♪♪
Genesis 26:18 tells us
"Isaac dug again the wells of Abraham."
♪♪
In every generation, there have been revivals,
massive moves of the Spirit
that changed the course of history.
♪♪
In every revival, there were believers like you
who chose to answer the call
to become the one in their generation.
Discover your call to be the one
in your generation.
♪♪
We are about to take you
face to face with history.
♪♪
Hey, welcome to this special edition of Revival Radio TV.
I'm Gene Bailey.
Listen, we're gonna talk about something today.
I have 2 great friends here.
With us, Todd White, Michael Koulianos.
Welcome!
- Thanks for having us here. - Glad you guys are back.
You know, we spent a little bit of time together.
I feel you guys are like my brothers.
- Amen.
- We have fun, we've been having fun before the service.
You know, we just came out of--at lunch and
now we are talking to you.
So listen, today, I want to just see what God's got in store
because there's something, when iron sharpens iron
and there's something about the body when we get together
but I want to talk about--
Obviously we talk about revivals every week here
but it always comes back to
and you talked about it today in your message about
the presence of God.
Why is it?
And I'm just throwing a question at you.
Why is it and I don't mean to be silly in this
but why is the presence of God such an important part of revival?
- Oh! You're very good, I'm about the cry. You...
- Well, I mean...
when you understand that the presence of God is God
then the question would actually be, "Why is God important"?
And so,
you know,
I think that question answers itself but...
the promise of the New Covenant is the Spirit living
inside of us and He's also the seal of the New Covenant so
it's God's desire to be with us
- Yea,
- and...
under--I should say it like this:
Our friend Eric Gilmour says it like this.
He says, "Part of the curse of the law
is trying to please God without God".
- Yea.
- So His presence is everything.
Our every need is found there.
Our joy is found there,
our peace is found there.
Even the scriptures came from Him, right?
And they lead us back to Him,
that's what the Lord told us.
So, I think in my own life, everything changed
when I realized that the presence is His person.
That's what my father-in-law taught all those years.
So when the Lord said--when Moses said to the Lord,
"I want to see Your glory".
His Glory is His presence, we know that
so He said, "Fine, I'll pass before you"
and then He introduces His character to him
so the presence of Jesus is Jesus
and it's what His character is, obviously His goodness.
He revealed His goodness to Moses so
and I don't know but I think we are all on the same track.
- Sure, absolutely.
- Yea, we are.
I just--like when I got--when I got saved,
I didn't know anything about God, you know and I had no idea
that He even existed.
I never saw Him in anybody and I understand I was blind
so I couldn't but when He opened my eyes
and He revealed to me that
He had not just come to--
to live with me
but He came to come and live in me.
- Yea.
- You know, my whole life I lived--
you know, I was just in DC and I spoke at "Awaken The Dawn"
and I came up there and I spoke about
the spirit of adoption because to me the spirit of adoption
is the presence of God because I was an orphan
even though in the natural, I had biological parents
but I was separated from God.
Even the disciples, Jesus walked with these disciples
and gave them authority and they had this authority
and as an orphan, they had power
and they wanted to like still be in charge like and when
the spirit of adoption comes,
you no longer want to be in charge,
you know, you realize that your father is in charge
and so I shared how this--
this spirit of adoption comes and all of a sudden,
you're not an orphan,
you have a dad like--
His presence--He comes and He places this spirit of adoption
inside of me. My spirit, cries out "Abba, Abba Father"!
The Holy Spirit cries out "Abba" and when this happens,
the Holy Spirit and my spirit like...
Everybody is eternal so when we get born again,
we're eternal, we are just facing the wrong way
and we get born again, we are facing this way
and our spirit is regenerated but the Holy Spirit and my spirit--
It says in I Corinthians 2 that
the deep of God cries out to the deep of man
and the Spirit of God, He reveals the depth of God
to the deep things of me,
to the spirit of me so all of a sudden, I become one.
