Why do bad things happen in a world governed by a benevolent God? Join us as we tackle this age-old question, exploring the spiritual battle between God’s kingdom and the kingdom of darkness. We dissect the concept of revival, not as a means of converting non-believers, but as a powerful resurgence of passion among the faithful, revitalizing those who feel spiritually stagnant. Using the metaphor of the Good Samaritan, we discuss the restoration of vitality to believers and examine recent instances of revival on college campuses. With insights from biblical history and societal observations, we stress the church’s crucial role in fostering this spiritual renewal.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding Revival: Revival is not just about evangelism but rekindling the faith of existing believers. It’s about bringing the half-dead back to life.
- Current Spiritual Climate: Recent societal changes hint at a spiritual revival, evidenced by shifts on college campuses and public figures expressing their faith.
- Challenges for Churches: Churches need to move beyond convenience and politeness to embrace a more transformative, committed approach to worship and community life.
- Role of Faith: The collision of spiritual kingdoms suggests a need for renewed faith and a renaissance of spirituality in personal and communal life.
- Revival and Survival: There’s a strong correlation between revival and the survival of positive spiritual values in society, urging a proactive choice towards spiritual awakening.
Where To Dive In:
00:00 Exploring Faith, Family, and Life’s Challenges with Steve Gray
02:44 Revival Versus Evangelism: Awakening the Half-Dead Believers
06:28 Signs of Faith and Prayer in Public Arenas
08:04 The Collision of Two Kingdoms and Signs of Revival
12:32 Churches and Youth: A Call for Revival and Transformation
14:49 Revival’s Cost and the Fire of True Commitment
19:16 The Church’s Struggle with Change and Hardening Hearts
22:35 Revival as a Necessity for Spiritual and Cultural Renewal
About the host:
Steve Gray is the founding and senior pastor of Revive Church KC. He has been in the full time ministry for over 40 years and was launched into national and international recognition in the late 1990’s as the leader of the historic Smithton Outpouring, and again in 2009 when he lead the Kansas City Revival which was televised nationally on the Daystar television network. Steve is also a veteran musician, songwriter, recording artist and published author. His books include When The Kingdom Comes, Follow The Fire, My Absurd Religion, and If You Only Knew.
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Transcript:
0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): What is going on in America? Is it evil is sprouting up? Is revival sprouting up? I’m going to explain the whole thing to you, the whole story on the next More Faith, More Life podcast.
0:00:13 – (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, non profit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.
0:00:38 – (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 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.
0:01:12 – (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 an experience more.
0:01:25 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome again to another More Faith, More Life, the voice of Revival podcast. Well, today I have a special guest with me. Normally we’d have Kathy, but Kathy had knee surgery and sometimes that happens. And she’s doing very well, way better than anybody expected. Even better than I expected. She’s quite a trooper and doing it. But instead, today I have with me Zion Vieira. He’s married to Brooke, who’s in our family and they’ve been married five or six years.
0:01:58 – (Steve Gray): He has three girls, little and another one on the way. Going to have four girls by the time January 1st comes.
0:02:06 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:02:07 – (Steve Gray): And I noticed you were getting text messages from Brooke, your wife, about getting a new car.
0:02:12 – (Zion Vierra): Yes.
0:02:13 – (Steve Gray): Because you can’t get car seats in the car you have now.
0:02:18 – (Zion Vierra): We could. It’d be really tight, though. Yeah.
0:02:20 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.
0:02:20 – (Zion Vierra): I think something bigger will definitely be needed.
0:02:21 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. So I know she’s car shopping now like that. But anyway, I want to talk just a little bit about revival because that term revival a year ago was almost unheard of. Over the years, from the pandemic on, I occasionally heard it, you know, but not much. People were just trying to hang on and figure out what’s going on.
0:02:44 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.
0:02:45 – (Steve Gray): And then churches went instead of using that as a tool to bring on revival, the presence of God. And by the way, revival is not evangelism. That’s an awakening. People wake up, okay, you can’t revive somebody that’s already dead. And so we use the term revival that way. But in our theology, you see, pastors are preaching, okay, you’re dead. You need to be born again. Because you’re dead in your sins and trespasses. You need to be born again.
