Bill Johnson - Desiring More of God and Prayer That Births Revival
Good morning, nice to see you! I heard a funny story this week. I don’t have it printed out, so I won’t get it exactly right, but it’ll be close enough. This mom had three children, three sons, and they all prospered a lot. They wanted to show their mom how much they loved and appreciated her. So, the first son bought her a huge house. The next son bought her a spectacular car, I think it was a Rolls-Royce. The third son bought her a parrot that could quote the entire Bible. They had a family reunion, and when they got together, the mother went to the first son and said, «That house is too big; I can’t live in a house like that.» She went to the second son and said, «I can’t drive a car like that; I don’t need a car like that.» Then she went to the third son and said, «That chicken was so tasty.» I do think that’s funny! I’ve read this one before, but just in honor of my wife and her health book, some of you have already heard it, but for those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word I’m bringing—the final word on nutrition and health—it’s to know the truth. After all the conflicting nutritional studies:
Number one, the Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number two, the Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number three, the Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer few heart attacks than the English.
Number four, the Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Number five, the Germans drink a lot of beer, eat a lot of sausages and fats, and suffer fewer heart attacks than the English.
Conclusion: eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you! That’s funny! Come on, let me tell you where I want to go today. You know, my most favorite moments of my life are amidst mighty outpourings of the Spirit, and I look back over the last several decades—the dearest moments to me are when God is moving so profoundly, so powerfully, that nobody can control it and no one can take credit for it. We’re all fighting to see, to observe, and to understand what He’s doing. I love it more than life itself, and I’m hungry for more.
Historically, what has happened is people get hungry. Great hunger for God brings great breakthroughs; great breakthroughs bring great success. Great success requires us almost to create systems or institutions, like banks of a river, to steer and direct that which is happening to maintain it. But eventually those banks of the river turn into impoundments, and they become monuments to what God has done. Tragically, the next generation comes along, and their job is to serve the organization or monument created in memory of the great move of God. What we’ve got to do is somewhere between number four and five—the institution and the monuments—we’ve got to get back to square one and get hungry all over again so that the cycle of continuous great hunger, great breakthroughs, and great success continues.
It’s a statement I’ve made a number of times through the years: what you know can keep you from what you need to know. If we don’t remain novices, if we don’t stay simple and hungry, childlike in the things that the Lord is teaching us and imparting to us, if we don’t maintain that childlike approach, we become experts, and the moment we become experts, we choose where to level off. It’s that childlike heart that I think is the real key to ongoing breakthroughs.
So my interest this morning has everything to do with the more of God—the hunger for more, positioning ourselves for more. There are two trains of thought, and they both have elements of truth to them. One would be that all moves of God, throughout history, have been sovereign. We have new believers in the room. There have been times in history when God did something so extraordinary that almost an entire nation was saved. About 120, 130, or 40 years ago, there was such a revival in the Hawaiian Islands that 96% of all the citizens were converted. There was a move of God in Atlantic City, of all places, years ago, where everyone, but I think four or five people were converted. Extraordinary moves of God happen when the presence of God is so thick that people literally fall to their knees, crying out for forgiveness, crying out for help. These great moves of God sometimes come with massive waves of miracles and conversions that all of us, whether we’ve seen it before or not, are born again with a passion for what only God can do.
So my interest today is the move of God to increase in my lifetime. There’s this school of thought that says all moves of God are sovereign—God chooses the seasons in which to move. It’s true that moves of God are sovereign. However, I don’t like the idea of there being seasons for what was meant to be continuous. I don’t like the thought that moves of God should be two- to four-year shots in the arm to help the church get healthy again and then level off, experiencing the results of revival. I don’t buy into that. The reason is that it’s not according to God’s nature. While it is consistent with history, history lacks the full expression of God’s nature.
God’s nature is from glory to glory, and of the increase of His government, there will be no end. He doesn’t go backwards. He doesn’t surge forward for a week or two and then back up. It’s continuous. So we have this sovereign approach, but the other approach is too man-centered; it emphasizes that we are the ones who bring about the great move of God, and there are elements of truth to that, as well.
