The Great Awakening Conference exceeded all our expectations. The house was full, the excitement was palpable. People from all over the US and many from foreign countries gathered here in Branson and what a day we all shared! The hunger, the passion and the comraderie in the Spirit was a predictor of things to come – a Coming Great Awakening!
Prophet Russ Walden brought a prophetic word into events ahead regarding a new season of visitation and shaking in the earth. In the message below you will learn details, specific and how to position yourself for the good things ahead:
From Prophet Russell Walden:
INTRODUCTION:
There is going to be a Great Awakening in our time. This has been prophesied around the world and it has been prophesied here for decades by many well known and respected ministers and ministries. We are gathered here to speak into this vision and pray into this vision and to curate this vision that God has already established.
There is going to be a Great Awakening in our time. It will be the aftermath of a Great Disillusionment for the church. As a result God’s people will begin to pray with an intensity not seen since the early centuries of the church. In answer to this God will send a new Great Awakening. It will begin on the east coast of the US, and soon spread around the world. God is now calling up intercessors and spiritual moms and dad’s to have the spirit of a mid-wife to give birth to this that He is doing.
The coming Great Awakening will begin among the younger generation. The church will not initially accept this new generation of mission minded young people. They will be orphaned from the establishment church but will find their spiritual DNA in a contingent of servant minded mothers and fathers who will validate their zeal and passion for Christ. Affirmed by these spiritual mentors these young lions without religious pedigree will burst on the world scene with great fervor to confront the nations of the earth with the claims of Christ.
Just as the Evangelical movement was birthed from the Great Awakening in the 1700’s a new Evangelical movement will come forth from this awakening to redefine faith, church and Christian culture. The establishment church will become marginalized in the light of a new generation of radical Jesus loving believers.
It’s a new day says the Father and the invitation is extended to prepare to receive this generation He is raising up – to affirm and validate them as they pour their lives out like drink offerings to King Jesus. Toward that end we have convened this gathering because we believe and many prophets and seers before us have confirmed that Branson Missouri will have her portion in a great outpouring of God’s spirit. We cannot make it happen but we can stand in testament and speak into this vision and lean into with our prayers and our intercession.
This is a call to prayer and to prepare as apostolic mothers and fathers to receive this dynamic generation that the Lord is sending. In Branson Missouri God is extending an overture of this revival – foreseen by many gospel luminaries over the years. In a time of prayer God spoke this to me “Branson Missouri will have its moment as the Evangelical Center of the Earth” (8 years on God’s timetable [2 Pet. 3:8].
WHAT WAS THE GREAT AWAKENING?
In the 1700’s during a time known as the enlightenment or the age of reason a movement swept America that became known as the Great Awakening. It changed the way people thought about God and how they thought about themselves. It eventually came to define Christianity as we know it. The Great Awakening engaged the hearts of the people with an emotionally charged gospel of redemption and individual accountability to the Lordship of Jesus.
The Great Awakening focused on spiritual transformation, personal decision and dedication to Christ. The whole idea of “making a decision for Christ” was at the forefront of the Great Awakening. Before the Great Awakening the “altar call” was unknown in western Christianity. The New Birth suddenly became a matter of a personal encounter with Christ. Institutional religion was only valid after the Great Awakening insofar as it facilitated the spread of the gospel regarding personal salvation and the new birth. Missions were strongly emphasized and in time out of the Great Awakening was birthed a phenomena known as the Evangelical Movement.
Soon the Evangelical movement consolidated into various organizations and denominations. Everything outside it’s influence became marginalized and rendered ineffective. It came to be that Christianity outside of the Evangelical movement didn’t matter.
WHO WERE THE CARRIERS OF THE GLORY IN THE GREAT AWAKENING?
George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were prominent ministers in the Great Awakening. Their goal was to get their listeners to have a personal, emotional response to the message of Christ. They wanted their hearers to look into their own souls and become convinced of their need of a savior.
Jonathan Edwards is often credited with starting the Great Awakening in 1741 with his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. Imagine this. One day. One gathering. One singular response of the people and all of human history pivots away from secularism and rejection of Christ into a movement that entirely changed the parameters of what it meant to be a believer and what Christianity would look like in the earth.
