 So if you brought your Bibles, I'm gonna encourage you to turn to the book of Acts, and we're not gonna read quite yet, but chapter 19, I'm just gonna give a quick recap. Last week, Pastor Tim gave an amazing message. What Acts is showing us is how the apostle Paul and other members and leaders of the early church are going and communicating the gospel to both Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles of Jesus Christ. And we're seeing the birth of the church. We're seeing the kingdom of God activated and so in all of these journeys and all of these destinations, Paul has committed his life to the pouring out of everything he has for the gospel. And so in Acts chapter 17, Pastor Tim last week did a great job talking about Paul in Athens and in, let's say, a city of idolatry, a city of philosophers, and Paul begins to just speak truth to them, but the beauty, as Pastor Tim highlighted, is he didn't come down like a hammer, he didn't condemn them, he listened, he humbled himself, he chose to try to understand instead of be understood, and it paved a way for him to communicate the gospel. And the Bible says some people were saved. As always is the case though, some people also mocked him and some people discredited him. Like even the apostle Paul did not have a hundred percent, you know, he didn't bat a thousand when he presented the gospel, but he did it fearlessly and he did it in faith and people were impacted. And then those people began to be discipled so that they could go to places and communicate the love of Jesus. So that happened in Acts chapter 17, then in Acts 18, which we're skipping, we're introduced to Priscilla and Aquila, which is an amazing couple. They're pretty obscure in the New Testament, but they were powerfully used by God in the first century church. They were a huge part of Paul's ministry. We actually did a message a couple summers, I think ago, in our hero series about Priscilla and Aquila. So I would encourage you to watch that, maybe read about them, but now we're in chapter 19 of Acts. And Paul is an Ephesus. An Ephesus is a city that is very prominent. It's a very cosmopolitan, large city, probably second in size and importance only to Rome. At this time, it's a trade city. There's lots of affluence, money, and it is the center for the temple of a hunter goddess named Artemis. Artemis, if you're Greek, if you're Roman, they were Michael Jackson fans and they called her dirty Diana, but either way, sorry. Someone asked me how many jokes there were gonna be, and I just said, bro, you keep track of the funny ones and it'll be low and then we'll connect afterwards. So anyway, Diana is a goddess that was hugely a part of the culture, both economically and religiously, in the city of Ephesus. They were big into sorcery, big into magic. And this wasn't just like a little teeny shack they made. This was like one of the seven wonders of the world at the time, this temple to Diana. And it basically impacted and touched every single part of the city. So I just wanna tell you that as we're reading into Acts chapter 19 and as we're reading into Paul's encounter there, and I'm gonna skip the first couple of verses, but let's just say Paul comes in hot to Ephesus. He runs into some guys, some people and he asks them, hey, have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit? And they said, I don't know. Didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. Well, where do you baptize? Baptize by John, a baptism of repentance. And Paul's like, okay, come here, praise for them to receive the Holy Spirit. They're speaking in tongues and prophesying. He takes them with him. Come on, boys, we're going downtown. All right, that's where we're gonna pick up. Acts 19, verse eight, and it says this. And he, Paul, at this point, went into the synagogue and he spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God. But when some were hardened and not believed that spoke evil the way before the multitude, he departed from them and the drew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of tyrannous. And this continued for two years so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. Verse 11, now God worked unusual miracles by the hand of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exercists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying, we exercise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. And then there were seven sons of Siva, Jewish priests who did this also. And the evil spirit said to them, Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you? Then the man with whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded. This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus and fear fell on them all. And the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many would believe came confessing and telling their deeds. And so many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted up the value of them and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver underlying verse 20 in your Bible. