James White - Pandering to Pluralism

The Charge of the Minister and the Problem of Pulpit Treason

Well, for those of you that are just joining us this morning, afresh and anew, I just want to introduce the director of Alpha Omega Ministries and the founder, and a gentleman who of course has made a tremendous impact upon my life, and we are praying that the Lord will be with him tonight as well.

Would you please welcome Dr. James White.

Alright, you just sang, Come Thou Fount. How many of you know what Ebenezer means? One, two, stone of help, I heard someone cry it out there. That's why when I sing it, and at first it embarrassed my kids when I did this, but now they do it too.

Of course my kids only know songs out of the Trinity Hymnal anyways, but I sing it Ebenezer, which would be a little bit closer to the Hebrew from which it comes, stone of help or remembrance. So the next time you sing that, now you'll be able to amaze your friends and fellow church members with your great in-depth knowledge of what in the world that hymn was talking about in the first place.

And by the way, it's fetter, like a fetter, we want to be bound together by something more than a feather. Before I begin, I want to thank a number of people that this book is here, you have no idea how miraculous this book is, in the sense that just a few weeks ago, I was in the Philadelphia airport, which in and of itself is a bit of a trial and tribulation, and especially when you're delayed there for four hours, and I was with this very same little unit doing my best to edit and to proofread this particular book, that's how close we were.

I had only finished writing the last few words about two weeks ago, and some folks in this very room were helping me to proofread and to edit this material, they're some of the geeks with the computers, and we were passing out chapters and sending chapters back, and my goodness, what a project it was.

So especially to Mike Gaydosh, I sent this in to him at like, I don't know, midnight, and the next morning, like at eight o 'clock in the morning, I had the whole thing back to me in a typeset format and everything else.

So it's pretty amazing that it's here, and I hope those of you who have picked it up maybe started looking at it, it'll be a blessing to you, especially if you're a pastor. We have some pastors in our chat channel, and as I would be writing this, I would post paragraphs, multiple paragraphs, in the channel.

For those of you who are channel rats, that is not an excuse not to buy the book, however. And some of them are pastors, and some of them are former pastors that are currently not in the pastorate at the moment, but they really expressed, one in particular expressed his encouragement by some of the things that were being said.

Sometimes pastors who've gone through some difficulties, some hard times, hopefully will find the book to be an encouragement in the midst of those difficulties and hard times. So I pray that the Lord will bless that.

Also, one other thing before I begin my specific presentation, this evening, the tables will be gone, we'll just have chairs set out, and there will be a different characteristic to the makeup of the crowd, shall we say.

And I'm hoping that you're praying for this evening, but I also hope that you realize that this evening is going to be maybe very different than what you're expecting. If you're expecting an in-depth discussion of Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 9, 10 and 11, 1 Timothy 1, verse 10, and a few other texts like that, and it's mainly going to be focused upon Greek and Hebrew and things like that, though I do intend to raise some of those issues, I think you need to realize that if...

How many of you have ever read any of Bishop Spong's books? Okay, that means... How many of you have never read any of Bishop Spong's books? That's a whole idea. Oh, there you go. That also helps to wake you all up, raising all those arms.

And the fact that you hear the name Bishop makes you assume certain things. You need to realize... In fact, I was going to use this since we're talking about treason behind the pulpit. I'll go ahead and read this now just so that you have an idea of what we're talking about this evening.

I want to quote from Bishop Spong. We are living in a time when a new consciousness is arising in which there is a growing recognition that for homosexual people, their only sin seems to be that they were born with a sexual orientation different than that of the majority.

Yet we now know that orientation to be perfectly normal. It is like other minority positions within the human family, left-handedness or red hair. Minority positions, when not understood, tend to frighten people.

And in their fear, people strike out to protect themselves by rejecting and sometimes killing the different ones. That is understandable. We know why it happens. But it is evil nonetheless. And when it is validated with appeals to God and quote, God's word, end quote.

God's word is almost always put in quotes. Its evil reaches demonic levels. That is where this debate now lies inside the religious institutions of the Western world. The entrenched fear is that if something the Bible calls an abomination becomes acceptable, then that which makes religious people different will disappear and the defining quote, word of God quote in the Bible will collapse, leaving believers unsure about who they are.

