The Mistakes of Having Revival
by Marrell Cornwell
Alabama Revival Conference
Kind: conference session
Scripture: Genesis 13:7-11, Genesis 12:1-4, Genesis 12:5, Genesis 12:7-8, Genesis 12:9-10, Genesis 13:1-4, Genesis 13:14-15

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/marrell-cornwell--the-mistakes-of-having-revival
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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amen if i was not pastoring in kansas i would want to be an alabamian hallelujah there is just a kindred spirit in alabama amen i i have mellowed out over the years somebody said well what's mellow it means half rotten amen i i thought i was being real kind at the alabama camp this year and and so i i apologize for being so kind i'll try to be harder next time amen when i think of alabama it is hard not to think of stan davidson let me tell you something this is one of the greatest worship leaders that i know the man just has a talent and an ability to lead a service and i love brother davidson i just i love alabama praise god i love arc now next week or week after next i'm on the steering committee for impact in columbia mississippi and don't tell the mississippians i said this but but alabama ruins impact for me impact is so anti-climatical after coming to ark and i know some of you are going to be in mississippi please don't tell them i said that okay but last night if you if you didn't get fed last night you weren't hungry not only was the preaching good the spirit was good the spirit spoke to us last night and when brother sam emery was speaking last night lord i i i can trace the events of my life that led up to an experience with god that changed the character and makeup of my entire life praise god amen and then brother tom foster coming this morning and i could go home right now and say i have been in one of the best conferences i've ever been in but we've still got a few more sermons left open your bible to the book of genesis chapter 13 and verse number seven now i have taught part of this in one of the local churches here in alabama and when i i taught it it's been about two years ago that i maybe a year maybe a year ago that i taught this maybe a year and a half ago and i realized i had a hold of something that has some great principles involved in it and so i i have debated whether or not to bring it um to this meeting but the holy ghost just keeps prompting me that i should bring this to us and and i've i brought about a hundred sermons with me a hundred bible lessons and this is the one the lord keeps impressing on me i won't talk about the mistakes of a new beginning i want to deal with the mistakes of of having revival and again i i'm centering on apostolic revival and and having that kind of revival the book of genesis chapter 13 verse 7. i'm going to use some very familiar text i don't want you struggling with the interpretation of the text last night i tried to bring texts that you're very familiar with so that you could hear what i was saying rather than struggling with the text and i'm gonna do the same thing this morning genesis 13 there was strife

between the herdman of abraham's cattle and the herdman of lots cattle i want you to notice that the the the the strife was not between abraham and lot or it appears on the surface that the strife is not between lot and abraham the the strife is between abraham and god okay you don't see that yet but you will amen and abraham abram said unto lot let there be no strife i pray thee between me and thee and between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen for we be brethren now in the second verse in verse number 8 or verse 7 there was strife between abra the servants of abraham's cattle and the herdman of lot's cattle but abraham said i don't want any strife between me and you or between our herdsmen so abraham adds a second dimension to this strife is not the whole land before thee separate thyself i pray thee from me get away from me praise god if thou will take the left hand i'm gonna go the opposite direction from you he didn't say you walk away and i'll stand here or you go west and i'll go north but he said if you'll go one direction i will turn and i will go the complete opposite direction amen lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plane of jordan that was well watered everywhere before the lord destroyed southern gore even as the guard of the lord liked the land of egypt as that came unto zoar then lot chose him all the plain of jordan and lot journeyed east and they separated themselves one from the other lot pitched his tent towards sodom abraham pitched his tent towards an altar amen you can be seated it is often been said that one lie leads to a second lie it doesn't matter whether you're the president of the united states one lie will always lead to another lie or whether you're a pastor of a church one lie will always lead to another lie whether you're saint one lie will always lead to another lie or whether you're just a rank sinner lies lead to moralize and and what is terrible is one mistake will always lead to a second mistake has anybody ever made a mistake and not know you made a mistake until later and because you based yourself on that mistake it wasn't long before you found yourself making a second mistake can i have it amen now when i read the book of genesis when i get to chapter 12 of the book of genesis i had a note in my bible just above the chapter 12 sign i put god starts over it should be genesis 1 and genesis 2 because chapter 12 starts a new beginning with god and god's dealing with people and and god chose a man to start over his dealing with mankind in the name of abram now just for a clarity sake turn to genesis chapter 12 and let's do just a little bit of studying here for just a moment of time now the lord said unto abram get thee out of thy country and so god tells abraham this is not where i want the man i'm going to use i want you over here and in order to get from where you're at to over here you're going to have to cross a boundary and a border and i want you to leave your country and i want you to enter into my country i want you to leave your way and i want you to enter into my way there can be no intermingling of ways if we're going to have revival and and this conference is a higher playing conference when i say revival i'm not talking about having a two-week meeting or an evangelist come by and and having a week of meetings we're talking about a continuous outpouring of the baptism of the holy ghost with miracles and signs following