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. Father, we ask that in these next few moments, you by the Holy Spirit would edify your word, illuminate your word, God, bring the truth of your word into our hearts, into our minds and into our lives. We welcome right now the work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name and everyone said, amen. Okay, so I just read a lot. A lot is happening in chapter 19. That's a theme in the book of Acts. Many things go on, but like I said, Paul comes in, boom, he's praying for people to receive the Holy Spirit. Then you have some pretty unusual miracles, handkerchiefs and things that are healing sick people. That's different. Then there's like a crazy demonic encounter with the sons of Seva. And then there's a Friday night book burning party at the end. So all of this is happening in chapter 19 and we're gonna unpack it in the few moments that we have to the best of my ability. But verse 20 is where I want us to just focus for a moment. As we start this message, which I've entitled the true marks of revival. The true marks of revival. Look at verse 20. So all of these things are happening and they're even by book of Acts standards. They're pretty wild. But verse 20 sums it all up. Like this is the result of what happened. This is what took place. The word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. That sentence, that verse, that statement really encapsulates something that took place in the city of Ephesus that we would call revival. Like that's what happened. So this idea of the word of God growing, the influence of Jesus being magnified, a revival took place in the city of Ephesus. And so instantly in Christian circles especially when you hear the word revival or when someone says revival, everybody kind of has a different spectrum for what that means. Everybody has sort of maybe a different thought process or maybe some in here who've never even heard of it among Christian circles or maybe you have heard awakenings or outpourings or revivals or something and you just don't know what it means. And then some people have maybe a negative even connotation of what revival means. So I wanna hopefully shed some light first of all before we talk through what happened in Ephesus on what revival, scripturally and biblically really is. I'm gonna give you a definition from Charles Finney who's a great revivalist from the second grade awakening. He called it this, an extraordinary move of the Holy Spirit producing extraordinary kingdom results. Like revival, it includes some things almost universally. The salvation of sinners, people coming to the Lord, the return of the church from backsliding is a sign of revival many times. Miracles taking place, prayer and worship are staples of revivals, but ultimately the fruit of it as verse 20 says is the word of the Lord growing mightily and prevailing like God's way, God's word, God's kingdom is overcoming darkness. It's overcoming what's taking place in culture around you and people are encountering the love of God, the power of God. They're having their minds renewed to the truth of God. True disciples are being made. All of these are miracles are taking place. All of these are byproducts of what happened in Acts chapter 19 and also what we would describe as revival that takes place in certain regions and in certain areas and throughout history. And so again, I don't have time to unpack and I'm probably not qualified. Every single revival that's taken place, but I'm just gonna tell you, it is incredible if you read the history of like the first great awakening with the John Wesley's and the George Whitfields, the things that took place, Charles Finney, later in the 18th century, there was a revival. And when I say that, I mean like insane impact for the kingdom of God, people coming to Jesus, people repenting, miracles taking place. And then you have the Welsh revival in Wales. That may have been the most far-reaching revival that's ever taken place. It traveled to other continents. Some church historians believe what we see today in churches, mega churches, missions is a result of what happened in Wales in the 19th century. And so there's this crazy history involved. I was reading one story, which I thought was interesting. They said that coal production went down significantly during the Welsh revival and people cannot figure out, like why would that happen? People are coming to Lord, what's that about? Well, they discovered that these coal miners, and no offense if you're a coal miner, but they had a pretty rough, kind of vernacular, rough language that they use. And so they would send in these like little ponies into the caves, into the mines to bring out the coal and they would swear at them. Like that's all they would do is use profanity towards these little horses, right? And then they all got saved. And so they stopped swearing and the horses literally didn't obey anything that they were saying. Like they didn't understand, please and thank you. They only understood like if you swore at them and the horse was like, well, I'm not moving until you literally cuss at me. And so like they had to retrain them. And again, I wasn't there. I don't know if it's true, but I thought it was amazing. Like that's the level of impact that's happening. And then, I mean, again, you just step into these insane, like the Moravian prayer movement in Germany, a hundred years of consistent prayer. Every day prayer, you've got, you know, Zusa Street with Amy