February 22-25, under the leadership or our pastor, Dr. Alan Day, Edmond's First Baptist Church was engaged in its annual Heartland Bible Conference. We were privileged to have three anointed men of God as our speakers. Dr. Roy Fish has probably influenced more men and women to have a zeal for souls than any living person. For more than 30 years, he taught evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. This was his second consecutive year to be with us. Dr. Michael Catt, is the senior pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia, and is the executive producer of the movies, Facing the Giants and Fireproof. He is a bold prophetic preacher. This was his fifth year to be with us. Ken Jenkins, one of today's outstanding wildlife and landscape photographers, and a deeply perceptive Christian man, was with us for the second time. As Ken said, "We felt the ground rumble beneath our feet." Here are gleanings from my conference notes.
Sunday morning,
February 22
Dr. Roy Fish:
“The great need of the church today is life.”
“Do you not know
that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have
from God, and that you are not your own?
For you have been
bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. “ (1 Cor. 6:19-20,
NASB)
1. Grasp the fact that Jesus lives in you. Revival comes from the Great Reviver, Who lives inside you.
2. Treat Him as though He is alive in you (eyes, ears, hands, feet, lips/tongue)
3. Consent to His complete ownership of you. If you are not obeying and following Him as Lord, you are afraid of what He will do. However, God loves you and has nothing but the best for you.
Sunday evening,
February 22
Michael Catt:
“God give me the ability to trust God for what He wants to do in this meeting.”
“If God sends revival to America, it will not begin with Southern Baptists, because they will not share it.” –J. Edwin Orr
“God’s presence is hard to define, but His absence is easy to detect.”
“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of
Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to
Horeb, the mountain of God. The
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the
bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this
marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’
“When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the
bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’
“And he said, ‘Here
I am.’
“Then He said, ‘Do
not come near here; remove your
sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground.’ He said also, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’
“Then Moses hid
his face, for he was afraid to look at God.” (Ex. 3:1-6, NASB)
“He made known His ways to Moses.” (Ps.
103:7a, NASB)
God meets us at
the level of our expectation.
“When” means “at
the same time.”
When Moses turned aside, God spoke.
Revival is
turning aside.
“Expect the
unexpected and respect the Lord. God
told Moses that he was standing on holy ground.
We are not buddies with God. Awe
and reverence are missing today.”
“Carnal people do
not care if people go to hell.”
“When you
experience revival, you quit arguing with God.
You have an assignment, and God has given you the Holy Spirit to empower
you to do what you think you cannot do. “
Monday, February 23, 2009
Michael
Catt:
“The world at its
worst needs the church at its best.”
“This is a good
time to be alive!”
“My source is not
my accountant; my Source is the One who owns the cattle on a thousand hills.”
“Every time you
hear someone say, ‘crisis,’ say ‘Christ!’”
“We do not need
spin doctors, we need spiritual surgeons.”
“The church is
never going to change with the Sunday morning crowd.”
“Sow with a view to righteousness,
reap in accordance with kindness;
break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until He comes to rain righteousness on you. “(Hosea 10:12, NASB)
“It is time for the Lord to act.”
(Psalm 199:126a, NASB)
“When crisis comes, things
change.”
Read Downpour by James McDonald.
“God is looking for people
who will trust Him regardless of circumstances.”
“Lukewarm is not good. We are too hot to be cold and too cold to be
hot.”
“The difference between a
rut and grave is that a grave has two ends.”
“When the truth is preached,
people are going to either mad or glad, but they are not going to be
indifferent.”
“A nursery is noisy, a
morgue is not.”
“Fallow ground is
unproductive… The times demand a plowing.”
“I have wasted a lot of good
sermons on people who did not want to listen.” –Ron Dunn
“Our plowing will not
produce a harvest…The times demand praying.”
“Prayer involves persistent
sowing and reaping.”
Miss Bertha Smith told a
woman, “Confess all known sin.”
She replied, “I can’t think
of any.”
Miss Bertha said,
“Guess.”
Later, she commented, “She
got it right the first try.”
