Warsaw International Church - Sermon Notes & Articles

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “God Wants To Give Revival” (Malachi 3:6-12 and Genesis 22:16-18). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel : God wants to give us revival – that’s today’s theme; and this message shines through in today’s two readings: the first one coming from the final part of the Book of Malachi, as we bid farewell to that prophet; and the second taken from the story of Abraham, who almost sacrificed his son Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. I hope revival is constantly on the minds of all our churchgoers – because a church without revival is a stagnating church. The early church’s life and soul were characterized by perpetual revival – because revival is nothing less than the felt presence of Jesus Christ in His church. Revival is Jesus! The first thing that strikes me, when I look at the passage from Malachi, is that the Lord is addressing His own chosen people: the people of Israel. He’s not attacking pagan natio...

An Absolute Dependence On God And His Unseen Treasure The Lord will allow others to receive honours and stand out, while He keeps you hidden in the shadows, because He wants to produce choice and fragrant fruit for His coming glory, and that can only be produced in the shadows. God may allow others to be great, but you must remain small; God will allow others to work for Him and gain fame, but He will cause you to work and grow strong without you even knowing how much you are doing. Then, to make all your work all the more valuable, He will allow others to receive the credit for what you do, in order to teach you the message of the cross: humility, and something of what it means to partake of His nature. The Holy Spirit will keep a strict watch over you and, with jealous love, will reprove you for your words, or for your indifferent feelings, or for wasting your time – things that seem not to concern other Christians. Therefore, come to terms with the fact that God is an absolute sover...

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “God Is Just” (Malachi 2:17 – 3:5; 4:1-2) . The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel : We’re working through the Book of Malachi, which looks at various aspects of being a good steward – or servant – for the Lord. In today’s part, the prophet Malachi deals with God’s justness, and the Israelites’ lack of it, and points out the consequences. Being a good steward of what God has entrusted us with, here on earth, means being as just as possible – especially with regard to our responsibilities towards others. It’s obvious that everybody wants to be treated justly – we are all very sensitive to injustice. But are we actually just towards others? When we think of justice, we often imagine justice as a pair of weighing scales. That goes back to Greek mythology. Themis was the goddess of divine law and justice; and she is traditionally depicted as holding not only scales, but also a sword, to punish people w...

  One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.  Luke 6:12, NIV. Armin Gesswein—a real man of God if ever there was one—for more than 70 years bore a name which was synonymous with prayer, having conducted prayer rallies for Billy Graham’s crusades and establishing an organization known as Revival Prayer Fellowship, which brought pastors and Christian leaders together for prayer. How did Armin learn the importance of prayer?   Armin was a young Lutheran pastor, age 24, striving to plant a church on Long Island, New York, and things were not going terribly well.   In his church fellowship was a retired blacksmith, about 50 years his senior.   Armin had noticed that when this man prayed, things happened.   He said, “The prayer and the answer were not far apart—in fact, they were moving along together.”   Armin explained, “His ‘prayer muscles’ were extremely strong because of much exercise.”   Wanti...

 Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “God Is Faithful” (Malachi 2:10-16). The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel : We continue our series of messages on being a good steward (servant, worker), looking after what God has given us to care for. Last week I was saying you can’t be a good steward if you don’t believe that God exists in the first place. It’s like being a stewardess and not knowing what airline company you work for! And I also mentioned that it’s not enough to just be a “good person” here on earth and not necessarily believe in God, as many seem to think – because then we won’t know what God actually wants us to do, in order to be a good steward for Him. For example, you might say: “I’m going to be a good steward – a good servant of God – by working as a missionary in Africa”. But how do you know that God wants that for you? He might want you to work as a missionary here in Poland! I’m saying our idea of what is good mi...

 [Editor’s note: Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was one of South Africa’s greatest spiritual writers and teachers. But at first he almost blocked the revival!] In May, 1860 a conference was held at Worcester, South Africa with 374 visitors and 20 congregations represented. Pastor Andrew Murray prayed fervently at the beginning of the meeting and the Spirit of God began to move powerfully in the meeting. In another part of the building, another group of people were gathered in prayer. A fifteen year old girl asked if she could pray. As she prayed, spontaneously the whole room erupted into prayer. Murray, whose experience with revival had only been Scotland where the people were more subdued, had come from the other meeting. As he entered the room he saw what was happening, and tried to silence the people, saying that their meeting was out of accord, that God is a God of order. The people did not hear him and they continued praying. Finally an observer said to Murray, ‘Be careful what you...

Last Sunday’s sermon was preached by Pastor Harry on “God Is Worthy” (Malachi 1:6-12) . The sermon and the whole service can be watched on our WIC YouTube Channel :   For those of you who were with us this time last year, you might remember that, in our church, we look at the subject of stewardship in November. We’ve put good stewardship into practice in recent years, by collecting money for flood victims, for example. This year we’ll be making two church collections available for Christmas parcels for teenagers living in deprived conditions. You might think: what is stewardship? Well, think of a stewardess – she’s there to serve you on a plane. She might be a good or bad stewardess, but she’s supposed to serve you, on behalf of an airline. So if you think she’s bad, you might think the airline is bad too, and never travel with it again. In the same way, if you come across what you think are bad stewards in church (maybe the pastor, priest or elders), you might not only leave ...

  Helping Our Prayers To Be Answered by George Müller (1805-98) “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Matt. 7:7-8). The promise uttered here by the mouth of our precious, adorable Lord Jesus Christ, with regard to prayer, is as full, as large, as deep, as precious as we could only wish it, and if it had been left to us, beloved in Christ, that we should make a promise for ourselves regarding prayer, I do not know how we could have enlarged it more than it is given to us here. We should in childlike simplicity seek to lay hold of this Word; for that is FAITH – to lay hold of the Word of God; and to receive what God says to be true without questioning it, just resting on it. Many persons think that faith consists in particularly deep feeling.   This is a great mistake.   He has the strongest faith who mo...