Man-up...and Bow Down. A Call to Revival

                                            

                                                    Men of God…we are under attack.

If you are paying attention at all you already know this but let me restate it.

Men of God…we are under attack!

I am going to say some things in this post that will not sit easily on the shoulders of men and might rankle a few women as well. But I can’t help that. This has been brewing in my heart for months now and I cannot remain silent. The hour is tragic. The fuse is lit. The wolf of sin is at the door and the door is weak on its hinges. To remain silent, or to temper my words with the coolant of Christian political correctness would be to betray my calling from God and it would only serve to render my bones -already wounded from trying to hold fire- more fire damaged and burnt than they are now. I can’t abide another day or night like that. I can’t sit in silence while the country I love slides headlong into a morass of wickedness and toward a showdown with the face of evil that she is wholly unprepared for.

Nor can I sit idly while the Church I love and am part of wanders like a flock of sheep without a shepherd and stuffed to obesity with straw and weeds.

*(I speak here of the Church as a body…not the church I attend personally. In fact if there is a clarion call existing in this deaf Body at all right now it exists in churches such as I attend and amongst men who seek God as soberly as my own pastor does)

Two great dangers are present as I write this tonight. The danger to America’s freedom and her Christian heritage and –as a direct result of that danger --the danger to the evangelization of the world and the spread of the Gospel. America is the last bastion of religious freedom, and from her come the vast majority of evangelistic efforts to the world. Should she fall completely, the great Gospel voice of the last 150 years would go silent.

I have been through a pruning process these last 2 months…in fact it’s a process that really had it’s genesis in a simple verse I read in October 2005 that began a process of fire-burnt purifying and wound it’s way through financial and professional collapse, brokenness, and the slow, often painful restoration of the vision God had for my life when I was 16, and the reissuance of the call He had on my life and never revoked.

I cannot sit silent another day.

Men of God…again I emphasize…Men of God; it is time for you and me to Man up, and bow down.

Throughout history, from the earliest days of the forefather of our Faith, Abraham, until this hour, God has called on men to pray. Pray in times of abundance and pray in times of famine and drought. Pray when the church is growing uninhibited and pray when she faces attacks so vicious and violent as to snuff her out altogether if that were, indeed, possible.

There have been moments in history when she has faced danger like she faces now; I know this to be true. But in my lifetime –and I turned 49 just last Friday- she has not seen such an attack of such violence or such insidiousness.

I grew up under the great threat of Communism, at the very height of the Cold War.

I spent my earliest years in solemn dread, fearing the overtaking of this country by the Great Red Menace. It would come, they warned, and it will start with the Christians. They will raid our churches and kill our pastors and then they will force us, under pain of death, to renounce our faith or die. They will kill our children and burn our churches. That’s what I was told. I was told this because it was true in other countries. And throughout their history, the Stalins and Marx’s and Lenins and Maos of the world had stated that this was their intention.

Through men of faith and the stirring of the saints of God, the Red menace was repelled and finally broken. In other lands at least. The evil was overcome because men of God were willing to Man-up and bow down.

In the seventies and eighties there were voices calling for revival and repentance. Voices that took it upon themselves to shout from the rooftops and the hillsides that our laziness and sinfulness had removed us from any place of favor with God. And while I would disagree with their claims that America was any “special” country in God’s world plan and enjoyed any special favoritism from God Almighty, I would agree with their assessment of the solution.  

We were never a “Christian nation”.  Not in the sense that some people thought we were and some still do. We never recognized Christianity as an official religion. What we were was a nation founded by Christian men. And make no mistake…they weren’t “Deists” or Enlightened Liberal theologians or Kantian philosophers. They were Born-again, CHRISTIAN men who believed in the Bible as their ultimate authority and moral code. They designed a country that openly promoted no religion but that was designed to favor Christianity. They designed a Constitution that protected the free exercise of THAT Faith, and all faiths, because they believed that Christianity, when practiced well and faithfully, would win over the hearts of any other religion. They were willing to bet that an active, Spirit-lead life of Christian Discipleship would be so attractive, so comely, so powerful, that they built-in the allowance for free exercise of other religions too. They never wanted a Christian-only State. Not by law. They wanted that by volume…by sheer numbers. They saw the power of the Gospel, when exercised properly, as the ultimate overpowering force. They saw the beauty of a life lived in accordance with the Sermon on the Mount and in the image of Christ as the greatest draw to mankind that could be. They wanted a land where Church discipline would be far more frequent and agreeable than courts of law. They wanted to create a land where Christianity would change hearts. A country populated by an overwhelming majority of Spirit lead believers would…by sheer numbers…do right more frequently than wrong.

