Amen. John chapter number 10. Would you turn your Bibles with me tonight to John chapter number 10? We're going to get started there. We just had revival at our church. Can I say this? We're still having revival. I think revival is more than just the name we give a meeting. I saw a sign one time that said, revival starts on Monday, it ends on Friday. Yeah, probably did. If that's the way we look at a revival meeting, what we're really looking at, not a meeting necessarily, we're looking at a life. We're looking at a perpetual life. We're looking at something that is lived perpetually, not something that we get together. Has this ever been your experience? You have a set of meetings. You come every night, which means you're doing something out of the ordinary. You're maybe not watching the same TV programs you were. You're hearing more of the scripture. You're being influenced by the atmosphere that the Holy Spirit is producing. You're becoming more connected to His voice when He speaks. You're beginning to obey, at least for that week, whether it's talking about winning souls or just getting closer to Jesus. We're doing things that are out of the ordinary, and all of a sudden we really start to feel God doing something in our life. And after that last night of the meeting, we can have a tendency to go back to life the way it was before it started, and negates everything that God was doing up to that point. But if you look at revival sort of like dieting, I know this. Years ago, you can tell that's pretty much a cuss word as far as I'm concerned. Dieting, it's a four-letter word, right? And so, if you try to diet only to lose a certain amount of weight, and you go back to life the way it was, what's going to happen? You're going to gain it all back, but most likely gain more than you had before, right? In order for dieting to work, it has to become a lifestyle. It has to become something you do every single day. It's a change. Can I tell you this? The revived life is not meant to be lived for one week out of the year. It is something that we live every single day. It is the opportunity to see Christ, who is the victorious Christian life, by the way. He is the producer of it. He is the sustainer of it. He is the power of it. The Holy Spirit moves in our life and He sees us live abundantly on a daily basis. And that's what I want to talk to you about tonight, the revived life and hungering for it. And so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pray first. I'm going to beg the Lord this evening. Would you pray along with me tonight and word the prayer in your own heart, the same prayer that I pray, okay? and mean it. Don't just copy my words. Let this be your prayer. Okay, so let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, I come to you in the precious name of Jesus, the name above every name, the name above all principality and power. Oh Lord, I come to you with a very specific request tonight. Father, would you do a work in our hearts this evening that would free us from the shackles of the self-life, the weight of sin. Lord, I believe that there is so much more to be experienced, so much more to be had, and Lord, maybe there's someone here tonight that is not experiencing it. John 10.10 talks about the abundant life, and while many are experiencing the saved life, they're not necessarily experiencing the abundant life. Holy Spirit, would you take the scripture tonight and so illuminate to our hearts and minds that we become convinced about something that there is for us to have that we might not have right now. But oh Lord, I pray that through a message like this one tonight that you would instill within us a desire to have more. Because there is more to be had. I pray your blessing upon each person tonight. For myself, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would work in me, that the words that come out of my mouth would be the exact words you want to be spoken. I lean not upon anything that would prop me up. My experience, my education, my study, my outline. I don't want to depend on any of those things this evening. I simply want to rest in you. And so I understand this evening, I feel as Solomon said in the scripture, I know not how to go out nor come in Oh, how we need your discernment tonight. I pray that you would impart and empower your mind into my very being and may I simply rehearse that which I hear from on high. Pray that you would bless now in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. The revived life is a life that is lived on an individual level. Now there are certain times in history where, like say 1904-1905, the Welsh Revival, or the 1949-1950 Lewis Revival, where you had God so pour himself out into a geographical location that, as they said in the country of Lewis, on one of the islands of Lewis, they said, you couldn't go from Meadow to Moorland without running into God. He was everywhere. There would be people who were walking from their house to another, and in those years they didn't have a lot of transportation on that island. As they began to walk from one place to another, all you would ever hear is people singing hymns. There would be men out in their gardens, and they had their tractor, and they're plowing, and so arrested by the Spirit of God that they had to shut the tractor off, get down into the sand or the dirt, whatever they were plowing in, and just repent right there on the spot. I mean, the power of God, the presence of God was so, so thick, you couldn't go anywhere without feeling it. They had services, get this folks, they had services at sometimes three and four o'clock in the morning. 