How not to do the work of God,
and then who will buy it?
Chapter one, how not to witness.
I have three sons, my darlings and my
wife's darlings.
They're our joy.
They're so different, you can't believe they came
from the same father and mother.
Are your children like that?
My eldest is six foot four, well he's
high as can be, takes a size 14
boot.
He's an embarrassment with a big boot like
that.
And then he has another brother, he's 19,
he's no.
Then there's Roy, he's 17, he just turned
18 three days ago.
And Roy, uniquely different personality.
And then there's little Samuel, he's 10 years
old, the darling of the home completely.
We don't all, we all just love little
Samuel.
But Roy, Roy was the problem child.
Have you got a problem child in your
home?
Well, Roy was our problem child.
He was such a problem that he left
people gasping for breath.
We didn't know what he was going to
do next, you know.
I mean, I've never seen a man nearly
die in the pulpit, apart from when Roy
was in the congregation.
I saw a man nearly dying through my
son.
I saw people gasping and groaning, and the
man in the pulpit hanging on.
I won't tell you what Roy did.
We tried to quiet him, we tried to
shut his mouth, we tried everything, you know,
we never went back to the church, of
course.
We had many wonderful times with Roy, but
we got exasperated and we went to a
doctor, to a specialist, we crossed the country
to find out what to do.
We were given advice by our doctor to
go to this child specialist and have some
sort of treatment or something.
So this fellow made a lot of tests,
and he said, your son is hypoactive.
So I said, hypoactive?
What does it mean?
I know what hyperactive is.
Hyperactive is, you know, when a child can't
sit still and can't keep quiet.
You put a plug in his mouth, he's
still making a noise.
And chain him to the chair, and he's
still trying to move.
That's hyperactive.
So I said, no, hypoactive is hyperactive multiplied
by one million.
I said, oh.
And I looked at my wife, and I
said, we're going through quite a time, and
we're scared.
Even the principal has called us into the
school.
And I said, you know, we need help,
can't you give medication, anything?
We don't know what to do.
So he said, no, well, there's a risk
to them, but I don't recommend it.
He said, listen, you grow out of it.
He said, there's no medication that'll really help
you.
He's going to grow out of it.
Maturity comes.
You can't make a child mature.
That comes.
The moment he's mature, this will all be
gone.
You've just got to wait.
Until then, you will age.
And I looked at this man, and I
thought, is he really trying to be funny?
You will age.
We aged.
Oh, we aged.
Dear Roy, oh, I love him, you know.
But Roy put us through, he put the
whole family through aging process.
One day, we were waiting in a queue
along a beach.
We were going along the beachfront, the seashore,
in a hot summer's day in Africa.
We don't go where the crowds are for
many reasons, but we were walking along, and
there was a big sign on the top
of a building with a big ice cream,
you know, about 100 feet into the air,
this ice cream all swirling up a big
painting, that ice creams were being sold there
in this hot day.
And I tell you, no one could pass
it.
You're all hot, and they shouldn't be allowed
to put those signs up, because we're all
just drawn to it, and our crowd roids
us points, and I said, all right, let's
go.
So we got there, and there were everybody,
I don't know how many people, two long
rows, coming out of the ice cream parlor
there, this right down onto the street, and
long rows.
Eventually, we got to the door, no one
was speaking, everybody was just thinking of the
ice cream.
There was deadly signs in these queues.
Even the children were just waiting to get
there, you know.
We got inside, and there was about 20
people in this queue, in this row, and
there's 20 people there inside now, and then
right outside, but deadly silence, and suddenly there
was a man smoking.
But he, I don't know what was quite
wrong with him, he was in a bit
of a state, because he really was smoking.
You know, just smoke coming up, and I
looked at him, and I felt a bit
sorry for him, but Roy looked at him,
and Roy said, stop!
Stop!
Everybody looked, and this man looks at him,
and Roy says, stop!
You know, with his horror in his eyes.
So the man says, what's wrong with you,
boy?
Stop smoking now, he says.
Put it out!
So the man looks at me, and I
said, Roy, stop.
He said, put it out now!
So the man, he says, you're going to
hell!
You will go straight to hell!
Put it out quickly!
So the man threw it down and put
it out.
He says, sorry!
And he looks at Roy, and I, of
course, was trying everything to stop him, and
he said, now don't you ever smoke again,
or you'll go straight to hell!
He was very small.
Well, no one laughed.
Everyone choked, and gasped, and looked, and trying
to hide their faces, and this poor man
was dying, looking, didn't know where to look,
and I grabbed Roy, you know, I died
a bit that day.
