[A.W. Bowman]

I finally decided to listen to the entire sermon. While I did stop and recording a number of times and took notes about specific comments, I will just give a quick overview of my observations.

1. If preachers do not continually preach on standards, the congregation will backslide.
2. Revival is a product of religious performance. The more energetic the performance the greater the revival will be.
3. When revival comes you will know it by the changes one makes in their outward appearance.
4. TV is evil – but the Internet and computers are not mentioned (accepted by pulpit silence).
5. The attitude of the minister is good (accepting of all holiness standards, as defined by the organization), and all other attitudes are wrong. A whole list of things to ‘preach against’, but nothing to preach in support of.
6. Preach the word was the call – but in this sermon, the word was all but ignored. Rather, the sermon was on what ministers could/should be accomplishing - that was the focus – Not Christ or what He could accomplish.

Summation: The focus is on men and their efforts and accomplishments – not on Jesus, His message and what He will accomplish. Except in a couple of prayers and a scriptural reference, the name of Jesus was mentioned perhaps 1-2 times. There were a number of Praise God, Thank God, Thank the Lord and Praise the Lord statements, but always as a side note, but not as the subject.

Bottom line:"It is amazing what these Americans can accomplish without God."

Conclusion. I have no idea what the other preachers had to offer during this conference, but this sermon was all about justifying an organization’s holiness standards, and nothing to do with the gospel or empowering folks to enhance their relationship with God. Just receiving the approval of the pastor. I assume that was the intent all along. That being the case, it was a wasted hour.

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The organ playing? it was as good as the message that was preached.