I should like to call your attention this morning to that great incident in the life of Moses and of the children of Israel, the account of which we read at the beginning, as it is to be found in the book of Exodus, in chapters 32 and 33. But I want to deal particularly with that first section in chapter 33, which runs from the first verse to verse 11, the first 11 verses. in the thirty-third chapter of the book of Exodus, if you like, in particular the fourth verse. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned, and no men did put on him his ornaments. Now this record here, this thirty-third chapter in particular, is one of the great chapters of the Old Testament, judged from any standpoint whatsoever It is a great and a glorious chapter, and it certainly is one of the crucial episodes in the long and checkered history of the children of Israel. And as the New Testament tells us, these things were written for our ensembles. There is no doubt at all that the Holy Spirit led the early church, even when it had become mainly Gentile. to incorporate the Old Testament scriptures with their new scriptures for that very reason, that the Old Testament is full of illustrations and full of teaching which are of great and of profound value to all of us who are in the Christian life and the Christian faith. That is why it is the height of folly always to ignore the Old Testament and to fail to see the gospel and the principles of gospel teaching in the Old Testament as well as in the New. And so you find the New Testament writers constantly referring back to what happened to the children of Israel. They were, if you like, the church under the old dispensation. But now I'm calling attention to this in particular because it again throws very great light indeed upon this whole question which we are considering at the present time, namely the question of revival and of spiritual awakening in the Church. It is, as I say, in many respects, again, one of these perfect Old Testament illustrations of what happens to the church when she's in a period of aridity and dryness and then comes out into a period of reawakening and of revival. What we shall be considering here is something that has been repeated many, many times in the long history of the Christian church. Now, the peculiar feature about this particular account is that it enables us, perhaps more clearly than anything else we've considered hitherto, to realize how revival comes. The kind of process, the mechanism, which is to be seen so clearly in the coming of revival into and upon the Church. Let me make this quite plain and clear. While I am thus dealing with it mainly and chiefly in general, considering the Church in general in the need of revival, obviously at the same time it is a perfect message for the individual. What a revival really means is, of course, something happening at one and the same time to a number of individuals. But there is no need for us to wait until revival comes to have individual experiences. So all we shall be considering has an immediate and direct application to any individual who may be in the condition that I'm about to describe. This is something I say that is personal and individual as well as more general. Now here what we are told about the way in which revival comes is brought before us in a particularly instructive manner with regard to this point, that there are, generally speaking, stages and steps in the coming of revival. You will never find practically, in all the histories of revival, that the Church suddenly, in one move, as it were, in one step, passes from her condition of lifelessness and almost moribund state, immediately into a condition of mighty power. and revival and influence. Now, there are generally particular steps and stages, and the glory of this particular incident here is that it helps to bring out very plainly and clearly, in this anecdotal manner, these steps and stages. Very well, all I've got to do is to put the story before you. It indeed almost preaches itself. Nothing could be simpler than the exposition of this particular incident in the life of these children of Israel. Well, very well, let us start with the position. What was their condition? And I read that portion from the 32nd chapter in order that you might have the background. Here was one of the most serious declensions that ever took place in the story of these people. You remember how almost from the very moment that they were delivered from the captivity of Egypt. They began to grumble and to complain, and in various ways to backslide. But this is certainly the most serious thing that they ever did. Moses had been called up onto the mount by God in order to receive the law. And there he had remained a number of days, leaving the people behind, with Aaron, as it were, in charge of But you remember, as the record tells us, the people became impatient. They said, where is this Moses? This man who persuaded us to come out of Egypt, and who's landed us here in this wilderness. What's happened to him? Doesn't he care about us? Where is this man? And where is this God of whom he spoke, who was going to give us such blessings, and who was going to lead us into a land of milk and honey? What's happened to this fellow Moses, they said. And they became utterly impatient. And they turned to Aaron and they said, Look here, we are tired of this. We're not going to wait any longer for him, nor the God whom he claims to represent. Make us another God. And you remember that Aaron told them to pull off their ear rings and so on. And he took all these and he threw them into a fire and they were all molten and he fashioned it into the form of a golden calf. And they proceeded to worship the golden calf. and said, this is the God that brought us up out of Egypt. And