I stood in line in the cafeteria at my job yesterday with a friend and the conversation turned to the election and whether she was going to take off early to go vote. I knew her family was a strong Vietnamese Catholic family. She told me her family was constantly after her to vote for the past few weeks, but still she refused. Her excuse was that she did not get involved in politics. My next question to her was if she got involved in morality. I asked her if she supported abortion. She said no, so I reminded her that her family as Catholics took a strong stance against abortion. I asked her why she didn’t vote her morality if not her politics. She merely shrugged. Complacency was the rule of the day.

As a whole, the Apostolic movement takes a firm stand against abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, partial birth abortions, and a myriad of moral issues…or do we? Recently I watched as one of our ministers who does take a stand on the issues, stood in the parking lot after a service and debate with another oneness minister in his congregation who was going to vote strictly on racial lines, despite his moral stance. I stood back listening and I felt the Spirit nudge me away, calling me to something that was just beyond hearing and seeing. What I was seeing was the battle of Pentecost...Ministry wanting to do right…and others in ministry not caring about the moral issues that face our nation every time a ballot is cast in our government. As I said recently, we have too many men among us who are PASSIONATELY UNINVOLVED!

Our enemies are many in the body of Christ. I’ve heard years ago, a sermon on Trophies in Hell by Bro. T.G. McNeely, which you can find here (www.faithbuilder.us). Our adversary knows each and every one of us. The devil studies each and every one of us, like a great trophy hunter, seeking how he can force us and lure us into making a mistake, going the wrong way and then bringing us down in a moment of error. I can assure you that the groundwork for current attacks and future attacks on the church and the ministry were planned out long ago. Every time we take a step in the wrong direction, we are setting events into motion that will bring either blessing or judgment on us as a church and as a nation. Yesterday was one of those events.

My wife was anxious about the election. I took off work early and picked her up to go vote. There were no lines, despite the media hype in our area threatening waits of many hours in the cold and rain. We were in and out in less than ten minutes, and that included getting in and out of the car and walking inside. Being an Ohio girl, she was concerned about both the election in her home state and here in Northern Virginia. I knew it was going to be a close race. I don’t think it gets any closer than 52%-47% in Virginia and 51%-47% in Ohio respectively. At least we weren’t bombarded by days and weeks of hanging chads, lawsuits and media blathering about “stolen elections” and such. It was a turning point though in America.

Our elections have been getting closer and closer to call for the last 10 years in the U.S. Last night, America teetered on a balance and then slowly tipped over in a direction that every Apostolic who did not pray, did not seek God and did not vote will answer to God for eventually. I say this without fear of verbal reprisal. We’ve known for years that the only thing it takes for evil men to triumph is for good men to stand and do nothing.

My wife told me yesterday on the way to the voting precinct near our home, that many of the Amish had been praying and fasting for 2 weeks about the coming election, and how she wondered how many Apostolics were doing the same. You can take it by that comment that I did not marry a complacent Ohio Pentecostal girl, content to worry about rock gardens, backyard pool’s, her next trip to a tanning salon or antique shows and just keeping up with the Joneses. If that’s your forte’, then I’m sorry to step on your toes, but I needed a partner in spiritual warfare, not a wall flower for Jesus, and God gave me what I prayed, fasted and asked for. For those who know a little of what I went through the past 4 years, God listened and responded when, man and ministry would not. (Your support was duly noted in heaven and on earth and your reward awaits you.) God keeps good books!

Complacency is the sin of the last days church. We don’t want to offend anyone. We don’t want to upset anyone. We are afraid to upset our cliques, sinners, new converts, visitors, our tithe payers, and a laundry list of folks. Many among us have given up the mantle of ministry for the cloak of a hireling. Read it. Read it again. I did not stammer, stutter or misspeak.

I’ve run across many in the past who were fatalists and promoted a doctrine that nothing they could do would ever change anything in world events or in the church. Nonsense! I get emails constantly from saints who tell me they see the things that God has given me to write and speak about happening in the churches, but that they are “only run of the mill Christians,” and can’t do anything to change their situation.

Again, nonsense!

I contend with that. If you haven’t read my pedigree in one of my recent articles, keep reading until you get to it. (Author’s note: Don’t have one!)

I say that by way of reminder that “run-of-the-mill” Christians in Paul’s day turned the world completely up-side down. Ignorant and unlearned fishermen turned the Sanhedrin Court into confusion and left them with no argument. Hebrews chapter 11 is full of people who were not complacent fatalists. They met the challenge of their day in time and fought it out, but many did not obtain the promise…still they fought, they withstood the enemy, they put to flight enemy armies…but without us they are not going to be made perfect. One stand must by nature precedent another stand and another…and yet another.

