Church In Crisis

The Church in the United States is in a period of crisis. Where will we look for our salvation? Do we look to the President or to any politician for the help that only God can provide? The answer is not in just yet, but the testing has begun and God will know the answer and .. so will we!

What crisis are we in? Where is our lack? We have money, prestige, influence. Our missionaries travel the globe, our programs cover the landscape with good works. So what is the crisis? The crisis is that we as a church often look everywhere but to God for the answers to our lives. We are like the children of Israel who said to Samuel “We want a King as the nations around us possess!”  We want what government can provide! Rejoice, for God has heard our cries and He is giving us government.

In a day when our very lives are at stake because of an enemy who is willing to die to kill us, government is discovering that it requires more and more money to answer the threat and that even that money is ineffective. We have forgotten how powerful our God is and how simple it is for Him to protect us as we look to Him for our lives.

Instead, we turn more and more frequently to the devices of men, but men can only see today and straight ahead while God knows the very thoughts and intents of the hearts of each and every person who ever was and ever shall be. He knows the moves before they are even thought of.

Our country was built on the foundation of the right to worship God. We forgot that the only way to maintain that foundation was to worship God and to live our lives so that the reality of God Almighty was demonstrated to our children and to those who may come to this country. Who can resist the beauty and power and love of God demonstrated daily in our lives.

Life was so abundant for us here that we forgot who it was that provided and made possible the abundance. We thought somehow that man brought about the plenty and the freedom America has come to epitomize.

So in the process of being blessed we have become like a child who looses sight of the parent’s hand guiding, providing, protecting, working in the background….but no more. America must grow up! God is moving away, giving space to those things that could not penetrate the barrier of protection that He was around this country and us.

Although there are those who remain true to The Lord God Almighty, the American Church has effectively become simply a form empty of relationship with the Father. Prosperity is a test that down through the ages most have failed and it seems that the American church is no different.

When God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, there was more God had against them than the simple debauchery of homosexuality. God said that 1. They were full of pride 2. They had too much time on their hands. 3.They had too much to eat, 4.They didn’t take care of the orphans, the widows and the refugees and 5. They were arrogant and committed abominations before God.. It seems that we in this country share much of the same qualities of Sodom and Gomorrah and perhaps have eclipsed their sin.

The Bible says, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin, and heal their land.” God has been saying this to us for some time but there comes a time when judgment cannot be avoided. Are we there? If not, we are close! God said that there is a time when not even the prayers of Moses or Abraham would avert destruction for the country but only they themselves would be saved.

No matter where we are, it is imperative that we each seek the Lord for ourselves as well as our families. It may be possible that instead of being saved from judgment we have reached the point where we must be saved in judgment. No matter which it is, our course is charted in only one of two directions: We either get close to God and worship Him or we turn our back on Him and choose the world and all it has to offer which in the end is destruction.

God is destroying the fence of indifference. All, especially The Church, especially Christians, must pick up the implements of war and fight. We have been complacent far too long. We have watched as our country has gone down an immoral path, indeed we may have traveled the same path ourselves. We have chosen leaders based on charisma instead of character, and we have abdicated our responsibility for the way our country has gone saying it was his fault or her fault or anybody but my fault.

In 11Samuel God told the Israelite nation that even though they had rejected him as their king and had desired a man to be their king, if…if they as a nation would hear the Lord and obey his commandments, everything would go well with them and God would give them good leadership, but….if they would not hear Him and obey His commandments, God would destroy both them and their king.

We are past the point of playing around. It may already be impossible to avoid certain judgments which have been appointed in this country…but God is good….and if we are looking to Him and seeking Him, we will be cared for!