Holy Spirit - Come Back to Your Church — David Wilkerson

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The Holy Spirit Poured Out Upon the Church

Holy Spirit, come back to your church. Holy Spirit, come back to your church. Why don't you go to Isaiah, the 32nd chapter. The 32nd chapter of Isaiah. Let's start reading verse 32. I'm sorry, verse 15.

There's no 32. Okay, start in verse 15. Until the Spirit be poured out upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and a fruitful field be counted for a forest, then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, righteousness remain in the fruitful field.

The work of righteousness shall be peace, the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and assured dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

When it shall hail, coming down on the forest, and the city shall be low in a low place. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass. Verse 15. Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and a fruitful field be counted for a forest.

Heavenly Father, we come trembling before your holiness, before your righteous word. And Lord, we pray that you give us strength now to proclaim the word that has been birthed in us through prayer and fasting.

And Lord, we speak your heart. Lord, I thank you that you've spoken so clearly to my heart. And Lord, we pray that you bring it forth the way you want it to be brought forth. Lord, in this church, never let us ever be afraid of reproof.

Never let us be afraid of the prophetic word. Let us never be afraid to hear about what is coming. For you do have watchmen. And Lord, I've been made a watchman. One of your many watchmen to warn of what is coming and to plead for what we need.

And Lord, we just stand before this people humbly this morning and ask you to bring this forth as you brought it to my heart. Alone in the secret closet. To hear the heart of God. To hear what he's saying.

To see the church as he sees it. To see what is happening in his mind and in his heart. No man can get that from another man. It can't be gotten from a book or theology. It has to come from the heart of God.

And Lord, I believe I've seen something of your heart. And though I tremble, I still rejoice. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. The question is, are we living in the power, the full power and fullness of the Holy Ghost?

Is the church moving in the power and authority of the Holy Ghost? When God birthed this church, he baptized it. He filled it with the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Holy Spirit. And all fruit, all the blessing was to come from the power and the anointing of the Holy Ghost that was on his people.

The Holy Spirit was not poured out just as some mass outpouring. It was poured out on individuals. The Bible said every one of them received the Holy Spirit. Every individual. This is an individual matter.

Are you walking? Are you living in the fullness of the Holy Spirit? Is the church of Jesus Christ in America and, for that matter, the whole world, is it really true Pentecost? I'm not talking about the Pentecostal movement.

I'm not talking about the charismatic movement. I'm talking about the genuine outpouring upon all flesh. Is the church, the modern church, the church of today, this church, every church here in New York City and all the churches we contact and know about around the world.

We've been around the world in the past two years and we've seen and watched and noticed things that are happening in the church of Jesus Christ. Now, Joel prophesied that when the Holy Ghost comes to the church, there will be prophetic utterance.

There will be prophecies. There will be incredible, exciting things happen. Your old men will bring dreams that bring men and women closer to God. Young men and sons and daughters would be prophesying and there would be visions by young men.

Visions of Jesus Christ. Visions of what is coming. The prophetic visions of the Holy Spirit bringing to the church, warning the church, building up the church. Then in the 32nd chapter of Isaiah, this prophet has an additional view, has additional revelation of what happens when the Holy Spirit comes.

And he also tells us what happens to a church when the Holy Ghost departs. Isaiah said, until the Spirit be poured out from on high. And he says, when that Spirit comes, when the Spirit of God is poured out.

He's not talking about one time outpouring on the day of Pentecost. He's talking about these refreshings that come from the Lord. He's talking about every generation needing an outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

Whether you believe it or not, and I think if you walk in with the Lord, you see the need of it. We need an outpouring of the Holy Spirit as no other generation. We need a new, fresh moving of the Holy Spirit.

You and I in this church have seen nothing in comparison to what the Holy Spirit wants to accomplish. We have reached this city in such a small capacity, and compared to how He wants, by His Spirit, through His people, to reach cities like New York City.

He says, and by the way, this prophecy was first directed to the Israelites under the reign of Uzziah. And it was first focused to that, but it's a dual prophecy also directed to this generation. He says the wilderness, when the Holy Ghost comes to a church, that which was a wilderness becomes a fruitful field.

And He said it's not going to be a temporary harvest. It's going to grow into a forest. When the Holy Ghost comes, He comes onto a barren field where there's no fruit. Nothing is happening. There's death.

