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Part 16 of 44Journey Through Matthew
WISDOM AND WONDER | Special Episode | From Revelation 2 & 3
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Connected by scripture or shared themes.
Part 16 of 44Journey Through Matthew
WISDOM AND WONDER | Special Episode | From Revelation 2 & 3
Continue exploring
Connected by scripture or shared themes.
I want to be honest with you about something important. I never want what we're doing here to become static or wooden, old or stale. Christianity cannot terminate on a Sunday morning gathering. Our walk should be far more than just a Sunday service.
While we plan and reprogram, I am sensitive to yield to the Holy Spirit when He speaks. The church in America has become so highly programmed that we don't even give the Holy Spirit room to say, "Can I disrupt your program for just a little bit?" Leaders are afraid to let the Holy Spirit have His way. Everything is so rigid that He can't even breathe into your schedule—just in and out, in and out, regimented.
Today I'm inserting a special episode into our series because there are things in the basement of my soul that I cannot keep quiet about. I have no idea how this will turn out. Normally I study and prepare, but today I'm coming with nothing but what's burning in my heart. You won't handcuff me by your expectations. This will be whatever the Holy Spirit wants it to be.
I've walked with Jesus for 20 years, and I've learned that God uses certain agents to mature believers, strengthen faith, open eyes, and propel us deeper into intimate relationship with Christ.
First, there are the holy scriptures—documents we often treat as suggestions, but they are not. God has revealed Himself through historical accounts, poetic literature, wisdom literature, the record of our Lord Jesus Christ, the birth of the church, and the Pauline epistles.
Second, God uses the church itself—the corporate body of brothers and sisters. You will never find a perfect church. If you keep church-hopping looking for one, you'll be disappointed. At some point, you need to realize God has placed you in a healthy body, not a perfect one. In a healthy body, you will get agitated from time to time. Somebody might upset you. But are people striving to walk this thing out for real?
I cry out to Jesus that the church I lead will be that beautiful image from Acts 2:42-47—a people surrendered to apostolic teaching, devoted to prayer, community, fellowship, breaking of bread, worship, evangelism, and generosity. We are a glorious mess, a mosaic of broken pieces that God has put together. When we lean into that, though we hurt one another, the Lord uses our strengths and weaknesses, our mountaintops and valleys, our testimonies and failures, working together as an agent of strength for one another.
When I am weak, you are strong. When you are strong, I am weak. When I'm falling, you're there to pick me up. When you fall, I am there to pick you up. When you confess, I'm there to be a shoulder and ears.
Third, God uses the Holy Spirit—that powerful agent, the third person of the Godhead, poured out on the world at Pentecost. He leads us into deeper relationship with God and awakens us when we are dead. The Holy Spirit (not just "holy spirit")—that definitive article distinguishes Him from false spirits and evil spirits.
But I am learning there is another agent God uses to transform His children: exposure. Once you've been exposed, you cannot be unexposed. God uses exposure to usher you into deeper revelation of who He is and what He's doing in the earth.
Exposure through relationships: God gives you access to the life of a person, and because of that relationship, you have exposure to a prayer life, a faith, resources you've never seen. You see things and say, "Man, I'm inspired now to pray at that level, to be faithful at that level, to preach at that level, to sacrifice at that level."
Exposure through opportunity: God opens doors, puts you on staff at a church, gives you opportunities in different places and cities as exposure to deepen your relationship with Him.
Exposure through geography: There are some things God will reveal to you when your feet hit certain ground. There's something God revealed to me when I left New York. Something in North Carolina. Something in Ohio. Something in Atlanta. There are some things that did not unlock in my life until my feet hit the place they were supposed to be. Sometimes your feet need to tread different ground. You need to hop on a plane, drive somewhere, and let your feet hit different ground. When your feet walk different ground, God will speak to you in different places.
In December 2018, God put my wife and I on a plane to Israel. We toured the nation from north to south—to Judea, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, Jericho, Bethlehem, Nazareth. We walked the Via Dolorosa where Jesus carried His cross. We went to the pool of Bethesda where Jesus healed a man who suffered for 38 years. We walked throughout the streets where John the Baptist's ministry flourished—and you don't need lights and stages for a powerful ministry. You just need the anointing of God and a word from God.
I was praying and fasting, asking God to speak to me. Nothing happened the first day, the third day, the fifth day. But on the eighth day—the number of new beginnings—we were at the Garden Tomb. I went into the garden tomb and came out. There are no bones there. Confucius is buried somewhere. Joseph Smith is buried somewhere. Muhammad is buried somewhere. But where they claim Jesus was buried, there are no bones there.
Those bones are at the right hand of God the Father, praying for me and praying for you. That blood dripped off on the mercy seat crying out to forgive us.
When I came out of that garden tomb, I heard singing in a foreign language I did not know. But I could feel the spirit of God. And here's what I realized: God doesn't only speak English. He speaks Spanish, French, Czech. He speaks the language of whales and animals. He can tell an animal, "Go get that rebellious prophet and bring him back to where he needs to be." He'll speak to you by the Word, by the Spirit, by a people, a TV commercial, a closed door, an open door. He speaks any language to get to you. Is anybody thankful for a bilingual Jesus?
I walked over to a small gathering of foreigners singing. I sat down and began to weep because I could feel the presence of God. A man motioned me to the front and began talking to me in Portuguese. A man on our bus translated. He said to me:
"I've been to your country and I've traveled your cities and I've seen how many of your churches are dead and dying in your country. I see a faith that is dying in your country. Young man, do you want to go back to your nation and do something about it?"
I fell on my knees and said yes. He received a double anointing, laid his hands on me, and prayed over me. All those Portuguese people prayed over me. He said, "God charges you. Go back to your nation and cry aloud."
Now you understand me a little better. God gave me a charge in Israel. I was exposed in Israel. I had an encounter with God that changed my life. I've never been the same since December 2018. Can't shut me up. Can't take me off this course. You're not going to dangle some carrot to make me bite on your trinkets and toys. Don't need nobody's platform. Don't care about no conference. I've been charged by God Almighty in the holy land of Israel.
