So I'm going to tell you guys something you already
know. Your pastor's a really great guy. We met
over the phone for like 30 minutes, and I'm going
to be honest with you, don't tell anybody I said
this, okay? But there's some people I got to
talk to for 30 minutes, and I'm like, please,
Lord, when's it going to end? But your pastor,
I sat down with him and I was like, man, it's
already been an hour. You want to just go get
a cup of coffee real quick and talk a little
bit more and get to know each other? He's a great
guy. And pastor, I just thank you for the opportunity
to come and speak before your people. It's a
privilege and an honor. And I'm really going
to hope and pray that I don't fall off this thing
because I am a little ADHD and don't pay attention
to all the details often. So I come to you from
a holy land with my wife. Stand up, Sydney. This
is my beautiful wife. And this holy land is known
as Springfield, Missouri, the Mecca of the Assemblies
of God. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Me and my wife
lived in Arkansas. I moved to Arkansas when I
was 12 years old. We raised our budget. We've
still got just a little bit to raise, but we're
just right at the finish line. We raised it enough
to start doing the ministry full time there.
And we've just went full send for the call of
God. How many of you have heard of the World
Prayer Center? Just a few of you guys last night,
right? That's what I was hoping for. So the World
Prayer Center is a brand new ministry that the
Assemblies of God is doing. Is it okay if I step
down off of this thing? Okay, okay. I didn't
want a full -blown manifestation. You know, some
people are like, don't step out of the box, man.
You know, it gets a little wild some places.
So the World Prayer Center is a brand new ministry
started by the Assemblies of God. And pretty
much the way this began is we began to look at
our culture, the United States of America, and
the place that was once known as the great gospel
enterprise is no longer the great gospel enterprise.
See, nowadays you look around and you can see,
I mean, in Pennsylvania, they have a beautiful
city block that is now dedicated where people
can go together and do fentanyl and heroin and
whatever they want to do legally. They don't
have to worry about it. You go to California,
you've got Skid Row. It's the same kind of situation
in Las Vegas, Nevada. They have the first ever
legal brothel, a house of prostitution. America
has fallen from grace. She's no longer the place
where the gospel is front and center. She's now
the place where the LGBTQ agenda has infiltrated
the church. She's the place where the church
is no longer talking about the gospel. They're
talking about politics. And she's the place where
prayer is now outlawed in some schools, but they
want to vote for Sharia law from the Islamic
religion. And places like Texas and New York
City, America is no longer centered around the
gospel that we were built upon. And even though
the forefathers were not perfect godly men, they
knew what it was to bring Judeo -Christian values
into a culture and build a culture off of that.
And one of the things we see is, as I said last
night, is it's like the book of Judges, where
after Joshua had brought Israel into the promised
land, there was a generation that grew up that
did not know what God had done for the generation
before them. And it was simply because mom and
dad didn't sit down and take care of their daughters
and their sons and begin to tell them about the
God that they knew from the beginning. As a matter
of fact, they sat down and they got comfortable
and they said, let's look at all of our blessings.
Let's look at all the good things God is doing
and we'll just hope that our kids learn it by
proxy, by osmosis. And the thing about humans
is maybe we can all agree is, you know, maybe
not you, but humans are dumb by nature. We're
forgetful. We're selfish. And so what began to
take place in America was when we got a little
comfortable and we sat down, we moved away from
the foundation of the Christian life. I want
you to hear me, friend. The Christian life is
not about being a good person. You can't do it
even if you tried. You're bound just like the
rest of us. The Christian life is not about how
many pages of the Bible you read every day. The
devil knows Scripture better than any of us.
And he's not saved. The Christian life is about
a right relationship with God. And that comes
through the place of prayer. And when we look
at the culture today, we can see that the number
one problem, the number one reason we began to
fall away from the Christian values that we were
founded on, the number one reason this nation
that used to be known as the great gospel enterprise
has now crumbled into pagan idolatry and secular
humanism and all sorts of other issues is simply
because people in the church quit praying. They
quit worrying about relationship with God. Well,
how do you know this, Travis? Well, the Assemblies
of God statistician, his name is Mike Clarenshaw.
You guys can look him up. He's released a statistic.
Now, a little fun fact about the Assemblies of
God before I say this is we were built as a group
of people who prayed. There was a one -eyed African
-American man who was a former slave. All the
cards were stacked against him. He had no hope
of doing anything really in the culture. Because
of the color of his skin, he was not allowed
to sit in a Bible college classroom. He had to
sit outside of the door. And that man prayed
for eight hours a day until a move of God hit
America called the Azusa Street Revival. And
that's when the Pentecostal movement really exploded,
what it was born out of. We were built as a people
of prayer. But now the statistic is that we have
85 million people in the United States of America
that attend an Assemblies of God church, and
only 2 -4 % of them pray monthly as a body. We've
fallen. We've simply forgotten what it is to
know God. We've grown comfortable with His activity.
with his hand, but we missed his face. And just
as I told some of the individuals last night,
one of the problems in America is that we can
enjoy the benefits of someone's past relationship
with God and still not know him. I can enjoy
the benefit of the carpenter that built this
building, the benefit of the concrete worker
that paved the road outside. I can enjoy the
work of their hands and recognize it, but it
doesn't mean that I know the one who did it.
And when you have a group of people who they
come and they go to church and they don't even
pray together, I do have to ask a simple question.
And we were having fun earlier and I'm about
to suck all the fun out of the room for a minute.
But I have to ask a very simple question. Do
you even know Christ? If you can't sit and be
with Him. And so at the World Prayer Center,
our mission is to take the level of prayer in
America and raise it up even just a little bit.
And we do this in three ways. The first one is
we invite pastors and staff and laity, everybody
from the church to come to the prayer center
in Springfield, Missouri. And we have a day of
training and prayer. Now when I say a day of
training, a lot of prayer conferences are six
hours of preaching and then 20 minutes of praying.