“Why do we thank people for
doing what they are supposed to do?”
“How long should we
pray? Pray until God shows up…until He
comes!”
Dr. Roy Fish:
“Three times our nation has
experienced awakening. God has chosen to
do this when, morally and spiritually, it was darker than midnight.”
“Will You not Yourself
revive us again,
That Your people may
rejoice in You?” (Psalm 85:6, NASB)
Read When Heaven Touched Earth by Roy J. Fish (the story of the prayer
revival of 1858). This book can be found
on Amazon.com.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Dr. Roy Fish:
“Jesus is passing by
Edmond’s First Baptist Church. Touch
Him!”
“There is a relationship
between our dying to self and experiencing revival.”
“Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but
if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John
12:24).
“We had heard much about the
three F’s, fact, faith and feeling, but there is fourth, fruit.”
“What does the word ‘fruit’
mean? It is a changed life. How many people do you know who remind you of
Jesus?”
“’Fruit’ is the life of
Christ produced in you and reproduced in someone else.”
“The greatest tragedy of the
Christian life is to abide alone.”
“Conversions are the fruit of
revival.”
“Is there any real fruit in
your life?”
Michael Catt:
“A glimpse of Jesus will
save you; but to gaze at Him will sanctify you.” -Manley Beasley
“If we really knew the price
of revival, we might hesitate to pray for it.”
Watch for The Power of Desperation by Michael
Catt, to be released soon.
“Miracles happen when people
are desperate for God.”
“We have a lot of knowledge,
but we do not know what to do with it.
We are to soak up so that we can be squeezed out.”
“A woman who had had a hemorrhage
for twelve years, and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had
spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse—
after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she thought, ‘If I just touch His
garments, I will get well.’
“Immediately the flow of her blood was dried
up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that
the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and
said, ‘Who touched My garments?’
“And His disciples said to Him, ‘You see the
crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’ ‘
“And He looked around to see the woman who had
done this. But the woman fearing and
trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and
told Him the whole truth. And He said
to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has 1made you well; go in peace and be
healed of your affliction.’” (Mark 5:25-34)
“God is a rewarder of those
who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Do not seek revival; seek Him.”
“Sometimes our first time
for Jesus to pass by is our last time.”
“Press through to Jesus
(Mark 5:22).”
“God makes a way out of no
way…If you can get to Jesus, power comes from Him.”
“Lay aside your pride. Our desperation is God’s opportunity. Pride stands in the way of answered prayer.”
“We need to touch Jesus;
even the hem of His garment.”
“Even the church crowd will
keep you from getting to Jesus; you must press through the crowd.”
“You have to confess Him
(Mark 5:32).”
“God never wastes a
miracle.”
“Today, we do not believe
that God can do anything.”
“It is not about the
healing; it is all about Him. Praise
Him!”
“It wasn’t about the tassel
or the garment, it was the Lord!”
“Jesus equipped this woman
for ministry. What has your faith made
you?”
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Dr. Roy Fish:
“We set the sails; God
causes the wind to blow.”
“For this reason I bow my
knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth
derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His
glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being
rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the
saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to
all the fullness of God. Now to Him
who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works within us.” (Ephesians 3:14-20, NASB).
“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…” (17a)
Michael Catt:
“Whenever you stand
praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father
who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. [‘But
if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your
transgressions.’]” (Mark 11:25-26, NASB)
“If God can forgive you, you
can forgive.”
“This forgiveness is
universal, unconditional and unilateral.”
“You can forgive because you
have received forgiveness.”
“Welcome to the new normal.”
“Have faith in God, pray
believing and live forgiving.”
Ken Jenkins: (Personal confession – I was so captivated by
Ken’s photography that I failed to take good notes on all that he shared so
powerfully.)
Two things that struck home:
1.
I do
not want to be a steam vent; I want to be geyser.
2.
I
must get off the safe land, where I while away days napping or wrestling with
other “bears.” I must get out onto the
sea ice and open water where I can be all that I am meant to be in Christ.
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