Revival A Return To Holiness — Richard Sipley

Hearts and ears to hear what you have to say to us by your Spirit. So bless my brother, I pray this morning in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Biblical Call to Holiness

Thank you. Thank you. Revival of return to holiness. I'm going to give you three passages of scripture. I'll give you the references, and maybe you want to write them down. I mean four of them. They're four passages, and you may want to write them down, and I'll start at the top, and I'll read right through them so you can look them up, or maybe you want to look them up.

So here they are. 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16. 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16. Then Matthew 5, 48. Matthew 5, 48. Then 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24. And then 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14, right through chapter 7, verse 1.

2 Corinthians 6, 14, right through chapter 7 and verse 1. Now Lord, I pray that you will do what you know I cannot do in Jesus' name. Amen. 1 Peter 1, 15 and 16. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.

For it is written, be holy because I am holy. In the words of Jesus, Matthew 5, 48, be perfect therefore as your heavenly Father is perfect. You notice the comparison in the two verses, because of what God is, what we are to be.

You see that. Then 1 Thessalonians 5. May God spirit and soul and body be kept blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. In 2 Corinthians 6, 14 through 7, a little longer passage.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Seem to have a great deal in common in our day, but they ought not to. Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

What harmony is there between Christ and Satan? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God.

We, the church and the individual Christian, amen? Like we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, here's what he said, I will live in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they will be my people.

He's living in us, in the church and in us individually and walking in us, living in us, acting out through us. And he said, I will be their God and they will be my people. Therefore, come out from them and be separate.

God wants his people to be separate but not segregated. Jesus said, I pray not that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil. God wants us in the world, but not of the world.

Amen? Are you asleep? How could you sleep through that sermon you just heard? Good stuff. Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you and I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And the perfecting is a progressive word that means you're getting more and more holy.

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Now, I want to ask you a question. Are you ready for the question? From these scriptures, does it appear to you that God wants his people to be holy? Yes. Yeah.

You'd have to be kind of dull not to get that, wouldn't you? I mean, this is not my idea. This is God's idea and it's not only his idea, it's his command and his heart's desire for his church and his people to be holy.

And so I want to talk about that. Now, all right, what does that mean? Well, first, before I say what it does mean, and the scripture makes it clear what it means, I want to say what it does not mean because I do believe that the whole subject of holiness has become a problem in our hearts and in our lives and in our churches because we have thought that it meant something it doesn't mean.

Holiness Is Not the Same as Sinlessness

And so I want to take care of that and then I want to go to what it does mean. Holiness does not mean sinlessness. Now, I knew that would get a quiet response. Holiness does not mean sinlessness. In the process of holiness, certainly sin will be dealt with and I'm not making light of sin, you understand, at all.

I'm just saying they're not, we normally think of it that way. We think if you're holy, you're sinless, but that's not what the Bible teaches and I want to help us to see what it does teach because it teaches something a lot more powerful than that.

So now, don't shoot me yet because I want to preach this first. One may be sinless and not holy. One may be sinless and not holy and one may be holy and not sinless. You say, I'll prove it to you right here.

Hebrews 5, 8, and 9, Jesus was sinless but not holy yet. When Jesus was in the womb of Mary, he was sinless, amen? It's not polite to sit and stare when someone asks you a question. You're supposed to answer.

I never ask rhetorical questions. I hate them. Okay. Jesus was sinless in Mary's womb, right? Right. He was sinless when he was born, right? He was sinless when he was a little boy, right? When he was a teenager even, he was sinless, amen?

And when he became a man, he was sinless. Is that right? But he wasn't holy at first as a man, Jesus. Now, just stay with me. The scripture says, though he were a son, yet he learned obedience as a man, Jesus.

He learned obedience by the things which he suffered and being made perfect, that is complete and whole, which is part of holiness. And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.

Did you know that was in the Bible? That's in the Bible. Because see, holiness is not sinlessness. Holiness is something else. I'm going to give it to you in a moment. Hebrews 7, 26, it says, such a high priest, speaking of Christ, meets our need, one who is holy, blameless, pure.

That's another aspect of holiness. Set apart, ah, that's the main aspect of holiness, from sinners, exalted above the heavens. That's Jesus. Now, one may be holy and not sinless, and I'm going to tell you why.

It says in 1 John 1, 8, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That's what it says, doesn't it? So, on the other side, God says, be holy, for I am holy. And you say, well, how can I be holy if I can't be without sin?

Because they are not opposites. Because you may become holy by the grace of God, but you will never be totally without sin until you see Jesus. Is that right? Okay. Now, you say, good grief, aren't you laboring this?

