10 Indictments of the Church in Today's Culture (Part 2)

Last week we covered 5.  This week the other five.  Read with prayer, my friends.  Think what you could do to help.

Indictment #6: Ignorance regarding the nature of the Church.

God has only one religious institution. It is the Church (I do not mean Roman Catholics when I say “Church.”  I mean all believers.) Jesus gave his life for the Church, His beautiful pristine betrothed wife. God is the upcoming husband.  Today because of the lack of biblical preaching, the so called Church is filled up with carnal, wicked people. And then because of all the goats in the midst of the lambs, the lambs are blamed for all the things the goats are doing and then the name of God is blasphemed.  Just because someone says they are of the Church or they are Christian doesn’t make it so. The real Church is one. She has always been one.  Yes, there are denominations.  But in the Last Days, that won’t matter.

What you have got now is a bunch of goats and tares among the sheep. And because very little biblical, compassionate Church discipline is practiced, the wicked ones live among the sheep, they feed on the sheep and they destroy the sheep, and those of you who are leaders in the Church are going to pay a high penalty when you stand before the one who loves them because you did not have enough courage to stand up and confront the wicked.

In North America, the churches are mostly democracies. Because the preaching of the gospel is so feeble, the majority of members are carnal, lost people and yet they mostly govern the direction of the church. And because the pastor doesn’t want to lose the people and because he has wrong ideas regarding evangelism and true conversion, he caters to the wicked in his church and his little group of true sheep that belong to Jesus Christ are sitting there in the midst of all the theater, in the midst of all the worldliness.

You are saying, “Oh, you are just angry.”  If my wife was at Walmart late one night and you walked by as a man and you saw that two men were abusing her, three, four, five, ten men were abusing her and hurting her and you put your head down in the name of self-preservation and you walked by, I want to tell you something, my friend. I will not only look for those 10 men, I will look for you. Believers are the bride of Christ and she is precious to God. Don’t get in the Church’s way, don’t abuse the church’s reputation--you will have to answer to God.

Most evangelical pastors in America today take Matthew 18 (on church disciplining its members) and rip it right out of their Bible.  Their theology gets left behind when they come out of their office; they run the church by carnal means.  Discipline is a hard business, I agree; but it has to be done.  We need loving, compassionate church discipline that does not begin with excommunication. It begins with, “Ye who are spiritual, restore them… (Galatians 6:1).

We say, “We can’t practice discipline. We just… we are just too loving.”  You are more loving than Jesus? He is the one who commanded this.  Then you say “Yeah, it will cause so many problems.”  But here’s how it goes; we approach and say, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” Oh, what a wonderful thing. “But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.”

It is not that these witnesses are “on my side.” They are going to listen and judge. Maybe you are the one that is wrong. Maybe your brother is not in sin. Maybe you are overcritical and legalistic. Who knows?  And then, if the brother is wrong, here’s what we do: “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

I am not talking about critical, legalistic, hateful men as judges. I am talking about a group of elders, leaders who love enough to lay their life on the line because they know this is not a game. But we copped out again, and have joined Rome in this matter. Rome’s view: “The baby is baptized, the baby is Christian. The baby is Rome’s. Never again deal with conversion. Just create all sorts of worldly means to try to keep them in the Church.”

But evangelicals have fallen and have really done much of the same. Give a half an hour of preaching, 25 minutes of which was very funny stories; then we draw the net after five minutes of seriousness. Then, if they come forward, after two or three minutes of counseling, we pray a little prayer with them, counsel them for a little bit and then declare them saved--and then unlucky pastors spend the rest of their days disciplining them and wondering why they don’t grow.

Yes, I believe in personal one on one correction, but, my dear friend, the Church got along for a thousand or more years without it.  Just as many people are going out the back doors as are coming in the front door, and the reason why that is happening is because we are not reproving people.  It starts out that people didn’t getting converted.  If they were his sheep, they would hear His voice and they follow him.  If you make every sermon on evangelism, so nobody grows in their knowledge of Scripture, and if you make a sinners’ call, and hold their hand, you are trying too much in the flesh.

Now we ought to reprove, but in doing so, they may leave. That’s to be expected. “They went out from us because they were not of us.”  So we spend a fortune disciplining goats, hoping they will become sheep. You can’t teach a goat into a sheep. A goat becomes a sheep only by the supernatural working of the Spirit of almighty God.  When they surrender.

Believers in Church discipline means you say: I moved my family to this church because they practice Church discipline, I want the watchful care of elders and other members who take this seriously. I want you to tell me if I am in a wrong.  If my children are converted one day, and then go awry, I want to know what’s going on.  Maybe my children will be brought before a Church leader, to keep them on the straight and narrow, for the salvation of their soul.

Some of you in here would get so mad if a pastor walked up to you and said, “Honestly, I have been praying about your child and I fear that they are unconverted.”  You would get so mad you would rally up a group to have that pastor kicked out instead of realizing, “Oh, praise God, we have got a man of God here.  What’s the proof?  Maybe we need to do something here.”