I use the example because a lot of people have seen the movie Avatar--
- Right,
before and if you haven't, there's a scene
where they're riding on these horses
and the only way that the horse knows
how to turn is that they take their mane and they hook the horse's hair,
it sounds funny.
But I give the example.
A lot of people are, "Oh, I get it" but when we--
when we connect with God, we become one
and instead of us leading God, He leads us.
and it's this presence of God that doesn't--
It's not so much a--
Huh, I mean, it is audible but it's more of a knowing
that I know that I know that I know and
you have this--It says that the same Holy Spirit in Romans 8:11,
a lot of people, you know it says,
"The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in us" and it says and
"If that same Spirit dwells in you then He will quicken your mortal bodies"
and he's talking and a lot of people refer to
just the resurrection but it's not resurrection just,
it's now, right here on the earth
that He will quicken my mortal body,
that right standing with God will train my senses
to discern between both good and evil.
So it's this amazing Holy Spirit guide,
the spirit of truth will guide you in all truth
and it's this depth of relationship to where
we connect with God in such a deep way,
where we don't want to grieve Him.
We suddenly fall in love with this One that chose us
when we were unlovely.
He came and made His home inside of us and we connect with this
and all of a sudden, we are walking with our dad
and adopted and we cry out "Abba"!
And it's just an amazing place to be.
It's falling in love with the One that first loved us and--
staying in love and nothing can make that love go away.
- What connection is it then to the depth
of your relationship with God
in the amount you let
God's presence take authority in your life?
What's the connection there?
- That's everything because...
- And why?
- Well, okay so, Exodus 25 says,
"Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell with them"
or among them.
That's always been the heart of God,
- Yea,
so God is never been okay with distance.
In fact, Adam is rebelling...
Reinhard said it to me like this.
I thought it was beautiful.
He said, "Adam"...
Bonnke said this, "Adam was okay to live without God
but God was not alright to live without Adam".
- Yes.
- You know, that sounds foreign to the churched.
- Yea, I mean, but it's the heart of Jesus.
Man, the cost, the effort, I mean, I think two years ago,
a friend of ours and Dan Arnold asked me to write an article.
He was a businessman, loved Jesus.
I feel the Lord here, very strong.
- Yea.
He loves this, when we talk about this.
So he said, "Could you write an article on Christmas".
Well, for an evangelist, I'm like, we're not exactly that
Christmas Carol like writers
but for the first time, as I started writing it,
I was in San Francisco airport on a layover,
I started writing about the gospel from Heaven's perspective.
What it must had been like, what the Father sowed,
what the Father gave up when He gave His son.
What expense did Heaven pay, did the Father pay?
What was Heaven like that first night,
where the Holy Spirit took the word Jesus
and made Him the seed in the womb of a woman.
Imagine what the angels felt like.
Imagine the atmosphere in Heaven and I love that--
that Hillsong, song that calls Him the Darling of Heaven
because he is the Darling of Heaven.
So for eternity past, the ages and ages,
by the millions of ages, the Father, the Son and the Spirit
were in perfect fellowship, perfect fellowship.
The Son stared at the Father, that's what the Bible says
and the Father back staring at the Son,
that's what John 1 really teaches, all by the Spirit
so they're just in this perfect union.
We call it Trinity Unity.
One through the one.
The Father was willing to sow that beholding
into the earth for you and for me and for you, Gene.
So when we talk about God's desire to live among us,
this isn't like a side issue.
This is the issue and so, to make it more clear,
Jesus said, "I will not leave you as an orphan", that's what Todd said...
- That's right.
- But how are not orphaned?
By the Spirit.
Todd mentioned that, he said, "Look,
the Holy Spirit cries Abba and we cry".
Those two cries become one.
When those two cries unite,
it's really only found in the intimacy with God.
That's the experience of adoption but Jesus said,
"The Holy Spirit will come", we won't be an orphan, don't worry,
He'll come, you'll know Him because He's with you.
How do they know Him? They weren't born again.
