how many Evan Roberts are out there.
Yes.
You know, how many Reese Howells are out there.
You know, how many they're out there.
And it could be you.
God can use you in whatever capacity
you will let him use you.
Yes.
You can be satisfied wherever you're at.
The thing is, don't ever be satisfied.
["Pomp and Circumstance"]
God promises in Joel 2, 28,
to pour out his Spirit on all humanity.
Welcome to Global Outpouring.
We contend for that promise, outpouring.
We equip for that outpouring
so that we may engage in that very outpouring.
I'm Philip Bus.
And I'm Sharon Bus.
Welcome to the podcast today.
It's going to be a good one.
We have been contending in these latest episodes,
talking about contending.
And we're going to look at what God is looking at
for contending.
He's looking for someone to stand in the gap.
Is that you?
["Pomp and Circumstance"]
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Before we get started, I want to encourage you
to go to our website.
If you haven't already done so,
globaloutpouring.net.
Go there and make sure that you're on our mailing list
so that we can stay in touch with you
and so that you can know when we're doing something.
You can be informed about our events that are coming up
and the many things that are available to you.
We want to help you.
We want to encourage you.
We want to help you grow, to be equipped,
to help you contend for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
in your own life so that you can be used of God
in the outpouring as it continues to grow and manifest.
So today, we're going to delve into the idea
of God looking for someone.
He's looking for a man.
Philip preached a message about this not so very long ago,
and we'll put a link to it in the show notes
so that you can hear the whole message.
But we're going to touch on some of these topics,
and I'm sure it'll be different
than what he gave in his message.
So Philip, why don't you take it from here?
Okay.
Well, I was just in my prayer time, having a quiet time,
and this scripture just kind of just dropped into me.
You know, I sought for a man, or I searched for a man,
to stand in the gap, you know, to make up a hedge.
And, Sher, why don't you read that in the Amplified?
This is the Amplified classic, Ezekiel 22.30.
And I sought a man among them
who should build up the wall and stand in the gap
before me for the land, that I should not destroy it.
But I found none.
Yeah, so that's the Amplified version.
Yes.
And when we were in Israel one year,
we were going through the gate,
and this is the gate to Jerusalem.
And you read your history where General Allenby came in,
and went through the gate,
and he wouldn't even ride his horse.
He stepped off his horse and walked in,
because this is the gate that someday Jesus, Yeshua,
is going to come through.
This is a gate that Jesus already came through.
Yeah.
So, and he'll do it again.
That's his city, after all.
The city of the great king.
Yeah, and if you look up in the gate, in the tower there,
there's like a place a person can stand.
And this is kind of typical,
I think, of what they did back then with bow and arrow.
You would have someone in there, you know,
with a bow and arrow, and they had a little slit.
And you look at the slit, it's not very wide,
but it's deep, it's tall.
Where they have protection while they're shooting arrows.
They can see out there and they can shoot
what they're looking at.
It's wide enough to get their bow and arrow and shoot,
but it's hard to hit them.
You have to be a real precise hit to get through that.
And that's kind of what it's referring to here,
to standing in the gap.
But if there's no one to stand in the gap.
There's no one to defend the city.
You have to defend it, especially since the gap
is right over the gate of the city.
Cause that's what you want to protect is the gates.
Cause the gates, they'll try to bash them down and get in.
You know, and all through Israel's history,
you know, the book of Judges, it talks about those,
you could say stood in the gap.
You know, God called those out, there was Gideon.
Remember Gideon, it was the Midianites
that were just harassing.
And then they would come in at harvest time,
right when the harvest is ready, steal all the harvest.
And that was, and you can read that in the book of Judges
where the Lord spoke to Gideon,
you know, I want you to take an army.
And that little army got whittled down to 300 people.
You know, kind of scary going against
all these Midianites and how God brought
this tremendous victory, you know, by just being obedient.
He was obedient to what the Lord told him to do.
One man and 300 others.
Yeah, and then you have had a judge like Samson.
He judged the Philistines and he judged them
in a different way.
You know, he killed, well, a thousand people
with the jawbone of a donkey.
You know, he did some amazing things.
He had a supernatural strength that was beyond,
but he was a judge, but he wasn't always a righteous judge.
And he-
Well, he got in the flesh.
Yeah, he got in the flesh all right, yeah.
And then there was Deborah and Barak.
Oh yeah.
You know, and that was one against Sisera.
And the Lord just gave the victory.
And I think the prophetic word that came out
that the Lord is going to give this,
the honor is going to go to a woman.
Yeah, and that's because Barak wouldn't go without Deborah.
He wouldn't go without her.
And actually for a woman too, cause it was Yael,
and they put a tent peg through the general
of the army, Sisera.
Yeah.
You know, so, but these were judges.
And these are what kept Israel,
and this is before there was a king.
Right.
Of course you had King Saul, then you had King David.
You know, Israel had its ups and downs and kings.
And it was Israel that went into captivity first,
and they were taken captive by Assyria.
