Pastor Who Missed My Sermon

I reckon it was about 15 years ago. I was on vacation in a different state and I wasn't supposed to preach that Sunday. How I came to preach that Sunday is a story in itself, friends.

I was out of town and I wanted to visit a church where I had met the pastor previously and I called him for directions to his church and he gave them to me and hung up the phone. Fifteen minutes later he called me back and asked me if I didn't mind if I would address his congregation for the midweek service that evening. I told him I didn't have a sermon prepared as I was in town to rest.

I was on vacation, but I'd pray about it and see what God wanted me to do. Three hours later I was addressing his people and they were getting teary-eyed as I gave out my message which I felt God wanted them to hear. When I was done, the pastor remarked that when he preached to his people, they left the church laughing and talking, but when I preached to them, their eyes were red and they left in complete silence.

I didn't think nothing about it and went back to go rest. The pastor asked me with a telephone call later that evening if I would address the men of his church that coming Saturday morning at ten o'clock. Well, all I know is at five o'clock in the afternoon that Saturday we were still going strong after I had preached three different messages to them with breaks of time for prayer.

His men looked pretty torn up when we parted company that Saturday evening. And on the way out of church in the parking lot, the pastor asked me to take the Sunday morning message the next morning. When I entered the pulpit that Sunday morning, I informed his church that I had not come to town to preach but to rest, and I was before them, after I had already spoken to a good part of them four times already.

What they didn't know was that at two a.m. I got out of bed and got on my knees and poured my heart out to God over that church. I prayed and wept over that church for an hour or an hour and a half on my knees that early Sunday morning before dawn before I was to preach. I felt God was up to something and I felt a deep burden for those people at that church.

I literally was forced to my knees in a prayer burden for them. Well, I chose for my text that Sunday morning the last judgment, and I guess I hit it pretty hard. I remember I spoke a lot about hell in the first half of my sermon, and about halfway through my message it felt like a cannonball went rolling down the center aisle of that church.

The people's faces became alarmed. All I know is somewhere during my message the Holy Spirit took charge of that meeting and froze people in their seats until He was ready to loose them. I finished my message and said if there was anybody there who wanted to get serious with God and seek Him in salvation to come forward and the deacons would pray with them.

I then asked for the deacons to come forward. Nobody moved. I thought the deacons didn't hear me, so I repeated myself and asked them now to get up if they wouldn't mind and come forward to counsel folks if anyone needed counseling, but nobody moved.

So I left the platform and closed up my Bible and took my seat on the front row with my back to the congregation. All I know is that I'm not an emotional person. I'm not into emotionalism of any kind in a church and I'm usually a pretty reserved person at that, but that Sunday I felt compelled to drop out of my seat and kneel before that congregation with my back to them, and I raised my arms over my head as I silently prayed to God for them.

Slowly I heard footsteps behind me as some began to move forward and then a young man come running down the aisle jumping and hollering that he just got saved. A deacon told me afterward that they could not get up from their seats when I called for them several times from the pulpit. He said, we didn't come because we could not come.

We were frozen in our seats. That's what the man told me. The music minister told me he saw Jesus sitting on his throne.

That's what the man told me. The young man that came running down the aisle hollering I just got saved, I just got saved, he came over to me and told me I've come forward in a meeting before and nothing happened, but this time God saved me. God really saved me.

He was jumping up and down with joy. He looked like a jackrabbit hopping around the platform. Well, I don't know if he got saved or not.

I'll see him at the judgment. I'm just telling you, friends, what he told me. But I say all this, friends, because I believe the main reason we had a little touch of heaven in that church that week was because that church had a praying pastor who was a man of prayer.

There was nothing special about my sermon. I had preached something like it before and nothing happened. There was nothing special about the preacher.

In fact, I didn't even have a suit with me. I preached in a pair of dress pants that were too big for me and my tie was out of style about ten years. There was nothing special or impressive about me, I can assure you.

But I can attribute the power in that meeting to the man who missed my sermon that morning because as I was standing in his pulpit that pastor was on his face in his study for the whole service praying and crying out to God while I preached to his people. He was on his face touching God in prayer for them. We need more praying pastors today.

We need men of prayer in ministry today. The pastor who missed my sermon that day was busily engaged in wrestling and in accessory prayer because he was a man of prayer who actually loved the people in his church and he didn't want them to go to hell. How about you, brother pastor? How do you spend your spare time? How you spend it? Well, say aloud about how you feel about your people.

Let us pray.