God is Looking for Better Men

In his classic book on prayer called Preacher in Prayer, E.M. Bounds opens his book with the comment, The Church is looking for better methods. God is looking for better men. And that's the title of my message today, friends, and the subject of my message today as well.

For in 2 Chronicles we read, For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show themselves strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. I believe God is still on the lookout for better men, better men than the mere mediocre, better than the self-satisfied, better than the casual or complacent, better than those who are concerned with their self-preservation, willing only to go so far with God but refusing to go out on a limb for God by faith. God is looking for better men.

The greatest need in our land today is a prophet, a man sent from God, God's man, who will stand between the gap of heaven and earth, between mortal man and almighty God, a holy man who is so wholly sold out to God, so intoxicated with Christ and so consumed with eternity that his very footprints leave a smoky trail of the lingering fire of God, a man whose desperate life of prayer has left fingerprints on the horns of the altar in glory, a man whose emboldened faith and Enoch-like walk with God moves mountains of resistance and proves that the God of the Bible is still alive today. God will always raise up an Elijah whose prayers impact a sleeping nation. The church in each generation has had individuals who live upon their knees, whose prayers reach heaven with a holy violence.

India had her praying Hyde, China her John Song, England her John Wesley, Scotland her John Knox, America her fiery E.M. Bounds. Voices which gained the attention of the throne room startled angels and shook the gates of hell, making even kings and queens quake and tremble with their desperate prayers, but with power comes a sacrifice. With anointing there is a cost.

God does not bestow his deeper gifts upon the casual or complacent. Talk is cheap, but a yielded and consecrated life is everything, but to go all out for God means a willingness to be reduced to nothing for him, so Christ can be everything. God is indeed looking for better men.

I'll never forget the conversation I had with Adrian Rogers at the funeral of Stephen Alford. We were standing in the hallway and Adrian Rogers was facing me with his arms folded across his chest and he looked like a big Indian chief standing there. Then he asked me a question.

He said, Do you know what concerns me? I said, No, Dr. Rogers, what concerns you? He said, I see God calling up men like J. Sidlow Baxter and Stephen Alford and I look around and I don't see any comeuppers. And he was right. There's a dearth in the land today of better men.

Men like these, the Apostle Paul, Luther, Wesley, Whitfield, Edwards, Finney, Moody, each shared a common denominator, a fire in their belly. They each were so eaten up with the gospel and so thirsty for Christ and so filled with the Holy Ghost, they could not stand idly by while others perished. They saw nothing but eternity, worshipped the Holy God and served a risen Christ, living not for earth nor its gains, but living only for heaven and its rewards.

When they preached, they linked the devil with sin and the cross with salvation. They preached hell and its fire and Christ and Him crucified. Not one of them feared king, queen, or pope, and not one of them sought the compliments of men.