If you read this week's 'Word and Way', you saw that there was extensive, favorable coverage of Promise Keepers' "Sacred Assembly of Men". As many of you know, I went with a couple of friends to Washington DC last weekend for that event. We travelled by bus with a group of approximately 30 other men from First Baptist Church of Arnold, Missouri. I'll say more in a few minutes about the hours we spent together with those men in transit. But first I want to tell you just a little about the event itself and it's impact on me.
What affected me most was not the size of the crowd, though it was a vast sea of multi-colored faces; it was not the songs of praise, although they were heartfelt and fervent; and it wasn't the speakers, though they spoke the Word of God with clarity and conviction. What affected me most was the simple, clear call to repentance and the actual hours I spent there on my knees, confessing my sins and failures to Holy God, and committing myself to change by the power of His grace.
It wasn't until the next day, on the bus ride home, that I began to realize the full extent of the previous afternoon's impact. Clearly, God Himself had profoundly touched our lives. Now, normally a 12 hour busride after such an exhausting weekend would by pure torture; but that trip home was a spiritual feast: a whole day filled with fellowship, searching the Scriptures, worship, and testimonies from men broken before God, confessing sins and praying right there on the bus for each other. I saw James 5:16 obeyed: "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed." The Lord Jesus Christ was there on our bus, healing souls. And I believe He was doing the same thing in thousands of other vehicles headed for home that day.
I believe with all my heart that each one of us must allow that same call to repentance to penetrate our hearts. When was the last time you took a good hard look at yourself... and saw some things there that just broke your heart? Don't you just wonder sometimes why these altars are not full more often with believers and unbelievers alike, weeping over our own disobedience and lukewarmness? I'm pretty sure about this: it's not because we don't need to be there, and I put myself at the top of that list.
Isaiah was a great prophet and a holy man, but when he saw himself in the blazing light of God's perfect holiness, he cried out, "Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips."
I'm standing here this morning, just an ordinary man, flawed and sinful--nowhere near a man of Isaiah's stature--yet I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell among a people of unclean lips, all of us so desperately in need of God's grace. The desire of my heart, which has only gotten stronger since my return from Washington, is to honor and obey God with every fiber of my being. And I believe that if you've ever truly known Christ in all His glory and beauty, that's your desire too. But we can't do that, either individually or as a church, without first humbling ourselves in deep and true repentance before Holy God. May He be pleased to fill these altars regularly.
This Men of Promise site is owned by 
