Will you join yourself into the blessing?
Amen.
This is much better, I am having a
much better week, it won't take a whole
lot to make me happier than last week.
I was in bed all last week with
pneumonia, and so anything's good this week, but
this is actually really, really good to come
here and hear this worship and be ministered
to in such special ways that we should
extend this an extra day, I'm having a
blast.
It's okay, you don't have to clap.
I'm having more fun than you are, I
think.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you in the name of
Jesus that you're going to speak to us.
Your word is alive, it's sharp, it's going
to cut into our hearts and do a
powerful work.
We thank you for it in Jesus' name,
amen.
Before we go to the word of the
Lord, again, I want to invite you here
tomorrow morning nine o'clock, we start bright
and early, sharp, nine o'clock.
We have three sessions in the morning and
then the evening session you've heard about as
well.
We hope there's some room for the pastors
that'll be staying here.
We're going to try to make every way
feasible to get as many people in here
so you could be with us.
We'd love to be with you as well
one more time on Saturday night.
Sunday at three o'clock, don't forget, if
you're still in town, we'll be here at
that.
You can invite kids, you can meet on
the streets.
If you're a local church pastor, Sunday morning
you might want to just get up and
tell your church we're going to have a
little lunch together, and then get in a
van and go down to the auditorium and
hear a great, great opportunity to ...
God's doing some amazing things to that ministry.
You'll want to be part of that on
Sunday as well.
Amen.
Have you ever noticed how preaching today seems
very different from the sermons you read in
the scriptures?
Let me just give you a few examples.
Remember Peter's sermons?
Peter's and Stephen's and some of Paul's, they
seem to borrow sermons from one another, first
of all.
They have this one particular sermon that they
really seem to like.
It goes something like this.
They ask him to say something, make some
comments, and they go, you remember Abraham, who
was called by God to come out of
his land, and his son Isaac, and then
Jacob, and then Joseph was brought into bondage,
and he was there for 400 years.
After these 400 years, Moses came in, and
he spoke to the Pharaoh and said, let
my people go.
After that, there was the prophets, and they
go through this long history, and at the
end of the sermon, they go, and it
seems like it's really out from left field.
They're talking about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all
these guys, and then they say at the
end, and you killed Jesus, and I'm like,
where did that come from?
It's like history, history, history, and you killed
Jesus.
But almost all these sermons, Stephen's sermon, if
you've read that, so it's a long sermon.
It's one of the longest sermons in the
scripture, and if you read Stephen's sermon, it's
sort of like Abraham did this, and Isaac
did that, and Jacob did that, and you're
thinking, like, if he were here tonight preaching
that sermon, not a lot of you would
probably buy the tapes, because you're going, it's
just history.
But I think they were on to something.
I think they were on to something that
might be missing in the New Testament church
in our day and age, to report on
what God has done, to speak of the
wonders of God throughout the ages.
The American mindset is so quick.
We want things to be done real quickly,
and we forget things that were done just
a few days ago.
At the airport here, coming to Birmingham, I
was at the airport in New York, and
I happened to glance at a screen, and
it said, breaking news.
That'll grab your attention, breaking news.
I go up to the screen, and it
says something about a basketball player who's in
a sex scandal.
The judge has decided to allow cameras, not
in the courtroom, but in a side room
when they have conferences.
That's breaking news.
Our understanding of past events and what is
really important, what we can really grasp a
hold of, is really not in the right
frame of mind in our modern day and
age.
We've lost sight of this ancient God of
history, the God of today, tomorrow, and forever,
and ever, and ever, this glorious God who
always was, who always is, and who always
will be.
I love the fact that those who preached,
preached with such power and anointing, not just
because they had some new interesting word, but
because they were connected in a line of
history with men and women of God who
stood strong through the time, and test, and
trials, and tribulations of life.
So these guys preached these wonderful sermons.
Very unlike, I went to Bible school, and
they taught me how to preach a sermon.
Obviously if you're a Bible school teacher, you
probably are realizing now I didn't learn a
whole lot during that course.
But they told you to, you know, you
start off with a good joke.
Whenever I start with a good joke, I
forget the punch line, and the whole sermon
goes down the drain, so I don't start
with jokes.
