A City on a Hill: Rick Joyner - Part 3

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This is the Truth Network. Once a world champion wrestler, now a champion for Christ. Once the Russian nightmare, now the devil's worst nightmare, and your tag team partner, Nikita Kolof. It's time to man up. Welcome back for another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Nikita Kolof here, your host, and I have joining me in the studio today for the third time, because the content was just so good on show one and show two, and there was just so much more to glean from this man of God. Rick Joyner, Morningstar Ministries. Rick, welcome back for a third show.

Rick Joyner Well, good. I guess we can move in now, right? Mark Miller Yes, you can claim residence.

I think they call that squatter's rights. Our host Truth Radio Network here in Winston-Salem is one of the best of the best of the best. I think on show one you said, I love the name of this station, the Truth Network. Rick Joyner Yeah, I see you're in Richmond, Salt Lake, Raleigh-Durham, all these places. Des Moines, Iowa, yeah, all over the place, right?

And growing and expanding more. And we're looking for the Man Up show to continue to expand across the country and around the world as well. Mark Miller I believe it has to.

A timely thing. Rick Joyner Yeah, I appreciate it. We're praying for that. So far, we've had downloads for the podcast in 35 different countries, but I'm not satisfied with that. I'm believing for 100, 100 countries. Mark Miller Because the nations are his inheritance.

We've got to go for all of them. Rick Joyner Well, and I know Morningstar Ministries, as we were concluding show number two and talking about acquiring the old PTL property back in the day in 2004, and then since that time, the restoration of that building, which now the ministry itself is, has it grown? You said the Lord told you it was going to grow bigger than the aviation business. Would you conclude that?

Mark Miller I think so. You know, and our reach and everything we've done and are doing and also the complexity. I mean, I had aviation maintenance, aircraft sales, air charter, flight school, had an airport, we had hangars, we had aircraft basin with us.

We had, you know, it was multifaceted, and I learned how to run something like that. But Morningstar is even more so. Rick Joyner Well, and in fact, I think you said in the last show that you're basically 80% international.

Morningstar's reach around America is about 20% of what you do, but you're reaching 80% international. Mark Miller The last time we checked, it was 80-20. Rick Joyner Yeah, the 80-20 rule always applies.

Somehow, some way, the 80-20 rule always applies. Well, that's amazing in and of itself. You know, and the story of the restoration of that building, uh, talk about a little bit, just a little bit more about the, about the transformation of, of that building. Could you do it? It's kind of where we left off.

You're like, I don't know if anybody can do it. Mark Miller Well, you know, first, that property, when Jim and Tammy had it in its peak, at its peak, it was the second biggest attraction in the country. Six million people a year visited that property. Second only to Disney World in, uh, in Florida. Rick Joyner In Orlando. Wow.

Mark Miller Yeah. And that was the kind of attraction. It had worldwide footprint. Programs went everywhere. The, um, everybody knew about it. And then when the problem happened, it was like, became a world international humiliation.

Rick Joyner Right. Mark Miller And, uh, and I moved to Charlotte right when everything's crashing. And, uh, I didn't know much about it. I'd never been drawn to that kind of ministry or anything.

I'd only watched maybe 10 minutes of a program ever. And didn't know Jim or any of his team. And, uh, we moved to Charlotte right when it's all crashing down. And, um, right away, people started coming to visit me, businessmen and all who wanted to purchase that property, to ask me to pray for him if, to see if it was God's will. I had a number of people doing that. And really, I, I didn't know much about it or anything, but I prayed for him. And one time when I was praying for him, the Lord showed me he was going to resurrect it. But I saw, I had an open vision and I saw the gates are going to be shut.

They're going to be chained, the doors, and it's going to be in the grave. It's going to be dead for a time. Well, at that time, it was still thriving. I think Jerry Falwell got it and some other people, and it was still thriving.

Tons of people were coming. So I started telling these business people, I said, I wouldn't buy it now. It's going to die. I don't care what plan they have for making this work.

It's not going to work. That place is going to die. It wasn't but a few years later when it was dead. Totally shut down. The chains I'd seen that vision were on the door. Literally. Literally on the door.

Literally on the doors. Yeah. But I was also shown the Lord was going to resurrect it. And he said, because of the widow's mites, he said he had watched over everything that had been sewn into that.

And he was going to resurrect it and use it as a, you know, kind of a demonstration of his power of redemption and restoration. Wow. Wow.

I believed all that, but I didn't think I had anything to do. Right. You're like, that's awesome. That's going to be great. I'll cheer him on.

I'll be their biggest cheerleader. Yeah. And... No, Rick, it's you. Yeah. And I would run.

I did run. But anyway, that's been a heart that I have too. If we do this, we've got to do it right. Yeah. And it's not done until that tower is done. Right.

