No Power in the Pulpit

I don't know when it happened, but it happened nonetheless. A day came in the American church where we got a can of gasoline and soaked our pulpits with it and then set fire to it. And we replaced that pulpit of authority with amusing stories, light teaching, and worldly compromise.

And because the pulpit was now degraded and reduced to ashes, we were no longer spokespersons for God nor ambassadors for Christ, but preachers became teachers and some became entertainers until that became the status quo. And that's why we're in the shape we're in now, meaning the church now resembles a private club and operates on its own private, isolated island. And every dollar and every effort and every ounce of expenditure is spent on self-preservation and creature comfort so that when the tide goes out, every shrimp has his hole.

There's a big reason, friends, why the modern church has no resemblance to the one in the book of Acts, because we have no reliance upon the spirit of God. We can get more done with money and manpower, but in former times, the church operated on prayer and Holy Ghost power. I believe the Methodist minister Samuel Chadwick summed up our present condition when he said, the church still has a theology of the Holy Ghost, but it has no living consciousness of His presence and power.

The title of my message today, friends, is no power in the pulpit. And my text can be found in the book of Zachariah. And for those of you who actually read your Bibles, you'll have no trouble finding it in chapter four of Zachariah.

And in verse six, we read, 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. When I read the book of Acts and I see plain men, uneducated men, fishermen by trade, standing like lions in the streets, preaching Christ and Him crucified, and the power of God coming down in signs and wonders, and everywhere these Christ followers went preaching, in the aftermath of that, it looked as if a earthquake had ripped the very fabric of a pagan society with the overwhelming power of Almighty God. And I had asked myself, why, why did the church in that day do so much and shake things up so much and save so many souls that it was as if these men literally turned the world upside down? And when I look at the sad, pitiful American church today, I cringe and I blush and I groan with disgust at what she has become instead of what she was meant to be.

I don't blame the young people today for leaving the churches in droves. Why would they want to be part of a lifeless institution with no authority? They took a good look at their parents who were lifelong church members, and they saw outwardly religious people who lacked the reality of God in their own lives, and it turned them off to God altogether. Does anyone disagree with what I'm saying? Do you want to stand here and argue against my points? Do you want to prove to me that what I'm saying is entirely wrong? Do you want to call me delusional? Or are you so spiritually numb that you can't see the glaring issues of our desperate and sad spiritual declension yourself? Am I a madman standing here? Am I a madman crying out against the tide of the modern church and saying that the emperor has no clothes? Am I the only one who sees it? Has everyone drunk so much of the Kool-Aid of the modern church that they believe this is what God intended for his bride? Laughter and entertainment instead of conviction and conversion? A nightclub instead of an altar? Have I gone insane? Or does anyone else see how far we have drifted away from God's purpose, God's mandate, and God's commandments? Why are so many pastors antinomians? Why have we thrown holiness out the window? Why has the church just settled into conformity and compromise? All I can do is weep and pray.

But I will share with you today, friends, for those of you who are serious and who really want more of God, who want to go deeper with God and do greater things for God, I'm going to share with you something today. It's what my homiletical mentor, Dr. Stephen F. Olford, taught me. Listen, friend, if you want more of the Holy Spirit, he must have more of you.

I'm going to read you Stephen Olford's notes on the anointing of the Spirit. It's available for anyone who wants to possess it, but there are three conditions. Number one, holiness.

Number two, yieldedness. Number three, prayerfulness. When a pastor gets serious with God, his congregation will know it.

And when a pastor isn't serious with God, his congregation will know it. I listened to a Baptist pastor say his favorite TV show was Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and it reflected in his meager worldly messages. I guess it all boils down to this.

God will not get serious with us until we get serious with him. We're not going to see revival if we can't even recognize our desperate need of it. God is very serious concerning holiness in his people.

Oh, when Jesus was here in his earthly ministry, he wept over Jerusalem and foretold of its destruction. I wonder, I wonder how much he weeps over the sad mess of the modern church today.