The Scent and the Sound of Rain | Kevin Wallace Ministries | @rttnchurch

I want to give God thanks. Uh, I was on an assignment this past week, actually the last 48 hours. And, uh, many of you, how many had just stay standing? We're going to read the word. And, uh, how many of y'all had some storms at your house? Thank God was safe. Amen. And we had to get rerouted and, and, um, we had to do some, uh, praying in the air. So I want to give God thanks today for traveling mercy. Amen. And we landed this morning and got here. And, uh, we were driving, flying through the storm this morning, and I saw lightning out there. And, uh, I said, "Lord, it's raining hard somewhere." But I got up, Rick and I, and Julian got up above that cloud, and I saw the sun shining. And I came to tell you, on the other side of the clouds, the sun is still shining. Look at your neighbor, say, "Hey neighbor." He neighbor, say, "I got a promise that everything is going to be all right." Give him a praise if you do. Come on. Hallelujah.

I want to quickly, I want to quickly talk to this morning about the rain. We are in a fruit wave. And there was two things the Lord just, two thoughts the Lord dropped in my spirit. I'm not going to preach a sermon, but I, I really feel compelled to release this so that your faith can get attached to this word. And what God wants to do is rain on every heart and every field. How many know that dry seasons are over? I said, dry seasons are over. Famine has an expiration date. Come on. Weeping only indoors for a night. Joy comes in the morning. And so we're thankful for the promises of God. I want to talk this morning about the goodness of God and the reign of God. And I heard the Lord say to me, he said, "Remind them about the scent of rain and remind them about the sound of rain." Rain has a scent. On where the old folk at? I know you young people, y'all look at y'all's app, it's going to rain. But my papa and my granny didn't have no app. We walk out on that back porch and my papa would say, "I smell [Music] rain." I see some of the old Saints nodding at me. Young folk think I'm crazy. But look at somebody real quick and just tell them, "I smell rain." God have mercy. I better go, 'cause I'm in one of them moods where I'm misunderstood and I will never make sense to religious people right now. But there's some people in here catching what I'm laying down and feeling what I'm feeling. Look at one more neighbor and and say, "I smell [Music] rain."

Go to Job. Go to Job. Britney, Justin, do I see a baby back there? Hold that baby up like Simba. Come on, y'all, help me praise God for this precious miracle. Doctors said they wouldn't have one, but look what the Lord has done. Hallelujah. [Music] We got The Lion King in the house. Oh, okay. Just kidding. Some of y'all smile. Job 14 and First Kings chapter 18, real quick. Job 14 and First Kings chapter 18. Job 14:7 says, "There is hope for a tree. If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender shoots will not cease. Though its roots may grow old in the earth, and its stump may die in the ground, yes, yet at the scent of water, it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant." It looks dead, and the stump died in the ground, but at the scent of water, it will bud again. Now flip over with me. Just going to give you these two things. First Kings chapter 18. The Bible says in the 18th chapter of First Kings, Elijah said, verse 41, Elijah said to Ahab, watch this. The prophet said to the government. Catch it. The prophet said to the government. Ahab was the king. Elijah was the prophet. The king didn't make the decree. The government don't have the answers. Y'all missing me here. Elijah said to Ahab, "Get, get up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of an abundance of rain." There is a sound. And Job said there is a scent. And I'm not going to preach, um, a very expository sermon today. If that's what you came for, come back a month from now, we'll see what God says. But this morning, I need to talk briefly about the scent and the sound of rain. Jesus helped me teach. And them said, "Amen." In Jesus' name.

Job, if you read the first 32 chapters of Job, it can appear to be the saddest book in all the Bible. Why would a righteous man lose everything he had? I could understand if he was a man who was wicked, who lived in sin. But the Bible says that Job was a righteous man. And it even says that when Satan came to God looking for someone to mess with, God says, "Have you considered my servant Job?" I don't know about you, but I would appreciate it if God would not recommend me for the trial, for the adversary, for the fight. But how many know God knows more about me and God knows more about you than you and I know about ourselves? And that's why you can go through some seasons in your life and you can feel like hell is breaking loose and you are about to break, and somehow you're not broken. Because God is clear in his word through the Apostle Paul, "He'll never put anything on you more than you can bear." Now, how many can testify it got real close? There's been some seasons in life where what I was carrying felt like one more straw and it would break Kevin's back. But the fact of the matter is, God built you and he knows the pressure you can take. And this is reassuring to me that God knows the weight limit of the pressure and the trial and the storm. He knows what I can handle without breaking and giving up. He looked at Peter and said, "Peter, Satan has desired to sift you and shake you like wheat, but I am praying for you that your faith will not fail." There is a reason why you will not break because there is a great intercessor who is praying for you right now. And his prayers touch the heart of God. And when Jesus prays for you, everything he asks the Father for, it will be done and it will be so. And you and I will come through the trial, and the devil will wish he never messed with us in the first place. I believe that.

