Praise the Lord.
We're going to continue our study this morning
in the series that I've entitled, Getting Back
to Basics.
And we're moving into chapter 7 in this
particular study this morning.
And last week, we talked about the survival
of the revival.
And in that lesson, we explored a lot
of the hindrances, a lot of the opposition,
a lot of the issues associated with revival.
And keeping revival among God's people.
And this week, we're going to shift gears
a little bit and move on beyond revival
and what the very essence and the ultimate
end, I believe, of what revival is.
And that is that we would become fishers
of men.
So I've entitled chapter 7 in our series,
Fishers of Men.
Follow me, Jesus said.
In Matthew chapter 4, verses 18 to 22,
we read, And Jesus, walking by the Sea
of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter,
and Andrew his brother, casting a net into
the sea, for they were fishers.
And he said unto them, Follow me, and
I will make you fishers of men.
And they straightway left their nets, and they
followed him.
And going on from thence, he saw two
more brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and
John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee
their father, mending their nets, and he called
them.
And he called them, Scripture says.
According to John chapter 1, verses 35 to
40, Andrew was a disciple of John the
Baptist.
He was one of John the Baptist's disciples,
as very likely was John the Revelator himself.
Quite possibly, Andrew, Peter, James, and John were
all acquaintances or possibly even friends before Jesus
started His ministry.
And however these things fit together, one thing
is certain, they were all fishermen.
They were all fishermen.
Some historians tell us that Peter very possibly
had a whole fleet of ships and that
there was actually more than just a simple
fishing boat where you had a couple of
people going out, but they actually had a
business doing this.
After seeing John and Jesus in John chapter
1, Jesus passes by their way with a
life-changing commandment.
And here's what He said to them.
Follow me, and I will make you to
become fishers of men.
You know, that is the ultimate end that
God wants us to be.
As Christians, we have not truly arrived, as
it were, until we become fishers of men.
This is the place where many people literally
stop short of in their Christian walk.
They will reach a certain level, but they
will stop short of evangelism.
Notice Jesus did not ask them to follow
Him.
He didn't walk by and say, Would you
like to follow me?
He didn't walk by and say, You know,
if you wouldn't mind, you fellows might follow
me.
He said, Follow me, okay?
And I will make you to become fishers
of men.
The Scripture is clear to demonstrate that when
Jesus gives a command, everyone, including James and
John's father, was under His authority to obey
them.
This is a very important element.
You know what?
There is oftentimes a lot of resistance to
people following God in His perfect will.
And that's what the first aspect of this
lesson is going to be about.
A lot of us have our own desires
for our life.
Even our families have desires for our life.
But God has a perfect plan for all
of our life that He wants us to
walk in.
And unless we walk in that plan, we
will not live a life that is fulfilling
according to what God wants us to do.
And we will utterly miss the very purpose
for which we were born to begin with.
The disciples straightway left their father and the
work of mending their nets and fishing for
food or for money and resources, whatever they
did.
And they followed Christ.
You must understand that James and John's dad
probably had a career in mind for his
sons to take over the family business of
fishing.
But God had different plans.
Did you know that?
He had different plans.
As I read this story, I wonder how
that played out.
Here's this man with his sons mending their
nets.
And here comes this man by and says,
follow me.
And then all of a sudden his workers
are gone.
And he's left to tend this business alone.
Totally being life-shattering and life-altering for
this man and his family.
We know that the family was probably somewhat
wealthy because in Mark 1, verse 20, they
had hired workers.
Scripture does not elaborate on their father anymore.
We do not know if he objected to
them following Christ or not.
But one thing we know is that their
mother did follow the Lord.
And she was there with Jesus all the
way up, ministering even to the grave.
And you can see this in Matthew 27,
Mark 15, and also Matthew 25 and Luke
8.
You can compare those passages of Scripture to
find that.
Forsaking your plans.
See, Jesus asks us, follow Me.
And what that means is we drop what
we are doing, we drop what we want
to do, and we begin to follow Him.
That is the true essence of what it
means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
There is a cost associated with following Christ
that can truly be great.
Jesus said, count the cost.
Before you go to build a tower, you
always count the cost, He said, lest when
you are halfway through it, you are not
able to complete it, and then others would
turn and mock you.
Many young men are pressured, and young women,
by their mother and father to be what
they want them to be.
Did you know that?
A lot of them are pressured.
I've got teenage children, and I can tell
you without hesitation that my will for their
life is God's perfect will.
That is my will for their life.
