[0:00] Turn your Bibles to John chapter 10, the Gospel of John chapter 10. Tonight's going to be a message that I want to encourage you tonight. Again, our ministry is living in spite of.
[0:11] Like I said this morning, God wants you and I to live our Christian life. He wants us to enjoy our Christian life. And we're going to get into that this evening.
[0:22] John chapter 10 and verse number 7 is where we're going to start reading. And if you found your place and you're able, I'm going to ask you to stand with me as we read our text. John chapter 10 and verse number 7.
[0:33] Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.
[0:50] The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
[1:02] That they might have it more abundantly. I want to preach a message this evening. The revival of the abundant life. The revival of the abundant life. Let's pray. Father, again, we just come to you this evening.
[1:13] Lord, and we've prayed a lot this evening. We've come to you, come to the throne of grace in this service several times. But Lord, it's because we know that without you, this service means nothing.
[1:28] Lord, without your work, Holy Ghost of God, without you working in hearts, Lord, we're just doing church. But tonight, Lord, we want a touch from heaven. We want you, Lord, to speak to our hearts.
[1:39] We want you, Lord, to revive us. Get us excited about living for you. Get us excited about the things of God. So, Lord, I pray that you'd preach through me this evening. Give me your power. And, Lord, empower your word as it goes forth.
[1:53] And, Father, I pray we'd leave here this evening saying it's been good to be in the house of God. So, Lord, again, we ask for your blessing. We ask for your power. And, Lord, if there by chance there's someone here that does not know Christ.
[2:04] Lord, they've been faking it. They've been just going through the motions. But they really don't know you. Oh, God, I pray right now you'd even begin right now to speak to that heart.
[2:16] And show them their need for you. So, Lord, again, we ask for your blessing. We ask for your power. And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. You know, our country needs revival.
[2:29] Amen. If there's one thing that America needs right now, it's revival. You guys may remember, what, about three summers ago, I think it was, in Burlington, North Carolina.
[2:40] Their revival started in a church. Let me get this right. New Hope Baptist Church in Burlington, North Carolina. And they started in their church building. And the revival services began to grow. And they outgrew the inside of the church.
[2:52] And ended up going out and setting up a huge tent. And it was on the Internet for a while. And the revival services went on for 11 weeks during that period of time.
[3:03] Several souls were saved. And it was a blessing. In Michigan, where we're from, there's a group of pastors and men that get together. It's called the Michigan Revival Conference. And we'll get together and we'll pray for revival.
[3:15] And they'll be preaching. And there's a real need for revival. Revival. Charles Finney, they call him the father of the modern revivalism, says that revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.
[3:34] Revival is to bring something back that is either dead or dying. Bring something back to life that is either dead or dying. So revival really is meant to stir up God's people.
[3:46] Get God's people back to life again. Get them back to living the way that God would have them to live. Jesus in this passage is talking about his care for the sheep.
[3:57] The care for the sheep. The children of God. And he refers to himself as the door to the sheep. What he's saying is that he is the only way into the sheepfold. There's not different ways into the sheepfold.
[4:10] There's not a multitude of ways to get to God. There's only one way to get to God. And that is through Jesus Christ. There's only one way for you and I to get into the sheepfold. And that is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
[4:22] The sheepfold or the corral would have a fence around it or something that would, a wall built around the sheep. And there was only one entrance to get in and to get out. And many times the shepherd would lay across that entrance, sleep across that entrance so he could protect the sheep that were inside from predators, wolves and lions and things that would come and try to steal the sheep out of the sheepfold.
[4:47] All that came before Jesus, the Bible says, and since that say they are the Christ or the Messiah or a way to God, the Bible says are thieves and robbers.
[4:58] They're thieves and robbers. There were false prophets in the New Testament days and false teachers and it's the same as there are today. Jesus goes on to say that the thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy.
