Bill Johnson - Revival Unto Reformation
All right, is it still morning? Yes, it is. Good morning! Nice to see you, guys. It is just wonderful to have humans in the room. It is amazing! I’ve told you in recent weeks that I have discovered I am addicted to humans, and it’s a very serious addiction. It’s so good to be here. How many of you remember when you were kids and they would sing that little song, «Liar, liar, pants on fire»? Anybody remember that? I saw a meme again this week that I thought was worth repeating. It said, «If liars' pants really caught on fire, the news would be more fun to watch.» That’s one I wish I could take credit for! In fact, I should record it. I better stop right there before I get in any more trouble. Why don’t you open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10? We’re not going to read the poem Sunday—the story—although it would certainly deserve our time; it’s just the time that we have and what I feel I need to do.
What I want to do is take you on a mental journey back to the Gospel of John, so just walk through this with me. In chapter 11, Lazarus is resurrected; at the beginning of chapter 12, Mary takes the costly ointment and pours it over Jesus. Following that is the triumphal entry, where people lay down clothing and palm branches as Jesus enters the city. Don’t ever underestimate the value of abandonment in your worship and how it affects and impacts the atmosphere and climate of an entire city. It was following that priceless act of worship that we have people crying out, «Hosanna.» The Passion Translation says, «Jesus, be our Savior! Hosanna!» An entire atmosphere of a city changes in response to an offering from one person because it was everything; it impacted the atmosphere of a city.
We’re going to move from that into the subject of prayer, which has been on my mind a lot, just from what the Lord is doing here. I had someone say to me, «I want reformation, not revival.» Of course you do! We always want a resurrection without a cross. That is where we experience the holiness of God, the power of God, and it’s costly to live in it. It’s where you die. I’ve watched as people have said yes to what God was doing in them, and it cost them everything. I watched, years ago, 25 years ago last month when the outpouring began here, and family members left, while some stayed. It cost them everything they had to make a decision about whether or not they wanted the more of God or something else. I don’t say that to point fingers or criticize anyone who would have left, because that’s not my intent. In fact, a lot of really good people left for whatever reason. My point is that revival is expensive; moves of God are expensive. They’re costly. It requires people to die.
What revival does is introduce you to the holiness and the power of God, where reformation introduces you to the mind and heart of God. What happens in revival is that your «yes» is so significant and so big that you obtain favor with God at a new level. Now, I understand that everybody has favor, but do you understand that favor grows? It can grow or decline, and well-used favor is the way you increase favor. But here’s the point: the Lord said that when we have found favor with God, He makes even our enemies to be at peace with us. The point is that the way you obtain favor with man is by first obtaining favor with God. When you pursue the favor of man instead of the favor of God, you get neither. You get political agreement; you get social interaction, but you don’t get favor that shapes history. I’ve watched people compromise their testimony to obtain favor with man, but it’s not the kind of favor that will change the course of history. What the Lord has called us to is to be a people who experience the ongoing fires of revival—the costly experience of saying «yes» to God.
Chris shared a word with us a couple of months ago, and it’s been echoing in my heart and mind for quite a while. In fact, Andrew Mason sent a little video clip from the Rocky III movie, and I’m not even Danny Silk, but I’m talking to you about movies. If I were as good as Danny, I’d have the clip up here for you. It really is a moving scene; it has affected me deeply. Let me take you through it: in Rocky III, he’s wealthy, powerful, and successful. He’s had ten fights where he fought young guys coming up, and he beat them all. He wants to fight this one guy he’s heard of, this up-and-coming fighter who is so hungry, and he goes to his trainer and says, «I want you to train me for one more fight.» The trainer says, «I won’t do it. I quit.» Rocky asks, «What do you mean?» The trainer responds, «You’ll lose.»