I don't know. I want to get this established because what I want to say, I hope to be very encouraging to you this morning. Now, in the tabernacle of the Old Testament, with which I'm sure you're familiar, there were vessels that were holy, right?

They were vessels. There was vessels, there was furniture, there were all kinds of articles in the tabernacle that had been made according to God's direction, and they were there, and they were holy. But they, you couldn't say they were sinless or sinful.

They were inanimate objects. They had no moral quality. They were neither sinful nor righteous, but they were holy. Is that right? Why were they holy? Because they were set apart unto God totally without mixture.

Biblical Definitions of Holiness

Now, this is very, very important. There are three biblical words that define holiness in the Bible, and I'm talking about now what the Bible says about holiness. These three words, one is perfect. Jesus said, be therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect.

And you say, come on, that's impossible. No, not if you understand the word perfect as it is used in the Bible in these situations. He's saying, I want you to be complete, whole. I want you wholly given to God, because God is wholly what He is.

He's completely other. He is completely all that He is, infinitely so. And even as He is that way, and that is part of His holiness, God is saying to us, I want you to be totally given to God. That's what He's calling perfect, complete.

I don't want you to leave anything out of your life that isn't set apart unto God. So that's very important to have that word. Then the word sanctified, and we read to you, you know, may God, the very God of peace, sanctify you through and through.

That's the perfect, that's the complete. May He sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit and soul and body, and I can add time, life, possessions, whatever you are, whatever you have, all of you be sanctified, be set apart unto God.

You see that? We're talking about the word sanctify or the word holy. Then the word pure means unmixed. Now you go to the store and you get a jar of jam, and it says pure strawberry preserves. Well, almost.

It's not, come on, totally pure. I mean, it's not just strawberries. If it were truly pure strawberry jam, it would be nothing but strawberries. Just that, single, only, pure. Got it? That's what it would be, and when God is talking about holiness, and He uses the word blameless or pure, He is talking about something unmixed.

Something that is single and set apart and is unmixed with anything else, and these are the Bible words concerning holiness. Now these words describe holiness in the Bible, listen, whether of an object or a place or a person or a time.

See, there were objects like the things in the temple or the tabernacle and the tabernacle itself and all it was made of. All of these things were objects, inanimate objects, but they were all holy. The ark was holy.

It was set apart unto God only, never to be used for anything else. Holy, and then there were places such as the ground on which Moses was standing, and God said, take off your shoes, you're standing on holy ground.

Now, it didn't have anything to do with sin, but it was the place where God was and where He was revealing Himself to Moses, and because of God's presence and God's glory and God's voice, it became a place set apart unto God, and it was holy.

There are persons and there are times, for instance, the Sabbath day was to be holy. Why? Because it was set apart unto God, that's why. Are you beginning to get this? Are you beginning to get this? I don't have time to go over it again, but I've prayed so much that you'll get this.

The Tabernacle Dedicated to God's Glory

For instance, the tabernacle, Exodus, you can put this down or turn to it, Exodus 29, 43 to 45, and there said God, I will meet with the children of Israel and the tabernacle shall be sanctified, that is made holy by my glory, and I will sanctify the tabernacle, make it holy, of the congregation and the altar.

I will sanctify also both Aaron and his sons to minister to me in the priest's office. Why? Because they were set apart unto God to minister to Him, so they are holy, and I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God.

The tabernacle was dedicated to God, set apart unto Him by blood sacrifices, then God accepted it, and then He filled it with Himself, Exodus 40, 34 and 35. Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and Moses, even Moses, was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

That makes me hungry. Let the temple be filled with His glory. Anybody? Well, we sang that in Canada back in the 70s. Let the courts be filled with His praise. Let us worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Zion rejoices again. I don't sing very well, but you'll put up with that. And then the temple was the same thing. Solomon's temple, when it was finished, they made all these blood sacrifices, and then Solomon stood and raised his hands and prayed this long and marvelous prayer, and then when he finishes, it says in 2 Chronicles 5, 13,.

Then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord, so that the priest could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. And I pray, God, that He'll come on His church today with such wonder and such completeness and such glory that you can't even stand up to preach.

And God wants to do that. Persons were holy. The priests were holy. What about us today, huh? I'll get more thoroughly to that, but I have to read you some scriptures. Please turn to Revelation. Revelation 1, 5 and 6.

Jesus Christ, a faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and ruler over the kings of the earth, to Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and made us kings and what? Priests to His God.

