God Wants To Bring Revival

Good morning, church. I have the privilege of bringing the word this morning. The Lord made it abundantly clear to me how to lay the foundation for this message. June 1995, Father's Day weekend marked the start of a significant outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who I'm already crying. At Brownsville assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida.

When Steve Hill, a visiting evangelist, preached, the Lord visited in a profound way that morning. They had extended hours of ministry and worship. The Lord just doing his thing. And that same Sunday night On Father's Day, June 18, they had another service. And then that led to services almost every day of the week for five years.

People flooded to Pensacola, Florida, from all over the world to encounter God in that atmosphere. I had the privilege of visiting the revival many, many times over the course of those years. And the revival was characterized by powerful manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Repentance, a call to holiness, a sense of refreshing. An estimated 5 million people attended from all over the world.

Well, about three and a half years into the revival, one of my visits was in January of 1999 when we chartered a bus. A group of 60 women and myself, we chartered a bus to attend the Arise Deborah Women's Conference. There, right in the midst of the revival, God visited us in ways that I will never forget, ways that I can't even really describe. And now, more than 26 years later, the Lord's been reminding me of those specific encounters in profound and intentional ways. There was a song that was one of the anthems of the revival, and it was one that was played a lot during that time.

It was written by one of the women that was impacted by the revival, and then she became part of their team there, their worship team. A lady by the name of Jessie Rogers. She wrote a song straight out of Psalm 46 called There is a River. Over the last couple of weeks, as I've been pondering things in my own life, if I'm honest, waking up with worries have never been one that has had panic attacks. I don't know if I've had a panic attack, but if I had to imagine what it's like, I've come pretty close.

Even over the last couple of weeks as I would wake up in the night and begin to talk to the Lord about these things, I would start to hear this song, a bidding out of the heart of God to his people. And as I was preparing for my time this morning, Pastor Jay asked several weeks ago, probably a little longer than that, if I would preach on this Sunday. I knew that I Was to speak on this idea. So the team is here to lay a foundation. And I declare over you this morning that there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God and he's here this morning to send revival joy.

Come on. Can you lean in as the team sings over us?

The city of our God There is a river whose streams make glad the city of Ha. God There is a river There is a river whose streams will make glad City of high God There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God so I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad.

I will rejoice Will rejoice and be glad oh, I will rejoice I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad.

Oh, I will rejoice I will rejoice and and be glad.

Oh, there is a fountain full of grace and it flows from Emmanuel's vein and it came and it healed me it came and refreshed me it came and washed away my sin I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad oh, Jesus oh, I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad oh, I will rejoice I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad.

I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad.

Oh, I will rejoice I will rejoice and be glad.

Oh, I will rejoice I will rejoice.

God's wanting to move again. Church. I know he's inviting me to return to first love. I know he's inviting me to return to the heights from which I have fallen. I declare this morning I want it back.

In the face of the things I have lost, Whether things taken from me or things relinquished by me through my wanderings. So, Lord, here we are.

Surrendered to you. You see every heart in the room, God. You know the ones that remember. They remember.

They've known the heights and the depths. They've seen you move in the corporate expression.

And you know the ones that have no idea what we're talking about this morning. And for every heart it was made to know revival joy.

There's not a river that we can drive.

There's not. We're not looking for a river that we're striving for. No. There's a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. And we want your river here.

We want you to change everything in the name of Jesus. If you agree this morning, you can say amen. If you're standing, you're welcome to stay standing. You can be seated, whatever you want to do. The team will be back in just a moment.

Few moments. Maybe a little longer than moments, but you get the idea. But we're gonna see God come because that's what he does when his people want him and when his people desire his move more than we desire what we want. Amen. Last Sunday, Pastor Nathan brought an incredible word out of the book of Jude.

And he talked about the great shaking that's happening in the body of Christ right now. He even addressed some of the moral failures happening in the body of Christ. And any of you that have stayed current with those things, your heart has broken like ours has many of us. But Pastor Nathan shared an illustration. I actually wasn't here last Sunday, but I listened to it on Monday.

