It's the longing of the Lord Jesus Christ
to have a closer walk, you know, with
us.
I began by noting that there is more
eagerness in the heart of Jesus to walk
with us, much more than we could ever
have expressed.
And we're looking at how he keeps longing,
knocking, and say, open to me, open to
me.
We have seen that cry in the heart
of Jesus saying, open to me, let me
come in, let me come in.
We saw that in his, in his desire
to come in, he could even put his
hand on the hole, seeking to come in.
And we saw, as we concluded yesterday, that
there is a time to call upon him
when he's near.
There is a time to seek him when
he can be found.
And that if a man would delay or
waste divine opportunities of encountering God, he will
open himself unto the devourers.
The men of the city, they may take
away even your veil and the glory that
could have been yours.
Tonight, as a continuation of our series on
a closer walk with God, I will now
begin to look at, whereas I looked at
the passion of the Lord Jesus yesterday, I'm
now going to look at the passion of
a soul after God.
Now, I'm going to be looking at your
own passion, our own passion for the Lord,
passion for God's presence, passion to experience God.
Passion, the Bible says, blessed are those who
thirst and hunger after righteousness, they shall be
filled.
We shall be considering how to sustain passion
for God, passion for his presence, passion for
intimate walk with God, passion, passion instead of
apathy, passion instead of whatever goes, passion, that
heated desire to want to experience the Lord
more deeply and more personally.
And I'm going to be looking at this
passion tonight from several, several brothers and even
sisters that sought the face of God until
something deliberate happened to them.
And I would like you to join me
this night.
We're going to read that passage that I
know you know already, but we're going to
read it together before we begin to speak.
We're going to read Psalm 42, Psalm 42
and Psalm 84.
I would request that you would let us
read the two Psalms together responsibly.
When I read one verse, you will read
the next.
Let's just read scriptures together before we begin
to study.
Psalm 42 and Psalm 84, these are the
two passages which I'll be leading, I mean
reading tonight.
As the heart panted after the water brooks,
so panted my soul after thee, O God.
My tears have been my meat day and
night.
Why do they continually say unto me, where
is thy God?
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
And why art thou disquieted in me?
Hope thou in God, for I shall yet
praise him for the help of his countenance.
Deep calleth unto deep.
At the noise of thy water sprouts, all
thy waves and thy billows are gone over
me.
I will say unto God, my rock, why
hast thou forgotten me?
Why go I mourning because of the oppression
of the enemy?
Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
And why art thou disquieted within me?
Hope thou in God, for I shall yet
praise him who is the health of my
countenance and my God.
Psalm 84.
Psalm 84, O Lord
of hosts, yea,
the sparrow has found a house, and the
swallow a nest for herself, where she may
lay her young, even thy altars.
O Lord of hosts, my King and my
God.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in
thee, in whose heart are the ways of
them.
They go from strength to strength, every one
of them in Zion appeareth before God.
Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon
the face of thine anointed.
For the Lord God is a sun and
shield.
The Lord will give grace and glory.
No good thing will he withhold from them
that walk uprightly.
Amen.
May the Lord bring increase to his word
as we read and as we study together
tonight.
Now, I'm dealing with passion, passion for God
as the only thing that could sustain our
closer walk with God that can keep us
in constant experience of revival and of the
power of the Holy Spirit.
Now, the two passages we have read incidentally
is a cry of a man who was
longing for the presence of God.
I'm still going to draw some few illustrations
as I go ahead, but let me just
ask you to quickly meditate on these two
psalms as quickly as we can so as
to lay a biblical foundation for the kind
of passion that God must create within our
spirit, passion that the spirit of God must
bring back again in order to keep us
on fire, in order to keep us constantly
afresh so that even in our generation among
men, among the women which, I mean, in
whom we live, among those whom we walk,
they might see a note of divine presence
that has come to settle on your life
as an individual.
Now, the psalmist says, as the heart panted
after the water brooks, as the deer pants
after the water brooks, so panted my soul
after thee, O God.
The first word I noted there is panting,
panting.
And unless you have seen, you know, the
deer panting after water, after it has traveled
so long and you can see it's thirsty,
you might not understand what the word panting
has to do.
And sometime because maybe you've not traveled in
a very hot atmosphere where we come from,
where you can come under a very, very
intense thirst and there is no water you
can take immediately there, I mean nearby, the
panting just to get a sip of water
to refresh you and to keep you, you
know, refreshed inside.
Now, the Bible is saying, as the heart
panted after the water brooks, so panted my
soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsted for God, for the living
God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My soul thirsts and my heart cries out
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my meat day and
night.
Why they continually say to me, where is
thy God?
Maybe one of the things that is lost,
one of the things that God must restore
to us as we are crying for revival
is the restoration of our hunger, our hunger
for God, our hunger for his presence, our
hunger for his manifestation, our hunger for a
fellowship with him, our hunger for an unbroken
relationship, our hunger for divine interruptions that comes
upon our souls regularly.
