Seeking God's Power

I have a photograph of Duncan Campbell and the two Smith sisters emerging from a barn on the Isle of Lewis in 1949, and it seems that above them is a smoky mist. You may say it's the morning mist off the nearby sea. I say it's the holy smoke of prayer ascending up to an almighty God.

A revival broke out on Lewis and a God consciousness gripped the island and worldly teenagers began to be convicted of sin and cry out, what must I do to be saved? Duncan Campbell was the human instrument of that revival in regard to preaching, but it was the elderly Smith sisters Peggy and Christine Smith who shared in the revival as prayer instruments. They were 84 and 82 years old. Peggy was blind and her sister bent over double with arthritis, but it was these two holy women of God who moved the heart of God in prayer to send revival to the Isle of Lewis and Scotland.

They were two old women who were burdened for the youth on the island and they lay hold of the heavenly throne room until their desperate prayers reached God and God sent Duncan Campbell to the island. And I recall Manly Beasley relating a story about Duncan Campbell. He said that he and some other preachers attended a tent meeting where the speaker was Duncan Campbell of the Lewis revival.

The preachers all marveled at Duncan's power in the pulpit and were humbled by their own lack of it. Manly said it was obvious to each of us that here was a man who walked with God and of who was under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. You can listen to the audio sermons of Duncan Campbell today, friends, and there is power attending them, a power from on high.

The Holy Spirit was all over that man. And I recall Leonard Ravenhill making a comment that has stuck with me through the years. Pastors and evangelists used to make the trek to Texas to Ravenhill's home to get underneath his mentorship, to ask him questions and seek counseling and guidance from him.

Unlike many men in ministry today, Ravenhill was always accessible. He even answered his own phone. Anyway, Ravenhill made this observation from all the visits he had from preachers.

He said, everybody wants my mantle and power, but few want my sackcloth and ashes. And it's true, friends, preachers want more authority and blessings upon their ministry, but very few are willing to make the sacrifice to get it. We want the easy way to God's blessings, but there is no easy way with God, friends, what counts costs and what costs counts.

I was sitting with Dr. Stephen F. Oldford in a study one afternoon, and we were talking about the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We both had just been in a service on Sunday where a big shot Southern Baptist preacher had preached the message, and all the people just loved him. They laughed, they clapped, and they gave him a standing ovation when the guy was done preaching.

Oh, they just loved him, and he was at the top of success within the Southern Baptist ranks, and he had become a traveling preacher going around to all the big Baptist churches, preaching to them all over the country. Stephen Oldford shared this story with me about this man. He said one day he received a letter from this man, and the man asked him if he could spend some time with Dr. Oldford to learn more about the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Dr. Oldford had warmly responded to this man's letter, offering to meet with him any time the man was ready. Well, time went by, and when Dr. Oldford would run into this man at conferences, he kept putting off Dr. Oldford's inquiry as to when they would meet to talk about the anointing of the Holy Spirit. This big preacher would always brush him off and say he couldn't do it now.

So as I sat in Dr. Oldford's study, he told me he had just written this man a letter, and he wanted to share the contents of it with me. The substance of the letter was this. My dear brother, I heard you preach this past Sunday, and I see you have found great popularity within the convention, but let me ask you this question, my brother.

Where is the power? Where is the power? And as I sat there listening to Stephen Oldford relate that story to me, I knew what he was talking about. Stephen Oldford had power in the pulpit, and whether you were in the audience listening to him preach or sitting in his office with him, he always had a large measure of divine authority on him because of his consecrated life unto God through a holy walk with God. On the wall of Dr. Oldford's study was a framed quote from his hero, Robert Murray McShane, which read, Lord, make me as holy as a saved sinner can be.

That was Stephen Oldford's motto, and he modeled a life of holiness well. So this whole aspect of an anointing, of having power in the pulpit, of having authority from on high, is tied to our seeking of God in a close walk with God through a life of self-denial and holiness. There must be an emptying process before there is a feeling process.

Sidlo Baxter used to say, how can a man full of himself preach to Christ who emptied himself? I want us to look today, friends, at this aspect of the Christian life, which is a life of power with God, and I want to state right here and now that this is not restricted to men only. I recall another story that Manly Beasley told. It was one of the times when he was in the hospital, and if you know anything about Manly Beasley, you know he spent a good part of his life in the hospital.

Well, this was really a bad physical time for him, and it was affecting his emotions for he sunk into a deep depression, and some of his preacher buddies got on a plane, flew out to Texas to meet with him in his hospital room to pray with him and try and cheer him up through fellowship and prayer, but it wasn't working. He just got more and more gloomy. Then the door of his hospital room opened suddenly, and in walked a tall older woman in an inexpensive print dress.

