I'm grateful again for this wonderful opportunity of
being at the HeartCry Conference.
By God's grace, I've been privileged to be
at each one and to have an opportunity
to open my heart and the word of
God to those who have come.
Now, I've been thinking and praying a great
deal about this particular conference.
When it was all agreed upon, I didn't
know but what we were going to have
two duplicate conferences.
And so we would simply be repeating next
week what we had this week.
And then later on it became apparent, no,
they weren't going to be duplicate at all.
And then I was, you know, wrestling with
the matter.
Well, how should I handle my part of
it?
What ought I to do in the light
of this?
And I've decided to do what might seem
to be perfectly absurd, but you'll probably never
encounter anybody less concerned about what others think
than me.
And so what I'm going to do, God
helping me, is to give a series of
four messages on the subject of divine visitations
to this week, to next week.
I honestly think it will prove beneficial for
those who will not be here next week
to pick up on this theme over the
internet as we've been told we could or
by whatever appropriate method.
My parents, when I was a boy of
eight years of age, were profoundly converted.
My mother had no spiritual background at all.
My father was of Welsh descent and had
a very godly heritage, but he had departed
from it and paid no attention whatsoever until
a strange incident occurred.
For reasons never quite clear to me, my
parents sent my older sister and my brother
and myself to a Methodist Sunday school in
Scotia, New York.
We came home from Sunday school one morning
and reported to our mother that we had
been learning about the fable of Jonah and
the whale.
My mother was shocked and she said, and
these, to me, are incredible words, from a
know-nothing spiritually.
She said, we do not send children to
Sunday school to make them unbelievers.
We are all unbelievers by nature.
And then she added, you will never return
to that Sunday school.
But in the providence of God, at just
about that time, and aunt and uncle were
putting pressure on my parents to attend a
series of special evangelistic meetings in the Christian
and Missionary Alliance Church in Schenectady, New York.
And they went and God transformed their lives.
They were immediately drawn into a cottage prayer
meeting and went faithfully.
And somehow, I never quite understood why, except
again the providence of God.
I became greatly interested in that cottage prayer
meeting and attended, as far as I know,
the only child there.
But somehow, through that cottage prayer meeting, I
caught something of the beauty of holiness and
something of the urgent need of revival.
I believe in actual truth I had been
regenerated, but not yet converted.
Now I know that some of you use
those terms interchangeably.
I think you do damage to the kingdom
of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ
by foolishly abusing the language of scripture.
But at the age of 12, I was
in attendance at the Bible conference, long out
of existence, but it was called Sunrise Mountain
Bible Conference, Lake George, New York.
An appeal was made for anyone who would
surrender to become a missionary.
And I responded with all of my heart,
but unwisely.
In the course of those few days at
Sunrise Mountain, on a hike with some of
the other young people, I had sat down
on a stump, which unbeknownst to me, was
cushioned by poison ivy vines.
And I got one horrendous case of poison
ivy in those portions of my body, it's
best not to describe.
For days, I was unable to walk.
I could not climb the stairs to my
bedroom.
I was laid out on the couch and
left alone, pretty much the bulk of the
time.
And for a period of several days, was
drawn into an incredible struggle over what it
meant to surrender for missionary service.
For I felt the Lord saying to me,
I wished you to make that surrender, but
not to be a missionary, but to be
a preacher of the gospel and to call
my people to repentance and faith.
I argued with the Lord, not out of
rebellion, honestly thinking he had made a mistake.
I explained to him with great care that
I could be a missionary.
I had been working on a farm for
four years, a truck farm.
And I explained to the Lord, I could
put a track in every bushel basket of
beans.
I could, in some fashion, accompany each sale
of vegetables with some kind of a witness,
which I was more than willing to do.
I could go to some dark part of
the world and serve as an agricultural missionary,
but I couldn't preach.
And it was simply true, I could not.
I, if called upon in public school to
answer a question, I simply froze up.
I could not answer.
