Come Down, Lord!

* Unless otherwise indicated excerpts are taken from Revival! by Brian Edwards, Authentic Records of Revivals by Reid and The Power of Prayer by Samuel Prime.  The following has been transcribed from a sermon preached at the Church at War conference in Waterloo, Ontario (with minor edits). We have heard with our ears O God our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days in the times of old… and the psalmist when on then to plead with God to do it again. - Psalm 44:1 Can you say what he said?  Can you say that you have heard what God has done in times of old?   I think many of us don’t even realize what is possible with God because we haven’t heard.  We’re not asking for revival because we don’t know what revival is.  We haven’t heard the stories of when God has come down among the people.   After giving an account of revival in the Hebrides Duncan Campbell asked the people a question: “My dear people, do you good folk understand what...

  The Shepherd of whom the psalm speaks of is Jesus.  It was Jesus Himself who would later say, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” So, when we say “the LORD is my shepherd” we are talking about the Lord of glory.  This is Emmanuel: God with us.  He is the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” and the One by whom “all things were created.”   So we have here a very capable Shepherd.   He is wise, He is strong, and with Him the Bible says there is nothing impossible.    But what comforts David isn’t only His strength or sovereignty or wisdom.  It is His character. We see repeatedly in Israel's history that they had shepherds (pastors and leaders) who utterly failed them.  But the promise of Ezekiel is that where men failed them the Lord Jesus wouldn’t. Men may not love them but God loved them ; and being the Good Shepherd He had said that He would search them out and f...

  A few listeners have requested a pdf of the following sermon, which was preached in November of 2020. I have attempted here to transcribe the sermon as closely as possible with only very minor edits. Quotes from the Bible are taken from the KJV unless otherwise indicated. That morning, following the service, I found the police waiting for me in the lobby. Though I was not fined on that occasion, the timing of the visit struck us all. This morning I want to face the issue head on; but before I do I want to make a few preliminary comments. So 5 preliminary comments. 1. Number one , there are good men - men that I love and admire - who will not agree with my conclusions. On this I am convinced that they are wrong but my love for them is not diminished in the least. My hope and prayer is that you will all play the part of Bereans, that you will search the Scriptures to see if these things are so. It is sometimes tempting to play favourites, or to go along with the crowd, to be “tosse...