The battle rages and ultimately the Bible quoters will lose. When they do, their religion will either change or it will die. Now, Bishop Spong identifies himself as believing in a non-theistic God. Parse that one for just a moment.

That means a non-God God. He does not believe in a personal God. The Trinity is defined as life is good, life is loved, be all you can be. Now, the guys down the road like the be all you can be part that you may have noticed I'm running around in the uniform.

Some of you are not old enough to remember be all you can be for the army. My goodness, I'm really dating myself. In fact, I was, I joined with Pastor King and being extremely offended by Michael Fallon's introduction to Bert.

I mean, if that brings the average down to 20 some odd, that would make Brother Parsons about four and because I'm not, okay, nevermind. I'm not going to go there. Um, anyway, uh, when you define the Trinity in that way and God is not personal, if you don't believe in a personal God and you don't believe that God exists as a, as a, as a personal being, you are called an atheist.

Okay. Or at least a non-theistic spiritual type person or something. So, uh, there's obviously a huge worldview difference coming into this debate. There is no grounds for believing that the Bible is the word of God because there can be no God who can have a word.

So really I have, I have mentioned to, to many people, I really believe that tonight's debate will be much more focused upon the clash of worldviews than it can possibly be upon specifics of the text because the specifics of the text cannot be authoritative within his worldview.

And, uh, so just so you're aware of that, uh, coming in and aware of the fact that there's going to be a very wide range of issues that we will be needing to address. But since I have encountered many people who have written to me since this debate was announced, who have said they were literally forced by their college professors and others to read the materials by Bishop Spong, then hopefully it will be useful to all of you in, in the long run.

The Authority of Scripture and the Role of the Ephesian Elders

If you'll turn in your Bibles, or given the fact that a number of you like me are technologically advanced, click, tap, scroll, uh, to Acts chapter 20. We're not going to spend a lot of time there. We're going to end up spending most of our time in second Timothy chapter four, but I wanted to tie these texts together.

Uh, as we consider this morning, high treason, the theme, pulpit crimes. There are sadly many, uh, in, uh, in our land today. And, uh, I'm not sure how many of you have noticed. I just happened last evening while, uh, dining, uh, on the fine fare of Taco Bell after the, uh, uh, service last evening to, uh, click on the television.

And then I also looked at my news this morning, uh, on, on online. And you may know that the head of the National Association of Evangelicals has resigned over a gay sex scandal. I'm sure we'll hear about that this evening.

And, uh, so there's plenty of examples of, uh, pulpit crimes that are being produced almost every day. All you have to do is turn on that one, uh, uh, Christian television network. I never mentioned the specific channel in Phoenix between 20 and 22, but, uh, um, you, uh, uh, almost, uh, at any point in time, in fact, I mentioned in the book, I was looking for another pulpit crime.

So I turned on, uh, that particular channel and within approximately 45 seconds, I had my next pulpit crime, uh, provided to me, uh, which wasn't difficult to do because that really large African-American fellow with the very fine suits was preaching.

And, uh, uh, he is a veritable, uh, pulpit crime factory. Uh, it's just amazing. Thank you, Chris. So, uh, anyway, uh, we're going to be, uh, in dealing with the issue of, of, of pulpit crimes. My topic this morning is high treason.

Uh, you may have heard a few weeks ago that there was a, uh, there was charges filed by the federal government against a man who has joined Al-Qaeda and he is producing English language propaganda for Al-Qaeda against the United States.

And did you notice that in those stories, it was mentioned that he was the first man to be charged with treason in something like 40 years. And a lot of people didn't understand the concept of treason.

And that says something about our country today, to be perfectly honest with you. Uh, the generation before my generation understood the concept of treason. Uh, I don't know that we do any longer really have the idea of, of the necessity of being faithful to one's country and receiving punishment if you betray that country, especially when you're within its borders and still claiming citizenship.

