Through the ages men and women have explored the deep regions of God’s word and will, leaving marks for their spiritual children to follow.
God’s ways have never changed.
TRANSCRIPT
Please note: this transcript is auto-generated so forgive any (or many) errors 😲 – click the timestamps to play that section directly in the audio.
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I want to talk briefly today about the importance of following the footsteps of those who’ve gone before us and, you know, the scriptures say in Proverbs 22:28, remove not the ancient landmarks which our forefathers have laid in a modernism, wants to remove all of these hard won milestones and replace them with methods and managerial frameworks and all sorts of various other kind of mental gymnastics that we can undergo or methodologies that we can follow to try and get results.
00:00:44.250]
But the honest truth is, when it comes down to it, spiritual results are not the outcome of natural methods. Spiritual outcomes require spiritual methodologies to be undertaken to bring them to pass. And, you know, God’s ways have never changed. You know how the scriptures tell us that he has chosen the foolishness of preaching to reach the masses? You know, many people may think that there are better ways to do things, but the honest truth is that God’s ways are the best ways he’s chosen, the foolishness of preaching to reach people and the folly of prayer to empower the preacher.
00:01:33.240]
And I really believe, honestly, that our message is only magnified through the focused lens of prayer. And a lot of the spiritual activity or so-called spiritual activity today has been so drained of power because it has been deprived of prayer. You know, and what we in this, there are ways in which we can kind of come across these milestones that we can avail ourselves of the things that have been hard won and paid for by previous generations. And I just think I just have to think of things like the writings of E.M. Bounds and how these writings are just as relevant.
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Today is the day that they were penned or Charles Finney’s flaming essays on fasting, prayer, faith, revival. You know, these still sternman many ministries can look back to some of these kind of centuries old pieces of writing that men have left as milestones that propelled them to see God in a manner that led to great moves on the planet in their generation and even in our generation. You know, one of my favourite books is by Oswald J. Smith called The Revival We Need.
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Originally, it was it was published as under the title A Passion for Souls. And it really is a milestone on the road. When you read these pieces of writing, it just does something on the inside. You connect with what has gone before and you enter into labours that men have already laid the foundations for women. And, you know, this isn’t even to bring to the table and mention people like Spurge and Wesley Ravenhill, Murray, Louise Haoles, John G League, A.W. Towser.
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There are literally too many to mention in each of these laid at their milestones on the road for us to follow. And we stand on their shoulders in each and every one of them. However, what we find is this common thread throughout many of these revival writings, you know, referer writings and essays and books that have documented, spurred on and inspired revival through the ages. There is one thing that runs throughout the mall, and that is that the greatest battles are won on our knees.
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You know, the wars that we’re going to fight in this new normal, this new world that we now find find ourselves living in and not going to be fought with tanks. They’re not going to be fought with vaccinations. And, you know, as much as I honour and respect all of those things, and I’m really not adding to the kind of rhetoric and the commentary around them because they are talking about fighting a battle in the natural and the battles are fought in the natural in many, many different ways.
00:04:58.980]
But the real battle has been. Aged in their 70s, you know, the real battle is for men’s souls, the real battle is to see a culture that has thrown God out, remember their identity, and take a hold of what they are here for and their true purpose and their true destiny that goes way beyond time into eternity. This is the battle that’s being fought in this war on unbelieving liberalism and self deceived you. Humanism is absolutely raging all around us right now and thought bombs are being dropped daily, you know, like these these ideas and cultural mindsets that are being thrown and thrust upon this present generation.
00:05:53.740]
And, you know, we need a means of retaliation. And that doesn’t necessarily mean standing up and waving placards because, again, we cannot revert just to the natural to fight what is essentially a spiritual battle. You know, we need to pick up the swords that, you know, not necessarily in a natural hand, but we need to pick up the weapons that our fathers left as milestones in the pathway to restoration, in the pathway to revival, in the pathway to reformation in their generation.
00:06:35.000]
We need to pick those up and learn the art of prayer in our day. It’s just such one of my favourite quotes and certainly one of my favourite books is found in Impounds Power Through Prayer. And he says what the church needs today is not more machinery or better not new organisations or more and novel methods. But men whom the Holy Ghost can use. Men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost doesn’t flow through methods, but through men.
00:07:11.900]
He doesn’t come on machinery, but on men he does not anoint plans. But men, men of prayer. How powerful are those words? And of course, in that we are talking about men and women, men and women who’ve given themselves to prayer. And if they if words like this are not the kind of milestones that have been hewed from the flashy tables of the hard and laid for us to follow. I really don’t know what what is you know, these these are hard won words to even be able to express and to write.
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And it’s just we live in a generation that is wants to proclaim itself self-sufficient, but as efficiency is of God and as humiliating as it may be, as humble, as humbling as it sounds, prayer is the only enduring weapon that the Lord has left in our hands. And I believe that all else depends upon its diligent exercise. All our methods, all our machinery, all our ministry is empty. Without it, it’s like a car. When the with without any fuel in the engine, we can have all of the framework there to take us to our desire destination.
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But if there’s no fuel and fire in the engine, where are we going to go? We’re not going to move an inch. We need great moves of God in our day. We need great moves of the Holy Ghost. And that can only happen when we go to our knees and when we begin to cry out in all sincerity for something that all of our methods and machinery could never give us. A move of the Holy Spirit, a great outpouring of God in our generation to bring men and women to a knowledge of the truth and to a heartfelt heart burning reality that God is here with us in our day.
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Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.