We don't do that. We're going to talk to you
for an hour, hour and a half tops, and you're
going to go pray for two or three with us. And
we've got, everybody loves the room. It's got
this giant 600 square foot LED floor connected
to Google Earth. I told your pastor we need to
get you guys to come sometime, so maybe if you
bug him enough, he'll get something scheduled
with me. The other way we do this, Because what
I'm doing right now, we travel as evangelists
across the nation. Anywhere that wants to invite
us, we come, we preach on prayer, and we try
to just bring the level of prayer up by giving
people a burden to pray and teaching them what
prayer does in a culture. And the third way is
by hosting what we're calling prayer sieges based
off the ministry of Charles Finney. Charles Finney
was a man. He was probably one of the greatest
evangelists to ever live. He's known as a grandfather
of revival. He would go into a city 30 days after
his intercessors, Daniel Nash and Abel Cleary.
They would go in, they would pray for 12 -hour
shifts for 24 hours. How many of you guys would
like that job? That'd be a difficult job. They'd
pray for 12 hours apiece. And then when they
would get done praying, they would tell Finney,
the Lord has come. And when Finney would go into
a city, it wasn't like, you know, in this time
they didn't have Instagram or Facebook or TikTok.
They didn't post flyers. They didn't have printers
to really do all this kind of stuff. At this
time, Finney would go into a city and he would
just go wherever God led him. And the effect
his ministry would have after he left was astronomical.
Fifteen years after Finney had been to a city,
Evangelists would come in and they would ask
a question, has Finney come here? And if they
said yes, they'd go, pack the bags, boys. We're
going down the road. And when people asked why,
they would call it burn over grounds. Because
even 15 years later, the bars would still be
closed down. 15 years later, the crime rate would
still be down. People would actually be selling...
selling their businesses and their buildings
and giving the money to the church so the church
could expand to fit the people that were coming
in. But here's the fun part. Finney's ministry
only lasted 10 years. His ministry ended when
Daniel Nash and Abel Cleary died. He said, when
the intercessors were gone, my ministry didn't
matter anymore. So he dedicated the rest of his
life to teaching students at Oberlin College.
And he began to teach them about prayer and evangelism,
about intercession, and even theology about revival.
And many of his students went on to partake in
the Second Great Awakening, which changed the
culture in the United States. So at the World
Prayer Center, we go to any city that wants to
have us, and we pray for 10, 12 hours a day as
a team. And we host revival type services and
we see God move. And we're hoping that combining
all three of those things together, we can begin
to get people excited for the place of prayer
again. How many of you guys think that's an awesome
ministry? Wonderful. Wonderful. So a little bit
about me. You know, I'm not a preacher's kid.
I didn't grow up in ministry. As a matter of
fact, if you look at my life, you would think,
how in the world did that guy end up at a pulpit?
I grew up in a house where my father was absent.
My mother was a raging alcoholic and a drug addict.
And by the way, I grew up in a land not too far
from here. Not too far from Illinois. Some of
you guys would call it a mission field. It's
a place called Springfield. How many of you guys
have been to Springfield? Yeah. Yep. And so in
Springfield, my mom, although she really tried,
she was not a great mother. Is that okay? Is
that acceptable for me to say that? Can we just
be honest for a minute? She's probably watching
the live stream right now. I love you, Mom. Do
what? Yeah, she's great now. I was getting there.
I was getting there. My wife is trying to be
like, smooth it out a little bit. Smooth it out.
Damage control. But she wasn't that great. She
tried, but she was broken. She grew up in a home
where when their father died, they kind of celebrated
on Christmas Day. He was not a good man. He beat
their mother. He beat the kids. So in my home,
we didn't really do much with Christmas. Jesus
was never mentioned. As a matter of fact, in
my home, I would say Jesus was a cuss word. The
only time you heard his name is when somebody
stubbed their toe or you turned on TV and somebody
was blaspheming him as a joke. We didn't go to
church. I'd never heard the gospel. And so growing
up, there was no message or idea of hope in my
life. Dad wasn't around. Mom was cruel. And add
on top of all of that, we grew up and we were
dirt poor. I'd go to school and kids would make
fun of me because my shoes would be falling apart.
Not knowing that when I went home that day, I
would either be without electricity or water,
and I wouldn't know when my next meal came in
outside of school. How many of you guys know
that that creates a catastrophic mindset growing
up? When I was 12 years old and we moved to Arkansas,
you would think things got better because we
moved to the Bible Belt. You know, the Bible
Belt is not so fascinated with the Bible. See,
we were surrounded by Assemblies of God, Pentecostal
churches, but nobody had ever shared the gospel
with me. And when my mom got down there, you
know, we moved to a dry county, so I don't know
how many of you guys know what that means, but
you can't just go to the store and buy alcohol.
Like, you've got to go a distance to do that.
So my mom found a drug called methamphetamine.
How many of you guys have heard of that one?
That one's wild. She began doing meth. She began
selling a little bit of meth. And then on top
of that, she would just drive an hour away to
get a bunch of alcohol and sell that too from
the house. We had all kinds of fun. I say that
sarcastically. When I was 12 years old, I had
a kid at school come up to me and he was like,
hey man, you seem like you're one of us. And
he said, here, he's an older kid. He was like,
here, let's smoke some weed together. Cool. Might
as well. I'm already drinking on the weekends.
Already partying. So 12, you know, getting drunk
on the weekends, smoking weed every day. And
then they started introducing me to things like
Oxycontin. You know, I took eight 100 -milligram
Seroquel one day, overdosed in class, and they
were like, we cannot have this kid in here anymore.
He is out of hand. By the time I was 14 years
old, I was already arrested a few times. Now,
the cops had mercy on me because they knew who
my mom was, so they would just take me back home
and take whatever they found on me. But when
I was 15 years old, that grace ran out. They
did not care. Didn't care. And so, at 15 years
old, my mother goes to jail for 30 days. And
I was staying with some cousins and, you know,
I told them to take me back home because I was
scared people were robbing what little that I
had. And they did. I walk in my house and the
door on my trailer is ripped open. All of my
clothes are everywhere. Doors are kicked in,
dresser stuff gone. They'd effectively raided
my house because they knew our tax money came
in, and they were looking for the four grand
my mom got from the government. They found it.