Indictment #7: A silence on separation.

There is a void of serious teaching about holiness. Everyone agrees, let’s be holy. But when you get specific about what that means, digging deep into sin, that’s when everything turns into a turmoil.

“Pursue peace with all men,” Hebrews 12:14 tells us, “and sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Does anybody believe anymore that we will not see the Lord without sanctification?

You say, “Brother Paul, I have been criticized so often for teaching works religion.”  Listen to me, it goes back to regeneration. If God truly converts a man he will continue working in that man, through teaching and blessing and admonition and discipline. He will see to it that the work he has begun will be finished. If there is no growth in holiness, it’s because you are not letting God work in your life. If he is not working in your life it is because you are not His child.

Look at the difference between Jacob and Esau. “Jacob I loved…Esau I hated.” Yet God fulfilled all his promises to both of them. Jacob was blessed. Esau was blessed. How did God demonstrate his judgments and wrath against Esau and his love toward Jacob? I will tell you how. He disciplined Jacob almost every day of his life.  He gives His loving pruning, the correction of God to bring us to holiness.

Now there is so much teaching on this, but let me just say this. “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.” Romans 12:1-2.  Why does he say “body?” I think to avoid all this super spirituality:  We think we’re OK when we say, “Well, I have given Jesus my heart, but for the rest, you can’t judge a book by its cover.”  Well, as a matter of fact, you can judge a book by its cover. Jesus never said you couldn’t judge a book by his cover. After all, He said “You will know them by their fruit.”  And if you think that you have given him your heart, then he will have your body. And I will tell you why. The heart, my friend, is not some blood pumping muscle or some figment of a poet’s imagination. It refers to the very essence or core of your being. Don’t tell me Jesus has the very essence and core of your being and it doesn’t affect your body. We go through Scripture, what, legalistically? No, drawing inferences? No. Just doing His commands. 

I do not agree with everything the Puritans said, but I love the Puritans and one of the reason why I love them because I believe they honestly made an attempt to bring everything in their life under the lordship of Jesus Christ.  They wrote 800-page books on what should I think about according to the Scriptures. What should not enter into my mind according to the Scriptures?  What should I do with my eyes? What should go in these ears and what should not go in these ears? How should the tongue be ruled? What should be the direction of my life?

And yes, here’s a question no one wants to discuss: How should I dress?  Now I am going to be careful here. My dear friend, my wife says it this way: If your clothing is a frame for your face from which the glory of Christ springs forth, it is of God. But if your clothing is a frame for your body, it is sensual and God hates it. Enough said?

Now holiness isn’t just outward expression, but we have become a people who stubbornly think that the Spirit doesn’t require us to change anything on the outside. “It’s the inside that counts.”  And that is not true.  Some of you young men, you cry out probably more than I do that the Spirit of God would fill you and work in you, but it only takes one half hour of television to so grieve Him, He will be miles from you.

One time I was struggling and Leonard Ravenhill sent me a tract. I still have that tract. It said, “Others can, you cannot.”  You say, “I want the power of God on my life.” Then I assure you that He will show you that something you do has got to go.  Everyone else is running around, and their “proof” of change is all their little retreats and all their conferences and getting together with group hugs and singing Kumbaya and all. Maybe you need to get alone in the wilderness with God and fast for seven days on your knees studying the book of Psalms, just being alone with God, learning about loving and belonging to Him.

So what I’m trying to say in all this is: There is silence from the pulpits on the important doctrine of separation from the world. I think, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness?” Nothing. “Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” Nothing. Darkness is the opposite of God’s revelation. But people want to crawl to the edge of what they think God would allow, they want to become double-minded, be schizophrenic. Why push to the world, away from God, all the time?  He says, “Come out from their midst.” Come out from the midst of what? Come out from the midst of lawlessness, darkness, satanic devices and the life and worldliness of the unbeliever. Come out from it.

Indictment #8:  Psychology and sociology have replaced the Scriptures with regard to the family.

Our Sunday morning services are so cosmetic. If you want to see proof of the Lord’s presence, it’s easiest to look at an individual’s home, his marriages, his family. If I find a godly man who has raised godly children, I’m ecstatic. In church, most of what I hear are wives’ tales and sociology and what is right in their own eyes; and they can’t give me one Bible verse. But every once in a while I find a man and a woman who set themselves to raise their family according to Scripture--and the difference is overwhelming.

What does it matter if a man wins the whole world and loses his family? God sees its great importance.  Look at Genesis 18:19. “For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.” God is pleased with that.  But if you ever come up with this idea as a man of God, “I am sacrificing my family for the sake of the ministry,” I will tell you, you are a bald faced liar.  I do not have to violate the will of God with regard to my family in order to fulfill the will of God with regard to the ministry.