And I've thought about this idea, this picture that he gave last week. Every day since he shared it. He talked about putting his ladder against his house to get to a higher height to do some work on his house. He said before he gets on it, he shakes the ladder. He doesn't shake it so it will fall.

He shakes it to see if it will hold his weight. He said God's shaking things right now not to cause people to fall, but so that he can find those that are ready for him to put the weight of his glory on us.

So many of you have known this great shaking. We've known it in our nation. I've known the greatest shaking of my life over the last three and a half years. We've experienced it in our nation, in the world. A pandemic, hostages, volatile elections, shootings, innocent babies dying, wars, and the repeated threat of what could be the possibility of World War three, racial tensions, economic devastation, and on and on.

We've been the victims of the choices of others, and we've been the victims of ourselves, the victims of our own need for freedom, the victims, our own need for breakthrough. I wanted to share a little lighthearted story at the beginning of this. Couldn't think of it, so I'm just going to keep going. There you go. Ta da.

All right. We have, in a global sense, experienced a profound shaking. But According to Psalm 46, which the team just saying 46, 1:4, God is our refuge and strength. Not everything going as planned. That's not our strength.

I don't know about you, but for me, for three and a half years, that's been life. My strength is not the plan going forward as I had hoped. God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we Will not fear though the earth gives way, Though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains tremble at its swelling There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. And then Acts 8, 7, 8, speaking of a revival that broke out in the unsuspecting and unexpected city of Samaria, it says for unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was great joy in the city. Oh, may we pray in our hearts this morning as true disciples do. Let your kingdom come, God. Let your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven, that there might be great joy in the city. We were praying in the pastor's prayer right before the Service or at 8:30 this morning.

And Pastor Prabhu and I were talking because he's preaching with the children and I'm preaching hopefully with spirits that are childlike this morning. And we both realize we're preaching out of Psalm 46 through this morning. So the Lord has an intention and he's declaring over us, there will be great joy in the city. A revival, joy in the city. But let me give you a backstory to the revival that I just read about in Acts 8.

There's always a backstory. There were seven men who were appointed as deacons by the apostles to address the practical needs of the early church. Stephen was one of those seven men. He was appointed to oversee the food distribution of the widows there in Jerusalem. Stephen was a man of God.

In fact, Acts 6, Verses 8 and 9 says, Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. And then the beginning of the next sentence is, opposition arose. The opposition that Acts 6 is describing, that is what led to the revival of Acts 8 was from a religious scepter called the Synagogue of Free Men. And they were just picking fights with Stephen. They were just arguing with him.

They were trying to needle him and kind of back him into a corner. But the Bible says they could not stand against. They could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave Stephen as he spoke. So this religious sector and his opposers were like, well, we have to go to plan B. The arguing with him isn't working.

So they falsely accused him. And Stephen had to face charges before the Sanhedrin. And when he was facing the Sanhedrin, instead of defending himself, he decided to preach a sermon. And in the sermon he was telling them about Israel's history, about Their wanderings and about God's workings and then about Israelite. The Israelites wanderings again and how they were worshiping false gods and idols, beginning with the Golden Calf.

And while he's preaching about Israel's history, he makes a motion towards the Sanhedrin and he says, you're just like them. You resist the Holy Spirit and you even killed the one sent to save you.

Not trying to win friends with that sermon, one of our deacons came backstage where I was a few moments ago, and just said, the Lord told me to tell you to preach with boldness. Well, I'm not here to tell you you're like the wandering Israelites, because I'd have to say that to myself. But that's what Stephen did. And this Sanhedrin became outraged. And it was then that they decided to stone Stephen.

And that is what they did. Stephen had a visitation from heaven as he was being stoned that I don't think he would have traded for his natural life. But that's a different sermon. But after he was stoned. Acts 8, verse 1.

The second part says, on that day, the day Stephen was martyred, persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all the apostles were scattered. Saul began to destroy the church. At that point he was going house to house, dragging believers out of their houses, many of which being physically persecuted and being dragged into prison. So what's the backdrop of the beautiful revival there in Samaria? It was terrible persecution in Jerusalem.