Semple McPherson and William Seymour. Like these things really happened where God just used ordinary people and supernaturally moved. You've got the Jeremy Lanfeer in the Fulton Street prayer meeting a businessman who just shows up for prayer in New York City and they're like at late 1800s and only six people show up. He's not discouraged. Hey, we're gonna pray in six months, 10,000 businessmen are praying for an hour from noon. And then I shared on social media, like it impacted a church in Kalamazoo with an incredible story of salvation and revival. So, and then more recently even, you have the Brownsville revival. You have the Pensacola outpouring of Toronto. You have these unique expressions of revival where God moves supernaturally and each one's a little different. Each one has a different emphasis, but they're all centered around prayer, worship, confession, repentance and pressing into this presence of God. Like all of them have these different. So I say that to say, first of all, we should as Christians just be aware of some of the significant moves of God that have happened. But also I know that like in the second grade awakening, something called camp meetings started taking place where an evangelist would show up. They'd say, hey, we're gonna have revival tonight and people would show up and then they would worship, pray, someone would preach and then things would happen. Miracles would take place, cities would be transformed. And I'm not minimizing that. I think the intentionality of what they did moved the heart of God and he met them where they were. But what that kind of did is it carried over and now a lot of people, and I won't have you raise your hand or maybe just portage. I'm just kidding, I won't have you raise your hand. Think that that's what revival is. Okay, like it's just this tent and it's a meeting and someone shows up and then we just have a church service. In fact, I Googled revival. Sometimes Google, man, I just seem like it's amazing. I'm just gonna share this with you. How to have revival I think is what I Googled and they literally, this is what it said. It gave you a list. Number one, choose a date for the revival. Number two, book a guest speaker for the revival. Three, arrange a meeting place. Four, promote the revival. Five, write out the schedule of events for the revival. Again, that's not revival. Revival happens supernaturally and God is in control of it and God does what God wants to do. But I will say what we see in acts and what we have seen in history is there are some components. There are some atmospheres that revival thrives in and that are a catalyst for revival. And that's what I wanna share this morning is what are the true marks of revival? And I'm not minimizing what God did in camp meetings and tent meetings. I'm saying there is something from that and in that that is deeper and that is more connected to really what revival can and should look like today. So that's what we're gonna talk about. And you may be here and be like, I don't know, man, John, I've heard stories about that and I think revivals are kind of weird. People crying and weeping and maybe out of control and this is how, look, here's what I'm gonna say. I'm not advocating for weirdness at all. But I'm gonna say when God shows up, not everything is normal. Not everything is structured. Not everything goes exactly as planned. And so sometimes as Americans, we want this like neat, clean church service or okay, this is gonna happen, I know that's gonna happen and then I wanna feel better about myself, go home and watch the Lions lose. Like that's my Sunday ritual and I'm just gonna say and then you might need the Google list for what you think revival is because at the end of the day, you look in history and when God shows up, anything can happen. When God showed up on Mount Sinai and Exodus chapter 20, there were thunders and lightnings and clouds of smoke and there was just an awe of the presence of God. When Moses went up on the moon, how do you know he came back down and his whole head glowed in the dark? Like you don't know what's gonna happen when God shows up, you have John in Revelation chapter one, he sees eyes like fire, hair like wool, he sees him who sits on the throne, he falls over dead like a dead man and the angel has to be like, okay, get up, bro. You're gonna be all right and so I just wanna challenge us about, hey, let's believe God for something and let's have a heart that says, God, we want you to move in our day like you moved in the past. God, will you do it again? And let's not get so comfortable in what we've kind of boxed in, the potential for revival to be that we're not willing to really ask God in faith for something that is supernatural and may not look exactly how we want it to look. I'm just gonna say to you, revival is not going to be clean. Revival is messy. If we see revival in our city in Kalamazoo, it is not going to be this neat, clean, like homeless people aren't gonna show up with a pseudon ready to tithe and join a group. Like that's not how it's gonna happen. There's gonna be a lot of discipling, a lot of ministering, a lot of call it messes that are gonna have to be cleaned up and that's happened throughout history and revival. So I'm gonna give us four