4 Laws For Supernatural Promotion in Ministry: The Law of Spiritual Impact

E e, who came ready to go before the Lord in prayer this afternoon. Well, give Jesus a hand. [Applause] Everyone welcome again, for the however many times, all the Bible college students that are here, um, this afternoon. And welcome to our church, uh, members that are joining us this afternoon for our noon prayer. Welcome everyone that is watching, watching online. I want you to have an open heart and whilst we go before God, and I want you to pray with everything that is within you. Pray like you actually believe that there is a God that answers your prayers. Amen. How many of you believe that when we pray God hears us? Amen. And if God hears us, then he would answer us. Amen. Isn't that an amazing thing to know that we have a Father who lives in heaven who cares so much for his children, who is willing to answer our prayers and give us testimonies? Who's going to leave here today with a testimony? Who believes they're leaving here with answers to their prayers? Amen. If you do, then rise up on your feet, like you do. Hallelujah. Just take a few moments and begin to magnify the name of the Lord. Begin to give him thanks. Begin to bless His holy name. Just appreciate him this morning. If you are watching online, I want you to join in. Appreciate God this morning. Thank him for his goodness, for his mercy. Thank him for what he has done in your life this far. Give him thanks. Give him thanks. Give him thanks.

Father, we honor you this morning. Father, we honor you this morning. We thank you, Jesus. Just appreciate him. Let him know that you acknowledge that all the good things in your life is from him. Who is like unto you, Lord? For you are glorious in holiness and fearful in praise. The Great I Am, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Ancient of Days, the Rock of Ages, the lily of the valleys, our great provider, our great protector, our great God, our Father who is in heaven, we thank you. Just appreciate him. Appreciate him. Appreciate him. Father, we appreciate you, for it's not by mine, but it's by your mercy. It's not to him who runs, nor to him who wills, but Lord, you have shown us mercy. Merciful God, we bless you, we honor you, we thank you, we love you so much, Lord. We love you so much, Lord. We love you so much, Lord. Let him know how much you love him this morning. Tell him, God, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you with all my heart. I love you with every ounce of my being. I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord. Let him know that you love him. Tell him that you love him. Without you, I am nothing, Lord. I love you. Where would I be if it had not been for the Lord? Where would I be if it had not been for the Lord? The Bible says that if it had not been for the Lord, let the people say so, for in him I live and have my being. If I live, I live for you, Lord. If I live, I live for you, Lord. I love you. I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you that your mercies are new every morning, and great is your faithfulness. Thank you for your mercy. I love you, Lord. I love you, Father. I love you, my Father, in the name of Jesus. I love you. I want you to give thanks to the Lord. Thank you, Father, for sending your son Jesus to come and die for me. Thank you, Father, for sending your son Jesus to come and die for me. Lord, I thank you for sending Jesus. I thank you, Daddy, for sending Jesus. I thank you for my Savior Jesus. I thank you for my Lord Jesus. I thank you for my good Master Jesus. Thank you for giving us Jesus. Thank you for giving us Jesus, that he would die for me, that he would shed his blood to wash me of my sins, that he would cleanse me, that he would forgive me of my iniquities, that he would heal me of my sicknesses, that he would break the curse over my life. I thank you, Lord. I thank you for Jesus. I thank you for sending him. Lord, we are grateful this morning, this afternoon. We are revival today, church, said that, Lord, we are grateful. Where would we be if it had not been for Jesus? If it had not been for his love? If it had not been for his obedience? So, Father, we say thank you. Thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for us. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for our families. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for the people of Pittsburgh. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for the people of Pennsylvania. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for the people of America. Thank you, Lord, for him shedding his blood for my life, for him shedding his blood for my family, for him shedding his blood for Pittsburgh, for him shedding his blood for Pennsylvania, for him shedding his blood for America. Thank you that the blood of Jesus washes me clean, clean. Thank you that the blood of Jesus washes my family clean. Thank you that the blood of Jesus washes over Pittsburgh. Thank you that the blood of Jesus washes over Pennsylvania. Thank you that the blood of Jesus washes over the United States of America. Lord, we thank you. Lord, we thank you. I want you to thank God for sending his Holy Spirit to empower us. Thank you for sending your Holy Spirit. Lift up your voice. Lord, we thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to live in us, to show us the way, to teach us, to empower us. Oh, Lord, we thank you. We thank you for the Holy Ghost. We thank you for the Holy Ghost and fire. We thank you, Lord.

[Music] [Music] Z, you sound good. You sound good. Let it rise, for out of the belly shall flow. [Music] Let the riv [Music] flow. Let the r flow. Let the river flow. Let the river flow. Pressing deeper. Come up out of the river. Out of the belly shall flow rivers of Living Waters. [Music] B, just shut in, shut in, and shut in with God. Just focus on God. Focus on your time with God this afternoon. [Music] [Music] Stir it up. Stir up the gift of God, praying in the Holy Ghost. Stir up the gift of God, praying in the Holy Ghost. Stir up the gift of God, praying in the Holy Ghost. For when we pray in the Holy Ghost, we speak mysteries. Sh [Music] You sound good. You sound good. You sound good. For out of the belly shall flow, pressing, pressing. Sh he for [Music] Z [Music] k for Z make for just push a little bit further. Push a little bit further. Push a little bit further. Pushing the spirit for Z la. Just push a little bit further. Kal for in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Remain standing. Let me read you this scripture, then we continue to pray. The Bible said in Leviticus chapter 6, the verse number 12 to 13. Leviticus, Leviticus is the book in the Bible that is stuck in your Bible, that is stuck together. You probably haven't read it before, or you, you seldom read it. The Bible says that in the fire on the altar shall be kept burning; on it it shall not be put out; and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning and lay the burn offering in order on it; and it shall burn on its fat of the peace offering; and the fire shall always be burning on the altar. The Bible says that we are living sacrifices, so your fire should continuously burn. The fire of God on the inside of you should continuously be burning, and it shall never go out. But the thing about spiritual fire, or to be able to keep burning for the Lord, there has to be a hunger. You see, physically when you eat, you get satisfied. Like if you're anything like me, when I eat and I'm full, I don't want any food near me until I'm hungry again. But spiritually, the more you eat, the more hungry you become. That's why the Bible says that they that hunger and thirst, in Matthew 5:8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And then you read further, it said, for they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, they shall be what? Filled. So you see, it takes spiritual hunger to be able to keep the fire continuously burning. The Bible says that the deep calleth unto deep; the deeper your hunger is, the, the, the stronger your fire would be. So I want us to pray this morning that, Father, by the Holy Ghost, empower me to continuously hunger and feast after you. Father, empower me to continuously be to hunger and thirst after you, in the name of Jesus. And you know, you never want to get to a place where you feel like you know God enough. You are, you are spiritually there. You are like you are a man of faith. Yes, you want to be a man of faith, but the more you know God, the, the less you realize that you know of God. And the more you climb up in God, the more you realize that your life is totally dependent on God. You realize that even when you hear our pastor speak, you realize that the more he attains a place in God, the more he realized that his life is not dependent on any man, that only God can make happen what is happening in his life. So I want you to pray. Lift up your voice and pray like you mean it, that Father may give me, empower me to continuously hunger and thirst after you, in the name of Jesus. Lift up your voice and pray that Father empower me to continuously hunger and thirst after you, in the name of Jesus. Empower me to continuously hunger and thirst after you, in the name of, of Jesus. In Jesus' name, we have prayed. And the people shout a big amen. Amen.