And so I began hopping from house to house, from
couch to couch, trying to figure it out. You
can't get a hold of mom. She's in jail. She was
in there for 34 days, and she had an ulcer rupture,
so they cut her open from rib down to below her
belly button. They did an experimental surgery
and saved her life. While she's in the hospital,
she decides to pick up a Bible, a Gideon's Bible,
and start reading in the book of Psalms. Now
listen, for the life of me, I don't know why
you would pick up a book and start reading it
from the very beginning, or from the middle.
I would assume that you would pick it up and
start reading from Genesis, but I think that
would have confused her more. So she's reading
Psalms, and in one second, David's really happy,
and in the very next page, he's like, I want
to die. And she's like, what is going on with
this guy? And so she starts doing some Googling
and finding out this is a guy that's known as
a man after God's own heart. He was a king. He
was chosen. And, you know, he committed adultery
and then murdered a lady's husband. And she's
like, man, this guy is just about as messed up
as I am. Now, I think he probably would have
said, Teresa, you're a little bit worse than
me. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Again, mom,
I know you're watching. I love you. But she begins
reading and she begins wrestling with this idea
of this man known as a man after God's own heart
is suffering. And she thought if there was a
God, he must not be real because he doesn't love
me and I am suffering. And so what she does is
she decides to pull all the tubes out of her
stomach and walk home from the hospital. Because
she just can't handle what's going on inside
of her. God had effectively begun doing a work
in her that she was not comfortable with. And
she ends up miraculously meeting a woman that
was preaching to her in the jail. And she sits
down and has dinner with our pastor. She gets
saved, gives her life to Christ. And I mean,
it wasn't like, oh, she's saved, but she's being
sanctified. You know, whenever we make excuses
for the new Christian sin, you know, they're
saved, but they're still sleeping with their
boyfriend or their girlfriend because they're
new. I mean, she got saved. She got saved. I
mean, you came home and she wasn't drinking a
beer anymore. And I was like, bro, I've never
known my mom to not drink one day in her life.
What's going on? She came home and the meth was
gone. When they came to the house to get dope,
she was like, you got to leave. I don't do that
anymore. When they came into the house to buy
alcohol, she was like, no more. She looked at
me and said, you can't smoke weed in this house
anymore. I mean, she was not playing games. She
got saved. When she got saved, the TV got saved,
the library got saved, the house got saved. I
mean, everything got saved. Everything. There
was nothing there anymore that could not, you
know, like she was all in for God. And me and
my sister are thinking, what is this? Who possessed
you? And I had a problem because I was angry.
See, by the time I was 15 years old, I'd tried
to commit suicide on three separate occasions.
I didn't want to live. I thought about death
more than life. There was no hope for me. There
was no hope for anyone else. And I knew that
I was not a good person. I was mean. I was hateful.
I got in fights for fun. I was already on my
way to juvenile detention. Heck, one day prison
if something didn't happen. I was not a great
person. You didn't have to convince me of that.
If I would have believed in a hell, I would have
been like, yeah, and I'm going to burn. None
of that. You didn't have to convince me. And
so my mother walks in the house, and she thinks,
hey, we're going to go to church. And I was like,
I bet you are. I bet you are. You're right. You're
going to go. You're going to go alone. And so
I had really long hair back then, okay? I had
really long hair. I got married, and it started
falling out. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Don't
look at her. Don't look at her. She never travels
with me, so I get to pick on her a little bit
now. She never has the time. My mom kept the
girls. So anyway, she's like, she's a totally
different person. I used to watch my mom go to
the kitchen and drag knives across her arms.
I mean, she was a different person. There we
go. We sucked the fun out of the room again.
Something happened to her. And so she began grabbing
me by my hair and yanking me to that church building.
And here's the problem is now this youth pastor
is like, I have a 15 -year -old punk kid who
won't listen to anybody. I mean, he's respectful
enough to sit down in the back, but, you know,
leave him alone. Don't talk to him. You might
set him off. He's volatile. And they don't know
what to do with me, man. Like, they don't know
what to do with me. I get arrested for stealing
stuff from Walmart, and they come to the court
and, like, please make them do community service
with us. So they gave me 72 hours of community
service at the church, and the whole time I'm
digging a ditch that's already dug because they're
trying to figure out what to do, cleaning chairs,
vacuuming floors, and they're preaching to me.
And I'm like, listen, man, I hear you. I just
don't care. I don't believe in any of it. See,
I'd have inherited my mother's outlook on life.
If there is a God and if he is real, then he
hates me. And that's a whole lot harder to think
than, ah, there is no God. I'd rather live with
that than thinking that he hates me for no reason.
So one day the youth pastor comes to me and he,
you're the youth pastor, right? Don't ever do
this. Write this down. Do not do this. Like all
caps, take three pages and just tape it to the
wall. Tape it to the mirror at home. He walks
up to me and he says, hey man, I'm going to invite
you to this youth convention. And if you come
with us and you still don't believe in Jesus,
I'll convince your mom to quit making you go
to church on Sundays. He says, you've got to
come on Wednesdays. I mean, I was drunk most
of the time whenever she took me there on Sundays
anyway. Hungover, stoned, something. I mean,
everybody knew I wasn't paying attention. There's
Travis in the back. We don't know what he's doing.
And so he convinces me to go, and I was thinking,
this is going to be perfect. Two days. Two days.
I got to deal with these annoying people. I just
got to pretend to be friendly. I got to sit and
listen to somebody preach for a little bit. I
get up, go home, and I can laugh in my mother's
face, and I don't have to go to church again
on Sunday. Now, I don't know what he was going
to do because she wasn't going to be cool with
that deal. She was going to be like, you need
to tell him and repent to him for lying is what
she was going to say because that ain't happening.
