If you don't mind, I'd like to pray
one more time.
Let me just say that the material that
I'm going to share with you this morning,
I in no means come out of any
position of superiority.
This material is just things that the Lord
is dealing with my heart, where I believe
we're all in need and we're all in
this together.
So I just wanted to make that clear.
Lord, I just recognize my need for You
this morning, Lord.
I cannot do this without Your equipping, without
Your empowering, without Your unction, Lord Jesus, without
Your heart.
And Lord, so I ask that You would
give me Your heart to impart the things
that You have spoken to me, God.
And for Your glory and for the sake
of these precious people here, Lord, I pray
that You would just stir us, that You
would pour out Your Spirit.
Holy Spirit, just brood among us this morning
and just deal with our hearts, draw our
hearts out to You, Lord.
Jesus, just give me clarity of thought.
Help me to remember and recall the things
that You've spoken to my heart about these
different things.
Thank You, Lord, for Your glory.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
The subject I'm going to be mentioning is
the topic of barrenness, the message that Don
referred to that I shared at Grace a
couple weeks ago.
And it's really the great need that the
church in America has for revival and our
present condition of barrenness.
I thought it was very appropriate, the tape
that was shared this morning, as a real
introduction to the material that I'm going to
be sharing.
Let me just read my opening statement here.
The church has been sanctified and set apart
for holy union with Jesus Christ.
A primary purpose of this intimate union is
the reproduction of Christlike character in our individual
lives and the lives of others around us.
The Father longs for Christ to bring forth
fruit through us, the bride of Christ.
He desires for heirs who bear His name
unto His glory.
We have been both created and commanded to
be fruitful and reproduce after our own kind.
The Lord's desire for His church is to
be a fruitful bride.
And the sad state of affairs, the truth
is that the church of Jesus Christ in
America is barren.
Her womb is dry and parched and sin
abounds on every side and is excused with
doctrines of convenience.
And God desires for the bride, this barrenness,
to be healed.
Now what I want to cover here is
just some scriptures that really initially just reaffirm
the purpose of the bride of Jesus Christ.
So if you will turn with me to
Genesis 2 verse 18.
And in Genesis 2 here we see, of
course, we're all familiar with the narrative of
the creation of Adam and then Eve that
was brought forth from his side.
But what we have here is a picture
of the Lord Jesus and His church.
And I want us just to look at
this real quickly.
And the Lord God said, It is not
good that man should be alone.
I will make him a helper comparable to
Him.
And then down in 21, And the Lord
God caused a deep sleep to fall on
Adam, and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs and
closed up the flesh in its place.
Then the rib which the Lord God had
taken from man He made into a woman,
and He brought her to man.
Exactly the same situation as took place with
Jesus Christ.
Out of His very side He has brought
forth a bride to be a helper, to
be a co-laborer, to come alongside.
And somehow, I cannot explain it, but to
offer comfort and companionship to Jesus.
This is what the Lord longs for.
Now if you will, just turn with me
real quick to Ephesians 5.
I'm sure you all are familiar with these
verses and would not doubt at all the
analogy that I just shared.
But just to go over it real quickly.
We see exactly the same, well let me
actually stop short.
Verse 23 then says in Genesis 2, And
Adam said, This is now bone of my
bone and flesh of my flesh.
She shall be called woman, because she was
taken out of man.
Here's the picture of the exchanged life that
we have with Jesus.
Becoming one with Him.
Being His body, Him being the head, and
as a result to produce fruit.
That is our created purpose.
In Ephesians 5 verse 28, it makes it
very clear here what the Lord has really
done, drawing a picture for us of the
church and the bride.
Let's start in verse 30.
For we are members of His body, of
His flesh, and of His bones.
For this reason, a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his
wife, and the two shall become one.
This is the great mystery, but I speak
concerning Christ and the church.
The whole institution of the marriage is to
give us an analogy and a picture of
the kind of love relationship, the kind of
fruitfulness that God desires with His people.
Turn back with me to Genesis 1.27.
And here is the first command given in
the Garden.
I want you to notice.
Chapter 1 verse 28, Then God blessed them,
and God said to them, Be fruitful and
multiply.
Fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea,
over the birds of the air, over every
living thing that moves on the earth.
So God's desire for the bride of Christ
is to be fruitful, for her womb to
be fruitful.
Turn with me to Psalms 1, and we'll
see another picture of God's desire for His
people.