Usually when a child of God begins to
lose this hunger, there are several parameters, there
are several little, little things that manifest.
When your hunger for God begins to die
out, there are a few things that you
will begin to see, that you will begin
to experience.
One of it is that that longing to
be in the presence of God, that longing
to hear the voice of the Lord over
every issue, that desire to sense the presence
of the Lord by you is no more
than.
When a man begins to lose his hunger
for God, he could do without reading his
scripture on a daily basis.
He could begin to make do with some
few phrases.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, God no longer becomes the priority of
his life on a daily basis.
He could begin to live on residual knowledge.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, his attitude towards sin and the things
that offends God is no more sharp.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, he could tolerate even compromises and go
along with them as if nothing is wrong.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, unrighteousness no longer causes him to cry.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, quiet omissions in his own life, quiet
omissions in his own character no longer cause
him to cry.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, he may become more logical.
He might begin to rationalize his actions.
He might begin to explain away several things
and say, well, God himself should understand that
condition is not easy.
When a man has lost his personal hunger
for God, personal holiness is no more a
critical issue for him.
Now, may I quickly say to you that
the loss of hunger for God may not
first manifest in group meetings.
There are many people that they no longer
have personal hunger for the presence of God,
but they still keep going along with the
company of Christians because they will not want
people to keep asking, oh, we didn't see
you in the fellowship.
Sometimes some person just come to put up
an appearance in the midst of the brethren,
but he has not appeared before the Lord.
Sometimes when the hunger for God has finished
in a man's life, his closet life, which
matters most, has become dismantled.
His personal altar has broken down, but he
could still manage with public activities.
When a man has lost his personal hunger
for God, his personal sensitivity to the Holy
Ghost, sensitivity to the Word of God, sensitivity
unto the things of the Spirit becomes dull.
It becomes dull.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, what pains God no longer pains his
heart.
When a man has lost his hunger for
God, passion, passion for souls, passion to see
men turned over from the kingdom of darkness
unto the kingdom of his dear Son in
the light is no more strong on his
heart.
When a man has lost his passion for
God, and I want you to take note
of this, the truth of the matter is
that you cannot be passionate about two things
at the same time.
The way our heart is made, it is
not possible for you to share your affection
equally in between two things at the same
time.
So Jesus Christ said, you cannot love God
a man.
You will either choose one and let the
other one go.
There are no two ways about it.
That's the truth.
Even though we may not speak directly about
it, people may not confront you with it,
but the truth is this, you cannot be
passionate at the same time about two things
at the same time.
You are either passionate for God or for
something else.
When a man has begun to lose his
passion for God, it is always a replacement
of passion for something else.
Sometimes passion for God is lost and you
become passionate about friends.
You like to spend more time with people
than with God.
When a man has lost passion for God
and passion for the word of God, you
see him, he loves to listen to more
news.
He will love to spend more time before
the television.
He will love to read newspapers more than
he will have read the word of God.
When scriptures is no more sweet to your
taste, when the word of God becomes dry
and dreary, that even to read one chapter,
you just read it as a matter of
duty, not because you are enjoying it, not
because your inner man is yearning and yearning
for it.
When you notice that what used to strike
your spirit and break you quickly is no
more breaking you, I want you to take
note, maybe your passion for God and for
his presence is already reduced.
When a man has lost his passion for
God, what else do we notice?
His eyes are dry.
Even though I am not preaching that you
must be weeping every time for me to
be sure that you love God, yet we
cannot separate a broken and a contrite spirit
from a man who is passionate about God.
When your eyes are dry, when your heart
is unnecessarily hard inside, when it takes a
long time for tears to draw from your
eyes, it is an indication that your passion
for God, your passion for his presence is
reduced.
Passion for God is a function of a
man's heart.
This man said, as the deer panted after
the water brook, so pants my soul after
the old God.
My soul thirsted for God, for the living
God.
When shall I come and appear before him?
Let me ask you this night.
Sometimes it is difficult to measure a man's
passion.
Sometimes church activities could make it easy for
us to think you are still passionate, when
actually right inside something has shifted, something has
changed, something has moved, something has broken down
inside.
That is the first question that I would
like you to check this night.
This man says, and I want you to
see the manifestation of a man who is
passionate.
As I am looking at Psalm 42 and
Psalm 84, what are the manifestations of a
man who is passionate?
He says, see the first question, he says,
my soul thirsted for God, for the living
God.
When a man is passionate for God, he
is passionate for the person, the person of
the Lord Jesus.
Many people, they have lost their passion for
God, but they are passionate for the things,
for the benefits, for the gifts they will
get from God and not from God himself.
Are we together?
It is possible that you have lost your
passion for the Lord Jesus, but you are
only passionate about something you may get from
God.
That is the first question of the night.
When you love the Lord, when you love
the gift more than the giver, when you
are more concerned about the miracle more than
the miracle worker himself, when you are excited
only about things, goods that you will get
rather than God himself, are you still passionate
about Jesus?
