All right, turn to Jonah chapter number one. Jonah chapter number one, we're gonna preach on revival tonight. How about that? It's a good time to preach on revival when you're having a revival, right? I know, you know, revival, there's a lot of churches, a lot of churches, and man, I'm not throwing stones. I'm perfectly fine with, they'll call them jubilees, or back in old days they'd call them protractive meetings, and you know, what's special, tent meetings, camp meetings, and it seems like more and more so, I don't know why, but you won't hear, sometimes churches will avoid using the term revival. And I'm not afraid of that term. I like that term. I think it's a biblical term. I think it's a term that fits exactly what we need in most cases, and I'll say without reservation, in my own heart and life, on a continual basis, I need to be revived. And so we're gonna preach on a one in a million revival tonight. Jonah chapter number one. For sake of time, I won't read the entire chapter, but we'll kinda jump all around the book of Jonah. And I just wanna give you what God gave me just not very long ago when I was thinking about this topic of revival and how it is so needed, I believe, in the day and hour in which we live. Jonah chapter number one, verse number one. Let's just read a few verses here. And then we'll jump right in, like I said, kind of expound upon some of the other verses as we move along. Verse number one, now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the Lord, went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare of their oven, went down into it to go with them unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord. Lord, we surely love you tonight. We're so unworthy, but we're so undeserving of your goodness, your grace, and your mercy. And Lord, we're undeserving of your willingness to revive us, Lord, and to bless us, and to encourage us, and help us, Lord. We're a blessed people and we take your blessings for granted. And yet Lord, you continue to bless us and you continue to forgive us and you continue to help us. And Lord, I wanna thank you for that tonight. Lord, I pray that you'd help these, your people, Lord, with the reading of your word and Lord, just the thoughts that you gave me that helped me so much, Lord, help it to be a help to somebody here tonight. And have your will in your way. Take the preeminence. Lord, help these people to see you and not me. In Jesus' name, amen. A one in a million revival. I mentioned a little bit ago about just kind of the concept of revival and when the Lord gave me this, Brother Brian, I thought about, I kind of think there's kind of two, I don't know what you would call it, but two schools of thought or two areas of maybe contention or debate or discussion that you'll hear, I hate to say this, but more than I want to hear these days, because I think like many things, us as Christians, especially those that have been saved any length of time, the devil loves to have us striving with each other about things. and He knows He can't get your soul, and He knows you're on your way to heaven, so the next best thing He can do is infiltrate your life in any way He can to render you ineffective for the cause of Christ. And one of the best ways to do that is to get us all contending with each other, fighting with each other, arguing about things, debating about things, that just quite honestly in the grand scheme of things, ten million years from now, Ain't going to mean a hell of beans. Can I just be honest with you? And I'm not saying there's not a place for us to contend. I'm not talking about earnestly contending for the faith. I'm not talking about standing up for clear and definitive truths and doctrines of the Word of God. I'm talking about debating about things we're good, well-meaning Christians. I'm talking about people that you and I know. We know they love the Lord. We know they want to do right. We know their intentions are right. And they may not see eye to eye on us on every little job, but we are fighting the same battle. We're on the same team. Somebody say Amen right there. We need to yoke up together, strive together, and unify together for the cause of Christ. And there's a lot of areas like that, but one that particularly bothers me is this area of revival. And I've heard men that I admire and people that I love close to me make arguments like, I just don't think revival is, the way we interpret these, that's not what the Bible's talking about, or God can't really send revival, or God's not going to send revival. And these revivals that we've heard about, there we're done, it's not gonna happen anymore, and we've got it all sideways. Listen. And on that note, I wanna say this, these two kind of areas of strife, that's kind of the first one, is you'll hear people, number one, they'll debate the terminology. They'll debate about what that word means exactly. Well, can I give you just some basic definitions of that word? And where I'm gonna get these definitions is from that good old Webster's 1828 Dictionary. If you don't have a Webster's 1828 Dictionary, guess