A Sermon Outline by John Kennedy
Habakkuk 3:2. O Lord, revive Thy work . . .
Let us consider: (1.) The Lord’s work, (2.) Why it needs revival, (3.) How revival comes, and (4.) This is asked in the midst of the years.
The Lord’s work.
The whole work of providence, inclusive of what He does and what He permits to be done by others, may be called the Lord’s work, but this is not what is meant here.
The work done by His servants is called the Lord’s work. But this is not what is meant here, it is a work of grace.
This includes the quickening of the dead and the growth of the living.
This work is His, and can be done by no other.
This is the work to which all else is subordinate.
In it God is glorified, and without which all church work is vain.
Why it needs revival.
Because it was in a state of decay.
The lack of conviction and conversion by the Holy Spirit.
The cause is provocation, provoking the Lord to withdraw His power.
The symptoms are increasing blindness among the unconverted.
The formality, unwatchfulness and conformity to the world by believers.
Lack of faithfulness in this generation of workers.
How revival comes.
Through an outpouring of the Spirit of grace and supplication.
The decay began in backsliding; the cure must begin in repentance.
Grounds of controversy removed between Him and the remnant.
In answer to their cry, He manifests His power and glory (Ezk 36:37).
This is asked in the midst of the years.
The years of decay had begun.
They were in the midst of them.
Let them not go on to the latter end.
There, in the midst, He came.
1Preached in Dingwall on 22 October 1882. It has been edited.
Protestant View
An Explosive Statement
The opposition to the Pope coming from senior conservative figures in the Roman Catholic Church is intensifying. An explosive statement released by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, papal nuncio in Washington from 2011 to 2016, accuses the pontiff of covering up for the disgraced Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, who resigned in July after being accused of the immoral abuse of seminarians and minors. It is now alleged that the Pope knew, at least from 2013, that McCarrick was a serial abuser and not only refused to take action against him, but actually then employed him as an adviser. The letter goes as far as to call for the Pope’s resignation along with others in the Roman hierarchy.
Vigano maintains that sodomite influence in the Vatican served to protect McCarrick for years. “The homosexual networks present in the Church must be eradicated”, Vigano writes. They “act under the concealment of secrecy and lie with the power of octopus tentacles, and strangle innocent victims and priestly vocations, and are strangling the entire Church”.
There is no doubt more to emerge about this business, but the allegations are of the most serious nature and the potential for damage to the Vatican is enormous. Whoever is telling the truth in this matter, or otherwise, the Lord has His own purposes in permitting the Roman Catholic Church to expose its own hideous internal machinations. In all this we are seeing a display of the true evil nature of Romanism, the great apostasy predicted by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2. These scandalous evils not only cause a legacy of dreadful personal anguish for those who have been abused, but they harden the hearts of the perpetrators in their wickedness and hasten their destruction. The failure to deal with such incidents, and the refusal to take responsibility for them on the part of both perpetrators and their ecclesiastical superiors, has obviously been rife in the Church of Rome over the generations. However distasteful it is to relate these awful matters, it would be good if the demise of papal Rome was being hastened by all these disclosures and dissensions. “If an house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mk 3:25). AWM