It may never be like this again. Mario Murillo came to Albany for four days. Tonight he told us four days isn’t enough.

Not next week. Not another tent run. A long-term commitment to the city of Albany, New York, with no end date on it. “I know it began, and I know it’s going to keep going.”

That’s the headline. But you have to walk through the whole night to understand how he got there, because he didn’t start with the announcement. He started with a leper, a weeping Messiah, and a woman from Calgary.

Worship

Catherine Mullins and the band opened with “Goodbye Yesterday,” and those in our Tent sang it like people who meant it. “I won’t waste another minute in my old ways.” Then “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” which under a tent full of people saved in the last 48 hours, stops being a hymn and becomes a roll call.

They went from there to “Dancing on the Grave.” Catherine put it plainly: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, so tonight we dance on that grave. Then the war songs: “Praise Is a Weapon.” “The strongholds are coming down and Jesus is lifted high,” which the Tent sang back for a long time. “Surrounded (Fight My Battles).”

In the middle of it, Catherine stopped and said she didn’t think she’d ever been given this word before. It was for parents with children who are far off, who’ve tried every way to reach them. She said it felt like those children have been trying to bully their parents in this season, and that God is stepping in as their defense. She rebuked a bullying spirit that’s dividing families, decreed restoration and life over them, and the band picked it up: “We decree a shift in families tonight. We decree a shift in relationships tonight.”

A few minutes later she found a woman in the crowd, gray hair, glasses, flowered shirt, hand up. Catherine told her God has been hearing her prayers, that she saw a circle of angels stand around her where the enemy couldn’t get between them, and that the fear the enemy had been releasing over her future and her relationships was broken. “God of the angel armies is here tonight.”

Then they took us into “Is He Worthy?” and “I Can Only Imagine” and finished on holy ground. “His presence is here.” It was, and everybody in the Tent knew it before Mario said a word.

A Letter to the Church at Albany

Mario came up with his order of business already fixed. First, souls. Second, a word from God. Third, God attacking sickness in the room. And he told us what this sermon was: “It feels like a letter from the Book of Revelation to the church at Albany.” He said he wasn’t sure it would work anywhere else.

Before he got there he told the Fresno story, and it turned out to be the setup for everything.

In 2020 he was still preaching in auditoriums when God told him to get a tent and take it into the most afflicted parts of California. They had five fairground crusades scheduled. Gavin Newsom cancelled all five. Mario had spent that week reading Matthew 7, ‘ask and you’ll receive, seek and you’ll find, knock and it’ll be opened,’ and the leper at the bottom of the mountain who heard it and decided he was a child of God, not a diseased thing. Then Jesus touched the leper, even though it was against the Law. “Social distancing. Literally.” And Jesus said, “I am willing; be cleansed.”

At 3 in the morning Mario had a vision of the most tormented face he’s ever seen. Diseased, dehydrated, starving. It was the face of a man, and Mario knew he was from Fresno. The man said, “If you wanted to, you could help us.” God said go to Fresno. Mario said it’s against the law. (He half expected God to say that He should have checked that before He woke Mario up.)

He called Frank: “Brother, you ready to break the law?” Frank found Granite Park, a city park that had been taken over by a private business, and the couple who owned it said they were sick to death of sitting around while their business was shut down. They said, ‘Take the field.’ Then Frank went to the city window for a permit to hold a mass gathering during the shutdown. The woman said you know you can’t do that, but filled out the permit anyway, and said, “I love Jesus. Get out of here.”

“God has got people everywhere.” Thousands came. Not one person got COVID. And the mayor of Fresno, a former police chief, asked to meet Mario and Mechelle at Starbucks, teared up, and said, “This is what our city needs more than anything else.”

Mario turned it straight on us. “This is what Albany needs more than anything else.” God is greater than the politicians, greater than the philosophies, greater than the illegal laws that are hurting the church and our children. “Later tonight, we are going to challenge the spirit in Albany.”

The Father of Lies

Then the letter proper. He started with Satan’s title. Of everything Christ called the Devil, He called him the father of lies. And Mario’s point was that he’s been practicing. “He’s a better liar today than he ever was before. That’s why all of the counterfeits have been reserved for the last days.”

Everything that can be counterfeited will be, before the end. He said you can see the two sides plainly now: one side for what’s real, one for what’s counterfeit. One side has no definition for a woman, no definition for a child, no definition for marriage or fidelity or truth. “Instead of truth, it’s ‘your truth’, as if truth mutated. But objectivity and fact do not mutate.”

And the Devil finally got around to his masterpiece: a world-class fake Christian. A fake church, fake worship, a fake Christianity. Mario said the reason he did it is tied to what Jesus did when He approached Jerusalem.

Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it (Luke 19:41 NKJV).