There's no fruit. People are not really getting saved. And when the Holy Spirit comes, everything springs up to life because He's a life-giving Spirit. Everything in the church comes to life. And the fields begin to bring forth fruit.

And He said sometimes it grows up to small trees and then to giant trees. He said it covers the forest and that means a continual harvest. You can have cuttings from that year after year after year. Oh, I know of churches that I visited where the Spirit of the Lord came down 50 years and 50 years later, God is still moving by His Spirit and God is still working.

And I've been in other churches that had great, so-called great revivals, and now the Spirit is gone. It's lifted. The churches are dead and dry. And where there were thousands coming, there'll be 50 people sitting here.

Judgment, Righteousness, and the Cleansing Work of the Holy Spirit

Folks, the Bible says when the Holy Ghost, the prophet Isaiah, says that it will be fruitful, there will come a message of judgment against sin, the prophet said. And that will produce righteousness. When the Holy Ghost comes to a church, everything begins to change.

The preaching changes. It's a preaching birth of fire, the fire of the Holy Ghost. And the Bible says judgment begins in the house of God. And if judgment begins in the house of God, it begins in the pulpit.

And the Holy Ghost comes and begins to move on the man in the pulpit or the pastors, as it may be. And the Holy Ghost begins to shake them first, lovingly dealing with anything hidden in the life, preparing it to receive the fullness and to become the channel and the flow of the Holy Spirit to the house of God.

And when that happens, there comes a shaking ministry, a stirring ministry. When the Holy Ghost came to the upper room, Peter began to preach. And there, the Bible said, their hearts were pricked. And they were stirred and they fell on their face and cried out, What must be due to be saved?

That was conviction. You didn't have to try to seduce people into the house of God. When the Holy Ghost is in a church, when there's a man that's on fire, people will come from everywhere to hear that man.

And when the whole congregation is on fire, you don't have to advertise even. You don't have to have some gimmick. You don't have to wave flags around. You don't have to have all kinds of foolishness.

You don't have to entertain anybody. Because the Holy Ghost begins to draw the sick and afflicted and those that are tired of their sins. Because the Holy Ghost is in the church. This is the work of the Holy Ghost, to convict of sin, righteousness and judgment.

When the Spirit of God is lifted from the church, there's no more restraint. When the Holy Ghost is moving in the church, there is a restraining power. Gossipers are exposed. I said gossipers are exposed.

Those that have bitter tongues that rise up against leadership. Those that rise up against spiritual authority. Those who touch God's anointed face a death sentence. Just as in the day of Pentecost. I've seen it over and over again.

I've seen people die, left and right, who've touched God's anointed. Because the Holy Ghost is in the church. Now, if it's not a Holy Ghost church, if there's not men and women of God in the pulpit, moving in the power of the anointing of the Holy Ghost, you can sit there and say what you want and get away with it.

But you can't get away with it when the Holy Ghost is in the church. On the day of Pentecost, there's a lie against the Holy Ghost and two people drop dead. I'm telling you, I've seen it and I know it.

And one thing that is so clear when the Holy Ghost comes to a church, anyone who's trying to cause division, and they're in little cliques, God begins to isolate them. They became isolated and one gets convicted, another gets convicted, until the ringleader's standing all alone, isolated, and has to go to another church so he can stir up another clique.

But the Holy Ghost, though He woos the hungry, though He woos those who have a heart after Him, He starts moving out. Moving out those who don't want to go on to the fullness of God. That's why our churches need the Holy Spirit, because He's a restraining force.

Denominational Drift and the Loss of Spiritual Restraint

One major denomination has no more restraining power. One of the old line, strongest denomination, one of their pastors wrote me a letter. He'd just gone to their General Assembly. He said, Pastor Dave, we voted to support partial birth abortion, even though Congress has voted against it.

What a sad thing when the Congress is more godly than our denomination. Our new moderator, who is to serve as the spokesman for the next two years, openly supports ordination of gays and lesbians, and is, in fact, from a group they call More Light, so named because they believe they have more light than the rest of us on the matter of homosexuality.

As a minister of this denomination, I'm allowed to bless same-sex unions. How can I bless what God calls perverse? We voted on whether or not to strike from our Constitution the language that prevents ordination of self-affirming, practicing homosexuals.

