Apollos Watered

Will you join me in the book of Acts? Please, Acts the 18th chapter, and we will also read a portion from 1 Corinthians the third chapter. I'm going to be introducing to you a story that is not in your common curriculum of Sunday school literature, but by the grace of God, you will never ever think the same of these names after this evening. We're reading from a very powerful portion of scripture in the book of Acts, the 18th chapter. Follow along with me as we read from the 24th verse. And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John, and he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly. Now join with me in the book of 1 Corinthians, the third chapter, and read with me just one verse of scripture, verse number six. Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, and he says, I have planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. My subject for your consideration this night is Apollos watered.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, we thank you for your people, we thank you for the opportunity to break bread with your precious bride. Bless this time together, and knowing our ears to hear what the Spirit saith to the church. In Jesus' precious name I pray, and let the church say amen.

You may be seated in the name of the Lord. I am a child of the church. I was born in the year of 1966 in the city of San Diego, and brother David Gray was my pastor who dedicated me. I was baptized in that city, got the Holy Ghost in Revival Tabernacle, and there I grew until I was eight years old. I sang my first solo, fill my cup, or I lifted up, or come and feel this 13 of my soul. They had to stand me on a chair to sing to that massive congregation who in the years of 1968, 69, it was one of the premier and largest churches in our movement. And so I have been a child of the church all my days. I've devoted the entirety of my life to the church. I'm a student of its history, an office holder of its election, an administrator of its affairs. I'm a partaker of its politics, a keeper of its traditions, an apologist of its doctrines, a priest of its rituals. I am a singer of its hymns, and a preacher of the gospel. I love the church. I met my wife at church. I recruited my wife at church. The best businessmen I've ever met, I met at church. The greatest intellectual honesty you'll ever find, at church. You can't come and talk down about the church to me and find a receptive audience. The church is where I want to be and abide. I believe the church is triumphant. In fact, I believe in the predestination of the church. The church is predestined to win. We are not afraid of the name, the word predestination because that word is a word that is perfectly applied to the church. And it is forever settled that the Lord would build upon a rock his church, and the church would stand triumphantly against all powers of earth and hell. She may be weathered and babbled scarred, but still the church is alive and well. Nothing is going to stop the church, whether I'm in it or of it, whether I'm around it or away from it. The church is going to be just fine. He's coming back for the church.

And when I consider the church, there is an anticipated reality that if you're around very long, you come to grips with. That there is a weariness that will come when you're a part of the church. That's the reason the scripture says, let us not be weary in well-doing, for we shall reap in due season if we faint not. But it must be truthfully said that in the church there is a constant churn. You fall in love with people and as you stay around, people sometimes fade away. There's an in and an out. There's a coming and a going. People that you grew up with in the church find a distraction in their teenage years. Or maybe all they needed out of the church was a bride. And so when they got married, soon they were no longer around the church. Or maybe all they needed from church was children. And when they found children or they got children, they all of a sudden found that there was no reason to put the church as the number one priority in the earth. No, they just found that their children would be their new leaders. And so these are dangers that wound the heart of those who grow up and in and around the church. And then you have to bury those you fell in love with as far as leaders and elders in the church. And so this churn continually burns in your soul as you're around the church.

Peter and Paul and James and John all speak of church folk that bring pain to the body. It tells us, they tell us that in the church they will live in the proximity of pain. There will be those in the church that cause others to quit the church. And they will be in the church. This is not a surprise, scripturally. Even Jesus said that the wheat would grow with the tears. That the church would be as a dragnet bringing fish of every kind. He tells us that there would be in the church bad attitudes and false doctrines and wolves in sheep's clothing. Paul tells us that Hominius and Philitus were not prodigies, but they were more just like them. And that Alexander the Coppersmith was not an anomaly, but that every generation would have Alexander the Coppersmiths in them. There would be demesses in the church who forsake the church, many of them. And that there would be more of them coming even in the last days. The Lord said, for there must be heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

