RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE

These last few months, I have become aware of discontentment rising at a rapid rate in the church. People are letting their feelings known instead of just accepting everything that happens and is said.

One major issue is the word of God. Judging by the comments, there are a lot of people out there that feel their church doesn’t pay much attention to it. They are quite jaundiced by the determination to maintain the status quo, no matter how out of line it is with scripture.

Others are saying we don’t get taught the scripture. We get taught the bits that fit our ideology and in many cases it is quite contrary to scripture such as God wants you to be rich (financially). If some one says that we need to heed the word of God as opposed to denomination tradition, they are seen as the enemy of the church and the leadership.

Another aspect that comes up quite regularly is the leadership of the church that has morphed into worldly CEOs and will not broke any challenge to their ungodly authority. As a result many have hit the dust very publicly.

In days gone by, you could rely on the leadership to set an example and insist on the teaching of the word of God and holiness of life. That is why they could preach about such topics. Today, instead of being an example of godly living, some of the church leadership is getting into bed with the world with such things as ordaining people who openly live lives contrary to scripture and assume roles that have no authority in scripture.

Bill McCartney, in his book “Blind Spots” says that 20% of pastors in the USA have a child addicted to alcohol or drugs; 40% admit to accessing Internet pornography and 90% admit to be being discouraged.

In addition the church itself is riddled with all sorts of problems that are going unsolved. It appears that only 4% of our church teens are Christians and 54% of Christian marriages end in divorce.

The world has truly melded itself with the organised church.

I have been reading material written or spoken by the godly men who led the church a long time ago. The sorts of words that they spoke are never heard today as most of the time it focused on obedience and holiness. Preaching was all about learning the word and ways of God and what he had to say to us as individuals and the church. As many of you know that is no longer the case as we seem to look for feel good messages that keep the saints happy.

This does not bode well for the church and yet it does. As we know the wheat and the tares will grow together. Much of what happens in the church today is tares purely and simply. When the harvesting takes place, the tares are discarded and Jesus will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”

That means that the wheat is there all over the world and is growing as well. I have a distinct feeling that the wheat is gradually getting fed up with being smothered by the tares and are overcoming them by making themselves stronger growing in good ground…outside of the official church.

It is obvious that is where it is all going to happen as it is being attacked from within the church with ferocity. A sure sign that God is doing a new thing that man cannot control. If there is one thing that the ‘wheat’ church can learn from the ‘tare’ church is that if man wants to control things God is not going to stop them, but they need not think that he is going to put his imprimatur on it.

God want humble and contrite hearts and people that are prepared to give place to him in everything. When that happens anything can happen. I well remember the Welsh revival of 1904. Meetings never stopped. They went day and night because the Holy Spirit had total control and people were so aware of their sin all they could do was prostrate themselves on the floor in the presence of a holy God and ask for mercy. This is an unknown concept today because we have been fed with the idea that life is all about being happy, contented, rich and trouble free.

We are just at the beginning of a new move of God and even those who are called by God will still have to do a lot of soul searching as to where their loyalties are. We will have to ask ourselves are we focused on the good life or the God life. If it is the second one there will be a price to pay.