DEAD
CHURCHES; REVIVAL: NEED FOR

If you have any spiritual perception at all, I need not state that in our generation and in every community, large or small, there are churches existing merely as monuments of what they used to be. The glory has departed. The witness of God and of salvation and of eternal life is now just an uncertain sound. The monument is there, but the church has failed.

God does not expect us to give up, to give in, to accept the church as it is and to condone what is happening. He expects His believing children to measure the church against the standards and the blessings promised in the Word of God. Then, with love and reverence and prayer and in the leading of the Spirit of God we will quietly and patiently endeavor to align the church with the Word of God.

When this begins to happen and the Word of God is given its place of priority, the presence of the Holy Spirit will again begin to glow in the church. That is what my heart longs to see.

1 Samuel 4:21–22; Psalm 26:8; Ephesians 5:25–29

Whatever Happened to Worship?, 99.