The Curse of Complacency in the US

There are three cultural and religious conditions in America that mix together into a toxic formula that will severely reduce our power in the Lord, unless we take deliberate action.  Let’s name them and tell what toxic results the admixture leads us to.  Here are the components: 

1.      High relative income.  America doesn’t have the wealthiest people on the planet, but it has the highest average disposable household income, in 2013—if you are Caucasian.  America’s $60,256 is ‘way ahead of second highest among the measured  nations, Luxembourg, whose median was $52,493. 

2.       Belief in eternal security—“once saved, always saved.” A rapidly-growing phenomenon.

3.       Belief that Christians will be raptured before the seven-year “tribulation.” This is called the pre-trib rapture theory. Its opposite is the post-trib theory, belief that Christians must endure the tribulation before being rescued.  Pre-trib belief is a growing phenomenon. A recent study of 1000 people show that twice as many believe in pre-trib as those who believe in post-trib rapture, 

So, what is the result, in most cases, from mixing these three elements together? You won’t like what I think is the answer:

COMPLACENCY--“a feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better…especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies”

Not a good spiritual position, I think you will agree.  Why do I believe complacency exists?  The main reason is simple statistics.  Jesus said, in Matthew 7:13-14:

 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. ¹⁴ Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it

As I said in an earlier blog ("Most Americans are Not Saved"), the word “few,” upon study, means 6 or 7 out of 100.  So if America is average in its Christian ratio, 6 or 7--say 7--Americans out of 100 are going to heaven. Yet the latest surveys reveal that 84% of Americans claim to be Christians.  So if you took 100 people, 84 would say they’re Christian, but only 7 of those, based on what Jesus implied, might actually be going there.  So, if you broke those down to "lowest common denominator," out of every 12 people who say they are saved, only one really is—but what about the other 11?  They are deceived. They think they are Christian and going to heaven, but they are not. They are on the broad way to hell.  Eleven out of 12 claiming to be Christian therefore have complacency--they have “unawareness of actual dangers,” do they not? Since this ‘unawareness” rate is so high (11 out of 12, or almost 92% of those who think they’re heaven bound are really on the way to hell); it seems to  indicate complacency is toxic throughout the culture.   

Unless you want to make the argument that, oh yes, 84% of America is truly saved.  We are ‘way above average in the world. In fact, you’re saying that compared to the meaning of Jesus' word "few,"  supposedly Americans are not "few"--yes, we're 12 times the average.   I would like to give a simple argument that should crush such thoughts:  Christianity turned the Roman Empire upside-down between 30-300 AD.  They went from being a small band of hated “heretics” to being declared the state religion. Huge social improvements were put into place.  (You don't read about these things because your school history class "has to" avoid religion.) Yet what percentage of the population caused that?  The answer, according to best statistics, was shocking: Christians never got higher than 10% of the population! With the power of God, they did it.  So I ask you, what powerful social changes have Christians done lately in America, with allegedly 8 times the ratio as Rome? Few, sadly.  Our argument of being superior to the world, as you see, doesn’t hold water with such powerful influences as the early Christians that were dedicated and truly abiding in Christ..And you must abide and obey Christ to be saved.  (John 15:1-6).

Now you may argue, “Well, they were under persecution—this made them stronger.”  OK, that’s another way of saying “Well, we’re weak now.”  Exactly what I maintain.  Our weakness is due to complacency, my friends.  If we really stood up for Christ in a truly separated-from-the world life, we would also experience huge persecution.  But we're not.  Oh, yes, a few people in America have indeed suffered--but few.  

