Barrenness

The subject of my message today, friends, is barrenness. Barrenness evokes a picture of a burnt-over land, parched in a need of rainfall. Barrenness speaks of a woman who is barren in her womb, wanting a man-child, but unable to have one, having a longing that remains unfulfilled.

I remember my wife, after we lost our first child to a miscarriage, how my wife would sit over her Bible in anguish of heart, with tears in her eyes, and ask God why her other friends were having one baby after another. Why was it so hard for her to give birth to a child? Barrenness can often be a hard place to be in, and at other times, barrenness can go unnoticed for years. Spiritual barrenness represents an emptiness that is filled with activity in the name of God, but without the presence of God.

It is merely dry formality, lacking force or power. Barrenness evokes prayerlessness, or at best, prayers that are spoken with dry eyes, with no heat or heart. Religion has become a chore, a duty, more than a passion.

A barren marriage is a loveless marriage, where two people have grown apart, each going their own way. A wedding ring may still be worn, but it is nothing more than a memory of one's commitment to each other, without the passion that brought them together in the first place. I have been in seasons of barrenness, so I know of which I speak.

I've preached in barrenness, and it was nothing more than cold formality. I've prayed in barrenness, and my prayers rose no higher than the ceiling. I've served God in barrenness, and felt the chilly blast I was producing.

Oh, for a fire for God! Oh, for the sweet tenderness of the first embrace with Jesus, where the intimate love life burns hotter and hotter, and is consumed with the passion of the lovers in the Song of Solomon, where there are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. I am reminded of a story about Duncan Campbell, who was so mightily used a God on the Isle of Lewis in the 1949 to 1952 revival.

Before that, he had been a pastor for 18 years, in what he labeled as an uneventful ministry. He was in a season of barrenness. Well, one morning, he was up in his study early, preparing a sermon on the topic of the Holy Spirit, which he was to deliver at a minister's convention.

When from downstairs he heard the voice of his sixteen-year-old daughter cheerfully singing a hymn, he stopped what he was doing to walk down the stairs to go greet her. He said, My dear Lassie, what on earth are you singing so happily about at six o'clock in the morning? She came over to him and exclaimed, Oh, Daddy, I have been up early meeting with Jesus, and I couldn't keep from singing about Him. Oh, Daddy, isn't Jesus wonderful? Duncan Campbell turned away and slowly walked back upstairs, his heart heavy within him, for although he was preparing a sermon on the Holy Spirit, he could not say that Jesus was wonderful to him right then.

Oh, how his daughter's words had pierced his heart. He shut the door of his study, threw himself down on the floor, where he wrestled with God and prayer for several hours, until he became so distraught and so desperate, his family thought they'd have to call for the doctor, for he seemed to be going mad. Finally, Duncan Campbell rose from the floor, his face drenched with tears, and in the power of God, he vowed to God to give up the security of the pastorate to return to the mission field.

It was a bold move, as he had a large family to support, but it was this moment in his life of a full surrender to God that God so honored, for it ended his barrenness, and in a few months time, he was called to preach in the Scottish Hebrides, and he was smack dab in the midst of a Holy Ghost revival. Let me ask you, brother pastor, how is it with you? Are your eyes dry? Is your heart cold? Have you lost your burden for souls, because your love for the Savior has gone dry? Jesus says in the book of Revelation, Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. Oh dear friends, let us pursue Christ Jesus with a holy passion and a burning flame. Let us keep the coals on the altar of our hearts glowing, and let us ask God to make us a burning fire that draws the world to Jesus.

Let us go through the gates of the city, arm in arm with our master in his love embrace.