Let’s talk about Sunday school.  Millions of dollars spent on doing everything in the book to promote Sunday school. I know that for a fact.  But how much money does your denomination spend and how many conference and man hours are put in to teach fathers to teach their children? So now you have found it, haven’t you? God doesn’t have a plan B. He has a plan A. You circumvent plan A, plan B won’t work.

Now I am not saying that children can’t come together in groups and be catechized or be taught or anything, but if that ever even begins to hint to supplant the ministry of the Father in the home, blow it to pieces.  But most of the time in the Sunday school it is nothing more than entertainment because the Sunday school teacher doesn’t have the authority to discipline your child; he has to let them interrupt and talk to one another, and mock the lesson. And even if they did have the right to discipline, they wouldn’t do it because they don’t believe in it.

Let’s look at youth groups.  You say, “Well, youth need to be together.”  Ok, well, let’s look. Proverbs 13:20. “He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will suffer harm.”  If young people only listen to young people, the likelihood of being led by fools is greater.  Whoever told you youth ought to be together? Whoever told you that? I’ll tell you who told you that. 1960s psychologists; they helped us formulate the generation gap. Youth are to be with adults so that they stop acting like naïve fools. We should urge them to join adulthood and put away foolishness which leads to destruction.  Now I am not saying you can’t bring youth together, but I submit if you do, have all their parents there.  And you say, “Well, what about the lost youth that come into our church?”  Well, what are they seeing now? The lost youth come in to your Christian youth in Church and they see almost the same thing they see in their own home--no parents, young people teaching kids. But what would happen if a lost youth came into your church and they saw the children there, the youth in a loving, wonderful relationship collectively with their parents and they would go, “Whoa. I have never seen anything like this before. His dad, look at him. He loves…I mean he loves his dad. I mean look at the… So is this Christianity?”

It is like one old dear saint; someone asked him one time, since he wouldn’t let his teenage son go out with a young lady to be in some private place: “Don’t you trust your son?”

He said, “No, I don’t trust my son. Whatever made you think that? I don’t even trust his dad. I wouldn’t put his father alone with another woman.  Yet I have much more control of my will than a teenager with raging hormones. We violate biblical principle after biblical principle after biblical principle and then we wonder why everything is a mess.

I was listening a few months ago to all the horrendous things that are happening to our country.  I Timothy 4:1 says:

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

God is telling young Timothy that all hell is going to break lose in culture, that everything is just going to be maddening, we’ll see the veneer of civilization melt away, we’ll see men as beasts.  We’re swimming against a high current of septic water.  Protect your family from exposure to this.  Give them home schooling, Christian colleges. As I Timothy 4:6 says, we simply have to “be constantly nourished on the words of faith.”

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching and preserve these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. May God Bless His Church.

10 Indictments of Church in Today's Culture (Part 1)

Below is a speech delivered by the fiery Paul Washer.  I guarantee you will love what he says.  A slightly Cliff Notes version follows:

We need revival; we need an awakening.  The Holy Spirit is involved, but we have to do our part.  We have clear direction from the Word of God on how He expects us to live, how He expects us to order His church.  But Biblical principle is violated all around us.  We have been given truth in Scripture; we cannot simply do what is right in our own eyes, and then expect the Holy Spirit to bless our labors.  God is specific in His will, and we are not to take the smallest detail and ignore it.

I know that I have weaknesses, but I have an indictment.  As I look around at the Church, and compare her to Scripture, I see that there are certain things that must change.  You may be angry to hear it, but please, this is the burden on my heart, and I must share it. 

Indictment #1:  A practical denial of the sufficiency of Scripture.

Look at II Tim. 3:16-17:

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, ¹⁷ that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Over the last several decades there has been a mighty battle with regard to the inspiration of Scripture. But when you come to believe that the Bible is truly God’s Word, you have only fought half the battle.  You must then depend on the Bible in your decisions.  But you ask, is it sufficient for that?  The same rules are true when you run a church, or design a growth package.  Pastors say “Gee, maybe we can bring in secular psychology, social science and cultural studies to know how to run a church.”  But these studies, in my opinion, have been relied on too often as gospel truth instead of God’s instruction in His Word.  We call these “experts” so they can creep into our evangelism and missiology so that what we do now can hardly be called Christian.  What do those verses above say about the profitability of studying Scripture..that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.   Sounds like sufficiency.  The social “sciences” were created by men to provide an alternative to the Word of God. They do not know the power of God. Given that reason, shall we rely on the experts? No, every idea we get for church ought to flow from our Scripture and from godly theologians. We should have but one answer to the question “how do we get church growth?”  Simply this: What is thy will, Lord?

We should not send out questionnaires to carnal people to discover what kind of church they would attend. A church can be “seeker-friendly,” IF we realize who is the seeker we should be friendly to--God. Let us accommodate Him and seek to demonstrate His glory. We are not called to build empires.  We should not be concerned about being accepted.  We are called to glorify God.  If you want the church to be something other than a peculiar people (I Peter 2:9), then you want something God does not want.  Worldly persecution we can ignore.  After all, every two or three years the church social scientists change their mind—they introduce yet another fad that “will make the church change the world.” Isaiah 8 seems to fit this situation:

And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God (instead)? Should they seek the dead (the worldly wise) on behalf of the living? ²⁰ (Go) To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.

