Post by Jesse Morrell on Oct 24, 2005 20:56:37 GMT -5
DISTURBING THE CONSCIENCE!
Today was such a rocken day at Texas Tech. We preached for 5 hours to crowds ranging from 200-500 students.
I started us off and was able to pull together a great crowd of a couple hundred students. Unrelentingly I preached against sin. The crowd responded with much aggression and hatred. I felt the Spirit and refused to give sin a chance to take a breath. Someone in the crowd started yelling out, "why are you attaching us? why are you attaching us?" I wasn't, I was attaching sin by preaching and their conscience knew it.
When trying to preach repentance, some would yell out, "You can't turn from sin. Your always going to sin. You just can't stop." To which I'd get specific, "which sin can't you stop? You can't stop lying? You can't stop stealing? You can't stop commiting adultery? God always provides a way out. You're never tempted beyond what your able to bear. You need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. It's not that you can't stop, but that you won't stop." Others would say, "Jesus came to take away the law." "No, Jesus came not to take away, but to fulfill. Jesus didn't come so you could go and get drunk, or to sleep around. Jesus didn't come to take the law away, Jesus came to take your sin away."
I believe in speaking the truth in love and speaking the truth plainly. I used a line Todd Friel gave me, "Jews, muslims, hindus, budhists, they're all wrong!" To which someone in the crowd would lash back and say, "You can't say that!" I'd respond with, "so your saying I'm wrong?" "Yes of course your wrong". "so your doing exactly what your telling me not to do." One Christian girl said, "You should say that." I asked her, "where will a muslim go after he dies without Jesus Christ?" She wouldn't say hell. She wouldn't speak the truth in love.
For a long time I preached about sin, law, righteousness, judgment, hell, grace, forgiveness, repentance, Jesus Christ, etc. Once the crowd was maybe up to 300, and also on the verge of physically harming me (Jon Speed heard people talking about really hurting me) I turned the crowd over to Jon.
They didn't like Jon any better. He attacked sin and reached through to their conscience. As John Wesley said, "When you preach, men should either get angry or get converted, if those two things do not happen, I don't believe your called to be a preacher." Well, under conviction these people largely responded with anger. As Ian Paisley said, "I'm going to have either a riot, or a revival". Well, we were about to have a riot.
Eventually the rest of the team showed up and Darrel Rundus, Tim Crawford, Miles Lewis, Tim Camp all preached. The crowd calmed down greatly when we got into intellectual discussions. When you intellectually prove Christianity, the crowd thinks. When you go for the conscience, it's a riot or a revival.
Afterwards I had a discussion with a man who said he was a believer, but thought if we were friendlier and nicer, (didn't talk about hell, sin, judgment) we would win more people. I said, "Jesus Christ was the perfect preacher. He never once made a mistake. But His first sermon, they tried to throw Him off a cliff. If you asked His crowd, 'what do you think of this guy' they would have said, 'I hate Him. I'm going to throw Him off this cliff.' But yet Jesus was the perfect preacher. So maybe the problem isn't with the preacher, but maybe the problem is with the audience."
I tell you guys, the word was preached with power and fire and the unction of the Holy Spirit today and hundreds of college students were reached! Plenty of people thanked us, others hated us. We'll see what happens tommorow on campus. Pray for us.
Today was such a rocken day at Texas Tech. We preached for 5 hours to crowds ranging from 200-500 students.
I started us off and was able to pull together a great crowd of a couple hundred students. Unrelentingly I preached against sin. The crowd responded with much aggression and hatred. I felt the Spirit and refused to give sin a chance to take a breath. Someone in the crowd started yelling out, "why are you attaching us? why are you attaching us?" I wasn't, I was attaching sin by preaching and their conscience knew it.
When trying to preach repentance, some would yell out, "You can't turn from sin. Your always going to sin. You just can't stop." To which I'd get specific, "which sin can't you stop? You can't stop lying? You can't stop stealing? You can't stop commiting adultery? God always provides a way out. You're never tempted beyond what your able to bear. You need to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. It's not that you can't stop, but that you won't stop." Others would say, "Jesus came to take away the law." "No, Jesus came not to take away, but to fulfill. Jesus didn't come so you could go and get drunk, or to sleep around. Jesus didn't come to take the law away, Jesus came to take your sin away."
I believe in speaking the truth in love and speaking the truth plainly. I used a line Todd Friel gave me, "Jews, muslims, hindus, budhists, they're all wrong!" To which someone in the crowd would lash back and say, "You can't say that!" I'd respond with, "so your saying I'm wrong?" "Yes of course your wrong". "so your doing exactly what your telling me not to do." One Christian girl said, "You should say that." I asked her, "where will a muslim go after he dies without Jesus Christ?" She wouldn't say hell. She wouldn't speak the truth in love.
For a long time I preached about sin, law, righteousness, judgment, hell, grace, forgiveness, repentance, Jesus Christ, etc. Once the crowd was maybe up to 300, and also on the verge of physically harming me (Jon Speed heard people talking about really hurting me) I turned the crowd over to Jon.
They didn't like Jon any better. He attacked sin and reached through to their conscience. As John Wesley said, "When you preach, men should either get angry or get converted, if those two things do not happen, I don't believe your called to be a preacher." Well, under conviction these people largely responded with anger. As Ian Paisley said, "I'm going to have either a riot, or a revival". Well, we were about to have a riot.
Eventually the rest of the team showed up and Darrel Rundus, Tim Crawford, Miles Lewis, Tim Camp all preached. The crowd calmed down greatly when we got into intellectual discussions. When you intellectually prove Christianity, the crowd thinks. When you go for the conscience, it's a riot or a revival.
Afterwards I had a discussion with a man who said he was a believer, but thought if we were friendlier and nicer, (didn't talk about hell, sin, judgment) we would win more people. I said, "Jesus Christ was the perfect preacher. He never once made a mistake. But His first sermon, they tried to throw Him off a cliff. If you asked His crowd, 'what do you think of this guy' they would have said, 'I hate Him. I'm going to throw Him off this cliff.' But yet Jesus was the perfect preacher. So maybe the problem isn't with the preacher, but maybe the problem is with the audience."
I tell you guys, the word was preached with power and fire and the unction of the Holy Spirit today and hundreds of college students were reached! Plenty of people thanked us, others hated us. We'll see what happens tommorow on campus. Pray for us.