Years ago, I remember coming to Central Baptist Church while travelling on a college ensemble. I remember the church well and have had the privilege of coming back to preach several times. Last time I came for a revival meeting in 2010. This year we had a revival meeting combined with an adapted War of Special Forces.
During the revival meetings, I was encouraged with good attendance and responsiveness to the Word. On Wednesday, I preached a message on Romans 6 dealing with our identification with the crucified and risen Christ. One of the members came to me later and commented how the truth of that passage had impacted his heart. It is always a blessing to see the Lord illumine hearts with truth!
Ocala Christian Academy is a ministry of Central Baptist Church and desires to spiritually challenge the students. It was a blessing to join them in their ministry for a week. There was some response during the chapels during the week, but it was on Friday that the Lord’s working seemed to climax. When chapel was finished, I asked those who had done business with the Lord during the week and were not ashamed of it to come and pray at the front. I encouraged them to prayer “declarations of dependence” or “I need you God” prayers. Several came and prayed silently. I then opened the prayer meeting to the whole student body to pray out loud. The prayer meeting went for about 25 minutes and there were some wonderful prayers from the teens and some of the faculty. It was a sweet time. After that, several gave testimony of what the Lord had done in their heart. One testimony given related, “Yesterday, when I went to talk to my mom I went and got things right with her. When I left my room, I just felt so joyful. I just felt courage and peace. God has really worked and I’m trying to keep that and I know that I can only do that with God.”
On Thursday night, we had our only evening rally. Over 100 teens attended and we had several saved. One of our co-captains recruited a middle school teenager. He not only came alone, he ended up getting saved. At the end of the night, a young lady was on the bus waiting to go home. She got off the bus and asked a team captain if she could get “prayed for.” One of our co-captains took her and led her to the Lord. The next day, one of our team captains was talking with a young man on Friday night at a basketball game and was explaining that split trust (trusting Jesus and something else) is really mistrust. He said, “You got me there.” The team captain was able to lead him to the Lord as well.
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