Before The Fire Falls

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): You can’t miss the next More Faith, More Life podcast. I’m about ready to tell you the journey, how the journey began and how it ended. That brought the Smithton outpouring and a quarter of a million people, Time magazine, Newsweek magazine, to a town of 532people in that small town. I’m going to show you the journey, so don’t miss it so you’ll know how to get on board with your journey to revival.

0:00:23 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:48 – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

0:01:23 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:34 – (Steve Gray): Hello, everyone, and welcome to another More Faith More Life podcast. I’m Steve Gray and I have Kathy with me, and we’re going to talk more about revival, preparing for revival. But the roots of this, Kathy, is something else. You’re doing a project.

0:01:47 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, I am.

0:01:48 – (Steve Gray): Every one of these podcasts is part of your project, which will probably turn into a book.

0:01:53 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, it is.

0:01:54 – (Steve Gray): So we’re laying the ground. So these people listening are not only getting the early version of it and the. And the audio of it, they’re helping us to create this book.

0:02:03 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:02:04 – (Steve Gray): That you’re going to do. So tell us briefly, because we want to stay on subject here of why we’re doing this, but what’s going on. What’s your project?

0:02:11 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, my project is to take really who you are, your life, and the way God has dealt with you, the principles, the changes, the character, the attitudes, the experience and experiences, and bring them all together. Because I believe that what God has created in you is something that needs to explained to people and written about, but also to be imparted. And this is my goal for all of this.

0:02:39 – (Steve Gray): Maybe I’ll answer this question for you or you can help me, but as I listen to that, and if I didn’t know us or I didn’t know our story, I’d say why, why, why would you want to do legacy, you know, thing on me? Okay, because I’m your husband and you just want to do it. And you, you find me interesting or what? Why wouldn’t you do one to the pastor across town? There’s something, there’s a reason if you want to try to an.

0:03:03 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I can try to and you can also, but I believe it’s because first of all, you’re the only man, almost some expert in revival told you that you are about the only man left on the face of the earth who has not led just one revival, but two revivals that were world impacted.

0:03:21 – (Steve Gray): I am the only man on the face of the earth that has done that. But there are other men that have been involved in one that are great men and women. Yes, but that’s true, that was said. And I think the cry of most pastors and leaders and churches that want to is we want to be more influential. We do want to be bigger, our bigger voice. Okay, yes. And we’re overshadowed by a lot of mega churches that we only hear about a handful most of the time. There’s maybe 10 churches even that in the United States that we hear about what they’re doing or they’re so successful or they’re packing them out or they got 30,000 people attended their church, you know, and then. And that hits you and like, well, I’m so insignificant, I don’t have anything. And how do I get that bigger voice? And that’s why this is so important, because that’s where I was. Only I was in the worst position.

0:04:13 – (Steve Gray): Some of you, at least in a big city, God put me in the impossible situation. You know, you read the Bible, Kathy, it says God chose Israel because they were so small and helpless that they couldn’t do it themselves. And he said, I have to have somebody, I can do it through that, can’t take credit. Well, that’s me too. I’m in A town of 532 people, a church that was locked up for four years, had no money, no people, and there were already two other churches in a town of 532 people. So that’s kind of divided up.

0:04:43 – (Steve Gray): And God says to Me, I’m going to bring revival to churches. And I began in that church. I didn’t go to the city, which I could have. I got offered, as you know, and started declaring. Imagine people lining up to get in this building cause the glory of God and revival’s in the house. So here’s an obscure person that has nothing to work with, just like Israel, who now all of a sudden was launched through all the things you’re teaching and how did I get there to a national, international, I don’t want to say fame, but recognition and voice.

0:05:18 – (Steve Gray): A voice that’s a better way influencer, you know, like when you know. So all of us from that obscure position, now we’re in Japan and there’s posters of me.

0:05:27 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:05:27 – (Steve Gray): Remember that? All over, all over Tokyo, there’s posters of me. And, and they got the, they had it. We lost it in translation, but they translated it the man from Nowhere, which it meant the man from that country, the obscure little country. The cornfield in the middle of nowhere is where they were. And they got the man from nowhere. That’s what the poster said. All right, so that’s why, why now, where would you like to start in this story?

0:05:51 – (Kathy Gray): Well, the last episode we were talking about preparation of the congregation for during the 12 year span before revival exploded upon us. And we talked a lot of the principles last week, which I’m going to pull into this legacy book. And now today I would like to go on with some more of right before revival hit and explaining the preparation that was happening within the people during that two-week span actually.