And Job is one of those individuals. Now, he is not privy. Job is not privy to the conversation going on behind the scenes in an eternal realm. Job is living on planet Earth, and God is talking to Satan about Job in the courtroom of God. And God has great confidence in Job, but Job does not have great confidence in himself. And you know the story. I'll expedite it quickly. Job loses everything: cattle, houses, land, inheritance. He even lost his children. And somehow, the only thing he kept was a nagging wife. But I digress. He kept his wife. And his wife is the one who came in one day. And I, I think we often misinterpret the the wife of Job as someone that is disconnected and aloof and she doesn't love God. But really, what I think his wife was trying to do was just get him to die so in an act of mercy, he didn't have to suffer anymore. She comes into Job's presence and said, "Job, why don't you just curse God and die?" Now, that's horrible advice. But Job had suffered so much. She wanted his suffering to end. I want to tell you today that your suffering is going to end. But taking your life and turning your back on God is not the way to end your suffering. Job, if he teaches us anything, it is that perseverance pays off. It is that faith that goes through the fire, faith that can be tested. Faith that can be tested is a faith that can be trusted. Even when we don't feel like we're going to make it, God knows if we'll just keep trusting, He's going to see us through.

And right in the middle of Job's dilemma, right in the middle of Job's pain, he's lost his family, he's lost his inheritance, he's lost his cattle, he's lost his home. Everything he had, they stole it, they took it, it was robbed from him. And right in the middle of all of it, he puts this one little passage of scripture in the 14th chapter of Job. I think Job is talking out of his pain. He's talking out of his situation. And somehow, having lost it all, and some, somehow hearing voices say to him, "Just give up and die," somehow in the middle of it all, Job musters the faith and the strength to utter some of the most hope-giving, life-giving words found in the Bible. "There is hope for a tree." Aren't you thankful today that there's always hope? Have you ever come into a situation where the enemy was trying to make it so dark and so grim and so barren and so bad that he wanted you to just confess, "I have no hope"? I want to tell you, if anybody could have been there, Job could have been there. He lost it all. And yet, your Bible says in the 14th chapter of Job, he utters these words: "There is hope for a tree that even though it's cut down and the only thing left is a rotten stump in the ground, there's hope for that tree that at the scent of water, the approaching of rain, the coming of the rain, the arrival of the rain, the getting close to the rain." If I can just, if I can just live long enough to keep it, keep my hope, God is going to do something on the other side of my hope. Listen, I know the Bible said hope deferred makes the heart sick, but, but when God gives an answer to a situation, that's what brings life and that's what brings joy. What I want you to hear me say is that there's some people in in this room and listening to me online, you feel like you've come to a situation and there is no hope. I want to tell you that that God is speaking to us through Job today, and he's simply saying this: If you can just hang on and just smell the coming of the rain of God's goodness, everything in your life can shift in one moment when God's rain falls on your field. The only thing that disqualifies you from rain is losing your expectation and your ability to say, "I smell the rain that is coming."