Anyway, we go there, and the first night I'm
making fun of the guy preaching the whole time.
Like, this guy is stupid. Is it okay if I'm honest
with you? I'm going to do it anyway. I'm just
glad that now I have your blessing. I'm thinking
this guy is stupid. Like he's never lived a hard
life. He probably comes from a rich family. Look
at that Rolex on his arm. Those Jordans on his
feet. He's got this nice tuxedo shirt that I
could never afford, that we'd never have. I can't
even eat, and this guy's up here dressed like
that. He's going to tell me about suffering for
Christ? No. So night number one, they were like,
Travis, what do you think? And I was like, Jesus
is still not real. But night number two rolls
around. And night number two was a little bit
different. See, this guy went from, hey, guys,
we're going to have a great weekend to, like,
he went straight into Jesus died for you and
you got two choices. Like, and I'm sitting here
thinking, yeah, this is what these guys have
been telling me for six months. And he does the
weirdest thing ever. He says, I'm going to count
from three to one, and when I get to one, some
of you are going to be convicted you need to
give your life to Christ. I want you to run to
the front. We all stand, and I'm thinking, one
more altar call. That's all I have to get through.
One more of these awkward 20 minutes of people
walking around looking at you, asking you if
they can pray for you. One more. And then the
guy says three. And when he says three, listen
to me, I'm not one of those people. I didn't
look up and see heaven and look down and see
hell. You know, I didn't hear angels singing.
I didn't hear a voice go, Travis, this is your
guardian angel speaking. You need to give your
life to Jesus. I didn't hear that. I didn't hear
anything like that. But in that moment, something
hit me down to the depth of my being. And I want
you all to repeat this word after me. It's called
conviction. How many of you guys ever felt conviction
before? I'm talking the conviction of the Lord
where you're like, I'm going to die and go to
hell if something doesn't get right. I mean,
I was sitting here laughing at the guy, and he
says three, and then I just went stone cold,
straight faced, like, oh, no. What is going to
happen? And I'm thinking, okay, hell is real.
Check. Lake of fire is real. Lovely. He says
two. And I start connecting the dots. Well, if
the lake of fire is real, Jesus is real, and
I'm rejecting him, if I die, I'm going to go
to hell. How many of you know I wasn't laughing
anymore? I went from smiling and laughing and
making fun of the guy to just straight -faced
shaking. And then he said one. And when he said
come to the front, I came to the front. Now here's
the problem. There were about 500 or 600 other
kids that had the same idea. So the altar's just
crowded and they're like, pray. And I'm looking
like this. What do you mean pray? What are you
talking about? And so finally I sat there and
I went, okay. Jesus, Father, Holy Spirit, I don't
know which one of you is listening right now.
I had no idea what the doctrine of the Trinity
was. I didn't know anything. And I was like,
listen, listen. I don't know what you want from
me, but if you'll show me, I'll give it to you.
And I heard just this gentle, gentle voice, and
peace came in my soul, and he said, I'll take
that deal. And you would think, you know, gold
dust rained down, and cherubim came, and I spoke
in tongues. None of that happened either. As
a matter of fact, I went back home and the experience
so rattled me that I ran into drugs and alcohol
and all of that harder than I ever did before.
Because now I don't know what to do. The entire
world is different than what I thought it was.
Have you guys ever been in that moment? You just
start crashing out because you're like, dude,
I don't know. I don't even know. And here's the
interesting thing is instead of being at the
front and center of the party, you know, playing
beer pong or taking shots or whatever, I'd be
in a dark room arguing with a guy I didn't think
was there. And my friends would be like, what
happened to that guy? His mom started going to
church, man. He drank the Kool -Aid. And they'd
peep in and they'd hear me. Why won't you leave
me alone? Man, who's he talking to? why won't
you quit bothering me? And I'd hear that same
voice say, I thought you said you'd follow me.
And so after about a year of doing that, I was
like, you know what? You just took every bit
of fun out of getting high. Like now I'm miserable.
I get convicted every time. You know what? Following
you has got to be better. And so there was a
day when I bent the knee to Christ. And something
happened to me. The same thing that happened
to my mother. The same thing that happened to
many people that I've known before and after
that. Where the desire to get drunk no longer
permeated my being. The desire to get high was
no longer there. Now I still had a whole lot
of emotional baggage to work through. It's not
like Jesus came and was like, let me perfect
you. Which is what we typically think happens.
But He came and He took the things that had me
bound away so that I could begin walking with
Him. Now here's the problem with that. The church
that I was in, the reason why we had to go somewhere
else is what I said last night. Pastor, we were
Pentecostal. We didn't believe in power. We were
functional Baptists. It was Whitney Lane Family
Worship Center on the sign and Assemblies of
God was in the bottom right corner. They believed
that prayer worked, but never prayed. And you
heard three sermons all year round. Pray, read
your Bible, don't get drunk, don't commit adultery,
don't sin, have a good day. And the pray part
was just ask God for whatever you have need of.
There was no concept of relationship with God.
There was none of that. And so I feel called
to ministry at one point, and I go to Bible college,
and we have to go to Mardi Gras to preach the
gospel to people at the school I went to. Now,
how many of you guys have ever been to Mardi
Gras in New Orleans? Take their names down. Write
it down. Membership revoked. I'm kidding. We
had to go down there, and you want to talk about
a culture shock. I mean, people are stripping
naked just because you're preaching the gospel
to them, throwing beer on you, spitting in your
face. Like, it's a culture shock. And so we're
down there, and we have meetings with the students,
and this guy has this altar call, and he pulls
200 or 300 kids up here, college kids. I mean,
I'm still young compared to most of you guys,
but 18 -year -olds. Pulls them up here, and I
mean, some of them have serious issues, like
cystic fibrosis, respiratory issues, and whatnot.
