SPEAKER_00: Let's open in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Give this time over to the Lord, and we're going to just pick up where we left off last night.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I want to thank you and I want to praise you for Donna's testimony.
SPEAKER_00: I know of several things that have happened, Lord, that you've done even today and yesterday, last night, that were works of your Holy Spirit that we could not manufacture.
SPEAKER_00: We could not make those things happen.
SPEAKER_00: They were of you.
SPEAKER_00: And we rejoice in that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of which don't need to be public right now.
SPEAKER_00: So we just thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, for others of us that are searching and seeking for a deeper experience with you, come, Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Come and move in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: God, we need some of us need a desperate touch of your love, of your grace, of your mercy, of your healing, salvation in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: So God, we wait on you.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, as we open up your word, as we open up to the book of Acts tonight, come, Holy Spirit, and give us insights, give us wisdom that we would not naturally have.
SPEAKER_00: We need supernatural wisdom from the mind of Christ and the heart of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So come, Lord, and do that.
SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I concluded with a with a quote from Ecclesiastes 7.13 last night, and I just want to begin with that.
SPEAKER_00: And the writer of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, says, consider what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: Consider what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: There's something about faith being built through testimonies, through looking back and seeing what God has done, both in biblical and church history, that gives us an understanding of the fact that God tends to repeat his works.
SPEAKER_00: He tends to work in ways that are similar in each situation.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we're looking at.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at through this idea of windstorm, this work of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so last night, what I felt like it was important to begin with is painting a picture of the fact that there's really two windstorms going on.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is a windstorm of evil in the latter days.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are seeing a windstorm of the rise, and we might even say the maturity or the increase of evil.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see that occur.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see an increase in evil across the globe.
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing a windstorm that in the latter days, both in Daniel chapter 8, Revelation chapter 12, and other passages speak of, in the latter days, this rising tide of demonic power.
SPEAKER_00: And the word witchcraft, actually, in the group, in the Greek, is where we get the word pharmaco, which is where we have as a root for pharmaceutical.
SPEAKER_00: So drugs that we have today are tied almost exclusively to witchcraft in many cases.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we see young people with illicit drugs, but then as we see adults with prescription drugs, you can get addicted, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of you here are addicted to drugs.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean that every time you're addicted to drugs, that it's witchcraft.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that those that are addicted to drugs in every case that there's demons involved.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that's what the root of the word means.
SPEAKER_00: So when they were translating the New Testament and they came to this Greek Greek word, they they took that pharmaco word and they translated it in the context that it was written with witchcraft.
SPEAKER_00: And so the reality is that if you're dabbling in drugs for a high and for a for an escape, you could be.
SPEAKER_00: You could be messing around with demonic powers.
SPEAKER_00: And so that wasn't even around 100 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: You know, especially like within the issue of heroin, heroin really was developed around 1874 by two scientists.
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea of heroin came around 1874.
SPEAKER_00: So that so what I'm saying is that there's a rise, that's just one example of this rise of evil that wasn't around before it is today.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we as we uh come into these latter days, and we're closer today than we were yesterday, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we're closer today than ever the church has been, listen, guys, and this is the good news.
SPEAKER_00: There's actually good news to this, this we talked about last night, is there's a rise in the empowerment of the spirit among the saints.
SPEAKER_00: So we have intelligence that's been given to us that that's what the latter days are gonna be like.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the now the non-Christian world doesn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know.
SPEAKER_00: We do.
SPEAKER_00: We have inside information, Book of Revelation, Matthew 24, parts of Daniel, other parts of the Old Testament, that there will be the rise of evil in the latter days, but there's gonna be a rise of power also.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're focusing in now on how God works in empowering his people and empowering his church in the last days.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Finney said the antecedents, accompaniments, and results of revivals are always substantially the same as in the case of Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: So turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: So we are gonna look now for the next few days, barring tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: So tomorrow we are not here because they feed the homeless here at Chapel Hills, and many of you have RSVP'd to join that.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: So that happens here at the church, and then we'll be back together Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 6.
SPEAKER_00: So look at Acts chapter 1, verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Acts chapter 1, verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: I want to start there with this windstorm of the Spirit, which we see both scripturally and also throughout history.
SPEAKER_00: These all, so remember this is the 120 or so that saw Jesus risen from the grave and then watched him ascend to heaven, these all continue with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
SPEAKER_00: This first point is probably the most important point of everything we're gonna talk about over the next few days.
SPEAKER_00: So don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: And I had so many thoughts about prayer and most of your writings out there related to revival speak of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is a better point, though, because I think prayer is the result of this.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the first point: burning desire.
SPEAKER_00: Burning desire.