Do you love him?
Do you love him for his own sake?
Does he mean to you anymore?
Does Jesus occupy that special place in your
spirit and you cannot do without him?
Or you are satisfied if you just get
some few things of him even if you
don't have him.
This man said, my soul thirsted for God,
for the living God.
That is the first thing.
Passion for God is passion for the person,
the personality of God.
Passion for God is the desire, the desire
to know him.
Paul said that I may know him.
I want to know him.
I want to be close to him.
I want to be acquainted with him.
I want to become intimately, intimately acquainted with
him.
I want him.
I don't want anything else.
I will be sharing with you some men
whose passion for God brought God into their
situation, brought God into their lives, brought God
into their ministry.
And I'm praying that God will restore to
me, God will restore to you tonight an
unflinching passion for his presence.
He said, when shall I come and appear
before God?
When a man is passionate for God, you
don't need to invite him for fellowship.
Am I right?
You don't need to invite him because that
is the highest point of his life.
So I'm so glad when they say, let
us go into the house of the Lord.
When a man is passionate for God, and
you will remember in the days when Revival
was here, people woke up, 4 a.m.,
5 a.m., they were seeking the face
of God.
When meetings close like this, they are not
ready to go.
They are not ready to go.
Sometimes the church officials will have to be
saying, well, please, we need to close up,
but somebody is still there crying.
Somebody is still holding the altar.
Somebody is saying, Lord, I will not let
you go.
I cannot leave you now.
I want to be here with you.
It was nothing in those days that when
men were passionate, a whole night of prayer,
they went to be alone with God.
Some just went back into their garden, and
you hear them crying all night unto God
and said, Lord, bless me.
I will not let you go.
I want to ask you, are you eager?
Are you eager?
And the question in your heart is, when
shall I come and appear before God?
When shall I appear before God?
The parameter of a man who is passionate
for God, he says, my tears have been
my meat day and night.
Why do you continually say to me, where
is your God?
When a man is passionate for God, he
weeps for God.
Oh, did you hear what I said?
He weeps for God.
He weeps for his presence.
He says, my tears have been my meat
day and night.
Why do people ask me, where is your
God?
Where is your God?
The cry of his heart, the powerlessness, the
impotence that has come upon his life makes
him to cry to God.
But brothers and sisters, have we not lost
that passion?
When last did you cry for your powerlessness?
When last did you cry for your impotence?
When last did you cry out to God
and say, Lord, why is it that I'm
speaking the word of God and I'm not
seeing conviction in the heart of people?
When last did you cry?
You know why I'm dealing with this tonight?
Because I realize that even though God is
longing to send revival, the word of God
also says only those who thirst and hunger
for righteousness shall be filled.
There is this two legs that we cannot
ignore.
Whereas Jesus says, come unto me, I will
give you rest.
But yet he says, if any man thirsts,
let him come to me and drink.
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water.
But those who do not thirst, those who
are not hungry, even if you give honey
to a man who is not hungry, he
will vomit it.
This night, is there any tears left in
your heart about your impotence, about your powerlessness,
about the dryness, about the lack of power
when you read scripture?
One of the things that bothers me, that
makes me many, many times restless, is not
money.
I have no problem if I had no
dime in my pocket even for months.
I don't worry about money.
But there is something that makes me restless
when I open scriptures and it does not
open to me.
When I read scriptures and it is becoming
like newspaper, I know that something is going
wrong.
When the spirit of God does not break
forth upon me very simply and very spontaneously
again, I know I am in trouble.
I know I am in trouble.
And you know it is possible even for
a preacher to become passionless when you just
preach as a mere routine, when you just
bring out scriptures as one of those old
things, when you say, okay, I preached this
message five years ago, let me just, let
me just get it.
When you just hold sermons and it doesn't
cause you a cry, it doesn't cause you
tears.
When we come for church service and everything
goes on normally and there is no divine
interruption from heaven, you know the only ghost
is not doing anything and you are not
crying about it.
You have lost your passion.
This man says, my tears are being my
meat day and night.
Why they continually say to me, where is
your God?
How many of you ever cried that we
don't see answered prayers again?
How many of you, did it bother you,
did it bother you that we no longer
see the manifestation of the power of God
and the move of the spirit each time
we speak or each time we pray or
each time we lay hands on people?
How did we come to accept emotionless Christianity?
How did we come to accept the truth?
How did we come to settle down for
a Christian experience that is not active?
How did we come to settle down with
a Christian life that is not sprouting, is
not fresh?
How did we come for a prayer meeting
and we finished praying and none of us
felt a fresh touch of the master?
Where are the tears?
I remember that if I were to be
invited to go and preach somewhere, I would
not be able to go if I don't
see God's presence.
And when I finished preaching, I remember I
was invited to a church some years back
to preach and I was to preach from
Sunday to Friday.
It was a week-long revival meeting and
it was a very difficult meeting for me.
I preached my first sermon on Sunday morning
and nobody moved, nobody was touched.
