Transcript of a published conference session by Marrell Cornwell, transcribed from YouTube. An attributed primary source — not Acts 2:38 Life doctrine text.
Summary · Transcript · Scripture Index · Download transcript (.txt)
Summary
Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.
The text: Abram's vision, and the journey announced (0:31-2:22)
- Cornwell opens with a little Bible study before his one major point: Genesis chapter 15. He directs the chapter, reads verse 1 — after these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, "fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward" — and works through the chapter's dialogue in its own words: Abram's complaint that he goes childless with Eliezer of Damascus as his heir, and God's answer that the heir will come from his own bowels. Then the announcement: he is preaching this morning on a journey caused by a vision — what Abraham saw established his journey and set it in motion for all of his lifetime. Many of us, he says, hear the word of God and act on what we hear, yet remain in essence blind until God appears to us in a vision.
Scriptures: Genesis 15:1-4
A fresh vision for Louisiana's young men (2:22-3:07)
- Said very kindly, he says: in the twenty-first century we need a fresh vision, and our young men need a vision of what God is going to do in Louisiana. We cannot just dream about what the preachers before us have done; we need a fresh vision among our young men and young women, that they can see what God is going to do and act accordingly.
The burned-over field dispelled, and the Samuel reading (3:07-5:45)
- He dispels a myth he hears constantly: that Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are nothing but a burned-over field. He does not believe it one iota — Louisiana has close to five million people, most of whom have never heard the gospel, and what is needed is a fresh vision. Then to the book of Samuel, chapter 3, which he reads at length: the child Samuel ministering before Eli, the word of the Lord precious and no open vision; Eli's eyes waxing dim; the lamp of God; the Lord calling Samuel three times, the boy running to Eli each time; Eli perceiving that the Lord had called the child and teaching him to answer, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth"; the Lord's word of judgment on Eli's house for the iniquity he knew and restrained not; and Samuel in the morning fearing to show Eli the vision. Samuel as a small child facing a great Eli had to have a vision — and the vision of Samuel would cause the world's ears to tingle.
Scriptures: 1 Samuel 3:1-17
The days of revival are not over (5:45-7:25)
- The days of revival in Louisiana are just not over. He tells of fleas put in a jar with a lid: they jump and bump their heads until, when the lid is taken off, they will never clear the jar because they bumped their heads so many times. The lid is off us, but we cannot jump higher — and we will not jump higher until we see a vision of what God wants to do. Not an ambition or a desire: young men who see the vision of God as to what God wants to do in America.
Isaiah's vision, and a vision of awakening for America (7:25-9:00)
- He has a vision of a revival coming to America, a great awakening — the days of revival are not over in the United States, whatever President Obama says about America not being a Christian nation and whatever Congress says about prayer. Then Isaiah chapter 6, read: in the year King Uzziah died, the Lord on the throne high and lifted up, the seraphim with six wings crying holy, holy, holy, the posts of the door moving and the house filled with smoke, and Isaiah undone, a man of unclean lips — and then the voice asking whom shall I send, and Isaiah's "here am I, send me." But he did not say send me until he saw the vision.
Scriptures: Isaiah 6:1-5; Isaiah 6:8
Ezekiel by the river (9:00-12:27)
- If God could take a young man out of Frogmore, Louisiana — born in absolute poverty between the bayou and the wild field — and raise him up and use him in untold ways, how many young people sitting here need only to pray and fast until God gives them a vision. Ezekiel was a unique figure; he reads the chapter's opening verse — the thirtieth year, the fourth month, the fifth day, Ezekiel among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. More than half the captivity was still to run, and Daniel could not take Israel home, nor the three Hebrews through the furnace — but Ezekiel, who saw the vision of the valley of dry bones, single-handedly kept Israel from becoming part of Babylon. Nobody can keep you from having a vision; the devil cannot stop you from having a vision.
Scriptures: Ezekiel 1:1
His own call: the vision of hell (12:27-20:10)
- A little over forty years ago he got the Holy Ghost, and twenty minutes later God called him to preach. He was in college becoming a chemical engineer, trying to get out of poverty, and the preachers he knew were poorer than Job's turkey — a hard choice. His pastor, brother Dice, let him preach if he came home and brought somebody: he knocked doors all day Saturday and filled a car with kids. The Farraday church (as captioned): an old wood-frame building with crumbling siding — he ran into it following two ladies down the aisle and carried the imprint — and the dead rats in the walls from the dripping sink and the Decon; he unlocked the church with a screwdriver to pray because he did not qualify for a key, told his carload that a stink around the house of God is how you tell the true church — he'd rather be in the stink than in the storm — and they agreed it was the true house of God. He decided preaching was not for him and quit, until the afternoon he prayed nearly three hours in the eight-by-eight Sunday school classroom and had a vision: the lake of fire with its black crust, the white throne of judgment, sinners tossed over the cliff. He agonized — God, I'll do anything you want, I'll preach them, I'll be a soul winner — and because of that vision he gave up chemical engineering and has never regretted one minute of it. Every preacher needs a vision of hell; it will change your ministry.
