Some of you have been here every night,
and you're enjoying this, you're just enjoying, you've
been out there in the desert so long,
and you've been hanging around cactus and briars
so long, that you forgot what a good
clover field looks like.
And God laid a big old clover field
out here last few nights, and you done
lost your mind, you've been eating clover, drinking
water, and you're saying, boy, this is like
heaven to me.
But God wants you to know, you've got
to get under a burden.
If we're going to have a breakthrough, we
just can't come down here and eat clover
and drink water.
Somebody's got to travail and get with God
for our family and our friends to see
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God.
Isaiah 58, 11 says, And the Lord shall
guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in
drought, and make fat thy bones.
Bless God, I'm not worried about South Beach
or Atkins.
God's got me on a fat-boned diet.
Hallelujah.
You think I'm not enjoying the good things
of God?
I'm eating in the land of milk and
honey, and my spiritual bones are being made
fat by the good grace of God.
He'll keep you in the drought, and when
you can't figure it out, He'll say, you
just hang out with me, and I will
satisfy the hunger and thirst of thy soul.
And thou shalt be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water, whose waters do
what?
Fail not.
Now, turn over to the New Testament.
Go to John.
If you've got your old Schofield study Bible,
it's page 1118, John chapter 4.
John 4, 4 talks about Jesus leaving Galilee,
and he's in verse 4, And he must
needs go through Samaria.
God had a plan, and God had a
purpose.
There's not an accident here tonight.
God had a need to walk through Archdale
last night.
He didn't have to, but He did.
He could have been anywhere, but He said,
let me go down.
I must needs go by Archdale.
God graced us with His presence.
Now, go to verse 10 in that same
chapter, And Jesus answered and said unto her,
If thou knewest the gift of God, and
who it is that saith to thee, Give
me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of
him, and he would have given thee what?
Living water.
All right, go to verse 14, same chapter,
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him shall what?
Never thirst, but the water that I shall
give him shall be in him a well
of water springing up into what?
Everlasting life.
So what God's teaching us, He's talking about
drought.
He's talking about, I'll be a well for
you.
And then when you're in me, that same
well will be inside of you.
Now you're going to go to school tomorrow.
You're going to go to university.
You're going to go over to the office.
You're going to go to your factory.
You're going to go with your work crew.
And you're going to go about your business
as an entrepreneur and a business woman, a
businessman.
And you're going to encounter people.
And you're going to meet two kind of
people tomorrow.
You're going to meet people that have never
been saved by the grace of God.
You're going to meet them.
They're going to be all around you.
And they're going to be looking for something
real.
And then you're going to meet people that
used to walk with God, and they've lost
their tears.
They've lost their burden, and they've become a
corrupt spring.
They didn't mean to, but they allowed things.
See, God put a living well in them,
but they allowed circumstances.
Let me tell you something.
You get your feelings hurt enough times, you'll
just give up.
You have enough people lie to you, and
you'll just give up.
You say, I just can't believe anybody.
Do you know that we have a high
casualty rate among Christians because the way other
Christians treat Christians?
You've got lost people in this community, and
they say, well, she's supposed to be a
Christian, he's supposed to be a Christian.
And if that's one, I hope I don't
catch it.
I know it's quiet down there in that
clover patch, but we've got to be honest
tonight.
If we could ever get Christians past our
moods, our attitudes, our envies, our jealousies, our
fight and fall.
Do you know, Christians, we're so talented, we
can carry grudges longer than lost people.
You'll never believe that 1811, they did me
wrong.
Bless God, I ain't forgot it either.
It's under the blood, but I ain't forgot
it.
You got people come in church and won't
sit on the same side of church as
somebody else because they're mad at them.
17 years ago, he backed his car across
my flower patch and never made it right.
His youngin, call my youngin a name, back
in 1927.
And we're going through the motions of having
church and being Christians.
And yet we've never one time got all
the trash out of our spring.
Now, listen to me for a moment.
God's people have got to be willing to
go to the next level.
We can stay down here for seven or
eight weeks because we love God and we
love each other and we can sing gospel
songs.