it is possible to live in a continuous outpouring of the holy ghost you can have an outpouring of the holy ghost when somebody in your church is committing adultery you can have revival in your church when somebody is turning into a queer you can have revival in your church when somebody is backsliding if circumstances around you can stop your revival you're not in tune enough with god we have no control over the will of man but we have complete control over our ability to be in the will of god if you're waiting for your church to be perfect to have a continuous outpouring of the holy ghost let me announce to you right now you'll never have a perfect church i get very amused at men that are very critical of other people and they say well you gotta understand his church or you gotta understand that church or that man's got sin in his church or this man is a liberal or that man is this or that when we start comparing ourselves among ourselves the bible says we are not wise every man goes through evolutions in his life and develops and grows as the lord leads and guides him well either you are hungry sleepy disinterested or listening praise god and anyway praise god we we we start comparing ourselves with other people when we start saying i am more conservative than that this man or i'm i'm more this than that man we are making a dreadful mistake before god i had a experience several years ago i had a man that i was working with and he was an alcoholic and and he was trying to to be converted and he had been baptized and and his wife told me one day she said would you take him hunting with you and would you handcuff him to you i said well i won't handcuff him but i'll take him with me he said if you just get him out of my hair for a while so we went out in western kansas pheasant hunting and and the trip there was 15 preachers in this one center with us and when you pheasant hunt you get in a straight line you walk through a field and you flush up the bird you shoot the bird and and and this man that was with me he was the only a saint there all the rest of them were preachers and and he was having a nicotine fit has anybody ever had a nicotine fit would you raise your hand if you've read anything you know what i'm talking the rest of them don't have a clue what i'm talking about and he was just going i said what is wrong with you he's i'm having a nicotine fit i said well light up i said light up a cigarette my god calm down i mean you got to understand he was a four packer a day and and he had smoke in several hours and he was going start raving mad and i said well just light up he said i can't i can't he's like i'm in a dilemma i said what's wrong he said i don't believe in smoking in front of preachers 15 it was all it was there was preachers hallelujah and he didn't know what to do i said well why don't you step back and smoke behind us instead of in front of us oh he said that's a good idea and so he just kind of hunk it down and started walking backwards like the preachers weren't going to see he lit up a cigarette and he sucked her down in one draw and as soon as he lit that cigarette 15 pairs of eyes turned and saw him smoking and so he smoked a cigarette and he calmed down and he was good for the didn't have to smoke another cigarette the rest of the day and that calmed him down praise god and i was very thankful he was driving me berserk hallelujah when somebody smokes that doesn't tempt me to smoke when somebody drinks that doesn't tempt me to to drink i came out from among them and became separate that i might be able to go into the world if you're too holy to go into the world then you're not holy enough god wants us to come out and get a deliverance from the world that we might qualify ourselves to go into all the world so it just happened that we had a successful hunt and in july at our camp meeting now this is about seven months later i walked around the corner of the tabernacle and i it was it was it was my

shining moment there were 15 or 20 preachers in a huddle and i caught them gossiping red hair there's only one thing i love better than catching someone else gossiping and that's me gossiping and just as i come around the corner tabernacle one of the preachers said and cornwell has a man in his church that smokes which automatically made me a charismatic see we are peer pressuring ourselves to death okay let me say it again we are peer pressuring ourselves to death we won't fellowship with a brother because we think he believes a little bit different than us but we'll go to a doctor and be operated on by the biggest scallywag in the world because it is easier to criticize our brother than to grow from our brother well he's not talking to me i'm holier than everybody else here and i ain't got to listen to that kind of garbage well you don't listen and you just stay right where you're at but when one day you're gonna wake up and realize that you bypassed a lot of people that could be of great service to you but because you're still stinking narrow-minded i'm reverting back to my younger years aren't i and i walked up among him just as he said that and i said no i don't and he looked at me and and they all realized that they had got caught talking about the local charismatic now if you're holier than me god bless you life must really be boring for you i'm not perfect and i'm not trying to be perfect because i don't want to be a perfect person it ain't no fun being so perfect i like repenting