Rocky asks, «What do you mean I’ll lose? I’ve beaten all these ten people.» The trainer says, «They were hand-picked.» Rocky says, «You mean those fights were rigged?» The trainer says, «No, you beat them, but they were hand-picked.» The conversation continues, and the trainer finally says, «He’ll kill you to death,» which is the worst kind of death—to be killed all the way to death. But that’s what he says: «He’ll kill you to death! You will lose!» The scene goes on, and they have this exchange. Finally, the music dials down into this very mellow score, and they sit down on a couch together. The trainer turns to Rocky because Rocky asked him, «How come you say I won’t win?» and he says this one line: «We’ve become too civilized.»
You see, favor gives you the opportunity to settle. It’s not that favor is wrong; it’s not that favor isn’t a gift from God. It just serves a different purpose than what we are accustomed to. What typically happens is that people pay a great price for revival, experience the move of God, and see the miracles. I tell you what, I would have come today just for that song. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, we can start with that and end with that; for two hours, let’s just sing that song. I’m already a mess; I cried my eyes out from the first service, and I’m still a little bit damaged. I’m damaged merchandise from that song. Wow! Don’t tell me He can’t do it!
Two weeks ago, I was at a hotel back east, and a gal who worked behind the desk, one of the managers, said, «I’m concerned. I fear for the people who listen to you…» because we were talking about what God is doing, and I believe that God is still doing. Don’t tell me He doesn’t do those things! She said, «I fear for you.» I said, «Well, I fear for you.» When I checked out, she followed me and said, «Why do you fear for me?» I said, «Because you’ve made it spiritual to disobey Jesus. He’s the one who said, 'Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils, cleanse the lepers.'» So what if you stink at it? You don’t have the right to change the assignment! Our conversation was hospitable; I don’t mean for it to sound dishonoring, but it was honest. What happens is people die—so to speak. They say «no» to everything in their life and «yes» to God, and something takes place where things happen that you’ve only dreamed about—things that I never knew I’d get to see in my lifetime, and yet I get to see them.
I’ve seen, just in the last couple of weeks, hundreds and hundreds of people healed and set free from so many different things—hundreds of people seeing what I never knew I’d get to see. But what happens is it opens up favor, which is a gift from God. The challenge is that favor opens up doors that you’re not supposed to go through. I know it opens right doors, too, so anything I say today, you will have the opportunity to completely abuse. I say just enough to give permission to people to be weirder than they already are, so if that’s your bent, I will give you permission today. But it’s worth the risk, because maybe somebody will get it right.
Favor brings you into this place of blessing, of breakthrough, of things happening that you’ve never seen happen before. Suddenly, you start moving into reformation, which is where life works. People want their families to be healthy; they want their businesses to succeed; they want the educational system to actually function well; they want children to grow up with dreams, and all these things are a part of reformation. Well, what happens in reformation? You get favor! Why? Because life works! But what happens is we forget that in that season of favor, it’s easy to become too civilized and forget what got you there. Forget that it was the painful «yes,» that it was the yesterday of everything else, that it was the willingness to be ostracized, criticized, and abused—all the stuff.
I hardly ever talk about this, but I’m feeling something so strong in this season, not just today but in this season. We have prayer meetings out there—oh goodness, a couple weeks ago, how did it get so warm all of a sudden? Somebody’s prayer worked! I’ll call you next time we’re in need. One of the last ones I was in was so cold! Perfect! I was in the school of ministry teaching. I was freezing, wrapped up; I should have had a big old goose down sleeping bag around me, like a mummy! But you know what? I kind of liked it. I’m not into self-punishment, self-abasement—call it spiritual—but something’s happening right now where I feel like I really don’t want to make anything easy for anybody.
I’m not into punishment; I’m not into this stuff, but I just remember Weaverville. We had a prayer meeting that started at 11 at night because I didn’t want to make it easy. If you wanted to pray, it starts at 11! I’m sorry, but I’m in that mood again. I feel like I know what it’s like to work out in the old gym, and I also know what it’s like to stay in a five-star hotel. I’m thankful for the journey, but I fear what happens if we forget what got us here. Sometimes, you just need to train in the old gym. Sometimes it’s just a hardcore inconvenience—it’s the «no» to everything.