Mediums, wizards, the dead, having no light--these are harsh pronouns for the psychological and social scientists—but remember what we said about their origins!  Let us all repent and return “to the law and to the testimony.” 

Indictment #2: Our ignorance of God. 

This ignorance is deeper than we think.  If I begin instructing about the whole of God, not just His lovingkindness, but also about His justice, His wrath, His sovereignty, His pruning—you’re going to have some of your finest and oldest church members stand up and say, “That’s not my God—I could never love a God like that.”  Because they have a god that they have made with their own mind, and they love what they have made. Jeremiah 9:23-24:

“Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; ²⁴ But let him who glories glory in this: That he understands and knows Me, That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness and judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

God knows about our egos and all our thoughts.  He advises us to retrain our thoughts to get to know Him. Also note these verses speak of the two sides of God—His lovingkindness and His judgment. 

Or consider Psalm 50:21-23:

You thought that I was altogether like you; But I will rebuke you,
And set them in order before your eyes. ²² “Now consider this, you who forget God, Lest I tear you in pieces, And there be none to deliver: ²³ Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.”

God sees that we imagine Him like us, easy on sin, but when He tells us about His disciplinary side, we may complain.  We do not like His pruning, especially not Him “tearing us in pieces” if we profess to love God and yet totally ignore His Word and His commandments.

I Corinthians 15:34 also ties this knowledge of God and focus on avoiding sin:

Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame

Sunday morning is the greatest hour of idolatry in America—because people do not know the God they are worshiping. They have another god.  He looks more like Santa Claus than he does Yahweh.

Indictment #3:  Our failure to address man’s malady.

In the book of Romans, Paul spends the first three chapters doing one thing:  Bringing all men into condemnation.  That was essential in his goal of bringing salvation to his listeners.  Men must be brought to a knowledge of their dark self before they see their inability to reform on their own. After repeated failures at reform, a person who knows he is an unregenate sinner may finally do what needs to be done:  Surrender himself over to God.  They must cut away every hope in the flesh before they can go to God.  This is especially important in evangelism.  An old preacher once told me, “We would preach for two and three weeks and give no invitation to sinful men; we would plow, and plow, the hardened hearts of men until the Spirit of God began to break their hearts.”

Now we just walk in and talk to them, give them three exploratory questions and ask them if they want to pray a prayer and ask Jesus to come into their heart--and we make a two-fold son of hell who will never again be open to the gospel because the religious lie that we, as evangelicals, have spewed out of our mouth.

If we treat sin superficially, we are fighting against the Holy Spirit. When pastors speak, they should be an instrument for convicting people—that means being blunt on the subject of sin.  As John 16:8 says about the Spirit:

“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin.”

There are very popular preachers today who are more concerned about giving you your best life now than they are about your eternal life. And they brag about the fact that they do not mention sin in their preaching. I can tell you this. The Holy Spirit has nothing to do with their ministry. Why? When a man says he has no ministry dealing with the sin of men, he is the opposite of the Holy Spirit. And so know this. When you do not deal specifically, passionately, lovingly with men and their depraved condition, the Holy Spirit is nowhere around you.

Also we are deceivers when we deal with the malady of men lightly like pastoral “shepherds” of Jeremiah’s day. Look at Jeremiah 6:14:

They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.

There’s that word “superficially” to avoid.  If we don’t deal with this, we are not only deceivers, but we are immoral, like a doctor who denies his Hippocratic oath because he doesn’t want to tell someone bad news because he thinks that person will be angry with him, will be sad. And so he does not tell them the news most necessary for them to prepare their souls for eternity.

I hear preachers say, “No. No. You don’t understand, brother Paul.  It is not like the days of John and Charles Wesley. We are not like the culture that Whitfield addressed or Edwards. We are not as hearty as those people were. We don’t have as much self-esteem. We are feeble. We can’t bear such preaching.”

Have you ever studied the lives of these men? What they preached, their culture couldn’t bear it either. No one has ever been able to bear the preaching of the gospel. They will either turn against it with a fierceness of an animal or they will be broken by it and converted. Look at Acts 2:37 and 7:54 for proof of each of those reactions.  And about us “not having the self- esteem,” our country and this world is overrun with this disgusting malady of self-esteem. Even the convicts plead innocent.  Our greatest problem is that we esteem ourselves more than we esteem God.