every once in a while and if you don't have to ever repent god bless you but i enjoy having to repent every once in a while amen and i said i do not have a man in my church that smokes now you have to understand i have i was turned off by the entire kansas district because i had a man in my church that smoked and for 27 years i have never done a single seminar in the state of kansas because i am a local charismatic i have not preached in one single kansas camp meeting in 27 years because i am a liberal when the truth of matter is ninety percent of preachers in our district wouldn't even qualify to teach a sunday school class in my church but their perception of people can damage their ability to have revival we better be careful of our perception of men now i'm preaching a good sermon i know some of you are not liking it but i am preaching a wonderful sermon here we're talking about wanting to have revival we're not going to have revival until he becomes our father he's not my father and he's not your father he is our father i'm your brother whether you want me to be your brother or not and i don't want to be a joseph until after the egypt experience i want to be joseph with you in canaan i said i don't have a man in my church that smokes he said yes you do i said no i don't i have five men the smokin i would be ashamed if i passed a church and nobody in my church ever smoked i'd be ashamed to pastor church and there was no adulterer sitting on my pews i would be ashamed to pastor a church and call myself the church of the living god and not be an incubator for people to be hatched and born in the kingdom and be able to live and grow in the grace of almighty god folks this is this is this is not a a a an isolation station this is the gateway to heaven and we're going to have people come in and be saved they're not going to be perfect when they come in amen i've done a seminar years ago in our church and and and we had some people volunteered to teach bible study and

and and they got busy and about three months later this couple in our church brought a beautiful couple down the aisle and and i thought my god where did they proselyte these people i thought they'd been out sheep stealing and they came up and they said pastor we want you to baptize this family and and they had she had her hair pulled back had that little bun on the back of her head and she had a dress that was halfway between her knee and her ankles and she had sleeves down that almost covered her thumbs and and her neckline almost choked her to death and she looked so holy and godly and he had a haircut it was parted he had brill cream on it and swept over i said y'all need to be baptized and i said they looked apostolic they already looked pentecostal and they said yes and so they took them upstairs to get them ready to be baptized and i said i said ma'am i said where did you find these people oh he said i've been teaching a bible study said they come to church about three months ago i said they did i said i don't remember them oh pastor you won't remember them if you you remember that little jezebel that came in church about three months ago and and she had a miniskirt on and he came in with a pair of bermuda shorts on and a tank top i said well i remember them that's who they are i said what he said i've been teaching him a bible study i said you've been teaching a bible study he said yeah i went to their house and i said i'd like to teach you a bible study but i don't believe in defiling myself i said if i'm going to teach you a bible study y'all got to throw your television out and and you're going to have to quit wearing those miniskirts and and she had a she cleaned them up before she ever caught them now i admit that there are some people are enough to do that but we're not living in a world we're living in a real world can i have what amen now the lord said to abram get thee out of thy country and get thee out from among thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land i will show thee and then he said i will make of thee a great nation i will bless thee and i will make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing i will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curseth thee and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed can i have it amen and so in verse number four so abraham departed as the lord had spoke unto him now in your bible there is a semicolon right there there is a pause and then the next phrase says and lot went with him and then there is a colon there and then and abraham was 75 years old when he departed out of haran now i agree that god told him to get out of his country but he also told him to leave his kin folks and so we find the very first day of abraham's call him making one of the greatest mistakes he could have ever made and let me tell you something i'm sharing with you god speaks to our spirit in strange ways and mystical ways that other people may not understand but when god says something he wants you to do what he says for you to do now i can't not tell you why that lot went with abraham obviously lot was a very wealthy young man he was a very strong young man and perhaps it was because abraham when abraham went to his brother and said i'm leaving and he said where are you going he said i'm going to a land that god has shown me i'm going to be a stranger and a pilgrim i'm i'm going towards the great sea and abraham's brother got very concerned about abraham he said wait a minute you are 75 years old you are too old to go trekking out by yourself what what's going to happen to you if you fall and break a leg you are too weak your strength has ebbed away now there's a method here to my madness i've done a study here a few months ago and of all of the churches that are growing in the united states out of every denomination and i found something very interesting about the fastest growing churches in america did you know that 75 of the fastest growing churches in america are being pastored by men over the age of 55.

