So you know where this message is coming from, I'm a pastor in America. As I sit back and watch, I notice a disturbing trend within the church; especially after the recent passing of gay marriage. I hear people in the church talk about how gays are destroying this country, how the government is destroying this country, how illegal immigrants are destroying this country. Is this true? Are these things destroying this country?
I am a part of the church system in America, and I sit back and I listen to others, the majority of others, in this system make these claims. They are judging sinners outside the church based on a book written for Christians and not sinners. The gospel is for sinners, but the Bible is for those who respond to the Gospel.
Since homosexuality is at the forefront of everyone's mind and all over the secular and Christian news outlets, let's focus on this. The church points to the recent events and associates the events with Sodom. There's only one Scripture that tells of the sins of Sodom, and the surrounding cities, which caused their destruction.
“Sodom’s sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen.”
Ezekiel 16:49-50
The church always wants to point to the sexual sin but ignore the sin of pride, fat guts, and laziness while not helping the numbers in need. Do you know what that is called? Hypocrisy.
The deal is, Paul tells the church to stop judging the people outside the church. Instead, he says, we should be judging those in the church. Yet, the religious want to do the opposite of what is written in the book they claim to follow.
“It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning.”
1 Corinthians 5:12
Ok, let's follow the instruction of the book we claim to follow and let's look at the religious institution in America. As many as 50% are addicted to porn. The divorce rate is higher in the church than the world, in the "Bible belt" regions. In general, we spend only a couple hours a week in the things of God; calling it "going to church" while we spend multiple hours in world entertainment. We know more about TV shows, sports teams, our vehicles, what's happening on Facebook, etc then we know about God. We pick and choose what sin we want to condemn while embracing the ones we will accept. We throw away about 40% of our food after we fattened our guts. We spend enough money in one Christmas season that it would cure world hunger in just one year. We require obedience of our children but say our Father does not require us to obey - yet He'll still reward us. Only 4% of churchgoers live according to Biblical standards. We want to be saved from Hell but not really from our sins. We want to be saved to have a good life but will not burden our life to give eternal life to others. We want to go to heaven but we really don't want a relationship with God while on Earth. This is what 1 John 2:15-16 is about. It's what Sodom was destroyed for. It's the fulfillment of what Paul warned Timothy about in 2 Timothy 3:1-5
“You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!”
2 Timothy 3:1-5
The problem is, when I talk like this about the church, I get a response, "Judge not lest ye be judged" by the same people that are judging the world. Maybe we, in the church, need to look more seriously at the rest of this passage because we need to remove the log from our own eye - because, in the manner in which we are judging the world, we too will be judged by God.
It's not the darkness in the world that is ruining this country, it's the lack of light that is ruining this country. The focus of the American Christian has become more about spending money on pictures to hang on walls, nic nacs for the shelf, toys to play with, and such but not on the 75 people that died of hunger since this video started. Romans 3 says "no one seeks God". If no one seeks God then who are "seeker sensitive" churches sensitive to? The church's focus has become more about filling seats with people rather than filling seats with Christ followers. They desire to build a mega church by taking congregation from other churches rather than leaving the pleasures of their life to go out and reach a lost world. The church is more about a building, a place to go to, rather than a group of people who act like Christ. If you didn't get the comment about the lack of light, let me rephrase it like this. It's not the sinners of a pagan country that are ruining this country, its the professing followers of Christ that follow more of the worldly pleasures, living much like the world, offering no light or hope to a lost and dying world, that is ruining this country. It's a building of whitewashed tombs who gather together for a Sunday morning reality show and return to their worldly lives with no love or compassion for the poor and the lost, yet condemning sinners in the world, that is ruining this country.
The church needs to stop concentrating on what a pagan world is doing and start looking within itself. It seems very obvious that the church of this day will have about 95% crying Lord Lord. They need to stop complaining about a world living in darkness why they themselves live in the very same darkness. If we want to change the world, it's not by shoving the Bible we claim to follow down their throat and making them follow it; it's by coming out of that darkness and becoming a light in the darkness by following that Bible ourselves.
Church, if you want to change the corruption in the world, it starts by getting rid of the corruption in the church. If we actually open the Bible and look inside, we will see that this is the bulk of the meaning of the letters to the churches that encompasses the New Testament writings.
Made in RapidWeaver