Let me ask you a question: Where did all the stars go this morning? They were there, but you couldn’t see them. But then later, the sky grows darker and darker and as that night turned black as pitch the stars came out in the fullness of their glory.  Likewise we cannot appreciate the glory of God for salvation, unless the darkness of sin is in the backdrop first.  Think of the other Mary; Scripture shows that  she loved much because she has been forgiven much and she knew how much she had been forgiven because she knew how wicked she was before.  Oh, we are afraid to tell men of their wickedness--and they can never love God because of it. We have robbed them the opportunity to boast not in self, but to follow the admonition, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

 Indictment #4: An ignorance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I want to submit to you tonight that this country is not gospel hardened. It is gospel ignorant because most of its preachers are. And let me repeat this. The malady in this country is not liberal politicians, the root of socialism, Hollywood or anything else. It is the so called evangelical pastor of our day and preacher of our day. Fact is, we as a people do not know the gospel. We have taken the glorious gospel of our blessed God and reduced it down to patriotism for how God has blessed the U.S., or four spiritual laws with a little superstitious prayer at the end and if someone repeats it after us with enough sincerity, we declare them to be born again.  We have traded true regeneration for “decisionism.”  The new wave.

Here is the gospel: it begins with the nature of God and it goes from there to the nature of man and the fallenness thereof. Thus, the greatest problem in all of Scripture is this. How can God be just and at the same time the justifier of wicked men, when Scripture such as Proverbs 17:15 says:

He who justifies the wicked is an abomination to God

That is the greatest problem. You see, you have got to present all this to people. If God is just, then He must condemn wicked man. But to continue with the gospel:  then God, for His own glory, loved us, and sent forth his Son who walked on this earth as a perfect man. And then according to the eternal plan of God, he went to that crucifixion tree. And on that tree he bore our sin and he became a curse.  Christ redeemed us from the curse of sin by becoming a curse in our place (Galatians 3:13).

So many people have this romantic, powerless view of the gospel that the Christ is there hanging on the tree suffering under the wounds of the Roman Empire and the Father did not have the moral fortitude to bear the suffering of his Son so he turned away.

NO!!  The Father turned away because his Son became sin.

When he was in that garden and he cries out, “Let this cup pass from Me,” people speculate, “Well, what was in the cup? Oh, it is the Roman cross. It is the whip. It is the nails. It is all this and all that.”  I do not want to take away from the physical sufferings of Christ on that tree, but the cup was the cup of God the Father’s wrath that had to be poured out on the Son. Someone had to die, bearing the guilt of God’s people, forsaken of God by His justice and crushed under the wrath of God, for it pleased the Lord to crush him.  It had to be a blood sacrifice.

Well, when the gospel is preached today and when it is shared in personal evangelism today do you ever hear these things? Almost never. It is never made clear that Christ was able to redeem because he was crushed under the justice of God and having satisfied divine justice with his death God is now just and the justifier of the wicked.  No, we have Gospel reductionism now. And then we wonder why it has no power. I’ll tell you. When you leave the gospel behind, then you have got to go to all the little tricks of the trade that are so prominently used today to convert men. But truth is, none have any lasting power.  They do not work.

Indictment #5: An ignorance of the doctrine of regeneration

My dear friends, I know that there are Calvinists here and I know that there are Arminians here and I know that there are all sorts of strange animals in between, but I want you to know this: these are not the issue. The issue is regeneration. Being born again; showing that you are a new creation. 

There is a great manifestation of the power of God in the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit; remember that it is the Spirit that gives life.  Every one of us who proclaims must proclaim our witness as a prophet.  If you truly know this, you will no longer give yourself to tricks, or the manipulation that is so often carried out in the name of evangelism in this country. You will proclaim the Word of God with Spirit-approved power.

Examine yourself. Be diligent to make your calling and election sure (II Peter 1:10).  Here in America, the idea of being “born again” is totally lost. It seems to only mean that at one time in a crusade you made a decision and you think you were sincere. But what if there is no evidence of a supernatural recreating work of the Holy Spirit in your life?  Which happens too often. “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature.” Ask yourself:  Is that me?  Totally different thoughts, actions, responses to people who push my buttons?

What do we face as an alternative to the truth? I will tell you what we face. It’s not infant baptism. It is not a high church confirmation by an ecclesiastical authority. What we’re against now is the sinners’ prayer. And I am here to tell you, if there is anything I have declared war on it is that. You say, “What?”  Yes, in the same way that infant baptism was the golden calf of the Reformation, today the sinners’ prayer has sent more people to hell than anything on the face of the earth.  You say, “How can you say such a thing?”

Go with me to Scripture and show me, please. I would love you to stand up and tell me where anyone in the early church evangelized that way. The Scripture does not say that Jesus Christ came to the nation of Israel and said that “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, now who would like to ask me into their hearts? I see that hand.”   That is not what it says. He said, “Repent and believe the gospel.”

Men today, if you ask them, “Are you saved?” they do not say, “Yes, I am because I am looking unto Jesus and there is mighty evidence and fruits giving me assurance of being born again.”  No. They say, “One time in my life I prayed a prayer.”