I want us to welcome our pastor, Pastor Jonathan. Give Jesus a great hand clap today. Those of you that are watching online, this is, uh, Revival Today Church, and we have the Revival Today Bible Institute, uh, classes here. If you feel a call of God on your life into the ministry and you're between the ages of 18 and 35, you can join us in our January intake, and you can apply right now on RevivalTodayInstitute.com. They'll put that on the screen: RevivalBibleInstitute.com. We have students here from I know over 12 states, just in this class, and a couple of countries thrown in as well. So we'd love to have you, uh, if you feel called into the ministry. Start making moves on it. I was in Bible college at 17 because I knew I was called into the ministry. Don't drag your feet like people do now, where they're, I feel called to India. How old are you? 51. Okay, why are we in Kansas having this conversation? Whatever the Lord calls you to do, move on it. And that's how it works. Give everybody that's watching online a great hand clap, and you can be seated. Well, we are doing the four laws. What have we titled this series? Four Laws of [Music] Supernatural, supernatural promotion in the ministry. So there's natural promotion in the ministry: getting enough votes to become the president, PR of your denomination, getting enough people on your side to then vote you into the head of that denomination. But what you saw happen with me the last week, that's supernatural. For somebody across the ocean, in another culture, to have you be the third person to ever speak on his platform in that service is not something I wrangled to get and pushed other people down and got people on my side and took people out to dinner. It's supernatural. And then the supernatural things of God follow laws; they, there's laws that bring, you know, the, the supernatural increase we've seen financially in the ministry. It's not luck; it's, it's, it's laws. Write that in your notes: it's not luck; it's laws. You follow laws. I would, I would wager that most people, if they went to Dr. Paul's church in Nigeria, Bishop David Oyedepo, or back in the 1980s, if they went to Paul Yach, they would just say, wow, isn't it amazing how God gifted them and graced them to do that? They just, anybody that has unusual accomplishment in the kingdom of God, it's just written off as like an anomaly. You know, if somebody has miracles in their meetings, um, isn't it wonderful how God uses evangelist Ted Shuttlesworth, senior, to, uh, to, to, to heal the sick, and God's given him that special gift, as if there was no pursuit of anything or decisions that he made that were different than, than decisions, uh, other people made, right? Underneath it. It's not luck; it's laws. Right decisions determine destiny, and uncommon decisions produce an uncommon destiny. So it's not just knowing the laws; it's your pursuit of them. And today I'm going to deal with maybe the most important of all the laws: 1 Corinthians chapter 9. 1 Corinthians, the 9th chapter, verse 7. 1 Corinthians 9:7. What soldier has to pay his own expenses? What farmer plants a vineyard and doesn't have the right to eat some of the fruit? What shepherd cares for a flock of sheep and isn't allowed to drink some of the milk? Am I expressing merely a human opinion, or does the law say the same thing? For the law of Moses says, You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain. Was God thinking only about oxen when he said this? Wasn't he actually speaking to us? Yet it was written for us, so that the one who plows and the, the one who threshes the grain might both expect a share of the harvest. Since we have planted, verse 11, special emphasis, since we have planted spiritual seed among you, aren't we entitled to a harvest of physical food and drink? I want you to write in your notes, because it's what we're going to deal with today. Today is the law of spiritual impact. Spiritual impact produces material wealth. If we planted spiritual seed among you, aren't we entitled to a harvest of physical wealth? Spiritual seed produces physical wealth. That's a law. Billy Graham, nobody would consider a prosperity preacher. He took in, by far, the most money of any ministry in the United States. You pack stadiums, you're going to, you're, and, and win stadiums full of people to Christ, your ministry is going to produce more money than somebody that decides to hold church in their garage on, uh, Sunday afternoon with, with 11 people. Now, nothing wrong if you start, well, there's kind of something wrong if you start that way. I would say, if you feel called to be a pastor, you should get, you should get a building that communicates your seriousness about taking the community. Don't just take, I want to tell, don't miss this: don't take what's just available to you. I felt called to start a church. Well, I don't, obviously, I'm only 21. I don't, as soon as you start talking, I'm 21. I don't have, then just quit. You don't take what's a, so my friend said we could use their living room, or we, you know, know somebody. Think of it, there's people that feel called into the ministry, but then you determine how seriously you pursue it. If I, I, I felt the Lord called me to Pittsburgh, so I could have just as easily said that we at our house are going to meet on the third Thursday of every month for prayer. Take your shoes off; we're all going to stand barefoot on our carpet. We're going to have my friend with an acoustic guitar play a song. We'll sing for a little bit, and then we'll pray for a little bit, and if anybody has a testimony or something they'd like to share, they can do that, and we'd be around eight people, or 11 people, or 13 people, um, till Jesus came, because that's not in the Bible. Paul didn't come to a city and just stay in a house with six people. The Bible tells you in Acts chapter 19 that he moved, he used the largest facilities that were available in his day. He went to the lecture hall of Tyrannus; he rented it and preached there every day from 10:00 a.m. till 3:00 p.m., not in somebody's garage. There, there's a guy, you know, this kind of stuff amazes me. There's a, a guy that I met in my travels, and he's a pastor, and I ministered to him, and I liked him, and like him, and he, he's under a great man of God with an enormous church. And so I said, what time do you meet on Sunday? He said, we don't meet on Sunday. He's a pastor. He said, we meet on Friday night. I said, if you have a church, you can't meet on, we're not Muslims; you meet on Sunday morning. If I said, if you don't meet on Sunday morning, you don't have a church. Well, yes, but there's no, there's no, uh, property available. We've looked. Yes, that's the challenge of being in the ministry is you take, you don't take what's available. Why is all the staff seated as far back as possible? Everybody has children back there. Ben, sit further back. Can you get a, maybe just sit like outside the window in the back, in the parking lot? Why is all the staff so far back? We should fill out those back seats when all the front seats are, are, are taken. I want the, I want the staff to receive. If you have children or newborns or whatever, or a kid that ran out of riddle, and you can stay in the back. So when you, when you decide to, uh, when you get called into the ministry, you start making decisions about the scope of impact you're going to make. This church has two campuses now: Pittsburgh and Fort Worth. Obviously, we were called to do that, but we're a little different than other, if I was a normal pastor, we'd have two campuses, one in Moon Township and one in Coraopolis, for people that are 6 minutes further away that don't want to drive all the way out to Moon Township. We have three campuses; they're all like 9 minutes apart. There's a big world out there. Can you say amen? Amen. So yes, we give, and we give largely, and I'll probably deal with that tomorrow, but we have a scope of impact in this ministry. The amount of YouTube viewers where they're watching from, they're not watching from Pittsburgh; some are, they're watching from New Zealand, Australia, United Arab Emirates. So when we call a conference, 3,000 people show up from all over the world, because we decided not to have a garage living room ministry. That has nothing to do with your age or how much money you have; that has to do with having a big heart for a big world and deciding you're not going to take what's available and start saying what you can't afford. Could I have afforded a $5.3 million building when we, when the Lord spoke to me to start this church two years ago? No. Could I have afforded the down payment on it? No. Even if I didn't believe like I believe about not, not taking loans, never could have afforded it. So, well, we feel called to start a church, obviously, we can't, um, you know, you have to start small, and no, you don't. You believe big, and then if you don't know the story, maybe we'll share it before the week's over about how the lady that owned this building was praying to unload it. We sent somebody by to check it out. She said, are you interested in buying this? Yes. What, what for? A church. Oh, this is an answer to prayer. Meet with me and my husband on Monday, and we'll talk it out. Gave it to us fully furnished on the third floor. That's what faith does. That's why when I meet people that follow faith ministries, there's no property available. We had to shut down Revival Today Church, University of Pittsburgh, because they said there's nowhere to meet. I, I, if you just let the world push you into a corner, just go work a job, go do something for an employer and like make money and fund, give tithes and offerings to somebody that's actually going to do something to impact the world. This world, this Bible college does not exist so there can be another wave of crappy churches in America that people drive three hours away from to go get prayer at a church that will actually pray for the sick and impact their lives. You will never have a small ministry, in Jesus' mighty name. Can you say amen? Amen. So I know this sounds harsh, but I'm trying to slap out of you verbally any little mentality that got put into you, which you get, you get grown up in church, whether you're from Hawaii or Pennsylvania or Maine or wherever, it's just, you know, meet in somebody's living room; there's no property available.

Wouldn't you ever hear Verizon say, "We wanted to expand into the Pittsburgh market, but there's no property available"? No, they make it happen; get stuff built. So if people take that kind of mentality, for something—not that telecommunications are unimportant, but they're less important than the gospel—you should have no—if anybody says this out loud, if anybody can get property, if anybody can get prop—I can get property, I can get property. Say this: If anybody can afford a building, anybody can afford a building; I can afford a building, I can afford a building.

You know, the more you walk around and just see how unimpressive people are that are heads of corporations and stuff—that they're basically semi-functional alcoholics, a lot of them—and they're not that impressive. Me and Pastor Jay went to a CEO training thing in Scottdale with top people; they're not impressive. Like to listen to Dr. Paulich or Dr. David O and then listen to these guys—I don't want to say "clowns" on camera, but I'm thinking clowns. You know, we were able to up our sales from $400,000 to $800,000 over three years—great. That won't pay the electric bill at the Glory Dome for six hours. Their exchange rate is 600; it takes 16, it takes 1600 of their dollars to equal one of our dollars, and they don't get paid in our dollars. So if somebody can do that, there, by faith—that's why the more you travel and meet people like that, and then you go find somebody that's in America and can't really—I don't really—can't afford a building, what's wrong with you? You have like a mental problem that somebody needs to confront; it's not normal.

If anybody—I don't see anything that we're doing as something that's extraordinary. I feel like what we're doing in this ministry is supposed to be ordinary for every ministry. If Allegiant Healthcare Network can afford a plane for whatever they use it for—I mean, you're just in Allegiant; what do you even need a plane for?—then I don't think it's a big deal to have a jet. I don't think it's a big deal to have the place, to have a jet. I don't think it's a big deal to fuel a jet. If anybody can do it, and the top thing is the ministry; the top thing is the ministry. You have not chosen a lesser thing; you've chosen a greater thing. God chose you; the Bible calls it the high and holy calling of Christ Jesus. So my wife preached a sermon on this that was great; my wife's preaching in prison today—should be a good fit; she belongs there. She preaches a great message on, um, what you believe about yourself is as important as what you believe about God. Because if you think you're weak and the giants are great, then you'll never take the promised land. So you should see yourself—if God called me, I'm going to—now you won't have to deal with any of this at this school, because I sure—I certainly won't do it. We won't have any guest speaker that'll do it, and if I found that any professors were doing it, they'd be fired within the hour.

But when I went to Bible College—I know you kids think you're going to go out there and change the world, because you're going to find out when you go out it's a lot more difficult—you're not going to hear any of that here. You should start changing the world like right now; there's plenty of outlets at this church on outreach and everything else. Start praying, and, and you young adults, and as we re-fire up the Revival Today University of Pittsburgh and everything else we're going to do, you should give it all you got, and then basically just take the wave of momentum that you created from here into whatever God calls you to do outside of here. Can you say, "Amen"? So this is not a school; we take people that are on fire, and, and—now you need to deal with the realities of life, and the reality is property's very expensive. No, it's not—not when your boss owns all the silver and all the gold. You know, if Verizon told you—if put you in charge of starting a building for them in Topeka, Kansas—you wouldn't go back to Verizon and tell them how high the real estate—you know, just so you know, they say that commercial real estate in Topeka, Kansas has doubled since COVID—so you wouldn't talk to anybody like that. You would realize they have a lot of money, and that it's no—whatever, pick out the land; we don't care. We don't care how much it costs; we want land on the main—look how the secular world talks; they won't say, "See if you can find some land." They would tell you, "We want land on a main road, by, uh, whatever, by wherever the top business park is; go get some. We don't—well, it's cost—I don't care how much it cost; it—we don't—cost is irrelevant. We want a certain location, and we want a certain size building." And then in Christianity, does God have more or less money than Verizon? And then but no one believes that; everybody talks like he's got nothing, like you have to get him a deal. And he owns all the silver, all the gold, the cattle on a thousand hills, the hills that they graze on; he has everything. When he sends you somewhere, turn your faith loose. And this is a building that should have taken our church, being around 15 years, to get, and we got—we had it open; this is where we started day one.

You know what somebody wrote as a criticism on our Instagram at Revival Today Church, Fort Worth, one of the videos we posted? I won't say it went viral, but it went like bacterial—like it had like an above-average number of views—and, uh, somebody wrote—'cause I think I said in the thing that this church is not even a year old—and somebody wrote, "That can't be true. What kind of church that's not even a year old meets in a building that nice?" Our church—because I don't believe for crap, if you're called the pastor, you can't preach on faith in a building that screams unbelief. Your building's betraying you; you know, it's like you're—all the surroundings make people think, "Huh, I don't know, I don't really believe you." So you can't preach like—like where you're at right now, Bible College chapel—you're not in a dilapidated building with rotted-in ceiling—rotted ceiling panels and buckets out on the floor, like we're at my Bible College. Talk—we're a faith school. No, you're not; you're an unbelief school. Faith doesn't produce holes in ceilings; faith produces gold roofs. You drive by the Glory Dome in Nigeria; it looks like the Superdome in New Orleans if it was nicer and had a better roof. It's a gold roof. I mean, I don't think it's real gold, because if it was, I'd have taken a little bit of it on my way out, but, uh, it's beautiful; it's—it's how a church should look. You could fit—the National Mosque in Nigeria is down the road from it; it could fit inside of it. That's how it should be—not some big, beautiful mosque in a bunch of crappy little churches with all the pastors talking about, "You know, church isn't meant to be big, anyway." It's—there's big churches. You know, I—there was a guy one time, I got sick of hearing him talk; he was—he was around my age—and he went, "You know, they got all these big churches, but they don't really disciple anybody." I said, "So you have 100% discipleship rate at your small church?" I guarantee you have, uh, per capita, the same amount of sexual immorality at your little tiny crappy churches the big churches have. So don't get proud that you're small and unsuccessful and criticize people that are big and successful. The church in Jerusalem was a big church; it wasn't a tiny—I mean, you know, in the early church they didn't have big buildings; they met house to house sometimes; they met house to house. But the Bible says in Acts 2, they all met in one place—lecture hall of Tyrannus. Where was the place? The Acropolis that Paul preached at; you can go look at—still, you can go on tours and see the huge coliseums that Paul spoke at—the biggest buildings of his day.

