| Time | Text |
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Revival Not Meetings
00:03:42
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| If I were the devil in the middle of last day's events, I would convince the church that while the devil is active, Jesus is propping his feet up and doing nothing. | |
| Wow. | |
| I believe, now, we use the word revival a lot, but I think you must be careful with how we use that word because we've used it in America to mean special meetings, extended meetings, a special speaker. | |
| I mean, I'm here for all of that, but that's not revival. | |
| That can be fun. | |
| That can be godly. | |
| That doesn't make it revival. | |
| Revival is when God shows up by his spirit to close the gap between my daily experience and what we see written in the book of Acts. | |
| Because the truth is that even though we are living in extreme days with all these crazy things happening in the world, that's all true. | |
| But if I look in Acts chapter 4, what I see is a church that was persecuted, a church that was being beaten and imprisoned for preaching the Lord Jesus in his resurrection and demonstrating the power of his spirit. | |
| But in that moment, they chose not to back down. | |
| They threw a prayer meeting. | |
| They said, give your servants boldness. | |
| They quoted Psalm 2. | |
| The nations are raging against the Lord and his Christ. | |
| Give your servants boldness and empower us to accompany your word with signs and wonders and miracles. | |
| And they went out and preached again. | |
| This is what we have to have. | |
| And Pastor Jim, I believe, I know we've got people from all kinds of different denominations, all kinds of backgrounds. | |
| And I don't, I'm not trying to be ugly or whatever, but this is the God's truth. | |
| I believe that cessationism is the biggest doctrine of demons that has emerged to the church. | |
| I believe that saying that the gifts have ceased, I believe that saying that miracles have stopped is both historically and biblically irresponsible. | |
| The same Jesus that moved by the power of his spirit in the book of Acts wants to move the day. | |
| And Paul even said, we don't have scripture for the gifts ceasing today. | |
| But we do have Paul saying, I didn't come to you. | |
| He's the greatest preacher of the New Testament. | |
| I didn't come to you with enticing words of men's wisdom, but with the power and the demonstration of the Holy Ghost. | |
| And this bothers people. | |
| I've officially jumped on my soapbox. | |
| I love it. | |
| For what it's worth, I'm sorry. | |
| I'm not sorry. | |
| But Paul said, he said, I did not come to you in word only. | |
| I love the word of God. | |
| But even Paul said, I don't come to you in word only, but in demonstration of the Spirit's power. | |
| And why people, my generation and younger, are not listening when we're preaching and when we're having our little cute meetings, the reason they're not listening is because our lives have not backed up the message that we preach with demonstration. | |
| You know, the signs still follow those who believe, Pastor Jim. | |
| And this is what we call revival. | |
| I thank God for what he did to me at Brownsville. | |
| I thank God for the bay where we met each other. | |
| Thank God there's many moves of God happening right now. | |
| But you see, if I drive to West DeSoto Street in Pensacola right now, good people there. | |
| God bless every one of them. | |
| But the revival's not happening. | |
| But I've got two little boys. | |
| And they're here right now. | |
| And I have to contend with all that I am for a move of God in this generation. | |
| We have to mind the gap. | |
| In every place where I see a discrepancy between my daily walk and what the early church experienced in the book of Acts, you know, it's time for us to remember the book of Acts isn't a highlight reel. | |
| That's right. | |
| It's not the greatest hits album of the early church. | |
| This was their normal everyday. | |
| Dr. Luke was writing down what he saw. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Amen. | |
| I want to see the church, especially in the Western world, come back to a hunger for the Holy Ghost. | |
| We need to get over ourselves and stop thinking we can move on past his presence, past his demonstration. | |