Revive Our Hearts

Dana Gresh: Okay, before we get started today, here’s a quick PSA. Today is the last day of our spring sale. I don’t want you to miss out because these prices, they’re just too good. Go shop for some gifts for family and friends or grab some resources for yourself. You’ll find books, Bible studies, and so much more over at ReviveOurHearts.com/store. And remember, we’re offering free shipping on qualifying orders. Okay, time for today’s Revive Our Hearts program.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Believers are the bride of Christ. How our compromises affect our beloved? What grief must the Savior feel as He beholds His adulterous bride in her tattered, stained, threadbare wedding garments? What must He think? How must He feel as He sees His beloved one seduced, infatuated, and defiled by the world?

Dana Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Surrender: The Heart God Controls. For April 30th, 2026, I’m Dana Gresh.

We’re diving into the archives today to bring you a message Nancy gave more than 25 years ago at an event called Fasting and Prayer 96. This gathering of ministry leaders, hosted by Mission America, was held in St. Louis. Thousands of believers from the world joined via satellite to cry out to God in earnest prayer for our world.

Nancy shared her burden that day for repentance and revival in the church. Her message is based on Ezekiel chapters 8 and 9 and is called, “Begin at My Sanctuary.” As we think about all that’s happening in our world today, I think you’ll agree that this message is as needed today, if not more needed, than it was in 1996.

As you listen, I want to encourage you. If you can, stop whatever you’re doing for these next 20 minutes and ask God what He is wanting to say to His people, to our own heart in our day. In fact, let’s pray right now.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Lord, we do need You. We need You desperately in our world today. We need a divine intervention for the brokenness, the hatred, the strife, the sinfulness, and the waywardness that is so common. God, would You begin Your work in us today as we make our hearts attentive to the words from Your word in Ezekiel 8 and 9? I pray, Father, that we would learn what it means to be in Your sanctuary and that we would begin there. Anoint these words for each individual heart and life. In Jesus’ name, amen.

We’ve come together to seek the face of God and to cry out to Him on behalf of our nation. We’re acknowledging that there are no human solutions to the tidal wave of evil in our land and that nothing short of divine intervention can overcome the darkness and the lostness of our world.

But I believe we need to remind ourselves that there are some prayers that God will not hear. There are some solemn assemblies that He will not attend, and there are some fasts that are not pleasing to Him. When the children of Israel came to fast and pray with unclean hands, God said, “Though they shout in my ears, I will not listen to them. Though you make many prayers, I will not hear.”

In fact, the scripture goes so far as to say that our fasts and our prayers are actually an abomination to God if they are not accompanied with humility and repentance. We would all be quick to agree about the need for repentance outside these walls. But are we as quick to recognize our own need for repentance?

We can readily identify the sins of the White House, but have we become blind to the corruption in our own house? We decry the sin of our world, but have we not tolerated virtually all the same sins in our churches? Tonight we face a danger of feeling that the problem is somewhere out there in Washington, Hollywood, San Francisco, on our secular college campuses, or among nominal church members.

But as we read the scripture, we see that the sternest words of reproof were issued not to the pagan world, but to the people of God. The prophet Isaiah calls out, “Hear, oh heavens, and give ear, oh earth, for the Lord has spoken. I’ve nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. They have forsaken the Lord. They have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger. They are gone away backward. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. How is the faithful city become an harlot?”

Throughout the Old Testament, the husband-father heart of God grieved over the waywardness of His chosen people. Time after time, He begged them to repent. And when they refused, the Hound of Heaven pursued their stubborn, sinning hearts with painful discipline. Then in the New Testament, we hear Jesus’ indictment against the spiritual leaders of His day—men who were renowned for their much prayer and fasting. These people, He said, honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. The opening words of Jesus’ ministry here on earth were not “fast and pray,” but first “repent.”

And when the ascended Lord Jesus looked down from His throne in heaven, His final message to the churches was not “go and preach the gospel,” but first “repent.” For an unrepenting church has neither the motivation nor the capacity to fulfill the Great Commission of our Lord. To the first of those seven churches, He said, “You have committed spiritual adultery. You have left your first love. Repent.”

