Some Christians are content to merely exist until they die. They don't want to risk anything, to believe God, to grow or mature. They refuse to believe his Word, and have become hardened in their unbelief. Now they're living just to die.
- David Wilkerson
At an alarming rate, temptation and deception is becoming the mortar on which 21st century life is built. With devilish precision, the kind of relentless incrementalism that inverted morality in a single generation is rapidly transforming the world view of billions outside and inside modern Christianity.
Even more unbelievable is the tragic fact that such unprecedented reversal is not because Churchianity has fought and failed but rather failed to fight. Except perhaps with the authority of the Word of God.
Prophetic Christians today are beginning to understand Isaiah’s frustration when writing, “Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” The remnant of the remnant are finding with growing rapidity their fellow believers unable or unwilling to even hear, much less act on “What the Spirit is saying to the churches.”
For vastly different reasons, billions today find the prophetic warnings of the New Testament against entitlement and sin as incredulous as the Jews did Isaiah’s Old Testament prophecy of the miraculous incarnation and costly atonement of Christ.
The confusion and antagonism of the church in Isaiah’s day primarily arose from two sources:
1. King/Servant Paradox: The Jews were perplexed as to how their long awaited and desperately needed Conquering King could possibly be fated to fulfill the role of Suffering Servant. Such confusion is perfectly understandable. Particularly if the Messiah, as David’s prophesied heir, was to be filled with Divine power and purpose.
2. Arrogance: Their second objection was more sanctimonious. Simply put, they saw little or no reason the faith of their fathers, instilled by the patriarchs and prophets should need an extensive overhaul. As sons of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and inheritors of the law of Moses, these faithful stewards of the “very words of God” rightly considered themselves the light of the world. Which light they were, until they repeatedly failed to live up to such a challenging and rewarding privilege and responsibility.
Today’s Churchianity also finds Scripture’s more arduous warnings and directives incredulous, though for far less noble and more numerous reasons than our predecessors. These include:
1. Biblical Illiteracy: The average church attender is unable to quote, much less accurately understand and apply even ten verses in a row. Rather most construe cherry picked verses into promises of liberty and security, health and wealth. In the here and hereafter. Doing so with little or no concern as to the corresponding conditions of such passages.
2. Prayerlessness: The majority of First World Christians are basically prayerless, stopping to pray less than ten minutes a day. Such a stunning lack of diligence reveals the tragic fact that hundreds of millions of believers are practical agnostics.
3. Presumption vs. Living Faith: Scripture’s requirement of living faith necessitates a level of care and commitment often lacking in those presuming to call themselves “Christ-ians.”
4. Doubtful Habits: Vast quantities of time and energy, better invested serving God, are redirected into the pursuit of amusement. The average family routinely spends 100's of hours a month watching TV and/or engaged in social media. Yet, less than a tenth as much diligently seeking God. All the while the proliferation of what was recently considered soft porn infects everything from cartoons to advertisements, prime time sitcoms to movies. Thousands of immoral and hard porn, occult and gore scenes, not to mention entire episodes and series, movies and music videos, are dedicated to such programming. The short and longer term detritus effects of such exposure is nothing short of social and spiritual brain washing.
5. Lack of Discipleship: By definition discipleship implies a depth of wisdom and understanding, zeal and obedience transcending the norm. Beyond repentance and salvation. Beyond intercession and study. Beyond activism and insight, there lies the largely undiscovered country of full sanctification and costly commitment to the cause and person of Christ.
6. Sensuality and Pornography: For millennia modesty was the norm, with even women's swimsuits ankle length. Today we show more skin and curves in church than prostitutes were allowed to for most of human history. Without being overly Puritan, clearly we've left little to the imagination. With soft and hard core pornography readily available in print, video and on the net, all restraint has been removed. The combined effect has overturned thousands of years of morality. With our families continue suffering the consequences. In the here and now, and perhaps for eternity.
7. Sexual Sin and Promiscuity: Epidemic in proportion and global in scope, a tsunami of lust has deluged the world since the 1960's sexual revolution. With various version of Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Motown peddling sexuality through advertising and entertainment, it's been raining temptation for more than 50 years. Day and night, with no end in sight.
8. Abortion: In a generation or two, clinical abortion has claimed five to ten times the population of the entire Earth in Christ’s day. With globally well over a billion aborted, the womb has replaced the battle field, freeways and crack houses as the world's most dangerous place. Furthermore, the aborting of perhaps a third or more of our offspring, depending on the veracity of contraceptive abortion, has devastated the conscience and soul of every nation legalizing the barbaric act.
9. Cohabitation: Researchers estimate upwards of 70 percent of US couples cohabit before marrying. If they bother to marry at all.
10. Broken Homes and Divorce: Today's divorce rate, even among professing Christians, is producing hundreds of millions of broken family members with less resistance to temptation and sin of every kind. Note: While peak divorce percentages have fallen, various forms of cohabitation have increased.
11. Drugs and Alcohol: While usage of this or that drug may rise and fall, the ravages of addictions have brought pain and suffering to billions. A single addict can devastate many who love and care for them. Even so pushers and drug cartels have, are and continue to addictively enslave and/or murder millions.