SPEAKER_00: This idea of one accord means to be unanimous, having mutual consent, agreement, one purpose.
SPEAKER_00: This group of 120 were one accord in a burning desire to experience the Lord, to experience whatever was coming.
SPEAKER_00: There was a burning, passionate desire that resulted in one accord prayer.
SPEAKER_00: When we go into prayer tonight during the worship, I challenge us that we would go into prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We don't, you know, I think there's a place for exhortation, but that's what I'm doing right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm exhorting you.
SPEAKER_00: But when you go to that mic here in prayer, I want you to pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have this passionate desire for the Lord and to cry out to Him, and we will agree with you in corporateness of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And there was this passionate zeal in the hearts of these saints.
SPEAKER_00: How else could you do this?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, these guys have jobs.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they have jobs.
SPEAKER_00: They're just they had stuff to do.
SPEAKER_00: They were busier in the first century than we are now.
SPEAKER_00: Because everything depended on them every day.
SPEAKER_00: There were no phones.
SPEAKER_00: You had to go find the people you're trying to make business transactions with.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't show up, it didn't get done.
SPEAKER_00: There were no computers, there was no way for there to be a residual income unless you were super wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: And so the reality was, unless you had servants, you made your income.
SPEAKER_00: So here they are, and we know that it was 10 days.
SPEAKER_00: Ten days are such a zeal, there's such a burning, passionate desire to have God show up with this promise, because that's all we know at that point, this promise of the Spirit that they are passionate.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you three essentials.
SPEAKER_00: Three essentials that I see in a windstorm for believers.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, burning desire.
SPEAKER_00: Burning desire.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, unity.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, prayer.
SPEAKER_00: So, number one, a burning desire that leads to unity and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: A burning desire that leads to unity and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: You're here tonight because of a burning desire that is bringing unity.
SPEAKER_00: You're meeting folks here in some cases that you've never met before, and we're gonna pray and we're gonna seek God.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd Jones, great preacher of Westminster Cathedral in London, and a foremost historian on revival, said this.
SPEAKER_00: The inevitable and constant preliminary to revival has always been a thirst for God.
SPEAKER_00: A thirst, a living thirst for a knowledge of the living God and longing and burning desire to see him acting, manifesting himself and his power, rising and scattering his enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the church today, the cry of our hearts is God, and this would be this is what I would encourage us toward in prayer tonight.
SPEAKER_00: God, give me a burning desire for you if you don't have it.
SPEAKER_00: Ask him for it.
SPEAKER_00: Cry out, God, give me a passion for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a love relationship with you.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a burning desire.
SPEAKER_00: Now, new believers, I think, just almost naturally, universally have that because they're so desperate for God.
SPEAKER_00: But what happens after you walk with God for a while, you just become comfortable, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: We all struggle with that, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We just become comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: We we we know our salvation, we we we have a relationship with God that's consistent.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: But as we walk with the Lord, there are times where the Lord would say to you, and would say to me, I want to revisit you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to visit you with my spirit again, I want to come storm into your life again and give you a fresh vision of who I am in your life and the power of my spirit working in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Lloyd Jones continues, he says, meditation played such a big part in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: They would spend hours thinking, meditating, and ruminating.
SPEAKER_00: If you like upon the word, but this is something that has almost disappeared.
SPEAKER_00: And our excuse, of course, is that we are all too busy.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we're all too busy.
SPEAKER_00: Our whole lives are cluttered up with things that finally will not matter at all.
SPEAKER_00: You can be so busy in the work, even of the Christian church, that you're doing great harm to your soul.
SPEAKER_00: You can become superficial and dry and eventually useless.
SPEAKER_00: No, meditation is absolutely essential.
SPEAKER_00: And so, church, we're we're a Bible church.
SPEAKER_00: We're a spirit church, we're a word church, we're a spirit church.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and so to come back to God's word and just simply, even tonight, to ask him, God, give me a hunger for your word and your spirit afresh.
SPEAKER_00: I can't manufacture it, I can't make that happen.
SPEAKER_00: God, would you pour that hunger back into my heart?
SPEAKER_00: Back into my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Because we become lethargic, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We become comfortable with our form of Christianity that has lost its zeal and it's lost its passion.
SPEAKER_00: But when we look back on windstorms, we look at people that God uses in a windstorm, here's what we find.
SPEAKER_00: We find that there is within them a sense of the poverty of their own soul, the poverty of their own Christianity, the poverty of their own passion for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: There's a poverty there, but here's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: Because I know so many of us here see that and we become depressed about it, we become despondent about it.
SPEAKER_00: They don't.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't.
SPEAKER_00: They saw their poverty, they saw their sin, they saw that, but they don't become depressed about it.