These Godly men also understood that God keeps his promises and His promises kept with individual believers would affect an entire nation if the majority in that nation were believers. They believed that when Jesus said “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45) it could be extrapolated from an individual to a nation. That if the abundance, the overwhelming majority of that nation was adherents to a Christian Faith and observant of His laws and of man-made laws based on His Word…that the land would be blessed. They would be blessed not because we had achieved special status with God, but because God never breaks a promise, and if anyone, whether an individual or a nation lives according to His promises and words, the benefit of those promises would be theirs. And thus America grew in a remarkably short time to preeminence in the world. Because she was blessed. Not because she was especially favored as a nation, for God only ever promised that to one nation. But because she was populated to a majority with believers and with godly men of prayer.

Because in the infancy of this nation men knew how to Man-up, and bow down.

Make no mistake; our founders were men of prayer.

Said Washington at his Inaugural Address: “...it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes....”

In his Thanksgiving Decree 1789: “And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions...to promote the knowledge and practice of the true religion and virtue....”

From Washington’s personal prayer journal; 24 pages scrawled in his Field notebook:

"SUNDAY MORNING....Almighty God, and most merciful Father, who didst command the children of Israel to offer a daily sacrifice to Thee, that thereby they might glorify and praise Thee for Thy protection both night and day, receive O Lord, my morning sacrifice which I now offer up to thee; "I yield Thee humble and hearty thanks, that Thou hast preserved me from the dangers of the night past and brought me to the Light of this day, and the comfort thereof, a day which is consecrated to Thine own service and for Thine own honour. "Let my heart therefore gracious God be so affected with the glory and majesty of it, that I may not do mine own works but wait on Thee, and discharge those weighty duties Thou required of me: and since Thou art a God of pure eyes, and will be sanctified in all who draw nearer to Thee, who dost not regard the sacrifice of fools, nor hear sinners who tread in Thy courts, pardon I beseech Thee, my sins, remove them from Thy presence, as far as the east is from the west, and accept of me for the merits of Thy son Jesus Christ, that when I come into Thy temple and compass Thine altar, my prayer may come before Thee as incense, and as I desire Thou wouldst hear me calling upon Thee in my prayers, so give me peace to hear the calling on me in Thy word, that it may be wisdom, righteousness, reconciliation and peace to the saving of my soul in the day of the Lord Jesus. "Grant that I may hear it with reverence, receive it with meekness, mingle it with faith, and that it may accomplish in me gracious God, the good work for which Thou hast sent it. "Bless my family, kindred, friends and country, be our God and guide this day and forever for His sake, who lay down in the grave and arose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."
From Daniel Webster: “"If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy, If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end."
And when asked what was the “Greatest thought ever to pass through your mind” Webster replied: “My accountability to God”
Hear Webster again; “If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instruction and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."
Noah Webster, the founder of Education in the United States said this about the influence of Christianity in Government; "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed....No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."
John Q. Adams had this to say about the intertwined nature of Christianity and our Republic, on Independence Day 1837;  "Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day. Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Saviour and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before."
Again said Washington as he endorsed the first National day of Fasting and Prayer ordered held on May 6, 1780;  “The Honorable the Congress having recommended it to the United States to set apart Thursday the 6th of May next to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer, to acknowledge the gracious interpositions of Providence; to deprecate [to pray or entreat that a present evil may be removed] deserved punishment for our Sins and Ingratitude, to unitedly implore the Protection of Heaven; Success to our Arms and the Arms of our Ally: The Commander in Chief enjoins a religious observance of said day and directs the Chaplains to prepare discourses proper for the occasion; strictly forbidding all recreations and unnecessary labor.”
Our country was birthed by godly Christian men who knew how to Man-up and Bow down. They knew it’s survival would depend on men who prayed fervently and regularly. Men who knew how to Man-up and bow down.                                                                
Men of God reading this article, this hour is no less tragic and no less grave. Our situation is no less sober than when our Founders lay all on the altar of personal prosperity and comfort and risked everything because they had often heard from God. Our country was began by men who knew how to Man-up and bow down,
The scriptures are full of commands for men to pray. Calls to prayer in times of trial and difficulty. In times of drought and harvest. In times of national repentance. The oft-quoted and oft-misquoted II Chronicles 7:14 holds a vital Biblical principle. In its right context this verse was a promise to the people of Israel at the dedication of the Temple. Starting at verse 13 we read: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, ¹⁴ if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
