Fervent Prayer and Burdened Preaching

There is a missing element in our churches today, and it has been gone for so long that most folks don't even miss it, of which I speak as fervent prayer and burdened preaching. I hear a lot of dry prayers today and cerebral sermons. I can hardly take it when a deacon gets up to pray a dry prayer that has no force or power because he was picked as a deacon more for the size of his bank account rather than the size of his prayer life.

And there is a pattern in our churches today where dry prayers are the norm, and preaching is aimed at the head instead of the heart. It is all cerebral. I don't go to church to hear an essay to be considered.

Maybe you do. I go to church to hear a man behind the pulpit with a burden, and his burden is so overwhelming he can't wait to preach it with conviction. That's the kind of preaching that reaches the heart.

But there is so little of it in our churches today. We need Mr. Wet Eyes and Mr. Amen back in our churches once again, friends. I'm afraid we ran them off years ago and replaced them with smooth talkers who want to lecture you.

The worst day in America wasn't 9-11. It was when we killed off the weekly prayer meeting in our churches because when that happened we went from being a praying people to a people who like to be entertained. But where, oh where, is the fervent prayer and burden preaching in our land today? How on earth can we call ourselves a church when the carpet in our sanctuary isn't wet with the tears of the broken-hearted people of God crying out in anguish over lost souls in our community? Listen, friends, the church lacks influence over society today because the church has no power with God.

Our standards have fallen to such a low degree that we hear a man pray and there's no power. But when we hear a man pray with fervent prayer we think he's an eyeball. And our preaching has become so mechanical and professional that it's because we have professionals in our pulpits rather than prophets who carry a burden around with them, a burden for this country, a burden for the lost, a burden for eternity.

When I pick up a book by a Puritan preacher it has a holy fire attending it because those men preached with a burden. They were men who had holy lives and they were wholly sold out to God and their generation. Men like Thomas Watson and Thomas Brooks, John Shepherd and Solomon Stoddard each possessed high intellect but they did not preach to impress the mind of their hearers but they preached to convict the hearts of their hearers.

But many preach half-hearted sermons today because they lack conviction themselves. They just don't believe what they're preaching. There was a minister who went to hear Dr. Morton Lloyd-Jones preach on the same subject for weeks at a time and when he was asked why he kept going to hear Lloyd-Jones preach he replied, I like to hear a man preach with conviction.

But we have few burdened preachers today and that is why our churches are in a crisis and our nation facing calamity. We preach self-sufficient sermons and pray half-hearted prayers. I don't know if you have realized it friends but the church in America is in a mess today.

There's little spiritual dynamic occurring in our churches today. We may have some shouting preachers but most of them shout in an attempt to wake up their slumbering congregations. But where are our praying Elijah's who pray with fervency? My message today is entitled, Fervent Prayer and Burdened Preaching and my text is found in the book of James in chapter 5. You may turn in your Bibles there now.

We will be in verses 16 through 18. Here now is the word of God. May the spirit of God attend the reading of his holy word.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months and he prayed again and the heaven gave rain and the earth brought forth her fruit. In other words, Elijah poured his heart out to God in prayer.

His praying was fervent, earnest and bold. When he prayed, things happened. He prayed again and heaven gave rain.

Our text says he got results when he prayed, friends. But when we pray, our faith is often so weak that we don't even believe that the prayer will be really answered before it leaves our lips. Our prayers in our churches have become so self-focused that they can't reach any higher than the ceiling.

I'll never forget being in a prayer meeting years ago in a large Baptist church and a millionaire's wife gave a prayer request. She said that they had outgrown their million dollar home and they were in the process of building one more spacious and more fitting to their needs. And she asked each of us there to pray for her interior designer that she would decorate the home properly without too much stress.

Now, you think I made that up, but I didn't. And that's the bulk of a lot of our praying today, a self-centered and self-absorbed and our worship and preaching is centered on man rather than on God. But where or where is the fervent praying in our churches today? Where is the holy desperation and heart cries from a broken hearted people weeping over the sins of the land? And where are the burdened pastors today? Is it because churches hire professionals rather than prophets? It seems to be the case.

I remember my late mentor, Dr. Stephen Alford, telling me that he knew it to be a fact that the average pastor only spent 10 minutes a day in prayer. That explains why there's so little burden preaching emanating from our pulpits today. Friends, I remember a church I was preaching in where there was a little stir in the tops of the mulberry trees, but it wasn't due to my preaching, but rather the pastor of that church was a praying man who carried a burden for souls.