So I pray this might be one of the only Bible schools in—in the country; it is one—one—one of the only Bible schools in the country that will not set you for small, struggling ministry, but impactful, city-shaking, nation-taking ministry, in Jesus' name. The Law of Spiritual Impact—part of what determines your promotion in and the finances that you operate with is the amount of spiritual impact that you plan on making. Say this out loud: "Despise not the day of small beginnings." The day of small beginnings. Yes. I'm not saying if you get an invitation to preach at a church that has six people, like I did in Proctorville, Vermont, and it looks God awful—to—no, I don't preach in places like—no, preach there; that's not your church. Go—go preach at nursing homes and all that stuff, but don't stay there. Realize you're building for a bigger day, and don't sink yourself to the level of where you're at. Dress your best; speak your best. We're having a lady—you know, all the female students that are here, this is the kind of invitations you're going to get—we're having a ladies' lunch—in—it's always a lunch in; they never want to buy a full lunch—so it's a lunch in; we don't give you a full sandwich; we cut it into thirds and put a little toothpick in it, so nobody gets that much. We're having a ladies' lunch, and, and we'd like you to just share—oh, never preach—share—lunch in—luncheon is to lunch what share is to preach. I want you to—preach—share—just some thoughts, you know, that's not in the Bible, so nod your head and let it rip, and dress nice, and act like—and preach like—I don't mean act like in an arrogant way; I mean behave in such a way that people think to themselves, "Why are they even preaching here? They should be at a bigger place." Never drop your level, because that's what America will do to you. Everybody's casual, and don't wear a suit; you don't have to wear a suit; we're just casual here, and you know, just share, and we're—we're done around 8:15. Everything's set up to put you in a structure where you don't do well; grab the bat with both hands at the bottom of the bat and hit a home run. Nod your head when they tell you that, "Oh, yes, I understood," yes, "Mm," and then when you get the thing, let it rip. When they turn it over to you, pretend like—pretend like you're in the Book of Acts and preach and demonstrate the power of God and pray for—when you start sharing the word and you see a lady at one of the luncheon tables begin to cry, call her out and pray for her. Then you'll see other ladies crying; call them out and pray for them and ruin the luncheon. And if they don't have you back, God will make sure—see, God, I believe, has that as a test to see whether you'll wave the white flag and surrender and let them mold you into an American preacher or whether you'll buck the system and break the system. And then they say, "Well, you know, um, thank you; we're probably not going to have you back." God says, "That's fine; they passed the test; I don't want them there." I mean, what's your goal—to get invited back to preach at lunch? And you should let it rip.

I like listening to stand-up comedians—podcasts, some of them—because their stories are very similar to starting out in the ministry. They don't start out doing comedy in comedy clubs; they start doing them at like bachelor parties with like nine drunk guys that aren't listening—very similar to preaching at a nursing home; they're not drunk; they have dementia, but it's almost the same thing. And then they tell those stories, and they—and the comedy club owner doesn't pay them and stuck them with the bill at the hotel, and they didn't have a way to get home; it's the exact same as evangelism, but they made it; they kept trucking. Steve Harvey didn't start off hosting Family Feud with a private jet and his own show; they start off with nothing, but they don't give up, and they keep crafting. And a lot of them go to comedy clubs unannounced, for free—no pay—just to work on their comedy and keep going in front of live crowds, so they do well. I like that—keep preaching; preach all you can; keep—keep perfecting it. Listen to the recording of your preaching and listen to how awful you are and fix it. Interstate 95, 128 in Massachusetts is littered with my preaching tapes, if they haven't—if the prisoners haven't found them yet—doing the highway landscaping. I used to listen—listen to my preaching on the way home from youth group and eject it after like 11 minutes and open the window and whip it as far as I could. And you know, we're not allowed to curse as Christians, but I was thinking, "What an awful sermon that is! I thought I did so well; I was popping—man, that was good!" I don't listen to—listen—oh my God, you don't project your voice; you're boring. I like me, and I don't like that message, and I'm a huge fan of my ministry, and so you—you—you—you—you improve it. Everybody say, "Improve it!" Improve it! You should be able to be critical of yourself and receive criticism of yourself without getting discouraged or sad; receive it and fix it. You know, if I was a comedian and I did eight minutes somewhere and they said, "You're not funny," I wouldn't get—that guy's a jerk—he said, "No, I—I'd fix—I'd be funnier; I'd find a way to be funny; I'd find a way to tell the story better; I'd find a way to—to end the story on a high—to tell stories." You know, I—I study that kind of stuff when I preach; there's stories I like that crowds don't like, and there's stories I don't really think are that big a deal that crowds like. You know, I think it's a big deal to get a jet, you know, as far as the testimony goes, but I think it's so far over the heads of your average person that you get like light applause. But then when I tell the story about the chickens coming down the hill to my grandma's house and laying eggs there, people like eggs; they—they don't—they've not had a jet, but they've had eggs, so they can relate. So whatever gets the point across—a lot of times those simple stories—you—even if you notice when they tell the story about receiving the 36 acres and the man—you know, it's—it's just like unrelatable to people; they—you know, it's like, "I know—I get—that's—that's awesome," but then when you—if you tell stories about—like Aon—you tell the story about Adonis having that—that gentleman give her a home—people get it; they need a place to live, and they—they have a home; they've heard of homes; they've been inside of homes, so—so they get it. So you study that stuff, because my job's not to entertain me, though I do it anyway. Your job is to get a point across. So what gets the point across? What do people latch on to? What do they not really care about? You learn that as you preach. I'll tell—and I'm not—I'm not talking about—I don't know what I should do for the last day tomorrow; probably should—should do something on preaching, but—but preaching is—um—important; it's how you make impact. You're impacting people; you're not just trying to get a message out. Never treat the crowd as your enemy, even if they are your enemy. Paul went to a place where nobody believed God and everybody worshiped idols, and he said, "Hey, I see you guys have a statue that—one of the idols you worship is called to an unknown God"—Acts 17—"I've come to tell you who that God is," and preach to him. He say, "You bunch of wicked idol worshippers out there listening to Taylor Swift"—you didn't talk like that. Don't bash people; get—you know, your—your goal is—Proverbs 11:30—"He that winneth souls is wise." That's not just talking about soul winning, like going out on the street and converting people to receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior; it means—it's a mark of wisdom is to take people that are against you and bring them on your side. You know, I do that, believe it or not. If you see me on X, you never hear me calling people libtards and these stupid liberals; you hear me phrase things—even the way I've been talking about the election—if I was an undecided voter, I would ask myself this question before I vote—now these—how does any idiot want to vote for Comm—no one—nobody's going to respond to that. There's a way to speak where you're taking people that are not on your side and say, "I never thought of it like that before." I was talking to somebody that was living with their girlfriend; you know, they obviously know the Bible talks about marriage is against living with your girlfriend, so I didn't approach it from the Bible; I said, "Would you go into a business arrangement with a—a partner and buy property and go into business with no written agreement—nothing written about who pays what bills—and either party's free to leave whenever they want?" "No," because the guy was a businessman. I said, "Don't you feel marriage is more of a commitment and affecting of your life than even a—a business partnership?" "That's true; I never thought of it like that." See, it got it over to him that marriage is a covenant; you're not going to go into life with somebody and a—a—can peace out on me whenever she wants, and I can leave her whenever; that's stupid; I wouldn't do that in business; we've got agreements with church property—well, you know, everything's written down and contracted—how much more the most important thing in your life? It's swung him. You learn how to get points across to people. You know, I—I'll give you an example; my dad had—has told me before—now I—I don't know that he still believes this way, but he had told me when I was younger that he didn't really believe in impartation the way people taught it, you know, who was Paul's pastor who imparted to Paul? Well, you know, Geez, I guess you're off the hook if you get caught up into the third heaven and Jesus does it, but that's how my dad felt. But I watched my dad when Bishop Dag was saying, "Can you go to Hoover Dam and ask to charge your phone? Can you tell the pilot, 'I want to charge my phone in the engine of the plane'?" No, you have to—and I watch my dad go like this—and the way he described impartation—Bishop Dag said, "You have to find a socket—a black socket, a white socket, a broken socket, a divorced socket—but you have to find a socket." I saw my dad start smile and nod his head; I'd never seen him—I saw—always saw my dad's face reject that kind of teaching, but he got it from—from Bishop Dag. And actually, I noticed a difference in him in the services after that. Bishop Dag is an expert communicator in getting that kind of stuff across. Just—you do—planned humor will get things across much better than smashing people that don't believe the way you believe. You know, if Bishop—"What kind of idiot doesn't believe in impartation?" That's not—that's not converting anyone to your kind of thinking—that doesn't believe like you do. Just see—new plan is—people think he's just making people laugh, and people that don't believe in prosperity believe in prosperity at the end of his message and don't realize they've changed their beliefs; they just think they laughed at someone, but his stories and the way they're communicating—the humor—they get it; it's a masterful way of preaching and getting things across. Whereas the critics—people that teach homiletics—a—a—at other Bible schools—"All that guy does is joke around the pulpit." He's not joking around; he's taking someone out to dinner before he—slacks the knife in their chest before you get a truth from the Bible across that's piercing; it goes better with humor; it opens people up. The joy—true religion is not meat or drink, but it's righteousness, peace, and joy. The Law of Spiritual Impact—the depth and scope of your ministry and the finances you command will essentially be a function of how much spiritual impact your ministry makes—our ministry.