While in Israel, I saw exposure to faith and reverence for God that I had never seen in my entire life. The Bible was honored in Jerusalem. Christ was honored. Yahweh was honored. I saw a dedication to faith, to the scriptures, to God like I'd never seen before. On a 12-hour flight, I was broken inside because I had been exposed to a level of reverence I could not be unexposed from.
I met a Messianic Jew on the top of Mount Mada copying the Bible by hand in ink for eight hours a day. If he made one mistake, he had to start over from the very beginning. And here we treat it like it's just Exodus, just Deuteronomy, just Matthew, just Philippians—boring. God's holy sacred word to human beings trying to know Him apart from it. These new generation Christians are trying to have a walk with God apart from the revelation of Himself to you. You have more trust in preachers than the Bible. You don't even know when you hear lies because you have no word in you.
Why don't you start listening to scripture when you drive in your car? Why don't you get a verse in at night before you go to bed? Why don't you get it so much in your soul that you have what I call a glory consciousness of God—that you stop giving props to coincidence? Be so full of the Word that you see God in everything: mountaintops and valleys, tough seasons and seasons of blessing, closed doors and open doors, transitions and stability.
There's too much mouthing off on social media of people who claim to be wise and sages, spitting off stuff disconnected from the Word of God. Anytime I hear somebody say "God said," my eyebrow is raised. Man, did God tell you what underwear to put on? What socks to wear? "God said, God said, God said." Come on.
Now, I need you to listen to me very carefully because this is the bulk of what I want to say. For 20 years since I've been saved, I've been studying the ruins of the city of Ephesus—some of the best preserved ruins of the ancient world. I prayed and asked God to send me there, but never put together plans.
A pastor friend named Recab Gray called me out of the blue. He pastors New Creation Fellowship in Orlando—a partner church of ours. He said, "Yo, a man of God is taking me to Turkey. They only take 12 pastors every year, and the trip is full. But I told them, 'You need to take my dude, Philip Anthony Mitchell.'" They said, "We normally don't do this. It's called favor. We don't know why we're opening this door for you. That's called favor."
So I became the 13th person—the third wheel on the date to Turkey. God answered a prayer I've had for 20 years.
But listen to me carefully. Turkey is not like Israel. This is a completely different experience. I'm in a country that identifies as 99% Muslim. It has more mosques than any other nation on earth—over 80,000 of them. Every corner has another mosque. We traveled the whole western part of the country and the interior. There's not a trace of Christianity anywhere that I went.
We went to a restaurant and an Islamic man sang over us a Muslim song. We sang him "Amazing Grace." He recorded us and said through an interpreter, "My daughter is a Protestant Christian in another nation. I'm going to send her this video."
We walked the streets of multiple cities in a country that's 99% Islamic. But listen—for some of y'all, this means nothing to you. But I'm touring cities that were once the home base of Christianity.
God, Lord, awaken your people right now. I'm traveling a nation that was once the home base of Christianity. After the church was born in Jerusalem, it spread into Turkey. Turkey became the centerpiece where Paul wrote all these epistles to all these churches.
The seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church—representing Christianity to the whole globe—was in Turkey. The Church of Antioch, where we were first called Christians, is in Turkey. The seven churches of Asia Minor that Jesus writes to in the book of Revelation are in Turkey. And I remember sitting in our hotel room at night, my brother and I cried, thinking: Man, at some point in history, this nation we're touring right now was a catalyst to the world for Christianity.
And you don't give a darn about that because you're comfortable in America. You don't give a darn that an Eastern religion has swallowed up half the world. You don't give a darn that it's swallowed up Europe. And there's nowhere else for it to go except to swallow up Christianity in our own land. And you don't give a darn unless you have children and care about the world they'll live in when you're gone.
You don't give a darn because you're comfortable and bougie and we're blind. We don't give a darn because we only see Christianity as the life we live, which is so myopic and so small. We don't see Christianity as a four-leg relay. The apostles ran the first leg. Men of God ran the next leg. Somebody handed the baton off to you and me when Christianity came across the continent of Africa, through Europe, and landed on our shores.
My question for you is: What the heck are we going to hand off to the next generation?
Are you going to hand off crystals mixed with Jesus? Man-made philosophies mixed with Jesus? The worship of idols mixed with Jesus? What are we going to hand off to our children? I'm thinking about this. What world is my son Josiah going to live in?
You've never seen an anchor leg. You see them coming around the track just hoping they don't drop that baton. It takes a good shepherd to remind you all of us bougie American Christians that that baton you got right now called faith—it came down to you in blood. People died to give you the faith that we have right now. Stuff that you trample and take for granted.
You take church for granted. You take biblical preaching for granted. You take the gathering of the saints for granted. When people paid the price in blood for you to sit in that comfortable chair. Can't lift a hand, can't praise God, can't sing a song. "It's not my Sunday. Why don't I have this?" Fighting for titles.
All of us bougie American Christians don't even know you stand on the shoulders of giants—men, women, and children that died to bring Christianity to you.
I remember exactly where I was in the Hagia Sophia, the house of wisdom—a church facility converted into a mosque. I remember exactly where I was when the Holy Spirit apprehended me and arrested me in the corner of that building. I went off from my group and put my face to the wall and wept and wept and wept. My brother came over and put his arms around me, and we wept together.
What I was weeping for: This place that used to be a former gathering spot for brothers and sisters 1600 years ago. My brothers and sisters walked in that same building. The council—they had a council of original elders in that building. And right there in that spot, God burned my heart for the nation of Turkey. He burned my heart for Muslims. He burned my heart for that nation. I fell so deeply in love with my Islamic brothers and sisters. I fell so deeply in love with the nation of Turkey.
And I can hear God telling me: "Man, there's a work for you to do over here, my son. I don't know how and I don't know when and I don't even know why. But God tells me there's a work to do over there, my son. And I know I ain't about to do that by myself. I know I got a church behind me that when I come back and say, 'We're trying to plant churches. We're trying to support missionaries'—I know when I come back with some plan, I will have people behind me saying, 'Yes, Pastor. Let's do something about that.' Out of love for a people that don't know the God that we serve. Love."
So I'm wrestling with this question: How could a land that was once the seat of Christianity have no trace of Christianity at all? How is it that the entire east has been dominated by Eastern religion, and the place where we once dominated is gone? Do you understand the same trend is sweeping west?