Tough sell for a revival sermon this morning. But stick with me. This was the backdrop of the beautiful revival that broke out in Samaria. There was a great sorrow in Jerusalem from which the joy in Samaria came. It was the persecution that made followers of Jesus go abroad everywhere preaching the word.

And Philip went to Samaria, a city that was already primed by a woman who met Jesus at the well and went back to her city to speak of him. So Philip went and didn't have to do much. He started preaching the Gospel. There were signs and wonders and the city was turning to Jesus and God was moving. There was joy in the city because there was revival in the city, not because all suffering was gone.

Now listen, I have gone through my share of suffering, and if we were to compare notes, so have many of you. And I promise I'm not sadistic in this message. I'm not wishing suffering on anyone. I'm certainly not wishing it on myself. I tell the ladies that I get the privilege of ministering to on a regular basis, that during COVID when I couldn't get my nails done at the nail salon.

I thought it was the Great Tribulation. So none of us are drawn to pain. But there will be pain and suffering. And when we learn in the midst of it to tap into this river whose streams make glad the city. That is revival joy.

And he wants to do it. I need to calm down. It's early in the message. Charles Spurgeon said this. This church at Jerusalem by Sore Travail became the mother of the saints in Samaria.

And it was not without hard trials and dire struggles that she became thus useful to others. Oh, that the great sorrow that some of us have had to bear of late might become the mother of a great joy to many others. It was so in Philip's day. There was much joy in Samaria because there had been much grief in Jerusalem. As I have processed some of my own season.

I mentioned it in the beginning. Worry over the future. I've never been a worrier. I'm really good at it now if you need some tips. Worry over finances.

Intense warfare in my mind. Yet in the midst of of it I've heard this bidding, this invitation out of the heart of God. Waking up in the night hearing it. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. Maybe you don't know what's going to come of a diagnosis or a prognosis.

May you hear the bidding of heaven saying, but there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. Maybe you don't know what's going to come of a financial crisis. May you hear the bidding of God saying There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. We experienced great renewal in our midst during those revival days in Brownsville. We would charter buses to Florida and we experienced a renewal right here in Concord.

I'll talk about that more in a moment. I'm going to talk about it more with The Ladies on August 15th. Little shameless plug there. Thursday morning, 10am don't miss it. But the Lord is pleading even this morning.

In the book of Acts. Miracles and power and breakthrough that were born out of suffering brought great joy to the city. And we're going to dig into that great joy this morning. Come on, church. This isn't a funeral dirge.

There's hope in the midst of this. We're going to dig a little deeper into this idea. Maybe you need me to come down a few notches. I think I need to woo. Deep breath.

Okay. It's been in here. It's coming out. We spoke to Our souls during worship to that lion inside of us. Come on, how many of you want it back this morning?

Let's get it back. Let's get it back. There's a lion inside of us that says, I will bless you, the Lord. All right, so we're going to dig in deep. I texted dear friends of mine we would pray.

For six years, we prayed two days a week, and on Saturday nights, we would pray hours into the night. We did it for over six years, and we saw revival come. And I texted them yesterday morning, I said, pray. Pray that the Lord would show up. I had lunch with Marcelo and Hakel this week, and I was asking them questions about their story when the Lord prophesied over them.

In 1999, the same year I went to that women's conference and told them, go to America as missionaries. God's going to pour out his spirit. That's why they're here. We are in the hour. We are in those days of what the Lord has been speaking in the night to many.

And if he hasn't been speaking to you, you still get to be the beneficiary of is inconvenient. We have to say goodbye to lower levels. But once we've tasted, there's nothing that compares. So we're gonna look at second Kings eight. We're not going there yet because I need to give you more backstory.

We're gonna look at 2 Kings 8, 1, 6, a passage of scripture I've never preached about. Today's your lucky day. It's my maiden voyage into 2 Kings 8. See, I'm trying to insert a little funny, it's not going so well. So we're going to read about a woman and her son that's pretty familiar to us.