1949, 1950, Lewis Revival, there was a dance going on with the teenagers, not a single adult there, all teenagers, over a hundred of them. They were dancing, and they were kind of rocking along to the modern music, and the Spirit of God hit so powerfully at that moment that, of their own volition, they turned the music off, and they were so arrested by the Spirit of God, they had to find relief for their soul. They started looking for a church at three o'clock in the morning. Well, guess what they found? They found a church that was still having a service And they went and they said, as these teenagers came rushing in They were already having an invitation at the time They come rushing in and there were people climbing over people to get to the altar And there were people crying out, is there mercy for me? Read some of the old stories about the Lewis revival, it'll light you on fire I think to myself, oh, how I would love to see something like that. I will say God does pour himself out at times, and for very specific reasons. Usually, when those things happen, there was usually a pretty major world event took place right around that same time. And I believe what that was happening was, God was working in the hearts of men. World War I happened 1904-1905. Remember, it happened shortly after that. and then other world wars and things that were happening. God did things to bring people into the kingdom, I believe, for such a time as that. It's about time we have one of those major world events take place preceded by a world-changing revival. Wouldn't that be amazing? Can I get an amen right there? You don't mind if I ask for an amen every now and again? Give me your best amen. It's not bad. We'll work on it. We'll work on it. It might need some practice, and I'll give you some this evening. Anyway, my point is this. Those are extraordinary moments, and we long for those. I long to see God pour himself out like that. The true revived life is not lived in those moments. The 1904-1905 Welsh Revival only really lasted for about two, two and a half years. I'm talking about in the intensity in which it did. The 1949-1950 revival lasted about two, two and a half years in its intensity. Now, it had effects throughout the years, but by 1951, the major effects that were happening had already passed. And you just had people who were living in victory, living in peace. They were living the spirit-filled life. The most, really the biggest part of the revived life is going to be lived on an individual level. And I'm thankful for this. I'm thankful for this. Very little grows on a mountaintop. You knew that, right? There's a certain, it's called a tree line. On a mountain, after you reach a certain height or a certain altitude, things stop growing. Now it's beautiful up there. You go up there and you love the view. It's beautiful and you want to stay for a while, but you're not going to stay there very long before you get hungry. and you need to find your way back down into the valley to eat or to live. The revived life, as it is, as God pours himself out, it only ever happens every so often, but the revived life can be lived every single day. Every single day. And that's what it's meant to be. So, John 10.10, I want to point out a few things about this verse here this evening. The thief cometh not but to steal and to kill and to destroy. This is the most important part of the verse as far as I'm concerned for tonight. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it, that is life, more abundantly. Did you know it's possible to be saved and still not living abundantly? It's right here. A person can truly be saved and still be miserable. You know, if it wasn't for the fact that it was in Scripture, I could at the very least point to my own life and say, this is absolutely true. Have you ever been miserable even after salvation? All you have to do is maybe look at this last week. Driving down the road, 85. We came through 85 to get over here and there was a nice little section of it that was the proving ground for the spirit-filled life. People cutting you off here, and people being impatient over here, and you have this opportunity to engage in what we call spirit-filled living, or enter the flesh and get into the ramp mode just the way they do too. You know, you could do it, Well, the point is that all you have to do is look at this last week. Has there been a moment where maybe someone said something they shouldn't have, or maybe somebody did something they shouldn't have, and it intruded upon your life, and you got hot and heavy, and you responded a certain way? Well, the Spirit-filled life is one that, according to Galatians 5, 22, and 23, the Spirit is love, joy, The spirit-filled life and the revived life are the exact same thing, gotta be honest with you. Let me ask you something. Is your life full of joy? Is it full of peace? Because that's part of the revived life. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. All of those fruit are supposed to be a part of the revived life. How much joy are you experiencing? He says here, I've come that they might have life, that's situational life, that's salvation life, that is the new birth. But the fact that he uses the word and separates salvation life from abundant life, it becomes a two thing, not just a one. So that the abundant life is something, it's not like some of our counterparts. There are theologies out there that would say that it's a second blessing. It's not a second blessing. It's a full use of the first one. So as Jesus comes into my life and he recreates me, he makes me a brand new creature, he not only declares me righteous, he makes me fully righteous in my spirit. I'm created in righteousness and true holiness, that's what the scripture says. So there is a part of me that is truly righteous, it's where the Holy Spirit lives. I do still have the flesh, so do you. And that's where most of the dysfunction comes from, but the point is that Jesus comes into my life and he saves me, he makes me a new creature. And from that moment forward, I have the opportunity, through the freedom he gives me, to live abundantly. You know the word abundantly has a two-fold meaning. It was not twofold. It's really described in two ways. There's a quantity and a quality when it comes to abundant living. Let's talk about the quantity first. I often use this as an illustration and I have reaped the reward of it. I'll tell you why here in just a second. So, I personally like Butterfinger candy bars. What is better than one Butterfinger candy bar? Oh, come on now. What's better than one Butterfinger candy bar? Be abundant about this. How about a truckload of Butterfinger candy bars? Because that's the difference between living the saved life and being miserable and living the saved life abundantly. That's how much difference there is. The quantity. If I was to walk in here, and I say I've reaped the rewards of this because I use that as an illustration, I usually end up with a bag of Butterfinger candy bars usually wherever we go. But the point is, if I had one, that's great. That's wonderful. Salvation is wonderful. In fact, to tell you the truth, it really doesn't even compare to one Butterfinger candy bar. That's not salvation. Salvation is pretty wonderful. Can I get an amen right there? It is so wonderful because my entire destiny has changed. I am no longer on my way to hell. I've been set free. And I'll say this here right quick. A lot of people look at salvation, the reward of salvation is heaven. It's not. The reward of salvation is a relationship with Jesus. That's the reward. But see, people, because they don't know much about the revived life, are missing out on the greatest aspect of the Christian life. Are we going to be experiencing heaven here? Why? Because it's all about Jesus. When I finally get to heaven, yes, there will be some biological changes that take place. It's going to make heaven different than here. But I know this, because heaven's all about Jesus. I can be experiencing heaven now. I ask you here this evening, are you? Are you experiencing heaven? So the quantity aspect of this is, yeah, one Butterfinger candy bar is pretty awesome. Now, put your favorite candy bar in there, which, by the way, what is it? Some decent ones in there, yeah sure sure sure. But if somebody pulled up with a truckload of them, oh my goodness, you'd be on cloud nine, man. You'd be like, yeah, this is awesome. We can make all sorts of foods and desserts out of these. The difference between, it's not even comparable. It is possible to live a saved life and be absolutely miserable the whole time. It's like, I'm on my way to heaven and one day I'm gonna get there, but I gotta endure this life until I get there. Man alive. We call those Eeyore Christians. Does anybody know who Eeyore was? I guess I just got to put up with this. It has a tail with a nail in it. Who in the world would want that? I understand why he's not feeling so well if his tail's being held on with a nail, right? So the point is, the quantity aspect gives us the idea that living save while is wonderful... People are always looking for something they don't have right now. Heaven's the answer, right? It's, I'm going to get out of this body. I'm going to be free from this. No, no, no, no. You're set free now. You've been set free now. The abundant life that everyone, and I'm saying every person in this room, if you're saved, you have the opportunity to live an abundant life. It's so much different. If you could experience it, you'd be like that person who said, Why in the world have I waited this long to have it? Unfortunately, Christians have been duped into thinking that this is all there is. We'll never be happy until we finally get to heaven. I'm telling you, that's not true. I've experienced what it is to live an abundant life. And he says we can have it. It's an overcoming life. It's to overcome frustration. That doesn't mean you'll never have a frustrating circumstance. Heavens no. We know there's going to be frustration. Anybody been frustrated this last week? Okay. Anyone been depressed? I'm going to go ahead and say, hey, I had a guy leave our church yesterday because I moved his seat. I'm not joking about that. We did some things in our church. We've rearranged some seats and so forth to make more room. When we have a handshaking song, the back of our church gets so congested. So I moved some seats around, and I moved the wrong guy's seat. I can hear the handshaking song in the middle of everything. He said, what did you do with my seat? I can't sit in that seat. I said, well, the same type of seat he was sitting in was right in front of him. I said, well, you can sit here. That's not my seat. And I looked over here. There's a seat. I said, you can sit over here. That's not my seat. Well, during the handshaking song, he left and told people he's not coming back. Yeah, I tell you, it's funny, but it's not funny. Who in the world leaves the church because of their seat? I maybe should not ask that question. Well, here's my point. There's enough out there to be depressed about. Those are small things. All you have to do is look at the news, read a newspaper, listen to the radio, hear people talk. Oh my, there's so much. Being a pastor you hear about almost all of it. Every now and again you won't hear about something but you hear everything. We have prayer meeting every Monday morning at 10 o'clock