I know what happened there—violence and persecution pushed out Christians. But then I had to go back and read again about the seven churches in Revelation. What else was eating out the church? Let me show you.
To the church in Ephesus, Jesus says:
"I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. You cannot bear with those who are evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and found them to be false. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first."
Here's a church in Turkey—one of the major churches, wealthy, mega-church, huge. Because of their resources and all the stuff they had, they abandoned their first love with Jesus.
My question to you: Is that happening now? How many of us American Christians are drifting away from our first love?
Jesus, when He saved you, you loved Him and were on fire. Then you got a little bit of blessing—a better job. Now you've got the house you like and the car you like. You're on staff at church. You're doing stuff for the church. Now you're writing books and you've got blogs. You've got all of that. And now your first love is your stuff. You've made ministry an idol. You've made yourself an idol. You've made open doors an idol. You've made your relationships an idol. You've made your connections an idol.
You love all of this. And now because you're blessed, you could just sin and sleep and do what you want. Jesus has been put in the backseat of the car. We have abandoned our first love.
This is what was happening in Turkey where there's no trace of Christianity anymore—believers abandoning their first love. It happened in Europe. There's only one more frontier for it to come to. Oh, but it's already here. I'm trying to awaken you because we're running after the same patterns that caused Europe to be changed from a predominantly Christian society to an alternate society.
You get a little bit of blessing and then Jesus is not your priority. You've got other things on the altar of your heart, but He's not there. Your business, your entrepreneurial ventures, your preacher, your apostle, your bishop.
Imagine if the Lord searched this room right now. How many of us have got other things on that altar? You already know it. You got dreams that you idolize above your intimate relationship with Jesus. What if He said no to your dreams? Could you love Him still? What if you don't get married? Could you love Him still? What if He says, "Keep your legs closed until I see you"? Could you love Him still?
I see some people about to check out. I wonder if He took a pulse in this room, in this nation. How many of us would say, "Jesus is my primary love. I love Him so much that if I don't have anything else but Him, I'll grind it out with Him"? How many of us are truly satisfied with Him?
Some of us need Him and something else to make us satisfied. He's not enough to satisfy you, and you know it. You have to have Him and something else to make you satisfied. But it's so dope if Jesus was the thing that ultimately satisfied you. Man, everything else would just be icing on the cake. Then my heart would always be exploding with gratitude:
"Jesus, all I want is You, but thank You for a godly wife. All I want is You, but thank You for my beautiful children. All I want is You, but thank You for my job. All I want is You, but thank You for these relationships. All I want is You, but thank You for these open doors. All I want is You, but thank You for my book deal and my businesses. All I want is You. But thank You. Thank You."
To the next church in Smyrna, Jesus had nothing bad to say. That church was small. They were persecuted. They were suffering. He said, "Man, y'all better prepare. Some of you are going to die. They're going to martyr you for the faith."
News flash: Smyrna was one of only two churches Jesus blessed—besides Philadelphia—and it's the only city in Turkey that has a remnant of Protestant Christians. Ancient Smyrna is the modern city of Izmir in Turkey. The one city that Jesus breathed on with kind words. The one place that Jesus breathed on with kind words—a remnant of His people remains.
He says to the church at Pergamum:
"I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast to My name. You did not deny the faith even in the days of Antipus, My faithful witness who was killed among you. But I have a few things against you. You hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they may eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality."
What was destroying this church? False doctrine. Sexual immorality.
I know what you want. You want me to move on really quick. Yeah. You don't want me to say that sex is only for married people. You don't want me to say that God does not like sexual immorality. You don't want me to say that sexual immorality is killing the witness of believers all across this country.
You don't want me to say that sex with men and sex with women and bestiality and all these horrifying things that we're doing is killing the witness of the church in America. You don't want me to talk like that. You think Jesus doesn't care about that. But there's no trace of Christianity there anymore. But look what the people are indulging in: false doctrine, sexual immorality.
This is not to condemn you. Whether we're struggling with lust or adultery in our heart, this is not to condemn you. I'm guilty of all of that myself. This is to awaken us to the fact that we see five things that ate out the church in Turkey. We see the church there was eroded.
To the church of Thyatira:
"But I have this against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing My servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols."
What else was eating out the church in Turkey? Tolerating bad doctrine. My God.
To the church of Sardis:
"I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead."
You're blowing up on social media, but you are dead. You've got a big ministry, but you are dead. You're always posting scriptures, but you are dead. You've got a reputation for being alive, but I know on the inside you are spiritually dead.
You're full of entertainment and nonsense. People can't see that because they're only drawn by the lights and the sound and the noise. You've got a reputation in your city, but I know, Jesus, that you're dead. The spirit of God isn't alive there. It's the ingenuity of man keeping the ministry moving.
So you think everything that's big is God, and you think everything that's got glamour and glitz is God. Don't you know creative men could engineer a movement? Gather any fool with a microphone and some charisma, and they could gather a crowd. That doesn't mean the spirit of God is alive there.
You've got dead songs, dead sermons, dead small groups, dead staff meetings. The spirit of God is not alive there.
I'm sorry, I got to say this: Because the spirit of God is alive, I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel at a football game. I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel at a basketball game. I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel at a concert. I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel no place else.
If you go to a football game and you go to a church gathering and they feel the same, how are we the embassy of heaven on earth? I should be able to walk into a gathering and feel something more than I feel at a Beyoncé concert or a Drake concert. You go to a Drake concert and come out feeling dead. You should come into these gatherings and leave feeling like the presence of Almighty God.
I don't want a reputation of being alive. I want to be alive. Do I have any alive Christians in this room right now? Who's alive in this room? Give him praise.
I don't have a reputation. I am alive. Demons tremble when I walk into a room. I want your dead church, your dead sermon, your dead small groups, your dead curriculum, your dead gathering, your dead children's ministry. I'll get more undignified than this before the presence of Almighty God. And I'll take all of that.
And then the last one—the only church Jesus had nothing good to say about at all. I think this is the American church right now.
To the church of Laodicea:
"I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot."
Here's the context: 10 miles to the north of Laodicea is a city called Hierapolis, built on volcanic activity with natural hot springs and hot water. Laodicea had no water supply, so they built pipes from Hierapolis all the way to get that hot water—medicinal water that Cleopatra would swim in. But by the time the water traveled 10 miles to Laodicea, it was no longer hot.
