Bill Johnson - The Foundation of Reformation
Bethel family, local and global, I guess it all merges in this season. Hopefully, we will be back together locally here in this building soon. I’m almost ready to start holding my breath in anticipation because I can feel it coming. Today is the third and final week of the series we are doing on reformation. I’d love to revisit it again. I was so encouraged when, towards the beginning of the year, Eric told me about the different series we would be doing throughout the year. One of my favorite subjects on the planet is the subject of reformation. Years ago, I talked to friends and told them I had so much interest in this topic. I don’t remember how it happened, but I know one thing: Stacy Campbell was here, and she gave me a prophetic word in our upper room, during one of our conferences. She prophesied over me for maybe five or ten minutes. It was a very moving and compelling word for me. It had its roots in the concept of reformation and what God had done in Geneva, specifically through Calvin and a group of men. They believed the Bible had answers for every one of men’s dilemmas, problems, and issues in life, and bringing a culture back to biblically defined values was, in many ways, the heart of that reformation.
I remember saying, «Oh man, I need to go to Switzerland. I need to visit Geneva sometime and just research—travel around the city and try to get a sense of the subject of reformation.» A long story short, some dear friends of ours, Bedros and Rebecca, lead a wonderful ministry there. Bedros reached out to me and said, «Listen, if you come to Switzerland, I’ll pick you up and bring you to Geneva,» which he did. He drove Benny and me around the city for a couple of days as we visited reformation sites and the museum, reading the stories. It was just moving. I believe every move of God carries the potential for reformation. Every visitation of God carries the possibility of revival that is not supposed to end until there is true reformation of culture and society. It’s a huge subject, and it’s not something I feel qualified to deal with today with any great success, but I will touch on it.
Having said all of that, as I have been thinking and praying towards this opportunity to talk to you about a favorite subject of mine, I have felt the dealings of the Lord. I don’t use that kind of terminology often, but I have been feeling the dealings of the Lord regarding our need—our need as a people, a movement, and a nation—to return to the basics, the fundamentals. I want to read to you a verse that many of you can quote, but I actually have quite a few scriptures written down, so I won’t have to turn to each one. I really want to use the time well. I’ll give you the reference, but the first one I want to start with today is 2 Chronicles 7:14. Listen carefully: «If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.»
Let me read it again: «If my people who are called by my name…» We keep waiting for the world to repent, when God is saying that the healing of the land is dependent upon my people repenting. «If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.» This profound picture is of the wonderful union between Jesus and His people, where in this passage, sin, rebellion, independence, and the wrong values are removed, and that fellowship becomes so tender and dear that it overflows into the healing of the earth itself. For me, it’s the beginning of all true reformation.
Let me put it this way: repentance is at the heart and soul of every great move of God. It’s the heart and soul because God will actually put His blessing on an unbeliever before He puts His blessing on a carnal believer. The scripture says that blessing is God’s calling card. He will touch an unbeliever with His favor and blessing, hoping they will want more of that and turn their hearts to seek Him. It’s very clear in scripture, but it’s also clear that judgment must begin with the household of God first. Why is that? If it starts with the world, it requires condemnation; if it starts with the church, it makes us pure, which enables us to bring more people into the kingdom. It must start with you and me.
Repentance is at the heart of this thing—repentance, the absolute turning from every known thing that would defile or compromise our values, our lifestyles, and our focus in life. For many years, I have emphasized the true meaning of the word repentance, and I’m not sorry for that at all. The word repentance means to change the way you think, to change your mind about something. I believe in that strongly because, when I was growing up, it wasn’t an emphasized part of repentance. The crying at the altar was the emphasized part.
I want to make a not-so-mid-course correction, but I want to add something to our definition. First of all, repentance is changing the way you think, but the Bible says godly sorrow leads to repentance. There is a place for deep internal remorse for everything that has defiled us or caused us to be off course. It’s not living in regret; it’s just the absolute realization that I am alive because of the mercy of God. We are going to look at a couple of stories today, and I’m going to try to weave some very large stories into a small period of time to help make sense of this journey through scripture on how God extends His mercy to a group of people and heals their relationships—with Him and with families—but the land itself, the earth, the agriculture, the political systems, and everything about community life starts to come into place.