And so I struggled over the days with
both my poison ivy and with what my
surrender meant.
Until suddenly it became crystal clear that while
it was absolutely true I could not preach,
it was also true that God could and
he could use a frail vessel.
And I simply said, Lord, if that's your
choice, that's what you've got.
Whatever there is of me is yours.
And by God's grace, since that time, my
heart has burned for the church to experience
once again the manifest presence of God in
her midst.
Now for weeks in thoughtful preparation for these
days, I was investigating the term visit or
visitation in the scripture and honestly was somewhat
surprised and a bit grieved to discover that
the most frequent use of those terms in
scripture had to do with judgments and condemnation.
Now I really didn't want to come and
speak on that subject, nor am I supposed
to in actual fact, but I did discover
that there were far fewer passages dealing with
divine visitations that were of the positive revival
sort than I had originally anticipated.
But what I came to was a series
of four messages on the subject of divine
visitation, three drawn out of the book of
Luke and four out of the other book
that the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write,
the book of Acts.
And I want to take a moment or
two to set in front of you the
intention at least, now as was agreed yesterday,
the Lord is in charge here.
And if I don't get to preach the
second message tomorrow or the third and the
fourth next week, that's perfectly all right.
But given divine permission and enablement, my intention
is to speak this morning out of Luke
chapter, not this morning, this afternoon, though I'm
feeling energetic enough for it to be morning,
but to speak this afternoon on that incredible
song that Zacharias the priest wrote.
What an incredible passage on divine visitation.
Then Lord willing tomorrow out of Luke again,
chapter three, those preparations that are necessary for
divine visitation using the words, the message of
the son of Zacharias, John the Baptist.
And while most of you won't be here,
I hope next week to deal first with
those incredibly sad words spoken by our Lord
Jesus Christ to the bulk of the religious
leaders of his day, recorded in Luke 19
verses 40 to 44.
When he said to them, you did not
recognize your time of visitation.
I have for years and under the heavy
burden of realization that an incredible visitation could
occur in our society and the church wouldn't
recognize it.
It amazes me even now, why so few
long for God's visit?
I should think under the circumstances in which
we find ourselves, the entire church would be
on its face pleading with God to come
again.
But instead there is every probability unless something
wonderful occurs, that the bulk of the church
will miss the Lord's visit.
If indeed he graces us with another revival.
And then the last sermon again, Lord willing,
I intend to bring out of Acts chapter
three, where there is a simply unbelievable situation
described, where Peter addressing the very people that
crucified our Lord and even describing their action.
And he said to them, when Pilate had
made up his mind to release Christ, you
insisted, no, crucify him, give us a murderer
instead.
But repent and return and enjoy a season
of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.
So divine visitations.
Let us turn then to the book of
Luke and pick up the matter in the
first portion that we find concerning Zacharias.
I need not comment extensively, but it is
certainly important that we at least read the
passages where the Lord is confronting this man,
Zacharias.
So Luke chapter one, picking it up please
at verse five.
In the days of Herod, King of Judea,
there was a certain priest named Zacharias of
the division of Abijah.
And he had a wife from the daughters
of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
And they were both righteous in the sight
of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments
and requirements of the Lord.
I wonder how many of us could ever
have such a report written concerning our walk
with the Lord.
Verse seven, they had no child because Elizabeth
was barren and they were both advanced in
years.
Now it came about while he was performing
his priestly service before God in the appointed
order of his division, according to the custom
of the priestly office, he was chosen by
lot to enter the temple of the Lord
and burn incense.
And the whole multitude of the people were
in prayer outside at the hour of the
incense offering.
And an angel of the Lord appeared to
him standing to the right of the altar
of incense.
And Zacharias was troubled when he saw him
for fear gripped him.
But the angel said to him, do not
be afraid Zacharias for your petition has been
heard.
And your wife, Elizabeth will bear you a
son and you will give him the name
John and you will have joy and gladness
and many will rejoice at his birth for
he will be great in the sight of
the Lord and he will drink no wine
or liquor and he will be filled with
the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's
womb.