We can have a spiritual pep rally and
we can enjoy being together.
I told someone today on the phone, I
said, it blesses me just to drive over
to the tent and see that many people
wanting a little something decent.
That encourages me.
Does that encourage you to see this many
people coming out?
It encourages me.
Amen.
But what if we got this many Christians
past entertainment, past curiosity?
What if we got past coming down here
to see if somebody'd shout?
And then when they did shout, you nudge
you up.
Look at that jack leg.
He ain't got nothing to shout about.
I saw him at the Walmart last week
shoplifted when I was in their barn a
few things.
I mean, when I was in there, several
passages in this Bible refer to the spirit
of righteousness as a spring or a well,
a well, or a spring is associated with
life.
And in particular, the illustrations in your Bible,
because the Bible lands, the Holy lands are
a barren, dry desert land.
And so water is very precious.
Those of you who've been to the Holy
land with us, you know that one of
the guidebooks I use in the Holy land
is the very fact of wells, rivers, and
bodies of water, because you can't move them.
And if it happened there a thousand years
ago at that spring, or at 2000 years
ago at that river or that ocean, you
can't move that.
That's there.
I'm not going to use some tourist site.
I'm going to use those sites God carved
in the land because those are the Bible
illustrations.
And God used water and whales to show
how Christians are, that we're in a world
that denies the Lord.
We're barren and we're a spring and whale
bringing life.
Now, if you've got a new nature inside
of you, you've got a new source of
life.
You're no longer living and drinking in polluted
water.
Look at Isaiah 58, 11, and the Lord
shall guide thee like a spring of water
whose waters fail not.
Now, let me give you an illustration that's
from Austria over in the Alps.
And I believe it was Peter Marshall, the
great chaplain of the United States Senate that
brought this story to America.
But many, many, many decades ago, there was
a beautiful mountain town there in Europe.
And the whole community lived out of this
very pristine, sparkling, clear reservoir of water.
It was fed by many mountain springs up
in those hills.
And the water flowed down into this reservoir.
And because of that, there was clean drinking
water.
There was water to cook with.
There was water to make medicines with.
That was mountain pure water.
And the industries of that community could use
this clear source of water to turn water
wheels and generate power for the industry there
in that community.
The town council in that little mountain town,
that community assembly, one day was reviewing the
budget of their community, their public works, if
you would.
And one of the new young council members
held this up to the council and he
said, what is this here, this budget expense,
keeper of the springs?
And one of the older men on the
council said, I can't tell you a lot
about him.
We never see him.
He stays out of sight.
He has a love and a burden for
our mountains.
And his call to life is that he
crisscrosses these mountains year in and year out
and he cleans out the springs.
If the animal falls into one of our
springs and dies, he's always checking the springs
and he takes that polluted animal out of
the spring.
In the fall of the year when the
trees are blowing leaves and it can dam
up one of the springs and cause the
water to get stagnant, he's making his journeys,
always checking, always looking.
And he'll find those springs and he'll clean
them out and make sure the water keeps
flowing.
He said one year we had a big
wind storm and I heard that all of
the mountain springs were almost cut off because
so many limbs fell in that winter storm.
But I heard that he's so dedicated to
his job that he walked in the snow
and pulled the limbs off each spring so
ice packs wouldn't build up and we'd have
running water even in the wintertime.
His title's called Keeper of the Springs.
We don't see him very often but he'll
come through and take his little paycheck, buy
some supplies.
He's sort of like a hermit.
He said he don't want any attention.
He said we've tried to give him a
couple of community awards but he's not interested
in that.
It seems that his joy is making sure
we've got clean water to drink.
Said he loves the mountains and he loves
the springs.
And that young council member said, well, if
we never see him, how do we know
he's doing anything?
Said for all we know he's sitting up
in those mountains.
Said we're just giving him a paycheck.
Said the budget's tight this year.
We want to put up some oil lamps
down the street and we've got some things
we want to do to improve our city
infrastructure.
And said maybe this is a budget cut
we could make.
Does anybody know the Keeper of the Springs?
Have you had him?
Do you know him?
No.
I just know we got clean water.
