“I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
- Hell to be with Satan. OR
- Heaven to be with God and His Son Jesus.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
“Tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God.For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love, and he relents from sending disaster.”
“Right now the church needs spiritual healing—the sovereign movement of the Holy Spirit that will reestablish His people as a force to be reckoned with.”
“If we truly long for personal and corporate revival, we will forgo our own agendas and accept his prescription for healing, with the assurance that the balm He offers is more than enough for all the ills we suffer.”
“The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill; yes, My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them.”The authors wrote about modern-day shepherds—that “position, acceptance, and money often trump the high calling of God in Jesus Christ and the sacrifices He calls on His ministers to make.”
“For me, growing up in a full-gospel church and seeing true saints of God pray and worship with uplifted hands and, at times, tears coursing down their cheeks, had a powerful impact on me, and still does. Many times worshippers, such as I, have looked over to see a blessed saint of God with a bony, arthritic hand stretched toward God and eyes filled with tears expressing love to the Savior in complete surrender. And to see that deeply spiritual action has always brought its own blessings and encouragement. Yet, in today’s theater-like worship environment in many churches, it’s difficult to observe that. The observations and personal interaction seem to be missing.”Duncan and Jones said there's a great need for the “true presence of God to fill our hearts and our worship centers” when we come together. They encouraged pastors to “sincerely seek God for the direction that will best serve that particular body of believers.”
Last
time in "Floods Upon Dry Ground", Chapter
5, Praying For A Nation", Pastors Bobby Duncan and James Jones
reminded us that the church needs to be revived before America can be revived.
Only then will “God Bless America” as the song states.
In today's post “Floods Upon Dry Ground, Chapter 6:
Why No Revival?” the authors cited reasons why there is no revival in
today’s world. They gave examples of the past, such as Jesus' words to John the
Revelator about the Church of Laodicea—and also Leonard Ravenhill’s 60-year-old
book, “Why Revival Tarries".
Jesus said about the Church of Laodicea that they thought
they were "rich and in need of nothing". He
corrected them, however, and said they were “neither cold nor hot”—that
they were instead, “lukewarm”. He said about their
lukewarmness—that they were “wretched, miserable, poor, and blind”.
Jesus was very descriptive about what would happen if they didn’t change their
ways. He said He would “vomit” them from his mouth.
Ravenhill, in the 1959 book, “Why Revival Tarries”,
told his opinion of the reasons for no revival back then. I was five years old
at that time. Authors Duncan and Jones hold that the reasons are still true
today.
Ravenhill said that evangelism was at that time “highly
commercialized”, and therefore “cheapened”. Also, the church
was “careless” and “fearful” to share the
truth of the Gospel. They lacked, way back in 1959, “an urgency to
pray”, and also they were “stealing the glory that belongs to God”.
Authors Duncan and Jones concurred with Ravenhill that some
of those points are true today. They also said revival can’t come under the
following conditions:
They gave the example of a prospector in the desert who forsook his pack
of precious gold that was too heavy to carry in the desert heat. All he cared
about was getting some “cool, refreshing water”. Duncan and Jones
said if we want revival we need to be like that prospector—to be so desperate
that we forsake everything else to thirst after righteousness.
Duncan and Jones wrote that most of us as Christians would
welcome a revival. But they wrote, “the voracious hunger to experience
it is almost non-existent.” They said we need to do the following for
revival to come:
They compared today’s church to “untempered mortar”, or
stucco that is so prevalent in making buildings look nice. However, stucco
doesn’t increase the structural integrity of the building. They compared our
church practices and programs, including what they titled “misguided
worship”, to stucco. All these practices and programs might look and feel
nice, but they don’t lead people to repent, to sincerely seek God alone above
all other things, and to make Him once again “the epicenter of all we
are and do.”
Now, I want to qualify where I'm at in hungering and
thirsting for the righteousness of Christ--and revival. I confess that I'm
sorely lacking. I turned 70 years old this week, and in my five years of
retirement, I have become distracted by many things, as I'm sure most of you
do.
Charles Spurgeon, at the end of his book "The
Soul Winner", quoted the following verse in Luke 15:10: “There
is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” He
reiterated over and over again that Jesus has "boundless joy" over
sinners who repent and turn to Him, Jesus, for eternal life!
Spurgeon concluded the book with the following statement:
“With this in mind, go and seek to bring your
children, your neighbors, your friends, and your kinfolk to the Savior’s feet,
because nothing will give Him more pleasure than to see them turn to Him and
live. By your love to Jesus, I implore you, become fishers of men.”
- “Arlen, how are you doing?”
- I said, “I’m doing well.”
- “They said, “That’s good. I want to let you know that I recently came upon a great business opportunity, and I thought you might be interested in getting in on the ground floor.”
- I asked, “What’s the opportunity?”
- The standard vague reply followed, “Well, I don’t want to get into the details right now, but could I meet with you to discuss it further?”
- I didn’t understand their hesitation to spill the beans about the details of a “great business opportunity”.
- I said, “I need to know upfront what the opportunity is before I commit to a meeting.”
- They became a bit defensive and started dropping names of other involved church members. One even went so far as to implicate the pastor and his wife. He said that they were the main leaders in the opportunity.
- I asked again, “What is the opportunity?”
- They finally revealed that it was “Amway”.
“And one of them, an expert in the law, asked a question to test him: ‘Teacher, which command of the law is the greatest?’ He (Jesus) said to him, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.’ "In simple words, we are first to love God with all the power within us. And secondly, we are to love others. These are the two Great Commandments.
“Then Jesus came to them (the disciples) and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ "I want to ask you a question. Do you think The Great Commission ended with the disciples, or does it continue with us? A natural extension of loving God and loving others is to tell others about the great love He has for them, right? Jesus told the disciples to make other disciples “of all nations”.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Snippet 1: You’ll see that Pastor Duncan is very measured in the beginning to lay the groundwork for his message. (See video)Well, what do you think?. You can see the entire sermon and four other ones on the Ashland Worship Center Facebook page.
Snippet 2: Pastor Duncan’s intensity is ramping up. He’s not ramping up for the sake of ramping up, but to further get across how important is the message of the gospel. (See video)
Snippet 3: Pastor Duncan ends the sermon with a crescendo to bring people to the point of change. He powerfully exhorts his listeners to take action. (See video)
“Oh, Lord God! You made the heavens and earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you!"Think about it. God is the most powerful force in the universe, and writers, producers, directors, and actors rarely if ever include God in the equation of their weekly problems.
“And it (the false prophet) makes everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark: the beast’s (the Antichrist’s) name or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, because it is the number of a person. Its number is 666.”Okay, do you think I’m an alarmist? Or do you think, like me, that we’re hurtling toward the “end times” at an exponential pace? I’d be foolish, and it would be unbiblical to try to estimate the exact timing of the return of Christ. The Bible warns us against doing that.