Yeah.
And I'm not sure how many years later this was,
but the sin was still in the land.
See, the people had forgotten their God.
They'd forgotten what Deuteronomy 28 says,
I will bless, you know, if you do all these things,
I will bless you.
And if you don't do these things, I will curse you.
Right.
And all the curses fell upon them
because they did not obey the word of the Lord, thy God.
And so then there was Jeremiah, you know,
we called the weeping prophet, that Lord just, you know,
raised him up and he was prophesying
against the last king of Judah, wasn't it?
Yeah.
I believe it was, yeah.
And they had three bad kings in a row.
I mean, there was redemption, you get a new king in,
there was redemption in the land.
He would clear the idols out and worship would be restored.
And after that one passed on,
the son or someone else would take over
and would go downhill, up and down and up and down
until after three, the fourth bad king was Zedekiah,
I believe it was.
And he was saying, well, you're prophesying
all these things that, you know,
they're going to come and put my eyes out
and they're going to, you know, destroy the city
and all that.
And that's not going to happen because all their prophets
were saying this isn't going to happen, but it did happen.
And Jeremiah was a weeping prophet.
Yes.
And he lived through all these,
but he saw the finish all this, but he was the end.
He was an intercessor, but why did his intercession
not stop what was going to happen?
Well, I thought on that.
I think it has something to do with the fact
that they had crossed the line.
Crossed the line.
There was no turning back.
But his intercessions gave him the ability
to see beyond the time.
Yeah, and many prophetic words came out of Jeremiah.
When you read the scriptures,
where this nation is going to be built up again,
there'll be, and it'll be, it's amazing what he's prophesying.
What he's seeing is coming,
but they are going into captivity for 70 years.
Yeah.
But there's life beyond 70 years.
Yeah.
There's life, you know, that, you know,
we tend to look at two years from now,
next year, two years, three years,
get a, used to be a three-year loan on your car,
now it's a six-year loan to get one, I think,
you know, and on your house and things like that.
And so you look forward to the years to come,
you know, I'll do this.
And then maybe when I get 65, I'll retire.
I'll have enough money put away.
I'll already have my boat.
I'll have the house, house will be paid for,
and we're just going to have the American dream
the rest of our lives.
But no, that's not the case all the time.
That's happened for some, you know,
but not for everybody.
And because, you know, God has plans and purposes,
and especially in these last days that we are living in,
you know, that things are wrapping up real fast.
They seem to be.
I mean, you can just look at what's happening in the news
and, you know, you don't even want to look at the news.
You know, there's fear and there's riots in Paris,
riots here, right.
I mean, the devil is having a heyday.
He's just stirring the minds of the people
and even the believers, the Christians.
It's because he knows his time is short.
His time is short.
And he's trying to put fear, you know,
put fear into everybody.
So we look at, you know, where we're at today
and what's the answer for all this?
You know, we ask what Lord, you know,
we're crying out to you.
What is the real answer here?
You know, and so I want to take a look at the book of Amos.
It's chapter eight and verse 11.
And this is going to go a little different way
than maybe what you're thinking.
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God,
that I will send a famine in the land,
not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water,
but of the hearing the words of the Lord.
And they shall wander from sea to sea
and from the north even to the east,
that shall run to and fro and seek the word of the Lord
and shall not find that.
You know, these are the days when, you know,
there was a bunch of oppression going on in Israel and that,
but I want to put this in a sense that pertains to us today
because we have such a wealth of knowledge out here.
I mean, you can get on YouTube, you know,
we have favorites that we love for worship, you know,
and it's just, that's a blessing.
And you can look at this conference,
you can find all these conferences.
There is no lack of the word of God right now.
It's everywhere.
It's, you know, you can get it on your phone.
You can get all your translations, everything you want.
But what there is a lack of
is hearing the voice of God for yourself.
Come on.
That is what there is a lack of.
And there are those, you know,
that it's one thing God speaks to you.
I want you to go to this convention.
I want you to hear this word, you know, and get direction.
And I know people that they would come to our convention,
you know, and they would get a directive for the next year.
True.
And all these flags, we have flags of different nations
that representatives of End Time Handmaidens,
global outpouring has been in.
And we have a have prayer time in the morning
and people gather and they pray over these flags.
And many times Lord will give them a burden for that nation
to pray over it and receive for it.
And then they'll end up going there.
Yeah.
To minister in some way.
We see that happen over and over and over
because they're seeking after God for, you know,
this word for their life.
And it's not just going to a meeting, you know,
there's a prophetic man there and he's gonna prophesy
over everybody in the place.
That's good.
You know, and there's places you can go,
you can get a prophecy continually all the time,
but what if they don't all match up?
That happens sometimes.
Yeah, and that happens, you know,
and you thought, well, how's this?
How's that?
And that's where it's like you seek the word of God
for yourself and you ask for confirmations.
Yes.
And that is a great way to go.
