Verses six and seven of our psalm are
the basis for our message this morning.
Wilt thou not revive us again that thy
people may rejoice in thee?
Show us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant
us thy salvation.
We want to talk this morning about the
subject of revival.
As we look at the events occurring in
our nation and around the world, particularly in
the Middle East, we wonder, where is it
all heading?
Are we on the brink of World War
III, as some speculate that we could be?
Are we about to see the prophecies of
Ezekiel 38 and 39 concerning the Islamic invasion
of Israel fulfilled?
Is the church about to be raptured, ushering
in the judgment of the Great Tribulation?
From a biblical standpoint, any one or all
of these are a possibility.
The world certainly does seem ripe for judgment,
doesn't it?
Our nation certainly does seem ripe for judgment.
As we look at the things that go
on around us each day, we often wonder,
how much longer can it go on?
How much worse can it get?
It does seem that we could be on
the threshold of judgment.
Consider the recent outcry in Britain over the
visit of creationist Ken Ham.
We're all, I think, familiar with Ken Ham.
He's the president of Answers in Genesis Ministry.
And he goes around the country and around
the world.
He's an Australian.
He goes around the world speaking on the
subject of creationism and contending with those who
are promoting the evolutionary theory.
Well, he recently made a trip to Britain.
And believe it or not, his trip to
Britain was covered by every major newspaper in
the UK.
And boy, they came out of the woodwork
to attack Ken Ham and his message.
Listen to some of the quotes from the
British newspapers.
Here's a quote from an American professor who
had to get his shots in.
And so he wrote to one of the
British papers.
American professor Neil Shanks of East Tennessee State
University declared, if the experience in the US
is anything to go by, this attempt by
assorted Christian fundamentalist Taliban wannabes to turn the
clock of science back to the Middle Ages
will not stop with biology.
The Guardian, one of the leading newspapers in
England, stated this, the creation myths are based
on nothing but the fantasies of the ignorant
who lived long ago.
To tell our children that ancient traditions, the
dreams of our uneducated forefathers and holy writings,
which must not be questioned or impugned for
fear of blasphemy, are sources of authority about
the world on a par with science is
a travesty.
Quoting Richard Dawkins, the professor from Oxford and
great opponent of creationism, he stated to the
press, any science teacher who denies that the
world is billions or even millions of years
old is teaching children a preposterous, mind-shrinking
falsehood.
These men disgrace the honorable profession of teacher.
Then one other quote from one of the
papers, so long as the antibodies of common
sense are all around, early exposure to religion
can provide a sort of inoculation.
And I would personally encourage bands of hooded
nuns, creepy evangelists, bearded rabbis, and one-eyed
imams to tour our primary schools, wailing incantations
and scaring the wits out of the kids
as a living demonstration of the madness of
religion.
This is just an example of the rhetoric
coming from many of the journalists and many
of the key humanistic leaders in Britain.
And of course, the outcry in this country,
whenever we talk of the subject of creation
is very similar.
And as we look at that, it seems
to me that boy judgment must be coming.
How could the Lord continue to tolerate this
sort of thing?
As many of you know, this past week,
the U.S. Supreme Court voted in a
six to three decision to protect under the
banner of free speech, certain forms of child
pornography.
There are presently 20 cases in U.S.
courts attacking the public display of the 10
commandments and all around us in our society
here in the United States and throughout the
world, we see indicators that judgment seems to
be very near.
The world does indeed seem ripe for judgment,
but there is another possibility.
And that's the possibility of revival in the
church and a spiritual awakening in the nation.
Now, I know it's hard to believe that
that might be able to happen at this
stage, but this morning we want to take
a quick overview of American history and we'll
find that as bad as it is right
now, it has been bad in the past.
So there is the possibility based on the
scriptures and what we know from history that
there could be another move of the spirit
of God.
America in the past has experienced three great
awakenings, and they're referred to as great awakenings
because they were movements of the spirit of
God that impacted the very core of the
nation, touched the entire nation and actually altered
the course of our history.
We've had three great awakenings in the history
of our nation and several smaller moves of
the spirit of God that have impacted local
areas.
But yet some might say, I think we're
just too far gone.
We've gone too far.
America, there's no way that we could see
a turn at the place that we're in
right now.
And, you know, that might be true.
That might be true, but there are a
few things that we need to remember when
we think about this whole issue of judgment
or the possibility of revival.