But what God is doing in this absolute moment is worth my entire life because what happens is: Cletty Keith gave us an example years ago. How many of you were here when Cletty Keith was here? Oh, not very many; well, blame Cletty if you don’t like the example. I’m not a gambler, but he used a gambling example, so I’ll just blame him. He’s such a great man. He talks about how you start with so little in life—these chips—and you put them all in the middle of the table. Then you win and get this pile of chips; it’s time to put them all in the middle of the table again. You keep winning, and you don’t ever want to find that place where you level off and live off of your most recent breakthrough. You continue to invest in what might be possible that the world has never seen.
Think about this: the Lord has promised to do a new thing. Is it possible He is actually thinking of a new thing? Is it possible that He’s thinking of something that hasn’t been done before? See, the way things work throughout revival history is He pours out His spirit upon people who usually don’t know anything. They don’t know enough to resist! Just a bunch of young people just started praying. They didn’t know enough to know how God moves. They just got so hungry they were unwilling to live without it, and they began to pray! I remember when I was a teenager here, in my late teens and early 20s. We’d ask for the keys to the church just so we could come and pray all night. We’d get people together just to pray. We didn’t know what we were doing; our prayers were pretty pitiful!
We didn’t know the effect of worship; we didn’t know the effect of any of that stuff, but we had seen—caught a glimpse of what might be possible in our lifetime—and we just met to pray. We did the best we knew how; we stayed here all night; we prayed and asked God to do something significant. We’re in that moment again, in Luke chapter 10. I almost forgot—I’m going to blame it on the song, «Don’t tell me He can’t do it.» It happened: verse 38. It happened that they entered a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. She had a sister called Mary who also sat at the feet of Jesus and heard His word. This is the one who, in some ways, ushered in a movement in Jerusalem through her sacrificial worship. She sat at Jesus’s feet and heard His word, but Martha was distracted with much serving.
Say that with me: Martha was distracted with much serving. You’ve heard the statement that good is the enemy of best, and if ever there was an illustration for that, it was here. Martha was distracted with serving. Busyness is artificial significance; it gives you the illusion of importance. Some of our greatest accomplishments actually come out of rest. If we knew that, we’d fight for it more! Martha was distracted with much serving. I’ve heard people say, «If we didn’t have Marthas in the church, nothing would ever get done.» That statement was invented by a Martha who needed to legitimize her labors that Jesus never instructed.
Dick Joyce, our dear friend who is now in heaven, would say, «Martha was making sandwiches—or tacos, as he would say—that Jesus never ordered.» She was distracted with much serving, and she wanted to pass her gift of distraction onto her sister. Most people who have dysfunction want to share. Okay, let’s just read it; you can see it for yourself. Verse 40: «Martha was distracted with much serving. She approached Him, saying, 'Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me! '» It’s awesome! I just thought, first service this morning, wouldn’t it be good to do a Bible study on all the bad counsel that people gave Jesus? Like when Peter said, «Man, don’t die. That’s not a good plan!» Here’s another good one: «Tell her to help me!» Jesus answered and said to her, «Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about so many things. But one thing is needed. Mary has chosen a good part which will not be taken away from her.»
My goodness! I’d like to suggest that it was that one thing—that choice to prioritize—right there that impacted the climate, the atmosphere of an entire city that brought in what we celebrate today, Palm Sunday. Chapter 11, verse 1: «It came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased that one of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples to pray.'» Stop right there for just a moment. You’re very familiar with the prayer, but just walk through this with me for a moment. The disciples—I don’t know of any other thing they asked Jesus to teach them. Now, let’s put ourselves in their shoes. If you see Him multiply food, if you see Jesus walk on water, if you see Jesus raise the dead, if you see Jesus calm storms, there probably would have been a lot of things on my list I would have had Him teach me. But for some reason, all that stuff in their minds traced back to this one thing, and the only time they asked for Jesus to teach them was when they said, «Teach us to pray.»