0:03:17 – (Steve Gray): And then we take the word revival and make it an evangelistic word, which is impossible because you can’t. We’re not out to revive dead people. We’re out to transform and make them alive. They’re dead. They’re already gone. But church folks, people who believe need to be revived, resuscitated. They’re like drowning in an ocean. And what they need is. They need a life preserver thrown out to them because they know truth and they tend church or hopefully. But they believe in God, they believe in Jesus, they. And maybe they’ve been born again experience and all that, but there’s just not much to it after that. It’s like, okay, so now we’re just going to wait to die and go to heaven or hope that we fly away or whatever, you know.
0:04:00 – (Steve Gray): But anyway, so revival is not an evangelistic campaign. That is when you wake people up and they get born again, they get saved for the first time.
0:04:16 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:04:17 – (Steve Gray): Now a lot of times we have revivals and they count it and they say, yeah, we had 200 saved or 500 saved or whatever. But you go like, no, you didn’t. That’s not. 500 new converts. You got 500 people that already prayed the prayer already were considered born again at least at one time. And they didn’t lose it, but it got. They’re alive, but they’re only half alive. So we coined the phrase, or I think it was us, so many years ago. I think it was us.
0:04:47 – (Steve Gray): But revival is life coming back to the half dead. And it’s like the guy on the road, you know, the guy on the road, the Good Samaritan story. And he was beat up and he was left half dead. And people miss that. They just say, oh, half dead, okay, he’s beat up. But half dead is a sign of Israel at that time was half dead. They weren’t Completely dead. They’re not gone. He’s still getting disciples out of Israel.
0:05:12 – (Steve Gray): And we get people alive out of the church today. But in so many places the church folks are so nominal, so out of it that they’re half dead. But we do see good signs happening. We see good signs of. And they say revival is it on college campuses it’s okay to use that term as long as we understand what we’re doing. But you know, many of those were probably church kids.
0:05:38 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.
0:05:38 – (Steve Gray): They’re church and went to college and they lost it, they died out or they just around half-hearted lukewarm religion or hypocrisy and it gets on you.
0:05:47 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.
0:05:47 – (Steve Gray): And now they’re half. So a lot of times it looks like, you know, here’s a thousand kids out on the the campus or whatever and they all come forward or whatever. Oh look, a thousand kids got saved. Probably not. Right. There couldn’t be a. There’s probably some. But most of them grew up in a church. Most of them are dull, dull believers.
0:06:08 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:06:08 – (Steve Gray): Dulled down with hypocrisy and lukewarmness and all that. And so in that respect it could be a revival because if they’re half dead and they’re coming alive, which is happening, it’s is revival. So it just depends on who we’re talking about. But we just wanted. I wanted our people to listeners to get straight so you can use the term. It doesn’t matter.
0:06:28 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:06:29 – (Steve Gray): But so anyway, there’s good signs on college campuses. There’s good signs on Fox News. Yeah, they, they talk prayer. They talk. I mean they’re having guests on that say pray for this, pray for that or they thank Jesus there’s good signs get, I even get it on the football field. You might have heard the story where that. And you see the players looking up and then I saw it in the playoffs really big.
0:06:55 – (Steve Gray): I think one of the teams is in the World Series and hit a grand slam and you know, they went around the bases like he should and then he should run in. Well, it would have been different if he had just raised his finger up to heaven.
0:07:07 – (Zion Vierra): A lot of them do that.
0:07:08 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And that’s good. I’m thankful for that. But he just stopped cameras on him. He stopped on the field and lifted up both hands. Not two fingers, both hands, looked up to heaven and said something. He was praying or thankful or whatever and the whole, whole stadium’s on him. The cameras are on him and, and I thought good for him. But you know, that’s his personal feeling. But it’s also a sign that the camera stayed on him and that he did it in public and they aired it exactly. Instead of that.
0:07:35 – (Steve Gray): So there’s little signs everywhere that I call it, that revival is rumbling. It’s like. Yeah, like it’s. Like it’s not here. But you can hear the thunderstorm miles away. You can hear the thunder, but. But the lightning’s not here yet. It’s somewhere else. And the thunder is coming where lightning is somewhere else. So the lightnings of God are striking, obviously, but in the air or whatever. But we’re just hearing the rumblings. It means it’s coming. We hope it’s coming.
0:08:04 – (Steve Gray): The storm of God is coming. A good storm.