In deference to proper exegesis this promise was actually made to the people of Israel when it was given. But when viewed under the overlay of Galatians 3:29 “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” We are right and proper in appropriating the principle for the Church at large and specifically for the Church in America. To remain honest I must say that this is not a promise made to America. But it is a promise made to all of God’s people and should those people make a majority in a land then the promised healing would directly affect that nation. And so in that light it is right and proper to call upon the truth and principle of this verse, apply it to ourselves as the Church and the Bride of Christ in America and hope expectantly for the promised revival and healing. But first we must do our part. We must humble ourselves, pray and seek His face. We must Man-up and bow down!
It is interesting to me that God delineates between prayer and seeking His face. Why?
Prayer is oftentimes a mechanical or liturgical practice. Sometimes memorized and sometimes repetitive. But seeking His face…crying out to a Holy God until that Holy God turns to face us. Grabbing hold of the hem of his garment and refusing to let go until he finally places us in the cleft of the rock, covers us with His hand so as not to consume us with his holiness, and passes by us close enough to change our visage. Seeking His face is risky; in fact to the flesh it is deadly. It requires a denouncement of comfort, and resolution of denial of self. It means that my head might have to refuse the bed even though I am weary. I may spend nights in the closet alone instead of amongst friends in laughter and light company. It requires a sacrifice of self so as to show the Holy One of Israel Himself that I am serious when I seek Him and resolute in my desire. It means I must Man-up…and bow down!
The hour does not call for women of faith to rise up. Here is where my pen might cause me to be cleaved from the hearts of some friends. Is there wrong in praying women? NO! Not by any means. But make no mistake; God’s way is for Men to lead.  Deborah was appointed Judge over Israel because no good man could be found. The Church fathers set the bar high for men to reach. Women of faith and prayer are wonderful, blessed, approved, necessary and honorable. But God commanded Men to take the lead. Ephesians 5 22-33 defines the hierarchy of leadership in the home and it begins with Men who hear from God.
Man-up…bow down!
I Timothy clearly defines the requirements for Church leadership and it begins and ends with Men. Men devoted to a life lived circumspectly and centered on earnest, beseeching prayer. Paul defined the leaders of a church as men who would Man-up…and bow down.
James implores Men of God, where healing is needed to act on faith and anoint the sick one. His words are specific in James 5:16 “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Powerful men pray powerfully! Effective men of faith have learned to pray effectively. Men of God know that to be first, one must be last. To be visible as a leader one must disappear into the prayer closet.
Man-up…bow down.
Leonard Ravenhill, perhaps the most eloquent voice on the matter of revival in the last 100 years has this to say; “The ugly fact is that the altar fires are either out or burning very low. The prayer meeting is dead or dying. By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh.”
Have we become so very comfortable in our living that we have no desire for the discomfort of seeking His face? Has our Faith become a snuggly blanket that replaces the camel-skin garment of the Prophet?
Men of God…it is the ultimate act of Christian Manhood to be a man of prayer. To be known as a man of prayer. To desire that reputation. It is hard work. It requires sacrifice. It makes us uncomfortable and breaks our will. It is man’s work.
Man-up…and bow down!
Ravenhill said; “Though it is wonderful indeed when God lays hold of a man…earth can know one greater wonder—when a man lays ahold of God.”
We want Elijah’s Mantle but not his sackcloth. We want to sit in Jesus glory, but not in His isolation and lonely prayer. We seek the glorious manifestations but never the invisible battle of the prayer closet. We hear preachers of the Word faith world gloriously telling us to pick up our sword but never admonish us to wrestle in obscurity until God breaks loose on us.
Men of God this nation…and thereby this world…cries out for us to stand tall, stiffen our backbone until it becomes as strong as a saw-log, clearly define our orders and drop to our knees.
Man-up…bow down!
God’s voice rings just as true today as it did in the year that King Uzziah died and Isaiah beheld what few men ever have. In Isaiah 6 the Prophet cried “Woe unto me for I am a man of unclean lips and I live amongst a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the glory of the Lord!”
Isaiah decried his own sin and God’s amazing response was not to banish Isaiah for his sinfulness but to respond to his desperate pleading by taking a coal from the very altar of Heaven and touching the Prophet and making him clean…clean so that he might continue his intercession for his people.
Ezekiel saw the broken down spiritual walls of the Israelites and his heart was rent. Through Him God warned his people, in Ezekiel 22: 30 “I looked for a man among them who would build of the wall of righteousness and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the nation so that I would not have to destroy it…but I found none!”
God seeks for a man to stay His hand! He cries out for one man with knees bent and heart broken to persuade Him to relent. He desires someone to change His mind! But he found none for Israel…and I fear He will soon say “But I found none” for America as well.
Unless we men of God get right, get serious, become real men again and become men of prayer.
Men of God…for the sake of our nation and through our nation for the sake of Billions who race toward hell at blinding speed with only the Gospel message able to stop their descent I beg you…I challenge you as I challenge myself…
Man-up…and Bow down!

