Rededicate 250 | Ep. 02: Jentezen Franklin

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Jonathan Shuttlesworth Podcast. To stay connected, go to revivaltoday.com. And now here is Evangelist Jonathan.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Pastor Jensen, thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Thank you. It's wonderful to be with you guys. This is amazing, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

I know as a Christian we have to say nice things to each other, but I actually mean this. You did a great job up there. Thank you. I never heard that message about Elijah and the prayer and the rain over the nation.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Thank you. What an honor coming from you. You guys are tearing the nation up. And I I just I don't know. I I'm moved. I'm moved today because I fasted and prayed for this moment. And you know, sometimes we don't realize what's happening when it's happening. Right. Sometimes we don't, we don't really, we're not awake, and and you'll look back. It's kind of like Jacob, he said, surely the presence of the Lord was in the place, but I didn't see what God was doing. Right. God is doing something significant. I believe he's blessed this nation for two reasons. Number one, because he could trust us with the gospel to finance it through our wealth around the world. Right. The second reason was because we stand with Israel. And God knew we would have the strongest military that would stand as an ally with Israel. And we're rededicating our lives and rededicating this nation, rededicating ourselves. I am for the call of God on my life. But I'm doing it for my children and my children's children. I want to see America have another 250th anniversary, and it's going to take revival.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yes. Tell me about that word revival because you have a background that way, and very few people do, where you were and still are, but I mean when you were young and started, you you preached, and it wasn't one night only. The meeting would blow up and the church was. Tell me, tell me how you became that type of preacher. Because nothing steers you in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Oh, how you get full of the Holy Ghost. You you get full of the Holy Spirit, and it was fire shut up in our bones. And we've had revivals. I met my wife, feel like this story. I met my wife. Uh uh, I we had just gotten married. I met her in in church, met her in a camp that I was preaching, and we got married, and we went to Buford, Georgia, the church where we got married in, and we had a five-week, every night revival. It broke loose. What was it scheduled for? It was scheduled for a weekend, Sunday morning and Sunday night. And then what happened? What why did the the the pastor like to what about the meeting? The young people started flooding to the altars. Then something by the second week, children were being filled with the Holy Spirit. Children were weeping and cried, and they would come in from from the they shut down the children's church and started bringing the children in. And then it just exploded and we could not hold the crowds. And it went for five weeks, and it was the most glorious thing. We had many revivals like that. So you know, I know you guys are evangelists, and and I I never I never lost that. I still can tell this morning. We had we had a bunch of people, the altars were filled. Where were you? I was in Georgia. I preached this morning in Georgia and got out here this afternoon. Yeah, we preached in our church in Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

We just got yeah, I got here right where you were going.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

So tell me what God for evangelists. Why do you say that? Because you're the first person I think I've ever heard because it's the most overlooked ministry. And I know you guys are pastoring multiple campuses now, but you're also you you travel, you can't you can't turn that part of you off. And I know the feeling. I've done it for 40 years now. Makes you a better pastor, too. The way you learn so much and you pick up so much, and you also uh you come off the road sometimes, and there's been such a move of God where you came, you realize our church needs this. Right. And it actually is like pouring kerosene on the fire. Sometimes when I go off and preach, I come back more fired up. Yes, and it's a glorious thing. So stay in revival, pastors. And I I appreciate uh Real America's Voice and Rob Sig and this amazing founder, all this they put so much great information and they also preach the gospel. Yes, you're not here right Sunday morning. Yes, it's an amazing thing. We get we get the greatest testimonies from people who watch and they're probably watching and they're listening to the bad news, and then the good news gets on. That's right. Tell me, uh, and I won't keep here all day.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

I know you've been bacon in the sun and preach twice, but I'm interested, what's a meeting that stands out to you maybe when you were in your 20s or starting, where it kind of you could tell things jumped to another level uh on the road or pastoring where something happened where where you could tell it went to another level.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, I I was in a revival with my brother. My brother and I, before I got married, we we traveled together and I would preach one night and then he would preach and we rotated it, and we did that for over three years. And we were in Aniston, Alabama, at the Church of God there, and that thing broke loose. And I guess I knew I was in trouble because I only had enough sermons for about four nights, and and it had and it went for three weeks. And I I had he was a more experienced preacher.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

I was uh you say it broke loose.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Tell me, tell me some stuff that happened that was uh abnormal. People were people were slain in the spirit by the hungrets, they would go up the aisles. It was it was glory. It was like heaven, you say, Well, that's crazy, that's fanaticism. No, it's not. It's when you get in the presence of the Holy Spirit, people break and they weep and they they their mood, their mood just goes so far beyond just hid knowledge. It begins to touch your heart and melt your heart. And uh, you know, when you get in the presence of God, it just makes you realize how far you are and how much you need to repent. Yeah, and that atmosphere, there's something about a revival that's gone several nights, the atmosphere begins to change, right? You know this. And it's just like coming early and singing with nobody leading, it's it's different. And and for and even for miracles and praying for people and healings, it it's an atmosphere that is created with sustained revival sometimes that's glorious. We actually had a revival, uh, I guess it's been three years now. Perry Stone or another one? One night. Perry Stone. It was supposed to go one night. I watched, it went, it went four weeks. Yes, I was watching. And the house was as full the last night as it was, and it was gorgeous. Literally, I'm not exaggerating. Thousands of people were saved.