“If there was a time where somebody should not have been crying, it is right there.” It was the triumph of His whole ministry. The crowds shouting Hosanna, laying palms down, louder than Israel had ever praised any prophet or any king. The Pharisees told Him to shut His disciples up and He said if they did, the rocks would cry out. But Jesus couldn’t enjoy any of it. He was sobbing.

Because the people who were cheering had believed a lie. They thought Jerusalem was fine. They thought disaster wasn’t coming. They thought this Messiah was about to sit on the throne and destroy Israel’s enemies, and they had no idea it was already too late to repent. “You missed the hour of your visitation.”

That was point 1. He stopped there, on purpose, and had everyone close their eyes.

The Artificial Christian

“You may believe in Christ, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to heaven. You may be sitting here, a member of a church, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to heaven.” He said the greatest danger of the last days is the artificial Christian, the one who’s been told you become a Christian by believing in God. “That would make Satan a Christian.” You have to have a miracle. A before and an after. Anyone who’s really saved knows the day it happened.

He took a shot at the newfangled pastors who tell America, ‘Jesus loves you just the way you are’ and leave off the rest: ‘Yes, but Jesus loves you too much to leave you that way.’

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you’ (Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV).

Then the line the whole altar call turned on: People say, I’d serve God if He’d just prove to me He’s real. “The way it works is just the opposite. God is waiting for you to prove that you’re real.” Christ was not a pill. Not a cosmic butler. Not a counselor for the depressed and bored. First-century people didn’t become Christians because Jesus was comforting. They became Christians because He was so mighty they were overcome by surrender.

He was careful to say who he was after. Not the people who already love God; those are the ones a verse like that hits hardest, and he told them to leave it alone. He was after the ones who’ve never once contemplated standing before God, because they sit in churches built on compromising God’s rightful demands. “The Bible says he who is born of God overcomes the world. You’re still addicted. You still have bouts of rage that go beyond just a bad temper. You still have suicidal thoughts. You are still sleeping around. You still worship money more than God. Yet you call yourself a Christian.”

“Don’t call me critical, don’t call me judgmental. Call me loving. Call me the best thing that ever happened to you, if you’re not right with God.” (He also noted he’s nowhere near as scary as Finney would’ve been with this text – “That dude would take a flamethrower to people.”)

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5 NKJV). Paul never got the once-saved-always-saved memo. Paul said you might be counterfeit. Paul said you might be shipwrecked. And on the idea that God only chose certain people to be saved: “The Devil wants everybody. But according to the eternal security doctrine, God only wants certain people.” Mario doesn’t buy it. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Then he got, in his words, real sweet. He said he wasn’t making the argument about pornography or addiction or anger. The argument was joy. “You don’t have the real joy. You don’t have the real peace.” How many nervous people are in church? How many bitter, broken people carrying agony because nobody ever sincerely told them, ‘You need to be born again’? If Christ’s yoke is easy and His burden is light, why is yours so heavy?

He prayed the way he always does, the prayer of agreement out of Matthew 18:19, and he was specific about what this was. “I’m not rededicating my life. What I’m doing is I’m getting out of the counterfeit into the real.”

Hands went up across the Tent. He had them stand. Then he did something he said he rarely does: he asked everyone who’d brought someone who hadn’t stood to lean over in love and say, “If I stand up right now, would you stand with me?” And they stood. He kept saying it from the platform: “They’re standing. People are standing. It’s a miracle. But there’s still more.”

They came down every aisle. Down front, people raised their hands on their own, nobody told them to. Mario just said, “To God be the glory.”

“Four Days Is Not Enough for Albany”

When Mario picked back up, he walked us through it in order. He came to Albany believing for a four-day crusade and a lot of souls. He wasn’t fully aware of what God was doing by bringing him here. Then he heard: “Four days is not enough for Albany.” He thought that meant going again next week. God told him he wasn’t thinking big enough. He said, ‘That’s pretty big.’ God said he still wasn’t at the level of what’s happening in Albany.

And then the part that made him lose sleep: “This was not the real visitation of God. That is coming.”

He said, ‘God, if this isn’t the real visitation, I don’t know how much more I can take.’ And to explain, he asked a woman to stand.

The Woman from Calgary

She was sitting in the same seat as last night. (Mario didn’t blame her. “She might end up taking that seat home with her.”)

She was in her home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, when she heard the voice of God tell her: get on a plane, go to Albany, and if you go in that tent, I will heal your body. So she did. She flew hundreds and hundreds of miles, with at least one connection, probably two, and sat down under this Tent with the full intention of holding God to His word.

Last night she was the first person Mario called out. Sciatica on the right side. Yes. Then God said, ‘Cancer.’ Cancer that had metastasized and spread through her body. And she was healed by the power of God.