not only did they worship the golden calf, but they proceeded to open sin and vice and evil. They danced before him and behaved themselves in an utterly and thoroughly disgraceful manner. Now that is the essence to the background. It is a story of disobedience, a story of rebellion. a story of their making their own god and proceeding to worship him. There it is, false worship, man arrogating unto himself the power to decide who is to be his God. And in turn, of course, it led, as I say, to sin and vice, open immorality, and shameful and disgraceful behavior. Now, we haven't got time to go into the application of these things in detail, but surely anyone who has any spiritual sensitivity at all, and any knowledge of the Scriptures and of the history of the last hundred years in the Church, We'll know that this, alas, is far too true a portrayal and representation of the state of the Christian Church at this present moment. The Church has been repeating this very thing, chiefly, of course, in the matter of setting up its own God. How do you demonstrate that, says someone? Well, unfortunately, but too simply. What has been happening, you see, for the last hundred years in the The so-called new critical attitude to the scripture has been just a repetition of this very thing. Man has no longer been receiving the revelation and submitting to it. He has been setting himself as a judge on the revelation and has been determining what it ought to be. It's been the making of a golden calf. It's been the setting up of a new God. The Church, and I'm speaking of the Church, particularly, has set herself over the book and above the book. Philosophy has taken the place of revelation. And men haven't hesitated, and still do, to express their opinions on the God of the Old Testament. A prominent church leader in another country has referred to the God of the Old Testament as a bully, in whom he didn't believe. There are men calling themselves Christian preachers in this country, who say they don't believe in that God of the Old Testament sitting upon Mount Sinai and blowing out his threatenings. They say they believe in the God of the New Testament, of the Lord Jesus Christ, as if he didn't believe in the God of the Old Testament. Well, I needn't keep you with these things. But you see, it's been a repetition of this story. Men have been fashioning their own God. They've done the same with the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't believe in miracles, therefore they say they didn't happen. These are but myths, not having real actuality in fact, but representing spiritual truths. They deny the virgin birth, the miracles, the literal physical resurrection, and so on. Now all this, of course, is but a repetition of this story. There they did it in a very crude way. They actually fashioned and made a calf out of gold, these golden earrings and so on, and set up some objective God. But in principle there is no difference whatsoever. It's man making his own God, deciding and determining what he's like and who is to be believed and what is to be believed. And then they proceed to offer some kind of worship to their own creation. And of course, as invariably happens, you can't separate these things, you know. Once man begins to do that, inevitably you get a moral declension following. These people didn't stop at making a golden calf and worshipping him. They began to dance and to drink and to sin. They became guilty of gross immoralities. And of course we've witnessed the same thing. These clever people who said that they were going to make this new god because the old evangelical religion wasn't ethical and wasn't moral and social. These people who did that in those terms have produced the moral conditions that we have today. You cannot have morality without godliness. The most moral periods in the history of this country have been the periods that have followed revivals and spiritual awakening. And those men fashioned their new god in the name of ethics. What happens is a decline in ethics and a collapse of morality. So we have had the self-saying thing in the church and in the world. False worship, false religion, false gods, and an appalling state of evil, sin, and vice. What happened? Well, you remember what happened. God punished these people, and he always punishes sin. God punished these people. I have said many times from this pulpit, I repeat it again, I regard the two world wars which we have experienced in this century as God's punishment of the apostasy of the last century. I see no other adequate explanation of it. God punished the people in a terrible manner, partly physical. He did it through Moses. And then you remember there was this great call that was issued by Moses, who came down from the mount and saw this appalling condition, Moses sends out his great challenge. Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me. And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. That invariably happens after such a state of affairs. A clarion call is issued, and there is a kind of separation. And thank God we know something even about this. There is a separation in the church today, let's be perfectly clear about it. There are those, thank God, who always protested against this new attitude to the scriptures. There have been those who've kept the flame, who've realized that this is the truth and none other. And there is a call today to separation. And it's the only distinction in the church which I recognize at all. those who submit to the word of God and its revelation and its teaching, and those who don't. I have no interest in denominations. My one interest is in this separation, who is on the Lord's side and who worships his own God and his own ideas and his own thoughts. That's the first thing that we are