The Wichita pulpit (20:10-21:28)
- He lives with that vision every day. In thirty-four years of preaching in Wichita he can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the times he went to the pulpit unprepared to reach a soul for Jesus Christ. He has taught almost twenty-five thousand home Bible studies — because every morning he wakes reminded that men are going to die and go to hell, and the preacher and the church and the saints are the only thing standing between them and hell.
Starving at fifty dollars a week (21:28-26:05)
- You can starve to death starting out preaching. His daddy was not a preacher, his mama was not a preacher, nobody knew who he was; brother Leroy Skipper, who was here last night, let him practise preaching on the little independent church on the outskirts of Ruston when he did not yet qualify to testify in a United Pentecostal church. He gave up everything and evangelized at fifty dollars a week — a stage above unemployment. At Riverside he announced a hundred-soul revival to silent faces, preached three nights to a forest of microphones that dwindled to none, and five weeks later ninety-eight had prayed through with sixty more in the altar. In the San Francisco Bay area a two-week revival stretched to twenty-six weeks with over two hundred and sixty receiving the Holy Ghost, three services a week, knocking doors four nights a week — still fifty dollars a week, which pays no car insurance, no gasoline, no car payment.
The lapsed insurance, and the week under the desk (26:05-31:21)
- His insurance lapsed — the company called his dad first, and his dad ordered the car parked until it was paid. He walked three miles to church to pray; he and his wife collected Coca-Cola bottles to sell to put Similac in the baby's bottle — he, a chemical engineer with thirty-one hours beyond that in biomedical engineering. The International Paper plant manager called, wanting him back to head a project, everything shipped home, start Monday. Temptation: he asked a week to decide. He wrapped an army blanket around himself, crawled under the pastor's garage desk with a six-inch space heater, and prayed six hours a day, Monday through Friday, begging God for an answer — sometimes God putting you in a difficult situation is the best thing that will ever happen to you, if you will get on your knees and pray until God gives you an answer. On Friday, at a quarter to twelve — fifteen minutes from saying yes — a man called from Alexandria: at the Guaranty Bank downtown he had been told to go back in, asked whether Morel Cornwell (as captioned) had an account, and put a hundred and eighty dollars in it. All of a sudden he had a vision of God again; he came within fifteen minutes of dropping out of the ministry, but he prayed until God gave a vision.
A fresh vision of God's provision (31:21-32:34)
- Some of us are stuck running fifty and seventy-five and a hundred and two hundred and four hundred; we need a fresh vision — our churches need to double. He is a firm believer: we are in a three-year recession, and some here are hurting — he feels their wounds, he feels their blood — but our God has the finances; our God will make provisions.
The donated revival: the baskets that filled themselves (32:34-37:23)
- His pattern in those years: preach one revival for pay, then donate the next to a home-missions church — paying the pastor a salary while there, paying his utilities and all the revival's expenses, and leaving without an offering. For the little house church in Tulsa, in a neighbourhood surrounded by a forty-acre plowed field, they compromised: two wicker baskets on the altar, no offering mentioned, and he would take whatever came in. Sunday night the baskets held three or four one-dollar bills; they locked up, ate a cheeseburger and a small Coke at McDonald's, came back — and both baskets were stacked up with money, folded every way, about fourteen hundred dollars, the most he had ever been paid in his life. He gave the pastor half and pocketed half. A second week — the same, after a Big Mac and large fries. A third week — the plates stacked high again. Who wants to preach for fifty bucks a week when God is paying seven hundred? He is not out for their money, but it takes money to keep him out.
The stranger with the steaks (37:23-42:52)
- That week in Tulsa, in the seventy-foot trailer standing in the middle of the field with no skirting, a knock: a little man of about five foot eight and a half, plain charcoal suit, narrow black tie, unshined shoes, grey hair, polite — he had a gift, a rolled-over brown paper grocery bag. Cornwell turned to hand it to his wife and turned back — at most a second — and the man had disappeared: not under the trailer, not behind it, gone, in the middle of a thirty-acre field. In the bag, wrapped in white paper, were two porterhouse steaks, hacked off the cow, bone fragments and all — he had never eaten a steak in his life, raised on stolen watermelons and chicken. She cooked them in a cast-iron skillet; no salad, no potatoes, just the steaks, eaten weeping and shaking. He has eaten steak from Bonanza to Ruth's Chris (as captioned), in Argentina, Brazil, Europe and Asia, and has never found that taste again — and every time he and his wife have faced a great financial crisis, the taste of that steak comes back to his mouth, and then God starts pouring in the finance again. He feels the taste of that steak in his mouth right now: God is fixing to do something for this Louisiana District like it has never had done before. Somebody in this room is going through one of the greatest financial crises of their life; he has a word: my God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory (the wording is quoted; no source is named in the sermon — see the packet).