SPEAKER_00: It actually drives them to go after God in a deeper way.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: It's really important.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not what many of us do.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us become depressed.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are depressed right now.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, why did I come here tonight?
SPEAKER_00: Is that what he's gonna talk about?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, uh, that's me.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't had a quiet time with the Lord in weeks.
SPEAKER_00: The difference, though, with these men and women is that they didn't become overly concerned about the poverty of their spirit without taking that to the Lord and using it, using it as if it's an ignition to go after God in a deeper way.
SPEAKER_00: And they did not become depressed, they did not give up, they pressed in.
SPEAKER_00: That's our challenge tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, George Whitfield, Evan Roberts, men like Billy Graham, Orl Roberts, Dennis Bennett, Chuck Smith, John Wimber, they did not become depressed about the state of the church.
SPEAKER_00: They did not become depressed about the state of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, they turned it to a fresh zeal and a burning desire for seeking God.
SPEAKER_00: One of the great examples is Martin Luther.
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther was a man who sought God repeatedly for a visitation upon his life.
SPEAKER_00: He was so deeply burdened by his sin that he went to Rome in 1510.
SPEAKER_00: He went to Rome in 1510 and he crawled on his bare knees up the hundreds of steps of Santa Scala, this temple area, crawling each time, asking for forgiveness for his sins, because just so you understand a little bit of the background, there was a theological perspective that ruled throughout Rome at that time in the Catholic Church called indulgences.
SPEAKER_00: And the idea behind indulgences was that you could pay for the sins of your dead relatives to take off years that they had in purgatory.
SPEAKER_00: So nobody knew how many years they had except the priest.
SPEAKER_00: And they would kind of make it up, and then you kept paying to get these indulgences, and by so doing, and it was used pilgrimages and payments, they used that money to pay for St.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's Basilica.
SPEAKER_00: It was a really, really good little operation if you think about it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Pope was actually, you know, kind of a, you know, an entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_00: And he figured it out, you know, how are we going to pay for St.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's Basilica?
SPEAKER_00: And so they began to really manufacture this indulgence thing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so, and so, and so Luther believed it, and he was an Augustinian monk, and he was so he was so fearful of his own sin that he took a pilgrimage in 1510 to uh to uh Rome, being in Rome, feeling like that was probably the most holy place on the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so he knew that if he that if he tortured his body, that he could win indulgences.
SPEAKER_00: He even said at one point, I wished that my mother was dead so that I could get her out of purgatory.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's how warped this got, folks.
SPEAKER_00: He said of himself, listen to this, if ever a monk got into heaven by monkery, I should have gotten there.
SPEAKER_00: If it had lasted any longer, I should have tortured myself to death.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen the movie Luther?
SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to see that movie.
SPEAKER_00: You see him, a beautiful picture of what he struggled with with the weight of his sin.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you carry the weight of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: And it creates guilt and it and it creates torture to your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Luther tortured his soul.
SPEAKER_00: He did everything that the church told him to do in the way of indulgences, and so he crawled on these steps.
SPEAKER_00: He beat himself, he flagellated himself bloody to be forgiven of his sins.
SPEAKER_00: Because he believed that it was his merit, it was on his holiness that he would merit salvation from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But it was during his lectures in the Psalms 1513 to 1515 that Luther became a new man, believing that salvation was not by any merit done by man, but rather, listen, the acceptance by faith of the merit of Christ at Calvary.
SPEAKER_00: That what Christ paid for was merit enough for your salvation, but that we accept that by faith, which became the great theme of the Reformation, justification by faith.
SPEAKER_00: Church, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: You are justified by faith alone, by grace alone, through the works alone of Christ, not yours.
SPEAKER_00: For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gift of God, not as a result of our works, that no man should boast.
SPEAKER_00: You have been created by him as his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works of which he has prepared beforehand, which Victor quoted last night.
SPEAKER_00: Luther's belief that we could not earn our salvation by our good works, that Jesus paid it all at Calvary, that we could enter into a personal, vital, dynamic relationship with Christ by faith, literally set off a spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual atomic bomb in an age of religious legalism.
SPEAKER_00: You are justified, you are sanctified by faith in Christ alone.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you put your faith in Christ alone, his spirit, which we're going to talk about on Thursday, we're going to talk about the Spirit, the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit enters your life.
SPEAKER_00: And the Spirit begins to do a fresh new work because you're born again.
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, the walk, the reception of Christ by faith becomes the walk of faith.
SPEAKER_00: So our justification that we are saved, past, present, and future, of all of our sins right now continues for the rest of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we walk out that sanctification, it is always a walk of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And that was an atomic bomb, a spiritual atomic bomb in Europe at that time.
