The Last Big Wave

S-ubject: The move of God

C-entral Theme: Getting serious with God

O-bjective: Every young person can be sold out and committed to God by understanding threeprinciples about a move of God.

R-ationle:

Principle #1: There is always a outcry for Repentance

Principle #2: There is always opportunity for Restoration

Principle #3: There is always an outpouring of Power

R-esources:

Introduction: "Swiss Watchmakers and the Move of God" (internet)

Illustration #1: "Funny Isn’t" (e-mail)

Illustration:#2: "Trial of Rudolf Hess" (Fresh Ideas Ó 1997)

Conclusion: "The Orphan Girl" (Hot Illustrations Ó 1996 Youth Specialties)

INTRODUCTION: Swiss Watchmakers and The Move of God

If people would have been asked in 1968 which nation would dominate the world in watch making during the 1990s and into the twenty-first century the answer would have been uniform: Switzerland. Why? Because Switzerland had dominated the world of watch making for the previous sixty years.

The Swiss made the best watches in the world and were committed to constant refinement of their expertise. It was the Swiss who came forward with the minute hand and the second hand. They led the world in discovering better ways to manufacture the gears, hearings, and mainsprings of watches. They even led the way in waterproofing techniques and self-winding models. By 1968, the Swiss made 65 percent of all watches sold in the world and laid claim to as much as 90 percent of the profits.

By 1980, however, they had laid off thousands of watch-makers and controlled less than 10 percent of the world market. Their profit domination dropped to less than 20 percent. Between 1979 and 1981, fifty thousand of the sixty-two thousand Swiss watchmakers lost their jobs. Why? The Swiss had refused to consider a new development-the Quartz movement-ironically, invented by a Swiss. Because it had no main-spring or knob, it was rejected. It was too much of a paradigm shift for them to embrace. Seiko, on the other hand, accepted it and, along with a few other companies, became the leader in the watch industry.

The lesson of the Swiss watchmakers is profound. A past that was so secure, so profitable, so dominant was destroyed by an unwillingness to consider the future. It was more than not being able to make predictions-it was an inability to re-think how they did business. Past success had blinded them to the importance of seeing the implications of the changing world and to admit that past accomplishment was no guarantee of future success.

James Enery White, Rethinking The Church, Baker Books, 1998, p. 20

APPLICATION: Many young people and people are this way with the Spirit of God or a move of God. They are afraid to get on the wave of God’s Spirit and ride it because they have never done it before or they are doing fine just the way they are. God is going to pour out His Spirit one last time before Jesus comes back are you ready for the Last Big Wave?

SCRIPTURE TEXT:

(Joel 2:28-32 NIV) ’And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. {29} Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. {30} I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. {31} The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. {32} And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

Three Principles we must understand about a move of god in order for us to experience the last big Wave of the Spirit of God...................

I. THERE IS ALWAYS AN OUT CRY FOR REPENTANCE

A. A SORROW THAT LEADS TO HOPE

1. When God begins to move among people there is a cry for holiness that is issued and must be answered. The Holy Spirit begins to convict people of sin and bring them to a place of sorrow but a place that gives them hope not condemnation and hopelessness.

2. Our action of repentance is done out of need for hope. Without hope we are a lost people doomed and destined for annihilation. And our hope is none other than Jesus himself.

3. Sorrow is not a bad thing. Sorrow should always lead us to repentance and in repentance we have hope for the forgiveness of our sins. Not sorry that you have been caught with you hand in the cookie jar but that you realize that you where wrong and that you have broken the heart of God.