I suppose I should explain the title of my blog. I listened to a short "sermon" by David Wilkerson. It touched me deeply. And literally changed my life. Here's what he says, "I look at the whole religious scene today and all I see are inventions and ministries of man and flesh. It's mostly powerless. It has no impact on the world. And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church, rather than the church impacting the world. I see the music taking over the house of God. I see entertainment taking over the house of God. Obsession with entertainment in God's house. A hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof. Nobody wants to hear it anymore. Whatever happened to anguish in the house of God? Whatever happened to anguish in the ministry? It's a word you don't hear in this pampered age. You don't hear it. Anguish means extreme pain and distress. The emotions so stirred that it becomes painful. Acute deeply felt inner pain felt because of conditions about you, in you, or around you. Anguish. Deep pain. Deep sorrow. Agony of God's heart. We've held onto our religious rhetoric, and our revival talk, but we've become so passive. All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ comes out of a baptism of anguish. You search the scripture and you discover that when God determined to recover a ruined situation, He would share His own anguish for what God saw happening to His own church and to His own people. And he would find a praying man and he would take that man and literally baptize him in anguish. You find it in the book of Nehemiah. Jerusalem is in ruins. How is God going to deal with this? How is God going to restore the ruin? Folks, look at me. Nehemiah was not a preacher. He was a career man. This was a praying man. God FOUND a man who would not just have a flash of emotion, not just some great sudden burst of concern and then let it die. He said, "No. I broke down and I wept. And I mourned and I fasted. And then I began to pray night and day." Why didn't these other men, why didn't they have an answer? Why didn't God use them in restoration. Why didn't they have a word? Because there was no sign of anguish! No weeping! Not a word of prayer! It's all ruin! Does it matter to you today, does it matter to you at all that God's spiritual Jerusalem, the church, is now married to the world? That there is such a coldness sweeping the land? Closer than that, does it matter about the Jerusalem that's in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that's slowly draining spiritual power and passion? Blind to lukewarmness, blind to the mixture that's creeping in. That's all the devil wants to do: get the fight out of you and kill it! So you won't labor in prayer anymore! You won't weep before God anymore! You can sit and watch television and your family go to hell! Let me just ask you, has what I said convicted you at all? There's a great difference between anguish and concern. Concern is something that begins to interest you. You take interest in a project, or a cause, or a concern, or a need. I want to tell you something I've learned over all my 50 years of preaching, if it is not born in anguish, if it has not been born in the Holy Spirit, where what you saw and heard of the ruin that drove you to your knees, took you down into a baptism of anguish where you began to pray and seek God. I know now. Oh my God do I know it. Until I'm in agony. Until I have been anguished over it. And all our projects, all our ministries, everything we do. Where are the Sunday school teachers that weep over kids they know are not hearing and are going to hell? You see, a true prayer life begins at the place of anguish. You see, if you set your heart to pray, God's going to come and start sharing His heart with you. Your heart begins to cry out "Oh God Your name is being blasphemed. Holy Spirit is being mocked. The enemy is out trying to destroy the testimony of the Lord's faithfulness, and something has to be done. There's going to be no renewal, no revival, no awakening, until we are willing to let Him once again break us. Folks it's getting late and it's getting serious. Please don't tell me, don't tell me you're concerned when you're spending hours a day in front of Internet or television. Come on. There is nothing the flesh will give you joy. I don't care how much money, I don't care what kind of house, there is absolutely nothing physical that can give you joy. It is only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey Him and take on His heart. Build the walls around your family. Build the walls around your own heart. Make you strong and impregnable against the enemy. God that's what we desire."
After I heard this, I got really depressed. Because, it's true. So much of the church, is cold-hearted. So much of the church has let the world impact it. Where did the extravagant love go? What happened to weeping? What happened to longing to be like Jesus? What happened to desiring Him? To desiring to have a heart like His? Where did the Davids go? Men after God's heart? People after God's heart? This left me weeping. Even now I want to break down and cry. So many Christians live their own happy life. So many Christians have become lukewarm. So many Christians don't know what it's like to weep before the Lord, to be broken hearted. And my heart breaks for them. The Lord gave me a burden for the world, that leaves me weeping. I am not continually depressed; I do still have the joy of the Lord. But, there are times when I think about this, and I weep. The Lord gave me a piece of His heart to let me feel this deep agony for the Church and the lost and unsaved. Oh Lord, break my heart for what breaks Yours. I cannot convey my anguish for the world. I feel like I'm going around in circles, babbling, not making any sense.
Oh Lord, bring passion to the Church. Oh Lord, burn out the impurities. Oh Lord, REND THE HEAVENS AND COME DOWN.
My heart yearns for everyone to be saved. My heart longs for the blind to have open eyes and see the extravagant love of the Creator. My heart aches for the deaf to hear. My heart yearns for the dead to arise and live, for the dry to drown, for the passive to burn. Oh Lord. BREAK IN!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMG_PVaJoI
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