what the Lord wants. He wants this kind of commitment, this kind of dedication to him. So let's pray again. Father, would you wake up in me, in us, the voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Holy Spirit that inspires faith and faith that manifests as obedience. Would you free us from the fear of man? Would you free us from our desire to be affirmed by man? Would you wrench us free of family or anything else that might shackle us? Would you help us follow hard after you and pursue you and find you and yet never find you? Would you help us to start a movement of spiritual renewal, of obedience, of radical discipleship that results in a great spiritual awakening and brings in the final harvest? So let's come back to Romans again, because I think this is just the word that I felt like the Lord wanted me to give to you. Rome is the center of global power. It is the cultural, linguistic cross-section of the world. It's cosmopolitan. There's an extraordinary military force that's there, and it is the military power of the world. It dominates the world. There are international advisors there. There are advocates for every culture and language group on the face of the earth, just as there are here in America now. There are tradesmen in Rome, as there are here. There are craftsmen from all over the world, just as there are here. There's cultural diversity in Rome, just as there is here. It is a melting pot. It is as much Greek as it is Latin. There's a mix of African, Celtic, Egyptian, German, and Jewish people living in the city. Four million people make Rome their home, and many of them, sadly, slaves. And here's the call of Paul, Book of Romans, is calling for a missional church to emerge at the center of global power. Whoa. This is what has to happen in America. This is what has to happen in the new reformation, a missional church at the center of global power. If God allows America to continue to be, for some years, for some seasons, the center of global power, God is wanting a missional church, not a church satisfied in itself, not an entertainment church, not a church focused on itself, not a church that's all about its kind of music and its kind of preaching, a missional church that rolls up its sleeves and says, what of the task remains of the Great Commission, and what can we do? Where is the pain in the city, and how can we respond? God is looking for a missional church to emerge. And Paul would say to them, your faith is already proclaimed all over the world, and that's exactly, we are known as a missionary nation. We're known as the nation that sent out missionaries around the world. Now we're receiving more than we are sending out, because the whole world has become concerned about us. Romans was the driving force of the reformation of Luther 500 years ago, but it was about theological reformation. It was about justification by faith. I think Romans, I think Romans will again become the driving force of the new reformation. 500 years ago, Luther nailed his thesis to the church door in Wittenberg. I was there for the 500 celebration, about 700 leaders from around the world gathered there. And now we need a new, a fundamental new reformation of the church. We need a reformation that brings us together rather than divides us in denominations. We need a reformation that doesn't talk about Luther's theology and Zwingli's theology and Calvin's theology, but it centers upon God himself in Christ Jesus. We need a new reformation of mission. We need a reformation of unity in the church. We need a reformation of focus upon not only a proclamational gospel, but an incarnational gospel as well. We need a reformation of our theology in this sense. The dominant character of the book of Romans is, you know what it is? No, it's not justification. No, no, no, no. It's not repentance. That only occurs once in the book. No, no, no, no. The dominant theme of the book of Romans is the idea of God. It is this sovereign, holy God that Paul pushes to the front. That idea, that title appears more in the book of Romans than any other concept. Paul says, let me show you God. He looks to the world under wrath and says, let me show you God. He looks to the Jewish people and let me show you God. He looks to the church and says, let me show you God. He looks to the nations and says, let me show you God. And then he calls the church to preach the gospel, the gospel of the power of God and the salvation. The question is, what will you do with God? And that's the question facing America. So what are you going to do with God? So 60 years of anti-prayer, 60 years of anti-Bible. So now you've come to the whole question of God himself. What will you do with God? And you and I, we cannot sidestep this any longer. The great call of the solemn assembly is to step up and say, I am not ashamed of Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. My only hope is in Christ. I think we are at a Kairos moment as a nation. And God is asking the church, what will you do? What will you do with God? And without a revival, we're facing a tsunami of judgment because of the shedding of innocent blood, because of the murders that take place, because of the proliferation of idolatry, because of gender disorder and confusion, because of our failure to understand