To the east of Laodicea is the city of Colossae, where Paul wrote Colossians. They have cold springs—fresh water that brought refreshing on a hot day. The hot water brought medicine. The cold water brought refreshing. But by the time the cold water came from Colossae to Laodicea, it was no longer cold. The minerals in the pipes would make the water warm. And anybody who drank that water would vomit. The city was plagued by lukewarm water.
"I know your works. You are neither cold. Your spirituality doesn't refresh anyone. You're not hot. You're not even on fire. I wish that you were either refreshing or on fire. I wish your Christianity was refreshing or on fire. I wish you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm—because you're indifferent, because you're full of apathy, because you're full of lethargy, because Christianity is only a Sunday morning service, because you have no prayer life, because you don't spend time with Me outside of Sunday, because you have no evidence of Christianity outside of the gathering, because you're just going through the motions—I'll spit you out of My mouth."
For you say, "I'm rich. I have prospered. I have need of nothing." But you don't realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
These things that ate up the church in Turkey—they're killing us right now. They're killing us, man.
I don't understand why this is all you want. How could He have died for you and all we've got is this apathetic, weak, going-through-the-motions Christianity? We want Jesus and sin. It's like, where is the fire? Where is the sacrifice? Where is the seriousness? Where are the tears being shed?
What does your prayer life look like? Come on, man. Why is Christianity to you just your home? Like, God, I'm so—God—it's like the Lord sends me to Israel and gives me a burden for America. And then He sends me to Turkey and gives me a burden for the East. And in all of it, He reminds me: "Son, the gospel is global. It's bigger than 2819."
I want my children, if you read the scriptures, to hear God crying out to you: "I want y'all to think globally about this gospel." Time is running out. "My children, live for Me. My children, sacrifice. Serve. Pray. Bruise your knees for the spread of the gospel.
Even if I'm not sending you to be a missionary in Madagascar, man, you can pray and cry out for the church. If the people of God don't take the commission seriously, man, God help America. God help our children. God help the faith we're going to hand off.
Why is this a game for you? Why are you just satisfied to do a service on Sunday morning? You're going to leave here and have no encounter with Jesus until I see you next week. Like, what's up with that, man? I don't understand.
If I could creep up in your prayer room, what are you talking about? When you're just begging God for stuff, man. It's so immature. You just keep ringing out the Father's ears for a car. Like, come on, man. When people are dying and going to hell, man, I'm crying out for a nation that's 99% Muslim. I'm crying out for a whole half of the world that sits in spiritual darkness.
There are over two billion people on the other side of the world. Some of them have never even heard the name of Jesus. My wife was talking to a school teacher who said they met a child in a classroom that's never heard the name of Jesus in America. Don't you see that Christianity is being eaten out right from under your feet?
There's a generation emerging right behind you that doesn't even know the name of Jesus. And it's like you all come here, you look at me with these eyeballs, and you think this is my burden to carry. You think it's only on the pastors to sound an alarm and stand for Christ and stand in the gap and pray and live holy.
No. No. God said, "On this rock, I'll build My church." Man, it's for us to do.
Jesus said:
"This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
Don't you see? Jesus has a global mindset. He cares about the church globally, man. When was the last time you prayed for the gospel to spread across the world? He said, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." You ain't doing that. We're not praying for churches to be planted. We're not praying for missionaries to be sent out.
You know why we're not praying, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done"? Because we've got a myopic American humanistic, self-centered gospel. That's the Christianity that we live. So your walk is boring, and you have dry tear ducts. You don't shed any tears. And this is Christianity for you. It's just you listening to me every Sunday, and you leave and there's nothing.
I can't let you go out like that. I can't. I can't. I don't even know what to say. I'm going to pray.
Oh God, we need revival. Oh God, we need an awakening in our nation, Lord. Give us Your heart, Jesus. Give us Your eyes, Jesus. Your eyes. Give us Your eyes, Jesus. Let us see. Lord, the evil sweeping this nation—God—let the hearts of Your people be broken, God.
Lord, I cry out for the church You've entrusted to me that You would pour into them, God. Baptize them with Your perfect love. They would love humanity, God, Lord, and be grieved over the depravity of mankind. They'd be grieved over those who are far away. They would pray and cry out for the redemption, God, Lord, of the elect.
We would pray, God, Lord, that You would send laborers into Your vineyard, Jesus, like sickles to cut down the harvest You said was so ripe. Take out these hearts of stone and give us a heart of flesh. Deliver us from our adulteries and our idolatries and our whoredom and our love affair with the things that You abhor.
Pour out Your spirit upon us, oh God. Let us feel the grief of Your heart, oh God. Let us feel Your burdens, oh God. Lord, I pray, God, Lord, in America, there will be a revival born in the platform that spreads to the pew, that spreads to the street.
Deal with me, Your servant. Deal with all of Your servants. Deal with Your pastors, Your preachers, Your shepherds. Pull the skirt up on the false prophets. Raise up the voices in this hour where You have ordained, God.
God, we pray for the East. How many billions of people have not heard Your name? We cry out for their salvation. We cry out for the salvation of Your sons and daughters in the East, God. Every one of them You knew by name before the foundation of the world.
Let the light of the gospel and the truth of the message of Jesus shine into the dark strongholds, God, of the East. In the name of Jesus, let there be a harvest, God, from the East. In the name of Yeshua, God, oh God, awaken the Church in America, Lord. Awaken the Church in America, God.
Yes. Let us turn away, God, from our wicked ways. Let us turn away from the world, from sin and debauchery and licentiousness. God, create in us, God, hearts that are pure. Create in us, God, hands that are clean. Create in us, God, consecrated interior lives. Lord, in the name of Jesus, let us love what You love and let us hate what You hate.
Deliver us, God, from compromise, from excuses, deliver us from apathy and lethargy and indifference. God, burn us in our lips with coals from the fires of heaven, Lord. Burn us in our hearts with coals from the fires of heaven. Awaken, God, Your remnant in this nation, Lord.
We need revival. We pray for one more great revival. We pray for one more great revival, God. We pray for one more great revival. Let 2819 be at the center of one more great revival. Let the churches You have ordained be at the center of one more great revival.