That's all I know.
Well, how many of you vote that we
save money on the budget and we cut
out that check and just let him know
when he comes down next time to get
his pay that we're going to be fine?
That water's run for years.
It'll keep running.
We're going to save money there.
And so they voted to cut the money
for the Keeper of the Springs.
Well, for the first few days there were
no change.
First month or two, wasn't any change.
Then all of a sudden one of the
guys down at the factory said, you know
what?
I don't believe we're getting as much water
off the mountain as we used to.
My water wheel's not turning like it used
to.
They got through the winter.
A couple of times it seemed like the
streams almost froze up.
Spring came and instead of having a flow
of mountain water coming down, they noticed in
the reservoir as it warmed up and got
warm, they looked down in there and they
said, oh my goodness, look, we've never had
that.
What's that old stringy green stuff growing?
Said, looks like there's not enough current.
There's algae filling up the reservoir.
And the fish that were in there that
they had some fresh fish and the kids
would catch, they started floating up and dying.
All of a sudden the water wheel began
to crank and stop and crank and stop
because there was so much algae and trash
in the water.
And then about six weeks later, one of
the mothers came over to the council and
said, I got three of my four children
sick.
The doctor said it's because they're drinking polluted
water.
Said the water's not clean.
And while she was there, a dad came
in and he said, my wife's sick unto
death.
Said she's been drinking water and the doctors
say that it's dirty water that's making my
wife sick.
And they had an emergency meeting that night
and one of the men said, what do
you think the problem is?
And the old man said, only thing I
can figure out is we don't have that
man up there in the mountain keeping our
springs cleaned out.
He said, you reckon we could send somebody
up there and ask him if he'd forgive
us.
And if he'd come back and our community
and clean out our springs, we need a
clean drink of water.
We can't have any power without the power
that comes off that mountainside.
We can't have health if we don't have
a clean spring.
Said would you see if somebody can go
get him and beg him to come back.
We didn't mean to offend him.
We didn't mean to run him off.
And they said, yeah, and they split up
and they went all in different directions, hiking
and walking.
And sure enough, one of them came up
on his little cabin and said, sir, we're
sorry.
Said we didn't know what was going on.
Would you go back to work?
And he said, let me show you something.
And they walked him over and he said,
this is your problem.
And there was the springs, one of them
feeding down the mountain.
It was full of leaves, trash had fallen
in.
There was a dead squirrel laying up at
the top.
And he said, those are not mine.
Those are our trust.
And I can't bother those unless you ask
me to.
That's the city's land.
That's your water reservoir.
And I wanted to clean them out because
I know what's going to happen down there.
It don't happen today.
It don't happen a week from today.
But if you leave it alone, if you
leave it alone, it'll bring a better harvest
in.
And I'm telling you tonight, Christians, my burdens
for God's people.
I don't care if you've been in church
50 years.
You say, well, brother Ralph, I went to
the altar when I got saved and I
don't think I need to go back to
any other time.
I'm going to tell you something.
We ought to get under the altar and
we ought to say, God, I've been saved
50 years.
I've been saved 30 years, but it just
dawned on me tonight when brother Ralph was
up there that I've allowed trash to fall
in my spring.
I've allowed the world to clutter up me.
I've lost the sweet Holy Ghost of my
life.
I've grieved you, God.
I don't have my tears like I used
to.
I don't have my burden like I used
to.
We don't have power turning in the church
like we used to.
The preacher not preaching with power like he
used to.
But God, if you would come back one
more time and clean the trash out of
my spring, oh, that we could have the
power back and we could have a burden
back and we could have tears back.
And all of a sudden we could get
our kids off that rap music and off
of VH1 and off of MTV and off
of dirty jokes and the pornography and Hollywood.
Oh God, would you clean up our house
and clean up our television and clean up
our music?
Get that out of the well.
Clean up the spring and give us revival.
It's not going to happen until God's people
clean up the spring.
There's people sitting right here tonight, you're saved,
you'll die, you'll go to heaven.
But you've got all of it in your
heart against another Christian.
You're mad somebody did you wrong.
Well, you don't know that guy over there.