Blessed is the man who walks not in
the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in
the path of sinners, nor sits in the
seat of the scornful, but his delight is
in the law of the Lord, and in
His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by
the rivers of water, that brings forth its
fruit in season, whose leaf also shall not
wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
Colossians 1, 9 and 10.
Again, just confirming God's desire, our created purpose
as the bride of Jesus.
Colossians 1, 9 and 10.
And this is so typical of the whole
heartbeat and prayers of the Apostle Paul, the
one who established and planted so many churches.
This is the thing that he longed for.
For this reason we also, since the day
we heard of it, do not cease to
pray for you and ask that you may
be filled with the knowledge of His will
in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, that you
may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing
Him.
What fully pleases Him?
Being fruitful in every good work and increasing
in the knowledge of God.
Knowing God and being fruitful.
If any of you are familiar with the
picture of Sarah and Abraham, do you remember
when the son of promise was born?
The Scripture says that Abraham knew Sarah and
she conceived Isaac.
Same picture here.
We are called into a relationship of intimacy,
of love and deep consecration to the Lord
Jesus Christ.
And as we fulfill that, we are to
have a fruitful womb.
We are to produce the character of holiness
and godliness in our lives and in those
lives who we touch.
Those who are lost and needy around us.
Amen.
Romans 7, verse 4, my last verse to
establish this fact.
Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead
to the law through the body of Christ,
that you may be married to another, to
Him, speaking of Jesus, who was raised from
the dead, that we should bear fruit to
God.
This is one of our primary purposes, folks,
is to be fruitful.
So now we need to ask ourselves, are
we fruitful?
Do we have fruit?
Is the fruit of godliness and righteousness being
a testimony in our homes, our workplaces, our
cities, our communities, our nation?
You know, it's a funny thing about fruit.
You can't hide it.
I don't know if you all noticed, but
when Christine was singing up here, there's fruit
there.
And I'll tell you, you can't hide it
where there's fruit.
And many of us have deceived ourselves at
times, believing that we have a fruitful life,
but there is nothing to see, folks.
If you see a fruit-laden tree, the
branches hang low in humility.
But where there is no fruit, it's quite
obvious.
There's a drastic difference with a tree that
has fruit and a tree that doesn't.
A true bride longs to bring forth fruit
that bears the image of her husband and
lover, for heirs that will carry on His
name.
Boy, doesn't every father want a son that
will bear His name, that will carry on
a name and perpetuate that lineage?
It's exactly the same with God.
This is how He receives glory, children that
bear His name.
Let me give you an illustration of the
kind of desire we should have to be
fruitful.
I was watching a documentary on PBS on
the salmon the other day when I was
working on some of this material.
And I was quite familiar with the story
of the salmon swimming upstream, but suddenly it
struck me in a whole new way that
these simple fish that have no ability to
reason will come from the ocean up these
rivers and streams laying down their very life
to get back to the place where they
were born to reproduce after their own kind.
They will tackle all kinds of odds and
every kind of imaginable obstacle just to be
fruitful.
They will die doing it.
Their desire to give forth life and fruit
is stronger than the desire to live.
Folks, as we're walking in the Spirit of
Jesus Christ, that personifies, that exemplifies the Christian
life.
Do we have that character about us?
That we would produce fruit after our own
kind in the image of Jesus Christ?
That we would walk before this world in
a holy and godly way giving God glory?
That's how He gets it.
As we walk in a Christ-like character
of love and meekness, humility and purity, this
is how He gets glory.
Will we lay down our life?
Will we take up our cross?
Will we deny ourselves?
Will we embrace death that that might be
produced?
Barrenness is a failure to fulfill our creative
purpose.
Barrenness is the inward incapacity to conceive or
receive and nurture the seed that produces fruit.
It's a heart problem, folks.
It's something deep in here that we can't
touch.
It's something that's wrong with our heart when
we're barren.
And who of us hasn't experienced that?
The frustration that knowing that there's something wrong
with my heart and I can't touch it
with my human efforts and human hands.
I can't fix it.
It humbles you.
It breaks you.
Unless you adopt certain rationales, certain rationales, certain
justifications that ease your conscience.
This is so important when we need to
keep the Word of God before us as
a mirror, as a light to our way.
It shows us what we are supposed to
be and who we actually are.
If we neglect this Word and God's laws
and ways, we forget.
We adjust our circumstances or our theology to
our circumstances.
This is epidemic in the church today.
We, the church, the bride of Christ, are
barren.
