Knowing Christ in a Profound Way (DCLC – July ’87, Part 1)

Unless you’re coming with a specific or different need and how you can meet that need when it’s so varied, I don’t know, but Lord, that’s your business and not ours. And we look forward to your meeting. We open our hearts to you, Lord. You have a Spirit. That Spirit is in me. It’s in every brother, every sister in this room. Employ Your Spirit in our spirits. Say that word that’ll break forth that revelation, that’ll settle that issue that will open that door. And now tonight, I ask for Your grace, Your mercy. I accept Your cleansing, and I anticipate and ask for Your anointing. We’re here, Lord, to glorify You. Now, glorify Yourself, oh God, our Lord Jesus. Amen.

See, I got saved the day before my 17th birthday. The day I graduated from college, I went to the seminary. While I was in seminary, I became pastor of a Baptist church. I pastored another Baptist church. I didn’t get thrown out of either one of them, barely. I became an evangelist by the time I was 27 years old. I think that’s about accurate, maybe 28, 27, I think. I was holding citywide crusades. Not little bitty citywide crusades, but big citywide crusades. Sometimes, with virtually all the evangelical churches in the city participating in those crusades. It was a very fast quick life for me. I think I would like for you to know that because of what I’m about to say that I was never nationally famous as it’s sometimes presented, but I was a lot better known than most ministers. And I was certainly a lot better known than almost anybody my age.

I got hungry at that point. I don’t know, I don’t know where it started, maybe around 28. I was burning up fuel fast. And as I look back on it, I understand it more and more now than I ever did. I’m not normal. I’m not normal. I left all the normal people back there, and they were satisfied, and they didn’t get hungry. And a few did, but they didn’t go after teeth and claws. I did. I traveled America and I traveled a good part of this world looking for some simple answers. No big mysterious thing. You know, I never looked for power. I don’t think I’ve ever particularly wanted fame. If I have, it’s been so long ago that I’ve forgotten it. I never wanted miracles. Never have sought after miracles. Never have been impressed of these stories about you hear about that cloud over Russia and it broke into four parts and one part of it went this way and then another part went that way and it was seen by the Eskimos and the Laplanders and it hovered over Afghanistan, and Gorbachev saw it and fell down on his face and you know those kind of stories, you know, his wild spooky stories. I never have been entranced by that, and I hear a new one every day. I know if you are a Christian and you have been anywhere except maybe in jail for the last 5 years, you will surely know what I’m talking about. I never was impressed by that. I think my needs and desires were just as simple as they could be. I wanted to know the Lord Jesus Christ better. That was all there was to it. Personally, face-to-face, intimately. And again, I am beginning to realize that’s not normal. I guess I’m a little old to be figuring this out. Wouldn’t you think? Most of us seem to be happy where we were, where I was then, most were. Well, a little bit further. Those who were there were happy and content to be where they were and got a little further. And those that got that far were content to be there. Most of this stuff boils down to a lot of talk and no experience.

Now, I pick on Pentecostals, but not as much as I love to pick on Baptists. Pentecostals are probably the only people living on this earth who seem to have some profession of a personal experience with the Lord. They speak in tongues and have a lot of fun, and this and that and the other. And it is with tongues. And you take the tongues away from them, they’ve got nothing to live. A few really good songs, a little worship, and they’re happy.

Well, I wasn’t happy with that. I wasn’t looking for anything spectacular. I will tell you where I made my big mistake, folks. One time, I read the Bible. That’s my big mistake. I read through the New Testament, and I didn’t see power, and I didn’t see the world being saved. I didn’t see big movements, and I didn’t see this desire to get back to healing. The fourfold, sixfold, tenfold, and twentyfold restoration of the gifts, I didn’t see any of that. I didn’t discover the prosperity gospel that time I read the Bible. I hope that little lady in the back row knows I’m being facetious. Actually, I’ve read it more than once. I’ve read it twice.