But you see, it's that claim to citizenship and citizenship anymore doesn't mean anything to anybody, does it? I mean, if you're just born with it, it's no major league big deal. And anymore you just give it to anybody who comes along and, and it doesn't really matter.

And so citizenship, you know, uh, we used to, we still do actually make people actually study things to gain citizenship. I think we should do that with the people that are born here to be a really good idea.

But anyway, uh, if you come someplace else, you got to study things like the constitution and, and learn something about our laws and how they work and things like that. But it's also considered to be a morally binding thing to, to, to pledge allegiance, for example.

And a pledge taking a position and saying, I am committed to this. That's a concept that's really lost a lot of its meaning within our society today. It's just sort of like, well, I pledged, but who, you know, who really cares?

It doesn't really matter. It was sort of illustrated what happened with brother Askew and myself, not that we were calling each other the wrong names last night, but we had a written agreement about a debate and it offended me quite honestly, that someone would sign something and then a few days later say, well, you know, I've changed my mind, but that's how our society is anymore.

Sadly, it's the society that informs the church. Being called and given the privilege of handling the word of God as a minister of the people of God is a very high calling. We've gotten the idea that it's a calling that we create for ourselves.

There is this idea for many people that, well, I, uh, I feel called the ministry and I grew up within an evangelical context where that calling was unquestionable. Now, you couldn't ask, well, why do you feel that you're called the ministry?

You couldn't ask. And any personal feeling, you could be, it could be, well, I was just sitting there listening to the pastor and I just got all warm inside. And you can't question that within certain circles.

That's all you need to have. And it was a real shock for me when I first started to attend the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. There were a lot of things about going from a, a large moving towards seeker friendly type, uh, uh, church into the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

There were a lot of shocks that I experienced during that period of time. And one of them was a discussion with the pastor because he was talking about one particular ministerial academy. And, uh, you basically had to, had to preach.

You had to provide evidence. You had to demonstrate that you could teach and speak and, and that your character was of such a, uh, a level that, uh, you fulfilled the requirements found there in, in, in first Timothy and Titus regarding the eldership.

And if you, if you couldn't preach or teach your way out of a paper bag, they basically said, son, thank you very much for coming, but you're not called to preach. And I just found that shocking. I was, oh, that's old.

Wow. That's weird. And then I went to the scriptures and yeah, that's, that's what they said. It's a high calling. God gifts men to be able to minister the word of God to others. It's not just something that you just decide one day, you know what, you know, I'm not doing real good at this secular job thing.

I think I'll, I think I'll become a minister that way. I only have to work one day a week. That was a minister. It just said, yeah, just wanted you to know that it's a high calling. And since it is a high calling, that means treason against that calling is a tremendous pulpit crime because it not only affects the individual who commits it, but it's a treason against God.

It's a treason against the church. It's treason against the people of God themselves, and it can have tremendous consequences. We've been looking at Acts chapter 20. I wanted you to notice something before we go over to 2nd Timothy, because they're very closely related.

After what we heard from Pastor King last night, after that section, and I believe that he went down through a verse 28 or so, beginning of verse 20, it says, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Here talking to the Ephesian elders, men that he himself had undoubtedly preached to, had been involved in their conversion, he had been involved in their calling, their being set aside, he knows he's never going to see them again as he will tell them and they will respond with tears.

And he has deep desire that this church in Ephesus would be a strong church. He knows it's centrally located. If there's a strong, healthy church there, then the word of God is going to spread all up the Lycus River Valley and into Asia Minor.

And it's very important in his plans for the evangelization of the whole world that the church at Ephesus be a strong church. And we see in the book of Revelation that it was, even though the tendency that we have seen even in our own day had taken place amongst them, they were still quite orthodox, but they were losing their first love as the book of Revelation reveals to us.

And so he calls the elders and he warns them that difficult times will come. And the reason why we see treason on the part of those who stand before the people of God, very few people, very few, some do I realize, but very few, and really the saddest examples, people don't go into the ministry with a desire to become heretics.

Most people don't go into the ministry with the desire to be a traitor to their call. I see a lot of young men as they're being trained for the ministry and they have good motivations by and large, but it is the constant grind.

