Brokenness essential to revival, Elliff says

FORT MYERS (FBW)-Rivers of revival cannot come without rivers of tears from God's people, said Tom Elliff in the last sermon of the Florida Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 14 at McGregor Baptist Church in Fort Myers.

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Elliff, senior vice president of the International Mission Board, preached on brokenness and offered a personal testimony of points in his lifetime in which God brought him to brokenness.

The veteran preacher, missionary and author told of serving as a student summer missionary in New England in 1964. Housed in a minister's basement, he said he envied college friends who had been assigned to serve in Hawaii and Africa. He also bemoaned the fact that he did not have many opportunities to preach.

In that place God convicted him of "the absolute futility of ministry without the Holy Spirit," Elliff recalled. In his basement room, he wrote a letter to God, becoming more broken with every word.

"On the floor before the presence of God, I sensed God's cleansing and filling," Elliff told messengers. "I could not be filled with the Holy Spirit until I confessed the sin of arrogance."

Elliff quoted James 4:6 and Psalm 51:17 in urging the congregation to examine their lives in the light of God's holiness.

"You cannot live in the dynamic power of the Spirit without brokenness," he said.

In another example of how God has worked in his life, Elliff spoke of a 2004 trip to Hawaii when he was thrown to the ocean floor by a large wave, severely breaking his leg.

In his nine-day stay in Queen's Hospital, Elliff said he and his wife talked about their future and their spiritual health. The doctor's diagnosis of a blood clot that endangered his life brought Elliff to a point of brokenness, he said. Convicted of depending upon his own abilities, he said, "God showed me myself."

Elliff said he, like an attorney, would lay the case for brokenness before the jury of those gathered at McGregor Baptist Church Tuesday evening.

"I pray you will make the right decision," he said.

Citing the John 12 account of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with nard from an alabaster vial, Elliff used five words to describe the fragrance that filled the house.

•The fragrance of brokenness permeates. The aroma of the costly spice "went places light couldn't go," he said. Brokenness before God produces an "unexplainable sense of God" in the lives of faithful Christians, and others sense that God is with them, speaking through them, he said.

•The fragrance of brokenness penetrates. An experience of brokenness "goes deep and leaves something under your skin," Elliff said. He noted that Lazarus was present during Mary's act of worship, and he would have been the first in the room to recognize the scent of nard, used in that day to prepare bodies for burial.

•The fragrance of brokenness perplexes. Our world that values confidence and bravado is "baffled by brokenness" he said. After a Christian is broken, "the world can't get to him, because God beat them to it."

•The fragrance of brokenness perseveres. It "hangs in the air," Elliff said. He offered the illustration of his ability to smell his future wife's perfume on his own hand after he had held her hand when they were dating. When a Christian is "at the bottom," he turns again to the persevering fragrance, he said.

•The fragrance of brokenness plunders. "All or nothing is what God wants," Elliff said. "Apart from God's grace there is nowhere to turn." Breaking the alabaster vial "takes everything," he said. He quoted the poem by Amy Carmichael that concludes, "Can he have traveled far who has not wound nor scar?"

"There is no such thing as a half-priced cross," he said. "You don't just bleed there, you die."

Announcing that the time for a verdict had come, Elliff urged immediate obedience to God's call for brokenness among His people.

"Let's start tonight," Elliff pleaded. "Let's say, ëIf brokenness is what it takes, break me.'"

As Elliff ended his sermon, scores went forward to fill the crevices at the church altar and spilled out into the aisles.