I would like to suggest that that kind of repentance is the seed of a great reformation. I believe that the Lord is actually—we’re living at a time with the pandemic and political issues. We have so many things hanging in the balance that if there was one word I could share with every believer in our country, and I know we have many other nations participating in the service, I would encourage you to take this heart as well. But if there’s one verse I could give to every born-again person in this nation, it would be 2 Chronicles 7:14. «If my people…» I would say, «Look at me, guys, listen to me. Live this as fully as you possibly can because we have things that will affect multiple generations hanging in the balance right now. What we need is a visitation of God. We need an invasion of the Almighty One, who would come among us and bring healing—and it’s always to places we don’t deserve.
So, that’s kind of where I want to start today. I’m going to read a verse out of the book of Ezekiel if you want to turn there with me. Most of these references I’m just going to give you quickly and then read off the paper that I have printed out. Here’s a verse I want to talk to you аbout: three different cities: Sodom, Gomorrah, and Nineveh. All three cities had the absolute judgment of God pronounced against them. I realize that the judgment of God is not a very popular subject, but get used to it; it’s still in the Bible. He didn’t take off His judge’s hat when He became Savior. If I can put it this way, if you discovered cancer in your body, you wouldn’t want to go to a doctor who believed that cancer should have its own free life and expression. You’d want a doctor who would bring judgment on what is working to destroy your life. In the same way, we want the mercy of God on our lives, but the judgment of God cuts off everything that wars against our destiny.
Mike Bickel says it best: God’s judgments are always aimed at whatever interferes with love. As blood-washed saints, as those who have given ourselves to live and serve Jesus, the judgment of God is what we need. It’s very sobering, and right now we need a heavy dose of the fear of God released into our nation. Let me read to you. We know that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; Nineveh was spared. We’re going to take a quick look at these three cities out of Ezekiel, chapter 16. This is a very sobering verse. I want to remind you, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. It’s a cultural phenomenon—people who don’t read the Bible know about Sodom and Gomorrah and why they were destroyed. They were destroyed for their immorality and their gross perversion, sexually and in many other ways that became part of their ongoing lifestyle.
Ezekiel 16:49 says, „Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy.“ Abundance of food and spare time wasn’t used for the poor and needy. I would suggest to you that abundance in our lives must find expression through compassion or it will be misused and abused. It must find release through compassion. The Pharisees complained to Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath day. What was missing? The compassion for the paralytic who had no use of his arm was what was missing. They were more concerned about keeping the rules than seeing someone set free. Over and over again, the complete absence of compassion caused them to be so blind to their own heart’s condition, so blind to the cries and needs of the people around them that they completely severed their hearts from being moved by this divine expression called compassion.
We see Peter and John walking to the Gate Beautiful. There’s a lame man begging for money. Peter looks at him in Acts chapter 3 and says, „Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give to you.“ Catch that. „What I have I give to you.“ Many people don’t function in the miraculous because they don’t know what they have. Let’s say I had ten thousand dollars cash in my pocket. I go downtown with all these hundred-dollar bills and walk past someone asking for food. If I have surplus money and do nothing, then I’m obviously not moved with compassion. I often hear people say, „We don’t want them to buy drugs or alcohol,“ and I understand that, but there’s another issue: I can’t use their misuse as my excuse to do nothing. The possibility of them sinning with what I give them cannot keep me from what I need most, which is to move in compassion and do something to contribute to their life.
Now let’s change the story a bit. Let’s say that every time I pull a hundred-dollar bill out, it gets replaced; it’s a supernatural occurrence. No matter how much I give away, it gets replaced—that’s a better description of ministering in the anointing. You don’t release anointing and power in a miracle setting and lose something; it is always replenished. It is an unending supply. The reason miracles are supposed to be a regular part of our lives is that they express the compassion of God. You and I can show compassion by showing sympathy, and I don’t want to say that any of these things are bad. I’m just saying biblical compassion leads to a solution, while sympathy leads to comfort in a problem but not a solution.