0:08:07 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:08:08 – (Steve Gray): And so. Yeah, hopefully. And so that’s probably where we are. And. And so a lot of good signs, but not always good, right?
0:08:15 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah, there’s a lot going on. Like, you talked about kind of living in difficult times, and I remember you talked about it. Was it last two Sundays ago, You talked about the signs of revival and what’s going on. Obviously, we’re kind of hinting at that right now. But you kind of mentioned there’s two kingdoms challenging each other. Do you want to expound on that a little bit?
0:08:35 – (Steve Gray): I think Christians probably get more confused about this. You know, if there. Or maybe everybody does. If there is a God, why do bad things happen? Sure. If there is a God, why is there still sickness? If there is Jesus, if he’s a healer or he helps helper, why do we still have wars? And they don’t understand that it’s been this way since the Garden of Eden. When sin came in, Adam sinned. Is that two kingdoms had it. So God didn’t leave.
0:09:00 – (Steve Gray): You know, Adam sinned and he was thrown out of the garden.
0:09:03 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:09:04 – (Steve Gray): But God followed him.
0:09:05 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:09:05 – (Steve Gray): And so God was still on the trail, you know, and so I like to say too, even today, we have. We still have a Satan, we still have evil, we still have demons. And that kingdom, the kingdom of darkness is still here. It will not disappear till Jesus returns. But Jesus and his kingdom is also flourishing. It’s moving, advancing. So I compared it to when we first had King Saul. He was a head taller than everybody else, and he got anointed as king, but he didn’t follow directions. And God took the kingdom away from him.
0:09:43 – (Steve Gray): But he still got. He got to live in the palace for a long time. He ended up being killed and all his sons got killed. It’s tragic. But he lived in the palace. He had followers. He had Servants, he had it all. And there’s that kingdom. And at the same time, we have David, then King David, who was his replacement, who also got anointed. So we had two anointed kings at the same time. And David is the one that’s coming for forward with his kingdom, and Saul is the one that’s retreating. And so today we see Satan’s kingdom is shrinking and God’s kingdom is growing, but they’re still both here.
0:10:19 – (Steve Gray): And so we have the collision in our country right now of what I think is a lot of demonic things going on where people get so brought into so many ideas that it becomes demonic. They become, you know, delusional. And their minds, their minds are now set on dark things. And they. One of the psalms I was reading says these kind of people, they lay in their bed at night thinking about what they’re going to do tomorrow. Evil or wicked.
0:10:48 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:10:49 – (Steve Gray): And they just get overrun by it. And so we see people doing that today where things that spiritually don’t make any sense for sure. But even government people said the whole thing doesn’t. Even if you’re not spiritual, it doesn’t make sense of what’s going on, of what some politicians are doing. And so that’s a sign that we have on, like I said, maybe one news feed, whether you agree with that newsfeed or not. But you got people talking about Jesus and you have people talking about prayer, and you’ll have them say, let’s pray for them, or we pray for our country or whatever.
0:11:24 – (Steve Gray): You have that side. So, you know, that’s a good sign. That wasn’t there before much. And then you have others that wouldn’t dare say that they wouldn’t dare. And they’re supporting crime, criminals, dark things.
0:11:37 – (Zion Vierra): And a lot of Christians will support that side still, just because they’re allowing the political to overtake.
0:11:42 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, they’re spiritual. Rather be spiritual. They’re being political. So we have two kingdoms going then. And I mentioned Romans one that says that it started out, he says, people know, they know God, they knew God, but then they exchanged their knowledge of God for a lie. And they began to worship creature things, created things and themselves. We, we worship humanity more than we worship a crocodile.
0:12:11 – (Steve Gray): In our country, there may be a few people love crocodiles, but in our country, it’s, it’s. It’s ourselves now. We’re, we’re the God. We make God into our image rather than us into God’s image. So God likes everything I like. And so that’s going on at the same time that we have college campuses coming alive, we have politicians coming alive, we need the churches to come alive.
0:12:32 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. Kind of feels like churches lack.
0:12:35 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Where. Where’s the church? In the news.
0:12:37 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. Right.
0:12:38 – (Steve Gray): Politicians in the news, campuses in news, colleges, high school kids, baseball’s in the news. Yeah. Bas. You see all this on that? You don’t see anything about a church.
