I think one of the most
glorious demands on our life, if we want revival, is that we must learn to hear from God and I have a statement I'd
like to read for you. "We must understand, only the Spirit-filled
people of God can really know what God is
doing in the earth". Isn't that amazing?
- Yea. - If you're not a Spirit-filled
person from God Almighty, you might be a great
doctor, a great lawyer but you will not know
what God is doing. Spiritual things are
spiritually discerned and I had learned how to
hear from God. ♪♪ Genesis 26:18 tells us "Isaac dug again the
wells of Abraham". In every generation, there
have been revivals, massive moves of the Spirit that changed the course
of history. ♪♪ In every revival, there
were believers like you who chose to answer the call to become the one in
their generation. Discover your call to be the
one in your generation. ♪♪ We are about to take you face to face with history. ♪♪ Charles, I want to talk to
you, you've got so much... in you, so much--you truly
are a storehouse of knowledge when it comes to
history in the Church and everything that you've
seen and been through. Talk to me. Those of us that haven't
seen all that you've
seen, I want to
know from you, revival as it is--We all
have this opinion what a revival looks
like. We know, we can see in the current
times, things are happening. What is it that makes revival, for what you remember, what is it that you
remember about revival that stands out to you the most? - There are certain
strategic things that happened to me in my life that somehow seemed to speak
about what revival was. The first one was when I
was 6 years old. My parents had raised hell
with each other. My father was a
musician. He played the keyboards
and the fiddle and he'd go, play for
the dancers and he'd come home and he
and my mother, would curse at each
other all night, go to blows... I saw her walk out of the
kitchen one night with a long butcher knife and I'm a little boy
cringing in the corner, begging them not to
kill each other. And one night, they leave
me with a neighbor lady and they come home
about 11 o'clock and I immediately felt
something different and they said, "We went to
church tonight". Well, that wasn't
different because my dad taught a lot of his
music schools in churches and then my mother said,
"We got saved. I didn't know what that meant. - And how old were you at
this point? - I was 6 years old,
- 6 years old, - Yeah, 1932. I was born in 26. In February coming up, I'll
be 92 years old but... it was a night when
which God Almighty came in one night to our house. After that, my parents
didn't curse anymore, they didn't fight anymore. In fact, the next Sunday, I
went to Sunday school for the very first time. It was a 35 feet wide,
the building and about 65 feet long with
a sawdust floor and my dad was the music
leader within a month and then within about a year, my father became a city fireman and on the weekends, he would
go out in the countrysides and preach and many times, I would go
along with him and what happened was, for the first time in my life,
I began to see miracles. My dad would pray for people
and God Almighty-- I've seen cancers drop off
people's faces so that was long before things like
The Voice of Healing, - Right, - and long before miracles
were really touting but when the day came that I
was in New Orleans, we've just started a
non-denominational church, God with the Spirit of Revival, pushed us into doing that and we started with 10 people
and $15 a week income. 48 years later, we owned a
quarter of a mile frontage on Interstate 10. We had a
$30 million building. We had 38 acres of land, all
totally debt-free. 3,000 people in the church. In fact, it was the largest
church in the city of New
Orleans and all of that happened
because I had learned... Now this is important... I had learned to hear from God. Originally, I had wanted
to be the best lawyer in the state of Mississippi. I wanted to be an United
States senator but God began to deal with
me and He said, "No, I've got a different
plan for you". I had read of course, "I will set before you an open
door that no man can shut". When we started building the
church in New Orleans, I said to Barbara one
day, I said, "I'm going to the
post-office box, I've got to have $25 for a
newspaper ad and I'm believing that
God has told me that I'll have $25 in the mail". I get there and pull
the mail out and one girl from
Port Arthur, Texas, where we had pastored before,
wrote me a letter. "Brother Charles, I know how
much you like to advertise in the paper and God spoke to
me to send you $25 for a newspaper ad" and that's
the way it was the whole time. We had barely
started in New Orleans, until a man by the name of
Raymond G. Hoekstra and my pastor by the
name of Bill Marshall, he and Hoekstra knew each
other so Hoekstra said, "Bill, there's something
fantastic going on in Beaumont. I want you to
come and see it. There's a great
visitation from God. There is a great revival from
God going on in Beaumont, so I took him to New
Orleans quickly, got him on a plane. He stayed
until Thursday, came home. I said to him, "Tell
me about it. - No, I'm not gonna tell you a thing. You are free from all
obligations. Go get your little wife,
