WE AIN’T GOT NO POWER!

A vacuum sweeper salesman visited an Appalachian mountain community to sell sweepers. He had an excellent product, a powerful sales presentation and an apparent abundance of prospects. Climbing onto a porch he knocked on a cabin door. When the woman of the house opened the door, he thrust his arm over her shoulder and threw the contents of a large can of debri into the middle of the living room floor. Pointing to the mess he’d made, he smiled and said confidently, “Madam, if this sweeper will not pick up every speck of this filth, I will sit here and eat it with a spoon.” As he started unfurling the cord of his demonstrator, the old lady said, “Well, I’ll get you a spoon, because we ain’t got no power.”

The above illustrates the situation in our churches and in our country. We’ve got a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned up (mostly self-made messes), and a lot of people with ability and resources who think they can clean it up, but the problem is, they aren’t cleaning, and they can’t clean, anything up. Why not? In the words of the old woman in our story: “We ain’t got no power.”

American Christianity needs revival and America needs rescuing. But high-powered flesh in the pulpits and in the political arena hasn’t accomplished and isn’t going to accomplish anything. It can’t. Our super-sized in proportion and supernatural in nature made-in-America mess requires nothing less than the power of Almighty God Himself to clean it up: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12), and the fact is that real revival and rescue comes, “not by might, nor by power [humanly speaking], but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6).

Individual believers and churches need to access the power of God. But this can’t happen as long as Christians continue to get more and more worldly and truth is cast more and more into the street (Matt. 5:13; Isa. 59:14). It can only happen when individual Christians and churches begin to “plug in” to repentance and holiness so they can pray with integrity for the intervening power of the Most High God. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land“ (2 Chron. 7:14).