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly, as this message got out through the Gutenberg Press, which there had never been a, there'd never been a printing press up to that point.
SPEAKER_00: And so mass production of these leaflets and listen at 15 million words is what Luther produced in his lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: He's the most prolific writer of all time.
SPEAKER_00: All because he discovered justification by faith.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the contributions of Luther.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the contributions of Martin Luther.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, a man is justified by faith alone and not by our works.
SPEAKER_00: We are justified, you are saved through faith alone, not by your works.
SPEAKER_00: That was almost, almost, not completely, but almost non-existent in the teaching of the church up to the point of the Protestant Reformation.
SPEAKER_00: John Wycliffe had taught this, and others, Huss and others had taught this beforehand, but it really came alive under Luther because of the printing press that went out.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, each believer has access to God directly apart from any human intermediaries.
SPEAKER_00: Now you've got to understand that up to this point you went to a priest, and as a pastor here, I would have a confessional booth, and you had to come and confess your sins to me.
SPEAKER_00: You had to go through me, or you had to go through a saint to be forgiven of your sins.
SPEAKER_00: And Luther, as he just rediscovered the scripture, sola scriptura, scripture alone, we didn't have, we don't have to have a human intermediary, we have the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, the Bible is a supreme source of authority for both faith and life, and anyone, anywhere, can hear from God and be led by God.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is our guide.
SPEAKER_00: The poorest of the poor, the richest of the rich, can go to God's word and hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have gone to seminary, you don't have to know Latin.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know Greek.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to know Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why one of the first things that Martin Luther did is he translated the Bible into German.
SPEAKER_00: And it's still a German translation that is used in Germany.
SPEAKER_00: It was so good.
SPEAKER_00: And so he was a scholar in the languages, and so he translated the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so do you understand that, Church?
SPEAKER_00: You can you can wake up in the morning and you can open the scriptures and God can speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: And no pastor, no priest needs to be there.
SPEAKER_00: You can hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the best that's the best news besides salvation that there is.
SPEAKER_00: That wherever we go, whatever struggles you're going through, whatever's happening in your life, you can you can go to God's word, you can open it up, and God will speak to you every day.
SPEAKER_00: The living, true, one, supreme creator of the universe can speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: And you receive it by faith, and you're led, and you're and you're guided by Him.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's great news.
SPEAKER_00: That's great news.
SPEAKER_00: You may not have a mentor in your life, you may not have, you may not even be in a D group.
SPEAKER_00: Heaven forbid.
SPEAKER_00: But you you are you can hear from God, God can speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: And then fourthly, all people are priests.
SPEAKER_00: This is unheard of at the time.
SPEAKER_00: All people are priests, endowed by God with gifts and callings to be used for God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: So every one of you are endowed with spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are evangelists, some of you are teachers, some of you are administrators, some of you are gifted in numbers, some of you are gifted with people, some of you are counselors.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's these gifts that are released into your life when you come to know the Lord that you can now revel in, you can now live out, you can now experience in your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the priesthood of all believers.
SPEAKER_00: That was the doctrine that came from this.
SPEAKER_00: This burning desire always leads to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to share about the about the uh this work of prayer that happened through Hernhut, Count Lord Zinzendorf.
SPEAKER_00: I just think this is a powerful example of an awakening that occurred in the 1700s.
SPEAKER_00: The gathering of prayer of a group of really discordant, kind of angry, rebellious people.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was studying today in my personal time with the Lord before I went into preparing for tonight, and I've been going through the life of David.
SPEAKER_00: And uh remember that when David basically got kicked out of Saul's palace, went to a cave, the cave of Addalum.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, everybody that was distressed, everybody that was rebellious, thieves, 400 men gathered him.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
SPEAKER_00: They're in this cave, and they're all like thieves and muggers and probably drug addicts and just a whole, just a messed up, a motley crew, to say the least.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody's probably like watching their pockets with this group.
SPEAKER_00: But that's who he starts with.
SPEAKER_00: And then we come later, and we read about David's mighty men.
SPEAKER_00: 300 mighty men, and then 30 mighty, mighty, mighty men.
SPEAKER_00: That he formed and he began to he built them into this elite commando fighting force.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm so I'm reading this, and I'm thinking about the talk that I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is Hernhut.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happened in Moravia in Hernhutt, the village of Hernhut.
SPEAKER_00: Hernhut means the Lord's watch.
SPEAKER_00: It's in present-day Germany.
SPEAKER_00: Came about on June 17th in 1722 when a little band of religious fugitives from Moravia in what is now modern Czech Republic asked Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf if they might settle on his land.
SPEAKER_00: The Count agreed.