I never forget going to my grandpa and Grandma's house, just down the road, in fact. And, you know, we didn't have these fancy things today. They just had some of them old chairs that they didn't even rock, they bounced it like bad metal chairs, and they just bounced on the back porch. And we'd go out and the sky was getting dark. My papa always said, "I smell the rain." I said, "I don't know what he's talking about." I thought he was weird. How do you smell rain? But rain has a scent. And here, what I'm getting ready to tell you, even the dead things in your life wake up when you smell the rain of God's presence getting close. This is why you cannot give up on God. Because if you stop reading Job in Job chapter 15, Job chapter 20, if you stop reading Job, you may, you may be led to believe God is aloof and disconnected and has no clue what I'm going through. And even if he knew, he doesn't care. How could he let me get in this mess? Let me help you understand something. God will never put on you anything more than you can bear. And if you say, "I can't bear one more thing," I'm going to tell you right now, if another thing shows up, you got to trust that God knew it was coming and he built you so that you would not give up. He built you so that you would keep the faith. And when he built you, he knew he would have to to intercede for you because there would be seasons in your life where you get so shaken and you get so disconnected, you feel like from trusting in God. And when Job's wife said, "Why don't you curse God and die?" everybody would, nobody would have blamed Job for cursing God and dying because it looked like God was against Job. But I want you to hear what Job said when his wife stuck her head in his room and said, "Job, just get it over with. Turn your back on on God. Curse God and die." Job looked at his wife and said, "You talk like a foolish woman. Naked I came into this world, and naked I'm going out of this world. And blessed be the name of the Lord." And hear this: "Though he slay me, yet will I." Y'all don't know how, we don't know how to process this kind of faith because faith in our day is all about getting what we want when we want it, how we want it. But real Bible faith is when you go through something you cannot make sense out of and you say, "Father, I don't know where you are. I thought you would have been here by now. You've got the power to turn this around and you hadn't done it yet, but I'm going to keep my faith in God. I'm going to keep on trusting the Lord. I'm going to believe that at the scent of water, my dead life is going to breathe and live again." He said that in chapter 14, and it took some time before it materialized. But if you read the last six chapters of Job, Job don't end like the mess he was in. Job is about to get double for all of his trouble. Y'all don't like me now. Religion will tell you all you got to do is keep on trusting and it'll keep pulling you on a carrot and it'll, and religion tells you it'll never happen. These people that have no joy, their life is miserable, and they make a living making other people's lives miserable, telling you God will never see you through. God don't heal anymore. God don't bless anymore. God doesn't give people breakthrough anymore. I'm telling you right now, I'm a living witness that if you'll hold on to God, rain is coming. And if you'll hold on to God, hope is coming. And if you'll keep trusting God, there is something on the other side of your faith in God that is going to bring revelation to the whole situation that you've been walking through. Not only did rain come and favor fall on Job, but Job, who lost his children, got double the children. Job, who lost his house, got a nice house. Job, who lost all of his cattle, got more cattle. And the Bible said he had a great name in the whole land. Everybody knew Job's story. They didn't know him for pain. At the end of his life, he rocked his great-grandchildren on his knee and said, "Let me tell you about the day my life was falling apart, but look what the Lord has done." Can somebody testify that it might not have always been easy, but God has always been good, and He always is faithful? I don't know how he does this, but he'll send the rain at the right time. Look at somebody, tell them, "Neighbor, I smell the rain."

I've been around some people recently, it's been raining on their field. I rejoice 'cause if it's hitting their house, I'm in the neighborhood. Y'all missing what I'm saying. Some of y'all can't celebrate till your field gets rained up. I dare you to praise God for the people in your church, sitting on your row, that have been blessed this week. Can I find one person that God has blessed? Anybody got blessed this week? Has God been good to anybody this week? Has God given anybody something you wasn't even waiting on? Has God answered a prayer you've been praying and it ain't happened, but now it did? Has he been good to anybody? Look around you. If it hadn't, if it hadn't happened for you, can you at least take a praise break for the neighbor that got it and the brother or sister that it happened for? If God did it for them, you ought to praise God that he's in the neighborhood. I told you this story, but at Christmas time, you get all these packages coming, all these packages. And there was a package we were waiting on to go to a Christmas party. And the devil said, "It's supposed to be here. That package is supposed to be here." And we're trying, we're late for the Christmas party, waiting on the package. And I looked out the door, it hadn't got on my porch yet, but I looked out my door, across the yard, across my neighbor's yard, there was a bunch of packages on his front porch. I said, "It's all right." She said, "What you mean it's all right? We're late for the party." I said, "It'll be here in a minute." "How do you know?" I said, "'Cause the man across the street just got his packages. And if the delivery man gave him his packages, my package is in the neighborhood." Oh, Hallelujah. Look at your neighbor, say, "Neighbor, excuse me while I praise God. I smell my package. I smell my blessing. The rain is on the way." So I'm going to celebrate with my brothers and sisters. I refuse to whine when I could worship. I refuse to pout when I could praise. You're going to have to make up your mind if you're going to whine or worship, if you're going to pout or praise, if you're going to get bitter or be blessed. I've made up my mind. I will not walk in a fence when everybody around me gets something and I'm sitting there saying, "God, I still trust you. I don't know how you're going to do this. My kids need a breakthrough. My finances need a miracle. I don't know how, but I'm going to celebrate with them." If you get your heart right, you'll get in alignment, you'll be next. I smell the rain.