now if some of you young whippersnappers are waiting around till i resign for you to try out for my church you got a long wait honey because you're gonna be smelling trail dust for years to come god does not need me in my strength he needs me in my obedience okay you're missing something here praise god i'm gonna say it again god does not need me in my talents he does not need me in my abilities he needs me in my obedience to god he does not need partial obedience partial obedience is more detrimental than disobedience well praise god i i i'm from the old school where i still believe in the fear of god i believe ananias and sapphira are as real as this book on my table here i still fear god now some of you you may be a friend of god and that's great i want you to be a friend of god but somewhere in the back of your heart you better have the fear of god in your life because the fear of god is the only thing that will cause total obedience instead of partial obedience when a man is gifted and a man is talented and a man has great abilities he is more apt to do a partial obedience to god than a total obedience to god and and the more experience you get in building a church and the more experience you get at preaching the more the more apt you are to only be partially obedient unto god we better be careful knowing how to do things i thank god for gifts i thank god for talents i want to multiply my gifts i want to multiply my talents but i also want to be totally obedient to the holy spirit i am not satisfied being outside of god's will when i was a young preacher i preached my first revival in a place called picayune mississippi anybody know where picayune mississippi is and i was still in college and i drove to picayune mississippi to preach my first revival and all i knew how to do was fast and pray now i didn't have sense enough to know how to preach i had one sermon that i had that i had heard somebody else preach and i taped it and i transcribed it and i wrote it out and i memorized it and that was the greatest sermon i've ever preached in my life it was on old belshazzar and i preached on belshazzar in more ways than anybody else in america i preached on more handwritings on the wall than anybody in america praise god that's the only sermon i i knew and i preached seven different versions of handwriting on the wall but the one thing i did was i fasted and i prayed i knew i didn't have guilt i knew i didn't have talents i knew i didn't have experience and i had to depend totally on the holy ghost let me tell you something we have a church in wichita not because of my gifts not because of my talents not because of my abilities but because of obedience to god when you are totally dependent on the holy spirit and you can lay aside yourself will and you can lay aside your gifts and lay aside your talents for the holy ghost to overrule all of that then god his blessings will then bless your gifts and bless your talents can i have an email a gift and a talent without the blessings of god is futility oh praise god and so i came out of the church one afternoon after i've been praying and the the brother tom wheat i know if you know by the time wheat or not he's an elder preacher he was old when i was young and and he was out in his garden and he was hoeing out his garden and i walked towards him and he just leaned over on his hoe and when i got to him tears was streaming down his face and i thought oh god oh god oh god what's happening here and he said brother cornwell he kind of look he look gotta speaks a little bit of a list and he said brother cornwell he said i said when you came out of that church the lord the lord showed me a vision of you now i mean who am i that i deserve receiving a vision i'm i'm i'm just i just got saved i mean i i was saved a long time before i got called to preach i think i was i was saved almost 20 minutes before god ever called me to preach i don't understand why it took god so long to call me to preach

and and and i'm just young i've i i i've never preached a revival this is my very first revival and and and brother wheat said brother call me i said the lord show me the devil gonna try to kill you that's that's all i need is is to get scared from day one said the lord told me that the devil gonna try to kill you i said okay how's he gonna do it he thought i i don't know what what are they gonna do but the the devil's gonna try to kill you i said well my god i don't wanna die i want to be a preacher but i don't want to die i said how do i prevent it he said brother going well said the only way the devil not going to kill you is you've got to stay in the will of god i said why where's the will of god at didn't tell me what the will of god was he didn't tell me how to find the will of god but he said if you get out of the will of god the devil gonna kill you and so i went back to college and and got my car and was going downtown i run a stop sign and i cut a brand new station wagon half and two i almost killed the guy i run over he's in the hospital for weeks praise god and and man i barely escaped hallelujah and and then i was on a highway and i was on my way back to school one morning early in the morning and driving east and i was following a brand new oldsmobile and she had come off a gravel road and the tail lights was all dusty and and and you couldn't see her tail lights and and was on a two-lane road and she was supposed to get on this bridge and she slammed the brakes and came to a screech and stopped pushing on that bridge and i've been doing 65 miles an hour following her bumper to bumper praise god and all i could do was was was either hit her or turn and i saw her little baby raised her head up in the back when i thought oh my god i'm going to kill that baby and so i turn over in the other lane when i turn the other lane i realize what she stopped for because there was a mobile home and a truck in the middle of the bridge and all i could think of was but a coma the devil gonna kill you you know when you have those kind of