Keys to Excellence and Impact in Ministry

Transcript

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Welcome to the Jonathan Shuttle's Worth Podcast. To stay connected, go to revivaltoday.com. And now here is Evangelist Jonathan.

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Take your Bible and turn to Joshua chapter 1, verses 2 through 9. This is God's charge to his leader, Joshua, after Moses passed. Joshua chapter 1. Welcome everybody that's watching online. And we're on live TV or not on live TV. Joshua 1, 2 to 9. This will play, though? Okay, good. So welcome everybody that's watching on Real America's Faith and Family. It's nice to be able to hear somebody sneeze without nine families leaving the church, like during the COVID era. So praise God, we've turned the page. Joshua 1, 2. The Bible says, Moses, my servant, is dead. I won't have you repeat stuff all day, but say Moses, my servant, is dead. How many of you remember Brother Anderson? Yeah, he's dead now. Now it's your turn. So that's what God's saying. You've mourned long enough for Moses. If you want to have a small, ineffective ministry, long for the past. The Bible specifically says in Ecclesiastes, don't talk about the former days and how great it was because you don't know whether it was or not. You know, you hear people, how many remember the meetings in the 80s? I was in the meetings in the 80s. There are better meetings now. You know, if you're not careful, you'll be in a move of God and not even realize you're in a move of God. Like, you know, it says a lot for the pastor to see the church jammed out and realize this is something special. Most pastors would have flushed that down the toilet. Whoa, we end Friday. You know, this was great. When God sends momentum to your ministry, you need to recognize it and you need to catch it because momentum is very difficult in the ministry to generate. Once it's generated, it's very easy to lose. When you have momentum, write it. Change what you have to change. You know, next week, my daughter's birthday, she turns 13 on Tuesday. So if I was a normal American evangelist, I said, no, thank you, but my daughter's birthday is on Tuesday. You listen to most ministers. They're in total violation of the instruction of the Apostle Paul, where he said in the military, did anybody here serve in the military in any country? When they deployed you, did they care if it was your son's birthday or whatever? Could you tell your commanding officer, no, listen, can't go to Iraq. My son has a baseball game. No, you've enlisted to that, and the Bible literally says, Paul said, uh a minister, a soldier does not become entangled in civilian affairs. There's a huge base, there's a lot of military bases around here, but there's a huge base in Columbus, Georgia, not that far from here. So there, when I preach at that church, there's a lot of military guys. Well, I I I had this feeling when I was studying on this. I said, why do they um what do they call it when you're in the ministry or when you're in the military and they they they reassign you? What's it called? The official term when they like move you? They just make you live somewhere else in the States, like you're living in Jacksonville and they move you. What's it called? Relocate, relocation. I don't know a lot of words, so if you guys can help me, um it'll be great. So they'll reassign you to live somewhere, and I was I was researching it that it costs billions of dollars to reassign soldiers to live in different cities every year, and there's no point. Like, why, if you're at Fort Drum, do I just randomly make you move to Kansas? When it's the same base, same, it's the same protocol. It's like there's some great general out in Kansas that that uh you can't meet in South Carolina or whatever. And it was for the reason I suspected. They move you every two years or so so that you don't make friends and you don't get too plugged in somewhere. And anytime they you need to be uprooted and go, you have no ties to a place, and you're it's a psychological thing. The Bible says in the mil in the ministry, just like in the military, a military man does not become entangled in civilian affairs so that he can keep himself for the one he serves. Now, that's where people miss it. See, this is a big, it's a big thing. How many people were in church on Sunday? 160, 140, 180 in there? So to go from 180 to 320, everything's relative. 425, then last night, 540. And when you when you read Christianity today or whatever, and they tell you, you know, people aren't coming to church, the day of the day of weeklong meetings is over, that's a thing of the past. Well, if this is happening in the face of that, right after a church finished 21 days of prayer and fasting, believing for breakthrough, then you need to be able to recognize in life when God is answering your prayer and then move with it. You know, um, my uncle used to preach that God's people are tent people. I used to post that, but people misinterpret it. People would write in the comments, yes, I love tent meetings. That's not what he meant. When they traveled, there was a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. And when that fire or cloud moved, they didn't build homes in the desert, they built tents. And you had to be ready to uproot that tent and move with where God's moving. Where people miss it is they get not just settled down, they root in a place. You know, you'll be preaching meetings, and um, this happened to an evangelist friend of mine. The meeting was going like this one was, and the pastor said, I'd love to extend it, but I'm I am an umpire in my girls' softball league, and their playoffs are on this Monday. So, so people miss. It's not that God's not moving, it's that people have this routine, and the ministry almost becomes something, uh, errands to run to get out of the way so you can get back home and do what you're doing at home. If you'll make the ministry first, now people say, how do you balance family and ministry? Well, I'll tell you. I'm going home this weekend, I'll be with my family. I will fly back Monday after church and be home for my daughter's birthday up until 5:30 p.m. and then I'll fly back to South Carolina. I realize not everyone has their own plane. But I will tell you there's a scriptural principle. It is impossible to put God and his kingdom first, and you and your family suffer. God is the one that instituted marriage. God is the one that said, What I've joined together, let no one tear apart. God's never gonna get, when you hear a preacher say something like, I gave so much to the Lord that it cost me my marriage. No, you were just a terrible husband. Don't blame Jesus. Now I'm gonna tell you, how do you balance it? How you balance it is, after preaching all this week, tonight I'm gonna fly to Arizona and preach at our church there in Phoenix, I'll fly back that night to go preach at our church in Pittsburgh at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. I'll be home, honor the Sabbath principle from 1 p.m. till 5 p.m. the next day. That's more than 24 hours, I'll be off. And then I'll come back and do it again. When I'm home, I can't, I'm not gonna say to Camila, my daughter, hey, don't talk to daddy, I've been preaching all week. That's where you miss it. You can't give all your effort to other people and then come home and switch off. So if you'll give effort when you're home, God will help you. God will give you energy. But you don't have to choose between success in ministry and success in family. If you put God's thing first, God will give you a grace that will come on. My dad's a preacher. If you add up my dad's schedule, he was gone nine of the first 11 years that I was alive. He wasn't gone nine straight years, but if you add it up, he preached Sunday through Friday, he'd be home Saturday, and uh, if we weren't on the road with him, then he'd be out the next week. Well, how am I? Am I on drugs? Am I in a methodone clinic because my dad was gone? No. It there's an honor. As my dad went out for God, my sister is serving the Lord. She's a pastor in Montreal at an Italian church. I'm here preaching with you. When you put God first, seek ye first the kingdom, the advancement. Everybody say the advancement. In context, it's the advancement. It's building churches, evangelistic crusades. Seek first soul winning, the things that that make ministry. Seek first the advancement of God's kingdom, and if you will, all the other things that you could die trying to get, I'll add them unto you. I took my family on a week and a half vacation, you know, just with them. No preaching, just flew them out into the desert. I like to take breaks in the desert like Jesus. So we went to Nevada and we went to a casino hotel. I don't gamble, but it's a very nice hotel. And so they they gave me access to a room that you have to gamble a minimum of three million dollars a year to qualify for. You know, it's a supernatural. I witnessed to the bellmen at this place. I've stayed there a lot. And um, that room was 5,800 square feet. It was two floors, it had a private elevator, it was three bedrooms. I was gonna invoke squatter rights and refuse to leave at the end and get it tied up in court for 18 months. I'm bringing that up because to me, that's God saying, You went all out for me. Now, when it's time for your family, I'm gonna give you the type of vacation that billionaires take because you put me first. When people start getting it in your head that there's no reward for serving the Lord, and we give it all for the ministry, and one day it'll be worth it in heaven. They're not telling you the truth. God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. And the Bible says if you would put up 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 8. 1 Timothy 4 8. Timothy, godliness is profitable. Everybody say godliness is profitable. Godliness is profitable, physical training is good. Let me see King James. Physical exercise has some good, but training for godliness or godliness is better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. For bodily exercise profiteth little. That's what I quote to my wife every time she wants me to go to the gym with her. Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable. Say that with me. Godliness is profitable. One guy was giving me a hard time at an airport with my plane. He said, You're a preacher and you have a plane. How do you afford that? He was a he was a businessman. I said, Um, how much money would you say through the years you've spent on alcohol and gambling and uh DUI attorneys or whatever? Oh, hundreds of thousands. I said, I got all that money. You spent it there. The Bible says when you're a sinner, you have a basket with holes in it. And when you serve the Lord, God gives you a way to retain the money where there's no leaks. So without even getting into the supernatural benefits of serving God, just the fact that I don't have a three-pack a day cigarette habit, or all the all these things cost money. Picking up bar tabs, uh, don't go to the strip club. All the money that people waste when they don't serve the Lord, you retain it and then multiply it. Can you say amen? You know, think of this. What was the difference between Esau and Jacob? There were a few, but Esau was a hunter. He found an animal, killed it, ate it, looked for his next animal. Kill it, eat it. Jacob found an animal, found a spouse for it. He was what they called in the Bible an animal husbandman. He bred animals. So Esau ate whatever came in. Jacob multiplied whatever came in, and the Bible says we have the same covenant. We're not of Esau, we're of Jacob. So God puts an anointing on you where not only do you not lose what you have, you multiply what you have. Today is a day where everything that God's put in your hand, people, buildings, church property, evangelistic crusades, you're gonna see it begin to multiply from today in Jesus' name. If you believe it, can you say amen? Godliness is profitable. One more time say that godliness is profitable. Yeah, there's a reward for serving the Lord. There's a reward for your health. I prophesied to somebody that was here one of the first two nights, an old preacher. I said, as you sir, as you sowed your physical strength into the work of the Lord in your youth, you will now reap a harvest of physical strength in your older years from the Lord. Everything the Bible talks about sowing seed unto the flesh, which is corruption, or but on the flip side, they always emphasize the negative stuff in church. Don't smoke, don't drink, that's a bad habit. She reaped what she sowed. She was always smoking, now she has cancer. But they never emphasize that God also says, you can sow unto the spirit. And when you do, you'll reap a harvest of everlasting life after the spirit in this life and in the life that is to come. There's a reward in heaven, but there is certainly, let me ask you a question. If you live in sin, does it take till when you go to hell for you to get uh uh the wages of sin? No. If I if I if I started doing methamphetamine tonight, it would start taking a toll on my teeth and bones immediately. It would mess my marriage up. It doesn't wait till you go to eternity to start kicking in. Neither do the holy things of God wait till eternity to start kicking in. It starts blessing, you know. You look at old preachers that have stayed in the anointing and stayed pure. They're in their 80s, strong. My friend Jesse DuPlantis preached 317 meetings through in 317 cities. He only does one night. 317 cities at 75 years old that year. Most 75-year-olds can't even go to the mall. No, you go, I need to be close to a toilet. He's going all over the world. I mean, him and Joe Biden are the same age, and look at the difference. One one guy preaching every night, the other guy not preaching every night. So there's a blessing. Say with me, there's a blessing for your health. There's a blessing for your mind. When you keep your mind stayed on the word of God, it makes your mind sharp. It makes your mind start running. The Bible says you have the mind of Christ. And how was Christ's mind? They sent lawyers to trap him with trick questions. And the Bible says he not only answered their questions, he answered it in such a way that it shamed the person that asked the question. That's your mind, supernatural intelligence. I'll give you an example. Bishop David Oyadepo, when he was building the church they're in now, a 50,000-seat church, which was the largest church in the world at that time. They brought in excavation equipment in there, like huge construction equipment. Well, while the equipment was under the 50,000-seat arena that was gonna be the church, they built the doors and had finished the foundation, and there was no way to get the buildings out. That was in Nigeria. I'm Polish. That sounds like something that would happen in my home country. So they couldn't get the big equipment out. So the builder said to Pastor Oyadepo, he said, you're either gonna have to take the roof off and put it back on again, which is gonna be millions of dollars, or we can shave the foundation 18 inches, but that could over time uh collapse, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh alter the the makeup of the building and and and and weaken it. So that'll be cheaper, but it can weaken the building, or you can pay millions for us to do it. And so he said, let me just think. And he said, I got quiet with God. And then I looked at the tires and I said, How big are those tires? They said, 30 inches. And how much can it not clear the thing by? Eight inches. He said, let 10 inches of air out of the tires. And he said, We made a solution to the problem for$1.50. We let the air out, put it out, and aired the tires back up. God has a solution to every problem. God will anoint your mind. In fact, everything you're facing right now in the ministry that you don't know what to do, get in quiet under the word of God, like you're doing right now. Because as a minister, a lot of times, you don't get a chance to breathe. You're always preaching, you're always getting ready to preach. So to take two hours and sit under the word of God, like right now, and think. God will start to show you the solution to every problem that you're facing. And I want you to know that. Every blockage, every hindrance, don't ever get in the mentality there's there's no way past this. No. There's a way through the wilderness, there's a parting of the Red Sea, which means if there is no way out, God can create a way out by your faith. And I see him giving you a path forward today in Jesus' name. Can you say amen? Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise in the life that now is and in the life that is to come. Let me see NLT again. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is better. Promising uh benefits in this life. Everybody say benefits in this life. Then put Hebrews 11 6 up if you would. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. For anyone that wants to come to God successfully must believe that he is, and equally, you have to believe that he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. You know why I'm taking time on this? Because people come out of the woodwork, if you pastor or you're an evangelist, to tell you why your ministry is not gonna work here. I'm gonna tell you, when you feel called to pastor somewhere and you go there, whoever the first guy is that says, Um, hey, I'd love to take you out for coffee, I would just say no. Because number one, you know he's cheap. Why does he want to go for coffee instead of steak or borsche or whatever? You know, and then they take you out for coffee and they tell you, now listen, you know, South Carolina is a very hard place. There's many churches here, it's very religious. When I started in the ministry, I preached in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Ontario, and Quebec and New Brunswick, Eastern Canada and New England. So literally, almost all the pastors would say the spiritual climate here is very cold, like the winter. Then I got an invitation to go preach in Arizona, and I was thinking on the way out, at least I won't have to listen to how it's cold like the winter here. Literally, I flew from Maine to Dallas and then connected Dallas to go to Phoenix. On my connection, the pastor called me. I hadn't talked to him yet. And he goes, Have you ever preached in Arizona before? I said, No, I've never been to Arizona. He said, You're gonna find that the spiritual climate here is as dry as the desert. I thought, good Lord, the devil has a weather analogy for every place people go. You know, when I when I went to come here, your pastor didn't say it, but I had people say you're going to a Slavic church, they're very reserved, you know. They might not, they'll tell you, but I don't care anymore. They'll tell you that if you go to the Bahamas, they'll tell you if you go to Barbados, they'll tell you that if you go to a white church, they'll tell you, whatever. There's a lie of why it won't work. God doesn't send anyone anywhere to fail. Wherever the sole of your foot shall tread, you'll be on land that I've given to you. So part of success in ministry is expecting increase, expecting success. God did not send me here to fail. God didn't send me here to babysit the existing Christians. He sent me here to do what I see role model in the book of Acts, which is if I'm the only believer that goes there within a handful of years, Christianity will be the dominant thing in that place because of the power of God that resides on the inside of you. I tell you a second time, I see you making great impact for the kingdom of God in 2026 in Jesus' name. Joshua 1. Moses, my servant, is everybody say expect a reward. I promise you what I promised Moses. Wherever you set your foot, you'll be on land that I've given to you. From the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, including all the land of the Hittites. No one will be able to stand against you, no one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. Say that with me. I will be with you as I was with Moses. Acts 10, 34 and 35. God is no respecter of persons. So when you read anything God did for people in the Bible, he'll do for you. You know, there's a man, you know, Smith Wigglesworth. Yes, all Smith Wigglesworth did, all the great people you read about, they just found things in the Bible and believed them. God has no commitment to one person over another person. He's committed to his word. And if you'll believe his word, the commitment he has to his word starts to show forth in your life. I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will never fail you, I will never abandon you. Be strong and courageous. For you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instruction that Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in how many things that you do. How many know God doesn't promise success? He just asks for faithfulness. Well, yeah, I don't know if you do drugs or what. I mean, you don't need to be that literate that God doesn't give you instructions that lead to nothing. He did this is this isn't this isn't Islam where you pray five times a day just to pray five times a day. Everything that God gives you to do. A carries a reward. There's a reward for prayer. There's a reward for study of the word, a personal