So I am maintaining that we have complacency.  Now let’s look at the three causes I enumerated above.  Let’s start our proof with:

High Relative Income. If people have any “religion” at all, the most-frequent assumption they make (if they call themselves "Christian") that have high income is this:  “God gave me high income because He loves me.  As Deuteronomy 28 shows, He blesses those who follow Him.  So since I am blessed, He must love me, so I’m heaven bound.”  Well, that’s Old Covenant, or Old Testament. Some of those rules got wiped out in the New Covenant.   Jesus introduced the rules for rich people in the New Covenant.  Let’s look at the new rule: Matthew 19:23-24:

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. ²⁴ And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Let’s make sure we understand this:  Jesus was saying, it’s more difficult for a rich person to be saved than a middle or lower income person.  So if the overall saved average in the world is 7%, then America, with a larger number of richer people, would actually see a lower than 7% saved rate.   So people who have a family disposable income of higher than $60,256 (see above), being richer than average, are in particular danger. Rich people have a big problem; they get involved with the world, and love its comforts.  But Jesus says they can't love the world and also love God.  

Now, of course, you may dispute all this.  You may say:

1.        Yes, we have higher income.  But I think we’re saved anyhow.  We accepted Christ.  My possible responses to that argument: 

a.       Praise the Lord if that’s really true; as Our Lord said in Matthew 19:26:  “With God all things are possible.”  But there’s a few questions I’d like to ask:

b.      How much time do you spend praying over the death and suffering of your poor brothers and sisters elsewhere in the world?  Things are unbelievably bad for them in China, Syria, Somalia, and North Korea, just to name a few.  How much of your income do you donate to their relief and missionary endeavors annually?  Do you reject the purchase of unneeded material things so that you can give more to the Lord’s work?  And I do not mean your local church here.  The suffering is so much greater elsewhere in the world. If none of these things have entered your mind, are you really saved?

c.       Have you ever meditated on just exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-20:

 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰ but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

As I point out in another blog (A Radical Truth:  Part I), Jesus is commanding us (per the phrase “DO NOT”) not to save money beyond imminent use of funds.  This strongly suggests giving away all income that we don’t really really need.  This is in actuality advocating redistribution of wealth—on a voluntary basis, of course. Done by Christians.  Think about this:  What do men go to war for?  Really, isn’t it because other people have more than they?  Such radical redistribution as Jesus suggests, such giving, reduces their greedy homicidal impulse—and an open hand to give can save many of these people for the Lord.  And seriously reduce war and killing.  Giving sacrificially is the greatest witness for Christ of all!

d.       Yes, you accepted Christ.  But have you given gifts to the Lord, as Galatians 5:22-23 says?  Are you spending time reading Scripture to learn how to copy Jesus, how to obey His every commandment—and thus abiding in Him?  As John 15:6 says:

If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them, and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 

I have a blog on how to maintain salvation ("Getting to Heaven")—Scripture says we must endure to the end to be saved.  It would be a mistake to lean too much on that past salvation experience, if not followed with appropriate deeds.  Getting saved, then not radically changing your life, says you are not abiding in Christ--and you could be headed for being thrown in the fire.
Too many wealthy people give 10% to church--who then, because of the burdens of salary and building upkeep, are only able to give 10% of their revenues to poor people in great need.  So even of the wealthy, only 1% of their revenue makes it to the people who need it.  Why not give straight to parachurch or independent agencies?  If your church building is not able to stand, that's OK.  You could meet in groups of 10 or 20 in people's homes every Sunday.  It's a radical idea, but that's how the early church started, and that's the only way the people who need it are getting it.  It increases accountability of individual members, not a bad idea (but only if the leader of each housegroup is truly dedicated to the Lord.) 

2.     Now, of course, you may simply argue “I’m not rich.  We make $75,000 a year, and can barely get by.  So this isn’t relevant to me.”  I would say, your $75,000 puts you above average in the U.S., to begin with.  But thinking on a worldwide scale, in the long march of past history, as Jesus is addressing, you are one of the wealthiest people who ever lived.  There is a special responsibility, a special burden, to go with this wealth—and you must fight hard against deceit and complacency, which will come your way, which would tear you away from your mission for the Lord.  Consider Matthew 13:22, where the Sower of the world has many failures and only a few successes; here is one of his failures:

²² Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.