When we were at Dr. Paul's, they took testimonies every service. You could take entire Pentecostal denominations and have everybody from their church that's received a miracle come and give a testimony, and it would be less than the amount of testimonies that are taken in one service at that place. I won't take a show of hands because I'm not looking to embarrass anybody or or even be critical; I'm just making a point. Some of you went to church for 14 years at a Full Gospel Church, and no, nobody ever came out of a wheelchair, nobody ever came off a walker, nobody ever came off a cane. You've never seen a blind person healed; you've never seen a deaf person healed; you've never seen a mute person speak. Nobody ever got healed of cancer unless it was an American kind of healing—we prayed, and the doctor was able to discover it in time, and the chemo worked, and praise God she's alive. You know, great, that's better than being dead, but that's not a—you don't read stories like that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts. So what happens? Less spiritual impact; less because we sowed spiritual seed and made spiritual impact. Among you are we not entitled to material wealth? Spiritual—the depth of spiritual impact produces the depth of spiritual wealth. You command the more miracles you're saying, the more miracles there are, the more money. Yes, Smith Wigglesworth took in $2 million in his tour of the United States in 1920. Do you know what money was? I mean, there weren't even automobiles really out yet, but in the 40s a brand new Cadillac was $800. That's how much money's been devalued. So you take in 2 million; somebody on chat GPT or the internet or whatever, what does it say? $2 million in 1920 would be the equivalent of what in 2024? And was he pounding offerings? Were they offering meetings? Were they giving teachings? No, but his people got healed and impacted; they wanted to give, and he didn't take any of it anyway; he sent it all to his son-in-law in Congo to start churches there. James, stter, go ahead. 31.5 million. So it'd be like on an eight-month tour of preaching, he took in $31.5 million without even trying, just preaching and taking offerings, and the amount of offerings that came in were different. I'm going to show you where it is in the Bible; there's the scripture that says it directly. Here's an example: go to Acts chapter 28. Acts 28. Have you gotten anything out of these sessions as students? Have they helped you this way? You know, my goal in this Bible College is that when you graduate you'll be able to start off like you've been doing it for 20 years. You can study the Bible at home; you will study the Bible here. We have a Bible intensive course, but I told you running a restaurant's more than cooking food, and Ministry is more than knowing—knowing the Bible; there's an art to Ministry. Acts 28: "Once we were safe on shore, we learned that we were on the island of Malta." Let me have a student read. Let me have one do one to five and another do six through 10. Who'll be the first to read? Right here, front corner. I'm going to grab you a mic quickly now. "When they had escaped, they then found out that the island was called Malta, and the natives show us unusual kindness; they made us all welcome because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, fastened on his hand. So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, 'No doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he has escaped the sea, yet Justice is not allowed to live.' But he shook off the creature into the Fire and suffered no harm." Do we have two mics? All right, good. Keep going. "The people waited for him to swell up, suddenly drop dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw that he wasn't harmed, they changed their minds and decided he wasn't. Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us and treated us kindly for three days. As it happened, Publius's father was ill with fever and dysentery. So Paul went in and prayed for him and, laying his hands on him, he healed him. Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed. As a result, we were showered with honors. And when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need." Let me hear nine again. "Then all the other sick people on the island came and were healed." 10. "As a result, we were showered with honors, and when the time came to sail, people supplied us with everything we would need." The original language says we were given high honor, gifts. So people, when they saw this man come and a snake—there's a snake. When I was in Zambia, it's called a 10-step snake. When it bites you, you're dead within 10 steps. This was probably a snake like that because the Bible says when he was bit, nobody said, "Hey, get him some cream or get him these leaves." They waited for him to swell up and die. "Well, he's gone," but Paul shook the snake off into the fire and was unharmed. When the people's side was unharmed, they realized he was carrying Supernatural power, and so he goes and prays for the Governor's—who was it? Publius's father-in-law? Who does it say, verse four or so? The Governor's father, Publius's father, who was sick with dysentery, diarrhea, and a fever, which used to kill people. People died of that in the 1800s in on the Oregon Trail computer game. So he prayed for him, and he was immediately healed. And so when they saw that, then all people said, "Shoot, I forget his dad; I'm getting my sister's sick; my son's sick," and they all went back and brought their sick relatives to Paul. Look how caring God's power opens anything up to a Ministry opportunity. Wow. Do you know my dog Christopher, who I don't really care for? He need—he needed to go out and use the restroom, so I took him out to the yard this morning as I was preparing, and I sat on the back latch of my vehicle and was—was reading, and a car pulled up with an older lady in it, and she said, "Is that your vehicle?" I said, "It is, yeah." I hadn't broken into someone's land and sat on their car. You—you've deducted it correctly. And she goes, "Uh, didn't—didn't it used to be chrome?" I said, "That was the other one I had, and then I got rid of it for this one." "Wow, it's like a rainbow." I said, "That's right; I, a straight man, driving a gay car." So she—she starts talking to me, and uh, she said she lives in the—there's like a—a senior's like uh—tow houses near my home, and so I said, uh, I said, "Hey," I said, "I—we—I'm pastor of a church, even though I don't—I look like someone who needs to be pastored, but I'm the pastor of a church, and I said, 'We have a senior's brunch once a month. I'd love for you to come.'" "Oh, where is it?" "Pittsburgchurch.com. This is free of charge; we have the food catered in; it's not gross Church food, and I'd love to have you." "Oh, I'm going to look it up; that would be great. My husband just passed away." I thought I said, "Well, there's—we're getting close to 100 seniors there, 55 plus, so you make some new friends." Thank you. See how you—the anointing is what—none of these laws I'm giving you substitute for being anointed and filled with the Holy Ghost, but if you're—you can be filled with the Holy Ghost and be an absolute idiot that doesn't use these laws. I'll give you an example: when I was invited to see President Trump at his Club in New Jersey, President Trump had been arraigned that day, and he came and joined us at night; flew straight from Court, got in at night with Melania. As they walked in, Maddie, you be Melania, okay? You go to walk in the room, and then I'm going to be one of the charismatic women pastors and do what she did. Walk—oh yeah! Secret Service started going for their guns. I was rooting for them to shoot her dead. Please, please, please help the charismatic movement out by ridding us of this idiot. Melania looked like stunned—I mean, absolute idiot. Now that lady is a top—on paper, she's a top Pastor that understands, you know, has a church, and but she doesn't—that stuff works. If you're at your Charismatic Church, you go do that to a politician. She—she almost died; she should have died. Apparently, the Secret Service has not been protecting the Trump family long before that shooting in the air, letting everything go. I'm telling you, I'm not exaggerating—just like that, started prophesy: "The Lord says…" and and she's an idiot. So I'm telling you, there's a way—there's things I could have done in Nigeria that it have been the end. Boy, it's 95° out outside, so I hope you don't mind, Brother Paul, I wore my Chicago Bulls glittery basketball shorts and some Hey Dudes. It doesn't matter how anointed you are; you're out; you've shown such disrespect; you know, you don't understand. So I'm telling you, you'll get all that. Last night is that type of service; you're going to be full of the Holy Ghost; you are full of the Holy Ghost; you're going to leave here more full of the Holy Ghost, but then you're going to know how to channel that power in a way that brings results. Can you say Amen? Amen. So Paul did that. Paul prays; then they bring—no offering taken, and everybody went and got their best, high honor gift from their house and said, "Thank you for healing my sister; I want to give this to you." He was a prisoner. Now look, if you read at the end of the chapter, he's still a prisoner, and so much happened on that trip by the power of God that they made a rule that he was—though he was a prisoner, Paul maintained his own private residence and could—could receive guests. Now this guy's different. Don't put him in jail; he's awesome. He saved our lives on the boat; he told us what to do and saved Our Lives. Then when I was on the island, he got bit by a 10-step snake; I watched it, and he shook it in the fire; nothing happened; then he healed everybody on the island. This guy's awesome, so give him his own house. Yeah, we can't release him; he—he—he's—he's in custody, but we're going to make special rules for him. See, when you live like that, you will live a life where there's special rules for you in your ministry. What people don't normally do for other people, they'll do for you. It's the favor of God that will encompass you round about like a shield from this day forward. Say it out loud: spiritual impact. Spiritual impact produces material wealth. Produces material wealth, and it produces promotion. So how—if spiritual impact does that? Now we could close right now, and that'd be great, but then you have no way—okay, so how do you make spiritual impact? I'm going to—I'm going to—let me—let me number them: one, two, three, four, five, six. Six things that—that produce spiritual impact through your life. Number one: First Kings chapter 17. First Kings chapter 17. Who will read, beginning at verse one, and then I'll just tell you where to stop? Uh, I'll go with Hannah first. Hannah, did I get it? Yeah. "And Elijah the Tishbite, one of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years except at my word.’ Then the word of the Lord came to him saying, ‘Get away from here and turn eastward and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. But who knows—it might be Sherith—who knows—and it will be that you shall drink from the Brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’" That's it. So number one: the ability to hear the voice of God. Kenneth Hagen said the difference between ministers is their ability to hear the voice of God. How do this thing blow up so fast? Jonathan, build me a strong Church in Pittsburgh. I heard it; I obeyed it; the results speak for themselves. I didn't do a demographic study. What place would be most apt to start a church where the income of the people can support a new work? Where people are most apt to go to church? No, there's no substitute for the voice of the Lord. Where does God have—I get nervous when I hear preachers say, "We sent out our resume to three Churches; two said they were interested; we went and preached in at both; they both boards voted, and um, one accepted us; one didn't, or two accepted us. My wife said the one would be too far from our parents' house, and her mother needs care, so we decided to go to the one that's closer to our home," and then you watch them struggle. That the results you've seen here in two and a half years aren't produced in 40 years because nothing was birthed by God's voice. Now I don't have to teach you how to hear God's voice because the Bible says, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the…" So just being—just by Redemption, you have the ability to hear God's Voice. Number two: you heard God's voice. Almost no one that's at this school lives near the school. You know, my—who's at school from your family in Modesto? Who are the students? You two? Oh, you. So like for you to come, for you to hear me preach in June, right? Was it June? May. In May, in Modesto—as far from Pittsburgh in the continental United States as you can basically go—and then decide like in 90 days to set everything up to be here. Obviously, what was the—what—what happened? Tell me what happened. I don't know; I'd like to hear. Let him have a mic. "I was in—and fasting, and God had told me that um, six months to a year, something was going to happen." So fast forward, you came; you had talked about the school, and we had felt a calling for it, and so we talked to Pastor Levi, and we came out here for the Revival, and it just—everything kind of fell in place. So six months—it got six months. So from March to September. Would you like to be a student too? But over—tell me, explain the situation. "I would, but application said only one parent." I see. Okay, so you make it work. But if you keep coming, I—I'll give you a dual um—graduation certificate for half the price. So that there you go. So to hear that—see, you heard the voice of God, and then she said everything fell into place. That's how you can tell when you're hearing the voice of God. All these—how many know new level, fresh devil? New level, fresh promotion. Somebody say new level, new promotion. This church went to a new level. Somebody got us a house and furniture and car. Yeah, there's—there's—there's not new de—there's the same devil. This isn't Mario Brothers. Yeah, there—there are different things you have to—but don't never get your eyes on the challenge; keep your eyes on the reward. So everybody say, "Hear the voice of God!" The—now the same way you hear it: when I went to Z Bible Institute, I knelt down at the altar at 10 years old; my dad was preaching there; I went to pray. Obviously, I wasn't thinking about where to go to college at 10. I knelt down; as soon as my knee hit the ground—when you're old enough—this is the school. Okay, I'm done; I got my plans for the next eight years. I applied to just that school and was accepted and—and went. I knew a—Doa's—called my dad's Ministry Office when I was working there. She had heard me preach on healing; there was a professor at the college; she was going to a Bible school that taught against healing, so she called and wanted to know how to respond to the—the things that he had said against healing. They put the call through to me, and I told her, and I—I got her address and sent her uh—TL Osborne's book, *Healing The Sick*, and got ready to go about my day, and the second I hung the phone up, I heard, "That's the wife I've prepared for you." All right, you only got to tell me once. I went and—got an—I went to my dad, got a Jeweler's number, got the engagement ring ready. My dad said, "I didn't even know you have a girlfriend." I said, "I don't yet, but I will soon," and then—and you know—then it's been—E—I mean, you can tell that God matched us up; we—we flow easy together. Everything starts with hearing God's voice. So you already know how to do that; that's what brought you here, and I know it's what brought you here, cuz there's no other reason to come here right now. Like in—in years—like within 10 years, when this becomes a huge movement and it's like popular to come here, that's different then. You will have people that just came because it was popular to come or, you know, when the church hits 2500, the Bible schools—500 people will come locally that didn't hear the voice of God, just because they feel called; they don't know of any other Bible schools but this one. But for you, you at this stage of the school and Ministry, you heard the voice. How many of you know—know you heard the voice of the Lord to come here? Well, number one: never hear the voice of the Lord to do something and then quit on it because of another thing. Secondly, God's not schizophrenic, so I'm always concerned when the Lord called me to go to Revival today; the Lord's calling me home. No, you're nuts, because things—the steps of a righteous man are ordered of the Lord. God's not twirling you around; He has you—say, "Finish what you start." Finish what you start. People that quit Bible School prematurely get divorced; they can't hold jobs because you learn to quit; you learn when things get hard instead of challenging it to move instead of seeing it through. But if you'll hear God's voice, then stay with it. Elijah stayed at the brook till the brook dried up; then the Lord spoke to him again. Now go—uh—uh to Zarephath; there's a widow that I've spoken to there that will feed you. Elijah's Ministry, Elisha's Ministry in particular are marked by hearing the voice of God. God had a place for them; in that place there was provision. You never get so anointed that you can just do whatever you want. Do you think—do you think I could do what I'm doing in Pittsburgh and just decide, "You know what? I like Arizona; I like Paige, Arizona, by Lake Pleasant; I'm going to start a church there"? It would be struggle Central; there'd be a crappy building, lack of money, because you're never so anointed—when Jonah was a prophet, so anointed by God that he could win all of Nineveh to the Lord in one sermon, but when he was on a boat headed in another Direction, he was so cursed that the Heathen people said, "You have a problem; this is the worst boat ride we've ever taken, and we've traced it to you." So you never outgrow Divine Direction; you never just—"I just feel to move closer to home; enjoy yourself," and if you're going to do that, don't pray or anything; don't drag God into it. "God, help; I need provision." God say, "Yeah, you're on your own." "What if—full—aah—go to Zarephath; there's a widow there." "I don't like Zarephath; I don't like widows either; they're always talking. I want to go to New York." Sounds like something you'd read in the Mormon Bible. So he went to Idaho; then he's on his own. Jonah was on his own; he could pray all he wanted on that boat; nothing would change. You can't override obedience with fasting and prayer; there's no prayer that cures Disobedience. So the—when Ken Hagen said the difference between ministers is the ability to hear God's voice, essentially all the success you're seeing here is a function on hearing—what if I said in 2020, "No, start a church"? I—I don't know if you've noticed, God—I—I—I'm traveling as an evangelist, and that takes all my time, and I've got a—a—a pretend news show that I do that's doing really well. I don't—doing a church—I—I—I've learned, you know, I've been doing this one thing my—my—my whole life; I'm pretty comfortable with it; I'm—I'm going to just do that.