what? You don't have to go to the bookstore, you can just Google it. Find one, there's plenty of them out there, and I believe it's the best dictionary that's ever been printed, and I believe it's the most accurate dictionary that's ever been printed. Here's Mr. Webster's, Mr. Noah Webster, his definition, some of his definitions of the word revival. We're talking about the terminology. Number one, he said it's a return to life from death or apparent death as the revival of a drowned person. I don't know about you, that sounds pretty good to me. Sounds like what I need sometimes. Can I just be honest? Sometimes I feel like I'm just at my wit's end. I'm at the end of the road. I'm ready to just proverbially, if not physically, just give up the ghost. Lord, get me out of this mess. And I need to be revived. I need a return to life. I need an injection of life, spiritually, as from a death or as a person who's revived from death, proverbially speaking. Number two, he said it's a return to activity from a state of languor. Now that word languor, there's many definitions, but probably the best biblical terminology would be lukewarmness. Languor means lethargicness. It means to just kind of be, can I just put it in just generic terms, kind of just wishy-washy, flim-flamming around, floating in the breeze. Just a life that we live where we're just kind of getting by to get by. And that, I believe, is a great definition for the word revival. I don't know about you, but in this day and hour in which we live, it's such an ironic day we live in, brother Brian. We have never been, and I'm not here to beat you over the head, I'm preaching to me, okay? 100%. I have never been more blessed in my life than I am right now. And I think some of you could probably say the same thing. I've never been better off financially. That don't mean I have all the money in the world. I don't. We have bills. Brother Brian's already, we just invested in a very expensive ministry vehicle. Things like, I'm not saying I've got it all figured out. Listen, but at the end of the day, I'm a whole lot better off than I was 15 years ago. A whole lot better off when I was in the house with mom and daddy growing up. Sometimes we had a can of pinto beans and that's all we had to eat. We always had food, but it wasn't much sometimes. I'm telling you, I'm blessed. Blessed physically, blessed spiritually, blessed financially, blessed corporately. Think about our nation, how blessed we are as a nation. I know it's bad, listen, I'm not downgrading all the crazy that's going on now, but I'm talking about as a rule, we are far more blessed, especially than the generation that came before us, all the wars that they had to go through. And I heard Brother Sam Davidson preach several years ago, and he was talking about how he, and this is a great man, he said, I'm so sick and tired hearing this generation whine about how bad it was. He said, when I was a kid, we had presidents getting assassinated. attempted, they were getting assassinated, and vice presidents, and senators, and riots all over. He was going, I said, I never really thought about how bad it was in that generation before. Listen, we are blessed today. And the irony there, he said, why did you say all that? The irony there is when you get so blessed, it's so easy to become lethargic. It's so easy to get in that state of languor where you get in these mental battles and these mental struggles and the devil gets in there. That's his playground. When things are hard, when times are rough, you've got no choice but to turn to the Lord, right? But when you're blessed beyond measure like we are, it's so easy to forget about just how good we've got it and how blessed we are. So it's a return to activity from a state of languor. Number three, he said it's a recovery from a state of neglect. I don't know about you, these are pretty accurate definitions if you ask me. I don't know about you tonight, but I struggle. I'm just being honest. I'm being transparent tonight with neglecting the things that are important in my life. You say, what are you talking about, Brother Wesley? Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And just like I mentioned in the previous point, in this day and hour with this busy state that we're in, it's so easy to get consumed with those things outside of the walls of this church and outside of the bounds of the Word of God and let those take the preeminence of our lives that we neglect the things that really are going to matter 10 million years from now, and that's what thus saith the Lord. So I believe it's very accurate. The last thing he said was it's an awakening, here it is, of men to their spiritual concerns. Kind of wraps it up in a bow, doesn't it? So what are you trying to say? I'm not going to debate the terminology. If you want to have that debate and strive about it, help yourself, I believe we need revival, Brother Brian. I need revival, and it's not, when a lot of people think about revival, they think about some grand thing, and I hope God does it, and I believe He can, and I want Him to, but