Last Days of the Campaign in Nigeria

“And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.”  Acts 8:1

I threatened them today.

Well, actually the Lord threatened them. Acts 8:1-4 talks of the persecution that came upon the early church at Jerusalem. God had commissioned them to go into all the world and make disciples, but they were comfortable right where they were at and were not in any rush to leave. Life was good. Thousands were getting saved. Miracles were happening daily, there was joy in the streets and real love amongst the brethren. Why would anyone want to head off into the world of the Gentiles?

Because they wouldn’t go forth out of Jerusalem to preach the Gospel, God used persecution to chase them out. Don’t believe God would do that? Compare that to Egypt. They were there in slavery for 430 years, but when they finally cried out to God, He sent the Deliverer. Why did it take so long for them to cry out to God? I don’t know, maybe they just got used to the way things were. Maybe the slavery you are used to is better than taking a chance on a liberty that you don’t know. But when their babies began to be murdered, they started crying out to God. And when they did, God sent Moses. I gave them a chilling prophesy of what is coming to them if they don’t get out of their lazy white plastic chairs and go make disciples. You could feel the cold seriousness in the room as they sat on the edge of their chairs staring at me. It happened then; it could happen now.

Yesterday was also question and answer time. Boy, they came up with some sharp questions — they always do— and kept me on my toes. But I answered everyone one of their questions, even the tough ones. I will be first to admit that I don’t know everything. One of the most important lessons I ever learned was that is it okay to say you don’t know. But I have one advantage in these sessions — I got God. I’m not just saying this cause it makes a good sound byte. No, it is true — He gives me the answers. I might stumble around for a minute or so, but it always comes. And when it comes, it is always perfect. That’s how I know its not from me.

One of the questions was about how to tell when the Spirit that leading you and when it’s your own spirit.  They are very aware of the dangers of the false prophets that plague their churches as well as ours. Just like us, they have a whole raft of well-known personalities posing as “God’s Generals” to hand down meaningless prophesies of peace, prosperity, wealth, and blessings. Never about repentance or about holiness. How is it that they are so much more aware of this than we are? I can only guess it is because they are more spiritually sensitive than we are in the West. So this was a big question for them. And yes, God gave me the answer.

I can’t remember the other questions. Maybe in the next couple days, I’ll write them down in another column. And maybe not. I’m so tired, I don’t think I can remember them anymore and, anyway, I’m not sure I care.

We’re almost done, and I am tired. (Can you tell?) My voice is so hoarse that I can barely speak, but somehow, I keep punching out one more service. You’ve seen how it works – when there is no strength, the Anointing carries you. They have seen that and they realize what it is.

It just makes for the message so much more important to them. God is talking to them. And they are listening.

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First Couple Days of Excitement

First Couple Days of Excitement

Services have been electrifying here. We’ve been having one service in the morning and another in the evening, which, considering the intensity that I preach with, makes this very exhausting. I end each service soaked with sweat and limp as a wet dishrag. And yet, I have been at my best and in my prime, which is saying something because it has been months since I have been in the saddle.

Each message has had a brand new element added to it. One such message added how tithing your first fruits was tied to revival. Giving your firsts, not only money, but time, heart, and soul, to the cause of winning the lost releases you by breaking that spirit of selfishness and greed. The 2nd Principle of Revival is that the Gospel is not about you; it is about others, and tithing breaks that hold that “self” has on you. You cannot serve God and Mammon. If you are really committed to revival, then for Heaven’s sale, invest in it! Where your treasure is …

At another service, I read out of James about being doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. The deception is that you can languish in your apostasy without ever doing anything but sitting in that same pew for years, and still believe that you will still go to Heaven. Maybe you will, but I’m not laying odds on it. But one thing’s for certain – you will not see revival burst out over you.

My business cards have my ministry information on one side and a 6-point Plan of Salvation on the back. This morning, I handed every person two of my cards – one to keep (otherwise they’d never give the other one away) and one to pass out to a complete stranger. The idea was to kick-start the idea of witnessing. Guess what?  They did it! I really thought I was going to catch them in this, but instead they were on their feet excited because they had actually done it – they had overcome their fears and handed a Gospel tract to a total stranger. Revival is on the way.

