The Eiffel Dilemma

I want to talk to you this morning about the Eiffel Dilemma. I want you to, if you want the Lord to talk to your heart, and you want to go to the next level, if you're willing to go there, what God has for you, what the vision of this conference is to do greater works. I want you to raise your hands right now, and I want you to verbally tell the Lord, I'm ready to go. I'm willing to do it. Come on, lift up your voice. Father, by the authority of the Word of God in the power of the name of Jesus, these are a people that are ready for the call of God. Show us what you want us to do. You Spirit of the Lord, speak to us today. Do something amazing in this house. Continue. God, what you've already started, we thank you for it. We give you praise in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name. And everyone said, amen. Amen.

I greet someone as your seated. God bless you. Thank you for standing. Be in the house of the Lord. Thank you, Cam.

The year was 1892, and the anticipation in America was palpable. Chicago had been awarded what was known as the world's Columbian exposition. It was affectionately known by history as the world's fair. Now, everything was in place. The court of honor was just about done. Every state in the Union had come to Chicago and built a building to articulate some of the unique things that their state has to offer. Many nations had come to the U.S. to build a building or show their trades of what they're good at or what they can do. Accordingly also, the newest of technology would be released during that week. There was developments in electric lighting that the world had never saw, but they had put around the park that was known as the White City due to all of the buildings being painted white. And it would be all the lullanes and the avenues would be lit like no one had ever seen before. Filtered water was new, and so that would be released, and people never tasting water is pure. There were new inventions that would be released at this fair, like shredded wheat. Juicy fruit for the first time would be released and chewed at the world's fair. And a new popcorn covered in candy called Cracker Jacks. And somebody say, Thank you, Jesus.

But there was one thing that was lacking as David Daniel Burnham, the architect of the Chicago World's Fair was pouring over where everything would go and how everything would be released. Because just four years prior, the world's fair was given to France and to Paris, commemorating their freedom. And Paris was a smashing hit. The way that they approached the fair and everything that they did was unbelievable. However, in a way that only the Americans could do, Chicago was set up to even exceed everything that Paris had done. But there was one thing, one area that they knew, Burnham knew he fell short. As they were getting ready for what as the world would descend upon Chicago, there was one thing they knew they had not yet figured it out. Because Paris had built something to be released at the fair that dominated every conversation, that drew every tourist, that when they came to the fair, there was only one thing that they wanted to see first. Because at the Parisian Fair, that they had turned to one of their leading engineers, a gentleman by the name of Gustav Eiffel and asked him to build a tower, a spectacle that would be without equal, something that everyone would walk up to and they would just gaze at the tower that would be known as the Eiffel Tower. When they got there, nobody said, let's go see what Belgium had done. Let's go see what Germany has brought. But when they got to the fair, everybody wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. It was over a thousand feet tall. It had no equal. It was when they built the Eiffel Tower. It was and stood for many years the tallest structure in the entire world.

So Chicago was ultimately left with the Eiffel Dilemma. What will we do to match that? And we build that will even be in the conversation of greatness like that. The tallest structure, an architectural feat. Imagine 130 years ago seeing something like that. So they were left with this dilemma as Eric Lawson put in his book, The Devil in the White City. How can we out Eiffel? Eiffel. Suggestions were plenty as architects poured in with ideas ranging from the ridiculous to even the impossible. But Burnham could not decide. He couldn't cipher through all of the decisions and he was so intimidated and shrinking in the shadow of the tower that he just couldn't pull the trigger. He didn't know what to do. So there was an engineer who stepped up who had seen something memorable at a New York State Fair. He began to talk to Burnham about it and he said, I saw a wheel that stood on top of a tower and that wheel was something that each different places in the wheel that different cars were attached to the wheel and it would go around and around. And so if we could build that people could come and they could get in the boxes and they could ride around in a circle and it would be quite something amazing and I think we can build it, man, almost even 300 feet tall. And if we could do that, we could charge everybody 50 cents and we could make a little bit of money. And so they called it the Chicago Wheel because of the designer being a gentleman by the name of George Ferris Jr. They naturally begin to call it the Ferris Wheel. It stood a paltry 264 feet tall. It was nothing compared to Eiffel, a paltry pinnacle that barely stood among some of the taller trees in those days in the Midwest. It took 20, 20 minutes. It went around twice. You paid your 50 cents and you went home a little bit disappointed. After the fair was over it stood for a little while. It was dismantled. It was taken down. It popped up somewhere else but a neighbor got mad and complained. Can you imagine that? And then finally on May 11th, 1906, they dismantled it, put it in a box and literally this is a historical fact. They blew it up with dynamite. We honor history. Poo-poo!