reward. Every old preacher I've been around that's like in their 80s and still preaching, you don't get talking to them that long before they say, Have you ever read in Galatians 2.20? I was reading this today. Their minds are fixed on the word. Their minds remain sharp, their speech remains sharp. Everything God asks you to do carries a personal benefit for you. If you will get convinced of that, nothing is hard to do in the ministry. Oh well, I gotta go to church again. What does the Bible say happens when you go to church? They that appear before God at Zion, they go from strength to strength. That when you plant yourself in God's house, there's an anointing that's released to make you go stronger. I see you getting stronger in the anointing. I see you getting stronger in your physical strength. I see your ministry having stronger results in Jesus' name. Can you say amen? Say it out loud. Everything God asks me to do carries a personal reward. And then you know you got people, um, now the Bible talks about suffering. No kidding. Why are you so dense that you can't understand that two things can happen simultaneously? Read Genesis 26. God's blessing Isaac. He gets a hundredfold return. And the Philistines envied him and seized his land and stopped up his well. So what did he do? Go cry? Go to a support group? Deconstruct his faith? No, the Bible says he went to another land and dug another well. Then the Philistines took that. Then he went and did it again. They took that, then he did it again, and no one came and did anything. If you don't give up, the devil will give up. Perseverance is not a fruit of hell, it's a fruit of the Spirit. Everybody say, dig another well. And he named that place for Hoboth, for he said, At last the Lord has given us space to prosper in the land. God, two things can happen simultaneously. God will bless you, and there will be people that don't like your blessing. Your father gives you a coat of many colors, your brothers make a plan to murder you because they don't like that you're growing. There are people that their only contribution in life is to try to take down people who are advancing. But God said, no one will ever be able to stand against you as long as you live. Deuteronomy 28, though your enemy attacks you from one direction, I will make him run from you in seven directions. I'm in two lawsuits right now in Pittsburgh for our church. Our church that could seat about 280 people, we had 770 the first April. Like what's happening here. So a church with a rainbow flag on the outside took pictures of our people in the parking lot and turned us into the city for too many people, which started a lawsuit. You know what I did? I'll tell you what I didn't do. Sorry, we'll keep the attendance down. We grew more and we grew more. In fact, at one point when they were threatening me, I got the Bible says to be bold, not disrespectful, but they said, just so you know, we can begin to fine you$1,000 a day. I said, Can I pay you$365,000 up front? I didn't have the money, but I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to the devil that's trying to limit the growth of the church. The same devil from the Soviet Union, the same devil in Yemen, the same devil in Canada that's trying to ban prayer. I'm not backing up one inch to stop the growth of the church. You don't say anything about bars being two-packed, casinos being two-packed. I'm gonna see God's will carried out in my generation, and every devil in hell that doesn't like it can kiss off. If you receive that today, can you say amen? Somebody say, be bold, be strong. Yeah, people spend too much time. This is an extra point that's not in my points. They spend too much time trying to appease their critics rather than do what God told them to do. There's people that are upset about how many, uh, how big the church is, then be upset. If you know them, go talk to their relatives. They were upset before you were a pastor. They're just miserable people, they're just looking for something to be upset about. So be upset. Can you say amen? And you want to know what happened? When we would not back down, a builder in Pittsburgh saw the news stories that they were using to attack us. Say with me, whatever the devil means for evil. God will turn it for your good. Yeah, there's a reward. There's even a reward for persecution. Blessed are those that are persecuted. There's a blessing. Always keep your eyes on the blessing. Never talk defeat, never talk problem, never talk what you gave up. Thank God. Bless him. Thank him that it's being multiplied to you. Thank you that the windows of heaven are open over my life. Thank you that goodness and mercy will follow me every day of my life. This builder didn't even go to our church. He said, I don't like that they're doing that to you. I'm getting a warehouse and I want you to use it for your church. Build it out for$70 a square foot. Should be$250 a square foot. He told the painters, he told the electricians, I need you to do it for half the price that you quoted me. They said, We only quoted you labor and materials. He said, Well, that's your problem. But you know how much I build and that I use you. If you want to keep doing my projects in the future, this one you're gonna have to take a hit on, because this is for the church. And that guy got ticked off about how our church was being treated and got riled up. And now that thing the devil meant to shut us down instead echoed through Pittsburgh, and we're gonna have one of the ten largest churches from Pennsylvania to Maine that opens this Easter because the devil cannot determine your growth. Quit blaming the devil. He's not over your head, he's not eye to eye, he is eternally under your feet. And the devil's finding out this week in South Carolina, and he's gonna find out more wherever you're from. He is not your master, he is dethroned, he is defeated. You have been raised with Christ in heavenly places, and your best days are yet to come. If you receive it, go ahead and clap your hands and give the Lord a mighty shout. Hallelujah. Let me see uh Joshua 1 7. Be strong and very courageous. If I'd have backed down then, we'd have been eternally at 150, 100 down to 80. Churches don't grow here. No, you didn't stand up to the thing you needed to stand up to. As soon as that we got the letter, you know, we've it's come to our attention, you have too many people in the building. Then we got a lawyer, found out we're the only people in the last six years that they've checked occupancy on. Well, that's called discrimination. I'm not backing down, but see, I didn't learn that in in seminary or Bible college. Bible college teaches you to be a spineless loser. Sorry, sir, sorry, we'll keep it down, we'll keep the noise down. No, you want to make peace. You can't make peace with a devil. So you're kind to people, but when somebody rears their head that they're sent from hell to shut you down and they will appear, you don't address them like they're your friend. You don't put your arm around when Peter told Jesus, and Peter and Jesus were close, hey, Jesus, quit saying you're gonna go to Jerusalem and die. That's enough. And that was his purpose. The Bible says he looked at the other disciples, then looked back at Peter, and in front of them said, Get thee behind me. Now, if that was on video and somebody put it on Instagram, the comments would be 1100 deep. That's not very Christ-like. No, it's Christ-like. Christ did it. If somebody wants to be used by the enemy, you are not out of bounds to address them as an enemy. Because we are not engaged in funfair. We are engaged in warfare, and the warfare is not waving banners and singing spirits out of the sky. The warfare is centered upon the closing down of the church. It was the first target when COVID was released. The devil cannot carry out his plans in America if there are strong on-fire pastors in churches. So I've got bad news from the devil. You for the devil, you've already failed because there's enough firepower in this room to run the devil out of this whole region of the country. Congratulations in advance on the best year in ministry that you've ever had. If you receive that, go ahead, take 15 seconds, clap your hands and give the Lord. I hear the sound of the armies of the Lord. Big altar calls, big buildings, big impact. Be strong. Everybody say, I will. Be very courageous. Everybody say, I will. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Don't deviate from them. Turning to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in how many things you do. Everything. Eight. Study this book of instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night. So you'll be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then it adds that word. Will you prosper and succeed in everything you do? Prosperity is a great thing. Prosperity keeps you from taking long begging offerings. Prosperity keeps you from having uh fish fried dinners or pancake breakfast or spaghetti dinners to raise money. That's not in the Bible. And you're gonna get to a point in the ministry where there's not enough spaghetti in Italy to pay for what you're doing. You have to enter into God's supernatural prosperity. You'll prosper and you'll succeed in everything you do. Verse 9. Actually, put 218 KJV. Because it adds something to it in the King James, which is important. So meditate on the word, and then it says, This book of the law shall not depart out of where? Death and life's in the power of the tongue. Speak the word only, speak the Bible. Thank you, Lord, for growth. Thank you for multiplication. Thank you for health. Thank you for life. Thank you for strength. You don't have to pray for things that God already says yours. You can just thank him for it and speak it out of your mouth. Let me see Psalm 103, 1 to 5. Bless the Lord, O my soul. With all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, I tell myself, and forget not all of his benefits. There's that word again. Everybody say benefits. That's what kept David in the cave. I'm not staying in this cave. Had I not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord while I was getting the lane of the living than I had a cave. But I know where I'm at now is not where I'm staying. Can you say amen? All his benefits. Verse 3. What are the benefits? Who forgives how many of your iniquities and heals how many of your diseases? All of them. God, whatever your will is. He just told you what his will is. Who redeems your life from destruction? That's what happened to me in Pittsburgh. The media and the archdiocese were making plans to shut our church down. But God redeems you from destruction. If you keep your life pure and holy, nobody can take you down. If you stay clean before God, there's nobody that has permission to touch you. Every attack against your family, your life, and your ministry falls flat today. In Jesus' name. Who crowneth thee with loving kindness. Let me see NLT. Does it say he fills my life with good things? Crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercy. He redeems me from death, crowns me, he fills my life with good things. Everybody say fills my life with good things. My youth, so this is separate than healing. My youth is renewed like the eagles. You know, if you take two 17-year-olds and one serves the Lord and one doesn't, one drinks and parties every weekend, you can't tell who's who. At 45, my age, you can tell. There's a death attached to sin for your physical body, and there's a life attached to holiness that affects your physical body. Can you say amen? So when you watch those commercials on TV, don't let them convince you that you're one of them. Are you a man over the age of 40? Who cares? Who's asking? Put the game. Wow, of 153 on a Friday morning for a minister's meeting. Not bad. Praise God. Are you a man that's over the age of 60? You have a one in six chance of developing prostate cancer. No, I don't. I have as much chance of getting prostate cancer as I do of getting pregnant. One violates a physical law and another violates my covenant laws. I'm not getting cancer. I don't get sick. I lay hands on the sick and they recover. Stop confessing what the world confesses. Everybody say, My youth is renewed, like the eagles. And then say this death and life are in the power of the tongue. Let this book of the law never depart from your mouth. If you say, you know, as you get older, your eyes aren't what they once were, then enjoy blindness. You speak it. But if you'll speak the opposite, Moses, though he was 120 years old, his eyes were not dim, and his strength was in no way abated, then it says, This is the inheritance of all who serve the Lord. Can you say amen? Everybody say, I'm getting stronger. See yourself getting stronger. You know, because you'll get around people in modern ministry that they tell you it's time to pass the baton at 55. 55 is 10 years from now for me. I'm just getting warmed up. I'm just starting to begin to see what was in my spirit. Where's that? In the Bible. 55's time to retire. Where's retire in the Bible? Period. If you build your ministry correctly, make it that you enjoy it. There's nobody that's traveling with me that I don't enjoy being around. There's nobody at my church that if I see them come, that works at the office, that if I see them coming down the hall, I go in the other hall because they're, you know, depressing Margaret. Keep people around you that are happy. Keep people around you that are full of God's joy. Build your ministry in such a way that you enjoy going to church. There's pastors that hate going to their own church. They're not canceling for snow. The snow gave them a reason to do what they'd like to do every Sunday. And then if there's not no snow, they'll just declare a Sabbath Sunday, which is, since there were no snowstorms, I need a break. But that'll never be you. You're gonna enjoy, you're not only gonna have great growth in ministry, you're gonna God's gonna give you wisdom how to enjoy it in Jesus' name. You know, when your ministry starts growing, people start saying stuff like, um, heavy, heavy lies the head that wears the crown. Like that's an old English saying, meaning when you're in charge, you carry a lot of weight. Is that a Bible verse? No, it's not. It's like King Edward said that or something. Some inbred Englishman said it, but it's not in the Bible. No, the Bible says his yoke is and his burden is. See, I think that's what keeps some people from growing in evangelism or pastoral work, is they think you have to make a choice between enjoying your marriage and children and maybe having a smaller work, or then like striving to build a mega church and because a lot of times when you meet those guys, they've done it that way. I met a guy, I really like him, I still like him. But it was very disappointing to me. I said, uh, brother so-and-so, you have over 500 churches now. He's got more than that now. I said, That's amazing that you've been able to do that uh by the grace of the Lord. And his face dropped, and he went, Yes, but when you have all these churches, you carry the financial weight of it. Well, that's not a scripture. So you can get big in your own effort and it'll crush you. That's why people that are in the world that have big companies, the highest rate of suicide is not among the poor or the middle class or the rich, it's among the ultra-rich because they carry that weight. But the blessing of the Lord makes a man rich. What's the second part? And adds no sorrow. I used to need$3,500 a month to break even when I was starting in the ministry with my wife, and it perplexed me because I didn't know the stuff I'm gonna endeavor to teach a little bit today. And then now I think we need uh$650,000 a week to break even. I know. See, one lady almost died just hearing it. Sounded like a 1930s movie. I know that's what I should be doing. But I don't feel it. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. So I asked a guy asked me, how do you do it? I said, I I um have just make sure somebody calls you from another state and asks you to fly and go pick up a check for a million. There's no way to do it. I never talked to those people before until I went to go receive the check. They asked if you come to the house. The Lord does it. All your job is is to stay thankful, stay living holy, and God is the one. Let me ask you a question. Uh, who were who here works for BMW? One. Who here works for Michelin? So there's a plan. Oh, everybody's at work. I guess if you're working, you want to be here. Okay. You work for BMW. If they told you, listen, we want to establish a new plant in Charlotte, and we want you to oversee it. Would you spend any time saying, how am I gonna pay for that? You know, this plant's gonna cost maybe$80 million. I don't have that kind of money. And then would you start holding spaghetti dinners and making GoFundMe's and going on Facebook, saying friends? No. Because the fact that BMW sent you to do it, who's on the hook to pay the bills? And you want to wonder, you'd go out to dinner with your BMW American Express card. You'd stay in whatever hotel you wanted with that, because you know BMW has a lot of money. You know who has more money than BMW? His name is El Shaddai. Never lose sight that he is the one that sent you, and the one that sends you is on the hook for the money. If you receive that, go ahead and clap your hands one more time. All right. Keys, keys to excellence and impact in ministry. Number one, Acts 6.4. Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word. Number one, establish deep intimacy with God. Prioritize prayer, fasting, and the word. Everybody say fasting? Fasting means not eating. I'm fasting TV. Unless you eat TVs, you're not fasting. If fasting electronics was fasting, then everybody that lived before 1920 fasted their whole life. The word in the Hebrew literally means to I think it's T-S-O-M, to close the mouth from food, to abstain from eating. There's a power that Jesus taught is released in fasting and prayer that you will not tap into otherwise. Preachers should fast. The early church fasted, this is not in the Bible, but it's in the Didic, which is the writings of the early fathers. The early church, the book of Acts Church and first century, fasted two days a week, I think Monday and Wednesday. And there's a power. I have a video. Um can you grab that guy from Milwaukee that was deaf? This guy was watching me on um YouTube. He's an old factory worker that had lost his hearing from heavy machinery. And he was watching on YouTube, never been to church, and then he decided to come the one night. And when I gave the altar call, I came up to get saved. Now I don't normally do this. You've been watching me all week, I haven't done it. But that day I was on a fast for something else. It makes you in tune with your with the Holy Ghost. So I prayed the sinner's prayer with everybody, and then when I looked at him, I said, Are you deaf? And he went like this. Yeah, yeah. I said, Take your hearing aids out. You just got saved. That's not my standard operating procedure. Do you have Orwell Roberts with a kid with tuberculosis? You can take time. I don't expect you to just read my mind. But if you if you get it, let me know. Say it again. Polio. You have it ready? See, this is what made America America. It's why America's not Canada. You know, Canada has legislation right now. It's called Bill C9 to criminalize public prayer. You know public prayer wasn't criminalized in the Soviet Union. Did you know that? So you're actually gonna have stricter laws in Canada. The Soviet Union didn't bar churches. Of course, they were they were restricted as to what days they could meet, and you had to be a certain kind of church. Canada is going after there, you heard them say that they uh they're not being a partner with America anymore and they're going with China? China is shutting down churches in the US. What's the or in Canada? What's the difference here? Not just preachers. Canada has preachers, Europe has preachers, Europe has churches, Canada has. Churches. The fire of the Holy Ghost. And the demon stay with me, demonstration. The demonstration of the power of God. You can put full gospel on your church sign all you want. If there is no demonstration of the power of God, you all just all you have, it's on your doctrinal statements. But but the thing that busts the devil are the word with signs following. Can you say amen? So this is an Oral Roberts 10 meeting. Now think of this. You got churches now that close for snow. You have churches that close for COVID. This kid has polio. Polio is a communicable disease. So for you to ask somebody with polio to sit on your lap and pray for them, you know, you had people during COVID doing baptisms with masks on. That's called waterboarding. It's not even legal. The CIA is not even allowed to do that in Sudan. You know, you gotta be careful. There's a virus. You are such a uh uh uh what's the Russian word for no balls? Okay, I'll stick to English. You're castrated. You lost the power. You're afraid of sickness, you're afraid of demons, you're afraid of addiction. But that fear is leaving ministers today. The devil's gonna be afraid. The Bible says, resist the devil, and he will flee. He'll run in terror from you. Can you say amen? I was trying to learn some Russian, but nobody will teach me. Go ahead. Watch this.

