MK Gantt Ministries

I was awakened out of a sound sleep. There was no noise – no loud bang, no voices – but I sat bolt upright in my bed. I was awakened by the voice of God (not aloud, it was in my spirit, but it might as well have been audible) I heard God speak. In my spirit I heard a single Word: “SUDDENLY!”

In those pre-dawn hours of the morning I reached for my little brown notebook that I always keep nearby and started to write down the thoughts as they flooded my spirit. I heard God’s voice as clearly as the voice of my waitress at breakfast this morning when she said, “Good Morning!”

SUDDENLY

I was awake instantly the same as if someone had stuck their head in the door of my bedroom and shouted, “Wake Up!” I wasn’t drowsy or sleepy. I wasn’t befuddled or disoriented. I was wide awake, alert – Of all the things I know, I know when I’ve heard God’s voice and during the night watch of that day I heard His voice.

I knew it was important. 

I knew it was prophetic.

I knew it was a word for this day, for this hour. 

In the early morning hours of Shavuot the disciples were gathered into an upper room. There was a sudden outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As they stood on the mount of Olives just 10 days before, Jesus instructed the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait – to wait for the promise that would come from the Father. They didn’t really know what they were waiting for – They didn’t know what it would look like, or sound like, and they didn’t know what the outcome would be. They just knew that Jesus had told them to wait. I believe they were waiting with a great sense of expectation when suddenly, there was the sound of a mighty rushing wind.

It didn’t come from the temple. It didn’t come from the priests. It didn’t come from the altar of sacrifice. It didn’t come from the King. . .it didn’t come from the government, and it didn’t come from Caesar – IT CAME FROM HEAVEN. 

And when it came – it blew them out of the building and into the streets. A new friend of mine recently said this: “The early church prayed in the House of God, but they preached in the streets.”

Many of us are praying for revival. I hear it all over New England and all over the country. But I want to tell you this: When revival comes it will drive us out of our buildings out of our buildings into the streets. It will drive us out of our comfort zones into uncharted territory. I am praying for revival in the church. I am believing for it; and I am convinced that when it comes it will be outrageous, it will be shocking, it will be unprecedented –– and it will come suddenly! 

I hear many of my brothers describing what this coming revival will look like, what it will sound like, what will be the results, as if somehow we are in charge. 

My friends, we are not in charge of what God is doing. We don’t get to put limits on it, we don’t get to put boundaries, or expectations. When it comes it will come from Heaven. The next wave of the Spirit will come suddenly and it will come from Heaven. 

It won’t come from the White House, or from Congress. It won’t come from a pulpit or from a preacher. It won’t come from a prophet, or a healer, or a miracle worker. It won’t come from a televangelist

It will come from heaven –– directly from the Throne room. No man will control it, no group will manage it, no one will make a new CD and market it. No one  will understand it, comprehend it, explain it, or copyright it. 

We have too many believers who have gotten saved to a church, saved to a preacher, saved to a worship style, saved. . .but they haven’t been transformed. Saul of Tarsus fell to the ground because the Risen Christ suddenly appeared before him.  The man who stood up was not Saul of Tarsus, but Paul the Apostle. He was a man who had been transformed.

We know Bible verses aplenty – but so many of us haven’t been transformed. They know all the worship songs but their lives are not transformed. They go to church, they stand at the right time, they sit at the right time, they show up for all of the meetings, they know all of the rules but they haven’t been transformed.

When we pray for revival we often envision great meetings, packed churches, crowds flocking to hear our preachers. But when the next wave comes we are going to see men suddenly transformed. We are going to be different. We are going to be different husbands, different fathers, different mothers, transformed preachers, transformed elders, and changed deacons. We are not going to be simply “saved.” We are going to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

I live and work in a community of prisoners. Our community is filled with men and women who are imprisoned by drugs, alcohol, sexual perversion, occult practices/witchcraft, humanism, the philosophies and wisdom of man. They are imprisoned just like Peter was in prison in Acts 12.

These men and women don’t need therapy. They don’t need counseling, group sessions, or alternative addictions that amount to the same thing, only different. These folks don’t need a hand out, they don’t need a government check, or free housing – they need to be released from their prisons.

Peter didn’t get a visit from a prison chaplain, or a social worker, or the prison psychiatrist. He didn’t receive a New Testament from a Gideon and he wasn’t given anger management sessions or classes on how to control his sexual urges.

No, an angel of the Lord came to him right in the midst of his prison. He had a holy visitation by a holy ambassador, sent directly from the Throne of Heaven. His chains fell off, the prison doors opened, the guards and those that would keep him bound were unable to see it or stop it. Peter was powerfully, completely, suddenly released from his chains. 

I’m not casting blame toward anyone. I’m not pointing any fingers to anyone. . . .else. I’m gripped with this thing for myself. I’m sick to my stomach that I often feel so powerless, so inadequate, so bound up in my own unbelief, that I can’t walk up to an addict, slap him on the shoulder and say “Come on, we’re getting you out of this prison!”

I am praying, begging, pleading with God to come upon us suddenly with great power, with great anointing, with great Holy Ghost confidence, with a holy boldness to go in where only angels have trod –  set the captives free!  

I am fully confident that I can’t “work this up.” I need something from Heaven to fall on me SUDDENLY to break the chains of my own religious bondage, to set me free from my own self-righteous, religious chains. What I need will only come from heaven.  Men and women are dying in my town every day, and often I stand before the Lord and say, “Our church programs are not enough, our food programs are not enough, our outreach programs are not enough. 

GOD! WE NEED A SUDDEN EXPLOSION OUT OF HEAVEN!