Eric Ludy Sermon Podcast: Church at Ellerslie

This is a lit stick of dynamite for a Christian's prayer life. It's a fiery message crammed into 80 or so fast-moving minutes that functions almost as an encyclopedia on “prevailing prayer”—topped off with the recipe for “the impossible-for-God-not-to-answer prayer.” If you are perusing Eric Ludy sermons trying to decide which one to listen to—this one is a must!

Marriages are made great when Jesus Christ is placed in the very center of the love story. However, in addition to this all-important spiritual component, there are many practical dimensions to marriage that often go overlooked in the preparation seasons of Christian singleness. If a marriage is going to go the distance it needs two key things: Jesus spiritually and Jesus practically. This is a message that blends the two together, supplying a fantastic recipe for lifelong marital success.

This message formed as a result of little Hudson Ludy (six years old). Desiring to travel with his Daddy on some of his upcoming international adventures, Hudson wants to find orphans and rescue them. But Hudson's father knows that for a little one (such as Hudson) to join in on such taxing adventures demands a certain level of preparation, or "hero training." Every ready soldier must be first groomed for the challenges of war that lie ahead in order that they demonstrate uprightness and honor amidst the fray. This message encompasses the thirteen tier "basic training" that Eric Ludy is walking Hudson through in order to ensure that he is serious enough, honorable enough, and prepared enough for the unknown adventures that await. However, don't be surprised if you discover that the training of this little six year old is the precise training that many of us as grown adults are desperately needing in our personal walks with God. Each of us must be prepared as "little heroes" for the calling we have received.

This message outlines the great Gospel of Jesus Christ. It lays out the pattern for bringing a soul from death unto life. This isn't the 3-minute "salvation" prayer that we have all grown up with—this is the three to six- hour transformative process that the trained Gospelteer knows how to effectively wield in walking a newly readied soul into the corridors of life and liberty in Jesus Christ. We have been shortchanged in our Gospel understanding in this modern day, and thusly we spend years of our Christian lives wallowing in defeat, whereas if we had been established "In Christ" correctly from our spiritual infancy, we could have walked in triumph from the beginning. It's high time that we regain the stoutness and the majesty of the Truth and build this next generation of Christian lives firmly upon it from the outset.

This is a profoundly practical and much-needed message in our culture where the virtue of discretion is nearly lost. The Bible makes it clear that the manner with which a Christian man or woman employs their tongue defines whether their spiritual life is true or false. As a result, there is a tremendous significance to this particular theme in the Christian life. This message leads to a much-needed spiritual examination of our verbal behavior patterns and the daily use of our tongues as members of the Body of Christ. But it's not just a message that exposes our lack; it also supplies the great Gospel secret for bringing the tongue under control.

We esteem "big hearts" in Christianity today. Men and women of compassion, tender mercies, and deep affections are essential for a working Body. However, there is not the same esteem for "big kidneys" in the Church today—men and women who speak straight about sin, demand purity within the Body, and protect the health of the Church. Big kidneys are rather offensive to our modern sensibilities. But the Bible makes it clear that without functional kidneys in the Church, heart disease will set in. While the heart circulates life within the body the kidneys purify that life. The Bible calls the heart and kidneys the "heart and the reins." God tests the hearts and reins of His people to ensure that they are functioning as they ought. For health to reign within the individual body and the corporate Body of Christ, we must have functional hearts AND functional kidneys.

WARNING: This message pulls no punches. It speaks straightforwardly on a topic that most of us would rather avoid—and that is wolves in sheep's clothing in the modern church. There are wolves in the sheep pen of modern Christianity undermining the timeless, eternal truths of Scripture and thus altering the nature and the pattern of the Gospel. But these wolves don't look like wolves; they are wearing very convincing sheep costumes. They appear to be humble and wise men, with spectacles roosted on the ends of their noses. They appear to be cordial men, kind and thoughtful. It's their fruit that exposes them. For they have one singular question that they are asking the body of Christ today: "Did God really say that? Are you certain? Could it be that you have it wrong?" They are proffering the notion of an "open mind"—a mind more tolerant to new religious thought—a mind hospitable to ideas outside the pale of the Biblical framework. 6,000 years ago this was the tactic of the serpent in the garden, and it's still the serpent's primary tactic today.

