ICHABOD......The Glory Has Departed

                We have in evangelicalism today lost the concept of being born again. In other words....the evangel is going down a path that does not save....and produces a church that is at the mercy of worldly schemes. Forty years ago we all used the phrase to describe what happened to us. Today no one uses it. It was about forty years ago that I was at a concert of what probably was the top band in Christian music. This group was as good as any of the top secular bands....four bass guitars reverberating in our soul....and a charismatic lead singer with a great voice. At the end of the concert this man gave his testimony....and it was a moving testimony....and he gave an altar call. We were on the second level....and the folding chair first floor level was filled with young people who had come forward. There is no way of knowing....but probably none of them were born again that evening. They were simply moved by the power of the music and the testimony. That is what we are experiencing in the Christian Nationalist movement that is dominant with our youth today.
                 The preached word of the cross is what saves....not exclusively....for one might read the word. If one is moved to going forward in a concert....the question becomes....what happens next? So let's say that they go to the average megachurch....and they hear a sermon about Jesus who saves....and they like and are even encouraged by what they hear....and they stay at that church....and within a year they are very involved in the church.....with everything from Bible studies to men's or women's or youth ministries....to picnics and excursions. They may....and they may not have....been regenerated and born again.
                  Time passes....decades....and maybe the elders and deacons have been born again....and maybe not.....maybe not even the pastor? Christian fads....actually heresies....such as Joel Osteen....are common even beyond charismatic churches....and then another heresy enters.....politics! A man in this case....prophesies....every single day....year after year....that our best is yet to come....and that we are heading into a golden age....while he tells us that we are....one glorious nation under God....where in fact we are a stench in the nostrils of God....and judgment is coming....not a golden age.
                 All discernment is now gone....for the glory has departed from the church. We are all panicking as we looked at Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.....and now AOC and Mamdani. We are rabid in our opposition to 'trans' issues....using this to prove to ourselves that we are doing God's work....but politics....particularly MAGA....has turned us into a self-serving mob with no compassion for anyone...following....and believing.....some of us even worshiping....the most prodigious liar and deceiver the United States government has ever produced....worshiping....a man who has decimated evangelicalism....and rendered the preaching power of pastors impotent....who as a wolf....donning the mask of a sheep....led multitudes of evangelicals  away from dependence upon Jesus Christ....to the broken cisterns of power and riches.
                 God has taken home the men who would have warned us.....Graham and Sproul and MacArthur and others. They would be shouting from the rooftops if they were here today. Even if we had Christian bookstores....they would be filled with Trump books.
                 This is the 'falling away' that God's word tells us was coming....and this is at least part of the delusion of which we were warned. Evangelicals are talking today about a possible revival because of what they have seen on television of a hundred thousand mostly youth singing praise songs at a memorial....and the supposed hundred million who streamed the event. I've had a handful of people comment to me....almost with stars in their eyes....when in reality this is evidence....not of revival....but of that great falling away.
                  The remnant in America is small folks.....relatively small when talking about 330 million people. If we were to dedicate say....two weeks....to reading with prayer and meditation the Old Testament prophets....we would see ourselves in those warnings.....and flee these false promises of today. Isaiah saw the destruction coming and told the people...."Come, my people, enter your chambers, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves a little while until the wrath has passed. For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity..." Isaiah 26: 20, 21a
                   Isaiah was in essence telling them to prepare for judgment. He told them earlier that they had gone to Egypt to seek help from Pharaoh...."Who take counsel, but not from Me. And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit, (30:1)  Folks that is us going to Trump. Isaiah told them that the priests and prophets were worthless because they were intoxicated with strong drink....but in Isaiah 29:9 we are told that we are indeed drunk....not with intoxicating drink....but spiritual darkness...."For the LORD has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep....and has closed your eyes....(the prophets)....and has covered your heads (the seers.)