Hearing His Voice — B.H. Clendennen

Religion Without Life Is Nothing

You know, Paul said when he really found Christ, his whole life was religion. He had advanced above even those of his seniors. He was heading for the top of it all. But he said he counted all that but done that he might win Christ.

Every bit of that religion, a whole lot of learning, and he said it's all but done, just nothing. Well, you know, in the Old Testament, you go back, you take, you run everything on that, and you go back where Israel was in that awful drought.

Things were so bad, they become cannibalistic, eating their own children. But it said a pint, best I can say the measure, it said about a pint of dove's dung sold for an enormous price. Now, I've seen where they say that that is a root that'll thrive in a desert, you know, that has a little bit of value.

But even in drought, it would come, grow a little. I don't know whether that's true or not, but I read that. But it doesn't matter, the fact that what it was called dove's dung. You know, dove is a Holy Ghost.

He's always symbol, a Holy Ghost. You see lit on Jesus, and Noah let him out, and all of this. Well, all that's left, dung is all that's left when that dove is gone. Religion without life is nothing. It's waste.

What an awful thing to carry on with the form after the reality is gone. But we have that ability to do that. I want to read again from the book of Hebrews. We're going to go to chapter 3 here. We talked about God is spoken.

Something was said. Now, I just want this thought to be hearing that voice. Hearing that voice. Jesus said there were some people whose ears were so degenerated, they had ears, but they couldn't hear.

What an awful thing. You know, that tells you something. Here, and he's talking. He said, have ears to hear and cannot hear. That is a frightening, frightening thought. That you can so degenerate in religion that you can't distinguish the voice of God out of all the rabble that's going around about us.

Father, you help us now. Such a wonderful time here. Thank you for the hungry hearts that gather out here on this Saturday morning. May you talk to us and we hear what you have to say. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Hearing the Voice of God in Hebrews

Now, in Hebrews chapter 3, we'll read verses 3, verse 7 rather through 11. Wherefore, now you know he's quoting the 95th Psalm here. The writer takes up the 95th Psalm. Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost says, today, not tomorrow.

You know, don't, don't. But today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, saw my works forty years.

Wherefore, I was grieved with that generation and said, they do always err in their heart, and they've not known my ways, so I swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest. Now, that rest they were looking for was a type of the rest.

But it tells us that that rest is not heaven. The rest we're to enter into is here and now. We cease from our labors. Let's simply cease from ourself and enter into that life of God. Let the Holy Ghost lead my life.

Not laying awake at night dreaming up what I want God to help me do. But to know the will, the mind, the purpose of God and consent to it. Now, when God spoke to Israel, the one thing he asked was a heart that did not harden itself.

That's all he asked of them. Don't harden your heart. Now, we've got to come to know what that means of a hardened heart. How much more does he claim this on us now? Now that he's not speaking to us through prophets, but speaking to us in his Son.

And how much more does he demand a reverence out of us that we hear? Everything ought to prepare us. There ought to be a reverence when the man of God, or when we open up to read this book, that God will talk to me and I hear what he's trying to say to me in his word.

This that I'm claiming. You know, the soil has to be broken up by the plow. That fallow ground to receive the rain and to produce has to be broken up before it can ever become tender for receiving. God said, but this man will I look to who is a poor and a contrite spirit and trembles at my word.

A broken and a contrite spirit God doesn't despise. God only uses broken things. I don't mean I have to go around with a sad face. But it does mean that I must be broken to be able to receive. That I don't come to this book with preconceived ideas.

A Teachable Heart and True Unity

That's the reason the unity, that is a heart unity. Now the unity the ecumenical tries to produce, that's as radical and as disruptive as any unity in this world. Because it's just a strapped together thing.

But like Pastor Nick and I, the unity between us when we met is a unity of heart. Paul said one mindedness. So you can't disrupt that. I know I'm not God. I know I went down, I was looking for God, found he wasn't there.

Somebody help me get back out. You know, I don't read the Bible trying to prove I'm right. You know, I mean, trying to prove my point of view I mean. I want to know, if I speak something here and he didn't agree with it, it wouldn't disrupt me for him to come.

Because he and I both know, if I believe one thing and he believes something else, one of both of us is wrong. And the only thing necessary now is to find out. If both of us is wrong, let's figure out where it is.