It was Corrie Ten Boom, and she came over to Manly's bedside grabbed his hand in her hand, and she began to pray for him, and she said, Manly, God loves you, and he is with you, and Manly Beasley said the following. He said when she began to pray, I don't know if heaven came down to that hospital room or if that hospital room went up to heaven, but God's glory was all over that place, and I want to look at this aspect of power from on high today, friends, in a seeking of God's power and anointing. I've entitled my message today, Seeking God's Power, and our text is found in the book of 1 Kings.

You can turn in your now. We will be in chapter 17 in verses 1 through 7, and we will peer into the life of the prophet Elijah and see how he served God in his generation, and I want to ask you, friend, how are you serving God in your generation? Let me put it another way. Are you serving God in your generation from the vantage point of heaven? In other words, has God told you how he wants you to serve him, to reach your generation? How would you even know if you haven't sought the face of God or shut yourself up to God to find out? God doesn't casually live like we do.

He delights in sacrifice for he sacrificed his only begotten son for sinful man, and sin cost Jesus' very blood. How can we casually seek God's guidance when we don't serve a casual God? How can you have power in your life, friend, through an anointing if you don't make the sacrifice to get it? Like Ravenhill said, everybody wants my mantle and my power, but few want my sackcloth and ashes. Leonard Ravenhill had a powerful ministry because he maintained a close walk with his God.

Let me begin our passage today, and may God attend the reading of his holy word. And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Carith, that is before Jordan.

And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. So he went, and did according unto the word of the Lord. For he went and dwelt by the brook Carith, that is before Jordan.

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook. And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. Ahab was a wicked king.

He served Baal and not God, and the entire land dwelt in wickedness because of this wicked king. We live in a desperate day, friends, an age of debauchery and great evil. Immorality rules the nation of America like a great plague.

The citizens of America hunger for more nudity and sex than any other nation on earth. We are a nation sunk in a cesspool of moral filth, debauchery and perversion. Our teenagers are sleeping with each other, and the trend is boys sleeping with boys, girls sleeping with girls.

There's more bisexual teens in this generation than any other generation preceding it. It's cool to be bisexual today. And how does the American church reach the youth in their congregations? They hire rappers to entertain them.

They give them movie nights, mud fights, and pizza nights. So the teens shoplift and sleep around. They're high on marijuana, they're drunk on booze, and they ground on one another at church parties and sit in church on Sunday morning and say they love Jesus.

There's no spiritual leadership in our land, so the nation calls good evil and evil good, and society descends deeper and deeper into a moral tailspin that's fast spinning out of control. We see in our text today that Ahab was a wicked king and that Elijah was the prophet of God. Our problem today, friends, is we have enough wicked kings, but not enough prophets.

Where, oh, where is the person who is willing to get alone by their own brook, careth, and shut themselves up with God and pray for the sins of this nation to shut themselves up with God long enough to where they obtain power from God through an anointing that when they preach, there is power in the pulpit and not just personality? Where is the pastor who's willing to get along with God long enough to where he can say, like Elijah, as the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand? But God is looking for a man to walk with. God is looking for a human instrument to bring forth his glory. But who is seeking God today? Who is so desperate for God and thirsty for Christ and eaten up with eternity that they are willing to forgo sleep, cast out their idols, and turn from their wicked ways? God's looking for the pastor who will hide himself by the brook, careth, and shut himself up with God until he gets a fresh word from God.

Second Chronicles declares, for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Listen friends, God's eyes are continually searching the earth for those rare individuals of whom the world was not worthy. Men like Moses and John the Baptist, Luther and Calvin, Whitefield and Wesley, Finney and Moody, men who live in a different atmosphere than other mortals, men who have annihilated self with the cross and whose lives are broken alabaster boxes from which fragrances rise to the heavens, and from the broken pieces of selflessness, self-sacrifice, and self-crucifixion.

God is always on the lookout for such men. When I was doing my research on my authorized biography on J. Sidlow Baxter, I remember I was in Arkansas interviewing some people who knew him well. One man summed up his impression of Sidlow Baxter in this way.

He said, you always knew when you heard Sidlow Baxter preach that he was a man who just left the presence of God. Let me ask you, friend, do you want power? Do you desire greater usefulness for God? Do you want to reach this generation for Christ, then shut yourself up with God in such a time of desperate seeking of him that when you come down from the mount, your face will be all aglow, and the people will know that you, too, have just left the presence of the Almighty?