Preface: I wanted to bring this recent post closer to the top....as this world continues to disintegrate....and we continue to ignore God's warnings to us. As I walked in the hot sun today.....and part of the walk was through our cemetery....one of those old cemeteries where some headstones are of Civil War soldiers who lost their life in battle....and I read many of the headstones....I felt some pangs of joy....for I know that the souls of many of the bodies buried here are now with their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have walked more modern cemeteries and do not get that feeling. Pastors....God will ask of you why you did not warn the sheep. You don't think that you get a free pass on self-examination do you?
Whether it be a tiny congregation or one of thousands....the pastor is to be a shepherd....taking care of the spiritual lives of the sheep under his care. Spurgeon once told a story of how a contemporary of his....a pastor of a few hundred souls....was wearied in his nonstop service to the congregation....not wanting a single soul to be lost for his lack of prayer and effort and warnings. Spurgeon's response was essentially....'a few hundred.....I have a thousands to care for'....and having read and listened to many dozens of Spurgeon sermons from the first days in the fifth decade of the ninteenth century.....up to his last years in the beginning of the 1890s.....he stayed true to his responsibility....and having died young at 57 years old....his wife thought that his defense of the gospel itself in what was known as....The Downgrade Controversy....contributed to his ill health and death.
We left a church early on when an old and dedicated pastor retired....and discernment from the pulpit retired along with him.....as faddish doctrines moved in....and another time when a pastor moved away....and was replaced by a young man whose main interest seem to be the size of the manse that the congregation would provide for him.
I once had a pastor who died from Lou Gehrig's Disease....who made every effort for as long as humanly possible to enter that pulpit as a shepherd to his congregation....and when ALS confined him to a chair in his home....he tried his hand reaching people through the Internet...and when he could no longer even speak....or make any movements at all.....other than movement of his eyes....through the wonder of modern technology....he eye pecked out encouragements and wisdom on his special computer for those around him.
I'll give two anecdotes here....in the first....Pentecostal preacher David Wilkerson once attended out of interest a concert from Christian music's most popular singer of the day.....(I had attended one of these concerts also....and can attest to the description of what Wilkerson witnessed)....he was so distressed because of the worldliness of what thousands of young Christians were subjected to in that arena.....that he ran up the aisle yelling...."Ichabod....Ichabod".....the glory has departed....for he claimed that he could see demons on the stage.
The second anecdote concerns John MacArthur......where in it he was told that one of the young people in his church had fallen sway to the efforts of one of the 'Christian cults' out there in America....(Christian cult being a sect that claims to be Christian but denies the essential doctrines of Christianity)....when told that the young person was about to move away to be with this cult.....he showed up at their home.....and although many of the specifics are gone from my memory....he took the keys out of the young person's car.....and threw them into the lake. He was fighting for this sheep whom the wolves were trying to devour.
Five years ago when a false prophet appeared in America implying strongly that he was going to defend God....our pulpits did nothing.....worse than nothing as they celebrated the man they knew nothing about....nor desired to take the time to learn anything about. They still refused to warn their sheep even as it became obvious that he was now a demagogue. They could have at least pointed out that as this man told us incessantly that our best was yet to come....and that God's grace shined on us....that God's Word tells us the exact opposite....the exact opposite! Because of this failure to warn....this man continues to divide and destroy and turn us into people just like him.
The reasons for the demise of preaching in America are surely myriad.....and touch on many different areas....but the result is that the pastor of today seems to think that his prime responsibility is to protect the congregation from the gospel of Jesus Christ....or at least becoming too fanatical about it. If there are to be any warnings coming from their pulpits....those warnings would be....not to look to the past of the church....but the future. Whether it was postmodernism or the entertainment culture....or the church growth movement....or today politics....one attends there on Sundays....essentially to spiritually die....as they are entertained or as Neil Postman once put it....amused to death.
It's no longer an altar...but a stage....and the key word is no longer vigilance...but involvement. Mortification has been cancelled. An open-collared shirt over khakis is the new de rigueur for the pastor's attire....and Make Jesus Great Again....the new benediction.
'American exceptionalism' has replaced....'a peculiar people.' We are so cool. If an unbeliever does not believe that....all they have to do is enter one of our megachurch buildings. There is no threat there.....for it is a safe space for the evangelical. One does not have to be 'born again' anymore....only redirected....not converted....but rather recruited! This Easter week the resurrection will be highlighted and celebrated....then the blood being cleaned up....safely put away for another year.
We like to rail on how journalism has failed us....and our government has failed us....and our educational system....and just about every other institution.....but it is our pulpits that have failed us the most. We said.....we are going to rebuild.....not the church but America....but America.....and God said....go ahead....and I will tear down again....and He did! When these pastors see that maybe comforting us might not be what they should be preoccupied with....that calling us to account for our part in this societal collapse....and warning us of what is ahead....might be closer to what God called them to do....(hint: it's not...."our best is yet to come")....and when they begin to preach the cross once again....and the straight gate and the narrow way....and that few take them....and the cost of discipleship....and that the 'old paths' are better than the new ideas....then we might be able to take comfort in recognizing God's hand upon these men....and therefore also upon us.