The Tent didn’t wait for him to finish. When it landed that she came from Canada on a word from God and got exactly what she was promised, the whole place came to its feet and the applause went on. Mario said it’s one of the greatest healings he’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot. “This is a Bible character right here. This is like the woman with the issue of blood.” 

He added that he was jealous of everybody who slept last night, because he couldn’t.

He said something else worth marking. We see miracles and souls saved everywhere the Tent goes. But from the first note of the first song on Sunday, this one felt different. Those in the Tent agreed.

The Announcement

Here’s what he laid out.

He is not starting a movement and he is not starting a church. (“I am not a pastor. I wouldn’t do that to people.”) The goal is to make the churches that are already here on fire and strong. “Before I’m done with Albany, there’s not gonna be one empty seat in any church that is under this Tent.”

He thought that meant two days off and back next week. God said no, that’s not how you do it. We did it that way in Stockton. This is different. “We’re supposed to take this to downtown Albany, New York.” He said it like a line from the movie Tombstone, with a correction: “Jesus is saying, I’m coming, and heaven is coming with me!” The Lord is going to drive His Hummer right to the Capitol building.

The plan for the next 45 days:

The fire under this Tent goes into the churches. He said we’re going to hear reports of angels visiting people in this city, of people getting out of wheelchairs in Sunday morning services, of prayer meetings that break out and run into the small hours. 45 days of fasting and praying to prepare for 3 nights in one of the main auditoriums in downtown Albany, in November. They’re in negotiations now. Which building? “We will tell you tomorrow night. Because we don’t know yet.” God told him they’d know by then. He wants a highly visible theater or event center, and the purpose is to announce to the city that Jesus is Lord of New York.

What comes after November? He’ll tell us in November. But he met with Frank Saldana and Steve Brown, the threefold cord that runs this ministry, and told them he believes this is an open-ended commitment. 

Mario brought up Kathryn Kuhlman and the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. He didn’t say how long she was there, but the point was that Albany won’t be turned around overnight. “I don’t believe that you can get this boatload of Woke out in a little while.”

Then he asked the question that gave the night its title. “When will we ever see this unity again? Do we really want to take that risk?” He had looked into the eyes of a saint who told him she’s been praying for this for 40 years. This area knows what it’s like to have people come and try, over and over, to see what we’ve seen in 3 nights. “We don’t know when it will be like this again.”

Because You Did Not Know the Time of Your Visitation

Back to Luke 19, and this time he read the whole warning.

If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation (Luke 19:42-44 NKJV).

He said it’s a dangerous thing for an evangelist to say, and he does a lot of crusades. “But at this point I’m only aware of one visitation.” So he’s coming back after November, and back after that, and he announced it to the Devil out loud.

And he named what the visitation is for. “The purpose of these nights is to avoid the destruction of the state of New York.” He said God is judging New York for what it’s allowed Islam to become here and for what it’s done with the LGBTQ+ agenda, and that the people of God have been complacent, divided, and full of unbelief. “We are now going to shake that off and come together as a mighty army.”

He said plainly that he loved Charlie Kirk, and then drew the line evenly. If Ilhan Omar were assassinated, if Zohran Mamdani were killed, he’d be disgusted at anyone celebrating it on social media. And anyone who loved it when Charlie Kirk was murdered “is a sick person that needs to get right with God.”

Then Mario returned back to Finney again, because in Albany it’s always Finney. When Finney came to New York he saw dead religion had soaked the country, and he believed the church’s drumbeat of hyper-grace was going to cost the nation its liberty. Twenty years before the Civil War, Finney said, “Any man who owns a slave is going to hell.” And said it when nobody agreed with him, except the slaves. Mario said he intends to preach controversial things too, because “I don’t believe the Gospel is a wispy, weak-kneed message.” Two goals, borrowed from Bill Federer and made his own: Preach the Gospel, and Fight for the freedom to preach the Gospel.

Tomorrow Night

He said tomorrow night is going to be an upper room, Azusa Street experience. God told him the fire of Pentecost is going to fall and hundreds are going to be baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, and everyone is going to get fresh fire. “A second outpouring of the holy fire of God is coming. Tomorrow night.”

He’s gathering the pastors again before then, because before November he needs their heart and their input. He was emphatic about this. He doesn’t like celebrities who roll into a town thinking they’ve got the answer and ignore what God’s already doing. “I’m not bringing Jesus to this city. He was already here.” So were the men and women who’ve bled over this town for years. Mario added that he has no right to stand up here as a know-it-all. His job is to be a breaker. “I’m gonna break a road open. I’m gonna bust a wall down.”

The Hat

Then he pulled out something he said he might be more excited about than anything else, and the Tent cheered before he could hold it up. A new hat. It reads “MAKE AMERICA BORN AGAIN.” A Mario Murillo Ministries original.

