Anguish

This weekend my brother sent me an email full of links for great messages and sermons that have spoken to him, over the last year that he has been in Japan. My brother and I are worlds apart right now, physically, culturally, but one area that is the same is the lack of spiritual fellowship of believers. Japan is a very lost country, and being in the military doesn’t help the lack of brothers and sisters of the faith to encourage you on the day to day, on the hard parts of life. Pray for Daniel, that the Lord would sustain him, encourage him and lift him up in the truth of the Word. Pray protection over him, that the enemy would not take hold over the loneliness that one can feel when you are alone in your faith. Here in Tarma there are many churches and many dedicated attendee’s who claim they are following Jesus. But in all of these churches there is a lack of truth being taught, there is a false hermeneutic of scripture that is being taught – which can cause one to feel alone in the faith. It’s hit or miss on a Sunday here when we go to church. One week we can hear a message that is doctrinally sound, and then next we are hear blatant misinterpretation of the scriptures. So, a comfort for me has been to listen to messages and sermons on-line (and in English) to help balance the hit or miss message on Sunday mornings.
I spent some time this morning listening to a few of the messages that Daniel had sent me, and one in particular stood out to me so significantly. It was truth and a word from God that I have been waiting for over the duration of this past year away from home. The message was given by David Wilkerson (1931-present) on the topic of Anguish. The message spoke to me because the theme was something that I have struggled with since leaving Lincoln. Over the past year I have been acutely aware of my lack of emotion, brokenness or burden for the people of Peru and Tarma. In the years leading up to my term as a missionary, I was as passionate as could be about missions and ministry. The idea of reaching the world with the gospel, with helping the meek of the earth and making a physical and spiritual difference in the lives of people living in Latin America, so empowered and inspired me. I would think about the need of the world and my heart would break. But something changed when I left home. I uprooted myself from my home and my culture and placed myself smack down in the middle of the need of the world, in the poverty of Tarma, Peru. And I feel nothing. There is no passion about what I’m doing, there is no brokenness for the injustice occurring here, or burden for the people that aren’t hearing the word of God. There is a sense of obedience, knowing that I’m doing exactly what God has called me to do – being thankful for the opportunity to do it. There is an awareness that God is still working in and through me here in this small town so far away from my home. But the lack of emotion and feeling for these people has torn at me since I arrived. It is something that I have prayed over and contemplated and sought God about – and Wilkerson’s message just put my inner struggle into perfect words. This is what he says:
“I look at the whole religious scene today and all I see are inventions and ministries of man and flesh. It’s mostly powerless. It has no impact on the world. And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church, rather than the church impacting the world. I see the music taking over the House of God. I see entertainment taking over the House of God. Obsess of entertainment in God’s House, a hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof. Nobody wants to hear it anymore. Whatever happened to Anguish in the House of God? Whatever happened to Anguish in the ministry? It’s a word you don’t hear in this pampered age. You don’t hear it.
Anguish means extreme pain and distress. The emotions so stirred that it becomes painful. Acute deeply felt inner pain because of conditions about you, in you or around you. Anguish. Deep pain. Deep sorrow. Agony of God’s heart. We’ve held on to our religious rhetoric and our revival talk, but we’ve become so passive. All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ in born out of a baptism of anguish. You search the scripture and you’ll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation, He would share his own anguish, for what God saw happening to His church and to His people. And He would find a praying man and He would take that man and literally baptize that man in anguish. You find it in the book of Nehemiah, Jerusalem is in ruins. How is God going to deal with this? How is God going to restore the ruin? Folks, look at me . . . Nehemiah was not a preacher, he was a career man. This was a praying man. God found a man who would not just have a flash of emotion, not just some great burst of concern and then let it die. He said, “No. I broke down and I wept and I mourned and I fasted. Then I began to pray, night and day.” Why didn’t these other men, why didn’t they have an answer? Why didn’t God use them in restoration? Why didn’t they have a word? Because there was no sign of anguish! No weeping! Not a word of prayer! It’s all ruin!
Does it matter to you today? Does it matter to you at all, that God’s spiritual Jerusalem, the church, is now married to the world? That there is such a coldness sweeping the land? Closer than that . . . does it matter about the Jerusalem that is in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that is slowly draining spiritual power and passion. Blind to lukewarmness, blind to the mixture that is creeping in. That’s all the devil wants to do is get the fight out of you. And kill it. So you won’t labor in prayer anymore. You won’t weep before God anymore. You can sit and watch television and your family go to hell. Let me ask you, is what I just said convicted you at all? There is a great difference between anguish and concern. Concern is something that begins to interest you, you take an interest in a project or a cause or a concern or a need. I want to tell you something I’ve learned over all my years, of 50 years of preaching . . . if it is not born in anguish, if it had not been born of the Holy Spirit, where what you saw and heard of the ruin that drove you to your knees, took you down into a baptism of anguish where you began to pray and seek God. I know now, oh my God do I know it. Until I am in agony, until I have been anguished over it.
And all our projects, all our ministries, everything we do, where are the Sunday School teachers that weep over kids they know are not hearing and going to hell? You see, a true prayer life begins at the place of anguish. You see, if you set your heart to pray, God’s going to come and start sharing His heart with you. Your heart begins to cry out – Oh God your name is being blasphemed. Holy Spirit is being mocked. The enemy is out trying to destroy the testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness, and something has to be done. There is going to be no renewal, no revival, no awakening, until we are willing to let Him once again break us.
Folks it’s getting late and it’s getting serious. Please don’t tell me, don’t tell me you’re concerned when you’re spending hours in front of internet or television. Come on. Lord, there are some need to get to this altar and confess, I am not what I was, I am not where I am suppose to be. God I don’t have your heart or your burden. I’ve wanted it easy. I just wanted to be happy. But Lord, true joy comes; true joy comes out of anguish. There is nothing of flesh that will bring you joy. I don’t care how much money, I don’t care what kind of new house, there is absolutely nothing physical that can give you joy. It is only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey Him and take on His heart. Build the walls around your family. Build the walls around your own heart. Make you strong and impregnable against the enemy. God that’s what we desire.” -David Wilkerson “A Call to Anguish”
If you have 10 min, I recommend you listen to these words from Wilkerson himself: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGMG_PVaJoI). As he says in the message, “I am not who I was, I am not where I am suppose to be. God I don’t have your heart or your burden. I’ve wanted it easy. I just wanted to be happy”. This has been the heart of my pain over the past year, I am not who I was when I left home, I am not in the passionate and broken place where I am suppose to be. I don’t have God’s heart or burden for Tarma. I’ve wanted to get through the “uncomfortable-ness” of two years away from home and family as easily as possible. I’ve been trying to keep myself entertained and happy, so that I won’t think about everything that I’m missing at home. And I am ashamed at how I am failing God. I am ashamed at how I am wasting the opportunity to pour out my life for the people of Tarma the way that Christ poured out his life for me.
My prayer this morning was for a miraculous change in my life – that God would take my heart and cause me anguish over the souls that are lost in this town that I am living in. That God would capture my focus and desire to not rest until I have done everything I possibly can to fight off the presence of the enemy and the power he has over the people here. That God would not allow me to waste this last year in Peru by being complacent to the need. God change my heart; change my life and my purpose in Tarma. Pray for me.