I've been here for 15 years, and we
start our meetings down there, and we never
have a time to finish.
And I'm just not used to reducing things,
and I get carried away.
But this morning, I just want to praise
the Lord.
There's some things, I was just thinking in
this whole process, Tony didn't mention, but it
was kidney stones, and you've been through it.
You know, it's kind of a difficult situation,
and even the doctors, there's not much they
can do.
If it's going to go away, it goes
away, or else they've got to go all
the way and try and get that thing
out of there.
It's just a big question mark that hangs
over that whole treatment.
It's not just a cut and dried kind
of thing.
There's a lot of possibilities.
The doctor said there's 10,000 kinds of
kidney stones, and there's just about 10,000
different kind of ways you can treat it.
But, praise the Lord, without going into any
details, it's gone.
I'm better, I'm just praising God.
Sometimes he leads us out of tribulation, sometimes
he leads us through it, sometimes he takes
us partway through it, and then he takes
it away.
So anyway, just praise the Lord this morning.
I was just thinking, just before coming to
the meeting, how great is our inheritance.
I was just thinking as we were singing,
Sonny was singing about praising the Lord.
I was just thinking, here we are standing
in the midst of eternity, the eternity all
behind us, the eternity extending in front of
us, in front of God and all the
hosts in heaven, in front of all the
satanic, demonic powers.
Maybe you don't feel it much in this
place, because there's the presence of God in
this place, but I tell you, you get
out some places, some countries, some cultures, there's
just a sense of built-up darkness, oppression,
trying to crush every power of light.
And yet, with it all, in the children
of God, something that rises up and says,
in the midst of all this I have
within me the power to raise up, glorify
the name of him who reigns forever and
ever and ever, the name of him who
will draw all things, all nations, all people,
and will one day present to himself a
glorious work in this earth where darkness is
reigning.
I just, thrilled, just, like I say, get
carried away.
God is.
I remember, I'd been out of Argentina, we'd
been working in Argentina and Paraguay, and I
came back after, oh, about four years out
of the country, and it was those four
years when they were going through guerrilla warfare,
the economy had just gone completely haywire, inflation
was rampant, the church was going through a
rough time, and as I came back the
Lord spoke.
He said, I am God, I change not.
I am God.
My work never stops.
The government can't stop it, the guerrilla warfare
can't stop it, the oppression can't stop it,
need, necessity, affliction, tribulation, none of this can
stop it.
I am God, I change not.
And I just, well, I was just reading
this morning there in 1 Corinthians, I'm going
to stop, I'm going to stop.
Okay, he says, go on.
You can argue with Tony afterward.
Let me read to you.
Paul, 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 20.
We could start before, but, well, let's start.
Verse 17, For Christ sent me, not to
baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with
wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ
should be made of none effect, but the
preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved
it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the
wisdom of the wise, will bring to nothing
the understanding of the prudent.
Where is the wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the disputer of this world?
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of
this world?
For after that, in the wisdom of God,
the world by wisdom knew not God, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to
save them that believe, for the Jews require
a sign.
The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach
Christ crucified.
Unto the Jews a stumbling block, unto the
Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of
God and Christ the wisdom of God.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than
men and the weakness of God is stronger
than men.
For you see your calling, brethren, how that
not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble are called, but
God hath chosen the foolish things of the
world to confound the wise, and God hath
chosen the weak things of the world to
confound the things which are mighty, and the
base things of the world, and the things
which are despised hath God chosen, and the
things which are not, to bring to naught
the things that are, that no flesh should
glory in his presence, but of him are
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is
made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in God.
I could just see this morning, looking at
this again, it's always a blessing to me,
this chapter.
Paul bringing into focus for this church, this
church there in Corinth, bringing into focus the
purposes of God, bringing into focus the operation
of God, bringing into focus with all the
power of his mind, his intellect, with all
the illumination of the spirit, bringing into focus
what it is that God is doing.
And on the other hand, looking at the
world and analyzing, and saying, this is what
the world is seeking, but this is our
calling.
