How Shall We Preach?

There are two types of preaching coming from pulpits, stemming from differing views of what constitutes the Gospel message. The one is often referred to as being “spiritual” and the other as “legalistic.” Although they should complement each other, they are often seen as contradicting one another. To make it as clear and simple as the Holy Spirit enables me to make it, please consider the following description of the two.

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Revivals That Stay

Revivals are among the charter rights of the church. They are the evidences of its divinity, the tokens of God’s presence, the witness of his power. The frequency and power of these extraordinary seasons of grace are the tests and preservers of the vital force in the church.

The church which is not visited by these seasons is as sterile in all spiritual products as a desert, and is not and cannot meet the designs of God’s church. Such churches may have all the show and parade of life, but it is only a painted life.

The revival element belongs to the individual, as well as to the church, life. The preacher whose experience is not marked by these inflows of great grace may question with anxious scrutiny whether he is in grace.

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Power from on High. A Modern Pentecost

The Moravians and Count Zinzendorf

A Moravian historian wrote that Church history abounds in records of special outpourings of the Holy Ghost, and verily the thirteenth of August 1727, was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We saw the hand of God and His wonders, and we were all under the cloud of our fathers baptized with their Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon us and in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst. From that time scarcely a day passed but what we beheld His almighty workings amongst us. A great hunger after the Word of God took possession of us so that we had to have three services every day: 5:00 a.m., 7.30 a.m., and 9:00 p.m. Everyone desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control. Self love and self will, as well as all disobedience, disappeared and an overwhelming flood of graces swept us all out into the great ocean of Divine Love.

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