And then he did the same a few
weeks later, and he did worse.
I won't tell you what the woman did
that he, I can't tell anybody what happened
in that home.
It was unbelievable what that woman did when
he screamed.
So I said, listen, Roy, come, you've got
to deal with, we've got to sort this
out, boy.
You can't do that.
You can't go screaming at people.
He must have been listening to Christians, and
conventions, and conferences, and everywhere, just picked up
little things here and there that smoking was
sin.
Well, I said, Roy, if he gives up
smoking, he's still going to hell.
That's not going to save his soul.
You don't tell a man to stop smoking
if he's not saved.
You don't put the cart before the horse,
boy.
He has to have an encounter with Jesus.
You can make him stop smoking.
You can make him stop drinking, stop swearing.
You can change his clothes, make him stop
going here and there and go to church.
He's still going to hell.
That won't save him.
He's still going to hell.
It doesn't matter.
It's not what he does, it's what Christ
did that saves him.
And when he gets to Christ's salvation, these
things Christ throws out of his life.
These things just throw out of his life.
But you don't make a man change and
change everything before he thinks he can be
saved.
Nothing will do that salvation apart from faith
in the blood of Christ and the risen
power of Christ.
And Christ will set him free to what
he ought to be.
So don't you ever speak like this again.
Well, Roy, finally, the message got through, you
know.
The message got through and he never did
that to us.
By the by, just before I leave, Roy,
just to be just, Roy did get mature.
And he's become one of the most gentle,
caring, wise, discerning, godly upright people I've ever
met in my life, person that I've ever
met in my life.
I cannot tell you in words befitting, befitting
what my son has become in the hands
of God.
In case you're all sitting there worrying about
my life with my son, you can have
comfort.
He's changed.
He's become godly and a great blessing.
Of course, it's different if someone is under
conviction.
Then it's different if the Holy Ghost is
convicting a person.
It's different.
And he comes to you for advice as
to what's right in a Christian's life.
And he looks to you.
Then you've got to be honest and true
and straight without compromise.
Mr. MacFarlane was preaching in a prayer meeting
one day, the oldest prayer meeting, I think,
in our land's history.
Oh, men in their 90s coming every week
to pray through for Africa, to pray through
for the world.
And the bloodbath of the world thought would
happen in southern Africa.
One of the reasons it didn't happen was
that prayer meeting.
The godliest saint, Mr. Mac, preached one night
there.
He preached many nights.
Many of those people came to Christ when
he was a young man through his ministry.
But he gave this word to God.
I was in the meeting.
And after the meeting, they had tea and
refreshments, cakes.
And everybody after the meeting was standing around
because they traveled from all over the city.
They had fellowship before they left the prayer
meeting.
After Mr. Mac had preached and prayed through,
now we're all having fellowship.
But a man stood there, and he was
in the prayer meeting.
He heard Mr. Mac preaching, and he suddenly
lit a cigarette up.
He starts smoking the cigarette, you know.
I saw Mr. Mac looking at him.
I mean, to stand there in that hall
after that service and light a cigarette.
Eventually, he said to Mr. MacFarlane, there's nothing
wrong with smoking, is there, Mr. MacFarlane?
I mean, Spurgeon smoked, he said.
And he looked at Mr. Mac.
He said, people tell me that it's wrong
for a Christian to smoke.
I can't see what's wrong.
It's not a moral sin.
It's not morally decadent.
I'm faithful to my wife.
It's something to do with the health, they
say.
But I can take you to people who
smoke till the day they die that are
more healthy than people that haven't smoked.
I can take you to people who drink
coffee that does more damage.
They haven't got a right to tell me
to stop smoking.
They drink so much coffee, they're doing more
damage to themselves.
Where do you draw the line?
There's nothing wrong in smoking, Mr. Mac.
What do you think?
It's not wrong for a Christian to smoke,
is it?
Mr. Mac shook the whole hall.
I mean, Mr. Mac doesn't shout.
He just doesn't shout, this godly man.
He shouted, and no one could believe it.
He looked at this man, and he said,
you know it's wrong.
Why do you ask me what you know
is wrong?
He walked away.
Well, that was the end of the socializing.
Do you know that man that night put
a cigarette down, never smoked again.
You know that man that night, through that
rebuke, met with God in such a way
that he left his work and became a
soul winner, a preacher, and he became a
great preacher.
He became a soul winner in our land.