For me, revival is always a sovereign move of God, but it started 2,000 years ago. It’s like standing on the banks of a river. That river is the manifestation of God’s move; it’s the manifestation of God’s will. I can stand next to the river, I can pray for the outpouring of the Spirit, and I can pray for God’s will to be manifested on the earth for an entire lifetime and never experience it simply because I never stepped into what was only a few steps away from me.
Revival, the move of God, is the heart of God that continuously flows from Him to humanity, and it’s the people of God who make decisions to step into what He has already sovereignly ordained. That’s what I want to talk to you about—the move of God that He started 2,000 years ago and has never stopped since then.
Now, one of the most important approaches to Scripture is a statement found in 1 Corinthians chapter 15: «first the natural, then the spiritual.» Throughout the whole Bible, the Lord teaches us natural lessons. For example, if you plant corn, you’re going to harvest corn, and then He takes this into understanding how His world works. He says if you show mercy, you’re going to receive mercy, right? True? That wasn’t a big leap. He uses natural things to illustrate spiritual truths.
In the Old Testament, there were the sacrifices of lambs—spotless lambs without blemish given as an offering to the Lord. They never wiped away sin; all they did was postpone the penalty of sin for one more year. But all that natural lamb stuff pointed to a Lamb that was coming. When His life was given as an offering, it would be the end of all offerings. It would be the one that would satisfy the demands that sin has put on our lives, that sacrifice would once and for all atone for and cover the sins of everyone who puts their faith in Christ.
The point I’m trying to make is first the natural—sheep—to the spiritual—Jesus, the Lamb of God. The Bible is filled with these analogies. For example, we talk about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; that language speaks of rain. The Old Testament rain was a prophetic picture of the New Testament outpouring of the Spirit, right? Are you with me? You’ve got the deer-in-the-headlights look—it’s all right! Genesis chapter 7 is where I want you to turn. If you would, open your Bibles to Genesis 7, and we’re just going to bounce around two, three, or four verses. I’ll probably just reference a verse or two to save time. Talk to you about what God is doing in the earth.
Genesis 7:1: «In the 600th year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the 17th day of the month, all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened.» Now think of the last half of the verse: the fountains of the great deep were broken, and Heaven answered with open heavens and downpour! The Bible gives us this principle in Psalms 42: «Deep cries out unto deep.» The deep of man cries out for the deep of God.
There’s a cry that begins here, and I’ve never understood this. There’s this passage in Genesis 28 where Jacob is sleeping. In his sleep, he has this dream; he says, «I saw a ladder set up on earth, reaching into heaven.» I’ve always wondered why the ladder would be established on earth, reaching towards heaven. It should be the other way around! But it’s earth first. Something happens here in cooperation with what He’s doing there, and it draws, attracts, or brings an invasion of Heaven to Earth. Isaiah 60 uses this concept: «Arise and shine; your light has come.» In other words, the light of God has already come. Get up! You take your rightful place as a believer, and then it says, «The glory of the Lord will be seen upon you.»
So we have this picture: doing what we’re called to do attracts what only He can do. The fountains of the deep were broken up; breakthrough comes through brokenness. It’s why revival always starts with the poor. It may not be poor economically, but it’s always poor in spirit. It’s vital to recognize need to be able to cry out effectively. If you don’t recognize need, the cry for more is only form; it’s only a powerless tradition.
Here it says the fountains of the deep were broken up, and the heavens answered with open heavens and rain. Of course, we know this is about Noah and the flood; at this particular time, the sins of humanity were so extreme and gross that they’re not mentionable, and the Lord wiped out everyone, starting over with Noah and his family. What if what happened in the Old Testament, when the entire earth was flooded to destroy, were reversed in the New Testament? What if in the New Testament, what He intended to do was flood the earth not to destroy but to rebuild?