Something else happened yesterday morning that I felt pretty good about. I could feel that there was someone that needed prayer, whether for sin or some demonic stranglehold and that they should come up at some point in time. This is one of those things that many preachers understand. You just get this chilling feeling and you know there is somebody out there who has to come to the altar today. At the end of the service, a small woman pastor came up who was in bondage to a spirit of fear. (Don’t ask me. This is another one of those invisible things I don’t understand). I laid hands on her and it was like a bolt of lightening shot through me. Bam! Down she went, and that spirit of fear was broken. She was so happy she was jumping up and down, grinning from ear to ear. And she was like that the next day also!

Today, however, I got to do something really cool. I wanted to demonstrate the power of healing that is given to all of us to exercise. Mark 16 says so. So I asked if anyone had a headache, and some lady stood up. I laid hands on her and, bingo! she was healed. Just like always. I have yet to meet a headache that I couldn’t cast out. But then, I asked for another person with a headache and another lady stood up. This time I took a guy at random out of the congregation and made him pray over her.  Yup, you guessed it – she was healed. Can you imagine the excitement that went through the room? Wow. Nobody had ever done that with them. Just the idea that they could do this – not somebody else – them!

The idea of healing is more than God’s mercy to us in our infirmities. It is a sign or a seal of approval that God is truly with us. And if He can heal, He can deliver. And if He can deliver, He can save us. I sincerely believe that once you start healing people out there, they will start coming. But the people of God have to believe that God has really given us this promise and that if we will just exercise our faith, what wonders we will see happen.

That’s enough for today. I’ll try and fill you in later with what happens during the last couple days. I’m pretty jazzed (did you notice?), and I can see that these people are too. Good things, — BIG things— are bound come out of these meetings. And that’s why it doesn’t matter what it costs, how hard it is, or what I have to sacrifice to be here, I have got to take this message of revival to as many places as I can. Before my knees buckle, my back gives in, and my voice goes hoarse, Lord, let me see this fire explode around the world.

“Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.” (Psalms 71:18)

Brother Dale

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Getting Out of the Way

“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” (Matthew 3:1-3)

I have finished the 2nd day of conferences. We have one in the morning and one in the evening, and they have been on fire!

I have a long list of messages that are connected together for the seminars that I hold. Normally the messages may switch around or meld into each other as the Spirit leads. They don’t follow the chapters in the book, but they generally get the message out. I never know where we are going to preach from until I am sitting in the church praying for God to tell me what to do. He always does, even though I am always scared that I will fall flat. I never do.

But it has been different on this trip. Maybe because I’ve been here before and these people know who I am, or maybe the times are changing, but the Lord just inserted two completely brand new messages to sew into the fabric of the campaign. One has to do with tithing your first fruits and how that affects opening the way for revival. The other has to do with loving the brethren so much that you are willing to lay down your life for them and how that affects not only our love for lost souls, but for God Himself. Without a genuine love for your brothers, the lost, and for God, you won’t see a genuine revival.

Yeah, I’d try to explain it all, but I don’t have enough paper and I am way too tired to type it out. You just had to be there. Sorry you missed it.

What was more exciting than the messages, however, was the services themselves. In each service, I could tell they were going to be good because I’d get that same old fear that I was going to fail because I didn’t know what to preach, along with that little puff of the Spirit that always reassures me not to worry because He’s got this. I remember one time in Nigeria, the Lord actually spoke to me, “Do you trust Me?”, and my answer was, “Yes, Lord. You lead, and I’ll follow.”

I told them today that my job is to 1) first show up, and then 2) get out of the way. I showed up all three days and I will show up the rest of the week. I also got out of the way, and when I did, He took over the message.

I can’t explain to you what it’s like to have God take over the message. Today’s ministers do not allow for that because they’ve been trained to prepare their messages long before they come to the pulpit. I was taught to prepare yourself in the Spirit, surrender your control, and open your mouth, and He will fill it. It’s like He is riding on top of you, leaning you into every direction that He wants you to do in. All you gotta do is let it go and hang on for the ride.

