Article

Frightened For Our Churches
How many believers today genuinely know the Lord and are looking for His return?
An article by Jeff Rouff
Posted by Joey Kelly

We all know that there is a time of separation coming, a separation of the wheat from the tares. In other words, the coming separation will separate believers in Jesus from unbelievers in Jesus. Believers will live in a recreated world, under the control and rule of the Lord. Unbelievers will find themselves in Hell and eternal torment. But did you ever wonder just how many people may be in each of those categories? How many unbelievers will be in Hell, compared to those who truly believe in and live for Jesus and will inherit His kingdom?

This is a thought-provoking question, considering the state of the church today. It's especially frightening because most of the professing church is not truly living for the Lord in the manner that is described in His word. In the church today, a great dumbing down has taken place, causing the professing church to stray far, far away from the holiness of God and His word. The scary thing about this is that, while these folk call themselves Christians, in reality, they're not living the life of a true Christian. One day God will judge them, and on that day, they may receive the shock of their lives, when the Lord tells them to depart from His presence, because He never knew them. How and why has this happened?

The world today has become a fast food, quick fix type of society. We have made our lives to be one of ease without having to put in hard work or sacrifice. The easier things are, the better we like it. The church is no different. It has bought into the fast food mentality like the rest of society. The church would rather be spoon fed than feed herself. She would rather be handed things on a silver platter than have to work or study to know for sure what she really believes. The modern church would rather hear that everything is going to be okay than to hear what the word of God really has to say about the end times. The church has stuck her head deep down into the sand so that she doesn't have to deal with the hard and difficult issues of God's word and the true Christian life. Instead of wanting to be challenged and changed, the church wants to remain the same without having the pains and responsibility of growing in righteousness. Instead of fleeing from sin, the church wants to embrace sin and be rewarded by God.

When I was a young boy and in school, my parents would challenge me to learn all that I could, so that I would have good choices in the future, as far as a career was concerned. When I had trouble figuring out my homework, they didn't just give me the right answer and send me on my way. They made me think and figure things out, giving me aids and hints, so that I could process the information and reach the correct answer for myself. They aided me in the learning process, helping me to reason and think things out, so that I could stand on my own, make good decisions, and come to the right answers. They taught me how to look at problems and reason them out. Being dumb was not an option.

However, being dumb often seems to be an option in the world and in the church. Pastors are not challenging their people to think and reason out the truth of the scriptures. Many pastors themselves do not even reason and study out those truths. Therefore we have pastors preaching and teaching non-challenging, easy to believe and easy to live messages. The result is a dumbing down taking place on both sides of the pulpit. And now we have churches filled with people who don't hear the truth, and are not willing to come to the truth for themselves either. On any given Sunday you can ask a church congregation to open up their Bibles to the book of Hezekiah, and as the pages of Bibles begin to rustle, inevitably someone will surely ask if it is found in the Old or New testament. That is sad. That is a dumbed down church. That is the sad state of our church today. Most have never read their Bible from cover to cover. Fewer still have ever taken the time to study the Bible's true message of love, sacrifice, holiness, serving, etc. The average person sitting in the pew has little understanding of what it really means to walk with Jesus.

Now consider the horrifying conclusion: when the end times are upon us, and the final separation of true believers and unbelievers is at hand, just how many will be in each group? Or let's put it another way… how many people who believed that they were a Christian will find out that they weren't one at all? All because they were not challenged or presented with the truth, so as figure the truth out for themselves. It's a terrible prospect. The actual number is probably far greater than we'd like to think.

We need to think for ourselves. We need to be good Bereans who reason out the scriptures. We need to know the truth of God's word so that we can make wise, godly decisions which will place us in a good position for the end times. Being dumb cannot be an option. Ignorance is not an excuse. If we want to overcome and stand before the Lord and hear Him tell us, Well done, then we better put in the hard work now, so that we can enter into His rest then.