I don't have a predisposition to hope that
my kids are going to grow up to
become wealthy lawyers, or they're going to grow
up to have big businesses.
I do not have a predisposition that the
girls will marry rich men, or anything crazy.
My will for my kids, which I have
told them from the time they were children,
is that they would marry a man or
a woman that loved the Lord, and they
would live a life that was pleasing to
God.
Anything else, I don't care if they live
and they just barely scrape by their whole
life, or if they live in utter wealth.
As long as that's done, that's my hope
and prayer for their life.
Period.
Young men who want to please their dad
often end up doing what he wants them
to do.
This is one of the many obstacles to
following Christ.
You see, many people like the idea of
following Christ, but not the reality of following
Christ.
See, we're like that.
See, my computer at home, it's kind of
funny, somehow along the way, in putting in
various software, I installed a virtual CD recorder
on my machine.
And every time I go to burn something
on a CD, it writes to that virtual
CD recorder.
And nothing gets on the CD.
See, my computer, follow my analogy, likes the
idea of burning a CD, but it's all
in its head.
It's all virtual.
There's no reality.
No little orange light comes on, starts flickering,
and I don't hear any zzzz, or anything.
When God says, follow me, we go to
print to the virtual CD driver, and we
don't in reality follow Him, and we think
they're one and the same, but in the
end, no CD ejects out of the cover,
and there's nothing with anything rememberable on it.
It was all just a pipe dream.
They follow in word and in tongue, but
not in deed and in truth.
Before Jesus' ministry was over, most people felt
that forsaking all and following Christ was simply
taking things too far.
You're just taking it too far.
I had a man tell me, got into
a big discussion with this man.
He's like, man, the biggest problem with religion
is people just take it too far.
I'm like, man, if you took Christianity too
far, you would love your neighbor in an
unprecedented fashion.
There wouldn't be sin or confusion anywhere in
your life.
If you took Christianity too far, which I
don't think is even humanly possible, you wouldn't
believe what your life would be like.
Some pretend to follow Jesus, but are never
found one single place that Jesus would regularly
go, and they attend many places that He
would never be found.
You're not a follower of Jesus until you're
following where He would be going.
Following Jesus means to forsake our will for
our life and to allow Him to lead
us into His will, the will that He
rightfully purchased for us to walk in with
His own blood.
See, He bought the rights to you when
you came to the altar.
Did you hear what I said?
He bought the rights to you when you
came to the altar.
We invite God to follow us with His
presence into our services.
Don't we do that?
God, come and inhabit what we're doing.
God, come and dwell among us.
Come and be with us.
Lord, come and follow me, Lord.
Lord, come, but you know what the Lord
is saying to us?
He's saying to us, He's demanding us that
we would follow Him with our presence into
the fields to do His will.
Follow me, and I will make you to
be fishers of men, self-willed and spirit
-filled Christians.
Self-willed and spirit-filled Christians.
2 Peter 2.10 paints a portrait of
what it really means to walk in the
flesh.
To describe this, he uses a Greek word,
orthodēs, and it means self-willed.
Christians who so desire to do their own
will that they refuse to do the will
of Him that bought them by their own
actions testify that they were never bought with
a price.
A slave knows that they are a slave
and they obey their master.
When he says, Go, they go.
They do not argue or do their own
thing.
Why?
Because they are slaves, and it is not
for them to question.
If we are slaves of Christ, we follow
Him no matter when or how He asks
us to leave our nets and do His
will.
This is the number one problem in Christianity
today, in my estimation.
Nearly everyone is doing their own thing and
following it, following Jesus, or worse yet, they
believe they can be self-willed slaves of
Christ and do their will and pretend to
be Christians.
But what saith the Scripture?
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy
name?
And in Thy name cast out devils.
And in Thy name done many wonderful works
or acts of dunamis.
And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you, depart from me, ye that
work iniquity.
Why?
Because when they got ready to be seen
of men, they prayed for the anointing and
God used them.
But in their life, they did their own
will and not God's.
The things that we do that men would
glorify us for, like me teaching this class,
when I sing a song and everybody gives
a big hand, I've received my reward.
I've already received it.
When I get the praise of men, brother,
I've already received my reward.
I've already received it.
It don't even count as God's will.
We already have our reward on earth when
we're praised of men.
When you really start doing God's will, you
won't get many praises because God's heart is
with the helpless.
Amen.
The Bible also says it's to visit who
and to keep yourself unspotted in the world.
It's a strange thing, you know, what Sister
Dorothy's saying is so very true.