When the Spirit of God is giving the message, it is always filled with fire. And that’s what these messages have been like. And that’s coming from the pastors that are experiencing these services.

When I was coming to Nigeria last week, I was dealing with the question of how to create inspiration and desire in the hearts of people for revival, for serving the Lord, and for going out to win souls. Once again, I got my answer – Show up, and get out of the way! This is not your battle, they are not your people, and it is not your message – it all belongs to God. You just have to prepare the way before Him.

That’s what John the Baptist did, and it worked pretty good for him.

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Dead Trees

This morning, I looked out over my yard and considered the great big Weeping Willow out there.  It had suffered terribly from last summer. It reminded me of the 1^st chapter in the Book of Joel.  What the drought didn’t wither, the grasshoppers had finished off. Whole limbs stood out from the ground up to 30 feet high that were just about dead, brown, and dry.  Here and there were a few new outcroppings of growth.  A few leaves here; a few leaves there.

I stood looking at the mass of dead branches, figuring out which limbs I was going to have to cut down, and which could be spared.  I’m told that you should cut major limbs only at certain times; otherwise you’ll hurt the whole tree.  But they’ve got to come down eventually. If they don’t, they will sap the tree of its strength and potency.  All that dead weight will keep the tree from the beauty and health of vibrant growth.

How much like the Lord with His church.  The dead branches are allowed to hang in there for a while in hopes that they will sprout some new life and bear fruit. However, if they do not come back to life, they’ve got to be cut down or they will sap the entire Body of its strength.

Souls are not drawn to dead churches any more than we are drawn to dead trees.  The husbandman would not be worthy of his hire if he allowed them to remain unpruned.  No matter how nice or how easy it would be to just leave them alone, the axe has to be laid to the root of the tree if it does not bear forth good fruit.  And where do they throw the dead branches?  Into the fire.

The Lord always raises up vinekeepers to work His garden, and they are responsible to make sure the vines produce good fruit.  Theirs is a thankless job – nobody enjoys being told that they are dead – but in the end, the plant will prosper and grow.  To not proclaim the call to righteousness and Holy Ghost conviction would make them derelict in their duty, and allow the tree to die.  There are those who are dying to see a Holy Ghost revival that will set the church on fire, and there are those who are content with the status quo and would rather be left alone with their comfortable churches.  We choose our own destiny.

Jesus told his disciples that they were ordained and chosen that they should go and bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain (John 15:16).  In other words, the whole reason you got saved was to go and tell others the Truth so that they could have Life.

But there has to be an excitement alive in the church to produce new growth and vibrancy.  The church has to be on fire! You know you’re growing, not when you feel good at church, but when there is a constant flow of brand-new lost souls coming in to get saved. But if there’s no moving of the Spirit to bring in new souls to Life, then the sap is not flowing. And if the sap is not flowing through you, then you’re just a dead branch waving in the wind.  And a branch that doesn’t bring forth good fruit is…well…, it’s dead.

And you know what happens to dead branches.

Brother Dale,  dale@revivalfire.org

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Dissolving Hymenaeus

“Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.”

“Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander…” 1^stTimothy 1:5-7,20

I don’t ever want be one of those guys that your pastor warns you about. They’re right there in church in the midst of everyone, and they think they are so right that they have to make sure everyone knows it. But they’re not. But they don’t know it.

Imagine being someone that like. You know that there is a separation between you and everyone else, especially the leadership of the church, and yet you excuse it away by thinking that it is because you are just a little bit better than them. After all, you know you’re right, but most people just don’t understand. After all, the Bible does say in Proverbs that they that seek the Lord understand all things. That must explain why others just don’t get it and you do. What a trap of delusion, and how easy it is to fall into!

What a surprise awaits them! All the way up to their last breath they think they are so right with God, and then in an instant, their reality crashes down on them. The sad thing is that their time of boasting is so fleeting, but their judgment is forever.

