Preaching and Revival

Before we go to our time of prayer this evening friends, I want to bring us a message on our topic of preaching and revival that we've been studying and I'd like to begin with the following. There's a story which has always impacted me for I believe it is useful to a Christian in remarkable ways. Many years ago in the country of Scotland in the 17th century there traveled an Englishman who loved to hear true gospel preaching and this man couldn't wait to travel throughout Scotland to hear good preachers because Scotland was the land of preaching and this traveler made his way into a kirk to listen to a man preach from Isaiah chapter 6 on an exalted view of God and he saw God high and lifted up in all his providence and sovereignty and this humbled him.

Then the next day he visited another church and there he heard a man speak on the total depravity of the human heart from Romans chapter 1 and as this preacher uncovered man and displayed man and all his foulness and wickedness it shamed him. Then on his last visit before leaving Scotland he heard a man preach on the loveliness of Jesus Christ from Matthew's gospel about the pearl of great price who was worth selling all for and losing all for that he might be gained and this thrilled him and when this traveling Englishman heard these truths brought forth with clarity and power it so altered his concepts of God and showed him an exalted view of the almighty it revealed to him the wicked windings of his own heart and it gave him such a view of the loveliness of Christ that his life was never the same again and he returned to England a changed man who was mightily used of God and my Bible declares in Psalm 25 14 the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him and he will show them his covenant and I believe friends that God wants us to know him and be used of him that he wants to strip us of all our self-reliance and pride and bring us to his feet in the dust of humility and repentance like Job so we may see him in all his true attributes and I believe that before man can be used of God in the way God desires to use him he must discover and learn three things in regard to God to himself and to Christ and the gospel number one he must have an encounter with God that so radically alters his own mistaken perceptions of God and realigns him rightly to the almighty that his knowledge of God is deepened experientially this was so with Job Moses Abraham and Jacob it was true with the apostle Paul I'm not speaking of mysticism here friends but of knowing God in such a way as he reveals himself in scripture and by his spirit in all his attributes this can only occur when a man becomes desperate enough and hungry enough to go deeper with God and experience him in a more intimate way secondly a man must be brought to the place by the almighty to see his own wicked heart in ways he was entirely ignorant before he must be brought to the wallow of his own depraved nature it admit he is nothing but a fallen creature with a bent toward sin that his depravity is not partial but total that there's not one ounce of goodness in him but that because of his sin inclination he drinks iniquity like water he's no better than a dog he returns to his vomit to lick it a sow that enjoys the filth of his wallah and rolls in it and his own elevated opinion of himself is wrong for he's nothing but a worm in God's sight God says in Isaiah thou worm Jacob that every inch of him must be placed on the altar of sacrifice for God in his glory and thirdly he must see the loveliness of Christ he must see the rose of Sharon the lily the valley and be so enraptured that his heart and his eye will ever be toward the Lord and he's willing to die completely to this world and its allurements that he is willing to have Christ drive a nail in his most beloved sin and die to self and reputation in order that Christ will be made known through him to a generation of sinners who are on their way to hell that he is so caught up in the beauty of Christ and his preciousness as the pearl of great price that he's willing to forsake all and lose all for him and the sake of the gospel every person male or female whom God has used in remarkable ways all had these discoveries personally in their lifetime as they serve their God when a person friends decides to go deeper with God in their walk with the Almighty and in the process discovers the utter wickedness of their own heart and violence before God then that person can appreciate the loveliness of Jesus and be jealous for him as he follows him in a vital love relationship with him then that person will not fear man but God and preach the gospel in all its doctrines with attending power that man is totally depraved and will not seek God on his own but that the Father must first draw him that salvation is not in the hands of man but in the hands of God it is God who gives the grace repentance and faith that the gospel is covered in Christ's blood because of sin that the gospel is blood redemption that Christ suffered and died on a bloody cross as a sacrifice for sin becoming sin for us so all who believe on him escape the wrath of God in hell that sin is black and evil and all who commit sin then sin against God that God is holy and he hates sin God must punish sin and all men will one day at the judgment be held up to the strictness and severity of the holy law of God and all men will fail that test if they stand in their own merits that the sentencing of the law must be carried out by the just judge and all sinners who die outside of Christ will be bound and cast into hellfire in perdition and be under the wrath of the almighty perpetually that there is a hell for punishment for sin and its agonies and torments are eternal and forever that God commands all men everywhere to repent and that without repentance a sinner cannot escape the fires of hell for Christ declared except ye repent ye shall likewise perish and Jesus declared you must be born again that a lost sinner must be born again through the new birth which is a supernatural act of regeneration whereby the holy spirit takes the heart of stone and makes it a heart of flesh thus implanting in him a new disposition of holiness unto God for holiness without no man shall see God now friends if you disagree with what I've said this evening I have no message for you but let us ponder these truths and ask the almighty to reveal them to our minds and hearts and apply them in the strong name of our Lord Jesus Christ amen