The News #12

Michael Jackson died last week. I was profoundly moved. If you know me very well, you probably can’t believe I wrote that last sentence. I certainly wouldn’t have expected the death of “The King of Pop” to have much of an impact on me one way or another. So the reaction was most unexpected. This is why I was so moved.

My first thought was, “How terrible it would be a child molester and die in an unsaved condition. It would be unspeakably horrible for anyone to go to hell, but how much worse must be in store for a child molester.” And right in that moment it was almost as if I could hear him scream. That first scream, the scream that you scream when you realize you are dead and hands take hold of you and begin to drag you down into the earth. That first scream that you scream when you realize that it is all true, that you are descending into hell, and that there is no possible way of escape.

Dear friends, I do not know if Michael Jackson is in hell right now; he might have gotten saved in some private moment. I don’t know if he molested those children. A jury sat for months listening to evidence and returned a not guilty verdict on all counts. In any event, he has now faced the judgment of a Judge who sees all, knows all, and who cannot be deceived. Not matter what he was guilty off, the blood of Jesus had the power to cleanse, the power to save.

I’ve been writing about the power of God and the possibility of a transformation of our society through an outpouring of God’s Spirit. When this has happened in the past, God made hell very real to unsaved people and used it to bring them to salvation. And if there is going to be another great awakening I expect that God will make a revelation of the lake of fire to be a very important part of it.

But I am not writing today about the impact of hell on the unsaved. I am writing about the impact of a revelation of hell on the born again, on those of us who are safe from this horror through the wonderful grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. Before God ever makes the danger of damnation real to the world, I expect that He will begin to make it very, very real in the hearts and minds of His people.

The News #11

The impact of this sermon (see the last post) was extraordinary. Mature, intelligent adults found themselves crying out in terror. Some literally stood up and ran to pillars in the church interior and held on with all their might from fear that the ground beneath them would open and they would drop into the flames. None of this was due to emotional manipulation or great oratory. Jonathan Edwards was not a great orator, and at this point in his ministry he would read his sermons word for word from the pulpit. What happened was that the Spirit of God came down on that place with great power. He made it all very real and very vivid to them. A spiritual renewal began in that place and many, many people were born again in the next several months.

I’ve know about this sermon for a long time, but recently I learned something I didn’t know. This was very typical of preaching from American and English pulpits during past Great Awakenings. I’m not suggesting that each and every evangelistic sermon should reek of burning sulfur and be so vivid that people can hear the screams of the damned sounding in the background, but I am suggesting that some of them should.

Do you know where you find the most vivid and disturbing descriptions of hell in the Christian Bible? You find them in the gospels. They are words printed in red in some of your Bibles. They are words spoken by the Savior of the world.

The News #10

I have been doing a lot of reading lately on the subject of Great Awakenings, times of spiritual renewal that transformed society in a very short period of time. Maybe some of you have heard of a very famous sermon that was preached during one of these awakenings. You may have even read this sermon in a literature class in college. It’s called “Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God,” and it was written and preached by one of the most brilliant men in American history, Jonathan Edwards.

Let me share an excerpt (which I paraphrased). Unsaved people “are not the object of that very same anger and wrath of God this is expressed in the torments of hell. There are people in hell right now who are experiencing God the flames of God’s wrath. If you are unsaved, the wrath of God abides on you. As long as you refuse to believe He has the exact same feeling toward you and your sin that He does for those in hell at this very moment. In fact, because of the nature of your sins, God is angrier at some of the people in the room than He is toward some of the people already in hell. The wrath of God burns against you. Your damnation does not slumber – just the opposite! The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is prepared for you and the flames rage and glow.”

“You may think that you are safe right now. You may be in good health and free from danger. But the reality is that you are not safe. Your next breath, your next step could be your last. There is not one single minute that goes buy that some fool who thought that he was safe dies unexpectedly and is dragged screaming down into the flames.”

The News #8

I want to talk to you about the legal system. We have a new president and he has made his first supreme court nomination. The political conservatives are distraught. “We’ll have to live with this person for the rest of their life. Progress is be made in the wrong direction and we will never get it undone.”

I don’t think so. Brothers and sisters, this thing I’m about to tell you is so real to me that I can almost see it the way I can see a physical thing. The president only has a little power and authority; we have a lot. We should have millions of Christians praying daily by name for every federal judge in the country. I wish I had enough people reading this blog to organize something of that magnitude, but if a few of you will join me in prayer we can still do a mighty work by the grace of God.

Before I tell you what I want you to pray for, I want you to imagine what it would be like to be standing in front of a judge awaiting your sentence. You were a criminal. You’ve spent your whole life lying and scheming and gotten away with a whole lot. But now it has come to an end. You couldn’t weasel your way out of this one. You’ve been found guilty. You’re going to jail for a long time. Your mind is racing. Isn’t there some lie you can tell, some trick you can play? You look around and realize that if you try anything the guards will grab you. Seething with anger you realize that your goose is finally cooked. You are going to have to pay for your crime. You are in someone else’s power and there is absolutely nothing you can do to get out of it.

