 I hear all the time people accuse us, you know, you guys are praying so loud. You know, God is not deaf. Why you guys pray so loud? I heard the story of a little boy and his sister, they got dropped off at grandma's house. And in the evening, the little boy was saying his prayers. And he was praying exceptionally loud. And his little sister hit him and says, you dude, why are you screaming? God is not dead. God is not deaf. And the little boy says, he's not, but grandma is. And sometimes we pray for other people to hear us, hoping that they will help us with whatever we're going through. But our goal is to pray that we will be heard in heaven. That God will hear us. And when God hears us, everything will change. When God hears us, miracles happen. When God hears us, he responds and he gives us answers. Amen. This morning, I want to speak to you a message and a titled, Revival After the Storm. I want to share with you three famous storms in the Bible that all of you probably have heard or are aware of people who went through a storm. But they came out of the storm and they went into a revival. And they went into something glorious and they went into something marvelous. And my goal is not to educate you on the history of the Bible. And my goal is not to educate you on the history of the Bible. And my goal is not even to help you to know Jonah, Apostle Paul or Peter better. My goal is to help us to take the word of God and to make it applicable in our everyday life. In Jesus name. Amen. And so before we start, can you just say this prayer out loud after me? Say, Oh Holy Spirit. Open my heart to your word. Oh Holy Spirit. Open my heart to your faith. And Oh Holy Spirit. Open my heart to your truth. Amen. Amen. I am not going to read a particular scripture. The first storm is the storm that we're all famous and familiar with. It's the storm that Jonah, the guy in the whale, went through. And in Jonah chapter one, it says that the word of the Lord came to Jonah and it told him to go to Nineveh and to preach that great is their wickedness against God. And Jonah, being a prophet, instead of going to Nineveh, which was not an Israelite country, which was a country that actually oppressed them at that time. So Jonah was kind of like the, didn't really like those people. He was, you know, a little bit racist against those people. He didn't like them because they were oppressing them. And instead of going to preach, I mean, if I would be Jonah, I would go to Nineveh. Because the message God gave Jonah was actually not a good one. The message was like, go tell him they're going to die. Yes. If you don't like those people, I mean, go and preach that. But he knew, if I preach the message, he knew these people will repent. And if they repent, God's going to forgive them. And he did not want to see that. And so instead of going to Nineveh to preach the gospel, the Bible says Jonah goes on orbits.com and he gets a ticket to somewhere completely opposite the Nineveh. And he goes into a ship and goes way on the bottom. So in case somebody there needs Jesus, he doesn't have to tell him about Jesus. He locks himself in the room and he knocks himself out. He sleeps. And the Bible says the storm. The interesting part, the scripture says, and the Lord caused the storm. The first storm that can happen in our life is the one that God brings into your life. Not to punish you, but to bring you back into his will. Jonah went to a storm caused by God because Jonah was outside of the will of God. Now, we sometimes think of Jonah, well, Jonah sinned. But what was his sin? Did Jonah go decide to cheat on his wife? No. Did Jonah decide to finally, you know, get a lot of booze and, you know, and make himself happy, break bad? That wasn't the case. Did Jonah just, you know, decided to go kill the president? No. Jonah's sin was very unique sin because it wasn't anything morally corrupt. It was anything that would hurt other people. It was simply running away from the will of God. And when he would run from the will of God, he was actually the Bible says running from the presence of the Lord. When we run from God's will, we run from God's protection. When we run from God's will, we run from God's power and we eventually run from God's revival. There are times when God calls you to witness to people. There are times when God calls you to serve him. And you're not necessarily doing anything bad with your life, but what you are doing inside, you know. It's not the will of God. Now your friends look at you and say, you're good. You go to church. Your yard looks clean. You even wash your car and you feed your dogs and your cats. You are green. You know, everything is good. You love mother nature. Everything is fine. Everybody looks at you and you are an example. But you know, when you are running from the will of God and God brings a storm, why? Not to get back at you, but to get you back to his will. Hell breaks loose. When you are out of the will of God, God will use the storm. Not to say, huh, you think to run away from me? Watch me, man. I'm going to show you what I can do. I'm going to make you suffer. No, God doesn't do that. God brings the storm not to get back at you. Not to prove to say, huh, you hurt me. I'm going to hurt you more. You're going to suffer. God doesn't do that. God brings the storm to get us back to his will. Sometimes a Christian gets busy with his cares and his duties. And they forget the will of God. And God will bring shaking to get him back into the center of God's will. Sometimes the church will get busy with politics. The church will get busy with charity. The church will get busy with the community. Or we get busy with the social club. Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya, my Lord. Sometimes the church simply gets into the routine of religion. And we just become an aquarium for the Christians. Instead of going and fishing for the people. And we just simply pat my bag, your bag. And that's not the will of God for church. God's will for us is not to maintain a nice religion. God's will for us is to bring other people to Jesus Christ. And when that happens, when we don't do the will of God, God will cause scandals. God will cause shaking. Sometimes they will start to lose money. Attacks will come. And one simple reason, not to punish the church, but to bring the church back to the center of His will, which is to win souls, make disciples, and to see the power of God move through them. And somebody say, amen. Guys, God wants us to be in the center of His will. When we are not in the center of God's will, we are not in the protection of God. And when we have the storm, it's not caused by the devil. It might be caused by God Himself. Not to kill us or drown us, but to bring us back in the center of God's will. Sometimes the will of God is very hard for us. At least that's what we think. Sometimes the will of God is something that we are not willing to pay the price for, like Jonah. We are afraid to witness to people. We are afraid to talk to strangers about Jesus. And sometimes we are afraid to talk to our friends about Jesus. And sometimes we don't want to. We are like, hell, wouldn't hurt from those people. You might not like those people. Like Jonah. You are like, you know what, I wish that they would. Go to that place. Like Jonah. You might not like him, but you must understand God loves them. And because God loves them, you have to swallow your pride and swallow your hurt and say, you know what, I am going to do the will of God. Amen? Maybe you don't want to see them in church. You're like, I want them to come to church, but not my church. Because they will steal all the attention. And because people will attend to them. Whatever your reasons are, you must understand that in the will of God is where you are safe. And without the will of God, you are not safe. You will have a storm. And Jonah finally decided to go to the will of God. And the most amazing part, Jonah saw revival of a whole city. Give to God their heart. Revival for the whole city. You know how powerful this was? That even Jesus did not have that kind of revival. He talked about Jonah. And he said, Jonah came. Never did one miracle. And the whole city gave their lives to Jesus. And Jesus says, and I did so many miracles. And he says, you stubborn, stiff neck people. You still don't want to give your life to God. Even Jesus did not have that revival that Jonah had. Why? Because he swallowed up his pride and chose to go into the will of God even when it was not comfortable. God will use the storm to get us to revival. Let's not wait for the storm for us to pray for the souls. Don't wait for something bad to happen for you to start really seeking the will of God and the purpose of God. Your God is so good and so loving he will use the storm if he needs to be to get you to his will because that's what revival is. Revival is when cities give their lives to God. It's possible if a mad man like Jonah preached a crazy message no salvation, no hope in a whole city to God who didn't even knew nothing about God and there was no Facebook, there was no YouTube. He did not have a live stream and he did not get on CNN or Fox News. He didn't have a newsletter called Jonah Association where he spread to every neighborhood. No Jonah went on the streets and screamed on the top of his lungs people repent or you will die and something happened. Instead of being killed for that message people believed that message and the whole city they even made their cows fast. I mean you know that's a revival when your cat has to fast. When you look at your dog and you say you know homie we're fasting and you're going to die too if God doesn't move. So you're fasting too. That's a revival when people fast when people see God's face and you know what God did? God gave mercy to the city. God wants to bring revival to our city and sometimes for that really to happen we have to be in God's will and for us to be in God's will my friends sometimes if we're not in the will of God God will shake things up. It might start with a flat tire it might start with being laid off sometimes it could even start with just bad things started to happen and you look you're like man where is God and then you simply come to God and when you quiet down now you can listen get back to my will get back to my purpose and the moment we start going to the will of God the storm subsides and the storm stops. This storm did not stop because Jonah sprayed the anointing water this storm did not stop because Jonah got out and says I rebuke every spirit behind this storm he wasn't rebuke in the devil this was God trying to get Jonah's attention this was God saying Jonah if you get into my will I will bring a revival and the storm will stop God cares for the people as much as he cares for us and we must understand as Christians and as a church the will of God is where our safety is and the will of God is where God's presence is the will of God is where revival is and without God's will people will perish and honestly the storm will take us the second storm that happened in the Bible the second storm and that storm is mentioned