SPIRITUAL WARFARE

Jacob Prasch, a converted Jew, says on a video about spiritual warfare that the church has three weapons against the forces of evil. The first is prayer, the second is proclamation and the third is the spirit filled life.

Very few churches experience all three, not even the Pentecostal ones.

Most churches do some praying, but they don’t make it a major part of fellowship life. Some churches do a bit of proclaiming the gospel, but most don’t do any proclaiming. As for the spirit filled life, the most common response is “what’s that?”

You don’t need me to tell you that when it comes to prayer, if your life depended on it, most of us would be dead. For most churches, prayer is not mainstream. It is something that is tacked onto something else, that is if we have enough time.

As far as proclamation is concerned, that was the last command of Jesus before he ascended into heaven. You know, the one where it says “go into all the world and make disciples, [by] baptising them.”

Most churches have the mentality that the world should come to them…to fill seats in the meeting and watch the show.

Most churches are too smug to want or seek the spirit filled life. “We have been sealed with the spirit at conversion, what more do you want. Isn’t that enough?” Apparently not according to Jesus as there are specific examples where he did what he did, as the disciples did “filled with the spirit” or “full of the Holy Spirit”.

Don’t hear too much about that these days or hearing from God. Who needs to when we have got everything down pat so nothing can go wrong anyway.

A bit different to the New Testament Church where things were going wrong all the time. Being thrown into jail; being beaten; being told to shut up or we will jail you…again. Being shipwrecked; being stoned.

I know the scriptures tell us to live peaceably with all men…if possible. We specialise in that mentality as in “don’t rock the boat” or “don’t upset anyone.” Or “don’t say anything controversial.” But the fact is and it will come into focus even more as time goes by, sometimes it is just not possible to live peaceably with all men. Not when doing so will compromise your faith.

The New Testament Church was not afraid of anyone or anything. They were fearless in proclaiming the gospel, praying and being filled with the spirit, even if it meant prison, being scattered or being killed.

If they were told not to preach the gospel in the name of Jesus they said “up yours” we are going to obey God, not you. Can you imagine a church saying that today.

“If you don’t stop preaching in the name of Jesus, we will kill you.”

“Up yours.”

What do we do? We come to our meetings in sacred buildings that hide us away from everyone else, sing our songs, take communion (how quaint) and listen to someone tickle our ears with a few well chosen words that we don’t mind hearing to make us feel good.

Do we raise the dead? NO. Do we tell Satan where to go? NO. Do we confront the ungodly rulers? NO. Do we pray for the sick who get healed? NO. Do we spend all night in prayer? NO. Do we sell our goods so that the money can be given to the poor of the fellowship? NO. Do we go out and tell everyone they need Jesus? NO.

Do we do anything the New Testament Church did? In a word….NO.

But we have got a great band and they write great songs and they make great CDs and we have lively singing in the meetings and we jump up and down and we clap our hands and have a guy up on the stage who always entertains us when he speaks. When it is all over I feel really good about the fact that is hasn’t make one scrap of difference to my life, unless you don’t include the fact that I had a warm fuzzy feeling in the meeting this morning because of the atmosphere created by the band and the singing.

Don’t worry, I can come back next week and do the same thing and get the same none results and make the pastor feel justified in being paid to be good even if God doesn’t have much say in anything.

Actually, we are probably doing him a favour as it means he can take a holiday, instead of having to listen to the prayers of people that do pray and rush around making things happen. I reckon giving God a holiday is a good ministry.