0:06:20 – (Kathy Gray): And the preparation that was happening very sadly and gruesomely and you know, you were going through a lot battling it out with God during that time. So I’d like to share some of those events and principles.

0:06:33 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, so the year before the revival happened and made national and international before that was the real battleground. Then it moved in, the road narrowed or the net came down. About two months, about two months before the revival hit, just about six weeks got worse. Then it got even more narrow for me to where it got down to two weeks. Now when you’re the person like me, I don’t know, I’m just two weeks away from revival. I have no idea what was going on. Me, I, I don’t want to dwell on this. I’m going to make this about a one minute little speech.

0:07:10 – (Steve Gray): But what happened was just small town politics, gossip, and then church people who say they love you. I was choosing my words carefully. Church people who say they love You. And then maybe it doesn’t go the way they thought, or maybe they hear a rumor about you. Well, instead of coming to you and letting you explain or tell the truth, they fall for the rumor or they fall for the gossip. And all of a sudden you can tell they’ve backed away from you, they’ve gone away. Now maybe they’re even helping to spread the gospel rumors. And they just never came to me and said, tell us the truth.

0:07:46 – (Steve Gray): What really happened? What’s really going on? And instead they spread it. And so people I loved and who said I loved me changed about me. I didn’t change towards them, they changed towards me. And it wasn’t just them, it was others. And then when you get there, I came to the point, like, you know, I don’t know if I can keep going with this. Is this. So now 12 years has passed in this church, 12 years pastoring in that little town, and still the promise that I was given about revival hasn’t happened. So all of a sudden, I gave 12 years to this.

0:08:18 – (Steve Gray): And you remember then I got up in the pulpit and said, I’ve been the pastor here for 12 years. I’m just like the woman with the issue of blood. And it says she spent all that she had and still she was no better. I said, now that’s me. And I walked out of the church that Sunday morning. I left. And it was the two weeks of walking in the shadow valley of the shadow of death. It was a death experience, but I was dying on the inside anyway.

0:08:47 – (Steve Gray): And so I thought before I preached that sermon, though, I was going through. And I came to you and I said, Kathy, I think maybe God’s finished with me. Which is an amazing statement when, yes, he was finished with the me, but he wasn’t finished with me. And that’s the crossover where you get there, which is important to talk about. But anyway, so I began to go through this death experience. I didn’t know what to do.

0:09:14 – (Steve Gray): And in the meantime, you can talk about in a minute how you continued that preparation even though it’s very difficult for you to have me gone. I remember you saying later, as we’ve been interviewed so many times, where you said, I didn’t know if he’d come back. I didn’t know if he was leaving our marriage. When you walk out, what does that mean? And so anyway, you were the one that said, why don’t you go to Pensacola, Florida? There’s something called a revival there.

0:09:37 – (Steve Gray): You can go to church in the evening because they have services Every. Not every night, but five times a week, six, whatever it was. And you can go to a lot of church, see what it is. And in the daytime you can try to find your way. So I did. I drove down there. Normally I fly placed with. Even then I started being able to fly. But I just. I needed that road time, you know, that sorrowful going down the lonely highway.

0:10:02 – (Steve Gray): And I was breaking. I was broken. And when I got there, I had. I. I couldn’t even speak to people. I was so bad. I had no thoughts. I thought, I’m finished. They had a pastor section. I wouldn’t sit with them because I thought, I think I’m finished, but I’ll go to church. I’ll try. And every day you remember the story. I would go and I would pray and I would get. I would. I’d scream into a pillow because I didn’t want people to think a crazy man was there. But they did because they’d come. You know, they say, housekeeping. And I go away. And I never. I’m there two weeks I was there in this room and I never would let him in.

0:10:34 – (Steve Gray): And this crazy man was there. I never spoke, I barely ate to anybody. And I was dying on the inside. Yeah. And out of that, we’ll move it forward. Because that’s all a long story too, but we’ll move it forward. And suddenly in that condition, I’m sitting in the balcony of that church and it was doing great. I appreciate what they did and were so much. But me, I’m perishing on the inside and God’s done with me. I’m just going through the motions. I feel nothing. I feel nothing.