that life itself is sacred. And even in death, we don't even understand that life is sacred any longer. We are facing a tsunami of judgment because we have not just sinned, we have created layer on layer of abomination, the kind of thing that causes God to pack up his glory, to pack up his glory and leave. Richard R. Roberts said one time, and I'll never forget this, he said something to this order. He said, preaching is the unapologetic prophetic declaration of the word of God. Let the chips fall where they may. This is what the word of God says. Teaching is its explanation. Preaching prophetically heralds the word of God, thus saith the Lord. I'm a messenger, thus saith the Lord. Teaching explains it. What we have going on in America is neither preaching or teaching. What we have is inspirational speaking, and it gets us nowhere. Because prophetic preaching is always a call to repentance, to examine ourselves in light of the holiness of God. Where are the preachers? Where are the prophets? Where are the people in America calling the nation to repentance? And doing so, as David Wilkerson did a moment ago before this session began, and if you've not seen that, I think it's just called anguish. Go look it up on YouTube and watch it. Where are those voices that are crying out with deep, deep anguish and tears and calling the nation back to God? Where are the preachers? Where are the prophets? We are so blessed as a nation. We're so blessed. We're intoxicated. We've been intoxicated on the blessing itself. And when 9-1-1 happened, we looked and said, whoa, this can't happen. This is America. And when the banking crisis came, a repeat of what happened late in the last century, we're again saying, wait, this can't happen. And I remind you, just a few days ago, the banking systems went offline for about an hour or so everywhere. We said, this can't happen. And when COVID-19 came, and when rioting broke out in the nation, we said, this can't happen. But it did. It has. It is. And it's not over, as we know. It continues in cities. And the threats are there, that it will flare up again. The rioting will continue. And the COVID-19 will not go away. I mean, we've had it so good for so long. The sports field, the mega sports, the stadiums, the malls, the shopping centers, the multiplex movies, this, that, everything we go to, the timeshares, the RVs, the national parks, Disneyland, education, technology. We've created paradise. But when you come to the revelation, there's a very different picture of what's happening on the earth. Because the wrath of God has been released upon the earth. And there is nothing that the Greens or the ecology people can do to stop it. It is the wrath of God being poured out. In fact, not only is it the wrath of God, it is creation itself agreeing with God that it is not going to tolerate any longer what these humans that have rebelled against God and are siding with Lucifer are doing. It's groaning for redemption. It's groaning to be out from under the curse of sin. It's groaning that its rightful owner take his place upon the earth. The only thing that's not groaning, the Holy Spirit is groaning, creation is groaning, Romans 8. We're not groaning. We're not interceding. We're not crying out to God. Let's pause again. Father, would you cause a spirit of intercession to come upon us? Would you cause a spirit of brokenness and anguish to come upon us? Would you not let us be so obsessed with whether or not Six Flags will open again, or whether or not Carowinds will open again, or whether or not Disneyland will open again, or whether or not our favorite sports team will play again? I don't know about you, but I'm done with it all. NASCAR, NFL, NBA, I'm done with it all. The disrespect for the nation, I'm done with it all. We've been deluded. We've been in a fog, and God has given us a solid wake-up call, and he's speaking to us. He's shouting at us. Return. Turn to me. You've got broken cisterns. Turn to me, and even his people. The world is not responding. There's no crying in the world that says, wow, this could be of God. Well, Jesus could be real. I mean, maybe he really rose from the dead. That's not happening in the world. I mean, the mockery goes on when the late night shows on social media. It continues. There is no respect and no reverence for God. Here's why. Because there's no fear of God in the church. There's no reverence in the church. We reach that third stage on the seven elements of a solemn assembly, but we are not broken. We're not desperate. We're not crying out. We're not willing to change ourselves. We want things to go back to some level of normal, and I'm not sure that there won't be some other wave, by the grace of God, of judgment, that comes after this. Because you see, here's the, if my people depends on you, and here is this. I'm determined to do this. My son died, and he died for souls, and he died for the earth, and I'm going to have what he says. I'm going to have his heritage. I'm determined to do this. I'm going to want to come along. Okay, you don't. Well, all right. That's okay. Because I will raise up of these stones, witnesses for myself. And by the way, the stones were, the stones were, by the way, the markers where great stories had taken place. Whenever a miracle take place or