Preface: The following post is only a little over a month old. The Super Bowl is scheduled in a few weeks. I would have to look up the date. Is the college football championship tonight? I would have to look that up also. When is the last time that you the reader had someone joyfully say to you that they had been born again....or heard something similar second or third hand? We don't have to be born again anymore. There is nothing for the Christian to be separated from. The bad liberals and the good patriots are already separated. That's the only separation necessary. I was last night reading a book that I purchased only yesterday....the title of which I'll leave for a possible book review later....but there is a short paragraph on page five that caught my eye...."It has been a season of grieving, lament, and lots of prayer. But it's also been a season of new relationships, and the winnowing experience deepens the ties with those that remain." I'll give you a hint on the book. It was written by a former government official and counterterrorism expert who became a persona non grata....along with many others....unwelcome in other words....because they also focused too much on homegrown extremism....but it is that word....'winnowing'....that caught my eye....because I have used the word a lot in the past....for that is what is coming in the church....a winnowing....where that multitude of evangelicals today will increasingly find out that they really have little in common with born again Christians....(a redundant term yes....but one that explains a lot today to anyone willing to look first to God's Word for answers.)
I had posted so many times over the past sixteen years....a hope that the next Lord's Day would be that day when God would awaken our pulpits and have mercy upon all of us. So will tomorrow be that Lord's Day? I don't think it will be. I see absolutely no indication that Christians are worried about anything. They have their election win....they therefore think that God has blessed them....and they are waiting for the good times to start rolling again. There is no evidence of any mortification in their speech....or in the pulpits. They have no interest in even considering any warnings....of which they hear none from their pulpits anyway. They are more concerned....the men anyway....with the Steelers than they are the Antichrist.
We might as well put pillows in all the pews? What you will have tomorrow in most pews of most....at least conservative churches in America....is cheerful banter. We went from banners to banter. No one....generally speaking....will be convicted of anything. One wise minister long ago said that the purpose of the sermon was to convict....and then to comfort. Well we just scratched off the convict part.
This is all going to change folks....but probably not tomorrow....for it seems that we have a little bit more to go before we hit rock bottom. Trump has changed the gospel...and redirected our hope. Our fall is going to be hard....as maybe even in a day we will see what we have allowed to happen. Then....on the Lord's Day following that....God may show these pastors that they miserably failed to warn their sheep.
It will be a hard time for all of us....for we all contributed to the collapse. May God....if it be His will....and if it be in His mercy....may he then apply a balm....that we ourselves might not collapse under the weight of our guilt. May He have mercy on these men in the pulpits....that instead of panic and confusion....or worse....denial....that they would....through the strengthening of the Holy Spirit....lead us all in humiliation and mortification.
