Revival Conference 2007 - Ralph Sutera - Part 4 — Ralph Sutera

Restitution Turns a Community Toward God

Of stolen goods around the community. The newspaper office was getting reports something's happening in the city. What's going on? The pastor said, you know, maybe we should send a report into the newspaper and let them know a little bit what's happening.

But he thought, you know, this newspaper is not conducive to helping us in anything spiritual here. I said, let's try. So I went with the pastor and we took the report in and the editor of the newspaper said, oh, you're too late.

He said, look here. And he shows us an article that he had written. And he said, look what it says. And it's going to be on the front page of the newspaper. Morality in the wake of a revival. Why was he writing it?

He was getting phone calls from the department stores. What's going on? We have all kinds of people telling us that they've stolen goods here in the department store and want to make them right. Well, what's going on?

The grocer calls and says, a lady comes and she says, they didn't ring up a 99 cent bag of potatoes that should have been rung up. And I knew it was not rung up, but I stole it and God has spoken to my heart and I've got to make it right.

And the manager of the grocery store says, when she came to me like that, I just put my hands on my head and I said, oh no, not another one. He said, you're the sixth person that has come to me today to make something right.

All at once, the reconciliation and restitution turned the eyes of a community on God. The newspaper reporter, the editor said, I get a phone call from the police department. The police department said, what's going on in town?

Nighttime crime is at an all-time low. What's happening? God was at work. We pick up the Saturday newspaper where all the churches have the advertisements and we look, 12 churches cancel their services.

Churches Join the Revival and Build the Kingdom of God

We now join the revival that is happening in our city. Word to God that God would get a hold of some church people in some cities where we begin to understand that we're not building our own little kingdoms, but we're building the kingdom of God.

I can tell you, it's great when you see that begin to happen and the community sees God at a different level. Well, all at once, things happen. Well, we ended on Grey Cup Sunday in Canada with 4 ,000 people in the large auditorium.

You know what Grey Cup Sunday is like in Canada? Sure, I'll tell you what it is. It's Super Bowl Sunday down here. You know what that's like? Why, we even have churches that dismiss services on that night, or we have churches that change the time of their service to accommodate Super Bowl here.

In fact, we even have some churches that have Super Bowl for the Sunday night service, and they have, and at the intermission, they have their 10-minute service. Isn't that a nice one? But there are 4 ,000 people, snowstorm all around to see what God was doing.

Revival Brings Personal Healing and Reconciliation

Well, what was happening? Well, I can tell you one lady came to the meeting. She said, Lord, if you don't heal me tonight, I'm jumping off the bridge. Another lady, she and her husband took in a woman whose husband had left her, only to find that that woman then began to run around with her husband, or began to get interested in her husband.

And the bottom line is, then she runs off with this woman's husband. And when her children would come home from school with books from school, Alice in Wonderland, and this woman would say, it's Alice in Blunderland.

That's the name of the woman that ran off with her husband. And that woman was good for the psychiatrists, all kinds of pills she was on, and if God had not touched her life, she'd either be insane or in the grave today.

And what a sight to see when God broke her heart, and she saw her bitterness, and how God put love within her heart for that husband. That situation has not changed. But I can tell you, in March of this year, she was there in the conference that we had in the very city where the revival broke out.

And you see the glory of God on her life, and the way God has anointed her and gifted her to be able to minister to people. Toronto Seminary chaplain, he came from the eastern part of the country to find out what was happening.

In fact, many of the Christian periodicals were sending reporters to find out what was happening. People said, is it a youth revival? Is it a youth revival? Said, the generation gap never had a chance.

Revival Unites Generations in Prayer

We had 25-year-olds praying with 75-year-olds. We had 18-year-olds praying with 88-year-olds. I'm just using some figures. They were saying, we just want to be one. We just want to be together, because God was at work, and there's no generation gap.

Well, what about that seminary chaplain? He goes back to Toronto, and one of the students says, I knew I had to be in chapel that next day, because I saw the chaplain's face, and I knew something happened to him.

Extended Chapel Revival Produces Repentance

Well, I can tell you what happened. Chapel service started at 10 o 'clock in the morning. Bill McLeod was there administering 10 minutes. He and God broke in on the scene, and what started at 10 o 'clock in the morning ended at 1 .30 a .m. the next morning.

All kinds of people making things right, getting off their knees, going to the telephone, calling their parents, making things right. One pastor in northern Manitoba said, if God doesn't do something for me, I'll never preach again.

He said, I had to travel 700 miles to attend my own funeral. You know what he's saying, to die to myself. And he said he went back to his church, and people began to get saved week after week as a result of it.

Conversion Leads a Fugitive to Confession

There was a fugitive criminal who was just passing through the city, and by chance, oh, just by chance, he was led to the meetings. Just by chance. Hmm. Coincidence, isn't it? Guess what? He got saved.

And he turns around and goes to the police department, and he turns himself in and saying, I'm a fugitive criminal, and I'm turning myself in, and I'm ready to have whatever is necessary for me to make it right.

And the police department in the city of Saskatoon said, why did you do it in our town? He said, because it was in your town that Jesus Christ has become Lord of my life, and I want to make it right. The bottom line is that he, his wife came later, she was saved, and three children, a whole family born again as a result of it.

Repentance Requires Financial Restitution

Workman's compensation. A man lied that he was injured on the job, and God got a hold of him and said, when are you going to make that right? He had thousands of dollars already given to him through workman's compensation.

And he turns, and he goes back to the people in charge and says, I'm ready to go to jail, I'm ready to pay it all back, whatever is necessary to be thoroughly right with God. Well, there was a man and his wife who traveled with us.

It was marvelous what God did in their lives, but I can tell you that he began to pray for his daughter going to the University of Alberta, and the Lord said to him, Henry, quit praying for your daughter's safety and for her to have a good year until you go back to the university where you cheated on that last term paper for your final exam and for your diploma.

Who was he? An administrator in the education department in the city. One of the leading educators of the city. Now God gets a hold of him, saying, when are you going to go back and make that right? Quit praying for your daughter.

And he went and made it right with the university. What about those who had stolen goods from Oneida Stainless Steel Company on the job? How to make it right? A man writes a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Revival Exposes Sin and Ends Business as Usual

Yes, sir, you better fix up some kind of a conscience fund, because there's going to be lots of Christians in Western Canada who are going to be sending you money that they cheated the government. I can tell you when God goes to working like that, you better believe the eyes of God, the eyes of the world will be turned on God.

Now it's no more business as usual. No more playing games. The pastor of that church, the largest church, Walter Bolt, when we went to it, when God got a hold of his heart, he said, the most devastating thing about Revival was to be honest enough with myself to admit that there was only one thing that was causing my cup of joy to spring a leak, and that was sin.

Well, what was sin? Sin was.