Clinging To Death.
To the Church in the United States,
Stop Clinging to Death.
"This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted." - Exodus 16:16-21
I fear, my fellow Christians, that our nation has been clinging to death. Over the last few weeks we have had a drama of political rage, not to say that we haven't had it before too. The unrest has led us to cling to what we know, cling to what is comfortable. This has led to the slow, cancerous, spiritual death of our nation.
Today, I read an article from the Gospel Coalition about a man's married friends who are now opening themselves to polyamory. If you do not know what that means, it is okay, I looked it up too. Basically, this couple has decided to open its marriage up to other people sexually.
They announced it on Facebook.
The overwhelming response? Praise. Praise for their faux courage, openness, and willingness to being open to the times. They were showered with love and support, it's not really a surprise, people already have open and mutual sexual relationships outside of marriage. But the truly shocking part, that they claimed to have biblical support for it. Let me be perfectly clear here.
There is NO truth to the claim that God wants, or supports open marriages. Just like His relationship is closed off to just His Church. A marriage is to be closed to the man and woman of that covenant.
We need to have a heart to heart conversation with our churches. We are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, pretending that it is not going to go off. But it already has. We have ignored the fact the "Bible Belt" and traditional Christianity is starting to collapse as the moral high ground in the United States. If it hasn't fallen already, it will soon.
Russell Moore, President of the ERLC of the Southern Baptist Convention stated this in his book: Onward. We need to come to the realization that we are no longer the "norm" and that our "values" no longer hold water with a majority of Americans. I truly believe that our churches have forgotten that we have to be in this culture though, because that loaded gun is still pointed at us. And we're afraid.
We have forgotten that our Church, the beautiful bride of our Christ, thrives on persecution. We were never called to preach values, or beliefs or feelings. Feelings are what got us here in the first place. What we are called to preach is a bloody cross and an empty tomb. Values are created secondary to those things through the teachings of Jesus Christ, but we must preach of the Cross and Jesus' Resurrection. Without either of those, we have nothing to give to the world.
Instead of preaching at all though, we have secluded ourselves to the "deep south" or our class rooms of theological teachings. There needs to be a resurgence of believers willing to step back out into the darkened United States. A revival. We are clinging to sustainment though. Instead of stepping out, we are trying to focus just on believers, instead of focusing on the lost. It's the lost that need to be saved.
We have churches bursting at the seams with people who will never share the Gospel with their neighbor, people who think their Christians because they grew up in church but never really made a commitment to Christ. It's time our faith became feet. If we continue to cling to our dogmatic lifestyle of sustainment teaching, and not the expansion of the Gospel, we will no doubt begin to see the death of the church in the United States.
This is clinging to death. We have people with God given talents and abilities, people with finances to give, people with the ability to go, yet we horde them to ourselves instead of giving them away to the world. Just like the Israelites in the desert, it's tempting to horde the people and blessings God has freely given us to enjoy. We see the end result. They're not for long term sustainment. Use it up, every drop. I'm not saying use every penny in the church or ministry budget, but I am saying to completely wring what you have to give out, for the Glory of God.
This isn't comfortable, and we're not perfect at this, we will never be perfect at this. Though if we are to win some, as Paul says for the Gospel, then we must become all things. We must become life.
Stop clinging to death.
Cling to the Cross.