They said have three points in your sermon.
I usually end up getting two points, and
I can't think of a third one, and
I just get frustrated.
You know, they're supposed to have a good
sort of conclusion that will really grasp people's
attention so that at the end of the
sermon, you can have the organist play just
as I am, and there'll be a good
altar call.
And I just didn't seem to be able
to catch all that, but I love this
kind of preaching.
I love this kind of where the word
of God obviously is very important to them.
So I want to take a few minutes
with you tonight and talk a little bit
about history.
The history of God, if there's a title
in this sermon, I want to talk a
little bit about the exile that the church
went through, the Old Testament people of God.
But I guess if there's a title on
it, I might talk a little bit about
the history and the future of the world
in 30 minutes.
Somebody might have gotten scared, their history and
the future of the world sounds like a
long sermon, in 30 minutes.
In Genesis, it starts off with Adam, and
there's this marvelous story of God forming man
and breathing into him.
And as he breathed this breath into him,
he came alive, and then God came in
the cool of the evening, and he walked
with him.
You see these flowers and these ferns here,
picture a beautiful garden, and here's God.
It says he walked, and had some kind
of bodily form or image, and he walked
with them, and he talked with them.
Now it's interesting what he told them, because
if you see what it is there, it's
kind of an interesting thing.
If you were walking through the cool of
the garden with God, this is not exactly
everything I'd want to hear.
It's like, don't eat of this tree, and
multiply, and take care of the fish and
the birds.
It's very instructional.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
It's very instructional.
It's do this, stay away from that, avoid
this, and it's not a whole lot of
God revealing who he is.
It's very much do this and stay away
from that.
So this is the revelation.
This is the revelation Adam has.
He sees God, and he walks with God,
and I'm sure it's a beautiful opportunity, a
beautiful joy that he has in his life,
but the deep, deep revelation of God, who
God is, and what God is like, doesn't
appear to be, at least in the pages
of Genesis, an active part of what God
was revealing.
Now Abraham has a, I keep saying Abraham,
Adam has a son, and his son Abel
gets something from God.
It doesn't tell us how, or why, or
what, and how it got to him, but
his son gets this revelation from God.
And he comes to his dad one day,
I guess it's, again, it's not quite in
the text, but you've got to understand this,
he obviously comes to his dad and says,
Dad, God told me that we're supposed to
have sacrifice as worship to the Lord, and
Adam's thinking, I didn't know that.
I have never heard that in my life,
and he is really excited for his son.
I mean, I just love it when my
dad gets excited for me.
When I was a young pastor, I used
to come into my dad's office, and I'd,
you know, I'd open up something like, you
know, Galatians or something like that, did you
know that we're justified by faith?
And he'd go like, wow, that's so exciting,
you're getting revelation, you know, he'd be real
proud of me, like, and I thought it
was something new that he'd never heard before.
But I do remember a day where I
think, honestly, I'd say, I said something and
it really caught him off guard.
He goes, I never saw that before.
And that was really a proud moment in
my life.
It wasn't sort of like, I got you
finally, but it was like, I'm really, really
proud, really blessed.
And so, I got to get this idea
that Abel has come to his dad, and
said, dad, did you know we were supposed
to have sacrifice to the Lord like this?
And Adam is so blessed, wow, that's a
deep revelation.
I didn't have that.
But it doesn't stop with Abel.
It goes on.
The Bible talks about one of his grandsons
named Enosh, and it says, and it's the
first time this word is described, it says,
and Enosh walked with God, wow, going all
the way back now to his great, great,
great grandfather in the garden.
But this time, it was not just information,
multiply, name the animals, do this, don't do
that.
Now, Enosh is walking with him, and it
seems to be the appearance in the scripture
now is that he's getting this kind of
new insight and revelation.
I can picture him going to his father,
and his father saying, wow, man, God is
so good.
I am so blessed.
I am so proud.
My sons, my daughters are getting more of
God than I've ever had before.
I have three of my children down here
in the front row.
I pray every day that they surpass me,
that they have revelation and insight and wisdom
into God.
Far be it that me and my dad
will sit together one day and go, where
did these kids come up with this revelation?