Our womb is dry and parched.
We are needing of healing, a touch of
God's revival power.
Barrenness is a reproach.
It's a consistent theme throughout all the Scripture.
To be barren is a shame.
And this is a strange phenomenon.
This, if anything, shows how deceived the church
in America has become.
This has to be one of the areas.
We are so barren and yet we are
content to be that way.
We are defying the natural, supernatural principles that
we are created in.
And an example of that is one of
the old Jewish writings.
It basically said this, He who is without
children is like one who is dead.
Does that, our fruitlessness, does it break our
hearts like that?
The main meanings of barrenness is lacking meaning,
lacking purpose, lacking creativity.
There's not a reason for being.
Boy, that's a good way.
Check your heart.
Check your life.
Do you sense a lack of reason, of
purpose, that there is just an emptiness in
your life?
Turn with me to Genesis 30 verse 1.
Now when Rachel saw that she bore no
children, Rachel envied her sister and said to
Jacob, Give me children or else I die.
Folks, this is really, right here in this
area, is really the meat of the whole
message.
And this is something that God has really
been convicting my heart over.
I've been trying to recognize my own barrenness.
But you know, it just doesn't happen in
a moment.
You understand the depth of the problem here.
These are things that need to be studied.
You know, the Scripture exhorts us to study
the fear of the Lord.
Many things are lacking in our lives.
We lack understanding and wisdom because we are
not good students.
And this area of the reproach of barrenness
needs to be studied.
And this has been one of my heart
cries lately.
God, convict me.
Show me how barren I am and let
me sense the reproach, the shame of being
barren.
And again, this is that thing that makes
you recognize that you in your own strength
cannot fix this thing.
It is too deep.
It's too big of an obstacle.
Rachel preferred death over her own barrenness.
Many great men in church history have taken
this as their prayer.
The famous reformer, Scottish reformer John Knox said,
give me Scotland or I die.
That was his prayer.
Bloody Mary, the Queen of Scots, was so
fearful of not, she said, the greatest army
of the world, but of the prayers of
John Knox.
He was a man consumed with a vision
for his country to have an outpouring of
the Spirit, for the church to be established
in purity and righteousness.
And it broke his heart.
And he came to this place like Rachel
where it said, Lord, nothing else matters but
that You be glorified, that fruitfulness be established,
that purity, holiness be established in Your church.
And God, if I can't have it, let
me die.
John Hyde, or as he's known, Prang Hyde,
the famous missionary to India, said, God, give
me souls or I die.
He claimed one a day, then two a
day, then three a day, then four a
day.
And if he couldn't meet what he felt
God had laid on his heart, he was
burdened and broken.
The man gave himself to fasting and prayer.
He, in fact, didn't ever hardly attend the
meetings in the great revival in India at
the turn of the century.
He locked himself up to prayer.
And there in those places, after long seasons
of prayer and fasting, he developed a heart
condition.
He went to the doctor and his heart,
from the travail of prayer, had moved from
the left side to the right side.
The doctor said, what have you done to
yourself?
What have you been doing?
He said, well, I don't sleep much and
I pray a lot.
I eat very little.
The doctor said, if you don't stop this
immediately, you're going to die.
He said, so be it.
He continued to pray and paid the price,
I might add.
Folks, this is the spirit that we need
in the church of Jesus Christ today.
I am the first to say I am
lacking this kind of travail.
Hannah was another barren woman with an intense
desire to lay hold of God.
Turn with me to 1 Samuel 1, 6
-20.
And her rival also provoked her severely to
make her miserable because the Lord had closed
her womb.
So it was, year by year, when she
went up to the house of the Lord
that she provoked her.
Therefore, she wept and did not eat.
You'll notice, almost every one of these barren
women in the Old Testament had, if you
will, their own sand ballot.
One that came alongside and provoked and reproved
them and mocked them and scorned them.
And even in God's wisdom, He somehow uses
this to increase the burden, intensify it.
So it was, year by year, when she
went up to the house of the Lord
that she was provoked, provoked her there, and
she wept and did not eat.
She wept and did not eat.
This is the characteristic of one who understands
the reproach of barrenness.
Let's continue.
Then Elkanah, her husband, said to her, Hannah,
why do you weep?
Why do you not eat?
And why is your heart grieved?
Her heart was grieved.
Am I not better to you than ten
sons?
See folks, let me just comment here on
the phenomenon of barrenness.
Everything else, we can be walking in all
kinds of other blessings.
