Samuel Stillman, a Boston pastor and Revolutionary, preached in 1790 a sermon on the foolishness of preaching. He addressed the doctrine of total depravity. Stillman concluded from texts like Genesis 6:5; Matt. 15:19; John 3:6; and Rom. 7:5 that, left on its own, the human heart is totally sinful. He elaborated:
By this depravity inspired writers do not mean, that there is any loss of the natural faculties of the soul; these remain entire amidst the ruins of the fall: man has reason, understanding, will and affections; but that he is destitute of a spiritual taste, and under the constant influence of aversion to God. If the sinner's heart was right in a moral sense, I can conceive of no remaining inability to love God for his own sake, and to live for his glory. The essence of religion is love; and the essence of depravity or wickedness is enmity of heart to God. And in this awful condition the sinner is, as long as he remains in unregeneracy.
Because of this, we don't just preach, we don't just share, we don't just talk, we pray. Refusing to listen to the lie that there is something better we could be doing with our time, refusing to listen to the lie that our prayers will not be answered, refusing to listen to the lie that someone else's prayers are sufficient, we pray and plead with God to give our friend, our spouse, our co-worker, our child a "spiritual taste" for the things of God.
This is why there is nothing more humbling than evangelism. We can do everything right, memorize great gospel outlines, remember all the right texts, but still we need God's Spirit to work. Let's be bold today and pray for conversions. Let's pray for another Great Awakening. It wasn't too long after Stillman preached about total depravity that a Second Great Awakening broke out in America. We need another, but it won't be ushered in by snappy slogans and slick brochures. It will be ushered in by sound preaching and prayers--many, many, many prayers!
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