told. But then, and this brings us to our immediate matter, Moses interceded, you remember, It's one of the most glorious statements found in the whole of Scripture on the lips of a man. Moses returned unto the Lord and said, All these people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin, and a dash. He paused. He didn't go on. And then he resumed after a while, and if not, Block me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. Moses becomes an intercessor. He becomes a kind of type of the Lord Jesus Christ. He becomes a mediator. He stands between the people and the wrath of God and says, punish me. He couldn't bear it, of course, it was too much. And yet the noble spirit of Moses shines out so clearly in this great incident. That, I say, the thing I'm anxious to call attention to is God's reply to Mercy's intercession. And that is what we have in the first three verses of this thirty-third chapter. The Lord said unto Mercy, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I swear, and to Abram, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, Unto thy seed will I give it, and I will send an angel before thee, and I will drive out the Canaanite, Amorite, Hittite, Perisite, Hivite, Jebusite, Go unto a land flowing with milk and honey, for I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way." Now this is the significant thing. God's reply to Moses was to this effect. He said, I have given this promise to these people, that they shall go to that land of promise, that land of Canaan, which is flowing with milk and honey. And therefore I tell you now, lead them up. Take them to the land of promise. In view of what they've done, I'm no longer coming up with you. I've been in the midst of you." And he'd represented his presence, you remember, by the cloud and the pillar of fire by night. He said, I'm not coming up any longer amongst you. In a sense, says, God, I dare not come, lest I may consume you. I'm going to send an angel to lead you and to remove your enemies from before you." So very well, he says to Moses, lead them up. Go along. I've pointed you as leader. Take these people up. Enter into the land of possession and of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey. I'm not coming with you, but I'm sending an angel who will help you. Go ahead. Now then, that is the position. And what is of such great interest to us is to see the reaction of Moses and the church to that. Now then, this is the first stage always in revival. You see the position they were in, the sin, God's pronouncement, God's judgment upon it. What is the first stage, the first step in revival? Well, here it is. a realization of the position. These people who'd rebelled and turned their backs upon God and had blasphemed his name and had criticized his servant Moses and had caused Aaron to make the calf and worship him and who'd sinned, suddenly they're arrested. They realized something at any rate of the situation in which they were. Now obviously this is a matter of final importance. There is no hope of revival apart from this. It is an awakening, I say, to the situation. It is a consciousness of the seriousness of the situation. It is an awareness of the implications of what God has said, that he is going to withdraw his presence from them and that he has done so. The cloud has disappeared. The pillar of fire was no longer in evidence. God had said he'd withdraw, and God had withdrawn. The visible signs and symbols of his presence have gone. And furthermore, there was a consciousness and a realization of his displeasure. Now, I defy you to read the history of any revival, any record that has ever been written of any great spiritual movement in the history of the Church. but that you will find at once that this always happens, without a single exception. You remember the dawning consciousness in the case of Martin Luther of the abuses in the medieval church, all the sale of indulgences and things like that. That was the first thing with which he really began to deal. Before he was clear about his doctrine of justification by faith, he became aware of the appalling state of the church, the sin of the church. the disgraceful condition, and all the idolatry that had come in and was concealing the worship of the true God and of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He awakened to that, exactly as these people did. And this is of necessity the first stage. I would be very much happier in this pulpit this morning if I could say with confidence that there was evidence of this in the Church today, speaking generally. I would thank God if I could say that there was some indication that men and women had been halted and were pausing, and were beginning to face the facts, and beginning to see the true condition of the Christian Church. Is there any evidence of that? There is no hope of true revival until there is. in some moderate. This is the first step. Dare I say even that I don't see even much of this in the evangelical section of the church. Our peculiar danger, of course, is to segregate ourselves in mind, in thought, And then to be so busy with our meetings, they come round every year, our anniversaries and our meetings and the reports of what we've done, our summer campaigns and winter campaigns, and it's all so marvellous and so wonderful. And we don't seem to realise that anything is wrong. But my dear friends, the way to test the condition of the church is not to compare and to contrast with that which is evidently and obviously wrong. The way to test the condition of the Church is to examine her in the light of the New Testament picture of the Church, or to examine the Church in the light of what she has been like always in every great period of reformation and of revival, with the presence of God in the