Somebody says, are you a priest? Absolutely. All Christians are priests. Everyone. We are a kingdom of priests to serve God. And that's what the Word of God says. You go to Revelation 5, you have the very same thing.

Down in verse 10, it says, and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth. You go to Revelation 20 and verse 6, it says the same thing. Over such a second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God.

And of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years. We are priests, even as those Levites, those priests were set apart to worship God and to stand between God and man and to glorify Him. So every Christian is a priest and he should be holy.

And he is called to be set apart unto God completely without mixture. You see where I'm going? I said, do you see where I'm going? You do. So I don't have to go over. When the Jews returned from exile, Ezra got up and preached.

My goodness, you think these services are long? They stood out there all day. But anyway, we will let you go for lunch eventually. Ezra 6, 19 to 21, on the 14th day of the first month, the exiles celebrated the Passover.

They come back to Jerusalem and the priests and Levites had purified themselves and were ceremonially clean. So the Israelites who had returned from the exile, they ate the Passover together with all who had separated themselves from the unclean practices of their Gentile neighbors in order to seek the Lord their God.

Even back there, they separated themselves from the people of the world and the world and the unclean things of the world so they could worship God in the Passover. They understood they were to be a holy people and they had to be set apart unto God.

The Church as Christ's Holy Bride

Ephesians 5, 27. What about the church? Is the church to be holy? Husbands, love your wives. Ephesians 5, 25. Husbands, love your wife just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify, make her holy.

That's there it is. He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word that he might present her to himself. A glorious church and not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that she should be holy and without blemish.

The church. God loves the church. Jesus loves the church. It's his bride. He loves the church and he wants to have it holy. He doesn't want a bride full of adultery. He wants a bride that is holy and without spot and is clean that is totally set apart to him only.

I tell you what, I can still remember the day. Louisville, Kentucky, the first and last church. Standing there and watching that vision of loveliness come down the aisle all in a white beautiful white gown and a little smile on her face which said, well you finally got me.

Boy did I chase her. My goodness. It's still a miracle. Oh she was so much better than me but when she came into my arms as my wife she was for me alone. Amen. In that vow you know he said, and keep me only unto her so long as you both shall live.

And that's the way it was for over 60 years. She was just mine and I was just hers and that's it. Is that unreasonable? No. We were set apart to each other and God says I want the church to be like that.

I don't want the church playing around with the world. I don't want it to look like the world or be like the world. I want it to be holy set apart unto me without mixture. And God is now starting to call his church back to that place of holiness.

Now I'm going to give you a definition. You can write it down or whatever. Here it is. For a person to be holy in the biblical sense. I'm talking about the biblical sense. For a person to be holy in the biblical sense means for the entire person.

I mean just like it said in the scripture, spirit, soul, body, time, life, everything. It means for the entire person to be set apart unto God without mixture. That's holiness. That's biblical holiness.

That's the holiness to which God has called his people both the church and individual Christians. Now I want to give you, you say I don't understand. Well here we go. I want to give you examples of how Christians live mixed lives.

Pleasure, Entertainment, and the Mixed Christian Life

You feeling strong? I hope you checked all your guns at the door. All right. Here we go. Canadians and Americans. And I was a pastor in Canada. I was a pastor in the states 29 years and a pastor in Canada 29 years.

I wanted to be fair you know. And so I can speak to both of them. Anyway Canadians and Americans are pleasure mad. Is that a true statement? The world does offer pleasure. Second Timothy 3 1 to 5. I don't have it all in there but here it goes.

But know this that in the last days perilous times will come for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, unholy, unholy get that, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness but denying its power from such turn away says God.

A pleasure mad culture in which we live has seeped into the church and into the lives of Christians. It really really has. And Christians by the millions are living lives that are taught caught up in the pleasures of this life and they are saying to themselves that's not wrong, that's not wrong, I'm sure that's not sin, what's wrong with that?

And they are totally sucked in to the world's madness for pleasure. And it's true. And even the church which Jesus said my house should be called a house of prayer for all nations should be a place filled with prayer, filled with the love of God, filled with compassion for the hurting lost people around us.

A place that is a soul winning station, a place for people to find Christ and it is often caught up with the pleasures of this world and the excuse is we're doing it to reach the unsaved. But my friends I have been around those churches for 60 years and in many cases the unsaved are certainly not being reached.

God's people are just caught up with pleasure. My wife and I went, be careful make this short, but my wife and I went to a big old Methodist campgrounds, conference grounds, beautifully beautiful buildings everything and we went down there just as a holiday to be with her brother and wife and Dr. Dennis Kinlaw was one of the speakers and he got sick and couldn't come and I had to take his place.