drive to Beaumont, don't come back until you can
tell me whether or not, this thing is from God or not". So we start driving
to Beaumont and we get there. Now this is so unusual. We get
there at 4 o'clock-- at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Now, this is in the middle of
the week. It's Wednesday. Who goes to church on
Wednesday, even Wednesday night? - Sure
- Not very many but at 3 o'clock
Wednesday afternoon, there were 1,700 people, packed
into this old building called Sabine Tabernacle. A man by the name of Harry
Hodge was the pastor and we hardly had a place to sit but they found us a
place close to the back, took us there and we
just barely sat and from somewhere, I heard
a piano arpeggio [Singing]
Ta ta la ta ta... and people began to sing and about 5 or 6 minutes later, tears were cascading
down my face. I had my hands lifted as high as I can possibly get them and in a few minutes, I
was able to talk and I turned to my wife and
I said, "Barbara, I don't know what this is, but whatever it is, I'm in
it, I'm part of it". So I was suspicious in
the beginning but there's something about,
when you hear from God, it settles your mind,
comforts you. You know you are doing the
right thing, Okay? So what they had going on is
what they call a presbytery. Or you could say "presbytery". They would bring the elders
of the church, trained ministers who knew
what they were doing and they would lay
hands on people and they would pray for
them and usually prophetic utterances would
begin to come and God would say
things about them and the first guy that
prophesied over me, "You shall live
in this country but your feet shall walk
on many foreign soils and you shall preach the glad
tidings of the Kingdom of God and the anointing of
the Holy Spirit and the power of that Kingdom, you shall not only preach it but
you shall demonstrate it". I said, "Oh, my God. The first guy I get is a
false prophet". I know I'm not going to
leave America but from that time until now, I've been in 51
nations of the world and the prophetic word
was right. Well, there were 3 things
that were indicative of this great, what they
came to call, "The Latter Rain Revival". First of all, prophecy
and a presbytery. Second, worship in the Spirit. We call it the "Song
of the Lord" so the indicative thing
about this move of God, prophetic utterance, laying hands upon people, the Song of the Lord and the third one,
very important, the coming together of the
body of Christ. - What made you, when you had-- when you had 15 people and you
started the church. What is it that, if you can
nail it down, that you knew the revival was
going to happen in your midst? - 2 things. Number one,
I had seen it and when I saw all of those
people in Beaumont, I saw 200 pastors from
all over America who told me that when this visitation
came to their churches, they had 25 or 30 people and in a matter of 90
days, they had 400, So I figured that God didn't
love them more than He did me so I believed that what
they had, I can have and the second thing is that I
began to hear from God. God spoke to me, said "If
you would start, I will bless you" and what
was so crazy, we were in a rented building [Laughs] and the lady that own the
building didn't like me and every Sunday
morning, I'm preaching and there is a string hanging
from a light above me and it comes down about 14
inches above my head and on the end of that
string, it's said, "Drink Jack's beer, get
the lite idea" and it just irritated the
very fool out of me and I wanted to get rid of that
so I put on my best
presentation, went to this lady and I said, "I'm gonna buy you a
beautiful globe for that light, a chain coming down with a
beautiful medallion"... She was smoking a
cigarette at the time and the smoke was getting in
her eyes, she said, "I know what you're up
to, preacher. You're trying to get rid of my
Jack's beer sign. If you don't like it, move out". Well, I couldn't move out. I
didn't have anywhere to go so the following Sunday morning, she usually cooked in the
back, while I was having service but I still was gonna be a
good boy, you know... - Right, - not say anything but
I'm preaching and I walked away from
that little podium and I turned around and I saw
that Jack's beer sign and here's what happened. Before I even thought in
my brain "Thus saith the
Lord, the day will come that we will have thousands of
people in this church and Jack's beer
will be bankrupt. They will be out of business. And I thought to myself, "Oh my
God! What did I say"? But I saw them grabbing
their pencils and writing down and I knew they were writing
down what I had said and when I had said it,
you know. Well, it didn't happen
immediately, but the day
came in New Orleans, that one morning--Monday
morning, a knock came on my
office door. I said, "Come in". The man that ran
our administration, came in and he said, "Pastor, I just thought you'd
like to know about it". He said, "With the people that
got saved yesterday morning, whom we baptized last night and
brought into our fellowship, that made, we now have
2,007 members in our church". Well, you know I'm not the
greatest and smartest person in the class, but I knew
the difference between singular and plural.
