The church is sinking!
Posted by appolus on February 16, 2016
“I feel like we are salesmen today and the reason is we do not pray. Everybody today is an echo. They go to a conference to hear what everybody else is saying, and then repeat it. But brother Dave Wilkerson was intimate with God, and that’s what allowed him to be a voice.” ( Pastor Tim Dilena, Brooklyn Tabernacle Church)
” Very few people are lifting their voices. All of the statistics prove, that by every measurable parameter, the Christian church is sinking. Part of the problem is what we have been fed for the last ten, fifteen, twenty years-the focus on church growth, on being user friendly, seeker sensitive. All that has opened the door to unbiblical teaching, just shallow nonsense. It’s resulted in getting away from prayer, away from the Gospel, away from loving people of all races, away from dependence upon the Holy Spirit. My editor asks, ” where are the Tozers, the David Wilkersons who’ll say in love ” that is wrong.” (Jim Cymbala, senior pastor, Brooklyn Tabernacle)
Now why is Christendom sinking, what are these pastors talking about? They identify echo chambers and a lack of prayer meetings. They identify a lack of any real reliance on the Holy Spirit. Going to conference after conference and learning nothing. Their editors bemoan the lack of people like Tozer and Wilkerson, men who were more afraid of God than they were of men. Men who were not trying to build a kingdom of their own but simply walking out the Kingdom of God.
Christendom today is, for the most part, voiceless. There is not a single voice on the national stage that is a fearless voice, a voice that has heard from God and is unafraid to speak what he has heard. A voice that seeks no political influence nor is concerned with their own ministries or money or pleasing the people, in other words, a prophetic voice. All day long men will give you their political opinions and it is often tied to raising money, but where are the men with fresh fire from the altar of God?
Men hold onto their reins in their ministries so tightly that there is no room for God to speak. The Holy Spirit has been displaced and the church has plunged headlong into disaster. To most the change has taken place slowly enough to be like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water. A prophetic voice feels the burn, sees the consequences, shouts from the rooftops, to get out of the pot. That voice is full of love and passion and compassion and a sheer doggedness that most generations would have struggled with them.This generation cannot handle them on any level because their ears have been tickled for so long.They have been so drowned in worldliness that they must shut them down.This voice that pierces through the grey dimness that passes for light, that speaks to the bone and the marrow is missing and we should cry out to God that He would raise up such a voice and that He would remove every barrier to it being heard.
My advice to the younger generations of pastors and leaders is to yield. Step back. Discover the glory of allowing Jesus to be preeminent in your meetings. It will be the scariest thing you have ever done but to those who can hear, you know that your congregation is without power, it is without glory and has not bowed in reverential awe to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You know there has been no sowing in tears. You know there has been no agonizing and prevailing in prayer. Now that you know this, then why go a minute longer without addressing this head on. Do you want to be the pastor of a religious club? Do you want to be the leader of a social work department? Or do you want the glory? Do you want it so badly that you are willing to shut down every activity not birthed and sustained in the presence of His majesty? May God find just a few men willing to lay aside everything they think they know and invite God back. He will not ignore such a plea from hearts wide open and fully given to His glory and honor. Lord Jesus, help us to stand again in this evil day and help us to be thorn in the flesh of our enemy and be what we have been called to be, more than conquerors in Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour forever.
A Call To The Remnant 
Prayergate said
Interesting that you should write this today. I just left a reply on your “Persecution” article of 2012. In it, I referred to Ephesians 4:1-16. I believe to this day that this scripture will be fulfilled in the end time. Though, today, many “false” apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers have had their day in the sun, I believe God is going to raise up TRUE ministers who will shout from the rooftops in the power of the Holy Ghost. Their only mission (and motive) will be to bring the Body (remnant?) into the unity of the faith and the perfection of the saints … unto the edifying of itself in love!
appolus said
Hi brother, amen. Ephesians 4:1-16 is so powerful and of course coupled with John 17 and other Scriptures that compel us to be of one mind and the beauty of unity are just so powerful. It is written therefore it will happen. The circumstances that bring this to pass? Undoubtedly in my spirit, persecution, refining fires, shaking everything that can be shaken and the great falling away which we are already in the midst of will bring to pass the word of the Lord…………………..bro Frank
Prayergate said
Frank,
So true! I love Psalms 133 … that’s where the true blessing is! Feel free to EMail me anytime you’d like … even if just for some special prayer.
Prayergate@live.com
Lana said
You hit it right on the nail. God is actually speaking to me about the church coming back to their first love. We do not get there through other people or conferences. We get there by spending real time with God with our whole heart exposed. I just spoke to my pastor about this today…We are not to look at the time when preaching or praising. We are to be lead by the spirit. To be moved by the spirit. The church as a whole is quenching the spirit to do the might move in the church that is coming.
appolus said
Hi Lana, praise the Lord, I pray that your pastor will take your words to heart if he has not already…………………..bro Frank
Lana said
Yes, this is my prayer.
immo51 said
Dear Brother in Christ Jesus,
Thank you for your post. I encourage all of you to read “The Harlot Church System by Charles E. Newbold Jr. at
http://abidinghouse.com/teachings/theharlotchurchsystem.html
It is online and will open your eyes to what most people today think of and call the building they meet in. God does not need “man-made” temples for people to serve HIM in. We are the temple.
Acts 17:24-30 reads;
24 “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.
25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.
26 And He has made from one blood[c] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.
’29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
Don’t forget Revelation 2:4 reads;
4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
God wants a relationship with each of HIS creation and will not share our obedience with anything else. The ‘man-made” church system is not Biblical. “And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.” Revelation 18:4
In Christ Jesus
Renee said
Immo51,
I have this book and it has been a blessing. He reveals the false church system very much like Bro. Frank has done.
One of my favorite quotes: “Zion (the bride) counts the cost; Babylon (false church system) counts the money”.
appolus said
Hi Immo, thanks for the link and the suggestion. That is a good quote Renee…………………..bro Frank
benleney said
Hi I like this prayer – it calls to the heart of me. I don’t want to be pastor of a spiritual club…
Marco Misek said
More people are led to Jesus, discipled and sent into ministry from small churches than by any other means