The pastor came and greeted me and said,
Obradwile, that's a good sermon, that's a good
sermon, that's very brilliant.
He didn't know that the more he said
that, it was like he was piercing my
heart with a sword.
Several people came and said, oh yeah, that's
good, that's a good message.
And those who were smoking, they went out
and they continued smoking.
I said, God, how can you put me
into this kind of problem?
What kind of ministry is this, oh God?
I came back in the evening, the same
thing.
I came back Monday evening.
When I finished preaching, nothing happened.
Of course, you know, they had great hospitality
for me, good food.
They would just fill the whole table with
plenty of food.
And there were so many of their ladies
coming to serve left and right.
And they are saying, brother, you are not
eating.
So I called the pastor, I said, pastor,
what kind of meeting is this?
Oh, the man said, well, that's a good
meeting.
You know, this meeting is wonderful.
We have been, in fact, my people have
enjoyed you, they have enjoyed you.
I said, oh, that's the wrong word to
use, enjoy.
Can fire fall on a man and he
says he enjoys it?
Can the sword pierce a man's heart and
he says I'm enjoying it?
It couldn't be an enjoyment.
If I were an entertainer, the right word
was enjoy.
I enjoyed that entertainment.
But if I were a man carrying fire,
I expected tears.
I expected men to break down.
I expected hearts to pierce.
So I decided, I told God that night,
I said, father, if you are not going
to move, I'm not going to continue this
meeting.
How I wish that that blessedness of a
passion after God will never depart from my
life.
Because I want to tell you, he that
seeketh, findeth.
The truth that he that knocketh, the door
is open to him.
And he, he that will not give himself
rest and say, God, unless you show me
your glory, I will not let you go.
God does not always disappoint them.
And this night, brothers, I just feel that
while God is passionate to visit me and
you, maybe we are not as passionate as
touching God.
Maybe we are satisfied that, well, it's okay,
it's okay, it's okay.
It couldn't be okay.
Because as I saw other men of God,
I saw that no, they will not let
God go until something happens.
So that night, I couldn't remember whether I
slept at all.
I was saying, oh God, oh God, if
I would go for this meeting, this is
the third time.
I'm going to now speak the fourth message.
And I have not seen a result.
And I prayed and prayed and prayed.
The Holy Spirit did something that day.
With trembling, my heart was broken.
And I was actually ready to announce to
the person that after tonight, if I did
not see what I'm longing for God to
do, I would rather close the meeting so
that everybody should go and rest.
There's no need wasting people's time.
And the Lord said, I will be with
you this evening.
I will go with you.
I said, so Lord, what do I do?
He asked me to take one man who
had been a deacon in a Baptist church
since 1962.
I was preaching in 1985.
He has been a deacon.
But one day I was passing in front
of his house and I felt like speaking
to him, witnessing.
I said, oh, can I speak to him?
He said, yes, yes, yes.
I said, are you born again?
He said, what do you mean by that?
I'm a deacon.
And we have studied many churches.
I said, no, I'm not talking about your
position in church.
I'm asking, are you born again?
Is Jesus in your life?
And the Lord led me as I opened
the scripture.
I think I was reading 1 Corinthians chapter
6.
He said, no you not.
There are neither fornicators nor effeminists and drunkards
will have a part in the kingdom of
God.
No you not.
And the Spirit of God arrested this man.
He was sweating.
He said, how did you know that I'm
a womanizer?
And I saw him sinking on his knees
and he gave his life to Christ.
God said now, take him along with you.
Before you preach, let him tell him to
tell the story of his life.
By the time this man finished, the church
was quiet.
And I came up.
I felt a different presence of God that
night.
Why am I sharing this with you?
You can know the presence of God.
The truth of the matter is that we
can know when he is there and we
can know when he is not at hand.
I know there is that general Bible passage
where we say, we are two or three,
I gather together, I'm there in their midst.
That's okay.
That's a good passage.
But we know when he is there and
we know when he is not at hand.
It may be all right to just quote
the Bible generally, but all those who believe
the word of God, they experience God.
And I'm asking you, if you're a little
more deliberate tonight and say, God, it's a
long time I have felt your presence in
my heart.
It's a long time my spirit has been
warm.
It's a long time my inner man has
experienced the push of the spirit of God
within me.
I will not let you go unless you
do a new thing for me.
And do you know what happened in that
meeting?
I had not finished preaching.
I just started sharing from the word of
God the same scripture I have read for
the past four times.
Now tonight his presence has come.
And I saw something.
And I must tell you, sir, just like
you said, just as you said, even one
night could change the life of a church.
Even one night.
And I've seen that before.
I have seen something.
I wouldn't call it a mighty revival, but
I've seen sparks of revival.
I've seen it happen several.
And what did I notice?
I was just speaking.
And I don't know how the Holy Spirit
was taking over the meeting.
When somebody in the meeting, one young man
just jumped up and he ran to the
front.
And I thought maybe I have done something.