with our folk. We were there this morning and praying and sharing in prayer requests and this person's having a family problem and this person's having a work problem and this person's having a health problem And it's just, it builds and builds and builds. And the pastor sometimes takes these burdens on as if they're his. It's hard not to. You care. You want to see people thrive and live a good life and that sort of thing. And so it weighs you down at times. Am I lying, preacher? It gets to you. So, you still need to be able to live abundantly. It's an overcoming life. Hey listen, we have identity issues too, just like everybody else. I come to find out, I preached a series on identity, it was about, it was almost a six-month series, and on the topic of identity, I did not realize how important the identity of an individual is to their mental health in life. But the overcoming life gives us the ability to overcome these things. Most people are pretty happy with being set free from the penalty of sin, but they don't realize that that's not all they're set free from. No, I don't have a penalty hanging over my shoulders. I don't have a debt that I have to pay. And that's a wonderful thing. But the Christian experience is to be so much more. It's called the abundant life. Jesus offers us freedom from the power of sin as well. And this is what most people miss out on. Would you be willing to admit this evening that that might be you sometimes too? Would you be willing to do that? I know that when I look at my own life, yes, I'm trying to see that my life is lived in the revived life frame more than the non-revived, but I still have to admit that when the old master, which is part of the flesh, sometimes it gets a raging, and I'm not careful to commit myself to the Spirit of God that He might have control, yet I fall back into the same place as well. It's called the flesh life. It's called the self life. And it can happen to every last one of us. So the freedom that we have is not just from the penalty of sin, it's the power of sin. I ask you here this evening, what is your Christian life experience like? Here's what it's supposed to be. Consistent victory, surprised by defeat. Instead of consistent defeat, surprised by victory. supposed to be lived in the principle of victory. To say anything else is to say that God's just not powerful. Is that true? God's just not able. He can't prop us up. He can't empower us. Last time I checked, God was almighty. He could do anything. Do you believe that tonight? If that's the case, then He can keep us, He can sustain us, and He can certainly empower us. The self-life does find its way in, and the freedom that we have is freedom over the self-life, because I'm telling you right now, that will cause every problem you have. The self-life is the root of all problems. Let's take this for just a moment. Spouses, have you had any... Have you had passionate conversations lately? Don't be afraid to say yes. My wife and I, just for the fun of it, we have a passionate conversation every now and again. It's like, let's find something to argue about, right? Trust me, I know every one of my wife's buttons. Every last one of them. Sometimes it's just fun to push them. I don't know husbands, are you as aggravating as I am? My wife deserves a reward for the 25 years we've been married just because I push buttons like all the time. I'll sit around and look for buttons to push and I've actually invented a few buttons too. But every conversation that ends in this heated conversation will always lead back to the self-life. I want my way, you want yours. Comes to churches, same thing. Let me read you a verse. Philippians 2.3 says, "...let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but the lowliest of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." Boy, I tell you, that's so hard sometimes, isn't it? Especially when you run into somebody that you don't necessarily agree with personally. It happens. We learn strife, strife that comes from this self-life. We learn as a child, we carry it into adulthood. This is what a child says. This is what a child says. What's mine is mine. What's yours is mine. If it exists, it's mine. If it works, it's mine. If it's broken, it's yours. Wait a second. No, I want that too. That's what a child says. That's what a child wants. Try something sometime to see the self-life in full action. Give someone else the opportunity to have the best of something and see if they leave it for you. The best spot, the best food, the most comfortable spot, the spot with the most significance, the best place in line. See if they leave it for you. My kids, it's a mad dash to the front seat. Parents, have you ever had this problem? I have seven kids, and we have one front seat outside the driver, and they're not sitting in that one, okay? So we get out there, we have three cars now. Abigail's got a car, Rachel's got a car, and we have a car, and so we usually drive with three. We're in two tonight. I guarantee you this, that door will not open before one of them calls, shotgun! Well, you know what shotgun is, right? You're riding in the passenger seat. But every last one of them won, and some will try to call it way earlier than what you're supposed to, because there is a statute of limitations on shotgun, right? So you can't call it too early, or it doesn't count, at least that's what I've been told. Maybe I was lied to all these years. I don't know. The point is that we want the best spot. Others want the best spot too. It's the self-life. And it's so hard sometimes to get over, but the abundant life allows us to be free of it. My question for you tonight is, are you experiencing the abundant