He left our church eight years ago and
hurt some people in our church.
Well, let me just tell you something.
You're not in charge of him.
You're not in charge of her.
You're in charge of you.
And you've allowed trash to get in your
spring and you're clogging up your whole church.
You're killing your preacher.
You're killing God's men.
They're preaching and praying, begging God to work.
And I'm going to tell you something.
We're not going to have revival until we
get the trash out of the spring.
One of the greatest revivals I was in
was right up the road at Kanapolis, North
Carolina.
And you know, when it broke it back
to Bethel, it broke one night.
I was preaching along a similar line about
being a hindrance to the Holy Spirit.
And there's a preacher that I love very
much.
If I said his name, a lot of
you would know him.
And he tore down out of his chair.
I thought he was coming to the altar.
He said he was getting out.
Went out, started up his car.
His headlights came up under the tabernacle.
I thought, my Lord, what in the world?
And he took off down the road.
And he went and we're, the service is
going on.
We're now coming down to the invitation.
And he comes driving up and he slid
on the gravel and left his headlights on
and his door open.
And he came running in with his hands
up and he's saying, it's under the blood.
It's under the blood.
Said it's forgiven.
I'm sorry, God.
I've got forgiveness.
And I said, what on earth?
And he started yelling.
He said several years ago, Percy Ray was
up here preaching.
And he said, I got critical of Brother
Ray.
I didn't like the way he was doing
it.
I didn't like what he was saying.
And I went and talked about Percy to
other preachers and tried to get them not
to support him, not to stand with him.
And said, I ran my mouth.
And he said, it dawned on me tonight
that I got the spring backed up in
my soul.
Dawned on me tonight that God will never
use me as a preacher until I get
right.
And said, I called Myrtle, Mississippi.
I went to a pay phone and asked
Percy Ray.
He said, God worked it.
I got him on the phone.
And I said, Brother Ray, will you forgive
me?
Of course I will, son.
Get up there and get my holy gold.
Amen.
And old Percy growled at him.
He came running up there.
Hey, that night, over 30 some preachers got
in the altar.
And you know what I saw happening under
there?
I saw preachers hugging preachers.
And they're saying, I'm sorry.
I got mad at you.
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
I talked about Stuart Shoney.
I got mad because my best deacon went
to your church.
It ain't my deacon.
That's God's servant.
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
And they got to hugging each other.
And it broke out.
Went seven more weeks after that night.
People started getting saved like you've never seen.
Hardcore sinner.
Got so bad, listen to this, got so
bad with God the Holy Ghost in the
community that people started getting under convictions.
Listen to these testimonies now for a minute.
People started getting right in taverns and bars.
Now there's some folks here who knows about
it.
They were there.
One of the testimonies that a man gave
was that he was sitting on a bar
stool over there near the tent.
And said every time he'd pick up his
beer can, said there's a little preacher, a
little boy down that beer can.
He said he'd get it up to his
mouth and he'd say, prepare to meet God.
You say, I don't believe that.
Bless God you wasn't drinking that bud either.
Huh?
Said he'd try to pick it up again
and say, today's the day of salvation.
He'd put it down.
He'd pick it up and try to drink
it again and said, prepare to meet God.
And he said while he was sitting there,
his hands got to trembling.
And said all of a sudden the bartender
went crazy.
Said he grabbed the cash register off the
counter and he threw it against the wall
and started cussing me, the bartender.
Said that blankety-blank so-and-so preacher
with that old tent said he's ruined my
business.
And started, opened the cooler and started throwing
long necks.
I wouldn't know about those, but Bob Drake
told me about them.
But, but, uh, but started throwing those long
necks against the wall and breaking them.
Huh?
What happened?
A holy ghost.
Why did it get like that?
Cause the church got so broken.
They started praying all night.
They started taking their babies home after the
tent meeting.
Meeting back at the church, back at the
tent at midnight.
Praying to daylight.
Now listen to this.
They prayed to daylight, go get a shower,
eat breakfast and go to work.
You say you can't do that.
They did it for weeks.
What were they doing?
The Holy Ghost was giving them rest and
Holy Ghost, Geritol and vitamins.