And he was annoyed.
He came out.
He said, stop it.
Yes.
Papa God, I'm in problem.
I am the man this man had been
talking about.
I am a womanizer.
I have been beating my wife.
Will God forgive me?
And he sank and began to cry.
And I have not yet said one more
thing.
When another person ran out, when another person
ran out, we did not give what I
call when the altar was filled with men
with tears.
That day, that was Tuesday night.
By Wednesday, by Thursday, something has happened.
And that began the beginning of a fresh
visitation of God over that particular congregation.
I want to tell you tonight, sir, out
of that particular meeting and in that congregation,
several of them that came out to make
their life right with God, several of them
have become pastors.
Some of them are pastors in churches that
are numbering about 2,000, 3,000 today.
Because God came down.
I want to tell you, I want to
tell you that we can know when God
is around.
And we can know when he's not there.
This apathy of saying, well, we think God
is there.
Let's stop it, please.
Stop it.
If God comes to you now, you will
know it.
If God touches your inner man, something will
happen.
But you see, God waits for those who
are passionate, who are hungry for him.
I am in trouble.
I am in anger.
And I'm believing God that these three days
of meeting that God has allowed us to
have, God in his mercy, he will respond
to our cry.
He will do a new thing in our
midst.
Two years ago, sir, I was in a
meeting in Ghana.
Now, why do I need to tell you
this?
I wanted to tell you something because sometimes
when you don't know what to expect in
God or in revival, you may be vague
about it.
As a preacher, I have come to cherish.
And nothing else satisfies me.
I don't know anything else that satisfies me.
I don't care about offering.
I don't need money.
God himself knows that that's not my desire.
My desire is to see God.
My desire is to see God doing his
work in the midst of his people.
I don't want to be a parrot.
A parrot is that man that speaks and
speaks and speaks and speaks and speaks and
speaks and there's no result.
And we were in this meeting, only pastors
and church elders were gathered in this meeting.
I think there should be about 300 of
them.
And I have been going to that meeting.
But this particular day, I said, Lord, why
would people gather in there?
And why would I travel all the way
from Nigeria to Ghana?
For what?
What does it pay me, oh God, to
be going up and down if you will
not move?
And this meeting started casually.
It appears as if nothing will happen.
The first speaker finished speaking.
Nothing has taken place.
And I said, Lord, will you allow us
to again gather and go back as if,
as if you are like the God of
Baal that cannot respond?
And God said to me, I will help
you.
I will help you.
And as the Word of God was going
that day, again I was interrupted.
One hefty man in the Methodist church, the
Methodist, the normal Methodist, he was called a
presbyter.
He was next to the bishop.
Suddenly, I just saw him, he just came.
And he grabbed the microphone from my hand
forcefully.
And I said, ah, God, what have I
done?
And then the man stood there and said,
all of you, you know me, you know
me in this church, you know me.
You know me.
I am a pretender.
You think I am doing well.
I'm the presbyter.
There are many, many churches under me.
But I am a pretender.
I want an answer.
I cannot keep quiet again.
The Word of God has hit my hand
and I cannot keep quiet.
And as he opened up and started confessing,
I couldn't do anything else because the microphone
now was in his hand.
I'm just watching.
And he had not finished.
When he collapsed, I began to cry.
And I didn't know what God did.
Several people started coming out.
And coming out, sinking on their knees and
repenting.
I'm seeing something.
And as the Spirit of God arrested them,
I was still waiting to see what would
happen.
The service was supposed to end.
Nobody could go.
They were singing and crying.
And then the people, they said, what do
you want to do about this?
So I wanted to test whether they were
serious or not.
I said, if any of you have been
so affected by God this afternoon and you
want to take it forward, you don't want
it to just be a mere ceremony, wait
behind.
I thought only two people would wait.
I was surprised when I saw several, several.
There were almost a hundred.
And the question they were asking me, those
beloved questions that I've been waiting for God
to cause to happen in every meeting we
go.
They said, Brother Gbile, what shall we do?
Tell us what you want us to do
now.
We are ready.
One man came and said, I will follow
you back to Nigeria.
Now it is clear that I have not
been properly brought up.
Even though I've been preaching, I want to
resign so that my life can be made
well.
That was the beginning of the work that
God is doing in Ghana.
That was the beginning.
And I could see fire breaking forth.
I want to tell you that where there
is passion in our hearts, God will not
fail to respond.
But if you are satisfied with your fearless
Christianity, if you are satisfied with dryness, if
you have explanation for your impotence, God may
say, well, he's okay.
He doesn't need me any more than he
has.
But if there's somebody in this meeting tonight
who said, Lord, I need something more, I
must dig a little deeper.
Jesus' love must be sweeter.
I will dig a little deeper, deeper, yeah.
Is there somebody that wants to go deeper
with God?
Is there somebody who is not satisfied, said,
Lord, I'm not satisfied where I am?
Some people may think, why are you worrying
yourself?
Why are you trying to be a fanatic?