[5:15] The devil wants to steal you from the sheepfold, but he can't. Once you're saved, friend, once you're in the sheepfold, you're there forever. And nothing can take you out of that sheepfold.
[5:27] John chapter 10 verse 27 says, My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my father's hand.
[5:39] My father which gave them me is greater than all and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. So once we're in Christ, we're in the hand of the Savior and not only in the hand of the Savior, we're in the hand of the Father.
[5:54] And no man is able to pluck you out of the sheepfold. Hallelujah. Amen. Praise the Lord for that. The thief cannot steal your soul, but he can steal your joy.
[6:09] He can kill your testimony. He can destroy what God has for us as the children of God. In context of this passage, in contrast to the thief that wants to steal, kill and destroy, there's Jesus.
[6:25] There's Jesus. And he says that he came that they might have life and have it more abundantly. The abundant life that God has for you and I to live our Christian life.
[6:41] For the believer that the thief comes to steal, to kill and destroy, but Jesus has given us abundant life and we have allowed the thief to steal that from us.
[6:51] The abundant life that Christ came to give us. The Lord doesn't want you and I just to get by in our Christian walk. He wants us to thrive. He wants us to enjoy living for him, not merely surviving.
[7:07] We need a revival of the abundant life in Jesus Christ. The abundant life is not the absence of problems.
[7:18] It's not the absence of trials or heartache or pain. Neither is it the health, wealth and prosperity preaching that's out there today. But the abundant life is a life that the shepherd gives the sheep.
[7:32] Verse number 9 again says, Hey, I am the door and by me if any man enter in he shall be saved. Amen. You enter in by him. You enter in by the Lord. You shall be saved.
[7:44] And then you shall go in and out and find pasture. You get the fellowship with the shepherd. He gets to feed you. And take you to places where you can feed.
[7:56] The thief has lulled us to sleep and has stolen the abundant life from us as the children of God. We need to get revived. To be born again again, if you will.
[8:07] Not to get saved all over again, but to get revived. Get life back in our Christianity. Get life back in our walk with God. First of all, we need the abundance or the revival of the abundance of our salvation.
[8:20] Romans chapter 5 and verse 20. The Bible says, Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
[8:31] Grace that is greater than our sin. Hey man, there was a time in our lives where our salvation meant everything to us. We got excited about being saved. We got excited about the fact that God would forgive me.
[8:43] He forgave me of all my sin. I don't have to carry that burden of my sin any longer. We were in awe of the fact that God's grace was greater than our sin. We couldn't believe that God would save us and not somebody else.
[8:57] We were, we were, our sins that were many were forgiven forever. I mean, I remember asking God to forgive me of things I wasn't even sure I'd done. But I just wanted to make sure I covered them all.
[9:07] Amen. I wanted to make sure I got all my bases covered. We witnessed to others about our Savior. The abundance of the joy and the sense of that weight being lifted off of us was something that we wanted to share.
[9:19] Not to cram our religion down somebody's throat, but so that they could experience what we had in our heart. What we had in our life. We're not trying to, trying to tell people, Well, you've got to be saved because if you don't, you're going to die and go to hell, which is the truth.
[9:34] But man, it was because we were so happy. We enjoyed the fact that we had gotten saved and our sins had been forgiven. That we had the abundance of the joy and that sense of that weight lifting off of us.
[9:47] We wanted our friends and our family to experience that newfound joy. Well, then time passed. And we lost the wonder of it all. The thief cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and destroy.
[10:04] The thief has robbed you of the joy of your salvation. You're not excited about it like you used to be. You don't witness like you did before. Our concern for those lost family members and friends just isn't there in an urgent way like it used to be.
[10:23] May we get a revival of the abundance of our salvation. Praising God for his unmerited favor. For his abundant grace. Hey, we don't deserve to be part of the sheepfold, amen?
[10:34] We did nothing to gain our way into the sheepfold. But by the grace of God, we're in. We're in by the blood of Jesus Christ. Maybe you're here today and you have no idea what I'm talking about.
