Lord Ignite Me with Your Holy Flame

I was talking to an older pastor and he told me that he could remember a time early in his ministry when you could go to church and feel the power of God in a meeting and that young people today have not felt that move of God in a corporate setting like that. I agreed with that old pastor and I think I can put my finger on our great lack of experience in God today in our churches and it boils down to the following story. I was sitting in a classroom with seminary students and the preaching professor was telling us how to be magnetic personalities in the pulpit.

He was telling us how to project our voices, how to move our hands with action to better communicate with our audience. He said we should have winsome personalities and be exciting speakers through the use of good illustrations, interesting stories, and solid homiletical outlines. When he was through with his lecture, a fellow student approached him with a question.

I was sitting nearby and I overheard their conversation. The seminary student asked the professor the following question. He said, I've listened to your lecture today and took notes of what you taught us, but when I study men in history whom God has used to bless with revivals, men like Jonathan Edwards, for instance, I notice men like that had the power of the Spirit of God upon their preaching and anointing.

Why don't you teach us about that? The preaching professor looked at the young man with disdain and replied, young man, you were no Jonathan Edwards. That's what the old boy said and his words crushed that young student. But looking back on it, I believe that seminary student knew a lot more about preaching than that egg-headed professor.

But it's because of that mindset we have filled our pulpits with personalities, academics, and entertainers. And where has that gotten us in this sad and tragic hour? Nowhere. We sit and do church on Sunday morning and leave the same way we came in, unchanged.

But I ask you, where is the power? Where is the Holy Ghost power that raises dead men to life? In the book of Acts, in chapter 1, in verse 8, we read, But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. The title of my message today, friends, is Lord, Ignite Me With Thy Holy Flame. And that's what we need today in our churches, friends.

Listen, there can only be one answer to the question, why has the church lost her power? The answer lies in the reality that the church has forsaken the third person of the Trinity, replacing him with programs and man-centered methodologies. Our reliance is our self-reliance as we look to money and manpower to get the job done, rather than reliance upon the Holy Spirit to empower us to pray, preach, and witness with an endowment from on high. I listened to Manley Beasley relate that he went to hear Duncan Campbell preach to a group of Southern Baptist pastors, and when the preaching time was over and the pastors filtered out into the hallway, every last one to the man was talking about how the power of God had rested upon Duncan Campbell, and how he had such an anointed ministry.

And it was obvious to all there that heard him that here was a man who lived and breathed his life under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Did you hear that friends? And how did God use a man like that? Listen to Duncan Campbell's own words of how God moved in the midst of an entire community back in 1948 under his anointed preaching. The awful presence of God brought away the conviction of sin that caused even mature Christians to feel their sinfulness, bringing groans of distress and prayers of repentance from the unconverted.

Strong men were bowed under the weight of sin, and cries for mercy mingled with shouts of joy from others who had passed from death to life. Oh dear friends, how I long to see a move of God like that in your day and mine, where sinners sit under the sound of the gospel of the Son of God and quite suddenly, like a rushing wind, they're gripped with eternity and the awfulness of God's presence. When I read my Bible, I see that God did wonders through surrendered men like Peter and Paul, not because of their winsome personalities or their academic achievements or their entertaining pulpit style, but God moved through them by the power of His Holy Ghost and arrested hearts and pierced them with conviction of sin until they cried out, Oh, what must I do to be saved? In the book of Zechariah, in chapter 4, we see a striking passage of Scripture beginning in verse 4. Let me read that to us now, friends.

So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain, and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with the shoutings, crying, Grace, grace, unto it.

The kind of preaching that is needed today, friends, is the kind not by money and manpower. It wins some personalities. But by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

Listen to the following description of what occurred on the big island of Hawaii in 1835 under the anointed preaching of Titus Cohen, who was the cousin of Ezehiel Nettleton. Listen to what took place when this man preached, who was known as the Saint Peter of Hawaii. This is from an eyewitness account.