0:12:46 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:12:46 – (Steve Gray): And so that’s where we are. But, but we, we do, we do have some good things happening, but we need to understand where are we going? What’s our lifestyle going to be like?
0:12:58 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. There’s a good quote you said talking about. Fortunately, today we are having signs of revival. But a good quote you said, are the nations, the pastors, leaders and pew warmers ready for it? A lot of people are starting to shift. We see it happening in college. People are praying for more of God. Is the church ready? Ready for what that could look like if God were to come down. Do you think the church is prepared?
0:13:20 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. We were discussing a little while ago, before we started this broadcast, that on college campuses, they coined the phrase, they’re exchanging beer for Bibles.
0:13:28 – (Zion Vierra): Yep. Beer for Bibles.
0:13:29 – (Steve Gray): But listen, they’re exchanging beer for Bibles. There’s a transformation. There’s a sign something’s going on. What’s the church doing? What have they. What are they. Are they. Are they going away from commercialism to commitment? Are they going away from programs to presence? Don’t hear that. So, no, in my opinion, no. But my voice, your voice and other people’s and the congregation’s voice. Kids coming back from college, visiting over Christmas.
0:14:03 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:14:03 – (Steve Gray): And they come in and say, what is this?
0:14:05 – (Zion Vierra): Well, they’ll see. Churches now are doing beer programs, whiskey and sermons.
0:14:09 – (Steve Gray): You’re right.
0:14:10 – (Zion Vierra): Like these kids are trying to set themselves apart and get rid of the beer. And they’re coming to the church now. And the church is like, here, have a beer. Let’s drink the Bible, read the Bible.
0:14:18 – (Steve Gray): And they’re going to.
0:14:19 – (Zion Vierra): What? Confusion.
0:14:20 – (Steve Gray): Like, and when the college kids, or even high school or even those your age out of college are meeting together and they’re meeting and they’re singing and maybe they’re worshiping for two hours.
0:14:30 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.
0:14:30 – (Steve Gray): And then they’re going to go to a church that does three songs, you know, and gets the offering.
0:14:35 – (Zion Vierra): This is it.
0:14:35 – (Steve Gray): And a 25 minute sermon and you’re out in an hour. And then what are you going to do for the next hour? And I think they’re going to. I think there’s a good sign that. Good signs that they may start a revolution.
0:14:46 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:14:46 – (Steve Gray): That could turn into revival, I think.
0:14:49 – (Zion Vierra): So let’s see what else we got here. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So kind of what we were hitting on here. This revival will not be convenient. This is a quote you said on Sunday. I got it written down here. This revival will not be convenient. It will be costly. If it comes, it will shake the systems we’ve trusted.
0:15:06 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, that’s the hard part now, because I. I think the problem with many, most churches, not all, there’s some different ones, but most. Even the ones that seem more Pentecostal, Holy Ghost, you know, you know, Holy Spirit, Word of faith, all the good roots that we have and. And Bible things also, though they still are. They’ve. They’ve kind of come across into the religion of convenience and everything needs to be convenient. And I know we. We struggle with that in our church too, where I try to get things going and get people committed and come on, let’s show up and do this, let’s do that, let’s do this.
0:15:50 – (Steve Gray): And I get a slap back sometimes, like, well, you know, people are busy, you know, and. And life is hard and money’s tight and I got. So you really want a religion of convenience and real revival, real move of God is costly, but the cost is outweighed by the benefits. The presence of joy, like he says in his presence, is the presence of joy. Yeah. And the joy of commitment and sacrifice and presence of God and going for something with all your might
0:16:28 – (Steve Gray): outweighs the cost and it outweighs the convenience. All of a sudden you realize I was bored with convenience. I was going nowhere by trying to make my life so comfortable, so convenient as possible. And when it’s not convenient, I complain the whole way.
0:16:44 – (Zion Vierra): There was a sermon you preached years ago. This is probably 10 years ago, I was in high school. And you said, sacrifice is better than ______. And you can fill in the blank with whatever it was talking about. Sacrifice is better than obedience, I think was the scripture. But you’re talking about that. And to still be on that same message shows that a lot of people are missing the message of sacrifice even more so now. Today, a quote, another great quote, just kind of segueing. This is. Revival is not an event you attend. It’s a fire. You survive.