And he will turn back many of the
sons of Israel to the Lord their God.
And it is he who will go as
a forerunner before him in the spirit and
power of Elijah to turn the hearts of
the fathers back to the children and the
disobedient to the attitude of the righteous so
as to make ready a people prepared for
the Lord.
And Zacharias said to the angel, how shall
I know this for certain for I'm an
old man.
And my wife is advanced in years.
And the angel answered and said to him,
I am Gabriel who stands in the presence
of God.
I have been sent to speak to you
and to bring you this good news.
And behold, you shall be silent and unable
to speak until the day when these things
take place because you did not believe my
words which shall be fulfilled in their proper
time.
And the people were waiting for Zacharias and
were wondering at his delay in the temple.
But when he came out, he was unable
to speak to them.
And they realized that he had seen a
vision in the temple and he kept making
signs to them and remained mute.
And it came about when the days of
his priestly service were ended that he went
back home.
And after these days, Elizabeth, his wife became
pregnant and she kept herself in seclusion for
five months saying this is the way the
Lord has dealt with me in the days
when he looked with favor upon me to
take away my disgrace from among men.
Let's turn now to the latter portion of
the chapter and let us pick up the
reading once again.
Her neighbors and her relatives, verse 58, heard
that the Lord had displayed his great mercy
toward her and they were rejoicing with her.
And it came about that on the eighth
day, they came to circumcise the child and
they were going to call him Zacharias after
his father.
And his mother answered and said, no, indeed,
but he shall be called John.
And they said to her, there's no one
among your relatives who's called by that name.
And they made signs to his father as
to what he wanted him called.
And he asked for a tablet and he
wrote as follows, his name is John.
And they were all astonished.
And at once, his mouth was opened and
his tongue loosed and he began to speak
in praise of God.
And fear came upon all those living around
them.
And all these matters were being talked about
in all the hill country of Judea.
And all who heard them kept them in
mind saying, what then will this child turn
out to be?
For the hand of the Lord was certainly
with him.
And his father, Zacharias was filled with the
Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, blessed be the
Lord God of Israel for he has visited
us and accomplished redemption for his people and
has raised up a horn of salvation for
us in the house of David his servant.
As he spoke by the mouth of his
Holy prophets from of old, salvation from our
enemies and from the hand of all who
hate us to show mercy toward our fathers
and to remember his Holy covenant, the oath
which he swore to Abraham our father to
grant us that we being delivered from the
hand of our enemies might serve him without
fear in holiness and righteousness before him all
our day.
And you child will be called the prophet
of the most high for you will go
on before the Lord to prepare his way
to give to his people the knowledge of
salvation by the forgiveness of their sins because
of the tender mercy of our God with
which the sunrise from on high shall visit
us to shine upon those who in darkness
and the shadow of death to guide our
feet into the way of peace.
I trust that all of you understand the
biblical issue of God's limited habitation.
I say I trust you understand I know
full well the church by and large does
not.
Isaiah in his 57th chapter and verse 15
makes a declaration we've got to pay strict
attention to the sayeth the high and the
lofty one who inhabits eternity whose name is
holy.
I dwell in a high and lofty place
with him also who is broken and contract
to revive the high to the broken one
to revive the spirit of the contract.
God's habitation is severely limited to two places
the high and the lofty place where he
reigns and rule.
And the only exception he makes is the
high when he inhabits the heart the spirit
of the broken and the contract.
Now the vast majority profess Christians in America
know nothing of brokenness and contrition.
They know nothing now they never knew anything.
Nobody ever told them concerning God's limited habitation.
Many who honestly believe they are Christians and
our living in what they consider true assurance
of faith are under the delusion that God
lives anywhere and everywhere and all you have
to do is to say come and inhabit
me and he has no choice but to
dwell in the proud in the arrogant in
the unholy in those who love sin in
those who both give themselves to iniquity and
push iniquity upon others.