To another, “You have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead. Repent.” And to the comfortable, complacent church of Laodicea, He said, “You don’t think you have any needs, but the fact is you are wretched, naked, miserable, blind, and poor. Repent.” And still tonight, the Lord Jesus pleads with His beloved bride, “Be zealous, therefore, and repent, or else I will come and take your light from its place.”

I’ve been gripped over and over again by that account in Ezekiel 8 and 9 where God takes His servant in a vision to the temple in Jerusalem. No less than 10 times in that eighth chapter, God says to Ezekiel, “Look, see. Do you see what’s going on in there? Look at the detestable things taking place right in the middle of My temple.” I’ve been asking God to help me see what He sees when His all-knowing eyes examine the church in America.

The picture is not a pretty one, and the truth is painful to admit, but we’ve got to get honest if we ever hope to get God’s attention. The truth is that we’ve not only flirted, but actually fornicated with the world. When it comes to how we think, how we live, how we look, how we sound, how we do ministry, we’ve become virtually indistinguishable from the world outside the church.

We’ve bought into the world’s philosophies and practices. Whereas the church once told the world how to live, now the world is telling the church how to live. We’ve accommodated to our culture rather than calling for the culture to accommodate to Christ. Thus, the church and ministry have become big business. We’re more familiar with management and marketing principles than we are with principles of faith, humility, purity, and prayer.

And many pastors and Christian leaders have become CEOs rather than spiritual shepherds. We’ve utilized nearly every worldly method conceivable to attract the lost. And in many cases, we’ve lost both our distinctiveness and our effectiveness. We’ve built our ministries on pragmatism—whatever works—without stopping to evaluate if the means we’re using are in accordance with the ways and the word of God.

In an effort to convince the world that Christianity is fun, we’ve entertained and amused ourselves to death. Why do Christian celebrities and comedians perform to sold-out crowds while scarcely a few attend the prayer meetings? Whatever happened to the power of God? Have we become more dependent on methods, techniques, strategies, and programs than on prayer and the Holy Spirit? Have we lost confidence in the power of the word to convict, the gospel to convert, and the Spirit to draw men to Christ?

We’ve seen what human effort, ingenuity, creativity, and technology can do. We know what money, organization, and promotion can do. But we have yet to see what God can do. We care more about public relations—how our constituents view us—than about how God views us. We’re more concerned about our reputation than His. In our seeker-driven mindset, we’re more worried about offending visitors than offending God.

We’re more concerned about people feeling good than about their being right. We want people to leave feeling good about church, good about us, and good about themselves. Never mind that they have grossly offended a holy God and are under His condemnation and wrath. We’re so afraid of seeming intolerant or unloving that we tiptoe around crucial issues of the word of God.

Our cowardice in standing with God on such matters as divorce and remarriage has made us accessories to the carnage of millions of Christian families. In fact, we’ve placed ourselves in the precarious position of justifying and defending what God says He hates. We’ve commercialized and merchandised the gospel of Christ for the sake of financial gain and worldly acceptance. And we have pursued unity at the expense sometimes of purity.

Today, anyone who dares to call sin by name or to point out doctrinal error is likely to be branded as divisive, unloving, or legalistic. In an effort to make Christianity palatable to our soft, self-centered generation, we’ve preached a diluted message that sidesteps the issue of sin, eliminates the demands of the cross, and overlooks the need for conviction and repentance.

In an effort to make our message relevant, we’ve ended up preaching another gospel that is no gospel at all. We’ve preached Christianity as a way to find fulfillment rather than a calling to take up the cross and follow Jesus. In many cases, we’re more concerned about additions and statistics than about actual converts or the quality of those converts.

Let me tell you something that deeply grieves my heart: Never before in the history of the church have there been so many millions of people on our church rolls who profess to be Christians, who can even name the time and the place of their conversion, but whose lives give absolutely no credible evidence of a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. God help us.