Rain has a smell. And when you smell it, it brings hope 'cause dead things can live again. This is crazy, but a stump can shoot forth branches. I know this is true. I got a weed tree at my house, at the window of my kitchen. I've cut that tree down four times. I'm not exaggerating. I get a hatchet, I cut it so deep in the soil. I'd be proud for a month and a half later, a little branch. Give it a year, it's a tree. People come, I say, "When did you plant that tree?" "Shut up, I didn't plant no tree. I've cut that tree down three times, four times." But that tree in that, in that ground, that stump in that ground, at the scent of water, he said, "Oh, we're getting ready to grow again." I'm moving on. But look at somebody, tell them, "We're getting ready to grow again. Life is getting ready to grow again." Job is a witness that even when you go through hail and high water, when it's, when your money gets funny and things get tight, and you don't know how God's going to do it, when life is full of heaviness, your kids acting crazy, your marriage is a mess, the job is in jeopardy, and you wonder, "What is going on, God?" I came to tell you, if you feel cut down, beat up, left out, and and forgotten, hold on. At the scent of rain, you're coming back to life and you're going to grow again. I just feel like prophesying to someone: You are not through growing yet. Your life is not over. The best is yet to come. The rain is on the way. Somebody say, "Amen."

Rain has a scent. And not only does rain have a scent, last point, I'm out. Rain has a sound. This is crazy now. You and I both know rain has a sound when it's falling. But the prophet Elijah reveals that rain has a sound before it ever starts falling. It's been a drought for three and a half years. And the prophet looks at the king after three and a half years. Three and a half years of drought. How many would agree that's a long drought? Now, we don't understand that because now we go into our kitchen and turn on our faucet, water flows. But several years ago in Georgia, they put everybody on water rations 'cause the water source dried up. Every now and then the drought will hit so bad, you can't water your lawn right. They, they said, "Turn the lawn off. Turn if we see the water on, we're going to fine you for watering the grass." You can't water the grass. Stuff starts turning brown. We don't appreciate famine and the understanding of rain because in our blessed society, we can go and we can channel water and put it in pipes and get it to our house and filter it, and we got water. We got no water issues. But in that day, they trusted God for the water. The problem is, they had backslid against God. They had turned their back on Yahweh and they had begun to worship the god of Baal. And oddly enough, Baal was the rain god. Isn't it funny how the devil thinks he owns the rain? And God will remind the devil and everybody following him, "You don't own the rain." How many know God owns the rain?

And your Bible says, watch this. Your Bible says that they were in a three and a half year famine. And if you read the book of James, which is an AC, it's an accomplice text to this First Kings chapter 18 passage, it says this in James regarding Elijah: "Elijah prayed and it did not rain for three and a half years, and he prayed again, and the earth yielded its rain." Now, this is why, this is why, this is why you got to be praying right now because prayer is what unlocked the rain. There is a reason why Elijah could say, "I hear a sound of an abundance of rain." Why would he say that? Because he had been in prayer. And when you spend time in prayer, you hear stuff nobody else who's not praying ain't hearing. Oh, Lord have mercy. Have you ever heard something and nobody else in your circle heard it? Come on. This is why sometimes you got to be weird to yourself. Just stay weird all by yourself. Don't open your mouth and cast your pearls before swine if you're in a room with a bunch of haters eating hater chips, drinking hater-aid, uh-huh, having some hater-tinis. Yeah. You don't want to tell them what you heard in prayer. They don't believe what you heard in prayer. But if you've been in prayer, it don't matter how long the drought lasted. If God said, "Uh-huh, you're getting ready for rain," God will let you hear stuff nobody else has been able to hear. This is why the church has got to be a praying church in this hour because the entirety of our culture is saturated with sound waves that are trying to bring hopelessness and drive home this spirit of heaviness and depression. But there is a reason that I got joy when everything else looks like it's burning to the ground 'cause I heard something different than what the devil's report is trying to get me to believe. When you flip on the news and they want you to see hate and division and malice and hopelessness, and and we get heavy and we get depressed, turn the stinking television off. Open up your Bible. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Remind yourself that it ends not with with the church hiding in a cave, but with a people who are full of victory and full of the power of [Applause] God. And so he says, "I hear a sound of an abundance of rain." Faith doesn't come by what we see. Faith comes by hearing, hearing the word of the Lord.