I need it in my life, on a daily basis. That's where it will start, it will start in me, and it will start in you, and then God will be able to do the work outside of that. Sounds like, exactly, I'm not here to debate this, I'm just gonna echo what the psalmist said, wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee. Then number two, by way of introduction, debate the terminology. I'm not going to doubt the possibility. There's a crowd out there, I've already mentioned, they doubt that God can send revival. And I believe that the unbelief, and I believe it's just a side effect of the things we've already talked about, the day and hour in which we live, the unbelief of God's people, I believe, is reaching an all-time high. where we just don't really believe that God can do what He says He will do. And I'm as guilty as anybody under this roof tonight of not believing and trusting Him like I should. Do we really believe that God can handle our problems? Do we really believe that Jesus is coming soon? Do we really believe that God is truly in control? Do we really believe that God can send revival? I mean, it's so easy to say those things, and I echo that dear man over in the New Testament who said, Lord, I believe, but what? Help thou my unbelief. Sometimes you just have to choose to believe whether you feel like it or not. Amen? And that's the state we should all strive to get to as Christians. There's going to be days you don't feel like it, and days I don't feel like it. And sometimes I feel like those days outnumber the others. But I'm going to, by faith, Choose to believe that God can and do what He wants to do, when He wants to do it. Sometimes we don't maybe overtly act that way, but I believe sometimes our lives prove otherwise. There are those who don't just, when you say overtly, what are you saying by the way? They don't just outwardly say, listen, I don't believe God can do this. But our actions speak louder than words. The way we carry ourselves, the way we present ourselves, and our witness, and the way we talk to those around us, and how we live our day-to-day lives, that speaks way more, volumes more than when we overtly say something. I think it was Spurgeon who said that all other sin touches God's territory, but unbelief dishonors God Himself. God can do anything He wants to whenever He wants to. And all we are supposed to do is just believe He can. Don't put any boundaries, don't put any stipulations. God can. Wasn't it how Dr. Sattler preached that message? God can. He still can today. There's a reason we're still here, folks. It's because God is not finished. And there's no telling what He will do if we'll just believe He can do it. Amen? God has never cared about the odds. God has never cared about the boundaries. God has never cared about what you and I think He can or cannot do. He specializes in the improbable and the impossible. And that brings us back to our text. Real quickly, let me give you three things tonight. This is what I want to tell you. If God can send revival to Nineveh, God can send revival anywhere. Why, Brother Wesley? It was a one in a million revival. Number one, God sent revival to Nineveh. Look back at verses 1 and 2. He said, their wickedness has come up before me. He talked about Nineveh. He sent revival to Nineveh despite absolute paganism. In case you don't know tonight, Nineveh was 100% pagan. There were no Christians in Nineveh. There were no safe folk. There wasn't a remnant in Nineveh. They were all lost. It was the capital of Assyria. It was the largest city in the world. I'm at the scale of it now. For 50 plus years, largest city in the world. At least 120,000 people, if you read chapter 4, verse 11. At least 120,000. Some scholars believe that was only talking about children. There could have been even more than that. And complete paganism. This is unprecedented. And there's nowhere on earth like this today. So what do you mean, Brother Wesley? What about North Korea? Well, guess what? There's countless underground churches in North Korea. What about Red China? There are countless underground Bible-believing churches in Red China. Now you may find some little remote village in the far corner of Africa where there's 200... I'm not saying there's nowhere on earth that there's some... crowd of people who has not heard the gospel, but there's nowhere on the scale of Nineveh that's never heard the gospel, never has been sent, never was before that we can find any record of, and never has been sent. It was unprecedented. Here's another thing about that. In most cases, when you study the Word of God, especially so when the children of Israel are marching through the land of Canaan, when God and His people encountered a nation like this, there was no grace given. They wiped them off the face of the earth. When they encountered those pagan, heathen nations, God said, wipe them out. When it was on this scale. This was unprecedented in many ways. I don't have time to go on. But here, God completely transforms the lives of everyone in a completely pagan city of over 120,000 people. So, what