He pulls them up here, and he begins praying
for them. And they're just like bodies in the
floor. People are getting healed. Some people
are crying and screaming. And I'm over here thinking,
what in the world is going on? This did not happen
at my church. And so I'm asking some of these
students, what's happening? And they're like,
go read the book of Acts. And I'm reading the
book of Acts, and people are jumping in Peter's
shadow, hoping they'll get healed. Paul's got
handkerchiefs that he wipes his sweat on, and
they lamb on people, and demons leave. And I'm
thinking, this is exactly what the Christian
life is supposed to look like, healing the sick,
raising the dead, and casting out demons. And
so I'm sitting in school, and I interrupt class
one day, and it's not even a class on anything,
really. It's geography. It's the geography of
Israel. Who cares about that class? And I interrupt,
and I go, hey, how did that guy heal those kids
in class? And the lady was like, just pray, and
then moved on like it was nothing. And so I wrote
that down. Check. We got to pray. Okay, so I
go home and I'm sitting down when I'm off work.
I'm sitting in my room with my Bible in my hand
and I'm going, how do I pray? Nobody ever taught
me that. That's a shame. We hope and pray that
people will come into the church and we hope
that they'll get saved and they'll give their
life to Christ, but then we don't do anything
with them. We expect them to come in and learn.
I mean, you're telling people to read a book
that's from thousands of years ago. Like they're
going to just understand it and pick it up. And
some things in the book are really simple, but
some things are not. And part of the call of
Christ was not to just be somebody who makes
converts and fills some chairs. It was to be
somebody who made disciples. And that's not for
the pastor. That's for everybody. Like your call
is part of the great commission is to go forth
and make disciples of all nations. And a disciple
is somebody who's just like you. It is your responsibility
to find somebody, even if it's just your children.
Teach them the ways of Christ. Your job is to
teach them how to pray, not pastors. Deep breath,
Travis. It's okay. I told you guys, I get a little
excited sometimes. He's squirrely, guys. Just
give him a minute. He'll calm down. But really,
like, nobody discipled me. I would go ask people
questions, and they would just say, you got to
be led by the Spirit, brother. What does that
mean? I don't know. then why are you telling
me to do it? You don't know. You've been in church
for 40 years, and you have no idea what that
means, and you're telling me that I have to do
it? And so I would get frustrated, man. I have
nobody to teach me anything. And I'd sit there
with my Bible, and I'd be like, okay, God, you've
got to show me how to pray. And you know what
began to happen? Over time, I went from knocking
on a door hoping somebody was listening to where
it just seemed like the door opened. And there
was somebody talking back to me. And it took
time. It wasn't something that I just picked
up one day and moved on. See, God is spirit and
He interacts with us in spirit. Not in the way
that we're used to. You don't hear God like you
hear me right now. He's inside of you. If you're
saved, if you're not saved, then He's around
you and you need to get saved. Given your life
to Christ, the Holy Spirit is in you, and He
speaks to you from deep within your being. And
sometimes that's that simple conviction, and
sometimes it's a thought that you just cannot
get away from, that, man, I really need to go
do this thing. And so I began to live my life
tuning into that internal impression that I learned
from prayer, and I began to follow it. And pretty
soon I had pastors calling me, 20 years old,
hey, we have a demon -possessed guy at our church,
and we don't know what to do. That's a problem
too. We got the same Bible, and you don't know
how to cast a demon out? Come out. I don't know
any other way either. Like, I don't know what
to do. And so I did. I walk in here, and this
lady's slithering on the floor like a snake,
and I'm like, I don't know what to do, man. Well,
you know, she got a group discount. All of them
left for free. It was beautiful. But things like
that began to happen. The sick began getting
healed. I've not raised the dead yet. I really
want to see that happen. That would be really
cool. Kind of freaky, but cool. But the point
was that it was all developed from a lifestyle
of prayer. Of prayer. You know, God uses people
that are available, but the only way you show
that you're available is by taking that first
step. Everything in the kingdom is about stewarding
what you already have. You've got a relationship
with the Holy Spirit. He's living inside of you.
You want Him to do great things through you or
in your life and in the lives of others, and
you can't even steward a relationship with Him.
I mean, listen, listen. We are judged according
to the things we know and we do. So if we can't
do the basic thing, why do we expect Him to give
us more? Think about that. I think sometimes
God withholds certain things as a mercy. As a
mercy because He doesn't want us to be like Ananias
and Sapphira where the Spirit was being poured
out upon the people and they told a lie. Something
that you and I think are small. Just a little
lie. We got this much money instead of this.
And God punches the time clock for them permanently.
The more He moves, the more you and I are accountable
for. Luke chapter 12 tells that. To the one who
knows and does otherwise, that one will receive
a greater punishment than the one who does the
same and doesn't know. There were things that
I had done in ignorance that when I came to the
knowledge of Christ, there was no more excuse.
But I only learned these things through the power
of prayer. And I think a lot of people don't
know how prayer really changes your life and
the life of the world around you. So I'll tell
you a few stories about prayer. Stories that
have changed my life. And I'm a church history
buff. Not necessarily, you know, 1900s on, but
like 300 AD, right after the apostles and everybody
else. And in 400 A .D., right after the church
becomes legal, there's a man named Anthony. Anthony
is just like the rich young ruler in the Gospels.
Both of his parents die from sickness suddenly.
They've got so much land and farmland and slaves
and, I mean, money. And they leave him all of
this as an inheritance. And he goes into a church
for the first time at 20 years old. And he hears
Jesus tell the rich young ruler from the reading
of the scripture, if you want to be my disciple,
sell everything. Follow me. And Anthony, just
because he's just like the rich young ruler,
he would have never told everybody to do this.
But because he'd lived a good life, he'd heard
the Christian principles and he'd followed them.
Anthony knew that this was a call to him. And
so what Anthony does is he sells everything and
he puts his sister in a convent for nuns where
she can be developed and trained by the church.