There’s a place where John the Baptist is beheaded; he’s killed, and they come and report it to Jesus, and Jesus is impacted. Remember, He has all the same feelings and temptations that we as people have, although His was without sin. But He still experiences disappointment, loss—those kinds of things to deal with. I personally think that Joseph probably died prematurely because you don’t see him in the picture later in life; it was something Jesus had to walk through. But at least in this case, we see John the Baptist die; Jesus looks for a place to pray by Himself. He searches for a place to pray by Himself, but the crowds follow Him. When the crowds follow Him, He’s torn, and so He’s moved with compassion and ministers to the crowd. But then it comes to the place where He has to go pray, and He sends the crowd away, and then He goes up to a mountain to pray.
What the disciples noticed is that when He came down from the mountain, every single person that was sick in the crowd got healed. So they are seeing the miracles, but they’re not asking, «Teach me the miracles.» They’re asking, «Teach me to pray, ” because in their observation, there was one source for all the stuff they ached for. There was one source that drew the crowds; there was one source that set the standard for everything Jesus was and everything that Jesus did and taught, and it was prayer. And so they said, „Teach us to pray.“
So Jesus taught them a prayer that is commonly called the Lord’s Prayer—not a very accurate title because it’s not a prayer He could’ve prayed because it contains the confession of sin, and He had none. But go through the prayer with me in verse 2. „So He said to them, 'When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.'“
Okay, stop right there. Sometimes familiarity almost creates a resistance to the freshness that God has on a particular passage. Sometimes I’ll get a different Bible so I see it on a different part of the page; oftentimes I’ll get a different translation. I’ve got to do something to jar my sense of, „Oh, I know it’s here!“ and come back as a child to relearn again. I think it’s one of the safest ways that we walk with Jesus—to do whatever we can to stop at the hard places, re-examine, and have the Word examine us.
So here we have this incredible prayer. This prayer, if you can look at it this way, is a template that reveals the values of God. If there were some way that we could take this prayer and put it as a template over our thinking, what would happen is it would shape the kinds of values that are natural for us to have stirred up inside of us. It’s like this template, this pattern. Anything that doesn’t survive this template shouldn’t be in our life in the first place. He gives us this prayer, and I like what Jack Hayford says about this prayer. He said, „This prayer is not a formula for repetition. Worship is to be longer than a sentence. Petitions are not confined to bread. Forgiveness is to be requested in specifics, not generalities. Prayer for the entry of God’s kingdom into present, earthborn situations is not accomplished in a momentary utterance.“
The whole point is that this is much more than a prayer that is recited. It is a template; it is a pattern for prayer, yes, but for values, for thinking. Because if you can look at it this way, this pattern for thought shows where the mind of Christ becomes evident in us. Out of our own Christ-like nature, we think what He thinks, and we pray what He would pray if He were standing in our shoes—not just religiously, so we know just enough to make ourselves dangerous. We know, for example, there’s no cancer in heaven, so automatically, there shouldn’t be any cancer here. Is that true? It is absolutely true! But how do you pray to get rid of it? That’s the part that’s not asked.
As we come out guns blazing, thinking we know exactly how to deal with things when we don’t always, because Jesus handled every situation differently—because He’s paying attention to the Father— it wasn’t that He needed to figure out whether it was the Father’s will to heal this blind person; that was a given! That’s why He healed every person who came to Him. He just needed to know how. Ah, this one I’d spin in the dirt, I’d put mud in the eyes, and then I’d tell him to go find this lake! Sounds like the most cruel way to get a blind guy healed, but He never does anything out of cruelty. He always does stuff to build something in us.