Because He was with Jesus so He was, let's call Him
the exterior Spirit at the time, not in them but around them
and Jesus said, "You know Him because He is with you",
because He leads us to the cross.
The Holy Spirit takes us by the hand before we know Jesus
and He takes us to Christ crucified.
At that moment, He goes from that external Spirit
to live in us...
- So good.
- So He's with you and then what did Jesus say?
"Shall be in you", right?
- Right.
So God's not content with just being with us,
even if that's amazing but He said, "I want your body to become my home".
On top of that, you'd think that was pretty amazing
and it is because God doesn't change us when we are saved.
He replaces us with Himself.
- Yea, - It's amazing.
But then Jesus said, "Ye shall receive power,
after that the Holy Spirit comes upon you".
So He's with us before we get saved, comes to live in us,
when we are saved. On top of that, as though
it's not already amazing, He clothes us with Him.
- Yea.
- That's why Paul said "It's in Him we live.
In Him we move.
In Him, we will ever be".
- So good. I love it.
And you have Peter that he denies Jesus and
lots of people, lots of people say, "Well, I can relate to Peter".
Well, my question is "Which one? Before or after he got saved"?
Because there is 2 different men.
- Yea, they are.
You have the one that's unregenerated,
you have the one that's not born again,
and you have the one that's been given power
by Jesus but is an orphan and wants to be first and
when he gets it right, he gets it right and
when he gets it wrong, he really gets it wrong.
- Uh-huh.
- And so I love this because this is not the new and improved Peter.
This is the brand new creation.
- Yes, that's right.
And so when I got saved, I didn't understand
and then all of a sudden, I understood
but this is what happened and it's in II Peter 1,
it says and the whole chapter is just so amazing.
It talks about--it talks about these different steps
and it talks about-- because Peter of all things,
like he had to know that he was forgiven
of what he had done and it talks about these--
escaping the corruption that's in the world by lust.
In verse 4, it says "Applying all diligence
to your faith supply moral excellence,
to your moral excellence, knowledge, to your knowledge,
self-control, to your self-control, perseverance,
perseverance godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness,
to brotherly kindness, love",
it says that "These qualities are yours and are increasing,
they will keep you from being useless and unfruitful
in the true knowledge of Jesus
but if you lack these qualities, you're blind and shortsighted,
having forgotten that you're purified from your former sin".
It's so amazing because he goes back to the simple gospel
and it says, "Make your call,
be all the more diligent to make your call", you know,
"Just make it firm, practice these things, you will never stumble"
and it says, "And in this way, an entrance
to eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus will be
abundantly supplied to you" and then it says that
"We always remind people of these things"
but look at verse 16, this is like so, so powerful.
It says, "We did not follow cleverly devised tales
when we made known to you the power and coming
of our Lord Jesus, we were eyewitnesses of His majesty
when He received honor and glory from God the Father
with such an utterance as this was made
to Him by the Majestic Glory".
It says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
We ourselves heard this utterance made from Heaven
when we were with Him on the holy mountain".
That's the mountain of Transfiguration.
See, you have Peter that hears this and Jesus tells them,
"Don't tell anybody about this" because they would be telling
what the Father said to Jesus
but it says, "So we have this prophetic word
made more sure to which you do well to pay attention
as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns
and the morning star rises in your heart" so
when this happened to Jesus, they saw it, they heard it.
It was scary.
Jesus said, "Come on, get up, let's go" but on the day
that the day of Pentecost happened...
See, Jesus had already breezed into the disciples
and said "Receive the Holy Spirit" but He said,
"You're gonna wait" because they needed the Holy Spirit upon them
so when this happened, all of a sudden
this amazing presence of God is poured out
and Peter had the daystar rise in his heart,
the one that denied Jesus.
He knows that he's forgiven,
it's not about denying Jesus, it's about believing the truth
that he's convicted of his righteousness
and the presence of God comes, the reality of God Himself comes.