But in actual fact there are only these
two places where he dwell.
Now he may in his providence visit the
arrogant but normally those visits as I reported
earlier are visits of condemnation visits in which
he justifies his destruction of them by taking
away their excuses.
I don't know how many of you are
preachers I know personally I was troubled for
a season in my life in going somewhere
to preach and in observing the hardness of
the heart.
You see my ministry really began in the
county poorhouse of Schenectady at the time my
father was converted he became burdened to reach
the poor and the down and out and
he started a ministry in the county poorhouse
every Friday night for years and years my
dad went and preached Christ in the poorhouse.
Indeed my wife Maggie knew my father long
before she knew me because she was part
of the team of young people that accompanied
my dad on Friday evenings to proclaim Christ
to the down and the outers.
But after God graciously brought me into a
vital relationship with himself at the age of
12 my dad said I want you to
help me in the poorhouse.
He had four stations where every Friday night
he preached and he said now you take
station A tonight and I'll take B, C
and D and in time he took two
and I took two I was only a
kid but a kid who understood that Jesus
Christ only dwells in the broken and the
contract.
Now while that's not an official part of
my sermon I do want to urge upon
you to get that fact straight.
Some of you are guilty of calling people
converts who know nothing of brokenness and contrition
who never came anywhere near that point in
life where they abhorred their sin and longed
for Christ's righteousness.
We are calling incredible numbers of people Christians
who have no thought in all the world
of turning away from iniquity in order to
turn toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
As I said there are these visitations that
God makes many of which as I have
reported are visitations of condemnation but there are
also visits of the sort that Zacharias has
described in this passage.
I don't know how many of you have
acquainted yourself with this beautiful song that Zacharias
composed and in some fashion sang or chanted
but this song has two stanzas.
If you look through it carefully you understand
that really there are only two sentences in
this passage.
I am speaking now of the passage beginning
at verse 67 and running through verse 79,
two long sentences.
The first sentence is a sentence in which
Zacharias is delighting in giving praise to God
who visits men in the form of the
horn of salvation.
So the first mention of the visitation specifically
focuses upon the horn of salvation.
The second stanza which begins at verse 76
and obviously runs to verse 79 gives Zacharias
the joy and the privilege of realizing and
expressing gratitude for the mission that his own
child was called to and this mission focuses
upon the visitation which is stated in these
beautiful words, the sunrise from on high will
visit man.
So we have the visit depicted in the
language of the horn of salvation and the
visit depicted in the language of the sunrise
from on high.
Now we read in verse 67 that the
father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Spirit
and prophesied.
I've been in numerous situations where prophecies were
given.
I had occasion when it occurred to wonder
if indeed it was true and often it
proved to be just ridiculous.
If one is truly prophesied, they are literally
filled with the Holy Spirit as was Zacharias.
I brought along a quotation from a Lutheran
Bible expositor I want to share with you.
Some of you who haven't yet formulated good
libraries may want to make note now of
this recommendation of a fabulous commentary.
Lenski, the Lutheran, has a 12 volume set
on the New Testament that is magnificent but
the poor man was a Lutheran and some
of you are Baptists.
We all have something to apologize for.
There's in almost every instance something in our
background that weakens us.
Some affiliation that we hold dear that lessens
our effectiveness.
If brothers and sisters, you can forgive dear
brother Lenski for being a Lutheran and occasionally
you have to because when it comes to
the subject of the Lord's Supper, he has
to give it a Lutheran twist.
Or when it comes to the subject of
Baptism, you're expecting to find the Lutheran twist
there.
So when I read Lenski, I start out
saying to myself and acknowledging to the Lord,
here is a dear brother who suffers weaknesses
such as I have.
And I'm not going to lay him aside
because there's something that he writes that I
stumble over.
I'm going to rejoice in the incredible truth
that is brought forth.
And I want to give you a quotation
about this matter of the Holy Spirit and
prophecy from Lenski.