SPEAKER_25 45:32

All right. Now you've got polio from your waist down, and the right side is affected the most. Are you the mother? Step over here a minute and talk to me. Tell me when this happened with Billy Ray. Where do you hope to live? Tell me why you write daily rain. Brother Dewey, I want him on my knee. Just one minute. He's going to lift you up here. That's as easy as the cripples and spreads through breathing. Brother Deweys, are you ready for this? Pastors, the sponsors and churches, are you praying with me tonight? Audience in the tent? You friends there? Now Jesus, we ask that his little lambs be healed and that they shall be restored. Restore them tonight in the name of Christ the Lord. God loosen that little foot up and take the stiffness. Oh, it's coming now, son. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Thank you, God. Now then, Billy Ray, I want you to raise that leg up like that. Oh, you can do it! Raise this one up, son. Now raise this little leg up, son. Oh, that's wonderful tonight. Jesus of Nazareth. Let that virtue of healing go into this lamb once more, into his little right foot, particularly. He will have power! What do you think? What do you think, huh?

SPEAKER_24 48:24

You like that.

SPEAKER_22 48:28

I don't speak South Carolina, but he says he's getting touched.

SPEAKER_24 48:31

I could lift my legs up. You can lift it up.

SPEAKER_25 48:34

Oh that's wonderful. Honey. Oh, he won't stay. Honey. Walk on up. Walk.

SPEAKER_08 48:54

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_22 48:56

Look. You see people jumping? Those are Methodists and Presbyterians jumping. There was no, there was no nobody prayed for the sick back then. Nobody had ever said that. And and that that shook America. That was not a one-night meeting. 30 nights. Teach in the day. Preach at night. What? As a minister, do the work of a minute of the ministry. I want you to put a scripture up for you. This is Jesus talking about the Pharisees. Because if you're gonna have success in ministry, make sure you're not a Pharisee. It's easy to turn into one. What were Pharisees? Pharisees showed up at Jesus' meetings and commented on. If all you do in the ministry is comment on other people's ministries, you're a Pharisee. No, but I have a real reason. Yes, so they thought they had real reasons. Mind your business and do work. You know, people ask, what do you think about Benny Hen? I go years without thinking about Benny Hen. I'm preaching. If you can sit around and comment on every ministry, you need work to do. Can you say amen? This is Jesus talking about it. Everything they do is for show. On their arms, they wear extra wide prayer boxes with scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. And they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in seats of honor in the synagogues. They love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in marketplaces and to be called rabbi. John 1243. John 12 43. Let me see 43. Many people didn't believe in it. Same thing. For they loved human praise more than the praise of God. John 5.44. John 5.44. No wonder you can't believe. For you gladly honor each other, but you don't care about the honor that comes from God alone. This sounds like I'm rebuking you, but I don't even know you. But I'm telling you, if you're not careful, your ministry will get co-opted by Christianity Incorporated. And it is an honor fest where you show up in a conference, they give you an honor, you have them back at your church and give them an RM. And it you do nothing. You're spinning your wheels. You should be around. Oral Roberts was not speaking at conferences. He was putting his tent up in a field and having sinners come in and people from people that were sick. There's no money in ministering to polio people. They spend all their money at the hospital and stuff. You go after the lost and the hurting and the dying and the cancer victims, and if you'll seek that, you'll get the honor that comes from God rather than the honor that comes from man. Preach, you know. If you're a preacher, preach. Sow the word. Minister to the sick. How it's Sunday is there no opportunity for people? Now you can't, you can't do everything that's in the Bible every Sunday. When we started our church in Pittsburgh, this guy was a waiter at the restaurant I was eating at, and he didn't know I was the pastor. So the we were eating at a restaurant next door was our church. So he goes, have you do you know what that building is next to this? I said, What? You know, because he's serving my food. If he doesn't like preachers, I don't want him spitting in it or whatever. So I just pretended like I didn't know anything. He said, uh, it's some new church. He said, they have a lot of money. I said, oh, they do? Praise God. Prophesy. He said, yeah. And he said, there's a lot of people coming. He said, it's only been open a few months and there's already a lot of people. I said, oh yeah? I said, how's the pastor? He said, I've heard mixed things. Me too. So then he ends up, um, he he ends up finding out on the pastor. And he goes, Okay, do you do water baptisms when people get saved? I said, yeah. He said, but do you do them that day? I said, not always. Okay, well then that I have a problem with that. Do you pray for people to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Yes. Every Sunday? No. Well, you need to do that. Do you do you pray for the sick? Then he named like six other things. I said, You do realize at this point we're at about quarter to six p.m. in the afternoon. So you can't do everything every Sunday. But if there is no opportunity for the sick to be healed, you are leaving the faith. Jesus didn't say heal the sick if you'd like. He said, everywhere you go, announce the kingdom of heaven is at hand and heal the sick. Last night, do you think I felt like laying hands on 540 people after I finished preaching for two hours? In my flesh, I didn't. But if you'll if you lose that part of personal ministry and impartation, people are coming every week on Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings that have cancer. They found a lump in their breast. They found a growth, their kidney's shutting down, they have nowhere to go for help. And Jesus taught and preached and healed. God is calling you today back to the healing ministry. Give God a chance to move. Lay your hands on the sick, and God is bound by his word to make them recover. I see a new wave of healing pastors, healing evangelists, signs and wonders breaking forth in your ministry in Jesus' name. If you believe it, can you say amen? Number one, establish deep intimacy with God. Prioritize prayer, fasting in the Word. Number two, Acts 6, 7. So God's message continued to spread. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem. Everybody say greatly increased. And many of the Jewish priests were converted too. Number two, increase. See the benefit of a great church. See the benefit of a big evangelistic ministry. You're never going to hit a target you're not shooting for. And they program you to be small. Everything in America is big except church. They tell you, what do you need it? Why do you need a church that big? I think that pastor just wants to get his name out there. You know, why does he need a church that big for? That's what they asked me at the Pittsburgh City Council. What do you need a church that big for? I said, it's not a matter of what I need a church that big for. I said, What do you want me to tell the extra foreign to people that show up? Tough luck? Go worship somewhere else? There's no room? I said, every business is expected to accommodate growth, and then I'm expected to turn people away. It's not happening, brother. And God obviously liked my stance. Because in the book of Acts, they didn't multiply, they didn't add, they didn't multiply, they greatly multiplied. God's message, let me see, King James. And the word of God increased. If there's a lack of increase, there's a lack of showing of the Word of God. Because the Word of God brings increase. Increase is resident in the Bible. It's impossible to have this book buried in your heart and speak it out of your mouth and not increase. And the word of God increased, and the number of disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly. Let me see Acts 19, 20. Might be 26, but it might be 20. Yep, let me see King James. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed. So there's increase. The city got saved. Don't shoot for small. Jesus died for you. And the only thing he asked us to do to pay him back is go get the people he died for and bring them to the foot of the cross. It's a way to pay your debt of love back to Christ. I don't owe Christ anything for my salvation, but out of gratitude for what he did, I'm going to go get all the people that he died for. The husbandman hath long patience for the precious fruit of the earth and the precious fruit his souls. And when you go get them, say this scripture with me. Say, to he who does well with what he's given, he'll be given even more and have an abundance. And then it says to he who squanders what he has, even the little he has will be taken away. So say this with me the reward for good work is more work. That's what happens. When God finds a faithful, who is a faithful, sensible servant that I can entrust the keys of the kingdom. As you start doing what God said with pure heart and right motives, then God begins to increase your responsibilities and then engraces you to carry out. I'm telling you, I used to have no churches and half the evangelistic meetings that I have now. And I feel fresher on this Friday morning than I did 10 years ago when I was 10 years younger doing less. Because it's not you doing it, it's the great. With every opening, God increases and multiplies the grace to get it done. I see the grace of God multiplying on your life today in Jesus' name. You'll do nothing in fleshly effort. You'll do everything by the power of the Holy Spirit working mightily in you. If you believe it, can you shout amen like thunder? Now let me tell you about increase. All you have to do is accommodate what God's doing. Instead of backing off. What's with the second week of meetings? It's accommodating what God's doing. It didn't start with 300 and run down to 80, and we say, okay, we're gonna go a second week and just see what we can do. But if God's moving, don't stop it. Everyone ate until full and they collected the baskets. As long as people were hungry, Jesus kept feeding. So accommodate. So then there's things that pop up when things start multiplying. Now you need a full-time administrator instead of part-time. And you say, well, it's not in the budget, but you know you need one. Always take the step that accommodates increase. Make room for God to move. Take steps that accommodate increase. Well, okay, I'll give you an example. We get turned into the city, there's 700 people in a 400-seat building, we're in trouble. What's the natural response? Let's go to two services or let's start a second company and spread it out. But I don't want to spread out. I like I like a big crowd in one place. It speaks to the city when there's a traffic jam on Sunday to go to church. And so the easy thing would be let, well, let's hope these people go away. Let's maybe, let's maybe stop doing bus ministry because we're already out of room.