If I'm wrong, then I want to get here and get this straight. You understand, you can't disrupt that if it's a heart unity. Because we both just want the truth. Amen. None of us have all of this. None of us.

I thought I got to the top of the mountain several times, but the wind blew the cloud away and I couldn't see the top again. I saw I hadn't gone nowhere. That's the key to all this. But when this broken disposition exists, I mean that heart that says, I want to know the truth.

You know, if I'm wrong, I want to know it. Where it exists and the heart is truly hungering for God, God's voice will bring real life. He'll be able to come and He will bring real life and victory to us where that heart is open.

Now, when this disposition of brokenness is not there, when it's not there, when it's just a callous heart that's got it said, I know what I believe, nothing's going to touch this. You know, this is the way it's going to be.

Then the word remains unfruitful and we go backward. We never get anywhere if that heart is not open to be spoken to. Amen. Wherefore the Holy Ghost saith. Now, the Holy Ghost saith. Today, if you'll hear His voice, harden not your heart.

The World’s Voices and the Hardened Heart

It's very simple, folks, to find what hardens that heart. I found that. Now, I want to give it to you this morning. If you'll harden not your heart. You know, the seed sown by the side of the road doesn't enter the soil.

It never enters because it had to be trodden down always by passersby, trodden down, trodden down. But when the world with its business, its interest has at times a free passage, then the heart loses its ability to hear God.

I live in a world and it is going to have an impact upon my life. We never lived in a culture. I don't think any society ever lived, never had a culture that had the ability to intrude on you like this one.

I'm in the television, newspaper, the radio, everything. They don't want to just inform me. They want to change me. They have the whole system today is to remold, reshape us, excuse me, remove God from our thinking, the whole thing.

And when our trust is in the intellect in religion, when our trust is in the intellect, great care, and great care is not taken to take the word from God into the heart, into the life. The heart becomes closed.

It becomes closed because that isn't how you hear. You hear with the heart. When it's just an intellectual thing, then you never really know what God is saying to you. The mind is satisfied then with just beautiful thoughts and feelings, but the heart doesn't hear.

It's an intellectual thing and the heart becomes hardened and you believe that knowledge is a possession. That's a disease of the church today, propagated by Bible schools. Many of them, they teach the preacher, he got the virus, it's viral, he puts it into the church.

They believe because I know what Paul knows, I have the same thing Paul. But the man that found that pearl of great price did not make it his. It cost him everything he was to possess that pearl. And we have to know, you see, it's so easy for that heart to be hardened by all of these other voices and things out there.

When we secretly are content with our religion, our second-hand doctrine in Christian life, unconsciously now, the heart gets hardened and you can't deal with that human. He'll sit there and throw it over his shoulder, pass it on to somebody else, but all of us are in need of knowing Christ.

Humility, Obedience, and Spiritual Growth

C .M. Ward was a great friend of mine. He was a Revival time preacher. And I don't think the radio ever had a greater voice than his, in all of time. He preached for me and I preached, he and I preached across Alaska at one time.

We had a very, very great time together. But he was a very, very brilliant man. After service one morning, we were riding along and I said to him, C .M. Ward, what makes you so smart? You seem to know everything about everything.

He said, we just passed a little black boy, a fine little lad riding a bicycle. And he said, do you see that little boy we passed back there? I said, yes. He said, he knows something I don't know. And if I had time, I'd find out what that is.

You see, and all of us, we must listen. You don't know it all. We know so little. Amen. There will be billions of years learning Christ in eternity. And so it is there. But you get content with your religion, your second-hand Christianity, that heart gets hardened, and God can bring a revelation.

Other people feel, shout, and you're sitting there yawning. Amen. Because the heart has been closed to what God wants to say to you. Now, when our heart doesn't keep up with our knowledge, oh my, how many?

I saw people, religiously especially, they didn't keep up with intelligence. Amen. You know, they just know what they don't possess. And they're always at warfare. But when our heart does not keep up with our knowledge, and we have more pleasure in hearing and knowing than in obeying and doing.

Did you hear that? When we have more pleasure in hearing and knowing than we do in obeying and doing, we lose the meekness to which the promise is given. The desire, the heart, is hard and cannot discern now.

Just allowing this. When you allow the things of the world to occupy too much, more than all, when unbelief that walks by sight. I don't believe anything except I see it. When it walks by sight, looks at itself, and all around in the light of the world, and that unbelief is allowed to have its way, and the soul does not seek in childlike faith to live in the invisible that God called us to, then the word cannot enter that heart.