And they live for the world; seeking God was for the foxhole or Sunday. But, hey, they prayed a prayer. They were told it was enough.  Insurance against hell.  We will go to extremes to get that “confession” out of him.  I heard of one evangelist who was coaxing a man to do that thing. Finally the man felt so uncomfortable the evangelist said, “Well, I’ll tell you what. I will pray to God for you and if it is what you want to say to God, squeeze my hands. Well, behold the power of God, my people!  The idolatry of decisionism.

When Paul came to the Church in Corinth he did not say to them, “Look, you are not living like Christians so let’s go back to that one moment in your life when you prayed that prayer and let’s see if you were sincere.”  No, he said this, “Test yourselves, examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith.”  The evidence of conversion is the on-going fruit in your life.  Only you and God know.

Oh, my dear friends, look what we have done. Isn’t a tree known by its fruit? Here we are, 60%, 70% of America thinks it is converted, born again. But--we kill how many thousands of babies a day? We are hated around the world for our immorality.

And I lay this squarely, the blame, at the feet of the preachers.

Students get a flawed idea from the “youth minister” about living for Christ.  Then they go to college, and live like the devil. And then, after college, maybe around 30, they drift back to church wanting us to instill morality in their new family.  And they may even rededicate their life and they join right in with that pseudo Christian morality that encompasses churchianity in America. BUT in the end they hear this from God: “Depart from me you worker of iniquity. I never knew you.”

You say, “Brother Paul, you are so angry.”  Have I not right to be? Somebody must be. We cry out for revival, but we haven’t even got the foundations straight.  My dear friend, everybody wants to go to heaven. They just don’t want God to be looking at them when they get there. Do you want God? But are you ignoring God, because you are ashamed? Is honesty with Him too uncomfortable? 

Modern Culture Has New Ways to Persecute the Church, and its life-saving efforts

Most people don't scroll through their Twitter feed thinking a few simple clicks will change their life. But for Birmingham Pastor Chris Hodges, a handful of "likes" were all it took to make the biggest church in Alabama homeless.

A little explanation is in order here:  You can lose your lease a lot of ways -- if you fall behind on payments, abuse the property, or follow conservative media. Like most people Chris Hodges probably didn't think a quick tap of support for posts on Donald Trump or China's role in the coronavirus would amount to much of anything. 

Turns out, he was wrong. A local English teacher decided to catalogue Hodges's "likes" and share them with the press. Little did anyone know, it would be the beginning of the end of the church's services at two local high schools.

"I do not attend Church of the Highlands," teacher Jasmine Clisby said openly. And, she insisted, "I can't see into Pastor Chris Hodges's heart." But his support for what she considered "culturally insensitive" views is "troubling." "I would be upset if it comes off as me judging him," she said without a hint of irony. "I'm not saying he's a racist." But thanks to her smear campaign, the Birmingham Board of Education, effectively, is saying that.

On Tuesday night, members voted to abruptly terminate the church's lease -- ending a six-year relationship that brought the city almost a million dollars in revenue. Thanks to this ridiculous complaint, Parker and Woodlawn High Schools will no longer be home to a diverse congregation of 60,000. 

But unfortunately for the needy people of Alabama, that's just the beginning. Because of this manufactured controversy, the church's Christ Health Clinic will also be banned from operating, according to the Birmingham Housing Authority, who also decided Monday to ban volunteer workers.

"Commissioners agreed," their statement said, "that Pastor Hodges's views do not reflect those of [the Housing authority] and its residents... HABD and Campus of Hope staff will continue to work with other faith-based organizations in the community to identify resources that will replace the services that were provided." 

Starting immediately, the church is banned from the city's public housing communities. That means the church will not be able to give out free COVID testing, no more free mentoring, health, or social service ministry -- all because Pastor Chris dared to do what millions of Americans do every day: engage on social media.

Even more incredibly, both councils went ahead with these mob tactics despite the pastor's sincere apologies -- which, in most people's opinion, weren't even necessary! (If supporting Donald Trump is now grounds for eviction, then America is about to have a lot of empty properties on its hands.) 

And yet, Pastor Hodges did the humble and gracious thing, telling his congregation -- and the community -- that he was sorry for any hurt he'd caused. He called it a mistake. He said he owned it. He pledged to never mindlessly scroll again and explained how he was trying to use his influence to heal the hurts of these difficult times.

None of that mattered to the opposition, who not only ignored Pastor Chris' work in their neighborhoods but the church's standing in the minority community. At least a third of the Highlands' congregations are black and Hispanic. 

If anything, Hodges was respected for fighting for the disenfranchised, for preaching about healing and reconciliation. As recently as last Sunday, he called the city to mutual understanding, peace, and prayer. But in this "cancel culture," those 20 years of bridge-building don't matter to those bent on burning down any platform but their own.

And unfortunately for Birmingham, their intolerance doesn't just affect the Church of the Highlands. It affects thousands of hurting neighborhoods, who leaned on Church of the Highlands for help it couldn't get anywhere else. 

These are the same people the opposition wants us to believe they care about: the children, minorities, and poor. But in the end, we know -- they'll always care about punishing Christians more. We've seen it in the adoption debate, the foster care debate, even the virus outreach. Now, to no one's surprise, they're willing to let Birmingham families suffer over a handful of "likes."