unknown 59:38

No.

SPEAKER_22 59:39

Let's push harder. And when I made that decision, a guy in shorts and a t-shirt came from the front, uh, like where you guys are sitting, and he walked up to me and goes, shorts, t-shirt, socks, and running shoes and a hat. He'd been there, this was the second week he was there. Found out he never went to church before up until then. Uh, Reverend, looks like you're out of space. I said, Yeah, I was just thinking that. He said, I just built a 75,000 square foot building. Um, it's the largest clear-span steel building in America. He said, It's not ready for me to use yet. You can start using it next week if you want. And uh, you don't even have to pay anything. Just pay whatever you feel to pay. I felt like poking him and going, Are you a man or an angel? Did you know that guy that had never been to church not only gave us that building to use, that was the soccer dome. If you went to what Noah has seen, he bought a thousand chairs for us. When we broke a thousand people in there, he was waiting. He gave me a check for$10,000 and said, Now keep pushing. Go for$2,000. See, you never would get advice like that from a Christian. Gotta be careful, you know, as things grow, you gotta be careful that you're not getting worn out. Are you taking time for you? Are you doing self-care? No, I'm what's called a heterosexual. I'm not going out for facials and getting my nails done. You know, in what other oh, thank you, thank you. In what other, I had a feeling that would go over better in a Slavic church than a regular church. Like, all right, now I like you. Now listen, um, what other, okay, let's take my friend that gave us that building to use. He he said to me one time, he said, just make sure you don't tire yourself. He said, You're doing an awful lot, aren't you, Reverend? I said, Let me ask you a question. When you were in natural gas when it first broke loose in 2004 and 2005, what time did you wake up and what time did you go to sleep? He said, Oh, I'd wake up at 3:30, I got on a helicopter, and I would visit nine different this guy owned the most caterpillar construction equipment of every of any private individual in the United States when the natural gas boom hit. He said, I'd take a helicopter to nine different sites, and then I would come back at about midnight and sleep till 3:30 and do it all again. I said, Okay, so why should you have a greater drive for natural gas than I do for establishing the kingdom? See, everybody works. Nobody feels sorry for themselves more than pastors and evangelists. I've been on the road, you know, six days this month. Okay. No one's impressed. There's military guys that have been deployed for 18 straight months and haven't seen their family. There's people that are in sales that are gone a week at a time. Who turned us into a bunch of Sabbath Sunday? We're tired from last. You know, Christmas was a lot on our staff, so this next Sunday we're gonna stay home. You're winded from singing Joy to the world. Five days later, you might not need to go to the mile clinic and see what's wrong with your body. You know, we had the Christmas condado. My family is gassed. You need like, you need to dry snort pre-workout. Something is wrong. They have turned us into the minute in the ministry in a bunch of emotionally wounded, tired, the ministry so hard. Don't let yourself talk like that. He renews my youth like the eagles. Goodness and mercy is waiting for me every day when I wake up. His mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. There's a wind from heaven blowing fresh life into the people of God today in Jesus' name. See the benefit of a great church. Push for it. Push for it in the spirit. Can you say amen? Number three, 1 Timothy 1.18. I'll fly through the rest of these. And then I'm going to take questions. So if you have questions or something you'd like to ask, I'll take them. This charge I commit unto thee, Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before you concerning you, that thou mightest wage a good warfare. Timothy, my son, here are my instructions for you based on the prophetic words spoken about you earlier. May they help you to fight well in the Lord's battles. Number three, keep the passion and the greatness of your vision alive in you and alive in the people that are around you. Talk big. We had 31 people at a Tuesday prayer meeting when I started the church. And I started a series for our prayer meetings, noon to one, on the road to a thousand. I told them at 31, if you like the church this size, you're gonna be miserable here very shortly. This is gonna be a large church with many people getting saved and many people getting discipled. And, you know, talk it, talk vision, not brag. Let people know where you're going, and you have to be excited about it. Have you ever had somebody tell you about their ministry and they seem bored? We have a church, you know, it's it's okay. Um, it's a small church in the country. I travel a little and preach too, not much. Um, do you have a bridge I can jump off of? I'm about two sentences away from ending my own life. If you're not excited about what you're doing, who else is gonna get excited? And the devil hits you if you're not careful with what one old preacher called body blows. No one big attack. No, no, not necessarily your wife dying in a car accident or something traumatic like that. But one hit, little hit, that's what those lawsuits were meant to do. Okay, you know, that's enough now. No, no, no, no, no. Never ingest those body blows. Every time the devil tries to land a shot, kick him in the head and move forward again. Everybody that's been knocked down in life, today a wind from heaven is rushing to put you back up on your feet in Jesus' name. Can you say amen? Number four, keys to excellence in ministry. Number four, in impact. Second Timothy 2, 24 and 25. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but must be kind to everyone. Ever say be kind to everyone? Even when I yelled at those people at the city council, I did it kindly. No cursing. Be able to teach and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts and they will learn the truth. Number four, don't preach against things and against people. No church grows tearing another ministry down.

unknown 1:05:59

Stop.