No, you are not a fanatic.
If you are restless inside and your spirit
is saying, how can I continue to face
powerlessness?
How can I continue to go about?
And people are saying, where is your God?
They are saying it to our faces all
the time.
But why did God keep quiet?
Because you have kept quiet.
Why hasn't God responded?
Because it has not bothered you enough.
Why hasn't God stood up to help us?
Because we could still manage.
We could still make do with dryness, tearless,
and fruitless Christian experience.
Passion for God is a critical issue for
all those who sought revival.
This does not depend on age.
If a young man says, Lord, I cannot
go without you, God will manifest himself to
him.
This can happen in the secondary school.
This can happen in the ladies' meeting.
This can happen anywhere, wherever men can no
longer manage with empty Christian experience.
The man said, when I remember these things,
I pour out my soul in me, for
I have gone with the multitude.
I went with them to the house of
God with the voice of joy and praise,
with the multitude that kept holy day.
Why had I cast down all that?
When a man has contracted passion for God,
do you know the other thing?
His memory becomes sharp.
Please listen to me.
When your passion for God has been restored,
your memory will become sharp.
Memory about what?
Memory about what God used to do with
you.
Memory about the way God used to move.
Memory about what God used to do when
you preached.
Memory about what God used to do when
you prayed.
Memory about what God, what God, what God
used to do when you sing.
He said, when I remember these things, when
I remember how I had gone with the
multitude into the house of God, when I
remember how I had gone there with the
voice of joy and praise, with the multitude
that kept holy day, when I remember, my
heart yearns and I say, God, when will
I see your glory again?
Can I ask, some of you are old
enough and you have seen the move of
God some years ago.
Why did you forget it?
Why did you forget those, those critical prayer
meetings that brought the glory down?
Why doesn't it rise in your spirit again?
How a simple word of God held you
for hours and for days on your knees.
When passion for God has been restored to
a man's life, he remembers.
He remembers the way God moved before.
He remembers the way the spirit of God
worked.
He remembers songs that were sung and the
spirit of God came down.
But when a man has lost his passion
for God, he also forgets the past deeds
of God.
He only focuses on recent actions.
But when a man has not lost his
passion, he cannot forget where God has dealt
with him.
And I want to say, brothers, sometimes what
God must do in order to restore, to
restore and to bring you back into revival
is to remind you what he used to
do with your life.
To remind you what he used to do
with your life.
At the beginning of this year, as we
are praying, something happened to my heart.
I wasn't satisfied again with just preaching.
And I wanted to know that I've been
preaching.
I've seen many people saved.
I've seen many lives changed.
And people ordinarily will say, yes, Brother Billy,
you are doing well.
But something inside of me said, no.
If you continue like this, you may end
in ordinary ashes.
There's something more that you must get.
There's something more that your life must mean
to your generation.
You cannot just go on like this.
I'm still crying to God.
And I came over here with the same
cry in my heart.
I'm looking for something more.
There's something I'm longing to see in God.
There's something I'm longing for God to do.
There's something I'm crying to God about.
This morning in my quiet time, there was
a cry in my heart.
I said, oh God, oh God, where's that
promise, the promise you are holding out unto
us, the promise of the manifestation of your
glory and of your power?
Brothers, I don't know where you are.
Sisters, I don't know how far you have
gone.
But I say there's something more in Jesus
that you are yet to touch.
Thank God we have a good church, but
we can have a better church.
Thank God we have a good brothers and
sisters, but we can see more of God's
glory.
We can see something more.
We can see something fresh.
Do you know as Richard plays the organ,
as my brother plays, in the days when
the Spirit of God moved, as they just
raised the song, as we were announcing the
song, many people melted and they started weeping
and coming back to the Lord.
It's a long time we see such things.
It's a long time we see God coming
through and breaking in the hearts of men.
But what is the reason?
We are not passionate.
Something says it's okay.
Somehow we think maybe it is God that
doesn't want to come, but God inside says,
it is you that doesn't want me to
come.
I've not heard you cry to me.
I've not heard you passionately plead for me
to come.
I've just shared a few testimonies with you
because I wanted to establish that when a
man becomes desperate, God takes him serious.
When a man can no longer go without
God, God will go with him.
I'm going to conclude with a short story
of two people that couldn't do without God
in their lives and he came for them.
He came for them.
Now remember, let's look at Moses in Exodus
chapter 32.
Exodus, I want you to please follow me
quickly.
Exodus chapter 32 and chapter 33.
Are you in Exodus chapter 32?
And I would like to read from verse
30.
And it came to pass on the morrow
that Moses said to the people, you have
seen the great sin and now I will
go up unto the Lord for adventure.
I shall make an atonement for your sin.
And Moses returned unto the Lord and said,
oh, these people have seen the great sin
and I've made them gods of God.
Yet now, yet now, if thou will forgive
their sins, alright, yet now, if thou will
forgive their sins and if not, blot me,
I pray, out of your book which you
have written.