That's everything has to be restored. He didn't leave us half finished. That's good. He begins a good work and you will complete it. That's good. And so I, you know, our job is not done until that place is completely restored. Yeah.

And I think, but almost immediately it became a witness again, it's resurrected. You know, our first meeting when we got certificate of occupancy to have our first service in that building was seven years to the day from the day it had shut down. Wow. To the day. You remind me that what the scripture says about the seed must go into the ground and die in order to...

Exactly. To the seven years to the day. To the day. And we didn't know until it was like Thursday when we're going to meet on Friday, someone had looked at the old papers and all and realized it's seven years to the day.

Seven years to the day. And we've seen so many things happen. I think, you know, there are real estate miracles, there are business miracles, there's all kinds of miracles. It's not just healing miracles.

And we just walked through miracle after miracle to make things happen and to see things happen. And, but I think it's also, God is far more concerned about people than he is any building. You know, now that building is important to him because it's a symbol and I think he wants to use it, but it's the people he wants to restore. At the end of the day, yeah, it's the restoration of people's lives at the end of the day. The building is just a gathering place, but yeah. Yeah.

And some of the people that we were brought to help restore, I looked at them like I did those buildings. I don't know if this person can be. Right.

Sure. This person... Just being real. And the Lord said I was to never consider anyone beyond the power of the cross to save, redeem, and completely restore. The power of his cross is enough. So I went into that thinking that it's got to be his power to do this. This is over our head.

But people far more so. I can't restore anybody. All my wisdom is not going to restore him. It's the power of his blood, the power of his sacrifice, the power of who he is. And that's what we've got to connect him to, is to him, not just to us. Right. I don't want people just... We're not trying to build Morningstar, we're trying to build the kingdom, prepare the way for his kingdom, for the king. Build people, yeah. But to watch him do the work he does with people and to watch the work he did with our facilities was so exciting.

So thrilling. Again, I'm on the property and been there many, many times. If you're listening, if you've never been to Fort Mill, South Carolina, and I just want to extend an invitation to you right now because you have so many conferences, Rick, year round. And again, people gather. I mean, worship conferences. I know just recently I got an invitation from you, which I'm incredibly humbled by, for the harvest this fall, for the harvest coming up and speaking there. And so I just wanna encourage you as a listener, if you've never visited or... I guarantee you there's one of these conferences or more than one that you would be interested in attending.

And as you're listening to Rick talk about the restoration of this property, see it firsthand, but more than anything, more than just as Rick just said, more than the restoration of that property is come and be restored yourself or be equipped or be empowered by some of these conferences. Because you have... How many conferences, Rick, do you have roughly? We've had last count, which was years ago, we had hosted well over 200 conferences. It's probably over 300 now, but other ministries can use our facilities too. But we had that many of our own. Yeah, because I'm thinking on average, five, six a year typically, would you say? Some years it's eight or nine, some years it's three.

Lately it's been a little less. We used to do much bigger conferences and we decided they were more effective when they were smaller. We get more personal with people. These facilities are perfect for having a whole lot of smaller ones where people can connect with each other too. And I mentioned earlier, people come from really from all around the country, but they come from all around the world. We've had single conferences that were represented by 65 nations that we counted.

65 different nations in one conference, engaged and involved in. And of course, if for some reason they're just not able to make it to Fort Mill, or let's just say they can't make it to Fort Mill this year, maybe they can in the future or whatever, there's always the opportunity or possibility they can watch some online now. Oh yeah, they're all online. We televise a whole lot of what goes on the real important stuff. Yeah, far more people come that way than personally. More people watch our church online than come to the building. Now, key to coal off here.

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If you will support this program with a financial gift of any amount, I will send you a personalized copy of my latest book, Nikita, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to colof.net, that's colof.net, colof.net, and make your contribution today. Rick, let's talk about, of course, we've been talking about the restoration of this building, and I'm excited. I know your vision for that tower being completed, and I know that's going to bring even more people onto the campus as they come, because you're building a community there. It is a community.

People live on the property. We really are. One of the things the church is supposed to be is a city. Really, we call it Womb to the Tomb. Womb to the Tomb.

But it's... I mean, we are essentially a small city there right now. We have from nursery, kindergarten through... University. University. We have university, but we also have all these ministries. We have a... We call a retirement center, not a retirement center.

I like that. And that's what that building's going to be, but these are people... I believe if they have vision and purpose and are connected with other people that are engaged, they're going to live much longer, and I think some of their greatest fruit is going to come in their senior years, and we've seen that happen. So they may be retired from their occupation, from their J-O-B. They want to come and purchase one of these condos, apartments, not sure what you're going to call the tower, but the heritage tower, I guess, right? And they may come thinking they're just going to sail off into the sunset, but no, you're like, no, if you're going to come here, we want to get you refired and get you involved and engaged in some, hopefully some level of ministry, some form of ministry. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be our ministry. I mean, it doesn't have to be Morningstar, but... Right.