What if in the Old Testament, the rain was destruction, but in the New Testament, the rain was construction? What if the promise of God in the New Testament applies here, that the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea? What if the outpouring that the Lord has promised for the New Testament mirrors the Old Testament flood, but in this case, it’s the flood of God’s glory throughout the earth? What if He’s inviting us to see, «First the natural, then the spiritual,» so that we might be people who are truly hungry and become hungrier for the more we realize that we don’t have?
I am living in my dreams of yesterday, but I have dreamed since then, and this will never do. The fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of Heaven were opened. Matthew 27:51, I think it is, says that when Jesus died, He was hanging on the cross, and when He breathed His last, the Bible says that the sky became black, it darkened, the earth shook, and the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. That veil was not a simple curtain; history tells us it was four to six inches thick, and it was torn from top to bottom—God’s end towards man! Then the rocks around Jerusalem were broken open!
What were the significant events that followed the breaking of the earth? The resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit. The New Testament has another parallel for us; it’s in Acts 4:29. There’s this prayer that Peter prays; he says, «Lord, take note of their threats.» They had just been threatened by the religious system—beaten and all that they were going through. So Peter gets out of jail and runs to the prayer meeting and prays this prayer. He says, «God, take note of their threats, and grant that your bondservants can speak your word with all boldness.» It’s interesting because he just got arrested for being bold! So he’s basically saying, «God, that stuff that got us in trouble—increase that!»
That’s a little different prayer than most believers pray: «Oh God, tone it down!» Peter is saying, «Increase! Come on, bring it on!» Forgive me for repeating the story, but it fits so well in this context. A British test pilot named Henley took a plane up many years ago, and when they got up into the air, he noticed that there was a rat on the plane chewing on a fuel line. He feared he didn’t have enough time to land the plane, so he took the plane higher, where there was no oxygen, and killed the rat. The church keeps trying to land the plane to save the rat when we need to go up where rats don’t live!
Peter’s praying this prayer, saying, «Lord, give us boldness.» Why? Because there’s a point at which the rat can’t live! It’s possible to live above the snake line!
Here’s this concept: Peter prays, saying, «Lord, take note of their threats and grant that your bondservants will be given all boldness to proclaim your word while you extend your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of your holy servant Jesus.» In other words, «God, put that boldness on us again because we want to preach with greater boldness.» While we’re doing that, we want You to invade and do what we can’t do!
Here’s the point: the greatest boldness in a person’s life doesn’t come because their personality is outgoing; it comes because of brokenness. It comes from the brokenness of the deep, which Peter at another place says, «We cannot help but speak.» It’s not contained by personality traits; it’s not how we think of ourselves that determines whether we’ll say what God is saying. It’s because of humility; it’s because of the brokenness within. Brokenness says, «I cannot help but speak.»
Look at Psalms 84; it’s a great place to see this concept. Psalms 84 is one of my favorite portions of Scripture for a number of reasons. Psalms 84, beginning with verse 5: «Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on a pilgrimage.» How many of you, when you said yes to Jesus, said yes to the pilgrimage? Yes! I’m on this pilgrimage. Verse 6: «As they pass through the valley of Baca.» Baca means weeping, so just get this picture: as they pass through the valley of weeping, they make it a spring; the rain covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength, everyone who appears before God in Zion.
Verse 6 is the verse we want: «As they pass through the valley of weeping, they make it a spring, and the rain responds and covers it with pools.»
You’ve got to get the picture. I think maybe the most profound example of this weeping concept in Scripture, at least the one that moves me the most, is the one that says, «They sowed in tears, they reaped in joy.» Remember that? They sowed in tears; they reaped in joy. I remember a number of years ago—in fact, it was in the Weaverville days—a missionary sent out a newsletter. I remember looking at this newsletter, and he said, «For the first time in my life, I understand what that verse means.» Then he went on to describe that he would watch some of the African mothers, who would have a baby strapped to their back, take grain that they really needed for flour. They needed to be able to grind it to eat, but instead, they knew if they ate their seed, they would have no meal tomorrow.
