HEY SATAN, COME AND JOIN US

You know that Satan has control of the church when its leadership insists that you can’t do things unless you comply with civil law.

In Acts chapter 4 it says that the Sanhedrin told Peter and John that they were not to teach or preach in the name of Jesus.

What was their response? In a word “up yours”. Obeying God was more important than obeying man. They went back to the church and told them what had happened and the church prayed like mad and asks God for boldness to do what the Sanhedrin told them what they were not to do, which included miracles and signs and wonders.

And the end result? The building was shaken, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they got the answer to their prayer as they spoke the word with boldness.

Last week in a men’s meeting we were discussing why men hate going to church. I said that one church introduced what they called a huddle for men at the end of the service where the speaker reinforced what he had said. The men said that was their favourite part of the meeting.

One of the leaders present said you can’t do that because you would be breaching equal opportunity law. If you are going to have a huddle for men, you have to have a huddle for women.

Of course the church did not have a male and female leader on equal terms; of course the church did not have a male and female trumpet player; of course the church did not have a male and female youth leader; of course the church did not have a male and female crèche leader. But that doesn’t matter.

You find that when civil law becomes more important than the leading of the Holy Spirit, you start to lose your way and contradicting yourself. When you are captive to civil law you don’t have boldness or prayer meetings where the building gets shaken.

Apart from the fact that the Kingdom of God is a counter culture that give allegiance to its king, Jesus. As we know in all kingdoms, there is only room for one king. When there is more than one, there is a constant battle. At the moment, the church seems to have ditched Jesus as their king and replaced him with anything that demands allegiance that will provide a quiet undisturbed life.

As a result, you have an insipid expression of a secular religion that is frightened of its own shadow and has to direct all its energies to keeping the worldly authorities happy. As a result, what God wants comes a very distant second.