He loves it because America’s solution isn’t political. “It isn’t a Democrat thing, it isn’t a Republican thing, it’s a Jesus thing.” Only the power of Jesus solves the racism and the poverty and the violence. Allah is not the Lord of America. Buddha is not the Lord. Jesus is. He laughed that he was introducing it in a Democrat city, but said this isn’t a Republican hat. “This has been rescued.”

You’ll catch grief for wearing it. (He said some of us are ornery enough to be looking for the grief.) When they bring up the price of gas, tell them it’s not about gas, because it’s not about Trump. It’s about Jesus Christ.

Where Revivals Die

One more correction for the people who wanted meetings next week. “That’s where revivals die.” Meeting over and over isn’t a revival. A revival is sitting down and listening to what’s on the heart of God, and figuring out how to assimilate. If this Tent produces a crop of religious rebels, we’ve gone backwards. The way forward is to go to your pastor and say, “I’m here to serve. I’m not here to get blessed or to feel good. I’m here to bless others and to become good. I want to be armed and dangerous for Jesus.”

And the strategy will be built on Scripture. Nothing outside it. No aliens, no giants, no demon under every table. Somebody told him that to have revival you need the name of the demon that rules over the region. “I don’t know that name, but I know the name that will make him leave!”

The Ghetto Test

He closed with a bit about growing up in the barrio (the mint-green house next door, the phone bill in the baby’s name, barbecuing on the front porch instead of the back porch). But the important part was the schoolyard. A fight never starts because somebody says, “Your mama.” It starts because the guy behind you goes “Ooooooohhh!”

So here’s the ghetto test. The Devil said, we can’t take Albany.

And immediately and spontaneously, the Tent went “Ooooooohhh!”

He had us raise our hands. “Greater is He Who is in me than he that is in the world.” And then he made the vow, out loud, in front of the Tent and everybody watching: “By the power of the Holy Spirit, I commit myself to a long-range Holy Ghost miracle in the city of Albany. No man will be glorified. Only Jesus.”

Somewhere in the Tent a large group of people started chanting loudly, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” It spread section by section until the whole place had it. Mario stood at the pulpit and watched it go, and smiled, “Oh, I knew that was gonna happen!”

The Healing Prayer

He said tonight’s healing would be shorter but just as strong, and before he prayed he flipped the way most people think about words of knowledge. The person who gets called out isn’t the special one. The special ones are the people watching, because God points somebody out in front of everyone to prove He’s in the room, so the rest can receive.

Then he asked how many people under the Tent had already been healed during this crusade. Hands went up across the floor, two entire rows in one spot. He made the point that it’s one thing to raise your hand the night you’re healed and another to raise it 24 or 48 hours later. Now they know that they know.

He had everyone who needed healing raise a hand, and everyone near them lay hands on them, some doing double duty because there were that many. The Tent prayed it together: “In the name of Jesus, I command your disease to leave your body. Tumors will be removed. Heart disease. Diabetes. Every illness is under the command of Christ.” Then praying in tongues over one another. “There are miracles in every corner of this Tent.”

When he asked who had felt the healing power of God in the last two minutes, hands were up everywhere. He pointed to one woman near the front where the power of God was visibly on her. “We’re gonna get the stories.”

One Foot from the End Zone

Todd Coconato preached this morning, and Mario called it a masterful sermon. The two of them are doing a live Firepower show Thursday night on Albany and the visitation that’s already begun. Mario said the hand of God is on Todd, that a massive, sudden expansion of his ministry is coming with big decisions attached, and that as Todd’s older brother (Todd had tried calling Mario “Father,” but Mario declined), he intends to help with the transition.

Then the last word which he said was the most important of the night. Picture a football player running free, thinking he’s in the end zone, spiking the ball on the one-foot line. That’s what happens to revivals on the third night. Everybody assumes we won. Mario used to be a chaplain for a team he won’t name, and he watched them lose playoff games by looking past the opponent in front of them. “When you lose in the playoffs, you go home.”

Sunday was one of the greatest meetings he’s ever seen. Monday was one of the greatest he’s ever seen. Tonight was as great as any of them. “And now the idea is, well, I should take the night off. Are you kidding me? This is now. This is now when you bring them in wheelchairs. The blind, the lame, the ones with cancer. Get them here tomorrow night.”

The nation is watching. People are checking in from Spain, Australia, and the Philippines. Tomorrow night is the Azusa Street night, and there’s an announcement coming that Mario called epic and historic, a point of no return. He said historians would call it crossing the Rubicon: the day communism, Islam, and the perversion controlling this state is over.

Three nights in. The Tent hasn’t come down and Albany already has a November.

Living Proof Tent Crusade Altamont Fairgrounds 129 Grand St, Altamont, NY 12009 Final night Wednesday, September 16, 6:30 p.m.

If you can’t be there in person, watch the livestream on the Mario Murillo Ministries Facebook page.

Bring someone. Get your MABA hat!