SPEAKER_22 1:06:00

Stop letting statements come out of your mouth on Sunday. There's churches in this city. Don't preach against other pastors. Some people are only going to your church because they don't even know there are other churches in the city. So don't give them free advertising. It's a good look. Don't preach against things and don't preach against people. You say, Oh, you should preach against sin. I'll tell you what I would do. I would preach the benefits for righteous living. In that, you'll mention adultery. You'll mention that stuff. But don't, God is a rewarder. Keep people conscious of the reward. Jesus didn't say, just so you know, all of you are going to hell. He said, Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Then he did. He preached repent. I'm not saying I've called people to repent every night. But have a positive, uplifting ministry. Joel Osteen's father, John Osteen, that built the church and grew it from 48 to 12,000. He had a great line. People don't come to church to get weight put on them, they come to church to get weight taken off them. Make your church a place where people can come in heavy and sad and receive an uplifting from God. Can you say amen? Number five. I'm writing these things to you, even though I hope to be with you soon, so that if I'm delayed, you'll know now how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of truth. Number five, carry a spirit of excellence in everything. Everything done properly. Worship. Don't have your people plugging in their bass guitar three minutes after service starts with a backwards Yankees hat like they just got discharged from a methadone clinic. Everybody say excellence. Carry excellence in your church. Excellence is a spirit. It has nothing to do with money. Vacuuming the church doesn't have to do with being rich. You know, if you anybody ever run a bus ministry for uh your church or outreach into trailer parks or Section 8 housing? Well, the thing that stands out to you when you do it, I've done it, is how the kids stink. It doesn't cost any money for you to shampoo your kids' hair or wash them. It's a spirit. Poverty is a spirit. We just start not taking care of everything. There's panels missing in the ceiling, and there's been the same communion stain on the pew since 1983. Clean the place. Make the house of God look excellent. Can you say amen? And then you'll attract excellence. Number five. Or was that number five? Number six. First Corinthians 2, 4, and 5. You can tell people want me to finish. It was number five. Get to number six. And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. I did this so you would not trust in human wisdom, but trust in the power of God. We've already covered this. Number six, carry the power of God personally. And provide opportunities and outlets for it to flow. You'd be amazed how big your church will grow if you announce. Next week is a healing Sunday. Bring your relatives who are sick and your friends. You know, we started that church in Arizona. We started with 182, then it went down to 164 after the launch and hovered around 160 to 180. I announced we're going to have a healing Sunday. We had 300, uh 291 people come. The next people drove, that lady in the wheelchair that I played last night that got up, she drove six hours with people to get healed. People need healing. People drive to our church from Canada to get healed. Do you know how many churches they must drive by? From Toronto down to Pittsburgh? But they know they can't get prayer there. If you make your ministry a place where people know if I go there, I can have someone. Jesus touched people. Jesus laid his hands on people. Oral Roberts laid 10,000 people. He took time to have them come up the ramp, hold that lady's kid on it, and minister like it was his son. Can you say amen? Number seven, 2 Timothy 4, 5. But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don't be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the gospel. Fully carry out the ministry God has given you. Number seven, give it all you've got. You should have some sweat on you at the end of the service. Don't talk like you have an active bullet wound. So as we go to point three, I. I'm sorry, are you bleeding out? Somebody check the guy's blood pressure. I think he's heading to heaven. You know, speak. I'm not saying you gotta yell, but you you you should project your voice and talk. You know, like like you like you have something to say. If your first words when you get the mic are I won't be long, just quit. If your introduction is an apology that anyone has to hear, you know when COVID hit and they were saying we could never have church again, potentially? I watched my last meeting in South Dakota on Friday night and I thought to myself, would I be content if that was my last time that I got to preach on planet Earth? There's a guy in one of the cities where we pastor, he preached Saturday night and died. Uh he's not old. Heart attack and gone. He was gone within two hours when he finished preaching. You know, I thought, no, I'm not dying, but I think like for you it was just a Saturday service, but you didn't know it was going to be the last time you ever preached on planet Earth. So would you be content? Like if you pulled up your last meeting or your last Sunday if you're a pastor, and that was the last time you preached, is that would you be content with that? Did you let it rip and tell people about Jesus? Or were you sitting on a couch talking about relationships with your wife? Was that a word of knowledge? Sorry, it seemed like it stung a little. People need to know about relationships in marriage, but you know what? I will tell you, just because it's the Hallmark calendar holiday doesn't mean you have to build your sermon around it. On Mother's Day, if I don't feel like preaching about mothers, I'm preaching on something else. On Father's Day, if I feel like preaching on mothers, I'm preaching on mothers. The Hallmark calendar doesn't get to pick what I preach on, and the Holy Ghost doesn't care what holiday it is. I think it is a mistake to spend 21 days in prayer and fasting in January and go straight into relationships in February. Because you can see that prayer and fasting has produced a hunger spiritually. People, February would be a great month to go into the teaching on the gifts of the Spirit or the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Let the Holy Ghost plan your preaching, not the calendar in America. Can you say amen? Number seven, give it all you've got. Number eight, Titus 1, 7 to 9. This is this might be the most important of the ten points. A church leader is a manager of God's household. So he must live a blameless life. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered. He must not be a heavy drinker, violent, or dishonest with money. Rather, he must enjoy having guests in his home and he must love what is good. He must live, I got cut off, he must live wisely and be just. He must live a devout and disciplined life. Verse 9. He must have a strong belief in the trustworthy message he was taught. Then he will be able to encourage others with his wholesome teaching and show those who oppose it why they're wrong. Number eight, don't miss this. If you haven't written down anything, write this down. In your ministry, employ and utilize men and women who are people magnets. There's some people that if they're around, no one wants to be there. There's some people that if they're around, people are neutral. They're not, they're kind of like notebook paper, you just don't notice. And there's some people, has anybody ever seen my wife preach or anything? Has anybody seen her crazy twin sister? Our church would be 40 to 60 percent smaller if they weren't in the mix. Because people love to be around them. If my wife put up on Instagram, I'm going to the grocery store. There's a sign-up sheet on revivaltoday.com. If you register, you can come to the grocery store with me. They'd have 85 women immediately register and go to the grocery store. People like being around her. You can't have a youth pastor that's a jerk or that teenagers don't like, or he's in his mid-hundreds. You know, if your youth pastor is teaching how all you young people are spending all your money on the jukeboxes, it's time to hire a new youth pastor. You have to have people that people love being around. You know what we did at our church? Don't miss the if you're a pastor, I'm telling you, this will do better than home groups. See, I feel that the reason people have home groups is because there's a lack of preaching on Sunday, 28 minutes, 32 minutes. People want to grow deeper, so they have to go to a home to get more work. Well, if you preach like I do, nobody leaves at 10:45 saying, I really don't get a lot of content tonight. So, in my opinion, at our church, we don't need people to have more Bible studies. Where we would be deficient is fellowship. So we started a golf club. We started a fishing club. My wife started a gun club. I don't own any guns. My wife looks like she's preparing for Terminator 3. She has them all. All of them. 50-some weapons. And I'm only saying 50-some because it's 70-some in case the ATF comes by, we can keep some. She's got an arsenal. So when she goes to the range, there'll be all kinds of guys and women. There's women that never owned a gun. They all own guns. They all, we have the most well-behaved husbands of any church. Because my wife turned them on those stone cold killers. They go shoot, they go golf, they go fish. I'll give you one. We have a softball team at our church. I told my nephew, I said, I don't want to win any awards for sportsmanship or Christ-likeness. I want to win the championship. So he went to Cleveland and Columbus and Pittsburgh and played in the city leagues and recruited all the best softball guys to go to our church. We had the most undignified-looking church softball team you ever saw in your life. We had people smoking in the undecked circle, go and hit a home run. We had very few Christians on the team. But you know what ended up happening? About two-thirds of the way through the season, all hanging out with our church people. Oh, there's the second baseman. There's the shortstop. They got around each other. It was like an outreach. And our team was so stacked, the Pittsburgh City Championship was Revival Today team A against Revival Today team B. I like to win. Amen. And so do things. Let people enjoy fellowship with each other. Have meals. My church in Texas, I don't get to be there all the time. Last year, about a year ago this week, I ordered$45,000 worth of Texas barbecue from Hutchinson's barbecue and opened it to anybody that wants to come for free. We had uh 600 people, five something, show up, and I just ate with them for three hours and had fun. There was no Bible study other than the prayer over the meal, there was no prayer. They get that in the meetings. Have people that are people magnets. If your youth pastor, your youth pastor should have teenagers. The second service is coming is over, coming up to him. They want to see him again. They like him, they love, they like to be around him. There's a grace that should be on a real minister that people like to be around him. Second, they can't be problem people. Your wife cannot side with women in the church over other women in the church. She has to defuse the problem. That's what Adolis and Megales do. Two women can come into their office ready to stab each other, and in 15 minutes they're leaving with their arms around each other, apologizing. You have to be a peaceful church leader. You cannot get into trouble. I'll tell you another thing. When people leave your church, let them go. We are not Jehovah's Witnesses. We don't threaten people, we don't make failed threats from the pulpit. Some people are blessed coming to this house. Now if they leave and they're gonna find out, they're gonna dry up from the inside. Yeah, you're gonna have a weird church. People go through things. When they leave, let them go. You know I haven't called. Now remember, not that I'm great or that this is even, you know, one of the best in the world, but we did go from zero to a thousand in nine months. I never called anybody that left and asked where they were. You can't guilt people into coming to church. And then if you don't mention it, and you don't mention it from the pulpit, and you don't make failed comments about this families leave, they got a miracle here, and then they go to the church. You don't say anything, they come back. And then when you see them, they're expecting you to back are you. Instead, you go, hey, good to see you, man. Wasn't the same without you. Glad you're back. And they set them at ease. I have churches where the ex-wife comes and the husband with the new wife comes. And they both sit there. Make church a place of peace. People have fighting in their home, they have fighting at work, fighting on the news. When they walk into church, it should be an oasis of love and peace. God is putting that anointing back on your ministry in Jesus' name. Can you say amen? Number nine. Do not employ people who are people repellents. 2 Timothy 2, 23 to 24. Again, I say, don't get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments. Keep that up. You should engage with nobody on Facebook as a pastor. I post the most inflammatory stuff known to man on my social media. You don't see me arguing with people underneath. I drop a bomb and let it react. But I'm out. I'm remote detonating. See, if you live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles or some huge city, you could argue with people and they leave the church and their cousins get mad and there's new people coming all the time. If you live in a little town and there's some Facebook group about how you're a cult leader and they all say stuff, and you get on there or you let your people get on there and start arguing, there's an old preacher that said, For every one person you turn off, you turn off 200 people. Because no one's interested in details. They're cousins just here. I just remember my cousin, he had some kind of problem with the pastor there, and they won't go. Be a peaceful person. Don't repel people, don't preach against the mayor, don't preach against the city council people. You know, I've talked a lot about Pittsburgh because I'm in South Carolina at my church. If I would have made that place a war zone every Sunday where I updated them on the lawsuit, this mayor thinks he's gonna shut us down. Yeah, you'd have people get up and clap, but it gets old after a few weeks. People aren't looking to come to the Revolutionary War, they're looking to come to church. Can you say amen? So don't employ people. Listen now. Uh 24. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but must be kind to everyone. Be able to teach and be patient. Be what? With what kind of people? And churches are full of difficult people. Some churches should be named to difficult people assembly. There's people looking to start start trouble and all that. So you can't feed into it. Secondly, if there's somebody, the Bible says, mark those that cause division. Some places, the reason your church isn't growing is because of your sound men that's yelling at everybody at the back. I'll tell you a change we had to make. I didn't know, you know, I'd never pastored. So we had armed security. I had all these ex-military guys that were like security, and we also made them ushers. That was a mistake. They were great at security, but you can't have some guy full of testosterone replacement therapy and HGH say to a six-year-old lady, move three seats down. So we made them security, and then we started other ushers that were women, and the usher had to communicate through that woman. Tell her to move three seats down. Excuse me, my name's Janice. How are you? I just and it softened the blow. Can you say amen? So you can't have have the right people in the right places. Let me tell you what, let me tell you one of those things before I take questions. Um say a word with me. Say blockers. When I went to church, we had a drummer named Steve when I was a teenager. He's still the drummer today. I think he's 104. Anytime a young drummer came to church, he'd run them off. I'm the drummer. Yeah, he's the sound man. I'm the head deacon. I'm the head of Sunday school. And they won't let anybody rise up because they're like many Nikita Khrushchev's or Fidel Castros that defend their territory and you have to wait till they die before they're replaced. A leader should recruit other leaders. Don't have people that are blockers. Don't have a 58-year-old youth pastor that's been the youth pastor for 31 years, and he won't he won't he won't move. And then you've had a bunch of people that got called into the ministry that would have done a great job, but that guy sees them as a threat and makes sure they don't feel welcome. So watch out for blockers. Matthew Ashimaloa said he won't allow anybody to serve in a position, not pastor, but deacon, sound, media, for more than a year. So no one's ever, I'm the deep. No, you you serve and you rotate. And that causes the church to grow. People want to serve in church. Do you know that church we were in in LA when we started? Did anybody see us start at Revival Today Church LA? And we're not there anymore. Part of the agreement in using that building was you had to use their people for sound, cameras, ushers, everything. The church wanted to grow. People don't want to just come and attend an event, they want to help. They want to get involved. When we moved, we had 326 people doubled immediately in Santa Ana because people want to get involved. So you might want, and I'm telling you as the pastor, you want people to get involved. But what you don't realize is the people under you don't want people to get involved. They want to retain their position. So you're gonna have to look at that. If somebody's a blocker and no one, nobody can grow, I'll tell you it happens in sound and media a lot. Now, I like all the sound and media people, and most of them are from my our ministry. But you notice, you can even tell the mentality of sound and media people, they all build a fortress. Every church, they look like the only thing that's missing is a drawbridge and alligators. I've been to churches, the sound fortress takes up more space than the seats, and you got one guy back. And if you're preaching too loud, he turns you down to let you know I run this church. Number nine. Don't employ people who are people repellents. You would do better with a less anointed person that's likable than a guy that he see that guy, he prays in tongues four hours a day. And he's mean and rebuking, and your skirt's too short, I don't like your haircut. We don't wear beards in this church. I had a guy tell me one place I was preaching, he said, he said, uh, we don't allow beards. I said, what would have been your policy if Jesus came in here? Hey Jesus, we'd love to have you, but you gotta shave. There's people that, you know, those type of people, they'll just find things to preach against. They don't like people. There's no love. Faith worketh by. And this concludes my message on increase in ministry. Can you say amen? You enjoyed it. It's 1220. It's not quite 12:30. Let's take some questions. I'd like to answer them. Go ahead. I'll tell you a great book. Um do I have books out there? Can I get the How to Have a Ministry with No Need? That just came out. And then, as far as other people, the best book I've ever read in ministry is called Exploits in Ministry by Bishop David Oyadepo. That is a life. I would say outside of the Bible, there's four books I've read that changed my life, and that's one of the four. And since somebody's probably gonna ask what the other three are. Healing, um, Exploits in Ministry by Bishop David Oyadepo. I'll tell you what, we're gonna receive an offering at the end. Anyone who who gives in the offering, I'll send you that book as a thank you. So, or you can just order it yourself. This is my newest one: How to Have a Ministry with No Needs, Making Impact Without Loans, Mortgages, or the Credit System. So that's what we've done. We're not debt-free. We've never had any debt to be free from. And we did it by discoveries out of the Bible. Of course, it was easy to not get any loans in the beginning of my ministry. My credit score was like 31. So no one I even I even got rejected. This isn't a joke. I got declined for the Montel Williams uh prepaid uh visa or whatever that they advertised during the price is rate for people that don't have credit, even he wouldn't take me. So I had to learn how to trust God. Next question. Exploits in ministry will cover like everything. I'll tell you another one, too. What do you guys do? Where? Oh yeah? Thanks for being here. There's a pastor named Pastor Matthew Eschemaloa. If you look it up on YouTube, he preached a message called 120 Points for Making Global Impact. I mean, do you know the guts it takes to announce a 120-point sermon? You should try that this Sunday and just watch people's eyebrows. Folks, I know worship ran a little long. I'm gonna preach a message today entitled 150 Facts on Divine Healing. People are like, oh my God. Somebody get me a sandwich. Thank you. Thank you for coming. God bless you. It's an honor to have you. Next question.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:50

Just a quick question for like parachurch ministry, because that's what we we do specifically. Uh, how do you make sure that the relationship with the local church and the parachurch ministry is built even stronger? Without no competition or division.

SPEAKER_22 1:28:03

You, as a parachurch ministry, so you're saying like he's not on staff, kind of like what I was before I served around church was where I was an evangelist that was not on staff at a church. You in your own heart need to know that you're not doing anything to hurt churches. You're gonna get accused of that no matter what. I mean, I'm sure all the people that banned Jesus from the synagogue, and they, in fact, they said it, he's taking all our people. They all left the synagogue to go follow him in the wilderness. You can't control that. What you can control is not actively hurting churches. Um, I told a lady in Texas, I said, you can't come here. I said, you go to the church that I just had a revival at that's uh that's 45 minutes from here, and I love you, and I would love to have you come to my church, but I'm not doing that to that guy. He's my friend. Go back there and settle in. And I say, you can come to special events or whatever, but keep your heart clear. Don't digital market to other people's musicians. You know, don't. Now, you're in an interesting place if you do evangelism, because let's say you're gonna have musicians at a tent meeting. Well, you're likely gonna use Christian musicians, and because they're Christians, they likely go to a church. So he used all our people. They're gonna come from some church. Now, you can't use someone's paid staff, you can't use somebody's full-time staff without going to the pastor. I will tell you, no matter how polite you are about it, people are gonna resent. Because think of this, how many of you are senior pastors or associate pastors? Are there other churches in the area that resent you being there? Yes. So there's just jealousy and competition no matter how clear you keep your heart. Just make sure, like I told the people in our church, I said, if you if you start an outside ministry and you like Chuck Ondo, and you go and preach at drug rehabs and stuff, and then the next on Sunday, there's a row of people sitting there from the drug rehab that you brought to church. That's great. If your ministry causes a row of people to be missing because of your activities, you're hurting the church. You know, do what you want on Monday, but don't hurt a church on Sunday and don't do things that are unethical. Don't approach someone's staff and offer them more money or whatever. Be ethical. Go through seeing your pastor. But there no matter what you do, there's gonna be people that make false accusations, and he he took our people and he took our money. That's unavoidable. Does that help? Those are general guidelines. Next question. This is a very enjoyable meeting. Go ahead. I've really enjoyed this week here, I gotta say. I tried to not like you, but I can't I can't do it. Keep going.