Somebody cry out to Jesus. We need an outpouring of God's spirit.
I want to be honest with you about something important. I never want what we're doing here to become static or wooden, old or stale. Christianity cannot terminate on a Sunday morning gathering. Our walk should be far more than just a Sunday service.
While we plan and reprogram, I am sensitive to yield to the Holy Spirit when He speaks. The church in America has become so highly programmed that we don't even give the Holy Spirit room to say, "Can I disrupt your program for just a little bit?" Leaders are afraid to let the Holy Spirit have His way. Everything is so rigid that He can't even breathe into your schedule—just in and out, in and out, regimented.
Today I'm inserting a special episode into our series because there are things in the basement of my soul that I cannot keep quiet about. I have no idea how this will turn out. Normally I study and prepare, but today I'm coming with nothing but what's burning in my heart. You won't handcuff me by your expectations. This will be whatever the Holy Spirit wants it to be.
I've walked with Jesus for 20 years, and I've learned that God uses certain agents to mature believers, strengthen faith, open eyes, and propel us deeper into intimate relationship with Christ.
First, there are the holy scriptures—documents we often treat as suggestions, but they are not. God has revealed Himself through historical accounts, poetic literature, wisdom literature, the record of our Lord Jesus Christ, the birth of the church, and the Pauline epistles.
Second, God uses the church itself—the corporate body of brothers and sisters. You will never find a perfect church. If you keep church-hopping looking for one, you'll be disappointed. At some point, you need to realize God has placed you in a healthy body, not a perfect one. In a healthy body, you will get agitated from time to time. Somebody might upset you. But are people striving to walk this thing out for real?
I cry out to Jesus that the church I lead will be that beautiful image from Acts 2:42-47—a people surrendered to apostolic teaching, devoted to prayer, community, fellowship, breaking of bread, worship, evangelism, and generosity. We are a glorious mess, a mosaic of broken pieces that God has put together. When we lean into that, though we hurt one another, the Lord uses our strengths and weaknesses, our mountaintops and valleys, our testimonies and failures, working together as an agent of strength for one another.
When I am weak, you are strong. When you are strong, I am weak. When I'm falling, you're there to pick me up. When you fall, I am there to pick you up. When you confess, I'm there to be a shoulder and ears.
Third, God uses the Holy Spirit—that powerful agent, the third person of the Godhead, poured out on the world at Pentecost. He leads us into deeper relationship with God and awakens us when we are dead. The Holy Spirit (not just "holy spirit")—that definitive article distinguishes Him from false spirits and evil spirits.
But I am learning there is another agent God uses to transform His children: exposure. Once you've been exposed, you cannot be unexposed. God uses exposure to usher you into deeper revelation of who He is and what He's doing in the earth.
Exposure through relationships: God gives you access to the life of a person, and because of that relationship, you have exposure to a prayer life, a faith, resources you've never seen. You see things and say, "Man, I'm inspired now to pray at that level, to be faithful at that level, to preach at that level, to sacrifice at that level."
Exposure through opportunity: God opens doors, puts you on staff at a church, gives you opportunities in different places and cities as exposure to deepen your relationship with Him.
Exposure through geography: There are some things God will reveal to you when your feet hit certain ground. There's something God revealed to me when I left New York. Something in North Carolina. Something in Ohio. Something in Atlanta. There are some things that did not unlock in my life until my feet hit the place they were supposed to be. Sometimes your feet need to tread different ground. You need to hop on a plane, drive somewhere, and let your feet hit different ground. When your feet walk different ground, God will speak to you in different places.
In December 2018, God put my wife and I on a plane to Israel. We toured the nation from north to south—to Judea, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, Jericho, Bethlehem, Nazareth. We walked the Via Dolorosa where Jesus carried His cross. We went to the pool of Bethesda where Jesus healed a man who suffered for 38 years. We walked throughout the streets where John the Baptist's ministry flourished—and you don't need lights and stages for a powerful ministry. You just need the anointing of God and a word from God.
I was praying and fasting, asking God to speak to me. Nothing happened the first day, the third day, the fifth day. But on the eighth day—the number of new beginnings—we were at the Garden Tomb. I went into the garden tomb and came out. There are no bones there. Confucius is buried somewhere. Joseph Smith is buried somewhere. Muhammad is buried somewhere. But where they claim Jesus was buried, there are no bones there.
Those bones are at the right hand of God the Father, praying for me and praying for you. That blood dripped off on the mercy seat crying out to forgive us.
When I came out of that garden tomb, I heard singing in a foreign language I did not know. But I could feel the spirit of God. And here's what I realized: God doesn't only speak English. He speaks Spanish, French, Czech. He speaks the language of whales and animals. He can tell an animal, "Go get that rebellious prophet and bring him back to where he needs to be." He'll speak to you by the Word, by the Spirit, by a people, a TV commercial, a closed door, an open door. He speaks any language to get to you. Is anybody thankful for a bilingual Jesus?
I walked over to a small gathering of foreigners singing. I sat down and began to weep because I could feel the presence of God. A man motioned me to the front and began talking to me in Portuguese. A man on our bus translated. He said to me:
"I've been to your country and I've traveled your cities and I've seen how many of your churches are dead and dying in your country. I see a faith that is dying in your country. Young man, do you want to go back to your nation and do something about it?"
I fell on my knees and said yes. He received a double anointing, laid his hands on me, and prayed over me. All those Portuguese people prayed over me. He said, "God charges you. Go back to your nation and cry aloud."
Now you understand me a little better. God gave me a charge in Israel. I was exposed in Israel. I had an encounter with God that changed my life. I've never been the same since December 2018. Can't shut me up. Can't take me off this course. You're not going to dangle some carrot to make me bite on your trinkets and toys. Don't need nobody's platform. Don't care about no conference. I've been charged by God Almighty in the holy land of Israel.
While in Israel, I saw exposure to faith and reverence for God that I had never seen in my entire life. The Bible was honored in Jerusalem. Christ was honored. Yahweh was honored. I saw a dedication to faith, to the scriptures, to God like I'd never seen before. On a 12-hour flight, I was broken inside because I had been exposed to a level of reverence I could not be unexposed from.
