Please open up your Bible to
Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, I urge you, brethren,
by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy
sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service
of worship. And do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so
that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good
and acceptable and perfect. Now, what is Paul doing here? First of all, I want you to see
something he is urging men. Men, listen to me, preaching
is more than just you doing a fine work. Of exegesis. Preaching is more than just you
getting the grammar right and communicating truth. Preaching
is more than that. Preaching is about life and death,
heaven and hell. Preaching is not just the communicating
of truth, but it is urging men It is begging men, it is pleading
with men to take the truth they have been given and to live according
to that. Preaching is an extremely dangerous
thing for both the preacher and the hearer. It is dangerous for
the preacher because if he preaches another gospel, he stands condemned.
If he commits a lesser crime and misinterprets the scripture,
whatever he builds upon that bad interpretation will be burned
on the day of judgment as wood, hay and stubble. So preaching
is a dangerous thing for the preacher, but it's also a dangerous
thing for the hearer. Every bit of truth that we are
given. For that truth, we are responsible.
And so be cautious when you preach. Don't just lay that out there
before men and say, this is the truth. But be like the Apostle
Paul, who although Apostle demonstrates here a prophetic and a pastoral
heart, he urges them, he beseeches them, he pleads with them. Schaeffer's question, how then
shall we live, should be the question that you ask your people. Every time you give them a truth,
how then shall we live? You will not be judged for the
amount of truth in your head, you must tell them, but the amount
of truth you have lived with your life. Sometimes I go and I hear men
who boast to be great expository preachers, and I feel as though
I've just. I've just gone through a New Testament introduction.
They've told me about history and how big the city of Colossus
is and all sorts of things. But I need more than just background.
I need to hear a voice within a voice. I need to hear preaching. And when I hear preaching, then
I need to be urged to act upon it. In this day of eloquent men
and tellers of jokes and men with whimsical personalities,
we need men who have beheld their God. We need men who see the
weighty matters of truth and scripture. And when they stand
up before people, they can see eternity in that man's face.
They know he is a man who, more than being before people, is
always before God. The one thing that so marked
Elijah is that he was able to say, the God before whom I stand.
So when you preach, when you're going to tell someone truth or
what they should do, you must plead with them to do it. We
live in a society, a culture that is so superficial. It doesn't understand the weightier
matters of eternity in life. The importance of a Godward life.
And so when you come to them in the pulpit with truth, let
them know This is serious. Do you realize that every time
you preach, you are going to be to people a smell of death
to some and a fragrance of life to others. This task that you
have been given, you're not to be a comedian, a narrator, or
just a teller of stories. You're not just to be a professor. You are to be a prophet. You
are to plead. You are to beg men to align themselves
with the will of God, and we can see this here, Paul says,
I urge you, brethren. Sometimes if we're preaching
on the streets, we may see the lost multitude before us and
we might feel like Whitfield, who told the crowd, if you will
not weep for your own souls, then I will weep for them. But as pastors. We need to have
the same attitude toward our own congregations. Paul is not
talking here to lost rebels or reprobates. He's talking to believers. And he says, I urge you. I urge
you. Some of the old. Men used to
say things like this, any conversation in which Christ is not the center
of that conversation is folly. That can be taken to an extreme.
But there's some sound advice in that we live in a society
that hears truth and as the scriptures say, throws it behind their back. We live in a society that when
even when we meet together as the people of God, we're turned
away so quickly in our fellowship from Christ to sports, we can
hear a message preached. that the scribes and kings and
prophets longed for in the days of old. We can hear that message
preached and rise up from our seats and then go talk about
the weather. So when you preach, you need to communicate to people.