God can be providing lots of our needs
and blessing our families and doing a lot
of other things.
But because this is a created purpose, this
is a thing that God has designed in
us, it doesn't matter what else we have.
If we still do not recognize or sense
the fruitfulness of God flowing through us, we're
not content.
God's made us this way.
People will try to console you, try to
comfort you and say, it's okay.
Look at all these other things that are
going alright.
Don't be so discouraged.
Folks, there's a lot of people that are
repelled from this message of bearing the reproach
of Jesus on our heart, the reproach of
our own fruitlessness.
They said, come on, don't get so carried
away.
Well, I want to tell you, where is
the need today?
Is the church running over?
Is there an epidemic of mourners and weepers
over our sad state of affairs?
No.
This isn't the problem.
We have the greatest need of these kind
of things.
But I guarantee you, you set your face
to prayer with a broken heart, grieving over
your own barrenness and everybody will come out
of the woodwork to try to get you
up off your knees.
So Hannah arose after they had finished eating
and drinking in Shiloh.
Now Eli the priest was sitting on the
seat by the doorpost of the tabernacle of
the Lord and she was in bitterness of
soul.
Another aspect.
And prayed to the Lord and wept in
anguish.
This is how you know if you're really
sensing your own reproach of being barren.
Then she made a vow and said, O
Lord of hosts, if You will indeed look
on the affliction...
She was afflicted.
The affliction of Your maidservant and remember me
and not forget Your maidservant, but will give
Your maidservant a man child.
Then I will give him to the Lord
all the days of his life and no
razor shall come upon his head.
And it happened as she continued praying before
the Lord that Eli watched her mouth.
Now Hannah spoke in her heart.
Only her lips moved, but her voice was
not heard.
Therefore, Eli thought she was drunk.
You know what this reminds me of?
The second chapter of Acts.
You get filled with the Holy Ghost, you
start tearing, you start travailing, bearing the reproach
of your own barrenness.
And people are going to think you're drunk
and half crazy.
They will.
Verse 14, So Eli said to her, How
long will you be drunk?
Put your wine away from you.
But Hannah answered and said, Now, my Lord,
I am a woman of sorrowful spirit.
She has more adjectives, more ways to explain
her brokenness than in any other place in
the Scripture that I've seen.
I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink,
but I have poured out my soul before
the Lord.
Or she is drunk with God's Spirit in
his heart.
Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman,
for out of the abundance of my complaint
and grief I have spoken unto men.
Here is the picture of what it is
like.
Here is a picture of how these Old
Testament women, they could not bear the thought
of not bringing forth fruit.
And folks, this is my challenge to myself
and to you.
Do we have this kind of heart within
us?
What is the remedy for our barrenness?
How will we find God's reviving fruitful power?
Let's talk about it.
First, we'll talk about where it's not found.
There's a lot of confusion.
And I don't know exactly where you all
are coming from.
This can be a sticky subject for some,
but I'll just make my way through it.
The Old Testament women had a good concept.
It's many times mentioned in the Old Testament
about God closing and opening the womb.
They understood what the sovereignty of God was
all about.
But I'll tell you, today there's a lot
of talk when it's talking about healing the
barrenness of the church and the need for
revival.
The word sovereignty is being connected quite often.
And I'm very concerned that a great error
is being perpetuated this way because our fatalism,
our apathy, our irresponsibility often cloaks itself under
the title of trusting in God's sovereignty.
This is not...
In every age when God challenges His people
to revival, He always appeals and presses the
responsibility of each man and believer.
The issue of sovereignty is not brought up,
and I challenge you to show me in
the Scriptures where the subject is connected.
In hindsight, as they looked back, they saw
the sovereignty of God.
But in the time of need, when things
were darkest, God appealed to their conscience, their
responsibility, for them to repent, for them to
humble, and them to pray.
2 Chronicles 7.14 is one of the
best examples.
We don't even need to turn there.
If My people who are called by My
name shall turn from their wicked ways, humble
themselves, and pray.
If My people.
That is the prerequisite to revival.
That's how God appeals to our hearts.
And I'll tell you folks, I know the
source of where this doctrine has been perpetuated.
I've read the books by the Calvinists that
teach on revival, and always connect the issue
of revival with it, with the issue of
sovereignty.
And folks, they use human reason to explain
this.
Circumstances, and not the Scriptures.
Am I denying the subject or the doctrine
of the sovereignty of God?
No.
It is a biblical, sound concept.