And he gives her enough money to where if she
wanted to leave the convent and not dedicate
her life to ministry in that time, then she could
go and have a good life and find a good husband
and be taken care of and just continue being
a Christian. But Anthony does the unconventional
thing and Anthony goes into the desert. into
the Egyptian wilderness. And he begins to spend
12, sometimes 15 hours a day in prayer. And I
hear me, I'm not fixing to tell you guys to do
that, okay? But Anthony does this because when
he looks at the state of the church, the church
has been legal for a hundred years under Emperor
Constantine. After in the middle of a battle,
he sees a cross in the sky and he says, man,
Jesus must be real. And the state of the church
at this point is not that they were holy anymore.
See, as a matter of fact, the priests and the
nuns, everybody, the bishops were involving themselves
in prostitution and things akin to gambling in
that time. and pocketing money and leaving the
poor needy. And Anthony had noticed that the
church was corrupted by sin. I call Anthony the
first Protestant. He was the first one to protest
the state of the Catholic Church. And Anthony
goes into the wilderness and he says, I'm going
to pray. And every time he came back into a city,
things would happen. In one instance, there's
a young man on a boat who's eating rotten fish
outside of his mind. His eyes are rolled in the
back of his head. And they're thinking, we don't
know what to do with him. He's 14 years old.
How can we help him? And Anthony goes up to him
and draws the sign of the cross and says, be
free in Jesus' name. And that moment, at that
very second, second the young man comes to his
right mind. He was demon possessed and nobody
knew it. In another instance, they had three
philosophers come to try to prove that Anthony
was an idiot. And Anthony looks at these philosophers
and says, look at the dead body behind you. Will
your philosophy do this? And he lays hands on
the body and the woman comes back to life. In
another instance, Anthony goes into a city where
the emperor, Emperor Maxim, is persecuting Christians.
Now some of these things I can't say in a room
full of people where young people might be present,
but let's just say that if you were a Christian
woman, you would be forced to work for men. We'll
put it that way. After you watched your family
put to death by this emperor. And Anthony goes
into the city and he begins healing the sick
and casting out demons. And he goes to the emperor.
And Anthony does the craziest thing I've ever
heard of. He gets on his knee and he says, Emperor
Maxim, I'm a Christian. Why don't you kill me?
And the emperor looks at him and he says, Anthony,
I can't kill you. And Anthony says, why can you
kill my people for what they believe? But you
can't kill me. And the emperor says something
really profound because it shows that there was
a line drawn between a fake nominal Christian
and someone who knew what the gospel was and
knew what it was like to live for Christ. He
looks at Anthony and he says, because you're
too valuable. He says, there's something special
about you, Anthony. There's something on you
that's not on the others. He recognized in Anthony's
life that there was a touch of God. And Anthony
looked at him and said, please quit hurting my
people and kill me. And the emperor said, no.
And Anthony said, then why don't you quit hurting
them on my behalf? And the emperor made a deal
for Father Anthony. You keep coming to my city.
You keep healing my people. And I'll let yours
go. One man brought peace to an emperor. Peace
to a nation. Simply because, and he did nothing
but sit in what they called a cell. It was a
cave. And pray. And pray. We wonder why Christians
are ineffective now. While the nation is burning
and nothing is changing. And I believe the number
one issue is because we don't have people with
a spirit of prayer on them like Father Anthony.
People don't know what it's like to pray and
press into God and experience Him. Did you know
that every miracle Jesus did was coming out of
His prayer life? He goes to a mountain and he
prays all night. He comes back down and the sick
are pressing against him. He looks at the disciples
and says, get in the boat. They get in the boat.
They get to the other side and he's met by a
demon -possessed man. The Gadarene demoniac possessed
by a legion of demons. And he comes out of the
boat, casts the demons out of him, and the guy's
like, please, can I follow you? And Jesus says,
no, you have to stay in the region. Jesus needed
a witness in the region. And everybody knew the
Gadarene demoniac. But nobody knew Jesus until
that moment. In the book of Mark, Jesus' disciples
are trying to cast a demon out of a boy. They
say, Lord, why couldn't we do it? He looks at
them and says, this kind comes out by prayer
and fasting. You know what Jesus was saying?
And there's theologians that agree with this.
This is not my spin. People a lot smarter than
me with doctorate's degrees. They said Jesus
was looking at them and saying, your prayer life
is not matching the level of devil you're facing.
The difficulty that's coming against you. The
persecution that's this way. Your prayer life
is not meeting what Satan is bringing. Think
about that for a minute. You have the Holy Spirit
inside of you, and you can't match the devil?
Is God weak? No. But we don't do our job in stewarding
that in the place of prayer. How many of you
guys have ever heard of the Argentine revival?
A few of you. Sweet. You three are really Pentecostal.
I want you to know that. Every time I mention
something, I told my wife, I'm trying to bring
different stories that nobody's heard of, and
you guys got every one of them. So the Argentine
revival is attributed to a man named Edward Miller.
Where he came and he was a missionary for 20
years. And do you know what a big church was
considered in Argentine? Like they thought if
you had a church of this size, you were successful.
This was the mega church of their day in their
country. You did a great job. They're going to
write you down in a book and say copy that guy.
And that's only if you had a church of eight
people. Because of how ineffective. The church
was. Edward Miller is like, bro, this is not
working. He's tired. He's worn out. He's considering
quitting the ministry. He'd heard about what
happened under Amy Simple McPherson's ministry
because his father followed her ministry, was
a part of it for a little bit. In some way, I
think he served or he just went to the meetings.
And so what he does is he begins to fast and
pray eight hours a day. After about six months
of this, Edward Miller wants to quit. He decides
to take it up another notch, keep fasting. And
now they say, we're going to host meetings here.
And there's three women at his house. And they're
worshiping and all of this. And nothing happens
until one night the Spirit suddenly falls and
all three women are baptized in the Holy Spirit.