[10:46] This guy's nuts. But can I tell you something, friend? You have to experience it in order to understand it. I can't tell you. I can stand here for hours and tell you how wonderful salvation is.
[10:59] I can tell you about the joy that I felt the day that I got saved. And the joy that I felt when I got right with God. And I can tell you about that weight of sin being lifted off my heart. But I can tell you one thing, friend.
[11:10] You have to experience it for yourself to understand it. But I can tell you what it's not. It's not religion. It's not religion. It's a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
[11:21] It's coming into fellowship with the God of all creation. The one who created it all. You can't explain it, but you can experience it.
[11:35] You must trust Christ as your Savior. Jesus said, I am the door. In other words, he's the only way in. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
[11:45] There's only one way into the sheepfold, friend. Jesus isn't a way. He is the way. And what you need to do tonight if you're not saved, if you're not sure that you've trusted Christ as your Savior.
[11:56] Friend, why would you leave here without taking care of that? Because I can promise you, friend, you will experience the joy of your salvation. Then we need a revival of the abundance of the Spirit of God.
[12:09] Titus chapter 3, verses 5 and 6 says, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed upon us abundantly through the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
[12:25] When we first got saved, man, we were amazed at the awakening of the Spirit. I mean, man, we were dead spiritually. We were just going through life. We were an empty shell. And then when we trusted Christ as our Savior, boom, the Spirit came alive.
[12:39] We read the Word of God and we said, Wow, I understand what it says now. I realize that this is the Word of God. And it's speaking to my heart. And it's working in me. The Word of God again became alive.
[12:51] We understand what the Bible had to say for the first time in our life. There was a college professor that's been told. The story's been told. I don't know if it's true, but it's a good story. Amen. He said, he stood before his class one day and said, I have read the Bible through several times and I still don't get it.
[13:08] And one of the students raised his hand and he stood up and said, Sir, that's because that's what happens when you read other people's mail. Amen. The Word of God was written to the children of God.
[13:19] The Word of God was a love letter from heaven for you and I that have been saved. Oh, we can get saved through using the Word of God. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But friend, the Bible was written for those that are spiritually alive.
[13:32] That are living the life that Christ came to give them. The Holy Ghost enlightens us and teaches us the Word of God. And it's fresh and exciting to us. We're amazed at times when the Bible, man, it applies to every area of my life.
[13:48] I can't believe that's in the Word of God. Man, we'd read the Bible and it would address situations in our life. And we say, man, that's amazing. It's because the Spirit of God that dwells inside you wrote the book.
[13:59] Amen. Amen. He knows what you're going through. We'd go to church and the preacher would preach on the exact thing that's happening in your home. Whoa. Man.
[14:11] The preacher, how does he know that? I've had people come to me and say, okay, how do you know that? How do I know what? How do you know what's going on in my home? What do you mean, how do I know what's going on in your home? Well, because you preach exactly on what's going on.
[14:23] Hey, you'd take the family home. You'd line everybody up and say, okay, who's leaking information to the preacher? Friend, nobody's leaking information to the preacher other than the Holy Spirit.
[14:35] The Spirit of God that dwells in you. And it would be so exciting because you knew, hey, that's God working in my life. That's God working in my preacher. He's putting the message together. Exactly what I need.
[14:46] And it would be exciting. And you couldn't wait for the next service. You couldn't wait until you could hear the Word of God being preached again. Other people would see your enthusiasm and take note. John chapter 7, verses 38 and 39.
[14:59] The Bible says, He that believeth on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.
[15:11] For the Holy Ghost was not yet given. Because Jesus was not yet glorified. Hey, the Spirit of God ought to flow out of the believer. It ought to be something that people take note and say, there's something different about that man.
[15:24] There's something different about that woman. Not that we're weird, although we are weird to the world. But there's something different about us because, why? Because the Spirit of God is flowing out of us.