some great moment of God's grace, they stack the stones up to become a memorial marker. So Jesus is not just talking about random rocks. He's talking about these markers. That marker over there, that tells the story. The stories of my past intervention in history will break out and become known through archeology or through some other way. I'm going to do what I'm going to do. Want to come along? You don't want to come along? See, let's stop and pray right now. Father, don't leave me out of what you're doing in the earth. God, please, you have to break my arm. You have to break my leg. Don't leave me out of what you're doing in the earth. Please God, change me. Please God, wake me up. Please God, touch me. Please God, fashion me and fit me to be a part of what you're doing. Please God, don't leave me out of what you're doing in the earth. With all my sin and all my failure and all my shortcomings and all my lack of holiness and all my drifting to the world and all of my looking back like Lot's wife, all the things that make me defect in my heart and make me such a wretched candidate to be your follower, oh God, despite all of that, don't leave me out. If you have to drag me along, do that. I want to be a part of what you're doing in the earth. God, strengthen my capacity to hear you, heighten and deepen my faith, and let my faith manifest as radical obedience to you, no matter what anybody else does. And when I am enabled by grace to act in obedience, keep me from being prideful. Keep me from differentiating myself in some arrogant way because I heard God and obeyed. Lord, Lord, the balance is so, isn't it so difficult? Isn't it so difficult? You follow God and you're proud of it and then you realize you've lost your humility and disqualified yourself and that's why God alone can do this and God alone can get the glory. I remember one time I was trying to move a big, big piece of furniture. It wasn't that heavy as much as it was awkward. And I was trying to get my arms around it and my son, Philip, came along and he was just a little boy and he said, dad, let me help you. Well, the truth is every time he touched it, he, he unbalanced it. He's on the bottom of the steps and I'm about to drop it on him. And the worst thing is to drop this heavy thing on him. See, I think when God comes along with his glory, we come along to help him. We think we're helping him. In fact, my son, Philip, cried after his mom and said, mom, look, look, I'm helping. He's got one hand up on the corner of this, of this piece of furniture. He said, look, I'm helping like, you know, like Hercules. I'm helping dad. Look, look, I'm holding this piece of furniture up. I'm holding this piece of furniture up. He thought it was helping. I think I'm helping God when in truth, he's just invited me to come along and sometimes I'm more of a worry than I am a help. But it's his desire that I participate and it's his desire that you participate. And somehow he wants and somehow he wants to manifest his glory around me and through me, but I dare not take the credit. So father, again, we just pray, help us to be called in to participate with your glory in what you're doing. Change us and fit us and fit us for the role of what you are, of what you are doing. Let me come back. Let me come back to this thing of Romans one for just, just a moment. We're going to, we're going to get through this. You see, I think what we're doing in our current culture is we're presenting a gospel of love without truth. Love becomes the dominant thing, not the holiness of God, but the love of God becomes the dominant thing and it eclipses, and it eclipses the truth of God, much less the wrath of God. We just don't see the wrath of God. We don't admit that anymore. Many modern preachers say, let's just throw out the Old Testament, that God, we don't need that God. Listen, that's dangerous theology that almost wrecked the church in the days of Martin. This is not healthy. Now, we need a fresh understanding of the wrath of God, and this is what Romans, what Paul is talking about. The word wrath occurs 197 times in the New King James Version of the Bible, and 48 of those times are in the New Testament, and half of those are in the book of Romans. And here's what you can expect. In the last days, as we come closer and closer to the eschatological climax of all things, and the Antichrist spirit rises, and the Antichrist is anointed, and the world comes together and accepts an Antichrist rather than Christ, all we can expect is the wrath of God to intensify. And we're already beginning to see that. You see, we're reluctant, I know we are, to say, well, that's the judgment of God. Well, that's the judgment of God. But we are experiencing a world that's going to taste, read the Revelation again with fresh eyes, it's going to taste the judgment of God, because the cup of iniquity, the cup of lawlessness has reached its brim, and it's about to overflow and create a mess. And when it does, the fuller it gets, the more we're going to see an escalation of judicial activism on the part of God. As the crusade against Christ intensifies, God, heaven, is going to defend him by reacting. And we'll see a rise of natural disasters in the earth. Oh, my, my, my, my, my. You see, the anger of God is found throughout