I don’t want to be one of those guys, so how do I make sure that I do not fall into that trap? I can only think of three things:

1. Focus on others.
   One of the principles of revival that I preach is that the Gospel is not about you; it is about others. Throughout the Bible, the Lord directs our focus to others, others, others. I always say that if you don’t get this, you will never understand the Cross, because that is the central reason why He came, and He tells us to do the same. (Matt. 16:24)
   Forget about yourself and focus on others. It will dissolve your pride and arrogance like hot water on butter.
2. You don’t always have to be right.
   Let others have their opinion and perspective. It’s okay. You don’t have to take on the role of the Lord High Executioner or the Holy and Exalted Fruit Inspector. For crying out loud, let it go! Relax. You don’t have to correct all the world’s mistakes.
3. You aren’t always right.
   Yeah, this goes with #2. Maybe, just maybe, you ain’t always right. That ever occur to you? You might even learn something if you kept your mouth shut. Maybe you’d learn that not only you are not what you think you are, but that it doesn’t matter anyway. This is not a matter of who gets the highest score at the Judgment Bar, or of how much “stuff” you know. Let me tell you, nobody cares. Especially not God. So whom are you trying to impress?

And that is probably the heart of the issue. People like that have a weakness somewhere inside them that Satan has exploited and that they are trying to compensate for. What is it that they are trying to prove? Maybe they don’t really think they’re better; maybe they’re just afraid they’re not.

The heart of this issue, however, is not just about us not falling into that trap, but of us having mercy by praying for those who have. (See #1).

After all, that is the whole point, isn’t it?

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Surprise, Surprise

“And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations.”  Isaiah 25:7

Picture this for a moment.  World opinion has moved against Israel to the point that she has become a burdensome stone for the entire world.  The only hope that world leaders have for a lasting peace is to subjugate Israel and force her to bend to their decrees of submission.

Israel doesn’t want to do that.  They flat out refuse.  So the world press paints a picture of Israel as a rebellious, renegade nation that, in the eyes of the world, makes Israel look like such a serious threat to world peace that she must be forcibly crushed.

The armies of the world join to surround and destroy her.  Crowds cheer as they read that half of Jerusalem has been taken in ferocious fighting.  The Jews’ back is against the wall, the Death Knell has begun to ring, and victory is at hand.

And then, surprise, surprise!  Jesus Christ splits the skies and descends to fight for His people in a fury that the world has never known and will never forget.

Oops!

Now they know.  But how had they become so blinded?

According to the Scriptures, it is because they listened to their prophets.  They had been convinced that they were executing a righteous cause in the name of Peace.  They had chased all the old-fashioned preachers from the pulpits because they didn’t bring messages of peace and love, and the prophets that had called for the righteous indignation of the Lord were considered mean, divisive, and judgmental.

Didn’t those hellfire and brimstone preachers understand that the only way to peace was to accept all religions into an ecumenical World Religion?  Didn’t those hateful prophets understand that God was Love and all those divergent lifestyles were just a different way of approaching God?  Why were they preaching Hate?

Well, I guess the only real answer I can give is because it was the Truth.

Real prophets of God are not nice guys – they aren’t supposed to be.  And if my Bible is correct, they never appeared to be real high on whatever the religious order of the day was.  And some of them were pretty nasty about it.  But Preachers of courage divide between sin and righteousness, and will suffer persecution as a result of it.
(“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” 2Timothy 3:12)

Just in case you’re wondering which side God is on – He hates sin … and He hates the workers of iniquity (Psalms 5:5).  Pick your side … but choose wisely.

One only has to read the newspapers to see the march of radical individualism and humanism along with unrestrained Liberalism moving us into the free licentiousness of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it’s considered a godly and loving thing!  Boy, are we suckers.

But it’s all because we have chosen our own delusions, and we have allowed our prophets of peace and love to sell us a candy-coated gospel that seems so …um … nice.  This is the hour of temptation that will come to try the whole world.

It would be so easy to say that the way to see through this deception is to simply read and pray.  However, if that is not mixed with the fear of God, your understanding will be superficial at best.  Unfortunately, the fear of God is gradually being relegated to a four-lettered word and translated to the more acceptable “reverence” and “respect” instead of that “trembling” stuff or that “dread” that is written in the old King James.

But when that covering is cast away, we will see Him as He really is.

And then we will know.

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