He convicts Peter of his right standing with God
and Peter jumps up and boldly proclaims the Word
and the daystar rose in his heart and so when I--
when I came, when God came to me,
because we don't ever come to him, He comes to us first
because no one comes unless...So He came to me and He told me
"Todd, you're forgiven.
Never look back, ever.
Your past is completely gone".
So the daystar rose in my heart and immediately with boldness,
I can say "Abba Father" and I can go boldly to the throne of grace
so the presence enables us, where the Old Testament,
you couldn't get to the presence, you couldn't
and so they persecuted the way, the way, the way, the way, the way
all through the New Testament, the book of Acts,
you see the way...They persecuted the way, the way
because the way to the Holy of Holies ripped the veil.
God ripped the veil so we can come boldly
to the throne of grace and we can come boldly
so Peter on that day came boldly to the throne of grace
and never again, do you see that creep on Peter's life again
because that Spirit of God, the presence of God
came and clothed him.
- And the understanding or that revealed knowledge
of His presence in you, is what ran everything out.
- That's it.
- Totally revolutionize...
- And that's not just what runs everything out.
That's what keeps everything out.
- True.
- That's like--it's like with the presence of God, it's like a hose
that how do you keep it if you throw a hose in a mud puddle?
How do you keep dirt from getting in the hose?
You just turn in on. - That's right.
- And so when we are turned on by God Himself,
there's no junk that can get in the end of the hose
and it's such a beautiful... because that's what holiness is.
It's right standing with God.
It's the pure love of passion for Jesus. It's amazing.
- I was struggling to touch the presence, I thought
10 years ago, I was standing at my father-in-law's
and I was discouraged and I walked out and I said,
"Man, I just had a rough patch of prayer.
It's been like two weeks, not really sensing much.
Somebody was out there with him.
I said, "I don't know what's going on" and they said,
"Oh, just try the CD and pastor Benny,
"Pff, that's not the CD, man.
The CD is not gonna fix that".
And he calls me over there and he was at his kitchen sink and he had this,
you know those guns you can shoot to wash your dishes?
He took it out and he kinked it and then he said,
"Alright, this stuff is full of dirt.
Imagine this stuff is full of dirt".
And he said, "How would you get it out"?
And I said, "Would you climb up in there"?
"No", he said, "What would you do"?
I said, "I'd let it go and turn it on"
and that's exactly what Todd said.
You know, the river of the Spirit is always moving
and the Bible says that "He wants to take us
to drink from the river of delights".
It's all been paid for.
- Right.
- I think...
- That's huge what you just said.
The river of the Spirit is always moving...
- It's always moving, always... - Always.
- But we, as humans, even as believers,
even with the understanding, the revealed knowledge of His presence living in us,
we have a tendency to think, "Oh,
why is God not there"?
- He's there.
Yea, and when I say feeling I don't--I think
when we talk about feeling in the presence of the Lord,
it's not always a physical feeling...
- Sure,
- It's a deep knowing and that's beyond physiology.
It's deep in the heart because the Bible says,
"He who is joint to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord".
There's an actual marriage that's taken place,
it's real, you know, so the point is when--
we have to ask ourselves this question.
How much has Jesus paid for?
- How much of the debt has been paid?
How much is available?
The answer is He has paid everything,
it's all been done, He's been raised.
I was standing at a...I went to a Catholic retreat,
we stayed there at the apprenticeship, the LeSEA family was doing it.
We took some of these young evangelists to seek the Lord,
trying to teach them how to spend time with the Lord.
So I got there super early and they had this huge cross there
and the cross was like 12 feet tall,
beautiful sculpture and it had a sculpture of Jesus on the cross
and I was praying for America and I told the Lord,
I said, "You've got to do something.
You have to do something, You've got to do something.
You've got to do something.
The Lord was not answering.
"You've got to do something".
I mean, the sun is not even up.
I'm up in the middle of a swamp area
and then I heard the Holy Spirit say, "Michael, you're standing staring at--
a 12 feet cross, a picture of God becoming flesh
and being nailed to a tree, naked at the busiest intersection in all the city,
buried in the ground, took captivity captive,
broke through the ground like a holy glorified new creature.
