A wonderful time of musical worship. Whew!
We heard the story of Jaye Thomas. He spoke inspirationally of the end of his old life.
The evening keynote was Anne Graham Lotz. This woman does have an uncommon gift of God to preach salvation and grace. Her opening thought was a quote from Zephaniah 3:19 when God said, "I will rescue the lame..." I forgot what she said just after that because THAT made me cry.
She elected to speak about the Holy Spirit last night. I'll try to avoid the doctrinal points over which people may disagree; however, she said a lot.
She gave a great illustration of a man who went to the hardware store to buy the best saw he could buy because he had some work to do. He took their recommendation of an excellent chain saw and went home. A few days later he returned to the store all disheveled, dirty and dog tired. He said that he was having a hard time with the saw...and the work was very difficult. The man at the counter said he was curious about that...and pulled the cord and the saw whirred to life. The customer was shocked. He hadn't known to activate the power!
She asked the question: "Have you been trying to do this without ever activating the power?" John 16:5-15
From there she spoke of the character and personality of Holy Spirit...revealing again that He is the one who reveals and extols Jesus. The Holy Spirit doesn't lie, doesn't deceive, doesn't betray. He is just like Jesus. He is not mean, not rude, not bitter, not sinful...He is the spirit of truth. When he talked about Jesus' promise that when he left he would send another counselor....she elaborated. She said that another means another one of the same kind. Jesus comforted them with the promise that we would come to them another way. Then, at Pentecost, he did. He come in power and filled that room. The beauty of Pentecost was that they were NOT alone.
The response time developed slowly but some were saved and many come determined to take God's offering to help them.