0:11:06 – (Steve Gray): And I heard almost the same voice that said the years ago and said, I know what I do with that church. I would raise the dead. Which made us decide to stay in Smithton. And I heard it say, I want you to have a revival. And I looked down at the people on the stage and the tremendous work they were doing. And the spirit of the Lord was in the house. If they say it that way, you know, I knew it was here, but it wasn’t changing me. And I didn’t know how to get it exactly. And I pretty much wrote myself off that I’m not good, I don’t need it.

0:11:35 – (Steve Gray): What do I need it for? I’m not doing anything. And when he said revival, I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. I thought you are psychologically dealing, trying to make your self-esteem feel better about yourself. So I just forgot about it next night I heard the voice again and I go, this is crazy. I looked down at the worship leader, Lindell Cooley ought to say his name, great guy. And the others that were doing Steve Hill and John Kilpatrick and all the bunch.

0:11:59 – (Steve Gray): I thought that I can’t be that. I can’t be that. I’m wearing an old T shirt and a pair of torn up jeans. I’m sitting here going like I’m finished! I can’t do that. Third night, I’m still sitting there and I want you to have a revival. And I argued with God, I said, listen, this is crazy, I can’t do it. And he said this, I didn’t say you had to be the revival. And that was it, I want you to have it. And I began to see that picture of like a waiter going through a party.

0:12:32 – (Steve Gray): Like, like I could go down there and I can’t do what they do, but I could go around with a tray and say hors d’ oeuvres or d’, oeuvres, care for anything and just serve people, Serve people. I saw that picture in my head, which is probably not God, that’s probably me. But, but anyway. And then the story of that changed my life. I don’t know who the man was that I saw a man go down the stairs. Well, wait, so they had the altar called and I decided, I’m going down the stairs of the balcony, I’m not going to go over there. I didn’t have them pray for me because I just didn’t think there was any reason to have them pray for me.

0:13:04 – (Steve Gray): But I went down the stairs and I’m going to stand way over to side, but I’m up closer on the floor and a man comes down the stairs in a tall guy in a three-piece suit. And in front of me, 10ft in front of me, he falls on the ground in his suit, you know, just falls flat on the ground. And this awful sound came out. Awful, awful, tormented, broken, hurtful, death sounding sound came out of him. And when I heard that I go, that’s what I need, that’s who I need to become.

0:13:38 – (Steve Gray): And that was life changing. Because I’m trying to figure out what God’s going to do for me and with me and all that. And I goes, ah, I want you to have revival. I’m the one that’s not ready. I’m one that needs that. I don’t need to be filled with the power till I say I’m God’s man of faith and power. I Can get down there with Steve Hill, and I can do it just as good because there were hundreds of pastors there going like, I hope I’m next. I’m going to go back to my church and I’m going to get it, you know, not me.

0:14:06 – (Steve Gray): I wasn’t me, me. And God’s finished with me. And when I saw that man, I said, that’s what I need. And that’s where I went. That’s where I went with it. I started fighting for that. And I would go back and I would cry out to God and cry out to God and I’d read the psalms and. And then I found a song called everything is in your hands. I put on some music. I’m starting to feel something. I don’t know what put on music. And so now I’m praying the psalms mostly with this music going, which. That’s a long way where I was the week before.

0:14:38 – (Steve Gray): And all of a sudden, something happened to me with the words, everything is in your hands. Oh, God. And I called you up that night. I think I went to church and then called you up, but I’m not sure. And I called you up and I said, Kathy, hope has come back to me. My hope. And I began to realize the brokenness. And then the hope is the beginning of a true revival. I was being revived, but not the way it was going to be.

0:15:07 – (Steve Gray): Not with the excitement that’s going to happen, isn’t happening. But God is dealing with me. He’s preparing me to do something. But I didn’t know that. I didn’t say, well, I’m going to be in revival. I just said, I got my hope back. And I noticed when I went back to church after that incident, I started thinking a little bit like a pastor. I’m looking, oh, look what they do. Oh, that was. You know, that’s what hope did. It started the wheels turning again.

0:15:33 – (Steve Gray): Now, while I’m getting my wheels turned again and getting my hope back, you’re back in the small church. I’m gone. Nobody knows what. Well, they knew I went to. They knew I went to a revival.

0:15:43 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I told them that I had said, you need to go check out that revival. So they were thinking you were going to go check it out. Observe.

0:15:52 – (Steve Gray): And they were all joy, right? Yeah, they loved that idea.