He needed a rebuke to stop playing the
fool with God, and he got it from
one of the godliest men, his time, that
there is a Nathan needed to the David,
who thought his sin was it.
Oh, have you noticed, though, when I spoke
to Mr. Mac about this incident, Mr. Mac
said, Keith, if a Christian comes to you
and asks you if something's wrong for a
Christian to do, it's because he knows it's
wrong.
He's under conviction, and if the Holy Spirit
is in him, he knows.
When Nathan came to David and confronted David
about his sin, did you know what David
said when he got on his knees, smashed
by that confrontation about his sin?
He said, my sin is ever before me.
My sin is ever before me.
They know, and sometimes it's needed.
Sometimes it's needed for a Nathan, but be
sure it's God leading you when you confront
a man, or all you'll do is damage.
Be sure that it's God leading you before
you confront someone about their sin, brother.
But when they're under conviction, that's different.
How does God, the Holy Spirit, convict the
world of sin and of righteousness and of
judgment?
How does God, the Holy Spirit, convict the
world of sin and of righteousness and of
judgment?
Two things.
He anoints the Word of God, and He
anoints a life.
Those two things only does God, the Holy
Spirit, use.
He anoints the Word of God to the
degree to which you soak your message in
prayer, preacher, and to that degree only.
And He anoints a life to the degree
that you soak your life in prayer.
He anoints the Word.
He honors His Word above all things, God
says.
Hebrews 4, verse 12, the Word of God
is quick and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing.
Don't bypass using the Word in the pulpit.
This is what God uses to convince the
world of sin.
But, oh, God showed me how He honors
this Word above all things and how He
anoints it to the degree that you pray
and soak your life and the people you
to preach to and the Word especially.
To that degree, God give us another Jonathan
Edwards that started the first revival in America's
history, a revival that went on sweeping across
your land over 120, 30 years until millions
and millions of your forefathers were saved.
But the revival started through a man called
Jonathan Edwards, taken on by George Whitefield, and
even further by Charles Finney, and even further
in the prayer revival where millions came to
God, and even further by Moody, but just
kept on back like wave.
But it started through a man that prayed
for three days.
He did not eat.
Three nights he did not sleep.
He groaned before God, give me New England,
weeping, give me New England.
And as he was groaning for God, God
gave him a message.
God led him to scripture upon scripture as
the tears poured down as he turned the
pages.
He wrote a sermon that is the most
famous sermon in earth's history, apart from the
Sermon on the Mount.
God gave him sinners in the hands of
an angry God.
And oh, I dare you preachers in America
to just say the title, let alone preach
the content.
You have revival just saying that title.
They don't know there's an angry God awaiting
them.
But because of the way he groaned in
prayer, soaking his prayers, soaking his people, soaking
his nation, soaking himself, soaking this book with
groans through three days and three nights, not
sleeping, not eating, weeping for God to come.
God came with such a thunderbolt, the devil
couldn't stop it for 130 years.
And that's why America is the nation she
is today, beloved.
You think you're here because of your great
politicians.
You're not.
You're here because your forefathers sought God.
You became the greatest nation on earth for
that reason alone.
And what God tolerates is because of what's
left of the repercussions of those God-fearing
people.
But don't doubt it unless you get another
Jonathan Edwards among your millions of preachers, unless
you just find one more.
You lose everything, America.
I guarantee your greatness is about to go
soon, because the scales of the tipping is
in God's hands.
I don't know when it's going to go
down in the one end, where there's more
evil being produced to the world and influence
in the world than there is good.
But when that scale goes down and you're
close to it, God give you another Jonathan
Edwards, or you're finished.
You won't know what's left of your country
and how devastatingly fast it will come.
Trust me about that.
I'm no prophet.
My common sense tells me about your history
and looking at you now.
All preachers anoint the word with prayer.
Don't go out there to impress with hours
of preparing great homiletical messages and not soaking
it in prayer groaning before God for souls.
Do what Jonathan Edwards did and see what
God does for 130 years after your sermon.
But God give you one more man that
won't go out there homiletically prepared through hours
of preparing to impress, but they'll never see
revival until they get down on their face
and start groaning for hours and come out
with a little bit God gave them as
the tears fell on verses that they had
to give.
There'll no other preacher in the whole land
dare to say the word hell until Jonathan
Edwards did.
What's what God gives you when you start
praying, preacher, more than you start preparing.
God showed me how much he anoints this
word when as a young preacher, he put
it upon my heart to memorize these books,
chapters upon chapters, and he gave me the
ability that I didn't know how it came,
and I didn't know what God was saying,
but I obeyed him as I took hold
and found that it was all there.