life? Do you know it's even possible? And if you knew it was possible, would it be something that you want to experience? I can't help but to say yes. I want everything God has for me. I want everything that he says is mine. And he said, I've come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. So he's saying, it's for you. Do you have it? I said this before, sometimes we get to a place where we become so satisfied with where we are, we don't seek anything more. And I told Pastor I was going to use this as an illustration. There was a plantation owner one time and he had a He had a slave, but he wasn't like a slave. He was like family. Say, how do you know that? Because he put him in the will. The plantation owner said that upon my death, this slave-like family got possession of the entire property and all the money that was in his bank account. That didn't sound much like a slave to me. The plantation owner dies and so legally everything that the plantation owner had became his. The bank account, the houses, the property, the horses, all of the plowing instruments and everything became his. illustrates salvation. When you got saved, you were a pauper on your way to hell, and when you got saved, you became an heir, you became a joint heir with Jesus Christ, and everything, like the prodigal son, remember the prodigal son's dad told the other brother, everything that I have is yours, and I am ever with you. He didn't understand what he had. So this slave became so used to, though, he became so used to his level of living that instead of beginning to live like the king he now could, what he did was every year he would go to the bank and he'd pull out $50 exactly. He had thousands of dollars in the bank. He could have retired and never had to put another seed in the ground, but he became so used to life the way it was, he went out and he would buy a sack of a cotton seed and he would go out himself and plant the field like he did every single year. He was living like a pauper when he could have been living like a king. That's the Christian life as it stands in our day today. I've talked to thousands of people. I have church members of my own. I have people we choose to travel in evangelism. I've pastored several churches outside of the state of South Carolina, and it is a reoccurring theme. People are living like paupers when they should be living like kings. If you could live like a king, would you want to? Hello? My hope is that you would say absolutely this evening. That's exactly what I want. How do we do it? How do we do it? How do we get to that place where we're living like a king? Well, the very first thing that we need to do, and I only have two points, thankfully, because we only have a couple of minutes. There are two things that we need to do, and the very first thing is this. We need to get thoroughly, and I'm saying thoroughly, dissatisfied with where we find ourselves right now. You're not going to want more unless you just get disgusted. Have you ever been to that place, man? There's got to be more. There's got to be more to this. David himself said in Psalm 85 verse number 6, Will thou not revive us? What's the next word? Again. That thy people may rejoice in thee. Now, think about what the word again means. Let's say you went to Longhorn Steakhouse. If I had time to tell you, not only do I like Butterfinger candy bars. But I love me a good steak. Oh, I love a steak. And we just ate, and normally, it's like our men's meetings, they're called swag meetings, servants worshiping Almighty God. So we have these swag meetings, and so these men get together. You know what we do? We eat while talking about eating. And we share recipes. We talk about how we make food. We talk about food. And then for the brief moment, we'll share prayer requests. Then we go back to talking about food again. It's like we can't get away from it. I guess that's why they say you get to a man's heart through his stomach, right? It's true. It's true. Let's say I go to a Longhorn Steakhouse and I'm telling you... Oh, I could describe a good old steak. So we get there and we eat the steak and I'm telling you, it meets every need of my soul. I walk out of there with the largest smile on my face. And, you know, it was so good. We walk out the door and I say, you know what? Man, we got to eat here again. You know why we say the word again? Because the experience that we just had is over. We're not experiencing it the same way that we once did. We need it again. When David said, Wilt thou not revive us again? Here's what he's pointing out. He even goes further on to say that thy people may rejoice. He is noticing that something is missing. Now the Christian life is to be one of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. Those first three are the only three you really even have to look at to see is something missing. He said, Wilt thou not revive us again? Why? Because what they were experiencing they presently now are not. Do you know what that takes? That takes some examination. People live an entire life sometimes and not realize that they're not living to the possible level that they could be. They're living as a pauper instead of a king. But you just live life, you go, oh, this is the way it's supposed to be. I'm supposed to be defeated. When I get to heaven, though, it's going to be wonderful! When they could have been experiencing heaven all along. So here's what it takes. It'll take every last person here tonight looking through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. Am I really happy with life the way it is? Am I really enjoying the ride? Now I know I'm on my way to heaven, and praise the Lord for that, but am