12. Unsaved Family and Friends: We all have unsolved loved ones. Yet few gather for intercession and serious prayer. Much less agonize over the state of lost family and friends.
13. Entitlement: Eve found the forbidden tree "beautiful and its fruit delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her.” So too, our generation has been seduced by the original sin of entitlement and unthankfulness masquerading as wisdom.
14. Me-ism: Even within modern Christianity, unbelief and immorality are fast becoming the rule rather than the exception. A study on the modern world’s new religion of MTD pinpoints the impact such a belief system is having on the choices of individuals and society.
15. Misused Wealth: Christ repeatedly and graphically warns against the misuse of wealth in His stories of the Good Samaritan, Rich Young Ruler and Sheep and the Goats. His vital message of the Rich Man and Lazarus doesn't bode well for affluent and apathetic Churchianity.
Unfortunately, rather than heed Paul’s warning to the Gentiles of whom he was the chief apostle, unprecedented blessing seems to have hardened our hearts and dulled our spiritual sensitivity:
- “I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead… If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either. Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.” Romans 11:13-22 NIV
Such gifting goes a long way towards making every man a king. While most work for a living, there are trade offs for which even monarchs might exchange their crowns. For all his wisdom and wealth could King Solomon call or text someone ten thousand miles away or catch a plane and fly half way around the earth in a matter of hours? Did he ever once jump in a car and race seventy miles an hour on smoothly paved roads enjoying air conditioning and his choice of music from any of a thousands artists? What would his court think of a movie theater? What anesthetic might the king’s surgeon use? Could his counselors possibly imagined that the night sky twinkled with the glimmering of 50 billion trillion suns?
Terminal Velocity
Ironically, the net effect of luxurious lifestyles produced by vast sums of knowledge and resource has been to erode secular and Christian character. Sins of commission and omission are as ubiquitous today as the temptation and deception creating and sustaining them. With the onset of the ’60’s sexual revolution, not to mention the legalization of abortion in the ’70’s, society careened over a cliff of immorality and murder and has been in free fall ever since. Quickly reaching terminal velocity, with no sense of gravity we’ve mistaken falling for flying. Such a state leaves society in general and Churchianity in particular only one of two options:
1. Deployment: If the correct shoot is deployed in time and handled with skill, the skydiver can be saved. Interestingly enough, after the initial jump, here is were the sensation of falling is felt the most. This is why prophetic Christians having deployed their shoots feel the sensation of falling while those whistling by as they hurdle towards the ground, do not.
2. Impact: If a faulty or incorrect shoot is deployed, or if the correct shoot is deployed too late or not at all, the skydiver will be lost.
While such damning statements are all but undeniable, nothing is more common. This disconnect arises from a variety of factors. From religious tradition emphasizing God’s love and mercy over and above other Divine attributes like holiness and justice, to pop doctrine accentuating touchy feely emotionalism effectively eclipsing the clear albeit more fearful meaning of Scripture. While perfectly understandable, these and other unfortunate means of justifying the current shambles of Christendom all but assure schisms within the body of Christ and mishandling of the gospel will continue unabated if not increase.
All the while, as the Holy Spirit is grieved and worse, God’s presence and power, provision and protection is withdrawn in ever greater measure. This in turn requires Churchianity to rationalize ways to preserve it’s inept and/or failed leadership, placate its hurting and/or sinful membership and pacify it’s apathetic and/or demanding donor base. Paul, the apostle of grace, warns of this very development:
- “Don’t be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money-hungry, self-promoting, stuck-up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re animals. Stay clear of these people.” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 MSG
That last verse in translated with a different emphasis in several other versions:
- “For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them]. 2 Timothy 3:5 AMP
- “Write to Laodicea, to the Angel of the church. God’s Yes, the Faithful and Accurate Witness, the First of God’s creation, says: “I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking. You’re not cold, you’re not hot—far better to be either cold or hot! You’re stale. You’re stagnant. You make me want to vomit. You brag, ‘I’m rich, I’ve got it made, I need nothing from anyone,’ oblivious that in fact you’re a pitiful, blind beggar, threadbare and homeless. “Here’s what I want you to do: Buy your gold from me, gold that’s been through the refiner’s fire. Then you’ll be rich. Buy your clothes from me, clothes designed in Heaven. You’ve gone around half-naked long enough. And buy medicine for your eyes from me so you can see, really see. The people I love, I call to account—prod and correct and guide so that they’ll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God! Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you. Conquerors will sit alongside me at the head table, just as I, having conquered, took the place of honor at the side of my Father. That’s my gift to the conquerors! Are your ears awake? Listen. Listen to the Wind Words, the Spirit blowing through the churches.” Revelation 3:14-22 MSG
- Might this passage be a warning echoing down through the millennia regarding the spiritual dangers of riches, dangers Jesus repeatedly emphasizes in His conversation with the Rich Young Ruler and Rich Man and Lazarus?
- Further, might these verses be prophetic in the sense of recognizing that the last church age would take for granted and over indulge in unprecedented levels of wealth and ease afforded by God through the rise of technology?