I met a Messianic Jew on the top of Mount Mada copying the Bible by hand in ink for eight hours a day. If he made one mistake, he had to start over from the very beginning. And here we treat it like it's just Exodus, just Deuteronomy, just Matthew, just Philippians—boring. God's holy sacred word to human beings trying to know Him apart from it. These new generation Christians are trying to have a walk with God apart from the revelation of Himself to you. You have more trust in preachers than the Bible. You don't even know when you hear lies because you have no word in you.
Why don't you start listening to scripture when you drive in your car? Why don't you get a verse in at night before you go to bed? Why don't you get it so much in your soul that you have what I call a glory consciousness of God—that you stop giving props to coincidence? Be so full of the Word that you see God in everything: mountaintops and valleys, tough seasons and seasons of blessing, closed doors and open doors, transitions and stability.
There's too much mouthing off on social media of people who claim to be wise and sages, spitting off stuff disconnected from the Word of God. Anytime I hear somebody say "God said," my eyebrow is raised. Man, did God tell you what underwear to put on? What socks to wear? "God said, God said, God said." Come on.
Now, I need you to listen to me very carefully because this is the bulk of what I want to say. For 20 years since I've been saved, I've been studying the ruins of the city of Ephesus—some of the best preserved ruins of the ancient world. I prayed and asked God to send me there, but never put together plans.
A pastor friend named Recab Gray called me out of the blue. He pastors New Creation Fellowship in Orlando—a partner church of ours. He said, "Yo, a man of God is taking me to Turkey. They only take 12 pastors every year, and the trip is full. But I told them, 'You need to take my dude, Philip Anthony Mitchell.'" They said, "We normally don't do this. It's called favor. We don't know why we're opening this door for you. That's called favor."
So I became the 13th person—the third wheel on the date to Turkey. God answered a prayer I've had for 20 years.
But listen to me carefully. Turkey is not like Israel. This is a completely different experience. I'm in a country that identifies as 99% Muslim. It has more mosques than any other nation on earth—over 80,000 of them. Every corner has another mosque. We traveled the whole western part of the country and the interior. There's not a trace of Christianity anywhere that I went.
We went to a restaurant and an Islamic man sang over us a Muslim song. We sang him "Amazing Grace." He recorded us and said through an interpreter, "My daughter is a Protestant Christian in another nation. I'm going to send her this video."
We walked the streets of multiple cities in a country that's 99% Islamic. But listen—for some of y'all, this means nothing to you. But I'm touring cities that were once the home base of Christianity.
God, Lord, awaken your people right now. I'm traveling a nation that was once the home base of Christianity. After the church was born in Jerusalem, it spread into Turkey. Turkey became the centerpiece where Paul wrote all these epistles to all these churches.
The seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church—representing Christianity to the whole globe—was in Turkey. The Church of Antioch, where we were first called Christians, is in Turkey. The seven churches of Asia Minor that Jesus writes to in the book of Revelation are in Turkey. And I remember sitting in our hotel room at night, my brother and I cried, thinking: Man, at some point in history, this nation we're touring right now was a catalyst to the world for Christianity.
And you don't give a darn about that because you're comfortable in America. You don't give a darn that an Eastern religion has swallowed up half the world. You don't give a darn that it's swallowed up Europe. And there's nowhere else for it to go except to swallow up Christianity in our own land. And you don't give a darn unless you have children and care about the world they'll live in when you're gone.
You don't give a darn because you're comfortable and bougie and we're blind. We don't give a darn because we only see Christianity as the life we live, which is so myopic and so small. We don't see Christianity as a four-leg relay. The apostles ran the first leg. Men of God ran the next leg. Somebody handed the baton off to you and me when Christianity came across the continent of Africa, through Europe, and landed on our shores.
My question for you is: What the heck are we going to hand off to the next generation?
Are you going to hand off crystals mixed with Jesus? Man-made philosophies mixed with Jesus? The worship of idols mixed with Jesus? What are we going to hand off to our children? I'm thinking about this. What world is my son Josiah going to live in?
You've never seen an anchor leg. You see them coming around the track just hoping they don't drop that baton. It takes a good shepherd to remind you all of us bougie American Christians that that baton you got right now called faith—it came down to you in blood. People died to give you the faith that we have right now. Stuff that you trample and take for granted.
You take church for granted. You take biblical preaching for granted. You take the gathering of the saints for granted. When people paid the price in blood for you to sit in that comfortable chair. Can't lift a hand, can't praise God, can't sing a song. "It's not my Sunday. Why don't I have this?" Fighting for titles.
All of us bougie American Christians don't even know you stand on the shoulders of giants—men, women, and children that died to bring Christianity to you.
I remember exactly where I was in the Hagia Sophia, the house of wisdom—a church facility converted into a mosque. I remember exactly where I was when the Holy Spirit apprehended me and arrested me in the corner of that building. I went off from my group and put my face to the wall and wept and wept and wept. My brother came over and put his arms around me, and we wept together.
What I was weeping for: This place that used to be a former gathering spot for brothers and sisters 1600 years ago. My brothers and sisters walked in that same building. The council—they had a council of original elders in that building. And right there in that spot, God burned my heart for the nation of Turkey. He burned my heart for Muslims. He burned my heart for that nation. I fell so deeply in love with my Islamic brothers and sisters. I fell so deeply in love with the nation of Turkey.
And I can hear God telling me: "Man, there's a work for you to do over here, my son. I don't know how and I don't know when and I don't even know why. But God tells me there's a work to do over there, my son. And I know I ain't about to do that by myself. I know I got a church behind me that when I come back and say, 'We're trying to plant churches. We're trying to support missionaries'—I know when I come back with some plan, I will have people behind me saying, 'Yes, Pastor. Let's do something about that.' Out of love for a people that don't know the God that we serve. Love."
So I'm wrestling with this question: How could a land that was once the seat of Christianity have no trace of Christianity at all? How is it that the entire east has been dominated by Eastern religion, and the place where we once dominated is gone? Do you understand the same trend is sweeping west?
I know what happened there—violence and persecution pushed out Christians. But then I had to go back and read again about the seven churches in Revelation. What else was eating out the church? Let me show you.
To the church in Ephesus, Jesus says:
"I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. You cannot bear with those who are evil. You have tested those who call themselves apostles and found them to be false. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first."