It is so very easy to get caught
up, seeing the absolute and utter need that
you literally spend yourself trying to do what
others refuse to do.
Literally burn yourself out trying to do it.
But you have to ask yourself this question.
Let me ask you this.
If we have 500 plus churches signing up
to do ministry over here at Arrowhead, wanting
to do that, why are there not 500
churches going in to nursing homes to where
we would not have to so spend ourselves
to go into the place to do pure
religion and undefiled before God and the Father?
Why is that possible?
How is that even possible?
If we are doing the will of the
Father that sent us here, that our heart
would not be to be with those people.
Did you know that there are people in
nursing homes, most of which you must understand
are widows.
I've talked to my wife.
Sometimes you'll have a man and a woman
that are married that's there.
Sometimes you'll have a man that survived his
wife.
Many of the people have outlived their children.
There they are.
They're widows.
They're just clusters of widows.
Widows, widows, widows, more widows.
They're sitting everywhere.
And your scripture, your Bible tells you, visit
them in their affliction.
And yet people are like, We love you,
Lord.
Raising our hands.
Do we really love the Lord when we
don't even do what He told us to
do?
I'll move on in that.
And I want to share some more about
that.
The fearlessness.
The fearlessness of Aphodes.
The root of the word self-willed or
the self-willed heart is firmly planted in
the soil of rebellion.
We see it boldly today, for example, in
televangelism.
When ministers become self-willed, they begin to
make merchandise to the people.
Hear the words of Peter.
But there were false prophets also among the
people, even as there shall be also false
teachers among you, who privily shall bring indomitable
heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.
By reason of whom the way of truth,
watch this, shall be evil spoken of.
What's that mean?
All people ever think of the gospel as
money.
Why should we pretend not to know?
The world speaks of it openly.
Just listen.
They talk of it openly.
There was actually a situation where a young
woman asked my wife if she could come
to church at our church just this week.
Can I come to your church?
She says and whispers in her ear, but
do I have to give up half of
my money to come?
And it almost drove me to tears.
The truth shall be evil spoken of.
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words
make merchandise of you whose judgment now of
a long time lingereth not and their damnation
slumbereth not.
Church, this is exactly where we are today.
The truth is being evil spoken of.
Why?
Because of the damnable heresies that make merchandise
of the people.
That's what it is.
Well-intentioned people who ask to come to
church these days ask, do I have to
give X amount of money to come to
your church?
This woman was a single mother who had
two little babies.
Preachers who talk more about money than they
do souls are serving the God of mammon.
I'll go on record with it.
You can throw me out and stone me
to death.
It makes no matter to me.
God respecteth no man's person.
We're either serving God or the God of
mammon church.
What's it going to be?
God's thrown a line in the sand.
He wants to know who's on the Lord's
side.
Huh?
He's thrown down the gauntlet.
When they take more time to raise funds
than they do to give an altar call,
they serve mammon.
What shall be their end?
Swift judgment, your Bible says.
If a person is obedient to God, they
don't have to be reminded or reminding Him
to bless them.
Brother Tony talked about in the nursing home.
Listen, if you live right before the Lord,
you don't have to fear God's blessing.
It's coming.
You don't even have to remind Him.
How arrogant is it that we would think
we have to remind God Almighty of His
Word?
Why don't we remind ourselves of the commandments
and let Him do the Word?
Because He will.
He's not a man that He should lie.
He will do what He said He will
do.
And when He blesses them, if they love
Him, they will do what He wills with
the money.
This is why a bishop's number two requirement
according to Titus 1-7 is that they
must not be self-willed.
Because if they begin to see the Kingdom
of God as a business, they are out
of God's will automatically.
It's not a business, church.
This is the Kingdom of God.
Soon, their decision-making processes are a little
different than a board meeting at a corporation.
God does not have control of the ministry.
The mammon does.
That's what controls it.
Watch this.
It controls their messages and the tone and
the content of their teachings.
You say, prove it.
Just turn on your TV.
That's all you have to do.
Just turn it on.
Listen to the tone of many of these
messages.
Now, that's not all.
There are many good ones.
Don't get me wrong.
But the unfortunate thing is it finds itself
in our camp more than anywhere else.
And that ought not to be.
Soon, no messages will be allowed that cut
down the offerings.
Sin preaching on television, church, is nearly extinct.
It's nearly extinct.
Turn on the TV and get fired up
over your sin to where you fall to
your knees in front of your TV and
repent.