SPEAKER_00: One Moravian leader was Christian David, a potter who burned with zeal for the things of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what was happening.
SPEAKER_00: After the Reformation, there was this new group of believers that were raised up who came along who began to believe that the Reformation didn't go far enough in pietism, sanctification, issues of zeals of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so they started getting persecuted, even in Lutheran lands.
SPEAKER_00: So even though they were Protestant, they began to be persecuted because they kept praying for revival.
SPEAKER_00: They kept asking for a deeper walk with God, and they were outside the confines of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't have time to go into it, but the actual, you know, I grew up Lutheran.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here grew up Lutheran?
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you grew up Lutheran, it's I always used to say that Lutheran is kind of Protestant Catholicism.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the actual service itself, I've been to Catholic churches, I've been to episcopal churches, and then I've been to Lutheran churches, and they're very, very similar in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: And so I mean, I was a crucifer, which means I came in, I march in with the cross on a Sunday morning, and you have to hold it like this.
SPEAKER_00: And you really, that's one of the things you get trained in is how to hold it like this.
SPEAKER_00: And you have a little belt thing, you can put the put the big cross in.
SPEAKER_00: You've got this massive gold cross.
SPEAKER_00: So I come marching in with my robe and everything, and then I've got the choir behind me, and then behind the choir or in front of the choir, according to however they're doing, and that church is the pastor and the reader, and then dad's got the stole and everything, and you know, and all that.
SPEAKER_00: I just thought that's normal.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody does that, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's just the way I grew up, man.
SPEAKER_00: So, so that's so that was so imagine hundreds, you know, over 500 years ago, it's it smells and acts and looks a lot like a Catholic church.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's these, there's these believers that are reading Luther stuff and they're reading the Lutheran um German translated Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even have to be able to read Latin, and they're reading it, and they're going, what?
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, this says here that they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: This says here that in the power of the Holy Spirit, they saw God move, and they started believing that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So they're coming from all over Europe, and then word kind of gets out that there's this guy who's really wealthy and he's got some land, and he's he'll let you come and build your house here.
SPEAKER_00: So in 1722, they start gathering there on the count's property, and Count Zinzendorf is a man of deep religious beliefs.
SPEAKER_00: He um at six years old, he was writing love letters to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he and his wife are just uh they're devoted to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They say, come on, come on.
SPEAKER_00: So they start letting them in.
SPEAKER_00: But it becomes this gathering place of all these despondent, kind of rebellious, they love Jesus, but they hate other people, kind of people.
SPEAKER_00: Um so there was Lutherans, there's separatists, there's reformed, and there's brethren living side by side, tons of different creeds, all kinds of beliefs.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what happened.
SPEAKER_00: It just became a melting pot of rebellion and issues, and they're at each other's throat by 1727.
SPEAKER_00: So by 1727, they're about ready to just blow this place up because there's so many squabbles and problems.
SPEAKER_00: But on August 13th, 1727, at a baptism and communion service, the Holy Spirit moved in a mighty way, and they call it the Moravian Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the way it's described by Christian David.
SPEAKER_00: That's the potter.
SPEAKER_00: On the 13th of August, Christian David wrote, It is truly a miracle of God that out of so many kinds and sects, as Catholics, Lutheran, Reformed, Separatist, Gitchtelian, whatever that is, and the like, we could have been melted together into one.
SPEAKER_00: From that time on, said David Nietzsche, Hernhut became a living congregation of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Then we were baptized by the Holy Spirit himself to one love, said Spangenberg.
SPEAKER_00: August 13th, Zinzendorf concluded was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: It was like Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: God then took this gathering of so many different kinds of creeds and so many different kinds of people from different walks of life and denominational groups, and for the next 100 years, 24-7 prayer.
SPEAKER_00: 24-7 prayer.
SPEAKER_00: There became this little hill right outside the village, and the people would get up, they were set up into bands, they called them prayer bands, and these prayer bands would go up there for the next 100 years and pray.
SPEAKER_00: There was not, for 100 years, there was not a moment when someone wasn't in that hern hut, in that house, praying the Lord's watch.
SPEAKER_00: And missions flowed out of that to such a degree that they went to the four corners of the globe with missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: Thousands went out.
SPEAKER_00: You may know the story of John Wesley.
SPEAKER_00: John Wesley goes to Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: He had started the holy club at Oxford.
SPEAKER_00: But he's always struggling with whether he's saved or not.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might be struggling tonight, whether you really are saved tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Let's, man, let's get that one straight.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be over there near the, I guess, the Christmas tree.
SPEAKER_00: They switch, show me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the Christmas tree over there.
SPEAKER_00: Near that white, that little white ball right there.
SPEAKER_00: If you, I mean, I'm serious.