I believe the Lord would heighten our awareness right now of something that was at the foundation of the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah: they had all these perversions developing out of their surplus time, surplus money, and the absence of compassion. They developed into a self-seeking culture, which sounds much like the place I’m familiar with—one where we all live with surplus time and surplus money. I realize that’s not everyone, but as a culture, what happens when you have extra and it’s not directed toward serving the needs of those around you? We become insulated and isolated from worldly needs. If I walk past a person and don’t do something, you could say I was not moved with compassion, but here’s the deal: Jesus announced, „The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me to release captives and open the eyes of the blind.“ What did He do? He declared His realization that He had what was needed by that blind person.
I hope this is making sense: when you are aware of what you have, that’s what Peter said to the lame man, „Such as I have, I give you.“ He knew he carried an eternal flame, if you will. Sorry, I need to cough. It’s not COVID, I promise. It’s just a tickle in my throat. Leave me alone! I’m teasing.
So here’s this compulsion to give out of what you have. I believe we know that authority comes in our lives through the commission; it’s our yielding to what God has commanded us to do. But power comes in the encounter. This is why encounters with God are so essential—they cause you to be aware of what you have. It’s not just reading a verse and claiming it. I believe in that, and I try to practice it. A huge part of my life is finding what God says in His word, going before Him in prayer, and contending until there’s breakthrough. I believe in that, but I’m just telling you we need the kind of encounters that are unexplainable, unreasonable, and unmanageable—outside of our control—so that we come face to face with the fact that God is upon me.
I am impacted by Him; He has no limitations. He has no boundaries or restraints except, in some measure, my willingness to cooperate with Him. Obviously, He can do whatever He wants, but you get the picture—He primarily flows through yielded people. When we don’t yield and we look at the problem as an impossibility and don’t think in terms of what I have, then when we see that we’ve been given something, we can respond.
Here’s the story: Sodom and Gomorrah had an abundance of time and needs; only two of those things mattered to them: the abundance and the time, not the needy people. Because of that brokenness in how we do life as a culture and society, it became a wide-open door for the demonic to come in and create a playground of absolute perversion. But it started with excess that wasn’t directed toward helping, serving, and loving people. I would suggest that whether it’s Sodom and Gomorrah, or the Pharisees with religious institutions and organizations, both have the absolute same corruption at their core: the absence of compassion and the absence of a real heart for people.
Jonah is a personal favorite of mine. I’m working on a book right now, and I just wrote about Jonah last week. I feel it may be one of the most underrated miracles in the entire Bible: the healing of a city called Nineveh. If you want an example of reformation, if you want an example of repentance that becomes the seedbed of a transformation of society itself, look no further than the story of Jonah and Nineveh. God speaks to this prophet Jonah and tells him to go preach. Interestingly, He doesn’t tell Jonah to go say, „Unless you repent, you will be destroyed.“ He just says, „Go tell them, 'I’m going to destroy you.'“ There was no offer of repentance, no promise—nothing given; just the announcement.
Jonah, of course, flees from the presence of God. This is weird—Nineveh repents; Jonah runs from the presence of God. I can feel it—I’m getting ahead of myself. Jonah has the assignment to go to Nineveh and walk the streets, calling for repentance. He runs from God’s presence, gets on a boat, and is thrown overboard to save everyone on the boat. This is an interesting comparison. The whole boat that Paul was on in the book of Acts: everyone was spared because he was there. But everyone almost died because Jonah was in this one. They throw him overboard, he’s swallowed by a fish, and he remembers the Lord—which is probably a good idea if you ever get eaten by a fish.
He repents, and the fish spits him up on the beach. If you can imagine sunbathing on the beach the day a man is barfed in your presence, you probably would listen to something he had to say. Anyway, he walks the streets, and it takes him three full days to walk from one end of the city to the other, announcing that judgment is coming in 30 days or whatever. The word gets all the way to the king, and they announce they’re going to repent and see if by chance God might have mercy on them. They do! They repent— from the greatest to the least. They all wore sackcloth and ashes and literally sat in an ash heap; they mourned. They even required their animals to fast. That’s bizarre.
It’s such a deep sense of the judgment coming upon them that they deserved that there was such clarity in their thinking. Their repentance was not a casual „Oh God forgive me for that; that was a real bummer. I’m sorry.“ It wasn’t that. The deeper the sin into who you are, the deeper the repentance needs to be—not to earn forgiveness, but to know that you’re actually dealing with something that must be permanently uprooted from your life. The mercy of God comes as they bow in repentance. For days they are in this place of repenting before the Lord, and God shows up and forgives them.
