We live in a generation that has bowed their knee to the god of "ME" and chosen to worship the creature more than the Creator. Sadly enough, this is not just the cry of the world, but the cry of the last days church. As a people, we are self-centered, self-indulging and by comparison to the first Apostolic church, we are rich, increased with goods, but we are wretched, poor and naked.
I recently came from an Encounters Men's Conference in my state, and so much of what God has dealt with me about the past year came across the pulpits during those three days. We live in a generation where our saints and even in some cases our ministers are passionately uninvolved. You can get everyone on board for a church luncheon, but can’t get a hand setting up for service, cleaning the buildings, mowing the grass or doing anything remotely related to real work. We are a generation that chases the pleasures of the flesh over the consecration of the Spirit. Our banquet halls and conferences are full…our altars are empty. Our pews are full on Sunday morning…and vacant on Sunday night or during midweek service.
We’ve given up the concept of a “Church” for that of larger crowds, better music, more flexibility…and while our speakers pump the loudest music and best rhetoric over the platforms and audiences…our prayer rooms lay silent broken only in some cases by the weeping of one lonely saint. If we have one intercessor in any given church…some dear sweet elderly sister or senior saint, we are doing better than most.
We are a generation of men who are passionately uninvolved, until the cries from a pulpit entreating men to get involved in ministries of the church fall on deaf ears, stony hearts and cold faces. Gone are the days when grown men ran weeping to our altars gripped by soul-ripping conviction and fear of a judgment to come.
The coldness is not in our audiences. The stony heart is not in our pews. Sin has always been sin. Generation to generation, sin has not changed. Our message has not changed.
We have changed.
Gone are the all night prayer meetings where grown men and women wept and groaned for lost souls, gripping the pew and the altar in deep-seated, burning passion of conviction. The people in our pews are not weeping because the people in our pulpits are not weeping!
Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Joel 2:12-18
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