What Spiritual Awakening Means to the Local Church — Richard Sipley

Thank you so much for that song. It is a very important question tonight in relation to this message. My subject for tonight, as you see in your program, is what spiritual awakening means to the local church.

Elijah, Prayer, and Spiritual Awakening

I'd like to have you turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings, chapter 18. 1 Kings, chapter 18. I'm going to read verses 1 and 2, then verses 17 to 24, 29 to 30, 33 to 39. 1 Kings 18, beginning with verses 1 and 2.

And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go show thyself unto Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth. And Elijah went to show himself unto Ahab, and there was a sore famine in Samaria.

And you know why there was a famine in Samaria? Because Elijah was a man of like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it rained not on the earth for the space of three years and six months.

And he prayed again. And then the rain came, and I believe it's coming. Can you hear it? Verse 17. And it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah that Ahab said unto him, Art thou he that troubleth Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel.

But thou in thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord, and thou hast followed Balaam. Now, therefore, send and gather to me all Israel unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab sent unto all the children of Israel, and gathered the prophets together unto Mount Carmel. And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him.

But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word. I hate those kind of meetings. Don't you hate those guys? They just sit there and stare at you. It's not polite to sit and stare. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord.

But Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them, therefore, give us two bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under.

And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under. And call ye in the name of your gods, your new house, your new car, your new clothes, your new game, your new bank account, your new friends, your new programs, and see if they'll answer by fire.

Will they? No? There'll be none that regards. No voice, no answer. Nothing. And all the people answered and said, it is well spoken. And then go over to verse twenty-nine. The prophets of Baal, they have done their best, or their worst.

And it came to pass when midday was past, and they prophesied until the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that there was neither voice, nor any answer, nor any that regarded. That is one of the most awful things I can imagine, Christians and churches going along without any answer from God, without any voice, without any sign of his blessing, without any power.

That is a terrible, terrible thing. And Elijah said, and all the people come near unto me, and all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel, it shall be thy name.

Verse thirty-three,. And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces, and laid him on the wood, and said, fill four barrels with water, and put it on the burnt sacrifice, and put it on the altar of the Lord.

Now, we make things just as easy for ourselves and for God as we possibly can. But he made it just as hard for God as he knew how to make it. And he said, do it the second time, and they did it the second time.

And he said, do it the third time, and they did it the third time. And the water ran round about the altar, and he filled the trench also with water. And it came to pass, at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word.

Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water and when all the people saw it, there was a spiritual awakening.

I mean, this is a whole nation. And when all the people saw it, they said, the Lord, Jehovah, he is the God. Jehovah, he is the God. Last Friday night, I sat in a visiting room in a prison and visited with a man that I have known for many years who is a leader in the Church of Jesus Christ, an evangelical Christian church leader who has been given a sentence of two and a half years for sexual assault on his daughter.

And that is just one experience among many in this day. You and I have been and we have watched evangelical leaders of tremendous stature and with millions of followers fall into desperate and tragic sin and then try to cover it with self-justification and refuse to deal with it in the proper way, one after the other.

And as we have watched that happen, maybe we have had a tendency to condemn them. Maybe we have had a tendency to criticize them or to think that somehow they are more sinful than others. But I think that our hearts need to be broken and that we need to be greatly saddened.

But that we need to be wise men and women who understand our times. Not only have we seen men who were high in the evangelical church one after the other, and I'm not just talking about television evangelists.

A book I highly recommend to you is a new book by Gordon McDonald, Rebuilding Your Broken World. Another evangelical minister of the cross who fell into sin and totally repented and did it in the proper way with a disciplined direction of the people of God and has fully recovered and has written one of the most helpful books that I have read in ten years.

But what I am saying to you now is that all around the evangelical world people of great stature and great leadership and greatly admired by men, people looked up to and almost worshipped as some kind of an unusual and divine person have fallen into sin, have fallen from their positions, the money has always been taken away, the television stations have been cut off, and this whole great big structure is collapsing.

And then we turn to the political world and we see men who have been admired on every side, men on whom we set our hopes, men of whom it was said they are going to be Christians in the White House or Christians in the places of government, and they are going to bring about reform and they are going to turn the hearts of the Western world back to God.