And the Lord has invited us into a relational journey where His value system—as revealed in that prayer—is: kingdom of God, come! The fact is, Jack Taylor taught us this years ago: it’s not actually a petition. The original language isn’t „God, we want Your kingdom to come.“ It wasn’t a petition; it’s a decree: „Kingdom of God, come! Will of God, be done!“ It’s the absolute confidence that this is the heart and mind of God. Living with that template over our thinking changes our options and changes how we approach any given problem—kingdom of God, come! It’s the absolute cry for the expressed, realized, felt, discovered, measurable lordship of Jesus in any given situation. When we pray for the kingdom to come, we’re not praying about heaven; we’re praying about the reality of the lordship of Jesus to be felt and realized here.
The rest of the prayer contains various petitions that are all important, obviously. But what I’m feeling on this particular day, as I’ve watched now—we’re soon entering my 48th year in ministry—I’ve seen the waves of prayer. I’ve seen the waves of breakthrough and I’ve seen the settling into the favor that breakthrough provides. The biggest danger to me, maybe for me, is to settle into the favor that breakthrough provides.
See, the problem is: in revival, you get opposed; you get used to it. In reformation, you start getting favor; you get used to it. And it’s just easy to forsake what got you here. What got you here was the fire of God’s presence. What got you here was the risky obedience. What got you here was the fasting, the cries, the all-nights in prayer. What got you here was that stuff! But now we’re in breakthrough! I know, but I feel like I’ve got to get back to the old gym. It feels to me as if, at least in measure, I’m not allowed to live from what I’ve learned, but it almost feels like a child who for the first time has picked up a baseball bat against a child who has picked up a tool or whatever it might be, and the point is relearning things His way.
Because the fires of revival were never meant to be abandoned for the greater thing! Because when the fire is abandoned for reformation, the reformation is short-lived! It’s the cross! It’s the willingness to withstand whatever comes! Whatever comes, I’m going to obey Jesus. It doesn’t matter what! I’m going to be kind, I’m going to be honoring, I’m going to do whatever I’m supposed to do. I’m going to make sure that I protect and guard my relationships, but bottom line, I’ll do what He says. And I know what it is to pay that price. I know what that one looks like, and I don’t want to have the t-shirt that says „Been there, done that.“
I don’t know if this is making sense to anybody else. I may be talking to myself this morning. I had about three things I felt like talking about, and I’ve been confused all day. Sometimes you get it right; sometimes it’s just goulash—you just take everything in the kitchen, put it in the pan, and heat it up!
Thanks—I’m not looking for applause, but thank you! I’ll take whatever, I’m processing Chris’ things, jumping on me, I’m processing out loud. So I’ll blame Chris here. I got to get on this side over here. Maybe Dan say help me! I don’t want external—no, there are several things I do not want to externally process! I saw one thing and said, „You want to walk in a mile in my shoes? That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head; that’ll scare you to death, not me! That’s somebody else’s!“
So here we are repositioning for a next season. It is different; it’s just… every… I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I mean, I believe that all the things we’ve been able to experience and see and witness— I just believe they continue. I’ve not seen any slowdown anywhere where I’ve been going; it’s only increasing. But I also have this sneaky sense that the simple is better. Simple is better!
If your eye is single, your body will be full of light, Jesus said. If your eye is single, the word „single“ is the number one—the word „voyage.“ If your eye is set on one reason for being alive, it will affect everything about you. And I feel like the Lord’s let us taste of so many wonderful things, and I’m thankful for every one of them. But it just feels to me like, at least for me, I’ve been finding my way back to the old gym again. It’s just… yeah. The tears cried my eyes out first service from that song. Don’t tell me He can’t do it!
I probably should have just sat in the front row and had them sing that for about 45 minutes, and that would have been a clear enough message. I want you to stand because we’re going to pray and talk as we pray and wrap this up. I guess I feel somewhat like a broken record in that it would be pretty redundant for me to emphasize prayer again. We’ve been hearing that for weeks and weeks and weeks—probably months, actually. And so I know that. How many of you have felt really challenged in your own personal prayer life?