SPEAKER_00: If you are not sure that you know and are going to heaven with Christ, then come up there and we'll settle that one.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to settle that one with you and give your heart to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so, and so they came together and these missions went out.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a guy named John Wesley.
SPEAKER_00: John Wesley just passionately loves God, but he's so unsure of his salvation, but he goes to the mission field.
SPEAKER_00: So he goes to the state of Georgia.
SPEAKER_00: That's why there's so much anointing in Georgia today.
SPEAKER_00: All that come out of Georgia are super anointed with the Holy Spirit because John Wesley was there.
SPEAKER_00: But he goes there and he builds an orphanage all the while, struggling with his own salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He gets on a ship to come back to England, and a big storm comes.
SPEAKER_00: And in that storm, he just fears for his life.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a Moravian missionary on board, and he's just got so much peace that Wesley comes and him and says, and says, and what's with you?
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Well, I just fear, I fear that we're going to sink.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Well, why do you fear?
SPEAKER_00: And that began a conversation where he shared with him the peace that he had because he had a security of his salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And so when they get back to London, Wesley finds where the Moravians are.
SPEAKER_00: And he finds a little community at Aldersgate, the street of Aldersgate.
SPEAKER_00: And he comes in, and when he walks in, the pastor is reading Luther's preface to the book of Romans, and he says his heart was strangely warmed.
SPEAKER_00: And that he knew that Christ was his savior for the first time in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He was truly saved.
SPEAKER_00: And from that, Wesley became one of the greatest evangelists that the world has ever known.
SPEAKER_00: And he preached all over London and then he preached all over England.
SPEAKER_00: And he came to America and he was instrumental in a part of the first great awakening because of the Moravians praying.
SPEAKER_00: Men and women, there's power.
SPEAKER_00: There's power in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: During a windstorm, I see three things that happen to the people that are touched by the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you those.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, intimacy with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Intimacy with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When God's windstorm comes, for those who begin to seek God with a burning desire to experience Him, there is a deep longing for intimacy with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, there is a faith that becomes an experience, not just beliefs or a set of beliefs, but it becomes an experience in your heart of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, the Bible comes alive.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God comes alive.
SPEAKER_00: Intimacy, faith, Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Becomes a part.
SPEAKER_00: And these early believers in the book of Acts are desperate for this promise.
SPEAKER_00: They're crying out for this promise.
SPEAKER_00: There's a zeal, a passion.
SPEAKER_00: They're waiting on God.
SPEAKER_00: They're frightened.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has left them physically.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know when it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even know what the promise means.
SPEAKER_00: All they know is that the Roman authorities are out there.
SPEAKER_00: And the Roman authorities, in collaboration with the Jewish religious leaders, have killed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They're next.
SPEAKER_00: And if you come here tonight with fears, with concerns, with depression, I'm telling you, it wasn't that different back then.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a zeal that God's going to show up.
SPEAKER_00: That God's going to come in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_00: So first of all, church, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: That in a windstorm is a zeal for God.
SPEAKER_00: In a windstorm is a burning desire.
SPEAKER_00: Ask God.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a burning desire tonight, ask Him for it.
SPEAKER_00: Cry out for it.
SPEAKER_00: God, put that burning desire in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Put your hand.
SPEAKER_00: You know, just put your hand on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Say, God, I want a burning desire for you.
SPEAKER_00: I want a revival in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: And just wait until you get it.
SPEAKER_00: One day, two days, three days, four days, five days.
SPEAKER_00: You keep praying that every day.
SPEAKER_00: And I promise you that the promised one will come.
SPEAKER_00: And he'll meet you in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at Acts chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, divine disruption.
SPEAKER_00: Divine disruption.
SPEAKER_00: When the Spirit of God comes, it's a divine disruption of the status quo.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been reading my blogs, you hear me talk about this a lot.
SPEAKER_00: That I believe what Jesus came to do as a revolutionary was to rock the religious and social and cultural status quo.
SPEAKER_00: I still believe that's the purpose, that's one of the purposes of the local church.
SPEAKER_00: I believe one of the purposes of the local church is to rock the boat.
SPEAKER_00: But we've become so the American Christian church, just by virtue of time, and even the way we were founded through the pilgrims and the separatists, have actually become so engrafted into the power structures of our culture that it's hard to tell the difference between the two.
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is, men and women, is you ever heard of prophet, priest, and king?
SPEAKER_00: One way to look at the church is that the church is prophet, the church is priest, and the church is king.
SPEAKER_00: And that prophetic nature can get lost in a culture like ours.
SPEAKER_00: But God has called us to a kingdom perspective, not necessarily always an American perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're called to be prophetic.