SPEAKER_02 6:49

No, you're not exaggerating. I watched it was the whole front altar was full, plus up the sides. I like that you're still pushing for that. Yeah, because absolutely the average pastor, younger than you, they're returning about 55 or so now. Why are why haven't you? You got plenty of money and you've already been successful. Why are you still pushing?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

What's the point of doing this? What's the point of doing this if we're not changing lives for his glory? And I'm also, you know, I'm not gonna live forever. So I want to make sure that what I'm doing is what I'm living for worth Christ dying for. Am I really? And I gotta finish strong. I've got to finish for my children and my grandchildren. Sharissa and I have got to stay strong in our home and in our family. And I really, I really hope that we'll take this rededication serious. Because we every once in a while, I don't care who you are, you're being polluted by the world, the environment, the everything around us is the world and its filth. And we need that cleansing. We need those times when we say, I rededicate, God's clean my mind, clean my spirit, clean my heart, clean my life, clean my family. And you know, when you repent and call on God in true repentance, he'll come every time. When did you take the church that you have now, or you pioneered it? I was 28 years old, and my wife was seven years younger than me, and we had never pastored a church. And uh we took it, I think we've been there 38 years now, 36 years actually, 37, 37 years, and uh we didn't know what we were doing. We were scared to death, and uh God just helped us and it and it hit revival. You know, I I just made up my mind. Well, what year what year year one? Uh yeah, it it just kind of started doing like this, and it never it never has stopped.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

What's something that happened at the church where you realize you it had kind of changed levels and and overflowed the banks? R. W.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Shambok, a great evangelist, yes, called me one Saturday afternoon and said, This is around when? What year? I don't remember. 90s? It's it's at least, yeah, something like that. We had been in our old sanctuary maybe a month or two. We'd just gotten in it, and it was and he called on a Sunday on the Saturday afternoon. I didn't know him, had never met him. He was a legend in my eyes, and I I knew nothing. I don't know how he knew about the church, but to make a long story short, he said, Can I come preach at your church Sunday night? I feel like the Lord told me to come. And I said, Absolutely, we'd love to have you. And the place was packed, and he came in and he got up and he started to preach and he closed his Bible and he said, The Spirit of the Lord spoke to me that this young event, this young pastor, and his wife are supposed to be on TV. And I'm going to check it for you. I'm going to take an offering. He took an offering, got $138,000 cash. I believe it. Wow. We went and bought cameras and an edit machine, didn't even know what to do with them, and start and got on local cable TV. And when we did that, the church, we got bought time every night at 7 p.m. We I didn't know what we were doing. I was crazy. And you know, that's a lot of money if you were literally riding. Well, it was cable though. It was just Hall County. It was just a little uh and it was very cheap. So so that's what we did. And the church exploded. Every seat was filled, gogs started moving. So that's when I kind of you that's the first thing that comes to my mind.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

It was like now that's supernatural. Frame the call to and then raise that that offering like that. That was the Holy Ghost. It was, it was, and you're doing great now, and then you got you got Greenville, where else?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Greenville, South Carolina, right? You have a church. Uh Spartanbridge, South Carolina, sir, Orange County, California, and we have uh a new campus. We're starting in Destin this year, Destin, Florida. And we have uh six campuses in the Atlanta area.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Wow, that's awesome. So what I now that that's enough to occupy you the rest of your life, but what what else are you kind of feeling beyond that recently?

SPEAKER_01 11:09

I I love I love what God has been doing in our nation specifically, and I've given a lot of time to be here. I don't talk about it a lot because I want the people that we minister to to be able to trust us and know that we're not going to. But I I if people understood the people in this government and how much they love God, they're having devotions, they're having Bible sessions, they're bringing us in and asking us to teach and preach and and do what we can do to help them stay encouraged and stay on track for the things, the spiritual battle that's being fought in the heavenlies for this nation and for the world. And so I have been up here a lot. I have, and and it's and it's God's doings. I didn't ask for, but I feel a grace to do it as He's led me. You have a grace to do it, and uh it's it's amazing to be one day. I'll go to get to tell some of the things that I've seen, and it makes me tremble sometimes. That Lord, what in the world are you doing? God's not through with this nation.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

No, he's not. Don't you find it interesting that there's like an unspoken pressure to not be a preacher and fool the Holy Ghost if you want to get into venues like this? And then when it was all said and done, there's a president office that doesn't just like church, he likes preachers, he does, he likes Pentecostal mutants, like he likes your sacks plant, he likes the anointing, he does. It's very true. So all the stuff you were supposed to do to come to the White House, actually, it worked the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

And and I mean it's the influence of Pastor Paula. I mean, uh that whole faith office is to me, it's just an astounding thing that America has never had a faith office in the Westing. And there's prayer going on in there every day. There's there's there's so many. Every department of the government has a faith office.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

