Folks, I’m tired of hearing about revival. I’m tired of hearing about awakenings, of last day outpourings of the Holy Spirit. I’ve heard that rhetoric for 50 years. Just rhetoric. No meaning whatsoever.
I’m tired of hearing about people in the church who say they want their unsaved loved ones saved. I’m tired of hearing people say I’m concerned about my troubled marriage, when it’s just talk, rhetoric!
I look at the whole religious scene today, and all I see are the invention and ministries of man and flesh. It’s mostly powerless. It has no impact on the world. And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church, rather than the church impacting the world.
I see the music, entertainment taking over the House of God, an obsession with entertainment in God’s House, a hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof, nobody wants to hear it anymore.
Whatever happened to anguish in the House of God? Whatever happened to anguish in the ministry? It’s a word you don’t hear in this pampered age! You don’t hear it. Anguish means extreme pain and distress, emotions so stirred that it becomes painful, acute, deeply felt inner pain because of conditions about you, in you, or around you. Anguish. Deep pain and sorrow. Agony of God’s Heart.
We’ve held on to our religious rhetoric, and our revival talk, but we’ve become so passive. Our so-called awakenings are stirrings; they last but a short time. And in those times we promise God we’ll never return to our passivity. But it’s not long, it’s just weeks or months and we’re back, and this time we slip further back into passivity than when we started.
I speak from experience. And we say: “This time Lord God, You’ve touched me for life, I’ll never be the same.” And it’s like fireworks, a loud bang and a lot of noise and then it dies!
All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ comes out of a baptism of anguish. Search the Scriptures and you’ll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation, He would seek out a praying man, and He’d take him down into the waters of anguish. He would share His own anguish for what He saw happening to His church and to His people.
He would find a praying man, and He would take that man and literally baptise him in anguish. Now I believe in the love of God. I’ve preached mercy and grace, and love, covenant love, and I believe in preaching the goodness and longsuffering of Christ.
But multitudes today are being saturated with ‘you’re ok’ messages. We’ve got people now that are turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.
We’ve become like the children of Israel who said the right words, but here is what God said:
I’ve heard the words of this people; they have well said all that they have spoken. O, that there was such a heart in them that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!
He said: “O, you have the right words, you sing the right songs, but your heart is not right!”
You find it in the Book of Nehemiah. Jerusalem is in ruins. Here was a delegation from the ruined city coming to Nehemiah and said: “Jerusalem is broken down, the walls are down, ruin, nothing but ruin!” Now these I’m sure were godly men, good men, but they had no concept of how God was going to deal with the situation, how He was going to bring about a recovery.
Why didn’t they have an answer? Why didn’t God use them in restoration? Why didn’t they have a word? – Because there was no sign of anguish! No weeping! Not a word of prayer! It’s all ruin. Nehemiah says:
When I heard these words, I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days and fasted, and prayed before the God of Heaven.
You see, God found a praying man, and He takes him down into the waters of baptism of anguish. This man goes down into anguish. God found a man who would not just have a flash of emotion – not just some great sudden burst of concern and then let it die.
You see, we face a similar situation, except ours is many times worse! Does it matter to you today, does it matter to you at all, that God’s spiritual Jerusalem, the church – is now married to the world?! That there’s such a coldness sweeping the land?
So many people I know that were my friends, and I see them go, one by one, husbands and wives, into such passivity, going to churches where they can find smooth messages, no longer wanting to hear anything of wrath or of correction! Some of my closest friends – I see them falling by the wayside. And the cries? Is it nothing to you?!!
Closer than that, does it matter about the Jerusalem that is in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that is slowly draining spiritual power and passion? Blind to lukewarmness, to the mixture that is creeping in? You see, when spiritual blindness comes, very few recognise it, it is the last thing to be recognised that happens to a child of God.
In all honesty, there are numbers among us that are changing, and they don’t know it. You’ve lost your fight, so you won’t labour in prayer anymore, you won’t weep before God anymore, you can sit and watch television and your family go to hell.
Does it really matter to you that your unsaved loved ones are dying and we’re getting closer and closer to the end? Does it really concern you, they could die and go to hell? Even though you’re a lover of Christ? Where is the anguish? Where are the tears? Where is the mourning?
Where is the fasting? I know now, O my God, do I know it, until I’m in agony, until I’m in anguish over it, I’m preaching ‘sermons’! Then I say: “No! It’s too late! I don’t have that much time!” All our projects, all our ministries, everything we do… I know now, it will take more than preaching, more than a new revelation.
There’s going to be no renewal and no revival, no awakening – until we’re willing to let Him once again break us.
Folks, it’s getting late and it’s getting serious. Please don’t tell me you’re concerned, don’t tell me that you want your unsaved loved ones saved – when you’re spending hours in front of the internet or television. Come on!
There’s some that need to get to the altar and confess, “I’m not what I was, I’m not where I’m supposed to be, God I don’t have Your Heart or Your Burden, I wanted it easy, I just wanted to be happy!”
There is nothing of the flesh will give you joy. I don’t care how much money; I don’t care what kind of new house. There is absolutely nothing physical that can give you joy. It’s only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey Him and take on His Heart.
He gives you the knowing of His Voice that instant knowledge God is saying, “This is the way, walk in it!” And then the wonderful joy of seeing God answer your prayer and build the walls around your family, build the walls around your own heart, and make you strong and impregnable against the enemy. God that is what we desire!
Here is the Full Sermon