It becomes hard, calloused, and we just come and go like we went. While others become broken up, and the word, the seed enters, and begins to produce a more fruitful life to God. It's a solemn thought that with a mind occupied with religious truth, you see them all the time.

I mean they talk religion, even feelings are stirred at times by the voice of men and words, and a life apparently given to religious work, the heart may be closed and God never get in there to affect the lifestyle and the life of that human being, so that Christ can really be seen in and through that life.

Yet they're the most religious people in church all time. Amen, you sing, get the music just right, they may be stirred up, but yet you watch them. I saw preachers, they get excited while they're preaching.

They buck, jump, holler, scream, but the next day they're the same. You know it never touched them. You see, you can get excited, and so we should get excited about truth. That man was excited about that pearl, but he sold everything to own that pearl.

That's where God is coming at us with. The possession of what we are. The whole of religion, the whole of salvation consists in the state of that heart. Not in the state of that mind, but the state of that heart.

God can do nothing for us in the way of imparting the blessings of redemption, but through that heart. Not the mind, through that heart. That heart. You give that heart to God, then God has everything now, and He can do for you.

God can do nothing in the way of imparting those blessings otherwise. Our knowledge of the Word of God will profit you nothing but an argument. If your heart is not open to receive Himself, to come in and to fulfill that through you, what you've learned.

We take it up as words, we invent programs, we have all kinds of things to try to make people like Christ. There's only one thing will make you like Christ. You allow the Holy Ghost to live that Christ through your life.

Amen. That's the only thing that can ever make us into that. Now, our first concern must be for a meek, lowly, tender heart that waits on God. That takes time. What I've heard. You know, I've heard the man of God preach, and I went home at night, and there's something echoed.

You know, you heard maybe just one thing. I believe we spoke of this. Just one thing, and your whole life. Amen. You see, this is going to change me. Something. Here, I've said, I received a tract. A little lady gave me a tract, and the name of that tract was Christ Himself by A .B. Simpson.

Everything about me changed. I mean, I was saved, I was filled. I don't mean I got resaved. But my whole outlook is that man of God talked, and he brought out this great truth that now that I have this life, I have to learn to live by this life.

And he told how he'd had two nervous breakdowns. He could only preach one message a week. He could do nothing. He sought God for healing, but God never healed him. What God taught him was you learn to live my life.

This is a resurrection life. You learn to live the life of another. What you're trying to do, what you're trying to do is yourself. And you broke down, you continually break. God never healed him, but he did the work of ten men, become one of the most prolific writers of all time, and everything he wrote is worth you taking home with you.

I believe one of the great movies said, nobody ever affected me like A .B. Simpson. But he learned to live the life of another. When I saw that, this thought, it will quicken your mortal body. There are no mortal bodies on the other side.

No, no, it's a glorified body. To quicken this mortal body. You know, I'm old enough to be dead, but I preach sometimes ten times a day. That's not natural. You know, I know that's not natural. I've been preaching three and four times a day the last three weeks, and I rode 9 ,000 miles, you know, to get more or less to get where I am.

But I learned, see, that it's not me. I've learned to live. I haven't perfected that, but I have learned enough to live that life. Let him be my life. Not only do I have a better understanding, the only way to understand, but I have the physical strength to do what he told me to do.

A man said to me last night, where do you get the energy? I said, I've just learned. He said, are you tired? I said, not now. But I said, Sunday night, when I get back to Brother Nick's home, I'll be like a glass of water you poured out.

You know, I mean, the Holy Spirit, that life keeps you going. But that, you see, a truth you hear. But if I hadn't heard that, I'd still be struggling, you know, with a lot of things I'm not. So what he asked for out of us is a heart that's not hardened, that to know you see an unteachable spirit, can't hear anything.

You meet a man that knows everything, forget him. You're not going to get anything to him. But as long as that is open, God speaks in his Son to the heart. Salvation will be found in these two things.

And when I talk about salvation, I'm not talking about just the initial. You see, I'm saved, but I'm being saved. That's taught all through the Bible. See, at Calvary, in His death, God dealt with my sins.

I was justified when I accepted Christ. It was as if I'd never sinned in my life at that moment. All of that was gone. But I'm redeemed by His life. There was a self-life that has to be dealt with. The cross dealt with the self.