Here’s what my prayer life looks like: if I have 10 minutes to pray, I’m probably going to spend about six or seven minutes in worship. If I have an hour, it’s probably going to be about 40-45 minutes of worship. The heartfelt connection, the awareness of God, and the heartfelt intimate connection are more important to me than anything on my list, as valuable as they are. That’s where I live from.
I’ve been having this sense that I talked to you a couple of weeks ago about the war that’s involved in prayer, and I’m becoming more painfully aware of the atmosphere and climate that we live in. Things that are happening in our nation at such a dramatic pace that, I’ll tell you, to not pray is to be stupid. Prayers of authority, prayers of absolute abandonment to the purposes of God are essential in this season. They always are, but I feel it so deeply and so strongly that it’s going to take… you know, any time in my life for me to say this nation would be saved—it would take a miracle. It would have always been true, but it’s never been truer than today; it just got multiplied.
But don’t tell me He can’t do it! That’s right! That’s my new t-shirt — „Don’t tell me He can’t do it!“ That’s right! You know, I don’t think there’s probably a person in the room that would question what He can do. Where we question is what He wants to do—what He’s willing to do, what He’d be willing to do through me, through you.
So, Father, I ask that You would cause infectious vision—the willingness to go back to the gym, the old gym, the simple ways of just deep affection, the simple ways of crying out in the night. The simple things… it’s all laid out in front of us because all we want is for Jesus to be exalted. I thank You. I pray for our online community; I pray the same thing—that there would be a mighty visitation of God in our online community, our believers all over the world that join with us day after day. God, I’m asking that You would teach us how to pray; that You would teach us how to come off the mountain and see everyone impacted in the same way that Jesus did. We hunger for that. We hunger for not just routine and formula; we hunger for the reality of presence—the glory of God.
The days that are directly ahead of us, if we’ll yield to it, will be demonstrations of the glory of God unlike anything we’ve ever seen or heard of before; it will rewrite our understanding of God’s intentions in the earth. God, I pray that You would actually teach us by the glory, by the manifest presence of Jesus, You would show us Your heart—and that this template for prayer would filter all the things out of our life that have no value and empower the things that do. I pray this in Jesus’ name.
I know there’s always a chance that, with this many people in a room, we could have someone here who doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus; and that’s important! It’s the most important reason for our being here today. Is there anyone who cannot say, „I am a true disciple of Jesus. I am a true disciple of Jesus. I have been born again and forgiven of all sin.“ If there’s anyone who feels outside of that, and you would say, „Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I have peace with God and have truly been changed and transformed,“ just put a hand up. Say, „That’s just me.“ I’ll just acknowledge you right where you are. I just want your eyes to catch mine, and we’ll come into agreement together.
Online, we have a bunch of people online. We’ve had so many people saved online lately; it’s just been amazing. So I encourage you to put it in the chat box; we have teams of people that will be there to pray with you, talk with you. We’ve had extraordinary miracles online—yeah, crazy! Tom, last week in our prayer meeting here—our prayer meeting Sunday afternoon—we had two guys that were professional sinners. They were professional; they were not church brats; they were professional sinners from another city who heard something was going on in a tent here and drove from another city. They came here, sat through a two-hour prayer meeting, and at the end, Tom had the courage to stand up to a bunch of Christians and say, „Does anyone need to get saved?“ And these two guys said, „That’s me! That’s me!“
So we prophesy that online or here. I just encourage you: listen, I don’t know how this works, but time is getting shorter. Somebody asked Vernon Tompkins, „Is this the last generation?“ She said, „I don’t know, but it’s my last generation!“ That’s probably what we ought to remember: we really need to use this time well! So Tom, why don’t you come on up? Are you wrapping it up? Come on up and bless!