Earlier in the biblical narrative, especially second Kings chapter four. She's the Shunammite woman who's well known from building a place, creating a place for the move of God. By creating a place for the man of God, Elisha, she made a room for the prophet to come and stay he and his servant. And she did it before she knew what God was going to do through her act of obedience. Philip Yancey said, faith means believing in advance would only make sense in reverse.

So this woman, she wasn't really looking for God to do anything for her. She wanted to do something for God. And. And she did. And Elisha was so grateful to her.

He said to her, what can I do for you? This is in 2nd Kings 4. He said, what do you want? What do you need? And she answered I don't want anything.

I have a home among my own people. And the scripture tells us she was a wealthy woman. So in every material way, she didn't have need of anything. She wasn't trying to get anything from God. She was wanting to do something for God.

She was determined to use what God had given her, expecting nothing in return. Can you relate? I can't, really. This woman was incredibly pure in her motives before God. So Elisha comes to her and says, you've gone to all this trouble for us.

Speaking of Elisha and Gehazi, his servant, he said, what can we do for you? See, God wanted to give something that she didn't even know how to ask for. I think that's what's being put before us this morning. I don't even really know how to ask for what I'm describing to you, but God wants to give it to us. She had something in her heart that she wanted God to do, just like you do.

I don't know what it is for you. Maybe it's a freedom. You want to experience experience. Maybe it's a gift. You want to see God develop.

Maybe it's a greater state of meaning than just survival. Maybe it's healing in your body. Maybe it's peace in a relationship. I don't know what it is for you, but maybe, just maybe, there's more than just me in the room. That the desire of your heart that you don't even know how to ask for is revival in our midst, bringing great joy to the city.

The woman had it in her heart. Maybe you have it in your heart. Maybe it's a personal need. Maybe it's a corporate need. Maybe it's both.

We need revival. That's a fact. But the woman learned how to hide it. So the prophet came and said, what can I do for you? And she responded, I don't need anything.

I have a home among my people. You know why she said that? Because she did. She was wealthy. She had a home.

But what she didn't have was a son. And her husband was old. The prophet spoke to her about a gift she stopped asking for. That's for somebody. This morning.

And the prophet said to her, this time next year, you will hold a son. It was so painful for the woman to even consider the potential of her situation changing that she responded to him pretty strongly. She said, man of God, do not mislead your servant. Don't say this to me. This is too painful.

I've stopped believing for this. Don't say this to Me. She was pushing away the possibility of something changing in her life. Has anyone been there? Is anyone there right now?

I'm preaching from my own journey this morning. She was pushing away the promise of God. She was pushing away the thing that came out of the mouth of the one that she had prepared the room for. But God did it anyway. Why did he do it anyway?

Because there's a river that makes glad. Whose streams make glad? The city of our God. About this time next year, you will hold a son in your arms. And she did.

Even in her delayed hope, even in her unbelief, she held a son. And one day, many years later, probably the boy was probably 11 or 12, he unexpectedly died. His dad was working in the field. He ran out to his dad. He started complaining about his head.

He sent the boy to go be with his mother. His mother brought him on her lap, and the boy died in her arms. Let me recap how I imagine that conversation going between the woman and God. I didn't ask for a son. You gave him to me anyway.

And then you let him die. How did it go from there? What did she do from there? What would you do from there? What I would do from that point is very different than what this woman did.

She didn't hang out in the place of that despair. She carried the boy upstairs to the room that she had prepared for the prophet. And she laid him on the Prophet's bed. And then she went to where Elisha was. There's a lot of details to that story.

It's a sermon in itself. I'll probably share it with the ladies come August 15th. All right. That's the last time I'll do that.

She journeyed to where Elisha was, and she said, I need you to come pray for my son. And he did. How in the world could this woman push past her disappointment and heartbreak and pain after all of this?

Only one way. Her confidence and trust was in the Lord. Jeremiah 17, verses 7 and 8. But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends its roots by the stream.

Roots are attracted to water. Where are you going to send your roots? Because there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. So Elisha came back, her house with her, and restored the boy to life. We don't know what happened in that room.