Meanwhile, Jonah is sitting on a hill, waiting for the judgment of God to come on this city, and he’s angry that God forgives them. I’ll let you read the story, but he’s upset because God showed mercy. Jonah said, „This is why I didn’t want to do it because I knew you’d have mercy on them,“ as if it would make him look bad for announcing judgment and it not happening. A lot of ministry gets perverted when we are more concerned about how we appear than how we reveal God. So, Jonah, in this situation, is bummed out; he’s sitting on a hill, and a weird thing happens: he has the sun baking him.
He’s waiting for judgment, and then a plant grows overnight to shade him. The next day, that plant dies overnight. Here’s what it says: „When God saw their deeds, that they had turned from their wicked ways, please understand that confession must include turning from and turning towards.“ That’s the concept in scripture. Hebrews 6 says, „Repentance from dead works, faith towards God.“ So there’s a from and a towards. Jonah reflects this moment nicely: „Then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.“
In the next passage, which is in Chapter 4, verses 10-11 of Jonah, the Lord said, „You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals?“ This is a bizarre passage. I want you to catch this: Jonah is shaded by a plant. He goes to sleep that night, and the thing dies. God interprets what happened in a very profound way. He says to Jonah, „You had more compassion for a plant that died in your presence than you do for a city of people who are so morally and ethically twisted that they spiritually speaking don’t know the difference from their right hand to their left.“
They could not find their way out of a paper bag; they were so lost in their moral condition that they couldn’t find sanity unless the mercy of God came upon them. God announces to Jonah, „Your issue is the absence of compassion.“ Here’s the story about Nineveh: we see Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sin, but God announced He was going to bring destruction on Nineveh, and He did not. Why? Because He had compassion.
Now here’s the deal that concerns me: Jonah was fine with the compassion of the Lord when it was for him. He ran from God, was swallowed by a fish, was puked up on land, and he was great with the compassion of the Lord when it was directed toward him. But he was not happy with the compassion of the Lord when it was directed towards those he wanted to see judged for their sin. I see this in Christianity and in our world, where people will love the standard of mercy when it’s extended to them but get very frustrated when that same standard of mercy is extended towards others.
It’s a blind spot. It’s a blind spot that almost says, „My deep repentance earned me that mercy, but I don’t believe they’ve deeply repented.“ It is the judgment of the heart, and the judgment of the heart of another person is one of the most out-of-line activities a believer can engage in because the scripture says no one can know the heart unless God reveals it. He doesn’t reveal the heart of another person to you just to criticize them. He only gives revelation to those He can trust with what He shows them. You cannot know your own heart—how in the world can you know someone else’s?
When this kind of stuff happens, someone extends mercy and kindness, and I’m so thankful you were patient with me. I’m so thankful you were kind to me, but when that same kindness is shown to someone else, it’s considered „careless“ and „just no standards.“ I remember we had a fallen leader come to one of our events. We’ve had this happen several times, but I’m thinking of one time in particular. When he came, I introduced him to the crowd. Everybody knows just his mistakes—his stupid sins, no excuse—but there is forgiveness. When I introduced him, he got a standing ovation, which I interpreted as, „We forgive you. We accept you. We want to give you room to repent and deal with your stuff.“
But the critics in the room took it as an indication that we were soft on sin. I’m guessing that was Jonah’s thought toward God: „You’re soft on sin. These people deserve judgment.“ There aren’t very many things I could emphasize today that would be more pertinent to the hour we live in than this: the mercy I’ve received I must give away.
The man who was forgiven of a great debt owed millions of dollars, and the guy forgave him, then he turned and was angry at someone who owed him twenty dollars. The man who had forgiven him millions took back his forgiveness and brought judgment on him. The only part I want to say is, when you’ve received something, I would like to suggest to you: Jonah, the prophet of the Lord, who knows the voice of the Lord and who knows the presence of the Lord, creates a bigger sin than Nineveh, who didn’t know their right hand from their left. God had mercy on the greater sin, and the problem is that when you’re raised in a church environment, the deep sins of jealousy and those that accuse and point fingers are dealt with lightly.
