Turned Unto Fables

“A religion of mere emotion and sensationalism is the most terrible of all curses that can come upon any people.  The absence of reality is sad enough, but the aggravation of pretence is a deadly sin.”  - Samuel Chadwick

Sound like any of the churches you’ve been to lately? Or like some of the televangelists that swarm the airwaves with their sensationalism? Or like our new wave of “revivalists” who lead us like Pied Pipers to emotional displays of excitement rather than bringing us to the altar of repentance where true revival can only be found?

Somewhere in our pursuit of religious goals, bigger churches, and more prosperous ministries, we compared price tags and chose the one that promised the biggest bang for the cheapest price.  It was a simple decision. Why labor and agonize for long lonely nights in secret with God for intangible results claimed by an invisible faith, when for the cheap price of a superficial show of faith mixed together with an instant sensationalism we can have the proven attraction of a Hollywood extravaganza?

• We have traded the agony of deep travail in prayer for a cheap and easy “name it and claim it”. We “speak the word” like sorcerers expecting God to jump at the snap of our fingers to bring us blessings, but for the things that God cries for, our hearts are strangely silent.
• All night prayer meetings these days means a half hour for each of us shared for a few hours or so, not the desperate cries for lost souls that rang out until the dawn broke.
• Contending before God and storming the Throne of Grace in spiritual warfare is now a lost art (at which we breathe a sigh of relief for its loss).  Our revival prayer meetings today are merely a subdued time of murmured prayers and shared insights with a backdrop of praise music instead of the times of intense warfare that used to crash the gates of Heaven for revival in times past.
• We have left the secret place of the Most High for our stages with lights, glitter, and a more “professional” production.
• The altars of repentance that once beckoned to lost souls desperate for Salvation have now become magnets for “pity” lines to assuage our weakened church members that they are “loved”.
• Our focus has turned away from the desperate masses of the lost and has been redirected to a self-oriented doctrine of prosperity, blessings, and wealth…for ourselves.
• We have broken the constrictions of old fashioned strong doctrine for the warm and friendly fields of ecumenism, not only with the harlot church, but even with Hindus and Muslims.
• We have turned Hell from an everlasting furnace of torment that awaits the multitudes into a place of discomfort that only a very few will ever go to…and certainly not anyone we know.
• We have dismissed the fearlessness of holy boldness as rude and unbecoming because it is too unsettling to our comfortable ways.  Instead we have trained our pastors to study to be nice, warm, and accommodating so that they not offend anyone.
• We are more concerned with being conciliatory than a lightning rod of God’s judgments, and so we swarm to those who claim to have a “prophetic spirit” and will tell us what we want to hear but we are repulsed by brash prophets who carry forth a word of rebuke.
• The Love of God is no longer the keeping of God’s commandments, but is pictured as a warm, fuzzy emotion that, along with a cheap Grace, is waltzing the Church into a lukewarm apostasy.
• The Fear of God is no longer the fear and trembling and dread of the Almighty, but is now “awesome respect”.

In short, we have become sophisticated. And this is what is found in the Assemblies of God, the Pentecostals, and the new rash of “evangelical” churches – the ones who are supposed to be alive!

Does anyone realize how desperate we are for a revival? Not a churchy imitation of fake sensationalism like we see in today’s “revivalists”, but a God-fearing, Heaven-sent, flesh-crucifying broken cry for the holiness of God?  But who do we have that is desperate enough to drop to their knees and pour their hearts out at the altar of repentance for God to have mercy on us? Who among us will contend before God in secret travail until God answers? Has our desperate passion for the lost died?

We have forgotten how to pray. And our revivalists are more interested in a show of emotion, pressing people to the floor so they will be “slain in the Spirit”. Instead of yelling “Repent! Repent! Repent!”, they holler out “Fire! Fire! Fire!” as if they were magicians calling down the fire of God.  That’s not how Elijah did it.

Are there any of us who realize how far we have drifted?  We depend upon a carnal production rather than the unction of the Spirit, and our preachers cover up the loss with manufactured speeches that are passed off for sermons which are forgotten five minutes after the congregation has passed through the doors. They depend more upon their scholastic abilities than a crucified dependence of the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and as a result, have lost the power that once thundered over our pulpits. Were there any lives that were changed, any hearts broken, any sin exposed and cleansed, any souls saved? Did the Blood flow?

Does anyone care?

“And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30)

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” (2 Timothy 4:3,4)

It is not a question of whether we agree or not, whether we will utter our Amens or bob our heads up and down – it is a matter of what you will do about it.

Brother Dale,
www.RevivalFire.org