By Shenalyn PagePosted April 07, 2022
Inspiration: The Bible’s Greatest Stories! drew record crowds at the Las Vegas Paradise Church last month. The 10-part revival series on Scripture’s most notable heroes of faith ran from March 11-19, 2022, and was broadcast live around the world on AFTV, 3ABN, Facebook, YouTube, and Roku. Pastor Doug’s presentations focused on how to live victoriously for God in these troubled times.
Attendees from the Las Vegas area and as far away as Florida packed the church for each revival meeting. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all my forty years of pastoring,” says Peter Neri, Paradise Church senior pastor. “It was simply fantastic. People were hungry for this and they kept coming all week. We had 250 people midweek and 500 on Sabbath. We had a full house and had to put chairs up and use our overflow room.”
Biblical Stories Revisited
Pastor Doug’s simple retelling of the Biblical narratives of heroes like Rahab, David, Joseph, Namaan, and Elisha highlighted truths essential for today. “Heroes are in short supply these days,” he explains. “I’m not talking about movie celebrities, sports superstars, or music idols. I’m talking about godly men and women that we can truly admire—people who can teach us how to live victoriously by faith. Today, the church needs to lift up the inspirational characters of the Bible, the ancient witnesses from the Old and New Testaments who point us to Christ and show us how to live holy lives in preparation for Jesus’ soon return.”
The insights Pastor Doug drew from each story brought new life to these ancient stories and made them relevant for today. “It was awesome to hear about Rahab’s faithfulness despite the chaos around her,” says one attendee, who drove from Oceanside, CA with his wife to attend the series. “Rahab eventually gave birth to a line of kings that went all the way down to Jesus. Her faithfulness is an inspiration for me.”
Annette Ward came from Washington state to attend the series. “This is my very favorite Amazing Facts series so far,” she says. “It is about finding Jesus in every story. It’s about seeing the great controversy in every story and understanding the applications to our lives. Inspiration has shown me that the Bible is as infinitely deep as Jesus is. You never really get to the bottom of it.”
“I like how everything is about how we can prepare our hearts for the Lord and just be ready to be in the kingdom with our Savior,” said another attendee.
“God was in it from beginning to end”
The Inspiration revival series had been in the works for a couple of years but had been delayed because of the Covid pandemic. “God used the pandemic to do all the prep work,” Pastor Neri smiles. “It helped people realize their need for God.”
The Las Vegas Paradise church has been actively preparing for the series by studying the Bible with people in the community and praying earnestly. Yet there was still much the church needed to do to be ready to host the series. “The amount of things we had to do to be ready seemed insurmountable,” says Paradise Church Associate Pastor Ryan Johnson. “We started praying early on that God would work. By the time Amazing Facts got here, we had seen the Lord working in the background to get things ready. So, it was no surprise that the entire series was a blessing. God was in it from the very beginning, all the way to the end.”
A number of individuals expressed an interest in baptism as a result of the Inspiration series. The Paradise church is using the Amazing Facts Bible Study Guides to follow up with these individuals. “Our work starts now,” explains Pastor Johnson. “We praise the Lord for the harvest and are eager to see what He has in store.”
“The Holy Spirit worked amazingly. This was the right timing. Doug was the right person. The sermons were the right sermons,” Pastor Neri says. “I’m just ecstatic. We want to have Doug come back real soon.”
“I want to thank Pastor Doug and the Amazing Facts team for coming here,” smiles one attendee. “These programs have been very informative. I will definitely be watching this series again because it was just jam-packed.”
Recordings of the Inspiration: The Bible’s Greatest Stories may be viewed at: GreatestStories.org. The free offers given with each meeting may also be obtained there.