30 years later, there stands in the center of Paris, a tower that they would no more take it down than they would rewrite the name of their own nation. There stands a tower called Eiffel. It is the most visited monument on earth and the Ferris wheel remains as ashes and charged of something that has been blown to smithereens. And so it was that when France built a tower, Chicago built a carnival ride, a cheap way to make some money that simply never lived up to what it needed to be. It haunts us, ladies and gentlemen, with the question. What of the Eiffel dilemma? How will we respond when we stand in the shadow of great women and great men who have gone before us and we feel so small and we feel so little when we look at the churches they built and the missions work they dug out and the lives that they lived and the things that they've done and what God did through them and we stand here today and I ask you, how will you respond to greatness?

And what shall I more say? The Apostle said, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and of Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and the other prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms and wrought righteousness and obtained promises. They stopped the mouths of lions. They quenched violence of fire and escaped the edge of the sword and out of weakness were made strong. Wax valiant in fight and turned to fight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead, raised to life again and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance. That they might obtain a better resurrection and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings. Yay! Moreover, of bonds and imprisonment, they were stoned, they were sawn, a thunder were tented, a thunder they were tempted, they were slain with the sword. They wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts, mountains and in dens and caves of the earth and these all having obtained a good report through faith received not, someone say received not the promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should be made perfect

and so it is, ladies and gentlemen, we stand gazing at men and women who gave all and men and women who sacrifice without salary, without recognition, without credit, without some great following. We stand in their shadow and I ask you today, is there anybody in this house that's willing to pay the price to be great? Is there anybody in this house that will get on their feet? That'll get in a place of prayer? That'll have a time of sacrifice? And say I want to be great?

These are men and women that many of us don't even remember these stories but they looked forward to nights where the church foot washed each other's feet, forward to times where they could reuse baptismal towels six and seven times the same towel. They did everything they could to advance the kingdom of God because they were servants of God. And so standing next to them today, standing in the shadow of the speakers that'll speak at this conference this week, we are left with the question.

It's an auspicious idea. It's really something that's approaching sacrilege. Is it permissible for me as a child of God who is taught to serve and to follow Philippians 2 and not be caught up in myself and not be about myself but is it possible? Is it permissible for me? In the presence of a great God to purpose in myself, I want to be great. And I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that if we are ever going to see greater works in our lives, we must first see something in us that we will be great.

There's maybe nothing more important in a man or a woman's life to understand opportunity and to seize the moment. Because I would say to this quite impressive crowd of young adults predominantly that you, not someone like me, but you are at the precipice of the great seasons of your life. The time when you can give yourself wholly to Scripture, where you can find what God wants to do in your life, where you can sell all, give all, and do all, where you can devote time of prayer, where you can learn to pray, where you can learn to fast. And what you're doing is you're standing in the shadow of great women and great men and simply saying, I want to be great. Simon said, but ye are chosen generation, a royal priesthood and holy nation, a peculiar people turned to somebody and said, I knew you looked funny, but you should show forth the praises of him that the Lord with called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God which had not obtained mercy, but now have attained mercy.

So here we are, so we look over and we rifle through Scriptures. It's literally staggering to see these people of God that we are called to follow. It's so intimidating to begin to read the end of his fight with only 300 men. He was great to read about Samuel who was first anointed and would take up a horn of oil and had to be bold enough to come before and anoint people as kings. He was great. Men like Elijah and Elisha who literally spoke for God. They defied kings. People like Moses that went before Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world, and to his God he defied his God and said it won't rain until I say so. These prophets, these preachers, these men and women, women like Esther who maybe was the first woman to ever be stalked by Apostolic Runway. She would have the boldness to be able to go before the king even though knowing that I may die over this, but because I'm the queen, I can say whatever I want and I can go before the king. So it is as you and I, and I say that affectionately, not in any way of a pejorative word, but it is you and I as we stand here today and we see people like these that have gone before us and we see these men and women that are even represented here today and it's staggering to think about how they've responded. I moved today when I saw Pastor Urshen on the front row today and I thought about what it would have been like to be in the shadow of N.A. and Gene Urshen. But somewhere along the way when he started preaching like when he was like four years old, you're six, you're ready for general conference, come on buddy. Somewhere along the way when other people were memorizing Mark McGuire's statistics and other people were devoting their life on how to be a good shortstop. There was somebody that nobody ever heard of that was memorizing Bible-quizzing scriptures because he said, I want to be great.