I'm so excited about that, and that's what's
happening here in the Old Testament.
And then after Enosh, there's another guy with
a similar name called Enoch, and it says
that this time they began to call on
the name of the Lord.
I think I got it backwards.
Enosh was the one who called on the
name of the Lord, and Enoch walked with
God.
But it doesn't really matter.
It's pretty much history anyway.
But the idea is now this next guy
gets this, and one guy's got this revelation
of we can walk with God.
And now another guy has a revelation that
I think goes beyond that.
I mean, we're walking with God, and now
this guy says, and now they began to
call, and it was at this time they
began to call on the name of the
Lord.
Wow.
And all the rest of the generations were
saying, praise God, this young generation is getting
some powerful revelation.
They're hearing from God in spectacular ways.
Now we know we can walk with God.
Now we know we can call on the
name of the Lord.
It's not just animal sacrifice anymore.
Now we're actually intimate with God.
But it goes on.
One of their great, great grandchildren had a
powerful experience with God.
His name was Noah.
And you know the story.
I won't take a lot of time with
Noah, but Noah has an amazing experience with
God.
God comes to Noah and says to Noah,
now picture yourself being in Noah's shoes, and
you're just walking along, and God speaks to
you one day, Noah, the world is really
a mess, and I am so frustrated, I
am going to destroy the whole world.
And Noah's thinking to himself, what does that
mean, the whole world?
And he's really thankful, I think, because he
goes on, because the next verse he says,
except for you and some of your children.
That's a much better story.
He tells him, go and build this ark.
And then for the first time, there's this
promise that God gives.
Now they heard from God, they were sacrificing,
there was worship going on.
One man named Jubal invented instruments and they
started singing to God, they were walking with
God, they were experiencing his presence.
But now, for the very first time, there's
some new revelation, brand new revelation.
God says, I'm going to give you a
promise to you and your children and your
children's children, I'm not destroy the world again.
And I think that Noah's sons probably had
some revelation that one day they came back
to Noah and said, here's what God's been
speaking to us, this deeper revelation about promise.
Then it goes on, and I'm going to
try to go as quickly as I can
without missing the important parts, so bear with
me.
After this, then you come along after Noah,
then you have Abraham, who's getting even deeper
revelation.
He's getting now covenant revelation.
This is something that they've not experienced before.
They had the promise with Noah, but now
a whole new group of people are coming
into covenant relationship with God.
God promises, I'm going to bless you and
I'm going to be with you.
And now listen to this, for the very
first time in all of scripture, this is
a long time in history now, we're talking
probably well over a thousand years, for the
very first time now, Abraham hears God say
this, I am.
He begins, God does something brand new in
history.
He begins to describe himself to man.
Not just observe this, not just do this,
not just sacrifice this, but he said, Abraham,
I am like this.
I am a God of loving kindness.
I am a God who's like this, and
Abraham has revelation that has never been heard
of before.
It goes on past Abraham, a guy named
Jeremiah, skipping way ahead into the future, Jeremiah
has one of the most unique revelations of
God in all of history.
And it's the most, I think it's the
most radical.
It's probably one of the most ignored, but
one of the most radical revelations of God
in history, because what Jeremiah gets is almost
unfathomable.
It's almost indescribable.
He gets a picture of what's happening in
Judah and in Israel, and he says, this
is an abomination before God.
You guys are living in such, you're going
to your worship services.
You're having your sacrifices.
You're coming into the temple.
You're observing all this revelation that was given
to us in the past, but you're doing
it with a dead heart.
You've got all the ritual down, everything that
God has said, all the revelation up to
this time, you understand it and you observe
it, but it's not in your heart.
So God says something to Jeremiah, tell the
people, I'm going to take them out of
Judah.
I'm going to bring them into captivity in
Babylon.
Now God is now revealing dates and times
and places and judgments and situations are going
to happen in time periods, names of Kings.
The revelation is getting so intense that Jeremiah
actually tells them who the King is coming,
his name, when he's coming, what's going to
happen, how long they're going to be in
captivity.
God is speaking really clearly here.
Do you understand me?