He pierced the ground and pierced the sky,
filled all things with Himself...
You ask Him to do something?
The Lord said, "No, you do something.
Come on, you do something".
Of course we need to be dependent but the point is this.
The fountain never moves. - Yea.
- It doesn't matter where we are.
I was in Heathrow airport once tired, layover.
I just want to get home. - Sure.
- Just want to get home - Sure, sure.
- and then all the bad thoughts come out,
I want to get out of here, you're whining.
You forget you begged Jesus to use you
and no one even wanted you in a storefront church
and I was there in the Heathrow airport,
whining and the Lord said, "Why are you whining"?
I said, "I'm tired, I miss home".
He said, "You know what to do. I haven't moved".
So I'm there with my bags hanging over.
I just got quiet and I worship Jesus
and man, Heathrow turned into Heaven on earth
for me. - Yea.
- But Heaven really is within us.
It needs to be okay to dive into these places.
The Kingdom is within us.
Jesus is there.
How much of Jesus...
How much of Jesus is there?
He lives there in all of His fullness.
Sometimes, we don't want to believe it
but it's happening. - Yea.
- Kathryn said it like this.
"The greatest gift God ever gave the world is Jesus.
The greatest gift God gave to the Church is His Spirit",
- Right, - And He's in us.
- That's right.
- Doesn't matter if you're bagging groceries,
you can worship Him. - Uh-huh.
- We don't worship Him to get Him there,
we worship Him because He is there.
- Right.
You know in the 70's--60's and 70's,
we experienced the Great Jesus Movement.
People were flooding - Wow,
- and they were coming to get saved and I remember,
and they looked different and you know...
You've got to remember in 1968--the beginning of 1968,
every major university had a dress code
with hair over the ears and you had to wear certain ties.
I mean, that's the dress code.
By the end of 1968, we had fires and riots and
everything was going crazy and we had "free love" and so,
I mean, this is what--[Laughs]
1968 in history was a pivotal year for America
but in light of that,
what happened, you had this massive turn to Jesus
and He's more real and so suddenly, all these people
are coming to your church and they don't fit your--
your idea of what you ought to be because
they still had this opinion of this.
But I remember some of it was intimidating.
I was young at the time but I remember some of it was intimidating
to those "elders" in the church because
these people had a knowledge of a revealed Jesus in them
that they didn't have.
So only statistics show that only 40% of those
who got saved during that time, stayed with it
because we didn't know--the Church I say "we",
the Church didn't know how to deal with bringing in
this massive harvest of souls but and a lot of it was,
I remember a preacher years ago saying
"A fanatic is someone who loves Jesus more than you do".
You know, but what he meant was, this is what it is.
This is the best thing ever.
You've got to know and there's this knowledge of the presence of Jesus
living on the inside of you. - Yea.
And that's you, Todd, every time you go out,
I mean, it's so obvious even to the believers, man.
We see you out there on the street and all the videos we see of you,
it's kind of like, wow! Jesus is real to Todd White
and that's why these people are just drawn to you, man
and they see all this happening to you
with you, but that's where we are all supposed to be.
- See, you know the Word, because this is where it's at for me.
When I got saved, I've never read a book before.
I couldn't read. I had a learning disorder.
- This is the first book I've read.
- So the first book I've read is the Bible and it's the first one
and that made sense to me because
it wasn't for my brain, it was for my heart.
- You know who else was like that? A little bit of history.
Smith Wigglesworth - Oh! Come on, man.
[Laughs]
That's it, we are done with that. Amen.
- That's the only book he ever read.
- Come on.
So this is like...
So I had filled my mind with trash my whole life
and then I saw in II Corinthians 10,
that "The weapons that we have are mighty
and pulling down strongholds".
"Weapons that we have are mighty and pulling down strong holds"
Every thought captive, so my mind that is all messed up
and then right there in II Corinthians 11,
Paul says "Bear with me in foolishness and you do bear with me".