are you trying to say, Brother Wesley? America is in bad shape. I agree. We're wicked. As a nation, corporately, it's awful what we have to see and deal with on the daily base. But can I tell you this? We're not none of the wicked. There's a remnant of people in the United States of America and in all of those places in the world that still believe and trust in Almighty God. So this world's terrible morally. It's easy to look around and become discouraged, but I'm here to tell you tonight, Take heart, we're not Nineveh. And if God can send a revival to Nineveh, He can send a revival to us. I would say this, even though you may look around and think, boy, it's awful, it's terrible. Guess what? All major revivals, every single major revival that God has ever sent came during a dark time. Why else would you need revival, Brother Brian? Why else would we need to be revived if we weren't living in dark times and needing revival? So we are primed for revival, and God can send revival. So even though nobody in Nineveh was saved, nobody there had ever heard the gospel, and everyone was a savage pagan, God still sent revival. We're talking about a one in a million revival. Number two, God sent revival not just despite absolute paganism, But look at verse number three, we read, Jonah rose up to flee into Tarsus from the presence of the Lord and went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarsus, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it and to go with him unto Tarsus from the presence of the Lord. Can I say this? God sent revival despite an apathetic preacher. And let me say this tonight, that's putting it lightly. I don't wanna sound too overly critical, because we all got our problems. Somebody say amen right there. We all got issues. We all have struggles. We all have things that we deal with. We've all dropped the ball. I don't even want to think about how many times I have broken God's heart. So please don't get me wrong. But at the same time, I think you're going to be hard pressed to find a more, I said apathetic, I think a better word is pathetic, excuse for a Christian in the Word of God than Jonah. You are hard pressed to find any redeeming quality about this man. And he was saved. He was a prophet. He was a preacher of the Word of God. He was a missionary. He was the worst missionary I've ever heard of in my life though. You say, what are you talking about brother? I don't want to spend too much time on it, but you know the story. Even you young people know the story. He refuses to go. He just blatantly disobeys God. What happens next? Somebody tell me. He runs. What happens after that? There's some kind of big something that swallows him. Anybody? A whale swallows him. I mean, he gets swallowed by a whale because he's so disobedient. And then in the belly of the whale, he kind of sort of repents, you would think. I wonder about that though, because as soon as he gets vomited up by that fish, he goes right back to the horrible state he was in before. You say, what are you talking about, Brother Wesley? Well, like I said, he blatantly disobeyed God in chapter 1. Constantly complained, criticized, disagreed with, disrespected what thus saith the Lord God was telling him. And then again, after being miraculously delivered from the belly of the whale, chapter 4 verses 1 through 3, read them, he never showed any signs of mercy or forgiveness. Instead, he held bitterness in his heart. Verse number two of chapter number four, he literally didn't want to go to Nineveh. Why? Because he knew God would send them a revival. Look at verse number two in chapter number four. And he prayed unto the Lord and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarsus. Why? For I knew that thou art a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Have you ever heard of such a pathetic excuse for a Christian? Could you imagine feeling that way, Brother Brian? If the Holy Ghost of God moved through the city of Simpsonville and brought a Holy Ghost revival, And He lets you be a part of it, Brother Brian. You preach the gospel and people were saved. And I'm talking about a community-wide revival. Countless people saved. And then after that happens, you praying and saying, Lord, I wish you hadn't have done that. I'm bitter because I knew you were going to do that. That's why I didn't want to preach. Because I knew you would save these people. What a pathetic excuse. Again, I think I'm justified in pointing out that the Bible's very clear. This man was an apathetic preacher if there ever was. One of the worst excuses for a missionary that's ever lived. If not the worst, as you'll find in the Word of God. Then finally, in verse number three, I mean, he took it even further. Not only was he bitter about it, he said, Therefore now, O Lord, take thee, I beseech thee, my life from me. For it's better for me to die than to live. Lord, I'm so upset that You saved these people. I want You to kill me." It's a wonder God didn't kill him. And Sally, I'll say this tonight. I don't believe there's anybody under the sound of my voice. I hope there's