in book of Mark chapter 4 verse 35 and the Bible says that Jesus tells his disciples let's get to the other side and let's he doesn't actually tell them what's going to happen on the other side but disciples obey Jesus and they get into the boat and Jesus goes to sleep now Jesus wasn't going to sleep because he was running from the will of God he was going to sleep the will of God so we see the difference Jonah is running from the will of God and Jesus is running in the will of God and both are sleeping one is sleeping because he's trying to get away from God's call and the other one is sleeping because he is hiding in God's call and Jesus is sleeping and the Bible says a storm breaks out now this storm wasn't caused by God because this storm was trying to kill them and Jesus is sleeping and Jesus gets awakened but the interesting part it never says Jesus got awakened by the storm Jesus got awakened by disciples disciples woke him up and Jesus wakes up from his sleep and he looks at the storm and he doesn't pray for God to calm the storm he rebukes the storm it lets us know that this storm was not caused by God it was caused by the enemy we need to understand few simple things when we are in the will of God the enemy could stir things up to stop us from doing what God wants us to do when we start to declare when we start to pray when we start to fast when we start to say the church is for revival we want to see healings the enemy will bring a storm to us so that we will not get to the other side so we will not see revival so that we will not see the glory of God because any revival means a nightmare in hell any revival means Satan's business going bankrupt our revival and the church gets bigger the nightclubs get smaller when the glory of God comes in the church the shame of Satan comes into the world Satan becomes defeated the devil knows he smells revival from 2 miles away disciples over there they have no idea where they are going devil knows because devil sees a demon possessed man on the island and Jesus is going there 2 plus 2 is 4 Jesus demon possessed man guess what is going to happen demons will leave and devil sees there and disciples will not see nothing and sometimes we don't know where we are going and sometimes we don't know where we are headed we are over here praying, fasting, believing all of this stuff but we do not know we are going somewhere and sometimes the devil knows that and the proof that he knows you are headed somewhere is he brings a storm to stop you from where you are going turn to your neighbor and say we are headed somewhere we are headed somewhere amen and that somewhere is revival amen now in this revival the city did not get saved only one person got saved only one person all this waste all this hardship just for one person the history says actually this one person who was delivered from a legion of demons stayed in that city he went to evangelize to 10 cities they were like really close to each other years years later they still found a church in that region that was founded because of this man's testimony revival is not just when the city gets saved a revival is when the person gets saved and spreads the message of gospel in the place that he is in the devil will fight us he will try to discourage us he will bring bad testimonies well look what happened you prayed for this person guess what happened well this person came to the prayer line and look what happened to him well you know since I've been coming to church it seems like hell is breaking loose everything was fine yeah it was fine because you were on devil's payroll and now you came an enemy what do you think devil is just going to sit there and let you slide of course hell is going to break loose because now you are not his slave you are his enemy and we must understand is when hell breaks loose Satan doesn't fight us for where we are coming from he fights us for where we are headed when the babies are being slaughtered male babies in Egypt why do you think Pharaoh was doing that because he smelled miles away the male child is going to be born and he will shake the foundations of the Egyptian kingdom into the ashes when Herod killed 14,000 babies in his life in that time he smelled the king was born what can a baby do nothing but when the baby grows up there's nothing the baby cannot do and that's why the enemy is not going to fight you for where you are at you will look back and you say I don't have nothing why leave me alone but see he knows where your boat is headed he looked at your GPS and he sees where God is taking you even if you don't know where God is taking you God is taking you to a revival God is taking you to salvation of souls and rise up and know that the devil knows your plan you should know your plan too that God has a big plan for your life and he's going to use you for this glory because somebody say man when the storm is breaking crazy Jesus is sleeping and then he gets up he stops the storm in this storm you must understand listen very carefully when the storm is breaking crazy you have to learn that sometimes God will calm you first before he comes the storm if you cannot sleep in it you will never be able to stop it if in your head is panic now it's one thing if it's in your pocket is crazy in the family it's crazy you walk in and it's like World War 3 just broke out plates flying, knives flying I mean that's the old weapons that you have forks flying, everything is flying doors are broken you wanna see hell come to my house that's exactly what's happening and things are just really bad dead