This is a weighty matter that you must measure and you must
live according to this truth that has been given you. Paul
says, I urge you, brethren. And what is he urging them to
do? He says, I urge you to present your bodies a living and holy
sacrifice. I've been a Christian, I've been
a minister for almost 30 years. There are so many things that
are so easy to give away. Give away a car, give away a
home, give away a meal, give away 10. All that is outside
the body. All that can be done while still
keeping part of our heart away from God. What God is not just
merely asking of you in a gentlemanly sort of fashion. He's not just
asking of you. He is commanding you that you
give him yourself in its entirety. One of the purposes of cultivating
godliness is cultivating godwardness. That each day as we grow, our
main occupation is to give more and more of ourselves away to
Him. That is one of the aspects of
sanctification. It's not just not doing certain
things and doing other things, but the whole idea is a matter
of the heart. I want Him to have every chamber. I want him to have freedom to
abide in every place that he might be mine and I might be
his, that my heart might totally belong to him. And if that is
the case in the life of the preacher, everything else will fall in
place. Everything else will fall in place. Now, notice here, very
important for our culture, for our day, he says to offer yourselves
to present yourselves. Now, this here is not, as the
Greek scholars tell us, it's not present tense. He's not talking
about the practice that has become so common in evangelicalism,
where believers come every Sunday and rededicate themselves over
and over and over and over to God. This is a prophetic call. This is that prophetic word of
how long will you limp between two opinions? If Baal is God,
then serve him. If God is God, serve him. In the church so many times,
even in our preaching, even in our pastoral work, we seem to
have become so tolerant that we give more preference to men
and their feelings than we do to God. Now, we must be patient
with all men as God is patient with all men. But every once
in a while, the entire congregation and the individual needs to hear
this for once and for all. Stop your limping between two
opinions. They need to hear that word.
They need to hear that call. This is not some lesser deity
following men around as a servant. This is God. He demands, he deserves. Absolutely every part of us in
our people need to know that. that God is not in this for them
primarily. He's in it for him, for his own
glory and to demonstrate his power. And anytime the preacher
or the people of God are not living according to his word,
rather than being for his glory through them, his name is blasphemed. Churches need to be warned. People
need to be warned. Your activity not only reflects
upon you, it reflects upon God. So if you are in the world, stop
it. If you are living for yourself,
cease. And turn back to him in repentance
and faith. Present yourself. Even for us. We need to hear this word. And some of you who are young
need to realize that in your youth, you're being carried by
zeal. And some of it even might seem
spiritual, but some of it is just being excited about what's
around you. And you need to know that when
you get older and you get tired, and bones hurt and the years
pass, you're going to need more than youthful zeal to cause you
to walk with him. It's the old prophet that strays
so often in his heart. And you're going to have to meet
with this text at different times throughout your life, and you're
going to need to hear this prophetic call. Stop it. Return to Him! Offer Him yourself! Some of you
will probably experience great success in the ministry. Be careful.
Men who experience great success, if they are not careful, often
begin to see themselves as the spoiled rotten of God. That they
can get away with things that other people cannot get away
with. because somehow they're treated differently. Also, they
will stop going out to battle and begin to rest because they
think they've won enough victories and they'll tarry at home when
they should be in battle. You need to hear this over and
over in your life. You belong to him. And make sure
that you are presenting yourself to him. Now is an interesting
thing here also for our day. He says this present your bodies.
It seems strange. Present your bodies. What's being said? Well, at least
in our day, it has a wonderful application. We are a people
who have somehow divorced what's inside our hearts from our external
actions. If you confront someone who is
in sin, they will often say this. You can't judge a book by its
cover. You confront someone in sin, they'll say, yes, you are
observing my external actions, but you can't judge my heart.
You don't know what's inside my heart. Paul has put this here
as a remedy to this curse, to this type of thinking. The whole
idea in the scripture is that if God has your heart, he has
your body. There wasn't this separation
in the scriptures when he says, love the Lord, your God, with
all your heart, soul, mind and strength. He's not trying to
divide the human psyche. Hebrew thought of piling one
term upon another. Why to say love the Lord, your
God, with every fiber of your being. It's what's meant in the Old
Testament warning that he is a jealous God. And he desires
you. with jealousy. You belong to
him, all of you, to all of him. It is not your life anymore. It is not your breath. It is
not the beating of your heart. They're not your ears. They're
not your eyes. They're not your lips. They're
not your feet. They're not your hands. They
all belong to him. And everything is to be governed
by him, his nature and his desires that he has revealed in his written
word. That was the Puritan genius. They sought to take every aspect
of their life and do what with it? Conform it to the will of
God, because that's what slaves do. I see so many young Christians
today, they've got their ears pierced or they've got tattoos
on their necks and things like that, telling the whole world
somehow they're a slave of Christ. Away with all your stupid external
things. That tells me nothing about your
position before God. but poverty of spirit, mourning
over sin, rejoicing in Him, glorying in Christ, making much of Christ
to all those around you. That tells me if you're a slave.