And now as I learn to walk, there's only one way for me to overcome self, and that is for Christ to replace that. I've turned in on myself for 20 years, folks. Amen. It's become a terrible thing. You know, always trying to find something.

Why am I not hearing from God? You'll never go anywhere. I don't see any willful sin in this life. I know there's things God's going to dig up after a while when I'm able to bear up to it. But I just walk with Him.

He'll deal with it. He's got the cross there to take it away. But I must know, you understand, that to live this, I must listen. I must know that these two things, God speaking to me in His Son, and my heart must be open to hear that voice.

And as I hear it, He never said or commanded anything that He wouldn't do. You know, I have a lot, lot, I thought it was on me, but it's not on me. You know, with this school, 130 countries, I've called my daughter every day.

She'll read me all the emails, come at me everywhere, and she's telling me what they've got to have. And I know half that didn't come in, you know. And so there's a lot of things. And God said to me one time, in really agonizing over some things, He said, Son, I never told you to try not to be anxious.

I commanded you to be anxious in nothing. Yes, sir. He said, I never asked you to try to have faith. I commanded you to have my faith. I never commanded you to do anything that I wouldn't do in you if you let me.

If you keep all this struggling, trying to have the will to not be anxious, you're going to have a nervous breakdown. But if you roll it on me, I don't break down. It'll all work, and it has this far.

Hallelujah. Learning to live that life. It is only in order to receive salvation as a means to an end that something different and higher that He speaks. See, that's salvation. There's something. I receive that.

I have to come into redemption before I can ever become what God wants and become all and receive all that God has. I, one day, if I'll keep walking, I'm going to sit on the throne of this universe with God.

Salvation, Redemption, and the Life of Christ

With Christ. He said, I'm going to let you sit on my throne just like my Father let me sit on His throne. And both thrones are the same. Christ is God, and that throne belongs to Him. But as a man, he had to win that throne.

And he said, now I've got you in testing. If you'll hear my voice, listen to me, you'll win that throne to sit with me too. That's the whole course of God with life. You are in trials, not to be saved, folks, but for inheritance.

To sit on the throne of this universe with Christ. And so you have to pass through all of this. He is speaking, gives, and is salvation. All of it, complete. Not just get me and born again, saved from hell.

But being conformed to the image of Christ. All the while, this is working. You know, when wintertime comes, where they really have the seasons, all the leaves fall off the tree. My wife and I lived in Russia where the school was born.

Beautiful birch trees all around. Where we were in the winter, not a tree. They looked dead. Snowed three foot deep. She and I, we come where it didn't snow. So we had a lot of fun with that snow. We'd be out there and could.

We were walking around in it. We was under those trees. I said, this birch, beautiful tree. But I said, they're dead. Look dead. But I said, they're not dead. They're not dead. They're dormant there. You look up in it and there's all kinds of dead stuff hanging up there.

And I said, doesn't it look wonderful. The man that owned these don't have to get somebody to come out here and beat it off of them. Amen. When you come out here in the spring, all that will be down here and brand new.

That's the way it is with Christ. As you allow Him to grow, the dead is pushed off. You turn in on yourself. If you crucify self, you produce a self worse than self was. But if you let the Holy Ghost direct you in that life, deal with that life, then Christ lives.

That's the reason it's a constant walk of death and resurrection. Death to me and He's coming up. Death to what I am. It's not I, but it's Christ. And all along this pathway, that's being affected in our lives as we hear what He is saying.

His speaking is a revelation of Himself to my heart. And this is what I want you to be. Now let the work of my life be to listen with a meek and tender spirit. That's the word. To hear what He said. Because I know now enough that He will affect that in me if I hear it.

If I hear it, He will affect. So let the work, not strive in trying to draw a blueprint for God. He's got the blueprint sitting at His right hand. His name is Jesus. Amen. He wants no other. That's the purpose.

This universe will be filled with Christ, God's Son. The Bible said righteousness. And the Bible said He is the righteousness. We'll cover this earth one day. As the waters cover the sea. That's when He comes back with us.

I know that. But this earth, every man will sit under his own vine. And nobody will make him afraid. Nothing so hinders you as God's voice and as open at the heart to do much to other voices. You know, you just listen to too many other voices.

You let the politics affect you. I believe every man ought to vote his conviction. But I can't change it. Two of the most contrasts ever to run in America just ran. Mr. Bush. Mr. Kerry. Mr. Kerry. If he had got in there, homosexual marriage, everything else would have been, you know, everything.