I remember verse 20 there, where is the
wise, where is the scribe?
I remember reading about a missionary who had
been caught by the Communists in China.
He was in Tibet, really, and the Communists
came into Tibet, apparently, and there they got
hold of him, and they took him to
China.
He was in prison there for two years,
and he told how, on his release, he
came to Hong Kong, and after two years,
took in his hands again the Word of
God, and he told how, sitting there in
that little room in Hong Kong, he opened
up to this passage, and he said his
mind had been listening to the brainwashing techniques,
listening to man's wisdom, man's disputing for two
years, till he was just completely almost overwhelmed
by it, and then he came back to
the Word of God.
The Spirit of God was there in that
room, and he said he just felt like
getting up and running and shouting through the
halls of learning of this world, where is
the scribe?
Where is the dispute of this world?
God hath made foolish these things.
I think of Paul there, looking around him,
Paul after traveling, knowing intimately the religion of
the Jews, having studied there in Jerusalem, knowing
all the interpretations of the law, knowing all
the ways of forecasting the fulfillments of prophecy,
and so on and so forth, knowing intimately
the teaching of the Greeks, having traveled all
over that part of the Roman Empire where
the Greek culture was reigning, and he comes
and he looks at them and he said,
the Jews require a sign, and I just
think of that Jewish nation, it's representing really
the religious world, the whole religious world, and
Paul says, there is a religious world which
has revelation, which has a framework of law
to hold the Word of God, which was
committed to it, which has the prophecies and
the promises, which has all the indications of
what God's going to do, and yet, to
them, although they see it, although they know
the reality, although they sense it above them,
they cannot distinguish it, and the only way
they can reach through is to say, God,
God, somehow break through the darkness and give
us a sign, God, come to us and
show us, with all our revelation, with all
our knowledge, with all this letter that we
have, it's dead, Lord, we can't reach through,
they've lost reality, they've lost life, it was
dead, it was form, it crucified the Lord
of Glory when it came.
Paul says that world, and I've seen it,
I've seen it there on the mission field,
Catholics, Protestants, here in this country, even in
the church, Christians ever seeking, seeking, seeking, and
although they don't express it, maybe they don't
even know how to put it into words,
while they're saying, Lord, somehow break through to
me, give me a sign.
Then he says there's another world, the world
of the Greeks, said they have to reduce
God and pass Him through their mind.
They can't believe anything that they can't understand.
They can't believe anything which goes beyond what
humanity, poor little puny, limited man can understand
poor people.
He said they're looking for wisdom.
I like his declaration, but we preach Christ.
You know what this word preach means?
It doesn't mean we teach.
There's a lot of emphasis in the States,
excuse me, no, there's a lot of emphasis
on teaching, and a lot of teaching, it
isn't teaching, it's just kind of explaining somebody's
pet theories.
But Paul says we preach, and the word
means we declare, we proclaim, we've got something,
we have reality, we know the living Christ
of God.
The anointing, the reality, not the promises, not
the darkness of a religion that hangs over
me in terror, in judgment and waiting and
hoping and not knowing what's going to happen.
Not something that I've got to reduce to
my mind and say, Lord, I'll take the
steps if you'll just show me how, but
we have the Christ, the anointed.
He is ours.
We preach Christ crucified.
I like that.
That is our Christ.
Not in the world of men, not in
Jerusalem with the Jews, not there with the
learning of the Greeks.
Christ led without the city, out beyond the
bounds of human habitation, out there in the
countryside, in the desert, lifted up on a
hill, lifted up on a cross, and that
is where his own find him.
That is where his own go to him.
They always have, they always will throughout the
ages.
This is our Christ.
This is our hope.
This is our life.
And I was just thinking this morning, how
different, how different.
We're not bound up in this like the
Jews.
We're not like so many, even within the
church, seeking and crying and saying, Lord, I
want to understand, I want to know.
Show me how I got to do.
Show me what my relationship should be.
Show me how I should behave in this
situation and that and that.
We try and get God and apply him
to each situation.