September 11, the next decade...

11 years have come and gone since that morning.
Today we all seem to pause to remember where we were, what we were thinking, what it felt like, what we feared.
For me, as a dad, it was all and only about my daughter in those first few agonizing moments. When the first plane hit I was in my office busily doing my job. Morgan was at her pre-school. I wasn't watching the news and I heard about it like most people did, as a breaking bulletin. Like everyone else I thought it must have been a horrible aviation accident. A mechanical failure that rendered the plane paralyzed, or fog or something. Then I saw that it was as beautiful a day in NYC as it was in Nashville. But still it didn't register as an attack. Then reports of a hijacking started to emerge. Then I watched on the Internet in my office where I'd been going to work dutifully for 3 years, as the second plane hit the second tower. There was no doubt anymore.
I was stunned like everyone else. Shocked, afraid, angry. I instantly raced across town to get my daughter because...while I didn't know who this enemy was or how broad their plan...I knew my daughter would be safer with me. Her daddy would die for her and that is as safe as it gets.
I walked into St. Thomas day care and met a lot of parents with the same scared look in their eyes. The same fear, the same questions, the same bewilderment.
Morgan, and the other kids were all playing happily as if nothing at all had happened. This was as it should be. I had no idea how this would, in so many ways, be the last time in her life that there would ever be total innocence without the shadow of another horror laying in wait.
I could write more about that morning. How it felt, what we thought. But it would be redundant.
I was going to write, with great anger and bile, about the intrusion and frightening infiltration of Islam. And make no mistake...there is no "good Islam". There are merely some who are pawns and some who are bigger pieces but EVERY MUSLIM is of one mind where Islam's ultimate goal is concerned...among the basic tenets of Islam is world domination. One religion in the world  and none other. Convert or die. The sweet, doe-eyed immigrants who we become friends with, are here with a purpose too. To break our will by softening our hearts. They probably don't even know their own role in the plan, but make no mistake, they play one.
Am I proposing Islamophobia or Muslim-hate? No. But I'm warning you to be loving but remain vigilant. They count on the generosity of the American spirit. It's factored into their plan. Dearborn Michigan was loving and generous to Arab immigrants in the 70's. The opened their hearts and homes. They hired them at the Ford plant. Now the city lives under the shadow of Sharia law. They took over without a shot being fired. Before anyone could say "It could never happen here" it already had.
Before this becomes an anti-Islam article...and that's not my intention...I'm going to go where I really wanted to go.
I have been awakened in the past 5 months. I was stirred. I was moved. I saw Isaiah's vision from chapter 6 and it became rooted in my flesh. I echoed his cry "“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty".
When I was 16 years old I stumbled across this passage in my daily Bible reading and it rent my heart in two. The average 16 year old doesn't get a verse like this, but for whatever reason I did. From that fateful day on, I knew what God's will and plan for my life was. But life interfered and I let it best me. 33 years of wandering and living near God's plan but not in God's plan was devastating to me. I never abandoned my faith but I wasted a lot of time missing the mark. It took homelessness, breaking in my spirit, and God's perfect timing for me to renew my vow to God and get back to the man who knelt in his bedroom at 3 AM and cried out those words. I would pray that prayer every day when I was in high school. I prayed it and I echoed his cry "Here am I...send ME!" Then I would pray the words of  Ezekiel 22: 30-31 "I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land, but I found no one. ³¹ So now I will pour out my fury on them, consuming them with the fire of my anger. I will heap on their heads the full penalty for all their sins. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken!”
