Scripture of The Day
May 24, 2021
And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. (Mark 2:1 and 2)
By Ed Henderson ( 2018)
This last Wednesday night I was honored to preach and teach a message at our home church (Victory Tabernacle, Albany, GA). The title of the message was “A Roadmap to Revival”. What most people don’t understand about preaching and teaching the Word is how it affects the one that is delivering the message sometimes much more than the people that are sitting in the audience.
There is a lot of prayer, study, and preparation that goes into delivering a sermon. All of that affects the preacher for the good but there is something else that affects a preacher even more if you are under the anointing of God. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon once was asked about how he prepared for a sermon. His response was that he studied and made detail notes as if God would not show up. But at the same time, he said he was always ready to trash his notes when God did show up and that is how he prepared.
Study, preparation, and notes are always important but sometimes what God says through you that was not planned, and not in your notes, is even more important. My message was about the woman at the well in John 4 and how that encounter with Jesus led to a revival in the Samaritan woman’s hometown. One of the things that I shared Wednesday night was our experience with two revivals that we were a part of, one in Memphis, TN and one in Jacksonville, FL. I said something in speaking about these two revivals that was not in my notes and I immediately knew it was from God. It probably did not mean anything to the audience, but it made perfect sense to me. The statement that came out of my mouth was that we did not even know we were in revival even when we were in the midst of it.
Now, you may ask, what is the big deal about that? I am glad you asked! My message was about all the walls that need to come down in our personal lives to allow personal revival and also cause corporate revival in our church. The scripture says, “A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). There is nothing wrong with plans and notes. There is nothing wrong with diligent study. However, there are some things that are much more important. This is one of those things.
When I said, “we did not know when we were in revival”, there was a good reason for that. We were not concentrating on advertising and marketing a revival. We were not following a twenty point plan. We were just concentrating on loving and worshiping God. We just individually and corporately laid down all the walls that divided us from each other and divided us from God. Guess what, when we do that, God will do all the advertising and marketing we need. We will not even know we are in revival if we will just simply love God, love His people, and let Him direct our steps. When that happens, people will be changed, families will be changed, cities will be changed, and our country will be changed.