So there is this atmosphere and this celebration, if you will, of the thing called church hurt. As if it deserves its own website. As if it's something that people on their downtime ought to go and meander through. As if church hurt is special to just certain individuals. When the Bible tells us that every church is gonna have some hurt walking around in it. And if you want to find it or if it finds you, don't be surprised that there will be vain babblings in the church. There will be whisperers in the church. Jesus himself said, I have chosen 12 and one of you is a devil. He said the church would be made up of wheat and also chaff, of dross in the gold, of goats mixed in the sheep. But he also said that you would not have the equipment to discern the difference between the sheep and the goat. He said that you ought to leave that up to the angels because even though you think that you're quick to the judge's seat and maybe you ought to be up in the judge's seat, he said no, let them grow together because the angels have a special assignment. I will come and I will separate the body that has called itself the church. So everything that can be shaken, it will be shaken. So it's not always in the church, the oil of gladness and the garment of praise. Sometimes we have to beware of dogs and evil workers. And Paul created a word because there were some people so messed up he just called them the concision. He just threw words together because he said you're so much stuff that I don't even have a word for you. I'm gonna take words and cobble them together and name you the concision. And so there would be demonic attacks for serving the Lord. Sometimes you serve the Lord and what comes against you is the devil. It's demonic, you feel the sinister presence of the enemy coming and trying to destroy you. Sometimes it's an attack from a person in the other aisle. Sometimes it's somebody in the choir. Maybe it's an alto against a soprano. Maybe it's the bass player upset with a drummer. These things happen in the church. Sometimes there are attacks from within and then there are times that the attack happens because we have been silly. We have been carnal. We create our own mess. I don't need any witness in the house. I know what I'm talking about. You sometimes have problems. So there is this atmosphere that we underestimate about eschatological entities that come and align against the peace of the church. It's inescapable, it's going to come.

That brings us to our text. Because we read where Paul is dealing with something in Corinthians, this amazing body of people and he's trying to correct some stuff and he starts out and he realizes that there are clubs in the house. There are some people who had gathered in the Cephas Club, the Peter Club. Some have gathered in an Apollos Club. Some had said that they're also of Paul and they're in his club. And Paul said, this is silliness. This does not need to go on. And it's going on where we read the text where God says or Paul said, I watered. I mean, I planted Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

Now, in your Sunday School curriculum, you probably did not hear the story about Apollos. Apollos is passed over as just the middle of two great bookends. Paul planting the Lord giving the increase. But I want to give you the story of Apollos tonight. Apollos gives, Luke gives us in the book of Acts, a precision of writing. He writes the most words in the entire New Testament, more words than Paul, the combination of the gospel of Luke in the book of Acts, all written by Luke. And in it, he tells us history and if you're just reading along, you will miss the distinctives of what the narrative is giving. And he tells us about church politics and hierarchies and apostles fussing with apostles. And he tells us about in a book of Acts that there are places and names and events that are important. And situations keep showing up. And his state of purpose is to give tortulias or theopolis, I should say, assurance about the church and the things of the church. There are scholars who surmise about this story that Luke writes with a legitimization scheme. In other words, he brings to light things that others who were trying to propagate the church would not tell. He talks about tensions in the church. He tells about cultural battles and prejudices and the problems of uncomfortable observations and the complexities of church life. He states essentially the quiet part out loud. Why did you say that, Luke? But he's telling us that the church abides in the backdrop of conflict and the church is not always cute. So as we journey to the 18th chapter, who those of us who have read through the Bible many times, some of this we just kind of speed read through.

But we get here and we read our text in Acts the 18th, the Bible says a certain Jew named Apollos born at Alexandria. Now I love Alexandria. I'm going there for because of the times. It's a wonderful place. This was not that Alexandria. In the New Testament, we're only told of four people where they were born. It's a little piece of information that serves us and importance of discovery. Only four people we know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. We know that Paul was born in Tarsus and here we come along a third of the four, three people. The third one is that this Apollos is born at Alexandria. Now the very act of stating where someone is born is often filled with prejudices.