This is the prophet, by the way. And I'm almost through. You got to learn how to calibrate sometimes because the enemy will get your hearing all jacked up. Is there a prayer cloth anywhere? Is that a prayer cloth? I don't want to pull nobody's dress or nothing. Okay, you know you in a Pentecostal church when you have to lay modesty cloths on people 'cause they expect it to fall out sometimes. How many know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Some of y'all don't know what I'm talking about, but you in a Holiness Pentecostal church today. And sometimes the sisters will fall out. And we just want to stay there as long as God wants them to stay. So we put a little blanket on them. Hallelujah. That's what this is. Your Bible says, watch in the book of Kings, that Elijah, who heard the sound of abundance of rain, his hearing got jacked up. This is where some people in this room and watching me online are right now. Your, your hearing is jacked up. You are hearing the wrong voice. You are listening to the wrong thing. You have no hope for your tomorrow because the only voice you're entertaining is the voice of heaviness and the voice of drought and the voice of depression. Let me help you understand something. Don't go around projecting all of your mess on everybody else because not everybody is as heavy as you are. And you got to learn how to mature to the place where just because you're feeling something doesn't mean that's what God wants everybody to feel. Because some of us have been in a place of prayer and have actually heard the report of the Lord. And when you hear the report of the Lord, it doesn't mean that it's always easy, but you always got faith that it's going to get better because you're hearing the God, the God of the Bible speak to you, not from your situation, but from the future. He's not just waking up when you wake up in the morning. He's actually already in your tomorrow and he's talking back into time saying, "Come on, baby, you got to believe again. You got to hope again. I am not through yet."

So watch this. Elijah gets his hearing jacked up. And I'm through in First Kings 19. His hearing gets jacked up. And Jezebel says, "Tomorrow, I'm going to kill you." And when she said it, First Kings 19 said it. She said it, and he saw it. Read it. Jezebel said, "By this time tomorrow, I'm going to kill you." And the Bible says he saw that thing. How do you go from hearing rain to seeing hopelessness in your tomorrow? I'm going to tell you how: You listen to the voice of a demon. Oh, I just blew everything up right there. He said, "Demon." "Oh God, Michael, get the car ready. We got to get up out of here." Do you know how many people listen to demons on their way to church? Do you know how many people will listen to demons on their way to lunch? Voices that creep in your mind that you don't even detect that are trying to rob you of joy, rob you of peace, rob your marriage of intimacy, rob your finances of blessing. You're listening to stuff that did not come from God. I'm going to tell you what you got to do. When, when the Bible said Elijah heard and saw Jezebel's plan, he ran for 40 days into the wilderness. And he got in a cave. And you know what God said? "What are you doing here?" You would think God would console him and God would feel pity for him. But oh no, God did not feel pity for him because the cave is not where prophets live. Why are you in the cave today? Why are you camped out in a cave? You put your address on the card and told everybody, "If you wanna come see me, come to the cave. Life is falling apart. I'm heavy. I have no hope. I have no tomorrow. I'm living in the cave." And God said, "You are a prophet to the nation. Come up out of this cave. Go stand on the edge of this cave." I'm done. Wind blew, the earth shook. I'm in First Kings 19. Read it this afternoon. The wind blew, the earth shook, and fire fell. That sounds like camp meeting. That sounds like revival. Wind blew, earth shook, fire fell. God was not. Read the Bible. God was not in the wind. God was not in the fire. And God was not in the shaking. Because sometimes we want physical, external manifestations, but we don't have an internal compass of what God is really saying to his people. Y'all not following me right here. Your Bible said that God was not in the wind, God was not in the shaking, and God was not in the fire. And here's what your Bible said: Elijah did. He wrapped his head in his mantle. Why? Because God was trying to recalibrate him, to get him to stop looking for God in what he could see with natural eyes and what he could hear with natural ears. God wanted him to tap back into the voice that moves mountains and shapes culture, the voice that speaks and strips the, the, the cedars of Lebanon bare. We are driven by what we see in the natural, and we are being driven by what we hear in the natural. And God is saying to a prophetic church, "Wrap your mantle around your eyes. Close the world off and get back to a place where you find God not in the fire, not in the shaking, not in the wind, but in the still small [Music] voice."