He went in the room, he closed the door, and he walked out with the boy. Now let's look at second kings 8, 1 6. Maybe you're worried about the time. I am too. But we're going to get there quickly.

Thank you for telling me. It's okay. It'll be just you and I. If I go too late. I'm glad I'll have at least you.

Abraham, you better not leave now. Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life. Now Elisha said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, go away with your family and stay for a while, wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years. The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.

At the end of the seven years, she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, tell me about the great things Elisha has done. And just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, this is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life. The king asked the woman about it, and she told him.

Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land. From the day she left the country until now. There was famine in the land. And Elisha said, go wherever you can. She chose the land of the Philistines, enemy occupied territory.

Kind of interesting. And that's where she's been for seven years. To escape the famine, she's now fighting the enemy. I don't know how many of you have been there. She stayed in the land for seven years.

So now the boy is somewhere around 19. She is returning to the land where she had everything but now has nothing. She was the woman who needed nothing in Second Kings four. And now she's the woman who has nothing in Second Kings eight. And in the process of surviving famine, she had lost some things.

In the process of living in that enemy occupied territory, she had lost some things. So she went back into the presence of the king and said to him, I want it back. Why? Because she understood something. She understood God as our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, Though its waters roar in foam, though the mountains tremble at their swelling, There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. And so some of us need to appeal to the king today. We're often scared to appeal to the king and ask him for things back because we allow our behavior to be informed by our disappointments, by our failings, by our regrets, by our assumption that if God wanted us to have things back, he would give it. But through the suffering, through the regret, if we'll press past it, through the failings, if we'll press past it, through the deep, intense pain of the curveball sent into our journey, the sharp left turn, we learn how to send our roots towards the stream, saying, God, I'm not looking for temporary relief, and I'm not going to compare my life to some Instagram scrolling situational happiness. There's a river.

It's a revival joy that nothing else matters when you're in the midst of it and when you have tasted it. And for those of you that have, there's people in our congregation that were part of the Brownsville revival. Some of our elders, Jonathan and Summer Bina, who's part of our staff there, are part of the ministry school there. In the midst of the revival, we've got to start telling the stories again, and we've got to start inviting people. What God wants to do this time is greater than anything we've ever known.

I don't even imagine. I can't even imagine how that's possible, but I believe him. The boy who was a promise fulfilled later died in his mom's arms. But now he's standing in the king's court. He's standing right by her mother in the toughest of times.

In other words, the things that died in one season of her life. Come on. I'm preaching to my own soul. This morning, the thing that died in one season of the woman's life was the thing that stood beside her in the moment of her greatest need. So the king hears this woman saying, I want it back.

I want it back. So the king turns to Elisha's servant and says, tell me about Elisha. Tell me stories about him. I can imagine. I can only imagine what that sounded like.

I'm gonna give a very dramatic and compelling performance of what I think it sounded like. You know, it's gonna be dramatic and compelling if you have to tell people, it's gonna be dramatic and compelling. But this is how I kind of imagine it. Gehazi turns to the king. Maybe he told him about the time the people of God were waiting to see if Elisha was really a man of God, and he took his cloak and struck the Jordan with it, and the waters parted.

Or the time there was this spring in town and the water was poisonous, but Elisha put some salt in it, purifying it, saying, your water will never be cursed again, and you can drink from it. And people could. Or it was the time that some boys called Elisha Baldy, and he called for some mama bears to come from around the cave and attack those boys. They were sorry they had bullied him, that's for sure. Or maybe he told them about the time there was a confederation of kings.

They were in the middle of a drought, and Elisha came out and said to them, I don't even want to talk to you. Because. Because of the wicked gods of your ancestors. If I didn't have to respond to Jehoshaphat, I wouldn't even speak to you. But now bring me a minstrel.

And the minstrel started playing, and Elisha started prophesying in the dry valley. This is Gehazi telling the king. He's telling the stories. Elisha said, dig your own ditches and prepare for the rain. You can't see.

Gehazi says to the king, the rain came from a direction. It wasn't extreme. It didn't come from the sky like normal rain does. It came from somewhere else. That's just the way Elisha was.