And many Christians have become involved. I know one of my friends that I greatly admire and who has been a friend of mine for many years, the last time I visited him in the eastern United States, he told me that he was spending almost all of his time and pouring thousands of dollars into supporting a Christian minister of the gospel as a candidate for president.

And I said, I can't believe you are actually doing this. This is not the way God wants to do this. And of course that man did not get the nomination and that man did not get elected president. And I know many thousands of Christians were greatly disappointed.

But what I want to say to you now, and I want to say it very earnestly tonight, I am not disappointed. I am disappointed in the sin. I am disappointed in the failure of men. I am disappointed in their immorality, yes.

But I am disappointed about my own sin, too. What about you? But do you know what I believe God is doing? I believe that God is taking the eyes of the Church of Jesus Christ off from man, because he wants to get our eyes back on God, where it belongs.

And I believe that he is doing that because he wants to bring about a great revival in the Church of Jesus Christ, and he wants it to flow over into the world, and he wants to bring a spiritual awakening.

Revival Requires Total Decisions

And when that spiritual awakening comes, what will it mean to the Church? What will it mean to the local Church? What will it mean to the people that are in the Church? I think often about people praying for revival and talking about revival and preaching about revival, and I wonder what they would do if a spiritual awakening came in their city and suddenly the population of that city rushed into the churches and packed into the doors and sat there every night waiting for somebody to do something.

I just don't think we have any idea what we are talking about when we are talking about a spiritual awakening of the kind that has happened in the past, but it is what is coming, and brother and sister, we better get ready for it, because it is coming.

And God is whispering this in some of our hearts, and the voice is getting louder and louder, and he is pushing us and he is pressing us, and he is refusing to allow us to get away from it, and he won't let us have a good time and he won't let us play and he won't let us rest or anything else.

It isn't nice. It isn't comfortable. Now, what will this mean? What will this awakening mean in the local church? Let me give it to you quickly tonight. First of all, it will mean decisions. How long halts you between two opinions?

If the Lord be God, serve him. But if they'll be God, serve him. One of the things that happens in both revival and the spiritual awakening is that the Holy Spirit of God presses, like we have never known before, for complete and total decisions.

I don't mean just little decisions. I don't mean decisions about small things. I don't mean just a decision to stop smoking or just a decision to give up this or just a decision to do that. But God presses us for major decisions.

If the Lord be God, then serve him totally, but if you're not going to serve him totally, then go and serve the world. One of the reasons that people really don't mean business when they pray about revival and really don't mean business when they start talking about a great spiritual awakening is because down deep in their hearts, behind all their praying and talking and outward appearance, there is a nagging suspicion that if it really happened, that the Holy Ghost would come sweeping in upon them and would sweep away all of the things of this world that are clinging to their life and that are holding them in bondage and that are keeping them busy and keeping them from serving God totally and that suddenly God would wash it all away and he would come in with great power and he would insist that they live totally for him and be completely given to the Lord Jesus Christ.

If the Lord be God, serve him. And I believe that's the challenge that God is bringing to us here in this place tonight. I believe in this conference this weekend that God is bringing us the challenge.

If we are going to pray for not only revival but believe in for a spiritual awakening, are we ready to pay the price and are we ready to make the kind of decisions that God is going to require of us? I tell you frankly that I've just been going through another time of decision.

If you think that somewhere you made a decision that's going to finish them all, as one of the men said here, don't think that. Because God will take you to some very complete decisions and of course you don't know all that means.

And then after a while God will take you to some more and then after that he'll take you to some more. And recently God has really been on my trail. And I tell you, I don't remember any time in my life when God has been so insistent with me and so determined that he was going to get my attention and that I was going to do exactly what he wanted me to do.

And you know, I didn't realize, and I'll just tell you frankly, I didn't realize that over a period of time as a pastor of a wonderful church that's growing and all the good things are happening, I suppose if you were there you would say, I mean, that's a tremendous church, and it is.