And these people pulled in, you feel good before I say this? Okay. These people pulled in in their million dollar motorhomes and I mean, and they just filled the grounds and they came in to the tabernacle expecting to get the normal fare and they got me.

What a disappointment. And when they left there some of them were going to another conference grounds that has 2 ,000 people on it and after that they were going to another conference grounds and for the first time in the long time somebody said something to them about becoming separated, holy, spirit-filled, godly Christians.

And they said, people don't come forward here and they flooded the front of the church with tears trying to seek God. And I said, some of you, what are you going to do? For the last 20 years you were active serving God in the church and now you just play shuffleboard and I can just see you standing before God and he says, so how did it go?

And he said, well I did pretty good most of my life and after I retired, you know, I wasn't quite as active in the church and God says, so what did you do the last 20 years? You say, I played shuffleboard.

Yeah, I did say that to them, I really did. My oh my. Titus 3 .3, he said, at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. Pleasures. You say, doesn't God, is he a spoilsport?

He doesn't want us to have a good time? Of course he wants you to have a good time. I'm having a good time right now, though I wasn't when I was praying about this. I was in big trouble. And God said, well go ahead, you want to die anyway, go ahead.

I mean, read another scripture text from 1 Corinthians 6 .9, do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor the idolaters, nor the adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor the homosexuals.

On and on it goes, Steve, so forth. And then it says, but you were washed, but you were sanctified. Like, you're not supposed to be like that anymore. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.

Said, you've been set apart unto God. And then he goes on to say, you know, the body is not for immorality, but is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Said, the body's not for your own lust, and your own use, and your own pleasure.

It's for the Lord, but if you give it to the Lord, then the Lord can give himself to your body. And then he even talks about the stomach. He could have left that out, especially since I can't seem to get these extra pounds off.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you? You're the temple of God, who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own. You were bought at a price.

Therefore, honor God with your body. So, whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Right? Yeah. Your body, your whole person, everything belongs to God. I was reading, Dr. A. B. Simpson was the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance, and I was reading one of his books one day, and he said something that made me upset.

He said that a man ought not to eat his dinner because he enjoys it. He ought to eat his dinner because it nourishes his body, so he can serve the Lord. It's all right for him to enjoy it, but that ought not to be his motive.

I said, that's going too far. Really, I did. I'm confessing. I said, that's just being a fanatic, and then after, you know, God says, so what would you like to substitute? Well, then I began to understand what holiness is.

What holiness is. Holiness doesn't mean that you're without sin, though. I'll tell you what. It's the best thing I've ever seen to take care of sin. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child.

I reasoned like a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Somebody has said, the only difference between men and boys is the size of their toys. Huh? Getting quiet. Preoccupation with entertainment in Canada and the United States is epidemic, right?

Everybody is totally enmeshed in entertainment, and they say, well, is that sinful? I don't know. Is that sinful? Well, sometimes it is, obviously. Is that not? I don't know, but I'll tell you what. If you can't take the time you're spending and the entertainment, whatever it is, and if you can't bring that over and say, I can set this apart unto God for His glory, His honor, His purpose, then you better take a good look at it.

Huh? Entertainment. Listen carefully. Entertainment takes the place of fellowship with other human beings and therefore is a thief. It is watching other people live instead of living yourself. My time becomes selfish instead of invested for God.

One of the big things wrong with our homes is that when we are at home, finally, we don't sit down and talk. We don't pray together. We don't play together. We don't do anything much together, and if we have time, then we're stuck at the idiot box.

Now some of you say I should never have stayed for the second service. Never. I didn't really think he'd get that bad. It also keeps you from creativity and worthwhile accomplishments. Listen carefully now.

Acceptable relaxation profits our health, provides avenues of relationships with other people as we relax together. Yes, Jesus took the disciples away to rest when they were crowded with ministry. It helps develop our abilities and character.

Reasonable sports provide healthy physical relaxation and strength. Listen, but spectator sports promote pride, sinful competition, anger, violence, and hatred. I still remember the girl in the skating compositions who took a metal bar and broke the leg of one of her, of the other skaters.

Remember that? I walk five days a week, first thing in the morning, with some seniors in the rec center where I live, and half of them are Christians, and it's nice. I go over there, and I just get a mile in, but I do it without stopping.