And he tells Jeremiah, tell these people they're
coming into a time of exile.
Now picture what's happening here in this time
of exile.
This is really incredible.
It's not just like if you hear a
prophet today, maybe as my father says, he's
not a prophet, but he prophesies and you
may have heard some of his prophecies.
You may have heard him and other men
and watchmen, men and women of God say,
times ahead are going to be difficult.
There could come an economic collapse.
There could come a thousand fires in New
York City.
There could come perilous times that aligns with
scripture.
The Bible makes it so clear that the
end times, terrible times will come upon the
earth.
And some people, I have heard some people
accuse my father of being too gloom and
doom.
I have gotten personal joy out of, people
used to come to me when he first
wrote the book called The Vision.
And they used to come to me when
I was a younger man and say, you
know, your dad wrote all these things and
here's a long list of things that haven't
come true.
And then I'd see the same people about
two years later and they'd say, and here's
a list of things that haven't come true,
but it's a lot smaller.
And when I see them now, they're basically
saying, you know, there's still one thing.
I just say, wait, just hang on, quit,
you know, bothering me every year with this
stuff.
And some people think, well, that's too gloom
and doom.
It's, it's, you're too hard on the church.
You're talking about judgment.
You're talking, compared to what Jeremiah told his
people, that's good news, what we've just heard
because really I'm being serious because what Jeremiah
told his people is this, everything you've ever
heard about God throughout history, sacrifice, the temple,
the reading of the word, the fellowship, the,
all of that's about to be taken away
from you.
Everything you've known, you're going out of this
land and you're going into captivity.
And so, so basically what he's saying to
them is no more temple.
And they're, they're thinking to Jeremiah, this is
where we worship.
We, we can't worship anywhere else, but in
the temple.
There's no more sacrifice.
Our sins can't be forgiven.
There's no more priesthood.
They can't go into the holy of holies.
There's no more worship.
All the paid instruments that the hundreds of
instruments that they paid full-time worship in
the temple, no more songs of worship, no
more of any of this stuff.
Coming out of Jerusalem and you're going to
come into a land of bondage.
That would be like a prophet getting up
in today and saying, every church building is
going to close down.
There'll be no more Christian television, no more
Christian radio, no more bookstores for you to
go to and buy books.
Bibles will be outlawed.
You will be called upon to leave your
home in the United States, move to Afghanistan,
live in a small village and do nothing
but love Jesus and share him with other
people.
It's real quiet in here now.
That's pretty much the prophecy that Jeremiah gave
the people, but they went into that.
And history tells us that there were some
young men who volunteered to go into captivity
because Jeremiah was saying, this is what God
is saying for us to do.
And these young men get into this place,
no more temple, no more ritual, no more
ceremony, no more worship, no more animal sacrifice.
Just nothing that they've always lived their life
depended upon.
And God, through the prophets, was saying, you
can't exist that way anymore.
You can't go through this ritual.
You can't just have this ceremony without having
a heart after God.
So I'm going to bring you into exile.
I'm going to strip away all the excesses.
I'm going to strip away all the things
you depend upon.
I'm going to see what happens to you
in the wilderness.
God's plan works because there's a young man
there named Belteshazzar.
We call him Daniel.
And Belteshazzar gets a vision of the Lord.
You remember this?
He said, I saw the Lord.
I saw him.
There was another young man.
His name was Ezekiel.
He became a prophet in exile.
And Ezekiel was one of the first men
in all of Scripture to get a revelation
about God giving us a new heart, not
of the old circumcision of the flesh, not
of the ritual and the ceremony.
But Ezekiel was the first man to begin,
along with Jeremiah, to begin to prophesy that
God was going to do something new.
And it would all be about the heart.
So God had to strip away all that
they were dependent upon.
Their beautiful temple, their thousand-voice choir, their
royal priesthood, and their tremendous garb.
And he took them all away.
And there was these young men, Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego, who get a revelation from God.
And God says to them, no matter what
this evil king says, do not bow down.
And these young men say, we will not
bow.
Man, what revelation these guys had.
Some of them may have been even teenagers
at this time.
And yet they are trusting in God, even
in the midst of exile.
God reveals himself even in the midst of
exile.