And wonderful things are happening all the time. And I didn't realize in the midst of all that and all of my busyness and the work that I'm doing that I could allow myself to slowly start to get involved in doing some things just to please myself and just to kind of take it easy and to kind of relax and put my feet up.

And the brethren even started to tell me that I was 62 and that I really probably should start thinking about slowing down. Now, there isn't any reason at all in the world to slow down when you're 62 unless you just can't go anymore.

And you say, I don't feel like going anymore. That hasn't got anything to do with it. I see teenagers that don't feel like going either. Sleep till noon unless you kick them out of bed. No, that doesn't have anything to do with it.

Amen. I say, if I had time to preach two sermons tonight, I'd preach the one I preached last Sunday morning on Caleb. He did his greatest work when he was 85 and I said, I'm only 62. I've got 23 years to go before I do my greatest work.

He's 85 and he started out to do the greatest work he'd ever done in his life. You see, we need to start making some new decisions. Let me speak very briefly. I'm old age and older here tonight because this is very, very important.

I don't know if you've read the book Age Wave or not, the secular book, but I'll tell you what is happening in North America. What is happening in North America is that very shortly people from middle age on up are going to be the predominant number of people in North America.

And it isn't going to be the young people that are going to have to carry the burden of this tremendous revival and awakening. It's going to have to be the people of middle and upper years and the young people are going to come along with the energy of youth and put a lot of spark in it.

But people who think that it's time to slow down, and they think it's time to slow down as far as God is concerned, and to kind of lean back and take it easy and put their feet up and start having a good time and take long holidays and be gone for the winter.

Boy, people in Canada love that. Now I've gone to meddling. The snowbirds? And just take it easy all winter and then come back and wonder why they're not on a board in the summer. Not in my church. You say, I sort of enjoyed you the other night, but I'm getting a little mad at you now.

You see, God is pressing us for decisions as to whether we're going to serve the Lord totally, give him everything, our time, our energy, our strength, our passion, our love, give him our lives and give it to him unreservedly and unconditionally and completely and right down to the end of our life or not.

Which is it going to be? Which is it going to be? When I get home from this conference, I'll be starting a series of Sunday night sermons entitled Be Also Ready. Three Sunday night sermons. The first one will be The Way to Be Ready for the Coming of Christ is to Let Go of the World Now.

Do you know that there are lots of Christians who talk about the coming of Jesus Christ and like to go hear prophecy sermons, but if they really thought that Jesus Christ was going to come tomorrow morning, they would be very upset because their fingers are so entangled in the world that they wouldn't know how in the world they could let go so they could go up.

Huh? Let go of the world when? When you think it's getting close to the time for Jesus to come? Want to be ready for him to come? Let go of the world now. The second one is going to be Start Building for Eternity Now.

Lay up treasures in heaven. Not on earth. Lay up treasures in heaven. Let's get our money in heaven. Let's get our bank accounts in heaven. Let's get our time and our energy and our strength in heaven.

It doesn't say lay up treasure for your kids so they'll be lazy and won't have to work when they get your age. It will ruin them. Give it to God. Amen? Hey, I'm even getting some amen on the money. How do you like that?

Revival of faith! And then learn to love Jesus now. Learn to love him now. You know, some people that profess to be Christians really don't enjoy the presence of God now. I wonder how they're going to enjoy it when they're with him.

I wonder how. How long halts you between two opinions? How long do you try to ride the fence, to try to stay in the middle? No. Either serve the Lord or serve the world, one or the other. What will happen?

Revival Brings Change to Church Programs

Well, it not only will mean decisions, it will mean change, and I believe that when revival comes and when spiritual awakening comes, and I'm going to say something I hope you'll understand, but I believe that all programs in the Church that don't minister to the growth of God's people or the salvation of souls go out the window.

Our churches are cluttered, absolutely cluttered, and we need to be ready for change. We don't like change. We have all these sacred cows and all these things we've always done, and we don't like change.

But revival and spiritual awakening bring change. Somebody says, How is it that people are saved in your church all the time? Well, we have seven pastors in our church, but we will not have a pastor in our church that is not a soul winner.

It's no good to stand in the pulpit and say, You go out and win souls. It won't work. See, we need some changes. Somebody says, Well, what about your minister of music? He has to be a soul winner. You say, Well, what about your administrator?