You have the the official media, the official uh uh social media accounts putting scripture out and sermon clips. You you feel like you you like took drugs or something. Like, could could this actually be happening? Because it was so far the other direction, and now just in a little bit of time, it flipped back.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

And look where we are right now. Yes, look at what God is doing, and it's because of people here that are watching this great network who stood up and they go out and they vote their Bible and they say it matters, that we're the salt of the earth, we're the light of the world. And you know, I've said it many places, many times, that Christianity will survive without America, but America will not survive without Christianity. That's right. And the moment we turn our back on that Bible and on that savior, Jesus Christ, I believe America's in trouble, but I don't see that. I see that resonant that the government called us in to say, We need you, God, in America again.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

In God we trust, yes, it's it's powerful. One more thing, and I'll leave you alone. There's like an anti-fasting. Fasting is kind of mocked, even by Pentecostals and charismatics now. That's almost like an unnecessary thing. You wrote a book on fasting. I read it when I was just coming out of Bible college, and it it uh changed my life. My dad always fasted, so I knew it from that. What led you into fast? I mean, obviously, I know I know the Bible teaches it in the butt. Nothing in church pushes you to fast. We eat, especially Pentecostal, like the only thing we can do for fun. So, what you what what brought you on the path of fasting and praying?

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I think watching my dad fast, he would fast he was a preacher. He was and he would fast on Saturdays, and I would watch him, and I would miss him at the table, and and it messed me up for life. And then I began to when I felt the call to preach to do it myself, a boss.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

And as I would do it, I would like like I mean, obviously, we don't we're not glorifying fasting for you to do what God does, but I'm interested. So you started going on the road and preaching. Well, you say I'd fast a lot, like well, like like give me an exam.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Well, I would do uh a la a lot of times if my brother was preaching, I would fast until after church and I would eat something, and then the next day I would eat or whatever. But I like to that's that was one of the blessings of having a partner in ministry. So a lot of times you were going basically every other day. Hey, and it just started working. I still still a divist, I could feel any anybody who malts fasting in ministry is a fool. I don't know any other there. If you want to get there quick, if you want to get a fresh anointing, if you want to get uh that call back, if you want to get sincerity back, you know, yes, you want to get it back, if you want to be free from all the clutter of religion and and even the ministry, you can forget what it's all about. It's not about your ministry growing, it's about Jesus. And every time I fast, it brings me back down to where I need to be. And I encourage you if you never fasted, fast a half a day, sun up to sundown, or uh from morning to three o'clock in the afternoons, and read your Bible more than you normally do. You'd be amazed. You're seeding the clouds for God to move in your life. Your dad was a spirit-filled preacher.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Was your grandfather a minister? No, he was not. Was he a Christian? Yes, very good. Who got baptizing the Holy Ghost in your family? My father.

unknown 16:57

How?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Uh he he was raised, his mother was filled, I should correct that. His mother was filled with the Holy Ghost. I see. Yeah, and my mother on my mother's side, uh, she was from a great family that was that believed in the power of the Spirit. Did your dad stay around long enough to see what the ministry takes? I started to see it. Uh we were still in the beginning church, but we were full. We had bought a little piece of property. Yes, we had grown and and knocked down the back wall, and he came in and preached for me, and he died not long afterwards. But he must have been happy. Yeah, he was. And he we talked to each other every Sunday night. Oh, yeah? Yeah, I missed those calls. I'm very thankful that you came on. Thank you. I'm honored. I appreciate you guys. I love your boldness. You got more boldness than I do. I don't think it's true. Yeah, yeah, you do. It's an act. No, no, I I think you I think you're following what God's called you to do, and that's so refreshing. You and you don't you you don't seem like you give a rib about what people think or say, and that's very rare. And I encourage you in it. Walk in what God's called you to do. Because He doesn't want us to be a bunch of ducts lining up behind each other. Just be what God's called you to do. There's people you're gonna reach that I'll never reach, and people I'll reach that you'll never reach. We need each other. Would you mind before you go praying for my wife and I for the minister? I'd love to. Lord, I just thank you for this precious couple. I just thank you. They're soul winners, and he that wins souls is wise. Would you encourage them? Would you call people from the north, south, east, and west to come up under them? Would you, God, to call them and use them in a brand new, fresh anointing? Lord, bless his ministry and you see all that you put in his heart to do and her heart to do. Thank you that the conferences and all that they're doing will just increase more and more. And soul, souls, souls, souls, keep them, keep them by your power and their children in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen. Pastor Jensen Franklin, everybody, if they want to check you out, where can they find you? Uh JensenFranklin.org, um, frechapel.org. If that's probably easier to spay up. Newest book? Uh, The Power of Short Prayers. Thank you for asking. I love that book. The power of short prayers.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Thank you very much. And uh we'll swing it to Chris Tomlin. Thanks for coming on. Have a great day. I hope you get some rest.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Pastor Jensen here, but thank you for sharing the Jonathan Shuttlesworth podcast. If you're interested in supporting our mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to our generation, please visit revivaltoday.com and click on give now to become one of our monthly partners. Thank you in advance. We hope to see you soon.