Preface: Evangelicals today are very faithful in defending their pastors.....and their congregations....even their denominations....but not very good at all in defending the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see when we defend our pastor....or our church....we are essentially defending ourselves....for if we faced the facts of a weakened church age for preaching....we might actually have to do something....maybe leave our church. So this is really about us. We are defending ourselves....at the expense of the gospel!
It's not the first time that I have had this thought....but they are getting stronger....so this is the first time that I will have expressed that thought in these posts. Tomorrow is yet another Lord's Day....and I have prayed for longer than I care to remember that this day might be the day when the Holy Spirit moves over pulpits and congregations as wind over wheatfields...but I no longer believe that will happen. God can certainly do that if He wills it....I just no longer think that He would will it!
In a way I feel better saying this....or rather posting it....because even as I prayed in the past that that Lord's Day would be the day when God would begin to have mercy upon us....I never saw any evidence that evangelicals even desired any discernment. So I was praying for people who had no interest in learning anything or changing in any way. They were always happy where they were....with the exception that that happiness was seriously impinged upon by Joe Biden and the whole progressive and woke crowd....but that did not turn them back to God.....it turned them to a vile false prophet in Donald Trump....which is worse than if they had done nothing at all.
This afternoon I sat....along with my entire family....at a Sight & Sound production....this year being Noah. There were....it is always filled....2000 plus people in attendance....and this three shows a day....for just about the whole year. It's estimated that 1.5 million people see the shows each year. Last year it was Daniel....and the year before....Moses....and next year......Lord willing....Joshua. They are all wonderful....and everyone I presume is edified in some way. I love them....but they do not change us. They edify for the moment....but do not mortify unto eternity.
I mention this because there are numerous supposed revivals all over America every year....where thousands of young people show up at a Christian music concert or conference....or some college ministry baptizes hundreds if not thousands of young people....or an evangelist has a crusade that fills a sports stadium....with hundreds if not thousands again....coming forward in the emotion of the moment....but these are not George Whitefield or Jonathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon type of revivals....because the people in Whitefield's time or Edwards' time or Spurgeon's time....did not come from America circa 2025....or have this culture to go immediately back to.
The gospel is not the same....the message is not the same.....the call and the warnings are not the same....and the churches to go back to are not the same. Add to this that the temptations of money and lust for this and for that may always have been present in man....but this present advanced materialistic and capitalist culture bombards us almost every minute of every day....from every direction!
Idols are literally everywhere....almost on every street corner. We have talked ourselves into believing that we can go and burst a blood vessel cheering for a football team on the Lord's Day....or in front of a television set....and somehow think that this was a blessing from God....and if Trump doesn't save us....we might not even have those football games anymore.
No.....the preaching today is not going to produce any genuine movements of God....and if they do produce movements of some sort....they could be worse than no movements at all because of the extreme error everywhere!
Rock bottom is coming. May that be God's plan....to awaken us by shock therapy.....but it is not going to be from a sermon without the glory of God and the preeminence of Christ moving the listeners to tears. That's right....to tears. We need tears in the pulpits and in our own eyes....over what we have let happen to ourselves and our churches.