Huh?
God was sustaining them.
Some nights the mama would pray and the
daddy would sleep.
Some nights the daddy would go down there
and say I'll stay with the kids, mama
you pray.
And it went like that.
And God got in lost people.
There was a man there one night, brother
David Harrison was leading the singing for us.
And, uh, I parked over here on the
outside of the tent and drove up.
Brother David was already working with the choir.
And I pulled up out there in the
parking lot.
And when I pulled up, a guy pulled
up beside me.
Okay.
And I reached around and got my top
coat and I got my Bible.
And that guy got out of his car
and I said, Hey brother, how are you
tonight?
And he said, Oh, glory to God.
And I turned around like, where did he
go?
And went around his car and he was
down on the running board, using it for
an altar.
And he's saying, God be merciful unto me
a sinner.
Lord, I'm sorry.
I've been playing and partaking.
I know I'm not right.
We had seven people get saved in the
parking lot that night before the service ever
started.
There was a woman, Richard Horne, Pastor Richard
Horne, Landis was directing traffic.
He was out at the roadway.
And he came and told me, he said,
there was a big Lincoln continental, came up
the interstate, got off there at the Kannapolis,
Landis exit.
And said, when they got off, said they
pulled up in the yard and said, this
big Lincoln said that woman hit the window
and said, uh, sir, can you tell me
what's going on here?
And he said, what do you mean?
Said we were down at Lake Wiley in
our lake house and said the kids and
I just had supper and said, I thought
God was going to kill me.
Said the Holy Spirit of God said, get
in the car and drive up the road.
And said, when I got up there, the
Lord said, get off and said, is this
a skating rink or is this a yard
sale or what's going on?
And he said, ma'am, we're having an
old fashioned revival meeting.
And she said, well, I wonder why I
felt such a burden.
And all of a sudden in the back
seat, a 17 year old daughter said, mama,
I can tell you why I'm lost and
I need Jesus.
And she threw open the door, started running
towards the tent, got about 10 feet from
it, fell down in them shavings and started
begging God to save her.
You say, I've never seen that.
I don't believe it.
Bless God.
You wasn't there.
You had you to kill the whole meeting.
Doubting Thomas, huh?
Hey, we've lost our burden.
We've lost our tears and we're not going
to get the power back.
We can go to another level with God,
but God's people have got to get right.
You've got to make restitution.
You've got to say, God, I'm sorry.
You've got to get it over with.
Listen, we're standing in the way of lost
people.
It was Tuesday night.
There was a lost man and his wife
stood right here, stood right there where Pastor
Hobbs is sitting.
And that man stood there, wiped tears and
that woman wiped tears.
And I said, how many Christians here know
you've got things in your life that shouldn't
be here?
And it looked like 150, maybe 200 Christians
raised their hands.
I mean, all over this tent.
And I said, won't you come and Christians,
you lead the way.
And there might have been seven or eight
people came.
And those Christians didn't come.
And neither did those two lost people that
stood right there in Christ.
And let me tell you something, you will
meet them again.
You hear what I said?
You'll see them again.
I just hope it's down here at this
altar and not at the Great White Throne
Judgment when they're screaming, when God said, depart,
I never knew you.
And angels are dragging them off to the
eternal hell.
And they're walking by you screaming, why didn't
you clean your spring out?
Why didn't you get the trash out?
Why would you be tender that night?
Come and talk to me.
Not one person went to him.
Not one person prayed for him.
Not one person wept in this altar.
Lord, we beg you tonight, don't leave us
alone.
In wrath, remember mercy.
God, would you clean out our springs tonight?
Get the trash out of our lives.
God, forgive us for being critical, finding fault,
holding grudges.
God, forgive us for not praying.
Forgive us for not reading our Bible.
Forgive us for not being faithful to your
house.
God, forgive us for robbing you of the
tithe and the offering.
Forgive us, God, for not praying, for not
witnessing.
God, forgive us for not having a burden.
Oh, God, stir your people tonight.
God, get a hold of the Christians.
Clean out our spring tonight.
Clean out our spring.