The building, the pledge, and the grandmother's check (42:52-48:47)
- Building their building in Wichita, they went broke three times; they got in with a hundred-thousand-dollar balloon payment due in twelve months and set money aside monthly — and one month before the note was due the bank board demanded a hundred and fifty thousand. He told his congregation they needed fifty thousand more dollars and took pledges due in one month — exactly fifty thousand. That Sunday night, walking to his truck about eleven o'clock, a big tall man told him he would not pay his three-thousand-dollar pledge — he had waited until after church to watch him squirm. Sitting in the truck three thousand short, weeping, he began eating that steak again — and headlights came through the parking lot: an elderly grandmother in her housecoat and pink curlers. The Lord had woken her and told her her pastor was crying on the parking lot; she handed him a check for three thousand dollars — her life savings. He lifted the check up: God, record that check right now — and put it back in her hand. The church doors stay locked until ten on Monday morning, but from five o'clock people came putting little brown envelopes under the door — ten more dollars, twenty more, fifty more — and by the count at ten o'clock, three thousand and thirty more dollars had come in. My God shall supply all of your needs; let us raise our hands and praise God.
Scripture index: Genesis 15:1-4; 1 Samuel 3:1-17; Isaiah 6:1-5; Isaiah 6:8; Ezekiel 1:1.
Transcript
foreign and I'm going to do a just a little bit of a Bible study before I get to my just one major point this morning in Genesis chapter 15 of Abraham had a vision praise God and he acted upon the vision amen 15 verse 1 after these things the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision saying fear not Abram I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward it's what Abraham saw that established his journey praise God and set that journey in motion for all of his lifetime amen and I'm preaching this morning on a journey caused by a vision praise God and Abraham said Lord God what will thou give me he's seeing a vision of the Lord seeing I go childish and the steward of my house is this elieza of Damascus and Abraham said behold to me thou hath given no seed and lo one born in my house in mine Heir he's looking at God he's seeing a vision of God and behold the word of the Lord came to him saying of this shall not be thine Heir but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine Heir God had a vision of the son that was to be born after God had spoke to him that he was going to make a great nation out of him but he had to have the vision before he was able to completely pursue his journey praise God it's important for us to understand that many of us are frustrated because we hear the word of God and we act on what we hear but we're still in essence blind until God Appears to us in a vision praise God now I'm gonna say this very kindly if I if I can if I can but in the 21st century we need a fresh vision and our young men need a vision of what God is going to do in Louisiana we can't just dream about what the Merle ewan's done or what the Tom Fred Kenny's done or what this one done or what that one done or what the ga man has done we need a fresh Vision among our young men and our young women that can see what God's going to do so they can act accordingly all right I want to dispel a myth here if I may and I hear people all the time talk to me and and they say well Louisiana and Mississippi and Texas is nothing but a burn over field I don't believe that one iota I'm gonna tell you what Louisiana has five million people in the state of Louisiana are close to 5 million and most of them have never heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ and what we need is a fresh vision faster in the book of Samuel chapter 3 and the child ministered unto the Lord before Eli and the word of the Lord was precious in those days and there was no open vision and it came to pass at that time when Eli was laid down and his place his eyes began to wax dim that he could not see and hear the lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was and Samuel was laid down to sleep that the Lord called samlin he answered here am I and he ran into Eli and said here am I for thou calleth me he said I call us not lie down again and he went and laid down and the Lord called yet again Samuel and Samuel Rose went to Eli and he said here am I forgot to call me in the answer I call not on my son lie down again now Samuel did not yet know the Lord neither was the word of the Lord yet revealed unto him and the Lord called Samuel again the third time and he arose up and went to Eli and said here am I thou did call me and Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child therefore Eli said the same go lie down and shall be if he called thee that thou shalt speak speak Lord for thy servant hear a thief so Samuel went and laid down his place and Lord came and stood and called at another time Samuel Samuel Samuel has to speak for thy servant here
at thee and the Lord said to them behold I will do a thing in Israel that with both the ears of everyone to hear shall tingle in that day I will perform against eat all the things I have spoken concerning his house which when I began I want something he can answer I have told me that I will judge his house for the iniquity of what he knoweth because his sons have made themselves vile and restained them not and therefore I have sworn and sworn and then verse 15 Samuel in the morning and opened the doors of the house Lord and Samuel fear to show Eli the vision and then Eli called salmon said it's my son he answered what is this thing that the Lord has said in thee you know Samuel as a small child facing a great Eli had to have a vision and the vision of Samuel would calls the world's ears to tingle I'm going to tell you what the days of Revival in Louisiana are not over I'm outside again the days of Revival in Louisiana are not over they're just not over amen we need to get in our mind that there's no there's no lid that had been put on my jar that says I can go