But there's nothing I could do. I was really concerned. God said to me, why are you so... Don't you believe I put over the nations who I will? Now you vote. You pray. You get on with my business. And whoever's over, you thank God that the will of God's be done.

Whatever it takes. I couldn't understand why George W. Bush Sr. was voted out and a man like Clinton got in. But God spoke to my heart. I prayed about it. He said, look, I don't have any trouble dealing with Sodom.

I can carry it up in one night. Don't worry about Sodom. But George Bush was going to deal with Israel. His new world order is going to set that aside. That's eternal. I put him down. Because I can handle the homosexuals.

I can handle everything else. One night, I can put that out. But when you begin to touch the eternal sea, in other words, walking with God, and you're deeply interested in the news, the literature, or the society of the world, you can't hear God.

You know, nothing can live outside of its environment. Paul said in caution that I am complete in Christ. That's my environment. I'm complete in Christ. Nothing can live outside of its environment. Take a fish out of water, he'll die.

He cannot live outside of that water. And you cannot live outside of Christ. When you willfully take yourself out and watch filth, he won't sit there with you. You listen to filth, he won't sit there with you.

You may come back, but you may have AIDS when you get back. Spiritually, I'm talking about. You see, you cannot live. I must choose to live in the environment of God. It doesn't matter. This faith must govern my every moment.

Even my wife and I, our privacy of our own bedroom, this faith must govern everything, our conversation, and everything. Because in God, I move, I breathe. I have my being. And this has to always, that attentiveness, an ear deeply, deeply interested in all that world came to hear.

It needs stillness, retirement, consecration to give God the attention that he claims. And if you will, Wherefore even as the Holy Ghost saith, That's what, as he said, If you hear his voice. Now, in quoting, this is a very wonderful thing.

The Holy Spirit Interprets the Word

In quoting, that 95th Psalm here, the writer, uses the word expression, As the Holy Ghost saith. What he does, he regards that Psalm as the very voice of God, doesn't he? He said, this is of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost said this. And he said, if he said there's more in it than I'm going to get in a lecture. That's what he said. As the Holy Ghost said. When I come to honor this word, From that standpoint, I'm going to know there's more.

See, I see more in that than the man on the street reading it sees. Yeah, I see, you'll see more. It is only on this ground that he sees in them a deeper meaning. On the ground of the Holy Ghost. Then we would have looked for, More than we would have looked for, And teaches us to find in the words, Enter into my rest.

Enter into my rest. The revelation of a deep spiritual mystery, A prophecy of what Christ could bring, And should bring to our lives. Enter into that rest. Now, such as the Holy Ghost gave the word, So it was the Holy Spirit that taught the Apostle Paul, I think he wrote that, To set it forth in its spiritual meaning.

The words of the Holy Ghost have to have the Holy Ghost interpret them. You can't, not scholastically, I make no appeal for ignorance, But you can't learn this Bible academically. The Holy Ghost has to teach it.

So you have to have an ear to hear what He's saying. We must ever be aware, That the Holy Spirit only interprets to those to whom He dwells. He doesn't tell the world out there. He doesn't tell the ungodly.

He doesn't just tell the religious. He tells those in whom He lives. And if that heart is open, I'll hear. I was in a wedding years ago during the Vietnam War. And I didn't perform the wedding, But some folks I knew, business people, Pretty high class deal, And I was there and it was over.

They didn't have alcohol or nothing added, Though it wasn't a Christian deal, But I was there at the reception table and all. And the lady who was professor at that time at the Rice University, Introduced herself, wondering who I was.

And I told her that I was a preacher, a minister of Christ. And she said, What do you think about the Vietnam War? I said, What do you mean? I was home for a little while. We were out there seven years.

Saw Pentecost come the first time to that world. But she said, What do you think about that war? I said, What do you mean? How do you think there's a solution? I said, Only Christ has a solution to that.

Oh my! I may as well drop the bomb in that wedding. What's Jesus got to do with it? I said, It had nothing to do with starting it. But if we just get God in the right place, I said, We can find an occasion.

We'll find an answer to things. You know, I wasn't being facetious. She asked me. I told her what I believed. Oh, she said, I doubt you even believe in evolution. I said, No, not a matter of believing, ma 'am.