- “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Revelation 3:21-22 NIV
1. Self deception is far more difficult to overcome than one might think.
2. This last of the seven churches is a type of the final church age, thus Laodiceans will have to pass the final exam by surviving the Great Tribulation period. Note: This is yet another reason for Churchianity to immediately come to it’s senses, plunging itself honestly and accurately into every form of Christian discipline and sacrament. The Scripture, including such notables as Jesus, Paul and John clearly teach the Rapture takes place Mid-Tribulation after the Antichrist and Mark of the Beast is revealed.
Yet if true, who would believe such an unpleasant report? Even with all indicators clearly pointing to the unescapable conclusion that we are the NextGen “Laodiceans 2.0” how few have “ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” Fewer still are willing to embrace the discipline and hardships inherent in the kind of radical and costly discipleship necessary to rightly approach God, whom we have and continue to offend.
Instead, even prophetic Christians prefer to focus on this or that modest and often temporary gain rather than face the somber truth that we’re loosing a war we’ve yet to fully acknowledged, must let diligently fight. Truth is, at this point it would take assembling an A Team with the tenacity of Azusa Street and ruthless honesty to even attempt such a mission impossible as that of restoring Churchianity’s spiritual power grid. A little solar on this roof or that might be nice, but in light of the overwhelming current and coming need it’s simply too little too late.
Tragically, while there should be groups of thousands of these covert commandos, few if any can be found. Like Christ’s story of the dinner party, good excuses abound. Unlike that parable, such work requires mature believers with unusual spiritual sensitivity and practice, rare and specialized skills in rightfully discerning the word of life. Rather one’s long on Biblical interpretation yet short on radical discipleship. Another avoids besetting sins but’s encumbered by doubtful habits. Still another’s admits the need, is personally sanctified yet refuses to contest the comfort of Churchianity.
When it comes to professional clergy the complications grow exponentially. Having abandoned or misapplied the five fold hierarchy of descending ministry levels of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers all manner of misunderstandings arise. Various Gospels and partial versions of the truth offer many Christ’s though only One is True. Even those closer to center than frequently insist in placing the emphosis on the wrong sylolible. For example looking at Scripture’s conditions and warnings as those presuming to already possess God’s promises rather than the other way around. Or merely giving lip service, if that, to the deviating effects of aborting 5-10 times the planet’s population in Christ’s day has on prayer and worship, Churchianity and salvation itself.
Given the primary role and nature of pastors (shepherds) is to gather rather than scatter, hesitancy to agitate the flock is understandable. On the other hand, Jesus warned that any shepherd not willing to protect the sheep to the point of risking his own life was a mere hireling:
- “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf. He’s only in it for the money. The sheep don’t matter to him.” John 12:11-13 MSG
- “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 24:45-51 NIV
Such weighty concerns are all the more reason those with eyes to see need to move from sentimental sympathy to actionable compassion, and quickly. The former interests itself in doing good, taking satisfaction in meeting some needs when convenient. The latter is dedicated to total transformation, finding no rest until the need is thoroughly identified and met. As Paul, the great Apostle of grace and example explains:
- “ I’ve worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death’s door time after time. I’ve been flogged five times with the Jews’ thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. And that’s not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.” 2 Corinthians 11:23-29 MSG
- “My little children, for whom I am again suffering birth pangs until Christ is completely and permanently formed (molded) within you…” Galatians 4:19 AMP
Rise up O men of God,
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and soul and mind and strength,
To serve the King of Kings,
To serve the King of Kings.
Rise up O men of God,
His Kingdom tarries long,
Bring in the day of brotherhood,
And end the night of wrong,
And end the night of wrong.
Rise up O men of God,
The Church for you doth wait.
Send forth to serve the needs of men
In Christ our strength is great,
In Christ our strength is great.
Lift high the Cross of Christ,
Tread where His feet have trod,
As brothers of the Son of Man,
Rise up O men of God,
Rise up O men of God.
Rise up O men of God,
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and soul and mind and strength,
To serve the King of Kings,
To serve the King of Kings.
Time is growing short for such men and women to appear. We must learn God’s perfect formula for repentance and follow the prophetic advice for this kind of extreme emergency. Let us sow the seeds of a New Pentecost by calling for a sacred assembly. Otherwise, without developing a far greater degree of honesty and humility, understanding and discipline we may soon find history repeating itself in the most unpleasant and costly of ways:
- “Your priests violated my law and desecrated my holy things. They can’t tell the difference between sacred and secular. They tell people there’s no difference between right and wrong. They’re contemptuous of my holy Sabbaths, profaning me by trying to pull me down to their level. Your politicians are like wolves prowling and killing and rapaciously taking whatever they want. Your preachers cover up for the politicians by pretending to have received visions and special revelations. They say, “This is what God, the Master, says . . .” when God hasn’t said so much as one word. Extortion is rife, robbery is epidemic, the poor and needy are abused, outsiders are kicked around at will, with no access to justice. I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn’t have to destroy it. I couldn’t find anyone. Not one. So I’ll empty out my wrath on them, burn them to a crisp with my hot anger, serve them with the consequences of all they’ve done. Decree of God, the Master.” Ezekiel 22:26-31 MSG
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