collectors are knocking on the door and things are just chaotic people are calling from school your child is crazy take him out put him in a mental institution he's driving us nuts and you're like oh my goodness and then when you talk to your friends and they're like oh my goodness hell is in you too it's not just in your house you think hell is thoughts you're crazy and you start vomiting when you start spilling your beans and people are like oh my goodness you're a mess, you're a wreck and what we think is this God clean the house first God comes and God starts to deal with your head you're like Lord don't deal with my head remember one thing if you cannot sleep in a storm you will never have the power to stop it you can only give what you have if inside of you there is no peace you cannot give peace into your house if inside of you do not let your storm get inside of you because once it gets inside of you you will get up and be like disciples say oh Jesus we're dying do you think storm will stop because of that, no storm will kill you you have to be like Jesus says disciples come down, come down everything is fine don't interrupt my nap by the way he gets up and the Bible says he looks at the storm and he says peace be still why could he speak peace he lived in peace he slept in peace he say how can you sleep and when it's a hell breaking loose Jesus did peace is not absence of conflict it's the presence of a prince of peace you can have no money to pay your rent you can have every part of your body hurting and then let your head hit the pillow close your eyes and sleep like a baby not because everything is fine but because it is well with your soul the prince of peace lives inside when we come against the devil but we have storm inside of us the devil will laugh at us and the first thing the Lord wants us to do is when we come to church is so that he wants to get the storm out of us and put his peace in us and when his peace is in us then when we can say to our problem peace be still then we can be like Jesus says be quiet don't let the storm take your peace give your storm your peace and it will be silence speak to the storm like Jesus did but you can't speak don't learn to sleep in it sleep in it you say let the Lord work to victory but meanwhile saying you know what I am not going to be worried I am not going to be stressed out I am not going to be pulling my hair and I am not going to be in panic I am going to be in the center of God's will I am going to stand against the devil but I will not let the devil put the storm inside of me somebody say amen and Jesus overcomes the storm storm quiet down a person gets delivered from demons a whole scene is changed before our prayer lines the devil knows during these prayer lines demons will be tormented usually 2-3 days before the prayer line he will bring a storm against us not just the people who are praying but everybody and this is what we have to remember especially a week before the prayer line you have to be in the peace of God sometimes it's not going to be anything physical that are bad happening sometimes it's just emotional you just feel down you just feel empty especially before something great is about to happen you are going to feel fatigue you are going to feel exhaustion doubt and overwhelming sense of panic and stress and that point first of all that's an indication something is about to happen not bad, something good is about to happen you have to keep your peace and then you speak your peace that means don't speak bad, speak good you look at your children you look at your house if it doesn't want to start lay your hand on the engine and the other hand on the transmission and you say you know what even if you don't start I love you, God loves you everything is good humans are not going to live in that engine in Jesus mighty name amen, you speak peace to every single thing you may say that's gibberish oh no it's not gibberish because when things are bad and you look at your wife and you call her with names God forbid that's exactly who she's going to be speak peace when you are under attack storm will subside and the victory will be ours for the glory of God the first storm caused by God to get back into the will of God the second storm is caused by Satan to stop us from the will of God the third storm and the third storm is recorded in Acts chapter 27 and we are going to bring this message to the conclusion Acts chapter 27 this is apostle Paul in the storm apostle Paul is in the storm and he tells the captain we shouldn't travel now because there is a big weather problem happening just like right now on the white path I just got an alert right after worship that there is a big alert you have to take chains on your cars if you are going to go to Seattle really big snow storm few people who are supposed to be here today actually didn't make it because of that that's exactly what happened in this story there is an alert Paul is aware of it something really bad is going to happen he tells the captain we should not travel right now we should stay back I know we want to get to Rome fast but let's relax bro let's stay back the captain says no you are a prisoner you shouldn't be telling me what to do I went to school for this and he puts Paul aside and he doesn't listen to Paul well like Paul said that's exactly what happened the storm breaks loose and the Bible says the ship begins to be tossed and broken and Paul and tells Paul hey Paul there is about 200 people here on this ship and I am giving them to you as a gift Paul is like thanks God he is a