When was the last time that happened?
There are but a few brave souls left.
There are some.
The gospel of prosperity is a damnable heresy
that seeks to lure people into the Kingdom
of God as though it were a multi
-level business opportunity.
Amway or Shackley?
As Paris Wright had said, the gospel of
humanism is no different than two men sitting
in a coffee shop talking about how they're
going to go down the street and rob
a bank in the way it appeals to
the flesh.
No different.
Luke 20, 46-47 describes them as seeking
vain glory, devouring widows' houses, and receiving the
greater damnation.
Say, how do you devour a widow's house?
Lead them to think that you're preaching the
gospel.
Have them send their 401K in watching TV
because they can't come to church.
Because they need, listen, a way to express
their faith.
They can't get out and witness no more.
They figure, I'll just do this, Lord.
There are really only two types of people.
Those who serve their money as God and
those who make their money serve God.
That's it.
You're either serving God with your money and
making it serve Him, or you're serving your
money and it is your God.
It's dictating everything about your life.
Because Jesus said, you cannot serve both.
It will be one or the other.
Period.
One serves mammon, the other serves God, but
not both.
Christians are slaves to God.
They are not servants of mammon.
And here's the indictment that I want to
show you now.
Last night, my wife, check this out, my
black leather jacket had been misplaced or stolen.
In the front pocket, there was a checkbook
that had my check and account, everything in
it.
Couldn't find it.
It's been lost.
As a precautionary act, the bank advised that
we shut that account down.
Shut that account down.
So I had my wife keep out $300
cash so we would have cash because my
cards don't work.
I don't have credit cards, you must understand.
Debit cards, my checks, I have no access
to my banking account unless I go to
the bank.
She gave us some starter checks and said,
here, use these.
These will work.
No printed name.
They work real good.
So last night, I looked in my wallet
and we were going to Cool Crisp to
play miniature golf with the kids and having
a good time.
I'm like, man, I'm running pretty low on
cash.
You're thinking, what?
I'm doing okay.
Don't get me wrong.
I don't need an offering.
Not soliciting an offering.
Not doing that.
I have money to make it to tomorrow
just fine.
But watch this.
My wife's like, I want to go to
the store.
We need to get some stuff to the
store.
I'm like, you can't go to the store.
Yeah, I can take these checks and I
can go to the store, she says.
And when she gets to the store with
this check, I say, go right ahead.
Go on, I'll let you go.
She went, check this out.
She went and she rolled her card of
groceries up.
The lady said, I don't know why people
issue these checks because nobody takes these.
Not Walmart, not stores.
Nobody takes them.
A man standing behind her stepped out, pulled
out his wallet and slammed down the full
cost of the groceries on the table.
People's eyes in the line went boom!
My wife was like, no, sir, you don't
understand.
We have money.
No, ma'am.
I want to do this.
Yeah.
Hey.
She said, let me write you a check,
sir, as you're leaving.
Just let me write you.
We've got money, sir.
Let me just write you up on the
old shoulder.
No, ma'am.
When you get the opportunity, do it for
someone else in need.
There was a man that made his money
serve God.
And God made sure that he had the
money in his pocket when the need arose
to pay the bill.
And it was no small piece of change,
church.
It was an amount of money I doubt
very few people would have thrown down.
She'd come home with all these bags of
groceries.
I said, they took the check?
She says, no, they didn't.
I'm thinking, oh, goodness.
And then my daughter Kelsey was standing there.
And what an impression it made on her
life.
Glory be to the Lamb of God, who
was slain from the foundation of the world,
for He is worthy to be praised.
Amen.
Now that's powerful.
That's what I'm talking about.
These are people that don't serve mammon, church.
Mammon serves God in their life.
Taking to the fields, and I've got to
move.
A lot of people are gung-ho to
reach the lost until the ministry is placed
in shoe leather.
They're real gung-ho.
They're real quick to print to the virtual
drive.
They'll print to it all day as though
they're doing the Lord a service.
The time is coming, and now is, that
real messages of the true gospel that confront
sin and sinners will not be allowed in
most churches because of the backlash associated with
it.
The largest church in America, church, don't even
allow a cross in there.
According to Fox News, in a report they
gave, sin is not on the menu.
There is no way to lead a person
to Christ under those conditions.
I did a message on it and sent
it to the pastor of that church entitled
Rat Poison.
God ordained it to be done, and it
happened.
It went certified mail.
This is about a month ago.
I don't say that to boast.
God's throwing down the dot on these nonsensical
teachings.