midst, with great spiritual manifestations of his presence and of his glory. And I wonder what even the evangelical section of the church looks like when she compares herself with that, when she estimates herself in terms of spirituality, when she estimates herself in terms of her knowledge of God. Not a knowledge about him, but a knowledge of him, direct experiences with him and of his presence, the thing that I shall be going on, God willing, to deal with in subsequent Sunday mornings. Are you satisfied with the condition of the church? Are you satisfied with your own condition? You believe the truth, you're evangelical, you're not a liberal in your theology. All right, but is that enough? What is our spiritual state and condition in reality? How do we feel when we read the experiences of these apostles, the apostle Paul and others? Can we say honestly with him that we're in a kind of state of tension, as he was, saying that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, not as though I had already attained? Forgetting the things that are behind, I press forward. Do you feel the tension, the concern, the stretching, the pressing on? How much do we know of that? Can we honestly say that we rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ with a joy unspeakable and full of glory? Can we say with Paul that to us to live is Christ and to die is gain? That we may be with Christ which is far better. How do you feel when you contemplate death? How do you feel when you take an ill and lay it aside and begin to have to think about possible death? How do you feel? Now, these are the ways in which we are to test ourselves. There is no hope, I say, for true prayer for revival and intercession unless we realize that there is a need. Is all well with us? Can we be satisfied? Can we sit back and fold our arms and say, things are going marvelously, look at the reports. Are we like these people at this point, or are we like the Laodiceans, saying that we are rich, we have abundance, that all is well with us, and failing to realize that we are poor and wretched and blind? Well, I say, may God give us grace to examine ourselves and to be honest with ourselves. Do we realize the difference? Between the church as she is depicted in the New Testament and ourselves, do we realize that God's displeasure is upon the church? Why has there been such a long interval since last God came down amongst his people in revival? Why this appallingly long period? Why are things as they are? Why is the church counting for so little? Why is she so ineffective? Why is it that men and women are living in sin as they are, and things are going from bad to worse? My dear friends, the first step is that you and I have to realize these things, have to be pulled up by them, have to begin to think about them, become concerned about them, have a deep awareness of the position as it is. But of course it didn't stop there. That is of no value in and of itself. You go on to the second thing which is mentioned in verse four of this thirty-third chapter. When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned, they mourned, and no man did put on him his ornaments. Here's the thing. Repentance. You can't, of course, repent unless you face the facts. But having faced the facts, the question is, do you go on to repentance? There is a cursory superficial facing of the facts that is of no value at all. Isn't that the difference really between remorse and repentance? The man who suffers remorse is a man who, in a sense, looks at the facts, but he doesn't spend much time about it. Oh, he says, I was a fool, I shouldn't have done that, and I'm suffering now because I did... forgets it, goes on. That's remorse. It's of no value. Repentance is a much, much Now let me read to you the classical statement as to what repentance means in order to save time. The Apostle Paul has put it for us once and forever in the second epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 7. Let me begin to read at verse 8. He says, For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent. For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now listen. Now I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance. For ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death That's remorse, and that's useless. For behold this selfsame thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort. What carefulness it wrought in you! Yea, what clearing of yourselves! Yea, what indignation! Yea, what fear! Yea, what vehement desire! Yea, what zeal! Yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Now that is a perfect definition of what is meant by true repentance. But look at it in the case of these children of Israel, where it is illustrated so perfectly. What does repentance mean? Well, it doesn't mean that you just are pulled up and are aware that things are not as they ought to be, and that there is something seriously wrong. No. You go on to a realization of the seriousness of it all and of its appalling character. They hated themselves for it. That is what Paul is saying about those Corinthians. You didn't merely glance at it. You examined yourself. You pummeled yourself. You hit yourselves. You punched yourselves. You hated yourselves. You took revenge on yourselves. And that, my dear friends, is an essential part of repentance. A man awakens to the seriousness of what he has done. These people said, we've turned our backs on God, we've made this God this golden carpenter, we've worshipped him and we've sinned, we've disgraced ourselves, there we are in our nakedness, we've been dancing before a mere idol created by our own hands. And it came home to them and they hated the thing, they abominated it, they condemned themselves. root and branch. Ah, but still more important