SPEAKER_17 1:30:32

I'm sure people that have watched you before have said, well, Jonathan has a big calling on his life. You know, people who feel they're called to the ministry or business. So when somebody says that and you're talking about increase, do you feel like God assigns a certain scope and scale for somebody, or do you feel like we are all called to do what you're doing?

SPEAKER_22 1:30:50

Tessa, do you have me preaching on the beach? I mean, I wish I or just any small picture from a handful of years ago. Because I'm telling you, if we were having this conversation eight to ten years ago, that's a public high school. That's that and that was my meeting for the month. And there's no pay. You can't submit for a reimbursement from the principal of a public school. I preached, a kid got touched at one of my meetings at a youth group, and then he got so on fire he went to his principal and said, Can I use the auditorium to have this guy come in and preach? Because we have so many people on drugs and and he's gonna help. And they let me. This is in Massachusetts. And I preached and they came and got saved. There's the beach teaching youth in Maui. And uh so that's my answer. Because you're you're seeing me now, but if you saw me back then, you no one would ask me, can everyone do things at that scale? You'd be like, shoot, I could do that. So every everything works. By Tahi, by the way, what I didn't realize preaching on the beach, I forgot I was white. And I forgot I was on the equator. I changed colors several times during that meeting. When I finished, I was like purple. Um I used to fast all the time there. I make Russell Johnson look like a bodybuilder. I think I was like 131 there. Believing for breakthrough. There's a church there now in that town. And there were no churches in that town. That's on the backside of Maui, Hana. So that principle I told you, to he who uses well what he's been given, he'll be given even more and have an abundance. I never was gonna have more than one, I was never gonna have any church. Then when the Lord spoke to me to have one to have one church, I had a big office. I had plans to have lunch at a restaurant in Pittsburgh every like stuff normal people get to do. And then the Lord spoke to me about starting Fort Worth. And then I just realized now if you do well with what you're given, God will never God will keep increasing your responsibilities and embracing you for it. So don't try, you don't try to get bigger. You manage well what God's put in your hands and it cause it facilitates increase. Does that make sense? Next. Go ahead. This is great. Questions.

unknown 1:33:10

I love you in an unbelievable way.

SPEAKER_20 1:33:13

Same. Where'd you come in from? I'm from uh Sumter, South Carolina. Got a church over there. How'd you know about uh the meeting or me? Just follow you all the time. Where'd you first see me? Um when they told me you were the mean Shuttlesworth, I had to go check you out.

SPEAKER_22 1:33:27

Oh, that's quite it.

SPEAKER_20 1:33:28

The mean mean Shuttlesworth. That's like being the mean Mussolini. Keep going. But uh, I'm a senior pastor, and I watched Joy to Houston and the things that you guys do out of your church, and I'm not emotional about things, but I can't hold back tears. I feel it in my spirit so strongly.

SPEAKER_22 1:33:45

That's a sign what you're called to do. Anything that grips your heart like that, where you were watching that crusade, then there that's me. When I would watch A.A. Allen's healing meetings, I'd be bawling watching it my my living. Pay attention to what moves you. Everybody else could listen to Goliath blaspheme God, but when David heard it, it was like, okay. And then he wrote in the Psalms, when they insult you, it's like they're insulting me. Pay attention to where you have a passion for something, it's a it's a key to your calling.

SPEAKER_20 1:34:14

Go ahead. So when you're doing out of your church an evangelistic meeting like you guys do, um, what are some of the biggest things to consider, especially for reaching those that that nobody wants, like you said?

SPEAKER_22 1:34:28

I I don't know. Because Tessa, do you know? What do we do to get 10,000 people to come in Houston? I don't know what we do. I just showed up. I showed up when the meeting started and preached, and I was like, there's a lot of people here. It's yeah, it's supernatural. There's a way to market it to unsaved people where you think when you put the ad out or whatever. How, if I was unsaved, unsaved people don't care about hearing the word or that the the Statler quartet's coming or whatever. But then if you put that you're gonna help with bill pays or we're gonna help with if you weren't able to provide Christmas, and when we put to make sure people don't get mad, or it was bait and switch. First of all, we give stuff away at the beginning so nobody had to stay through the message. And secondly, um we tell them, you know, I would be a poor pastor if all I did was teach you the word and you're hungry and stuff. Uh uh, and then but I'd also be a poor pastor if I gave you food and an Xbox for your kid or whatever and let you go to hell. Because the real problem is inside, and that has to change. We have rarely ever. Houston was the first place that was challenging. But every other place, there's times I'd make that announcement thinking people are gonna get upset that they're gonna have to hear the Bible, and instead it was like this like they want to hear about Jesus. So just do it and then tweak it as you go and um bring security with you. Have it look sharp. We've never been attacked, but if you look attackable, you get attacked. Like you see, these street preachers get shot in like downtown Phoenix. Why are you by yourself? You know, that guy that they played that was preaching in Michigan and the Muslims attacked him. Why is it just you? Have guys with you that makes it look like the closing scene for Sicario. And people, people behave. Amen?

SPEAKER_20 1:36:18

Amen. Thank you.

SPEAKER_22 1:36:18

I wish I could give you more specifics, but I don't know. Go ahead. I like these people.

SPEAKER_20 1:36:27

How many years were you in ministry and faithful to doing what God had called you to do before you really felt like the damn broke?

SPEAKER_22 1:36:37

I'll tell you, but first, play it, play. Do you have the Nigeria video from January? This is the importance of importation. Okay, play it real quick. Just the first couple. Pause. One back. One, two, three, four, five military-sized airplane hangers full of people, and then that's the church. That's the original church, and then it kept growing, so they built those things out from it. So you say win to the damn break? It kind of hasn't yet. See, if you could, you, you, whatever you've been around is what makes you think is a lot. Because there's nobody you're gonna talk to this week, ministry, mother, anybody. Everybody thinks they have a lot to do this week. Camila thinks she has a lot to do because she has a quiz in math coming up. So that's why getting around big things is important. Because you'll start feeling sorry for yourself if everybody you know only preaches once a week. And now you'll hear again. I have to do sun, you know, pastors have done, I gotta do Sunday morning and Wednesday. It's like, hey, pray you make it. Then you get around people that preach every morning and night and run so and they're in their 80s, or he fed all those people, a hundred thousand. They got breakfast, lunch, and dinner at that meeting. It went from 8 a.m. till 9:30 p.m. every night, and at 84 he preached an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon, an hour at night. So then when people are like, hey, you need to be careful, you're doing a lot. I'm like, no, I'm actually not doing a lot. I'm on my way to doing a lot. He's doing a lot. So, but to answer your question, so go ahead, just so you can see the scope of it. And they were good meals, too. Go ahead, play it a little bit. That's that's all their property. In the name of Jesus, the fire that you carry will never go out. You will never lose your zeal. Those are all pastors in the Word of God from 120. You will never lose your zeal for the Holy Ghost. You will never become ashamed of the power of God. Today, I prophesy. Pakistan only with the religious world, your desire to fit in with the political world, it dies in the anointing tonight in Jesus' name. England ministry. From today, you will never forget that you're a peculiar people. Set apart to God, carriers of his life, carriers of his power, carriers of his anointing. If you don't know that exists, see, this also helps, as great as this meeting is, I'm not gonna get proud. You know, I I keep in touch with all these guys. I'm gonna be like, hey, I have 540 people coming at night. Like, would you like prayer? Is that everything okay? You know, they got they got 6,000 people in the choir. Bishop David Oyodepo tells a story that he was standing next to his main associate and he saw a guy in a nice suit on Sunday, and he said, Who is that guy? I've been seeing him come. He's got a good spirit. Find out who he is. They said, sir, he's a pastor on your staff. He's been here for five years. He has 1,100 pastors on staff. 500,000 worshippers coming every Sunday. You can't have three guys. So in seeing big things, it keeps you humble because I'm very happy with what's going on this week, but I I keep pushing. You know, that guy has uh 8,500 churches, so I don't get cocky that I have four. You know, even when they're at, he was like, he's like, uh, hey, share with us what God's doing in your ministry. I was like, no. Hi everyone, I have four churches. But you know, but then when you're here, it's like, man, how are you doing it? Because people don't know what God can do. That's why I show this stuff so you can know where you are now is not where you're standing. You're gonna have an impactful, explosive ministry in Jesus' name. Amen. But to answer your question directly, when did it break? March 2011. I had never had any evangelistic meetings extended more than a day. And um, that one went three weeks, and the church had 140 on Sunday. We were having 550 like last night. But in it'd be like if we had 550 in this with the curtain up. People were under the coat racks, and there was only 1,200 people in the town, the news came, people healed, tons of people saved. And then after that, all my meetings, like like now. You know, I don't mean to preach all year. I've actually the last three years said I'm only gonna preach out two weeks a month to be home worn at the churches, and this stuff keeps happening. So that that's when I'd say 2011, I had never had more than$9,600 come in on offering. And at that three-week meeting,$42,000 something came in at a little assemblies of God church. And I'm telling you, I've never felt richer in my life. When that when those people give us a million dollars for our ministry, it didn't hit as much as the 42. Because when you've never had more than$900 in your bank account, and then you have$42,000, I felt like buying a top hat and a monocle and a cane, walking around like the planter's peanut guy. I felt like rich. I was going out to eat. I'll have two orders of mozzarella sticks. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_21 1:41:50

Could you share either the 2024 or 2025 recap video for pastors that may be here who've never seen um what you all have done?

SPEAKER_22 1:42:03

Do do um which one do you think is better to show? Uh I think 24. Yeah, do 2024 because it'll show the news persecution, all that. You need a little time? All right, let me take another question and then we'll play it. Man, you guys are I like it here. South Carolina, this must be what a what a what an abused spouse feels like coming back to the person. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_10 1:42:28

You talk a lot about growing in grace and the anointing.

SPEAKER_22 1:42:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 1:42:33

How does that happen with fasting and praying and I think that.

SPEAKER_22 1:42:39

I think everything with God is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the more it grows. Even praying for the sick. I never had like those videos we play, it took a long time before. All we'd have is like small, sore back, you know, my foot hurt, it doesn't hurt anymore kind of stuff, and then keep praying, and then they would like it would grow. Everything with God grows. So I think fasting in prayer um is is an accelerant to all those things because ever the limiting thing in in life is not the devil. The devil's under your feet, it's your flesh. And so the when fasting crucifies your carnal man, and then fasting crucifies this, and then pray always in the Holy Ghost, building up your most precious faith. Who did 21 days of prayer and fasting this year? Didn't you find yourself just getting like more sensitive to the spirit? Did you ever find yourself like you're in a service and someone's just reading their opening text and you're crying? It's like, what's happening to me? Am I going through menopause? But it it's it's you're sensitive to your spirit. So I think the more you fast and pray, and then obviously the word with the word, God's word forms you into his image, fasting and prayer, all those things, and then the grace grows that way. Just like you've already grown in grace. Like how long have you been a Christian?

SPEAKER_10 1:43:57

Since I was five.

SPEAKER_22 1:43:58

Yeah, so I mean, you would feel like you're further along now than you were 10 years ago. Then you just find it's not like you ever feel like you hit some big jump. It's just almost like you'll look back and go like, dang, this is amazing what the Lord has done. Like one time it hit me, I'm not saying it's bragging, I'm saying it like this. I had a Donaldson Camilo with me on the plane. They had brought lasagna and salad onto the plane, and we're flying to a meeting, and I'm sitting on a jet Sunday afternoon saying the blessing over the meal, and then I just looked at her like, what's happening? This this is insane, what the Lord does. So it's not, I never tried to get a plane, I never raised money for a plane. It just, a guy called and said, I saw what you're doing, I'd like to give you a plane so you could be home more with your wife and kids and do more for the Lord. So I said, Okay. Go ahead. So, like that. Go ahead. Who uh we got the video? So this is what Pastor Jay wanted you to see, and we're showing it from the standpoint of how do you go from the beach to this? The breakthroughs do come in fasting and prayer. But here, this is one year, and this was an amazing year. Go ahead.

unknown 1:45:03

2024.

SPEAKER_22 1:45:05

The righteous shall possess the land. That's what you're gonna see happen in the United States. Look how small the meetings are in the beginning. I'm telling you right now. That fire, that fire puts a change where instead of your life being defined, then watch by the devil's done, and sickness, and infirmity, and addiction, and anger, your life is gonna be defined by the power of the Holy Ghost. In one night, there is something on the inside of you that the devil doesn't have the capacity to stop. You're coming out of here free and with the victory tonight in Jesus' mighty name.

SPEAKER_14 1:45:47

Las Vegas hasn't seen a notable report.