It is the constant pressure that is a part of being an elder in the church of God that so often, if there is not a solid foundation, erodes away what foundation there is, the result being then that collapse and that treason, that traitorous attitude that develops.

And Paul warned the elders, he said, there's going to be difficult times and there are a few things more difficult than what he says is going to happen. He says, I know savage wolves are going to come in amongst you.

They're going to arise from your own ranks. And there are a few things more painful to the man of God than to see someone that you once fellowshiped with now standing as not only your enemy, but the enemy of everything that is good and righteous and they're drawing disciples after themselves.

We see the same picture in 1 John. John has to struggle with that infant church because those who have gone out from us, they used to be part of us. They used to be Christian leaders. And we know today how difficult this is.

We know today how difficult it is to give a meaningful apologetic in a defense of the faith when you can find anybody who calls themselves a Christian who will say anything. There's no position, there is no heresy too wild that you will not find someone today who will call themselves a Christian and who will promote that heresy.

We all know that. And we all know how frustrating it is to be involved in trying to proclaim God's truth in our society and we're talking with someone at the water cooler and they say, well, yeah, you say that, but Dr. So-and-so says this.

Bishop So-and-so says this. I just read his book. And how frustrating that can be to us to have to deal with the multitude of voices that are out there. Paul says they will arise from amongst yourselves.

They will not spare the flock. Now, notice, please, what Paul's solution to that problem was. He doesn't say after this warning, this is going to happen. You need to be on the alert. Verse 31, you can never take a vacation from defending the faith.

You can never take a vacation from being alert and aware of the fact that there's danger lurking for the church. You can never become lulled into complacency. And at that point, what does he say to the Ephesian elders?

To what does he commit them? Does he say, make sure to follow after the successors of Peter? Does he say there's going to be continuing revelation in the book of Mormon? Just wait for that to come along as if that would really help these guys out very much.

He says, and now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance amongst all those who are sanctified. That's what he commits them to, is to God and the word of his grace.

And while we might want some sort of mechanism whereby we can just automatically get rid of all heretics and everybody's going to be exactly on the same page, that is not God's will for the church. The church will face struggles and difficulties and every generation is going to struggle with these things.

And that includes those who stand behind the pulpit and lead God's people. They will have to be in the forefront of the battle. And that is the parallel that I want to draw to 1 Timothy. I actually want to begin in 2 Timothy chapter 3.

So why don't you move there with me, however it is you go about getting there. 1 Timothy chapter 3, he's talking about difficulties that will come. He said, you've seen Timothy, and of course, one of the reasons I love 2 Timothy is it is an epistle written to a beloved fellow worker in the faith.

It is written at the end of Paul's life. He knows he does not have much time left. And when you write in that context, what you write reflects your highest priorities and your deepest concerns. If you knew you only had a short time to live, what you would write to the people most dear to you would not be fluffy things about the weather today.

You would share what is most definitional of your worldview and your concerns in your heart. And that's what Paul does in writing to Timothy. He has already exhorted Timothy. Timothy seemed to have a little bit of a timid streak.

He seemed to have a little bit of a retiring nature. And so he's had to exhort him to be strong, to rely upon the Holy Spirit, to be bold in his proclamation. Don't be coward by the face of men, Timothy.

And he's reminded him, just think of the persecutions, the sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions I endured. And out of them all, the Lord rescued me. Timothy, now that you're going to be in the forefront, if I've experienced these things, well, Timothy, verse 12 says, chapter three, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. He's giving Timothy a real rosy picture of the future, isn't he? Don't worry, Timothy, everything's going to be easy for you.

The church is going to have an infallible leader and we're going to get to define everything easily and all is going to be simple for you, Timothy. No, he says, evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But you, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

And of course, we have that classic text, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching. Of course, I like the phrase, breathed out by God or God breathed, better than inspired. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and training in righteousness.

The man of God may be perfect, adequate, thoroughly equipped for every good work. Now to our primary text. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate, they will collect for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

But you be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. High treason to stand before the people of God, to claim to be an ambassador for Christ. And what does an ambassador do?