nobody under the sound of my voice like Jonah. I would think everybody listening to me tonight wants to see God do something, right? I don't like this lackadaisical sitting around, and listen, I'm not blaming God, it's us, right? But I don't like that. I don't like living in that state. I want to see God do something. There's nobody under the sound of my voice like that, I don't think, but I believe that there are some. Sad to say, probably nobody here like that, but they've seen God move before, brother Brian. They know what God can do, and yet they still refuse to believe that God can do it again. Like I said, it may not overtly be that way, but it comes out in the way we live, right? It comes out, I mentioned it earlier, in our disunifications, how we fight with each other and bicker and complain and war about things. Listen, that's just a sign that we don't really believe that God can do what He says He can and will do. Focus on everything but the Gospel of Christ. That should be primary. Brother Aldridge preached this morning about checking boxes. You know, we all live right and do things right, but if that's all we ever do, and we're checking boxes and pointing fingers all the time, and we don't do what we do driven by the love of Christ that constrains us, and the gospel at the forefront of everything we do, we've got the wrong motivation, and we're in opposition to a reviving of the Lord. Think about that passage of Scripture over in Philippians. I've got to hurry. Philippians chapter 4, verses 14-18, how the Apostle Paul taught in that church there at Philippi, and I'm paraphrasing, but he says, look, there's some that are out there preaching Jesus out of contention. In other words, they're not doing it with the right motive and in the right spirit. But you know what the Apostle Paul said? Thank God they're preaching Jesus. Amen. That's the kind of Christian I want to be. If the Gospel is being preached and Jesus is being glorified, even if Brother Brian, I may not have the right motive sometimes and my spirit may be a little sideways, praise the Lord, you're still preaching the Gospel, I'm for you. Amen. And that's what matters most. But this type of preacher, this apathetic, that was all Nineveh had. Today we have plenty of good preachers who believe that God can and will send revival. But even though Jonah was apathetic, probably the worst excuse for a missionary and preacher in the history of Christendom, and it was all none of a had, God still sent revival. I don't know if you noticed before I move to the next point, I'll close quickly, but have you ever just read the actual sermon that Jonah preached? You know, when you just think about it on the surface, you think, boy, well, he finally got right with God, went there and preached a great message. No, he literally just walked through the city and told them that in 40 days they were all going to die. That was it. That's all he said. Forty days, everybody here is going to die. Could you imagine if me and Brother Brian just, you know, got a wild hair and said, hey, we're going to go to North Korea. We're just going to barge through North Korea from South Korea. We're going to walk in there, and the only thing we're going to tell these people is in 40 days, every one of you is going to die. I wonder how many of them will be saved. Probably none of them. But that's exactly what Jonah did, and God still somehow sent revival to Nineveh. So can God send revival to America? I believe He can. He sent it to Nineveh despite all that. Then number three, God sent revival not just despite an apathetic preacher and absolute paganism, but he sent revival despite an absence of prophecy. I won't spend a lot of time on this, but I do want to say this. If you study your Bible, you'll find there was no prior biblical prophecy that God would send a revival on the scale that He sent to a city as large as Nineveh. You won't find any prophecy in the Word of God that prophesied that. And some will point, I'll say, you say, what are you trying to say? Well, some point to what may seem like an absence of America in biblical prophecy. And I don't want to get into all that. If you want to have that conversation, I'm more than happy to. But they'll get very adamant about it. You won't find America anywhere in the end times and prophecy. So that means God's not going to send a revival to America. I have one problem with that, Brother Brian. In fact, I have three problems with that. God has sent revival to America three times. We've had three major great awakenings in the United States of America. God has sent nationwide revivals to this country that you and I live in. He can do it again. So even though there was no absence of prophecy, God still sent revival. Just one example, the first great awakening, 50,000 people in America were saved. You say, Brother Wesley, that's not a lot of people. It was then. It was a whole lot. It was 8% of the population of the United States of America. If 8% of the population of the United States of America got saved today, do you know how many people that would be? 27 million