The few things that we need to remember
are number one, according to Isaiah 28, 21.
Judgment is the Lord's strange work.
Judgment is something that God is reluctant to
do.
And I think history itself testifies to that.
Think of all of the wickedness that has
gone on historically.
Think of all the sin and the disregard
for God and his laws and how few
times God has really intervened in judgment.
We see a God who is reluctant to
judge.
And according to Isaiah, judgment is God's strange
work.
It's not something that he delights in doing.
It's not something that he longs to do.
As a matter of fact, through the prophets,
God said, I take no pleasure in the
death of the wicked.
When Israel was at the height of their
wickedness, God would plead with them and say,
oh, turn Israel, turn backsliding daughter.
And we see that God is reluctant to
judge.
We need to remember that.
Secondly, we need to remember that according to
Micah 718, God delights in showing mercy.
That is something that the Lord delights in
doing.
He's reluctant to judge, but he delights in
showing mercy.
And we have an excellent opportunity to see
mercy demonstrated.
Mercy means not getting what you deserve.
Now, do we deserve to be judged as
a nation?
Does the world itself deserve judgment?
I would say absolutely.
But yet, because we deserve it, we cannot
finally draw the conclusion that that is what
we have in our immediate future.
It could be that God would like to
show mercy because he delights in showing mercy.
So we've got to remember that it's a
strange work to judge.
He delights in showing mercy.
And we also need to remember history beginning
with the history of Israel.
There were many times in the history of
the nation of Israel where it seemed that
they had come to the end.
And of course, as Pastor Chuck is taking
us through the history right now, we're seeing
how miserably the Israelites failed in their commitment
to God.
And there are many times, as you study
that history, where it seems that they're on
the brink of extinction because of their sin.
The book of Judges is a great example.
The book of Judges covers approximately a 335
year period of time.
And at the end of the book of
Judges, you pretty much feel like it's hopeless.
There's nothing that could happen that would alter
the course of Israel's history at that point.
But yet we find that God wasn't finished
with them.
And the book of Judges ends with the
reign of Samuel as a prophet.
And then ultimately with David coming in as
the king and a new day of mercy
and grace upon the people.
So where it seemed like judgment was inevitable,
we see that God had mercy in store
for the people.
We see the same thing as we follow
the history of Judah.
Under the reign of Ahaz, it seemed that
things couldn't get any worse.
And then God raises up Hezekiah.
And there's times of refreshing from the presence
of the Lord.
There's a revival that occurs during the reign
of Manasseh, 55 year reign of wickedness.
Again, it seemed like there was no possibility
that anything good could ever come after the
reign of Manasseh.
But Josiah rises up and through Josiah, God
once again brings a time of refreshment.
And then as we follow the history out
to the New Testament period, how much darker
could things have gotten than Herod being the
king over the Jews at the time of
the birth of Christ?
The lowest point in their history, a non
-Jew sitting upon the throne known as the
king of the Jews.
And yet it was during that dark, dark
hour that Jesus Christ came.
And following the coming of Jesus Christ, of
course, came the day of Pentecost.
And once again, a fresh work of God's
spirit among the people.
Now, as we follow history from the day
of Pentecost up until today, we could take
surveys of various regions, various nations, and we
could find similar stories as to what we
see in the history of the nation of
Israel.
But we want to concentrate particularly this morning
on our own country, the United States of
America.
We tend to think that up until modern
times, America was a solidly Christian nation with
a high moral standard originally established by our
founding fathers and only recently undermined by the
infiltration of liberals into our culture.
This somewhat inaccurate view of history can, I
believe, undermine our hope in the possibility of
God doing a great work in our day.
You see, if we think it's as bad
as it's ever been and because it's so
bad, nothing good can happen in the future,
then we're not going to be looking forward
in faith to the possibility of God doing
something.
But if we are thinking that way, it's
because we don't have a totally accurate view
of our history.
As we go back in the history of
our country, we find that there were times
that were in many ways similar to the
times that we're living in today.
Let me give you some examples.
Americans in the late 1700s were greatly influenced
by the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau in
France and by Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen
here in America.
Let me quote to you from the writings
of Paine and Allen.
Paine, in his book, Age of Reason, he
said, It is impossible to conceive a story
more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent with
his wisdom, more contradictory to his power than
this story of the Bible is.
He was a very popular writer at the
time.