As a matter of fact, sometimes through wilderness
experience, through trials and tribulations, through troubles, God
speaks more clearly than ever before.
Now, let me skip ahead in history.
That's the end of the...
Now, after Jeremiah, there's some more events, minor
prophets come along.
And then there's this point of time where
they call...
Have you ever heard this?
Some of you may have gone to Bible
school or seminary, and they call this the
intertestamental period.
Have you ever heard that phrase?
I think it's one of the worst phrases
in the Bible.
No, it's actually not in the Bible.
So it's...
But it's one of the worst phrases we
use.
Intertestamental period.
It's almost like these guys were writing this
Bible for 2,000 years, and they got
tired.
Like, oh, we're so tired of writing this
Bible.
Let's take a 400-year break.
And they wait for something good to happen.
So finally, Jesus comes along.
Oh, good, we can start writing again, because
now we have some good...
That's a terrible...
Because God did not stop speaking in the
intertestamental period.
A matter of fact, the good news is
God has never stopped speaking.
So during this time, it seems quiet.
There's not much record of it.
But God never stopped speaking.
As a matter of fact, Christians are a
little strange in that they separate the Bible,
Old and New Testament.
It's really one book.
It's God speaking to us.
It's Jewish believers.
Don't call it the Old Testament, because it's
not old.
It's still alive.
It's still God.
It's still revelation of God.
There's nowhere in Scripture it says, this is
the Old Testament.
Now this is the New Testament.
Those are phrases we've superimposed upon the Word
of the Lord.
It's one book.
And the intertestamental period wasn't God on vacation.
Wasn't God taking a break from being tired
of writing?
He was still revealing himself.
Now, let me skip way ahead in the
future.
Everything we've talked about now has been up
to this point in Scripture.
Now, you skip ahead into a time period
coming.
One of the writers in what we call
the New Testament, John, predicts a day that's
coming.
Where revelation...
As a matter of fact, he calls his
book what?
Revelation.
He says there's a day coming where revelation
is going to be so spectacular, so phenomenal,
that young men are going to be...
As a matter of fact, there's two guys
that are going to be so powerful.
They're going to be called the two prophets.
And they're going to have power where words
come out of their mouth.
They're going to be able to call fire
from heaven.
They're going to be able to shut the
windows of heaven.
There'll be no rain at the word of
their mouth.
They're going to be so strong.
They're going to be slain in the street,
and then they're going to be resurrected.
These are some powerful young men, aren't they?
And God's...
But one day, you know what's interesting?
One day, I don't know when it's going
to be, sometime in the future, but somebody's
going to be around there and say, Hey,
John talked about you guys.
You're the two prophets.
See, there's going to be a coming revelation.
I believe what John is talking about is
an exponential revelation.
It's building upon building upon building of this
phenomenal insight into who God is and what
he's like, and the wisdom and insight and
revelation is going to be so phenomenal.
There's going to be some people there, and
they're going to understand.
They're going to say, These are the two
prophets.
That's the Antichrist.
This is the mark of the beast.
This is Babylon.
This is the whore.
And all that's described in the book of
Revelation is going to be revealed and opened
up.
Isn't that amazing?
But I'm confused about something.
Here's a couple questions for you.
Do we have a theology?
Do we have a way of living?
Do we have an understanding that says, Here's
Adam, and here's the closing of the New
Testament.
A lot of revelation.
God's been speaking.
Amen.
He's done a lot of powerful things to
us.
There's been some powerful revelation, and now skip
ahead.
Sometime in the future, God's going to start
back up again.
He's going to start revealing these amazing things,
and people are going to understand things about
God in new ways they've never understood before.
But my question is this.
But what about now?
Are we not in an intertestamental period?
Are we in an interrevelational period?
Where God has somehow, for some reason, decided,
I spoke then, and I'll speak then, but
I'm sorry.
It's all here now, so you don't get
anything else.
Now, please don't misunderstand me.
This is going to be a very important
part for you to listen very carefully to
me.
The Bible makes it clear that you cannot
add or take away from this book.
The Bible makes it very clear, the Scriptures
say, if someone comes and teaches something different
that's not in this book, even if it's
from an angel, disregard the message.
