What Happened Yesterday

We have not had a Sunday yet where someone did not come to the altar. That's not about me, it's about prayer. That can't happen unless people pray. Not just one person or 5, but many. The Holy Spirit doesn't show up where He's not welcomed by open prayer.

About About 7 or 8 of the Cogolese came to worship. Their presence opened us up; I preached in French as well as English, and some things emerged from that that were unexpected. The demands of translating were not so great; infact, I was so blessed to have great freedom in preaching in both langauges. But I felt like both sermons were disjointed. I would preach a bit in English, then in French, back and forth. So I never got into a good "flow." Lesson number one (one that I have providentially been reading about): the artfulness of a sermon, the quality of expression, the grandeur of thought, are meaningless without the power of the Holy Spirit. You can repeat the ideas and content of a Scripture passage, even make a brilliant application, and la-dee-da, who cares? There's lots of places you can hear deep thoughts and smooth words. Only the Spirit brings convicting power. So you can deliver a disjointed sermon, speak a foreign language like a 12-yr. old boy, and with the Spirit's power, hearts are melted.

Lesson number two: Give the spirit room. He has His own agenda! So, for example, I preached on the parable of the great banquet, Luke 14. I was emphasizing our true nature without Christ, with a call to evangelism. But at the altar call, some folks came forward for healing. AMEN!!

The altar call... man, I don't know what to say. Many people came forward. Our worship team was tearing it up with Spirit-filled songs. I would pray with someone and then some part of the congregation would start clapping about something. One man at the altar shared with me something he received from the Spirit before the service-- the substance of my sermon, but preached more poignantly and powerfully to him in his heart before I spoke a word.

When the last person had been prayed up, two young men, Brandon and Andrew asked to pray for me. What power there at the altar, what power of prayer!

I knew we were all blown away by the promise we have from God at the Rock La Roca. we say want to be a church for all nations. It happened. While I was preaching in French, Judy Rodriguez was translating for the Spanish speakers. Ruben's eyes lit up-- he is a technology fiend!-- when he thought how we're going to have to buy some new sound equipment for multilple channels of broadcast. Right now we only have one frequency, and we use it to translate into Spanish (or english). We'll need something for French and who knows what else, because it is coming.

But, there's this: I told the congregation that what happened today was still a sign of weakness. Yes, the Holy Spirit was present. Yes, we were blessed. But when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, tongues of fire descended and everyone heard the Gospel in his own language. NO translators!!! I asked them to pray for Pentecost, a real Pentecostal revival of hearts full of love, and power to preach to all nations, tribes, and races. There were some tears then.

More later, because I am still trying to get all this straight.