Ethan Allen, in his book, Reason, the Only
Oracle of Man, he said the doctrine of
the Trinity is destitute of foundation and tends
manifestly to superstition and idolatry.
As to the atonement, Allen declared, There could
be no justice or goodness in one being
suffering for another, nor is it all at
all compatible with reason to suppose that God
was the contriver of such a propitiation.
And then a man who was more or
less the disciple of both of these men,
writing a bit later, Elihu Palmer, in his
book, Principles of Nature, he said this, The
simple truth is that their pretended savior is
nothing more than an illegitimate Jew, and their
hopes of salvation through him rest on no
better foundation than that of fornication or adultery.
The Bible is a book whose indecency and
immorality shock all common sense and common honesty.
A big fan of Thomas Paine was Thomas
Jefferson.
He was a great admirer of Thomas Paine,
and he held to many of the same
views.
Such was the thinking of the day.
That was the thinking of the day.
Let me give you an example of the
moral and social conditions at the time.
Drunkenness became epidemic.
Out of a population of 5,300,000
were confirmed drunkards.
They were burying 15,000 of them each
year.
Profanity was of the most shocking kind.
For the first time in the history of
the American settlement, women were afraid to go
out at night for fear of assault.
Bank robberies were a daily occurrence.
The Chief Justice of the United States, John
Marshall, wrote to the Bishop of Virginia, James
Madison, that the church was too far gone
to ever be redeemed.
Voltaire and Paine had declared Christianity will be
forgotten in 30 years.
The colleges of the day were bastions of
infidelity.
Nothing's changed.
A poll taken at Harvard had discovered not
one believer in the whole student body.
At Princeton, two believers and only five students
that didn't belong to the filthy speech movement
of the day.
Students rioted.
They held a mock communion at Williams College,
and they put on anti-Christian plays at
Dartmouth.
They took a Bible and burned it in
a public bonfire.
Christians were so few on campuses in the
1790s that they met in secret and kept
their minutes in code so that no one
would know who they were.
The church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote, it
seemed that Christianity was about to be ushered
out of the affairs of men.
That is part of our history.
We don't realize that so often.
We live with these assumptions, that all things
were so wonderful back then.
What happened to change things?
Well, what happened is the second great awakening
occurred beginning in the 1790s and going all
the way through to about 1840.
Let me read you the account.
The awakening broke out first in Connecticut, then
spread to Massachusetts and all the seaboard states.
A man named James McGreedy, pastor of three
small churches in Logan County, Kentucky, wrote in
his diary that the winter of 1799 was
for the most part weeping and mourning with
the people of God.
Lawlessness prevailed everywhere.
Then in the summer of 1800, the great
Kentucky revival came.
11,000 people came to a communion service.
Out of the second great awakening came the
whole modern missionary movement.
Out of it came the abolition of slavery
and popular education, Bible societies and Sunday school,
along with countless social benefits.
You see, the things that we look back
on and tend to use as references to
support our idea that we've always been a
Christian country.
These are things that were the result of
the great awakening.
It's my position this morning that there is
the possibility, although it looks bleak, although it
seems that once again, Christianity could be ushered
out of the affairs of men.
I believe that it's possible that God might
want to once again work in a special
way, pouring out his spirit, bringing revival to
the church and awakening to those outside the
church.
And so let's talk now about the subject
of revival.
What is revival?
We hear about it.
Sometimes you're driving down the road and you
see a sign out in front of a
church says revival this week, 730.
Revival is something that does have application to
the church, but I don't think it's something
that we can plan in that sort of
a way.
I do think there are things that we
can do that will lend themselves to revival.
And next Sunday, we're going to talk about
that.
But ultimately, I believe that revival is something
that is up to the sovereign choice of
God.
But as we look at history and as
we look at where we are today, I
believe that.
Although conditions are certainly ripe for judgment, they
are also ripe for revival because this is
the kind of environment that revival so often
occurs in.
Let me give you a definition of revival.
Revival is a special season of refreshing when
many believers simultaneously experience a deep Holy Spirit
conviction of sin, resulting in their confession and
renunciation of sin and a renewal of their
dedication to the Lord.
Revival leads to a new commitment to holiness,
a fresh evangelistic zeal and a missionary vision.
You see, revival is something that God does
for his people.
When we have.
Backslidden, maybe not outwardly backslidden, maybe we're still
going to church, we're still carrying around our
Bibles, we're still going through the motions.