It's pretty good. And I mean, one of these other stinkers who's only, he's only 63, the child, and he goes for, you know, four miles around. I go one mile, but he's nice about it. Well, they come in, you know, we come in, say it's Monday morning.

We come in, and we've walked, and we sit down at the table, have our coffee. We're going to start talking, and one guy says to the other, did you see the Cavs game last night? Do you know what the Cavs are?

They're Cavaliers, is the real name. They're a basketball team. You're ignorant. You probably don't know. That's down in the United States, and so they say, anybody see the Cavs game last night? Well, yeah, I saw the Cavs game.

Well, who won? You know, the Celts or the Cavs or whatever, and I say, you mean they had young cows playing a game last night? I have so much fun with it. That's what Cavs are, aren't they? Young cows, isn't that what they are?

They haven't killed me yet, but, well, God has pleasure for us, you know. Psalm 36, 7, 9 says, How precious is your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of your wings.

They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your pleasure, for with you is the fountain of life. In Psalm 16, 11, you will show me the path of life.

In your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. One of the biggest failures of the church today is fellowship for its people, and I have some Christian friends. I love to, we love to talk together, and what do we talk about?

About God, about the church, about the Lord Jesus, about people that just got saved, about the miracles we've just seen. You know what the Bible says? They that love the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it.

And a book of remembrance was written for those that think upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spares his only son.

My goodness, I think when we're talking, the Lord gets really tickled. He says, look at that, they're talking about me, and he writes it down. Holy. Holy? Come out from among them, and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing.

Love not the world, neither the things in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father, not love for the Father, the love of the Father is not in him. When your heart is filled with God's love for you, you will lose your love for the world.

Cleansing the House of God

So what shall we do? Well, I want you to look with me at a striking example of cleansing the house of God. Counts found 2 Chronicles 20, and it's so good I have to read some of it. It begins with these words, Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem, and he did right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done.

In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord, and repaired them, and he brought in the priests. Here, the house of God was closed, and he opened the doors, and he brought in the priests, and the Levites, and gathered them into the square on the east, and then he said to them, listen to me, O Levites, consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry the uncleanness out from the holy place.

For our fathers have been unfaithful, and have done evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and have forsaken him, and turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord, and have turned their backs.

They have also shut the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense, which represents prayer, or offered burnt offerings in the holy place of the God of Israel. Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, that his burning anger may turn away from us.

My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him, to minister to him, and to be his ministers. And I say, it's not a happy situation, but God has chosen me to help cleanse the church, because this is, it's the same, it's the house of God, right?

I don't mean the building, I mean the people of God to gather, that are part of the body of Christ. That's, that's what it is. In our day, buildings of wood and stone are no longer temples of God. The temple of God today is two things.

First, the church of Jesus Christ. It is the fellowship of believers, who have been placed into that spiritual building as living stones. Believers are part of the holy temple, which the Spirit of God dwells on earth, and his glory should be seen.

Beyond that, the temple of God is the individual Christian, in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells by the new birth. Do you believe that? What do you think? Do you think it's time to cleanse the temple? It's supposed to be holy, like the church is supposed to be holy.

You and I are supposed to be holy, but the problem is that both our lives and our churches have gotten filled with junk, junk. Let me try to nail this down a little more directly. The temple in Jesus' day was not closed as far as the doors go.

It wasn't full of garbage and trash and idols and junk, like the temple was in Hezekiah's day. But I tell you what, it was no more holy than that one, because it was not set apart to God. They had, they were running all the services, they were doing all the things that God said to Moses they should do.

They had the Levites and the priests, and they offered all the sacrifices, and the whole thing was going full blast, and they had all the form of godliness, but no power, and the glory had departed, and there was no God in it, and the Lord whom they sought suddenly came to the temple.

The prophet said that was going to happen. He said the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to the temple, even the servant of righteousness, but who may abide the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears, for he is like a refiner's fire.

And the church today, some of it at least, are crying out to God to come, and when he comes, he will be like a refiner's fire, and he will purify his servants, Christians. Where shall we begin? We must start by opening the doors.

We have closed the doors because we did not want to face our problems. We have need to throw open the doors of our life, and let the sunlight of God stream in. We must get totally honest with God and man.

We need to say, Lord, I'm opening wide the doors of my life, and of my church, and I do not wish to hide one thing. I want you to point your searchlight into every part of the outer court, into every corner of the holy place, and every inch of the holy of holies.

Search me, O God. Then we need to pray, really pray. We need to get the altar of incense going and begin to pray. You know, there are thousands of churches in which the glory of God is no more, and they are afraid to talk about their problem.