Broken Down Altars # 2

Broken Down Altars # 2

Lots of us are afraid that we do something sensational. I have no more patience with such a man than I have with a horse that will shy at a wheelbarrow, or a woman who will go into hysterics over the sight of a mouse. Everything that Elijah did was sensational; that is why he aroused the country. If shutting off the water supply, shutting up the heavens for three years so there was not a drop of rain or dew to fall on the earth, wasn't sensational, trot out something that was. It raised the biggest stir that that whiskey-soaked, licentious, idolatrous, corrupt, godless, blasphemous country had ever seen or had ever recorded; and it made Ahab and Jezebel mad enough, I think. to spit fire!

If you wish to see a dead church awakened, do something out of the ordinary. There's plenty of Bible authority for not pushing a thing aside just because it seems sensational. When Noah built the ark and loaded with with strange cargo, that was a sensation. When Jonah walked down the streets of Nineveh covered with seaweed crying, "Repent, Repent!" - that was sensational. Jesus Christ created a sensation when He went into the synagogue at the beginning of His ministry and taught, not as the scribes, but as one who had authority.

GET A LITTLE ENTHUSIASM FOR JESUS

The preacher who can't preach as one who has authority has no call from God to open his mouth! Matthew 23 is sensational preaching in words that cut like a razor.

John the Baptist was sensational in what he said as well as in what he did, and in the clothes that he wore, and because he was not like one of the bunch, all Jerusalem and Judea came out to hear God's lion-hearted preacher hurl anathemas of the Lord into the ranks of sin-high, low, rich and poor!

"Why don't people go to church?" is a question always asked. My guess is that it is because it is too much like going to a cemetery or a funeral home! Put more life in it and you won't have so many complaints. Many a time the prayer meeting is dead because a corpse is leading it. When Ahab saw Elijah, he put on a long, prayer-meeting face and with a sort of sanctimonious whine said to him, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?"

The prophet of God came back with an uppercut and old Ahab got it under the fifth rib. Elijah straightened up like a fire ladder and, with a look that went through that old licentious king like an x-ray, thundered out, "I have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed Baalm." If that wasn't sensational, show me something that was! Elijah expected results from his kind of preaching. If some preachers would talk that plain to some of the big sinners on the front seats, we would soon see them begin to crowd the pews. If your churches are full of men who are working overtime for the devil - working seven days and then doing overtime at night - tell them so! If you will call a spade a spade, you will hear things begin to rattle like castanets for Jesus Christ!!

One reason why there are so few revivals and why religion and morality are at such an awful low tide is because there is so little of the Tishbite kind of preaching done today to the chief sinners who occupy the chief seats in the synagogues. If Bible results are expected, there must be Bible preaching. God will honor that, no matter who may do the preaching.

I wouldn't give a rap for preaching which never lets a sinner know he is an old hell-bound sinner. There is sure to be discontent and disappointment for the preacher who is always shooting with nothing in his gun but  bird shot. When David killed Goliath, he did it because he went against him with suitable ammunition. He loaded his sling according to the size of the joy that he had on hand. Oh, some would have tried to kill the giant with a little sand in a blowpipe; but you can't do it that way. David didn't waste any time skirmishing for position; he took dead aim and put enough muscle behind the throw to crack the giant's bean the first throw out of the box. If he had only meant to wing him, there would have been no mourning in the camp of the Philistines. Where no definite result is expected, nothing out of the common will happen. Elijah trusted God to take care of the consequences.

~Billy Sunday~

(continued with # 3)