Last week, I wrote about how I saw revival on Liberty's campus during Spiritual Emphasis Week. But that was only the first part of God's work.
Every Wednesday night during the school year, Liberty has an unrequired meeting called Campus Community. If I'm not mistaken, about 6,000 people come weekly to that meeting called Campus Community (formerly Campus Church). That night, as a continuation of both Spiritual Emphasis Week and Campus Community's current sermon series, Vinyl, Clayton King came back to speak to us.
After David Nasser spent several minutes allowing us to pray for the person to our right, the person to our left, ourselves, and Clayton King, King started to speak to us.
Recently, Campus Community has been using the analogy of a record player (thus the name of the series, Vinyl) and comparing it to us.
Clayton began by first acknowledging that the record Thriller—the album, not the song—which he actually brought with him, was perhaps the greatest pop music to ever be created, and he's right. He used the analogy that the record was the word of God and we were, as I said, the record player. Now, the record is not any good if it just sits on a shelf, just like the word of God is not any good if it just sits there. But you can't listen to the record if the record player isn't plugged in. Just like the record player, we need power in order to "play" the word of God. "[Our lives are powerless] if we're not plugged into the word of God, which reveals to us the Son of God... and the Son of God is who saves us," as King said.
He then spoke to us from Luke 4:1-13, the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert. (Those unfamiliar with the story can read it here.) Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit and fasted there for forty days, and, according to the Bible and Doctor Luke (Yes, Luke was actually a physician.), at the end of the forty days, he was hungry.
And that is when Satan chose to act. Satan always attacks us at our lowest points: when we're feeling tired, grumpy, unwanted, broken, needy, etc..
Satan then tempted Jesus and told Him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." Jesus responded by quoting what, in His day, was the Bible. We call it the Old Testament. He said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'" (quoting Deuteronomy 8:3). What's interesting here is that Jesus, the very Son of God, quoted the Bible when He was being tempted. What does that say about us when we're tempted?
King went on to describe the next two temptations in similar fashion, though he did note one interesting fact. In verses 10 and 11, Satan quotes the Bible to tempt Jesus. Satan knew the Bible by heart. We can't call ourselves Christians just because we know the Bible. A friend of King debated with a former youth pastor about the validity of the Bible. The former youth pastor was now an atheist who taught the Bible as a historical document at a college. One of the most despised and hated people in all of history memorized entire passages of the Bible. Do you know who it was? Hitler.
We can't just memorize the Bible and then completely ignore Jesus. Don't be like Hitler. Don't just memorize the Bible without ever knowing Jesus. The Bible is not what powers the record player. It is Jesus who powers it, and only Jesus. Don't just go to Bible class, Convocation, and Campus Community and say you've got your Bible reading for the week. None of that replaces reading your Bible on your own in a quiet place, and none of that replaces going to church on Sunday.
After that powerful sermon, he did another altar call. For about ten minutes, he urged people to come give their lives to the Lord. As he said, we didn't have to be out of there by 11:30 like we did with Convocation. We had plenty of time. Several people came down and were met by the Student Shepherds who prayed for them. Two people who knew each other were able to celebrate together right there in front of the stage. I unfortunately did not get a picture that time, but, thankfully every Campus Community and every Convocation is livestreamed and recorded, so I was able to go back and get a picture of that moment.
Even though that meeting was over, God still had one more surprise for us. The next day was the baptism service.
This article is part two in a three part series. Click here for part one, and come back next week for part three.