Though it didn't pass, it missed only by four votes, only four votes from this total abomination, and they say that the next year it will pass. It's almost as if we're looking for ways to offend Almighty God.

The denomination voted to censure Israel and to order divestiture of $7 billion from all Israeli companies and those companies doing business with Israel. We did not call for sanctions against human rights violations in China or Iran.

We are not targeting terrorists supporting Syria or Saudi Arabia. No, we're calling sanctions against the people of God. May God have mercy on us. This man is forced to leave his denomination because the Holy Spirit has left that denomination.

He is gone. There's no more restraining power and so anything goes. Now, homosexual marriages, everything, all hell breaks loose because there's no restraining power because the Holy Ghost has long left and it's Ichabod, the glory of God, has departed.

The work of the Holy Ghost when he comes to the church is to do a cleansing work. He cleans out of every individual anything that would hinder the direct flow of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the administrator of the peace of Jesus Christ.

And I want you to listen very closely. Everywhere we go, we find turmoil. We find pastors in total discouragement. We find Christians in despair. Never in all my 50 years of ministry have I heard of so much despair and discouragement and fear among ministers and their wives.

The wives are saying, honey, we don't have to put up with that. Please quit. Get a secular job. We don't have to live like this. We don't need to take the pressure anymore. You find it in verse 17. The work of righteousness shall be peace.

The effect of righteousness, quietness, with assurance forever. My people shall dwell in peaceable habitations. There'll be peace in the house of God. The pastors, when the Spirit of God is in that church, when the man is walking and moving in the Spirit, there's going to be a quiet assurance.

There's going to be peace in his heart. All I can deduct, folks, I'm leaving next Monday for five ministers' conference in Holland and Netherlands and Brussels and Spain and Portugal. And our people that have been over there, we've asked, what are the problems?

And I look at the pages of the problems, marriages and difficulty, and we're talking about ministers too, about despondency, about no fruit, and many ready to quit the ministry all over the world. And I feel they're hurt.

One sister who pastors a small church in the United States, she said, you're too hard on us, Brother Dick, because we work so hard and we pray, but there's no fruit and there's nothing happening and we're discouraged and there's no money, and on and on.

And I want to go, in my flesh, I want to go and say to these people, I want to go to congregations like this where people are hurting so much, and I want to pity and I want to pat you on the back and I want to just say, hold on, and I want to give you, you know, nice encouraging words.

But that doesn't get to the root of the problem. It doesn't get to the root of the problem. The Bible said when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, the result of it is righteousness and peace, joy in the Holy Ghost and peaceable habitations.

That is the effect. And if that effect is not there, if the peace of God is not ruling and reigning, if we are living in turmoil, I have to look into my own heart. If I'm always introspective, if I'm always looking at my past and trying to find out how I failed, if I'm always thinking I'm a failure, if I don't have that quiet peace in my soul, I've got to examine my heart.

Have I allowed some leakage of the Holy Spirit out of my being? And yes, He's living water. And yes, there's a well springing up, but we get leaks. You see, there are measures of the Holy Spirit, and we're to live in a fullness.

He's going to give us all the Holy Spirit that we desire and ask if we seek Him with all of our heart. He wants to baptize us and fill us. I'm not talking about something you received 20 years ago, 30 years ago.

I'm not talking about the times you just spent talking in tongues. I'm talking about having a supply of the Holy Spirit such as you've never had, because Paul talked about the supply of the Holy Spirit through prayer.

There are measures of the Holy Spirit. But the Bible says we need in the last days the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The fullness of the Holy Spirit. Some of you sit here now that had a wonderful measure of the Holy Spirit.

The fire of God burned in you. You had a love for souls. You came to the house of God hardly able to wait until the service started. And the cry of your heart, you had secret times of prayer where you were alone with Him and you just wept in His presence and the Spirit of the Lord would wash over you.

Your faith was strong. And now you've gotten so busy with your own interest. Now, God's not against you having a nice home. I live in a nice home. I have a nice car. That's not the issue. The issue is that you can get so consumed in what you're doing that you can have the very power and presence of God just draining out of you because you neglect Him.

And some of you sitting here have to acknowledge that you are not what you are and where you were just two, three, four, five years ago. There's been changes. And you are not moving now in the realm of the spirit of faith.