Everybody in the world looks up on the platform of the biggest meetings all over the world and says, oh wow, that'd be cool to be Joe Urshen and it's like you don't know the cost that Joe Urshen paid. I think about, I don't want to be emotional about my personal life but I thought about Brother Williams and Brother Mangan who had two of the greatest fathers and mothers to ever live. They saw them build churches. They saw them give up sacrifices of no personal gain at all. And they saw them. And I've never heard these men ever say, oh, I want to be a millionaire. Oh, I want to be famous. Oh, I want to build a big house. Oh, I want to have personal gain for myself. They've never said that one time but what they do talk about is they say, oh man, if I could be GA, if I could be Jesse, if I could be somebody, that would be great.

I think about people like Tim and Stacey Gaddy who literally, when everybody else was off doing their thing they literally disappeared from public light because they were planning a church. We hear about them preaching stuff now and we see them all over the world. No, no, there was a day when you never saw them. There was a day years that would go by and you never heard from them. And it wasn't that they were doing something insignificant. What they were doing is they were deciding and making the commitment, I want to be great. So they prayed and they fasted and they made that decision as Jacob did in Genesis chapter number 32. When he made the mind up and standing in the shadow of his father Abraham's and Isaac, he made up in his mind that I've got my chance. I've got my window, my one shot and I've got a hold of an angel and I've made up my mind that I will be great and I will not let you go until you make me great.

Is there anybody in this house on this morning that is made up their mind? I've got a hold of a calling. I've got a hold of anointing and I want to be great. Come on, it's ready for you. It's open for you. If you're ready to go, it's there for you. What will we do with this Eiffel dilemma? What will we do with this call to be great?

God bless you, maybe seated. Chicago, how dare you say you're the world's fair and come up with a carnival ride. Call the whole world to come all the way to North Illinois and we get here expecting to see something greater than Eiffel, equal to Eiffel. How dare you call us here and give us this thing. Charge us 50 cents. Give us 20 minutes. Take it down in a few months and blow it up with dynamite. How dare you? I want to tell you today when Burnham was faced with that dilemma, he weakened, he shrunk. He was unwilling to pay the price but I'm asking you today in Palm Bay. Is there anybody that will say, I'll do it, I'll fight, I'll pray, I'll fast. I want to be great. Come on, why don't you lift up your hands right now and just tell the Lord you're ready to do it.

Come on, lift up your voice. Come on, that's it. Pray like a Pentecostal. I want the anointing of God on my life. Buddy Jesus, come on, that's it, that's it. Let your worship drown the sirens of notoriety. Let your worship squelch the screams for success of personal gain. Come on, is there anybody that wants it? Is there anybody who's ready? I want to be great for the kingdom of God. That's it, that's it. Come on, Rahab, you could save this whole thing with one moment. You're gonna do your part right now.

And Timothy, I know nobody knows your name yet, but there's a church in Ephesus. Come on, Timothy, pay the price. Dig the foundation. What I've seen, the church that my wife and I serve, I have seen, you may be seated, I have seen that Ohio does not have a problem packing out AYC trips. And I'm just gonna preach and I'm not getting after anybody. If you go on one of these trips, I thank God for you. I've given money to it. And if you want to go on a trip and you don't have enough money, come talk to Joel and David, they got the money. But I've seen, I've seen that we have not had trouble filling up the AYC trips. I want to be a 30-minute missionary, Charles. Take pictures of myself. We find some little kid, and I'm gonna take a picture by her. And the hubris will go up and say, make sure when I get the mic and I go, that you take a picture of me. I can put it on my avatar. In Ohio, our problem is that when they come home, that the prayer meetings are not quite as full of that generation. What I've noticed is that when the big events are over and it's time to clean up and it's time to actually disciple somebody, they're not as motivated to take the pictures. What I'm challenging you is, is that what we need to do in this dilemma as we stand staring at people and places and things that are great, what God is calling us to do is follow through. What God is calling us to do is pray and fast and study and pray and fast and study and be faithful and come to church on Wednesday night. And I can tell you right now, you do not want to go to heaven someday and bump into some of these people and tell them about your short little trip and tell them about how you sang and you turn the place upside down. You don't want to be the person that bumps into Billy Cole and says, let me tell you how hard I worked for the coal. Let me tell you how much I did for the coal. I want to tell you all we can pray to do is look up at these great men and women and say, oh, let me work hard and respond and attempt to be great.