than that, they realized the seriousness of sin in God's sight. They said, if it's this to us now that we've come to ourselves, what must it be to God? Oh, the prodigal son knew that, didn't he? He thought he was wonderful until he found himself in that field with a swine. He came to himself. And the first thing was, he saw himself what a fool he'd been, and he kicked himself, he hated himself, he condemned himself, and then he thought of his father. If I see it like this, what must it have been to father when in my arrogance I asked for my share of the goods and left home, and spurned all that he and home had represented to me? If it's this to me, what was it to him? How can I go back and face him? Oh, how he must have suffered! Do we ever think of what our sin is like in the sight of God? I know realization of sin makes us feel uncomfortable, and we want to get over it quickly, so we ask of forgiveness. Do you go through the stage of realizing what it must be to God that we, his creatures, his people for whom he has done everything, should turn our backs upon him? and in our folly and selfishness make our own gods and go our own way. Oh, go, I say, and read the history of revivals again. Watch the individuals at the beginning. This is the first thing that happens to them invariably. They begin to see what a terrible, appalling thing sin is in the sight of God. They even forget the state of the church temporarily and forget their own anguish. It's this in the sight of God, how terrible it must be. Never has there been a revival but that some of the people, especially at the beginning, have had such visions of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of sin that they've scarcely known what to do with themselves. Some of them have felt it so acutely as we've seen that they've even collapsed physically. That doesn't matter. The thing is the realization of sin in the presence of God, and especially this. What these people suddenly came to realize was that because of their sin, and because of God's view of sin, God was withholding His presence from them, and was telling them to go up to the land of Canaan without Him, sending an angel. But He wasn't going to come. The God who'd entered among them as it were in Egypt, the God whose power they'd felt as they were traveling in the direction of the Red Sea, The God who was there amongst them, with Piahireth and Beelzephon, one on each side, and the hosts of Pharaoh behind, and the Red Sea in front, the God who had come down and had divided the sea, this mighty presence, this holy, glorious God, He is no longer going to be with them. That was the thing, you know, that filled them with dismay. That was the thing that alarmed and caused these people to mourn. When the people heard these evil tidings, and that was the evil tidings, I will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way. What troubled them was not the threat of being consumed, but that God had said, I'm not coming with you. You've got to go up alone. I'm sending an angel, but I'm not coming. Oh, this is a tremendous thing. This is the heart of the whole matter. Men and women, when they are truly awakened, begin to realize that there is nothing which is so serious as to be without the presence of God. Do you get its full force? God was sending them to the promised land. God was saying, go up, I've promised you the land of Canaan, I'm going to give it to you. You shall go to the land flowing with milk and honey. I'll send my angel before you to destroy these enemies, these Amorites, these Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites. Go on, go up to your promised land. I've brought you out of the captivity of Egypt, I'm sending you on. Go ahead, lead them, Moses, I'll send an angel with you. And the people said no. If you're not coming with us, we don't want to go. Now that's the essence of spiritual understanding. And that's the thing, my dear friends, that you and I have got to come to. You see, here were the people who suddenly awakened and came to this tremendous, profound realization that to be given every other blessing is of no value if God doesn't do it with you. What's the value of Canaan? What's the value of milk and honey? What's the value of having possessions? If you were not with us, they saw that the realization of the presence of God, having his fellowship and company, was infinitely more important than everything else. Need I apply this to the church today? You can have successes over your enemies, you know. without this great realization of God in the midst. Oh yes, there are angels who can do that for us, destroy certain of our enemies, take us to the land, we're in Canaan, we've got the milk and honey, yes everything seems to be all right. There's an appalling verse in Psalm 106 where we are told to the children of Israel, God granted them their requests but sent leanness into their souls. You can have an outward prosperity and affluence. The church may seem to be doing remarkably well. Good finances, good figures, successes, conversions, enemies defeated, everything going well. And the newspapers report it. The Christian newspapers report it. It all seems to be marvellous. But the appalling question I ask is this. Is God in the midst? Is He really amongst us? Are we aware, as we should be, of his glorious presence? That's the thing that got these people. And what they said in effect was, Canaan's no use to us. Milk and honey are of no value. We're not interested in these enemies. We want you! Oh, says the Psalmist, it is for thee I cry out as the heart panteth after the water brooks. So panteth my soul after thee, O God. He's not after blessings, he's after God, the living God. Yes, says Paul, oh, I've been a successful evangelist, I've done so much, but oh, I'm not satisfied