You are not seeing fruit in your life. Now you see these moments of despair. You see this unrest in your soul because that's exactly what the prophet says when the Spirit of God departed Israel. He said, there was trouble, you'll find it in verse 9.

Carelessness, False Security, and the Departure of the Spirit

Rise up, ye women that are at ease. Hear my voice, ye careless daughters. Give ear unto my speech. The word woman here, by the way, the bride of Christ is referred to as a woman. Song of Solomon talks about the daughters of Zion.

The church of Jesus Christ is simplified by a woman and Christ, our bride, our bridegroom. And what it is, rise up ye many-membered body is what it really means. Rise up. Rise up out of your ease. Rise up out of your carelessness.

I read it again. Rise up ye women or you many-membered body that are at ease. Hear my voice, ye careless daughters. Give ear unto me. Many days and years shall ye be troubled. See, he's describing what happens when the Spirit of the Lord is not present.

When because of our ease and our carelessness, our unconcern about whether or not he's there, you can go to churches today and there are pastors, and I say it with love, and there are many people satisfied to go to church.

They just want to go. They want to have their hour so they can ease their conscience and they can go back to their TV. They can go back to their good times and their boats and their fishing and their sports.

But they put in their time. They paid God some of their dues. But God help us. If we don't go to church saying, I want to meet God. I want to know that I've gone, I've heard a man in the pulpit that's touched my soul, that has had the fire and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and I can bring my backslidden friends, I can bring my children to church, and I know that the Holy Spirit will be there.

I know that there will be some fire burning in that church. When the Holy Ghost departs, He said, there's carelessness and ease. Many days shall you be troubled, you careless ones. And the vintage shall fail.

The gathering shall not come. Your families are not going to be saved. There's going to be fruitlessness in your life. The vintage is going to fail. There'll be no grapes on the vines. All you're going to see is restlessness, emptiness, discouragement.

He says, wake up. The problem is, you need the Holy Ghost to return. So I've been baptized, the Holy Ghost is in me. I couldn't be saved without the work of the Holy Ghost. True, in a way, He does not abandon His church, but the Bible makes it very, very clear.

It's siloed. He left the church. It's siloed because of its rampant sin, its ease and its carelessness, its false security. Oh, this nation lives in a sense of false security. We can have the towers fall.

We can have thousands die. And it lasts for about a year or so. And then we go back. We go back to our false security until finally we get hardened by all the bad news. We get hardened by it. But you see, the Holy Ghost is the administrator of the peace of God.

When He comes, He administers. He gives out. He gifts people with measures of the Holy Spirit. And He comes first and drives away the disturbances. And He grants the peace of mind and the rest of the Holy Ghost, the rest of Jesus Christ.

It is the rest of Christ. He said, I'll give you peace beyond any understanding. But it's ministered by the Holy Spirit. Isaiah said, look at the dreadful conditions. When the Holy Ghost has gone many days and years, you shall be troubled.

There will be regret, trembling because of no harvest, vines that are empty, joy that has disappeared. And there will be briars and thorns spring up. These are terrible disappointments. I see these thorns and briars springing up all over the world.

Everywhere I go, most churches around the world have about 85, a hundred, a pretty large church. If we have 5 ,000 pastors, the majority of our pastoring church is under 100 people. In Europe especially, where we're going, 500 pastors is a big crowd because there's so few pastors now.

Churches are closing everywhere. The Catholic Church is closing churches all over the United States. In the New York Times today, there's an argument in Harlem about a great Catholic church there now.

They're trying to tear it down and neighbors won't let them tear it down. The Anglican Church, when we were in England this past year, we were in London that very week. They de-sanctified 12 great churches, I mean buildings, de-sanctified them or they shut the doors.

And they're being sold for nightclubs. One was sold to an occult group so they could have an occult museum. And it's awful to travel and walk the streets when you have a few hours off and see these big cathedrals and you walk in and you see monuments to the dead.

You see magic shows, all kinds of demonic, occult activity in these buildings now. All those praying men at one time that used to cry out full of the Holy Ghost 100 years ago. What a grief it would be if they came and saw what had happened to their houses of worship.

You see the fields will turn blighted. But you see, in these churches, many of these churches, the pastors come to our conferences and they sit there with a thorn in their side. They go back and they sit in their congregation.