0:17:09 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I really like that. That’s going to be in a new book, by the way, too, because it’s such a great quote. Because that’s what. That’s. What’s happening is people are just attending church. But the fire of God was. I don’t want to say a terrible thing, because it was a good thing. But there was some holy terror. There was a holiness moment that you realize, this is God. This is something you don’t play with.
0:17:38 – (Steve Gray): And the fire of God. I like it, because the fire of God comes, but it’s something you survive the fire rather than get away from it and say, oh, I don’t know if I want this. I don’t know if I want revival. I don’t know if I want the fire of God, like, comes down in his presence and glory and all that stuff. But you can survive it. But. And that’s the joy of it.
0:18:00 – (Zion Vierra): It brands you.
0:18:01 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, it brands you. It gets you, and you survive it. And you realize, I came out better. And I like to use the Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. You know, they came out of the fiery furnace and they didn’t even smell like smoke or. You know, there’s a scripture that talks about, you go through the fire and you won’t be burned. You know, and that’s kind of what it is. It’s a fire of God that we survive.
0:18:24 – (Steve Gray): It’s a burning bush. You know, Moses is looking at it like, what this is a burning bush that’s not being burned up.
0:18:30 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:18:31 – (Steve Gray): It’s alive with fire. Yeah. And that’s what we need.
0:18:35 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. I think a lot of people might find that message abrasive. But you go on and address this further in your sermon. You’re talking about the church can no longer afford polite religion.
0:18:43 – (Steve Gray): Don’t you like that?
0:18:44 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah, that’s. That’s an interesting quote. And then while the nation bleeds division caused by spiritual blindness.
0:18:49 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And that’s the same thing. It’s a gospel of convenience and polite. And I get it. Because this is a rough world. If you make. Say something that sounds a little different, it’s going to be on the Internet. Yeah. You’re going to be slapped silly with all kinds of stuff. So fear is in that. But you probably agree with that. I think there’s a. There’s a. We’re just fed up with all that stuff. Nobody hardly pays attention to it because everybody gets accused of something.
0:19:16 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:19:16 – (Steve Gray): And. And so the power of that was strong at one time, but it’s kind of like, you know, everybody talks about everybody, you know, and. And so. So now the church, though, has fallen into it. And you know that commercial that says, help, I’ve fallen. I can’t get up. The church has fallen into politeness and convenience and it doesn’t know how to get up.
0:19:39 – (Zion Vierra): Scared to be abrasive.
0:19:41 – (Steve Gray): It’s scared, afraid. I think, I think, I think God’s going to raise up some better voices. Kathy asked me that, well, what do you think the nation needs? I said, think for just a minute. What? Think. You know, it needs, it needs a voice because even Jesus had a voice before his voice.
0:19:56 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:19:57 – (Steve Gray): And we want Jesus to come with his voice, but he had a voice before his voice. It was John the Baptist who came, said, yeah, I am a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. And that’s. We need. We need a John the Baptist voices all across our country that get a set for what God really wants to do. And that would be even just telling us that. Don’t expect convenience. Don’t expect politeness, you know.
0:20:20 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. Preparing the way of what to expect and what it’ll look like, what it costs to get and maintain it. You kind of mentioned also the book of Hebrews that says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.” What hardens a heart?
0:20:37 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And should we bring that up? Most people can’t hear God.
0:20:42 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:20:42 – (Steve Gray): That doesn’t mean God’s not speaking. And that’s the problem. If your heart gets hard, God can speak, but you can’t hear. It stops up your ears. And what makes it hard is God speaks to us all our lives. As we said, there people know there’s a God when they start out, but then they fall for lies. Now they don’t even know. Some don’t even know if there is a God, but they did at one time or they would know. Humanity knows there’s a God in the basic form.
0:21:11 – (Steve Gray): And, and so but as God speaks and his word comes and his ways come and his presence come and things come, we don’t do anything different. It’s like I’ve talked before, like been to hundreds of. More than hundreds of churches around the world and you know, you’re preaching this great sermon and the people have gone to church, most of their lives are just. They’re nodding their heads. Nodding their heads, you know, and you think, I can’t wait for this sermon to end. They’re going to get up and they’re going to. But they’re not going to do anything. They already know they’re not going to do anything different.
