Spark.

Introduction

Habakkuk 1:1–2:2 NKJV

1 The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw. 2 O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” And You will not save. 3 Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. 4 Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds. 5 “Look among the nations and watch— Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you. 6 For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans, A bitter and hasty nation Which marches through the breadth of the earth, To possess dwelling places that are not theirs. 7 They are terrible and dreadful; Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. 8 Their horses also are swifter than leopards, And more fierce than evening wolves. Their chargers charge ahead; Their cavalry comes from afar; They fly as the eagle that hastens to eat. 9 “They all come for violence; Their faces are set like the east wind. They gather captives like sand. 10 They scoff at kings, And princes are scorned by them. They deride every stronghold, For they heap up earthen mounds and seize it. 11 Then his mind changes, and he transgresses; He commits offense, Ascribing this power to his god.” 12 Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, You have appointed them for judgment; O Rock, You have marked them for correction. 13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness. Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, And hold Your tongue when the wicked devours A person more righteous than he? 14 Why do You make men like fish of the sea, Like creeping things that have no ruler over them? 15 They take up all of them with a hook, They catch them in their net, And gather them in their dragnet. Therefore they rejoice and are glad. 16 Therefore they sacrifice to their net, And burn incense to their dragnet; Because by them their share is sumptuous And their food plentiful. 17 Shall they therefore empty their net, And continue to slay nations without pity? 1 I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected. 2 Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

Pray

The title of my sermon today is called, “Spark.” It is interesting how it came about. I had been stuck in the books of Nahum and Habakkuk all week. Finally, as one does, I said, “Lord..” I have to get out of this book and write a sermon 🤣.

Wouldn’t you know, the Lord gave me a sentence, “Nahum, Habakkuk, and the nature of a spark.” I did not know where it was going, but I felt it deep in my spirit something was afoot, so I began to search on the nature of a spark.

A spark occurs when the very molecules that make up something get so excited and so hot that they start to go. It starts small and invisible but eventually, it becomes so energized and hot that it emits light. It is a small beginning. The Bible speaks very clearly on small beginnings:

Zechariah 4:10 NKJV

10 For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see The plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord, Which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.”

It was at this point that I asked myself, “Why would the Lord clearly tell me to continue our series about evangelism and then just take me to looking at Habakkuk, Nahum, and the nature of a spark?”

Then it hit me. This is about evangelism, I just didn’t understand the vision yet and God wanted me to search it out.

Let’s take a look back at the Great Commission as we have been doing the past couple of weeks

Matthew 28:19–20 NKJV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

The Great Commission says GO and MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL THE NATIONS

What exists between GO and Make? That’s easy

CONNECT. Something has to happen after going that causes us to make the disciples, this thing is connection.

To accept that God is sovereign (which he is), you must acknowledge a few things about Him. You must acknowledge that God is in full control, He has ordained the paths, and He has divine providence over all aspects of His works.

When a spark connects with something in the right way that is conducive to ignition, ignition usually occurs,

but right now, I want to talk about something different. I want to talk about ham.

Point 1: A Different Kind of Ham

You see, the spark starts as any regular matter does, just existing and going about it’s regular routine, but speaking of small beginnings

In 1877, was born a man by the name of Mordecai Ham in Allen County, Kentucky. He really wasn’t much to speak of except for the fact that he was a dynamite preacher. A leader of the temperance movement, Ham was a traveling evangelist and an interesting character. His ministry was a product of an earlier spark known as the Great Awakening that swept our nation and birthed many of the churches you still see around today, most commissioned by John Wesley.

In fact, the church that I came out of in Buffalo Valley is 215 years old and was commissioned for John Wesley by Sir Francis Asbury.

Remember the Asbury University revival? The college is named after him. In fact, as part of maintaining our old churches history, I came across digitized copies of his journals where they would travel by horse from state to state and preach day after day bringing people to the Lord.

Asbury was sparked by Wesley and actually commissioned to go about holding camp meetings and evangelizing the lost across the United States.

One of the results was the church that I was at serving in the leadership as an associate pastor rebuilding whose spark is still strong and carrying on today after some minor adjustments and new vision—a church that knows all about Providence and is another one excited to partner with us and go out on outreaches in the future.

Ham’s early life was troubled with doubt in fact, he held some positions that today we would call outright racist (and rightfully so), but I want to make a bigger point. I’m going somewhere with this, so please bare with me.

Look at the verses above, Habakkuk doubted the Lord., but remember God is sovereign and in complete control.

Habakkuk 1:2–4 NKJV

2 O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear? Even cry out to You, “Violence!” And You will not save. 3 Why do You show me iniquity, And cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me; There is strife, and contention arises. 4 Therefore the law is powerless, And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

I can show you .

Nahum 1:3–5 (NKJV)

3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And will not at all acquit the wicked. The Lord has His way In the whirlwind and in the storm, And the clouds are the dust of His feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, And dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither, And the flower of Lebanon wilts. 5 The mountains quake before Him, The hills melt, And the earth heaves at His presence, Yes, the world and all who dwell in it.

Nahum was a contemporary of Habakkuk, they prophesied during the same time . The overarching themes of the book are redemption and judgement, but the difference is Nahum speaks of God’s sovereignty with clarity, while Habakkuk doubts.

We see Habakkuk asking, “How long shall I cry and You will not hear?” (Hab 1:2)

As Nahum speaks of the Lord being slow to anger, yet not at all acquitting the wicked. (Nah 1:2)

Habakkuk 2:2 NKJV

2 Then the Lord answered me and said: “Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

Habakkuk is told by the Lord to write the vision and make it plain on tablets. He does so.

What about the vision?

Point 2: The Vision Made Plain

You see, as with all God-given vision, just like the vision God gave me for this church, the vision was not handed to me when I prayed for it. The vision was seated in me before the foundations of the world before I even fully understood the vision.

God had ordained the vision from the beginning. He is sovereign and in complete control. The Bible says, “There is no searching in His understanding,” that means he is not calling on any other thing for anything. The answer is in Him. He alone is sovereign.

A spark has a small unseen beginning, but when things get to moving and the molecules get to heating up, all the sudden it emits light and the invisible becomes visible.

Mordecai Ham carried on his camp meetings until he reached hundreds of thousands. He went from town to town bringing the spark. The vision was made plain that he was to Go, Connect, and Make Disciples. You see when the spark begins to move, the light begins and it is seen, and it is at this point when it comes into contact with something able to be ignited that the connection happens and it does so.

Point 3: Why am I talking about Ham?

When a spark ignites a material and begins to linger after the burning, we know of this as an ember. A single ember in 2018 remaining from a camp fire was able to birth a forest fire that burned almost 40,000 acres.

Mordecai Ham is not a name that most would readily know, but at a camp meeting in 1934 in Charlotte North Carolina, a young man named William would make a declaration of faith and not only accept Jesus into His heart, but he would make plain the vision that was seated in him and written on the tablet of his heart from the beginning, even before he understood the vision.

William, as a result of this night coming across the spark of a Kentucky preacher by the name of Mordecai Ham would go on to lead a documented 3.2 million people to Jesus. You may know William better by the name Billy Graham.

What is the spark in you? What unseen beginning and vision exists in you that needs to be made plain so God can ordain and order your steps to set about spiritual wildfire?

Never underestimate your influence.

Altar Call.