There's something greater.
There's a life in the spirit.
We preach Christ.
He doesn't say we preach Jesus.
He doesn't say we preach the Savior.
We preach the Christ.
We preach the anointed one.
This is our portion.
This is our, our inheritance unto them which
are called.
Who are the, what calls the foolish, the
weak unto them, which are called Christ, the
power of God.
I remember one day in a meeting in
Argentina, the spirit of the Lord was moving
for years.
I'd been fighting in prayer for churches, for
situations, for, for people's spiritual battles.
And in that meeting, I remember so clearly
the Lord said to me, there is no
barrier in human personality.
If you can come to me, all things
are possible.
Everything.
The Christ.
He is the one who rules over this
earth.
There is no second cause.
There is no other power.
Christ, the son of God, Christ, Lord of
Lords and King of Kings.
I like the revelation there given to John.
The angel came to him.
He said, worship God.
And John said, and as I worship, I
saw the heavens open.
And as I saw the heavens open, I
saw one whose name was faithful and true.
The first revelation, whose name was the word
of God.
The second revelation, whose name was Lord of
Lords and King of Kings.
But look a minute at that second revelation,
the word of God.
And he said, and behind him marched all
the armies of heaven.
Faithful and true is the revelation of Christ
in me.
Christ that will never leave me, never forsake
me.
Christ that will carry me through in my
personal, uh, Christian life.
Christ, uh, King of Kings is his revelation
over and beyond and above me.
But Christ, the word of God is the
revelation of Christ operating through me.
I'll give you an illustration.
When Jesus came into Jerusalem two or three
days before he was crucified, all the city
bowed and worshiped and praised him.
Why?
Because hundreds of years before somebody had prophesied.
And because of the power of the word
of God in that prophecy for a moment,
the veil of opposition, the veil of darkness
was taken from off that whole city.
And they recognized him as the Lord, and
they recognized him as the King.
What I'm trying to say is that the
word of God in us, when God gave
us his word, he gave us the greatest
thing that he could give us.
He gave us his own creative power, the
power that formed all things, the power that
sustains all things, the power that will lead
all things to their final culmination.
And that is the power which has given
us.
We have as much as we will take
from God.
We can speak the word and it will
be, it will be.
Of course, we like to speak it now
and have it in five minutes.
It might not be in five minutes, but
it will be, be it over a nation,
be it over a church, be it over
a life.
If it is the word of God, the
word of God cannot fail.
He said, heaven and earth shall pass away.
This substance, the solid things will pass away.
But that word, that spoken word will not
pass away.
I just wish I could transmit it as
I feel it.
But Peter says, if any man minister, let
him minister as the oracle of God.
An oracle in olden days was a priest
of whatever religion it was, even the heathen
religions.
They had their oracles and it was a
person that was supposed to, as he spoke,
God spoke through him.
It was a channel through which the voice
of God spoke.
Peter says, as we minister, we're not trying
to get our points across.
We're not, we're not trying to explain that
brother, sister, it seems to me that what
Paul means.
No, we're in a different realm.
We're in a different sphere.
We preach, we proclaim, we proclaim the Christ.
We proclaim the savior.
We proclaim the one who is able, the
Jews, poor, poor Jews, the Greeks, poor people,
but we're separate.
We're different.
We've got a glorious heritage.
Christ, the power, Christ, the glory, the foolishness
of man.
I like that.
The wisdom of man, he said, and the
foolishness of God is wiser than the, excuse
me, the foolishness of God is greater than
the wisdom of man.
The weakness of God is stronger than man.
You know, I think there are a lot
of people that, excuse me, and I just
kind of put in this right here, but
there are a lot of people waiting, uh,
for some kind of mystic touch from God
and that someday God will do something for
them.
And all of a sudden there'll be ministry.
Uh, there'll be a missionary.
They'll get a call.
They'll get an anointing.
They'll be able to do what they've never
been able to do before, but it doesn't
work that way.
You know how it works.
We get a vision of God.
We start crying out to God and he
works within us.