Then I guarantee you, come about 2022, there'd be a lot of Instagram reels. Hey family, we've hit a little bit of a financial shortfall. Uh, if you know, by the by next Friday, we need about 800,000 to come in. If you could just dig deep and um, I don't mean to put pressure on.

When I hear see people try to solve problems with the wrong means, they don't. I would never ask, "Why, how do we get more money?" I'd ask, "Why do we even need—why why do we need more money? Why did we go from Heaven—more than enough—to enough? What happened? Am I in the wrong place? Did I miss a step?" You don't just pray for problems to be solved; figure out what caused the problem. Right? What's causing the problem? Don't blame the devil, and don't drag God into it. What decisions were made that caused the problem?

You know, you get married, you're in love. This girl is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Eighteen months later, "Pastor, I need to meet with you. My wife's a witch. Uh, I'm sure of it. I caught her with a broom." Yeah, she was sweeping the kitchen. Everything's immediately the devil. How did she go from the love of your life to now she's a witch? She doesn't even own a pointy hat. So people just want to go, "It's the devil." They never want to ask, "Did I miss a direction? Am I in the right place?" I would—I fear something you're not supposed to say as a faith preacher, but I stick by what I'm saying. I do fear to ever get outside of the will of God, ever for one minute. I don't want to be outside of God's will for one minute. You get hit by a bus. Who knows what could happen in the will of God without you praying? When you're where God sends you, you have direction, you have safety. There's a place God has for you. Pittsburgh's my place.

In fact, when the Lord spoke to me to start the church in Fort Worth, and He spoke—that's why people tell—how many churches are you going to start? I don't know. I wasn't going to start any, and I definitely wasn't going to start more than one. "Now's the Time for Fort Worth." Okay, so then I don't know how to do that. I don't know anybody who does that at that time. So does that mean I leave this with Kofi and go to Fort Worth? Kenneth Hagen said the way you can tell when you're kind of out of the will of God, it's like showering with your socks on—something doesn't feel right. So when you consider something and it just feels like icky, a little bit—uh, no, that doesn't seem right. I don't feel—I feel like Pittsburgh's my—my throne. That God—you know, God gives you a throne as a man of God, as you advance. It's like your place. David Wilkerson was New York; he owned New York by God's grace, I'm saying. But God sets you up in a place, and that's your place. When Elijah was in his place, there was a king there, but he—the king wasn't calling the shots; Elijah was calling the shots, and the king knew it, and his wife knew it. "I can't do anything because of that man of God." So God puts you in a place, and if you won't go to that place, then you're just like a lost duck. You don't—you don't—you don't have a place, you don't have protection, you don't have a nest. Everybody say, "Find your place." Find your—see, you're going to find—because you follow the will of God, things are going to flow. Here, say, "Spiritual impact produces material wealth."

How many offerings were taken last night to honor me and AD dollars? How many offerings have been taken this year? How many, you know, our—our pastors work very hard. We're going to receive an offering to bless them. You're not wrong to do that, but how many of those have been taken since we started the church? How many Pastor Appreciation Sundays have we had? I finished last night. I sat in a chair here because people, you know, I haven't been home hardly at all this year. I've been out preaching, so I figured I—I'd sit. If people want to talk, we'll talk. A guy comes up to me and said, "Hey, I want to give you this, so you have money to go out to lunch with your—" This ministry and church has changed my life. Life. I said, "Thank you," put it in my pocket, even though I really wanted to look at it. It's like not classy to do so. I put it away. So I looked at it on the way home, as I checked for $7,000 to me personally. And then I got home and I told Don, she said, "Yeah, he gave me one too." That's 14—seven verse me—no effort. What—what—what provoked the check? Me now. How many—you know, many of us don't honor our pastors? How many know there's a blessing front? Yes, all that's true, but there's no effort. What did he say? "This ministry and this church has changed my life, and I want to say thanks." Jesus didn't do a teaching on Alabaster boxes that caused the lady to break her Alabaster Box open. She did that of her own accord. When you actually make impact on people's lives, you never have to chase shoes and bags. People—delight yourself in the Lord, His assignment for your life, and He'll give you the desires of your heart. Can you say, "Amen"? Am—so busy yourself—not trying to get money. Paul made no effort to try to get money in Acts 28. He made an effort to produce spiritual impact in Malta, and the impact he made produced a deluge of honor. The money your ministry functions with is not a—is not a sign of how good you are at raising funds, how good you are at teaching on offerings. The money your ministry commands will be a product of the commitment to make—making spiritual impact that you do with your generation.

There was a church I preached at on a Wednesday night, and uh, I gave an altar call for people to get saved, and they did. And then I laid hands on the ones that came up to get saved, and uh, there was a good meeting. So they gave me a $500 honorarium. And then uh, they told me I was scheduled to speak at all five of their campuses, five Wednesdays in a row. They said, "We're not going to have you do the four—our pastor feels to do them." So I called the—I said, "Listen, I'm not an idiot. Obviously, I did something that made you want to do something else." "No, no," I said, "Come on, I'm—I'm a preacher's kid. You can't lie to me. I know how this works." "Well, you didn't do anything wrong. It's just you were really strong on the baptism of the Holy Ghost." This is a Full Gospel—tonight. It's like I did at a Southern Baptist Church. They said, "You were really strong on the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and a lot of our pastors aren't baptized in the Holy Ghost at the campuses you're going to, and the one you were going to preach at this Wednesday, he's not only not baptized in the Holy Ghost, he's against it. So it would—it would have been a problem." So in the natural, that impact that I made cost me four meetings that same week. A man called—Mallus—and said, "I'd like to take Jonathan out to lunch because my son's 19 and went to hear him preach on Wednesday night, and uh, he's been a heroin addict for a long time." He said—"said, 'I'm a very success—he told me, 'I'm a very successful businessman, but my son was draining my money—drive between attorneys and rehab and methadone clinic and—and the crimes he committed while he was on drugs, I was paying out money left and right.'" He said, "He came back from that meeting; he hasn't touched heroin, and he invited me to come to church with him." He said, "So I would like to give him $10,000." So which—back then was like a lot. That was like back when we—we were taking in, you know, probably 10 times less than we are right now. So $10,000 would have been like—$10,000 back then would have been like a million now—maybe five million. It was like a lot. It was like—like we'd like jump around and stuff. So what happened? Spiritual impact produces material wealth.