They work among briars. And you know who those thorns and briars are? These are people that have been preacher killers for years. There'll be a handful in that church. And when I was only 19 years old, my first pastorate, going on 20, I pastored one of those 50 people churches.

And my car was a $50 car. My girlfriend Gwen was afraid, ashamed to ride in it. So I got a leopard skin thing to hang over the seat. She still didn't want to ride in it. But you see, there were thorns and briars in that little congregation because there were three elders and their wives who thought God had called them to kill preachers.

I mean, nobody could do right. I was full of the Holy Ghost and there's only 50 people and I'm preaching like there's a thousand there. And we're going to win this town for Jesus. They didn't want to win the town for Jesus.

They wanted their little fellowship and like to eat and fellowship. And they don't want anybody to come in and break it up. And they turned on me in three months. They didn't want the Holy Ghost in their church.

They wanted fellowship. My father pastored a church. He pastored a number of small churches, but one when I grew up in this little church. Now, see, this is supposed to be a Holy Ghost Pentecostal church.

And there were people, every service, talking in tongues. But the lady over here who talked in tongues more than anybody else was the biggest gossiper and she hated my father. And what a prick she was.

Needle, what a thorn in his side. And the elders, oh, thank God for these godly men behind me. I appreciate them because I've known the other kind. And one day my dad was so burned because he had a board meeting, elders meeting.

And our church had a basement. And my dad's greatest statement to my mom, I just fear going there. I don't know what they're going to, I don't know what's going to happen. I got scared, so I went down to the basement.

I got an old army helder and an old army sword we had downstairs. And I went to the church down the basement ready to come marching out and protect my dad. When my dad was sick in the hospital, dying with ulcers and bleeding, some lady, that lady who could talk in tongues every service, spirit filled, came to visit my father.

And he had a stick with cotton in his mouth to give him a little taste. She went out and said, he's okay, he's eating lollipops. And see, I've never forgotten those kind of things. I've not forgotten that kind of cheap penny cost.

I've not forgotten that kind of foolishness that has held back churches all over the world. But I'm telling you, there's no pastor, there's no man, there's no woman with enough charisma or ability to drive them out of the house of God.

And they're beyond redemption. They're like the children of Israel brought out of my miracles from the promised land and became so addicted to murmuring and complaining, the Lord said, you're going to die in your wilderness.

The Holy Spirit and the Purging of Divisive Churches

And they were beyond redemption. But I want to tell you something. What is needed now, and this church needs to pray with us. I'm giving you a prophecy. Listen closely. Thousands and thousands of churches are being held up in Russia, all over, even in China.

Here in the United States, held up. Little cliques and little clans. Because one rich man thinks he owns the church. Because some gossiper over here is not going to lose her authority. And there's nobody but the Holy Ghost can drive it out.

And I'm going to hit, next Monday, in Brussels and Spain and Portugal, I'm going to hit the ground running. I'm loaded. I've seen dear, precious men depressed because they don't know what to do. And the only way I know to tell pastors is to go in the closet, shut yourself in and don't come out, and fast and pray, and come to this pulpit with the fire of the Holy Ghost and say, that's enough.

If this is a Holy Ghost church, and I know it is a Holy Ghost church, if you plan to sit here and keep gossiping, I want you to know your days are numbered. If you're going to try to rise up against pastors in this church, I'm telling you, you better have a plot somewhere.

You say that's too strong. No, that's the gospel. That's right out of the book of Acts. Why was the Holy Spirit not being a port on these people? The Bible said, because of their carelessness and their ease.

Woe to them that are ease in Zion, who put far away the evil day, even as violence draws near, who stretch themselves upon their couches, eating, chanting music, drinking wine, with no concern, no grief for the afflictions of Joseph.

And God comes and He says, listen to me now, give me your ear, tremble you women at ease, tremble you many-membered body who are at ease. Now, He's talking to dead churches. He's not talking to live churches.

Thank God there are godly men in pulpits. There are men on fire. There are many wonderful on-fire churches in some of this very city of New York. But there's a warning, God's warning to this dead church that's moving in flesh, serving people, nothing but hay and stubble.