Um, maybe it seems like I'm taking it
out of context, but you remember that verse
once again, when Jesus came into Jerusalem, the
Pharisees and the religious leaders came and said,
Lord, rebuke these people, tell them that this
isn't the way he said, if these should
hold their silence, even the stone should cry
out.
I tell you, we're in a day of
such need in the world and in the
church that if God can't reach through to
some of his people and get them to
come in to the anointing of God and
get them to take not their ability and
not their mental capacity and not their education,
but take hold of God and get the
words of God and give it for even
the stones are going to have to cry
out.
There is a tremendous crying need.
I look around me.
I look at the nations.
I think of South America, where I've been
think of Paraguay, a country never had a
moving of the spirit of God.
See the people passing day after day.
See the suffering, see the darkness.
There comes a time when it reaches through
and touches your spirit.
There comes a time when God gets older
and says, child, you're nothing but a stone,
but you've got to start crying out because
I want to reach that need.
You've got to do something about it because
I'm with you.
If you don't do it, you're crying out
God, I don't believe you.
God, I can't take hold of your word.
God, your promises are in vain.
God says, I don't care what you are.
I don't care what your capacity is.
Look at me.
I am God.
I change not.
I live and I reign for many years.
I've heard people speaking about what God's going
to do, speaking about the manifestation of the
sons of God and a lot of other
stuff.
And I don't have much argument with them.
But I tell you, we don't have to
wait for dispensations.
We don't have to wait till God releases
and hopefully it'll be this year or next
year or next year.
For 20 years, I've been hearing that God's
going to move.
God's going to do a new thing.
I remember 1958, I went into Bible school.
They were all talking about God's going to
manifest his sons.
I know God's done a work in these
20 years, but I also know there's something
far greater.
There's something God wants to bring us into.
And we don't have to wait.
There's enough right here of power and promise
and authority for us to get out and
change the face of the world.
There's enough there to go and release nations
right now.
There's enough here to get hold of God
and let that compassion and mercy of God
break your own heart till it flows forth
like a river.
I'll tell you, there's a tremendous place God
leads you to till finally you recognize that
I speak.
But beyond what I'm saying, the river of
God is flowing with me.
I like Jonathan in the Old Testament.
I like the words of Paul in the
New Testament.
Jonathan, he wrought with God.
Paul says we are laborers together with him.
It's not my puny word, that word which
I speak, that word which you speak.
It is the living word of God.
It can never fail.
Heaven and not heaven, I mean hell and
all the powers of hell, all the opposition
of men, all the anger of the nations
cannot prevail against that word.
God hath chosen.
You know, he's chosen us.
We don't have to wait for some kind
of mystical thing.
I've worked for years there on the mission
field with young people and I know that
in all of us there's a tendency to
wait for something and wait for something.
We get to be 22 and we get
to be 25 and we get to be
30 and we get married and the children
come along.
I never get into what we really want.
I just feel it's time in which God
is calling a people to start weighing things
in the light of eternity.
You know, when we get to be 70
years old or a little old, I guess
my dad's more than that now, when we
look back on life, what is important?
What is important?
What we had in natural commodities?
What we did in the things of this
world?
Or our life in God, the fruit that
we've brought forth.
I'm sure one day we get into heaven,
get there before the presence of God.
We're going to have a far different viewpoint.
Tozer, A.W. Tozer once said, when we
get to the presence of God, when we
find ourselves standing before God, we will be
there in heaven standing before God just what
we wanted to be while we were on
earth.
Is that true or isn't it true?
It sounds like you're always saying, well, I
just wish that I was more.
No.
God will give us the desires of our
hearts.
It is a law.
It is a principle.
It is something which cannot be broken.
There is no limit to God in us.
We're not all the same.
Some ministers are teachers.
Some have got a word of faith, a
prophetic word, which can just lift us up
in faith.
Some have got gifts of healing.
And when it's in God, it is beautiful
teaching, whatever exhortation.
We are different, but one spirit and different
gifts, different administrations.