What is the charge of an ambassador but to proclaim only those words that he has been authorized to proclaim? An ambassador does not have the right to change the message on the fly. In fact, the very authority that is his is only commensurate with the accuracy of the message that he delivers.

That he has no authority in and of himself, he is not the one who sent him, he is not the king, he represents the king, but his authority comes from the accuracy of that representation. And when the king has told him, go deliver this message, it may not be a popular message.

And the ambassador may realize that when he goes to deliver that message that there is going to be frowns and in fact his life may be in danger if he delivers that message accurately. But his authority is bound up in delivering the message that has been entrusted to him.

And that is what the minister must understand. We live in a day where there is a tremendous fear of the face of men. What does that mean, fear of the face of men? Does that mean people are trembling in fear that someone might frown at them?

Well, it's not really enjoyable when people do that, but that's not really what I mean. There is a desire for acceptance. There is a desire to see people smile and to have people shake your hand and pat you on the back and say, that was great, I appreciated that.

And we want that from as many people as possible. And so today in our land there are entire schools of teaching that will tell you exactly how you can build the largest church and experience the greatest success in ministry.

There are fads that come along and once you get as, as Michael Fallon has pointed out, as old as I am, you start seeing a catalog of these things. See, you start seeing enough of these fads going by. When you're young, you don't have enough history to really start getting a grasp on this.

But when you start getting into your, in your middle age, you start going, you know, here comes a new thing. And the big thing just a few years ago was this. And then I remember the real big thing back in the, I remember big things back in the 1970s.

And they're not the big things anymore. Fad after fad after fad. And we were assured that all those previous things were blessed by God and they were based on God's word, you see. And, but they don't last very long.

You try to get everybody excited about them and they first come along, everybody's excited and then they just sort of, and you're looking for something new. Any of you ever been through something like that in your churches?

Oh, I'm not talking about anything you don't know about, huh? These fads come along and, and you, you grab hold of them and, and they'll tell you that there's certain ways that you should proclaim the word.

There's certain words you should avoid and certain other words that you should use. We need to, we need to affirm everyone. Isn't that a beautiful word? I affirm you, brother. And we, we, we need to make sure to be very inclusive.

Isn't inclusive a beautiful word? It's so much more beautiful than exclusive. I mean, we don't want to be exclusive, except we want to have the exclusive good show and bring people in for that. But so we want to be inclusive and very accepting and open and all these warm buzzwords that are flying around today, which generally don't have a whole lot of meaning.

They just mean whatever we do is right because we think it's right. The ambassador does not have the right to receive a message from the king and then go, okay, now I know the king's a little on the old fashioned side.

And I know that the folks that I'm going to supposed to deliver this to, I know what they want to hear. And so I'll keep the substance. I'll talk about the king. I'll say some nice things about the king.

But you know, this, this message is, is just too harsh. And so I want to, I want to try to soften it a little bit. Now I know almost everybody in this room, we're pretty much all on the same page and you're sitting there going, yeah, you can't, can't do that.

No, can't allow that to happen. The worst examples of this I've seen always come from people who started off on the right road with the right motivations. And if you've never been there, you need to understand the pressures, the daily, weekly, monthly, yearly pressures that come against people.

And especially in our context, we're talking about making sure that we, we, we preach the entirety of the word of God. And when you do that, you're going to offend a lot of folks. Because there's a lot of folks who want to play religion, but they don't want you to be reminding them of their sin.

And when you, when you proclaim everything the word of God says, you're eventually going to get around to their pet sins. And especially if we haven't guarded the flock and we've been inviting folks in with really bad fake sheep suits on, but with big fangs and, and drooling, looking at everybody else, all of us, eventually their true nature is going to come out.

And the sad thing is if we haven't been protecting the flock, now all of a sudden they're in positions of leadership. And now we got a real problem because now we get to the word of God and it brings conviction.

And all of a sudden there's just, well, there's some real problems. There's some real difficulties. The pressure is there and faithful men who are trying to stay consistent with the word of God cannot help but look down the road and see that just a little compromise might double or triple the size of my church.