God just burned into my soul, and I
stood there weeping through the nights as I
saw what God was giving me.
But when I stood in the pulpit, I
saw how God anoints his word above all
things, how he honors his word as it
stands above all things, when I didn't say
one word apart from just quote the words
Christ said.
Before I'd finished just what Christ said, I
looked across and I couldn't believe what this
effect is, sir.
Men were falling down all over, falling off
their chairs, unable to sit as they writhe
in pain of the conviction the word of
God brings.
Oh, God showed me how whole congregations fall
on their face halfway through a book that
I'm quoting.
I don't know how God does that, but
I know something.
He honors his word.
He uses the word more than anything else,
the anointed word, to the degree that you
soak it in prayer.
But, oh, I've soaked it in prayer as
sometimes I haven't had more than 10 minutes
preparing for a sermon, but I spent the
whole afternoon and hours weeping, and suddenly the
whole town converges on a building until there's
no room.
And there they are outside of the windows,
on the walls, sitting on the cars, and
the loudspeakers in the whole town just came
and come.
And most, 20 minutes after you're preaching, are
on their faces before God.
When you pray, sir, God comes.
When you preach, very little happens.
But when you anoint the word through consuming
your life in prayer, and the people you
to be preaching to in this holy book,
oh, what's what God does for another Jonathan
Edwards in this land.
Please find one, though, among your ranks of
preachers.
And he anoints a life, he anoints a
life to the degree that that life is
soaked in prayer.
When I was a young Christian, I used
to stand on the beachfront talking to God
after my readings.
I would go down for two hours and
walk in the dark until the sun rose,
and then after praying and walking in prayer,
calling on God and praising Him, I would
end as the sun rose, singing praises to
God.
Then I got in my car, and then
I'd drive to my work, and my heart
would begin to sink and sink as I
realized, oh, I've got to face a day
with defiling people.
I feel defiled in their presence.
Oh, they didn't seem to matter that I
was saved.
I used to groan before God and say,
God, it's like I'm being defiled here.
They know I'm saved, but they just keep
this defilement.
I didn't know, and I thought I was
being defiled, and that's all that's happening here.
But one day God showed me, because of
the way I started the day, sir, if
you begin the day with God, that that
is the greatest priority in your life, God
Himself, not religion.
Men aren't sleeping.
I found out soon as a boy started
weeping in my company, and I said, what's
wrong with you?
He said, it's your life.
And I thought that boy had no conviction
of sin, had no respect of my Christianity,
and he began to groan like he was
in pain.
And I said, what's wrong with you, man?
He said, it's your life.
Your life so condemns me that I can't
sleep in the nights anymore.
I can't enjoy my sin, and he just
ran from me, couldn't bear being in the
car with me.
And I began to realize God is doing
something.
The devil tells you you're not being used.
Suddenly the worst sinner in the whole firm,
the company that I was working for, grabbed
me, pulled me into his office, threw me
down on the floor, and I thought I
was about to be hurt.
I said, what's wrong with you, sir?
And he fell down on his knees, and
he said, oh, I'm a sinner, boy.
Help me to find your Jesus.
The worst sinner was under conviction, weeping, groaning.
A woman touched my arm and just said,
Keith, I'm losing my husband.
I'm losing my children.
My life is full of sin.
The whole firm knows it's a scandal the
way I'm with men, but now my husband's
found out, and she's weeping.
She said, you're a Christian.
Everyone knows that, Keith.
Can your Jesus help me?
I can't stop my sin.
I can't help myself.
Can Jesus set me free, Keith, so that
I don't lose my husband?
He's found out.
And I said, of course Jesus can set
you free, and we prayed.
We stood there crying out for God to
save her soul.
You know God so saved her that the
men who committed wickedness with her stood in
fear as he walked into a room within
days of her salvation.
They stood in fear of the transformation of
her life.
The owner of the firm called me in,
swearing and cursing, and in the end, because
I didn't react and defend myself as he
was screaming at me, he sat down and
he said, you're a Christian, aren't you, boy?
I said, yes, sir, I'm a Christian.
He said, you must be mad.
There's no God.
There can't be a God.
And if there is a God, how can
you love him?
Because anyone who created this world must be
a monster with all the suffering and the
hurt.
Don't you tell me to trust a God
that is such a monster if there is
a God?
So I said, oh there is a God,
sir, and he is love.
He's not a monster.
He said, you prove to me there's a
God.