Imagine if we held everyone by that standard. If we combed through these public servants' accounts, what would we find? Political objectivity, or the raging hatred and bitterness that's led to these baseless attacks? "I would love for you," Pastor Hodges urged, "to not just look at a microscopic zoom-in but look at the totality of 37 years of ministry and 19 years as a church. If you look at that, it will be abundantly clear that we value every person." 

Unfortunately for Birmingham and so many others, the persecutors cannot say the same.

Acknowledgements:  The Family Research Council, and Prophecy News Watch

Ministry Among Drug Runners in the Colombian Jungle

David and Gloria Martinez moved deep into the Choco area in 2005 in the dangerous country of Colombia to share the gospel, give Bibles, and plant churches.  They studied the local language and learned to live off the land, building relationships among the region’s large Afro-Colombian population and with numerous indigenous people.  They eventually learned to live in close proximity to right-wing paramilitary groups and armed rebel groups, such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).  They began to train church leaders and establish churches in the area.  Many came to faith in Christ.   “That’s when it got difficult,” Gloria said.  “The devil was mad.  So the spiritual attacks started; the witchcraft and the different armed groups started to intervene.”  The couple had a 9-month old daughter at the time, so they began imploring God for protection. 

They had met while attending a missionary school in central Colombia.  David felt called to bring the Gospel to the jungle.  And Gloria, his girlfriend at the time, had already visited Choco on a short-term mission trip.  After their marriage in 2004, they moved to Choco, a jungle area, one of the poorest regions in Colombia—and it was a hub of violence and drug trafficking.  The mission school provided 180 Bibles to get them started, but they received little money.  “God showed us the way in,” David said, smiling. 

The thick rainforest of Choco, the large rivers, and lack of developed roads make it inaccessible, even to Colombian security forces.  So it became an ideal spot for boats transporting cocaine, where it went to Central America and Mexico.  The few Christians in the area had experienced persecution in the past.  In 2002’s “Bojaya massacre,” the FARC bombed a church, killing more than 70 people, and displacing 6,000 people—they were fearful about staying there.  About a year after David and Gloria moved to Choco, a prominent guerrilla commander in Colombia declared all pastors in the country’s “red zones” (which Choco was in) “objects of war.” 

When locals figured that David and Gloria knew who helped transport cocaine, they threatened them.  David said “we had to decide if we were going to leave or stay.  We decided to stay and spread the Gospel.”  Then, one day a rebel leader with about 60 guerrilla soldiers came to the couple’s house and told David he had to support them.  “They knew everything about me,” he said.  “They knew all my wife’s family members, all of my family members.  They knew the offering I was receiving every three months, the exact amount.”  They told David that they would triple his salary and allow him to continue his pastoral work if he would join them, as other pastors already had.  David was bold.  “If they are collaborating, they are no longer considered pastors.  I won’t do it; you kill people.  The only person who should have power over life is God.”  The rebel leader didn’t appreciate David’s words.  “You are lucky it’s me and not some other guerrillas, as they would have shot you in the head already,” he said.  “We are going to talk tomorrow.” 

Holding their daughter, Gloria began to pray for protection from God.  “A lot of the guerrillas are famous for taking kids,” she said.  “I feared for her.”  The next day, the rebel leader and 60 guerrillas returned to David and Gloria’s house, but this time the leader had a changed attitude.  He told David that his mother was a Christian.  Though surprised, David relaxed as the two began to discuss the Bible.  David said, “I became good friends with this man.  I told him to listen to God.  He said, ‘I will only come to Christ when I am injured in the war.”  David urged the man to place his faith in Jesus as Savior before he died in conflict, but he resisted.  Still, before the rebel leader left, he accepted 60 Bibles from David to share with the other fighters.  Fifteen days later, the rebel leader was killed in an attack by a paramilitary group. David hopes he read the Bible and came to faith.  “When he received his Bible, he remembered his childhood.  He thanked me.” 

After developing a relationship with the rebel leader’s replacement, David continued to supply them with Bibles.  He and Gloria gave them 400 Bibles over the next several months as guerrilla fighters rotated in and out of the group.  But the superior of the new leader finally burned the Bibles.  Since the commander told David that he had read a few pages, “then those Bibles burned have not been a waste.” 

The rebel groups watched David and Gloria’s movements.  To buy food and other goods, they had to walk through both FARC and paramilitary territories.  “Every time we passed the paramilitary, they thought we were collaborators with the guerillas,” he said.  “They threatened us.  They told the indigenous people they were going to kill us.”  Finally they decided to transfer to a safer part of Choco.  But in five years there, they had raised up four indigenous pastors and planted churches in two communities.  And 70 people had come to faith in Christ.  So the believers would carry on well when they left. 

