AUTRALIA - YOUR STANDING IN IT!

If you were asked to describe Australia and Australians what would you say? A land flowing with milk and honey? A devil may care attitude? You can be all you want to be here? There is no shortage of opportunity? It is a beautiful island? A wealthy caring country?

Or would you talk about a country that has made the killing of babies legal: one that is blasé about divorce; a feminism that makes the male of the species a dirty word; marriage being replaced with partnerships for any Tom, Dick or homosexual; sexual restraint seen as bad and promiscuity seen as good, homosexuality considered no different to any other form of sexuality; drug taking a recreation like snooker; child abuse rampant; illegal to photograph your own children in public; reading certain passages from the bible now a hate crime; telling the truth no longer acceptable if it confronts ideology and worst of all, a church that has gone to sleep.

In most towns, church attendance is usually no more than 10% of the population. Is the church doing anything about this fact? In most cases, it couldn’t give a damn. A story has been told of a visiting missionary to a church who said from the pulpit “millions are going to a lost eternity and you don’t give a damn and you are more upset by the fact that I said damn in church than the fact that millions are dying without Christ.”

As they say, never a truer word spoken in jest. If the way we do church is any indication, we don’t give a damn about the 90% outside the Kingdom of God. I presented a paper to the eight ministers in one town which was a strategy to take the gospel to the 90%. Their initial response was “are you trying to tell us what to do” and their final response was “go away, we run things here.”

Two years later nothing has changed and 90% are still outside the Kingdom of God. You could say “they don’t give a damn.” Which is probably the reason we focus on the illusory Australia in paragraph one rather than the real Australia in paragraph two. Despite the fact that everything is happening in paragraph two, we don’t give a damn.

If we did, we would be out there with a rescue plan for the 90% who are heading to hell. If God said that he is not willing that anyone would perish, why is it, his representatives on earth, who have all the power through Christ, prefer to live in a POW camp, which is what most of our churches are, rather than getting excited that we are going to go into battle against the enemy, and knowing that we are going to win.

That is if we wait for the commanders instructions. It would be totally foolish to take him on without the weapons of our warfare and without a battle plan.

Perhaps that is why most churches are POW camps. They have gone into battle without their spiritual weapons and been soundly beaten so their church has been turned into a POW camp, instead of being an army barracks.

What is weapon number one? Prayer. What is weapon number two? Prayer. What is weapon number three? Prayer. When was the last time you had an all night prayer meeting? You can’t remember! No wonder you don’t give a damn.