As I was discussing with Brad Yarbrough just
the other day, these things are precious as
we look back on the plan of God.
We see His sovereign hand in midst of
suffering.
It's good to understand the sovereignty of God.
But in a day when sin is running
rampant and the church is lazy and barren,
that's not the time to be throwing these
terms around.
Well, some will say and complain, well, we
need to understand that God is the one
that does it, and not us.
And they're right.
They're right.
But see, the prescriptions for revival in the
Scriptures always call for two things.
Humility, and repentance, and prayer.
It's coming, falling before the God and saying,
Lord, I'm a mess.
I'm willing to change if You do it.
I pray and cry out to You.
That doesn't sound like a big human effort
to change things other than just acknowledging our
sin and having a willingness to let Him
do something about it.
So this is one of the first false
remedies of barrenness.
You'll note that these women were not content
to say every example.
Rachel, Hannah, Rebecca, Sarah, these women did not
throw this term around in respect or in
the context of their own barrenness.
They didn't say, well, if God is sovereign,
if He opens the womb, it's opened, and
if it's closed, it's closed.
Or we know that I can't do anything
about my barrenness.
God is sovereign.
These were not the words that you found
on these precious women's lips.
But they are the words that we're using
today in the context of revival.
They were not content to just glibly quote
scriptural principles or concepts.
They were heartbroken over their state of affairs.
It was a created purpose.
They couldn't help but agonize about it.
The next method is the man-centered methods.
We have the two extremes.
One, the sovereignty of God, irresponsibility cloaked in
it.
The other, this scheming, striving, sweating arm of
the flesh that we see on every side
in the church today.
That if you get a powerful enough PA
system, enough bright lights and nice clothes, and
enough TV cameras, there's something that's bound to
happen.
You know, if you pump enough money through
it, surely God's going to do it.
Folks, money is not going to bring revival.
We can get a hundred thousand satellites over
this earth, and it's not going to bring
revival.
We don't need to send stuff up.
The only thing we need to send up
is prayer, folks.
Not to say that these things have their
purpose and use, but this isn't the way.
This is striving so many times.
Let's look at the concept.
Genesis 16 Now
Sarah, Abraham's wife, had borne him no children,
and she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name
was Hagar.
So Sarah said to Abraham, See now, the
Lord has restrained me from bearing children.
Please go to my maid.
Perhaps I shall obtain children by her.
And Abraham, this is one time when a
husband should not have listened to his wife.
And Abraham heeded the voice of Sarah.
And we've all been suffering for it ever
since.
You know what's interesting though?
God in His mercy made provision for Ishmael
and Hagar.
He is a merciful God.
But Ishmael is not the son of promise.
Ishmael was not the son which God perpetuated
His name and brought glory to Himself through.
Genesis 30, verse 3.
We'll see another incident.
Speaking of Rachel here, I'll start in verse
1.
Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob
no children, Rachel envied her sister.
And let me just make a comment here.
Do you know what?
And throughout the history of revival, as men
heard the sound of rain in another country.
Let me give you an example.
In 1904, the Welsh revival was poured out
in a mighty way.
Well, there was a little Canadian missionary in
China by the name of Jonathan Goforth who
had up to that time had a very
successful ministry.
But when he heard the news of revival
in Wales, he envied the fruit of his
brothers over there.
Just like Rachel envied the fruit of her,
of this other woman's womb.
In that same century, a little Indian lady
by the name of Pandita Ramabi who tended
to orphans and widows, heard the reports of
the revival in Wales.
She envied the fruit, the revival power there.
And she set herself to praying.
Frank Bartleman in the zoos of California heard
the reports and envied the fruit.
As a result, these men recognized that God
was doing something.
They were reminded of the purposes of God
and set themselves to pray.
They didn't take any shortcuts, but God honored
their prayer too.
So, folks, as we hear the reports of
God doing things, we should be moved to
pray.
Folks, as we've heard the reports of what
God's been doing here has provoked us in
other places to pray.
And Jacob's...
Let me read this verse again.
Now, when Rachel saw that she bore no
children, Rachel envied her sister and said to
Jacob, give me children or else I die.
And Jacob's anger was aroused against Rachel.
And he said, am I in the place
of God who has withheld from you the
fruit of your womb?
So she said, here is my maid, Beliah.
Go into her and she will bear you
a child on my knees that I also
may have good children by her.
Then she gave him...
Well, she gave him Bilhah, her maid, as
a wife.