When I told you I was born in California, some of you automatically thought now he's from the land of fruits and nuts. And I claim that I'm proudly a Californian by birth. And but when we hear where you're born, it kind of serves to organize our thoughts and what we think of somebody. If I meet somebody and they tell me they're from Boston, I have thoughts. If I have somebody that's from Brooklyn, I have thoughts, I think of you. If you tell me you're from Georgia, I've got thoughts, I think of you. It just organizes, it may not be accurate, it may not be totally truthful, but when I met my wife, the late Orlin McClain, introduced me to my wife Melanie at the Fort Worth General Conference. And I heard and I learned about her and I found out she was from Colorado. And so I thought, boy, I've got a mountain girl from that beautiful, cold, clean, pure air of Colorado. Let me go see if this North Carolina where I grew up, this North Carolina thick language has any effect on her. Well, I all of a sudden convinced her after many, many moons of trying to smile at me. And so I convinced her to smile at me and eventually we got married. Well, you know what I found out? She might have lived in Colorado, but she was born in Louisiana. Now to me it's Louisiana, but to her it's Louisiana. And what I didn't know was that there are moments that her Colorado vanishes. And she goes Louisiana on me and I don't always know what to do. I mean, you think you could hold up a bowl of gumbo and fix something? It doesn't work like that.

So even though all people from Louisiana think they know where the first Alexandria was, Alexandria really was one of the most significant and cosmopolitan cities in the Mediterranean world. It was a hub of commerce, status, the highest of status was Alexandria. Culture, intellectual sophistication. Alexandria since that time has 31 places in the world named after it. In America alone, there are 12 Alexandrias in America. So in other words, if you're from somewhere, you wanna be from Alexandria.

And then we find out about Apollo some more details that we shouldn't hasten past because it tells us that who was not only born at Alexandria but this Apollo is an eloquent man, a word that is only three times spoken of in scripture. He's an eloquent man and then mighty in the scriptures. I would like that said of me. And then it says this man was instructed in the way of the Lord. And on top of his knowledge, he was fervent in the spirit. Now that's another great adage to have added to you. And then he's spake and taught diligently. They're piloted on the things of the Lord knowing only the baptism of John. And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him unto them and expounded the word of God unto him more perfectly. So now that you know Apollo's, you've got to understand this is a man of status, sophistication, eloquence, brilliance, place in the world, renowned royal library. He grew up under the shadow of it. He was a learned man. He knew the scripture. All of these things were bragging on or shall we say informing us about the beauty and the glory of this man's preparation. So impressive was this man that schisms are created in the church about him. There was the club that said, when I'm following somebody, I want to be in the Apollo's club. Suddenly placed in scripture is this juxtaposition of two men. It's Apollo's who has this man named Aquila walk up to him and say, come here, we need to talk.

Now we may think of all couples in the scripture that the two we know the most is Ananias and Sapphira, but they're not the power couple of scripture. The power couple of scripture is Ananias and Sapphira. No, Aquila and Priscilla, I get my A's mixed up. I didn't name my children any of these names. Aquila and Priscilla, six times in your Bible, Aquila and Priscilla are mentioned by three different writers because they are such a power couple. In fact, they're so dynamic. There are times that Aquila is mentioned first and there are times that Priscilla was so powerful in the way that she is the first one mentioned, which broke all rules of writing in that day, but Priscilla was powerful in the Holy Ghost. Now there are only four. Remember in the New Testament where it's told where they were born. There's Jesus of Bethlehem, Paul of Tarsus, Apollo's of Alexandria. The fourth person we know where he was born was Aquila.