And people come here for that reason. Now, we already have our heritage court. We took 100 units in the hotel. That was the biggest hotel in South Carolina. Wow. And we broke it down into, made some units the exact same size.

Everything is those in the tower. And we already have a community there, and it's working way better than we thought. Wow. These people are so bonded together, so it is such a cool thing happening. And we can't wait to get the other several hundred people that are supposed to be living in that tower there, but they've connected with a lot of our youth, with our students and our schools who need elders.

Yeah. And we need to have a way to honor our fathers and mothers, the only commandment, with a promise, and that promise is that it'll go well with you. So we're trying to fulfill that Malachi 4, restoring the hearts of the fathers to the children and them connecting, and it is working there. So for the listeners out to get the picture, so you've got this heritage community, a community that Morningstar is building here with elderly who have opportunities to interact and engage with the young.

It's kind of a Paul and Timothy, right? Just the opportunity for them to engage one with the other and be able to glean from those, the seniors that are living on the property and with the schools and the university and everything involved. But Rick, let's talk. I want to transition as we're talking about restoration of the building, restoration of people's lives, but I know something that's really on your heart and is discipleship. Our last minutes together here today on the show, I want to just talk about discipleship, because I know... So I look back, let me just say this first, I look back at my own life and I didn't just jump into ministry. You were saying on one of the shows how at too young an age, they ask you to pastor a church, you're like, I acknowledge, but I had no wisdom. But I didn't just jump right into ministry.

I feel fortunate looking back that when I gave my life to Lord in 1993, there was about a five-year window in there where I went through a discipleship process of the doors were open, the church, I was there. If there was conferences or camps, I was gonna go. And I even went and got my hands dirty. In other words, I went on some construction projects. And it's funny, I told the guys to go, I don't know anything about construction. They go, ah, we'll find something for you. Well, the something was carrying the big cinder blocks from that pile over to the... I'm like, can I learn to lay these things?

Because these blocks are getting awfully heavy. But anyway, that said, I went on three different building mission trips to Trinidad, to Bagel. That was my first trip to Africa, Angola, Africa, three weeks to build a church over there.

And I loved it. I mean, I loved learning how to serve. Jesus came to serve, not to be served, right? So discipleship, you and I have talked some about that, but talk to our listeners about the importance of not only redemption and salvation and redemption, but the process even of sanctification and discipleship.

Can you talk about that? Well, it's the one thing, it's the last thing the Lord said before he ascended to heaven, this is the last command he gave, make disciples. Go into all the world, it's called the Great Commission, and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe everything I've commanded. Now, we've been making converts, but not disciples, I think for the most part. And we get people to make a decision for Christ, but then they're left like, how long would a newborn baby survive without parent, almost constant attention at first. And the same is true spiritually. Way too many are falling away because they have no one to raise them. They're not feeding them spiritually. They fall away spiritually. And we've had some studies showed as little as 5% of the people who actually make a decision to follow Christ actually do that, ever end up in a church or anything. Just 5%. In the book of Acts, all of them did.

All who came to Lord were added to the church. There's some kind of major breakdown here. I believe it's the discipleship thing where everybody needs help to get going, need the right kind, there needs to be. And it's got to be relational. You can't just give them books. As much as I wish they would give them all my books and everything, that's not going to do it.

It's got to be personal. It's got to be, the Lord uses people, not just things. And so that's the main thing we're trying to implement where there's far deeper committed relationships all the way. Now, we had a discipleship movement back in the 60s and 70s that kind of went awry. But I think they were, you know, I've known the leaders of that movement and they've really evaluated where do we get so far off track and everything. I've tried to learn from it too because a lot of people turned away from any form of discipleship because of that. And a lot of people who came at the time, you may have never even heard of this, but it was huge. It was worldwide at the time. And a lot of people got hurt and wounded. It was some abuse that went on.

Which is going to happen. Controlled spirit. People are people, but yeah.

People do stuff like that. But I think we overshot the runway. We overreacted and turned away from discipleship entirely when it is the only biblical way that the Lord left for His people to be raised up.

Right. You don't see, He didn't give us seminaries. He didn't give us all these other things we've come up with and may be really helpful. That's not how He raised leaders. He didn't send them to seminary. He didn't choose them the ones who had been to seminary. He did life with them. Yeah. They had to come and live with Him.

They had to be with Him. And there's something of this that has to be recovered and we're seeking to do it. But to make people disciples of Christ, not our disciples.