To prophesy is not merely to foretell the
future, or to speak an exalted language that
resembles psalms.
But, now catch this, but to understand the
will and the acts of God in their
inner connection and to reveal this connection for
the hearers in their present situation and as
it regards the future.
Thus any man who is moved by the
Spirit in the ordinary way may prophesy, even
as stated in 1 Corinthians 14, one.
But the strict sense to prophesy is to
speak with that understanding of the will and
the acts of God and their inner connection.
Thus, while under the extraordinary influence of the
Spirit who is granted for the time or
the occasion, being as a special gift so
that what is spoken is spoken by inspiration
and bears the mark of infallibility.
Now you see that's precisely the song of
Zacharias.
Every single word of it inspired by the
Holy Spirit.
Every dot and tittle of the song fulfilled
completely and with absolute accuracy.
I believe one of the reasons we have
so many who think they're prophets and are
giving us all this wild spouting is because
they don't really know anything about God's limited
habitation.
Once they understand he only dwells in the
broken and the contrite, they put some very
severe restrictions on their own mouth activity.
Now in verse 68, Zacharias speaks these words.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for
he has visited us and accomplished redemption for
his people.
Now let's remind ourselves of when this song
appeared.
This is at the circumcision of John the
Baptist, eight days following his birth.
And here in this prophecy, it is clearly
stated that the visit has already begun.
There had been no birth of Christ.
There had been no preaching and teaching.
There had been no cross and no tomb
and no resurrection, but there had been the
conception in the womb of the virgin.
And thus this salvation is treated as accomplished
because God has already set in motion those
incredibly beautiful matters that end up in salvation
for the nations.
I remember hearing many years ago, someone speaking
very carefully and explaining why our Lord often
in dealing with an individual gave them another
name.
And this person made the statement, Christ is
viewing them not as they are, but as
they are going to be under his power
and his influence.
And what beautiful truth there is here.
And Zacharias, I believe, is doing a similar
thing, knowing that indeed the virgin had conceived,
he is able to proclaim the salvation as
if it were already fully and wonderfully accomplished.
But as I pointed out earlier, in verse
69, he has raised up a horn of
salvation for us in the house of David,
his servant.
Now we are in danger of supposing this
horn of salvation might be like a cornucopia.
And most of you can call to mind
immediately a picture of a cornucopia, a horn
of plenty.
And you see in your mind's eye even
now, this array of fruit just sort of
spilling out of this horn.
But that's not what Zacharias is making reference
to.
Not a horn of plenty.
Indeed, he specifically describes it as a horn
of salvation.
And in my mind, at least, the best
way that I've been able to conceive of
envisioning this is in terms of a rhinoceros.
Now there are many horned beasts, but not
all that many that have a single horn.
And this passage is obviously in the singular.
But if you think of the horn of
salvation as the horn of a wild beast
that puts on the run.
Now it wasn't a wild beast with horns
that set you running.
But at least you know something of pursuit
and the fear.
But think in terms now of our Lord
Jesus Christ as the horn of salvation.
There is nothing that stands against this horn.
He can root out every evil.
He is the one who is on the
attack.
He is the one who is dealing with
our arch enemy.
He is the one who has assured victory.
He is the one that cannot be defeated
under any circumstance.
God has raised up for us the horn
of salvation.
I don't know that surprise would be the
right term.
Grief might come closer to it.
But in the early days of my ministry,
I was dealing with a far more victorious
church than I am today.
And how can that possibly be?
Has our savior lost his power?
Has the horn of salvation been broken?
Has the enemy become stronger?
Why in listening to some preachers, you almost
get the notion that somehow what Satan has
done is to take that manufacturing plant where
he has been producing demons, which ran but
eight hours a day on a five day
week.
And he's churned things up and has put
on three shifts and another group to work
the weekends.
And he has been producing demons at an
incredible rate and then unleashing them upon us.
And we all are in danger and we
ought to flee for our lives.