things that I believe are keys to seeing God move in revival. And this is not an exhaustive list. It's not like this is the only list. It's not like I came up with the list. I'm taking out of Acts chapter 19 and I believe it's gonna hopefully be helpful. So first component for revival is this, a person or people who recognize the need for revival, who recognize and are willing to pray and press in and believe God for what God wants to do. Acts 17 verse 16, we see Paul, he's sitting in Athens and it says his spirit is like vexed. He's provoked in his spirit. Why, because all he sees is idolatry. All he sees is idol worship. And what does it do? It creates in him a desire to preach the word, a desire to intercede, a desire, not to just stand on a soapbox and say, Athens, you're going to hell in a handbag and this is your own fault. No, something awoke inside of him to pray and to press in and to believe God for what could happen. And that is all throughout history. Look at David. David shows up. Remember all of Israel, the army was quaking and shivering and scared of the Philistines and Goliath. And David who knew God and had spent time with God, what happened? He showed up and he was like, what's happening here? What, why is everyone, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? Nothing rose up in David and said, this isn't right. This isn't good. You have Esther who was married to the king and she was going to be fine. She was Jewish but she was going to be fine but Mordecai had gotten a law to be passed that all of the Jews were going to be killed. And she could have been like, look, that's terrible but hey, at least I'm going to be okay. No. She said, no, maybe it's for such a time as this that I've been raised up and she was willing to risk her life to go into the king's quarters and present what she knew could be a dramatic reversal for her people. Like that's what revival, that's where it starts. Nehemiah, he hears reports that his city Jerusalem is in ruins and the people are in despair and he's thousands of miles away, comfortable living as a cup bearer for the king but what happens is heart breaks and he weeps and the king's like, what's the matter with you? And he has to tell them, look my people. So there's something that has to happen in the heart of people and in the heart of the church for revival to take place. And I'm just gonna say this and it came through when I was praying and it's pretty strong but I'm gonna say it anyways. The greatest enemy of revival, it's not culture, it's not politics, it's not other religions, it's not even the devil. The greatest enemy of revival is apathy. It's apathy. It's when God's people are unconcerned and unengaged in what's happening around them. And we just look at it and maybe we're vexed a little, maybe we're upset, maybe we hide our head in the sand or maybe we stand and say, yeah, it's their problem, yeah, they're dark, we're light, yeah, they're never gonna get it right. And instead of, God break my heart for what breaks yours. God give me a heart. God, I wanna see you move in my day like you've moved. I wanna see salvation come to my city, restoration come to my city, young people joining me in their heart to yours, like that's what it takes. But we're inundated with so many other things and we're distracted and we're like, I don't know, it seems impossible, it's so hard. Listen, a heart after what God wants and a heart for prayer to say, God, you've done it before, do it again. Praying the scriptures, prophesying to our city. It's what we do 15 times a week at 210 Farmers Alley. As we pray, we worship and we speak truth over the church and over our city and we prophesy to it and that is the first ingredient that's needed in revival. Number two, it's faithful preaching of God's word. Look what it says in verse eight. And Paul went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months. So three months in Ephesus, he's able to speak every day in the synagogue and this is like a world record for him. Usually he gets thrown out, usually he gets thrown in jail, usually he gets fogged way before that, but it did happen. So he was persuading, he was reasoning and then some of them again, hardened, didn't want to believe, spoke evil. So he was like, okay, we're out. And he found somebody else, a teacher, tyranus, which means tyrant. How many of you had a third grade teacher that's name could have been tyrant? Okay, yeah, I did too. Sorry, Mrs. Noel, love you. All right, hey. And he was like, can I borrow your classroom? And he began to teach there for two years. He faithfully proclaimed the word of God and that is the key. Where God's word is preached, two things always happen. People respond in faith. People respond with a heart that says, I need that, that's for me. God's for me. Or people respond rejecting it and minimizing it. But the word of God has to be preached. It has to be proclaimed. And when it is, anything is possible. Listen what it says in verse 10. And this continued for two years. All who dwelled in Asia ended up hearing the word of Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And listen, this is where you guys come in because this wasn't just Paul. Paul wasn't the only one who went out into Asia. No, he was already making