that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. No, no, they said, we can't go on without you. The presence of God is essential. They came to that realization. And as I say, their realization was that no outward prosperity and no type of success can compensate for the absence of God. What shall it profit a man though he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? Christian people I'm not asking you this morning whether you're living a good life. I'm not asking you whether you're happy. I'm not asking you whether you read your Bible and whether you pray. I'm not asking whether you're active in church work or in some other form of Christian activity. What I'm asking you is this. Do you know God? Is he with you? Is he in your life? Is he in the camp? Or are you traveling on with God, as it were, somewhere in the distance, given strength and power by his angel and by his leader and so on? But the question is, what of you in your personal relationship and your personal dealings with God? These people repented. And the end of repentance, and the ultimate of repentance is just that, to realize that nothing matters. Accept my relationship to God. Let nothing please nor pain me apart, O Lord, from Thee." They not only faced the situation, they repented. But you see, and oh, how perfect the scripture is, they gave absolute proof that they had repented. And again, this is one of the differences between remorse and repentance. Because repentance is not just a passing, temporary feeling. Repentance is something that is so profound that it affects a man's will. As the Apostle again puts it in 2 Corinthians 7, in the verses I read to you, it leads to action. You've put things right so far. You did something about it. And a man has never repented until he has done in practice what he feels he ought to do. And these people did it. Here it is. And when the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned. And no man did put on him his ornaments. For the Lord had said unto Moses, Say unto the children of Israel, Ye are a stiff-necked people. I will come up into the midst of thee in a moment and consume thee. Therefore now put off thy ornaments from thee, that I may know what to do unto thee. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments by the Mount Horan. And we haven't repented truly until we've done that in whatever shape or form it may be true of us. It means this, that having had this profound realization of our sinfulness and especially in His sight, our one desire now is to do everything we can that is well-pleasing in His sight. And what is it? Well, it means forsaking sin and doing His commandments. pluck off your ornaments. And the children of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments. Yes, it was these ornaments that had led to their downfall. These were the things out of which the golden calf had been made, some of them. And they hate the very thought of the whole thing. And God says, strip yourselves of them. And they stripped themselves. Oh, I needn't keep you. You've only got to read Christian biographies. And I say again, the story of revivals, to see exactly what I mean. There is always this stripping. Men and women are aware that they've been doing things that they shouldn't do. They may not have been very harmful in and of themselves, but they stand between them and God, so they must go. Ornaments vanish, strip themselves. And they gave themselves to God in a new consecration. and in a new dedication. This, I say again, is of the very essence of repentance, that we realize that we've got to act. We've got to take some steps. It's not for me to tell you what they are. Because if I do, I shall be preaching to some and not to others. But every one of us has got to be stripped of something. Every single one of us, without a single exception. It's no use just pointing at smoking and drinking or this and that. There's something in everybody's life. Some ornament. And it must go. Well, it isn't for me. To say that though God did commend it, what I'm saying is this, that when a man realizes his sinfulness, and that the state of the Church is due to the fact that he and others are so sinful, and what it means in the sight of God, a true repentance will lead to such an examination, and one will see certain things, and one will deal with them gladly and readily. They struck themselves of their ornaments. Well, our time has gone again. and we'll have to leave it at that for this morning. But that isn't all, obviously. These are but the first steps, the first beginnings, the dawning realization that there is something wrong, and profoundly wrong, and that the call is a call to a godly sorrow, a profound and a deep of repentance. Are you happy about yourself? Are you happy about the state of the Church? Is all well? Can we go jogging along? Meeting services, activities? Wonderful! Is it? Where is the knowledge of God? Is he in the midst? Is he in the life? What is our relationship to him? Face that question, and it will lead to this true godly sorrow and repentance, which will manifest itself in a practical manner. May God have mercy upon us. Open our eyes to the situation, and give us honest minds and truth. in our inward paths. Amen. We do hope that you've been helped by the preaching of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. The MLJ Trust retains exclusive copyright ownership to all audio files of Dr. Lloyd-Jones sermons, including all derivatives, such as translations, modifications, or edited versions of the files. You must gain written permission to license, distribute, or broadcast the audio files, and under no circumstance may the files be offered for sale to or by a third party. You can find our contact information on our website at mljtrust.org. Thank you.