[15:34] The Spirit used to be on display in our lives. We hated sin. We avoided sinful places and habits. We would tell, if somebody was telling an off-color joke, man, we'd walk away. We didn't want to hear it.
[15:45] You know, conversations at work would change when you entered the room. Amen? You know, they might be talking about you, but they might be using language that they realize a child of God just walked in the room.
[15:58] The Spirit of God embodied in that person just walked in the room. I'm going to change what I'm saying. I'm going to quit talking about it. Hey, when something we knew we shouldn't be looking at came on TV, we'd change the channel.
[16:11] Because the Spirit of God was working in our heart. All because the Spirit of God was flowing in our lives. Well, the thief cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and destroy.
[16:25] Anyway, we've allowed the Spirit of God to be grieved in our lives. Now we read the Bible out of a sense of duty. And not a sense of joy and love.
[16:37] Passages that are familiar to us. Well, we just kind of breeze by them because, you know, we've read them before. I've got my, I've got to read through the Bible in a year program.
[16:48] And if I don't get through the Bible in a year, you know, I'm not right with God. So I need to read all those verses. And we plow through the Word of God. And we plow through the Word of God because it's a duty. Because we must finish five chapters.
[17:03] Friend, what you ought to do is come to the Word of God and say, my Father wants to talk to me. And I'm going to read until He talks to me. And when He talks to me, we stop.
[17:14] And we pray. And ponder what God has said to us. Oh, friend, don't just read the Word of God because it's what you're supposed to do. Read the Word of God because you get to read the Word.
[17:25] Hey, some of these missionaries, they're here. They don't, most people in the countries that they go to don't possess the Word of God. Don't have the Word of God in their language. We've probably got four or five Bibles at home.
[17:38] Amen. I know I do. I got my preaching Bible. I got my study Bible. I got my devotion Bible. Then I got the Bible that I set off on the shelf because it's about ready to fall apart.
[17:49] Amen. The preacher preaches now and starts picking on something that's going on in the home. And we get offended. Because he's meddling in my life now.
[18:03] Or it used to be, whoa, that's exciting. The Word of God and the preacher is working in my heart and in my family. But now the preacher starts preaching and it starts working in our heart and it's not exciting anymore.
[18:16] We get offended. We get mad. Amen. Associates at work don't know we're Christians because we've sought to blend in rather than stand out.
[18:28] The Spirit of God is sensitive. He's easily grieved and quenched in our lives. We need to get a revival of the abundance of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
[18:39] Then we need a revival of the abundance of supplication in our life. Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 20. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.
[18:52] There was a time in our lives where prayer was so important that we wouldn't miss an opportunity to pray. Prayer meeting night. It was important to us.
[19:04] We wanted to be there because you're going to find out what requests need to be, what you need to be praying about. How you can pray for one another. Pastor would call for a special prayer meeting man and we'd want to be there.
[19:17] We'd want to be part of that. A private time with the Lord is precious. We would pray. We might not even be able to pray long but it was a necessary part of our lives.
[19:29] I used to work an hour and 15 minutes from our home where we lived up in Michigan and I had to be at work at 6 o'clock in the morning. Now you do the math. I'm getting up early.
[19:41] Getting up a lot earlier than I certainly like to get up. But one of the things I always had to do not only because there was a lot of crazy people that were on the road.
[19:51] But I wanted God's protection on my family. I wanted God to protect me. I wanted God to work on my children's life. I didn't pray long. I'll be honest with you.
[20:02] But I knew one thing. I prayed every morning before I left that house because I knew that I needed God and my family needed God. Folks, we need to be people of prayer.
[20:13] We need to be people that love to go to the word of God. I love to go to the Lord in prayer. When God would answer our prayers, we'd get so excited. Man, we couldn't wait to tell other people.
[20:24] A lot of times they'd just look at you and go, okay. Oh man, do you know what God did this week? And we'd tell them about something that the Lord did. And we'd be excited about it and they'd look at you like, okay, that's fine for you.