So they would be weeping as they were planting the seed in the ground, wanting a harvest for their children to enjoy in the future. They would cry because of their hunger, but they would choose not to eat now and instead to plant a crop. It’s a profound picture. So many people eat their seed. The picture is of sowing in tears but reaping in joy.
This particular passage deals with the valley of weeping that everyone in this room is familiar with. That’s when things don’t work right—when the prayers don’t seem to get answered the way we think they should or something doesn’t happen the way we want it to—crisis happens at work or relational conflict or whatever it might be; it’s life. It’s the stuff that all of us have throughout our lives.
He says, «Going through the valley of weeping, they make it a spring.» What does that mean? It means we take our moment and do what is so profoundly illustrated throughout Scripture: in the middle of conflict, give thanks; in the middle of problems, give praise. Something happens to a moment that the enemy meant for evil, and as soon as I move into the place to offer thanks, in spite of circumstances, to offer praise in spite of things that I have no control over, and I begin to declare His goodness when it’s His goodness that looks to be violated, and I offer my praise and my thanks for His goodness, His faithfulness— it’s in those moments my tears fall to the earth, and they summon the springs of the earth to well up.
Tears become springs, and the crazy thing is tears not only become springs of refreshing, but they summon the clouds from Heaven to create pools. There’s Heaven and Earth working together! There’s this crazy profound picture of the simple things that you and I do to take a moment and say, «In the middle of this, I am going to give thanks.» In the middle of this, I don’t understand; I cannot control, but I know He remains good and He remains faithful. We grab that moment and we give Him thanks; we give Him praise. The tears are real; we don’t pretend there’s not pain. The tears are real, but understand this: when the tears hit the ground, they summon the springs of the earth to come up.
What was meant to destroy us actually becomes a time of refreshing, and not only do we then start to become refreshed in that moment of great difficulty, but God shouts His amen, and the outpouring—the rain—begins to fall. The rain begins to fall! It’s this amazing way that He has given us the opportunity to change our environment!
You know, there’s this crazy notion that I’m afraid I’m going to dig a hole and fall into it, but you come and help me out, will you please? Because I’m not going to do a good job with this. But I’ll do enough to at least do some damage. So that’s all I really need—enough time to make a mess. There’s this crazy notion that God is moved by human need. It’s true; He’s always moved by human need. But if need attracted God, the poorest countries in the world would be the richest countries by tomorrow!
He created momentum where answers are available. It’s up to the people of God to believe in His accomplishments—to see the places of greatest need become the places of greatest blessing. And that is the truth! A lot of folks sit there in the middle of their need saying, «I don’t know why God doesn’t come and deliver!» Need doesn’t move God; faith does! Stand! Stand up! Just—you don’t have to stand up.
So now what’s that? I said it— I know I said it twice—like, did he mean it? Yeah, I’m sorry. Get up off your rear end and take a place before God that exhibits some measure of faith! I had somebody come to me a while back. They said, «I don’t have any faith.» I said, «No, that’s just not true. You know, I don’t have any.» That’s not possible! The Bible says he gave everyone a measure of faith, so either I believe you or I believe what He said, and I’m not going to believe you! You have to use what you have.
You know, «I don’t have much.» Well, that’s fine. Come to the place of honesty like the Father did in Mark 9, where he said, «Help me in my unbelief!» That’s totally legal! Look at Jesus! He’s perfect theology. We had people come to Jesus saying, «If you can, would you help my son?» That’s not great faith when you’re going to God saying, «If you have the capacity.» Another guy comes and says, «If you’re willing,» which is a little better than, «If you can.» But it’s not great faith. You’ll notice at every level of faith throughout the Scripture, Jesus responded to all of them.
The point is a transparent expression of what you’ve got without feasting on what you don’t have. What moves God? Faith does! I don’t have much? Use what you’ve got!