Cause when we travel as we do, you know,
I say, Lord, if you have a word for us,
that you bring it to the right person at the right time.
So we're not chasing after something, you know,
a known prophet or anything like that.
And so you can learn to hear the word of God for yourself,
you know, but how do you really learn to hear the word
of God for yourself?
And that's by seeking him.
It's getting a hunger for him.
Yes.
There's a hunger to go to events,
but there's not a hunger to get still.
Yeah.
There's not enough hunger there.
There is hunger there, but not enough.
It takes more hunger to what meets the eye
to really hear from God like we want to do.
And I want to give a good example here.
Now, Charles Finney, you've probably heard about,
a lot about Charles Finney.
And he just-
Great revivalist.
1800s.
And he was not looking for a move of God.
And this is a man, he was an attorney.
He's actually the choir director in his church,
you know, that he was going to.
And actually the pastor and a lot of the people
in the church were not even believers themselves.
They were not born again.
They had a form of righteousness, but it wasn't,
it wasn't it.
They never had actually repented for their sins.
And it's a marvelous story.
If you have a chance to find out there,
Charles Finney's autobiography, you know,
how he got saved because he was an attorney
and the Holy Spirit was just working on this man
and just working on him and working on him.
And he's asking questions.
And finally the day came, he says, okay,
I'm going to give my heart to God today
or I'm going to die trying, you know?
He's getting serious because he realizes now
the conviction of the Holy Spirit is so strong,
he can't keep going like this.
And so he goes to his office in that
and the voice of the Lord starts speaking to him saying,
aren't you going to get saved today?
And then he knew he had to.
So he just went down the street
and went off to a wooded area, looked around,
make sure nobody saw him.
Kind of went into an area in the forest
where some trees have fallen.
It was like made a little hiding place.
And he got in there and he just starts seeking out for God.
You know, just really pressing in into God, you know,
just crying up.
And then all of a sudden it broke loose.
When he broke loose and he was just this joy
that came over him, like he'd never experienced before.
It's what he was looking for, you know?
And this joy, and it was just a powerful,
powerful conversion.
But when he came back and went to his office,
and because the office had moved that day,
they moved into the new office
and the other attorney was there
and they were doing small talk in that.
And he lit a fire in this room, you know,
they didn't have heaters, you couldn't turn the thermostat
to 72 or something like that.
You had to build a fire in the room.
So he built this fire.
But then he got off into another room, into a closet,
and all of a sudden he got overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit
and got in filled with the Spirit of God.
Now people were getting filled with the Holy Ghost
back then, it's 1700s and-
1800s.
1800s, 1800s, sorry.
Maybe there was some in 1700s, we don't know.
Could be.
But-
Well, I think John Wesley was in the center.
John Wesley had the Spirit of God.
He got filled with the Holy Spirit.
Wow.
So Charles Finney had this encounter with God
because even after he had this encounter in the woods,
it's just like these questions were nagging him about this.
Did you really get saved this and that?
But he had a peace because those questions,
they weren't bothering him anymore.
So he knew he got what he needed,
but then he got the Holy Spirit
and it turned him upside down.
And just like the ways of glory just came over him,
this overwhelming love that he said, it's killing me.
It's killing me, I can't deal with this.
And he went out that next day
and eventually talking to the pastor, the church,
and it took a little while,
but everybody he met that next day got saved.
Wow.
One that day, it was later on.
But then he just started reading the Bible
because he read the Bible.
I mean, attorneys, they read the Bible.
I think that was part of his law training.
In those days, they had to read the Bible
as a part of their law training
because a lot of our laws were based on the Bible.
And a lot of our former presidents all the way back,
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,
and the Bible was part of what they grew up with.
And a lot of them were believers
and a lot of them weren't believers,
but they use quotes out of the Bible,
which are still used today.
Sure.
Which is really an amazing thing.
So Charles Finney has this amazing conversion
and he's studying the Bible, studying the Bible,
and he's starting to talk to the pastor in that
because it was kind of their belief.
And apparently it's a belief that holds today
and that the nomination were, as far as getting saved.
Can you describe that, Sharon, a little bit better than I,
you got a better handle on that than I do.
Well, I think it boils down to the fact
that they were being trained in their seminaries
with doctrines that were interpretations of the Bible
without ever actually studying the Bible
to know and verify is this really the case.
And that's dangerous.
It's very dangerous.
And because Finney was busy reading the Bible as an attorney,
he's looking at it from a black and white
kind of a situation, not like,
here's what the Bible says,
rather than here's what the theologians say.
Yeah, uh-huh.
So he kept reading the word.
I don't know if he took, it was a test or whatever it was,
but he went before the pastoral board.
Well, he was trying to get his license to preach.
Yeah, he's studying his life to get his license
for what he was saying is not what they were taught.
They saw the power that was operating through him
and how it changed him, cause they all knew who he was.
And it was many that when he got converted,
they got converted because they thought,
wow, this really is real.
