Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 10 More Minutes. I'm your host, Kevin Neville, and we have one of my heroes, Pastor Josh Finley. How you doing?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: So good to be with you. Yeah, so good to be with you. Well, you've been having some really interesting conversations.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: I feel like every time we do, it's in passing and it's needs to be given more time.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think 10 more minutes is not ambitious enough.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: It gives us a taste, but, you know, that's only to start the conversation.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: So I. I'm going to be. I'm going to be coming down. I'm going to be.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Come on.
[00:00:44] Speaker A: Hearing more. But speaking of coming down, tell us a little bit about where you're at now and what you're up to.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: So Anan and I, we were here on the campus in limo for many, many years. We lived here for 15 years, were Bible college graduates from Elam Bible College, pastored here at Elam at the time Gospel Church, now Elam Life church.
And in 2017, we moved to Maryland, to Bel Air, Maryland. And I'm one of the pastors on staff at Freedom Church. And my primary role is campus and leadership development. So I serve and support all of our campus pastors.
I oversee our school of ministry that we started and part of the teaching team and do leadership development. With what we call our dream team, our team of volunteers, we built a leadership pipeline and a process that we take them all through.
And so really, leadership development is kind of the world that I live in.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: And with that comes such great teaching and such great insight. And I know we hang on.
But speaking of that, and actually for some of the other leaders I'm interviewing, we get to hear them after the message. Yeah, but I have to interview you before the message, so I'm just anticipating. So you got to give me a sneak preview. You'll be speaking tomorrow, correct?
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Tell us a little bit about what God's put on your heart for that message.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So I.
When Pastor Phil asked or gave us the theme, the Lord had just been working with me through second Kings three. And just that story of there are times you find yourselves, you find yourself in a wilderness, and there are no wells around, so you have to create one. And what does it look like to see God turn your wilderness into a well? And it's the story of Elisha when he tells them to fill the valley with ditches. And God will fill it.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: And I think sometimes, you know, we pray, let the reign of the Holy Spirit fall, Lord Rain down. But sometimes the rain doesn't come from above. Sometimes it's beneath us and you have to dig it out.
And so we're going to talk a little bit about digging those ditches and what is that process?
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Actually, I did hear you share a little bit about that some other place, and I just.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: Just that idea at one of our regionals. Yes.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: That's when he gave me the theme.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: And I wasn't able to stop thinking about that idea that, you know, we expect God says something. We expect it to come from one direction, but sometimes there's some hard work involved in going deep. So that's beautiful.
How did. How did this message come about? How did God walk this message in your life?
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I think, you know, all of us have different life messages. We, you know, we feel like when you speak, themes are going to come out, and a lot of times when I speak, the theme will come out.
You know, kind of God's competent competency. I say his kingdom, mathematics works like this. I can't, but he can, so we will.
I constantly find myself in environments where I don't feel equipped. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know how it's going to be pulled off.
And God just says, you know, pull out your bag lunch. Like, just. Just pull out what you have and watch me multiply it.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: And I just feel like there's some principles that leaders can really draw from because, you know, as a movement, we believe in the prophetic. And in that particular story, they were in a situation where they needed the voice, they needed a prophet. They didn't need people commenting on the circumstances because the circumstances were terrible. They were in the middle of the desert, no water, no food, the animals are going to die, the army's going to die, and their enemies are coming. Right. So horrible. Right on all sides. And I think there are times where God gives you a dream or a vision and you're like, I don't have the team that's equipped to do this. I don't have the finances or I don't have the building or, you know, know, I'm facing resistance on all sides. And that's just the natural things. Then you've got the spiritual and supernatural elements. And so a lot of times we feel like underdogs and we forget that all the Lord wants us to do is what we can do, and then he'll do what we can't do. And I find myself in those situations all the time. And I, like most People, I'm waiting for God to do everything.