SPEAKER_22 1:45:50

We're the first ministry they let preach in a casino on the strip since 1983. This week, we are here to change that. I didn't come here attacked by the devil. I came here expecting 200, uh 160 people were gambling, and 880 were in the meeting. That God was gonna bless me, bless my wife, bless this first row, bless this second row. God didn't send us here to feel sin. He sent us here that the devil would realize God's got a mighty army in Paradise, Nevada, that has not bowed the bell, that has not kissed his face, it's not us that's getting attacked, it's him that's getting ready to get attacked. Border Patrol is having one suicide a week, I think, a way down the freeway. That's my wife's written. The resistance. Look at that. That's downtown Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:44

Nothing else matters. That's what Christianity, you're all in the world.

SPEAKER_22 1:46:47

That's everybody in downtown Pittsburgh getting hands laid on.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:50

And if you can't give me everything, I don't want none of it. So what do we do? We continue to resist the enemy. We continue to resist against the lies of the family.

SPEAKER_22 1:47:00

Pause it real quick. I'll tell you if you're married, keep your wife on the same page with you. What would have happened if we both came up in the assemblies of God and then I went to Africa, I went to all the different meetings I did and picked up all these impartations, and she was still back where I was 15 years ago? I think you're making a mistake having a plane. Keep your wife with you. I had an evangelist ask me one time. How do you take your wife with you on the road? Pay the money. Whatever you have to pay, it's cheaper than a divorce. And it's cheap, and it's better than having your wife being at a level two spiritually, and you had a tenant, and she's dragging you back. If you got her alongside you pushing, it's great. Keep going. Stand therefore. But in this church, we don't want some of the blessing. We want to be able to do this. This all happened Friday, Saturday, Sunday. We want the baptism. We're getting land in a building now. This church is not waiting for the ten up to me.

SPEAKER_16 1:48:03

There is concern over a festival being organized by a local church. It is expected to bring thousands to mood township, but township leaders say the church isn't following the rules.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:14

This township does not need this. Uh, can't support the traffic. This community certainly doesn't want it.

SPEAKER_22 1:48:20

Wait, back it up and pause it. No, no, no. Go ahead. Yeah, pause. See, like, see, like, see that lady in the pink? I feel like with her face, she was upset before we started the church. That seems like years of sadness. So people are just upset and they're looking for a place to take it out. It's nothing personal. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:42

Can't support the traffic. This community certainly doesn't want it.

SPEAKER_18 1:48:47

A new mega church in Moon Township has found itself in the middle of controversy over the world. Every night.

SPEAKER_26 1:48:54

Welcome to Wonder Wi-Fi!

SPEAKER_22 1:48:56

And then you find out why the devil's upset. 3,200 people.

SPEAKER_26 1:49:01

He is my Jesus. He's my healer. He's my savior. He's my deliverer. Come on, raise your hands and shout hallelujah.

SPEAKER_06 1:49:12

There is a move of God that is coming to America.

SPEAKER_22 1:49:15

The eyes of religion will not see it. Why do you have in bad guest speakers at your church? Your friend that you went to Bible calls with, that you've known in the ministry that's 25 years, and he's boring. If you want to help him, just send him money in the mail. Don't torture your church people. Find out who the best people are and bring in the best people. They leave a deposit in your church. Keep going.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:45

When people think you are finished, you are just beginning. You are just beginning, you are just touching.

SPEAKER_22 1:49:51

When people think you have achieved so much, they just realize that you are just beginning. Back it up. See that guy like screaming while he went down? He's a marine. He'd been a Christian like six. He doesn't know anything about that. The power got shut shut through him. It freaked him out. He went, ah. When people think you have achieved so much, they just realize that you are just beginning.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:16

Listen, you have to find a socket. You have to find it, whether it's a black socket, a white socket, a brown socket, a yellow socket, a broken socket, and what kind of socket? Whether plastic or metal, you have to find a socket. You have to find a socket. When you put your sacrifice on the altar, you make God move in a way you've never seen before. When you sacrifice, you will see the supernatural.

SPEAKER_22 1:50:54

The church is gonna rise up. That's a one-year-old church. That's another thing about getting around big people. See, all of a sudden, when you're around a hundred thousand, a thousand, it doesn't seem like a big deal. But if you've only been around four hundred, a thousand seems like impossible. Keep going. He got his rear-end kick on the cross of Jesus Christ. I came back from an overseas crusade with Dad Gay with me where like 13,000 people got saved. I gave an altar call. 115 people get forward to get together with the Lord on a Sunday morning. I wasn't even gonna give it. It was like Mother's Day or something. Okay, you know, just in case there's anything I've saved people. I gave it altar to God. I asked Sam, where did all these people come from? He said, I don't know. Importation is real. What you're around, you replicate it. If you hang around sexually unclean ministers, it'll get in your ministry. If you hang around soul winning ministries, it'll get in your ministry. Continue.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:53

Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walls' battleground state tour seems to be paying off in the polls. A New York Times Siena poll has the Democratic ticket leading in three key battleground states. She has a four-point edge in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_22 1:52:10

I'm gonna do a thing call. I bought a television time for 40 nights leading up to the election. Because this isn't about Harris and Trump. But the Democrat Department of Justice was starting to make watch lists of Christians that go to church. What's it called? It's all public. So you know if you get if you get a swayed Republican Democrat, I can't stand the Republican Party. I don't like the Democrats. If you don't have to preach politics because you'll lose half the crowd, I lose the whole crowd because I don't like any of them. But I will tell you if one group is gonna have a Department of Justice that's arresting people for praying too close to an abortion clinic and shutting down rights, then I'm not having that. And then the other group has a Department of Justice that's the most pro-church. You don't have to think Trump's a saint to understand those things. You don't have to like Trump to understand those things. But if one group's anti-church and one group is pro-church, well, they're just doing it for selfish reasons. I don't care. I'll be happy to stay out of jail for selfish reasons. So the Lord told me if you'll teach on that, if you'll preach on national television, not politics, but just preach on faith for 40 nights, it'll swing it. So we went on national television, and it must have been making an impact because at one point the Harris campaign, which actually ended up parked the next building over from us, they tweeted and then took it down. This is a tweet from the Harris campaign. Jonathan Shuttlesworth is of his father the devil. He lies. And so when I read it, I thought, oh, somebody's getting a little irritated. See, it's not her that wrote it, she just likes to laugh and drink. But obviously, they they could tell the preaching was having an effect and it swung it. Keep going. It's a faith for America. And I believe God's gonna hit this nation with such a revival that people are gonna lose focus on politics and get their focus where it should be on the word of God. We got those cameras, we're preaching 40 days, 40 nights. Let the devil know it's different here. You're gonna get a slap like you've never got slapped before. The Fox News decision desk can now officially project the Dollar Tree. I mean, that was never supposed to happen. The guy got shot.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:24

He has slowly lost decline in his nervous central system. He couldn't control his movements in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_23 1:54:33

I was on drugs, drunk, fell asleep at the wheel, flatlined, you get a flight to the hospital.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:40

My daughter had been born um legally blind. I used to be addicted to heroin and worship the devil and lived a really crazy Godzine life.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:50

Caleb was put on an autism spectrum when he was about three years old.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:53

I was told by my doctors that IVF was the only chance I would ever have of ever having a child.

SPEAKER_17 1:55:00

One of my kids actually pushed him away.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:02

His organs are shutting down. Everything he's dying, like he needs to go into surgery. I have been really sick.

SPEAKER_12 1:55:08

He was given a bad report that his ears he wasn't able to hear. My dad was inflamed with um psoriasis.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:16

Just to let you know, your wife died last night, but she came back.

SPEAKER_22 1:55:21

Jesus didn't come to put his arm around sick people, read them a story as they pass off into death. He came to heal the sick, he came to cast out devils, he came to raise the dead, and he told the church specifically the same work that you see.

SPEAKER_11 1:55:37

I was amazed because we went home that night rejoicing and praising the Lord. And I want to share this video with you guys. He slept 30 seconds without a single seizure, and then the 30 seconds went to a minute, and then two minutes, and then five minutes, and then next thing you know, and you can see this spirit of peace upon his life. He's able to sleep.

SPEAKER_23 1:56:02

Start jumping up with my younger son, feeling all my bones, going, I'm healed, and I know it.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:09

The doctor said, Well, you know, I know the real reason is not we don't need to increase it, but she doesn't need these glasses anymore. She can see. And God came in and pulled me out of a pit in my hotel room, and I have never been the same since.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:24

We just seen him break through ceiling after ceiling, all the limitations that they had placed on him because of the diagnosis.

SPEAKER_15 1:56:31

And this whole miracle baby was born June 7th, 2024 of this year. So it happened.

SPEAKER_22 1:56:46

That guy's son was on drugs. They hadn't seen him in two years, they didn't even know where he was living. He said, Would you pray that my son could somehow return home? And I prayed, and he got a text in the morning, I'm at home, uh, waiting for you. Can I come to church with you on Sunday?

SPEAKER_12 1:56:59

Like that. Go ahead. Everything was cleared up. He lifted up his shirt, it was gone. He lifted up his arms, everything was gone.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:07

That very next day, all his labs came back like normal, completely normal.

SPEAKER_10 1:57:13

I was healed that very moment, and I woke up the next morning with so much energy.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:20

At the end of the 21 days, kid was good. Healed, miraculously healed.

SPEAKER_26 1:57:24

And all of a sudden, I see a doctor running towards me, and she grabs me, runs me towards the machine. She says, Look, look, look, look. She says, Look, that is a lung just inflated just right now.

SPEAKER_14 1:57:42

Revival Today Church is breaking barriers and setting new milestones. Over six million has been sewn into ministries, charities, and disaster relief efforts from Israel to North Carolina. With over 30% of players received in the body of the city, the ripple effect is undeniable. Pastor Jonathan has journeyed across 34 cities, 20 states, and six nations, preaching 314 services, 189 on the road, and 125 at Revival Today Church. He has preached on stages ranging from Crusades in Ethiopia with Bishop Dad Heward Mills to the iconic Grand Old Ofrey and even the largest church in the world. Together, we've witnessed the miraculous 2,956 salvations through evangelistic outreach. 541 in our church services. And 766 lives changed through our broadcasts. Believe it or not, we are only moving in to our third year of being a church. Revival Today Church continues to break records, and we are stepping in to a new dawn.

SPEAKER_22 1:59:19

Amen? Did somebody have one last question? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_18 1:59:26

First of all, I want to thank you for your ministry. I'm a Baptist pastor. You're welcome. You've helped me.

SPEAKER_22 1:59:30

What kind of Baptists? There's like 900 of them.

SPEAKER_18 1:59:32

Independent Baptists.

SPEAKER_22 1:59:33

IFB, independent.

SPEAKER_18 1:59:35

Well, uh what is it? Technically, yeah, I don't necessarily own that title anymore.

SPEAKER_22 1:59:39

No, I understand. I was just asking. I'm not that you can't that's a big deal to cross lines like that. Good job, proud of you.

SPEAKER_18 1:59:47

I I feel like I'm so much thankful for what I've been taught, but there's a lot that I haven't. And um you've been speaking about impartation, and could you just say a little more about that? Is that just being around bigger ministries, people who have what you want? Is it seeking out, lay your hands on me, be my mentor? What what does that what does that mean to a pastor?

SPEAKER_22 2:00:09

That's a great question and a great one to close on. So, how does impartation work? Biblically, it works three ways. His spirit entered into me when he spake unto me. I think that's Ezekiel 2, too. Who you hear preaching from, in my opinion, preaching is the strongest impartation there is, receiving preaching from a minister. That's why it's like silly, because I haven't had anybody do it here, but like, you know, hey, after you're done preaching, I'd love to go get a meal with you and just pick your brains. Like, that's not where a guy is the highest, it's not like people are giving their B material here and saving their good stuff for Denny's. So if you sit through the whole meeting and you sit, you you missed it. Because when a guy is ministering is when his when he's given out. And when they're preaching, what what their faith gets preached into you. Number one, who you hear preaching, which is why we have 4,000 some YouTube videos. It's so you can keep it on and keep getting impacted. Number two, is who you're around in proximity. Listening to Doug Hayward Mills preach is is great. Then being at the crusades does something. If you've never seen 13,000 people give their life to Christ, it does something to you. Before God could give Abraham his promise, he had to have them look at the stars and look at the sand to get them to understand where he was taking them. You can't replicate what you haven't seen, which is why basically everybody in the ministry that's done something great has either been under someone who's done something great or had a personal vision from Jesus Christ to show it to them because there was no one for them to receive it from at the time. You can't replicate what you haven't seen. So getting and traveling, pastor going and traveling to Ghana to do a crusade with Kofi, it does something to you. You would think you're losing the church by going away to do something. What does Ghana benefit South Carolina? But what you're around replicates in you. Paul told Timothy, yeah, here's Angola, here's all those people. Okay, now remember, before you I I shot this with my camera. Before you see it, he had them all put their hands down because when he gave the call to get saved, everyone lifted their hand. So he told the translator, no, you're not translating right. Tell them this is to receive Jesus Christ, not you want prayer or whatever. He said, sir, no one's ever done this here before. It's in a remote part of Angola. So this is the salvation altar call. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_26 2:02:34

I need this, no nomination. Please write this name in the book of life. I believe, eu creio I thank you, eu te agradeço for writing my name in the book of life. Por escrever o meu nome no livro na vida. Levanta as tuas tuas fotos. Say, I love you, Jesus. I thank you, Jesus.

