I'm going to make a vow to stop being a sensual Christian.

From now on, I'm not going to trust in the presence of God based on what I feel.

The experience I had years ago when I first began teaching back in 1965. I was a professor at a college and

on the weekends I would fill vacant pulpits and there was a church across the border in Ohio where the minister

became terminally ill and could no longer preach.

And so for several months I preached in that church for his people.

And I got a call on a Saturday night and said,

we just heard from the hospital

and it's likely that our pastor is not going to live through tomorrow.

And I knew how much these people loved him and what a tremendous burden of pain and grief this was going to be

upon them to learn of his imminent demise and the next day we were scheduled to have the Lord's Supper.

And how I prayed my heart out that Saturday night, I said, Lord, these people need encouragement.

They need a word from you that will lift them up from their despair.

That their eyes may be upon you in the midst of this crisis.

And the next day, when I got into the church, I tried to preach my heart out,

and everybody in this room who's ever preached a sermon

knows what it's like to lay an egg.

You know, you want to preach and you're preaching and nothing's working.

I mean, it was horrible. Well, the worst sermon was ever preached in my life. And then

I led the congregation through the Lord's supper and I was overcome with the profound sense of the absence of God.

It was awful.

So when I pronounced the benediction, instead of going back to the back of the church

...