And he's like, I'll do what you can't do, as long as you exhaust what you can do. Right? And I think this is another one of those stories.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: And so again, waiting for the rain to come down, but he says, grab a shovel. You know, I kind of repackaged that.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: That life principle in so many different ways because I just feel like it's a very. I feel like God craves partnership with us so much.
And a lot of times we just want to be rescued and have him do everything.
And he's not going to do A to Z, you know, if I can only go A to F, that's fine. He'll take it the rest of the way. But, but very rarely do we exhaust what we can do. And so a lot of times I've complained, I'm waiting on God. I'm waiting on God. I'm pretty sure he's waiting on me. And awful lot.
[00:05:41] Speaker A: You said something like 10 years ago, but has lived in my head, read free. I'm going to hack it up. So please correct what he said. You do today what you can do, so tomorrow you can do what you can't.
And I think with the Lord, you do today what he has put in front of you to do, so you can see him do what you can't.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, one of the, one of the thoughts that I'm, I'm continually thinking about is we often mistake the difficult for the impossible.
And we were like, that's impossible. That, no, no, that's difficult. It's going to require something from you. And the truth is, what God calls us to is impossible without Him.
But obviously we're not without Him. You know, one of my favorite quotes is, D.L. moody says, if God be your partner, make your plans big.
So obviously every, every believer is called to an impossibility. God calls you to the impossible always so that we have to rely on Him.
But, you know, another thought that I've been reminding myself and in this story we're going to talk about, I think sometimes we think we're risk takers because we're leaders, you know, oh, we, we, we change things. We, we shake things up. We're, you know, we kind of pride ourselves in, in, in being an edgy or a catalyst person or someone, an agent of change. Right. But the truth is God is the one that is the wild one in this relationship. He is the one that is, is straight up in our mind, sometimes crazy because what he is comfortable with scares us to death.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: He's not wringing his hands and wondering and worry. He's. He's. You know, and so I've just seen it in my life so many times where I've been praying for God to meet needs, and he loves to meet needs, but he'd rather reveal his nature to us in the process.
And that's. That's the bigger takeaway is when you see part of the nature of God, it's so much more than just the temporal need. You know, we act like that's the big deal, but the big deal is we really need to get a glimpse of who he is so we can carry that with us into the next, you know, trial or whatever valley we're in.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: And that's the partnership you're talking about. Not only does he partner with us, but he reveals who he is and who we are.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: You know, and so it's this. These ultimate teaching moments that.
And if he doesn't come through, then we're in a lot of trouble.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: We're in so much trouble. And, you know, the Bible says, trust his prophets and you'll be successful. Like 2nd Chronicles 20. And this is just one of those stories where someone was in a jam, they said, is there not a prophet among us? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There was that guy, Elisha, who used to wash the hands of Elijah. Let's get him over here and see what he has to say.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Anything on this sermon? Make it to the cutting room floor. That. That is still God.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Yeah. I.
So especially when you're in a conference and you're hearing all the other sessions, you want to dovetail what has been said to what you're saying.
And I could piggyback on so many of the other sessions and.
And not to, like, placate the speaker. I'm truly receipt. I'm here receiving from Eric peoples, Pastor Phil McNeil, Paul Johansson, these different speakers, Sean Smith. And so you want to pull in some of what they've said for people that may have missed it, but you really can't. You don't have time for a lot of that.
And I. I love history.
So I'm always wanting to ask the question, what does this look like in a bigger context?
And one of the thoughts that I've been really wrestling through is whenever a spiritual well opens, it's obviously resisted. Wells are always going to be resisted. There's always conflict surrounding wells in Scripture. And I'll give a couple examples. I could give a million. But There's a few that we're going to talk about. And then I thought, well, when has that happened in history?
And I obviously won't be able to fully elaborate on it, but what fascinates me is, of course, the Bible is still being written. Obviously the canon is closed, but our lives are writing out the story of God. So there are things that happened in the Bible that also happened in history. Charles Finney in 1831, greatest well of revival here in Rochester.