We are so harsh toward those who have the quote-unquote greater sins: moral failures, etc. As we come into this holiday season to celebrate the gift of God’s mercy in Jesus, it’s a smart time for every one of us to realize we didn’t deserve it. I remember I was in another city doing a conference, and this pastor was leaving to go out to lunch. There was a woman still standing there. She was the only one left at the altar praying. The pastor said to ask if I could take a moment, so I went over and began to pray. It’s a long story, but she didn’t want me to pray for her, which is fine because I was hungry for lunch. I wanted to go with the pastor, but I had this compassion thing stir up in me, and I felt it was at a different level.
It really was outside my norm. She didn’t want me to pray for her; she wanted her husband to pray for her, which generally I just tell someone, „I have no problem with that. I don’t have to be the one doing the praying,“ and I’d just move on. As I started to pray for her anyway, I felt I was supposed to. I said, „Do you need to forgive anyone?“ She said, „You don’t know what they’ve done to me.“ Now I’ve got someone who doesn’t want me to pray for them, number one, and number two, who is bitter and unwilling to forgive. She was absolutely unwilling to forgive.
Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time when faced with that, I basically say, „You’ll have to work this out because there’s no freedom for you until you forgive.“ But that compassion thing stirred up in me again, and it rose up outside my normal way of thinking. I needed her to face the difficulty of her choice to live in unforgiveness, that this calamity she is facing is connected to. But it rose up in me again; I bypassed my personal boundaries and put my hand on her shoulder where it was injured. I just began to pray very simply. I said, „All right, now move it around.“
She started to move, and, first of all, she was completely healed. As she began to move, she broke into sobbing, fell to her knees, and said, „I didn’t deserve it.“ What we need right now is a whole bunch of „I didn’t deserve it“ going on. I just didn’t deserve it! Repentance happened before me on the floor because, in some way, I was willing to move beyond my prescribed boundaries that are biblically based and follow compassion to her. Compassion would lead me.
She was healed, and she repented of the resentment. My mind turned quickly to Matthew, and there’s a portion of scripture I’ve taught on several times. Many of you have likely heard me teach out of Matthew, chapters 11 and 12. If I had the chance to do this again, I might spend the entire time just in those chapters. In this chapter, Jesus talks about three cities. I’ll read it to you quickly. Jesus says in Matthew 11:21, „Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that occurred in Tyre and Sidon had occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.“
And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You are exalted to heaven; you will descend to Hades. For if the miracles that occurred in Sodom had occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Now hear this: Sodom! I said we’re talking about Sodom and Gomorrah and Nineveh. Nineveh was spared, and here Jesus gives an insight as to how even the perverted, horrible, twisted, distorted city of Sodom and Gomorrah could have been spared. He says if the miracles that were done in you, Capernaum, the religious community comfortable in living in biblical parameters but not moving in repentance—if they were done in Sodom, Sodom would still be here.
What does that tell us? It suggests something significant. I want to say it’s the miracles; I want to say it’s the abrupt invasion of God, coming into people’s lives. Yes, it is that and more, but let me suggest that miracles of Jesus all came from that place called compassion. Let’s reset this: the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me—why? To redeem, to bring healing, to restore. Now he steps into a place of great need and ministers out of what he has. What brings the release? The compassion! Jesus was moved with compassion, and the person’s eyes were opened or the lame walked, whatever it might be.
At a time we live in right now where emotions are heightened—I’ve never seen a time when people are more easily offended. The scary thing about offense is that when you discern something in someone else, it’s often because it exists in you, and you’re not willing to recognize it. The spirit of offense deadens a person’s ability to discern while at the same time heightening their awareness for the need of discernment. Offense clouds, perverts, and distorts someone’s ability to discern what’s happening in another person.
If I move with offense, I will misread and misdiagnose most every relationship I’m in. If I’m governed by offense, my ability to discern becomes skewed. What’s crazy is that my passion for discernment increases, and I don’t know where I’m blind. Because I don’t know where I’m blind and my passion for discernment is heightened, it means my discernment is now misdiagnosed and usually brings destruction and not clarity, not liberty, not freedom.
