Knowing God
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By Rev Dale Lee
“Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37, NKJV)
Those who heard Peter’s Pentecost sermon were cut to the heart. The Spirit of the Lord took the sword of the Lord and did what no surgeon’s scalpel could ever do, pierce to the depths of the human heart. Words were few from the smitten hearers: What shall we do? The fire-power of heaven fell upon corrupt human hearts through the preached Word and souls were added to the church. God’s kingdom marched, on.
Charles Finney (1792-1875), was mightily used of God in revivals and evangelism. But he did not have a religious upbringing. Quite the contrary. On the few occasions he heard preaching he had the same reaction as did the assembly. He writes: I often heard the people speak well of his sermons; and sometimes they would wonder whether he had intended any allusion, in what he said, to what was occurring among them. It seemed to be always a matter of curiosity to what he was aiming at.
Contrast this to what occurred on July 8th, 1741 at Enfield, Connecticut. According to historian George Marsden in Jonathan Edwards – A Life: As the assembly gathered in the meetinghouse they were thoughtless and vain and hardly conducted themselves with common decency. When Pastor Jonathan Edwards began to preach that quickly changed. Although Edwards had not a strong voice or showed hardly any emotion, speaking as if he were staring at the bell-rope in the back of the meeting house, when he spoke God’s heart piercing word cut the congregation to the heart. Marsden writes that Edwards had to stop and ask for silence so that he could be heard, so loud were the shrieks and out cries. Pastor Edwards never finished the sermon, Sinners In the Hands of an Angry God. He declared to the stunned assembly “However unconvinced you may be now of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it.”
How desperately do we need Holy Spirit anointed revival preaching? And how long has it been since we have been cut to the heart by God’s spoken Word? How long has it been since we looked into heaven through tear filled eyes and cried out to God, “O Lord, what would You have me to do?”