You prove to me God is love and
I'll give my life to him now.
He was the owner of one of the
biggest companies in our country.
And I said, sir, I'm so scared of
you, the way you swear and the way
you scream.
I can't prove anything to you unless you
keep quiet.
But if you don't say a word until
I'm finished, you know there's a God and
that he is love.
And I spoke, I don't think for 10,
maybe 15 minutes, telling him of my life,
bringing in scriptures, my family, what God did.
And suddenly this man, it was like someone
who'd never ever grasped the concept of God
and suddenly he knew what he's wasted.
He threw himself across the table that I
got frightened.
His head hit the table so hard I
thought he was hurt.
He's just like somebody who suddenly grasped something
he couldn't grasp before.
And he threw himself and he grabbed me
and I stood and he groaned in pain
and said, help me, help me to find
your God, Keith.
I need him so.
He came to Christ.
The next day my manager called me into
the office.
He called, Keith, you come here now.
Everybody sat fearful.
My manager didn't scream.
He was angry.
So I walked in there thinking, what am
I in for now?
Sat down and he says, what have you
done to the man?
It's you, I know.
Everyone knows.
I said, what do you mean, sir?
He says, the owner of the firm, he
says, I've always hated him.
I've always had fear of him.
For 30 years I've worked for him.
And he's sitting there with a Bible open
on his desk.
And you know what he says to everybody
coming into the office?
He says, what do you want?
Don't you sit.
Tell me what you want before you sit.
So we got to say what we want.
And he says, it's not good enough.
You can sort it out.
You're not keeping me from this.
Can you believe God can change a man
like that?
You know, to the day he died, that
man never allowed anyone to sit before he
asked him, what do you want?
And most people, he said, go away.
That's not important enough.
I want God's word.
Brother, sister, you think God isn't using you
because people are still in their sin.
People are not sleeping.
People are not enjoying their sin.
People are groaning.
You don't know what they're going through, no
matter how much they laugh in front of
each other.
If you're just vital with God in the
morning and the night, if you just meet
with God and you make this life being
consumed by prayer beginning in the morning, if
you walk with God through the day, don't
listen to the devil that says you're not
being used.
He anoints a word to the degree that
that word is soaked in prayer.
And the preacher is soaked in prayer, and
the people he's to preach through is soaked
in prayer.
He anoints the word to the degree that
the message is soaked in prayer.
And he anoints a life to the degree
that the life is soaked in prayer.
Don't doubt that.
And to the degree that you soak your
life in prayer, beloved, so will God convict
the world of sin and of righteousness and
of judgment without you bringing them here a
preaching or a sermon.
Your life becomes a sermon.
You are our epistle, known and read of
all men.
You have been declared to be the epistle
of Christ, the message, the letter of Christ,
written not with ink but by the Spirit
of the living God.
Do you know that the outworking of the
Scriptures in a life as used by God
the Holy Spirit to virtually stagger and condemn
the consciences of them that have no open
ear to the Word of God?
Your life is written.
You write.
God writes the Word of God.
You live it.
And it's more powerful sometimes than the spoken
Word of God, if it's lived, but to
the degree that you consume it in prayer.
But there's one more thing.
You can pray until you're blue in the
face, preacher, and you can pray until you're
blue in the face, soul that loves Christ,
and you will not be used by God
to convince the world of sin and righteousness
and of judgment, because the initial anointing after
salvation is when you're filled with God the
Holy Spirit, and that's missing from the pulpits
today.
Name the preacher that moved the world to
God, and you will find that after salvation
he came to a place where he absolutely
surrendered to God and let God control him,
fill him with the Spirit.
Being filled with the Spirit is not a
glass of water, half filled, and now you
fill the other half.
The Holy Spirit is a person.
He dwells in you completely as a person,
not half of the Holy Spirit.
So what does it mean to be filled
with the Spirit if the whole of the
Holy Spirit dwells with you and is filled
in its complete entirety?
All it means is you don't fill the
other half empty, you just become controlled, and
you're not controlled by the Spirit with salvation.
No one is.
He comes in you, but you all become
aware there has to come a moment of
absolute surrender in your life as a Christian.
Andrew Murray said, unless this comes in your
life, you will become a grief to God
and man, even if you're saved.
Every saved person will eventually become a grief
to God and man unless he comes to
a place of absolute surrender whereby God fills
him, takes control, and only when you're absolutely
surrendered can he take control.