Here's a church in Turkey—one of the major churches, wealthy, mega-church, huge. Because of their resources and all the stuff they had, they abandoned their first love with Jesus.
My question to you: Is that happening now? How many of us American Christians are drifting away from our first love?
Jesus, when He saved you, you loved Him and were on fire. Then you got a little bit of blessing—a better job. Now you've got the house you like and the car you like. You're on staff at church. You're doing stuff for the church. Now you're writing books and you've got blogs. You've got all of that. And now your first love is your stuff. You've made ministry an idol. You've made yourself an idol. You've made open doors an idol. You've made your relationships an idol. You've made your connections an idol.
You love all of this. And now because you're blessed, you could just sin and sleep and do what you want. Jesus has been put in the backseat of the car. We have abandoned our first love.
This is what was happening in Turkey where there's no trace of Christianity anymore—believers abandoning their first love. It happened in Europe. There's only one more frontier for it to come to. Oh, but it's already here. I'm trying to awaken you because we're running after the same patterns that caused Europe to be changed from a predominantly Christian society to an alternate society.
You get a little bit of blessing and then Jesus is not your priority. You've got other things on the altar of your heart, but He's not there. Your business, your entrepreneurial ventures, your preacher, your apostle, your bishop.
Imagine if the Lord searched this room right now. How many of us have got other things on that altar? You already know it. You got dreams that you idolize above your intimate relationship with Jesus. What if He said no to your dreams? Could you love Him still? What if you don't get married? Could you love Him still? What if He says, "Keep your legs closed until I see you"? Could you love Him still?
I see some people about to check out. I wonder if He took a pulse in this room, in this nation. How many of us would say, "Jesus is my primary love. I love Him so much that if I don't have anything else but Him, I'll grind it out with Him"? How many of us are truly satisfied with Him?
Some of us need Him and something else to make us satisfied. He's not enough to satisfy you, and you know it. You have to have Him and something else to make you satisfied. But it's so dope if Jesus was the thing that ultimately satisfied you. Man, everything else would just be icing on the cake. Then my heart would always be exploding with gratitude:
"Jesus, all I want is You, but thank You for a godly wife. All I want is You, but thank You for my beautiful children. All I want is You, but thank You for my job. All I want is You, but thank You for these relationships. All I want is You, but thank You for these open doors. All I want is You, but thank You for my book deal and my businesses. All I want is You. But thank You. Thank You."
To the next church in Smyrna, Jesus had nothing bad to say. That church was small. They were persecuted. They were suffering. He said, "Man, y'all better prepare. Some of you are going to die. They're going to martyr you for the faith."
News flash: Smyrna was one of only two churches Jesus blessed—besides Philadelphia—and it's the only city in Turkey that has a remnant of Protestant Christians. Ancient Smyrna is the modern city of Izmir in Turkey. The one city that Jesus breathed on with kind words. The one place that Jesus breathed on with kind words—a remnant of His people remains.
He says to the church at Pergamum:
"I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast to My name. You did not deny the faith even in the days of Antipus, My faithful witness who was killed among you. But I have a few things against you. You hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they may eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality."
What was destroying this church? False doctrine. Sexual immorality.
I know what you want. You want me to move on really quick. Yeah. You don't want me to say that sex is only for married people. You don't want me to say that God does not like sexual immorality. You don't want me to say that sexual immorality is killing the witness of believers all across this country.
You don't want me to say that sex with men and sex with women and bestiality and all these horrifying things that we're doing is killing the witness of the church in America. You don't want me to talk like that. You think Jesus doesn't care about that. But there's no trace of Christianity there anymore. But look what the people are indulging in: false doctrine, sexual immorality.
This is not to condemn you. Whether we're struggling with lust or adultery in our heart, this is not to condemn you. I'm guilty of all of that myself. This is to awaken us to the fact that we see five things that ate out the church in Turkey. We see the church there was eroded.
To the church of Thyatira:
"But I have this against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing My servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols."
What else was eating out the church in Turkey? Tolerating bad doctrine. My God.
To the church of Sardis:
"I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead."
You're blowing up on social media, but you are dead. You've got a big ministry, but you are dead. You're always posting scriptures, but you are dead. You've got a reputation for being alive, but I know on the inside you are spiritually dead.
You're full of entertainment and nonsense. People can't see that because they're only drawn by the lights and the sound and the noise. You've got a reputation in your city, but I know, Jesus, that you're dead. The spirit of God isn't alive there. It's the ingenuity of man keeping the ministry moving.
So you think everything that's big is God, and you think everything that's got glamour and glitz is God. Don't you know creative men could engineer a movement? Gather any fool with a microphone and some charisma, and they could gather a crowd. That doesn't mean the spirit of God is alive there.
You've got dead songs, dead sermons, dead small groups, dead staff meetings. The spirit of God is not alive there.
I'm sorry, I got to say this: Because the spirit of God is alive, I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel at a football game. I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel at a basketball game. I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel at a concert. I should be able to come into a gathering and feel something I can't feel no place else.
If you go to a football game and you go to a church gathering and they feel the same, how are we the embassy of heaven on earth? I should be able to walk into a gathering and feel something more than I feel at a Beyoncé concert or a Drake concert. You go to a Drake concert and come out feeling dead. You should come into these gatherings and leave feeling like the presence of Almighty God.
I don't want a reputation of being alive. I want to be alive. Do I have any alive Christians in this room right now? Who's alive in this room? Give him praise.
I don't have a reputation. I am alive. Demons tremble when I walk into a room. I want your dead church, your dead sermon, your dead small groups, your dead curriculum, your dead gathering, your dead children's ministry. I'll get more undignified than this before the presence of Almighty God. And I'll take all of that.
And then the last one—the only church Jesus had nothing good to say about at all. I think this is the American church right now.
To the church of Laodicea:
"I know your works. You are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot."
Here's the context: 10 miles to the north of Laodicea is a city called Hierapolis, built on volcanic activity with natural hot springs and hot water. Laodicea had no water supply, so they built pipes from Hierapolis all the way to get that hot water—medicinal water that Cleopatra would swim in. But by the time the water traveled 10 miles to Laodicea, it was no longer hot.