I’m astounded that there are not more Christians who want to know the Lord better. I think this week I’m astounded. I came home today astounded. Either that or you sure aren’t talking much about your needs or your desires, or maybe you can’t identify them. And I’m going to say this, maybe us preachers, whoever we are, I don’t feel like I am one, but whoever we are, we’re not identifying for you. And maybe we’re preaching you into the ground. We’re telling you all your needs, but we’re not doing anything about them.

I’m assuming most of you here are seeking something a little more real. I’m going to make that assumption, and I do not intend to leave you having heard a bunch of messages from which you go home and say that was really good. It becomes an absolute habit with the Christian faith. A conference, with a bunch of sermons, it’s really good, you go home. I tell you what I’m mad at right now, more than anything else on earth. You know what I’m mad at? I am mad at sermons. I get off at sermons. (You are a troublemaker. You get your wife out of here. See her. She’s in trouble already. – laughter)

Well, okay, first, we have established that I’m not normal. When I got to know the Lord, I stopped preaching, packed my suitcase, and took off all over America looking for somebody who could tell me I know the Lord better. And then I crossed the Pacific Ocean, looking, bag in hand, asking hundreds of questions, studying history, and reading all the books of all the people who were supposed to know the Lord well. But unfortunately, I also knew history. And I probably should give you a little bit of a review tonight or this week about the background of the deeper Christian life that this has been known for the last 1700 years. And I’ll capsule it in one sentence. There had been precious little of it. And I looked and I looked until I got some satisfaction, and I got a little bit more. And I don’t consider myself a great Christian. I don’t even consider myself a good Christian. I don’t even feel like I know the Lord very well, but looking around, man, I know a lot more than most folks do.

Now you understand I don’t talk like this all the time. I told you before I got up that I am just really bearing my heart, and I hope this doesn’t bother anyone. I don’t understand why we don’t want to know the Lord better, and I don’t understand why we do some of the things we do to hinder knowing the Lord. And I know that virtually everybody in here is a layman. So, if you’re a non-ordained, non-practicing preacher, you work for a living, or you’re a housewife or something like that, you know you’re not a preacher or whatever those things are, would you raise your hand? Okay, fine. You are the most long-suffering people on this earth. I can’t imagine why you put up with us. We preach you into the ground week after week after week. We tell you all these things you ought to do and ought to be, and then we say, “Now, let us pray.” We sing the doxology, and we go home. And you walk out of there with a blind stagger, not knowing what to do, and you don’t ever complain, and I am amazed at you.

Brother, you’re going to be one of those troublemakers, too, aren’t you? Your name is Frank. Where are you from, Frank? Louisiana, Oh, Louisiana. I’m going to make you a promise that when I get through talking up here in front, I’m going to come around of this thing and I’m going to talk to you about practical ways of knowing the Lord and that seems so natural and relevant and so sane to me that I take that as a fact of nature that that is my responsibility. But I’m standing up here tonight, frustrated, feeling as sane and as natural as that seems to be, it is virtually nonexistent. All we do is preach at you and preach and preach. And when we get through that, we preach again, and you pay us to torment you. I’m going to come back to sermons in a minute, but you’ll hear my next frustration. Are you with me here? Or Oh, you would. I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about these sweet little ladies who just came in here from some quiet little Quaker church or someplace like that. The Quakers are not in the sermons; I shouldn’t have said a Quaker, should I? All right, here it is. Here’s one here. Here’s one.

I’ve been wondering about this ever since I was a kid. I got saved, and I was in a Baptist church, and we used to pray for revival, or we prayed for revival. That was wonderful. Okay. Sometimes we even saw a little bit of it. Got to the seminary. Lord, give us power. Lord, do this. Lord, we were a bunch of hot-hearted young men. We pray for this or that and the other. And then I began to pick up on this new one, or maybe it was there all the time, but this one really got crystal clear. What we need is bold men, men like the old prophets, men who get up and declare and rebuke and exhort. Men who are bold men. We don’t have any bold men anymore, and then we get down on our knees and pray, “Lord, move on our spirits and break our hearts and convict us of the things that ought not to be and change things and do it, Lord, in this week and our lives and in this conference.”