Prosperity Gospel and the Coming Judgment

Folks, when the Holy Ghost comes in power and authority, He's going to shut down all ungodly fleshly religious television. Some of these television programs, everywhere we go, all over the world, we see the ruin, the devastation, because they see these beautiful gold sets, where the people in American gospel that God wants you rich, God wants you driving the best car in the world, and here are all these people trying to make a living, driving these little cars, one suit of clothes, wives with one pair of shoes.

And they say, is that what Jesus is? Have we missed it? No, we've not missed it. They've not missed it. We have missed it because we have rejected the Holy Ghost. And God says, that's enough. And God's going to start shutting it all down.

He's going to shut it down. I'm talking about only those that are in the flesh. Beloved, my soul is trembling and there's a divine troubling in my heart because I see what's coming very soon. And I want you to listen closely.

I'm going to try not to repeat it, but I'm going to tell it to you. All it's going to take is one single terrorist, what they call dirty bomb, it's going to kill hundreds of thousands in less than one hour.

The whole world will be in panic. I don't know where, whether it's in the United States or where. Now listen to me, please. Even Homeland Security in the United States and security forces in all of Europe and other nations around the world have been talking about this kind of blast.

And they say it's not if, but when. I have been grieving. I'm not trying to be theatric. But I've been grieving because, you see, the Lord's been giving us little glimpses of what it could be when suddenly hundreds and thousands get into their cars and flee to the deserts and the mountains.

Because, you see, nature's unleashed its fury on the United States and parts of the Caribbean just recently. And you see all south lanes closed and all the highways go north. And as far as the eye can see, six, eight lanes of people fleeing from an unleashed nature.

And now another storm is coming. Can you imagine what it would take in just one hour? How all the prophecies of all the prophets could come to pass and start unveiling right before our eyes. Everything we've warned about over the years.

Can you imagine what it's going to be like when this happens? Not if, but when. When people are fleeing the cities, running to the mountains. When our world leaders are running to their bunkers to hide.

And when young people are running our streets insane with confusion. Not knowing what's happening. Not caring anymore, but just totally unrestrained because tomorrow we die is their thought. You say, brother, I don't want to hear that.

That's fear-mongering. I don't want to hear that kind of talk. You see, Americans don't want that anymore. We're so secure. We don't want to hear it anymore. We want nice, smooth teaching and preaching.

Even some of my friends don't want to hear what I say anymore. But I'm telling you, I am telling you, what if I had stood here in this pulpit a month before 9 -11. And I said, I see coming an attack upon the Twin Towers.

And in one hour, they're going to come to the ground. And our Pentagon is going to be stricken. There will be an attempt on the White House, but the plane will go down somewhere in Pennsylvania. And these are going to be terrorists.

And there are going to be thousands dying. And this city will be turmoil. And people all over the world will be weeping. Would you have believed it? Would you have believed it? What would you have called it?

Would you have called that fear-mongering? It happened. I'm going to Spain next week, week after next. If I had stood there and told them that their country had never known that kind of thing before, but now you're going to see hundreds dead, a terrorist attack, they wouldn't have believed me.

If I'd been in Russia, where Pastor Carter is now, and been in the minister's conference, and had a couple thousand Christians, and I say, you're all going to be weeping soon because 300 of your precious children are going to be blown away, murdered.

Would anybody believe it? See, folks, in my flesh, I don't want to hear it either. But Isaiah says, rise up, ye many-membered body, at ease, and hear my voice, ye careless daughters, and give ear to my speech.

Many days and years you're going to be troubled. The vintage is going to fail. The gathering shall not come. Begin to tremble. You're going to be troubled. Strip you and make bare. You're going to lament.

Folks, picture multitudes fleeing. As they're fleeing out of Alabama and Florida. You couldn't get anywhere. For hours you're sitting there. All the cars are tied up. There's no gas. All the hotels and motels have been booked for weeks.

And just driving on, nowhere to go. Folks, when this happens, where will the church be? How many pastors will be worrying about church growth? How many of us are going to be sitting around talking about our aches and pains?

How many of us are going to do a small talk? How many of us are going to be on the telephone gossiping? How many of these things that we do that have to do with carelessness, how much of that's going to continue?

After 9 -11, you know what I preached from this pulpit. You heard what I said. The towers have fallen and we've missed the message. Just a warning of foretaste. And here it says, verse 19,. And when it shall hail coming down on the forest and the city be laid low.