Inside the church, in far more ways than we care to admit, we have failed to live by the scripture. Oh, like King Saul, we say we’ve obeyed the word of God, but how do we explain all the evidence to the contrary? For example, we’re a community of the forgiven who refuse to forgive. We live with unresolved conflicts in our homes, among church and ministry staffs, and in the pew.

Further, we’ve ignored or rejected the biblical standards for spiritual leadership. Instead, we elevate giftedness over godliness, and we exalt men whose lives and homes are far from conforming to the standard of God’s word. We brush known sin under the carpet. Why do so few churches practice biblical church discipline? And why are professing believers who refuse to repent allowed to continue as members in good standing?

The bride has forgotten how to blush. We sin without shame. We’ve lost our capacity to mourn and grieve and weep over sin. Even our language betrays our theology of irresponsibility. We speak of leaders falling into sin rather than acknowledging that these men and women have chosen a pathway of compromise and fulfilling, gratifying the lusts of the flesh.

And in keeping with the times in which we live, we as Christian women have tossed aside such outmoded notions as virtue, modesty, femininity, and submission. We’ve exchanged the adorning of a meek and quiet spirit for an angry, demanding, controlling spirit. Abandoning our God-created role as helpers, we’ve insisted on taking up the reins in our homes and in the church.

In our casual brand of Christianity, there’s little sense of the fear of the Lord. How else could millions of churchgoers sit under the preaching of the word week after week and leave unchanged and unmoved? How else could so-called believers who claim to believe in holiness sit in their living rooms or their hotel rooms, watching television and laughing at ungodly jokes, lifestyles, and philosophies? When is the last time you saw the people of God tremble at the word of the Lord? When is the last time we trembled at the word of the Lord?

Should it come as any surprise that the watching world should reject our message when our lives bear so little witness to its truth and power? At the heart of our problem is that subtle, deadly sin of pride. Insidious, cancerous, blinding pride. We’re proud of our doctrinal correctness, proud of our spiritual accomplishments, proud of our stand on moral issues, proud of our reputation and our level of sacrifice.

Pride causes us to be self-righteous, self-congratulatory, and self-sufficient. It blinds us to our true condition and our great need. It causes us to fear men rather than God. Pride causes us to compare ourselves to others, and it breeds a competitive, critical spirit. Our pride is literally strangling the life of Jesus right out of the church.

Yet even as we list these sins, some of us may feel that we’ve not rejected the word and the ways of God. Then could I ask you some questions that God’s been asking me in recent days? If we’re so close to God, where’s the passion? Where’s the compulsion, the unction, the fire? Where are the tears? Where’s the mourning, the grieving, the weeping? Why are our eyes dry and our hearts dull?

Where is the groaning, the crying out in soul travail? Where are those who cry out with David, “It’s time for You, oh God, to act, for they have trampled Your law”? Where are the Isaiahs who stir up themselves to take hold of God, praying fervently, “Oh, that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down”? Where are those who plead with the psalmist, “Turn us, oh Lord God of hosts, and cause Thy face to shine”?

Where are those who abhor sin, whether in the world, in the church, or in their own breast, who cry out, “Horror hath taken hold of me because of the wicked that forsake Thy law”? Where are the Jeremiahs whose hearts are in anguish and whose eyes overflow with tears for the desolation of God’s people? Where are the prophets who are willing to risk their reputation, their retirement funds, and their acceptance within the Christian community in order to be said what needs to be said to our generation?

Where are the men who are sounding the alarm to awaken the church out of her sleep and lethargy? Is not God’s word like a fire and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Then where is the preaching with conviction, confrontation, divine fire, and Holy Spirit anointing? Where is the urgency, the solemnity when we talk to men about eternity and the condition of their souls?

Where are the intensity and the terror when we speak of the judgment and the wrath of God? And where, for that matter, are the tenderness and the compassion and the passion when we speak of the loveliness and the beauty and the grace of the Lord Jesus? Have our minds been engaged without our hearts being ravished? Where are the hot hearts set afire by the coal from the altar of the Lord?