When you give up the fight and say,
God, what's left of life, I'm not going
to fight anymore, I want the fruit of
the Spirit to be the vital evidence that
I'm filled, controlled by the Spirit.
That's the other one, gifts.
Gifts get in the way most of the
time.
You know why?
Because we bypass the fruit.
And read 1 Corinthians 13 to see what
a grief gifts are to God and man
if there isn't fruit.
Oh, the fruit is the vital evidence spontaneously
in every reaction, not by effort of our
own, no matter how trying the circumstances, you
spontaneously react with the fruit.
Christ-likeness, the fruit of the Spirit is
Christ.
And as you soak your anointed life, your
spirit-filled life in prayer, Christ is revealed
to a greater degree as you soak, to
the degree that you soak in prayer.
The greatest preachers that ever moved the world
to God can tell you when you read
their life, they all came to a place
of absolute surrender and where they trusted God
to fill them with the Spirit.
And the anointing of God came upon their
ministry from then onwards, Modi on the street
falling on his knees as God filled him
with the Spirit.
But from that time onwards, millions came to
God, nations came to God.
Same preacher anointed as he prayed, John Wesley,
Hudson Taylor, William Booth, name them, the men
that moved the millions and the masses to
God, Charles Stoney, name them.
These men were filled with the Spirit of
God and then anointed by that anointing to
the degree that they prayed.
Now, I want to speak to every one
of you sitting here tonight.
And I know this is going to cost
you, but it's going to cost you far
more if you don't heed to God.
How many of you are saved?
Probably everyone here.
I doubt looking at all of you from
the godly homes, you seem to come.
But when were you absolutely surrendered to God?
When did God anoint your life with the
Spirit of God?
He's in you, but He's not controlling you.
When, preacher, did your ministry become anointed by
the Holy Spirit?
When did you absolutely surrender and absolutely control?
God controls you.
You're not perfected in that moment.
Before, it's a life of ups and downs,
more downs than ups as a saved person
until you absolutely surrender.
From then onwards, it's just a consistent growth.
That's what is vital for you to be,
growing more and more into the image of
God, more and more effective for God.
But until absolute surrender in a Christian's life,
you'll have more downs than ups.
Even if you pray yourself blue in the
face, you've got to come to absolute surrender.
Preacher and Christian, young and old, when will
you find the initial anointing of the Spirit
of God in your life?
Be filled with the Spirit of God.
Tarry in Jerusalem for the Spirit's descent upon
you that you may be witnesses, not before
How many of you, how many of you
need to say, God, what's left of life?
I absolutely surrender.
I lay my whole being in the altar
of God, and I ask you to fill
me by faith.
I trust you to take control of me,
God.
Thou art not in control.
I'm in control, God, of this life.
I'm saved.
But what a mess I've been making in
witnessing, in trying to do God's work, in
trying even to pray.
I'm not anointed.
I need to be filled with the Spirit.
I absolutely surrender so that I can be
taken control of by the Spirit, that the
fruit of the Spirit, God, can be there.
And tonight I want that anointing, so that
as I pray, God can anoint my life
to convince the world to do the work
of the Holy Spirit through my preaching and
through my living God.
How many of you need desperately to say
to God, tonight I'm saved, God, but I'm
not sanctified.
I'm not filled with the Spirit.
I'm not controlled.
I'm not, I haven't got this anointing, and
I want my life to be.
I've prayed for revival, God, but tonight I
need to pray differently.
God, begin this revival I've been praying for,
and others begin it in me, God.
Here's the one who has the need.
Let me become the instrument of revival that
I've been praying for and expecting to come
in others.
Begin here, God.
Otherwise, I have no right to pray for
anyone who isn't right as a Christian.
God, revive me.
Make me the instrument of revival.
Anoint my life.
I bow before God.
I absolutely surrender, and I want thee, God,
to fill me and anoint my life, and
I will consume my life in prayer, God,
that the anointing daily can stagger the world
through the Holy Ghost convicting them through my
life.
I wonder how many of you need to
say that desperately to God for what's left
of life, and I know it might cost
you, but imagine the cost if you say
no through pride.
I want those of you who need to
say that to God to stand right now
and say, God, it's me.
All of you that are standing, all of
you that are standing, will you bow your
heads, please?
Will you pray aloud these words of me
and remember God does not look at the
words that proceed out of the mouth.
God, look at the heart from whence they
come.
It's not sin that I'm leading you in
prayer, and though you're conscious you're following a
man's words, so long as in your heart
you say to God, these words are mine,
he's looking at your heart.
Don't you dare believe God will turn his
face and say no.
