The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-01-18

her gifts.
God may not ask you to give your
life. but God wants you to be willing
providing he wants it. told you last
night l don't want to die bait IL God
can advance His cause faster with me
in heaven than He can with me on
earth. am ready to go any hour OF
the day or night, that God says, Come
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not just in minute but in little
bit. First. mind you, old Ahaz died
This old reprobate / have been talking
Iabout.-and his son, Hezekiah. came
I on the throne. Hezekiah had a good
ma but he had a dirty old nut for n
dad. Don't forget the contrast. Here's
why he turned out good--he had q
good mother. She was religious. What
did he do? In the first year, in the
first month of his reign, ne opened
the doors OF the house OF the Lord
and he repaired them. Then no gath
cred his brethren Sgether and he said
to them. ''Sanctify yourselves for
priests" Even the priests had gone
to the devil with the rest OF the
bunch. God pity us when the preach
ers become lot of novel-reading
sissies, breathing the
perfume from their curly locks. The
Lord pity them when they break their
fool necks trying to please the worldly
gang that~sits In the pews and they
all backsiide and go to the devil to-
gether!
Some of the preachers have gone
down. Some of them think more OF
craving their salaries and their breath
than they do anything else, They
never get out after a soul to try and
win 1t for Jesus Christ, and never put
up scrap for Jesus Christ, against
the devil. They never make a state
ment but they neutralize It.
So they did this: The priests went
into the inner house OF the Lord and
they cleansed themselves and they
brought out all clean bodies and they
sanctified the house of the Lord. They
begun on the first day OF the month
and on the sixteenth day of the month
they ended 1t. IT took sixteen days
to dig through the dirt into the altar.
Say, you just shut up your home
Tor sixteen years and then open IL up
and see how long it will take you to
clean out the dirt and the dust and
the spiders and the cobwebs and tho
filth. Jus. let this city shut up its
heart, drive out every preacher and
every priest: close up every church
and every Sunday school, Y. M. c. A.
and Y. w. c. A. for sixteen years.
She'd be in hell before that time and
all her wealth and culture wouldn't
save her. You keep Christ out of
your heart for sixteen years: keep him
out of the community for sixteen years
and see what will happen.
And then they went In and IIeZe-
kiah brought out all the vessels OF the
house of the Lord and he cleansed
them Now notice. here is the first
thing he did. He began with the
! priests We wifi make them anafa e
Eous to the preachers of our day. If
God Almighty could convert the
preachers of this country and II they'd
go to preaching His gospel and hold
up the bleeding form OF Jesus Christ,
and take old, hardened sinners and
they could smell the sulphur fumes as
4 they are vomited uphold up the
bleeding form OF Jesus Christ and cry
to people. Repent, Repent! Repent,
Repent" you'd see the greatest moral
awakening the world ever recorded.
I don't blame the people as much
as / do the preachers. for not preach
ing the truth. There are a lot of peo-
pie here preaching the biggest lot of
tommyrot and nonsense that ever
went abroad. They are standing in
orthodox pulpits. too.
Then the inner part OF the house
are the officers. the deacons. elders
stewards, credential committee or
vestrymen. Sunday school teachers
and officers--the inner part of the
house of the Lord.
BE Clean! BE Clean!
Be clean! Be clean, we that bear the
n vessels Of the house of the Lord! Many
Of them today are not in any post
stand in official positions In the
q w Ten
right who is trying to touch the hand
OF the Lord and then the church with
holds her power---the power being
Slapped by the worldliness. by the In
difference and by the apathy and the
formality and the ritualisms we have
drifted into!
Then he restored the vessels in the
are committed to the church. First OF
all. the Bible. l call upon you: go
home: IL you have a Bible get 1t out
and put 1t or the center table. Read
it and live by It, II you haven't one go
out and buy one. II you haven,
money to buy one. the American BIZ
BILE society will give you one. Get the
Bibles in the homes. tell you 1t was
disgrace to America when they
schools of this country. feel like
old Rufus Choate of Massachusetts,
when they talked about banishing the
Bible from the public schools Old
Rufus Choate said: What! Danish
the Bible from the public schools OF
America? Never! Not as long as
there's piece of Plymouth Rock left
big enough to make a gun flint"
So, bring the Bible back into our
homes! Many preacher will go and
serve a church; he breaches tommyrot
stakes claim out on Jupiter; breaches
$40 Isaiahs instead OF one, and that
somebody else wrote Hebrews, beside
Paul. He will spend his time. my
friends, dealing in nor essentials and
he will wreck the fail Of the people
in the church of Jesus Christ.
Then when he goes, some other
preacher comes who believes the Bible
and he's got to spend all his time get
ting the Bible back into the church.
into the homes, into the hearts of the
people. That's one trouble today. So
bring the vessel back--the Bible. II
is committed to the world---hring II
beck, Like Andrew Jackson, who said
THAT hook is the rock upon which
the American republic rests" Bring ii
back"
This nation has been decreed and
7 decided by the supreme court as a