And then boom, you know, it happened.
And so when he went before the board,
he had to pass his test and all that.
They voted unanimously to give him his license as a preacher.
Yes.
Though he never went to their,
I won't say their cemetery, their seminary.
Good thing you won't say it.
Yeah.
And so he was so fiery.
You look at the pictures of Finney,
you look at his eyes and they're piercing.
And in his book, it talks about,
I don't know if it's actually in the abridged edition or not,
but I got my hands on an unabridged edition
of Charles Finney's autobiography and it's twice as thick.
Yeah.
And it has more chapters in it,
but it tells about his, the intercessor,
the man he met that was his intercessor
that would go before him and pray
and just intercede and pray.
And when he got an all clear, he wouldn't notify him
and said, you can come now.
Yes. It's time to come.
And people would be convicted, you know, at his presence,
you know, they would.
And I remember just hearing just the other day,
Rodney Howard Brown preaching, you know,
he'd walk into areas and the preachers would just leave,
you know, cause they were scared of him.
You know, he has such a presence of God on him.
It's just so powerful.
And that is really what happened to Finney.
You know, it's just a powerful thing.
And he went into a place, he was invited to preach
and somebody came to him in a little village,
not too far away, says,
can you please come and minister in our church?
So he's there and he's just getting before the Lord.
And the Lord just gives him the words up,
get you out of this place, you know.
And that goes back to Genesis when Abraham and Lot,
they separated themselves for the land
and this beautiful land, you know, which Lot chose,
he ended up in Sodom.
And so God's coming, he's gonna destroy the whole city
because of the sin is so bad.
And that's the angels said to Lot,
up, get you out of this place, you know,
cause if you know, we're gonna destroy it.
And so he's speaking on this, on this message, you know,
that they're just saying, though you have to get,
and he's using Sodom, he's using this whole scenario
of Sodom and Lot and the people are getting madder
and madder and madder by the minute.
Angry, angry.
Angry and he says, what's going on and all that.
And then at the end of the message, you know,
it's all over and he leaves.
And he finds out a few days later,
the place he was ministering was called Sodom.
And the one righteous man that was there that invited him,
his name was Lot.
I mean, how much of a coincidence is that?
You can't make these things up.
You can't make those things up.
And so, you know.
So did they come under conviction and get saved?
They did, yeah, not right that moment,
but then they realized, you know, when it hit home,
they did, you know.
Glory to God.
And he went into another place, you know,
and this can happen today too,
we're believing this marketplace ministry.
Amen.
You know, God's using people in the marketplace
and, you know, in all different ways, you know,
he's giving witty ideas and inventions and, you know,
because you can't evacuate the marketplace, you know,
cause that's a key to many people's survival,
is the marketplace.
And so anyway, he's invited to go to this factory.
It's a, and they have spinning wheels,
Jennys, I think they call them.
And you know, they're all, they're working and all that.
And he's ministering to them and they stop everything,
you know, and they have a meeting,
shut all the machines off and all that.
And they all get saved.
The power of God hits the place and they all get saved.
You know, and that's the story of Charles Finney,
wherever he went, did he meet opposition?
Yes.
He met a lot of it.
And what we've always says,
you never mock something God is doing.
Right.
If you don't understand it, put it on the shelf.
That's an expression we use.
Put on the shelf, well, maybe later on, you know,
we'll go back and look at that,
but don't touch it right now, you know?
But there was a time that there was three opposers
that were just kind of mocking him
during a meeting and all that, you know,
and they were drunk, they went out drunk
and one of them fell over dead.
I mean, the power of God was just so strong
and moving in the place.
And it was-
I presume the other two repented.
Probably did, yeah.
I imagine so.
Sobered up quick too, I'm sure.
And in Oneida, New York, you know, we've been there
because this was his area, Rochester, you know,
and where was his Bible school?
His Bible school was in Ohio.
It was in Ohio, okay.
So, but he impacted such a large area.
That was just so powerful.
But there was a meeting he was at
and one of the presbytery just spoke out against him,
you know, publicly, just really, you know,
this, this and that.
And the next morning he was found dead in his bed.
You know, it was like, is that a coincidence?
No.
You know, I remember we were in our-
it was Argentina and Sister Gwen, our founder,
was ministering and all of a sudden she just stops
and said, there's gonna be a funeral in this church
next week and there's someone here, you know,
if you don't repent.
Yeah.
There'll be a funeral if you don't repent.
I mean, that's a strong word to say from the pulpit,
you know? It's true.
And it was after the meeting, you know,
they're having a little get together with a pastor
and all that.
And one of the deacons runs in and says, please come.
You know, Deacon Soso is having a heart attack
and they rushed in there and he's gasping for air
and his wife's trying to comfort him
and he's pushing his wife away.
You know, this man has real spirit of anger on him.
I think she was saying, please forgive me.
Please forgive me.
He would not forgive.
And Sister Gwen went to lay hands on him
and the Holy Spirit said, don't touch him.
