One Hit Wonders

One Hit Wonders

I. Illustration

A. 1910 Fruit Gum Company- Simon Says

B. Albert Hammond - It Never Rains in Southern California

C. Albert, Morris - Feelings

D. Archies, The- Sugar, Sugar

E. Badfinger - Come and Get It

F. Bishop, Elvin - Fooled Around

G. Blue Swede - Hooked On A Feeling

H. Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought the Law (But the Law Won)

I. Bonnie & Delaney - Neverending Song of Love for You

J. Brewer & Shipley - One Toke Over The Line

K. Brownsville Station - Smoking In The Boy’s Room

L. Frigid Pink - House of the Rising Sun

M. Iron Butterfly - Inagaddadavidda

N. Tiny Tim - Tiptoe Through the Tulips

O. Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby

P. One thing in common, they were what the music industry calls, "One Hit Wonders!"

II. Over the years I have observed as many people have walked through the door of the church. Many people make great splashes, but don’t seem to last very long. They are like:

A. Jude 12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

B. Gal 5:7 "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?"

III. We have been riding the crest of revival. Wonderful!! But it is possible for churches to have revival and then lapse back into the same old mediocrity of the past. It is possible for churches to be "one hit wonders." For the last few weeks our prayer meetings have broken all records, more HBS being taught, more visitors brought, more fasting, more dedication, more into the word. Yet we can be a one hit wonder. Getting on the tidal wave of emotion and riding it for the moment. Several things can keep this from happening:

IV. 1 Cor 15:58 "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord."

A. Three key words: stedfast, unmoveable, and always.

V. Key phrase in scripture: Without ceasing

A. Acts 12:5 "Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him."

B. Rom 1:9 "For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;"

C. 1 Th 5:17 "Pray without ceasing."

D. 1 Th 2:13 "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe."

E. 2 Tim 1:3 "I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;"

VI. Daily Things of Christian Living - Daily Bread, Daily Purpose, Daily Study, Daily evangelism, daily exhoratation, daily unity, daily death

VII. The prophet in 1 Kings 13 was a one hit wonder: instructed of God, miracles happened, gave the word from God, received specific instruction from God. Yet became a "One hit wonder" because he became disobedient to God.

VIII. In many ways Saul was a one-hit wonder.

IX. Go back to 1 Cor 15:58