God's wanting this more in your life than
anyone standing here, and the devil is trembling
to know what could be the result from
the next step you take till the day
you die.
The anointing that will come in your life
as you pray from now on is the
greatest, greatest discipline of your life.
You'll find God with you in a way
that will stagger the powers of hell every
step you take virtually, though you sometimes won't
even know it.
Now, you trust God's holy obligation and his
integrity makes him obligated to answer a soul
that wants God to have his way and
to be used of God.
Don't doubt that.
All of you pray aloud with me from
your hearts as best as you can, but
pray aloud, please, O God, forgive me for
so much time I've wasted being saved, but
not absolutely surrendered.
I absolutely surrender my life to thee tonight,
God.
Wash me in the blood of Christ.
From all my inconsistencies, create in me a
clean heart, O God.
Renew a right spirit within me.
Then shall I teach transgressors thy ways, and
sinners shall be converted unto thee.
But begin with me, God.
Make me the instrument of revival, the revival
I've been praying for so many years.
Begin it tonight in me.
Anoint my life, God.
Sanctify me through and through with the blood
of Christ.
And fill me now with the Holy Spirit.
I don't seek gifts.
I want the fruit as the evidence that
thou art in control of my life.
Not by effort of my own, but just
spontaneously, seen in every reaction, no matter how
trying the circumstances.
Give me the discipline that nothing will keep
me from prayer in the morning and in
the night, that I may walk with God
through the day, anointed to the degree that
I soak my life in prayer.
Consume my life in prayer, God.
And win the world to thyself through me.
I pray these things in Jesus Christ's name.
And because I love thee, God, please honor
my prayer.
Amen.
Can we all stand, please?
Now, beloved, above that you have asked or
thought that God would answer, I believe God
is going to answer these prayers.
I have no doubt.
I have letters and phone calls from across
the world.
Ministers, preachers who said, Sir, I never won
one soul to Jesus in truth, though I've
preached for 20 years.
But since I stood up and prayed that
prayer, my whole congregation has turned to Jesus
Christ.
I have no doubt that if you prayed
that from your heart, God is going to
honor you, for he's the same God that
honored them.
In their multitudes, all Church of Christ, the
only reason I come to your land is
not to tour, is not to impress.
I have nothing to impress.
I come back because I believe God.
God can bring revival here, and if I
can just get you praying for it properly,
let alone seeing it.
I don't care who God uses in this
land.
It doesn't matter to me to bring you
back to God.
But your land needs the Church to get
revived.
And once the Church has come back to
God in truth and becomes vitally real, that
the world is uncomfortable in the Church, and
the world is not comfortable in the Church.
And the Church becomes uncomfortable in the world,
and not comfortable in the world.
Oh, that's revival.
And when the Word of God comes back
in the pulpit, without books to try and
undermine and explain away the standard, as God
says it, in its uncompromised state, from your
lips, in your life, without any apology, but
with always compassion, even if your harshest word
is there that it throb with love, but
don't you compromise, then revival has come, sir.
In your life and in your pulpit, when
this book is held out uncompromised, and when
the Church gets out of the world, and
the world gets out of the Church unless
it comes to Christ, that's revival.
Until then, don't stop praying, but now be
the instruments of revival in your community.
And I believe you will be.
Mr. Corvell, please come here, sir.
Forgive me asking you, but I want you
to commit us to Christ now.
I'm going to be leaving, and forgive me
for not shaking all of your hands.
I'd love to, but I have to get
very early up, and I'm getting old, I
think.
Pray for me.
I'm coming back to your land three times
next year, and God is very good to
let me.
I'm bringing my whole family through, I believe,
twice next year.
Mr. Bill Gothard wants to bring my whole
family over and let me speak in some
of his conferences, where they're going to video
these things and just send them across to
all the preachers.
I thank God for that.
He's a very good man.
You should pray for him.
He's got a standard.
That's why you should pray for him.
Pray for dear brother Denny Kenniston, working amongst
the Mennonite Amish groups.
But the fruit there is these people come
out of legalism.
Thank God for a high standard, but thank
God when they don't put the cart before
the horse.
Thank God when God has to save us
out of the world.
You know, he has to save other people
out of the church, out of religion.
But they need an encounter with Christ.
But oh, the fruit there, the fruit of
these godly men that bring me over, that
have any love for this type of preaching
or place for it.
I just see God raising up the examples
of the believers under these godly men like
Bill Gothard.
These generations of young people who never went
to a school, they were protected from the
defilement of the government schools these days.