disciples. He was already pouring into other people. And they went out into their workplace and their sphere of influence, their schools. And they began to speak the word of Jesus. And soon all of Asia heard. And that's why in Ephesians four, Paul wrote, the five-fold ministry, that the teachers, evangelists, pastors, prophets, they're not just to do the work. They're to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. And that's what Paul understood. And that's what we need today. Like one person, Pastor Lee, Billy Graham, Ryan Hart-Ponkey, they've all done amazing things, but it's not one person. It's everybody recognizing the word of God is true. I am an ambassador for Christ. And everywhere I go, I carry the glory of the Lord. And people need to hear. So the faithful preaching of the gospel is a component to revival. The third thing that we see are miracles. Miracle signs and wonders. I'm gonna start by just saying this. God still does miracles. God still supernaturally moves in situations. Every single time somebody says yes to Jesus and is transferred from darkness into the kingdom of light and is eternally secured in heaven instead of hell, you better believe that is a miracle. And it takes place all over the world. Praise God. So let's not just see miracles as these insane, my leg grew back. Although those things happen and there's signs and wonders are meant to solidify or accompany the word of God, Jesus being faithfully preached. And so what we see here is, I love verse 11, Luke, the author's like, now God worked unusual miracles. Like I know there's some standard miracles. To me, it's like, if it's a miracle, isn't it supposed to be unusual? But even Luke was saying, no, these were like off the deep end crazy even by book of Acts standards. And he says, so Hank or cheese and aprons were being used to heal people. And if you look into it a little deeper, a handkerchief was really like a sweat band or like a sweat towel. Like maybe he's preaching and he throws it on the ground or maybe they broke into the locker room and stole his sweat bands. I don't know, but they took these things. Apron would have been protecting him from, you know, as a tent maker, as a worker, you would wear just something to protect your clothes. And they were taking these and they were using them to heal people. And again, remember, we're in Ephesus. We're like magic and sorcery is a big deal. It's very prominent. And so I imagine if you ask Paul, like, hey, Paul, what do you think about your sweat bands being used to like heal people? I think he would say, hey, as long as the glory is going to Jesus, praise God. As long as people know it's not this sweat band, it's not me, it's the power and glory of God on display, then I'm all for it. And so what I think we have to realize is, yes, we should believe for miracles. I wanna see more miracles. I believe that as we enter into this age of doubt and of science and of everything can be reasoned, I think miracles are gonna be a massive part of evangelizing the world and the future. But I also think as we often do in American circles, we tend to take things and try to monetize them, try to make them like the standard. So what you don't see, again, you see a woman with the issue of blood touching a garment being healed. You see Peter's shadow. Like there's some instances of some things, but what you don't see is Paul going, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna set up a sweatshop band, sweat band shop. Oops, sorry. And I'm gonna sign them. I'm gonna sign a few aprons and I'm gonna give those out and we're gonna really make this thing cool. It's gonna work like, you don't see that. But, oh man, should I do that? You watch some Christian television. Listen, I'm not condemning all Christians, but television, but something, I'm just like, this is not the gospel. If the apostle Paul showed up, he'd be like, what is this? This, oh, that's the gospel. No, that's not the gospel. Because you got somebody on there saying, and if you call now, you're gonna get this prayer cloth dipped in the very Jordan River where Jesus was baptized. And then you got some guy in the back with a rag and aquafina going, okay, we're gonna mail this thing out. Like, don't do that. Don't buy those. This piece of rock came from my backyard, probably. Like, for real. So, we can't get caught up in this, oh man, this is, like God does things in certain areas and God moves in ways we don't expect, but let's not try to monopolize that. And you don't see that in scripture, is what I'm trying to tell us. So, again, do I wanna believe for miracles for sure? Do I wanna see more? Do I wanna have faith for healings and restorations and all the things that we see in the Book of Acts? Absolutely, but there is context for it. And sometimes we get out of whack. So that's all I'm gonna say about that. But then, you move on and you have this insane encounter with a demonic man. And this, I don't know if it's a miracle, but I'm gonna say this, it is the catalyst for what we see in the rest of this chapter and in the revival that happens in Ephesus. So, you've got Paul. Remember in Acts 16, there was that slave girl who had the spirit of divinity and she was following them around saying things. And Paul was like, in