just so high and I can't get any higher than that right oh my goodness I'm on metal a while amen you know the story of the fleas in the jar and with the lid on it and the fleas jump and they bounce and hit their head on the lid and after a while you can take that lid off and they all jump but they won't ever clear that jar because they bumped their head so many times they can't get any higher praise God I think we got the lid off but we can't jump higher and we're not going to jump higher until we see a vision of what God wants to do I'm not talking about having an ambition or a desire I'm talking about we need young men to see the vision of God as to what God wants to do in America praise God I hate to tell you this but I'm going to tell you anyway I've got a vision of a Revival Coming to America I've got a vision that they're going to come a Great Awakening in America praise God the days of Revival are not over in the United States of America I don't care if President Obama says we're not a Christian Nation I don't care if the Congress says we can't pray I believe that there's coming a spiritual Christian Awakening in the United States of America Isaiah chapter 6 in the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon the throne high and lifted up and his trained filled the temple above it stood The Serpent of each one had six wings with two he covered his face two he covered his feet and with two he didn't flies and one Cried unto another and said holy holy holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of his glory and the post of the doors moved at the voice of him that cried and the house was filled with smoke and Isaiah said woe is me I am undone I am a man of unclean lives I dwell them into the people of unclean lift from my eyes have seen the king the Lord of hosts can I have an amen and I also heard the voice the Lord saying Whom Shall I see in and who will go for us and then Isaiah said here am I send me praise God but he didn't say send me until he saw the vision if God could take a young man out of Frogmore Louisiana between bushy by you and wild field and a a child that was born in absolute poverty and raised him up and and use him in ways Untold how many more young people are sitting here all you need is to pray and fast until God gives you a vision oh my God in Ezekiel chapter 1 Ezekiel was a unique figure in the Bible we we read so much about Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego and we very seldom ever allude to the ezekiels but the Bible says Ezekiel it came to
pass in the 30th year the fourth month the fifth day of the month as I was among the captives by the river of chibar that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God 30 years four months and five days the Captivity is going to last 70 years so that means there's more time left to spend in captivity than what they've already spent in other words he said we're not even half done yet and if we're hanging our Harps upon the Willows and we've already quit singing and how can we sing the Lord's song In a Strange Land and we've already given up and we've still got more than half the time to go how are we going to survive and Ezekiel single-handedly did what Daniel could not do Daniel was a great prophet I want to diminish nothing from Daniel Daniel stood in the face of the king and went in the Lion's Den and you know the story of how he came out of the Lion's Den but how do you come out of the lines then divinely protected by God and not cause Israel to go home how does a Shadrach a Meshach and a Bendigo go through a fiery furnace not get burned and not have the smell of smoke upon them and come out of the fiery furnace with the fourth man walking with them and not be able to take the people of God back home again praise God and yet Ezekiel when he saw the vision of the valley of dry bones he stood up and said hey folks take your Harps off the willow we're going to sing again brother Hallelujah Ezekiel single-handed they kept Israel from becoming a part of Babylon can I have an amen All Because by the river of chibar in the midst of change around his ankles he had a vision of God nobody can keep you from having a vision the devil can't keep you from having a vision the devil can't stop you from having a vision can I have an amen 40 years ago a little over 40 years ago I got the Holy Ghost 20 minutes later God called me to preach and so I started kind of messing around with it and I got to thinking now we didn't have mega preachers back in those days and ever preached on you was poorer than job's turkey now I realize I preachers now they Drive Lincoln Continentals and Cadillacs and Escalades and all kinds of pickup trucks and all and and they do pretty good now I understand that now hindsight Is 2020 it's foresight I have problems with and I was in college I was I was becoming a chemical engineer and I was trying to get out my way out of poverty and I got to looking around at all the preachers that I knew and they weren't doing too good and I had to make some choices and it seemed to me like a chemical engineer was going to make just a tad more money than the poor preachers I knew I'm bringing it buddy I got to get people's temperature a chance to settle down here and so I never will forget I came home from college one Saturday and and brother dice my pastor he said if you come home and you bring somebody to church I'll let you preach and so I I would make my way home on Fridays and I'd knock doors all day Saturday and I'd fill up a car load of kids to bring to church so I'd get to preach I think that's still a pretty good idea if you're going to preach get out there and bring somebody to preach too I never will forget that the church at Faraday was an old wood Frank building would sell a text inside it was crumbling and and and and we was running the aisle one night and and I was following two ladies it was in front of me and I was trying to pass them but they was carrying a wide load