And Jacob went into her and she conceived
him, bore Jacob a son.
Then Rachel said, God has judged my case
and He has also heard my voice and
given me a son.
Therefore, she called his name Dan, which literally
means God has judged.
And Rachel's maid conceived him again, bore Jacob
a second son.
Then Rachel said, with great wrestling I have
wrestled with my sister and indeed I have
prevailed.
So she called his name Naphtali.
Verse 22.
Then God remembered Rachel.
This is the first time you see this
term.
And God listened to her and opened her
womb.
This was not said about any of the
other two children.
And she conceived and bore a son and
said, God has taken away my reproach.
So she called his name Joseph and said,
the Lord shall add to me another son.
Let's look real quickly at Genesis 49.
And what we see here is a prophecy
about the sons here born to Rachel.
And I want to make the comment again,
Dan and Naphtali were heirs, but in God
and His mercy, He worked with them.
But I'll tell you, there is a sharp
contrast between these two tribes, these two men
that represent tribes, and Joseph.
And we'll see that real quickly.
Verse 16.
Dan shall judge his people as one of
the tribes of Israel.
Dan shall be a serpent by the way,
a viper by the path, that bites the
horse's heel.
I don't know about you, but I don't
think I'd want somebody prophesying that over me.
Naphtali is a deer let loose.
Verse 21.
He uses beautiful words.
Remember, Naphtali means to wrestle.
A lot of striving, a lot of wrestling
in the church is using something that's running
around like a deer that uses beautiful words,
but doesn't have a lot else to offer.
This is too impressive as it strikes me.
Joseph is a fruitful bough.
Here's where the fruit is, folks.
A fruitful bough by a well.
His branches run over the wall.
The arches have bitterly grieved Him, shot at
Him and hated Him, but His bough remained
in strength.
Doesn't that sound like Psalms 1 that we
looked at?
And the arms of His hands were made
strong by the hands of the mighty God
of Jacob.
From there is the shepherd, the stone of
Israel.
By the God of your Father who will
help you and by the Almighty who will
bless you with blessing of heaven above.
That's where we need the blessing, folks.
Blessing of the deep that lies beneath.
Blessing of the breast and of the womb.
The blessings of your fathers have exceeded the
blessings of my ancestors.
Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting
hills, they shall be on the head of
Joseph and on the crown of the head
of him who was separate from his brothers.
You see the difference?
Joseph is the Holy One.
He is separate from his brothers.
He is sanctified, set apart to bring forth
the Messiah, the real fruit.
How many verses are given to Joseph in
comparison to these other men?
The difference is they are the fruit of
man's striving, sweating efforts.
And Joseph is the fruit of God.
What is God's remedy for bareness?
We've seen the two wrong ways to do
it.
Let's look at how God wants us to
do it.
Hebrews 11.11 We're
all familiar with chapter 11 of Hebrews.
It's the hall of faith.
The great exploits of the patriarchs.
Verse 11, By faith, Sarah herself also received
strength to conceive seed, and she bore a
child when she was past the age, because
she judged him faithful who had promised.
Therefore, from one man and him as good
as dead, impossible odds, impossible circumstances, were born
as many as the stars of the sky
and multitude innumerable as the sands which are
by the seashore.
That sounds like some fruit.
How did she do it?
By faith in Jesus.
Let me just make the statement that there
is a lot of teaching today on disciplines,
on how to be free from all kinds
of sins and different problems in the church.
And what is prescribed?
What is prescribed?
Lists of disciplines.
Folks, if the bottom line isn't faith in
Jesus Christ, it's another gospel.
It's faith in Christ.
Why is it another gospel?
Because Jesus doesn't get the glory.
Jesus doesn't get the glory.
You know, I love to share on prayer,
but I'll be quick to say, brother, you're
not going to get free from maybe that
immorality or that sin, whatever it may be,
by prayer and Bible study.
This is only the platform, prayer and Bible
study, as good as it is, where faith
is nurtured.
See, some people will say little chanting prayers
over and over and read verses religiously, and
they don't understand the principle of their faith
being nurtured.
And this being a platform to trust more
in Jesus.
Folks, the false religions have done it for
years.
They didn't understand that it was by faith
in Christ.
This is the sad story of the church
of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church.
They did not understand this principle, and they
applied themselves to all kinds of rituals and
prayers and spinning beads and reading verses, but
they did not come into true godliness and
were not a fruitful bow for Jesus Christ.