I enjoying the ride? So I have a motorcycle, and I go to the mountains every now and again, and I've got to be honest with you, I love the destination, but I've gotten to the place where I really enjoy the ride. I make sure that the road I take I don't want to drive through the worst road in the world possible just to get where I'm going. No, I don't want to just enjoy there. I want to enjoy on the way there. And the Christian life is to be absolutely the same. I ask you here this evening, do you have the joy of the Lord? Nehemiah says it's our strength. If you don't have the joy of the Lord, you don't have much. I'll say this, if you're not experiencing peace and joy, the Holy Spirit's not in control, you're not living the revived life, you're not living the Spirit-filled life. The neat thing about love and joy and peace is that you can have all those things while chaos is going on around you. We've experienced that, and I'm sure you have too. We get so busy in our schedules and so forth. Here's what we need to do. Stop for a moment. Stop for a moment and say, just like David, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Let the Spirit of God speak to your heart. Are you full of joy? Do you have the peace that passeth understanding? He says, will thou revive us again that thy people may rejoice. Something was missing. The joy was missing. And he saw it. And you know what he did? He became thoroughly dissatisfied with where he was. Now, that'll be the thing that sends you on a journey to finding it. If you're not dissatisfied... Let me ask you this. If you're thoroughly dissatisfied with your job, how long are you going to work there? Not long. Not long at all. If you're, and I'm sorry to say this, in our day today, when a person becomes thoroughly dissatisfied with their spouse, people who are thoroughly dissatisfied with something usually hang with it very long. And when we do, again it's miserable, I was talking to one of our, I was telling one of our ladies this morning at our prayer meeting at John's experience at work, Bad experience. He quit today because the boss, I could go into it but it would waste time doing it. It was just a bad circumstance. So that only took a couple of days, becoming thoroughly dissatisfied with the situation. But this one lady I was talking to, she was a nurse and her surgeon boss was just an evil guy. He would cuss every person in the room. In fact, one time he asked for a tool from one of his nurses and she handed him the wrong tool. He threw it at her. And then she picked it up and threw it back. Here's a guy with his knee hanging open, they're working on his knee and they're throwing stuff back and forth. Pretty crazy. Anyway, she worked in that job for 10 years. She suffered with it for 10 years. And she asked herself the question every day after she quit, why did I stay so long? She was thoroughly dissatisfied with where she was. And when she finally reached that point, she said, something's got to change. and something did. For the Christian, as you look at your life, and I'm not saying anyone in here has a bad life, I'm not saying that, but I'm telling you right now, the well of God is deeper than any man can plumb. If you're experiencing overwhelming joy, guess what? There's more. Because there's so much more with God. You'll never experience all the joy on this side of heaven that you could. It's like, there's more. Can you imagine? I go to a steakhouse and I can eat a steak and be so full my eyes are just busting. I don't know why I said eyes. Something's busting. Maybe it's my belt loops. I don't know. Something's busting. But the point is that, guess what? There's more. There's another steak to be eaten. And if I could have, I sat down at a hamburger today, a double cheeseburger with bacon on it. I couldn't eat it all. I was busting. But there was more to be had. I'm telling you, even in a greater way, there's more to be had with the Lord. And we just got to get to the place where we're dissatisfied. The last thing I want to share with you tonight is this. It's not just about becoming dissatisfied. Allow our dissatisfaction to bring us to a place where we want Not just want, long for something more. See, just wanting something more, you can do with it, you can do without it. Oh, we'll just live this way. Oh, I wish something was better. But when you start to long for something, oh, I remember what it was to long for. Michelle and I, when we first met, I longed for more time with her. And so, here's what I would do. I'd put my body through the worst the worst to be able to spend time. We'd sometimes be sitting in the driveway till 2, 3 o'clock in the morning just talking. and then I get up first thing in the morning and go to work and I'm just dead tired and I'm struggling through the day but I tell you what when the car started heading back toward Breckenridge and I knew I was going to get to spend some time with Michelle I got this breath of fresh air and man I go back in and I do it all over again and then I'm miserable the next day I know what it is to long for something when you long for something you will put yourself in a position to receive what it is you're longing for. Until you get to that place, it'll be, eh, I could take it, eh, maybe not, whatever. That's why prayer meetings are very rarely attended. You know, you're not going to have revival without prayer. You're not. One of the marquee things, I'll end with this story here. One of the marquee things about the Lewis revival was there was two old ladies in their 80s. They were sisters. One had vitamin D deficiency and she was all crippled up with arthritis. The other was blind. They were in their 80s and they got