people. Can I say this tonight? If 27 million Americans got saved, we wouldn't have to worry about elections anymore. Somebody say amen right there. We wouldn't have to worry about politics anymore. All of that would take care of itself. So can God send revival? He absolutely can. He sent it to Nineveh despite absolute paganism and apathetic preacher. and despite an absence of prophecy, you may not see a sign, it may look bleak, it may look dark, but just keep on praying, keep on believing, keep working, keep on keeping on, because even though nobody ever predicted it, God still sent a revival to Nineveh. And last of all, and I'm closing quickly, God sent revival to Nineveh despite an awful prediction. I mentioned the message that Jonah preached there in chapter number 3, It was literally just a few words. He said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. Obviously, there were worse things that Jonah could have said. He could have said, It's all over. No mercy. Children of Israel type thing. Roll in. Wipe everybody out. It's over with. Or he could have said something like, You've got one day. You've got 24 hours. Get 25, that's all I got. But he said, God's given you 40 days. Still, it's hard to imagine very many more worse things that Jonah could have said to these people. It was an awful prediction. Could you imagine if that happened today? You know, we talk about how we believe Jesus is coming soon. He may come tomorrow. We say this all the time, preachers, I think about how would I change my life right now if I knew without a shadow of a doubt Jesus was coming tomorrow. Well, you know good and well we'd change some things, wouldn't we? And that shows a level of unbelief that we have because we should always live like Jesus is coming at any moment. And I know there's practical applications. I'm not so naive that I know that you're going to miss work tomorrow and never go back. No, that's not what I'm saying. But we ought to live with that mindset constantly. But that's exactly what happened to these people. They were given the ultimate ultimatum. Here is a deadline. Again, I know some people have tried to do that, some crazy people. Jesus is coming back, you know, 88 reasons Jesus is coming back in 88, and some of y'all are old enough to remember that crazy stuff. Of course, He didn't come in 88, so they moved it to 89, I think, or something. Anybody that sets dates like that, they're crazy. Just so you know, don't listen to them. The Bible says nobody knows the day nor the hour, and that means, you know what nobody means? Nobody. You mean nobody else. But we ought to live like He's coming. We ought to live like we believe He could come at any time. But they were given an actual deadline. One of the most awful, if not the most awful prediction that has ever been given. Jonah 3 verse 10, even though they were given that, and that was all they said. And I want to say this, I don't have time to read it, but read the whole chapter of chapter 3. The king of Nineveh actually preached a much better message than Jonah did. He preached a great message, and his heart poured out, and he repented, and all the people repented. I mean, it was a wonderful thing. And then after that happened, after Jonah preached that, and the king preached his great message, and they all repented and got saved, what is verse number, there in Jonah chapter 3 verse number 10, repented of the evil that He had said He would do unto them, and He did it not. Let me give you some facts tonight. Are you ready for some cold hard facts? I like facts. You know why? Because my feelings are fickle. So I appreciate facts. Facts over feelings. Somebody say Amen right here. Here's some facts. Every single time in the Word of God that anybody has ever repented, God repented. Every single time. You will not find an example in the Word of God. And I go back to the children of Israel. Every single time. They're in those judges and kings and all that. They would get away from God and be wicked and ungodly and turn to idols. I mean, live wicked, perverse, horrible lives. God's actual chosen people. People that He promised the promised land to and did nothing. But all He'd ever done is bless them and help them. Every single time they turned away from Him, every single time they turned back to Him, He repented. You say, God repented. That just means He relented. But He just didn't relent. He restored and He renewed and He refreshed and He blessed. He revived every single time. And I'll submit to you now, He has not changed. We may look around and we may see just awful prospects and may give awful predictions. And you hear it all the time, right? Politically, boy, if this don't happen, it kind of sticks in my craw a little bit and I'm guilty of it too, although God has helped me not. But listen, don't run around making these doomsday predictions every time somebody gets elected that you didn't vote for. Because guess what? It's probably going to be okay. Right? I can't, now listen, I'm gonna run a rabbit here, but I can't remember how many times I heard people say, boy, if, and I'm not