2023 - A MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH

First, may I wish you and those you love a most Happy New Year.” May God grant you in 2023 the satisfaction that comes from achieving everything in Christ that he has laid out for you to do.

I wrote a message years ago questioning whether the New Year would be the end of “Christianity Lite?”  I wish I could say today that the desire of my heart came true in great measure. I know it did in the hearts of some of God’s sons and daughters, but the church as a whole remains immature, and self-satisfied with far less than the inheritance God wants us to enjoy in Christ Jesus.

Despite the growth of mega-churches, Charisma magazine has rightly noted that there is a startling shortage of Christ-like disciples. Those reputed to be leaders talk of the “great traditions of Islam”, ignoring the fact that close to 90% of the worst persecution of the church today comes from Muslims. A best-selling book from the largest church in America barely mentions Jesus and reads more like the Reader’s Digest than a call to follow the Lordship of Jesus Christ. People continue to watch “Christian” TV and pour billions into ministries whose tired and false litany is that every problem in your life can be solved by giving your money to THEIR ministry and that God’s job is to make you happy and fulfilled as opposed to taking up our cross and following the Lord. Meanwhile, they divorce, they have scandals, the true gospel is not preached, and the unholy day-to-day lives of the couch potatoes watching them are barely if at all distinguishable from those of the world.

Churches are going the “Lite” route more and more. Bud Lite and Coors Lite were the nation’s top two selling beers, and churches that preach a “Lite” Gospel greatly dwarf the ones who preach the whole counsel of God. Pastors say that the way to growing a church numerically is to avoid spiritual gifts in the morning service. It supposedly makes those services more attractive to “seekers”. They have statistics to back them up.  You can go all year in many churches without ever hearing about hell and Christ’s requirements of the believer. One person said that Jesus was not even mentioned at their Christmas service! We know the President did not mention Jesus in his Christmas address, but he is an unbeliever at war with the church with policies birthed in hell.  What are people IN the church thinking basically doing the same thing?

The churches that grow the most numerically do indeed practice “Christianity Lite”. You will never hear convicting sermons like Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”. Instead, divorce practices, sexual practices, business practices, TV/movie practices and a stained vocabulary are not all that distinguishable from the world if at all and they go essentially unchallenged week after week.

The pulpit  - fixed or electronic - is supposed to be the place for the Holy Spirit to challenge folks not only to believe in Jesus but to follow him completely! The church is the place for the gifts of the Holy Spirit to operate. I say that the only growth Jesus Christ cares about is growth on the INSIDE, not mere numbers. Read the account of Gideon in Judges 6 through 8! Listen to Jesus’ teaching that the BROAD way leads to destruction. Yet, Christian leaders are loath to say or do anything that will cause the lukewarm to disappear, even though in Revelation 3 Jesus said he is about to spit them out of his mouth. Why do Christian leaders want to coddle those whom Christ himself is about to spit out??? How do we think we will win the battle we are in with a half-armed and barely dangerous army? The truth is, we won’t. Israel never won when they looked good in the world’s eyes. They only won when they trusted God and God alone, regardless of the numbers, regardless of their carnal weapons, and regardless of the strength of their enemy. These accounts are written for us to learn from, not ignored so we can make the same mistakes Israel did!

Further, the main reason that so many have lost confidence in the gospel is a failure to believe absolutely in the authority of the Word of God. Secular colleges have long despised the Bible, but many strong Christians have emerged battle-tested from those venues, present company included. Nowadays, between 8 out of 10 and 9 out 10 CHRISTIAN colleges do not believe the Bible is really completely true! Some discard the unequivocal teaching of Genesis that God made the world in six literal days and that his creation was GOOD! They allow for or even encourage belief systems that require death and destruction to have entered the world long before Adam sinned. Richard Dawkins, perhaps the most lucid exponent of evolution, clearly understands the linkage between evolution and atheism. Why don’t Christian leaders? Other schools dismiss or throw into the past the role of the Holy Spirit, miracles, spiritual gifts, and the crowning piece of spiritual armor - praying in the Spirit that is mandated in Ephesians chapter 6.

