Success and Failure Blog

Romans 13:11-12- And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.

Wake Up Church of the Living God! I write this exhortation tell you that it is time for the Church to arise out of its slumber. It is time for the Church to let their candle burn bright again in a lost and dying world. While the world becomes more and more inherently evil, the Church needs to realize that our redemption draweth nigh, and we as a Church need to be about doing the Lord’s business and laboring for the King so that when He does return, he will not find us lax and apathetic towards the things of God.

The Church of the Living God has been duped by the demonic doctrines of hyper Calvinism and hyper Pragmatism. What I mean by hyper Calvinism is the belief that God predestined the elect (saved people) before the foundation of the world and that since they are predestined to heaven there is no way for them to turn from irresistable grace. On the other hand, God predestines some people to go to Hell and there is nothing that they can do to change their eternal destination because God already predestined it before the foundation of the earth. This particular idea is heresy, but nevertheless it is spreading in the churches of America at a unprecedented rate. What is so appalling about this particular aspect of Hyper-Calvinism is the fact that it teaches that some people from the moment they were born are damned to Hell and there is nothing they can do to change their destination! Oh, but I have good news for you. The Bible says that God would have none perish but that all might come to everlasting life. Focus on the word ALL. That is clear that God wants all of humanity (that includes every man, woman, boy and girl that has existed or ever will exist) to be saved, and to experience everlasting life. The fact of the matter is that God created us with a free will. People have the choice of whether to accept what he did on Calvary, or people can reject what he did on Calvary. God wants us to choose to love him. If we did not have a choice or a free will then we would be no better than robots.

There is also a heretical doctrine spreading known as Hyper-Pragmatism. Pragmatism says that if it feels right then it is okay to do. The truth is that every man thinks he is right in his own eyes. Pragmatism is currently sweeping through the Churches at an astonishing rate. Many Churches are compromising their convictions in order to appease the flesh. Many Churches are using the methodologies of the world and are in effect saying it is okay to use the world and the world system in order to keep people entertained and keep people happy. Folks the truth of the matter is that this whole idea of collaborating with the world is heresy and has no place in the Church of America. Churches have become so worldly and they have bought into the idea of pragmatism and the sad truth about it is they don’t even know it. When a evangelical Church in this country is playing secular songs in the pulpit there is something wrong. Not too long ago a evangelical Church played the AC/DC song I am on a Highway to Hell. The sad truth about it is that many people in that Church is probably really on the highway to Hell. It is so sad to see the Churches in America for the most part become so apathetic and become so duped by demonic doctrines. It is obvious that they are not reading the same Bible that I read. The Bible clearly states in 1st John to love not the world neither the things that are in the world. The Bible clearly tells the Church that we are not citizens of this world. We are pilgrims and sojourners passing through.

We must never expect the Lord to bless a church that is duped by these doctrines. We must never expect God to bless a church that is full of proud and conceited people. God will only start to bless the Church of the Living God when it is humbled to the dust under a sense of its own shortcomings. When the Church does this then God will look upon the Church with mercy. God blesses his people when they begin to pray, as well as when they confess their sins. The prayer is urgent, humble, and believing; therefore, it has to speed to the throne of God. “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us”. These agonizing desires will be part of the mourning of a Church that is conscious of having lost the blessing from God when the entire Church is interceding with urgency and persistence.

Prayer is the best resort of an earnest people. I can testify to this. In my church (Second Baptist Church), we have had prayer meetings in which everyone has been stirred, much as the trees of the forest are moved in the wind, and afterward the presence of God has always been manifested by conversion of souls. Our best times of prayer have always been followed by joyful harvests of new believers. Churches everywhere must be prayerful, intensely so, or else they cannot expect that the sound of abundant rain will be heard throughout their land.

I call on the church to awake, to confess their sin, to awake to struggle in prayer for the souls of men. The the Lord God will visit us from on high. Come Holy Spirit, and rouse your slumbering people Stir up the lazy multitude of believers, for when Your power is felt, then the bright day of triumph has dawned upon us.