[20:36] But you know, that's like I told you this morning. When I told that guy that asked me, when I told him I was getting a new job and he said, he said, oh yeah, where? And I said, I don't know yet, but I know God's going to give me a new job.
[20:48] He looked at me kind of cross-eyed and said, okay. He went back to grilling whatever he was grilling. Amen. But God answered that prayer. I had a job by the end of that week. I got a good buddy of mine that he went to a church, kind of a country church out in the country and there was a family that drove for a long distance to come to church and rather than going home and coming back in between services on Sunday, they would go out and they would spend time in the area and one day he's in the grocery store and he sees her and her kids and he says hi to him, talks to him for a little bit and as he's going out to the car, the Lord put on his heart, you need to give that lady some money and he said, okay, Lord, if you want me to, I will.
[21:32] So he went and told his wife, he goes, I'll be right back. He goes back in the store and he hands that lady a $20 bill. That lady began to weep. She said, I have no money.
[21:43] She had groceries in her car. She said, I have no money but I was going to that checkout stand by faith and she said, you just answered a prayer for me.
[21:55] Man, now he starts weeping. They're both in the grocery store, they're weeping and crying together. Why? Because God answered prayer. He was an agent that God used to answer this woman's prayer and give them some food for the afternoon.
[22:10] Amen. That's exciting stuff. My wife and I, like I told you this morning, 62 years old, I'm resigning my church, we're going into evangelism. Man, isn't this going to be fun? We're in debt. We're in debt.
[22:21] We didn't have any money to buy books. I just finished writing that first book and it was ready to be published. We didn't have any money to get the book printed. I said, well, I tell you this, honey, if this is of the Lord, he'll provide the way for us to get out of debt and to get the book published.
[22:40] We began to pray. Within two weeks, I got a letter from a company that I worked for for six years. I had a little bit of a pension that was going to come from them. They said, we want to buy out your pension.
[22:56] Guess what? You know the rest of the story. It was just enough money to pay us out, get us out of debt and buy the books that we needed to go into the ministry. Thus, we're here today.
[23:06] Amen? We're here today because that's what God did. And that's exciting, isn't it? I mean, man, you got, I'm sure if we went around the room, everybody has testimony that's prayed and seen God move.
[23:17] And it's exciting. But the thief cometh not before to steal and to kill and destroy. Prayer is no longer a priority because we've grown. We've grown.
[23:28] We've matured. We've matured enough in our walk with the Lord where we can go in and out and find pasture all on our own now. We don't need to follow the shepherd.
[23:40] Well, you say, well, I remember praying for this, that, or the other thing. God didn't answer my prayer so we just quit praying. God help us. We don't talk to the Father like we're spoiled children.
[23:51] We've become so self-sufficient we are no longer shepherd dependent. we need the revival of the abundance of supplication.
[24:02] And then, friend, we need a revival of the abundance of scenes in heaven. The abundance of scenes in heaven. 2 Peter 1, verse 11, for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
[24:19] Man, the thought of heaven at one time in our life was exciting. Man, we're going to get to see the Lord. We're going to get to see the street of gold. We're going to get to see, I'm going to move into my mansion.
[24:30] We're going to see all these saints of God. I want to talk to Peter. I want to talk to Paul. I want to talk to all these saints of God. I want to see mom and dad and all these people. And you know what?
[24:41] You know what, friend? I've got to be honest with you right now. For a while there, when I would think about heaven over the last few years, my first thought was I get to see my son Johnny. I miss him.
[24:52] We miss him desperately. And then, man, it just broke my heart when I thought, you know what? The reason I get to see Johnny is because of my Savior.
[25:06] You know what? My priorities are wrong. I want to see my Savior. I want to go into heaven and see the one who saved my son and saved me and gave us the ability to see one another again for all eternity.