Submitting to His will tells me you're a slave. Your actions
tell me the content of your heart. You can study here. I'm not a flatterer. Anyone who
knows me knows I'm not. But you'll not find a place where
you'll be more gospelized than here. If you ever had a chance. To be so mesmerized by Christ
that you would turn yourself over him into entirely, it's
here, it's here, and I'll tell you this student, if you cannot
run with footmen here, how are you going to run with the horses
when you get out? If you can't be mesmerized with
Christ to such an extent that you offer your life to him here,
how are you going to do it when you're alone in the mission field
or in that very tough pastorate? It's not just about getting a
degree. It's about him getting you. About
you belonging to him. Offer yourselves to him. As a
sacrifice. It's impossible to speak of sacrifice
apart from speaking of loss. Of loss. Have you counted the
cost if you're truly going to walk with him? There will be
great loss. There will be death to self.
There are so many things that will have to be cut out of your
life in order that the great things, the superior things might
be engrafted into your life. Someone asked me to describe
my own Christian life. I would go to Ezekiel 36. I would
say that God took out my heart of stone that could not respond
to divine stimuli. And in its place, he put a heart
of flesh that can respond to divine stimuli. And then in the
providence of God, he has taken me out of the land to put me
in his land and that he has spent 30 years cleansing me from all
my idolatry and my filthiness. And it is costly. Offer your lives to him. In their entirety. Cultivate
that attitude so that as he reveals to you more and more of that
which still belongs to you, you are ever willing to turn it over
to him. Now, here's the question. From where does the motivation
come? To do this sort of thing. Because I have found that The
obtaining of truth is not quite as difficult as living out the
truth obtained. From where does the motivation
come to live this? This radical, sacrificial life
unto God. And this is what I want to stay
on most in the next few minutes that I have, he's telling them
to give their life away. as a living and a holy sacrifice. From where does the motivation
come? Well, let's look, verse one,
therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present
your bodies a living and holy sacrifice. What is the motivation?
The mercies of God. What is the motivation for the
Christian life, the mercies of God? Now, what does this mean? Well, that's why the preposition,
therefore, is so important. Paul is linking this chapter
with the chapters that precede it. What has he done in the chapters
that proceed? He's described to you the mercies
of God now. Instead of just apply this to
your life, I want to apply this to your preaching and to the
people that the Lord may give you. You are constantly going
to be telling them what they're supposed to do. But with that
comes the urging, and with that comes the responsibility to tell
them how to do it. You tell your congregation, you
need to love God more. Will your sermon be wrecked if
someone stands up and says, yes, pastor, we fully agree? Could
you tell us how? I mean, when you tell someone
that they ought to love God more, they ought to offer themselves,
be more willing to offer themselves as a living sacrifice. And they
ask you, OK, I agree. I want that. I long for that.
But I don't seem to find the power to do it. How are you going
to respond? Well, Paul gives us the answer
here. You know, if I was if I was laying on the ground here, I
somehow passed out and I was in my work boots, I was at home
and I was in my work boots. And you saw me laying on the
floor and you walked by. And you saw me grabbing a hold
of my bootstraps and pulling with all my might as I lay on
the ground. And you asked, what on earth are you doing? Well,
I'm trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps. And you pull
out elementary physics and you show me how that is absolutely
impossible. That I must be acted upon by some external force in
order to pull me off the ground. I can't pull myself up. Well,
how can you make yourself love God more? How can you make yourself
more disposed to offering your life as a living sacrifice? The
answer to that question is the primary task of the preacher. And what is that? The more the truly regenerate
heart understands about the nature and works of God, specifically
revealed in the person and cross work of Jesus Christ, the more
their heart is going to be inflamed with love. Now make no mistake,
you present these things to an unregenerate heart, and the more
knowledge they hear, the more they will hate God. But those
who are truly Christian, a supernatural work of the Spirit has been done
to them, a work that is far superior and demonstrates more power than
the very creation of the world. Because he created the world
ex nihilo, out of nothing. But when he converts a man, he
takes a mass of rotten, corrupt humanity and turns it into a
child of God. And that heart and that further
work of providence ensures that the more that child learns about
who God is and what God has done for them in Christ Jesus, the
more their love will be drawn out of their heart. Their desires
for Christ will be inflamed and those desires will have an impact
upon their will and drive them to holiness with joy. So what is the main task of the
preacher? What does Paul do in Romans one
through 11? He labors with all his might
to do what? Describe to the church in Rome
and to us the mercies of God so that our hearts will be inflamed.
