Ear Tickling, Entertainment, And Irrelevant Exposition
By Chuck Baldwin
July 11, 2013
This column is archived here.
At some point, one has to wonder why America’s churches are the largest
block of irrelevant, impotent, and insignificant institutions in the
entire country. And make no mistake about it: when it comes to
influencing societal conditions, culture, and the political philosophy
of the nation, for all intents and purposes, they ARE irrelevant,
impotent, and insignificant.
Think about it: according to the latest available statistics, over
75% of America’s adults classify themselves as Christians. That’s over
159 million people. Over 43% of America’s adults attend the more than
300,000 churches regularly. That’s over 90 million people. Yes, both of
these statistics are WAY DOWN from just a few years ago, but those
statistics still represent a HUGE block of the American population. So
why do these Christians and churches have so very little influence in
America’s society, culture, and politics? Asking it bluntly, why is
America going to hell in a handbasket with all of these churches dotting
the landscape?
There is no mistaking the fact that from before the American Revolution,
after the American Revolution, throughout the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
centuries, and through the first half of the Twentieth Century, the
American Church was a major voice and influence in virtually every facet
and sphere of American society. However, with the exception of a
temporary resurgence in the 1980s, the influence of the Church in the
last half of the Twentieth Century and continuing now into the Twenty
First Century is nada. Zilch.
For all intents and purposes, the activist arm of conservative
churches, the Religious Right, Christian Coalition, Moral Majority, call
it what you will, is clinically dead. It is not comatose; it is dead.
When it comes to influencing the culture and politics of the nation, the
modern Church is dead. Pastors are dead. Denominations are dead.
Christian schools and universities are dead.
Think of it: 159 million Christians, 90 million churchgoers, and 300,000
churches cannot effectively influence even the smallest change of
direction in America’s society, culture, and political philosophy.
America is in a societal, economic, and political tailspin, and the
Church sits irrelevant and impotent. And don’t forget: we are not
talking about an enslaved, oppressed country such as communist China
where millions of Christians are forced at gunpoint to submit to the
machinations of the state.
While it is true that the underground church in China (the REAL
church in China) is seeing great growth, without a revolution such as
America experienced in the late 1700s, Chinese Christians will never be
able to effect societal and political change in that country. And, of
course, the communist government in China has all but guaranteed that
such a revolution will not take place by completely disarming the
citizenry.
In America, we are talking about a nation in which citizens (including
Christians) are able to lobby, redress government, protest, rally,
organize opposition, speak, vote, form PACs, march, petition, etc.
Christians are as free to influence their societies and governments as
are any other group of people in the United States. Furthermore, name
the other group in this country that can boast 75% of the population who
identify with it in name or 43% of the population who regularly attend
its public meetings? What would the country look like if the ACLU could
boast these numbers? Or the SPLC? Or labor unions?
Labor unions comprise only 11% of the adult workforce. The ACLU
membership is reported to be about 500,000. And, of course, the people
who belong to the SPLC could fit in a phone booth. By comparison, these
groups comprise a miniscule percentage of the population as opposed to
America’s churches, yet their influence is exponentially greater. So,
what has happened?
The great Nineteenth Century revivalist and major contributor to
America’s Second Great Awakening, Charles Finney, said this: “Christians
must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics. God
cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray
for, unless the Church will take right ground. Politics are a part of a
religion in such a country as this, and Christians (and citizens) must
do their duty to the country as a part of their duty to God. It seems
sometimes as if the foundations of the nation are becoming rotten, and
Christians seem to act as if they think God does not see what they do in
politics.”
Finney also said, "If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is
responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discernment, the
pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly,
the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in
Christianity, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our
halls of legislation, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics
become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready
to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it."
It is no hyperbole to say that, on the whole, the American Church has
been mostly ineffective since immediately after World War II. The Church
sat mute when God was expelled from America’s public life in the 1960s.
It sat mute when the government gave license to the premeditated murder
of preborn babies in the 1970s. And today it continues to sit mute in
the face of a burgeoning police state. There seems to be virtually no
abridgment of liberty, no national scandal, or no threat against our
constitutional form of government egregious enough to warrant an outcry
from America’s pastors and churches.
For the most part, today’s pastors are not prophets and watchmen;
they are cheerleaders and CEOs. Our churches are not “the pillar and
ground of the truth” (I Timothy 3:15 KJV); they are centers of social
interaction, recreation, and feel-good indoctrination. Preachers are not
reprovers, rebukers, and exhorters (II Timothy 4:2); they are
ear-ticklers, entertainers, and expositors of irrelevance.
Let me ask you: what good does it do to teach the stories of Daniel and
the lions’ den, and the three Hebrew children in the burning fiery
furnace, and Esther, and John the Baptist, and Elijah, and Simon Peter
saying, “We must obey God rather than men,” and Samson, and Gideon,
etc., ad infinitum, if you are not going to apply those stories to the
practical, day-to-day events we are experiencing now? What good does it
do to preach expository messages on the Bible if one does not make those
messages relevant to the times and circumstances in which we live? Yet,
ear-tickling, entertainment, and irrelevant exposition seem to be what
the modern church in America excels in. The result: ineffective,
impotent, weak, unprepared, and sheepish Christians.