In the beginning, the verse two of the 18th chapter of Acts, it tells us that Aquila was born in Pontus. Now you and I don't think much when we read Pontus. Means nothing to us. It's another place in that land far away, but we've got to understand that Pontus had a reputation. It was the opposite of Alexandria. It was a land on the fringe of the civilized world and it was known as barbarians being from there. There was a stereotype of the people from Pontus as being crafty and cunning and dangerous. It was a land of mystical oddities. And when you said Pontus, you were essentially calling somebody a barbaric person, someone cruel, uncouth, unlearned. In fact, history records that the writings of Pontus were said, quote, nowhere are men so ignorant. Another writer said, we cannot find any cleverness there, nor do we know of any notable man born there. Pontus is literally a joke in the theaters of Rome and Greece. When you say Pontus, it's as if you almost spit at somebody. They live in wagons is another thing that was reported about them. Another one said that you hire, if you hire somebody from Pontus in Athens, your speech will literally deteriorate for being exposed to them. I'm sure that when Aquila and Priscilla got in fusses, that there was a Pontus patois that Aquila would launch into to straight out Priscilla. And of course, she wouldn't always be cooperative and she had her own patois from Pontus.

But why does Luke so delicately slip in there of all the four men we know where they're born? This man Aquila is born at Pontus. Why include this piece of information? Because a man born at Alexandria is gonna be called out of the pulpit by a man from Pontus? Who would stand for that? Do you know my status and my place and my intellectual preparation? Do you understand who I am and what they're saying about me? Do you understand the people that are believing to me? Oh, a Paulus was born at Alexandria, a Bureshalon, high status, elite class. Phillips translation says, Aquila took him aside and explained him the way more accurately. Oh, the message says he took him aside and told him the way more, the rest of the story. And yet when we get to Corinthians, Paul writes, I planted a Paulus watered and God gave the increase. What does it mean when Paul said a Paulus watered?

To water means that somebody else did the planting. But to water means that whatever is necessary to find where the water is, you're willing to do it. Whatever is required to transfer the water from where it was to where it needs to be, you're willing to do it. If it's hot, you're still there to water. If it's a day that it seems like it's too dry for anything, you're steadfast in your duty. You move water. It's not a message to us who have a nice spicket in our house and a long Gordon hose out back and we just got a water the new tree planted so we just pull it a little ways and water. No, when the Bible says a Paulus watered, the infrastructure of watering was not present in that land. So it involved so much more than a thought, than a faith, than a belief. There was a depth of planning. There was a time they watered and there was no plant to be seen. There were times he watered when the plant was so small. Then there were times he watered when there was still no fruit. And it seemed like there ought to be fruit on this branch. And there were days he watered when there was much waiting. It felt like watching paint dry. I was just watering. I just had to go back and nothing else has shown up. I'm watering.

So what does this have to do with us? Every one of us have to go through trials in our life. I hope you don't ever encounter church hurt, but it is always in every church. It's not just in the few that make the social media. It's in every church in some regard. The trial of adversity is real outside of the church and it's real in the church. But then once you achieve a certain kind of status, there is another trial that you'll have. It's known as the trial of prosperity. There's a trial of status. It's a trial of place, a trial of provision. But I think maybe the toughest trial of them all is the trial of monotony. When you know where you've been and you know where you are, but nothing is happening as fast as you thought it would. You opened your small group and the magic of Holy Ghost power has not seemed to feel your house yet. You've gone about prison ministry and it still feels like a lot of checking in, checking out and filling out paperwork. You've got to go and be a greeter, but they don't know you had a headache that wasn't on the schedule. But you still have got to go and show up and be a greeter. What does it have to do when all the cuteness is gone? In 32 years of pastoring my church in South Florida, the enemy will use anything he can to derail you. He'd go with about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may, he's prowling these pews and these aisles right now, seeing whom he may devour.