SPEAKER_00: So the wind comes and it brings divine disruption.
SPEAKER_00: I was in Alaska on a fishing trip a number of years ago with my brother and my dad, and we were in a twin prop plane flying up into the northern wildernesses of Alaska, and it was beautiful, and you could just see for I would say 15 or 20 miles, you could see kind of all around, and then suddenly we hit a storm.
SPEAKER_00: We hit the storm, it's in the it's in the it's in the summer, and we're gonna go, um, we're gonna be fly fishing and spin casting on this river, and we're moving up in there, and suddenly the plane is rocking, and it gets scary up there.
SPEAKER_00: And this pilot is not scared at all.
SPEAKER_00: He just meant it no big deal to him.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, I'm looking at him.
SPEAKER_00: We've all got headphones on, so I just said, Are we okay?
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Oh, yeah, we've got more to come.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and we did.
SPEAKER_00: We had two or three more like this, but it was kind of it was kind of weird.
SPEAKER_00: So it just came out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: Every great move of God seems to come out of nowhere.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're waiting on this work of God.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 1, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me.
SPEAKER_00: For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, when they had come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they don't even get it.
SPEAKER_00: They think this is going to be a political revolution.
SPEAKER_00: After all that Jesus said and all that Jesus done, they don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't get it, and if I don't get it, rest assured you're on good ground.
SPEAKER_00: But they're waiting on something, and he says, No, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority, verse 8, but you sure receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about it on Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: This power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm going to share with you on Thursday is that there's a difference between having and being in the Holy Spirit and experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm convinced that most of the church doesn't understand the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit doesn't have us.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying this thing's going to come.
SPEAKER_00: And every great work, this windstorm of the Spirit always comes suddenly.
SPEAKER_00: Jonathan Edwards' son-in-law was David Brainerd.
SPEAKER_00: David Brainerd, this is a northeastern part, Massachusetts area, went to reach the American Indians.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what, here's what Edwards wrote about David Brainerd.
SPEAKER_00: This is in 1745.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_00: The power of God seemed to descend on the assembly like a rushing mighty wind.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1745.
SPEAKER_00: With an astonishing energy, bore all down before it.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying there was something that happened when he was preaching, I guess, in this meeting where everybody was knocked to the floor.
SPEAKER_00: I stood amazed at the influence that seized the audience almost universally and could compare it to nothing more aptly than the irresistible force of a mighty torrent.
SPEAKER_00: Almost all persons of all ages were bowed down with a concern together, and scarce one was able to withstand the shock of the astonishing operation.
SPEAKER_00: And the entire tribe got saved.
SPEAKER_00: When God comes in a windstorm, he disrupts the usual and disturbs the comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: That's the bad news.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read that again.
SPEAKER_00: When God comes in a windstorm, he disrupts the usual and he disturbs the comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: If you're uncomfortable tonight, you're in good ground.
SPEAKER_00: Stay uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: If you feel like your life is just not what you want it to be or what God wants it to be, perfect.
SPEAKER_00: If you've messed up your life up to this point, perfect.
SPEAKER_00: You're exactly the kind of person God likes to use.
SPEAKER_00: So I haven't given a definition of awakening revival on purpose because there's so many definitions.
SPEAKER_00: But the one that I like the most is the idea that God visits his church first in revival.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you have to have had something to be revived of it.
SPEAKER_00: So your revive is something you've experienced before.
SPEAKER_00: It's a revival.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, you don't have revival meetings.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a revival meeting.
SPEAKER_00: Finney was the first one to start doing, really codifying the idea of a revival meeting.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was talking about last night.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between that's what I would call revivalism.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about revivalism.
SPEAKER_00: We're not having revival meetings ever at the road.
SPEAKER_00: The road will never have revival meetings.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you guys went to churches where you had tent gatherings.
SPEAKER_00: They call them tent meetings, they call them revivals or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Baptists or probably this church has had revival meetings in this hall.
SPEAKER_00: And that's cool.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't care what you call it, but it's not a revival, it's just a meeting.
SPEAKER_00: So Charles Finney was the first one to come up with the idea, and Billy Graham perfected it.
SPEAKER_00: There was Charles Finney, then there was D.L.
SPEAKER_00: Moody, and then there was Billy Sunday, a few others in between, then Billy Graham, Louis Palau, others.
SPEAKER_00: Those are evangelists that have gatherings that are evangelistic meetings.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they are.
SPEAKER_00: They're not revivals, even if they call them revivals, they're not revivals.
SPEAKER_00: A revival is when the Spirit of God suddenly comes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it could be in a moment in time or it might be gradual, because sometimes there's been moves of the Spirit that nobody can really define when it started.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the first Great Awakening with Jonathan Edwards in Northampton, Massachusetts, it was clear when it started.