experiences those are experiences those are not events your whole life flashes before you and i thought jesus jesus and i closed my eyes and i turned my wheel as hard as i could and and i heard the crunching and the grinding and and the scraping and when all was said and done the the state trooper came out and i had tore up a a semi-tractor trailer i tore up a 60-foot mobile home i tore up a brand new oldsmobile and i had crushed a quarter panel on my old ford car hallelujah and the lady said said all she could tell was that something picked up that tractor and trailer and that and and and put it over my car and the trooper said y'all are all lying you're lying this didn't know how to happen the way you said but that's the way it happened god picked up that truck and trailer and lifted over my car i didn't go over the side of the bridge the lady wasn't hurt the child wasn't hurt the truck driver wasn't hurt i wasn't hurt but you know what when it was over the state trooper drove away and laid drove away i pulled my car inside the road and i said god please let me stay in the will of god i'll do anything to stay in the will of god let me tell you i am scared to get out of the will of god all right some of y'all don't believe what i'm telling you let me tell you the will of god is more important and being obedient to god than anything else in life the will of god and obedience to god is the revival that god will give to you revival will not come when you are out of the will of god revival will not come when you are disobedient to god and revival won't come the way you want it when you're only partially obeying to god and you're doing it in your own strength instead of depending on god all right a hurry i know you want to go to lunch praise god now watch this praise god the lord said so abraham departed the lord had spoken him and lot went with him and abram was 75 years old when he departed out of haram and abraham took sarah his wife and lot his brother son and all their subs that they had gathered and the soul they had gotten iran and they went forth into the go to go in the land of canaan and in the land of canaan they came okay now let me just share one more time partial obedience is no better than no obedience at all if you're only going to be partially obedient and deceive yourself it would be better that you be totally disobedient can i have it amen when you hear from god and you make a new start from god make sure you have the right influences in your life i don't know why abraham consulted with his brother and allowed his brother to talk him into letting his son go with him but he came under the influence

of his brother and god rather than under god now this is getting a little bit sticky here praise god we all have influences in our life in the multitude of counsel there is safety can i have it amen and and i am i for one i appreciate what brother fox said i have three men in my life that are in total dominion over my life i have to be subjective to somebody and i've chosen three men for fact one of them called me on a date and told me somebody didn't like so i changed him i'm just picking praise god there are three men that i'm i'm afraid they don't call very often but sometimes they'll pick up a tape that they heard me preach at some conference or some convention and they'll call me and say why did you that was the most ignorant thing i've ever heard preach don't you do that again and your attitude stunk i don't like it when they tell me my attitude stinks but i i'm sure it does stink you just can't smell under your own nose somebody said amen now watch this we got to be careful who influences us if you're a liberal it's because you're running with liberal preachers if you're a super conservative it's because you run with super conservative preachers if you run with dingbats you're a dingbat because you run with dingbats can i have it amen let me tell you what you ought to do you ought to take the left wing off and take the right wing off the altar right wingers are dangerous and diversity and they are troublemakers and the left wing is troublemakers and if you take a hatchet and chop the left wing off and chop the right wing off that which is in the middle is good to eat if you're going to be extremist about something be an extremist about revival be extreme it's about getting people saved be extreme it's about building your church amen there's some people so stinking holy that they're sinful if they even see a sinner i'm against the right wingers i'm against the left-wingers i believe in the will of god for my life i believe in the will of god for your life i believe in the will of god for your church can i have an amen we need revival it doesn't matter who we are we've got to have an outpouring of the holy ghost or we are destined to be doomed praise god we're living in a world that doesn't this world is not getting better ladies and gentlemen this world's getting rough okay i'm not going to get in that praise god hallelujah number two if we are emotionally attached to something that will eventually destroy us it's better to let go of it could it be that abraham was addicted to his family could it be that he was addicted to lot had he had he depended on lot so much that he couldn't do things for himself and he felt like he had to have a lot to help him let me tell you something if you are addicted to things that eventually going to destroy you it would be better to you let go of them now they wait until the judgments of god come and he take them away from you somebody said amen now verse number seven the lord appeared to abram and said unto the and said unto thy seed will i give this land does anybody see anything wrong with that passage read it again look at the bible look at it the lord appeared to him and said unto thy seed will i give this land there's something wrong here god gave it to abraham in verse one two and three now he's not saying it belongs to abraham he says unto thy seed am i gonna give it now that should have been a first inclination to abraham that something was wrong do you all see that yet god's not saying i'm going to give this land to you abraham i'm going to give it to those that follow after you and abraham should have emilia stop saying wait a minute lord you told me that you're going to bless me you told me that that this is going to be my land i'm going to bless thee and now you're saying it's gonna belong to my seed i don't quite understand that now look at look at the rest of that verse and there build he an