He has to be a soul winner. You say, Well, what about the man who's in Christian Ed? He has to be a soul winner. Or what about your minister of personal care that goes and calls when the people are sick and the old people and the people in the hospitals and the councils and all?

He does Christian counseling. He has to be a soul winner. And he comes out of his office grinning and says, Is the pastor in his office? And I say, Yeah. And he comes to the door and he says, Hey, a couple just received Christ in my office.

See, there's changes. We need to make some changes. So it will mean decisions. Change. What's the second thing it will mean? It will mean conflict. And I don't like conflict. See, I'm not naturally honest.

I'm not. That's not the way I I don't know. I don't know if I was born that way or grew up that way or what. I know I was born a sinner, but I'm not naturally honest. Fortunately, I married a woman who's naturally honest.

I'm too honest. Gee, something. I don't believe she ever told a lie in her life. I don't believe she I don't know. And sometimes she makes it very uncomfortable for me, but it's very good for me. So, you see, I don't like conflict.

I'd rather dodge the conflict, I'd rather not rock the boat, I'd rather go around, I'd rather lie a little bit and cover up a little bit and make it look better than it is and smooth it over, and I mean, that's the way I'm made.

That's my nature. I don't like conflict. But, you know, when revival comes and spiritual awakening comes and the Holy Ghost begins to move with great power, there is absolutely no way that you can avoid some kinds of conflict.

You see, there's no way you can avoid the cross, and the cross is a place of conflict. It's a place where two kingdoms clash. It's a place where the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness come together.

And there's blood and there's agony and there's tears and there's pain and there is death. And Elijah said, get the prophets of Baal and get the prophets of the grove, 850 in all, and get them out here and let's have a contest and let's see who is really God and let's see where the power really is.

We try to solve our conflicts with man's methods, but man's methods will not do it. It takes the power of God to do it. And he said, now you go ahead and do your best. And they did their best, and when it was all over and the fire had come down and the people had cried out and fallen on their faces and said, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God, then Elijah said, now let's go all the way to the cross and let's not stop short with a little prayer meeting and let's not stop short with a little emotionalism and with an altar call, but let's go all the way and let's go to death.

And he said, get the prophets of Baal, all 850, and kill them all. They all have to die. Not one can be left. Do you know it's a whole lot easier to just go ahead and die right up front and get it over with than it is to die by inches all your life?

You know, if you're a Christian and you just don't go ahead and get it over with, you're just, it's like cutting a dog's tail off by inches. I wouldn't want to really hurt the little thing and cut it off all at once, you know.

So he said, you cut a little off. Somebody says, now this whole revival business is too drastic, it's too harsh, and you talk about Calvary and you talk about going there and being nailed to that bloody cross with Jesus and really dying.

I mean, that's extreme, that's fanatical. Don't you think we can just kind of go along and die a little bit as we go? Well, I'll tell you, if it was me, I'd rather they just get me up there and nail me up and get it over with.

I mean, it took Jesus six hours to die on that cross, and normally it took men longer than that. That's slow enough. Why do some of us drag out the agony? He said, well, I was just kind of hoping that we wouldn't have to go all the way through with it.

Somewhere along the way somebody would pull out the nails and stop the process, but God won't let us get away with that. He says, well, go ahead and die slow if you like, it's just going to be harder on you, but I'm going to stand right here and wait until it's done.

And there are folks here tonight who've been playing around with this whole business, and yet tonight, you know, like some of these people, they came, they didn't want to make any decisions. People come to revival meetings, they've already decided before they ever came out the front door that they weren't going to make any decisions.

They say to themselves, well, I'm going over there, but I'll tell you what, I'm not going to that prayer room. I found out some new people in our church got scared, they wondered what was in that prayer room.

I mean, really, they asked what was in there. They wondered about people going in there and coming out again. We said, there's nothing but a rug and some chairs in there. Just go in there. But I'll tell you what else is in there.

The cross is in there. And there are folks here tonight that need to just go ahead and get it over with. And make that full decision. And let all the bales be slain. Let all of the world be put to death as far as you know it.

