Make My Life a Prayer to You

I have a little section here of a book called The Revival We Need. It's an out-of-print book by a guy named Oswald J. Smith. This was first written in 1933 from a man in Canada, Toronto.

This is 1933, now listen to this. It is reported that there were 7,000 churches that did not win a single soul for Jesus Christ this entire year. That means that 7,000 ministers preached the gospel for a whole year without reaching even one lost soul.

Supposing that they preached, even at a low average of 40 Sundays, two sermons a Sunday, not including any extra meetings or midday meetings, that would mean that these 7,000 ministers preached 560,000 sermons in a single year. Think of the work, the labor, the money expended in salaries, lights, building, etc., to make this possible. And yet, 560,000 sermons preached by 7,000 ministers in 7,000 churches to millions of hearers during a period of 12 months failed to bring a single soul to Christ this year.

Now, my brethren, there is something radically wrong somewhere. The understatement of 1933. There is either something the matter with these 7,000 ministers, or with their 560,000 sermons, or with both.

In reading over the 12 rules of the early Methodist church, I was struck with the fact that they aimed at and looked upon soul winning as their only task. Let me quote from one of them. This is one of the 12 rules of the early Methodist church.

Oh, that it would be this way now. You have nothing to do but save souls. Therefore, spend and be spent in this work.

It is not your business to preach so many times but to save as many souls as you can, to bring as many sinners as you possibly can to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in that holiness, without which they cannot see the Lord. From the 12 rules by John Wesley. Glory to God.

It's a revival we need. And today in 1979, how many churches are there that don't have one conjurer in a full year? Well, there's 600 churches in this town alone. I've been to many churches where altar calls, altars have been barren, because the fire had gone out not on the altar but on the hearts of the men and women of God in that believing fellowship that wasn't believing very much anymore.

If the shoe fits, we must wear it. If my message tonight does not apply to you, you can sit back and rejoice and enjoy it. I mean, you might enjoy the music, but how can you enjoy the bleeding heart of our Lord Jesus? Oh, God, that you raise up men on this campus and women on this campus and in this city and in this country.

The apathy that runs rampant in our country, due to several things from the Vietnam War that we fought against a little itty-bitty nation, but we didn't win. We left. We lost against a little country of several million people.

You know, have you ever thought of that? Have you ever conceived? Why is Vietnam so brave as to take on China? Because they beat the United States! And then Watergate came along and everybody's love for government and love for the system got a little dirty and got a little pale and a little appalled, a little apathetic. And the nation started thinking, well, look, those guys aren't working for me, they're working for them, so I better take their advice and their example and work for me, too. It was reported in Time magazine, $198 billion every year go unreported by American taxpayers.

$198 billion in unreported income. How much of it is yours? The pilfering that goes on called blue-collar crime is something like $40-50 billion. Pilfering, that means people that don't work the hours they punch in on the clock or taking just a ream of paper home for the kids or calling in sick when they're not.

If but one half of that amount could be restored to our economy, we would be the most flourishing economy in the world. When God wants to talk to his people, he talks to them in three ways. First, he touches them where it hurts in their economy.

If that doesn't get their attention, then he touches their ecology. The rain, the locusts, the famines, the earthquakes, so on. And if that doesn't work, he raises up a nation to come and invade them.

I think we have struck out in two of those areas. I'm not a prophet of doom. I'm a prophet of love.

But love will bid a warning doom to those children that play on the freeway. And I tell you this, you need to wake up. For Jesus wept over Jerusalem and said, Bid that the Father, the Lord of the harvest, send laborers into the harvest.

Now why would Jesus tell his disciples to pray, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send laborers in? Why would he bid them pray such a thing? Didn't he have enough faith for it? Doesn't Jesus have enough faith? Why bother asking disciples to pray when Jesus has enough faith? In fact, right now Jesus lives, ever liveth to make intercession for us. Hebrews says he's our intercessor. Right now Jesus Christ is praying for everyone in this room.

His ministry is prayer. That's all he does. It says he liveth ever to make intercession for his bride.

Right now, on the throne, on the right hand of the Father, he's interceding. What is intercession but prayer? How many people here believe that Jesus is praying for them right now, interceding for them by the right hand of the Father? The Bible tells us so. Did you ever think of that? That he's praying for you? Why bother praying? He's got lots of faith.

Why bother asking? I'm trying to tell you something important. The prayerlessness of this people, called the children of God, the children of the Father, is a crime. It's lawlessness.

All hell breaks loose upon the earth. And the fire department, us Christians, we're the fire department. Our prayers can extinguish the fiery darts of the enemies.

Well, what would you think of the Tulsa fire department if a school was burning with children in it and they were sleeping or reading a nice novel or even reading a newspaper or just sitting around doing nothing? Every day people go down to the pits of deepest, dark hell. Your neighbors, your friends, your relatives. And you don't want to blow your witness.

You don't want to turn them off. You don't want to make them feel like you're trying to get them saved so you don't and so they go to hell. And I'm asking you, what are you giving them in return? A cool friendship? I'd rather have people hate me and acknowledge that I tried to save them.