altar unto the lord who appeared unto him so god appears to him and speaks to him and he builds an altar now this is where we're at when we are disobedient to god we build altars for god to come and bless us but we don't correct ourselves at the altars that we build now somebody turned the air destroyer on or the holy evie jebs are all over me right now let me tell you something how many times have we built altars and we go and we weep around the altars but we don't change our disobediences at the altar of prayer there is disobediences in all of our life if we're living life it is always a trial and error and when we build an altar we build an altar to turn ourselves towards god and say okay lord i want to walk in your will i want to do your will tell me what i need to correct but abraham didn't do that he built an altar to god but he did not correct himself at the altar he built lot continued with him it was not the will of god for abraham to lean on lot it was not the will of god for abraham to lean on some other strength i hear home missionaries say well if i only had a tent maker i could build a church then god didn't call you you got to learn to depend on god not on a tent maker well if i could play music i could build a church if you could play music you wouldn't need god could i have an amen lot was was completely the crutch that abraham was leaning on and god doesn't want us to lean on anybody else if god called you to build a church then you can build the church of the living god it doesn't matter how many people are rebellious in your congregation it doesn't have any people committing adultery in your congregation it doesn't matter how many people are doing wrong in your congregation if god calls you to build a church if you'll follow the will of god you can build a church for jesus christ i'd be ashamed of myself to let an adult or a hand in my revival i'd be ashamed of myself to let some queer into my revival greater is he that's in you than he that is in the world am i making any kind of sense praise god praise god a personal reference here for just a moment brother mark morgan is doing america on fire and doing a dallas crusade and he done the san francisco crusading and i'm sure there's going to be many more crusades to come in time to come but you know the amount of criticism that he is receiving that is enormous but what if he was leaning on them can i have an amen instead of saying i heard from god and this is what we're going to do and that's exactly what we've got to do when you hear from god you got to follow through it doesn't matter what kind of opposition there is the opposition is not going to hinder you unless you start listening to your opposition when i went to wichita my pastor got mad at me he said my god he said he said you can't have revival in kansas there's no revival in kansas he said you're going to go up there and you're going to shipwreck yourself you're going to lose your family you're going to destroy everything that you have ever stood for and i said i can't help it god has called me to wichita kansas i said i've had three distinct experiences with god the third one was i walked into a man's office he stood up behind the desk he said my god thus saith the lord i shall send thee to which are talking i didn't know which where what to talk kansas was he prophesied that i was going to wichita kansas i'd never heard of nobody ever caught i've never been to kansas and when i got home the telephone rang and b.l stanford was on the phone he said brother cornwell because i'm from wichita kansas i want you to come and try out for this church and cold chills covered my body it was already prophesied that i was going to go there before the man ever called me praise god i know god called me to which i told and because god called me i can face every devil i can face every opposition praise god you got to know that god calls you and when god calls you you got to be careful of the influence that comes to your life i will never forget my pastor coming and said brother cohen i am so sorry of what i said when you started to go to wichita he said i just didn't realize that god had talked to you that way and i appreciated the fact that he was able to correct himself can i have it

amen now watch this verse 8 he removed vents from unto a mountain on the east of bethel and pitched his tent having bethel on the west and hay eye on the east and there he builded an altar on the lord and he called upon the name of the lord now first altar he built he did not correct himself and when he did not correct himself the voice of god started diminishing in his life now god's still speaking but he's dull of hearing and so he goes to a place between bethel and hai now bethel means the house of god in palestine hai means a place in the world and so instead of hovering right at the altar he built an altar between the house of god and between the world i can't really hear from god and i i don't want to be in the world but i want to be close enough the world in case i can't hear it's it's dangerous where you build your altar sometimes we compromise and build an altar halfway between the church and the world i'm not just talking to saints of god i'm talking to preachers that because nothing is really exciting happening in your church you're building your altar not not totally involved in the house of god but between the house of god and the world now watch this oh the holy ghost is in this place praise god when we do not correct ourself at the altar the altar begins