That’s right! That’s really a good point! Thank you! Thank you! That’s really good. Paul, especially in the book of Philippians, is in prison—in fact, he’s in a dungeon—in a hole in the ground. Benny and I have been to that hole in the ground. It’s crazy that anybody could live there for any length of time! From that prison, he writes this letter to the church at Philippi, and the theme of the letter is joy.
How do you write anything on joy when you’re stuck in a smelly hole in the ground? They feed you, you know, whatever they feed you. Yet from that place, he says, «Rejoice always!» How many of you know «always» meant something different to him than the guy living in the palace? «Rejoice always; again, I say rejoice!» What is he doing? He’s passing through his valley of weeping and not going to miss this opportunity to take that which the enemy meant for evil! He’s grabbing hold of it with thankfulness and faith.
I know that he is faithful; I do not know how things are going to turn out! I just—I love what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said when they were thrown into the fiery furnace. They said, «God will save us, and even if He doesn’t, who cares?» You know, that’s my loose translation, but He’s going to save us! But, even if He does fine—what a way to go! We are an offering unto the glory of God, and that’s the approach of every believer that says, «You know what? This is what I believe is going to happen. I give you thanks; I give you praise. But even if it turns out differently, you’re not on trial; I am!»
I feel like the Lord—here’s my personal deal. My earlier years were spent with enormous amounts of time in prayer—not a lot of action. There was some, but not a lot—more prayer than action. My recent years have been more action than prayer. There’ve been prayer, obviously, but lots of action. I feel like the Lord is going to start blending the two seasons—where the Lord revives in us the passion to pray without ceasing but not to pray at the expense of action.
My favorite example—and it works for me; I don’t know if it will work for you—my favorite example about this combination is with Israel in the taking of the city of Jericho. They were told by the Lord to march around the city, so they marched around the city for six days in complete silence. They didn’t want anyone messing up the miracle by talking! A lot of miracles are messed up by talking! John the Baptist’s dad, Zacharias, the angel comes and says, «You’re going to have a son!» He says, «How can I know this for sure?» Yeah, you just lost the right to talk! You’re going to mess this miracle up if I let you keep talking.
So, he took away his ability to speak. All right, they marched around the city for six days in complete silence, and on the seventh day, seven times, the last time they gave this big shout, and the walls fell flat! In fact, I’ve heard some say they actually fell into the ground, which is interesting. They fell into the ground!
How many of you understand the enemy was still alive in the city? They still had to follow what prayer did. It removed the obstacle to victory! They still had to go in and take possession of what God had given them!
So prayer removes the obstacle to victory. There’s still the act of faith that takes us in to apprehend that which God has promised to us. In Mark 16, there’s a very similar passage to the Acts 4 passage I quoted to you where it says, «And they preached the word, and the Lord confirmed the word through the signs that followed.»
What’s the point? Brokenness here; God answers from there. Brokenness here; God answers from there. The fountains of the deep were broken open, the windows of Heaven opened, and there was rain! They got up off their rear end and did what God said to do—shine! And what happened? The glory began to manifest!
There’s this combination. Anyone can get bold after God has shown up; He’s trying to find someone who will get bold, so He can show up. I’m thankful! I’m crazy thankful for things I’ve seen that I didn’t know I’d ever get to see in my lifetime, but it’s not enough like heaven on earth yet! Can’t stop! Can’t stop! Can’t stop crying out! Can’t stop crying out in private! Can’t stop taking risks in public! The time of the greatest breakthrough is before us if we don’t become satisfied with what God’s already given to us.
Thankfulness with hunger is probably the greatest gift anybody in this room could receive. What if God were to offer you a gift this morning? Would you take it? I haven’t told you what the gift is yet; would you want it anyway? What if you had it all nicely wrapped, and He says, «Here, it’s a gift,» and you say, «What is it?» If it’s the anointing for this, I’ll take it. If it’s the anointing for that, I’ll take it!