He's asking people to stand up and preach
my gospel or step aside and let somebody
do it.
You're standing in the way of what God
is doing.
As it is written, take heed to yourselves.
The persecution and backlash, keep this in mind,
for they will deliver you up to councils,
and in synagogues you will be beaten, and
you will be brought before rulers and kings
for my name's sake, for a testimony against
them.
And this gospel must first be preached among
all nations.
But when they shall lead you and deliver
you and take you up, take no thought,
he said beforehand, what you shall speak, neither
do you premeditate.
But whatsoever shall be given you in that
hour, that you will speak.
For it is not you that will speak,
but the Holy Ghost.
Now the brother will betray the brother to
death.
The father, the son, and the children will
rise up against their parents, and they shall
cause them to be put to death.
Watch this.
And you will be hated of all men
for my name's sake.
But he that endures to the end, the
same shall be saved.
You know, the Bible says all they who
live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
We have to live our life in such
a way that we have enough light that
when people see it, they cover their eye
with persecution.
When we're not living close enough to God
and walking with Him, enough to be salt
and light in that way, we need to
reevaluate our life.
That is the prophecy of the last days
in which we are now living.
People cannot endure sound doctrine, and they heap
to themselves teachers having itching ears.
They don't care.
Listen, they don't care what you talk about
as long as you don't invade their comfort
zone.
How long has it been since you heard
that word?
You can preach anything you want, just don't
get in my comfort zone because I'm asleep
over here.
Turn the lights out.
That's hard to do when God's calling you
to wake the church up out of its
slumber.
How do you nicely wake someone up?
You know, some people come out of bed
swinging.
Literally.
My wife used to say that they almost
used to have to prod her dad with
a pole almost because he'd come up out
of...
That's how a lot of Christians are.
They've been in their slumber so long.
God starts to bring a revival, starts shaking.
What's going on in here?
Pastor, are you going to shut them up
or am I going to have to?
Yeah, I said it.
If that's the way you're reacting to revival,
it's only evidence that you were in a
slumber.
Let me tell you guys a story real
quick about the nursing home that we ministered
in on Thursday.
The most remarkable thing I've ever seen.
It's an indictment against today's modern church growth
philosophy, which believe me, I have a lot
of material on.
We arrived at this home where there was
probably, I don't know, 13, 14 people.
I'd have to ask Sister Lisa that's there
that haven't heard the gospel in Lord knows
when.
One lady said it's been years since they've
even been able to be to church.
So we rolled up in there.
We're singing these songs and the Spirit of
God is just moving, moving and moving and
moving.
All of a sudden we come to the
message and I begin presenting the message.
I started.
I didn't even have any notes.
Now you guys know, listen, anybody who knows
me knows I do not teach without notes.
I don't speak without notes.
I don't believe in that.
I mean, I remember telling Brother Tony years
ago, I believe that if I just open
my mouth, the Lord will fill it.
And he said, yeah, brother, but that's how
a lot of heresies get started.
So I thought, you know what?
I better pray and seek the Lord for
His will and I better type my stuff
out lest I be blaspheming.
Amen?
Because you never, listen, hey, you never know
what can come out of your mouth if
you ain't prepared.
You're liable to say some heresy.
So, you know, with that as a backdrop,
here I am with no notes.
Here I am.
I'm in Genesis chapter 3, talking about the
fall of man.
God told him, I want you to tell
them about the fall and lead them to
the cross.
Dude, the Spirit of God came on me.
The unction of God came and I'm preaching
in love, in the soft tone of voice,
in the most simplistic gospel I have ever
spoken.
I'm like, man, this is some serious pat
one, God.
You know, because I'm all the time trying
to, you know, over complicate something.
I know you probably know that.
Amen?
I can tell by your laughter.
It's not necessary, but I'm guilty.
I repent.
Check this out, I hope.
Anyways, check this out.
So, I'm presenting the gospel and at the
end I say, I say this, I say,
now anybody would like to follow Jesus, and
I did the story of Andrew and Peter,
would like to follow Jesus, raise your hand.
Three people raise their hand.
You were there, Sister Judy, you remember that.
I said, now put your hands back down,
please.
I said, now you know that following Jesus
will cost you.
You need to count the cost to follow
the Lord.
He said, it may mean that you may
lose some friends that used to like you,
and they don't like the new you.
It's going to probably cost you something to
follow.
And I gave this little discourse for a
few minutes, and I said, now I will
ask you again, how many of you would
like to follow Jesus?
