I don't know when it happened, but it
happened nonetheless.
A day came in the American church where
we got a can of gasoline and soaked
our pulpits with it and then set fire
to it.
And we replaced that pulpit of authority with
amusing stories, light teaching, and worldly compromise.
And because the pulpit was now degraded and
reduced to ashes, we were no longer spokespersons
for God nor ambassadors for Christ, but preachers
became teachers and some became entertainers until that
became the status quo.
And that's why we're in the shape we're
in now, meaning the church now resembles a
private club and operates on its own private,
isolated island.
And every dollar and every effort and every
ounce of expenditure is spent on self-preservation
and creature comfort so that when the tide
goes out, every shrimp has his hole.
There's a big reason, friends, why the modern
church has no resemblance to the one in
the book of Acts, because we have no
reliance upon the spirit of God.
We can get more done with money and
manpower, but in former times, the church operated
on prayer and Holy Ghost power.
I believe the Methodist minister Samuel Chadwick summed
up our present condition when he said, the
church still has a theology of the Holy
Ghost, but it has no living consciousness of
His presence and power.
The title of my message today, friends, is
no power in the pulpit.
And my text can be found in the
book of Zachariah.
And for those of you who actually read
your Bibles, you'll have no trouble finding it
in chapter four of Zachariah.
And in verse six, we read, then he
answered and spake unto me, saying, this is
the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying,
not by might nor by power, but by
my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
When I read the book of Acts and
I see plain men, uneducated men, fishermen by
trade, standing like lions in the streets, preaching
Christ and Him crucified, and the power of
God coming down in signs and wonders, and
everywhere these Christ followers went preaching, in the
aftermath of that, it looked as if a
earthquake had ripped the very fabric of a
pagan society with the overwhelming power of Almighty
God.
And I had asked myself, why, why did
the church in that day do so much
and shake things up so much and save
so many souls that it was as if
these men literally turned the world upside down?
And when I look at the sad, pitiful
American church today, I cringe and I blush
and I groan with disgust at what she
has become instead of what she was meant
to be.
I don't blame the young people today for
leaving the churches in droves.
Why would they want to be part of
a lifeless institution with no authority?
They took a good look at their parents
who were lifelong church members, and they saw
outwardly religious people who lacked the reality of
God in their own lives, and it turned
them off to God altogether.
Does anyone disagree with what I'm saying?
Do you want to stand here and argue
against my points?
Do you want to prove to me that
what I'm saying is entirely wrong?
Do you want to call me delusional?
Or are you so spiritually numb that you
can't see the glaring issues of our desperate
and sad spiritual declension yourself?
Am I a madman standing here?
Am I a madman crying out against the
tide of the modern church and saying that
the emperor has no clothes?
Am I the only one who sees it?
Has everyone drunk so much of the Kool
-Aid of the modern church that they believe
this is what God intended for his bride?
Laughter and entertainment instead of conviction and conversion?
A nightclub instead of an altar?
Have I gone insane?
Or does anyone else see how far we
have drifted away from God's purpose, God's mandate,
and God's commandments?
Why are so many pastors antinomians?
Why have we thrown holiness out the window?
Why has the church just settled into conformity
and compromise?
All I can do is weep and pray.
But I will share with you today, friends,
for those of you who are serious and
who really want more of God, who want
to go deeper with God and do greater
things for God, I'm going to share with
you something today.
It's what my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F.
Olford, taught me.
Listen, friend, if you want more of the
Holy Spirit, he must have more of you.
I'm going to read you Stephen Olford's notes
on the anointing of the Spirit.
It's available for anyone who wants to possess
it, but there are three conditions.
Number one, holiness.
Number two, yieldedness.
Number three, prayerfulness.
When a pastor gets serious with God, his
congregation will know it.
And when a pastor isn't serious with God,
his congregation will know it.
I listened to a Baptist pastor say his
favorite TV show was Keeping Up with the
Kardashians, and it reflected in his meager worldly
messages.
I guess it all boils down to this.
God will not get serious with us until
we get serious with him.
We're not going to see revival if we
can't even recognize our desperate need of it.
God is very serious concerning holiness in his
people.
Oh, when Jesus was here in his earthly
ministry, he wept over Jerusalem and foretold of
its destruction.
I wonder, I wonder how much he weeps
over the sad mess of the modern church
today.