to lose its meaning in our life people backslide not from the back row they backslide at the altar we just don't see them till they get to the back row when people have sin and disobedience in their life and they know there's something wrong and they come to the altar because of conviction and the preacher steps all around it and brings conviction to heart they come to the altar but if they do not correct themselves at the altar the altar begins to lose its meaning in their life in a on september 11th the world trade centers fail america started praying we built altars everywhere but not at one altar was there any repentance there was no beer joints closed because of september 11th there were no crack houses closed because of september 11th there was no prostitution rings closed because of september 11th there was no corruption that deceased at september 11. we prayed but we did not repent and when you pray and you do not repent you are in trouble with god because you'll find yourself going from the altar that has no meaning out the back door back into the world that's why it's very it's very dangerous to have altar calls every service and require people and force people to the altar because they'll come to the altar but they won't make corrections at that altar and the altar loses all the meaning out of their life our altars are very sacred places in the house of god can i have it amen it was an altar i found god it was an altar that i repented of things i'd done wrong it was an altar that i corrected my disobediences i don't ever want the altar to become plain jane or blase in my life we must have an altar and we've got to say corrections in our life at the altar of prayer somebody said amen now look at verse number nine and abraham journeyed going on still towards the south the south was towards egypt when you don't make corrections at the altar you can build all kind of altars and you'll start drifting away from the altar

and abraham kept getting further and further away from the altar can i have it amen look at verse 10 and there was a famine in the land and abraham went down into egypt to sojourn for the famine was grievous in the land i don't understand why a famine could come to israel as close as it is to egypt and the famine not be in egypt unless the famine was the judgments of god upon abraham's disobedience that he had not corrected god is starting to chastise abraham first thing he done was he said i'm going to give this land of thy seed it's not yours anymore abraham and now he has sent a famine into the land i read another famine in the book of ruth that it it's it seemed kind of precarious but elimelech and naomi there was a famine in bethlehem of judah and they said we are not going to put up with this famine we're not going to correct ourselves we're going to flee to the land of egypt and abraham if abraham would have stopped and said wait a minute god must be deciding something in my life i'm going back to bethel i'm going to stay at the altar until i find out what i'm doing wrong he could have separated himself from lot then and probably lot would not have went to sodom but when we take so long before we correct ourselves somebody is going to end up in sodom oh my i got a lady in our church she's a wonderful lady she's prayed through now and living for god and doing fantastic when i came to wichita she hated the pastor across town and i told her i said you have to forgive that pastor across town and she said i would rather go to hell than forgive him and i said that's exactly where you're going and and i struggle with her to to let go of the bitterness and the hatred and the strife but she persisted and and she waited for two or three years and at two or three years she wouldn't get out the bitterness of hatred she lost all of her children she lost all of her grandchildren eventually she lost her health her strength she lost her husband she lost everything and finally she came to her senses and started forgiving and god eventually over a long period of time restored her and healed her but the damage that was done before she got healed can never be corrected am i making any kind of sense abraham because he didn't get anything from the altar drifted away from the altar and then when when the famine hit and god tried to correct him through the famine he fled into egypt which led to more problems he ended up having to lie in egypt to correct the mistakes of his former and finally when the when the pharaoh went to take his wife and and and and god dealt with pharaoh and said that's a man's wife and and he came to abraham and said what is this you have done he said i was scared from my life and and he thrust abraham out of the land and when he almost lost his wife he came to his senses and in chapter 13 abraham went up out of egypt he and his wife verse 1 and all they had and lot went with him into the south and abraham was rich in cattle and he went on his way on his journey from the south even to bethel on the place where his tent had been at the beginning between bethel and hai under the place the altar which had made there at the first and there abraham he called on the name i i read that before he had called on the name of the lord he had built an altar unto god but now he's at the altar this time after all the series of mistakes he's made and he's saying god i want to correct my mistake and god speaks to him and says you've got somebody with you i have it called to be with you and abraham looks at lot and he said there's strife between my herdsmen and your abraham was a gigantic man of the thought now he wouldn't be a good pentecostal preacher because he got too much authority about him he was he'd be he'd be classified in our