But yet in our hearts, we've moved away
from that place of intimacy and total commitment
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
When do revivals come?
Revival is usually preceded by a time of
spiritual depression, apathy and gross sin in which
the majority of nominal Christians are hardly different
in any substantive way from the members of
secular society.
You see, the big problem in our country
today, we talk about how come, you know,
things keep going from bad to worse.
And what about all the conversions that are
taking place and all the churches that are
rising up?
And we see a lot of activity.
But when you start analyzing things closely, you
find that although churches are filling up with
people, there's not a whole lot of difference
between the lifestyle of those in the churches
and those outside the churches.
And so, great numbers of people flocking to
a place to worship does not necessarily indicate
that everything's right.
What indicates that everything's right is that we're
living lives that are glorifying God.
And revival is that time of refreshment, that
time when God moves once again and he
convicts us and he calls us to put
aside things that maybe we've allowed to creep
into our lives after being a Christian for
some time.
You all know how it is when you
first became a Christian.
In a sense, you were reckless when it
came to your commitment to the Lord and
your just casting off of the things of
the world.
You just didn't want to have anything to
do with the world, everything, just throw it
out, put it in the rubbish bin, burn
it.
But as time goes on, you start to
grow a little bit cold and your heart
becomes a bit hardened.
And then you start slowly bringing those things
back into your life.
And pretty soon the cares of this life,
the deceitfulness of riches, the desire for other
things come in and they begin to choke
out the word.
It's at those times that we need to
be revived.
And so revival is primarily for the people
of God.
Now, awakening is something that comes alongside revival
and impacts those outside the church, bringing them
to a saving faith in Christ.
And generally speaking, revival and awakening happen simultaneously
as God begins to move in his church
by his spirit, bringing a fresh conviction of
sin and a fresh call to commitment.
God also begins to work in the society
outside, beginning to convict people of sin.
Isn't that the great need in our country
today, that people would come under the conviction
of sin?
Today, when you talk to people about sin,
they dismiss the whole idea.
There's no such thing people say.
How can you convince a person who doesn't
believe that there's any sort of truth at
all?
That there is truth and that one of
the truths is the issue of sin.
We need something more than our ability to
argue.
We need the power of the spirit of
God.
But when God begins to move among his
people and to spark revival, he generally also
begins to move out in the culture and
bring conviction of sin.
Awakenings begin in periods of cultural distortion and
grave personal stress.
When we lose faith in the legitimacy of
our norms, the viability of our institutions and
the authority of our leaders in church and
state.
Does that describe where we're at today?
We are ripe for one or the other.
We're ripe for judgment, certainly, but we're also
ripe for a revival.
We're ripe for an awakening.
And I believe that as the people of
God, we ought to anticipate that God might
indeed show mercy because he delights to do
it.
And that he might once again work in
this sort of way.
Should we hope for revival?
I believe that we should.
And there are three reasons why I believe
that.
And I just mentioned the first one, God
delights to show mercy.
It's God's delight to show mercy.
He takes pleasure in it.
He enjoys it.
And, you know, sometimes when I'm praying for
the situation and, you know, in my frustration,
I'm calling out to God to do something.
And many times I'm saying, Lord, judge this
place.
And and then I think, you know, I
have to stop and pause and think I
was just like these people.
And many of you, you would say the
same thing.
I was just like that.
I at one time lived my life for
myself.
I had no regard for God or the
things of God.
I wasn't interested.
I was living in sin and rebelling against
God and frankly, didn't really care about any
of this.
And yet God did what he showed mercy
on me.
And so sometimes as I'm crying out in
prayer and as I'm, you know, saying God
judge, suddenly my own life flashes before me
and I think, oh, maybe I'm praying the
wrong thing.
And I thank God that people were praying
for me, not that God would judge me,
that God would save me.
And we as God's people, I believe that
because God delights to show mercy, we ought
to anticipate that perhaps at this dark hour
he might show mercy.
Secondly, I believe that we should hope for
revival because the scripture speaks of the spirit
being poured out in the last days.
This is the promise all through the Bible.
In the last days, I will pour out
my spirit on all flesh, says the Lord.
Now, the closer we get to the second
coming of Christ, the further down the road
of the last days we go.
And so I believe that we can biblically
anticipate outpourings of the spirit of God as
we get closer and closer to the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so as we look around the world
today and we see so many things that
seem to indicate that the coming of Christ
is soon.