Regarding the Great Awakening and its meetings: Jonathan Edwards encouraged people to come “not just for curiosity but from a sincere desire to know God and do your duty as a believer in Christ.” Mere curiosity and religious titillation was considered to be the hallmark of a lukewarm heart. He urged people not to apply the mandates of Christ to others (as the Puritans and Quakers were known to do) but to look into their hearts and ask ‘Lord is it I?’
George Whitefield taught people to have changed and repentant hearts. In the Western world Whitefield is credited with starting the practice of preaching in public because the organized churches in England would not give him a pulpit. Whitefield responded to the rejection of institutional religion by obeying God and taking the message from those that were initially invited out into the highways and by-ways where he found willing listeners.
Another well-known speaker by the name of James Davenport held public bonfires so his followers could burn the things that distracted them from kingdom seeking or tempted them to worldliness and pride. Non-religious books and luxury items were commonly cast into the flames. One night he derided the cult of celebrity and the idolatry of fashion and “fancy clothes”. Leading by example to the shock of the crowd he took off his pants and threw them into the fire!
These were men and women willing to push the envelope of acceptability. They would not take no for an answer. The legacy of the Great Awakening was to push the boundaries of Spiritual propriety outside the realm of tradition and religion. They took matters of faith out of the ghetto of religion and walked in the kingdom in the spheres of business, education, government, etc. The resulting reforms changed the way business was done, government was conducted and ultimately even slavery was ended and many other social ills of the day were addressed,
GENERATIONS THAT CHANGED HUMAN HISTORY:
John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement made the statement before his death that God is asking us to relinquish church as we know it for church as God wants it. Things are the way they are because of what WE are doing. If WE want something different we must DO something different. We cannot look to the world and lament how dark and how godless it is. We must look at ourselves and lament that we have become so powerless and such a laughingstock in the earth that the fear of God is no longer known among men as once it was.
In generations past the world trembled before the church and our leaders confronted nations. There came a day in the third century that world powers dared to no longer mock the Christ of Christianity in spite of centuries of persecution. In the third century we have an example of a church that in three generations brought the known world to its knees at the foot of the cross. The might of Rome was so bowed to the power of God that its emperor faced the fact that the future of the Roman Empire could only advance under the sign of the cross.
The early church was neither an activist church nor an insurgent church. It didn’t not take up arms or attempt to bring change through the legislative processes available to it. The church of the first, second and third centuries is remarkable for two things: 1.) the way they prayed; and 2.) the way the died. The Roman procurators who oversaw the martyrdoms of the early church complained to the emperor. They insisted that the Christians died so well that for every believer killed in the arena 100 were taking their place. The early church was not seen as a religion. In fact the ancient world though confronted with “those that have turned the world upside down” didn’t know how to deal with them. Most early Christians were not martyred for what they believed but were rather condemned and sentenced as atheists. This generation of believers defied definition. They didn’t fit. They challenged the status quo and intimidated every ancient institution with their zeal and passion for Jesus.
A RADICAL COMMITMENT TO THE GOSPEL:
There is rising again such a generation in the earth. There is coming a generation of believers who will sell their lives cheap for the cause of Christ. As the Moravians of old their watchword will be “may the lamb receive the reward of His suffering. Jihadist extremism will pale before the burning love for God this generation will exemplify. They will confront nations and the media will be unable to ignore them. The church will be unable to marginalize them. Young people will go into the mission field with nothing but a passport and a bible and will willingly sacrifice their lives for the cause of Christ.
Again this Great Awakening will be known for two things – the way they pray and the way they die. Martyrdoms will surge to a level that hasn’t been seen since the early church. They will pray on a scale that hasn’t been seen since the days that Paul was writing the New Testament.
THE GREAT AWAKENING AND THE ESTABLISHMENT CHURCH:
On the east coast this revival will break out led by unlikely young people out of the rural areas of Pennsylvania and the Appalachians. Governors and city leaders will convene to consider what response is necessary to quell a movement they don’t understand. This Great Awakening generation will have a COMPLETE disconnect from what they will term “THE ESTABLISHMENT CHURCH”. The establishment church will reject this movement though its ranks will be filled with their own children. This movement will not initially accept full gospel, Charismatic, or Pentecostal doctrine or practice. They will identify these influences as part of the establishment church and reject them completely.