It's a pretty wild event. Some onlookers see
it. It's like, what is going on over there? His
church doubles in size from three to six. And
in a place where eight people is effective, the
standard three to six overnight is legendary.
You just doubled your congregation. Over the
next month, so many people heard about what was
happening that they had to build a church. And
they began to ask Edward Miller to go around
city after city after city. And he goes and...
Not just a few, but hundreds of people are getting
saved and giving their life to Christ. And now,
in South America, in the Argentine area, the
assemblies of God will look at missionaries who
say they feel called to go there and they'll
say, no. We're not sending missionaries to a
nation that's reached. You know where they will
send missionaries? Here. What's your prayer life
look like? I'm not saying you got to be the guy
at a pulpit. I'm not saying you got to be the
person at the street corner preaching to everybody.
What's your prayer life look like? Are you asking
God to use you? Do you pray? Do you know him?
Like truly, do you know him? Jesus looked at
his disciples and said, no longer do I call you
servants, I call you friends. Being a friend
of God is where effectiveness comes. Being a
servant is where a yoke of bondage comes from.
Here's the last story I'll tell you, and I'll
move on. How many of you guys know about what's
going on in North Georgia right now? Have you
three raised your hands? Do you know about the
North Georgia revival? He does? Dang it. It's
okay, it's okay. We'll tell the story anyway.
Pastor Todd Smith was a Southern Baptist who
didn't believe that God did anything nowadays.
He accidentally got baptized with the Holy Spirit.
You know, they fired him, gave him the left foot
of fellowship. You know how that goes. He goes
and builds a non -denominational church plant
in Dawsonville, Georgia, a city of 5 ,000 people.
You know, your odds of getting more than 50 people
are very, very slim. But now at the North Georgia
Revival, the city has grown to 2 ,000 more members.
They'll have more people at that church on a
Sunday night than they'll have in the entire
city's population any other day of the week.
Here's what Todd Smith did. He repented. He sat
down and realized that he was doing a lot better
job teaching people how to plant a church and
trying to keep his people happy than he was at
trying to keep God happy. At trying to be a host
of the presence. So Todd Smith realizes that
One day while he's in the darkness of a dry ministry
life, he accidentally bumps into God. And he
says, oh, man, you were here with me. I didn't
even realize that. I'm serious. I've talked to
the guy. He's in ministry, what they consider
successful. He's teaching people how to plant
churches. He's literally making $200 ,000 a year.
Teaching people how to plant churches and grow
them effectively and quickly. And his model works.
It's successful. And he says, I realize that
I forgot about who God was. So he begins teaching
his people. Here's what we're going to do. We're
going to come into the sanctuary one hour a week.
And we're going to pray. And we're not going
to ask God to do anything. But we're going to
say, Lord, I seek your face. Lord, I want to
see your glory, your tangible presence. And Lord,
if there's anything in me that offends you, reveal
it to me that I may remove it. If you don't know
where to start in prayer, start there. Put some
worship music on, some soft music on, or sit
in silence and begin to ask God those three questions
and just wait for an hour. You'll be surprised
what pops up. God might say the way that you
talk to your spouse offends Him. He might say
the way you treat your neighbor offends Him.
He might say that you need to go to a group of
people and ask them to forgive you because you've
wounded them. He might say that you need to serve
a little bit more in the church. He might say
that you need to pray a little more for the needs
of the community. But the thing that I'll promise
you is, is for those who seek Him, they'll always
find Him. That's God's words Himself. He says
that alone. To the proud one I resist, but the
humble one, that one's going to find me. The
one who really seeks me is going to find me.
And I think part of the problem is that we haven't
really sought Him. And so here's the question.
What do you need to have an effective prayer
life? And I'm closing. Some of you guys are like,
this guy's going on forever. I'm closing. The
first thing you need to have an effective prayer
life, if you want to write this down in all caps,
you need to be right with God. God doesn't need
to have something in your life that offends Him.
God doesn't need to look at you and see that
you say you're following Him and you're sleeping
with your girlfriend or your boyfriend. God doesn't
need to look at your life and hear you say that
you follow Him. I'm just using extreme examples
right now for the fun of it, but you go to the
church of Satan and give them an offering and
you decide to just join them for worship. That's
not going to work. And we look at the extreme
examples and say, of course, if I'm having sex
with somebody outside of marriage or worshiping
Satan, God isn't going to forgive me. But let
me tell you something, friend. Even down to the
things you think in your heart, if you look at
a woman with lust, you've committed adultery
with her. According to Jesus, if you hate your
brother, you've murdered them in your heart.
According to Jesus, it's not just the things
you do outwardly, it's what's in here. Because
out of... everything that happens in life. Out
of everything that you do, it flows from this
place. It's a corruption that goes down to the
very soul. You've got to be right with God. Listen,
there's a day coming when you and I are going
to stand before the judge of all. And we're going
to be alone. You don't get to lean on Your husband.
I don't get to say, hey, Sidney, do you want
to come stand before Jesus with me and tell Him
to have a little bit of mercy? I mean, He might
listen to her more than me. But I don't get to
do that. I don't get to sit here and say, Mom,
Dad, tell Jesus about how great I was. I don't
get to say, hey, look at all this money I donated.
Look at all these good things I did. In Matthew
7, people come to Jesus and they say, have we
not healed the sick in Your name? Have we not
casted out demons? Have we not prophesied? Have
we not done the great mighty works of God? And
Jesus says, but you didn't know Me. Depart from
Me, you workers of lawlessness. It wasn't just
that they didn't know Him. It was that they worked
in iniquity. They lived in sin. They lived in
a way that offended Him. And listen, this is
so important because Jesus Christ is not just
a normal person. He's the very Son of God Himself.
And He did not have to come and die on a cross
for you and me. God gave me life. He gave me
breath in my lungs. He gave me an earth. He gave
me opportunity. And I chose, instead of stewarding
that well, to spit in His face and say, I don't
care what you want. I'm going to live as I do.