churches as a dictator have you ever noticed that every revival pastor is a dictator there's no such thing as a revival pastor that does not have a twinge of dictatorship in him i don't believe that but if you're gonna have a revival in alabama some preacher got to stand up and say we're gonna have revival live die sink or swim get in get out or get run over oh maybe i need to go back to ananias and sapphira a while praise god oh how many times have i heard you take too much on yourself the only thing i'm taking on myself is to have revival in my city get in my way and god will run over you we're gonna have revival in wichita kansas well that stirs up devils devils are floating man they're throwing fire and darts at me right now but it's the god's truth and we're gonna have to have that truth before we have revival praise god abraham could have said unto lot now lot you're a man of authority i have a man of authority you tell your husband to cool it and i'll tell my herbert to cool it and friend they'd have cooled it or they'd lost their head you've been the middle east they cut your head off there praise god but no abraham uses an excuse he said i don't want to strife between you and me you go the left hand you get away from me and i'll go the opposite direction i'm not going to go 90 degrees i'm going to go 180 degrees and after lot was separated from him after he finally got obedient to god verse 14 and the lord said to abram after that lot was separated from him lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where they are northward southward eastern and westward for all the land which thou says to thee will i give it now hallelujah he's back in the will of god i'm not going to give it to your seed i'm going to give it back to you praise god the lord can restore everything he takes away he can give back to you in a moment of time hallelujah let's all stand praise god so if you've been disobedient what do you do you go back to the altar and you correct the areas of your life that's not pleasing to god now they say you're always a good preacher till you start naming things what kind of personality do you have if you got a rotten personality you didn't correct it when you got saved correct that filthy personality you got do you have pride and arrogance and hardness correct that thing at the altar get a sweet spirit get determined in your life to be a christian praise god i don't want to be a preacher i don't want to be a man of god i don't be an apostle i want to be a christian press god i'm holy roller praise god i'm baptized in jesus name i've got the holy ghost i'm talking tom praise god you're dirty rotten baptist you go to hell we need to correct ourselves god did not call us to have that kind of filthy nasty dirty stinking attitude praise god last week two weeks ago a lady called me she said can i make an appointment with you and i said sure i said you can't so i didn't know who she was she made an appointment with me and she came in a very nice lady probably 48 or 49 years old and her husband had passed away and she was a charismatic and i found out she was carrying back i said where do you go to church and she told me where she went to church i said no why did you make an appointment with me instead of making an appointment with your own pastor she said i have made a point of my pastor he said i ought to go to the auction i'm working out myself he won't have anything to do we won't talk to me won't make it and this lady is a registered nurse she has a very fine job she is a very gentle lady and she has a sweet attitude and a sweet spirit and i said i said what's wrong she said well his his wife and him they just won't have anything to do with me and so on i said and she said i need some help my husband's died and i said well you come to the right place today i want to help you and her eyes she said says you you're going to talk to me i said absolutely and we sit down and we talked for more than an hour and i shared with her through her griefs and her sorrows and helped her find the will of god back for her life and she started coming back to church and and she came to me the other day she said i have changed churches i said why did you change churches she said she said you know this church has the sweetest spirit of any church

i've ever been in my life she said everybody criticized you and and they talk bad about you and she said but somebody came with me one day and she said if you need some help go see pastor cornwell at first pentecostal church he will help you and she said i was so scared of you and so afraid of you because i heard so much negative and bad about you from from the church i went to and she said it wasn't like that at all and she said not only am i coming there are some others that want to come praise god when you have a sweet added you're always going to win but if you keep that on nasty attitude that we have in pentecost that arrogant ad i've got everything and you've got let me tell you something they may not have all the truth but they got a lot out there in the world ladies and gentlemen okay i'm finished i'm not going to call things by name where you'll love me does anybody have anything that you need to don't raise your hand do we have things that we need to correct when we come to the altar we got to quit being afraid to expose ourselves to god and say lord i want to be exactly what you want me to be i want to be a christian i'm not struggling with being an apostolic i'm not struggling with being a pentecostal i am personally struggling with learning how to be a christian father i thank you for your presence i thank you for what this meaning is meaning to so many lives would you lead us and guide us and direct us father help me to be careful who influences me lord let me let me make sure that i'm listening to the voice of the lord and the voice of my pastor and the voice of the holy spirit and the voice of the word lord i pray that i could be willing to walk with you the way you want me to walk i'm asking you for mighty outpouring of the holy spirit in alabama lord the greatest preachers in the world are in this district and i pray that you would anoint them anoint them o god by the power of the holy ghost bless every church bless every child of god bless every pastor every evangelist in the name of jesus and everybody said amen