Just like I said, it just said.
Those three people raised their hand, and three
to four more people raised their hand to
bring a total to six to seven, possibly
eight, people raised their hand once they heard
the fullness of the gospel.
Amen.
Take the crosses out of the church.
Sin ain't on the menu.
Excuse me.
Let me tell you something.
The greatest church growth philosophy in the history
of the church is to preach the gospel
as Jesus wrote it.
You'll fill the church, not with chaff, but
with wheat.
I believe it.
Praise the Lord.
Let's move on.
Does God honor our sacrifice?
The purpose of the church is to go
into the world and teach all nations the
gospel.
It is why the Holy Ghost fell at
Pentecost.
It is why Jesus died on the cross.
It is up to each generation that passes
to ensure that in their generation, Christ receives
the return on the investment that He made
on the cross.
Each generation.
It's your responsibility and mine to make sure
the Lord receives the fullness of His reward.
To go into the fields and gather the
wheat that He purchased with His own blood
is what we are to do in each
generation.
It's as though, listen, I hear the Holy
Ghost whispering, what meaning then is this bleeding
of the sheep in my ears?
And the lowing of the oxen, which I
hear.
How can we in good conscience tell the
Lord how much we love Him in all
of our worship songs and not even be
in step with a direct commandment to reach
the lost?
Think about it.
Hear what I just said.
We love you, Lord, but we will not
reach the lost.
He said, if you love me, keep my
commandments.
What greater commandment could there be than to
reach those for whom He died and shed
His blood for on the cross?
So oftentimes we think we're guilty of these
sins which we are that are sins of
commission, but this one sin of omission has
to be as great as any sin of
commission we could commit.
That we would not make sure that the
lamb that was slain received the very reward
of His suffering and His shed blood upon
the cross and the tree in which He
bore our sins.
We put together a vegetables and fruit offering
of our songs and hymns, but what God
really wanted us to do was to bring
in the spotless lamb's reward of His sufferings.
That's what He wanted.
He wanted the lamb that was slain's rewards
to be brought.
Oh, it's nice to worship God and I'm,
you know, hey, I love to sing.
I love, you guys know I sing.
I thank God I sing as much as
you all.
But that is not what we're really to
be doing.
We're bringing the vegetables in this meal, church,
but there's no meat on the table and
that's the reward of the lamb's sufferings.
Do we really believe that God desires our
worship more than He desires our obedience and
the souls that He came and died for?
Be kind of like telling your husband or
wife, here, honey, here's your roses.
I really love you.
Give them a big old kiss.
But then you're just living contrary to everything
that they desire for you to live like.
Would you even receive those flowers?
Would you even receive that box of candy?
They treat you like a dog.
They don't do anything that they're supposed to
do.
As I mentioned before, people are all for
a feel-good revival.
Perchance some would even endure a revival of
worship and possibly even repentance, but who could
endure a revival of perpetual holy living and
reaching the lost through evangelism?
Who could endure such a revival?
That when God really started stirring and the
fire really got burning, that we cast the
net on the other side of the wall
where we've been casting it inside the boat
for so long.
That's God's will, church.
That is the true meaning of revival.
Jesus said, and I'm not going to read
my last section.
You can read it when you get home.
It just deals with the fact that churches
in our community and the way in which
churches are set up today are very different
from in the past.
You can read about it.
It's very self-explanatory.
But the bottom line is Jesus said that
the children of the devil are wiser in
this generation than the children of life.
Because even the children of the devil realize
that they can use money to gain advantage
in certain circumstances.
You hear what I said?
Oh, you owe 30, only pay 10.
You owe 50, only pay 25.
See, they're using mammon to gain advantage so
that later in life, when he's being put
out, he might have a home to go
to because he's made some friends out of
mammon.
This is strange to some of you.
We don't buy friendships, church.
But I'll tell you one thing.
When you lose the first strings on your
wallet, you're going to create people that say,
now that's Jesus.
I'm not saying this to be boasting, but
this stuff needs to be told.
We have a lunch fund at my work.
It sits on my desk.
Did you know that people have stolen, even
from boxes of candy and things that's been
done for all kind of crippled kids or
whatever kind of charity it was, I forget,
people have stolen the money out of that
at our work.
And people just like, who would do such
a gruesome thing?
But I've got on my desk money sitting
continually in a certain spot that everybody in
my entire department knows where it's at.
And it never gets touched unless it's needed.
They know what it's there for.
They know who I am.
And they do not touch it unless they
need it.