So Gehazi is rehearsing the powerful things that happened in previous seasons. That's what I'm doing this morning. Rehearsing the things that have happened in previous seasons. Maybe he told the king about the one time they went into this widow's house and she had a little bit of oil. She thought she had no oil.

Elisha said, go back and check again. Why? Because what we call nothing is exactly what God uses. So Gehazi is just telling the stories. There was one story that I think he probably skipped.

It's when Naaman the leper came to be healed by Elisha. And Elisha told him, you need to go dip in the Jordan. And Naaman didn't want to dip in the Jordan. It was a dirty river. But he did nonetheless.

And his flesh, the flesh of a leopard, was restored to that of a young boy. He was so grateful, he said to Elisha, here are some gifts. And Elisha said, I don't want your gifts. I didn't do it for that. Well, after.

After Elisha goes away, Gehazi goes back to Naaman and he says, hey, my master changed his mind. He wants those gifts. Give him to me. I'll bring him to Elisha. He was lying.

And as a result, he was struck with leprosy. Gehazi wasn't telling that story to the king that day. So why am I telling it? Did you hear what I said? Gehazi was struck with leprosy.

But how was he in the court of a king? A leper can't be in the court of a king. So I guess the Shunammites the only one who was restored. Why do I mention that story? Well, because we look at the Shunammite.

Maybe some of you can relate to her. One who trusted God through very difficult circumstances. Her roots reached to the streams that made glad the city of our God. But some of you received comfort like I did by Gehazi's position in the presence of the king tells us that even if your circumstances are a result of your own mistakes, stakes. You can stand in the presence of the king under the blood of Jesus, listen and receive back everything.

And whether you're more like Gehazi or more like the Shunammite, today's your morning to say, I want it back. Because there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. Back to Gehazi in the story he's telling, he gets to the one about the Shunammite. He says something like, she built us a room, put a bed in it. She didn't have a son.

Elisha prophesied a son. She got pregnant, had her son. One day the son was in the field, started screaming about his head, and he died. And the woman brought the boy back to Elisha, and Elisha prayed for him, and the boy lived. And as Gehazi is telling the king, the woman walks in with the son.

So many stories to be told about Elisha, yet the woman walks into the room at the exact moment her story is being told. I believe some of you have walked in today at the exact moment your story is being told. What's your story? There is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. The king asks the woman about it.

So Gehazi tells me this story. The king asks. She tells him so. Then he assigns an official to her case and says, give back everything that belonged to her, including the income from her land from the day she left the country until now. So during the season of visiting the Brownsville Revival, experiencing beautiful, beautiful outpourings of the spirit of God, Sunday nights in Concord, Pastor Jay was in charge of that service.

And we saw beautiful outpourings, pourings of the spirit of God, lingering times in prayer. We had prayer meetings that would go on for hours, that felt like minutes. I'm not exaggerating, not everyone was like that, but many were like that. Spontaneous salvations and healings. It's hard for me to fully describe just how profoundly and beautifully God moved.

But I'm going to tell you about one story that happened during that time. And I got the person's permission. Who? It involves a young man who was 23 by the name of John Velser. We have a picture of him, what he looked like the day that he walked into one of the revival services.

You can leave his picture up. I actually contacted John and he wrote out his story. I'm just going to read it to you. He said. I grew up in church.

Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, youth group on Wednesdays, you name it, I was there. By the time I was 12, I started to drift. What started as little compromises became full blown rebellion. I got caught up in alcohol, drugs, anger, addiction, violence. I was just running from God.

I was sprinting. I wasn't just running from God. I was sprinting in the other direction. In my late teens and into my 20s, I began selling drugs. And one of my favorite spots to deal was the same church I grew up in.

The reason why is because it had three exits. This was at first assembly, each one leading to a different place that I knew like the back of my hand. And if by chance I got caught by someone from the church, all I had to say was, I need Jesus. And they'd pray for me on the spot. That's how twisted my mind had become.

I was using the house of God as a hiding spot for my sin. But On Sunday night, April 18, 1999, everything changed. I was 23 years old, living at home with my parents, still addicted, still broken, still pretending everything was fine. That night, a drug deal got delayed and I found myself walking into the church. I was high as a kite.