And so our great concern these days in
much of the church is to say, hurry
up and come back Lord Jesus and rescue
me from this miserable mess.
No, God raised up a horn of salvation.
And that horn is his sharp.
And indeed, the one behind the horn is
able as ever in the history of mankind
to bring about the very salvation that he
has promised.
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel.
The Messiah has been conceived.
The redemption is underway.
And when he refers here to redemption, he's
referring to the purchase being enacted.
The payment has been made.
We have been liberated.
Satan no longer has us under his control.
We're not on his leash.
He's not giving the orders.
He's not in command.
But notice in this passage that the word
remembered occurs.
Verse 72, to show mercy toward our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant.
There are seasons when it almost seems as
if the Lord has forgotten his commitments.
But when we are almost inclined in our
prayers to remind him of what we think
he is in danger, at least, of having
lost sight of.
But no, even if there were 400 years
of silence that preceded this song of Zacharias,
the Lord hadn't forgotten it.
And I often remind myself, having been led
to a burden for revival as a boy
of 12, and having committed myself shortly thereafter
to read and deed to master every book
on the subject ever written, which I still
haven't succeeded in doing, but I keep at
it.
But I have to remind myself from time
to time, well, you may not choose to
visit again in my lifetime.
But does that give me reason for letting
up?
Does that give me grounds for relaxing and
forgetting my call?
I live in hope that he'll visit even
this week.
But if it's yet a while before he
comes among us as the horn of salvation
and as the sunrise from on high, we
must faithfully persevere.
Over the years, nothing has disturbed me more
regularly and deeply than to see young people
caught up, in some sense, at least, of
the burden for revival and making outlandish promises
as to how they're going to persevere and
stick with what God has laid upon their
hearts, only discover months or years later, they've
forgotten all about those early commitments.
And I'm glad of the opportunity to speak
to you young people right now and say
a burden from the Lord is a lifetime
burden.
Don't lay it aside.
People often say to me, Mr. Roberts, how
long have you been preaching along these lines?
Well, don't you get discouraged?
What reason have I got to be discouraged?
I wasn't called to bring revival to pass.
I was called to plead with the people
of God to repent and return.
And although it hasn't happened in masses, thank
God, there are individuals who have heard and
responded.
I'm pleading with you.
Once you set your faith on this great
issue of calling upon God to visit and
upon the people of God to make ready
for his coming, don't lay it aside no
matter what.
Now, as I said, this song is divided
into two parts and we've noted something in
terms of the first part.
But look now, if you will, at the
second part of this precious song.
You, child, will be called the prophet of
the most high for you will go on
before the Lord to prepare his way.
To give to his people the knowledge of
salvation by the forgiveness of their sins because
of the tender mercies of our God with
which the sunrise from on high shall visit
us to shine upon those who sit in
darkness and the shadow of death and to
guide our feet into the way of peace.
But perhaps I better back up and call
a little bit more to your attention in
the first stanza.
Look at verse 70.
He spoke by the mouth of his holy
prophets from of all.
Salvation from our enemies and from the hand
of all who hate us to show mercy
toward our fathers and to remember his holy
covenant.
This coming of the horn of salvation, this
coming, this visitation of the sunrise from on
high has to do with the covenant.
The covenant which cannot be broken.
The oath, verse 73, which he swore to
Abraham, our father, to grant us that we
being delivered from the hand of our enemies
might serve him without fear in holiness and
righteousness before him all our day.
And brothers and sisters, I remind you that
that prophecy has only been fulfilled in part.
Israel is not yet to the full extent
the blessing to the nations that has been
promised.
And I want to remind those of you
who haven't considered this issue that we are
plainly told that the day must come when
the Gentile church will provoke Israel to jealousy.
Don't lose sight of that.
You will never find a record in past
history where this has been fulfilled.
Indeed, by and large, the Gentile church has
done harm to Israel.
And many Jews today can't believe in Christ
because they can't believe in those who profess
to love him.