Preaching at a church of 130 people, a lady comes to the altar. I preach there Sunday through Friday. Lady comes to the altar, cry, and gives her life to the Lord. Then Friday, the offering is $1,020,000 on a Friday night with less than 200 people. Uh, that lady who got saved, her husband had created one of the top 10 apps on planet Earth at that time. It'd be like if the founder of TikTok was there or whatever. He didn't go to church; he wasn't a Christian. His wife had left him for another man. She came and got saved, broke up with her boyfriend, came back home, and he came Thursday and Friday to see who's this American preacher that came to my country and caused this to happen and put a million dollars in the offering. Spiritual impact produces material wealth. Don't try to get more money; try to make more impact. Fast and pray. What do we do to start every year? Do I go to some kind of fundraising training seminar for 21 days? We fast and pray. What's fasting and prayer? Building up a spiritual deposit so that when you get the mic, you're not a lightweight. So that when you finish, people go, "Oh, thank God He's done. When—when's He preaching again? When is she coming back to our church?" The pastor comes up to you and say, "Hey, um, I know you're only scheduled for Sunday night. Can you stay over for tomorrow?" If I announce it, this—this is awesome. There's something happening here. That's what—you don't blend into the mold. It's not normal for a prisoner to go pray for the Governor's father, and then everybody on the island—don't fit into the mold. You're assigned—break the mold and model after the Book of Acts church, and you'll never lack anything in Jesus' name. Can you say, "Amen"? Amen. Number one, the ability to hear God's voice. I'll stop; maybe we'll do this in two parts. Number two, somebody read 2 Corinthians 11:23 to 28. I—I won't go later than two. I know people have stuff to do. 2 Corinthians 11—somebody do 23, 24, and 25, and 20—somebody do 26, 27, and 28. This is number—number two. Two—how—how do you make spiritual impact? Number one, hear the voice of God. Number two, go ahead, whoever's first.

Are they—men of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more—in labor—more abundant in labors, above measure, more frequently, of—from the Jews. Five times I received 40 stripes minus one. I was whipped on my back 39 times. Uh, go back. Five times we had to close down our church for COVID. We were getting a lot of negative Facebook reviews. Five times I was whipped on my bare back 39 times—the harshest one you can give in the Roman Empire. I—I took it five times. Keep going. "Shi night and a day in journeys, often in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false—" Pause a second, let me see it in the NLT. 26—let's read in the NLT for the rest of 26. "And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not." Everybody say, "False brethren." False brethren. We had um, people in our church that acted like they were our friends, and they ended up betraying us and voting us out of the church. So that's why we're not in the ministry. Anything you're going to name as an excuse, Paul's saying, "I went through all of it—everywhere—in the city, in the wilderness, in the desert. I face this in every climate. I was—did it in the snow. I did it in Arizona. I've had it everywhere." You've had a hard time. I've been beaten with rods. Imagine who would even stay in the ministry. Wow, Jonathan, you really went through a lot this last month. No, I—I sat in an air-conditioned courtroom in a suit and tie. They didn't tie my hands up and take turns with rods beating my ribs till they were shattered. I never went through that. So you read—go ahead, finish it off. The—uh—28 and 29 or 27, 28, 29. "I worked hard and long during many sleepless nights. I've been hungry and thirsty and been often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold without enough clothing to keep me warm. Then beside all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches." 29. "Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? Who is led astray and I do not—and I do not burn with anger." Number two, the law of a full commitment to the Gospel. You can cut—cut my leg off, you can burn my car, you can shoot bullets into my home, you will never get me to stop preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This produces a promotion. When there's nothing anybody can do to stop you from completing your mission, that is completely absent from my generation. And you're too young for me to know what's absent or present in your generation. You would know—I don't know—I don't know how—I'm not going to say that it's absent from your generation, 'cause I—I don't know that many people from your generation. Hopefully it's not—my generation—they—they are—they'll quit at a drop of a hat. Things start going wrong. I mean, it's how evangelists open their meetings. "Sorry, folks, if I seem a little tired today, I had a flight that was delayed and my luggage was lost. What the—freaking do—preach." My heated seat was broken in my Cadillac Escalade, so if I seem a little stiff today, the massage function's broken. I told Patrick to get me the plat package, but there were none available. So there's no commitment. People—people bring up the tiniest things. Somebody give me some that you've heard of why people quit the ministry or resign to church or whatever. Somebody give me—come on here—just shout it out. There's one I was—how about I'll give you some. I've never really been recognized at our church. There was a guy that left our church in Fort Worth that was upset we didn't throw a party for him. The church isn't even a year old. Well, recognize—nobody wished me a happy birthday. The pastor didn't even know it was my birthday. Let me tell you something: if I'm going to wish everybody in our congregations a happy birthday, my Instagram page—I'm going to have to start a separate Instagram account called Happy Birthday from Jonathan. People work at a place—I'm not saying I'm not willing to do it, I'm just saying I'd have to—MCAS. How often now do we get requests that people want a—a happy birthday video greeting from me or a recognition video? Yeah, or anybody—probably twice a month. Twice a month. "Can Jonathan make a video?" No, I can't. I don't have time. "Congratulations on your thirtieth-year anniversary at your church. I have underwear older than that. Congratulations on sticking it out all three years. We're very proud of you. Keep up the great work." Do you want a video drenched in sarcasm, 'cause that's the only kind I could give you? "No one ever celebrated me. I never got a chance to preach. Um, people really didn't—I—I—I came—they never paid me. Do you know after all I did, they only gave me a $100 gift card to—to Starbucks for working the whole year." Blah, blah. You think Paul—anybody up in Heaven's going to—"Wow, you know, I got beat with rods, but I'll tell you this lady's going through it." $100 gift card. I'm going to tell you a way to have a very easy run of it in the ministry: don't expect anything from anyone. Expect disrespect. Expect for people that you've helped—I have a family member in the ministry. A couple came to their church. The lady was unable to have children. He prophesied to her, "God's going to open your womb." God opened her womb. And then I was in the service; he walked by her while he was preaching—he's a prophet—one family member you guys haven't met yet—and he stopped at the lady and said, "If you have the baby on my birthday, will you name it after me?" Kept preaching, walked by her again, said it again. "If you have the baby on—on my birthday, will you name it after me?" Guess when she had the baby—on his birthday. She named it after him—first name, middle name. Then got mad five years later, left the church, and changed the child's name in court. Couldn't have a baby, had the baby named after the pastor. You will have people—I guarantee you—when they were yelling at Jesus, "Crucify Him and release Barabbas," there were blind people who got their eyes open in His meetings. "Release Barabbas." There were crippled people that were healed. There were lepers that were cleansed. "Release Barabbas and crucify—" Wait, aren't you—Barabbas—didn't He open your eyes? Yeah, but He's changed. Eight months ago I liked Him; He's different now. So if you expect—I'm telling you this ahead of time because it won't discourage you—expect people to turn on you. Enjoy it while they like you; soon they won't like you. People change their opinions all the time. Do whatever you do is unto the Lord, knowing your reward comes from Him. Don't worry about it. Bless them on their way out. Don't do it for ice cream cake and preferred seeding. Do it is unto the [Applause] Lord, and then God will send you other people. One guy saying he feels to buy you a house and your wife a Range Rover and furnish it. Makes up for a lot of people that said mean things on Facebook. You can't build a house with nice comments. Can you say, "Amen"? Amen. So you're trying to please the wrong people. Do it unto the Lord. Know how people are. People are fickle. Your dad turned on your mom; your mom turned on your dad. People turn on people. They stood in an altar in front of 300 people and told every—they pledged their undying love, and later using the b-word. That's how—that's people. So why do you think you're exempt? That's how people are. They go from loving you to hating you. How many books are out that are—that are printed from somebody that worked in that ministry that then left and made their life's mission to let everybody know what an awful person Joel Osteen is, what an awful person whoever is? It's their mission in life is to take that person down. That's life. Keep—never let it affect you. When the whole—Jesus was unmoved when they threw Him a parade, and He was unmoved when they nailed Him to a cross. He was on—if you will develop something today where no one's opinion can move you off of what God said, because if you don't do that, you're going to become one of the litany of preachers that their every sermon is a self-defense. They can't even preach without the voice of their critics ringing in their head. Today we're going to preach on John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." You know, some people say that I don't even preach that script—always talking about what some people say—whole sermon self-defense. Some people say that I—I don't even have compassion for people. Let me tell you, no one has more comp—your ministry is over. Remember me telling the church—I said—"You hear me?" When we were going through the little—uh—tiny challenge we went through and one—remember me telling the congregation, "People are writing nasty stuff about me online. Don't spend one—don't anybody from this church make one post defending me as your pastor. We're not trying to turn people to Jonathan Shettelworth; we're trying to turn people to Jesus Christ." An undying commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Things got hard, and so many of the people were turned against us, and so—and so what? You little chump? So what? It's easy to leave. Where are you leaving to go to? People always think about leaving; they never think about where they're going. I—a—I'm leaving to do what? Stay and fight. Acts chapter—you know what I like about Paul? We just read about Him. Acts 19, the believers turned on Him, so He didn't leave the city. He rented the lecture hall of Tyrannus and kept preaching. Okay, fine. You don't let me meet at your synagogue; I'll go get another building and keep going. Keep going. Somebody said, "Keep going." Keep going. Then uh, what else did—

He do they stoned him to death. The Believers gathered around him. He popped up out of the stones and went straight back into the city where they had stoned him. Yeah, I'm not done. I know you all killed me, I'm back and I'm preaching again, again and eventually you you develop a reputation in hell. It's not worth messing with this guy; this guy doesn't quit. May that type of strength be born of the Holy Ghost in every one of you today, in Jesus' name. Go ahead, take 30 seconds and give the Lord your greatest hand clap and shout hallelujah.

Number three, you have to know your place. I would make make it my matter of prayer while you're here: where is God calling you? Thomas duchelle, while he was at bible school in America, kept hearing the word Rhodesia, Rhodesia. Searched it out in the library and found out it's what today is Zimbabwe. Started a Word of Faith Church there, and it's a it's the best Church in the country. He's from Colorado. How does everybody feel called right here? Why does everybody feel called 50 miles from where they grew up? Maddy's from Louisiana; Pittsburgh's nothing like Louisiana. I like that. Zeff, that graduate graduated, is in Rwanda, Angola right now. See, that's the call of God. Why is everybody in a hurry to get back home? I've watched people graduate Bible College and get an invitation to preach, like in Colombia, big meeting; then another Pastor invited him, blew up, man, and I was booked to come home, so I came. You have no meetings in the United States; stay in Colombia. I don't have a Visa; stay in the jungle. Go where the doors are open. Yes, most Americans—now I can't talk about your generation like I said, but I can talk about America because I'm from here and I grew up here—most Americans want to go back home; everything's a distraction from going back home. Let's do this, this, then we'll get back home. They want to watch, they want to be on the couch watching television, so they don't want long church services; they don't want anything; they want to be home, and preachers are the same way. I want to come back home; I want to be back home; I want to go back home; I want want to go home.

