The Problem of Having Sick Churches in a Dying World

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It is a problem already that this world is dying.  Now what Leonard Ravenhill considers to be the greatest tragedy or what I might call as one of the greatest tragedies is to have a sick church in a dying world.  While reading Revelation, this phrase reminded me of Sardis the dead church and Laodicea the lukewarm church.  One church was really dead and the other was lukewarm.  It is really a problem when there are sick churches in a dying world.  You have churches that seem Christian on the surface but they are lukewarm, worldly and sinful.  The problem of lukewarmness is indifference towards sin.  They think that because salvation is by grace through faith then they can go ahead and live the way they want without God's grace changing their lives as a result.

One of the most subtle deceptions are the "Easy Christianity" churches.  Works salvation is one obvious evil but the teaching of grace as a license to sin can be very subtle.  Just because a church upholds the truth that salvation is by grace through faith and eternal security does not mean they are saved.  It is satanic deception to say that a person can get saved, have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and still remain the same sinner as before.  Worse, these pulpits say all who insist that salvation changes your life are teaching works salvation.  This is really nothing more than backdoor Antinomianism which changes the grace of God as a license for lasciviousness.  The Bible calls such people as wicked as only false converts dare to teach such heresy (Jude 1:4).  There is no reason any Christian should accept Antinomians as brothers and sisters in Christ because they are not saved to start with.

The moment these churches teach a Madison Avenue Jesus or any Jesus that is not the Lord of one's life, they are indifferent about sin and they use worldly means to win people then that church is not part of the Body of Christ!  They are not saved to start with because their Jesus is not Lord.  They teach another Jesus that has become some kind of personal genie or one who gives them an easy life when the Bible has Jesus speaking more of hard times than easy times.  What is worse is that they have been preaching false converts straight into Heaven when they are not in Heaven.  When you warn them of their doctrine, they are most likely to kick out the preacher while saying, "Get out of your church you unloving, legalistic Pharisee." never mind they are really heading for Hell as much as the works salvationist.  I guess such people are so comfortable in their false security because they never had their sins shaken with the righteousness of God and the Law to start with.

The moment they make grace a license to sin then it really insults and rejects the cross of Jesus Christ.  Jesus died on the cross for our sin to be defeated and not for our sin to be uplifted.  That death was meant not only to pay for the penalty of sins but to save people not in their sins but from their sins.  Hebrews 2:15-15 says, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."  Hebrews 9:14 says, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"  Such people have another Jesus, not the Jesus of the Bible and they are not saved to start with.  If their Jesus does not change lives then that Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible.


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