Prayed…
Praise and magnify You, Father
Thank You for Your precious Holy Spirit
Revealing Your will for us, lifting Your body every day
We are being lifted and expanding daily
More and more are we walking in light
Ms. Annie led us in worship…
Pastor Ray shared…
It’s interesting that 24/7 we have had worldwide news about Prince exiting earth. He was definitely extremely gifted but I don’t know how else to put it but people have been just bowing down to his memory. I know it’s good to remember and respect that kind of thing. But I thought it was interesting with all the things here in Minneapolis, downtown First Avenue, the bells ringing for him and everything day after day, on the weekend there was a concert Friday night at the Orpheum, which is a beautiful theater that seats maybe 2,000. I was talking to someone who went to this concert and it was the Bethel Music people so it was a worship service really. I thought it was interesting timing that in the middle of everything happening in the center of our city on Hennepin Avenue there were maybe 2,000 or more people lifting up the King of kings and Lord of lords, magnifying Him. He said the presence of God in that theater was so strong from the outset that the speaker, all he could do at first was to cry because the presence of God was there. Of course, it wasn’t reported in the media; I wouldn’t expect it would be but it was recorded in heaven and He got glory and many, many people I believe their lives were changed. It reminds me when Sister Billye said concerning the elections, “It won’t be a man, a president that will bring revival, it will be an outpouring of the Holy Ghost.” We need a revival. That’s just the way it is. And so I want to read a story about one man, a monk in Italy, around the end of the 1400s and the revival that took place then.
The following excerpt was taken from Revival Fire by Westley Duewel:
A Monk’s Revival
When revival came to Florence, Italy in 1496–98, God’s human instrument was the Italian Roman Catholic monk Savonarola. When Savonarola’s revival began, Martin Luther was just a small boy. Savonarola was shocked by the vice and immorality of the world about him in Italy and by the corruption he knew existed in the Roman Catholic Church. As a youth, he would walk beside the River Po, singing to God and weeping for the sins, the injustices, and the poverty of the people about him. He wept and grieved over the lewdness, luxury, and cruelty of many leaders of the church. He would lie for hours prostrate on the altar steps in the church, weeping and praying about the sins of the age and the sins of the church.
What can one unknown monk do in an age of immorality both in society and in the only church existing at the time? Although he was a devout Catholic, Savonarola’s prayers and spirit-filled life helped prepare the way for the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther called him a Protestant martyr. His life is another glorious testimony that one prayer warrior by the grace of God can be used to turn the tide and prepare the way for a mighty revival.
AN OLD TESTAMENT PROPHET IN A NEW TESTAMENT WORLD
At the age of twenty-two, Savonarola wrote a paper, “Contempt of the World,” in which he likened the sins of the current age to those of Sodom and Gomorrah. He slipped away without first telling his family and entered a monastery to begin a life of fasting and prayer. He was desperate to see God send revival.
For years Savonarola studied Scripture, waited for God, and prayed. Suddenly one day God gave him a vision: the heavens opened and a voice commanded him to announce the future calamities of the church to the people. Filled with a new powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, Savonarola began to preach to the people.
When the Spirit of God came upon him, the voice of Savonarola thundered as he denounced the sins of the people. Revival power gripped the whole area. Savonarola’s audience—men and women, poets and philosophers, craftsmen and laborers—all sobbed and wept. People walked the streets so gripped by conviction from the Holy Spirit that they were half-dazed and speechless.
On several occasions while seated in the pulpit, all in the church could see Savonarola’s face seemingly illuminated with a heavenly glow, and he would sit in the pulpit lost in prayer or in a trance for up to five hours at a time. The smaller churches could not hold the crowds that came to hear him, so for eight years Savonarola preached in the large cathedral in Florence, Italy. People came in the middle of the night, waiting for the cathedral doors to open so they could hear his message. Savonarola prophesied he would be with them only eight years.
CITY-WIDE REFORMATION
The Spirit of the Lord was upon Savonarola. He prophesied that the city ruler, the pope, and the king of Naples would all die within a year, and so they did. For months he predicted that God would punish Florence with an invasion from across the Alps. King Charles VIII of France and his army crossed the Alps and prepared to attack. Savonarola went out alone to meet them. He faced the French army single-handed and twice persuaded Charles to turn back and not attack Florence.
The wicked city government was overthrown, and Savonarola taught the people to set up a democratic form of government. The revival brought tremendous moral change. The people stopped reading vile and worldly books. Merchants made restitution to the people for the excessive profits they had been making. Hoodlums and street urchins stopped singing sinful songs and began to sing hymns in the streets. Carnivals were forbidden and forsaken. Huge bonfires were made of worldly books and obscene pictures, masks, and wigs. Children marched from house to house in procession singing hymns and calling everyone to repent and empty their house of every “vanity.”
A great octagonal pyramid of worldly objects was erected in the public square in Florence. It towered in seven stages sixty feet high and 240 feet in circumference. While bells tolled, the people sang hymns and the fire burned, reminiscent of Paul’s revival bonfire in Ephesus centuries before (Acts 19:18–20).