Scripture. We don't want to talk about that. We want to see him as toothless and loving, like a teddy bear. But the wrath of God is mentioned three times as much in the Bible, the anger of God, as the anger of man. Luther called it the alien nature of God, but nevertheless, it's a part of his nature. And let me explain it in a different way, let me give you some language that might help you. The wrath of God is the settled anger and opposition of God against sin. Not against sinners, per se, but against sin. And it's God animated in a protective sense over the lethal impact of sin on humans. Even when we self-infect ourselves, God still cares, and he's compassionate, and he's loving. Holiness is at the core of his nature. A sin is not a mere idea, it's calculable, it's reckonable, it's computable, it manifests itself in tangible, measurable, deadly ways. And it cannot be contained and isolated as if it were a virus, and we know how difficult it is to contain a virus. It's not merely ethereal or imaginary. The wrath of God rises from his fixed opposition to what kills me, hurts me, destroys me, wounds me. He's angry about that. You know, a parent who walked into a room and found a cobra in the crib of an infant, and the snake charming the child, would do everything possible to deal with the serpent and not harm the child. Anger would be anticipated. Wrath would be anticipated. Violent action would be normal, it would be expected. What else can you do? You would not sit there and hold your hands and say, well, how cute, how cute is that? Because this serpent, this serpent is deadly. We have a serpent that's crawled into the crib of the earth, and he's a charming man. We don't see how deadly it is. We don't see how difficult it is. We don't see how close to disaster we are. And so God's settled wrath in our behalf is against the serpent and against sin. And even if we are dancing ourselves unknowingly with the serpent and being charmed by sin as Adam and Eve were at the tree, Paul said, how does this happen? Paul said, we profess ourselves to be wise and we end up as fools, moreno. It's the word from which we get our word, moron, moros, foolish. It means to be flat, intellectually flat. And this is an insult, intellectuals would see this as an insult. And yet here's what happens. Everything gets turned upside down. Good becomes bad, and bad becomes good, and evil is celebrated, and righteousness is explained away and pushed aside. And rather than seeing ourselves as related to God, created in his image, we see ourself as rising up as the evolved image of the beast. And suddenly, we begin some kind of dialectic and interaction with him and the whole idea of reincarnation and other things. And we just see ourself as a graduated beast, as a graduated animal. This is the fall, this is the fall of man. And I want you to see something in Romans 1, you may have never seen this before. There's a threefold and God gave them up. It's a paradigm in Scripture, it's a legal concept. And it's the idea of constraint upon a criminal. It's the idea of like a barricade that would be put up. It's God judging. It's God saying, don't go any further, you crossed the line, I'm putting a fence up, and we run the fence. We run the fence of ethical chaos. We run the fence of moral chaos. And then we run the fence, the final, the third, we run the fence of mental illness. And this is where we are. We started by violating ethical norms and then we started violating moral norms and now mental illness has become a common thing in our culture. This is spiritual apostasy. It's moral decadence. This is mental illness. We've lost our minds. We don't even know who we are, boy, girl, we've lost our minds. Even our identity is confused, why? Because it's no longer tied. It's no longer tied to the image of God. Dominant word in Romans, God, 153 times, 16 chapters, 153 times. World, meet God. Jews, meet God. Church, meet God. I'm introducing God. Begins with wrath. It ends with mission. It ends with the call to mission. Oh, Father, we've made the church about music. We've made the church about preaching. We've made the church about this doctrine. We've made the church about being Baptist or Methodist or Church of God or Pentecostal or non-Pentecostal. Would you help us make the church again about you? Would you help us to come to center our life around you? Would you help us to learn what it means to have a God-centered life and a God-centered family and a God-centered church and even God-centered cities? Come, Lord, change us, transform us, touch us for your glory. I got to find a stopping place that will come a point when God's wrath will be released. Isaiah said, you felt secure. You said, no one sees, Isaiah 47 and 10. But you're deluded. Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray. That's exactly where we are in America. Israel's great, listen, Israel's great trespassing, you see it in Romans 9 to 11, was the failure to act as agents of reconciliation and peace to the world. They shut up the kingdom to themselves. In Luther's day, 500 years ago, the church had become rigidly institutionalized, self-interested, and shamefully carnal. And it needed a reformation. And that reformation came in part 500 years ago. But we need now a new reformation because we, too, have become all about ourselves. We've shut up the kingdom for ourselves, our kind of people who like our kind of gospel and our kind of music. And we've come to see the church as a building, as a place, as an event, as a sermon in a set of musical choruses or other exercise. No, no, no. I want you to see, one more time, I want you to see the backdrop of wrath. The whole world is under wrath. And this tsunami of wrath is about to be released. And despite that, the world in which we live has rejected God, declaring themselves wise. They've become fools. And they've gone through ethical, moral, and mental illness barriers, all the while rejecting God. They've called good bad and bad good. And Paul is saying to the Romans, you are living at the center of global power. You have an obligation in view of the wrath that is coming on the world. Now, listen to me. If that was true 2,000 years ago, how much more is it true today? On the edge, on the threshold of eschatology and the last days, and the rapture of the church, and the rise of the Antichrist, and the whole world standing against God, how much truer is it? This world, we may be in the generation that sees the wrath of God poured out as it's explained in the Revelation. And so we've got an obligation to preach the gospel. Where does Solemn Assembly fit into this? Solemn Assembly is the process that gets us right so that God can begin to use us again for His glory, to accomplish His purpose. And my argument is that Romans is not just about soteriology. It's not just about justification by faith. It's not just about love over law. It's not just about the law of the spirit. All those things, it's about mission. It's about understanding a world under wrath and the gospel in its purity, and articulating that gospel before a watching world. From Rome, the gospel would go to the nations. And from America, it's going to the nations. My prayer is this. Let me just stop and pray one more time. God, I pray that You would give us one more chance to preach the gospel of the nations. I pray that You'd give us one more chance to finish our obligation to the Great Commission. I pray that You'd give us one more chance, one more chance to be used of You. I pray that You'd give us one more chance. I pray that You would move and send a great spiritual awakening, not just for our convenience, not just for our benefit, not just to make things better again for us. No, no, no, no, no, but to cause a church to emerge, a fearless, faith-filled church empowered by the Holy Spirit that will fulfill its obligation to the Great Commission. Let me come back to that prayer one more time. Now, may the God of patience and comfort. And so you begin with God. It always begins with God, His character. He is a God of patience. And 2,000 years, He's still patient. He's still patient, but He's calling us to act. He's a God of comfort. You begin with God. May that God, by grace, make us like Him. This is the prayer of Paul. May that God, by grace, make us like Him, according to Jesus Christ, like Him as demonstrated by Jesus Christ. A whole church like the Lord. Man, what a prayer that you made with one mind and one mouth, thinking alike, speaking alike as one. Glorify God and our Father, a last day's witness, a last day's witness to a watching world. Therefore, receive one another. Unity is critical, is critical to the mission. And the prayer ends, may the God of hope fill you with joy. May the community of faith be making happy sounds. And may we be a community of peace, agents of reconciliation in faith. See, this is the quality of our witness. Our witness is one thing, but it lacks quality. It lacks incarnational integrity. It's more than words. It's the noisy fruit of joy and peace, the ministry of reconciliation. It's representing the God of hope. May you abound. May you abound in this hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Well, what is the message? Well, the message is that God's sovereign. Now may the God of, God is sovereign. God's going to do this. We're in the last days. God's going to do this. And He's asking you, do you want to come along? You may need to have a solemn assembly in your family. You may need to have a solemn assembly in your church. You may need to have a solemn assembly gathering, not the civil elders of the city, but the sacred elders of the city. And ask God, what is the purpose and destiny on our city, on our church, on our families? Sovereignty of God. Second, it is something of God that we need, not something from God. It is not just patience we need. It's not comfort that we need. It's the God of patience Himself and the God of comfort. And see, this is something that has to be stitched into my nature. It has to be imparted, not merely acquired. And that demands prayerful dependence upon God. So you can be a good person with self-reform, but you cannot be a godly person. Because a godly person is a person that is made that way by the empowering of the Holy Spirit out of deep dependence upon God. Number three, this is a blessing mediated by prayer. And here's the role of pastoral prayer. Here's the role of intercessory prayer. May the God of patience, comfort, grant you. This is Paul's intervening prayer in behalf of this congregation. An intercessor, you can pray this for