the name of Jesus come out of her and she was healed. And the guys who were trafficking her and making money off of her were upset about it. So we have context for Paul using the name of Jesus to exercise demons from people. And so now the Jewish, remember we're entrenched in sorcery and magic. So even the Jewish people are picking up on this. Like we wanna do exorcisms too. So they have a tenorate Jewish exorcist. I mean, that's a crazy business card here. I wanna tell you about what I do. And they're doing it too, right? And then there's a Jewish leader whose name is Siva and he has sons and they're like, you know what? We're about to try our hand in this. And everybody else is doing it. So they go up to somebody and they say, in the name of that Paul preaches, come out. And the demon turns on him, the guy. And he says, look, I know Jesus and I know Paul. Who are you? And they're like, again, in the name of Paul and what happened, it turns on him. He's beaten, they're stripped naked. Like they're overpowered and overwhelmed. And the Bible says, looking in verse 17, when that happened, this became known to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus and fear fell on them all. And the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. Here's what happened. In a city that was dominated by Deanna and worship of idols, it just became this phrase, just became this, oh, in the name of Paul, oh, I'm gonna use this incantation or this chant, you know, something they were used to. And what happened is the name of Jesus became the only name that's greater than the name of Deanna. That's greater than the name of the idols we worship. And suddenly we're not using the name of Jesus just flippantly anymore. And we're not using it without relationship because look what happens when you do. But when someone like Paul or someone like Peter steps in and uses the name of Jesus, there is power and there is freedom and there is breaking of bondages and people recognize that and fear. The fear of the Lord, not like I'm scared, but like this reverence and awe for the name of Jesus, for the power of Jesus took place and that was the catalyst for what took place next. And so God magnified the name of Jesus above any other name, above any other idol in that moment and it impacted the people. And this is the fourth part of revival is you have genuine repentance. It says the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified and look at verse 18 and many who had believed, meaning they're Christians came confessing and telling their deeds. Also many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted up the value of them and it totaled 50,000 pieces of silver. Something miraculous happened as a result of the sons of Siva and what they attempted to do. Conviction fell on the church. Like, wow, this is serious. What we're a part of is not a joke. This is not just a thing we're doing. No, there is power and there is something supernatural like beyond what we're used to seeing that's happening here. And out of that, it says believers decided like they came to their own volition to say, I need to confess some things. I need to give Jesus my whole heart. In fact, again, magic and sorcery was so common that even believers included it in their lives. Like a lot of Christians still had magic books and still had spells or still had crystals or still had whatever the God of Deanna was worshiped with and they brought it all out. And they said, right now we are giving God all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength and they began to burn the books. So again, we don't take this as, you know what? This Friday, Radiant Church, we're having a book burning party. So you don't see that again and you don't see Paul going, hey, hey, I know some of you are still doing that stuff. Get your books out here. I got a lighter. We're gonna, it was the conviction of the Lord on the church where they said, I want God to be everything. I want this God to be a reality in my life. And I don't wanna have mixture of the things of culture, mixture of the things of this mixture of the temple of Diana. I want Jesus to have my all and be my all. And they out of their own volition, out of their own heart began to repent and began to say, God, purify us. God, give us a united heart to fear your name, God. We don't wanna be divided people. We don't have one foot in the world and one foot in Christianity. And something miraculous took place and it was demonstrated through genuine repentance of believers. Sometimes you read this like, yeah, all those, those, you know, warlocks and wizards and they're finally being brought to justice. You know, this is people who believed in God. And as I was praying this week, I just felt like the Lord wants to do a work in us as a church, a refining in us as believers because it's easy. It's easy to get the world and what it stands for mixed in to our Christianity and into our walk with Jesus. And it looks different ways for different people, but it's easy sometimes. You know what, I'm not that bad. Sure, I got some issues, but at least I'm not as bad as those people or I'm not as bad as that group. And we justify some of our behavior. We justify some of our habits. Oh, it's just, you know, it's just