And the Lord said to Moses, whosoever has
sinned against me, him will I blot out
of my book.
Therefore now, go, lead the people unto the
place of which I have spoken unto you.
Behold, my angels shall go before thee.
Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I
will visit their sin upon them.
Now, that was what God said to this
man.
So in chapter 33, please follow me to
chapter 33.
And the Lord said to Moses, depart and
go up hence, thou and the people which
thou has brought up out of the land
of Egypt, unto the land which I swear
unto Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, saying unto
your seed will I give it.
And I will send an angel before you
and I will drive out the Canaanites, the
Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Hebites,
and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with
milk and honey.
For I will not go up in the
midst of you, for thou art a stiff
-necked people lest I consume thee in the
way.
And when the people heard these things, these
evil tidings, they mourned, and no man did
put on him his ornaments.
Now, what was touching me here?
Was that God even said to Moses, my
angel will go with you.
And I will drive out the Canaanites, the
Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hebites, the
Jebusites, all the parasites, I will drive them
out from you.
But I will not go with you.
Is it possible even for a man to
be experiencing the miracle of driving out the
Hittites, the Jebusites, the parasites, and God is
not going with him?
So again, you know, it's possible to even
run a good church, but God is not
with him.
It is possible for him to sustain some
church activities, and everybody will think things are
going well.
It's possible for money, for finance to increase,
but for the presence of God, still not
to be there.
And Moses was sensitive, Moses said, no, it's
not the Jebusites I want to push out,
it's not the Perizzites, not the Hebites, it's
not the Hittites, not all those sites.
If you don't go with me, don't take
me from here.
Those who are passionate for God, they cannot
take anything, they cannot take anything in the
place of God's presence.
Those who are passionate for God, it is
God's presence that is their desire.
It is not the things, it is not
even the miracles, and they will not even
accept angels.
Angels are wonderful, but they are nothing compared
with a man that carries the presence of
God.
And look at what Moses said to God,
I want you to please follow me now,
follow me quickly.
In verse 12, maybe I should start from
verse 11, the Lord spoke to Moses face
to face as a man speaker to his
friend, and he turned again to the camp,
but the servant Joshua, the son of Nun,
a young man, departed not out of the
tabernacle.
Please take note, some of you may be
young here, you are not the officiating ministers,
but the hand of the Lord is on
your life.
Are you so passionate that even when all
the ministers have gone, you are still holding
God's hand and say, Lord, Lord, Lord, I'm
too young to go without your presence.
Do something deliberate in my life also, don't
let me go like this.
So Moses said unto the Lord, in verse
12, see, thou sayest unto me, bring up
these people, and thou hast not let me
know whom thou will send with me.
Yet thou hast said, I know you by
name, and thou hast also found grace in
my sight.
I was going to ask, didn't God say,
I will send my angel with you?
But as far as Moses was concerned, Moses
did not regard angel as anything.
He said, you have not told me whom
you will send with me.
I learned that you are saying angel will
go with me.
When did I start going with angel?
If you are not going with me, look
at what he said.
He said, he said, now therefore I pray
you, if I have found grace in your
sight, show me now your way, that I
may know thee, that I may find grace
in thy sight, and consider that this nation
is your people.
And he said, my presence shall go with
you, and I will give you rest.
And he said to him, if your presence
go not with me, carry us not up
hence.
That's a man who cannot go without his
presence, who cannot make do without the presence
of God, who will not accept second best,
who does not have an alternative to the
presence of God.
Brothers and sisters, please permit me to say,
you know, when the children of Israel, when
they were backslidden, and the king of Egypt,
or the king of Babylon, came and carried
away all the vessels of the temple, do
you remember?
He carried away the golden vessel and the
silver and all of that, he took it
away to Babylon.
The king that was the king of Israel
at that time, what did he do?
He stood up to make vessels of wood
and ordinary brooms.
Where they used to carry gold, they are
now carrying wood.
Where they used to carry silver, they are
now carrying ordinary things.
And there were priests that were carrying those
empty wood, going up and down.
Because the divine presence, the glory of the
ministry as a party, is it possible that
some of us, we can go without his
presence?
Are some of us satisfied to continue with
ordinary wood when the gold of his glory
has disappeared?
But I see Moses here saying, if you
are not going with me, take me not
from here.
But did you see the result?
Did you see the result?
I want you to see the result.
I'm reading verse 16.
For wherein shall it be known here that
I and thy people have found grace in
your sight?
Is it not in that thou goest with
us?
So shall we be separated, I and your
people, from all the people that are upon
the face of the earth?
It's only your presence that makes us special.
It's only the presence of God that makes
us peculiar.
May I say to you, there's nothing that
makes us peculiar if his presence is not
there.
If his presence is not the trademark of
my life, there's nothing.
And for me, I don't know anything else
that I want to live for if his
presence has left.
I don't know what else my life will
mean if his presence has departed.
That's why it's a do or die battle
for me.
If I'm not going to have his presence,
there's no need to be alive.