Now, I want you to think about this for a moment. If I were
to go into most even sound biblical evangelical churches and do a
poll and I were to ask each member, how many years have you studied
the attributes of God? Most would say, well, I don't
think we could talk in terms of years. I mean, what do you
mean? Ask many pastors, how many years
have you studied the attributes of God? Well, I had a I mean,
in my systematic for one semester, I had two weeks in which we.
Are you beginning to see something of a problem? What is the greatest
knowledge that the preacher can give to the people, the knowledge
of God? I mean, after all, rich men are
not supposed to boast in their wealth, strong men in their strength
or even wise men in their wisdom. And what are we to boast that
we know God, that we know who he is? One of the reasons why I
would submit to you that even converted hearts seem to be so
apathetic today is that there is a lack of the knowledge of
God. We have become a principle based many times an ethical based
type of Christianity instead of the preacher standing up and
proclaiming the power and the glory and the superiority of
God and the great work he's done in Christ. That is your task.
Tell people who God is! And that's what Paul does. And
then what does he do? He goes on and he tells them
what man is apart from the mercies of God. You see, if I give Bill
Gates a ham sandwich, he is not going to applaud. But if I go
to many of the places in the third world where we work, and
I give someone half of that sandwich, they will kiss my hands. They
will run through the neighborhood telling everyone about me. You see, in order to fully appreciate
the nature, the person, and the work of God on our behalf in
Christ, we must understand what we were. One time a reporter
came to me and he was so furious, a Christian reporter. He was
furious. He said, why did you spend the whole night talking
about the radical depravity of the human heart? And I said,
because I want you to love God. You don't love God as you ought.
because you don't know how much you've been forgiven, because
no one ever told you how radically depraved you are. And so Paul
labors for three chapters out of 16, and the closest thing
we have to a systematic theology, in order to set man up to learn
to love and appreciate God. And then he goes through chapters
4 and 5 with this wonderful message of grace and salvation through
faith. And then he gets into 7 and 8
and talks about how we can, even in this life, live victoriously.
He gets 9, 10, and 11 and talks about God's faithfulness to his
people, Israel, that should promote in us confidence. He's the covenant-keeping
God. And then he comes here and says,
based on everything I just showed you, Now offer your life as a
living sacrifice. Same thing he does in Ephesians
chapter four. That's the division of that book. Do you realize
that first three chapters of Ephesians, in my opinion, the
deepest theology and all the scriptures? Then he comes to
four and he says, therefore. Therefore, what based on this? Live your life. Now, young men. I appreciate
so much all the resurgence of whatever you want to call it,
a more reformed type of truth, more biblical truth, the resurgence
of the Puritans, the early evangelicals. I so appreciate this. But young
men, many young men who are learning these things are not understanding
these things because they're marveling in these truths. but
they're not realizing that these truths call them to lay aside
all the worldly, carnal means of doing Christianity. and of
planting and edifying churches. The more you truly know about
the greatness and the power of God, the more you're going to
lay aside all these silly ideas of church growth and church strategies
and getting tattoos and wearing cool glasses and putting on dawning
tight blue jeans. You're going to lay all that
aside and you're going to realize that the kingdom of heaven is
not built by little boys playing preacher because they're not
willing to do the things that God has commanded in scripture,
which is this, your weapons of warfare. They are the proclamation
of truth, intercessory, bone jarring prayer and sacrificial
love. And if you want some other weapon,
don't come talk to me about missions. All these other things are substitutes
for what? For men not wanting to deny their
flesh and take up the true armaments of God. Now, what kind of men
should you be? I want to take you. To a passage
that is always ringing in my ears. Just hold your place in
Romans, but I want you to go to Job for a moment. I'm going
to describe to you what I hope will become your study room. I'm going to take you to what
I hope is, in time, an appropriate description of your library, of the place where you open the
Word, and the place where you bend your knee in prayer. This
is the task, at least illustrated, of the true preacher, the true
prophet. Chapter 28 of Job, verse 1. Surely there is a mine for silver
in a place where they refine gold. Iron is taken from the
dust and copper is smelted from rock. Man puts an end to darkness
and to the farthest limits. He searches out the rock in gloom
and deep shadow. Now, brothers, I do not want
to enter into some. Puritan type of maybe extreme
metaphorical preaching. But I imagine this self, this
passage at times is applying to me at four thirty in the morning. Putting an end to darkness. Going
into my study. Verse four, he sinks a shaft
from habitation forgotten by foot. They hang and swing to
and fro far from men. They are both alone and in a
precarious position as they mine silver and gold. When I was first
called into the ministry, my preacher, who was old school,
he looked at me and this is what he said. He said, boy. Can you
be alone? And I thought he I thought he
meant at first that if I preach the truth, other people won't
like me and I'll be alone. That's not what he meant. What
he meant was this. Well, all the other preacher
boys are hanging out together singing Kumbaya and playing games. Will you go be alone with God?
