Hallelujah

I feel a strong wind coming. It’s the power of the Lord swooping across the land. He’s coming to heal the sick and save the lost. Hallelujah! I see sick people getting healed. I see the devil being cast out. And with this strong wind that’s coming it’s bringing a mighty revival. Hallelujah! I feel it! It’s an unction! Praise the Lord. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost tells me that the sightless will see with their eyes and with their hearts of the salvation to come, the washing of the spirit, the covering of Christ, and the riches of the kingdom. I see with the rising tide of the Holy Ghost, the lion will laying down with the lamb, swords beaten into ploughshares and a brotherly love taking hold of the land.

I see a strong wind coming. It will clear the threshing floor of the chaff. This holy wind will gather the wheat of the Lord and give them all a crown of glory. Hallelujah!

If I wrote and preached like that I would have a following, a congregation that would grow exponentially. So many people get their religious engine running with preaching like the example above. But look at it again. Not one word of God. Not one principle or precept from the Bible. Just a bunch of spiritual chewing gum to motivate the listener to move, to act. But to what? Also notice how “I” centric that sermon was.

The “I” preachers are attempting to motivate you to follow them, to believe in them and their power.

Be careful out there. Always listen for that one little word “I”. Preaching should never be “I” based or religion based. It should always be Bible based.

Jesus didn’t preach religion, in fact he did the opposite. Jesus only did and said what the Father told Him to do. So should we. We have an example from the Bible of one of the most power sermons Jesus ever gave. All Jesus did was read directly from the Bible and then sat down.

“And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him” (Luke 4:17-20).

We also have an example from the Bible of an “I” preacher. It came from the devil.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit” (Isaiah 14: 12-15)

Be careful out there. Beware of the “I” preacher and the religion teacher. Beware of spiritual chewing gum.

Bill Hitchcock