We had The Mission Tuesday night as usual. But things are never usual at an urban outreach.

I preached on living a double life and how Jesus never changes. I gave a warning about playing in the anointing and then playing in the world. I felt the need to warn the people who come and minister and then lead a double life on the outside. The Mission has become their God time break and then they leave and go back to nonsense.

Don’t fool yourself. Randomly pick 10 on fire young people in your church and visit the pictures on their MySpace page. I guarantee you you will find near pornography on many of them.

I talked about how you can probably live a mildly Christian life and make it to heaven but if you want to be part of the end time harvest it is going to cost you something. And if you throw your hat into the ring and seek the anointing of God, and turn back to the world, the devil will be waiting. Choose wisely I told them.

The conviction fell and I invited all those making the choice for Jesus to come forward for prayer. Among them was a guy I will call Jimmy.

Jimmy had come off and on. He has a (fallen) angel that visits him at night. Sometimes it tells him that he is Jesus. Other times it tells him to do really bad things. I am not making this up. about a month and a half ago he came and ran out of the house at the altar call. I later found out that the angel had told him to come to the meeting, listen to the message, and then kill me and two other guys. After the message he left because he did not want to kill us. Thank you Jesus! This guy is about 6′4″ and over 300 lbs (135 kg, 21.4 stone).

I was happy he wanted prayer . . . for a minute.

When I began to pray he almost instantly began to manifest. He began to grunt and growl. He clenched his fists and tightened his jaw and began to snarl. His eyes turned blood red and he began to stare at me as if I was a lineman on the opposing team. Apparently I had stumbled onto something.

I began to command the demon to stop manifesting and to come out of the man but it would not budge. When the manifestations would increase I would rebuke the demon and tell it that it could not put on a show. I would then command it to leave until it began to increase the manifestations again. There was a minute when the people kind of gathered around, stopped worshiping, and began to stare in wonder. Fortunately my disciple let them to begin worshiping God who is the only one who can truly deliver.

I have found that one of the keys to deliverance ministry is to establish that the enemy has no authority in the person. I normally lead the person in a confession regarding the birth, life, death, resurrection, and the second coming of Jesus. After this I tell the demon that they have no authority and that it has to leave. Sometimes confession of specific sins is required or the renouncing of sin, but you get the idea.

So I say to this guy, “Repeat after me, Jesus is alive.”

He says, “Jesus is a lie.”

Huh? Maybe I heard him wrong, “Repeat after me, Jesus is alive.”

“Jesus is a lie.”

Wow, that sounded pretty clear that time. That was a new one for me. Not exactly knowing where to go from here I say, “Say – Jesus – IS – ALIIIIVVVEE.”

“Jesus … IS … A … LIIIIIEEEE.”

Hmmm. I was a communication major in college so I can make a sentence more than one way. You want to play games? I can play games.

“Say, Jesus lives.” HAH! Try to mess that one up! Got you devil!

He looks me dead in the eyes and says,

“I am alive.”

Wow! Wasn’t expecting that one. We are now on uncharted territory for Carl Thomas Ministries (if there were such a thing). I pulled the ole ace in the hole and the devil trumped me with a joker. But now I was stuck. This thing was like engaging a pitbull. You can’t just attack it for a minute or two and then walk away. One of you is going down. And every time this thing would manifest this spirit of fear would try to jump on me. And I knew if I let it take root that this guy would split my head open.

And I really did not want that to happen. I like my head just like it is.

So I decided that since Jimmy asked for ministry, that was all the authority I needed. I grabbed this guys head with both hands and began to command every demon in his life to leave. I normally don’t use that language because it is not necessary. I normally just declare freedom and the devil has to leave. But we were way beyond niceties.

I told the devil to get out of him and leave in the name of Jesus. Then Jimmy began to cough so hard I though I might see his liver. You might not believe this next part but I then saw all these demons standing around looking kind of bewildered like, “What happened?” It was almost funny.

I had someone open the front door and I told them, “Get out!”

Needless to say a real soberness came over the prayer time and several others were delivered that night.

The devil truly is defeated and has no authority in the believer. We can all agree with that, right? But does he have authority in my appliances?

The next day my washing machine completely died. It seems every time I have some sort of spiritual breakthrough, something breaks in my house. Once I had a really seasoned minister who has been mightily used in revival come to dinner. The garbage disposal decided to die as they showed up. I have lost my microwave in these times, my refrigerator, my car has broken down as has my van and various plumbing issues. These regularly happen when I see these types of things. This all leads me to believe that the devil does not mind me so much but he hats my appliances.

Coincidence? Maybe so. But it is annoying none the less.

Remember that old Steve Martin movie, The Jerk? “He hates these cans!”

This post is one part testimony, two part prayer request.

I have done lots of posts about a Tuesday night outreach I have been leading. last week a lady from my church wanted to come and see what was happening. She later confessed to me that t one point she was actually scared for her safety. I shouted Halleuijah! That means we are attracting exactly the crowd we feel called to reach. The young urban knuckle heads.

Last week we had almost 40 people in a living room and man did it get hot! I was there worshiping when the Holy Ghost said, “Why don’t you take off your shirt?” Mind you, I had on a t-shirt underneath, but I was thinking, “I am about to preach.” Thankfully it was a new shirt because I preached the Gospel that night in a wife beater to a group of young men who find that suitable attire.

Among the (many) people flopping around on the floor was a Mormon girl who missed her flight back to Arizona because of a traffic jam on the way to the airport. One guy who got saved was the roommate of a crack dealer that has been coming (we believe that this dealer is the gateway to nothing short of a revival so please pray for his deliverance and salvation).