The idea is that any well, any spiritual well that has been opened in a dramatic way that is not stewarded or taken care of, well, becomes a place of demonic occupation where Give you a couple. So Rochester as an example, the bars are closed, so many are saved. Really, the greatest revival in the history of America as a city is concerned is Rochester.
After the revival, fast forward several years, Rochester has the first freestanding abortion clinic in America.
Incredible racial tensions.
When I lived here, the mayor got out on TV and just said, there's a spirit of murder over this place. And it's always in the top five or six per capita for murders. And I'm saying, what is it about? When Charles Finney came through this area, all of the Masonic lodges closed, right? Except for one, the one right here in Lima. Really? Yes. So there is a time where the enemy really tries to guard these things. Things where it's like if he can have one.
For example, the. The. The Welsh revival started in 1905.
Evan Roberts carries over to 1906 Isuzu street, triggers a revival in India, triggers a revival in North Korea.
And the revival in North Korea isn't talked about as much. But in 1907, North Korea was in revival, dramatic revival. Amazing, right? The Pyongyang Revival is what it's called. And that's. That was the capital, capital city of North Korea, Pyongyang. And Billy Graham's wife Ruth actually went to the International Mission School in Pyongyang, North Korea.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:43] Speaker B: So that was a well of revival that opened up in history that touched the incredible revival today in North Korea. If you are found with the scriptures, your life expectancy is two weeks.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: So we have to guard. We've got to guard the breakthrough that we get because as C.S. lewis said, every square inch of this planet is being claimed by either the kingdom of Light or the Kingdom of darkness.
And so to me, I'm just fascinated by the enemy. Gets so nervous when there's a spiritual breakthrough, a wellspring that God creates to refresh people. Bring revival.
My heart would be that we wouldn't become so in love with and fixated with just revival, but that we want to see it turn into reformation so that actually the systems of culture benefit from the revival and that it leaves more sustaining change.
Otherwise, a revival, you know, you may feel the effects of it for a few years, maybe even a few decades, but to see the landscape change, we need revival to turn into reformation. And really, it's easy in our, you know, Pentecostal circles to fall in love with the concept of revival, but I. I pray that we're so busy falling in love with Jesus and seeing it spread beyond that that we don't worship revival itself.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: And we need to believe that old wells can produce new. New water, new refreshing, and they can, obviously.
So that fascinates me.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, me also. Again, this is more conversation, I tell you, we're just.
No way.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Ten more minutes is never going to be enough. And I think that's a good thing. Good place to start.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Thank you for, thank you for hosting these conversations.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: My pleasure. And any last words.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: You know, I would just say that seems so final.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Last words for this podcast. Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Last words for my life.
I would just say that as people are thinking, how can I dig a well like that? I mean, digging a hole in the earth is one of the most labor intensive, difficult things you can do. But every time we choose to pause, slow down, listen to the whispers of the spirit, take communion, worship, get into scripture, disrupt our normal days to lean into what God is saying. And we're digging. We are digging wells. And revival, I would say, is an inside job. It's always an inside job. And then out of the overflow of that, things begin to happen. And so I would say don't intimidate yourself on what it means to dig a well.
You pray a prayer, you're digging a well, you fast a meal, you're digging a well, you choose to lean your heart godward.
You, you are partnering with him to have a lifestyle of that and carrying it with you. Because obviously Jesus said, out of you will come a living well. So wherever you go, you bring that. And that's, that's, that's what he envisioned when he said, you know, as the, as the waters cover the sea, so the glory of God will cover the earth. Well, his children are covering the earth and bringing his glory in that way. And so I pray that people don't feel overwhelmed by any of these messages, but they just feel inspired to turn it into a lifestyle.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: I love that because that, that gives us hope. You know, he's just calling us to take that next step.
And. And from there, we're on a path.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Pastor Josh, thank you very much. And thank you guys for watching us tune in. For the next 10 more minutes, I've been your host, Kevin Neville, and we'll see you next time. God bless.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Sam.