If God is not going to walk with
my life, what am I living for again?
When this man cried, look at God answering
him.
God said, and the Lord said to Moses,
I will do this thing also that you
have spoken.
You know before God said, I will not
go with you.
But now God said, I will do this
thing that you have requested.
So you have found grace in my sight,
and I know you by name.
And the man said again, I beseech you,
show me your glory.
And the Lord, the Lord said, revealed his
glory unto this brother because he was passionate
for it.
The last man was Jacob.
You remember Jacob.
Jacob had been wasting his life for years.
And there was this night at Pen Year
when the Bible said, a man came to
wrestle with him.
And when they could not prevail over this
man, the angel of the Lord told him,
he said, well, it is daybreak.
I will leave you.
I must leave you now because you are
difficult.
It was then Jacob cried.
Jacob said, I will not let you go
unless you bless me.
When he became desperate, I will not let
you go unless you bless me.
Do you know that that was when a
miracle took place?
That was when God changed his name.
Some of you are saying, I don't know,
and there is this sinful thing that will
not allow me to live a sanctified life.
It is because you don't want to let
it go.
If you are tired of living an up
and down Christian life, God has enough power
to deliver you.
If you have no other excuse, if it
is no longer reasonable to you to live
a life that is not experiencing the power
of God, God has enough in his hand
to help you and to help me.
As we stop here tonight, as we call
on the name of the Lord together, I
want to ask you, what is your passion?
Should we rise from this meeting?
And just say, well, as it was in
the beginning, so it is now and forevermore
shall be.
Or somebody is going to lay hold of
God and say, Father, I will not let
you go.
Something about me must change.
My prayer life must change.
I need an anointing of the Holy Spirit
on my life.
I need an outpouring of the Spirit of
God on my life.
I am tired of impotence.
I am tired of my weakness.
Now Psalm 84, please read Psalm 84 with
me as we draw our time of prayer.
Psalm 84, the man now said, the prayer
in Psalm 84 now said, my soul longeth,
this is verse 2, yes, even fainter for
the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh cries out for
the living God.
The sparrow has found a house and the
swallow a nest myself where she may lay
her young, even your altars.
Oh Lord of hosts, my King, my God,
blessed are they that dwell in your house,
they shall keep you present.
Blessed is the man whose strength is in
you, in whose heart are the wings of
them.
Excuse me, what's in your heart?
What are you meditating about?
What do you wake up to look for?
What do you sleep looking for?
What is in your heart?
Are you one of these brothers who are
crying to God and they go from strength
to strength, every one of them seeking to
get to Zion where they will appear before
God.
This man said, it were better a day
in your court is better than a thousand.
I had rather be a doorkeeper in your
house than to dwell in the tents of
wickedness.
This is passion, passion and that's why God
will not fail to reveal himself to them
and to restore his power in their lives.
As we speak to God tonight, I hear
God saying, eat and seek it, find it.
Eat and ask it, receive it.
Eat and knock it, to him the door
is open.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after
righteousness, they shall be filled.
I hear him saying, if any man thirsts,
let him come to me and drink.
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water.
I hear God saying, come, come to the
waters and drink.
Why do you spend your money on that
which is not satisfied?
Why do you spend your money on that
which is not meat, is not bread?
Oh, come to the waters, all ye that
thirst.
Seek the Lord while you may be found.
Call upon him while he is near.
I charge you tonight and again permit me
to ask you to pray, cry out to
God for yourself.
Are you dissatisfied with your present experience?
Are you not happy with where your spiritual
life presently is?
Did you see something in the Word of
God that is not working in your own
present experience?
Why do you keep quiet when God says,
ask and you shall receive?
Seek and you will find.
Knock and the door will be opened to
you.
Could it be because your heart has accepted
this importance, that's why you are still where
you are?
Please join me as we cry to God
tonight.
And even if you don't have a reason
to cry, I have a reason to cry.
This is what I have already put my
life into.
If I don't succeed in this, my life
is a waste.
That's my problem.
If I don't see the glory of God
breaking forth, then I have no other reason
to live.
I can't be competing with anybody anywhere else.
Again, I've broken my bridge.
If I don't see God working in my
life now, there's nothing else to talk about.
So as we call on God tonight, and
I want you to do that sincerely, God
says, lead and ask and receive.
I believe God is here.
I believe the Spirit of God is here.
I believe heaven and hell is listening, is
waiting and saying, who among them is tired
of managing importance?
Who among them can no longer go ahead
without my manifest presence in his or her
life?
Let him come to me and work.
Wherever you are, you feel like rushing before
God, do it.
You feel like kneeling down and falling on
your face before God, please do so.
You feel like standing up and lifting up
your hand to God, please do so.
And if you must come to the altar
just to lay before God and say, Lord,
Lord, take away this dryness.
Take away this emptiness.
Take away this ordinariness that I've experienced for
long.
I'm crying.
Men are asking me every day, where is
your God?
Will you stand up together with me?