You know, don't touch him.
Just prepare yourself to watch him die.
Yeah.
And she couldn't do anything.
And she watched him die screaming.
Yeah.
Unforgiveness.
And there was a funeral in the church that week.
Yes.
And Jesus is very clear right after the Lord's Prayer
in Matthew six that if you don't forgive,
you won't be forgiven.
You won't be forgiven.
Yeah.
So if you want to be forgiven, make sure that you forgive.
It's critical.
Absolutely critical.
And you have to remember, you know,
some churches you go to, you know,
God is, he's a tremendous God of love
and he's pouring his love out, but he's a God of justice.
He has scales, you know, and sin.
It's like a nation.
I've heard our founder, Sister Gwen say it's a balance.
You have prayers in one hand, like a balance,
and you have sin in the other.
And prayer has to outweigh, it has to outbalance the sin.
Because when it turns the other way,
then, you know, everything starts going wrong.
And that's why we have to have the man
that's willing to stand in the gap.
And that's really where we are right now.
Yeah, that's it.
And over in Wales, you know, there was Reese Howells.
He was the intercessor for England, you know,
at the time of the war and he had a Bible.
World War II.
World War II, and his book, Reese Howells' Intercessor,
it's a powerful, powerful book.
And I was only saved a couple of years
and we had had his book and we're on the plane to India.
And I was reading it and I had to put it down.
It was a little more than I could handle.
Yeah, that was your first mission.
That was my first mission.
Yeah, it was a tough mission trip too.
You know, and then, but some years later,
I picked it up and I could digest everything in it
because I realized, you know,
I had to get a bit of flesh out of me, you know,
so I can understand, you know,
how God was working in this man.
It was just powerful.
And then the, and he was born in 1879, you know,
and it was in the Battle of Britain is what they call it.
It was when Germany was mercilessly dropping bombs.
And, you know, the British airplanes,
the Spitfires, they couldn't, you know,
they were just outnumbered, you know,
and London was just getting bombed and all that.
But I want to read a quote, you know,
this is happening at the start of the war.
And it's on September 4th.
I'm not sure of the year here.
It's probably, it's out of his journal.
The situation in the country because of air raids
may become very serious.
So this is just the start.
We have never walked this way before.
And I'll ask to our listeners,
have you walked this way before where you're at?
You know, as we see things
that are presenting themselves before our eyes.
The important thing is to find out where God is in this.
When you are in danger every night,
it takes you a long time to be sure
that you are under God's protection.
Can you say you are safe in the air raids?
Has God told you?
You may try to use the word of God
without having his power behind it.
If God is going to deliver from this hell,
there will have to be some power released.
Unless you are sure of your own victory,
you will never be able to pray
for the deliverance of the country.
Wow.
Yeah, isn't that powerful?
That is huge.
That is so huge.
And that's like, we have to have authority in our prayers
and what God is saying, you know,
and if you're not living a prayer life,
if you're not living in a place close to God
where you can hear his voice,
and when you're putting all the other voices out,
and all the other stuff away,
how will you be able to hear from God
when all of a sudden you're in a situation like that
that is totally beyond your control?
Right, that's the famine that you were talking about earlier.
That's the famine.
The famine for the word of God.
We've got to practice being still now
when things haven't erupted yet,
in order to be ready for when they do,
because everything that can be shaken is going to be shaken,
so that that which cannot be shaken will remain.
You know, intercessors for the last 40, 50 years
have been successful in fighting off a lot of stuff
that we thought was going to happen back then,
but now it's happening everywhere.
You know, immorality,
that's one of your big causes, is immorality.
Yes, it brings a curse on the land.
It brings a curse, and if you're looking at stuff,
you know, you're getting distracted.
You know, we never had phones you could look at,
you know, and there wasn't stuff on TV way back.
You know, there was innuendos on TV,
but there wasn't open nudity or anything like that.
You never heard the word hell or the word damn, you know.
Those were words that were not even used
when we were watching TV.
But, you know, in 1962,
when prayer was taken out of the schools,
and they can mark it, there's a gentleman
that has all this document,
and we've heard him speak a few times.
David Barton, if you want to check his stuff out,
you know, he documented from 1962 on
in our public school system
how it started going downhill from there.
Soon as the Bible went out, crime went up.
Crime went up, and that's when our nation was taking a turn.
And then the abortion issue, you know,
what, 10 years later, I think it was, you know,
and the shedding of innocent blood.
Right, brings a curse.
And the intercessors are praying, you know,
they're praying, they're praying.
And the big prophetic word, you know,
going on in the late 19, like 1970, 70,
Jesus is coming, you know, and all that.
And that's when I backslid.
You know, I turned my back on God,
and, you know, in my teen years,
and I wanted to live a little, you know,
because the tribulation message kind of shoved down my throat,
if you want to call it that way, for years.
And I was tired of it,
because I wasn't seeing things happening, you know.