Even after they moved, David, Gloria and their children continued to experience persecution from all sides as the government, paramilitaries, rebel groups, and organized crime syndicates vied for control of territory and the money income.  “There were weeks we had to run out of the community,” Gloria said, “because the drug situation was really bad.  There was a lot of fighting.”  But at their new location, for the first few years, most of the persecution surprisingly came from a local religious group.  “For four years, they wouldn’t rent us a good house,” David said.  “We always had houses that were falling apart.  I would fix them, and then they would kick us out once I fixed it.”  Then, a group of indigenous village leaders prohibited David and his family from entering their community.  The village even sued them, claiming David’s family was “damaging their cultural identity by introducing and spreading Christianity.”  David said, “We have been able to demonstrate with those who are believers that we are not here to damage their culture.  We always try to teach in their language.  We talk to the kids in their language.”  To keep the peace, David and his family moved out of the indigenous community and into an Afro-Colombian community—still in Choco.  Those people were descended from those brought to the Americas from the slave trading days.  Some of them continue to practice African folk religions, which involve much superstition and questionable medical practices—besides heretical views about Jesus. 

Among this community, David and Gloria now lead a mixed congregation from indigenous and Afro-Colombian backgrounds.  They still minister to 20 indigenous believers in the community they left as well.  “Those people can’t kick us out again because we are already out,” David quipped.  In 2019, David and his family visited 25 of the 28 indigenous communities in the area, often receiving threats as they passed through guerrilla and paramilitary territories.  Although the Colombian government and the FARC signed a peace agreement that was ratified by the nation’s congress in November 2016, the peace deal has not brought peace, especially in Choco.  In fact, they said, the guerrillas are taking the opportunity to regroup and rearm.  “Right now we are a military target for the armed groups because we were not born in the area,” Gloria said.  “We are always praying to become invisible.  Actually, the Christian indigenous people experience a lot more persecution--from their community, and in many cases from the armed groups as well.” 

On a spiritual level, David and Gloria are battling the guerrilla groups for the minds of the region’s youth.  Guerilla groups lure the children into their ranks with the promise of weapons and cash.  Thousands of Colombian children have fought in the country’s war; many were raised in guerilla camps and trained as fighters from a young age.  The FARC alone has reportedly recruited 3,700 child soldiers throughout its history.  To help children follow Christ instead, David and Gloria started teaching a children’s Bible class two years ago.  At first they held the class in an indigenous village, but after receiving threats, they decided, with parents’ approval, to pick up about 200 children each weekend using a boat that Voice of the Martyrs helped provide.  David picks up 50 children at a time, takes them to their home for the Bible lessons, and then returns them.  David and Gloria also watch for vulnerable children whom the guerrilla groups might target as recruits.  They help the children’s families enroll them in school and even transport them to and from school when possible.  David thinks they have prevented about 10 children from joining the guerrillas.  “God helped us to save these kids,” he said. 

As for their own children, David and Gloria bring them wherever they go, relying on God to help them recognize risky situations.  “There was only one time that God showed us they shouldn’t accompany us on a trip,” David said.  Although Samantha, now 13, has, in the past, occasionally  expressed fear and anxiety when traveling through guerrilla territory, even having nightmares, her parents said she has largely overcome those fears as she has gotten older.  “I am not afraid,” she said.  “Because I know that God is protecting us and there are a lot people praying for us when we do this.  I really like being in the ministry, the adventure of so many rivers, so many challenging places, and I like it with the family.”  Juliana, 10, and Daniel, 7, help their mom with Sunday school and share the gospel with children in their own ways.  “I am a little embarrassed to say a lot to them, but when I play with them, they see Jesus in me,” Daniel said quietly.  David and Gloria admit that raising three children while ministering in a dangerous area has been a challenge, but God has helped them.  David says, “Sometimes people say they don’t go to the mission field because they have kids, but we say, “You can work, you can do ministry, and your kids will be fine. God will help you… Right now in school, our kids all have very good grades.”  Samantha takes online classes, and Gloria plans to homeschool the others until they are in fourth grade.  “I will go to the city to download all the homework; I take it to the jungle, and I upload that onto the platform they gave me.” 

David and Gloria know their children are getting a spiritual education by being a part of their ministry work.  “We don’t limit what they see as we minister,” Gloria said.  “They also must have their own personal devotion.  They need a personal relationship with God and not just what they see their parents do.  I learned it that way when I was growing up.  If I didn’t have a personal relationship with God, I wouldn’t have felt the call.” 

About two years ago, Voice of the Martyrs helped the family attend a retreat with other pastors and their families.  It was their first “break” from the intensity of their jungle ministry in 14 years.  “We give the glory to God,” David said.  David asked us to pray for their protection from the armed groups and from spiritual attacks.  And for those they’re reaching with the gospel.  Gloria thanked Voice of the Martyrs.  “Through your prayers, we go together.  We don’t do this alone.  If it weren’t for you guys praying for us, I don’t think that God could make us invisible. “ 

Acknowledgement:  Voice of the Martyrs magazine, June, 2020