MARTYRDOM
The corrupt pope, the cardinals, and the priests were outraged. In time, the political and religious enemies incited a rough mob against Savonarola. They battered down the doors of the sanctuary of the convent where he was staying and captured him.
Savonarola was severely tortured as his enemies tried to get him to confess to heresy. His hands were bound behind him. He was hoisted to a great height and then dropped almost to the ground when the rope snapped him up again, pulling his shoulders out of joint and tearing his muscles. Burning coals were put to his feet to try to get him to recant. He refused. This was repeated several times. Returning to his cell, Savonarola would kneel and ask God to forgive the people.
Finally Savonarola and two companion monks were brought out to be executed before a mob of thousands of onlookers. An awesome silence settled down over the crowd. Savonarola’s last words were, “Should I not die willingly for Him who suffered so much for me?” He then communed so deeply with God that he seemed unaware of what was happening around him. He and his two friends were hanged in the public square, and then their bodies were burned.
ONE MAN CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
One lone man, totally surrendered to God, burning with passion for revival in the church and nation and the salvation of the people, had for several years turned the tide against evil in church, government, and the lives of the people. If God could use one Savonarola to bring such a mighty revival at such an impossible time, what could He not do in answer to a movement of truly prevailing prayer by the thousands of believers and Christian leaders who love Christ today? But will we prepare the way of the Lord through prayer like Savonarola did? Will we feed on God’s Word and memorize much of the Bible by heart as he did? Will we spend the nights and hours in prayer and fasting as he did?
Savonarola feared neither men nor demons. He exposed sin wherever he found it. He was a pioneer of the Protestant Reformation, though he was a loyal Roman Catholic even when the pope excommunicated him. Savonarola replied from his pulpit that we must obey God rather than man. He said the pope was a fallible person like every other sinner and could make mistakes and sin just as any other person. Savonarola pointed out that the current church leader, Pope Alexander, had illegally purchased his office with money and was not even a believer.
Martin Luther, as he grew up, was greatly influenced by the life, ministry, and death of Savonarola. Certainly Savonarola is one of the greatest heroes in the history of the Church and in the history of revival. He will stand before God’s judgment throne one day to witness against all who in these days have compromised their conscience and kept silent in order to secure favor and position in church, business, and government. He will denounce the cowards who failed to condemn sin in high places, who watered down their convictions in order to secure promotion, position, or power even in Christian denominations and organizations.
Continued praying…
Praying over Franklin Graham rally at the Capitol on June 16
We ask and call for an outpouring
More and more here in Minnesota
Every church, every ministry that calls on the name of Jesus
Every denomination, river, and tributary
Declaring a greater cooperation—a unity like never before
We need it today!
No longer status quo but breaking out and through
Laying hands on the sick and seeing them being healed
Starting with our Governor, our mayors, and all others in authority
Calling for a cleansing of our state through the blood of Jesus
Things being rearranged and changed around
Entering into better days, taking things by faith
Pushing out and pressing ahead—calling down high places, lifting up low places
Preparing the way for the move of God
It’s a press and it’s a layer, it is a foundation secure
For the glory of the Lord has arisen upon us
It’s a glorious church, it’s a glorious church
And the people continually seek Your Face, Father
They ask and they receive, they seek and the find, knock and the door is open
It’s the King’s Highway
Iron sharpens iron—they come to church
Pulling down strongholds in the name of Jesus
Calling it forward!
As David has cast off the armor of Saul, the Church is casting off the ways of the world!
Calling it up and calling it out
We are hungry for You that we may know You
The fellowship of Your sufferings that we would be conformable to Your death
Supernatural happenings taken place
The sleeping being awakened!
Pastor Paul shared…
Do you know what I am seeing? The people of this world will know that this is God. They will see somebody of such a small frame or stature doing so much and they are wondering, what kind of strength is in this person. They don’t have the frame of somebody who can carry that or who can do that yet they are executing such panache and such authority. It’s the Spirit of Might that’s in that caused the Philistines to know that there was something peculiar about Sampson. It was not because Sampson was big and had muscles like the way Hollywood portrays him. Sampson was so small that they look at him and said how can such a one put 200 foxes together, set their tails on fire burn them the whole farm. How can somebody like that take the gates of the city and walk away. They look at his frame and said this is incredible. It was the Spirit of Might that came upon him.
The Spirit of Might is restoring the Church to what it is supposed to be and people will see the people of God and will consider their frame and say how can such a people do so much and have so much breakthrough? They don’t know that there is a God that worketh in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Hallelujah.
Continued praying…
Father, we receive that!
The same power that raised Jesus from the grave
Holy Spirit power from heaven!
The hand of God, the power of God, the move of God
Thank You, Father!
Let the weak say “I am strong!”
Let the poor say “I am rich!”
Let the sick say “I am healed!”
Ms. Annie led us in lifting up His name in worship…
Continued praying…
Thank you for the suddenlies today, Lord
Sudden changes, openings, and breakthroughs—all throughout this day!
Thank You, Father, for the leading and direction of Your Spirit in us
We will be by faith be where we need to be and speak the words we need to speak
Thank You for this day in Jesus’ name