a heart for the teenagers in their town. I told you the teenagers were at a dance and they were just doing the ungodly thing. And what happened was, at that time in 1949, it could be said that there was not a single teenager that went to church anywhere on the island. There was not a single teenager that went to church. So they got a heart for it, and they began to pray, and they went to a local pastor, and they said, listen, we believe God's going to bring revival, but we've got to pray. And so they said, the preacher said to these two old ladies, it kind of gives you an idea of how spiritual they were, he said, what do we do? And they said, we need to pray. So, these two old ladies, they put together a prayer meeting where they met every Tuesday night. They started praying at 10 o'clock at night and they prayed through till 4 o'clock in the morning. They didn't decide to just do that on Tuesday night. They said, let's do this every Tuesday and Friday. So, they got together that Tuesday, prayed from 10 to 4. Friday come along, 10 to 4. The next Tuesday come along, one week turned into two. Two weeks turned into a month. One month turned into two months. Now remember, every Tuesday, Friday. Two months turned into three months. Three months turned into four months. And God came. God came. I'm telling you what, had it not gotten to... E.M. Bounds, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the topic of prayer and I read every work that E.M. Bounds had. And he said, God does nothing if not in answer to prayer. But it's one of the hardest things to get people to do. My Wednesday night prayer meeting, we have over 100 on Sunday morning, we have in the 80s on Sunday night, at times we have 13 people on a Wednesday night. And it's not because everybody's working. We pray on Wednesday nights. And then, listen, if that's the case, listen, if I'm hungry, there have been times in my life I was so hungry, I was so desperate, I wanted God so bad, that time no longer really mattered. I got in my prayer closet, and there were times where I would be with God for hours. It felt like 15, 20 minutes, but I look at my watch and, whoa, hours went by. How bad are you longing for something more? Use your desire to pray and how much you do as a barometer. Because it'll tell you the true story. If you really want it, and if you want it bad, you'll be willing to get along with the Lord and beg Him, and beg Him, and beg Him till He shows you, maybe from the scripture, or gives you the right message, or the right truth that unlocks the whole thing, and He's done that for me. How bad do you want it? Here's what I'd like you to do. I would like you to bow your head this evening, and I would like you to address the Holy Spirit. See, He's the one, the Holy Spirit is the one who truly lives in you. We say Jesus lives in us in the person of the Holy Spirit, but truly, if you want to be technical, it's the Holy Spirit that moved in, it's the Holy Spirit that regenerated you, and guess what? The Holy Spirit is God. While many people out there say you can't talk to Him, I believe you can. I would ask you tonight to address the Holy Spirit and ask Him to show you, give you eyes to see. If you feel a dullness this evening, I guarantee you the Wicked One is putting a veil over the eyes of your heart and mind and you need that veil to be lifted. So I would go to the Holy Spirit tonight and say, Oh Holy Spirit, would you lift the veil? Lift the veil the Wicked One is trying to cloud my heart and mind with and I'm asking you tonight Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. You're asking the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see. If you truly are living the revived life, You're asking the Holy Spirit to give you eyes to see if you truly long for something more than you presently have. Are you really that dissatisfied with frustration and an unforgiving spirit and these mental health issues and depression and despondency and disappointment? Are you really tired of those things? Do you want victory over them? And that's the Holy Spirit, and He'll show you. Genuine hearts receive full-on truth messages from the Holy Spirit. So I ask you to ask Him that this evening. I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray, and I've turned the service over to Pastor to let him do the invitation as he sees fit tonight, but I'm going to pray for you first, and you pray with me. Father, as we come to you in the name of Jesus, the name above every name, We know that there's no spiritual, desirable spiritual outcome that's going to take place without your ministry in our lives. I'm praying tonight that you would show each and every person here, man, woman, boy or girl, would you show each person, including myself tonight, that number one, if we're living the abundant life, help us not to lie to ourselves. Help us not to justify things away. Help us to see if we're truly experiencing joy and peace. Number two, Lord, if you'll show us that and we come to the conclusion that we aren't experiencing those things, would you help us to see if we truly have a desire? And if we don't, oh God, would you stir in us, as the psalmist said, as the deer panteth, for the heart panteth for the water, but so panteth my heart after Thee, oh God. May that be the heart cry of every individual tonight. Lord, would you do the work that we cannot do. Speak to every person as you see fit and lead us to the well of victory. I pray your blessing upon the pastor as he concludes the service tonight as you would lead him. And may every decision be made in accordance with the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We pray your blessing in Jesus' name. Amen.