and I was going too fast to stop and I hit that selling Tech siding and my imprint was in in that siding and I itched for three months trying to get that junk out of my hair and my skin and there was a soybean feel right next to the church and in a fall they would they would cut the soybeans they would turn coal and ever rat in the field joined the church and and they didn't they didn't have enough money to fix the plumbing and and the the the valve under the sink leak dripped and they put a a three pound coffee can under the drip rather than fix the sink and and somebody had the bright idea of putting out Decon rat poison and the Rats would eat the Decon climb up on the can drink the water and and when a rat eats Decon and drinks water he's dead and he would go into catacombs of the walls and die and when a rat dies in the middle of the wall it's a stink going on y'all get the picture and so I went to church early to pray and I used my screwdriver to unlock the church door because I didn't qualify to have a key it's bad when you got a break in the house of God to pray and when I opened the door it was hot and all of a sudden I smell every dead rat that ever died and I got my car and I made my little round and I brought about six or seven people to church with me that night and most of them are college kids and and young adults and and I I had to think of something and I said hey I said you know how to tell the true church from the false Church they said no how I said there's always a stink around the true House of God I said let me give you book chapter and verse about it I said when Noah built the ark and they put the Gangplank in and no one climbing the Gangplank somebody said Noah did you build a bathroom in the ark he said oh my goodness we forgot the bathroom but his last words were I'd rather be in the stink than in the storm and we opened the door we walked in the house of God and and every one of them agreed this is the true House of God but I decided I decided that preaching was not for me and so I quit preaching until one afternoon I walked from my house to church and used my screwdriver to get in and went into a little side eight by eight Sunday School classroom with a plank board floor no carpet on it hot and Dusty no air conditioning and I went there to pray that afternoon and I never dreamed that what happened that afternoon whatever happened to me but about I got in the spirit of prayer and got in the spirit of intercessions up and I had prayed almost three hours and I was on my knees and I was weeping and crying and all of a sudden I had a vision let me tell you something your journey has got to start with a vision praise God I I didn't know I didn't know what a vision was I'd never seen a vision before but I saw the Lake of Fire had a kind of a black crust on it and the The Pinnacles and the heels was around that big lake of fire and I was standing on the edge of the cliff and I was watching her and I saw the white Throne of judgment I saw the Angels take me into the white Throne to the edge of the cliff and they would toss him over and he would break that black cross not screaming and yelling and he would fall down the pits of Hell and Hell would belt him back out and he would break that crust and he would fall back down and I want that and I'm seeing that in a vision and I got in the spirit of agonizing prayer and I said God I'll do anything you want me to do oh God I'll preach them if that's what you want me to do oh God I'll be a soul winner if that's what you want me to do amen and because of that Vision I gave up chemical engineering I gave up that lifestyle and I want to tell you today I have never regretted one minute I'm giving up everything in order to win souls and be a preacher for Jesus Christ
every preacher needs a vision of hell and it'll change your ministry God I live with that vision every day of my life every time I go the pulpit and I've been preaching in Wichita for 34 years I can tell you the times on one hand with fingers left over but what I did not go to Pulpit unless I was prepared to reach a soul for Jesus Christ I have taught almost a 25 000 home Bible studies let me tell you how do you do that in the course of a lifetime it's because every time I wake up in the morning I'm reminded that I have a vision of hell and that men are going to die and they're going to go to hell and they're going to live there for eternity and the preacher and the church and the Saints is the only thing that's standing between them and Hell so I decided that I might ought to preach and you can starve to death when you start out preaching that is true isn't it I said you can starve to death when you start out preaching and I was having great revivals and um my daddy wasn't a preacher my mama wasn't a preacher nobody knew who I was and I I had to preach where I had to preach in these little bitty churches because I wasn't good enough to preach in some of y'all's churches brother Leroy skipper was here last night and he came up and he hugged me and he I I he passed a little bit of church on the outskirts of Ruston a little independent church on the outskirts of Ruston and and and I didn't qualify to even testify in the United Pentecostal Church I never I still hadn't got holy enough to preach in the United Pentecostal church yet but I'm trying I'm struggling to be holy and and so I would sneak over to that little independent church and he let me preach praise God in practice on them pray though that poor can you imagine that poor congregation having somebody trying to practice preaching on them and and it was just it was just a situation and so I decided to give up everything and start evangelizing and I I made a sum total of fifty dollars a week oh was I more than overpaid amen I mean you could draw unemployment for 45 dollars a week so I was one stage above unemployment actually my daddy said I was unemployed and I started traveling and everywhere I went the strange thing is we had Revival now I was preaching in in Riverside California and the first night I got up that Revival and I said all right folks we're going to have a hundred Soul Revival here and not anybody said amen because they'd never had a hundred Soul Revival and I'm I'm just a novice preacher and I certainly and and I preached about three nights the first night there was a hundred microphones sticking up in my face and the second night there were three microphones sticking up and the third night you couldn't buy a microphone I didn't preach anything worth recording and a big nosed Italian guy never will forget he walked up to me and said is ever going to have a hundred Soul Revival he said I don't know how we're going to do this because you can't even preach and why do we equate Revival with good preaching I'm preaching to you ladies and gentlemen amen preaching and Revival are not necessarily synonymous it's what's in the heart of the Evangelist in the heart of the pastor and in the heart of that congregation five weeks later we had 98 prayed through the Holy Ghost with 60 more in the Altar and that big nose that Italian guy came up and he said I believe we're going to have a hundred Soul get the Holy Ghost I said why didn't you believe