God isn’t looking for watered-down, lukewarm pseudo-Christians who are willing to accept their “fate.” He’s looking for men and women who will speak out, stand up, take a stand, do what is right, say what is right, stand before kings, judges, the rulers of their people and say, “Thus saith the Lord….” If you don’t have the backbone for that, will you please stop calling yourself Pentecostal or Apostolic!

Oh, wait, we don’t do that in Pentecost anymore. We’re just a denomination. We get our programs from a headquarters now. We are becoming “accepted” among other denominations who are starting to be “inquisitive” about this “evangelical” group the world used to spurn. Like chameleon lizards, we’ve learned to adapt and try and make our churches look, act, sound and feel more modern, more “up-beat”, more ecumenical, less “spooky,” less wild, less non-conformist and more mainstream…more “affluent.”

God is going to vomit us out.

For about 5 to 10 years, God has been testing this movement of Oneness Pentecostals. He’s been bringing situations to bear in our homes, our churches, our communities, our districts, our organizations and our states and nation. God has been testing us to see if we love judgment and justice as much as we have jumped on the bandwagon of mercy, grace and forgiveness…all those things we have damned the charismatic churches about for over 20 years. We have so avoided justice and judgment and turned our faces from taking a stand and speaking truth, that we’ve become almost denominational in our stand on any issue. We’ve adopted their non-biblical stand on “Judge not that ye be not judged,” from our Baptist brethren and turned it into an excuse not to take a stand.

But hey, we’re Pentecostal, friend…We don’t vote and make decisions about our nation and righteousness…no, we just go fight at our church organizational conferences, split organizations and kill our brethren over television advertising, television ownership, whether we can broadcast our services over the internet or television, who’s liberal, or conservative, or moderate by our personal point of view. We really don’t care about partial birth abortion, abortion as a whole, homosexuality, gay marriage, gay rights…yes, we will preach against those things if someone walks into our churches and look a little questionable. We’ll protect our own “turf,” but don’t expect us to stand in front of national leaders, declare the word of God or speak out against the things God hates. Dear Lord, man, that might get us killed like the early church!

Yeah. We’re “The Originals!” What a joke. I don’t think so.

In Paul’s day, from the Day of Pentecost, to his persecution of the church and his conversion, to the day he stood before Felix, Agrippa and appealed and was taken to Caesar, the early church took a stand on morality, Godliness, the coming of Christ, the coming Judgment and the New Birth. Their stand so turned Israel and the known world up-side down, that Paul told Felix and Agrippa that the things that were done were not done in a corner, or hidden from public view. Scripture says that he “reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come” and that Felix trembled because of Paul’s words but put him off to a more convenient time. Now it is 2008 and the Pentecostals have put off taking a stand for righteousness until a more convenient time. God’s will be done, huh? Did you make your voice known?

Where do you stand, Pentecostal? Last night, our nation teetered in the balance of judgment. This nation voted in a man who stands for all the things the conservative “Christian” groups stand against. Where were the Pentecostals? Sorry, we were too busy dividing the spoils, setting up new organizations, fighting over who left what organization and who can or can’t broadcast services or advertisements for our churches, who can wear jewelry and who can’t, who is holy and who is not and whether or not accessing the internet is sin….better hope not or you won’t be reading this.

If one be found slain in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, and it be not known who hath slain him: Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain: And it shall be, that the city which is next unto the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take an heifer, which hath not been wrought with, and which hath not drawn in the yoke; And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer's neck there in the valley: And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be tried: And all the elders of that city, that are next unto the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it. Be merciful, O LORD, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel's charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the LORD. Deuteronomy 21:1-9

I really don’t think Pentecost can sit back and tell God that we haven’t seen innocent blood shed in this land. It’s on our news, in our mail, on our radio’s, the internet, your TVs ( ;) ) and yet we let the news desensitize us to the point that we will not speak out. Personal embarrassment aside, we will stand in judgment for our silence in this hour.

Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance. Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood: and shall ye possess the land? Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbour's wife: and shall ye possess the land? Say thou thus unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; As I live, surely they that are in the wastes shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence. For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through. Then shall they know that I am the LORD, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed. Ezekiel 33:23-29

Get ready Pentecostals. America has chosen to become an Obama-nation.