0:21:41 – (Steve Gray): And they’ve made up their mind. Yeah, most churches are locked in and they’re not going to do anything different. No matter what doesn’t matter if you could read a hundred scriptures that said this is the way God wants it done, or this is what God’s saying and they won’t change. And so the more he says that we don’t do, one more layer of hardness comes and then he tries again and we don’t do. And he tries again and we don’t do. And pretty soon it’s like a rock, a layer of rock is over us, you know, and you know, there might be a diamond inside, but you’re going to. But there’s a rock.
0:22:13 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, there’s a lot of layers. And so all of a sudden now we can’t hear either we can’t hear or for that person. He stopped speaking. Because if you’re not going to do the first three things, why would he ask you to do a fourth or fifth?
0:22:25 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. Kind of wrap this up with one last question that I know they answered. I think I know what you’re going to say, but do you think revival is optional?
0:22:35 – (Steve Gray): Thank you. That’s a really good question. You know, the answer is no, of course, and it never has been. But in my opinion, we are in that state of two kingdoms and one of them is going to win. Now we know Jesus, ultimate winner, but we also know he gives us a choice that our nation could go completely the other way. I think we need a revival, a renaissance of spiritual things. It might not be an outbreak like we had in Smithton or Kansas City when we were going to services five days a week, you know, for three years, over three years, because the people, people were lined up just to get in our building and you got to be there. It might not be like that, but we need to have a revival of people talking spiritual things and being positive about God to our children and positive about God in our culture.
0:23:26 – (Steve Gray): And if we don’t, then the other is they’re being positive about dark things and strange things. I read an article the other day of a warning in the. In guy was in London in the UK and he feels like that the anti-Semitism is growing so much there that God is going to start speaking to the Jews just like he did in 1930s and saying, get out now. Isn’t that amazing? Get out of England now. And that’s pretty strong.
0:23:59 – (Zion Vierra): That’s a heavy message.
0:24:00 – (Steve Gray): Yes, but what would we say? Well, the answer is what? We need a revival of the true spiritual things of God for all, all the people there, whatever religion they are. We need the true God to come through, but the people have to Want it. And so in their case, it could be if they don’t get revival, they’re not going to have survival. Yeah, revival equals survival. And then his warning was to America was, you’re next.
0:24:27 – (Steve Gray): If it happens there, you’re next. And so, yeah, yes, it is survival for us. We have good signs, but we’re going to have to take advantage. If the church doesn’t get on board and the religious leaders just stay nominal because money, programs, fame, big buildings, big building payments, all those things, then I think we’re going to be in trouble.
0:24:47 – (Zion Vierra): There’s nothing left to sacrifice.
0:24:48 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, there’s nothing left. And so we’re right in a great time in history, kind of a spooky time, scary time, because which way is it going to go? Because God, remember I mentioned this? God lays it before I, lay before you. Life, death, blessing and cursing. So that’s the two kingdoms. There’s life, death, blessing, cursing right here. And he says, of course, the Bible says so. Choose life, make a choice.
0:25:13 – (Steve Gray): Choose the right thing. What America is going to do. They’re making some good choices right now, but can we continue long term? Same thing with college campuses. They’re making good choices right now. Will they be able to keep it going and graduate and keep it going in their lives as they have their own family and their own kids? That’s the question. But right now we’re at a good point, the best point. We’ve been in maybe in my entire life.
0:25:37 – (Zion Vierra): Definitely in my lifetime.
0:25:38 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. When I first started out as a Christian, actually, churches and religion was going the other way. It was a cooling off. And I was trying to maintain it and I was able to maintain it and we had great outbreaks. But now it’s going the other way. It’s heating up.
0:25:52 – (Zion Vierra): Right.
0:25:52 – (Steve Gray): And so it’s the greatest time in my life. So.
0:25:54 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.
0:25:55 – (Steve Gray): So for everybody listening, grab hold of it. You know, stop trying to be so convenient.
0:26:00 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.
0:26:01 – (Steve Gray): And stop making your church be so polite to you. I’m not saying for you not to be polite to other people, to you. And stop making God be so polite. Let him tell the truth and get us where we need to go. And that’s why we’re calling this again. More faith, more life. And the voice of revival is speaking. So go to our website, Steve Gray Ministries.com and get everything and subscribe and to this pod podcast. Tell your friends there’s something cooking on the stove here at Steve Gray Ministries. And so we appreciate you so much. Tell your friends. Until next time. Bye-bye.


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