2,700...Thousands... We now had thousands in
our church. The following Friday morning, the New Orleans paper called
the Times-Picayune came out. Jack's beer bankrupt. We get thousands on Monday
morning. Friday morning, Jack's beer, my
prophecy came to pass. Now, I still don't know whether
Father, Son and Holy Ghost had a conclave and said, "We might as well go down and
bail the idiot out", you know... [Laughs] Or whether I was really moving,
- Right, - but all I do know is that
I prophesied that and it never came back, never came back into
business. It was gone. - Praise God. - So God began to cause our
church to be unusual. Years later, we were so packed, I went and bought a new piece
of property and we built a building that
would seat 1,100 people and that began the fill up
as well and finally, we bought the place out on
Interstate 10 and God sent thousands of people
to the church and people would come from
all over the world to see what God was doing. It was one of the most
incredible things. Even today, people call me
and they say, "Pastor, can't you tell me where I can
find a church in Los Angeles or Dallas or New York,
- Right, - like our church"? I said,
"No, can't do it". What we had was indicative of
the call of God and the Voice of
God. God was speaking. God was moving... by His Spirit. - Tell me some of the miracles that you remember from
back then. - Well, one of the
greatest miracles was a miracle that
happened to me. I woke up one morning in
New Orleans and my stomach was hurting
very very bad. I was doubled over. It woke
me out of my sleep and within an hour, the pain
began to envelop my back and then it began to go
down into my legs and my legs were
practically paralyzed and at 5 o'clock in the
morning, I called my doctor I had to describe. He said,
"Meet me at the Baptist Hospital immediately". So I drove
up to the hospital, still dark, parked my
car deliberately in what was going to be the
middle of the parking lot, left the keys in it, stumbled up
the steps of the hospital and passed out. When I woke up, I was on
a cold, cold x-ray table,
- Right, - with one of those little
honeymoon gowns only, - Yea,
- You know, freezing and that they had stuff
in my arms and they were taking x-rays. Well, they knocked me out. Well, on Friday morning, the door opened and my doctor
walked in, he said, "We have found out what was
wrong with you". He said, "You have a
disease gallbladder, which cause you to end up
with acute pancreatitis". When the pancreas begins to
have pain, he said, "Acute pancreatitis
and kidney stones are the 2 worst pains in
the human body". He said, "Now on Monday, we're gonna remove
your gallbladder". I said, "Wait a minute.
No, you're not". I said, "On Sunday, I'm gonna
have the church to pray for me and then we'll talk about
surgery on Monday". He got very angry with me. He said, "You're being
obstinate". He said, "We have very
clear pictures. We can see your gallbladder, we
know it's a disease. You're crazy
for not doing this". I said, "Well, humor me
along a little bit" so I sent word to Barbara
in the church. At exactly 11:30, we
usually were in prayer. I said, "Have the church to
agree with me in prayer, that God would work a
miracle in my life". God, You promised. You said
You'd be with me. You said, "There's power in agreement". I'm agreeing with the whole
church now. "Father, deliver me from
this thing. I confess that it's gone. I
command that this pain leave
me". I didn't just pitifully
pray for it so I speak the Word, [Speaking in tongues] "I speak the Word of faith. I
command this pain to leave". Well, we prayed. The doctor comes in a
little bit later and I said, "I'm not gonna have surgery". I said "I want you to take
the x-ray again". Well, on Tuesday morning, they
took me to the same x-ray table, with the same technicians and they took my picture. About 11 o'clock
Tuesday morning, my door opens, my
doctor walks in, puts his hands in front of him. He stood there for about 15
or 20 seconds and the very first words out of
his mouth were these, "You think
you're smart, don't you"? And I started laughing. He said, "The exact same
x-ray machine, the exact same technicians.
We have 2 pictures. One of them shows that
you have a... filthy dirty
diseased gallbladder and the one we took
this morning, we cannot find one single
solitary thing wrong with you but", he said,
"I know you... You travel all over the world,
you eat all kinds of things. You will be back.
You'll come back". Well, at almost 92 years old, I
still have my gallbladder... - Still have
your gallbladder, - and never went back. God Almighty miraculously,
healed me and I knew--I knew, that
I was healed. Now, this happened over
50 years ago and we had cancers that
would fall off. We had people that were healed
of all kinds of things and I made them write their
testimonies in writing. I'd tag them to the wall.
- Right. - One of my friends became
the president of the Southern Baptist
Convention. His name is Fred Luter. The only
thing unusual about that is that the Southern Baptist
Convention was created for segregation sake, you know.