that old, 47 years old, but I remember, boy, if Bill Clinton gets elected, it's over. We ain't gonna have a country anymore. We're gonna be blown off the planet. Well, that didn't happen, thank the Lord, right? And so on, well, if Barack Obama gets elected, or maybe you said if Donald Trump gets elected, it's all over. Listen, we're still here. What are you trying to say, by the way, is that God's in control? And we need to stop with these awful predictions and just believe God! It doesn't mean we can't say, look, hey, we need to vote the right way. And it may get bad, and things may get worse, but we need to be careful about the statements we make because we're not in control, I'm not in control, God's in control, and He can still send revival. Why do I know that? Because He did it despite the worst prediction and the worst outlook that you'll ever hear in your life. Forty days is all you got. And God still sent revival. So the projection may be bleak. I think about that prodigal son, right, when he repented. When he came back to the Father's house, he was privy to all the blessings of the Father's house. And it's no different when you and I... I mean, we'll have scars. Then we'll have regrets. But he's a forgiving God. And He will restore and revive if we turn to Him. So projection may be bleak, but I promise you it's still not as bad as Nineveh's. We've not been given their ultimatum. God hasn't sent someone literally walking the streets proclaiming a deadline for His judgment. And even though the prediction for Nineveh was urgent, as terrible as it could be, God still sent revival. I'm finished. What's the message tonight? God can send revival. And I don't want to debate the terminology, and I don't want to doubt the possibility. I just want to look at what I know and have seen and have witnessed God do in my own life, and know in the truths of the Word of God that I've seen that He has done and know He can do, and I want to believe Him. Does that mean I'm always going to feel that way? Nope. Does that mean I'm going to have doubts? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, I'm going to choose to believe Him, Brother Brian. And guess what? Again, where's it going to start? You and me. That's it. He's always... Oh, we're talking about facts? God has always used His people to send revival. And that's not going to change. He'll use you if you'll let Him. So I'm just going to keep on believing. You know, the apostle Paul, my preacher, Talk about, I grew up under, anybody know Brother Sammy Allen? Anybody hear Brother Sammy preach? If you ever heard him, you'll never forget him. About 40 years I was there at Concord, grew up, that was my preacher. And he used to make the statement when he would start talking about Jesus coming again, he would say, you know, the Apostle Paul would say, and I can't do a good Brother Sammy impersonation, but he'd say, the Apostle Paul, he said, those of us which are alive and remain, You should be called up together. And he would make that point that he believed that the Apostle Paul... I believe it too. The Apostle Paul believed he was going to be around when Jesus came back. And Brother Sammy, he'd make that... He'd say, I believe I'm going to be around when Jesus... Now Brother Sammy's been in heaven for going on four years. But you say, what are you trying to say, Brother Wesley? Do I believe there was anything wrong with him believing that? Absolutely not. I believe every Christian ought to have that hope in them. That hey, we're going to be here to hear the shout. Amen. And you say, what are you trying to say, Brother Wesley? I believe it's okay to believe that. And yet, while we say, listen, it's okay to believe that God in this supernatural, miraculous way is going to ascend from heaven one day and call us up. Miraculously. And we believe that, right? We believe that's actually going to happen. And yet, some of us don't believe He can send a revival. Try to reconcile that in your mind. I can't. I want to believe it all. Listen, I said at the onset, we're still here. We're still here. Why? God's not finished. I don't believe we're going to go out of here on a sputter. I believe God's going to do something before we get out of this thing. And I want to be part of it. I want to believe that God can and will send revival. 2 Chronicles 7.14 isn't a maybe. It isn't a mite. He said, if my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. He said, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin, heal their land. Preacher, you come around. Let's pray together. Let's stand together. Lord, we love you tonight. God, we believe. Help thou our unbelief. Help us this week, Lord. Give us some encouragement. We know that judgment begins in the house of God. It begins with us, Your people. And Lord, we know that just simply means us turning to You, Lord. While we're waiting on You, You're waiting on us. And God, help us to believe You, trust You, Lord. Just get in here, Lord, and believe, God, that You can bless and do things in a mighty, miraculous way in and of ourselves, in our homes, our