Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
Years ago, I heard an anointed missionary and personal friend speaking on the consequences of sin. He told a story about a pair of brothers he knew quite well.
In his teenage years, the older brother went through a time of rebellion against his Christian upbringing. He went to a few parties, drank a little alcohol, tried a few drugs and quickly felt convicted of his behavior and repented before the Lord. While it was only a short few weeks of rebellion, it made a real impression on his younger brother. You see, he was looking up to his big brother. And in those few months of watching him rebel, he decided that trying out a worldly thing or two himself was okay to do.
The older brother readily overcame that time of rebellion. He went on to Christian college and grew to be a wonderful man of God. He traveled all over the world teaching, reviving, and leading many to the Lord.
As he came to this part of the story, my anointed missionary friend began to quiver.
"That older brother was me," he said, tears rolling down his cheeks. And my younger brother, he whimpered, is dying of drug addiction today...and it all started during my time of rebellion."
"I would give just about anything to take back that few weeks of backsliding just to see my little brother living for the Lord today, but I can't. I can only pray that you who are listening today will realize that the consequences of sin are no joke".
What a painful example of the consequences of sin. We never know who's watching and how they may be affected by our actions.
The job we have as believers is no small one -- whether you realize it or not, there are so many who are observing our lives to see where our faith will lead us. There are many who are hungry for Him and so much work to be done! Let's strive to get serious about God and influence many for Him!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]We found an interesting story in an old copy of “Our Daily Bread”: In 1883 in Allentown, New Jersey, a wooden Indian — the kind that was seen in front of cigar stores — was placed on the ballot for Justice of the Peace. The candidate was registered under the fictitious name of Abner Robbins. When the ballots were counted, Abner won over incumbent Sam Davis by 7 votes. A similar thing happened in 1938. The name Boston Curtis appeared on the ballot for Republican Committeeman from Wilton, Washington. Actually, Boston Curtis was a mule. The town’s mayor sponsored the animal to demonstrate that people know very little about the candidates. He proved his point. The mule won!
It never ceases to amaze me how our little girl, Elianna is growing and developing. I remember when she first came into this world, she was so helpless and frail — she couldn’t even move her head without our help. Now, just having turned two, she’s running around and tumbling, jumping, singing and dancing!
Yesterday we wrote about one of the greatest moves of God … the Moravian Revival. When the community was in complete disarray, Count Zinzendorf focused on how they could live together in love despite their differences. He called all the men together for an intense study of the Scriptures to focus on how Christian life in community was portrayed. These studies combined with intense prayer convinced many of the believers that they were called to live together in love and that their disunity and conflict were contrary to the clear calling of Scripture.
During the Catholic inquisitions, as millions of Christians were being killed by the Jesuit Priests for apostasy, throughout Europe, Christians were fleeing. In Bohemia alone, there were an estimated 4,000,000 Christians before the Jesuit inquisition, and ten years later, only 800,000 people remained in Bohemia – all of whom were Catholic. These terrible events prepared the ground for one of the greatest moves of God that have ever been recorded, the Moravian Revival, which lasted for over 100 years. Gustav Warneck, the German Historian of Protestant Missions, testified, “This small church in twenty years called into being more missions than the whole Evangelical Church has done in two centuries.”
Revivals, that is, genuine Divinely ordained seasons of the activity of God among men, have a universally unusual character. Normal activities and behaviors give way to the tangible influence of God’s Holy Spirit, whose inspiration brings a freedom of expression, emotion, conviction, worship, and other variations from normal experience.
In the late 1800s, an awakening in South Africa led by Andrew Murray was a powerful move of God. Studying that revival yields essential insights concerning the events occurring now throughout the United States. As the spirit of God began to move in Cape Town, Murray compared the SA revival with past experiences of revivals in Europe. He decided that the intense “emotionalism” was a false experience of God and charged in to break up the meeting. Stepping out of the church, he encountered his father standing and weeping. His father rebuked Andrew, “How dare you stop something that I have prayed to happen for 30 years!”
I love to study past revivals and in studying them, there are two recurring themes that stand out:
First, that He has often used obscure and unknown individuals to lead revivals, and that even these men whom He used so powerfully never considered themselves to be “special”, but often wanted to stay out of the limelight.