He missed my entire sermon because he was shut up in his study on his face, crying out to God in prayer the whole time I was preaching in his pulpit. After the service, the music minister told me that he saw Jesus on the throne that morning, and I agreed with him because I saw him, too. There was a God consciousness in our midst that day, and eternity was being impacted and souls were being dealt with.

And it was all due to the fact that there was a man of God locked up in a study on his face before God, crying out over the people of God, while the preached word of God was being sounded forth in his sanctuary. It was said of Charles Spurgeon that he had 300 deacons who never got to hear him preach. One day, Spurgeon was escorting a visitor around the Metropolitan Tabernacle before the Sunday service commenced, and Spurgeon asked the visitor if he would like to peep into the engine of his church.

The governor took the visitor down to the basement and opened the door to a large room, which had 300 men on their faces, crying out to God in fervent prayer. These men were down there the whole time Spurgeon preached upstairs. I believe there's something to that, friends.

I really do. What we need in our land today, more than a new president, what we need in our land today, more than new legislation, what we need in our land today is more fervent praying and more burdened preaching than just maybe the church will begin to influence society once again instead of society influencing the church. But it has to start with us.

Our witness is feeble because we are feeble in prayer. Our preaching is ineffective and conversions are infrequent because we fail to frequent the courts of the most high God frequently. We'd rather be playing games or be entertained today than stay in our faces and brokenness and anguish over the sad condition of the church and the rottenness of society.

Many pastors would rather play video games than lay on their faces before God in desperate prayer. Listen, friends, the church didn't get into the sad shape she's in by accident. The drift began years ago.

Nothing shocks us anymore. We have become so desensitized to sin. But my Bible declares in Psalm 119, horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law.

There was a time in this country years ago when the church cried out against sin in the land and was shocked by it. Or what wickedness in the land doesn't seem to bother us that much anymore as long as we can grow our church with bigger buildings and prettier campuses. And the church has become so prideful that it believes it can impress with an expanded campus.

There was a billboard that I saw while driving down the street in a major city advertising a church within that community. And the advertisement was, we dare you to come just once, implying that if you took their dare and visited their church just once, you'd never want to go anywhere else. Well, I took them up on that dare.

I went and visited that church next Sunday and I got up to leave as soon as the service began because it was so offensive. We lack power today because there's so little fervent prayer and burden preaching. Men fear men rather than God and they refuse to preach offensive messages because they are afraid to offend anybody.

But John the Baptist was a burden preacher and his message was as follows. Oh, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come, bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance. Oh, John the Baptist wasn't afraid to tell men to repent and warn them of their great danger of dying in their sins.

And he called a spade a spade. He called sin black. He called hell hot.

But we don't because we don't want to upset our biggest givers. But Jesus came preaching and saying the same, unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Jesus wasn't afraid to be honest with men and tell them the truth that they must comply with the gospel of the son of God or drop into a burning hell for all eternity.

But we don't want to be honest with folks today because we like to preserve our skins and we like to be accepted by our hearers. So we are careful not to say anything that might offend someone. But we need men today in our pulpits who don't fear man, but only fear God.

We need men who are fervent prayer and who carry a burden in their preaching. There are demands of taking up this burden and many don't want to pay the price. But we must friends, we must the hours too late or times too desperate and our danger too imminent to keep playing church in this country any longer.

Heaven help us all. Let us pray. Oh, great God, ancient of days, how we have sinned against thee, how we as a people have forsaken thee, forgive us, oh Lord, for replacing you with strange fire in our houses of worship and turning our churches from houses of prayer into houses of entertainment.

Forgive us, great God, for not being a praying people. We'd rather watch TV and be entertained, entertained by harlots and perverts rather than be on our knees, crying out in desperate prayer for their souls and the sins of this land. Forgive us, great God, for a lack of burden preaching and our emphasis on professionalism in our pulpits today.

Send us, oh Lord, the fire, send us, oh King, the fire and ignite us once again through a Holy Ghost revival. Oh, Lord Jesus Christ, be pleased to come and reestablish your preeminence and prominence in our sanctuaries once again. May there be a God consciousness in our house of worship once again.

Be pleased, oh God, to send us a mighty outpouring of your grace in the land today through a spiritual awakening. Great God have mercy upon us. You are the King of glory.

Only you can send revival. Look down and hear our prayer. Give us a burden of anguish and prayer for this sin-sick nation and for our lost generation.

Oh God, forgive us for our great lack in all these things. We pray in the strong name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.