When I was a boy I was taught how to put glass knobs on the feet of a chair and charge the chair with electricity. So long as I didn't touch anything but the chair I was all right, but if I touched the wall or something else I got a shock. The power passed through and from me. As Christians we cannot come into touch with defiling things without suffering a loss of spiritual power. You can't go to the dance and the card party and the cheap-skate show without losing power. Yes, you can do those things and be a church member. But you can be a church member without being a Christian. There's a difference.
I read in the Bible that Lot first pitched his tents near Sodom. Next I read that Lot moved right into Sodom, and lived there for twenty years. He lost his power there, too. When God warned him to get out of the city he went and told his sons and daughters, but they wouldn't heed him. He had lost his power over them. He warned his sons-in-law, but they wouldn't heed him. He even lost power over his own wife, for he told her not to look back as they fled, and she rubbered.
If you have lost spiritual power it is because you have disobeyed some clear command of God. Maybe you're stingy. God requires tithes. He commands you to give one tenth of your income to him, and maybe you don't do it. It may be your temper. It may be that you have neglected to read the Bible and haven't prayed as you should.
The Church is a failure because she is compromising with the men that sit in the seats and own saloons whom she never rebukes; she is compromising with the men who rent their property for disorderly houses, and whom she never rebukes. They are living off the products of shame and if they buy food and clothes for their wives and children from such money, they, too, are living off this product of shame. We have lost our power because we have compromised.
When I played baseball I used to attend every theater in the country. Since I was converted I have not darkened a theater's door, except to preach the Gospel. We've lost our power because we've lost our faith.
Our leading members are leaders in nothing but card parties and society; they are not leaders in spiritual things. A man comes to me and says, "Mrs. So-and-So is one of my leading members."
I ask: "Does she get to prayer-meetings?"
"No."
"Does she visit the sick?"
"No."