[25:19] It's a time when the thought of the rapture would, man, stir up conversation. See, now you're afraid you sound like some crazy person.
[25:30] But friend, if you haven't paid any attention to what's going on in the world today and you don't think the rapture's a whole lot closer than it was yesterday, I got news for you, friend. There's something wrong. You need to check up because, man, the Lord's coming back and I believe it's going to be any day.
[25:45] I remember a time and some of you folks might remember it, the day when the thought was Jimmy Carter was the antichrist. Oh, yeah, man. Jimmy Carter was the antichrist because you can take all these letters and all these numbers and you can put them together and it comes up with 666.
[26:01] Whoa. Whoa. And then after he passed off the scene, Ronald Reagan is the antichrist. Ronald Reagan is the antichrist. Every time something happened in the Middle East that used to be, man, whoa, did you hear what happened over in Israel?
[26:14] Do you know what's going on over there right now? We'd get excited about it. You guys remember the guy who wrote 88 Reasons Why the Lord's Coming Back in 1988?
[26:30] Man, he sold a bunch of books. Then he wrote a sequel, Why the Lord's Coming, 98 and 89 Reasons Why the Lord's Coming Back in 1989. I don't think he's written a book since.
[26:41] But people would, I mean, we'd eat this stuff up, right? Hey, hey, Y2K, the Lord's coming back. That's it, man. Y2K is going to wipe out all the computers and the Lord's coming back and this is going to, chaos is going to happen in the world.
[26:59] The blood moons. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you guys talked about that down here, but the blood moons back in Michigan is a big deal. It's a big deal.
[27:11] Hey, friend, there used to be a time in our lives where the thoughts of heaven would get us so excited. We'd get so excited about what was happening. The thought of seeing our loved ones that have gone on before us, seeing Jesus.
[27:25] Man, we were as good as there. People would say, well, you know, you're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good. Well, amen. Because that's my home. I'm just passing through. This is just a temporary place for me.
[27:37] I got all eternity to enjoy. See, we bought into the world's philosophy of the return of Christ. 2 Peter 3, verses 3 and 4 says, Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts, saying, Where is the promise of his coming?
[27:53] For since the fathers fell asleep, things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. The thief cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. We've allowed the devil to rob us of the joy of heaven.
[28:10] Yeah, they've been talking about Jesus. Paul talked about being raptured up himself, did he not? And we, which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. Hey, he was planning on going up in the rapture himself.
[28:25] They've been talking about it ever since then. But you know what? Someday, it's going to happen. I'm not telling you it's going to happen next week, next year.
[28:35] It may not happen in my lifetime. I don't know. Although I do know a preacher back up in Michigan, you folks might know him, Dr. Don Green. He said, the Lord told me that I'm not going to die.
[28:48] I'm going in the rapture. Hey, he's 93. Yes! Do the math, folks, okay? If he says he's going in the rapture, I'm praying that the Lord, I'm praying that God promised him that and it's going to happen just the way he says.
[29:04] Amen? Lighten up. We've become so earthbound, we're not heaven-bound like we used to be.
[29:18] We need to get back to the revival of the scenes in heaven. Friends, we need a revival of the abundant life. My dad was in the VA hospital in Romulus, Michigan and he had cancer and he was dying.
[29:38] Well, the nurse that worked in the palliative care unit that my dad finally got put in was a member of our church and I was one of the people that could, you know, talk about my dad's illness.
[29:50] She came up to me one day and she said, you do realize that your dad's DNR? I said, okay, what's DNR? What's that mean? She goes, on his records, on the outside, they stamped DNR.
[30:02] Do not resuscitate. In other words, if his heart stops or if he quits breathing, they're not going to take any measures to bring him back to life. I said, okay, that was my dad's wish so I understood.
[30:15] Okay, that's fine. My question for you is, do you have DNR stamped on your heart right now? Do not resuscitate.
[30:27] Lord, I'm good. Lord, I don't need any revival in my life. Don't take any excessive measures to bring me back to life.