But one spirit, that same spirit, that same
impact on each one that hears, that same
reality flowing forth.
Something so great, so vast.
You know, these last 12 months, this last
year, after years there on the mission field
and many times seeing the blessing of God,
it seems like God just started taking me
and building again.
He says there's something far greater.
There's something far greater.
Paul, you've got to look at it different.
You can't look at it that way.
We can go on.
We can have blessing.
We can compare ourselves among ourselves and say,
well, honestly, I know that all those people
can't do what I'm doing because I got
the anointing of God and there's some other
people that are beyond me.
But God says, don't look at them.
Don't look at them.
Look to me.
Look at what I'm promising.
Look what I'm giving.
Look who I am.
Look at my yearning.
I tell you once again, I don't know
why it is on the mission field, maybe
because the presence of opposition, the presence of
the enemy is so real sometimes, but at
other times the presence of the Lord is
so real and there's just a sense of
a yearning of God, an urgency of the
Spirit.
I remember one time we were praying a
bunch of workers and the word of the
Lord coming forth there said, suffer the little
ones to come to me.
Not just the little children, the little ones,
the people in their suffering, the people in
their darkness.
And as the word came, just a tremendous
sense of God reaching forth saying, child, if
you let them, if you will let them
come, if you will open your life for
a channel, I'll bring them.
I'll bring them in.
You don't have to go out and shout
and try and persuade them.
And then, you know, it's got its place.
But beyond that, like I said, there's a
working of God with us.
He wants to bring us into faith.
That is our connection.
That is our lifeline.
Faith which comes through the word of God.
Faith which comes through reading of the Christ
of God.
We're not like the Jews.
We know whom we've believed.
We've got an experience.
We've got a reality.
He wants to open that flow.
He wants to open our praise.
He wants to open our prayer.
He wants to open our testimony.
He wants to increase.
He wants that river of God to flow
forth and broaden and deepen more and more
and more.
I like how Paul repeats, emphasizes and underlines
it in these last verses.
Verse 27, God hath chosen.
How many times the enemy tries to put
the doubt there?
How many times he tries to sow fears
there?
Fears of our incapacity.
Fears that our faith can't reach it.
Fears that we don't know how to pray
and we get down.
We know we're not getting through.
The Lord says, child, get down and pour
out your emptiness before me and I'll lead
you through.
The enemy says, you can't.
Don't you see you're doing it?
Pour it out.
Pour it out, Lord.
It's nothing but taking God.
He'll take you through.
There'll come a time when faith will come
pouring in and nothing can stand before it.
But we've got to pay the price.
We've got to go all the way.
God hath chosen the foolish things to confound
the wise, not just to be able to
kind of move in a world where everybody
is wiser than we are.
A lot of Christians got a kind of
minority complex.
Here we are and don't look too hard
at me because I believe in Jesus.
Well, I believe in him.
No, they are the poor ones, not us.
He has chosen us to confound those people.
I could give you an illustration.
I remember reading about the daughter of William
Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, going into
Switzerland, being closed in prison, the government against
her.
It said when she spoke, they said, how
are you doing this, you young ladies?
It's not right.
It's not seemly.
She got talking about what they were trying
to do, about the word of God coming
to release and how dare they stand against
it.
Said that guy just about collapsed on his
chair.
Yeah.
Not only he shut his mouth, he just
about collapsed.
He said for a moment he was given
to see eternal things.
God is what is given to us.
We are persons with power, persons with authority.
The Christ is the anointing and we are,
how can I say, that is our ministry.
Here we are, verse 24, Christ the power
of God and Christ the wisdom of God.
It is that anointing which is power and
it is that anointing which is wisdom.
It is that anointing which adapts, which applies
the word to each situation.
It is that anointing which carries through and
creates the impact in the spirit where nothing
else will do it.
That is our portion.
That should be the end of all our
seeking, nothing else, nothing less, please.
Please turn the tape over for the remainder
of this message.
Because God was with the Word.
It doesn't matter what the Word is.
It can be foolishness.
