Purify your church

PASTOR’S CORNER, Ann Holman, Risen Glory Church, Liberal

This was my favorite time of the day. The kids were in school. My husband was at work. The house was quiet. I sat down in my recliner to read the Bible and pray.

I opened my Bible and started to read. Soon after I started to read, my heart was suddenly gripped by an intense anguish. I was puzzled by the anguish, but I had no understanding of its cause. I experienced such a burden that I got out of my recliner, and fell to my knees. I cried out to the Lord with great agony, “Purify your church!” Then the anguish lifted.

I continued to read. Then the anguish happened again. And once again, I fell to my knees and prayed for God to purify the church.  I had no understanding of what was happening.

I was reading the book of Jeremiah. When I came to Jeremiah 4:19, the Lord suddenly revealed understanding of what was going on. Jeremiah was a prophet, and God revealed the coming Babylonian invasion to Jeremiah. Jeremiah sees it as a present reality, and he experiences the anguish of war. 

The anguish I was experiencing as I read Jeremiah was that war was coming to America. God was going to punish America for her sins unless the church is purified.

There is a familiar story in the Bible when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham interceded for the cities. Thus, God would not have judged the cities if He found ten righteous people. The fact of the cities’ destruction indicates that God did not find even ten righteous people in it.

Now I understood why I cried out to the Lord to purify the church. God looks at the church to see whether or not to judge the nation for its sins.  If there is righteousness in the church, then God will not bring judgment on America. If people in the church are not living holy lives, God will judge America by allowing war to come.

Like Jeremiah, I experienced war in America as a present reality. When I would run errands or go to the grocery store, I would see people laughing and chatting. Why are they laughing? I didn’t think I would ever laugh again. Then, after a week, that awful knowing lifted.

That experience has been years ago. But I have never forgotten it. Of all the experiences with the Lord this past fifty years, this has been the most impactful. It has shaped and focused my ministry to the body of Christ. As our nation and culture grow more lawless, I am reminded that unless the church is purified, war is coming. I pray that it never happens. I pray that the church is purified.