[30:38] If that's how you feel here this evening, friend, you need revival. You need revival in your life. you need to get excited again. You need to get brought back to life and allow the Lord to do a work in your life.
[30:53] It is a life that Christ came to give us, the abundant life. It's a life of walking with the shepherd. We've allowed the thief to steal and to kill and destroy the abundant life that Christ came to give us.
[31:06] We need to get the thief out of the sheepfold. the abundance of your salvation. Have you lost the wonder of it all? Have you lost the wonder of the day you got saved?
[31:22] The day that your sin was forgiven? Have you lost that wonder? You need to ask God to forgive you of your apathy today and work in your heart.
[31:35] Ask him to rejoice or restore the joy of your salvation. If you're here today and you don't know Christ as your savior, you've been putting on an act because you know what to say.
[31:48] You know how to dress. You know how to act. You know all the lingo. You even read your Bible. But you know in your heart right now that you're not saved because you could not stand.
[32:03] Let me ask you this. My son that was sitting here this morning went to the Bill Rice Ranch with a youth group and all the parents that youth group left in the bus heading south believed their kids were saved.
[32:20] And the youth director went up to my son one day and had a real burden for our son Jason. I appreciate so much. He was a dear friend of mine. He said, Jason, are you willing to stake your eternity on what you have right now, what you possess right now in your salvation?
[32:35] He was willing to admit, no, I'm not willing. Revival broke out in the boys' dorm there. All the, so many kids, I don't remember how many, there was 30 some that went down there, but probably over half of them got saved on that trip.
[32:56] So friend, you can fake it real good. That's all he was doing as a teenager. Hey, we need to get back to the abundance of the Holy Spirit in our life. Have you grieved the Spirit of God?
[33:08] Have you quenched the Spirit of God in your life? Have you lost your fire for the Lord? Have you lost your effectiveness as a child of God? Have you, have you gotten away from the Word of God?
[33:21] He's given you that. Are you reading out of duty? Are you reading because you want to hear from God? Ask the Lord to enlighten you again from His Word. Ask Him to empower our preachers and give us ears to hear and hearts to respond.
[33:38] Then the abundance of supplication. Hey, have you neglected to communicate with God? Have you stopped having a time of prayer? Have you just relegated everything to, well, you know, God knows.
[33:54] Yeah, God knows, but He still tells us to pray. Still tells us to pray and to seek His face. If we ask anything according to His will, the Bible says, He hears us.
[34:08] And if you know that He hears us, then we have the petitions that we present before Him, right? Have we gotten so spiritual that we're no longer afraid to ask, we've become afraid to ask God for the big things and too proud to ask for the small things?
[34:27] If we become so proud in our prayer that we don't even ask the Lord to do something for us, then the abundance of seeing the scenes in heaven.
[34:42] That's our eternal home. This isn't home, man. This is just temporary. It's a vapor and it's done. Man, we need to get back to looking forward.
[34:53] Our best days lie ahead. If you're saved today, man, your best days are lie ahead. Let's ask the Lord to revive the abundance of the life that He came to give us.
[35:05] Amen? Father, we just come to You now, Lord, and Lord, You want us to live. Live for You. Enjoy living for You. Be what You want us to be.
[35:18] Lord, You came to give us abundant life. That's what Your Word says. Are we living the abundant life today? Are we in the sheepfold? Lord, there may be people here right now that's got everybody fooled but You and themselves because they know in their heart they're not saved and the Spirit of God is working in their heart right now.
[35:44] Oh, God, I pray if there's someone here like that, I pray that they would not leave here in the same condition. And then, Lord, I pray for the children of God that are here that we don't have DNR stamped on our heart.
[35:57] Lord, that we are willing to let You take excessive measures to revive us. Get us excited about serving You.
[36:09] And Lord, continue to live an abundant life that You came to give us. Pastor. Pastor. Pastor. Pastor.