I feel like He’s giving us a gift, and I really do believe there’s a gift being released today, and it’s the gift of prayer—the gift of prayer out of a deep, personal recognition of the need for more, followed by a faith for deliberate, militant action. A gift! If you receive that gift, stand up! If you don’t want to receive that gift, you’re in the wrong room—I don’t know what to tell you!
Pray for you! Yeah! At this point, it’s no longer optional! I was in traffic so bad in the Bay Area this last week—we could have run out of gas; we wouldn’t have known for miles. It was just so bumper-to-bumper; it just took forever! Some of you are in that moment where you’re just in traffic, and God is moving you along, and you don’t even know what He’s doing, but He’s setting you up!
I believe He’s setting all of us up with a fresh anointing and interpretation for prayer and a fresh perspective for the more. I’m not sure how to pray it; I just want to ask you to pray. I’m going to pray over you, but I think what’s important this morning is that there’s honest prayer. Sometimes what I have to do is say, «God, I don’t even know what to pray for, but if it’s in Your heart for me, you know I’m in line! Do what you need to do to me so that You can demonstrate Your heart to humanity.»
And I don’t want to be the one that restricts—I don’t want to be the monument that somehow restricts and restrains what You’re saying, what You’re doing— instead I want to be the vehicle that You can flow through! Somehow put that in your own words and pray, and then I’m going to end up praying over you.
All right, lift your voices! Let’s ask for the more of the Lord! Ask for the more of God! Yes! Don’t do it quietly in your heart. Save that for Starbucks! Yes, for the more! The more! The more God! For the more! For the more! For the more!
The prayer I prayed so many years ago was, «God, I want more at any cost!» He challenged it! He put me in a very unusual situation and gave me an opportunity to affirm whether I was serious or not! And so that’s what we say together: «God, we want more! We want more at any cost! We’re hungry for the more of God! We’re hungry for the kind of move of God that no one can take credit for—no one can take credit! We just want to be involved; we just want to be in the room! We just want to be instruments in your hands.» As weber would say, «A coin in your pocket that You can spend as you please!»
I ask for that, Lord! I ask that You would awaken in us—that You’d give us a gift today—a gift that renews our focus and perspective on prayer and renews our approach to actions of faith. We could come with the deep broken up inside of us that calls to the deep of God, and there would be mighty outpourings of the Spirit in these coming days—things we’ve never seen before, things we’ve only heard of, and even things we’ve never read about!
God, we pray for this to increase over us as a church family and as a city—that this entire city would be shaken by mighty moves of the Spirit of God! We pray for this in Jesus' name!
Put a hand on somebody’s shoulder next to you and say, «God, pour out Your Spirit on them powerfully! Pour out Your Spirit upon them!»
God, we’re asking for the more! We’re asking for the more— that which cannot be explained or contained! We are looking for the more of God! The more of God! The more of God!
Thank You, Lord! Thank You, Lord! You know, this last week, I had the privilege of being with Ed Sosu again, who is just a dear friend and really helps to lead the Transformation Movement. Some of the stuff that they see happening around the world has just been honestly dreams of ours. For some, it’s been for decades.
I want to tell you what’s happened; Mexico is the murder capital of the world. In 18 months, crime has dropped 93%! Where there were kidnappings daily, there are now none! I think it’s Newark, New Jersey. They started training the people of God to adopt streets and pray over these blocks, and they now have 33% of the city covered in prayer every day, and the crime rate has dropped 33%!
Murder capital of the world! Why? Because of this right here—God heal our city! Heal our city! Heal our city! Not someday—now! Heal our city! Father, I ask that You’d raise up an army out of this room. We prayed again, as we have so many times: raise up an army that knows how to pray, knows how to call upon God! Knows how to become the broken places and the deep places that attract and draw the open heavens—the mighty outpourings—the rain beyond measure!
God, we pray for that rain, the outpouring of the Spirit beyond measure! We pray these things for the glory of God—for the glory of God!
Everybody said, «Amen! Amen! Amen!»