Came in just to see what was going on. My parents had this rule, if you live in our house, you're going to church. So I showed up. Baggy clothes, tongue ring, hoop earrings, weed leaf shirt, leaf T shirt. I wasn't there for Jesus.

I was there to be seen. The message was over and people were moving toward the altar. My parents were up front praying for people. Oh, those altar times were so beautiful. They would go on for hours.

The altar was wild. People were falling out in the spirit. Shouting, dancing, crying, speaking in tongues, and I'm standing there high, like what is even happening right now? But I started walking closer, one slow step at a time. I wasn't trying to get touched, I was just trying to catch my parents eyes.

Just a head, no nod, a wave, like, hey, I showed up, I'm good, don't ask any questions. But somehow, without even realizing it, I ended up all the way at the front. And then it happened. Out of nowhere, this woman walks up to me. I didn't know her, I never met her.

And in the calmest, most gentle voice, she says, john, God's been singing his songs over you your whole life. And if you'll surrender your life to him, he will reveal himself to you. And just like that, she was gone. In that moment, it was like my life went into slow motion. Scene after scene started flashing before my eyes.

Real moments when I should have died. One was even me being shot at. I remember running for my life, hearing bullets fly past my head. And then I heard it. I was there.

Another scene, another near death moment. I was there. Over and over again. God kept whispering, I was there. I broke.

I mean I broke right there at the altar. I said, God, what is it in my life that's keeping me from you? If you tell me, I'll give it up. I'll shout it out if I have to. God didn't start with my lying.

He didn't start with my bad language. He went straight to the thing I didn't want to talk about. He said, give me the drugs in your pocket. I reached in, pulled out a bag of weed and a bag of cocaine. I dropped them on the floor and with tears running down my face, I screamed, God, I give you the drugs.

Then it kept going. God, I give you drinking. I give you sex. I give you pornography. I give you anger.

I give you unforgiveness. Each word I shouted, it was like a weight lifted. Every confession was followed by peace. A kind of peace I had never known before in the Bible. The altar is the place where God meets us and changes us.

And on April 18, 1999, at a church in North Carolina, God met me at the altar and he changed everything. I'm just reading what he said now, a little uncomfortable for me. I'm so thankful for the angel God sent me that night. She didn't judge my appearance. She didn't see the drugs, the past or the pain.

She saw a son of God and spoke life over me. Because that's what grace does. It doesn't ignore the mess. It speaks to the miracle. Inside of it.

Every year on April 18, I make it a point to call Pastor Terry Fur. And he does. I thank her for being sensitive to the Holy Spirit that night. Because the truth is, if she hadn't obeyed God's voice, I don't know where I'd be today or if I'd even still be alive. Put up the after picture of John.

John is now a pastor for many years. That's he and his wife. Wife. He has two beautiful boys. He's preaching right now in Minnesota.

Because there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God. Listen, church, it's 10:30. If you'll give me 10 minutes, we're going to lean into God. Not for me to speak. I'm going to give you rapid fire points.

That will take about three minutes. Right now, as it relates to the river of God, Number one. God wants to bring revival joy to ourselves city and to our hearts and to our lives. Hear me, church. He's the God who restores in the midst of great persecution, God brought revival to Samaria, to the Shunammite and to Gehazi.

Number two. Hardship is the womb that gives birth to revival. Hardship is the womb that gives birth to revival. Number three. Situational.

Situational happiness is not the source of our joy. Number four. There is a river that makes glad the city of our God. It's not a literal river. The river described in Psalm 46 is not a physical river.

It flowed through. It didn't actually flow through Jerusalem. It's a symbolic river. It's a symbolic representation of God's presence and blessing. And the streams of the river make glad the city of God.

In other words, it brings joy and refreshment. That only God's presence provides some link the river to the Holy Spirit. And that's certainly a parallel. Often described as a river of life, refreshment, power. For believers, the river is contrasted with worldly sources of security and provision, emphasizing God's ultimate provision.