Will you make his habitation your dwelling place where no
one else can go? And son, it is precarious. It
is dangerous. You swing to and fro. You're
there before God almighty, studying his word that you might speak
it forth to his people. A great mantle, a great stewardship
has been laid upon you. Carry it out with the greatest
of caution, the greatest of joy, but the greatest of caution. And he goes on, he says, five,
the earth, from it comes food, and underneath it is turned up
as fire, its rocks are the source of sapphires, and its dust contains
gold. Alexander McLaren, the great
preacher of the past, he used to say this about the scriptures,
even the dust of the book is gold. He goes on and he says, The path
no bird of prey knows, nor has the falcon eye caught sight of
it. The proud beast have not trodden it, nor has the fierce
lion passed over it. He puts his hand on the flint.
He overturns the mountains at the base. He hues out channels
through the rock, and his eyes sees anything precious. He dams
up the streams from flowing and what is hidden he brings out
to the light. Do you see how this applies to
you? I know he's talking about those who are mining, but then
Job goes on and makes the comparison with the wisdom of God who can
know it. This is your marvelous task. This is your terrible task. This must be your magnificent
obsession. That while everyone is warm in
their bed, you're in the watch night. You're alone with God. You learn to speak his language.
You learn to hear his word as you study it. You go down into
the mind where no proud man goes. You swing to and fro. It's dangerous
because you get into the word. You see your own heart revealed,
skin back as a prey that's been hunted. And you learn, you become
something more than just a man. You become God's man. more than
just an expositor, but one who speaks forth God's word. It will
cost you everything. And instead of spending your
life trying to figure out every new strategy that comes from
some PhD student that's never done ministry, instead of doing
that, get yourself in your study. Mind! God! Know! God! So that when you come out into
the pulpit and you open up your mouth, the word of God comes
out. Now in the last few minutes that
I have, I want to say this. As I've walked around this campus
and the other, I've heard many people talk about this. Students. Wow, that guy has such an intellect.
That guy is such a brilliant Greek scholar. That guy can so
rightly divide absolutely everything. That guy is brilliant. I hear
people talk about Spurgeon. I want you to know many people
have written biographies on Spurgeon. When they meet Spurgeon in heaven,
he's going to be very put out with them. They talk about his mind, his
photographic memory, his ability to just walk up and start preaching
without any notes, without anything impromptu. Did you know what Spurgeon said?
The prince of preachers. You listen to me, because if
you do not learn this, all the other stuff you learn will not
help you much. He said, I would rather teach
one man to pray than teach 10 men to preach. Now, this came
from one of the greatest of all preachers. When you finish your studies
here and again, let me iterate not in flattery, but out of sincerity
of heart, I do not think you could find a better place to
study. But when you finish your studies here, do you think you
finished? You haven't even started. What did you get here? All the
knowledge of God? You didn't even reach the foothills
of that Everest. You've studied the attributes
of God in your systematic theology class, and I guess that makes
you a man of God now. In law school, one of the things
that they will tell you is, we will not teach you law here.
We will teach you how to find the law and how to apply it.
Here you are here to do what? to learn how to study God's word
and to learn how to proclaim it. And when you leave this place,
what do you do? You start your journey. Taking all the tools
that have been given to you now, you live Job 28. What does this world need? We
do not need more movers and shakers. We do not need more clever men. We do not need more strategists.
There is more missionary activity on this planet right now than
any time in the history of Christianity, and most of it is nothing more
than smoke and mirrors. Because the task of the missionary
is the same task of the pastor, and vice versa. It is primarily
to know God, to be before God, to study God's word and then
to go out and proclaim the word studied, to proclaim the God
that is known. And this cannot be done just
by the intellect. It must be done in the power
of the Holy Spirit. Do not allow. So many false prophets
that exist today, saying so many rude and blasphemous things against
the Holy Spirit, do not allow them to steal your inheritance. The only thing you can do, young
man. Of any good in the kingdom of
heaven is by the power of the Holy Spirit. And you must be men and women
of prayer. You must pay. You must pay. Jesus did not ask you, he did
not suggest to you. That you pray at all times and
not lose heart. He did not lay that down as a
spiritual growth principle. He laid it down as a command.