To the east of Laodicea is the city of Colossae, where Paul wrote Colossians. They have cold springs—fresh water that brought refreshing on a hot day. The hot water brought medicine. The cold water brought refreshing. But by the time the cold water came from Colossae to Laodicea, it was no longer cold. The minerals in the pipes would make the water warm. And anybody who drank that water would vomit. The city was plagued by lukewarm water.
"I know your works. You are neither cold. Your spirituality doesn't refresh anyone. You're not hot. You're not even on fire. I wish that you were either refreshing or on fire. I wish your Christianity was refreshing or on fire. I wish you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm—because you're indifferent, because you're full of apathy, because you're full of lethargy, because Christianity is only a Sunday morning service, because you have no prayer life, because you don't spend time with Me outside of Sunday, because you have no evidence of Christianity outside of the gathering, because you're just going through the motions—I'll spit you out of My mouth."
For you say, "I'm rich. I have prospered. I have need of nothing." But you don't realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
These things that ate up the church in Turkey—they're killing us right now. They're killing us, man.
I don't understand why this is all you want. How could He have died for you and all we've got is this apathetic, weak, going-through-the-motions Christianity? We want Jesus and sin. It's like, where is the fire? Where is the sacrifice? Where is the seriousness? Where are the tears being shed?
What does your prayer life look like? Come on, man. Why is Christianity to you just your home? Like, God, I'm so—God—it's like the Lord sends me to Israel and gives me a burden for America. And then He sends me to Turkey and gives me a burden for the East. And in all of it, He reminds me: "Son, the gospel is global. It's bigger than 2819."
I want my children, if you read the scriptures, to hear God crying out to you: "I want y'all to think globally about this gospel." Time is running out. "My children, live for Me. My children, sacrifice. Serve. Pray. Bruise your knees for the spread of the gospel.
Even if I'm not sending you to be a missionary in Madagascar, man, you can pray and cry out for the church. If the people of God don't take the commission seriously, man, God help America. God help our children. God help the faith we're going to hand off.
Why is this a game for you? Why are you just satisfied to do a service on Sunday morning? You're going to leave here and have no encounter with Jesus until I see you next week. Like, what's up with that, man? I don't understand.
If I could creep up in your prayer room, what are you talking about? When you're just begging God for stuff, man. It's so immature. You just keep ringing out the Father's ears for a car. Like, come on, man. When people are dying and going to hell, man, I'm crying out for a nation that's 99% Muslim. I'm crying out for a whole half of the world that sits in spiritual darkness.
There are over two billion people on the other side of the world. Some of them have never even heard the name of Jesus. My wife was talking to a school teacher who said they met a child in a classroom that's never heard the name of Jesus in America. Don't you see that Christianity is being eaten out right from under your feet?
There's a generation emerging right behind you that doesn't even know the name of Jesus. And it's like you all come here, you look at me with these eyeballs, and you think this is my burden to carry. You think it's only on the pastors to sound an alarm and stand for Christ and stand in the gap and pray and live holy.
No. No. God said, "On this rock, I'll build My church." Man, it's for us to do.
Jesus said:
"This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."
Don't you see? Jesus has a global mindset. He cares about the church globally, man. When was the last time you prayed for the gospel to spread across the world? He said, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem." You ain't doing that. We're not praying for churches to be planted. We're not praying for missionaries to be sent out.
You know why we're not praying, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done"? Because we've got a myopic American humanistic, self-centered gospel. That's the Christianity that we live. So your walk is boring, and you have dry tear ducts. You don't shed any tears. And this is Christianity for you. It's just you listening to me every Sunday, and you leave and there's nothing.
I can't let you go out like that. I can't. I can't. I don't even know what to say. I'm going to pray.
Oh God, we need revival. Oh God, we need an awakening in our nation, Lord. Give us Your heart, Jesus. Give us Your eyes, Jesus. Your eyes. Give us Your eyes, Jesus. Let us see. Lord, the evil sweeping this nation—God—let the hearts of Your people be broken, God.
Lord, I cry out for the church You've entrusted to me that You would pour into them, God. Baptize them with Your perfect love. They would love humanity, God, Lord, and be grieved over the depravity of mankind. They'd be grieved over those who are far away. They would pray and cry out for the redemption, God, Lord, of the elect.
We would pray, God, Lord, that You would send laborers into Your vineyard, Jesus, like sickles to cut down the harvest You said was so ripe. Take out these hearts of stone and give us a heart of flesh. Deliver us from our adulteries and our idolatries and our whoredom and our love affair with the things that You abhor.
Pour out Your spirit upon us, oh God. Let us feel the grief of Your heart, oh God. Let us feel Your burdens, oh God. Lord, I pray, God, Lord, in America, there will be a revival born in the platform that spreads to the pew, that spreads to the street.
Deal with me, Your servant. Deal with all of Your servants. Deal with Your pastors, Your preachers, Your shepherds. Pull the skirt up on the false prophets. Raise up the voices in this hour where You have ordained, God.
God, we pray for the East. How many billions of people have not heard Your name? We cry out for their salvation. We cry out for the salvation of Your sons and daughters in the East, God. Every one of them You knew by name before the foundation of the world.
Let the light of the gospel and the truth of the message of Jesus shine into the dark strongholds, God, of the East. In the name of Jesus, let there be a harvest, God, from the East. In the name of Yeshua, God, oh God, awaken the Church in America, Lord. Awaken the Church in America, God.
Yes. Let us turn away, God, from our wicked ways. Let us turn away from the world, from sin and debauchery and licentiousness. God, create in us, God, hearts that are pure. Create in us, God, hands that are clean. Create in us, God, consecrated interior lives. Lord, in the name of Jesus, let us love what You love and let us hate what You hate.
Deliver us, God, from compromise, from excuses, deliver us from apathy and lethargy and indifference. God, burn us in our lips with coals from the fires of heaven, Lord. Burn us in our hearts with coals from the fires of heaven. Awaken, God, Your remnant in this nation, Lord.
We need revival. We pray for one more great revival. We pray for one more great revival, God. We pray for one more great revival. Let 2819 be at the center of one more great revival. Let the churches You have ordained be at the center of one more great revival.
Somebody cry out to Jesus. We need an outpouring of God's spirit.