It's from the hand of Christ.
Have nothing to do with it.
So when I'm talking about new revelation or
progressive revelation, God speaking new things into our
heart, I'm not talking about new doctrine, okay?
Do you understand that?
I'm not talking about, have you guys heard
what Joseph Smith had to say?
Please don't misunderstand me.
I am talking about Orthodox Christian theology.
But here's the good news.
You see, we understand that this is a
closed book.
It's not going to be added to.
We're not going to get, you know, Revelation
Part Two.
It's a closed book.
And God, but here's the good news.
God in history, He gave all this revelation
throughout history.
Adam, Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and they
got this revelation.
And then all of a sudden it was
recorded in this book.
And now we are standing on this side
of the book, aren't we?
But everything that's in that book is being
opened up to us.
And I believe it's being opened up line
upon line and precept upon precept.
And I believe with all my heart that
God is speaking to young men and young
women in this generation.
And they are having powerful revelation from God.
They're having insights and wisdom and truth from
God that the generations in past are going
to say, where did you get a hold
of God in such powerful ways?
Revelation is for today.
Hallelujah.
God wants to speak to you.
You see, because we're very concerned about two
things.
We're very concerned about making sure we don't
add anything or take anything away from the
scripture, and rightly so.
Secondly, we're very concerned that we don't come
up with these weird, and I have to
use this term, I hope it's in mercy
and love, but charismaniac type stuff.
You know what I mean?
I mean, some of the strangest stuff.
I heard somebody recently, I overheard them in
a prayer room.
There was a man visiting from Finland.
He was in the prayer room and he
talked to this woman.
He said, how can we reach Finland from
Christ?
Her answer was, find the four most powerful
prophets in your nation.
Have them move to the four corners of
Finland.
And every day, wake up and face the
center of Finland, prophesying God would come and
revival over Finland.
And I just wanted to interrupt.
I didn't.
I was trying to be merciful and nice,
but I didn't interrupt.
But I wanted to come in there and
say, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard
in my life.
I want to say, here, where did you
get that?
Just pick anything.
Genesis or Revelation, just show me where you
get this stuff from.
And I hate the foolishness of people coming
up with all kinds of fanciful doctrines to
tickle people's ears and try to get people
to be motivated to come to church.
And there's something new all the time.
And it's just...
And because we're concerned about these two things,
not adding or taking away, and we're concerned
about these weird revelations, a lot of us
have closed our heart, our mind, and our
understanding that God wants to speak to you
today.
He didn't stop.
This is not an...
It's not God said, I spoke then and
I'm going to speak now, but sorry, you
guys, just read your Bible as much as
you can.
No, He has recorded it for us, that
we could research it and open it up.
Because the Bible says, Paul made it clear
that there are unfathomable, the unsearchable riches of
Jesus Christ.
With the mystery, the hidden mysteries are being
revealed, when?
Now, to us.
I can prove it to you that God
is still bringing revelation.
This book that we say is closed now,
and you can't add or take away from
it.
In the year 400 AD, there was a
council.
The church fathers got together and said, this
book belongs in the Bible.
The gospel of Mark belongs in the Bible,
but the gospel of Thomas, you ever heard
of the gospel of Thomas?
They said, the gospel of Thomas does not
belong in the canon of Scripture, because there's
heretical teaching in that.
How do they know that?
God revealed it to them.
Our church fathers got wisdom and revelation from
God saying, this is canon material, this is
Godly, this is the line, but that's not.
And that is a safety net, it's protected
us.
That's the fact that our church fathers got
revelation from God, has given us now the
pure word of God.
They received revelation.
Aren't you glad that a man named Wycliffe,
Wycliffe, one day was scratching his head, he
was walking around in his shop, and he
started thinking to himself, I think God is
saying to me that the people need the
Bible in their own language.
And everybody else said, heresy, heresy, heresy.
You change one word of the Scripture, you're
damned.
And Wycliffe got this idea, no, God's speaking
to me.
And so men began to write the Scripture
in English and in German and all kinds
of languages.
And people began to now open up the
word of God and it got people out
of the Middle Ages.