prisoner remember Paul is a prisoner Paul is not like a mayor they are not driving a big high guy he is a prisoner he is like nobody and God comes to you and says hey all those 200 people they are yours this is a gift for you just wanted to bless you with it so they are going to be all saved because of you Paul says thanks God that's exactly what happened these guys did not eat for 14 days and Paul says hey guys let's all start eating he breaks the food for everybody looks at the captain he says even you you shouldn't eat because you didn't listen to me but well you eat too everybody let's eat and then he gives them advice on how to do certain things and he says the ship is going to be lost God says ship will be lost but we will not be lost this is how we should go about it one person jump out one person do this everything is going to be fine what do you do when a storm came against you and you are rebuking it rebuking it but it seems like it's not stopping I've met people like that I've talked to people even in our church who are rebuking standing in faith and they say things like this it's not working I have a message for you today it seems like storm is not subsiding trust in God but meanwhile get a surfing board and surf surf in your storm Jesus was in the greatest storm when he was about to be betrayed on the last day hell broke loose he took a towel took a basin one of his disciples betrays him the other disciple sticks a knife and cuts another person's ear off you know how bad this is Peter is going to get prosecuted after Jesus dies and get locked up in jail and Jesus has a plan to put Peter as a pastor how can you have a pastor in a church who is in jail so Jesus looks at Peter he says dude I am planning to put you a pastor and you cut person's ear off you know who you cut person's ear off they are going to prosecute you he looks at the poor guy who came to arrest him and you will think this is the time where things are so hectic and just simply say to that man you know what bro I am so sorry you are not one of my people and number 2 my healing ministry is done you guys are killing me so no healing today your ear is not that bad you go fix it yourself Jesus takes his ear off and puts the ear back and looks at Peter and says well you can go home with the perfect ear you think this is bad Jesus goes to the cross they put him on the cross and the Bible says that while on the cross he looks at his mom and it dawns on him who is going to take care of her because historians say Joseph died already and Jesus was the first and he takes care of his mom he makes the arrangements make sure his mom is well taken care of right on the cross oh and then he looks at one guy who curses him he says well you are going to hell looks at the other man and he looks at him and says Jesus he sees in his eyes he wants to be saved I mean this is the moment like you know what I don't witness today look at what happened to me I am not doing witnessing I am not telling people about Jesus I am not telling people about God I am dying sometimes we are going through something difficult sometimes we are going to salvation like man if you would know what I am going through you wouldn't want to hear from me but this is the moment you can bring somebody to Christ when your storm is not stopping don't stop serving and you think it would end there it doesn't Pharisees are mocking him laughing at him and he says just before I leave I wanted to serve you too and he tells them I forgive you and then he dies and rises from the dead serve through your storm serve in your storm I find people who think because they don't have a job they shouldn't give there are people who say because I am sick I shouldn't pray for sick people not realizing first time what healing is mentioned in the Bible was an Abraham was commanded by God to pray for a Philistine king and Abraham was told to pray for women who were barren can you imagine Abraham started a healing ministry praying for barren women his wife was barren at home and people could have said to him Abraham how dare you pray for other women to be healed when your own wife you can heal her but Abraham was not like us Abraham says ok God told me to pray Abraham goes and prays for other women and God heals the women and comes back home and his wife and his kids when your storm is prolonged don't stop serving and God heals Abraham's wife I heard the one man who lost his job at winter had a very high paying job came home but he didn't tell his kids he lost the job he told his wife I lost my job I got laid off my company decided to cut back on the budget the next morning he got dressed left exactly at 8 o'clock in the morning yes he always did to go to work but he had no work and instead of going around the streets and crying it was winter he walked by the neighbor's house and he saw a lot of snow on the driveway he knocked on the door he says I'm without a job I need something to do so I don't go crazy do you mind if I shove your snow she says yeah it's fine with me and he's like I'll do it for free I don't need money from you I just need something to do the lady saw how hard he was working she decided to give him few bucks he says well thank you but I just wanted to give you as a gift went to another house did the same thing and by the time he finished his 8 hours he came back home almost frozen but he came back home with few hundred bucks he's like well this is not that bad he goes back next day instead of wallowing up eating chips and potatoes and watching soap opera and crying tears that things are so bad the