Right. We're just a little bit further ahead of them maybe and we want to help give them what we've got so they don't have to keep reinventing the wheel and go through all the stuff that we had to go through, but they can avoid, you know, but also to just keep them on a clear, straight course. You know, there's two ditches, there's a ditch on either side of the path of life.

It's legalism on one side, lawlessness on the other. People tend to fall into a ditch on one side and then they overcorrect and fall into the ditch on the other side. We got to stay on the path of life. They need a clear vision of the path of life, a clear understanding. And it says the path of the righteous is like the light of the dawn that gets brighter and brighter until the full day. If our life is not getting continually brighter, our path is not getting continually brighter. Somehow we've gotten off the right path. We got to get back on the path.

You kind of remind me of the book I read a while back, Pilgrim's Progress, which I think is the 400 something pages, I think the biggest book I've ever read, Pilgrim's Progress, and then recently watched an animated version of Pilgrim's Progress. And I'm reminded, Rick, of a crusade I did on the island of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania. I remember the very first Sunday morning service, 19 respond to the altar, 18 men and one woman turned it over to the pastor, and one by one he called people out of the audience.

The next thing I know, there's somebody behind everybody. And we got into his office and I said, pastor, what was that all about? He goes, oh, they are now responsible. And I said, responsible for... He goes, for discipling that person for the next year.

And honestly, Rick, in my mind, I thought, well, I'd get over like a lead balloon in America. Everyone would give every reason under the sun while they're too busy to disciple another person. But you just, I think, summarized it well in that in that, I mean, obviously, church is beneficial, books are beneficial, seminars, seminary, but at the end of the day, it just, it comes down to relationships. It really does.

It won't work any other way. Yeah. And we've gotta have them, as annoying as they are, because when there were just two brothers on the earth, they couldn't get along. Yeah.

And they're meant to be that way. Yeah. How are you gonna learn forgiveness if you're not gonna have something to forgive? It's good.

It's good. How are you gonna grow in love if you're not learning to love those who aren't lovable all the time? The unlovable. Love the unlovable. Yeah.

Which is all of us. Yeah. Yeah.

I tell them my basic marriage counseling is, God has called you into this relationship. It is ordained in heaven to kill you both. Keep going.

Keep going. And if you're gonna survive this relationship, you're gonna be dead, but you're gonna die to self. Yeah.

It's the only way it'll work. It's the only way relationships... We've gotta learn what is basic Christianity, take up our cross daily. Yeah. Where do you find the cross being lived today? It's almost all the sermons about us, what we get.

Prosperity. Yeah, everything. Yeah. But we've got to, again, follow Him and take up our crosses daily. He said, if you seek to save your life, you'll lose it. Yeah. If you'll lose your life for His sake, you'll find it. If we die to self, truly die to self and are dead to this world, we will be the most free people that have ever walked the planet next to Jesus. Because what can you do to a dead man? Yeah.

What does a dead man fear? Nothing. You're gonna be the freest you could ever possibly be. Wow. And it's, I believe, the most fulfilling, abundant life. You'll never be more free than to be Christ's slave, and you'll never have a greater abundance than to surrender all to Him and see what He repays. Wow, that's such a good word.

I'm thrilled that you were willing to do a third show with us, because that's a good word right there. And for all of our listeners, maybe you've never surrendered your life to Jesus. What a day today could be for you to make that decision and just give your heart to Him. Confess and repent, ask for forgiveness. Rick just referenced, ask for forgiveness of the Creator of the universe. Or maybe, hey, maybe you've made that decision, but as Rick was alluding to, you've somehow veered off into one ditch or the other. And you need to get back on the right path today. Get back on the right path. Just, again, just confess and ask God for forgiveness, or for wandering off that straight and narrow path. Or, as Rick was really delving into and really speaking into discipleship, maybe, you know, whether you're a babe in Christ, you would say you're a Christ follower for 20 years, but you've never gone through your own process of discipleship.

And something Rick said today has really triggered, like, I need that, I need that for myself. Well, I want to encourage you today, reach out, pray, ask the Lord to bring somebody into your path that could begin to take you under his or her wing and begin to disciple you and help you to grow and mature. It's not about, again, we're to grow up in Christ, not grow old in Christ.

So, find that mentor, find that person that can disciple you and help you grow in your walk with Christ. Rick, thank you so much for joining us. It's great to be with you, as always.

Awesome. And thank you for joining. It's time to Man Up with Nikita Kolov-Sh'to'eta. Men, I would like to challenge each of you to consider spending five days with Lex Luger and I at Man Camp, pursuing the heart of God. Ladies, if you're listening, we'll send your men home better equipped to be men of God, godly husbands and godly fathers. That appeals to you. Give them your blessing and encourage them to sign up today at mancamp.info. Pastors, if you would like to bring Kolov for Christ Ministries and Man Up Conference to your community, go to kolov.org and email me.

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