The moral decadence from those who don't come
from the home of God.
Now you see these godly, godly people and
their thousands and thousands raising up with pure
faces and purity and nobleness and integrity in
spite of the decadence of the world.
You honor men like that, you pray for
them.
And they'll be bringing me over, my family.
Will you pray for me if God spares
me?
This could be my last sermon.
I don't mind, dear Lord, I don't mind.
Thy will not mine.
But if he spares me and you, pray
for me.
I know I'm nothing.
Don't doubt that in case you think my
sharing these things tonight thinks I'm something.
I'm nothing.
God took 30-something years before I dared
to say how he honored the Word.
Just pray for this man, that God spares
him, that God keeps him true to the
Word and in his life.
And that my family may never be destroyed
by the devil because I leave them alone
most of their lives.
They didn't have a daddy.
And I wouldn't have done that for a
million dollars, but I will do it for
Jesus and his calling and for souls.
For that reason, I come back to your
land.
Will you pray for this poor man who
has no right to come here with anything
but Jesus Christ in this book that God
gave us?
So pray for me that as I come
back, God will use this poor, weak, base,
despised man.
In case you think it's not true, just
wait.
God will show you that's just what I
am, somewhere along the line.
Don't make anything of men, okay?
I always think if people ever talk about
this man, I fail God.
Do me a favor if God met you.
Do me a great favor, a great honor.
Just speak about Jesus.
Then God won't have to throw me in
the dust.
Brother, commit us to Christ.
Don't forget if you want to receive a
newsletter, you give a little piece of paper
to this dear brother.
You'll bring it home, places we are that
you can pray.
You're only a prayer away.
You pray on the other side of the
world, God answers you.
That's a wonderful communication.
So pray.
And I know God will honor your prayers
and protect me.
Now, my dear brother's going to commit us
to Christ.
And we're going to go to prayer in
our homes.
Go home tomorrow.
God take you safely.
If you never miss the quiet time, ever,
until God says now you can go, then
you have the right to stop the quiet
time.
If you never miss the quiet time, you
will never backslide.
The devil cannot touch the man who never
misses God in the morning and the night.
He cannot touch the man who tries.
He can't.
But he'll wipe you out if you miss
God.
He'll wipe out your testament anyway, if not
your soul.
Brother, you pray now for us, please.
I'm going to be at the door.
I might shake one or two hands, but
forgive me going now.
And thank you for coming all this way.
And if I come back and I meet
you again, I'll be very grateful.
God bless you as you pray.
God bless you, Keith.
We love you.
Oh, Father, you have sent a man of
God our way, and you have spoke your
words.
He's the man.
The message is in the man.
And, Lord, if we would look at our
lives and see, has there been enough of
the power of the Holy Spirit in our
life to convict our own sons and daughters
about their need of Jesus?
Maybe the way that they are, they're in
rebellion, they're unsaved, is because there's been hypocrisy
in our own life.
Maybe we've been unwilling, Father, to face up
to the fact that the life that has
been lived has not been our life in
honesty, in truth, but it's been our life
in pride and hypocrisy.
And it's not been the Holy Spirit there.
Oh, let your word burn tonight.
And, Father, our commitment as we've stood, those
that stood tonight to do this, is no
deeper than our real love for you.
And as this man goes on down the
road, we ask for a special watching over
him.
Father, have mercy upon him and his family.
Provide for their needs.
I know he's bared his heart to us
today.
And, God, may we support him in prayer.
And if you bless some of us to
have funds to stick with this family.
And now, Father, I pray for your blessing
on each one here.
And that as they take these cassette tapes
that are being offered free and the videos
back to continue to spread the word, he
spoke the truth.
We're in the balances.
Our land, Father, we deserve to be wiped
out right now.
Have mercy upon us.
And we pray that you'd use us, as
unworthy as we are, to go out tonight
saying, God, my life, take it, make it
count for you.
Take out of my heart this love of
the world, the pleasure, and all this vanity.
And take me to my knees to spend
more time in prayer.
To be more concerned for the lost, my
neighbors, Lord, I haven't told them about Jesus.
Whatever the area you're doing your work in
tonight, I pray, Father, that you'd continue on.
That you'd really start a revival in my
heart and our hearts.
And bless this man and bless his family.
Thank you for sending him to us.
Watch over us now as we go home,
back to our ways.
We thank you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
God bless you.
You're dismissed.
There's restrooms over there on the next building.
If you need help, you need to pray,
you come on up.
There are men here and women.