0:15:55 – (Kathy Gray): Because I didn’t say to them, my husband is going there to that revival because he’s at the end and he doesn’t know if God’s going to use him anymore. I didn’t want to say that. I just said, me, the loving wife said, hey, go check out something, evaluate it, see, you know, blah, blah, blah, see if it’s worth anything.

0:16:14 – (Steve Gray): So they felt safe. But you didn’t know what was going on, on whether I was going to come back or not. I didn’t even say I was coming back yet. Not at that point. I do later, but anyway. So in that state, not knowing what was going to happen, you did what you should have done, and that is just stick to the plan and continued revival preparation. So give us a little short synopsis of what you did. Eventually, I’m going to get me back to the church.

0:16:39 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, I know, I know. That’s what I want, for you to share this episode. But I did. I continued with what you had ingrained in me all those years. Revival’s going to come. Something’s going to come. We don’t know how to define it, but something from God is going to come. We’ve spent 12 years teaching the Word, getting the people all, you know, grounded in that. Now what do I do while you’re gone there? Because now I feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under me also. Is he even going to come back?

0:17:09 – (Kathy Gray): And I thought, no, I’m going to rise up. I’m going to keep ministering the power of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So I did three things with our people. First, I taught them about Moses burning bush. And I said, listen, if, you know, God spoke to Moses out of nowhere, out of a burning bush, and he responded correctly and he took his shoes off and he honored God. What would you do, Smith and Community Church, if God suddenly came into our midst and did something like a burning bush, something really supernatural, something we’ve never experienced, and they said we’d take off our shoes.

0:17:47 – (Kathy Gray): So I did that. And then I started teaching them about the. Ezekiel’s river and the. How the river flows and it starts small and then you have to get in it and you have to move and cooperate. You got to step in to the river of God and do that and cooperate with.

0:18:04 – (Steve Gray): Is that the section where it talks about ankle deep and then.

0:18:09 – (Kathy Gray): You keep moving? And they thought, yeah, okay, we understand that. You know, if something happens, we’ll. We’ll respond to it, and then we will move in it. We will move. We will not be afraid. We will move forward. All right? And then the third thing was that Sunday, the second Sunday you were gone, you called me and you said, Kathy.

0:18:29 – (Steve Gray): Well, let me back up to what happened, okay? Because. Okay, the hope. Well, no, you can tell it. But that hope came in.

0:18:35 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, hope.

0:18:36 – (Steve Gray): So on Sunday morning they didn’t have revival services, they had church. Their regular service. They’re regular folks. And John Kilpatrick preached. He hadn’t preached. Steve Hill was the preacher, you know, in the revival. And so now I could have skipped because that’s not. I came to see revival, but I decided, hope has come back, I’m going to Sunday morning church. So I went to Sunday morning church.

0:18:59 – (Steve Gray): I don’t know what it was, I can’t put my finger on it, but they had communion and all that and there was nothing spectacular because they weren’t trying to have repeat the revival services. There was something else in the room though, still. But either way I came back and without even thinking about it, I said, Kathy, I’ve just been in the best Sunday morning service I’ve ever been in, innocently as can be.

0:19:23 – (Steve Gray): Well, I called and told you that now that night we had Sunday night service. So I think I called after church and then that gave you that night service. That’s right, to share that phone call. So now you take it up, what happened.

0:19:37 – (Kathy Gray): So I shared that with…

0:19:38 – (Steve Gray): I had no idea anything was going.

0:19:39 – (Kathy Gray): To happen and I shared it with the people and I said, your pastor just called me and said, I’ve been in the best Sunday morning service of my entire life. And one of our men who was a leader and just a wonderful man, he stood up and he ran to the front and he turned and he spoke to our men and he said, I am embarrassed and I am ashamed and why should it be that our pastor has to drive thousands of miles away to experience the goodness and the power and the glory and the hope and the best Sunday morning service of his life?

0:20:16 – (Kathy Gray): He said, we, we’re not doing something right, you know, we’re not receiving what our pastor has to give us if he has to drive that far. And he turned around, big old guy fell flat on his face and began crying. And the men responded, the men responded and they all rushed forward and it was so glorious and it was so wonderful. And I could hear the groans, I could hear the broke that I think they were trying to imagine how you had been feeling down there. Suddenly they understood and it’s sort of.