Let it be known that this Great Awakening will not validate the Pentecostal, Charismatic, Full Gospel demographic in the modern church. BUT if Spirit filled Christians will reach out to this generation and love them and accept them and give them the affirmation denied them – then they will accept the baptism of the Holy Ghost, Signs, Wonders, and the Gifts of the Spirit. When this happens there will be a detonation of revival outpouring that will challenge the world on a scale unprecedented in modern times.
AN EXAMPLE FROM OUR TIMES:
Do we have any modern examples of this kind of movement? Fuller Theological Seminary claims that the Jesus Movement of the 1960’s and 70’s actually brought more people to Christ that the Great Awakening did. The Jesus Movement was an orphaned outpouring. Even in the churches where it was tolerated the environment was toxic to the revival. Kids were rejected because of the way they dressed, how they talked, the way the smelled – by a powerless church that didn’t come close to having the effectiveness that this rowdy, unkempt, unruly generation did in bringing millions to Christ.
HOW WILL THESE THINGS BE?
How will the Next Great Awakening come? There is coming ahead for the church in America and the church in the Western World what will be called “the Great Disillusionment”. The establishment church in America is about to be disenfranchised in the political arena in such a way that their political aspirations will be publicly and openly crushed. As a result they will turn from these dependencies and begin to pray on an unprecedented scale. They will cry out to God as they did in the Great Depression and in answer to prayer God will send this Outpouring. He will answer their prayer but they will not understand the answer He sends. As a result the establishment church will become a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.
THE GREAT AWAKENING IN WESTERN EUROPE:
In spite of the lack of endorsement from established churches and groups this movement will ignite in the city of London and in Northern England and Northern Ireland. Africa will pay its love debt to the United Kingdom for its missionary efforts on the dark continent during the days of when the sun never set on the British Empire.
Out of the Arabian Peninsula will come young, apostolic reformers inspired to come to Christ by the martyrdoms of young westerners. They will come out of the ranks ISIS and Alcaida and other Jihadist groups. Some will have been persecutors of the faith just as the Apostle Paul was in his day. They will leave the so-called apostolic leaders of the western church in total disarray and unable to reply to the burning intensity of these passionate young Arabic apostles. They will be called false, Jihadist spies, anti-Christ, etc., but their ministries will be vindicated by signs, miracles and wonders. Homeland security will attempt to apprehend them and be unable to because angels will protect them.
WHAT IS YOUR PART IN ALL OF THIS?
Are you willing to be an advance worker in this outpouring? Are you willing to place yourself in advance of this outpouring as Father David Nash did in advance of Charles Finney’s revivals? Nash would go ahead of Finney a year ahead of time to pray for revival and when Finney showed up people would run out of their homes begging for repentance and whole communities were transformed. When Nash retired Finney quit preaching revival because the power was gone. Are you willing to be a part? Are you willing to pray into this? Or are you going to sit back and observe with a wait and see attitude – to which posture the KINGDOM WILL NEVER COME.
WHAT ABOUT BRANSON?
God spoke to me in prayer a few months ago saying “Branson Missouri will have its moment as the Evangelical Center of the Earth”. Do we have examples of this? Are there cities that were ground zero for what became spiritual movements with a much broader context? Think Azusa Street, Pensacola, New Hebrides, the Welsh Revival under Evan Roberts, and others too numerous to mention.
Since coming here we have connected with several other men and women of God who were led to Branson at about the same time. Apostle Don Matison, Prophet Jess Bielby, Missionary Bob Alarid, others to be sure. They didn’t come here with any financial backing or promise of gain. They came at their own expense, selling themselves into what they perceived by the Spirit was a great thing about to happen in this city.