Where are the men who’ve been with God, who’ve lingered in His presence until they’ve heard His word and then descended from the mount with the glory of God radiating from their faces and the power of God reverberating from their hearts? Having shown Ezekiel the abominations taking place in the inner court of the temple, God sends forth into the holy city a man with a marking pen.

He is told, “Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who mourn and lament over all the desolations that are taking place in it.” Then executioners are sent into the city with instructions to slaughter all those who do not have the intercessor’s mark on their forehead. And says the Lord, “Begin at My sanctuary.”

In that passage, as in this auditorium tonight, there are really only two groups of people: those who are the cause of the problem and those who grieve and mourn with repentant hearts. There is no middle ground. We know for sure of one who carries this burden on His heart tonight. What grief must the Savior feel as He beholds His adulterous bride in her tattered, stained, threadbare wedding garments?

He who became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He who shed His precious blood to purchase for Himself a holy bride without spot and without blemish. What must He think? How must He feel as He sees His beloved one seduced, infatuated, and defiled by the world? If our hearts are not broken by what breaks the heart of God, if we’re not part of the remnant that sighs and groans and mourns within over the detestable things that are going on in the temple of God, then we are part of the multitude that is in danger of His chastisement and in desperate need of repentance.

So tonight, God calls us to repent. To be afflicted and mourn and weep. First over our sin, for He will not hear or heed our prayers for the nation, no matter how sincere they may be, if we have not first humbled ourselves and repented of our wicked ways. The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God.

In a moment, I’m going to suggest that once again we go to our knees and humble ourselves in the presence of the Lord. Each of us asking God again to search our own hearts. And during that time, would you join me in praying, “Oh God, it’s not my brother, it’s not my sister, it’s not my pastor, it’s not the deacons or the elders, it’s not the ministry or the church down the street. It’s me, oh God.”

Shine the light of Your holiness into the innermost parts of my heart. Show me how I have sinned against You, how I’ve been a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution. Show me where I need to repent. And as the Holy Spirit brings conviction to our hearts, could we humble ourselves, confess our wicked ways, and plead with our gracious God for mercy and forgiveness?

Let us search and try our ways. Let us turn to Him with all our hearts, with fasting and with weeping and with mourning. Now could we bow our knees and our hearts before the Lord?

Dana Gresh: If you’re able, I want to encourage you. Would you get on your knees and pray as we listen to this song from Christy Guckenberger? Lord, we need You to sweep through Your church, clean us up, bring revival to Your people, and let it begin in us. Let it begin in me.

Christy Guckenberger: Search me, oh God, and know my heart today. Try me, my Savior, know my thoughts, I pray. See if there be some wicked way in me. Cleanse me from every sin and set me free.

Dana Gresh: I hope that song reflects the attitude of your heart, one of humility, contrition, brokenness. And before that, we heard Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, who was Nancy Leigh DeMoss at the time, with a message she gave in 1996. There’s a downloadable PDF version of Nancy’s message available for you to read and think through. It’s called “Begin at My Sanctuary.” You’ll find a link to it within the transcript of this program on the Revive Our Hearts app or look for the transcript at ReviveOurHearts.com.

There’s only one right response when we’re confronted with the powerful truth of God’s word. It’s surrender, repentance, saying, “God, You’re right. I’m wrong. I’ve been going my own way. And before I ever worry about the specks in others’ eyes, I need to deal with this log in my own eye. I give up. You’re in charge now.”

I hope you’ll take some time to examine your heart today following that powerful message. We’ve created a resource to help you in this reflection process. You’ve been hearing about it all month, the Refresh journaling set. Today’s your last day to donate and receive your scripture cards and journal. To give and request yours, visit ReviveOurHearts.com or give us a ring at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow we’re going to hear from Nancy’s late husband, Robert Wolgemuth, in a message He gave to the staff here at Revive Our Hearts chapel. I hope you’ll join us for that. Be back for Revive Our Hearts. This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.