State of the Church -part one-

I recently heard a couple of sermons by a man named Michael Boldea. Mr. Boldea is the grandson of Dumutru Duduman, a Romanian Christian who suffered great persecution under the former communist regime in Romania and eventually came to the U.S. with a prophetic warning for America.
Mr. Boldea carries on his grandfather’s ministry which focuses both on aiding widows and orphans in Romania and bringing a message of warning to the American Church.

It is not my intention here to speak about the prophecies of Mr. Duduman, or Mr. Boldea. I leave that consideration to each individual at their own interest. By far the more important and powerful message, in my opinion, is the simple truth of what Mr. Boldea has to say to American Christians. The few times I have heard Mr. Boldea speak he has shown himself to be intelligent, well educated, and passionate about his convictions. I believe his message is a crucial one for the American Church across the board, regardless of denomination.

Some of you may not be familiar with the prophetic community among Charismatic Christians. There is an entire community of sorts in which it is very popular to claim to be a prophet and to deliver dire messages of warning. Some of the prophets are more credible, many are less. The culture of this group is somewhat unique, however. In most situations people would expect that a person who delivers good news would be more popular and more accepted than a person who delivers bad news. In the prophetic subculture, however, this is usually reversed. Because the biblical and historical model of a prophet is usually seen as the sayer of doom who is rejected by the world around him, this subculture is generally not interested in hearing what a person has to say, unless they are preaching impending disaster and judgment. There are several points of conversation that would be worth pursuing regarding this phenomenon alone and how it affects the attitude of this Church community. Yet the point I’m trying to get at here is one of the major results of the numerous people running around for-telling doom is what might be called cry-wolf syndrome. Eventually most people get so tired of listening that they no longer take any of it seriously. Those who do still listen are mostly people who want the tingly feeling of being part of something dire, and feeling like they are in ‘the inner circle’ because they “know”.

This phenomenon is unfortunate when it comes to a person like Michael Boldea because all prophecy issues aside, his message is well worth listening to. In fact, in my opinion, it is one of the most important messages that the American Church needs to hear.

What Mr. Boldea speaks about is very simply the need for holiness in the Church and the need for obedience in the Church. He speaks about the need for Christians to truly live their lives as if Jesus really was their Lord. Mr. Boldea is popular among the prophetic community because of his prophecies and his grandfather. Yet in the instances where I have heard him speak to the “prophetic community” there seems to be a definite element of saying “its nice that your interested in prophecy and I’ll speak about it, but you guys, just as much as everyone else, need to get down to the business of really living like a true follower and servant of Jesus Christ, and that is the only message that really matters.”

I don’t want to put words in Mr. Boldea’s mouth, and it may be that this is just my perception of what he is saying. However, it underlies a critical truth which conservative evangelical Christians of all stripes MUST get a hold of.

This is important, so pay attention

It is very easy for us as conservative evangelicals to look at the gross sin and apostasy of liberal and humanistic churches. It is easy for us to sit back and bemoan the evils of a church that tolerates homosexuality, or abortion. All the while, we miss the glaring problems in our own lives and our own Churches.
There is NO QUESTION that what we see in some of the liberal denominations is wrong. A few of them at least are to the point where I’m not sure they can even be considered really “Christian” anymore. Yet as we sit decrying the abuses of apostate churches, we are completely blind to the fact that our own Churches are lukewarm and that WE are lukewarm. It does us little good to sit comfortable in the fact that we are not as bad as those other guys, when the truth is that we are not nearly as alive as we should be.

In looking at the black robes of others, we have become satisfied and complacent with our own robes of drab grey.

While the liberal humanist church is being consumed by heresy and apostasy, the conservative evangelical church is being consumed by the love of money and comfort, or the love of knowing secrets, or the love of power, or the pride of life.

I see hardly anyone, anywhere being consumed by the love of Jesus Christ.

There are probably several different things involved with this. One is that we, like the Church of Ephesus have lost our first love. There are many Churches that stand up for truth, and do good works, but they are not consumed with the love for Jesus Christ.
This is true of most of us on an individual level as well. We are living for our own goals and our own vision of what a nice life is. Its not that we are immoral or bad people, we just aren’t passionate about Jesus Christ, and truth be told, we don’t have a deep knowledge of God.

One other thing involved in this is an outgrowth of the first. Our focus when we confront problems like homosexuality and abortion, or any of the other numerous moral problems in our society, is wrong. We are focused on fighting the darkness, rather than simply being the light. There is a subtle but important difference there.

We have spent decades fighting against the evils of abortion, the slide towards homosexuality, the increasing level of immorality in almost every area. Yet we have accomplished nothing. In fact we have steadily lost ground. We think of ways to try and stem the tide of darkness which is washing over our nation, never realizing the simple truth that darkness does not overcome light. Neither does light struggle to overcome darkness… it just shines.
If the darkness is spreading, there is only one explanation. The Light is not shining