He said it pleased him by the foolishness
of preaching, the foolishness of proclamation, something that
they don't, that one group doesn't understand and
the other group finds a stumbling block.
He said, and we proclaim the stumbling block
and we proclaim the foolishness and through that
they come to know the reality of God,
the reality of life.
We're chosen.
There's no room for pride here.
The foolish things, the base things, the things
which are despised have God chosen.
The things which are not, the things which
do not even exist, God has chosen to
bring to naught the things that are that
no flesh should glory in his presence.
I believe that's the biggest hindrance to the
work of God when we get in the
way.
But if we could just see, I just
let go.
If I can just let go, God will
do his work.
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus
who of God is made unto us, us
who have nothing.
It's made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption that according as it is
written, he that glorieth, let him glory in
God.
That is our life in the meeting, in
the street, in our prayer time, to glory
in God.
I remember one meeting I was in, like
the meeting this morning, they sang, they praised.
At the end they said, let's praise God.
And the person that was up front just
started singing, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory.
I'll tell you, the glory of God was
there.
The glory of God was there.
They just let go with what they felt.
The glory of God just filled up.
Let us glory in God.
We're not poor.
We're not needy.
If I have nothing, that doesn't matter.
I got everything.
There are things that nothing can take away
from me.
There are things inside that God has given.
Those callings of God, those gifts of God,
which are without repentance, never, never can the
enemy take them away.
You know for your life.
I know for my life.
Come to a place after time of seeking,
the Lord says, OK, child, now this is
yours.
This relationship is yours.
And then another time, and maybe a year
later, maybe two years later, maybe months later.
And the Lord said, this is yours.
You know, you can go down, you can
go up and down, you can have trials,
but you can never sink below that point
anymore.
And then he lifts you up higher and
your faith can never go beyond that.
And the enemy might beat you down against
it, but he'll never get you down there
again.
And the Lord lifts us up from faith
to faith, from glory to glory unto himself.
He's going to have a people.
You can call them the sons of God,
you can call them, I don't know, it
doesn't matter what you call them so much,
just so you are one of them.
Let us glory in God.
Let us give place to God.
Let it flow.
I don't know, there's a simplicity in Christ.
Paul speaks to the church, says, please, please,
don't let anything remove you from that.
We're so complicated as human beings.
And as we get into the realm of
the interior of ourselves, the mind and so
on, and we listen to psychologists and people
psychoanalyzing and all that stuff, oh, it's terrible.
But in Christ, it's not difficult.
I'll be found in him.
Nothing else is important.
Forget everything else.
If he leads you to prepare yourself, well,
prepare yourself.
If he leads you to go, well, go.
But look at him.
Beholding him, we are transformed from glory to
glory, even as by the Spirit of the
Lord.
Once again, it's a law.
Once again, it's a principle.
Looking, we are transformed.
Happens in heathen religions.
You got those people there in India, followers
of the religions there, of the Hindu religions.
They try to deny everything that's human.
They try not to feel joy or be
touched by pain.
They isolate themselves.
They do their fasting and their pilgrimages and
so on and so forth.
You know what the end of those person
is?
They come to a place where they do
not feel pain.
They do not feel joy.
They are made in the image of the
demon which they're following.
Humanity is annihilated within them.
They're just an empty shell.
But there's a reality that God wants in
his own.
Looking to him, he doesn't empty us.
He fills us.
More and more and more.
Beholding, we are changed.
It doesn't depend, once again, on trying to
figure something out and trying to work something
out and trying to go through a process
and trying to get spiritual and doing so
much of this and so much of that.
No, it's not that.
It's looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking unto
Jesus.
Looking unto Jesus.
Some of the simplest people being most used
of God.
There was a person used of God there,
an African person brought in the revival in
Congo years ago.
Tremendous ministry.
Came in answer to a prophetic word that
he was born into this world.
An old missionary that was almost killed by
the natives and gave the prophetic word, a
child shall be born and God will use
him and called his name Simon.
He was called Simon and his followers were
known as the Simonites.