Do I really have to emphasize that? And you know what? Once you start thinking along those lines, you can find scholars galore to back up your backing up from the truth. I see this all the time and it's, it, it's so sad when someone will come up to me at a gathering like this, someone will email me and they'll say, you know, this, this particular doctrine, this particular teaching, you know, is it really all that important?

I mean, are we really certain about this? And sometimes it'll just be little things. And I've seen real little things develop into, is it really all that important to believe in the resurrection or the deity of Christ?

You say, oh, no one would ever go that far. Oh, believe me, it can start with such little things. Such minor things. But once you start down that road, the first time it's hard, second time it's a little bit easier, and the third time it's a whole lot easier.

And where do you stop? Where is the comfortable stopping place? I read quotes like what I wrote, I read earlier and people go, that's not even, I can't even see how it's related to Christianity. That's true.

But there are people who believe that and there are people who believe that today who once believed what we believe. If that doesn't bother you, you're not awake yet. We need more coffee. Or, or is that a Red Bull?

That'll really get people going. You're not, you're not listening to me if you, if it doesn't bother you when you see apostasy. Apostasy is real, by the way, Calvinists happen to believe in it. That doesn't mean Christ failed.

But there's all sorts of stuff in the scripture about people who were once amongst us. That text in 1 John has come to mean more and more to me over the years. They went out from us so that it might be shown that they were not truly of us.

For if they were truly of us, they would have remained with us. You really take that text apart and you see that John did believe that Christ does not lose any of his own. But he also recognized and had experienced the reality of the fact that we can't see into the hearts of other men.

We can't see into the hearts of other women. And apostasy is a serious thing. And it damages the church. It damages the people of God. It damages their confidence. Apostasy is something that is the experience of every generation of the church.

Every generation experiences those who collapse, shall we say, and give in to apostasy. High treason, what does that mean? Well, it means someone who knew what they should have said, but for all sorts of different reasons, all sorts of different reasons, they've given in.

Look at 1 Timothy 4 .1 again. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. I want to say something to the elders who are here this day. I'm not going to ask you to put your hands up.

It was for me, I think, certainly a night I remember when I was ordained to the gospel ministry. And certainly I remember when I became an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. It was a tremendous thing to ponder those requirements for the eldership and to feel so utterly unworthy.

And it was a tremendous thing to stand before the people of God and to have them recognize me as an under-shepherd, as one that they see in me the gifts of God and that they are saying, we will listen to what you have to say.

We will function as Christ has told us to function as the people of God with you as one of our elders. And I remember what that feeling was, and I'm sure you do too. But really, the audience before which we should tremble the most is to recognize that the charge we have is a charge given to us in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus.

When a person stands before the people of God, handling the word of God, their first concern should be that everything they say, everything they do is being observed very closely. It's not like the situation where the ambassador can go far away from the king.

And so if he edits the message, the king may or may not know about it. Our king is omnipresent, and we herald that message in his presence. So what high-handed treason can it be when knowing what the message is and knowing that we are in his presence?

We think ourselves so wise and so insightful that we know better how to proclaim it, and we know better how to phrase it than he himself. Or what a coward are we if in his presence we fear his creatures more than we fear him?

I say to you that the vast majority of pulpit crimes prove to us that both those behind the pulpit and those in the pews do not believe that we are truly in the presence of God. He's a faraway master.

And while in our theology we will acknowledge that God has knowledge of all things, if we really felt, if we were really convinced of his nearness, of his presence with his people, that which we pray for, don't we always pray for that in almost every service?

I know I lead the pastoral prayers at our church normally. And I pray, Lord, we can do nothing outside of your spirit. Be pleased to meet with your people, or what we do is emptiness. It's empty words.

Lift up our hearts. As the psalmist said, open our eyes. Protect us from the dullness that so easily takes over our minds. This is what we pray. Do we not believe that he will hear? Look at what's going on in the evangelical church today and ask yourself the question, do these folks really think that the God of Isaiah 6 is in their presence?

Or is the God that they are worshiping so humanized, so familiarized, so much made our buddy, that there is no concern for holiness. There's no concern for the fear of God. There's much about this, I solemnly charge you.