I heard of a missionary that was in Africa doing missions work and while he was trying to walk back to the village from out in the bush, he noticed that he was being stalked by a lion and he was in desperate straits and he was really trying to figure out, what am I going to do? Lord, help me, help me, help me. And the lion finally got within striking distance and he thought, oh boy, I'm a goner. I'm going to steer at him and the lion sat down and crossed its paws and bowed his head and the missionary thought, maybe I've got a Christian lion here and this lion won't, and all of a sudden that lion said, don't worry. I like to pray before I eat. Now why are you enjoying that so much? Cause there's lions in the church that like to pray before they eat. There are spirits that come to church, some are of the devil and some are of the flesh and some are just because I've been silly. We are attacked by the devil, times we're attacked by brethren and times we fall. Sometimes we feel abandoned and we feel overlooked and we feel disregarded and we feel misunderstood. We feel misrepresented. We have sung and sung and sung our alto part and nobody notices. We have taught in our class all these years and we're ready to stop and hand it over to somebody else. I'm not talking about when somebody just gets offended because they get their shadow stepped on. No, I'm not talking about little offenses. I'm talking about real stuff. You find iniquity in places you never thought you would. You find filth in people's mouth. You thought we're great warriors of God. You get disappointed because you make some silly decisions and now you're the one that has created the mess. I've come to tell you when the enemy tells you you're not enough, I wanna preach to you there is still yet something that you can do in your response to the devil. You may not be the one who's called the plant and you certainly aren't the one that will give the increase but what you can do is get tucked between the apostle and the king and show up and keep watering your garden.

Permission for this in this church, this is a great church but we have a precious woman of God who was used in the Holy Ghost today in tongues and interpretation that is sister Dr. Meyers. Sister Dr. Meyers who if you are around here at all you know she is a woman of God sent for this hour but I have fallen in love with her in the way she has gone about living her life. She has two wonderful children that are very very successful in their own measure. Her husband is such a phenomenal man. I love brother Meyers. In fact, he was just inducted last year in the Order of the Faith for the United Pentecostal Church. That doesn't happen by accident but if you know anything about being in the work of the ministry you know that a lot of times the pastor gets a lot of the appreciation and so it's difficult for a pastor's wife many times because their pastor is many times loved and what they do is not easily seen and so it can be hard when you enter the ministry and realize that I'm sharing in this anointing and I wish they would just give the Order of the Faith to the wife too as soon as the husband gets inducted because really it's one, it's not two. But at the age of 57 she heard in her husband's voice the desire to start transitioning to a different place of ministry and they started feeling that this church here in Palm Bay we'd go through a process of transition but already looking ahead the first lady if you will of this congregation started making a plan that she would not fade away into oblivion and go away and do nothing so she started preparing to water the rest of her days she entered college to help broken lives be put back together and for 13 years beginning at 57 she gave of herself to the preparation of helping broken damaged lives and people and when she graduated she graduated with her doctorate at the very top of her class and here she is as young as ever she isn't the first lady anymore that sister Amy Myers is calling but sister Dr. Myers has decided it doesn't matter where I go I'm gonna water I'm gonna water I'm gonna keep showing up and watering the flock of God, the planting of the Lord

John Marlin I've asked him for permission you may be seated but the John if you would please stand I don't wanna show you out too much but I know you're around here there he is standing right there but the John and sister Dana Marlin are sponsors of this conference he's like in a holiab of the Bible you can look that up and figure that out he's an amazing, greatly blessed man of business and love for God he's a great teacher of how to raise yourselves up in the kingdom of God and be successful in a secular setting but I was to be with him on a vacation on August the 12th, 2018 they were getting the last vitals at Walmart to come and have a wonderful party with us and be in the Holy Ghost around Bear Lake up in the North Carolina mountains when they got a call that their son had been found perished that he had passed into the other world by traumatic means the night before and they had to leave immediately to go bury their son whom they so dearly loved he was a young man that touched so many lives in fact they've started a non-profit called love like tie, hashtag love like tie but when that happened it was the kind of thing that after all the years of brother Marlin given to the Lord being a part of churches around the world in fact I was honored to pastor him for about two weeks you know he was down in Hurricane Andrew in South Florida and he and Dana, his wife attended our church for a minute but he has given of himself now after all these years of giving his best to the Lord he has to say goodbye to the son of his hopes and futures what do you do when you don't know what to do well I have watched John and Dana Marlin decide it wasn't God's fault decide it wasn't the church's fault and his son had been in church that morning that Sunday morning he didn't blame anybody but he just went back and he's a teacher of young men right now mentoring men on how to do business a sponsor of Wins Conference why because he was not happy that he lost his son but he said there's one thing I can do I can keep showing up and watering when it looks like what I had is gone when it looks like my hopes are taken when it looks like what I was going to have in the future is now diminish