SPEAKER_22 2:03:43

If you haven't been in those services, there's a part that's gonna be missing from your ministry. You should seek out and get to places like that because it does, it makes you an abnormal American minister. You have an element to you that the other pastors don't have. Because you're not a local, everything's Greenville in here. You have no, you know, you have people, um, oh, I saw you're gonna be preaching, but it's in Pittsburgh. You ever come around here? It's like, you know, there's a series of interconnected roads that lead to all the cities. You end up with a very tiny That's actually Paul says it. Can you find the scripture? They don't see far. Type that in. It's in it might be Galatians 1, it might be Philippians 1, it might be Galatians 1. They don't see very far. Oh no, first Peter said it, I think. It's in 1 Peter or 2 Peter. They don't see far. Yes, 2 Peter 1.9. But those, let me see 8 so I know why what he's talking about. You the more you grow like this, okay, read, go from four. 2 Peter 1.4. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share Christ's divine nature. Now, his divine nature, you share his divine nature that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by lust or human desires. Five. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, six. And knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, seven, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone, eight. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful. So there's people that are unproductive and not useful. But when you do this, you become productive and useful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, nine. But those who fail to develop in this way are short-sighted or blind, forgetting that they've been cleansed of their old sins. Let me see KJV. But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off. And if you don't, if you're not careful, you know, there's nothing wrong with having multiple campuses in the same city. But at the same time, that's why I don't have four campuses in Pittsburgh. I have Pittsburgh, Texas, Arizona, California. You know, Canada's not off the table, United Arab Emirates. See the world. You know? Don't be an American that supports Ukraine and can't find it on a map. Or spell it. Or knows what a Ukrainian looks like, or like Africa's just Africa. There's a Morocco's Africa, Egypt's Africa, and Congo's Africa. They look nothing the same. I've been to Africa enough I can start to tell. I freaked my driver out in Las Vegas. I said, are you from um Djibouti, Ethiopia, or South Sudan? You know, you know, he thought I was with ICE. He said, he said, I'm from Ethiopia, but uh or Djibouti, but I'm the city of Metz borders on all those three. I said, yeah, I can tell by your face. Just like you can tell a South Carolina person from a Brooklyn person, even if they're both white or black. There's a different dress, black South Carolina, than black Brooklyn and black LA. And I'll just stop saying racist stuff for a little bit while I still have the crown on my side, but you know, they're not all the same. That's why you can always tell politicians that are racist. We have to reach black people. You think Jamaicans are the same as Congolese? We need to reach Hispanics. You think Venezuelans are the same as Mexicans or Puerto Ricans? They vote differently. Venezuelans have been under communism, they voted for Trump like 89%. Puerto Ricans voted against Trump like 80%. You just see black people. You can tell you don't know Russia. Russia. Are Russians all the same? Is Northeast Russia that's near Asia anything like Southwest Russia that's close to the Islamic countries? No. They don't even have the same religion. They're totally different people. And I'm not getting into a geopolitical thing. That's why people can't understand somebody like Putin. You you have to have a strong. If you have a country with all different people like that, it has to be ruled differently, or it'll break into 11 countries. So they they people don't see the world. They don't know what people are like. And their ministries. I feel that's why our church, if you come to Pittsburgh, we I'm very vocally pro the Trump administration. I'm not apologizing for Trump or his social media, but I don't back off that churches were gonna get shut down like Canada is happening right now if we kept going down a certain path. Everyone knows I talk like that. And we have the largest percentage of black congregants of any church in Pittsburgh that's not just like a historically African Methodist church or whatever. And I've made zero effort to reach black people, but people can tell I like them. People can tell I understand them. If Slavic people come to a church, I know Russia, I know Ukraine, I know Slovakia. I don't still call places Czechoslovakia. I know there's Czech and Slovak, and people can feel it. When you travel more and you get around people, they can tell. You know, I can tell a Puerto Rican from a Mexican. I can tell, and I know, I know the difference. I know people. So if you lack that, you can't see far and you get small. When I started the church in Texas, this businessman said, Oh, your church is in Wataga by Fort Worth. I live in Southlake. Have you ever thought about starting a campus there? I said, I'm not spending$21 million to save you an 18-minute drive. So you get small, everything's Greenville, everything's uh, what's this county? Spartanburg County. Everything's Spartanburg County. Great. Spartanburg County's valuable, it's why I'm gonna be here for two weeks. But there's a world. That place in Angola, even people in Angola don't go there. It's cut off Kabinda. You have to go through Congo. If you're in Angola, you have to go through Congo to get to Kabinda in Angola. It's it's totally removed. No one cares about those people. There's no point in going there. You get no money, there's no money, but you get something. You're obeying Christ's command to go into all the world. God didn't say reach white people, he didn't say reach Slavics, He didn't say reach black people, he didn't say reach Hispanics. He said go into all the world and preach the gospel. And when you get around big things, I don't know. It puts some kind of like Nigerians move to Pittsburgh, they come to my church. They know me, I'm at their things. They know, they know, you know, I don't know. I don't know what happened. Hispanic people like me, Slavics are starting to warm up to me. People can tell you're not like a my little world. I know, I know the you end up knowing the world, and then the world kind of feels at home with your ministry. Does that make sense? If the whole world was a hundred people, only five would be from the United States. There's China. Chinese people are great. Don't let the news like, yeah, the Chinese government is is at war, you know, kind of with our, it's like a quiet war, but Chinese people are not. They're smoking, they don't know the Lord, nobody's preached to them. They're great. They're great people, people are great. I'm telling you from somebody that's traveled for 23 years, I've had a few negative experiences, I've had to throw a few people out of a service. Generally, people are great. T.L. Osborne said, people are the same everywhere in the world. I don't have to adjust one thing I'm doing when I'm preaching in Nigeria. People are sad, people have cancer, people have a son that's on drugs, people's marriages on the rocks, and the same thing, and this will literally be the last thing I tell you. This is an amazing book. I was finishing preaching at a church. It was our church in Pittsburgh. A black blood gang member came up first time in church and said, Your message today changed my life. He gave his life to the Lord. Thank you. It spoke. To me. He walks away. Next guy in line is an Amish guy that started coming to the church. The exact opposite of black blood. White, no electricity. Thank you for what you preach today. What you preached spoke to me and changed my life. That's why I'm still talking about it two months later. It how can the same message impact a young black gang member and an old bearded f whatever they are? No electricity. I don't even know I found out about the church. How do you even advertise to the Amish? Have a plane do skywriting, come to revival today. But the gospel is universal because humans are the same. They dress a little different. Some eat spicy food, some eat savory food. And English people and Irish people eat food with no flavor at all. Boil the hell out of everything. But they're basically the same. And Jesus died, the same blood shed for all of them. And then if you travel and get around ministers outside of your group, Dak Gaywood Mills is an Assemblies of God. Even those Africans are all in different denominations. In fact, one place I went, they said, How did you preach there and here? Those two guys don't like each other. But see, even that, I get invited to speak for Kenneth Copeland, and I get invited to speak for people that hate Kenneth Copeland. Because you start becoming bigger than the divisions. You just become like elevated, set on high above all the nations of the earth. Think how much the Jews hated Samaritans, and Samaritans hated Jews, but it never stopped any Samaritans from coming to Jesus. Then Tyre and Sidon, that were outside of the Roman Empire, they started coming. They said, hey, these are Jewish-only meetings. Yeah, we don't care. We want to be there. We like this guy. And they were amazed at the gracious words that flowed from his lips. So, what you're doing today, 99, 999 out of a thousand people would never do it either. Leave the IFB, not left, like, but go to a meeting outside of your denomination. Live in a bigger world. If everybody you know is Slavic, there's a problem. If everybody knows black, there's a problem. Whatever. You know, it's like I think so little that way. I didn't even know my wife was Puerto Rican. I just knew she was curvy. Then I found out after we got married, she's she's Hispanic. His Spanish is her friend. I had no idea. I don't see people that way. I just I like faith. I like I like anointed people. And it and and if and and if you're not anointed, I don't care if you're my stepbrother or whatever. I don't want anything to do with you. Get around the anointing. Seek out, like these guys that drove up from Myrtle Beach. Like if you make that a habit, find where the anointing is and get there. And receive of it, and you take something back. You're like a bee going from flower to flower and building your own honeycomb. You're not copying anyone, but you're picking up the good things that are in other people's lives, and it builds a strong you. Can you say amen? Now, watching Oral Roberts' videos, that's why when I felt to minister to that factory worker that was deaf, I knew what I just did what Oral did. I didn't pray like I was taught in the assemblies of God. Oh God, help him as he goes through this deafness. He can't hear you anyway. Jesus put his fingers in the boys' ears and rebuked the deafness. The guy couldn't speak, he spit on his fingers and put it on his tongue and said, have fada, which means be opened, and he spoke. So you start seeing people do things. I remember they had in a powerful man of God at my Bible school to guest speak. And um, he wasn't assemblies of God. So there was a guy that had kidney failure that was on our staff. He was a bodybuilder, so it was probably from steroids because he wasn't old and he and he ate great and everything. So they said, the president of the school, because the anointing was there, he said, Brother so-and-so, could you pray for our head of security, brother Josh? His kidneys are found. Well, I got ready for the normal prayer. Everybody gather up. Oh God, we come to you today. But in the Bible, they never prayed to God about sickness. So I got ready for the normal thing, and then he said, he didn't do that. He said, put your hands where your kidneys are. He said, Now underneath your hand, I command there to be two new kidneys that I'd never heard anybody talk like that. So what you're not around, you can't replicate. If you've never seen someone successfully pray for the sick, you don't know how to pray for the sick. You'll pray for the sick the same way all the people that don't get anybody healed pray, and then the problem continues. But if you get around somebody that has results, you find out they do different things. They believe different things, they speak different things, and they operate different. So, mode of operation is huge. Who you're around, they that walk with the wise will be wise themselves. Now listen to this, like it or not, I went to go see Jesse Duplanis for the first time three years ago. He said, Would you like to see my plane? I said, Sure. So I went up on the plane. He said, when we went on the plane, he said, Let me tell you something. You're gonna have one of these very soon. It was all I could do not to go. Not me. I was like gonna look behind me, like, me? I just got enough money to get my car registered. I did. And he said it, but I had enough sense to go, praise the Lord. Took me on the plane, so I realized now he wasn't taking me on the plane to show off. Taking me on so I could see it. And then he said, God's having you do a lot of work. It's only a matter of time before you have one of these. Just open yourself to it. And within a year and a half, a guy calls me and drops one off. Because what you get around replicates in your life. You get around alcoholics, you'll start drinking. You get around adulters, you'll start running around on your wife. You get around people that have prosperity, it'll start rubbing off on you. None of the other fishermen got a word from Jesus, but they were connected to Peter. And when Peter's boat began to overflow with fish, a call to his partners came out, and their boats overflowed with fish as well. Who you hang around determines what you carry. Amen? And then the laying on of hands, stir up the gift that came on the inside of you when I laid my hands upon you. So laying on of hands, hearing the preach word, and the company you keep are the three main points of importation. Before I pray for you, this is something we launched in November. Revival Today Global Pursuit. You don't have to leave your denomination, you don't have to sign your church property over, there are no dues, there's no minimum donation. This is not a pyramid scheme. But if you're tired of being a square peg in a round hole and believing for signs and wonders while people mock signs and wonders and believing for prosperity where people don't like prosperity, and believing for your church to grow when people criticize you for a growing church, it's good to be with people of like precious faith. So this is a fellowship, a covenant fellowship. Pastor Russell, myself, he's in Seattle and now in um Spokane. Myself, my wife. That's Pastor Stefano Giswaldi in Montreal, he's Canadian head. Cody Jones, head of evangelism. Dag Haywood Mills asked if he could join. He's head of Africa and whatever else he wants to be the head of. And this guy's name is Mitchell in Northern Ireland, that has less than 2% Christians now, and he's rocking it. He's our European chief. Then we have presbyters. You get a call every month, not asking where your dues are, asking uh to pray to pray with you and if they can help with anything. I want this to be what I didn't have starting out in the ministry, which are people over you that want to see you make it, that don't see you as a threat or competitive with you. You couldn't start enough churches for me to be happy. Your churches couldn't be big enough for me to be happy. You couldn't take in enough money in a year for me to be happy. I'm not competitive. I'm very content in what I'm doing. In fact, think of this. If another evangelist, like if God spoke by tongues and interpretation tonight that Cody Jones or some other evangelist was to take week two. Yeah, that was my revival. No, it's not. And I'd be home for my daughter's birthday. And I'm not like that. I want to see. When do we start? 10 o'clock. I got the mic at 10.50. It's 1.15. I'm not preaching because I'm long-winded. I'm pre- I may never see you again. I want to see you the next time. And you throw your arms around me and say, you're not gonna believe what happened since February. Our church has exploded, and you're laughing, and your wife's laughing. The joy of ministry is coming back to the church in Jesus' name. Amen.

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