And I'm all for anticipating the rapture.
And that certainly would be the most desirable
thing from our perspective.
But at the same time, I want to
realize that God might want to do something
fresh.
God might want to push the pause button
for a bit.
You know, because our time frame is not
necessarily God's time frame.
And God has done that historically.
It seems that there are times when it
seems that everything is coming unraveled and it's
all just about to come to an end.
And then the Lord just hits pause.
And things change and God moves by his
spirit and he gives a time of refreshment
and blessing, and then he hits pause again
and we're back rolling and we head further
down the road.
And who knows, but what God might perhaps
hit the pause button in the future.
It looks like everything's coming down the wire
right this moment, and it could be, but
perhaps not.
The third reason why I think we should
hope for revival is because, and this is
purely subjective, it seems to me that God
is moving in that direction.
As I personally look at things, it seems
to me, although I can look at the
international situation, I can look at the Middle
East crisis, and there are many things that
seem to point in the direction of the
second coming.
Yet I look at other things and it
seems that there's still something that God wants
to do.
And I take that from just my own
understanding of what God is doing in the
ministry of Calvary Chapel and the expansion of
the ministry of Calvary Chapel.
Not to say that Calvary Chapel is the
only ministry God's doing something, and he's doing
things through a lot of ministries, and we
thank God for that.
But I'm not involved in those, so I
don't know the details, but I do know
the details of what he's doing here.
And as I look at what he's doing
through the ministry of Calvary Chapel, I think,
Lord, it seems like you're on the move.
It seems like you're preparing for something significant
in the future.
Here we are now as a ministry, we've
grown, we've got over a thousand churches affiliated,
and weekly we get stacks of applications for
affiliation.
People are wanting to join in with what
God is doing.
New churches are being planted, new men are
being raised up to spread the gospel.
And if you look at a map of
the United States where 10 years ago we
had the West Coast and just little, you
know, smatterings on the East Coast, we're starting
to see the U.S. map filled in
with churches throughout the country.
And then if we look on an international
level, we're seeing that God is opening the
doors internationally.
We have the Bible College and the extension
campuses where we literally have thousands of young
men and women preparing themselves for service to
God.
And I look at that and I think,
okay, Lord, it seems like this is all
preparatory for something in the future.
I think of how when I first went
into Europe many years ago, there was nothing
there.
Now we have facilities, we have conference centers,
we have Bible colleges, we have churches planted.
And we're, you know, going in 10 years
ago, there was nothing there.
And we were working with just, you know,
small groups of people in homes and things
like that.
Now I look and I see, Lord, you've
laid the groundwork, you've laid a foundation.
And it just seems hard for me to
believe that God would have laid a foundation
to not erect the structure.
I look at the expanding of the radio
ministry and the more than 350 radio stations
that are part of Calvary Chapel and how
we're getting calls every day from people all
over the country who are saying, this radio
station has revolutionized my life.
And they're going back to their churches, not
Calvary Chapel churches necessarily.
They're going to their Lutheran church or their
Episcopal church or their Presbyterian church or their
Baptist church.
And they're going back and saying, man, God's
really touched me through this radio station, encouraging
people to tune in and God's doing something
there.
And again, I look at that and I
just think, well, Lord, it seems peculiar that
you would build all of this stuff up
and then just sort of pull the plug.
Now, like I said, this is purely subjective.
I could be dead wrong.
But as I look at this, it's because
of what I see happening in our own
ministry that I think we ought to be
hoping for revival.
Now, is revival guaranteed?
Can we say dogmatically, authoritatively, if we do
these things and God is obligated to bring
revival and absolutely it's going to happen?
Is revival guaranteed?
Let me quote A.
W.
Tozer to answer that question.
What God and his sovereignty may yet do
on a worldwide scale, I do not claim
to know.
But what he will do for the plain
man or woman who seeks his face, I
believe I do know and can tell others.
Let any man turn to God in earnest.
Let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness.
Let him seek to develop his powers of
spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility,
and the results will exceed anything he may
have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.
Is there a worldwide awakening coming?
Is there a national revival and awakening coming?
I don't know.
But this is what I do know.
There can be a personal revival that will
come for any man or woman who says,
Lord, I want all of you.
I want to be sold out.
In some cases, Lord, I want to get
back to where I was in those early
days as a Christian.
I want that passion, that fire.
I want you to be the priority in
my life once again.