He went through a terrible time of persecution,
but afterward finally God came down and the
revival broke out through that whole area of
Africa through this man.
It doesn't matter who we are.
What matters is who God is.
What matters is our capacity to believe even
in me.
Even in me.
Lord, I'm foolish.
Lord, I'm weak.
Lord, I'm nothing.
But Lord, you don't depend on me.
You don't want me.
You just want somebody to stand up and
say, Jesus is real.
Lord, if they do it with your anointing,
everybody will know because your spirit will testify
to each heart.
Let us glory in God.
Leaving behind the things of this world.
Leaving behind doubts, fears, all the negative, all
those things the enemy would try to build
up day after day after day after day.
Things he'd bring to attack time after time
after time.
I like Brother Lawrence.
He said, Lord, I've fallen.
Help me get up or else I'm going
to fall again.
It's that easy.
You know, we don't have to go around
the ring of condemnation, round and round and
round.
Oh, Lord, again on the next day.
Oh, Lord, again, again, again.
That destroys faith.
Lord, I recognize it.
Forgive me, Lord, and help me.
I want to go on with you.
That easy.
Turn around and get going again.
The just shall fall seven times.
And well, Lord, if he falls once, he
isn't just.
Oh, yes, he is.
Just so he gets up.
Lord, if he falls twice, surely he isn't
just.
Yes, he is.
He shall fall seven times, it says.
You know how seven is in the Bible,
the perfect number.
It means, as they say in Spanish, any
number of times.
He'll fall, he'll keep on falling.
That doesn't matter.
What matters is that he keep on getting
up, that he keep his eyes on Jesus.
He'll get there.
God will lead each child there.
Once again, I'll leave you with the words
of souls.
And when we get there, before the presence
of God, we're going to be all we
wanted to be.
And I think we could extend that to
for those of you who are students and
those of you who are looking for the
ministry or those who are in the ministry.
I think when we get there, too, we
look back on our ministry.
We will have been as effective and we
will have had as big a ministry as
we wanted to have.
We will have done all we really wanted
to do.
Lord, I want to see revival.
How deep is that desire?
If it's the desire of the heart, God
will give it.
And he'll lead you through.
You can't pray through for revival.
I look at a nation, once again, I
can't bear the anguish, the suffering of one's
soul.
I can't bear the hurt before God that
the life of one sinner represents.
I can't do it.
It's too much.
There are dimensions there of suffering.
I can't carry it.
But God can work in me that capacity.
I can't quite explain it, put it in
words, but God can carry it through me
for one, for another, for a church, for
a district, for a nation, if that's what
he puts in my heart.
God can do it.
We are the children of the kingdom.
We are the army.
You remember Tony's song, We Are.
Not others.
Maybe we don't feel like it.
Maybe we say, Lord, there are other persons
far better than us.
I'm sure there are.
I'm sure we've got people down there in
Argentina.
Think the wind guy came from the Baptist
church, charismatic.
He had more preparation, I guess, than all
of us put together.
He had a capacity to speak with others.
Did the Lord use him?
No, he didn't.
There were things there the Lord couldn't use.
And you say, Lord, if you'd only use
him, the Lord says, no, I'm going to
use you.
Okay, Lord.
We look at others, we look around us.
That's all.
Look to Jesus.
He started out with 12 disciples, a bunch
of fishermen, you remember.
Changed the face of the world.
He can do it again.
He wants to do it again.
I don't know, like I told you, I
just feel a tremendous urgency drawing the Spirit
of God.
And I know that that's not something isolated.
I know that that's very connected with what
God is doing in the church.
I know that God is putting a restlessness,
a desire, a consciousness of something greater in
many lives.
I know young people I've met coming up
here these last months that I've been here
in the States, there's just a desire to
move out beyond the bonds, to know God
without limits, to minister without limits, to not
have any patterns for our moving in God,
but just to let God come forth, show
himself as he is, Christ without the city,
Christ the anointed of God, Christ the sufficiency
of God, more powerful than everything else.
Amen.
Stand for a moment and sing the song,
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.