So you may rightly say, that is the diagnosis, but what is your solution? I’m glad you asked! My solution is nothing original and nothing new. It is simply what God instructed us to do in the first place.  We will look at Ephesians 6 and I Corinthians 14 for a few moments tonight and I encourage you to also study them on your own.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. 19 Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

I Corinthians 14:26ff tells us what to do when we come together. People, not choreographers, bring hymns, words of instruction, revelations, tongues, interpretations. Not just in small groups. Not just during mid-week meetings when those ”likely to be offended” seldom show up. Truly the weak Christians need this edification more than ANYONE!!! Seekers need to SEE the power of our salvation more than anyone! The Holy Spirit says through Paul “ALL OF THESE MUST BE DONE FOR THE STRENGTHENING OF THE CHURCH.”  Therefore, if we see a weak and enfeebled church, we know why. Why don’t we simply follow the teaching of the Holy Spirit and DO WHAT HE SAYS?????  Now you may say, I have been to Pentecostal places and they are still weak. SO HAVE I. I have heard suspect and shopworn “prophecies” and those who mechanically follow what is supposed to be supremely spiritual. I have also heard wild tales of supposed amazing encounters with God or angels that do not line up with the Bible.  The people may be sincere, but everything has to line up 100% with the Bible or be summarily rejected. That is why there are Shepherds to guard the flock from error. However, I have also been where I Corinthians 14:26 was literally followed, and IT WORKS. Let God be true, and every man a liar!

Ephesians 6 tells us to put on the WHOLE ARMOR of God. Partial armor will not do. What is there of lasting value that is accomplished when we are HALF-ARMED AND BARELY DANGEROUS? We are unprepared to take the offensive and we cede area after area to the minions of Satan. At the same time, we are suffering untold casualties on the defensive side. Satan will simply ignore the protected areas and go for the jugular. That jugular, the place where our blood flows, is UNPROTECTED when we go not pray in the Spirit per Ephesians 6:18. When we try to follow Christ in the flesh and do not follow him in the Spirit, we are sitting ducks. That is why Christians are jettisoning portions of the infallible word of God they feel are hardest to believe. The WHOLE BIBLE is impossible to believe without the GIFT OF FAITH!!!  

The miracle of creation, Nebuchadnezzar’s fire that could not kill the faithful, the parting of the Red Sea, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the raising of the dead, the saving of sinners like me - all of this is so fantastic and so unbelievable and so foolish to the UNBELIEVER! Yet it is the power of God to salvation, and to those who are given the gift of faith, every word of it is true and every word is profitable for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. I love the word of God, and I am not ceding ONE WORD, ONE CONCEPT, or ONE EVENT to anyone!  

The Lord recently told me that if we reject any portion of the Word of God, Satan will substitute another idea or another concept in its place, and we will believe what Satan says INSTEAD of what God says to our severe detriment. Believing what Satan says is truly addictive! We need to remember that a counterfeit piece of money is usually at least 95% accurate and genuine looking – otherwise everyone would immediately recognize it as play money.   Most weak and counterfeit churches resemble the genuine in many ways – scripture reading, singing, religious vocabulary, and warm fellowship. Satan counterfeits only the most critical aspects of our faith – those that will separate us from the will of God, those that will remove our source of power from us, those that will give us false assurances when we have unconfessed sin in our lives, those that will open the door just a crack for doubt, because Satan knows that doubt grows as a cancer without any further intervention from him.  

 

Let the church be the church and let the church do what Christ commands. The uncompromising church is the church that turned the world upside down in the first century and the one that is causing revival in various parts of the world now. Christians from other parts of the world are stunned at what they see in American Churches. I for one want to change that in 2023. I am determined to present the uncompromised and politically incorrect word of God in every way I can. Are you with me? Will you do the same? If you do, you will have a blessed, prosperous, and very spiritual New Year. If you don’t, please do not complain to me!