Yes, I know there are many churches and Christian ministries that are
doing admirable work. We need homeless shelters, food banks, pregnancy
resource centers, addiction ministries, etc. We most definitely need
pastors and churches to preach the Gospel of Christ. We need missionary
outreach. But we also need pastors and churches to teach the Biblical
Natural Law principles of liberty and to prepare their congregations to
guard and defend our freedom.
I tell you the truth: Christians in persecuted lands are not enamored
with entertainment, recreation, and irrelevant Bible exposition. You
don’t have to bring in some big-name rock band to entice them to
fellowship. You don’t have to give their teenagers a big gymnasium. You
don’t have to give their young adults coffee shops and espresso
machines. You don’t have to shy away from criticisms of tyrannical
government. And you certainly are not going to score any points with
your fallacious “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” interpretation of
Romans 13.
The time is soon coming in this country when it is going to “rain on
the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:45 KJV) Mark it down, Christian:
when persecution and tribulation comes to America (and it has already
begun), you and your family will NOT be exempt. When a jetliner falls
out of the sky, everyone in it (Christian or not) goes down with the
plane. And when a nation falls, everyone in it (Christian or not) goes
down with the country.
The church was not created to teach Christian sugars how to recreate on a
playground, but to teach Christian soldiers how to fight on a
battlefield.
So many of our Christian brothers and sisters seem to be literally
enslaved or addicted to some form of church formality. They need a
certain music fix, or entertainment fix, or teaching fix, or liturgical
fix, or a hundred other fixes. They demand a certain delivery, a certain
style, or a certain personality. They intend to do nothing with what
they hear, but it makes them feel good hearing it. The carnality,
rancor, envy, and meanness inside the church is equal to, or superior
to, that which is outside the church. Many Christian businessmen are
just as greedy, just as dishonest, and just as duplicitous as
businessmen professing no faith. Many deacons and church officers are
just as untruthful and cowardly as anyone in the outside world.
What have all of these Sunday School lessons done for us? What have all
of these pacifist expositional messages done for us? What have all of
these gymnasiums, youth programs, self-esteem classes, and counseling
centers done for us? Pastors and churches have been teaching all forms
of Bible prophecy for decades. Generations of Christians have come and
gone arguing over the nuances of Eschatology. What good has it done us?
While we have been playing, partying, prancing, promoting, pouting,
pontificating, patronizing, and philosophizing, a fire has been burning
the foundations of our country; and we have not lifted a pail of water
to help extinguish the inferno.
Truly did the Lord Jesus say, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if
the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is
thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden
under foot of men.” (Matthew 5:13 KJV)
The word “savour” here means “saltiness.” Salt is a preservative that
retards decay and ruination. God has sprinkled “salt” in the form of
Christian people all over the country. We are here to be a preservative
and protection against rot and ruin. But when Christians lose their
saltiness, Jesus said, they are “good for nothing” and are destined to
be “trodden under foot of men.” That is a word description of tyranny
and oppression. Can anyone say Jackboot?
Unfortunately, many pastors and churches today are “good for
nothing.” They have lost their saltiness; they no longer preserve and
protect. And, ladies and gentlemen, the Jackboots have gotten out the
shoe polish as we speak.
It doesn’t matter that America has 300,000 churches, 90 million people
attending those churches, and 159 million people calling themselves
Christians unless those churches and Christians are actively and
tenaciously preserving and protecting the foundations and pillars upon
which both the church and the country are built.
As God pruned Gideon’s army down from 32,000 to 300, so, too, God may
need to prune the Church in America. Let the majority of churches rot
on the vine; let them intoxicate themselves on the opiate of
entertainment and feelgoodism; let the hirelings in the pulpit lust
after ease and social acceptance; let the willfully blind bask in their
ignorance; and let the sheepish servants in the sanctuary lick the hands
of their oppressors.
Those who choose to fight with Gideon’s army, leave these fancy
churches, which are nothing more than ornate tombs, and run to the sound
of battle! Gideon’s captains are strategically placed all around the
mountains. Join them! God has never needed a majority to prevail; He
never will.
The great Christian patriot and “Father of the American Revolution,”
Sam Adams, said, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather
an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in the people’s
minds.”
Let the majority of churches be irrelevant, impotent, and insignificant.
Even now, God is raising up unconventional fellowships. A fire for
liberty churches is ablaze in the hearts of millions of Americans. The
establishment churches are dead; shake off the dust of your feet and
move on. Already, we have over 700 patriot pastors and churches that
appear on our Black Regiment web page. There may be one near you.
See the list of patriot pastors and churches here:
The Black Regiment
If you can’t find a patriot pastor near you, consider watching our
service live at Liberty Fellowship each Sunday afternoon at
approximately 2:30pm Mountain Time. Watch us here:
Live Stream
If you cannot watch the service live, you can watch my archived messages at:
Video Sermons
A majority of pastors, churches, and Christians may be irrelevant,
impotent, and insignificant; but you and I don’t have to be. Already,
God is resurrecting Gideon’s army. Will you join us?
© Chuck Baldwin
|
No comments:
Post a Comment