There was trembling, weeping, sobbing, and loud crying for mercy, sometimes too loud for the preacher to be heard, and in hundreds of cases his hearers fell in a swoon. Some would cry out, The two-edged sword is cutting me to pieces. The wicked scoffer who came to make sport dropped like a dog and cried, God has struck me.

Let me ask you, friend, where is the power of God in a meeting like that today? Why aren't sinners bowed under the conviction of sin anymore? Why doesn't someone cry out under our preaching and say, I'm lost, I'm lost? I believe it's because they're too busy laughing at the funny stories we tell them. They're too entertained by the service to be under conviction of sin. I believe the words of Samuel Chadwick still ring true for us today, where he made the comment, the church still has the theology of the Holy Ghost, but it has no living consciousness of its presence and power.

And that's true, friends, it's sad but true. The saintly F.B. Meyer had this advice for young preachers, he said, If Christ waited to be anointed before he went to preach, no young man ought to preach until he too has been anointed by the Holy Ghost. And I like what E.M. Bounds had to say on the subject as well, friends.

Bounds remarked, but in the endowment of the Holy Spirit. And when I was conducting research on my two-volume biography of George Whitefield, I learned a great deal as to why God used Whitefield in such enormous revivals and spiritual awakenings. I found the key to Whitefield's power when I went to Exeter, New Hampshire, to the Stone, which marks the spot where Whitefield preached his last sermon in 1770.

It was there Whitefield addressed a crowd in the open air, a crowd of about 4,000 hearers. And before he began his message, this is the prayer he prayed. First he climbed up on top of two hoghead barrels and stood there silent in prayer for several minutes before he began his sermon, and as he was waiting, he told the crowd, I will wait for the gracious assistance of God, for he will, I am certain, assist me once more to speak in his name.

George Whitefield shook two continents for God with his preaching, and the last sermon he preaches on earth he acknowledges his dependence upon the Spirit of God to preach the gospel of the Son of God. That's what we need today, friends. And I want to take a few minutes here to read us an extract from one of Whitefield's sermons entitled The Holy Spirit Convicts of Sin.

And I want us to notice how men in former days relied entirely upon the Spirit of God to bring conviction of sin to their hearers. Whitefield did not preach essays to be considered by the head, but he preached arrows of conviction to pierce the heart. Here now are George Whitefield's words.

This is the method the Spirit of God generally takes in dealing with sinners. He first convinces them of some heinous actual sin, and at the same time brings all their other sins into remembrance, and, as it were, sets them in battle-ray before them. When He has come, He will reprove the world of sin.

And it was ever thus with you, my dear hearers, for I must question you as I go along, because I intend by divine help to preach not only to your heads, but to your hearts. Did the Spirit of God ever bring all your sins thus to remembrance, and make you cry out to God, Thou writest bitter things against me? That's Job 13.26. Did your actual sins ever appear before you as though drawn in a map? If not, you have great reason to suspect that you were not convicted, much less converted, and the promise of the text was never yet fulfilled in your hearts. That, friends, is why George Whitefield was so mildly used to God, because he was anointed by the Spirit of God, and preached certain sermons to man's conscience to convict sinners of their great guilt before a holy and just God.

Oh, friends, how I long to have power like that. Anoint me, great God, and touch me with the power of thy Holy Spirit. Lord, give me a coal from thy altar and ignite me with thy holy flame.

Confront me with your holy presence until I'm never the same. Touch my lips, oh Lord, with fire. Ignite me with thy holy flame.

Bend my heart and break my will, all for your holy name. Set your seal upon my life. Speak through me and raise the dead to life.

Touch me, Lord, with thy resurrection power. Fill me, Lord, at this present hour. Use me, oh God, to reach the lost.

Give me grace to count the cost. When I preach your blood-stained cross, convict a sin and save the lost. Lord, ignite me with thy holy flame.

Let me die for thy great name.