You ready for this? This is how you hear rain. You don't see it first. You hear it. And we have church in America that's responding to what we see happening in culture rather than prophetically declaring what God is saying to our generation. I call you out of the hex and the curse of being led by what you see with your natural eyes and hear with your natural ears. Some of y'all think, "Oh, he's getting a little bit weird. This is getting too deep." No, we've gotten too carnal. And we've got, we [Applause] have, we've gotten carnal and we've tried to make it sound sophisticated, and we tried to dress up our religion and, and, and we got neat music and cool music, and we got smoke and lights now. But what we don't have is a dependency on the voice of the Holy Ghost. I want to tell you, the days we're living in, you better have more than a clergy shirt and a bottle of oil. You better have more than a ministerial file number and a bunch of papers. You better have a walk with God so that when there's a drought in the land, you don't say, "Oh, it's going to be dry forever." You say, "The devil is a liar. I've been in a prayer closet. My children will not be steamrolled by culture. My marriage will not be lost. My family will not go to hell. I have been in the prayer closet. I have heard the voice of the Lord. I hear a sound. I feel the Lord in this room. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain." You better get ready. Get ready. Get ready. Get ready. Get ready. It's going to rain. [Music] I hear a sound. Why are you so excited today? 'Cause I heard something. Why are you so loud today? 'Cause I heard something. I didn't hear a bad report. I heard a good report. The church is not going to die and go out of business. The church is going to grow, explode. It's going to take territory. It's going to see the sick healed, and the lame walk, and the bound set free. I hear the sound of an abundance of rain.

Watch this. And he says to the servant, "Go up there and tell me what you see." Now, the servant didn't hear the rain. The prophet heard the rain. But the servant had to go check it out. Seven times. Have you ever been to Israel and gone up Mount Carmel? It ain't a molehill, it's a mountain. He walked up that mountain seven times. Can you imagine how tired he must have got? Frustrated? Y'all ain't being real. I can see him wagging their head. "That preacher, he told me he heard a sound. I done been up here six times. I'm tired. My joints is aching. I ain't seen nothing." All because he heard something. But the seventh time, oh, oh, the seventh time he walked up the side of that hill. I can hear his mind wanting to give up. I can see his body wanting to give out. But he said, "I'm going to go up because the prophet said he heard something." That's why you got to be connected to people who hear the voice of God. Because if you hear the voice of God, it'll keep you believing even when you don't see what you heard. You got to stay in faith. He walks up that mountain the seventh time, and he freaks out because the Bible said he saw something. He didn't see a massive rain cloud yet. He saw a cloud about the size of a man's hand. I want you to look at him. When he sees it, he doesn't wait on the sky to get dark. He actually says, "You better hurry up, Ahab. It ain't a big thing right now, but it's getting ready to explode just like that." Oh, oh, Lord have mercy. I don't know who I came to talk to, but I came to find five people who can get excited not about the massive thing, but about the miniature thing. The cloud the size of a man's hand. For I heard the prophet Haggi say, "Despise not the day of small beginnings." Little is much when God gets in it. Something is getting ready to move from a small thing to a significant thing, and it's going to happen quickly. Somebody say, "I hear a sound."

