The Word of the Lord
CONSECRATED No. 77 - 1 Thought. 2 Quotes. 3 Verses.
1 THOUGHT
“The great hindrance [to the preacher] is the preacher himself. There may be no deficiency in his orthodoxy, honesty, cleanness, or earnestness. But, somehow the man—the inner man—in his secret places has never broken down and surrendered to God… He has never learned to cry out with an ineffable cry of self-despair and helplessness until God’s power and fire come in, fill, purify, and empower.”
E.M. Bounds
There is a palpable difference between simply talking about a biblical text and declaring the Word of the Lord. There is a power that rests on a preacher once they have labored in prayer to lay hold of a word from God. A simple teaching can be outlined in an afternoon—a text chosen, illustrations picked, a few jokes for humor—but to wait on God until the Word of the Lord comes like a fire shut up in your bones is costly.
The Word of the Lord comes neither quickly nor cheaply. It comes on the other side of fasting and prayer. On the other side of desperate cries and burdened groans of inadequacy. If you come to God thinking you have what you need to preach a sermon, you’ve already missed the point.
The Word of the Lord comes when you are utterly convinced of your complete helplessness and inability to serve the people God has put in front of you. It’s a cry that says, “Lord, unless you speak, unless you fill me with your power from on high, unless you do what only you can do, my words will be nothing but empty talk.”
The Word of the Lord is not some new revelation from God—rather it is God breathing in power upon the specific piece of His written Word and the specific application that He wants declared to his people in the here and now.
I have seen hundreds of people on their faces in the anguish of conviction from the weight of the Word of the Lord. I have heard the sound of thousands weeping as they were cut to the heart by the piercing of the Word of the Lord.
I’ve seen the power of God shake whole rooms until the fear of the Lord felt crushing. I have seen the Word of the Lord liberate masses from oppression and demonic strongholds as it was declared with power.
I’ve never seen a TED talk do that.
One of my mentors once told me, “You can shake a nation with power from the secret place and anointing in the pulpit.” I believe this is true.
God, give us preachers who will cry out, who will labor, who will shed tears, who will forgo food, who will lose sleep, who will sweat blood… to lay hold of the Word of the Lord.
2 QUOTES
“The minister who does not earnestly pray over his work must surely be a vain and conceited man. He acts as if he thought himself sufficient of himself, and therefore needed not appeal to God… He limps in his life like the lame man in Proverbs, whose legs were not equal, for his praying is shorter than his preaching.”
- Charles Spurgeon
“Whenever the Spirit is involved in the storyline of the Bible, it is a human infused with the life and love and power of God so that what that human does is what God wants to have done in the world.”
- Tim Mackie
3 VERSES
“But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,’ his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
Jeremiah 20:9
“So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, a descendant of Iddo. They finished building the temple according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia.”
Ezra 6:14
“The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones… then he said to me, ‘Prophesy.’"
Ezekiel 37:1, 4
A RESOURCE
Power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds is a book I’ve recommended before, but I think it should be required reading for every preacher. It’s short. Barely 100 pages. It will shake you. Best $7 you’ll ever spend.
Luke! Priceless words. But grammar/spelling corrected would take it up even to another level, I think anyway. A little more care to accuracy can add to credibility. But I'm 83, so you know your audience better.