And so I did my thing, and I paid dearly for it,
and learned some lessons in life, you know,
which I shouldn't have had to learn,
but that was a choice that I made.
But God can redeem our choices, you know.
So we are now in the state of where we thought
we were going, you know, 40, 50 years ago.
And now the same word is going on.
God is saying, I'm looking for someone to stand in the gap.
And Reese Howells was one of those.
And this Bible school, sometimes on a daily basis,
they would shut a class down, or they'd fast that day,
and the Lord would give them strategies,
and they would pray into it.
The Lord would show them things for Hitler to do this.
And he did that, and was part of bringing his downfall.
And that's prophetic intercession.
And that's really hearing from God,
because unless you're in a desperate situation,
what does it take to call out to God?
You know, it's hard when we have everything around us
pulling on us to want to spend more time.
Okay, I'll carve out another 15 minutes here,
another half hour there, you know.
But God wants more than that.
And he wants us to find him.
So when you get into a perilous situation,
you will be able to act because you can hear his voice.
Right, that you walk with him continually.
It's a continual walk.
You know, it's carry your cross daily.
Right.
But what is the cross?
It's a sign of suffering.
It's the power of God unto salvation,
but it's also a sign of what Jesus did for us.
We can't nail ourselves to the cross.
It's true.
I mean, you can nail your feet in one hand,
but you can't do the other.
Somebody's gotta do that for you.
And if you can just die daily, as Apostle Paul said,
that you're in a whole lot better position
to hear from God.
And Rodney Howard Brown, he was in England,
just recently, and the Lord spoke to him to go.
And he just went by faith
and went to all these African nations ahead of that.
And some of the Africans that were in London said,
please come because our nation is getting taken over.
They basically said,
we cleaned out the ministry bank accounts.
It was like $4 million, rented the big arena there.
And how many pastors came and participated?
There were 2000 pastors.
2000 pastors came because they're desperate.
London, England is in a desperate place right now.
And when things get desperate,
like even like it did for Reese House,
when you're getting bombed every day,
you can hear the bombs going off.
And what if one of them gets off kilter
and lands right on the building next to you
or somewhere next to you?
We know a man that he was Saddam Hussein's general.
George Sada.
Yeah, George Sada, he wrote a book.
And he was a believer.
But if you said something Saddam didn't like,
he'd just have you taken out.
That was the way it was.
And so anyway, America is getting ready to bomb,
is getting ready to go into Iraq.
So George is taking a nap in Saddam's quarters.
Yes, in an underground bunker.
Underground bunker, he's just taking a nap.
And all of a sudden he just wakes up.
Says, okay, I'll just get up.
Goes to make some coffee,
walks out of that bunker,
goes down to where the break room was,
and kaboom, a bunker bomb falls through that bunker
and explodes.
I mean, moments.
And what was Saddam's?
Bedroom.
Holy Spirit woke him up.
He got up, get a cup of coffee or something.
And that's when the bombing started on Iraq.
And what a place to be in.
There's people like that all over everywhere.
You just don't hear about them.
Right.
And now and then you will.
He was one of those men that God had sought for.
He stood in the gap.
He stood in the gap for Christianity
when everybody is dying around him.
And so Rodney Howard Brown says,
the Lord says, I'm gonna tell you
what's gonna happen in the next 10 years.
And so he broadcasts it.
Lord's gonna reveal what's gonna happen
in these next 10 years.
And so he's crying out to God in the bedroom
because he hasn't heard yet.
What is it?
Yeah.
And he already broadcasted it.
And he's getting up to go to the meeting
and he's getting desperate for God,
crying out to God, Jesus help me.
He's really, and all that.
And he goes into the service
and the praise and worship went on for a long time.
It's finally, it's time.
And all of a sudden, but what he hears
when he's crying out to God so loud,
he just hears God laughing at him.
Just laughing.
He says, what are you laughing at me for?
He has that kind of relationship.
He can hear God like that.
And so he's in the service and he gets up there.
And then the Lord says,
tell them only do what I tell you to do.
And he says, what does that mean?
That'll be over in three minutes.
How can I preach on the,
just do what I tell you to do for the next 10 years.
And that was his message.
That's what God told him to tell the people,
only do what I tell you to do.
That means only go to what conference I tell you to,
only to go to what city I tell you to,
only go to what friends I tell you to,
learn to depend.
You know, this is, I'm preaching to the choir.
I'm preaching to myself, you know.
You know, I'm not saying this trying to,
you know, promote something
that I'm not getting dealt with, you know.
So that was the message.
Only do what I tell you to do.
And then 10 years you come back
and I'll tell you what he says, you know.
He'll tell me again, you know.
What's the next thing and all that.
It's obeying the voice of God.
It's what we heard when we were in Florida
on our last visit down there.
A pastor of the church that we got engaged in 43 years ago.
It was in Georgia.
We were there and we got engaged.
At Dan Duke's church.
Yeah, it was Dan Duke.