He said, "For I'm jealous for you with a godly jealousy
for I betrothed you to one husband" meaning
I've set you up with one husband.
You know, one husband that I may present you
as a chaste virgin to Christ. - That's right.
- And that hit me and I said, "Oh, my gosh" and God said,
"Todd, it's as if you've never been with the world before.
It's as if you've never slept with anything in this world before.
It says, "If I am your first person ever.
You are presented as a chaste virgin.
Now, your mind is the blank canvas, the virgin canvas
and now I'm gonna write on it" and God started to just
vroom, renew and I camped in a place of the Word
and asking on my knees, always "God, You have to make this my life.
You have to make this, this what this says in my life"
and I saw that "Don't be conformed but be transformed by the renewing"
and I saw the picture is from a caterpillar
into a butterfly, where the cocoon, where it doesn't
look like anything like it "boom" when it comes out,
it's a brand-new creation.
My whole life just, I freaked out and I started to just...
I cut off TV, I cut off everything.
I didn't want anything but I would come home from work
and go in my bedroom and even in the trench...
I worked in a pipe trench. I was a pipelayer
I wanted to get a job and I'd sit on the end when I was done
doing everything I had to do, do it as fast as I could,
under the Lord, not for people.
I'd sit there with this 50-cents New Testament Bible
and I'd say, "Oh my gosh" and the guys would
throw pebbles at me, teasing me.
It didn't matter, man.
They could hit me as long as they wanted.
I'm gonna get this here fixed and I just go after Jesus.
I come home and I go in my bedroom
and I just open the Bible and say,
"God, speak and shut everything off so that
the thoughts that I had were God's thoughts.
In I Corinthians chapter 2, like we said earlier,
"Deep of God, the depth of man".
It says, right at the end, it says, "We have the mind of Christ"
and so God's given us His mind.
He's given us the ability to think with His mind and so
it's not just reading the Bible to quote what it says
but it's getting in there saying, "God, I need to become
what this Word says" and crying out to God.
It's not like I have to beg Him but I love Him and
I need Him to understand how important it is to me
and that's not when people are looking.
That's when nobody sees me at all.
That's just me and my Father in a secret place
and the secret place is anywhere, where no one is looking.
- Sure.
And even when people are looking but
they don't know what you're thinking.
- That's right.
The secret place to me is when people might be looking at you,
but they don't know what you're thinking
and I'm meditating on the truth
and He's possessing me with who He is.
So powerful.
He impregnates me with Him.
- Yea, that's right.
- When Paul said that the Church, that I betrothed you,
you hear the heart of the special Father saying,
"I've been choosing you".
As Todd said, "As a chaste virgin and with chastity
flowing through unto one husband"
but he said this, "As the serpent deceived Eve, so you too".
So the Lord in His grace actually gives us the blueprint
of how the devil will try to pull us away.
How is it?
As he deceived Eve and so it would be like me saying,
"Hey Gene, this is about to happen to you.
This is exactly how it's gonna happen.
All you have to do is take a hard left to go to Genesis
and figure out how did he deceive Eve?
Always step 1. It's really simple.
Eve engaged in a conversation with somebody other than God.
- Um...
Step 1.
- So good.
The first problem was, "Why aren't you looking at The Tree of Life
who is Jesus"?
- And I think that's the important...
If there's a theme to take from today, it's that.
Keeping your eyes set.
That's kind of the common thread.
- There's one gear...
- One gear.
- I mean, it's full throttle one-way.
- Submit to God - Yea.
- and the devil's resisted. - Praise God.
You know, you read this, Todd, just a minute ago
but we didn't get to verse 20 and this is I Peter
or II Peter 1:20, "Knowing first that
no prophecy of the scripture or interpretation
is of any private interpretation".
It's for all of us. - That's right.
- It is for all of us and His presence is there for you.
Let's go for it.
♪♪
No comments:
Post a Comment