Revival will come for us individually if we
seek it.
And inevitably, if it comes for us individually,
it's going to touch others.
You know, as I mentioned, there have been
the great awakenings and then there have been
lesser moves to the spirit of God that
have not necessarily impacted the whole nation or
the world, but they've impacted certain regions.
So it's possible that you might have an
Orange County revival or an L.A. County
revival, a Southern California revival, something like that.
But then it's also possible that it could
spread across the country and around the world.
Personal revival is indeed guaranteed.
And so I close this morning with this.
Where does revival start?
Well, I think we've already answered it.
It starts with us.
It starts with me.
And as I mentioned, next Sunday, we're going
to look at things that will lend to
revival and things that will also hinder revival.
And I would really encourage you to be
praying this week that God would be preparing
your heart for that.
But revival starts with me.
It starts with me and my determination to
get right with God completely.
Here's a good prayer I suggest.
God, if there's anything that's come into my
life that's not of you, then I pray
you'd remove it.
And God, if there's anything lacking from my
life that you want to instill in it,
God, I pray that you'd bring it.
And you know what?
You pray that sincerely and God will do
it.
And that will begin the revival.
The Welsh revival of 1904-1905 began with
a young woman publicly proclaiming, I love the
Lord Jesus Christ with all my heart.
A few months later, 100,000 people from
all walks of life were proclaiming the same
thing.
But that was the spark.
It was one young woman standing up in
a meeting in absolute purity and sincerity and
just expressing what was happening in her heart
that moment.
I love the Lord Jesus Christ with all
my heart.
And that sparked a fire that changed the
course of history for many people and not
only for Wales, but for many other nations
because it spread out from there to other
places.
And this is the searching question that I
leave you with today.
Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ with
all your heart?
Can you affirm that not around your peers,
not to impress anyone publicly, but standing before
God?
Can you affirm I love the Lord Jesus
Christ with all my heart?
Can you say honestly, Lord, to the best
of my knowledge and the best of my
ability, I am completely sold out to you
and committed to doing your will.
If you cannot say that today, then I
suggest you need revival.
You need revival because that's where we need
to be.
That's where we ought to be.
That's where God's people are called to be.
And remember, it all begins with us.
We look out at our world and we
wonder how bad is it going to get?
We have the ability to influence.
You know, we have so much emphasis on
political things and we've got to get the
right people in office and so forth.
And have you ever noticed when we get
a good candidate, we can't get him voted
in?
Why can't we get him voted in?
Because people don't agree with what he stands
for.
How do you change that?
Well, people get saved in their worldview changes.
Their priorities change.
Their thinking process changes and they change who
they vote for.
You see, some people emphasize the need for
social reform and political involvement and all of
those things.
But, you know, those are things that really
have proven not to be that effective.
And the way change has been brought about.
And this is what I think we fail
to realize because we don't understand totally our
history.
The way things have changed has not been
through forcing things in the political realm, but
the way things have changed is because the
church has been revived.
The society has been awakened and that's changed
everything from the bottom to the top.
And we need a drastic change in our
culture today.
The only way it's going to come is
if it comes this way.
We don't know what God has in store
for sure, but I think, as I said,
we should hope for revival and allow God
to begin it with us.
Let's pray.
Lord, we do pray today that revival would
begin right here with us, right in our
hearts.
And as we stand before you today, Lord,
like an open book, you know us, you
know our down-sitting, our uprising, you know
our thoughts are far off.
Lord, we pray with the psalmist, search me,
O God, and know my heart.
Try me and know my thoughts and see
if there be any wicked way in me.
Lead me in the way everlasting.
Lord, that we might be able to say
with an absolute sincerity that we love the
Lord Jesus Christ with all of our hearts.
To that end, we pray that you would
work by your spirit today.
Amen.
Let's stand together.
Let God work in your midst.
You know, I do believe that there's something
stirring.
And I know a number of young people
right around our church here who a year
ago, many of them were into drugs and
alcohol.
Some of them were into just, you know,
being part of the culture, spending their time,
music and movies and just the typical entertainment
sort of thing.
But something's happening and God's moving.
And now they're gathering together.
And instead of being involved in those things,
they're coming together.
They've got their Bibles out.
They're sharing scriptures with each other.
They're worshiping the Lord.
They're praying that God would touch their friends.
And to me, that's an indicator that God
is on the move.
May he do that with all of us,
regardless of age.
God bless you.