And what happened to him, it was years back
and he just came and his wife,
20 years off the mission field
and they're having a celebration for him.
And they invited Rodney Howard Brown
before people really knew who he was.
You know, he was carrying something
and that's where it broke loose.
And that's where he got turned upside down
and he was here in our camp
and he brought some of that fire and that power with him.
And it was just so powerful.
And so that's what he does.
You know, he says, but what you have to have
is say, okay, God, you know,
I wanna do what you tell me to do,
but it has to start with a hunger.
Yes.
We have to have a hunger.
What happens if we get hungry?
You're driving down the interstate.
You're looking for a sign for your favorite drive-through
or something, you know, because you're hungry.
But we have to have that same desire for the word of God.
Amen.
You know, we have to have that desire
to spending more time in the word.
And even on your Facebook and every stuff like that,
you know, things just come up and come up and yeah,
I'm working on it too, you know.
Things come up just to pull you away.
I thought, you know, you could,
you're gonna spend that time listening to
the book of Ephesians on your phone app, you know?
And that's what I'm doing more and more.
And when you're doing this,
cause the more what you put in you,
the more you'll be hungry for.
Right.
What happens if you have,
you depend on coffee all the time.
I love coffee, you know?
But if you depend on it and you drink a lot of it,
a lot of it, a lot of it,
and all of a sudden there comes a time you can't get it.
It's trouble.
It's really trouble and you're gonna hurt, you know?
And we're really hurting ourselves spiritually.
You know, if we're not spending time in the word of God
because we have to know what he's saying,
it'll be a scripture can come up for that day
for somebody, for you or for somebody else.
But we get addicted to a lot of other stuff.
I mean, what percentage of youth today
are addicted to their cell phones?
What happens if you take the cell phone away or the tablet?
Not just the youth.
What about the adults?
What about those of us in our sixties?
So we're pretty much, I mean, it's an addictive thing.
The thing is that God created us
with the ability to become addicted
because he intended for us to be addicted to him.
To him.
And they say if you do a pattern for 21 days,
it becomes a habit.
So we got on an airplane once from Paris to Israel,
I think it was.
Oh yeah.
And we're going through the front section
and this was an Air France plane
but it was a little older one
and it didn't have the TVs in the seat in front of you.
And I'm going by and this guy says,
this is an adult, maybe in his one, thirties maybe?
Thirties, probably.
And he says, well, where's the entertainment?
Kind of like in a, well, what am I gonna do?
And he said, what am I gonna do for the next four hours?
I just zipped my lip
because I didn't want to get a bloody nose.
I could have really said something there
that he may not have liked,
but I didn't feel the anointing to say anything.
Good thing.
But that's just an example.
He's addicted to entertainment.
Right.
And I remember hearing a preacher give a message one,
we are addicted to three things.
Fun, food, entertainment.
Yeah.
Three things, fun, food, entertainment.
That's what kids want.
And adults too, a lot of them.
Fun, food, entertainment.
Another story.
So let's look at, there's one more person I want to look at
and that was Evan Roberts.
And he was one that was looking for God to move.
Ever since he was a youth, he had that polling to the Lord.
He just had this polling
and he worked in the coal mines and all that.
Then he's going off to Bible school.
I forget the town it was actually at.
Took the train there and he got there and he says,
I looked at the cross in the church and I didn't weep.
See, when he would look at the cross, he would cry.
That's how impacted he was by it.
But it was so spiritually where he was.
And he was there learning,
learning the Bible and all that,
but it's totally different.
But they're going to a meeting
and the pastor driving the vehicle says,
I've been praying for four to five years for a lad
to come out of the coal mines or out of the fields
for God to raise up and to preach the gospel.
Not someone that's in seminary that is high
and has a degree this and that.
I want somebody, God raised somebody up
that's a common folk and he heard that.
And the next day I think it was,
he's in the meeting and the pastor there is preaching.
And the pastor says, what if the spirit came
and you were absent?
Wow.
And he's thinking this in his head.
And then he said, I will have the spirit.
He says, I'm going to have the spirit.
He wants this and cause he's been praying
for revival for so long.
He had been already interceding for a long time for souls.
Yeah, he had and he had four different things
that he stated that we must do.
And I'm quoting this from the book,
I saw the Welsh revival.
And I recommend that you get it
because it's written by someone that was not a believer
and he was a musician and he ended up helping
in the revival, quite amazing.
He became a believer.
David Matthews was his name.
David Matthews and he's the one that wrote the book,
I saw the Welsh revival.
You can find it out on Amazon.
And so the four things it was,
it says you desire an outpouring
of the Holy Spirit in your city.
You do well, but remember four conditions must be observed.
They are essential.
First, is there any sin in your past life
with which you have not honestly dealt?
Not confess to God?
On your knees at once, your past must be put away and cleanse.
What's happening today to a lot of preachers
this last while, it's their past.
Some of them it's their past and others it's their present.
And God is letting these things be revealed
and because of the season we are in, it's powerful.