SPEAKER_00: With the Welsh Revival under Evan Roberts, 1904, it's clear when it occurred.
SPEAKER_00: But there's other moves, like, for example, I would consider the Jesus movement, probably beginning with about four couples in 1967 in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, is probably where it began.
SPEAKER_00: But it was just really slow in gathering, and then it really took on a life of itself and became a full-on revival, probably in Southern California.
SPEAKER_00: But that's a revival.
SPEAKER_00: But then from a revival comes an awakening.
SPEAKER_00: And an awakening is what affects the community.
SPEAKER_00: That's when you know that it's a real revival, is a revival always affects an awakening in the community, and people start getting saved.
SPEAKER_00: They would never be interested before.
SPEAKER_00: The Welsh Revival, listen to this, I love this quote.
SPEAKER_00: So I may get a little animated here, but the Welsh Revival of 1904, here's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: With less than a score of intercessors, when it burst, the churches of Wales were crowded for more than two years.
SPEAKER_00: 100,000 outsiders were converted, drunkenness cut in half, and many taverns driven into bankruptcy.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine all the liquor stores being driven into bankruptcy?
SPEAKER_00: Crimes were so diminished that judges were presented with white gloves signifying there were no cases of murder, assault, rape, robby, or the like to even consider, the police became unemployed in many districts.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's an awakening.
SPEAKER_00: That's a revival.
SPEAKER_00: India, 1905 to 1906, in a matter of two years, the Christian population jumped by 70%, 16 times faster than the Hindu population.
SPEAKER_00: Amy Carmichael recorded of what one of her little girls recorded in their orphanage.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to Donavore.
SPEAKER_00: It was so startling and dreadful, a whole upper half of the church was on its face on the floor crying to God, each boy and girl, man and woman, oblivious of all others.
SPEAKER_00: The sound was like the sound of waves or strong wind in the trees.
SPEAKER_00: The hurricane of prayer continued for over four hours.
SPEAKER_00: They passed like minutes.
SPEAKER_00: For the next two weeks, they gave themselves to the word and prayer, counseling around the clock.
SPEAKER_00: Almost the whole compound got saved.
SPEAKER_00: It deeply affected the village.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, tonight, as we go into worship and prayer, I don't know what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: But I know that He's got something to do in each of your lives.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something to be said about the corporateness of us gathering together, like the 120 and crying out to God.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna, as we go into worship, I want you to cry out to God.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, I would encourage you to come to the mic and call out, cry out to God.
SPEAKER_00: Let your worship and your prayer be unto God, to be unto Him.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are gonna get words of knowledge, some of you may get words of prophetic and prophetic in nature for someone.
SPEAKER_00: Last night we had the privilege of praying with a young man, several young men over here during the service, and God was doing stuff in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: You may recall that I had a prophetic word about a woman who had this block between her heart and her head, and two women came forward and had the privilege of praying for them, and it just seemed like it was the right word for them.
SPEAKER_00: And so God's God's moving in our midst.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants to do a great work tonight in some of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: But we're not gonna we're not gonna try to make it happen, we're not gonna hype anything.
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna go into worship and let God be God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just let the Spirit be who he is.
SPEAKER_00: See what he wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: So let's stand right now and let me invite Philip and Anna.
SPEAKER_00: Anna's gonna share a song at some point.
SPEAKER_00: Is it at the beginning or just in the midst of it?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: That God's given her that she wrote.
SPEAKER_00: And um.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just settle our hearts, guys, and just kind of kind of the head part.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just put that aside.
SPEAKER_00: And ask the Lord, why don't you just right now just bow your head and you pray, each of you pray to the Lord, Lord, awaken my heart.
SPEAKER_00: God, light a fire in my heart for you.
SPEAKER_00: Have your way.
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, Lord, we don't even know what this means, except that we see, Lord, that you work your greatest works through burning, passionate desire, and openness.
SPEAKER_00: This openness to the work of your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit, as a pastor over the road, as your spiritual covering over the people of the road, I invite you, Lord, to come because this is your church, not my church, but your people.
SPEAKER_00: And we have gathered together because we love you and we love each other, and we care about our city, and we care about our souls, and we care about our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So, Father God, come.
SPEAKER_00: As we worship you, as we focus on you, would you fill our praise and our worship with the dynamite, the dunamis of your spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Would you come, Holy Spirit, and take our prayers, our agony, our depression, our addictions?
SPEAKER_00: God, we give that all to you.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Holy Spirit, come and break in.
SPEAKER_00: Break in.
SPEAKER_00: Bring your spirit into our hearts in a deep and refreshing.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, hear.