that five weeks ago and everywhere I went I had to Revival but they were still underpaying me I was still getting fifty dollars a week and I didn't know that they was under paying me that's the horrible part about it I know when I'm underpaid now buddy you better know I know what I'm underpaid amen and I was preaching in the in the San Francisco Bay area and I went there for one two-week Revival and now the Revival has stretched into a 26-week Revival we've had over 260 people received the baptism of the Holy Ghost we're having three services a week and we was knocking doors four nights a week and people was coming out it was just an unbelievable move of God and they were still paying me fifty dollars a week and you know what you don't pay your car insurance on fifty dollars a week and you can't buy gasoline for fifty dollars a week and you can't pay a 94 car payment on fifty dollars a week and so I'm between the rock and a hard place the first thing that happened my insurance company called and said brother Cornwell I'm sorry but we have not received your insurance payment and your insurance has lapsed now that would have been fine except they called my dad before they called me and my dad said you got you lost your insurance boy why don't you come home and get a job Mac like a normal person I'm 2500 miles away from home I don't have enough gas to get home and my dad said you parked that car and don't you drive that car until you get your insurance on it and the church was about three miles from the preacher's home where I was staying and so I had to walk to church every day to pray because I couldn't drive my car my wife and I was was collecting Coca-Cola bottles and take them to Lucky's that's a grocery store and selling Coca-Cola bottles to put Similac milk in my baby's bottle I'm a chemical engineer I got 31 out for excuse me 31 hours above that in biomedical engineering I gave all that up but you know it was looking pretty enticing and so I couldn't drive my car was selling Coca-Cola bottles and putting Similac in my baby's bottle we was broker skunks and the plant manager from International Paper company called me and said Murrell we want you to come back to work for us I'd worked on an air pollution and water pollution project farm and they wanted me to come back and head up a project and they said I said well okay I said when you want to come he said we'll ship everything from California back to the plant and we need you here Monday morning to go to work and you talk about Temptation I said okay I said would you I said would you give me one week to decide he said okay we'll call you back at noon on Friday and we need to answer and I made a vow I took an army blanket and wrapped around me went in the garage and the pastor had a desk in that garage and I crawled up under that desk it was cold it had a little six inch space heater and I put in front of that desk and I stayed in that desk underneath that desk for six hours a day praying and begging God lord I don't know what to do I can't live I don't have any money I can't drive my car I can't feed my own baby I gotta have your health and Lord I know I'm getting fifty dollars a week but I can't make a living on 50 a week what am I going to do God you know sometimes God putting you in a difficult situation is the best thing that'll ever happen to you especially if you won't go counsel it out and get on your knees and pray until God gives you an answer ladies and gentlemen we've lost the art of getting our answers from God I'm preaching to a preacher here I wish I knew you or you're sitting you need an answer from God I prayed six hours Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and I was praying Fridays in the
God today if I don't get an answer when a man calls me I'm going to say yes I'll go back to work and I'll give up this preaching at a quarter to twelve at a quarter to twelve a a man called me from Alexandria right here Alexander Louisiana he was at the Guaranty Bank in downtown Alexandria and he walked out of the bank and I need a hundred and eighty dollars to pay my my insurance payment with and I didn't have no money and he walked out of the bank and God said go back in he turned around went back in walked up the counter and she said can I help you again she said well I don't know he said it's kind of strange but does Morel Cornwell have an account here and she said well I don't know she got on a little computer and pulled up my name said yes he has an account here and he sat down or he stood there and he wrote out a check for 180 dollars and put in my checking account and he called me he said brother Cohen I called your father and they told me how to get a hold of you and he said I want you to know that I was at Guaranty Bank and found out you had an account there I just put a hundred and eighty dollars in your account everybody all of a sudden I had a vision of God again all of a sudden I saw the heavens opened and I saw the mightiest revivals I've ever seen in my life ladies and gentlemen I came within 15 minutes of dropping out of the ministry I came within 15 minutes of saying I'll never preach again I came within 15 minutes of it but thank God I prayed until God gave a vision yeah yeah please don't let me hurt your feelings but some of us are stuck on running 50 and 75 and 100 and 150 and 200 and 300 and 400. I'm gonna tell