God bless you, maybe seated. Think about the price that it takes to think about these stories about Nona and Bug Freeman. I think about Benny de Merchant and these people that even now as staggering it is, the stories are already starting to be forgotten. And the Bible tells us of whom the world was not worthy. People come against us and we have the spiritual giftings of Skywalker and we're being criticized by the disciplines of Ewoks. And we forget what God has called us to do and what God has called us to be. And I want to tell somebody what God is calling us to do today is somebody to find a prayer room, somebody to find a flash card, somebody to find a disciple class and make their mind up. I want to be great. Come on, that's it. Stand to your feet right now and lift up your voice. I wish somebody to lift up their voice. Come on, will you tell God I'm ready to be great? To pray, to fast. Come on, pastor, I'm ready to work. Pastor, I'm ready to hustle. Pastor, show me somebody to disciple. Show me somebody to teach. Show me somebody I can help. I want to be great. I want to be great. I want to be great.

Remain standing to present the men and women in the Word of God that spent time in wilderness, spent times in deserts, spent time in little Jewish schools in Israel that we never heard about them and all of a sudden they just emerge miraculously out of these schools and deserts and wildernesses wildernesses and they have memorized scripture and they have learned to pray and to fast and they've learned how to operate in the giftings and they've learned how to operate in the anointing. I want to tell you it has come with a great cost but the market is open this morning. Is anybody in this house willing to be great? It will be costly. It will be difficult. It will be lonely. But it's the price, Eiffel. It's the price, Eiffel. It's the price to be great.

Close this morning by reminding you of the last days and potentially years that we find of Elijah's life that it shows up at the end. This guy pops up out of nowhere seemingly. His name is Elisha. You can tell that they were close. You could tell they were connected of how they interacted with one another. As Elijah would say, I'm gonna go to Jeff Jericho. I'm gonna go to Bethel. I'm gonna go to Jordan. And all those three stops, he's almost saying get away. But Elisha said, no, no, no. If you're going, I'm going. Because I want to be great. I'm gonna tell you right now that there's a generation that's coming up. I was so moved. I bumped into David on the way to the platform and I looked at those kids, those adults that used to be kids that David and Melanie, that they just looked at the Elms and the Hales and they said, I'll pay the price.

I thought about Cam sitting over there on the keyboard and I thought about how he's put himself under Gent and Lex and Bishop and Sister Mick. I'm gonna tell you something. That's what God's looking for today. Somebody here that's willing to look at Eiffel. And say, you know what? I want to be great. I want you to make your way into this altar right now if you're willing to pay that price. God's wanting to talk to somebody today. God's wanting to give you the price of admission. Are you ready and willing to pay the price?

Come on, that's it. Find somewhere to stay and somewhere to kneel. I want you to tell the Lord today if you're willing. God, I'm ready to pay the price. I'm gonna get under my pastor. I'm gonna get under my elder. I'm not gonna shrink in the shadow of yesterday. I'm not gonna come up short. I'm gonna pay the price. Come on, child of God. Lift up your voice, Zion. Lift up your voice. Come on, that's it. God is here. In this moment, will you shrink or will you respond? The example is here. Our forefathers and mothers have gone before us. We know what the standard is. Will you respond and be equal to the call? Come on, that's it. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person of halith much. Not because he was his friend, but because of his importunity. Not because I fear God or man, but because of her continual coming. I will avenge her of her adversary. Come on, child of God. Come on, child of God. Build that tower. Build that tower. Be great and the world will come. The world will respond and the world will remember. Yeah, that's it. That's it.