I beg you to cultivate a life of study. I beg you to cultivate
a life of prayer. Do you not realize that all true
men of God are broken? They're mosaics. They look like
they've been strapped together and welded in different parts.
They look like a stained glass window in which all the glass
has been smashed and then patched back together. They are men who
are broken by God because you see, here's the thing you've
got to understand. God will work in your life to
empty you, to break you, to show you that you can do absolutely
nothing. Even in your brilliant expositions,
you can do absolutely nothing unless the spirit of the living
God is breathing through that place. It is the spirit of God. When Ezekiel prophesied in that
valley of dried bones, it was the wind that gave life. What most fail to realize is
that the Spirit of God is most promised to work among God's
ministers when they are lashed down to the gospel. when they
are giving themselves wholly to just preaching the word. But
never forget, you've done all your exegesis, you've studied
every book, you've looked in every commentary, you see that
you're orthodox. But if your knees are not scarred,
do not come to my church. I do not want to submit my people
to you. Young men come to me sometimes
and they say, Brother Paul, I love the way you preach so passionately
and you say things like they are and you're not afraid of
men. That's the kind of preacher I want to be. And I tell them,
young man, lift up your pant leg. Lift up your pant leg. If I see no scars, don't you
ever open your mouth that way. It must be tempered by the spirit
of God. Oh man, why play with Saul's
armor? Why, encumbered, so foolish? You are prophets. You wear a
mantle. You are called to search out
the most superior things and then give them to the people
who hear you. And you are called upon to do
it by the power of the Holy Spirit. And none of that will happen
unless you are a man of prayer. I praise God that I'm weaker
than all of you. I praise God that I am more needy
than all of you. I praise God that I can't even
tie my shoes or find my own watch in the morning when I get up. It is in weakness. Your weakness
is not your problem, the lack of recognizing your weakness
is your problem. And when you find that weakness, do not allow
the devil to turn your head and thus you become discouraged.
But in that weakness, cling to Christ. I want to say this at
the end. The man who is used of God. Is
the man who clings tenaciously to grace, clings tenaciously
to Christ. Now, in our culture, when I say
that many of you may be thinking, yes, These strong men with with
self-will, these determined men who've caught a vision and and
by by their own strength, they're going to accomplish it. No, that's
not what I'm talking about. Let me share with you something.
You take the three biggest guys here, three biggest ones you've
got strongest. All of you can take me and you
three could probably take me in a fight. We'll all be leaving
in an ambulance, but you could probably take me in a fight.
But let me say something, there's a way in which If I was only
90 pounds. I could kill all three of you.
You say how? Put me in the ocean. Without being able to swim. I've
gone down twice. I have become. A cauldron of
strength. It is weakness. It is fear. It
is knowing that if I do not grab a hold, I am going to die. And that let three of you men
swim by. Even on surfboards, I will knock
you off. I will grab you. I will drowned
all three. Because of my need, not because
of my strength. Oh, I would pray that you would
see your need. so that you would grab a hold
of the person of God in Christ, that you would depend wholly
upon his good spirit. That you would see your primary
task. As mining out. The gold. Of the knowledge of
God. And of presenting it to God's
people. With scarred knees. What do we
need in America? What do we need on the mission
field? It's really simple. I take all the activity that
I see today, put it on a boat and ship it to an island where
there are no people. Give me a man who spends the
great portion of his morning. In the study of God's word on
his knees in prayer and then going out from there every day
and proclaiming what he has discovered in the power that he has discovered
of preaching faithfully God's word. And ministering. With a sacrificial love. The
darkness is out there that's out there is so terrifyingly
great. If you ever look down the mouth
of evil, it'll chew you up in a millisecond. You can do nothing
against that. But in the power of the Holy
Spirit, lash to the word of God, proclaiming it in boldness and
living in humility, every mountain can be lifted up and cast into
the sea. Do not hide behind the sovereignty
of God. It is the sovereignty of God
that tells us the kingdom can advance. The nations can know. So catch that vision. And go. Let's pray. Father, I come before you. Use
this time. For the glory of your name and
the good of your people, in Jesus name, amen.