Don't go into the ministry because the whole thing starts out with: go into all the world. Say out loud: go into all the world. Go. You know Dr. Paulichi could have extended that same in—let me go to 2:15, then I'll leave you alone. You know Dr. Paulichi could have extended that that invitation to a lot of people, and you tell me what they would have said. I'd like you to come. I'll be Dr. Pal ni. I'd like for you to come to my church next month. I didn't have a year to prepare. When was it? Ju, first week of July, so two months. I had 60 days. I want you to come to my church in Abuja, Nigeria. What would the average American Minister have said? I have other plans. Give me some of the other plans that would have prevented them from speaking to 990,000 people. What'd you say? Family, my daughter's birthday is actually the first week of September. I'm telling you, and just tell your family up front. I told my wife on our first date—I wasn't going to tell her on our first date, but it ended up going into a long date; we ate at a steakhouse, that we went to Dunkin' Donuts and talked till 4:30 in the morning, and it went on to the Future—so I said, just so you know, I have one prior arrangement that I have to honor above our marriage. There was an angel that came to my room when I was eight years old and told me that I'm to call men and women that are now in darkness into the light, because soon it will be eternally too late. That takes precedence over everything. So if you're cool with that, and we'll sign up to be with me, then then we're good, but just so you know, it's not going to be a normal relationship. No, that's great. Okay, and we've kept it. Camila's birthday does not override anything; my anniversary doesn't override anything. You know, you can celebrate your anniversary on a different date; you know, you can celebrate your child's birthday on a different date. I've done it before. With—I said, now listen, I'm not going to be here for your birthday, so today I'm taking her miniature golfing, either today today or Saturday. I was going to take her last night; they all they're all closed. I thought that one in the Strip District was open late, but you know, I'm not going to be here next week, so I'm taking you out right now. You're going to have two birthdays: one with P, and then one with everybody else. It's not like you just skipping—I'm sorry, you won't see me for your birthday, just do it another time and make it better; make it twice as good. Don't be some little American loser. Oh, Dr. Paul, is there another time we could come? What was the other one? I I just lost M. I was going to ask her what was the one when Dag invited me to ministers conferences ago to go with him in um wherever the first place was that we went. How much? Yeah, it was Thanksgiving, and it was in two weeks. Bishop Dag, that's a real honor, but in our country we have a thing called Thanksgiving; the pilgrims ate a nice meal with the Indians and agreed for a peaceful transfer of land, just like we were time in school. So is there another time? See, now let me ask you a question: when you speak like that, when somebody gives you a high honor, you know what I found out? After Bishop Dag had not had anyone come to a crusade with him for 15 years, and he's never had anybody go with him twice. So when I when when he extended that invitation, that to the biggest Evangelistic Crusades that are going on in the world right now, tell me what it communicates when I say, can I do it another time? What have I what have I really said? Yeah, I've said no, and what else have I said? Not important. No, that's great. You know, I know I know a I know you guys are big on Africa. I like Thanksgiving. Um, do they have pumpkin spice lattes in Angola? Then count me out. Where will I get stuffing there? It's over. I promise you, if I make any comments like that, there's no another time. It's you don't value what I just asked you to do, so I'll find find someone else who will value what—and you know what, we'll only know when we get to heaven who knows how many other people got the invitation extended to First and didn't value it. I know it's oh, it's in Africa; they don't even know there's countries in Africa; everything is just Africa. It's in Africa. So number one, everybody say a full commitment. Full commitment. Number one, you have—it's on Thanksgiving; family plans, all that, adios family. Number two, you have to get a Visa in like 20 days, right, which isn't easy. The less you want to go to a country, the harder the Visa is to get; the ones that should just be happy anyone's interested in coming make it very hard to go. So what did we have to do to get the visa in time? Drove to Washington, D.C. But you know what I said when he invited me? I'll be there. I don't know what all the other details are, but I'm going to get it done. I'm going to get that Visa; I'm going to get that airplane ticket, and I will I'll sail there; I'll get a catamaran from Lake Pusha and leave out 20 days ahead of time. You will see my white self on that platform when you get there. I'm glad I went with self. Sometimes I have to remember the Xbox headsets not on and look it all all worked. Visa just in time; everything just in time. There's one flight; sometimes there's like like we're not going to be able to get a flight, like the flight's going to be like 60 hours because there's no more there's no direct flight Pittsburgh to Cabinda, Angola. Even people from Angola don't know where Cabinda is; it's up in like it's separated from the whole rest of the country; there's actually part of a country; it's disconnected from the rest of Angola; it's just a little place by the sea. So, and I'll tell you another thing that'll help you in the ministry—don't invite and say, now do you know how I can get—I said, I'll see you there. So then Sunday night when the Crusade starts, he comes up on the platform; I haven't called him, texted him or anything, and I'm standing there in a suit and tie, and he as he walks up, he said, you made it. Oh yeah, told you I'd be here. Feel like the only way it could be cooler is if I had a cigar, but doesn't go over well in Christianity. You know, it's very similar; it's a cool life if you fully—it's like being in the CIA; it's like missions. You got to get to Abuja. Where is Abuja? I've never heard of Abuja. I heard of Lagos. You find out where it is; get the ticket; get there; do what you got to do; go through customs; go through corrupt officials—talking about the United States—a and get there and then and then do uncommon things, like like when we landed, when I came with um Pastor Jay, we were in—where was the second place that we went? Liberia, Monrovia, Liberia. So we got in—no, no, a Doas came with me that time. We landed an hour and a half before the service started. What would your average American do if they had just flown for 25 straight hours and landed 1 hour before the service started? Would they go to the meeting or would they go to the and join the next day? So do uncommon things. I changed super quick; got to the meeting; dressed up; showered and shaved; was standing by the staircase, and when he got to the meeting in his Entourage and got out, he went, you made it. They told me you just landed like an hour and a half ago; don't you want to go to the hotel? I said, if I wanted to be in a in a bed, I'd have stayed home. I want to be at this meeting. See, so when you if I say not that that it's Thanksgiving, I tell them I don't value it, but then not only do I value it, I Super Value it. I'm in this thing with you; I got my heart out for this Crusade; I'm believing for Souls; I'm not here like I'm like to see the hotel, then we'll go to the services a little bit. What's the what time should we arrive? No, no, no, I'm in this thing; Crusades War; I'm in the war with you; whatever you're battling, I'm here to help. How are you finding the food? Oh, let's just say it's different than what I'm don't St like that. I doubled Bishop Dab Dag over last laughing. He said real cautiously the first trip: how are you finding the food? I said, are you kidding? It's awesome. He went, really? I said, what you don't understand is my wife is a terrible cook. I said, so this is like a vacation. He he then had me tell like three other pastors: tell them what you just said about your wife's cooking. My wife's not a terrible cook; I'm just joking around, but the opposite. So so tell me what you're supposed to say when you're an American. Say, how are you finding the food here, Maurice? What would you say? Say what would an American say? It's not what I'm used to. If you have—okay, I'll give you an example. One time I was in uh South Africa. Now when people have you to a place, whether it's what you're used to or not, people do their best; they don't do their best in America. You go to a big church; they have Dixie plates out; carrots and celery with a vat of ranch dressing; Serve Yourself; no Forks. But when you go overseas, they they they do their best. So they took us to this family's home that owns like 200 Acres; it's a beautiful home; they made a huge spread of delicious food for us; Venison and and good food. So they asked—one Minister was with me; it was a youth conference; I was in my early 30s—one Minister was with me: hey, how are you enjoying your time here? We've been there a day and a half. Oh, you know, it's been hard; I haven't had Wi-Fi till this morning and wasn't able to call my wife and daughter, and when I called them it was was all I could do not to cry. Now if you did your best for someone and they've been there 36 hours and their first thing is how much they miss home, what do you feel like? Just you know, maybe you're more compassionate; I'd be just go home. You know, you're going to be away from your family five days; freaking tough it out and enjoy where you're at; don't always be waiting to be somewhere else. Most people would have been at Dr. Pich's Church wondering, when does this normally get over? For what you can go to the Abuja Hilton? What did you come here for? Enjoy the church; you'll be home; you'll be home a lot. Right now you're in Nigeria. That's why when our flight got canceled, I never told Pastor Paul, but he found out; his assistant told him, and he said, they said your flight's been canceled; do you have other arrangements? I said, I'm sure I do, but right now Dr. Paul, my whole focus is on this service. I said, I don't care whether I go home or not; I care that I'm here. He went, I'm not trying to get back to America; if I wanted to be in America, I just would have stayed in America; I'm here. What if you miss your flight? Then we'll figure it out; who cares? Jesus. That's what Jesus meant when he said, let today's trouble—don't get so involved in details that you miss the big opportunities that God's given you. Somebody say full commitment. Full commitment. Joy where you're at; focus on where you're at. So when when that preacher said that—who was more well known than me? Me at that time. You know, it's just it was all I could do not to cry, cuz I hadn't talked to my wife and daughter in so long. I said, what? If we at the table full of people, I went, what? Have we been here 36 hours? Take it easy. David Livingston. David Livingston went to Africa for like 40 years. So they all laughed, and guess who? M. Don't don't leave yet, unless you if you can stay, because I'm going to involve you. Um, so guess who was back next year? Me. Guess who wasn't back? The other guy, cuz it's not about just preaching; it's about not being a Jerk. It's about valuing what people do for you. Can you say amen? Amen. Showing appreciation that there's any food. That's why I read you—we should read it again, but I've already taken too much time—where Paul's letting them know I was whipped, not I ate food I wasn't used to; I was beaten; I was left in the water in a shipwreck for a day and a night; you get hypothermia when you do that, and he was like 60. Food's really challenging. Let me tell you something, and God God will keep you healthy; he's kept me healthy. One of the trips I went to, on one of these trips, I won't say where I got I I got diarrhea like I had to use the bathroom like every 18 to 28 minutes; I was like a broken hydraulic valve. Nobody ever heard about it. Bishop Dag, I don't know whether I'll be here tonight or not; I'm having a bit of tummy issues; wear dark colored pants and keep going; put your tan linen pants away and keep moving. Can you say amen? Mallus, if we talk about—make sure give him M a mic—if we were to if we were to talk about having a commitment, I'll tell you what I think of the first trip I took to Africa was in Congo, and my bag never got transferred from Istanbul to Africa, so I had no clothes. I didn't pack an overnight bag or anything, like an idiot. So I get there, I have no clothes, so I go, let's buy some suits. I go to buy suits, because of the theft and corruption, the the the suits are 5,000 a piece. I thought like in Africa they'd be like cheaper; they were like highly expensive. I didn't have that much money, so they I go to a store that sells those African shirts with the matching pants and buy those, and I go to church; nobody wears those in Kinshasa. I actually I actually read an article that because Kot Congo—I'm because Congo was colonized by the French, they actually take fashion very seriously and spend—this is what it said in the article—that the people of Kinshasa spend an inordinate amount of money on their clothes. I didn't know that. So I walk into this Congolese church in Kinshasa where everybody's wearing Armani suits and Dolce & Gabbana; the women have nice dresses on; no head wraps; that looks like a Paris fashion show, and I walk in in this bright white shirt with purple embroidery and the matching pants, and in unison 2,000 people turned their heads around and went like this, like, who is this jackass? What did you watch a National Geographic show in 1940? You think we all dressed like this? I mean, you could see it on their face like, oh, you think you think we're that kind of Africa? It would basically be the equivalent of like preaching in Costa Rica and arriving wearing a fruit hat. Put pop that picture back up. I have no clothes; I got no toiletries, and this picture was taken Wednesday; I got there Sunday. Wednesday, my bag that I had thought was gone—I knew how the father felt in the prodigal son story—this guy shows up from the airport at the orphanage with my suitcase. I hugged my suitcase; I I I can look like a normal person now, and then I guess I was like so happy; other people got happy and just started hugging me and stuff. That was the day. Look at what an idiot I look like. Everybody say, everybody say, keep going. Keep going. What it comes to your my M gos have like a challenge that that was was like something that came up where it it displayed on behalf of our Ministry, unusual. It doesn't have to involve me, but it can involve me; something that displays like an unusual commitment to like where most people have just said, well, we're not able to make it, or there were no flights, or whatever—that that we did it. Uh, the most significant one was when we were living in Ball and town, and your tires—do you remember where when that that weekend where AEL got your tires fixed? I remember him getting a blizzard, and you guys drove straight through the night. Was it was it 13 or 14 hours? I can't remember what—you know, I I forgot about all this; it I okay, what she's bringing up. Friday, I preached at my Uncle Terry's Church in Virginia Beach; had a great service; finished preaching; I got my Ty loosen; we're going to watch TV; I'm preaching Sunday morning in um at Pastor Terry D's Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania. So I sit down; it's Friday night; I got time, and the weather comes on, and there's a 36-inch snowstorm blowing from Indiana that's going to cover from Indiana all the way through Maryland and Pennsylvania, like so Virginia Beach is fine; Scranton's fine, but everywhere in between is like the harshest blizzard in a hundred years. Wow. So my Uncle Terry goes, you better leave now, or I don't think you're going to make it. So he was right, and he's not a worried person. I felt like it was like direction from the Holy Ghost, so I told Do, let's hop in the car. So we hopped in the car; I we we got went back to our apartment; grabbed our toiletries and some clothes and hit the road at 11:00 at night on Friday for a Sunday morning service that's only like an eight-hour driveway, and it was fine for about 45 minutes; we had a I had a Toyota Camry, and then we hit the blizzard; there were cars spun out everywhere; I had no money; this was the biggest church that ever invited me; I'm not missing it. So then we get to this place where there's state troopers sideways on the road, and I found like a little space with my car and went between and kept going. So finally I hit a place; I prayed in tongues probably for two straight hours, cuz my you could hear the underside of my car bottoming out on the snow; they weren't clearing the roads; they had just declared a state of emergency. So finally I knew I I still remember we got to Bridgeville, uh Delaware, and it was like—