He made me good. He made Adam and Eve good. And
we decided to corrupt the goodness that He made
in us. And He didn't have to redeem us. This
is typically when people are like, whoa, this
guy's crazy. He could have left us in our mess.
And we always want to talk about what somebody
deserves. You want to get what you deserve? Go
to hell. That's what we deserve. I deserve to
go to hell for my sins. Every one of us do because
we've offended a holy God. But Jesus came because
He loves us so much that He said, listen, I'm
going to take your place. You and I were bound
by three things. We were bound by sin. There's
nothing we could do to overcome it. We were bound
by the devil. There's nothing we could do to
defeat him. And we were bound by death. Death
will come for us all. But God did not have to
experience any of those things. And when Jesus
came as a man, He overcame sin on our behalf.
By defeating the devil in the wilderness, he
overcame Satan by casting out demons and showing
how weak he was. And he overcame death by taking
it on and coming back from the grave. And this
is what Jesus did. He looked at you and I and
said, I know you're bound. I know you're in a
prison of your own making. But he said, I defeated
the guards and I unlocked the door. And you got
two choices. You can stay in the door until it
shuts. Or you can walk out of the open door and
follow me. He died on our behalf to restore us
to right relationship with God and to free us.
Now I want you to imagine something with me.
Imagine that you give everything within yourself
for somebody. And they look at you and they trample
on your offering. Imagine that you're the father
and you give your son or your daughter. I couldn't
give my daughter for people. Jesus is so much
more loving than me because I would have been
like, I'm not doing it. But the father gave his
son on behalf of all of us to open a door back
to himself. And sometimes we think that we can
trample on the blood of Christ. That we can lift
up hands in church. We can say the right words.
We can read our Bible. But we can turn around
and trample on His sacrifice and we're good.
Every head bowed, every eye closed for a second.
I want you to take a moment. Are you right with
God? Listen, when I became a Christian man, I
couldn't go party anymore. My friends would invite
me to a party and I would feel convicted if I
even thought about it and I had to walk away
from it. I had to say no more. When I got saved,
Jesus did something in me. Are you still living
in sin? Are you right with God? If you're not
right with God, He's not going to hear us when
we approach Him. We don't get the open door of
His presence. Here's my question. If you're not
sure if you would die today and you'd go to heaven
or hell, if you've got something in your life
that you know is separating you from God, Or
if you feel a holy conviction right now, like
you know you need to get right with him, I want
you to slip up your hand. Every head's bowed,
every eye's closed. I see that hand. God bless
you. God bless you. God bless you. Come on. God
bless you. God bless you. Some of you right now,
you feel a presence on you. And you know what
that is? That's this. That's Jesus Christ knocking
on the door of your heart. You know, sometimes
we hear a knock on the door and we're annoyed
and we don't want to deal with it because we've
got other things going on. Sometimes we think
that's just a worthless deal. You know, when
I lived in Searcy, I had Mormons knocking on
the door sometimes. And we were like, don't open
the door. A delivery man comes by. I don't want
to deal with him. He's not important right now.
And for some of you right now, Jesus is... knocking
on the door of your heart and you're treating
Him like a delivery man, like a nuisance. I want
you to hear me today. Hebrews says that today
is the day of salvation. Do not harden your heart.
If you're in this room and you're not right with
God, you don't know if you were to die today
if you'd go to heaven or hell. I want you to
slip up your hand. Now's the day. Now's the time.
Pastor, I don't know if you want to come up and
play music or have them play a track in the back.
Just a few more seconds. If that's you, slip
up your hand. Now here's what we're going to
do. Everything in Christianity is public. When
you decide to give your life to Christ, it's
not something that you do in a private room.
It's something you do before the body of Christ
and nobody judges us. If somebody judges us,
then they need to come up here and be right beside
you. I don't care who you are. I don't care what
everybody thinks about you. If you slipped up
your hand and you were serious about giving your
life to Christ, I want you to stand. Stand. Come
on. Come on. God bless you. God bless you. Come
up here. Come on. I want to pray with you. I
want to pray with you. The second thing you need
for God to have an effective prayer life is persistence.
Some of you in this room, you pray maybe five
minutes a day, and that's a great starting place,
but at some point we've got to move a little
bit further. If I spent three seconds talking
to my wife every day, we wouldn't have a good
relationship. How many of you think you'd have
a strong marriage if you spent five minutes talking
to your spouse and nothing else? Sometimes the
reason why we feel like our prayer life isn't
working is because God's saying, I'm not answering
so that you'll come closer to me. If you're in
this room today and you feel convicted that you
need to take your prayer life just a little bit
further, I'm not saying eight hours a day. I'm
not saying fast seven weeks out of the year.
I'm saying maybe you spend 10 minutes with God
and you need to start spending 20 minutes. Maybe
you spend 30 minutes with him and you need to
start giving him a little bit more time. You
feel a conviction on your life to give more time
to him. If that's you, I want you to come up
here too. I want you to come up here too. And
for those of you up here who are here to give
your life to Christ, it's very simple. He died
for you and he asks you to die for him. Now he'll
be here, he'll hold your hand, he'll walk you
through life, he'll set you free from things,
but you gotta have something in you that says,
I'm not gonna quit. Are you ready to do that?
Are you ready to do that? Everybody in the church,
join me in this prayer, and then we're just going
to have a Holy Spirit moment, okay? Say, dear
Jesus. Come on, come on, we can do better than
that. I want us to pray out loud. Say, dear Jesus.
Beautiful. I believe you are the Son of God.
I believe you died on a cross for my sins. And
Lord, right now, I ask you to forgive me, to
cleanse me, and to help me follow you all my
days. Amen. If you guys really mean that, you
believe that, in this moment, I'm going to pray
for you, and I believe God's going to touch you.
I believe, I'm not saying you're going to fall
on the floor and start laughing, but I believe
that something's going to happen in you that's
going to change you from this moment on.