pornography. It's not like I'm really cheating or it's just my taxes. Like the government doesn't really need my money or it's just, you know, this thing or that thing. And we begin as even Christians to just allow, it creeps in and I don't want this to become a, oh, I'm so guilty, I'm so, bro, I'm so, no, God is faithful and just. First John 1-9, to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, but revival begins in the house of God. Revival begins in the house of prayer. There is no revival that takes place without prayer. There is no revival that takes place without worship without God being magnified, but it's in that moment. It's the overflow of the heart of God and love of God that leads us to a place where we say, God, I don't want these things in my life. Psalm 1611 says, in your presence there is fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The pleasures of this world, the pleasures of sin, they're fleeting. They don't satisfy. They're not a river we can drink from without being thirsty again. Instead, I want the fountain of life to be my only source. That's what happened in Ephesus and people came forward and there was genuine repentance. There was a move of God that took place and verse 20 is the result. The word of the Lord grew mightily and it prevailed. Revival is not some abstract thing that God did 200 years ago. It's not something that's confined to the Bible times. I believe, and this is not hyperbole or pastor talk. Right now we're on the cusp of the greatest revival the world has ever seen. I believe that because it's already happening. It's happening in the underground church in China. It's happening in Iran. It's happening in Latin American countries. Already we're seeing incredible testimonies of God moving, of God's power, of the church coming together in unity and repentance. And I believe God is crying out who will stand in the gap in the church of America. Who will pray? Who will believe me for revival? Who will say, God, your ways are higher? Your ways are greater. Who will press into the place of prayer and say, God, you've done it before. Will you do it again? That's what I believe God is asking us this morning. I'm asking if you were to stand and if you'd not just want to pray with us just for a moment. I don't want anyone to leave if you don't have to because I want this to be a tender moment between you and the Lord. And I know we're in church and maybe what can happen at home can't happen here, but I believe there is an environment for the purifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Just as believers, no condemnation, no guilt, no shame, no hanging our heads, I'm terrible, but a recognition of that Matthew 22 mandate. What's the greatest commandment? Jesus said, love the Lord your God. Well, how do I do that with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength? And I just want to ask us, what are some things that the Holy Spirit's highlighting that have mixed their way into your faith that have become a stumbling block for what God wants to do? It's not always sin. It's not always, you know, we think drugs and all God, it's not always that. It could be a relationship. It could be a person you need to forgive. It could be a lie that someone told over you, but I just want you to ask right now, just ask the Holy Spirit. Who is that? What does that look like? What are you asking me to do? Titus 2, 11 says, the grace of God has appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodliness and saying no to worldly loss. We are to live soberly and righteously and holy in this present age. Like that's the call of a Christian. It's just some things we say no to. We say yes to Jesus. It's his strength, not ours, but just right now, that's the Holy Spirit. Eyes closed. Father, we commit all that we are to you. God, we are dark, but you say we're lovely. We are broken, but you are the potter. You put us back together. God, you're not asking for perfection. You're asking for humble and contrite hearts. And say, God, I want all of me to be all of yours. And I just pray that right now as a church, we would surrender, we would break apathy, complacency in our lives and our prayer lives and our families, that you would come even now like a rushing wind. You would come even now with your grace, your spirit, your heart for us. We are your people, the sheep of your pastor. You are the shepherd. God lead us and guide us. And God, what we've seen in years past, but those are not just historical events. Those are not just things that we somehow think back on with fond memories. No, they are signposts and they are markers for what you want to do in the United States of America. And I declare right now that the spirit of God would sweep across our nation like waters cover the sea. That the glory of the Lord, the greater one who lives in us than he was in the world would be magnified and would be exalted and that the word of the Lord would grow mightily and prevail in the United States of America, God. In North America, in the nations of the world, God, you are the only one worthy. And so God, with our lives, we surrender, with our hearts, we say, use us, God. How can we partner with you in seeing your kingdom come? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.