Now, you don't know it all, neither do I. But as far as you know, let's do a complete job, huh? How about it? Some of you could go home tonight so happy, so free, if you just make it a complete and a total job tonight.

But there will be conflicts. Conflicts between God and Satan. Conflicts between the church and the world. Conflicts between the spirit and the flesh. Sometimes conflicts between husband and wife and boyfriend and girlfriend and parents and children.

And we can't avoid it. But you know, God can bring blessing out of it. There was Jezebel, and she said to Elijah, So you want a revival, do you? Well, I'll tell you what. By this time tomorrow, God do the same thing to me if I don't make you like one of those prophets by this time tomorrow.

She said, I'm going to kill you. Do you call that conflict? Somebody says, How can you have apostasy and revival all together in the last days before Jesus Christ comes? I'll tell you, we could have a world-shaking revival and a tremendous spiritual awakening that would gather millions into the kingdom of God and still have the world rise up and resist it in anger, and there could be the worst persecution this world has ever seen since it began.

And the two could go hand in hand. I don't know that that will happen. I'm just saying that there isn't anything in the Bible that says it couldn't happen. And just recently again, God brought me to the place where I said to him, Lord, I know what you want to do, and with your help I'm going to obey you and I'm going to be part of it no matter what.

No matter what. And that's the kind of a decision God is calling us to tonight. The third thing that it will mean in the church and the people of the church, a spiritual awakening will mean a repairing of broken altars.

Repairing Broken Altars and Restoring Devotions

Now, these prophets of Baal had made their altar and they had run on the altar, they had cried out, they had covered it with blood from their own bodies and their tears and prayers, and they had made a mess of the altar.

They had broken some of it down by running on it. And then it says that Elijah built up again the altar of the Lord that was broken down. And it will mean the repairing of broken altars in our lives. You say, what does that mean?

Such as our personal devotions, such as family devotions. Do you know what I find over and over again when people come to me for counseling as a problem. And I'm talking about Christians that have some kind of a spiritual problem.

And I'll say to them, do you have a regular time every day when you get with God and read your Bible and pray and seek his face? And I would say very close to 100 of the time, they do not. See, it's very simple, really, the means of grace, the things that God has instituted in the Christian life to give us grace and to give us victory and to help us to live for him.

And one of the things that happens in revival and spiritual awakening is that the altars of the Lord that have been broken down by our indifference and by our coldness and by our worldliness and our busyness and our carelessness, the altars of the Lord, such as our prayer time and our Bible reading and our Bible study and our family devotions.

Dad, has your child ever heard you pray for that child and for the rest of the family by name? I've talked to children and young people brought up in Christian homes and I've asked them that question and they have looked at me with tears in their eyes and said, Pastor, I have never heard my dad ever pray for me by name, ever.

There are a lot of altars that are broken down in the lives of Christians, things that used to be sacred altars in the lives of God's people. Family devotions. I tell you what, we had family devotions in our home when I was growing up every morning and every night.

Every morning before we went off to school, my father and mother gathered us together right after breakfast and my dad read the Bible and we all got down on our knees, father, mother and four children, and we prayed together.

One morning it was my birthday, I was eight years old, and we got down to pray and it was my mother's turn to pray and she had no idea why she did it, but in her prayer she said, Lord, please don't let, and my middle name is Malcolm, by the way, and that's what they called me then, she said, Lord, please don't let Malcolm get killed today.

That's a strange prayer for a mother to pray just for one out of four kids. And it was my birthday. Not a good way to start your birthday. And I ran out the door to school and on the way to school some of the kids discovered it was my birthday and they started chasing me to give me a birthday spanking on the way to school, and I could run fast in those days, and I was outrunning them very nicely until I ran across the main thoroughfare and got run over by an automobile.

Next thing I knew I was crawling out from under that car, tried to stand up and fell down on the pavement and blood all over me. The man who was driving the car had stopped and the farmer came running up and grabbed me up in his arms and got in the car and we took off for the hospital.

You say, did you live? They say, no ghost. You say, well, I've always wondered what was the matter with you. Well, now you know. But you know all I had was just a place on my ankle where I tore my sneaker off and tore a piece of skin about that size off my ankle.