They did not understand that it was by
faith in Jesus.
Now, when I'm talking about faith, I'm not
talking about giving mental assent.
I'm not talking about some passive, intangible thing
that you cannot see.
I'm talking about the kind of active, vibrant,
radical faith that the Scripture talks about.
Faith employs radical prayer.
That's faith's first option.
It always cries out to God.
Faith, in Mark 2.4, tears the roof
off the house to get near to Jesus.
In Mark 10.47, faith defies crowds of
opposition.
In Matthew 9.20, faith risks life and
reputation.
Faith will do whatever it takes to get
near to Christ, to petition Christ, to cling
to, rely and adhere on Jesus.
Folks, there's an epidemic running through the church
right now, and that is we have forgotten
that Christ is preeminent, that He receives all
the glory, that we point to Jesus at
every turn, that His name should be upon
our lips, that we glorify the cross and
the empty tomb.
Jesus is the way.
It's not a bunch of other things plus
Christ.
The bottom line is Jesus.
We need to exalt the preeminence of Jesus,
the promises of Jesus.
What does faith do?
It prays to Jesus.
We don't give a lot of attention to
the Holy Spirit over Christ.
No, Christ takes preeminence because the Holy Spirit's
job is to glorify Christ.
Amen.
And if you haven't read in a while,
I saw back there on your track table
A Christless Pentecost by David Wilkerson.
Boy, that track ought to be read every
year.
It is so precious.
So faith's first choice is to employ radical
prayer.
And this is what I want to show
you.
The nature of barrenness demands urgent prayer.
Remember, we talked about that it wasn't a
total sovereign work of God without any of
our participation.
And at the same time, it wasn't the
striving and sweating, but we already have affirmed
and recognized that this barrenness is an inward
problem that we cannot touch.
And this is what humbles us and brings
us to our knees in prayer.
This is what every one of these barren
women did.
So what we're talking about is this middle
ground.
We know that God is the one that
does it, but at the same time, and
we know that our striving will not accomplish
it, but at the same time, we hold
this middle ground bearing the reproach of our
barrenness on our heart and continually crying out
to God.
This is a hard ground to hold, folks.
And a lot of people get tired.
You start crying out to God.
You have a vision from the Scriptures what
the church is really supposed to be like.
And it breaks your heart every time you
see what the church in America is like.
And what happens is people get weary in
the church and they adopt a new concept.
They adjust the scriptural concept of the church.
They say, well, that was a cultural thing
is why they did some of those things.
They explain away the beautiful picture that we
see of the church of Jesus Christ in
the Scripture.
And it no longer breaks their heart.
They no longer sense reproach because suddenly now
their church fits into their new theology.
We've got to hold that middle ground, that
reproach.
We don't cast off responsibility by saying it's
the sovereignty of God.
And we don't set ourselves to striving in
man-made schemes.
We ask God, Lord, enhance the reproach of
my own barrenness.
Show me my need.
And then set yourself to praying and pray
more and pray more and pray more.
What does Luke 18 teach us?
That the widow was persistent.
She slept on the judge's doorstep.
She would not let him go.
What does the parable about Bartimaeus teach us?
Son of David, have mercy on me.
His own brothers, the disciples tried to keep
him back from getting ahold of Jesus.
And he cried out all the more.
Cry out and cry out and cry out.
Don't deny the reality of our own barrenness
and continue to cry out to God.
It's the only prescription given in Scripture.
Let's look at these precious women.
Well, real quickly, we'll go over Rebekah, Rachel,
Hannah, all these women.
As references to Rebekah, I'll give you real
quick.
Genesis 25-21.
Rachel, Genesis 30, 22-24.
Hannah we already looked at.
1 Samuel 1, 6-20.
And then look with me at Elizabeth.
In Luke 1, verse 13.
But the angel said to him, speaking of
Zacharias, do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your
prayer is heard.
And your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a
son, and you shall call his name John.
What was the thing that took care of
their barrenness?
It was the prayer.
What took care of Hannah's barrenness?
It was the prayer.
It was trusting Jesus by simply crying, calling
out to Him.
Look with me at Joel 1, 13 and
20.
Folks, if you want to study more about
this concept, just eat up the whole book
of Joel.
That's what is a major theme.
God's people turning their back on God.
The physical barren had to come into the
land to convict them of their inward barrenness
and then self-applying themselves to prayer to
receive reviving, refreshing...
...of Israel at this time.