The human body demands constant refueling. We don't eat once in a lifetime, but everyday; and not just everyday, but often three to five times daily. The body needs food in order to live, and the spiritual man is no different. There is a need for the believing man or woman to learn to partake of the heavenly feast, not just once, but daily; and not just daily, but daily without ceasing. This message is meat and potatoes for the spiritual man. It's the most basic food of Heaven that the spiritual man must constantly be chewing, swallowing, and digesting in his soul.

This is a peek into the intimate worship of the apostles and the Church triumphant throughout the ages. It's on the sweet-smelling savor of the saints being offered forth before the throne of Jehovah. Many of us know how to sing our praises, but it's those who know how to live out their praises that truly stir the heart of their King at the deepest levels. The concept of the "upside-down cross" comes from a famous quote from the venerable Jerome (an early-Church father) writing about the martyrdom of the apostle Peter, and it is sure to stir you.

There are many bold and brawny statements in the Bible regarding the believer's Cross-purchased authority and position over the powers of earth and hell. But many of us feel awkward appropriating such grandiose notions into our personal faith. For some reason, it feels presumptuous. As a result of this hesitation, an ever-growing discrepancy between the grand promises of the Word of God and the modern Christian demonstration of the Word of God continues unabated in our generation. We must ask ourselves, “Are these grand promises merely poetical phrases to offer us psychological encouragement? Are these promises to be deemed merely wishful thinking? Or does God mean what He says?” It's high time that we stop lowering our expectations of God to the level of our personal experience and start raising the expectations of our personal experience to the level of God's promises. Because if we actually were to believe the Word of God, we would find that the Church of Jesus Christ is supposed to be an unstoppable force within this world. (NOTE: one of our cameras had problems about halfway through the sermon, and as a result, the final 40 minutes of the video version of this message is captured only from the side camera angle. Please forgive us for this.)

Christianity's greatest heroes are not of the celebrity sort. Rather, they are the ones who have forsaken reputation and have allowed God to bend them into the prayer closet, and thusly, often into anonymity as well. But it is an anonymity for the glory of King Jesus. For it is the anonymous praying saints, and not merely the famous preaching ones, that carry the match to light Heaven's bonfire here on earth. Throughout Christian history, men and women have willingly placed themselves "under the stage"in travailing prayer in order that the message being trumpeted on the platform above would ignite the hearts of its listeners. And the same history attests that when such a force of prayer was present in the undergirding of the proclamation of the great Gospel message, culture-shaping revival inevitably followed closely in its wake.

The 38th Parallel is an internationally instituted boundary line between two hostile nations, North Korea and South Korea. If a soldier of either side takes one wrong step into the territory of the other, it's instant death. This line marks a demarcation between two kingdoms, two value systems, two agendas, two opposing powers, and has historically meant the lifelong separation of loved ones. Like this earthly boundary line, there is a spiritual equivalent in the Line of Blood that divides the two opposed kingdoms of Heaven and Hell. For the kingdom of Heaven to thrive on earth, this line must be guarded with all vigilance. In fact, how we monitor the 38th Parallel in our spiritual lives will define whether it will be Heaven or Hell that will ultimately hold sway over our earthly bodies. This is war!

One of the most dangerous places on planet earth today is inside a mother's womb. The place that all natural reason would suggest is the safest place of all has become a modern-day Auschwitz. In America, one in four babies doesn't make it out of Mommy alive. And yet, rather than fighting to see this horrific trend change, the Church has all but gone silent on the issue. Oh, we may speak out at the ballot box, but we've been socially hogtied and gagged from doing anything beyond that. This provocative message isn't a call to mere political action and picket lines— it's first and foremost a call to get down on our knees and pick up our spiritual sword for these vulnerable ones. This message was accompanied by a powerful video trailer produced by The Life Project.

This particular message could easily transform your life. It addresses one of the most important themes in all of Paul's Gospel training and effectively demystifies some of the most complex notions of sin, the flesh, the old man, the indwelling Spirit, and the body. For those of you who have struggled to fully grasp some of the grand themes in many of Paul's writings, this message will help to remove scales from your spiritual eyes.

Due to popular demand, we are making available this message of Eric Ludy's that he delivered in October of 2009. This is the message from which the Ellerslie Short Film, Depraved Indifference, was constructed. In this audio, Eric is speaking at a Pro-Life Gala in Santa Barbara, California. He had originally intended to deliver an entirely different message that night, and yet as he drove from the airport in Burbank, California to Santa Barbara, God placed these words upon his heart. We hope you are blessed by this stirring message.