I would pray that I would be the man who stood in the gap. I saw the gap. I saw the gap in the land and it broke my heart. Maybe that's what drew me to Liberty University and to Dr. Falwell. Doc saw the gap too and he devoted much of his life to standing in it and raising a generation of people to stand in it as well. 
I carried that vision and determination in my heart all through High School. But my situation intruded and life threw me some curves and I didn't end up following that vision.
Until this past May.
God in His infinite wisdom and unrelenting will had been planning this thing all along. Losing my career...and ultimately my entire lifestyle including my home, my dreams for the moment, my desires...that was all part of His plan. After a year of lonely isolating homelessness I decided I was never going to find a job if I didn't rebuild my resume. I had two and a half years of Pre-Med biology under my belt. I learned the hard way that a Pre-Med biology degree is useless if you don't go to Med School. So I decided to finish my degree. I also knew I had to finish at Liberty because it was where my heart was. They offer the very best online program in the country and that made it easier. I considered a business degree, but in my heart I felt like I'd had enough of the corporate environment. I chose a degree in Religion, telling myself that since I wrote so much faith-based content, I should be better equipped in my Faith. 
The truth was that God hadn't ever rescinded His calling on my life and it was time to finish what He started when I was 16.
I rolled through 6 semesters of study, 5 of which I lived in my car. I was in more than one classroom. I was in the classroom of higher education and the classroom of brokeneness. I learned from professors and from the Holy Spirit. I devoured every word of the former and kicked and screamed and railed against the lessons of the latter. But He was working on me. May 11, 2012 He won.
Up until the very weekend of my graduation I had no further intentions for my Bachelors in Religion except to be a better writer on religious topics. I had a grand plan in mind. I was going to become a motivational speaker in the mold of the great Zig Ziglar. I would regale people with stories of my own nationally recognized successes in the mortgage industry. I would encourage and inspire with my vivid, perfect word-pictures of my long, lonely desert experience in my car while I refused to leave my daughter and move to another town. I would bring them to the same tears of joy I felt when I had that moment in August 2011 when I realized I was really going to graduate and this year was my final year. I would make them laugh at the image of a man standing 6' 4" trying to sleep in a Volvo 850. I would change their lives and they would pay me handsomely and all would be right with the world. My speaking would assuage my deep burning desire to communicate a message that impacted people and I would be comfortable in doing so. Everyone would like me and letters would pour in, telling me how I helped turn their lives around.
Then I went to Graduation.
The hubbub on Campus and the blogospshere was about Mitt Romney delivering the commencement address. But the real big news to me was the night before. Luis Palau would be speaking at Baccalaureate. 
I love Dr. Palau. Having never had the chance to see Billy Graham live, seeing Luis was a very close second.
He was remarkable in his simplicity. I guess this is what happens when God has truly anointed you. 
His sermon was about faith, and vision and dreaming big dreams from a big God. Then he told the story of Art DeMoss and his personal burning desire to evangelize, literally everyone he ever met personally. Whether he reached every soul is doubtful...but he sure tried.
That service broke open a vault in my heart and revealed to me that God wasn't done. 
All summer I wrestled with Him. I knew what He was saying but I didn't want to hear it. Not at my age and not after what I went through. But it turns out that I went through those things for this very reason.
About 6 weeks ago I surrendered.
I could write a lengthy volume on what that decision looked like and felt like and what it implies but I have written much already and I still have ground to cover here.