this summer my son was on tour with the Urshin University Corral and the Lord used him and of course brother Kevin Howard has been so kind to my children and Ethan was there and he watched as brother Kevin Howard had to step out a parking lot and get a phone call and he watched the entire disposition of brother Howard change from the leader of one of the most dynamic corrals and all of Pentecost to now facing the trauma of his wife having been taken in life now she was in heaven and he had to make plans immediately to go back home find a way to take care of the love of his life and if you were here this morning you heard him talk about the beautiful expression of love that he still carries for Pam I've tracked brother Howard from California to Monroe with Monroe all the way around this is one of our if I can say so this is one of our elites of Pentecost this is one of those born at Alexandria don't tell brother Mangan I said that he's one that has the status and the standing he has the prestige he's elite in every regard but now he's lost his wife the organizer of his world the keeper of his dreams the person who he wants to finish his days with so my son walks away and of course they had a tour yet to go on and my wife and sister Sandy Davis my wife was the leader of the Florida Allstate Choir and Sandy Davis is the leader of the Louisiana Allstate Choir I'll just have you to know it takes two Allstate Choir leaders to do half of what you do brother Kevin and they went and got in two 15 passenger vans and Lord helped those kids my wife driving a 15 passenger van that gives me nightmares my wife and sister Davis took those the Urchin United on tour brother Kevin Howard laid his sweet wife to rest on a Tuesday and of course what do you do after you've buried your wife listen ladies and gentlemen what he did he did all of the business he could do he did everything he could do but there was a stop in New York brother Doug Davis's church brother Doug Davis's pastor's a wonderful church in Long Island brother Doug Davis has just buried his wife one of the greatest singers in Pentecostus well and brother Kevin Howard said well I know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna get on a plane and fly to New York and my wife said the first time that they saw him walking in you could tell he wasn't walking the same his steps didn't walk as high but he said if there's anything I'm gonna do I'm gonna get back to watering I may not have all the prestige that I have by being born of Alexandria I might have to be set down by situations and setbacks but I'm not going to stop watering because an Aquila from Apollo from Pontus has called me out you gotta imagine watching Aquila bring Apollo's out hey you can tell he's from Pontus just by the way he calls them hey we wanna tell you something about Jesus you ain't getting it right I've heard you long as I can take you well me and my here wife we came by way of Rome when they threw us out down here and we've been making tents all this time but I'm born at Pontus what does it that you have to say well you're not really understanding this Jesus stuff you've been baptizing in repentance and that's good but there's more to this Jesus thing ladies and gentlemen I cannot you're high standing I cannot where you come from I do not care about all of your preparation I appreciate it I admire it I want more excellence among us but ladies and gentlemen if you're not able to water after you've been sit down water after you've had a setback water after some mess has happened in your own life

Andy Ferguson is the guitarist that plays beside my son over here Andy Ferguson this is his first time to travel out after almost dying if he hadn't got to the university hospital of Vanderbilt University in one hour he would have died and this is his first time out testing whether or not his body is able to take the pressure of playing in a conference with all the practices we're loving brother Andy Ferguson I love him so much one of the greatest skillful Luthiers in our entire movement a guitarist extraordinaire but what is he doing? He's still watering not sure what it's gonna be like going forward but he's still watering