government is bad my boss is bad he just decided to go and serve and as he served next day he brought some more money in two months he started a company to help people shove their snow and today he's a multimillionaire how did it start it started with a man who got in a storm but in a storm he decided to serve he decided to serve and God churned that around Joseph goes into prison and instead of like Samson who went into same kind of prison and going into circles see Samson went into prison because he ran with lust Joseph went into prison because he ran from lust and Joseph instead of going in circles in prison Joseph became in charge of the prison Joseph started a prison ministry he woke up every morning and sees one person is not happy he says hey how you doing why are you not happy you want me to tell you a joke you want me to cheer you up he says no I had a bad dream tell me the dream and the man tells him a dream and Joseph at that moment remembers God gave me a dream that I would be in charge of my brothers but look what happened to me and at that moment Joseph could have said you know what bro I think you ate too much pizza yesterday forget about your dream but Joseph says no no no he says your dream means God is gonna do this and that how could you tell him that God is gonna fulfill his dream his own dream is not being fulfilled but Joseph realized when you are in pain don't stop serving little did Joseph know the man he helped with the dream will become the man who will fulfill his own dream fulfill his own dream and Joseph helped the man two years later a few years later the man calls Joseph he says hey Pharaoh wants to see you and the rest is history serve through your storm we were in Mexico a few months ago and there were people on surfing boards and I definitely saw right away they had no idea what they were doing but they were waiting for waves see they couldn't serve in the quiet sea they had to wait for waves and the moment a big wave would come instead of praying for the wave to die they would actually try to put themselves on the surf board and try to surf through the wave and so many times they failed and they tried again and they failed but they would keep getting up and once they mastered that art it became wonderful even through the waves they learned to surf when you are going through storm and it seems like you are rebuking the devil you are coming against the enemy and it seems like things are being prolonged find somebody who has a problem and solve it find somebody who has no job and help them to find it find somebody who has no shoes find somebody who has no phone and buy them a phone find somebody who needs somebody to babysit their kids for a weekend and babysit their kids find somebody who needs to rake their leaves because their back is hurting and go rake their leaves find somebody who is in need find somebody who needs Jesus Christ who is going through hell and just simply encourage them find somebody that you can surf in the middle of your storm and you will realize your storm actually will bring glory to God and you will think amen if we all wait until our life gets good and everything gets perfect and then we are going to witness and then we are going to tell people about Jesus and then we are going to help other people my friend that they might never come it is when we start surfing that many times our storm subsides and God receives the glory I know it is hard to surf when you are in pain it is hard to love it is hard to give when you don't have enough it is hard to forgive when you have been betrayed I know it is hard to welcome people into your life when maybe something happened before that wasn't so pleasant but we have to follow the steps of our Jesus and we recognize we will see revival on the other side and we can surf into our revival through surfing in the middle of our storm it happened with others it can happen with us Smith Biggsworth who has raised more than 30 something people from the dead for later part of his years they said he had kidney stones and his kidney stones were so bad that sometimes he would be standing on a stage in excruciating pain unbearable pain and he preached about healing prayed for the sick seen dead people raised and in another case a woman came with an enlarged heart he has kidney stones he is bleeding he is suffering and the person came with an enlarged heart and God tells him he was very controversial in his day God tells him to punch him in the heart so he does that he punches the person in the heart and the person dies right on the stage and Smith Biggsworth he was brutal that person puts him to the wall and tells him walk well the person is dead they collapsed he got angry he picked him up he says you are not listening to me I am telling you walk the person is dead they collapsed again he got more angry he got so angry he says you are not hearing me right that person whom he just killed on the stage to the wall and in the third time the person opened their eyes started to walk he went back, this person went back to the examination and they had a baby heart this person ministered healing and resurrection of the dead while having kidney stones there came a time God healed him of his kidney stones but he said this he says I never stopped helping others in the middle of my pain I know people will say don't preach to others about Jesus save your own children first well if you are going to take care of other children God is going to take care of yours never stop serving in the midst of your pain never stop serving in the middle of your storm