0:20:48 – (Steve Gray): Like they became that man in the three-piece suit, which is what we needed to have. And you know the funny thing, when he told me this story, I thought I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t mean to make them feel bad, you know, because I’m thinking I was just going to share that it was good for me. But, God, it was true. It was good for me, but it was better for them.

0:21:07 – (Kathy Gray): It was better for them too, because then they were humble and soft and teachable and desperate.

0:21:14 – (Steve Gray): So now we’re down to week one. It’s the Sunday night service, and in one week I’m coming back. So I stayed there and went to church and started the wheels turning, you know. But I have to tell you, I never once thought revival. Even though I heard about, I want you to have revival. I didn’t go. I didn’t start thinking about, oh, I could do this or I could do that. It was nothing. I felt nothing that way. I just had hope again.

0:21:39 – (Steve Gray): And that was good enough for me. But I thought, if God’s finished with me as a pastor, I don’t need to preach. I don’t care if I ever preach again. That’s where I was. Or if I teach again. I don’t need to go back and be the pastor. I just, as you know, I would say I just want to live again. I just want my life back. I want to feel life. And hope will make you feel life again. And that was good enough for me.

0:22:00 – (Steve Gray): I thought, this is good enough. So I went to church and had a good week. And I did. I was changing and not know, I didn’t know I was changing, but I think I was. But the only conclusion I could make is I’m done here. I mean, I have to finally be done. So I called you and I said, I’m coming home. Which that was the first you heard that I’m coming home. But I need to tell you something. I said, if God and I’ll come to church, I’ll come, we’ll go to church and I’ll try to be there that the following Sunday night.

0:22:28 – (Steve Gray): But I said, but if God doesn’t do something, Kathy, I’m not getting back up, pulling myself up by the bootstraps, starting over and just getting a better attitude and just going to start going through this again. I’m not going to do it, but I will come back and I will come in. And that then began the journey. I left like on a Thursday or whatever, and Friday, and I drove and I drove and I drove until finally I pulled into the parking space that I pulled in for 12 years, same one, and sat there and thought, I feel nothing.

0:23:07 – (Steve Gray): God’s not saying go for it, like, you know, like, go take the beach. I felt nothing. And I’m sitting there feeling nothing. I Remember back then, you know, I used to wear a tie to church all the time. And I remember going through the same door and I stood there then. Now there’s a door and I can hear the music going, no. Who is like the Lord? That’s how well I remember this. There is no one. And I can hear the beat and the drums and that. And I could feel I put my hand on that same door that I walked through for 12 years.

0:23:42 – (Steve Gray): And then I went, wait a minute. I straightened my tie because I think I’m not feeling anything. But. But I did. I pushed the door open and the first person I saw was you. About halfway between them and the row, first row, the stage in the first row, I saw you. And the only thing I could think to do because I felt nothing. I felt God was not sending me secret messages or encouragement at all. It was zero.

0:24:12 – (Steve Gray): All thing I can think to do is everybody’s looking at me standing in the doorway. Go hug your wife. That’s what you need to do. Show your loving husband and you’re okay. And that was the only decision I made. And I began to walk towards you. And the next few minutes, well, the next few years is history. And on the next podcast, More Faith, More Life. I want to I’ll share with you what happened in the next few approximately 10, 10 or 15 steps from that door to where you were standing, history would be made.

0:24:47 – (Steve Gray): And a quarter of a million people are going to come through those doors in the next three, over three and a half years. Quarter of a million people in a town of 532 people. Next podcast, next, More Faith, More Life. I’m going to share with you what actually happened to me and what the people did in their response that turned into the Smithson outpouring, the Cornfield revival that Newsweek and Time magazine and newspapers from everywhere would come and say, this is amazing that this would happen in this small town. I’ll tell you what happened on the next one. In the meantime, tell your friends. Maybe they’ll want to hear the story.

0:25:22 – (Steve Gray): Subscribe, tell your friends. Go to https://stevegreyministries.com and keep going there. We’re going to be redoing things. We’ve got some new stuff coming, lots of new things coming on Steve Gray Ministries website. So go there, but be a part of this because we have to have revival. We have to have…. whatever that means to you. We’ve got to have a move of the spirit. We cannot conquer the evil that is trying to get in our country by just politics and politicians.

0:25:50 – (Steve Gray): Where are the preachers? And we’ll talk about what happened to me and what is hopefully going to happen to a lot of us in the days to come. Until next time, bye-bye.