The subject of my message today, friends, is
barrenness.
Barrenness evokes a picture of a burnt-over
land, parched in a need of rainfall.
Barrenness speaks of a woman who is barren
in her womb, wanting a man-child, but
unable to have one, having a longing that
remains unfulfilled.
I remember my wife, after we lost our
first child to a miscarriage, how my wife
would sit over her Bible in anguish of
heart, with tears in her eyes, and ask
God why her other friends were having one
baby after another.
Why was it so hard for her to
give birth to a child?
Barrenness can often be a hard place to
be in, and at other times, barrenness can
go unnoticed for years.
Spiritual barrenness represents an emptiness that is filled
with activity in the name of God, but
without the presence of God.
It is merely dry formality, lacking force or
power.
Barrenness evokes prayerlessness, or at best, prayers that
are spoken with dry eyes, with no heat
or heart.
Religion has become a chore, a duty, more
than a passion.
A barren marriage is a loveless marriage, where
two people have grown apart, each going their
own way.
A wedding ring may still be worn, but
it is nothing more than a memory of
one's commitment to each other, without the passion
that brought them together in the first place.
I have been in seasons of barrenness, so
I know of which I speak.
I've preached in barrenness, and it was nothing
more than cold formality.
I've prayed in barrenness, and my prayers rose
no higher than the ceiling.
I've served God in barrenness, and felt the
chilly blast I was producing.
Oh, for a fire for God!
Oh, for the sweet tenderness of the first
embrace with Jesus, where the intimate love life
burns hotter and hotter, and is consumed with
the passion of the lovers in the Song
of Solomon, where there are coals of fire,
which hath a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the
floods drown it.
I am reminded of a story about Duncan
Campbell, who was so mightily used a God
on the Isle of Lewis in the 1949
to 1952 revival.
Before that, he had been a pastor for
18 years, in what he labeled as an
uneventful ministry.
He was in a season of barrenness.
Well, one morning, he was up in his
study early, preparing a sermon on the topic
of the Holy Spirit, which he was to
deliver at a minister's convention.
When from downstairs he heard the voice of
his sixteen-year-old daughter cheerfully singing a
hymn, he stopped what he was doing to
walk down the stairs to go greet her.
He said, My dear Lassie, what on earth
are you singing so happily about at six
o'clock in the morning?
She came over to him and exclaimed, Oh,
Daddy, I have been up early meeting with
Jesus, and I couldn't keep from singing about
Him.
Oh, Daddy, isn't Jesus wonderful?
Duncan Campbell turned away and slowly walked back
upstairs, his heart heavy within him, for although
he was preparing a sermon on the Holy
Spirit, he could not say that Jesus was
wonderful to him right then.
Oh, how his daughter's words had pierced his
heart.
He shut the door of his study, threw
himself down on the floor, where he wrestled
with God and prayer for several hours, until
he became so distraught and so desperate, his
family thought they'd have to call for the
doctor, for he seemed to be going mad.
Finally, Duncan Campbell rose from the floor, his
face drenched with tears, and in the power
of God, he vowed to God to give
up the security of the pastorate to return
to the mission field.
It was a bold move, as he had
a large family to support, but it was
this moment in his life of a full
surrender to God that God so honored, for
it ended his barrenness, and in a few
months time, he was called to preach in
the Scottish Hebrides, and he was smack dab
in the midst of a Holy Ghost revival.
Let me ask you, brother pastor, how is
it with you?
Are your eyes dry?
Is your heart cold?
Have you lost your burden for souls, because
your love for the Savior has gone dry?
Jesus says in the book of Revelation, Behold,
I come quickly, and my reward is with
me, to give every man according as his
work shall be.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and
the end, the first and the last.
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that
they may have the right to the tree
of life, and may enter in through the
gates into the city.
Oh dear friends, let us pursue Christ Jesus
with a holy passion and a burning flame.
Let us keep the coals on the altar
of our hearts glowing, and let us ask
God to make us a burning fire that
draws the world to Jesus.
Let us go through the gates of the
city, arm in arm with our master in
his love embrace.