I know that isn't true. She looked at me as being ignorant anyway, you know, Because I didn't go through Rice University. She said, You know. I said, Yes, ma 'am. She said, I work with the smartest people in the world.

Not just in Houston, but all over. I'm in contact. Physicists, all kinds. I work with them. They're not sure about evolution. They believe it. But they don't just absolutely know. I said, Well, the difference between me and them, ma 'am, I know.

Well, how do you know? I said, Evidently you read the book of Genesis. You know something about the creation story. She said, I know all about it. I've read it. Don't believe it, but I read it. I said, Well, I'll tell you.

You read where that spirit moved over that void and brought light and brought order. Yes, I do. I said, That spirit's in me, and every time I read it, he said, Amen. That's exactly the way it was. No question.

None whatsoever, ma 'am. That's the way it was. I said, He lives in me. And I know that to be a fact. That's the Holy Spirit. You see, He takes the Holy Ghost to interpret it. This brings us to one of the most important lessons in your spiritual life, that the Holy Ghost has spoken, and He alone can make it plain to your heart.

You must have a heart that will listen to it. Don't come up with your own conceived notions and ideas. I've been taught things by church that I found out they were wrong. When I grew up in the schools in America a long, long time ago, I had a very, very mind for math.

I had no trouble with playing in solid geometry, with algebra, but it just passed. I didn't excel. I could have excelled, but I didn't because I said, I couldn't put this on a plow handle. That's my only thinking.

I said, What am I going to do with this? How are you going to put that on a plow handle? I didn't realize where I was going, but number one, nobody taught me that geometry is a language of vision. That Einstein knew the shape of those stars by geometrical reasoning before he ever saw them.

Nobody told me that the alphabet of heaven is circles, rectangles, and triangles. Nobody told me that, and so I never learned. So I was angry at the teacher when I saw what could have been. But I preached for 20 years, and I began to learn what I'm telling you.

And I was mad at the people that brought me in because they never told me this. So I lived 20 years a preacher of Frumlin. God blessed what he could, but it was a secondary deal and not the primary. God did the best he could with Saul, but that wasn't his will.

David was, and he was so with us. He uses human words, the Holy Ghost I'm talking about, uses human words and thoughts, and regarded from the human side, they can be explained and propounded by the seminary.

From the human side. He uses the same word I use. Same thoughts to bring. But even with a true Christian, this does not bring him any farther than the Old Testament preliminary stage. I mean, understand this book by human thought, the human.

The prophets sought, listen to it. 1 Peter 1 .11 shows you. It said, the prophets sought, searched diligently, what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto. They never knew.

You see, they were looking at it. They read it. He's going to come. But they never understood that. Most of the church doesn't because they're still in that preliminary place. They don't allow the Holy Ghost, the Bible to know this is a revelation, but it contains a revelation.

And men have built a hundred different organizations out of the same Bible, and all of them claim to be preaching the truth. The Holy Ghost cannot possibly lead us into the power of the blessings of God, unless with our whole heart we listen to His voice.

That I'm set on knowing what is God saying to me. Is this what He means? What does He know? If you hear His voice, harden not your heart. My, my. God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our heart. God asks us to yield our whole heart to that leading, and it is the indwelling Holy Ghost that He will call us and fit us to listen to that voice.

His life becomes our life. God's command to every believer then, be filled with the Spirit. Not a suggestion. See, in Pentecost, 52 years, especially as a preacher, I've watched the change. Number one, He become our helper.

He didn't come to help you promote your programs. He come to be your life. No, He didn't come to assist the flesh in being religious. He come to be the life, your life, my life, the life of that church.

Then from there, we made Him optional. We learned how. We're more educated than they were. Amen. Somebody asked one of the big preachers in America. Now they sing, you know, courses. It's more about them than it is about God.

You've heard those. And they asked him, said, Why? Have you moved from those old songs with the theology? Well, it's a different time. He said, They were sad back then, and they'd come out of a melancholy heart.

For me to sing about Jesus had come out of a melancholy heart. About the love of God, about walking with God. Now we sing about ourselves. A big part. I was in England in a church. And when I got there, the young man, I think he'd been instructed to tell me.

He said, Now, our pastor, he never preaches over about 10 or 15 minutes. But said, We sing. We do a lot of singing. It's a worship singing. Well, one hour and 20 minutes. Well, I've got flat footage standing there.