So second, is there anything in your life that is doubtful?
Anything you cannot decide whether it is good or evil?
Away with it.
There must not be a trace of a cloud between you and God.
Have you forgiven everybody?
Everybody.
If not, don't expect forgiveness for your sins.
Better offend 10,000 friends
than grieve the Spirit of God or quench him.
Third, do what the Holy Spirit prompts
without hesitation or fear.
Obedience, prompt, implicit, unquestioning obedience.
You know, our founders' motto was unconditional surrender.
Yeah, that was the title of her autobiography.
So prompt, implicit, unquestioning obedience
at whatever cost.
Fourth, a public confession of Christ as personal savior.
Profession and confession are vastly different.
Multitudes are guilty of long and loud profession.
Confession of Christ as Lord is of recent date.
We forget that there is a Trinity in the Godhead
and that the three persons are on absolute equality.
Wow, you'd get thrown out of some of the churches back then
because they didn't believe that,
including the one that Charles Finney was, you know.
And it's amazing that that Reese Howells and Evan Roberts
were just born two years apart.
You know, one was the one that used it for England
and the other for Wales, you know.
And Evan Roberts came back from his Bible school.
He left it.
He was just compelled.
He had to leave it.
And he left and came back after just a couple months
and said, I wanna talk to the pastor to start the,
you know, talk to the youth and that.
And within six weeks time, his name was a household word.
That's all it took was six weeks for the power of God
to fall wherever he preached and people were converted.
That's a man that stands in the gap
and paid a price for it.
So how many out there, how many Evan Roberts are out there?
Yes.
You know, how many Reese Howells are out there?
You know, how many they're out there and that could be you.
God can use you in whatever capacity
you will let him use you.
Yes.
You can be satisfied wherever you're at.
The thing is, don't ever be satisfied.
And it's like the disciples after Jesus was resurrected,
you know, and they're on the road to Emmaus,
you know, and they're talking with each other.
And all of a sudden, here's this person walks,
stranger walks up, what are you all talking about?
You know?
Yeah.
You know, and then he's just telling him scripture
like he's a rabbi.
Of course he was, you know?
And they get to the lodging place, stay with us, you know?
And so he did, he broke bread with them.
I mean, the last time he broke bread,
we know is with the disciples.
And that was the last supper.
And then all of a sudden he breaks bread
and he disappears before their eyes.
And they said, did not our hearts burn within us
while he talked with us?
So we have to get to the point
where our hearts will burn in us.
So he will talk to us.
Amen.
So we can feel, we can hear and know.
Be still and know that I am God.
Amen.
So I'm praying this will be an encouragement
for everybody today that don't be satisfied where you're at.
You know, I've been in ministry over 43 years
and there's so many things that I lack
and that now I'm just really pressing into.
But don't wait 43 years.
Yes.
You know, even right now, today, tonight,
you know, when you hear this,
you know, rededicate yourself to God
and just press into his word.
You'll lose your friends.
You'll lose some other stuff.
He may tell you to get rid of all your,
used to be your rock records, now it's your CDs, you know,
and maybe your MP3.
Or maybe just your phone.
Or your phone.
I remember Sister Gwen saying in a meeting,
if your computer's sending you to hell, get rid of it.
So get rid of anything that is keeping you away
from the presence of God.
Amen.
Philip, would you pray for the listeners?
Oh Father, we thank you Lord for your word.
Lord, that you are the word that was made flesh
and you dwelt among us.
And Lord, even though you're not dwelling with us physically,
you're dwelling with us spiritually
because you're in our hearts, oh God.
Lord, even as Dean Braxton said,
when he died and went to heaven,
and he saw you and Jesus saw himself in him,
he knew he was in.
So Father, we thank you Lord,
and we pray Lord that if there's any of you there right now
that you have never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior,
just ask him in your heart,
just ask him for forgiveness for your past,
all your sins, what you've done wrong.
There's nothing you've done wrong
that the blood of Jesus Christ cannot cleanse.
And just ask for that cleansing flow of his precious blood
and that it would just wash you clean
and you just feel his love
and then you pursue after his love.
Keep pursuing him, pursuing him.
Hallelujah.
So Father, we thank you Lord for what we have heard
and what's in your word,
what's reading about these men that stood in the gap, Lord,
and they stood in your fire and your anointing
and in your power,
and you use them to sway and to move nations, oh God,
and to destroy strongholds.
So we thank you Father that you can use us,
each and every one of us,
because we're all unique and we're all created
in your image.
But Lord, we just have to turn ourselves totally over to you.
So Father, we pray that Lord that you will just move,
Holy Spirit, move on the hearts of all people
that are hearing this.
And even those that don't hear it, Lord,
just move on the hearts of people, Lord,
could be this mighty move is coming, oh God.
And you want everybody to be in place
because every person will have a place
to be used by you in a mighty way.
In your name, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
God bless you with this overwhelming loving presence.
Amen.