now what does this have to do with all of you young millennials? I'm telling you that the great trial might not happen before your great victories it might be after you preach a great great crusade your great trial might happen after your most dynamic youth on mission trip after you have preached youth congress after you have preached general conference after you have sat on the executive board I've been honored to do all of those things and I'm telling you there is a trial after your high places that if you don't understand the beauty of watering if you don't understand the value of showing up with a limp if you don't understand the beauty of walking on in spite of the things that have happened up to you Oh God help us to understand a palos water

if I had time to tell you I could tell you of those who have had to bury children while they were in the ministry gone through bankruptcies my father was driving home from church on a Wednesday night and hit a man and killed him the trauma that went through his mind questioning God why would you let me do that when I'm on my way home from church and just trying to deal with the fact that a man died by his hand and it was not his fault the police judged it all it was just a matter of the man running out and all of that trauma the chaos, the sicknesses great singers who lose their voice and go through all kinds of trial they used to be able to sing so gloriously but now they can barely sing the one you had loved in your marriage has walked out and had a fair on you what do you do now if you don't have an understanding of watering then I'm introducing to you that right now here in this place the enemy has given some of you excuses the reason you don't need to get close anymore the enemy has given you opportunities to say I've done enough by now I'm finished giving up my best I'll give a little bit and a little bit but I'm not gonna go whole heartedly but I want you to know quit listening to the excuses of the devil the trajectory of your commitment is one that is straight towards heaven poll planted a pollos watered but there's an increase on the way that's why I keep watering that's why I keep giving that's why I keep praying when they walk out on me I'm still gonna give when they quit on you I still give when they don't live for God long still give a pollos watered

I'm closing when 10,000 opposed him pollos watered lonely he watered perplexed he watered abandoned he watered church hurt he watered great joys he still showed up the next day and watered whether hated or loved a pollos watered rejected or accepted a pollos watered

I have one story for you as I close his father was the his grandfather was general William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army William Booth Klobbern was a young man that found the Azusa Street revival in London in 1906 and there he was filled with the Holy Ghost speaking with other tongues it wasn't the doctrine of his grandfather and so there was a certain amount of suffering that he had to endure because he had chosen to walk into the Pentecostal way of being filled with the Holy Ghost speaking with other tongues but just two years later in 1908 at 15 years old William Booth Klobbern was baptized in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ he thought if I'm going to do this I want to do it all the way filled with the Holy Ghost baptized in Jesus' name he was from Europe there his family and his grandfather had a name large and celebrated so William Booth Klobbern went to California and there at 28 years old he started a tent revival in Holtville, California no time for less than revival no time to push the coming of the Lord off I got a preach, I got to tell him so he did everything he could to build his tent and have a revival but after a while the offerings went down and the rains came and the people stopped coming and finally they ran out of money to turn on the lights in the tent revival at night and so to keep the lights on William took a job out in the fields of California very hot arid land they piped water in there just to grow a fertile, fertile place but after a long hard day of working he was exhausted he remembered what he had come from he remembered the grandeur of being grandfather's namesake he was named after the founder of the Salvation Army but now here he is bone-tired worn out sweated down walking on a hot dusty road and he said after all I've done for God what am I doing here I thought this was revival I thought revival would just grow and grow and grow it feels like it has just been down, down down ever since I left grandpa on that dusty hot road as he walked down the home the Holy Ghost hit him and the words of this song came for it down from his glory ever living story my God and Savior came and Jesus was his name born in a manger to his own a stranger a sorrow's tears and I God

I don't know where you're at tonight and your commitment if you're young and have none of these things happen to you keep loving him keep giving him your best but if after you've preached youth Congress the glory seems to have gone people have misunderstood what you intended and now others are reporting negative things about you if after you have sat on the executive board people misunderstand your desires and misreport your consecration if after you have been to the highest peaks of grandeur of crusades you've preached in Manila and Madagascar and in Jerusalem and the glory of God filled your house and now you've lost something precious I exhort you in the name of Jesus tighten your belt swallow hard go get a bucket and water in God's garden do you feel him my bright sunshine