This Saturday we are going to have a big blowout with performances and almost a real service. We are expecting over 100 to show up. Here are the flyers: (click them for a larger view)

click for larger view

click for larger view

Would you please pray for the lost to be saved? We have gone into every hood we can find inviting people. We really need the grace of God in this thing and are hoping for a real move of God. This is not going to be some Billy Graham crusade. We are praying for the supernatural to manifest. We want miracles, signs and wonders. This generation has heard the Gospel but has never experienced the full Gospel. It is my goal to make that an unavoidable fact.

I have been tagged by my friend Mark to share 5 things I really dig about Jesus. This is actually my first meme so I got a little excited. Then I began to think about Jesus and I got even more excited.

Here is my list. It is definitely not all conclusive:

1. He is not of this realm. Though He did come here, He did not stay here and wants to take us where He is. Gal 1:3-4

2. He is focused on things I cannot even see yet. I was praying about my broken washing machine the other day and Jesus showed me a vision of a church I will preach in one day … in London. (thats about 4500 miles / 7100 km away) Truly my thoughts are not His thoughts.

3. When Jesus says He is coming to an event, He shows up. Every single word of knowledge I have had in conjunction with preaching has been fulfilled. I got two words of knowledge for my meeting last night a week ago. I pronounced them and Jesus came and healed.

4. He is always wanting to meet new people. I cannot tell you how many people I have laid hands on who have had a vision of Jesus. He almost always embraces them. That’s really really cool!

5. He is absolutely on fire for the Father’s business. I don’t have any lost friends. I don’t have any lukewarm friends. All my friends are focused on the Gospel and on fire for God. But Jesus stands out from all of them. He has more revelation to share, more testimonies to give, more prophesies to proclaim, more exhortation to declare, more fire to impart than anyone I have ever met by a long shot. Hanging out with Him is more fulfilling than with anyone else. When my friends get together we preach to each other all night each building upon what the other said. With Jesus, you speak once, then spend the rest of the conversation trying to get your mind around what He says in return.

Ok, I stretched that last one a bit but I only had 5 remember?

So now I am supposed to tag 5 others so here we go:

David – Sure to be something firey.
Michael – Sure to be something well thought out and doctrinally sound with that Vineyard flair.
Chet – Can you say graphics?
Rich - If he completes it, (remember that “imminent” post on Ted Haggard back in November of last year?) it will be in several months and contain thousands of words. Some pro-gay group will surely comment on it and tell how Carlton Pearson is the greatest man since Moses.
slw -  Don’t ask. I have no idea what slw stands for.

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In line with my decision to blog about all things mundane Acts 19:11, I had a fun time at The Mission, the outreach we are doing on Tuesday nights.

I worte in earlier posts about some young men that got right and are now doing some spirit filled hip hop.  Well I am leading their home group as a missions base.  Each week they try to get as many friends from their former life to come to a group we hold on their back porch.

The group starts at 10 p.m. and I leave around midnight.  In those two hours anything can happen.

Last night we had over 20 folks there with about four who had never steped into a church in their lives.  I preached on sanctification through the power of the Holy Ghost.  Some real Keswick type doctrine (I am pentecostal you know).  Then I had ministry time.  This is when it gets fun.

Last week I cast the vision for the group.  At the end, I said that everyone who was there was going to receive power to reach their lost friends and a burden for the lost.  I told them that I was not going to have an altar call.  The fact that they were there meant that they were in.  If they did not want God to use them to reach the lost for His glory then they would have to leave.  One girl did.  I saw her through the sliding glass door a little later crying.  Appearantly she was trying to get out of the house but she couldn’t.  The Holy Ghost would not let her.

She said, "I kept saying, ‘I gotta get out of here.  I gotta get out of here’ but I couldn’t."  She showed up back on the porch weeping.  She recommitted her life to Jesus, received deliverance and the Baptism in the Holy Ghost.  Needless to say, she showed up back this week.

This week all the lost confessed their need for salvation and many were touched.  To make a long story short, I left at midnight.  I wanted to leave before the police shoed up.  There were a half dozen young men rolling around on patio laughing and yelling under the power of the Holy Ghost.  We could not get then to quiet down.  The mother of the young men came out to try to get them quiet.  Her nine year old son followed.  We prayed for him and he hit the ground praying in tongues for the first time.

As Bill Johnson would say :Good stuff.

I know a bunch of you out there have active ministries and active lives and manage to post to your blogs regularly.  You are better than me.  But lately it has been really hectic for me.

I preach at an outreach every Tuesday and preach a service every Friday.   I have done a wedding each of the past two weeks and will preach an additional time Wednesday night of this week.  And don’t forget I don’t preach for a living.  I have to hustle to make ends meet through secular employment.

But this week on top of trying to work to support my family and before preaching Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have to do my first funeral tomorrow.  Doing the funeral is no big deal except the person was not saved.  And nobody in the family is saved (except maybe the chain smoking lady who is married to the ex-husband of the deceased).  Oh, and I did not know her, or her family.

When I talked to the family they said things like, “She was really stubborn.”  and “she was a complete narcissist.”   Not exactly memories of comfort to pepper your sermon with.

So if you are less busy than me, please pray that I get some level of wisdom for this funeral.

And if you happen to have a funeral sermon on your desk that is suitable for a stubborn narcissist that did not know the Lord that I could deliver to a room full of people who have no faith in the Scriptures would you mind emailing it to revivalblog@gmail.com?

Thanks

My family sat down for devotions on Resurrection Sunday when my 6 year old son announced that he wanted to read a story about the resurrection that he had written.  As the family sat around the dinner table waiting for the story to begin, my son cleared his throat then said, “I think I need a microphone.”

I told my son that real pentecostal preachers don’t need microphones.

I think we might be going to church too much.