you what we need a fresh Visa our churches need to double I am a firm believer we're in a three-year recession and don't tell me some of you are not hurting because I know you're hurting I feel your wounds I feel your blood I know you're hurting but let me test them our God has the finances I said our God will make provisions I'm getting ready to close here I was preaching a Revival in Yuba City California and I had gotten the place where I would preach one Revival for pay and then the next Revival I would donate to a home missions Church and I would have let I let him pay me at one church and I would donate the Revival I would pay the pastor a salary while I was there I would pay his utilities and I would pay for all the expenses of the Revival and I would leave without an offering and and then I'd go preach another Revival for pay and I I was scheduled to to to preach a a home Mission Church in in Tulsa Oklahoma over 1800 miles from San Sacramento to Tulsa and the thing is we didn't have a lot of money so my wife and I we drove straight through from Sacramento all the way to Tulsa we couldn't stop for a hotel because we didn't have money for a hotel we had to donate this revival and the the whole mission church was a little House Church and a a a a neighborhood surrounded by a huge 40-acre plow a mode field and there was a mobile home right in the middle of that that that that mode feel that they put us in and we started having Revival and so I told him I said now I don't take no offering from me I'm donating this revival I'm going to give you an income while I'm here and he said nope he said I got to tell you something I said no this is my vow to God and finally we got to Oregon and we compromised I said okay if you'll put those two wicker baskets on the altar not not mention anything about an offering I I preach and you cannot take an offering if somebody decides to put something in the plate I'll take whatever comes in as long as you don't mention it he that's agreed and so on Sunday night on Sunday night I looked at the offering plate being an evangelist as I was they were three or four one dollar bills in those two wicker baskets and so we left out of the church we locked up the door and we went to McDonald's and we ate a cheeseburger and a small Coke and we got back to the church and he said let me get the offering basket for you so he opened the door Turned the Lights On walk in and both wicker
baskets was stacked up with money hahaha I would remind him of our agreement that I would get whatever come in the basket both that it wasn't one lump sum it was dollar folded all different ways and and 20s and 50s and ones and fives and ten and it was just stacked up and and I stood there with my and he stood there with I said where'd this money come from he said I don't know I locked the church door I said what do we do with it he said I think you ought to count it so we poured it out the floor and we counted it it was about fourteen hundred dollars I had never been paid that much in my life I didn't know there was that much money in the world and so I counted out seven hundred dollars and gave to him and I pocketed the other 700. so the next week he said let's go another week I said let's go another week we went another week and Sunday night roll around we looked we looked into the wicker baskets and there was just two or three one dollar bills in the wicker baskets we walked out and we locked the church door we got in our car we speeded the McDonald's we woofed down a Big Mac and large fry and a big coke we speeded back to the church we unlocked the door flipped the lights on and both baskets were stacked up foreign we counted out I gave him half I took half I said I think we ought to go a third week who wants to go back preaching for 50 bucks a week when God's paying you 700 a week I'm not out for your money but it takes money to keep me out third week roll around and I preached Sunday night we looked into the basket we shook the baskets we licked the baskets we feed into McDonald's we didn't eat half of our food that we speeded back you guessed it we walked in and the third time the plates were stacked High that that week the house trailer was in the middle of the field had no skirting on it and 70 foot long house trailer that was a door in the middle of the trailer on the side and the we heard a knock on the door and my wife and I we opened the door and there was a little guy standing there about five foot nine maybe five foot eight and a half he had a dark charcoal suit on real plain had a little narrow Black Tie on he had some black shoes on that they didn't have a spit shiny didn't look like they had any kind of shine on it he had gray hair and he was very polite and he said are you Morel Cornwell and I said I am he said I have a gift for you and he's standing on the ground on the little the little trailer house steps there there was no skirting and he said he helped out a brown paper bag a grocery bag and it was rolled over he said I have this gift for you he headed me that brown paper bag and I turned and had to Sister coil and turned back how long did that take maybe one second a half a second turn and the guy had disappeared and my wife burst into tears and I ran down the steps it was in the middle of a 30 acre field no trees no bushes nothing and he wasn't under the trailer he wasn't behind the trailer he was he just he just poof he was gone and and sister Cornell is standing there holding that that brown paper bag and she's shaking all over and she's crying she said oh my God who was it what what would he do and and I was completely unnerved by it and I said well what's in a bag I thought it was a bomb or something and and she unrolled the brown paper bag