Life came into people, the darkness was dispelled
and the glory of God came in because
a man had a revelation.
God said to him, I want the Bible
in English and German and French.
Man, and he had to trust.
Aren't you thankful that he trusted that God
still speaks today?
Aren't you glad he didn't say no?
They told me that God's not speaking anymore.
No, he believed God.
Aren't you glad that a place called Azusa
Street in 1905 and 1906, some guys got
together and said, you know what, this thing
here is talking about charismatic gifts and speaking
in tongues.
And that's just, at that point, I mean,
it just wasn't happening.
Do you know that?
I mean, there was not charismatic gatherings or
Pentecostal gatherings or charismatic conferences or charismatic Catholics.
There was just like three people were spirit
-filled at that time, you know.
And this guy got a vision from God.
They said, God wants us to have these
supernatural gifts from the Holy Spirit.
And they believed they were hearing from God
and began to preach.
And aren't you glad they decided to preach
that?
Hallelujah.
God's still speaking today.
He's still speaking.
And I wanna close with these last few
words.
I wanna challenge, particularly the young men and
young women in this place, 35, 40 and
under.
That age is always changing for me.
I used to say the young pastor's 30,
now it's 35 and getting to 40.
Pretty soon, I'll be having conferences.
I'll be saying, everybody under 50, you young
pastors.
But I wanna speak to you young pastors
and leaders for just a moment.
Because if you'll get this in your heart,
that God can speak to you.
Some things that myself and my father and
Pastor Neil would look at and say, where
did you get that?
I want what you have.
Where are you getting this revelation?
And I think part of the reason why
we're getting it is because this is exactly
what the apostles prayed.
There are seven in the Bible.
There are seven, what are called the apostolic
prayers.
Peter prayed some of them.
Paul prayed some of them.
There are prayers for the New Testament church.
And every single one of these seven apostolic
prayers include the same thing.
God, open the eyes of their hearts.
Give them revelation, wisdom, insight.
Open up the mysteries of Christ.
God, give them understanding and revelation.
Because once somebody gets on fire for God,
once somebody gets filled with a fresh word,
they're not just dusting off some old book
from 1500 and saying, wow, wasn't this amazing
what God said to Luther?
But they're saying, isn't it amazing?
They're including that, yes, but they're saying, isn't
it amazing what God's saying to me in
this day, in this hour, for my church,
for my people, for my nation?
And when young people and elders get a
hold of this, that it's not some new
doctrine or it's not some charismatic maniac type
gifts, but it's orthodox, solid Christianity, but it's
being revealed and opened up in ways that
touch people's hearts in a deep way.
When you get that, oh, I tell you
what, the old dry and dusty, the experience
of reading three chapters a day and saying,
have you ever read the Bible and you
get through reading a chapter and you just
go to yourself, what did I just read?
I have no idea what I just read.
And you start trying to read it again.
And those days, and there's gonna be those
days for the rest of our lives, but
there are days coming where God is going
to speak to his people in powerful ways.
But the church of Jesus Christ needs a
new revelation, first of all, to say, I
have faith to believe that God speaks today.
He can direct me, he can guide me,
he can lead me, he can talk to
me, and he can open up insights that
the church need.
Just as there are unknown, just as Wycliffe
understood that God was saying, put the word
in different languages, there are things that we're
not doing.
Did you know that?
Please don't be so proud as to think
this is the generation that we finally got
it all together.
And we don't need any young pastors or
teachers or prophets to be raised up and
tell us, you know what, church, you're not
doing what the Bible tells us to do.
Because a generation is coming and they're gonna
have new insight, new truth.
Not new truth in the sense of, again,
please understand what I'm saying, but they're gonna
see things that are written in the scriptures
and they're gonna bring it alive to us
and it's gonna be such a powerful day
and the church of Jesus Christ is gonna
be in a prevailing place.
I'm gonna close with this.
Here's one thing I wanna suggest to you
that the Holy Spirit is saying in this
day and hour.
That we, and listen to me carefully, this
is as close as I'll ever get to
prophesying.
In this day and this hour, the church
of Jesus Christ in America is headed into
exile.
We are going through the same experience I
am here today to tell you, this is
the word of the Lord.