What kind of “deceitfulness” did the Lord mean?  How about “I am rich because God loves me.”  We’ve already covered the falseness of that deceit. Yet rich people continue to complacently  believe it. We should say, “God, through no particular reason on my part, allowed me to be rich—what does God want me to do with this special gift for Him?”

Let’s move on to the second cause of the cultural disaster known as Complacency:  Belief in eternal security.  Supposedly, all you have to do is say, “I was saved at a youth camp in the summer of 2002.  And I've lived a pretty clean life since.  So I’m saved forever.  No need to worry about hell.” So what do a lot of these people do?  These “2002 savers,” say, get married, and if they feel good about it, they stay married; if they don’t like it, they get divorced.  And remarried.  Well, that's totally un-Scriptural.  See Matthew 5:32.  If Christians are acting just like the world in an important area as this, are they Christian?  Another aspect:  Much of their conversation, even with Christians, is functional—when they want a car, they talk up cars with everybody.  And so on through houses, boats, jobs, how to get the “best” girl (her religious behavior ranks low on importance for most--in fact, if she seems a "fanatic," it excludes her).  God does not enter the discussion.  Retired people, I can tell you, we have endless conversations about restaurants, how to save a dollar buying something, golf game, etc.  Or, for the younger, they may live in fornication (sometimes even if they have young children), then they “get saved,” but if they break up, and later get into financial straits or loneliness, they live with someone again.  Later they might get married.  These people pray—or appeal to God--only when they get desperate.  They never read their Bibles, except in an occasional short streak. They might get to church every other week, until they can afford a boat, or get a job working Sundays. Then they disappear:  you better hope they might attend a Saturday night sermon.  They are never torn about the possibility of hell for themselves, their family, or their friends. 

The point I am trying to make?  God’s plan for what to do for Him, in obedience, as a "new creation" are not a goal by the majority of those who believe in eternal security when they "got saved."  Jesus’ commandments about forgiving, about adultery and divorce, etc are decided upon without reference to God.  These un-Christian behaviors should be warnings but they are never considered as serious enough to be seeing yourself on the pathway to hell if you disobey.  So, abiding in Christ?  Not happening.  But a doubt about their salvation?  Not a wisp of worry in their mind.  It happened in 2002, don’t you know.  It was a great event.  So I’m Rock Solid about Eternal Security.  (Definition:  I’m as complacent as I can be).  Pastor told me so.  Well, God bless that pastor.  He will have to give an account for his deception.  Scripture is full of verses that clearly indicate that security is conditional on holiness.  I have a three-part blog on this one:  Escaping Hell (Part 1), and Do Peter, James and John…(Part 2) and Do Paul…(Part 3).  I know that you Eternal Security folks are ingrained in your beliefs, but consider again that 11 out of 12 of those who think they are saved are not!  What are the odds that you’re one of the 11…or can you assume that you’re for sure the 1 in 12?  This is heaven vs hell we’re talking about, it’s worth a few hours of open-mindedness and reading all of New Testament Scripture, especially every word from Jesus, and praying for His guidance. 