Where does Branson come in and why would God be interested in doing anything in the Ozarks of Missouri? There are fewer than 10,000 permanent residents here yet 7 million people come here every year as tourists. Branson’s reputation is that of honoring God, family values and patriotism. The only city in the world that compares to Branson in terms of being God focused is the Vatican (for different reasons). After traveling the country and ministering in 66 cities throughout the nation the Lord told us to speak into and pray into the established vision for Branson Missouri. Corrie Ten Boom saw an open vision of angels 5 deep over Branson. She declared God was going to do something special here. Nora Lam – the great Chinese evangelist saw angels standing protectively at the four corners of the Ozarks and prophesied a mighty move of God would come here. The same prophet who prophesied to Steve Hill about going to Pensacola and that he would see a mighty move of God – this same man (Michael Ratliff) prophesied over Branson that it would see a like outpouring. Others such as Maria Von Trapp, Billye Brim, Gwen Shaw, etc. have seen such things and come to Branson and the Ozarks in anticipation of what they were convinced God is going to do.
WE ARE DEPENDENT UPON THE HOLY SPIRIT:
We cannot make this outpouring happen. But we can stand in testimony of it and speak into it, pray into it and lean into it with our faith. This prophesied revival will not happen if we merely wait and wonder and roll our eyes at every newcomer to our city seeking God’s promise here. There are many in the area that hold themselves to be THE authority over the coming TRI-LAKES REVIVAL and they have fallen into skepticism and a critical spirit. We forgive them beforehand. This will not come with merely waiting and watching. We must DO something. Our faith is not measured by our words but our actions. This Tri-lakes Revival is not the Great Awakening but will serve as a staging ground, a launching place, a support to what is coming. It will be the “cloud the size of a man’s hand” that Elijah saw when God told Him to get ready for a drought-ending downpour.
Jesus said in Luke 17:20,21 that the kingdom doesn’t come with observation. We must do something. What must we do? John Wesley said “God will do nothing but in answer to prayer…” The Lord told me one day – “I am perfect, sinless, resurrected, and at the right hand of the Father. If I have to pray – you have to pray”.
The works of God you are not praying into you do not believe in.
LET US PRAY:
Will you pray? Will you persevere in prayer? Will you pray “until”? We don’t need a prediction or a prophecy to know we need a resurgence of godliness and spiritual hunger in our land and in the world. God is calling on us to pray out what He has already determined in His sovereignty to do. One writer in a book titled “Let us Pray” says this:
1. God communicates His will
2. We Discern His will as He has communicated it.
3. We return His will back to Him in Prayer.
4. Then He does His will in answer to prayer.
We all want change and see the need for change. Politics are not the answer. We are about to find that out unequivocally in the next few years. The overthrow of the Federal government is not the answer – as some well known ministers have suggested. I volunteered to work for Pat Robertson’s presidential bid in the 80’s and the Lord told me “Go home you don’t have permission to do this”! I asked why and He gave me this verse:
Zec. 4:6 – It’s not by might, not by power but by My Spirit says the Lord…”
It isn’t that we can’t get some things done in these arenas but the fact is you cannot solve the problem on the level of the problem. You must ascend – and the path of ascension is in prayer. Do you see the threat to our faith in the earth today? We flew to the United Kingdom and on the way over everyone was handed a piece of paper that said “if you are coming to preach in the UK without government sanction we will turn you back at the terminal…” Our legislative bodies, our presidents and military, our court systems are mocking our faith and thumbing their nose at gospel values. You can’t solve the problem on the level of the problem and if you are waiting and watching you are a part of the darkness and not the light. We must DO something – and that is to pray.
This meeting will have been a success if there is a prayer response. There are those here called to focus your prayer efforts on the coming great awakening. There are those who not involved at all in prayer groups that are to go home and organize a prayer group that will ACTUALLY PRAY and not just say they pray. There are those here that God wants you to connect with the prayer initiatives available on your welcome card, please do so and we will be in touch with you. Prayer changes things and THINGS ARE ABOUT TO CHANGE!
LET US PRAY TOGETHER FROM THE BOOK OF ACTS:
[Act 4:24-37 KJV] 24 And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou [art] God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: 25 Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? 26 The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. 27 For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. 29 And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, 30 By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.
The Result for them is recorded in history and for us it will be no different:
31 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. 32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: 33 And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
Message from the Great Awakening Conference