- Uh huh. - Well, Fred Luter is a
black man. He's the first black man
that was ever elected to be president of the
Southern Baptist Convention. So I called him on the phone and
his secretary said, "He's holding the phone
for somebody but I'll send him a note". Well, in just a few minutes,
he's on the phone. He said, "I was
holding for Pat Robertson but I know where to find
Pat Robertson and I was afraid you
would hang up and I would not know where to
find you". I said, "Oh, Fred! You do remember that I pastored
a church in New Orleans". Here's what he said. He said, "You did not pastor a church
in New Orleans. You pastored the
city of New Orleans" and I thought that was one of
the greatest testimonies about what God was doing. - I'm hearing you, as you're
going through the story,
talk about-- some that's standing out to me
is how you're talking about Southern Baptist, Assemblies of
God, Word of Faith obviously and you really kinda spanned your entry into all of these
different denominations. Why do you think that was? - That's the power of the
revival, - Okay. - That was the power of The
Latter Rain movement. Now, in this Latter Rain Revival
which is what we call it, - Right, - there were some
people that acted crazy. There were some that went
over and above board. They went beyond the
Scriptures and said that they had a personal
word from God that superseded the
written Word. Well, that's stupid, okay! So we would have nothing to
do with them but the thing that made it
so wonderful is that people from every walk of life
began to come together and when they found a place where there was a real move
of God's Spirit, the real Song of
the Lord was there but the greatest
hindrance to revival is that we have come to
the place where the move of God, the power
of the Holy Spirit has become "blasé" and people
are no longer really craving the move of God. You know, as a hungry
man craves food and a thirsty man craves water, we must crave the
Movement of God. We must crave the
Presence of God. If we don't crave that, if we do
not hunger for God, hunger and thirst, the
Bible talks about hungering and thirsting after
righteousness. Paul said in Romans 10, he said, "My heart's desire
and prayer to God for Israel is
that they might be saved but I bear them record
that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge for they have been rejected the
righteousness of God. They have gone about to
establish their own
righteousness and have not submitted
themselves to God's
righteousness" and right there in
that place, a little Scripture verse is
dropped in which is fabulous. Jesus Christ
is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
who will believe. The secret of all of this was
faith and believing the Word of God and getting
so hungry that when God spoke, we recognized it as
God and craved it and ran face chased after God
and I ask myself this question: Is this a
general word to everybody or is this a specific word
that God has channeled me to that I can believe on and I did this for 2 and a
half for 3 weeks. I'd spend 3
and 4 hours a night and one night about 10 o'clock, Barbara has just gone to
bed with the kids. I came to a Scripture verse. It hit me like this. I said, "Oh, my God! I said, "That's my verse". I said, "I'm gonna stand
on that word" and then I began to laugh. I
said, "I am". I took the Bible,
laid it down on the floor, pulled off my slippers,
climbed up on top of the Bible and began to worship
and praise God. I stood there for 10
minutes or more and then I felt things,
the power of hell lift but from that moment,
instantly that day, I was instantly delivered and as a result of that, I
had delivered literally thousands of people,
all over the world by telling them that
story, inspiring them, creating faith in their heart,
then bringing them up, sending the Word--the
creative Word to them and they get delivered as
well. It's tremendous. - That's great. Would you pray for the
people watching right now. - I will. Now listen. Watch my hand... My hand--my hand is
reaching to you and that hand is emblematic
of God's Hand that is reaching out to you and I command the power of fear
to leave you right now. I command the power of
anxiety to be gone. You shall not live with
this torment anymore. God sent me today as His
chosen vessel to look right into your
very eyes and say you will not
suffer with this fear anymore. It's gone.
Be gone in Jesus' name, Father, bring healing to
those that are in physical pain, those that have cancers, those
that have heart problems. Father, let deliverance come
to them right now, in the name of Jesus Christ,
- Yes, - the Son of the Living God. The power of faith is
right here, in Jesus' name, be
healed, amen. In Romans 10, Paul said that the
Old Covenant, Moses said, "The man which doeth with these
things, shall live by them but the righteousness,
which is of faith speaketh on this wise, say
not who will ascend into Heaven to bring Christ
down from above or who will go into the grave to
bring Christ out of the grave" but what does it say? It says, "The word is nigh thee, even in
your mouth and in your heart, that is the Word of faith, that if you would speak
with your mouth and if you would believe
in your heart, you will be saved" and the Greek word is "SOZO". That's an all inclusive word. It means salvation
for the soul, healing for the
body, the bringing together
of families, the bringing
together of people that had hatred and
causing them. The Bible says, "Be
ye kind one to
another" and what will do that is
when the mighty
anointing of the Spirit of God
comes upon you. That kindness will
come, deliverance will
come and for you, it will be a brand new day. - Amen, amen. ♪♪