And in our present circumstance, there is no
realistic possibility of hoping that any true Jew
will be provoked to jealousy by the conduct
of the Gentile church.
I can only conceive of one way where
God can keep this covenant, and that's to
revive us, the Gentiles around the world.
And oh, what a lovely thing to think
of the possibility of that day coming when
the church that we love and serve provokes
Israel to such jealousy that they say, this
is not right.
He is our Messiah, first and foremost.
We're not gonna let the Gentiles have all
the blessing.
We're going to get in on it.
This belongs to us, and we're going to
have it.
But we're gonna have to change, brothers and
sisters, and the church is going to have
to change.
And if you can't think of any other
reason to be burdened for revival, this one
ought to grip you.
Why not plead with God for a revival
that will so refashion the church of Jesus
Christ that the Jew will insist that it's
his blessing as well and get in on
it to a degree that has never happened
before in history?
God's covenants will be kept.
You can be sure of that.
It is clearly said that through Abraham and
his seed, the whole world will be blessed.
And by God's grace, that is going to
happen.
And oh, how precious it would be if
we were privileged to be part of that
incredible happening.
But there is a strong focus here as
well upon holiness and righteousness.
Look back again at verse 74, to grant
us that we, being delivered from the hand
of our enemies, might serve him without fear.
People often say to me, how do you
dare to say that in a given setting?
And I look with them at astonishment, and
I say, how do you dare not to
speak the truth?
What have we to fear from man?
So some of us may yet die for
our faith.
We may suffer imprisonment and severe persecution, but
oh, for a church that serves the Lord
fearlessly and in holiness and in true righteousness.
But as I began a moment ago, and
now come back to where I was, we
pick it up in terms of the second
stanza at verse 76.
Zachariah's joy in realizing the child's mission was
to prepare the way for the sunrise from
on high to visit men.
Have you ever dwelt upon that phrase?
The sunrise from on high will visit us.
Now clearly, the horn of salvation, as I've
tried to point out already, deals with the
enemy, puts him on the run, guarantees victory
for those who are servants of the living
Christ.
But we obviously live at a very dark
time.
Maggie and I don't get to travel together
regularly for the most part.
I go off alone and she stays home
to tend to things as is necessary.
But once in a while she's with me
and I often turn to her and say,
can you imagine that stupid statement just made
by that prominent individual?
That ridiculous falsehood just sent forth on its
mission of error?
I ponder over the church, I ponder over
the statements that are made and I groan
and I say, how can men who believe
be in such darkness?
The position of the church today on many
critical issues is simply unbelievable.
Any wonder that so many of the young
people are saying just chuck the whole rotten
mess.
But no, we can't just chuck the whole
rotten mess.
I suppose the main thing I dislike about
all these new ways of doing church is
that they pretend that the rotten mess doesn't
exist and they just skirt around it and
extend it by creating another rotten mess of
a different sort.
What to God we'd lay hold of the
horns of the altar and say by the
grace of God, I'm gonna be part of
revolutionary change.
But that won't happen unless the sunrise from
on high visits us.
At that time I mentioned earlier when I
had sat on the poison ivy vines and
I was by myself much of the time,
my mother helped me to take a seat
by the window.
And I sat there one day when the
sun broke through the clouds and it shone
beautifully.
But I sat there in horror for the
rays of the sun were hitting the dust
in the air in such a fashion that
I could scarcely believe that my mother who
was such a diligent housekeeper had failed so
grievously.
I can see those dust specks even now
and feel something of the horror of my
mother's failure.
But indeed it wasn't failure.
She had done everything known to do at
that time.
It was the rays of the sun striking
things that made them look utterly different than
in ordinary times.
When the sunrise from on high visits us,
everything is going to take on a different
appearance.
Things that seem acceptable now will be overwhelmingly
unacceptable.
Conduct that appears to be perfectly innocent at
the moment will be seen with all of
its wicked aspects.
But oh for a day when both the
horn of salvation and the sunrise from on
high visit us.