and wrapped there was something wrapped in white paper and we cut the little tab off of it and opened up and it was two porterhouse steaks now you have to understand folks I ain't never eat a steak in my life we weren't raised on steak was raised on Stolen watermelons and chicken the bone fragments whoever this dude was had just hacked it off of a cow it what it wasn't it wasn't drugstore perfect I mean the bone fragments is all over the steak and she said what do we do with them I said I think we're supposed to cook them she looked under the on the sink and found a cast iron skillet and she cooked the two steaks on on a on paper plates and we didn't handle salad no tomatoes and no lettuce and no no dressing and didn't have no baked potatoes all we had was two steaks and we cut those steaks and and we're still weeping and shaking from the god disappearing and I ate that steak and I have I've been to Argentina I've been to Brazil I've been Europe I've been to Asia I've been all over the United States of America are they if we're from from Bonanza Steakhouse to Ruth Chris everywhere you I'm trying to find that steak again I can't find a steak that tasted like that one again and I thought they had such a unique flavor and a unique taste to it I thought well I don't understand what's going on here but every time sister Cole and I have faced a great financial crisis in our life the taste of that steak comes back to my mouth and every time I taste that steak I say oh oh God's supposed to do something and then God starts pouring on the finance again let me tell you something God has provisioned I'm gonna tell you something I feel the taste of that steak in my mouth right now God is fixing to do something for this Louisiana District like you've never had done before my God the Holy Ghost is falling in this place we need a fresh vision of God's provision I'm not here to be used for the gifts or anything like that but there's somebody in this room right now that you're going through one of the greatest financial crisis of your life I hear I got a word for you my God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory I'm almost finished we was building our building in Wichita Kansas and and we we absolutely went broke three times building that building and we finally got enough money to to get into the building and and we had a hundred thousand dollar balloon payment due in 12 months that's how the bank arranged it we had to pay our note plus we had to come up with that extra hundred thousand dollars at the end of the year and so we set aside money every month to take care of that hundred thousand dollars that we had to pay at the end of the year and one month before the note was due the banker called me said Reverend we need you to come see us so I went down and he said look he said the bank board has met and your your loan is so big he said we've got to have some more we got to have some more balloon payment than a hundred thousand I said how much more you got to have he said we got to have 150 000. I said but but we agreed on a hundred thousand he said I know it but the board says your Note is just so big you you got to have that extra fifty thousand dollars I said why didn't you tell me this a year ago why'd you wait to the last minute to tell me and so I went home and I told my wife and I was scared and didn't know what to do so I went to my congregation I said I hate to tell you this I said I've done begged and barred and stole everything I can beg bar and steal and I said we got to have 50 000 extra dollars and so we took up pledges that was due in one month and we got we took a pledges exactly 50 000 more dollars and every church has got this kind of people okay and and I'm I'm telling you this because I'm preaching to those people in your congregations that's like this
okay and so that night Sunday night we took the pledges up and and I walked out the door about 11 o'clock shut all the doors locked everything up walked to my truck and this big tall guy walked up to me and said Hey preach I said yep he said you know I made a pledge I said yes you you did you you pledged three thousand dollars I knew I got it all calculated he said I just want you to know I'm not paying my pledge I said why did you wait till after church to tell me he said I just want to watch you squirm and wiggle everybody's got those kind of Stingy guts those Rebels that God gonna burn in the lowest hail so I'm sitting there in my truck and and my heart just sunk because I got to go I got to go to the church the next of the bank the next morning three thousand dollars short of what we owed and I'm sitting in that truck all of a sudden I started eating that steak again it's 11 o'clock at night and I'm sitting there and I'm weeping and the lights coming through our parking lot drive up and an elderly grandmother in our house coat in her pink big old pink roll curlers I still remember their old house shoes she had on was ragged and she got out of the car and I shook I said what are you doing here she said the Lord woke me up I said yeah said yeah the Lord spoke to me and said my pastor was crying on the parking lot get a lot she said yes and he said he told me to give you something and and she handed me a check for three thousand dollars I said I knew this I knew this with a woman this older lady this grandmother old woman I said where did you get three thousand dollars from she said it's my life savings but the Lord said you needed it I said I had to bring it to you tonight I said give me that check I grabbed that check I said give me your hand and I raise her hand towards heaven I lifted that check up I said God record that check right now record that check I said no God recorded that check and I put it back in her hand I said God can wake up a grandmother at midnight and tell her that her pastor's crying on the parking lot at midnight my God can supply every need according to his riches in glory okay we keep our doors locked until 10 o'clock on Monday morning and starting at five o'clock the next morning people started coming into church and putting little brown envelopes on the door with notes them saying I I just felt like I need to give 10 more dollars I need to give 20 more dollars I need to get 50 more dollars and by the time we got the tithe and offering counted at 10 o'clock three thousand and thirty more dollars had come under that door let me tell you something my God sound supply all of your needs according to enriches and Glory let's raise our hands and praise God
Scripture references as spoken: Genesis 15:1-4; 1 Samuel 3:1-17; Isaiah 6:1-5; Isaiah 6:8; Ezekiel 1:1.