your pastor. You can pray this, pastor, for your congregation. Number four, this is a blessing facilitated by unity. One mind, one speech. What has to happen in a solemn assembly is we have to come to agreement about holiness, agreement about our sin, agreement about why the blessing of God has been withheld, agreement about what will bring back the blessing of God. Number five, this is a blessing accomplished by transformation that we may abound by the work of the Holy Spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit. I can't do this by myself. This is not something I produce merely by human discipline. This is a work of the Holy Spirit. It means over and above. And then number six is a blessing that alters the nature of our witness. What Paul is praying here, I rejoice in the Lord always. I have the peace of God. I operate not out of a center of agitation, even if wrath is impending. I operate out of peace as an agent of reconciliation, my feet shod with preparation of the gospel of peace. And I have joy in my heart. And this is a blessing that points to God. This is the God of hope. And we articulate a message from the God of hope. Oh, hallelujah. I gotta stop. Paul says, listen, I want you to confess this among the nations, among the Gentiles. So Father, we just pray. We repent of a church that doesn't witness. We repent of a church that doesn't share your faith. We repent of a church that seemed to be ashamed of the gospel. We repent of a church that doesn't want to carry their Bible or wear their crosses openly. We repent of that church. We do not want to be a part of the crowd gathering around the Antichrist. We want to gather around you. We embrace the vision of the whole earth praising you, of nations praising you, of whole nations coming to you, of whole nations being converted and coming to you by the grace of God. We embrace that vision, Lord, that the Gentiles would sing and we would join them in the nations, every tongue, every tribe, every unreached people group, and that we would join them. Can we hear the sound of the nations? You see, there will be apostasy. There will be an Antichrist spirit. There will be a robust violence against righteousness. There will be an increase of martyrdom. But in the middle of it all, I tell you, there will be a radiant church that will rise up and walk across the face of the earth with the glow of his glory and the fragrance of his presence, with love, joy, peace, long-suffering gentleness, goodness, meekness, temperance, following in our way the fruit of the spirit with signs and wonders. And the world will say, who is that? That's the bride of Christ. Where are they going? They're going to meet the bridegroom, Jesus Christ. He's not dead. They say he's alive. And those who are called by God will join us in a last day's harvest unlike we have ever seen before. How does it begin? One person, like a Nehemiah, like an Ezra, one person, like an Evan Roberts, one person, two, like Peggy Smith and her sister, I can't remember her name, one person. And that person becomes a catalyst. That person becomes a spark. That person realizes they've offended the holiness of God and they're deeply burdened and moved by that. And they realize that they don't stand before God by their own righteousness and yet they don't stand before God without righteousness. It's imputed and then it's imparted. So Father, we just pray, change us. Give us the will to change. Give us the desire to change. Give us the longing to change. Inspire in us faith to drop everything like Abraham and follow hard after you. Inspire us to do that. And may there arise a group in the earth that simultaneously rise up as if hearing some inaudible voice, some siren, some call, and they're longing after you, standing before heaven, crying out for a mighty move of your Holy Spirit, a solemn assembly that gives birth to a people, Romans 15, that carry the message of hope to a world under wrath. Father, one more time I pray, stir me, move me, touch me, change me. I come back to how I began. If this is going to be a move whereby you use broken people, that my brokenness qualify me by your grace to be used of you. And I again pray for that person who may have had a call upon their life, but all these things have happened and their life has gotten very messy. And now you may be calling them again. You may be calling them because who else could give a message of hope than them? You may be calling them again. Take your broken church. It's been broken for 50 years, 60 years. And in the face of the watching world, heal the church of America in a solemn assembly kind of context and empower us with the gospel of hope in Jesus' name. God bless you again, Pastor Dan Beiser. Thank you so much for sponsoring this. May God bless you and may his grace abound towards you. Thank you, Doug. Greatly appreciate again, the word anointing that's on you for it to be able to share with us and the response that we're seeing there, comments on the side. So thank you so much, brother. Again, I've cut into your time a little bit. I was willing to give you five, 10 more minutes. No, no, we're fine. All right, brother. Well, God bless and until the next time, or if not, we'll see you in maybe DC at the return. All right. Amen. Yeah. All right, thanks, Doug.