Between Hell and Your Town

I want to share a story with you friends about a man who told it to me years ago. I was having lunch with a pastor from Glasgow, Scotland, and he told me the following story. He said that in the city of Glasgow there used to be a historic banner that could be seen all over the city and it had been there for years, that in 1866 the city adopted an official coat of arms whose words were put on an official seal and documents and emblems all over the city and that banner had the following words written across it.

Lord, let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of your word. And that slogan stood firm for over 120 years until some liberal, godless politicians decided to rewrite it to take everything that had anything to do with God out of it and they just let three words remain. Let Glasgow flourish.

They dropped the name of God. They got rid of Lord. They dropped by the preaching of your word.

And after they did that, this pastor told me, it wasn't long that crime began to increase in Glasgow. Teenage pregnancies went up. Drug use increased.

Robberies and public drunkenness increased. And this pastor told me it broke his heart to see his city go to hell. And he got some pastor friends of his together and they made a pact between them that they would meet on a regular basis to pray for their town.

And they prayed. And they prayed. And this pastor told me that, after six to eight months of desperate and unfortunate prayer, crime began to decrease in Glasgow.

Teenage pregnancies went down. Drug use decreased. Public drunkenness abated.

And those praying pastors were used of God to push back the darkness in their town. Now, that's what the man told me. Years later, when I visited Glasgow in 2008, I saw that city banner and it still read, Let Glasgow Flourish.

You know what, friends? Just because a town is flourishing financially and growing, it could be bankrupt spiritually. Those city officials got rid of God on their public emblem, but they could not get rid of the praying Christians in that town who wanted to see the Lord Jesus Christ honored again and God honored in that town. The only thing standing between your town and hell tonight is you.

Do you hear me, friend? Is vice increasing in your town? Does it look like the devil is running your town? Do you care about the young people in your town who are drugging themselves and perverting themselves and killing themselves with booze and drugs and who are going to hell tonight? What are you doing about it? Do you have faith? Do you know how to pray? Will you gather some prayer warriors together and intercede for your community to meet on a regular basis and pray and commit to push back the darkness in your community tonight? Jesus said in Mark 3, 27, No man can enter into a strongman's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strongman, and then he will spoil his house. How bad do you want to see your town won back for Christ Jesus? How sick are you of the vice and crime and perversion that's spilling all over our towns tonight? Are you sick enough and mad enough to spoil the enemy? I repeat, the only thing standing between hell and your town tonight is you, oh great God, that you will send your disturbing presence to this town tonight, that sinners will come under conviction of sin, that the strongholds of the enemy will be shaken by the power of thy spirit, that darkness will be pushed back and the enemy routed and sinners pulled from the fire. In the strong name of the Lord Jesus Christ we stand for your glory.

We pray, Amen.