churches, our communities. and we're trusting you to do that this week. Encourage us and help us, in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, preacher. Bow your heads, close your eyes while she plays for us. If you have hope, God could do something for you this week, if you're even interested in it at all, that God could answer prayers, that he could save somebody in your family that you've gotten here tonight, or somebody in your family needs to get their heart right, God could fix your home, answer certain prayers, God could restore, give you joy back. Whatever it is, hope still remains because we're still here. God's still on the throne and there's still hope. God could send revival. My goodness, we're nowhere near as messed up as that example of scripture, even though sometimes we feel like it's worse. The Bible reminds us it wasn't, and yet still God did send a great revival to that city. I don't know what he'll do in Simpsonville, Piedmont, Graycourt, Fountainhead, Spartanburg, Woodruff, and all the areas. We could keep on naming them, but I know I need something in my little world, in my heart. I need revival for me. And I believe it'll affect my home and everything else that I connect to, Brother Donnie, and I influence. I need revival to affect those things properly, to be the light at work, the light at school, the light in my family. Everybody's praying and you bowed your head and you closed your eyes. See, anybody who said, preacher, pray for me, I'm not saved, I don't know the Lord at all, I've never walked for God at all, I've never desired any of these things and God's speaking to my heart right now. Would you raise your hand, anybody? Does anybody here say, preacher, God's speaking to my heart that there's something more, something better. I've been living underneath it all. I've not been close. I'm not walking with fire and passion in my life, and I want more. I want the hope of this revival as we preach this morning, as he's preached tonight. God will give you something more, a greater purpose in your life. It's you are cold and distant. What a thought he gave that first. I preached on that line this morning in Psalm 85, Brother Morris, and I preached on that. Will that not revive us again? But what a thought of being drowned, a drowned man that gets revived, gasping for that breath and so thankful to have it again in his lungs and ready when he gets strong to go out and live that life that he has had revived to him. I pray we have some measure of revival like that this week. Anybody here that's a preacher, I'm gonna accept the challenge and I'm gonna bind in prayer with you, preacher. I'm gonna pray this week that God could do what Brother Wesley preached about, that there is hope for a real revival in this church and in my home and in my life. And I'm gonna pray with you, preacher. I'm in your corner. Raise my hand right now. I'm praying tonight. I'm praying tomorrow. I'm praying this week. Thank you. Thank you. Several hands. Please commit to that. Pray for that. And I hope that brings you here also seeking that. But if you can't make it because of work or something else that's going on, I don't know what all you've got obligated to, but I know that I want to be obligated to revival. I want to be seeking it, longing for it, hungering for it, asking God to meet with us. Pray for their family, for the rest of them to have the messages. God, no doubt about it, God has used these two messages today. I've never preached a revival for my own revival in a home church. I usually have somebody come in, but I didn't feel that was the direction this time. And God has knitted those messages together. And I pray God would send that real revival. Could you hope it? Do you want it? Would you ask for it? Anybody who's a preacher, I remember being closer. I remember what it was like at one time before now. And I know I need revival. Would you pray for me, preacher? Nobody's looking around. Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Good number of hands. Well, I got mine up, too, because I need it. I need revival. I need it in my life. Amen. I do. I don't want to just be stirred like a pot of beans. I want God to do something real, something lasting, something lasting. to revive, to bring that life again. So pray, service starts at seven tomorrow night. Go back to their table back there and get some of that music and fill your cup up, amen. They got some good music. Sister Megan's got some of those artificer things she's working on back there, amen, those crafts. And I know that'll be encouraging to help her and her finances too as well. Appreciate you being here tonight. It's good to see some visitors we haven't had before, and some we haven't seen in a while. I'm glad you made it, glad you came. And I pray God will speak to all our hearts. We won't just shake this loose. We won't just push it to the side. But God, the Holy Spirit will deal with our hearts. Brother Donnie, I wanted to get you dismissed for us here, and then we'll be at liberty to go, and be looking forward to be back tomorrow night. Spirit of the moon. Bye!