Now we move to the third of the triad causing our country’s massive complacency:  The pre-trib rapture believers.  (By the way, I used to be in all three of these camps before.  But I’ve always been a reader, and He led me to some good reading material.)  I only have space to give you one difficulty with the pre-tribbers:  Their theology has Christians being raptured, without any pre-indicators, before the end-times tribulation.  The horrible things of those last tribulation days—wars, famines, earthquakes, massive persecution and martyrdom—will happen on earth while they’re enjoying heaven.  The Holy Spirit that indwells true believers, a Comfort to His beloved and thus a witness of His grace to non-believers, will supposedly be gone when they are raptured.  Thus, a “Christian” who believes this will be effectively saying, to his unsaved relatives and friends:  “You should be saved as I am.  We can leave this scene and leave non-believers to suffer the greatest misfortune of their lives without us.  When they need us the most, Jesus takes us out of here.”  You know what the thinking non-believer will imagine when hearing this raw explanation of their mindset?  “Oh, sure; you want me to believe in a theology of abandoning people I care for, of complete selfishness.  Is that what Christianity is?  You can keep it, my un-friend.”  Another fact is, the pre-trib theory is not a historical Christian belief; the idea was created as late as 1830.  It’s the opposite of the “post-trib” theology that was believed by almost all "futurist" Christians for 1800 years before that.  The predominant historical belief was, Christians will have to hang around through the end times and suffer, and giving their life for Him.  So this newer pre-trib idea says, in effect:  For the first 1800 years, when the greatest minds that Christians had, from men close to Him, men who changed Rome, they all believed mistakenly, because they believed Jesus had two Advents--Jesus at birth and Jesus at resurrection and judgment.  The “truth” is, they say, Jesus is having 3 Advents—the two above, and the middle one a secret rapture of Christians living then. Of course, there isn’t a single solid Scripture to prove it, but if you twist some Scripture like a pretzel, and compartmentalize and contextualize others, you’ve got this great theology that people love to hear about, so it must be true! All those 1800 years, those guys were all wrong.  We have it right now—the subname for our theology is:  Good Luck, the rest of you: We’re Outta Here!  

If that isn’t a complacent theology, I don’t know what is. 

So there you have it.  Three corrupting effects.  Lots of complacency.  Oh, you still don’t believe we’re in a complacent period?  I have a “closing argument” thought for you:  Have you heard about the stat that “Christians” divorce at the same rate as non-Christians?

Here’s a shocking statement from Christianity Today, 2/14/14: 

     Andrew Walker interviews Dr. Bradford Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project, and asks him the question, "Are religious conservatives really divorcing more than religious liberals, or more than people who have no religious affiliation at all?" Dr. Wilcox answers,

Up to a point, yes. The article finds that conservative Protestants, and counties with higher shares of conservative Protestants, are indeed more likely to divorce—compared to Americans in other mainstream traditions, from mainline Protestantism to Mormonism to Catholicism.

Thus, conservative (i.e., evangelical) “Christians” have a higher divorce rate than “mainline” (i.e., liberal) Christians. That’s a shocker by itself, saying that the supposedly more committed Christians divorce at a higher rate. The article goes on to say,

…A new article by sociologist Charles Stokes in www.family-studies.org suggests that the problem here is mainly with nominal conservative Protestants—those who attend (church) rarely or never. It's these nominal conservative Protestants who are much more likely to divorce.

That word “nominal” (“in name only,” not by actual behavior) seems to back my claim that most of those who claim to be saved aren’t.  By the way--aside from my personal experience, here’s the reason I keep harping on the subject of divorce.  What did Jesus command?  In Matthew 5:32:

whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.

You would have to conclude that there’s a lot of adultery going on in America among “Christians,” is there not?  Now, what does Galatians 5:19-21 say?

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Think about this:  God hates divorce so much that He places it in the same camp as the idolaters, the sorcerers, the murderers—all these terrible people, including divorcers who remarry (if unrepentant) are going to hell!  Were Jesus and Paul blunt about hating divorce?  Yes.  But do we get it?  No; we have people all over the place who choose temporary residence in a new marriage, hoping for a little more bliss in this life—and they are trading it for an eternity in hell!  Bad trade, folks!  Do our pastors get it?  No.  For the most part, they insist God will forgive you, without demanding that you see what danger you’re in, or even asking you for repentance.  No church discipline, no loss of Communion under more liberal popes.

All this sounds like “unawareness of actual dangers,” does it not? Well, that’s the definition of complacency.  I’ll say the statistic one more time:  11 out of 12 people who think they’re going to heaven are actually going to hell. Are you sure you’re not one of the 11?  Take some time to study the Scriptures, ask God to open your eyes, read my blogs on these dangerous beliefs.  May God bless you.