Actually, the vine was cut off, the fruit
of the vine, the grain and the oil.
These were the elementary things needed for the
priest to offer sacrifice in the temple.
And because of the barrenness, the priest did
not have the resources to offer the sacrifices
that were required.
Isn't that stated in the church today?
As priests in the church of Jesus Christ
today, we need the oil of the Holy
Spirit.
We need the grain of the true Word
of God.
And we need the fruit of the vine,
the blessed revelation of Jesus Christ.
But as a result of our own stubbornness
and idolatry, these resources are actually being cut
off to get our attention.
Why do you think our country is in
the state it is?
Hey folks, the answer isn't in the White
House.
It's at the church house.
We've got to really turn our hearts to
the Lord.
Be ashamed, you farmers.
Wail, you vine dressers, for the weed and
the barley, because the harvest of the field
has perished.
The vine has dried up and the fig
tree has withered.
The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and
the apple tree, all the trees of the
field are withered.
Surely joy, joy has withered away from the
sons of men.
Isn't this one of the greatest things that
the modern church is chasing after?
We want joy in our meetings.
And we're trying to take a shortcut.
We'll do anything to make our meetings entertaining
and lively.
The only path to true godly joy is
to be found on our knees through repentance
and revival.
Here's the answer.
Verse 13, Gird yourselves and lament, you priests.
Wail, you who minister before the altar.
Come lie all night in sackcloth.
You who minister to my God for your
grain offering and the drink offering are withheld
from the house of your God.
Consecrate a fast.
Call a sacred assembly.
Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of
the land into the house of your Lord
God and cry out to the Lord.
Here's the answer for our barrenness.
Alas for the day, for the day of
the Lord is at hand.
It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.
It is not the food to cut off
before our eyes, joy and gladness from the
house of our God.
The seed shrivels under the clouds.
Cloths and storehouses are in shambles.
Barns are broken down for the grain has
withered.
How the animals grown and herds of cattle
are restless because they have no pasture.
Even the flocks of the sheep suffer punishment.
Folks, people are wandering to and fro.
They can't even find a place, a safe
place, a sanctuary to be fed the Word
of Jesus.
And you know what's worse of all?
It's the children in our own households are
suffering because of the barrenness of the church
of Jesus.
The little lambs of the pasture are suffering
and going without.
They are not seeing the fruitfulness of Jesus
in the church.
They are not experiencing the convicting work of
the Holy Spirit, the miracle work of the
Holy Spirit.
Our sons and our daughters need to see
this so they'll know that there is only
one God.
We need to cry out and pray to
God that He would save our children, that
He would preserve them from the barrenness and
the plague.
Joel 2.15-19, we see the answer
also.
Blow the trumpet in Zion.
Consecrate a fast.
Call a sacred assembly.
Gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation.
Assemble the elders.
The language is the same.
Gather the children and nursing babes.
No one is to be left out.
Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber
and the bride from her dressing.
What is happening here?
Do you remember in the passages, what characterized
the last days?
That they will be given in marriage and
be marrying.
Things are going on as usual.
People are letting their life go on.
What is the call for here?
Stop.
Let it stop.
Put away the normal things that you've been
trying to do.
There's a time when we shut it down.
But God help us, the church has to
consistently go on.
We couldn't stop a normal Sunday service.
We can't put an end to Sunday school
right now.
We can't take out to have one service
to pray and fast.
People expect this.
And the church goes on and on and
on.
And as a result, we're barren and barren
and barren.
We choose the same dry methods and accomplish
nothing.
We need to heed the example of the
Scripture.
Stop.
Blow the trumpet.
Let the elders come.
Let the people come.
Pray.
God help us.
God, we can't even...
They won't stop anything.
The educational program has to go on.
Oh, we couldn't do without that.
The children have to sing this morning.
We have to have a children's program.
We've planned it four months in advance.
It doesn't matter if the church is dead
and dry.
Folks, we are sick.
We're barren.
The womb is dry.
We don't even realize how dry it is.
God was convicting me of this this week.
I don't even recognize how bad things are.
I am more deceived than I know.
There is hope.
The most barren wounds became the most fruitful.
Sarah, beyond any possibility, produced fruit.
Rachel, Rebecca, Samson's mother.
Elizabeth, an old woman, produced the one who
would go before Jesus Christ and sound the
alarm.
So our barrenness is a source of reproach
and should cause us to grieve and pray.
But at the same time, we need to
understand the principle that God delights to use
impossible situations.