Stand with me. Stand with me. I'm through. I hear a sound of an abundance of rain. Lift your hands right now if you need God to send his reign on your life and on your family. Now open your mouth and begin to ask God for the rain to fall. Just begin to ask. Just ask him. I know that sounds great, but just begin to ask him. Lord, let it rain on my field. Let it rain on my children. Let it rain on my family. Let it rain on my marriage. Let it rain on my business. Let it rain on my education. Let it rain. Just let it, it rain. Let it rain on my church. God, redemption needs you. Jesus, we thank God for our history, but we're not going to talk about what you did for the rest of our life. We are stepping into an outpouring of your presence, a fresh and a new. For I hear the book of Acts, the third chapter, the 21st verse. The Bible said, "Repent therefore and be converted, so that times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord." Some people in this room and online are dry on the inside, but I want to tell you, God's reign. Take your neighbor by the hand right now. I just want to pray for you. I want to pray. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to make an adjustment right now in your hearing. An adjustment in your hearing. God, line us up until we hear an abundance of rain on the way. God, let us get in a place of prayer until we hear. I feel the Lord here giving us the ability to hear the sound of an abundance of rain. Faith does not come by what we see. Faith comes by hearing. So let us hear the word of the Lord. Let it rain. Come on, take your neighbor by the hand. Father, we pray for one another right now in the time of rain. Your word says, "Pray for rain in the time of rain." Pray for rain in the time of rain. Pray for rain in the time of rain. Hosea says that God would come, and when he comes, he will come like the rain. Do you understand that the rain is not a physical rain? It's really just a manifestation of the goodness and the favor of God when he shows up in your life. Some of us have been waiting on him just to show up and manifest his goodness. I'm praying for it right now for your whole row, for your whole family, for all of your children. God, let it begin to rain on the people of God. We, we, we got a group going to Ireland and Scotland this week. Where, where are my sons and daughters at? Where you're going to Ireland or Scotland? Come stand with me right now. Hurry. I just felt the Lord tell me to pray for [Music] you. Ireland and Scotland mission trip. Come on. School's going. Come on. Stretch your hands toward them right now. Stretch your hands toward them right now. All of all of them are are going. They're getting on a plane with Pastor Rick and Carolyn this coming Tuesday. Is it Tuesday? Thursday. Thursday. Stretch your hands toward them. Come on. Pray for them. Father, I don't know what's going to happen, but while I've been preaching, I've been feeling like there's some rain coming. I've been feeling like there's some rain coming for them. Some of their, some of them are going to see in the place where a move of God was birthed hundreds of years ago. They're going to see and they're going to hear it. Thank you, Lord. They're going to hear it and they're going to begin to even sense it in the spirit that there is a formation of rain clouds that droughts are coming to an end. I thank you. Come on, pray for them right now. God, I bless them with protection. I bless them with peace all the way there and back. And while they are there, let them encounter the power of the Holy Ghost. The voice of God is coming to you real strong. The voice of God is coming to you real strong. You're going to hear his voice. You're going to hear his voice. We come into agreement now that you're going to hear his voice. Hey, let them hear the rain clouds gathering. Let them hear the rain clouds and the thunder roll. Let them hear it in the name of Jesus. I pray for Rick and Carolyn in the name of the Lord that the anointing to lead this group would be on their life. Order their steps. Put them in the place in the name of the Lord. Come on, pray for another minute. Lord, turn their life upside down while they're there in the precious name of Jesus. Let them hear the rain clouds gathering. Let them hear the thunder rolling. Let them hear the spirit of God moving in their heart. Oh God, wake up everything. Everything that feels dead. I thank you that it's going to come to life now in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of the Lord. I speak over them and this congregation, this entire house right now, that dead things come to life. Dead things come to life. Dead things come to life. In the name of Jesus. Thank you, Father.

I want to, I want to give an altar call. If you got to go, I love you. I'll see you Wednesday night. But heads bowed and eyes closed. If you're in this room and you need Jesus to save you, I'm counting to three. I don't care what you've been doing and how long you've been doing it, how messed up you feel, how heavy you feel, how regretful you feel, how shamed you are. It doesn't matter how big of a mess you've made. If you want Jesus to save you, when I say three, lift your hand. I want to know who I'm praying for. Heads bowed, eyes closed. One. Two. Three. Lift your hand if you need Jesus to save you. My God. My God. Thank you, Lord. You can put your hand down. Everyone, look at me. There's about 15 people that just lifted their hand. I need you to look at your neighbor on both sides. I don't care how long you've known them or if you never met them. Ask both neighbors on your left and on your right, "Do you need someone to go to the altar and pray with you?" And if you lifted your hand or you should have, when your neighbor asks you that question, come out of your seat. Come meet me right here. Jesus is about to save a whole bunch of people who are going to call on his name. Come on right now. People are coming. Clap and give God praise. Come on, clap and give God praise. Come on, from all over the church. If you lifted your hand, come here, sweetheart. Come here, sir. If you lifted your hand or you should have, come on, sweet ladies. All of you, come. Just bring the whole, bring the whole family. Come on, bring the whole row. Hallelujah. Yeah, they're coming. And I think we ought to give God some really good praise. Come on. Hallelujah. Anybody else? Anybody else? It's not too late. There's room. There's room. There's room. Anybody who wants to come and give their life to Christ, I need elders and pastors to come help me right now. Everyone that's still here, stretch your hand toward the altar. Father, we pray for these precious brothers and sisters who are coming to give their life to Jesus. And today, we thank you that you're turning their lives around, and they shall never be the same again. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name.