That the church, and this is just as
much a truth, I believe, as Jeremiah preached
to the people in Judah.
That for too long, we've depended on our
buildings.
For too long, we've depended on our choirs.
For too long, we've depended on our budgets.
For too long, we've depended on our strategies
and our structures and our programs.
God's saying to the church of Jesus Christ
in America, we're taking you into exile.
And I'm gonna strip away from you all
these things you have to depend on to
make you think that's how church works.
God is going to, don't clap please, hold
on.
God is going to take the church, and
I don't know if it has something to
do, there are other prophetic words of men
of God that are far deeper into the
Lord than I am, and they are saying
things like economic collapse.
They are saying things like persecution.
They are saying things like a terrible time's
coming.
They are saying things about terrorism that's coming
to America.
These are powerful words, but remember what Jeremiah
was telling his people.
That's not really the stuff.
The stuff really is what these things produce.
They produce a church that has to go
into exile.
And listen, be stripped away of, don't you
think God might be just saying the same
thing he said to Amos?
I'm tired of your festivals.
I'm tired of your feasts.
I'm tired of your sacrifices.
I want a heart after me.
And God is saying to his church, if
I have to take every dollar from your
coffer, if I have to close every building
down, if I have to shut off all
the sound equipment that we put so much
value in, if we have to come, if
he has to stop us coming to church
to be entertained, and we'll only come where
there's good entertainment, if he has to stop
all of it, he's gonna do it, and
it's gonna be the best thing that'll ever
happen to the church.
Hold on a second.
Now listen, I'm not saying that music and
buildings and having budgets are evil things in
themselves, but if that's what the church becomes,
you might as well just call yourself the
Kiwanis Club or start a corporation called IBM
and sell computers because it's just a business.
If God's not in it, it's a business.
And before God brings you into exile, you
might as well close it down anyway because
there's no value in it.
But here's the good news.
Here's something that makes me wanna shout because
in the midst of this exile that I
foresee coming, in the midst of this exile,
there's some young men similar to Daniel who
are gonna get down on their knees and
they're gonna say, I have no temple, I
have no worship team, I have no sound
equipment, I have no finances, but I got
my knees and I can get down on
my knees and I can open up the
window and when I open up the window,
I can cry out to God day and
night.
I can cry out to you, God.
And in the midst of this exile in
America where the church is no longer popular
and they're not being interviewed by superstars and
not being visited by dignitaries and politicians any
longer and when this church is in exile
and facing some difficult times, there's gonna be
some young men who are gonna be tempted
to give into the worldly system and all
of a sudden, they're gonna get up and
say, I will not bow before the idols
of this world.
I will take a stand for Jesus Christ.
I don't care what, I don't care if
it's not popular.
God forgive us because so many young people
today are joining our churches, are getting involved
because they like the rock music that we're
playing and they like the cool speeches that
the youth pastor gives and there's not a
heart seeking after God and God says, if
I have to, I'll close it down so
that I can have some young men and
women of God who will start seeking my
face, who will start coming after me with
all their heart, all their soul, all their
strength.
There's gonna be some young men like Ezekiel
who are gonna be shut in with God
and all of a sudden begin to write
these powerful words.
Oh, I'll put in you a new heart.
Oh, you may not have a building to
meet in.
You may not have a budget to meet
all your, you may not be able to
pay for staff to do all this stuff.
Oh, but my spirit's gonna be upon you.
I'm gonna put my words on your heart
and I tell you what, in times like
that, when I read through Jeremiah's prophecies and
I read through the exile period, I see
I would rather be in exile and have
the kind of heart like Daniel and Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego and Ezekiel.
I'd rather be in exile and be like
them than to be in Judah and have
the temple and have the sacrifice and have
all the glorious things we can look at,
feel, touch and get excited about but not
have Jesus in the middle of it all.
Amen.
Hallelujah.
Amen.
Stand with me if you would, please.
I just think that's good news.
I think that's, I say, Jesus, that's exciting.
If you have to take us into exile,
then let's go, God.
Let's do it.
You know, if you can save us without
it, then save us without it.
But if it takes that, you see, in
exile...