My car is going to get stuck on the road, so the next hotel I'm going to—so I find this hotel and took a turn, and there was a built-up wall of snow. So I just gunned it, but it wasn't snow; it was ice. So I woke up on—we're here. So my car is like lodged in the snow. We got out, hurled the thing. It was uh, 4:30 in the morning. I called Triple A to tow my car out, and they said, "We're not sending any tow trucks out," and, "Well, I'll figure it out in the morning." We got a room. The guy at the front desk said, "How did you get here?" I said, "I drove here." "On what road?" I said, "On the road right by—" He said, "That road? That's the state highway. They closed all the roads." And then I realized, "Oh, those cop cars that were sideways—that was a barricade." I just like went through and kept going, and they couldn't chase me because their cars were stuck. So I laid down for about 45 minutes. I'm still wearing the same suit from Friday night. And then I did the math on—on—I said, "Well, we're probably going to have to leave at about 6:00 if we're going to make it." 6? No, there was a Saturday night service; that's what it was. So we get back in the car, or we go to get back in the car. Now, if I had made it through that thing that my car got lodged in, I wouldn't have been able to get out because no one could leave; everybody's in the lobby, and they can't leave 'cause they're snowed in. But my car didn't make it through; it's still stuck, but I'm at least close to the road.

So there was this guy—and you're not supposed to say this—but he was a Mexican guy. He was Mexican, and he was a guy, and he was the janitor. And when I saw him, I said—a dollar translated for me—I said, "Do—do you have a shovel that I can use?" And I don't know whether she mistranslated or what, but he got a shovel and came out. And I'm telling you, I don't know where you learned to shovel snow in Mexico. This guy shoveled my car out in like eight minutes. I mean, I mean, to like bare concrete, wow. So I didn't have any money, but I took his name and asked him if he works here every day, and he did. So we get out; he helps push my car out of the thing after he shoveled it, and we get back on the road. I got behind a plow truck and was driving like 20 miles an hour on the highway all the way to the church. Then I get to the church, and it's the wrong address because they had moved churches, and I don't have enough cell signal, and it's like 5:50. And after all that driving—like 24, 27 hours straight—and all that, I'm still going to miss the service. I've got no way to call the pastor, and I almost had a nervous breakdown; like I almost just broke down and cried 'cause I had—like I made it to the town and can't find the church, and I don't have enough cell signal to get internet. And somehow I got the address, and I made it at about 6:20 and preached that weekend and got the check and drove back. And I stopped at that hotel in Bridgeville, Delaware. I gave that guy like $500, which was a lot for me back then, and I gave him a Spanish Bible and thanked him. I gave him an unwanted hug. You could tell—you felt like, "The money is sufficient, please stop touching me." And I drove home. That—that's what you do. I'll give you one more, and then I'll leave you alone because it's almost 2:15.

We were taking that missions trip to Hawaii. Were you on that one, MCAS? What year was it—the year that the road was closed and we couldn't get back to the airport to pick the people up? Yep. So we—we would arrive the night before because we didn't have money for extra hotel nights and stuff. And then we would—early in the morning, like at 8:00 a.m.—buy all the food from Costco, drive two hours back to where we were staying, drop the food off, then drive back to the airport—two hours—to go pick everybody up. So we do it; everything's going fine. I go to drive to the airport to pick everybody up, and there's a construction worker with a sign that says "Stop." So I'm waiting for it to change to "Slow." Seven minutes, 10 minutes. I know it doesn't sound like a long time, but it's like, "When are you going to flip the sign?" There's not even any traffic coming from the other side. So I got out very nicely to the large Hawaiian man. I said, "Hey, any idea when you're going to flip the sign from 'Stop' to 'Slow'?" He said, "Probably about 5:00 or 6:00 p.m." "Can you tell me why?" He said, "There was a mudslide up ahead, and the whole road's closed." Well, there's only one road out of Hana—the road. So I can't drive; I can't pick anybody up. There's going to be a bunch of 15-year-olds and stuff that land at the airport with nobody waiting for them, and my ministry is going to be over. So I have to find a way—say this with me—there's always a way. There's always—how can I get to Kahului from Hana if I can't use the road? There's an airport, but the airport doesn't have any planes that fly from lack of demand; there's just an empty airport. So I drive down there—I'd been down there before—and I told the—I said to the guy, "Do you know any private pilots that can fly?" "No, there's no planes here; nobody's been flying." Then I saw a thing—a pamphlet for glider services that you can take a—I said, "Hey, you gotta glide me to Kahului." He said, "I would." He said, "I would do it for free, but we had to sign an agreement not to take passengers away from the airplanes—the airport—by using our glider. So I'll lose my whole business if I bring a passenger from Hana to Kahului." I said, "All right." Then I saw another brochure: "Pilot lessons." I said, "You guys do pilot lessons?" "Yeah." I said, "If I sign up for pilot lessons, will they pick me up?" He's—he's like, "With me, they will." Boom. Call—call the thing. Excuse me, I would like to sign up for pilot lessons. "Oh, that's great. When were we looking to start?" "Right now." Guy said, "All right, we'll send a plane right out." I said, "Okay, I'll be here. I'm at the Hana airport. Come right now." So I'm waiting on the airport; it's like a 20-some-minute flight. And uh, when the guy lands, I'm standing on the tarmac 'cause there's no officials or anything, so you can do whatever you want. So I'm standing on the tarmac as the plane's coming to a halt; it hasn't even parked yet. I ran around, opened the door, jumped in, put my headset on, and buckled my seat belt. The guy goes, "I can see this isn't your first lesson." "No, it's my first lesson." He said, "All right, let's—" He said, "You—you don't want to—you don't want to wait or anything?" I said, "No, let's go right now." So he—he flies, and once we got halfway there—where it would be more expensive for him to turn back than not turn back—I told him what was happening. I said, "Thanks for the lesson." I said, "I—I told him everything I just told you. I said, 'I need to get to Kahului right now.'" You bailed me out. So I paid—I tipped him. His dad was a missionary. He said, "That's awesome. I—I totally understand." I got there, landed, got a Starbucks, and then the plane landed in about 10 minutes. I was holding an iced caramel macchiato when everybody landed. You have—that's the ministry. Yeah, you have to make it. You have to find a way to make it. Unexpected things come up. Never budget the exact amount of the crusade, the exact amount of thing. Budget for things coming up. If they tell you it's going to be $1,500, budget $2,200. If they tell you it's going to be $7,000, budget $11,000. Then when the stuff comes up, you're ready for it and have it ahead of time. That's called the storehouse principle. Never quit. Never call anybody and tell them you can't make it; you're too sick. Preach with blood coming out of your mouth; preach coughing up blood. Do whatever you got to do; you'll stay healed. I'm just telling you, commit. I am not going to—to go back on what I said and what I was called to do. I don't care what—what happens. I don't care who's putting pressure on me. I don't care about my family calling, saying, "Papa needs you to come home." I am committed fully, like Paul—that if you beat my back with rods, if you whip my back with whips, if you throw me in the sea, I'm going to wash up on shore, pray for everybody on the island, take an offering, and go on my way. I will not be defeated. I will not be deterred. You can sue me; you can write everything you want about me in the newspaper. I will not turn back. God bless you. Have the best afternoon you've ever had in Jesus' mighty name. Come on, give the Lord a great hand clap. Enjoy your [Applause] Thursday. Thank you. Thank you, John.