People in the legal system are used to that scenario because they have witnessed it many times; but most of them have no real idea what it would feel like to be in that situation. I want you to pray that the Holy Spirit will cause every judge and lawyer in this country to know exactly what that feels like. Only instead of having them know what it feels like to be in front of a human judge, I want you to pray that they will be given a vision of what it will be like to stand before God in judgment as He prepares to cast them into hell.

The News #7

I feel like I have a special responsibility to pray for the English speaking world. As I have prayed, I have felt led to pray for a great awakening that will last seven years. Seven years. I’m asking for more, but my heart has the faith to believe for seven years right now. I want you to join me in praying for the seven year outpouring of the Spirit of God.

As I’ve prayed and meditated on this the Lord has impressed upon my spirit that He can take back in one year everything Satan took from us in a decade. In a seven year revival God can undo the progress that wickedness has made in the last 70 years. I intend to pray for revival until it comes or until my life is over. I am very confident about this. If revival doesn’t come before I die, it will come after I die. If we pray and believe we can see a mighty transformation of our society and millions of souls swept into the Kingdom of God.

The News #6

I want to spend a little more time establishing the point that there were times in the past when the moral rot was worse than it is now and that God was able and willing to turn things completely around in a very short time.

The moral decline in America was greatly influenced by the ideas of the French revolution, which happened just after the America Revolutionary War. The French Revolution was based on atheism and a violent rejection of Christianity. Books by atheist intellectuals became very popular in America. The moral conditions at the colleges became extremely dark. It was estimated that there were only two believers among the entire student body at Princeton. Many colleges, all of them founded by Christians and intended to be religious institutions fell under the control of atheists. Some of the prominent leaders from the American Revolution were encouraging these trends. Clubs were formed to promote the “new” ideas. Sexual orgies were frequent events at these clubs. This was the condition of America in 1796.

And then a wave of revivals began. God began to pour out his Spirit and people began to be converted in large numbers. The entire nation was transformed. This is what God has done and can do. We must make prayer for a Great Awakening to be one of the most important priorities in our lives. The temporary trend toward moral degradation in our society is not based on science or new ideas. It’s triumph is not inevitable. The real power is all on our side; the power of the Lord God Almighty. It is spiritual, not political. It is released in answer to prayer. When God pours out His Spirit in revival the enemy flees in confusion and righteousness is reestablished.

The News #5

Most of us have no idea what God has done in past revivals, so we don’t know what to ask Him to do right now. It’s hard for us to exercise faith because we haven’t studied our history to see what God has done. What He’s done before He can do again. Most of you are probably aware that the 1800’s were a very spiritual time in England. Christianity had great influence. The country supported missionaries all over the globe. There were a variety of wide reaching reform movements the most prominent of which was the abolition of slavery.

Most people think that England was probably always like this even before the 1800’s and the Devil likes that just fine. One of the enemy’s favorite tricks is to try and convince us that everything he is trying to do is an inevitable result of progress. The lie goes something like this. “Way back in history, before there was science, everyone was superstitious and believed in religion. But now enlightenment has come. Science has proved that there is no need for a god because everything that exists is the result of natural processes. If people in past ages had known all the science we know now they wouldn’t have been so religious. The church can’t win because it is up against something it’s never been up against before. So society will become less and less religious. This is inevitable.” It is also a pack of lies.

To understand the lie, all you have to do is read enough history. The England of the late 1600’s through the mid 1700’s was a dark and desperate place. “Modern” ideas were widely circulated and many believed in the “new” teaching. They thought they were men of reason and they simply didn’t believe in the Bible any more. The results were catastrophic. The moral condition in England during this time was almost certainly worse than the moral condition of America today.

Alcoholism was pervasive. People got hooked on the stuff in their childhood. Crime was rampant. Skepticism and atheism ruled higher education. A nation that had once outlawed cruelty to animals became obsessed with spectacles in which animals would tear each other to pieces. Virtually everyone came to watch. They would throw a bull and a bear into a pit and watch them fight to the death. People actually enjoyed watching this stuff. People were advocating for the acceptance of polygamy. Things were in an awful condition.

Then in 1738 a voice rocked the nation. A recently ordained clergyman, only 22 years old, began to preach the gospel with amazing power. No building of the time could contain the crowds that came to hear him. His name was George Whitefield and if you had a proper education you would be very familiar with that name. George Washington is the political father of America. George Whitefield is the spiritual father.

Whitefield’s voice heralded what we now call the first great awakening. God moved in such power that within a very few years the very culture of the English speaking people’s was transformed. God has rescued His people from worse situations than the one we are in today. We must begin to believe that He can do it again and dedicate ourselves to pray in faith until He does.