What has happened this summer is God returning me to the calling He placed on me at 16. And it could be that these past 33 years were simply my desert time where He honed the vision to a razor edge and a pencil point. Maybe I was in a cocoon where He was building a man from the wreckage. Maybe if I had followed the calling back then I'd be someplace else now. Maybe pastoring a church somewhere and too immersed in that job to exchange my suit for a camel-hair wardrobe. Maybe writing nice, sweet Christian books and living a nice sweet Christian life that was so comfortable as to be too hard to leave. When God began this process in 2005 I was trapped in a successful career that I loathed but did well in. I had a home and a life I liked. Had He not rid me of it violently, I would still be doing it, and still be waking up each morning begging Him not to let this be what the rest of my life looked like. Funny...every day I said that, not thinking He was going to roll up His sleeves one day and say "Okay..."
I have been convicted. I have been exposed. I am broken. And my life has been renewed and my calling redeemed.
My desire...and I think God's desire for me...is to live out the rest of my days (and I hope they are many) as a man of prayer. Of deep, burdened, broken, desperate prayer. For a world that fills Hell to the brim each moment. For lives so shattered and marked by sin that humanity is becoming unrecognizable. Brokenness for a world that searches like a blind man groping the back wall of a cave, calling out for someone...for anyone...to lead him out. I am broken for a group of teenagers who gathered themselves together to grieve their fallen friend, taken from them in as vicious a means as is possible. And yet who found NO answer from the religious poseurs who showed up to officiate the evening. For friends of my daughter who cut themselves because the physical pain relieves the emotional pain they feel. For girls who have no daddy telling them they are beautiful and who will fall prey to someone who will use that vacuum for nefarious purposes. For boys who have no dad to show them what a man looks like, acts like and worships like.
I am broken for a nation who has killed enough babies in the name of convenience and "Reproductive Rights" that the number now represents one out of every SIX citizens alive today in this country. One in six.
I am broken for a Church that has forsaken the altars of Evangelism and the urgency of Salvation for the expediency and ease of the "Fellowshipping of the saints".
I am broken over the intrusion and infiltration of a doctrinal mindset that says God has already separated all the jelly beans into His two piles. He already decided who is going and who is not. I am broken over pastors who can spend weeks on sermons about sex and preach from beds and Plexiglas pulpits while the world goes to Hell. Because they have not an ounce of urgency, since their God is capricious and contradictory.
I am broken over Christians who want to be a salt-lick that the world can come and droll on now and then when it needs a little pick-me-up, instead of the course, hard, often irritating salt that Jesus referred to. Salt that preserved, cured, healed wounds (however painfully at first) and scrubbed clean. They want to be flashlights when we were called to be beacons. The Light He referenced was not a lamp but the Sun itself. Chasing away darkness, disinfecting foulness, exposing corruption, and signalling safe harbor.
The Church has been having her 9-11's daily for decades now and she continues to ignore the attacks.
She continues to be lead by men who aren't broken over the condition of the world so they preach like it. You want to get rich, be blessed, promote yourself socially, have great coffee in the lobby? Go to most modernist churches, or turn on the TV. But if you want to have your heart broken and your conscience seared and the loving correction of Scripture applied to your heart. Good luck. If you want to find the lights on at 3 AM and the rows filled with Godly men crying out to God for their hearts, their homes, their nation and this world...you're backing up the line.
9-11 is here Church. It's been here a long time. This national remembrance should be embarrassing to us as believers. Because in 11 years we have so lost our voice and influence with God and therefore in this world that we stand to be shouted down by the very evil that perpetrated this crime on our country.
Maybe we'll cry out then.