And that's all I had. Do you think these old altars that were in the Christian home have any point? I grew up with that. I grew up with that. I heard my father and mother pray for me every day of my life from the time I was old enough to remember hearing anything.

Even when I was a teenager and I was out with the young people and I wasn't even doing anything wicked or sinful or drugs or alcohol or sex or any of that. I was out with the kids in the church, in church meetings, having a date with my girlfriend and behaving myself.

And I'd come home late at night and the family had gone to bed and I would tippy-toe in the door because it was a little too late. And I'd hear a voice and look in the living room and there was my dear mother on her knees praying.

Many times I heard her praying, Dear Lord, by then all the kids had changed my name and she's called me Dick and said, Dear Lord, bring Dick home safe tonight and keep him from sin. What happened to the altars in the Christian life?

What about church attendance? Oh, well, you say, Some of us go to church too much. Yes, that's true, but I know people who just go on Sunday morning. I tell you, I like to be there every time the door is open and I like to get up front.

Do you know why? I want to be under the spout where the glory comes out. I mean, if anything is going to happen, I want to see it. Be right there. And then tithing. Who said amen to some preacher? Tithing, giving to God.

Well, you can say a lot about that. Witnessing, sharing our faith, on and on it goes. Family altars. I don't know what the altars are in your life that are broken down, but I do know that revival and spiritual awakening will be that great moving of God in our hearts which will bring us to rebuild the family altars in our lives.

All of these Christian altars. These sacred means of grace that God has instituted in our lives. They will be there. It's interesting about working on Sunday. See, now I am going to meddle. You say, now wait a minute, Pastor, don't you know that Sunday is not the Sabbath?

I know that. You know that? Yes, I know that. The Bible does not teach that Sunday is the Sabbath. But you know what? It is a day. It's interesting. It's a day that's been set aside in North America for many years to gather together with God's people and to seek his face.

When I was a young man and going out trying to make a living and save my money to go to college and these kinds of things, I remember I had a job with the State Highway Department, or I went to get a job with them in the Engineering Department, and the man that interviewed me said, You know, the job you're applying for in the Engineering Department is a seven-day-a-week job, 24 hours a day.

You're on call any time, seven days a week. I said, Well, that's very nice, but I won't be there on Sunday. Oh, he said, You can't leave Sunday out. He said, If we need you on Sunday and you're building a highway and you need to be out there with the Engineering Department, that's where you have to be.

I said, I'll tell you what, I'll make a deal with you. This is a good one. I love these kinds of deals. I said, Listen, I'll make a deal with you. I'll tell you what. If you give me this job, and I won't take it any other way.

If you give me this job, and you need me on Sunday, I'll be out there on Sunday on one condition, that once I get out there, and all the highway crew is out there, and all the Engineering Department crew is out there, and all the workers are out there, that you'll shut down all the machines and give me one hour to preach, and then I'll work the rest of the day.

That just scared the devil almost to death. I could hear him swallow his teeth. You know what, the devil made sure they never called on me on Sunday, ever. I worked with him for three years. You know, he hired me that way.

That guy actually hired me that way. And the devil made sure they never called me on Sunday. I didn't have to worry about it. The devil took care of that. But the Lord didn't have to do a thing. It didn't even do the devil any good, though.

We got out there, and every time it would rain, and none of the highway crews could work, and the Engineering Department couldn't work either, and they'd all go and sit in the station wagon while it poured down rain and covered everything with mud, and then we'd have a two or three-hour Bible study and got paid by the Highway Department.

Fantastic! I just really love it. I'll tell you what, if you'll take a stand for God, and you will put the author's name and the names of God in your life where they belong, and if you will have some conviction and really take a stand for God, God will do marvelous things for you, and he will get a hold of the hearts of sinful men, and he will turn them to serve you and to serve Christ.

Absolutely. We just don't believe it. We compromise all over the place. Number four will mean setting things in order. He took the stones and he built the altar exactly the way it was supposed to be. Then he put the wood in order, it says, and then he cut the sacrifice and laid it in order the way it was supposed to be.