In this passage in Matthew 11, Jesus gives insight into how sinful cities can be turned. It’s through miracle signs and wonders; specifically, it’s the release of compassion that brings a company of people to the streets who know what they have and every hundred-dollar bill they give away is immediately replaced because the Spirit is given to us without measure.
One more passage I want to read: this is typically what I refer to, the very next chapter, Matthew 12. In this chapter, a paralytic is healed. Then a crowd gathers, and everyone in the crowd is healed. After that, a blind and mute man is brought to Jesus, and he is healed. Then it says in verse 38, „Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, 'Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.'“ It’s one of the weirdest sequences of stories in the Bible for me. Miracle, miracle, miracle. And then, „We want to see a sign from you.“
What’s the point? The war is between signs that come from compassion and signs that elevate my own esteem and sense of control. The Pharisees, as always, want to dictate what happens, and they want Jesus to perform tricks for them. When Jesus refused to perform for them—especially since He had just done a series of miracles that brought healing and deliverance to people that went unrecognized by the Pharisaical crowd—what’s the point? They were not moved with compassion. They were in the exact place as Sodom and Gomorrah during that time of judgment because they didn’t use their surplus to serve, help, and redeem people.
Here’s this verse used often against those of us who pray for the sick: Jesus answered and said to this group, „An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign. No sign will be given to you except the sign of Jonah the prophet.“ It’s an absolute abuse of scripture in the heart and the context of scripture. To assume that Jesus is rebuking people that are pursuing miracles is an absolute abuse. It’s in the context; it’s a violation of reason. What He refused to do is put them in charge where they could dictate the showmanship of the hour. Instead, He withheld and said, „No sign will be given to you.“
That’s very specific to this group of people. You will not receive any sign except the sign of Jonah. I’ve always thought three days in the belly of the fish—come out; the resurrection was the sign, and it may be—but today it stood out to me that Jesus followed this statement with verse 41, and He said, „The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Behold, something greater than Jonah is here.“
What’s the sign of Jonah? I wonder if it’s not the absolute raw preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the raw preaching where God Himself shows up and puts His hand on a message that releases the opportunity for the transformation of a life. If it might not be that this group of people will not see miracles anymore; all they will have is the opportunity to repent because they have heard a message that comes forth with the force and power of heaven to transform a life.
There’s something unmistakable in this message that Jesus brought to people—unmistakable in that He always provides people a way to enter life and avoid condemnation. He gives access to life, to breakthrough, to becoming all that God designed us to become. All of His disciplines, none of them are for punishment; they are always to refine our focus so that we enter more fully into life—into who we were designed to be.
I believe that the testimony of scripture is that we have a sense of indebtedness as believers, number one, to get filled with the Spirit of God until we are conscious of what we have. „Silver and gold have I none, but here’s what I do have: get up out of the wheelchair and walk.“ There’s a burning conviction that what I have is greater than the problem you have, and I’m going to make an exchange or I’m going to give you a gift.
It’s a bizarre situation that what the Lord is looking for is for you and me to, number one, become aware of the God who is with us—Emmanuel, God with us—and, number two, allow His heart to bring us to that place of compassion, yieldedness, so that the gifts of the Spirit move in the context of love— not in showmanship, not in wanting a bigger crowd. None of that stuff! It’s the simple gospel that changes a person’s life.
The greatest miracle is the conversion of a soul—the greatest miracle—and healing bodies and bringing deliverance from the torment affecting the mind and family line. All these things were to be dealt with through the gospel of power, and that’s what you have; that’s what I have—a gospel of power. It is unlimited in its scope, measure, and ability to restore everyone watching to a place of friendship with God—restored as a child to a loving Father—but also to the point where He heals our land.
Right now, we need the healing of the land. I’m going to close in prayer, but I want to ask all of you watching that if you find yourself outside a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, then I want you to reach out on Bethel TV or the YouTube channel or podcast. Let somebody know, „I need to know Jesus.“ They will pray with you and talk with you.
Let me close in prayer: Father, I thank You that we are on the edge of what could be the greatest reformation in all of history—all of history! We acknowledge that that is the purpose of the gospel: to transform a life, a family, a nation, a world. I’m asking that in this season, regardless of the abundance in our lives or the lack, we would never lack compassion and that You would flow in and through us to bring healing to the land. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Bless you!