Following Judah's Lion

Rose Colored Western Glasses

I often visit a site called “Apostasy Watch”. I had been visiting it before its administrator, Steve Lumbley, began publishing some of my posts. Like all of us about any blog I like some of his posts better than others, but I wholeheartedly agree with his overarching theme. It is worth visiting. It is at that site that I have found some new friends and been encouraged because there are many believers who are awakening to the reality of the spiritual decline of the western evangelical church.
And one kind of post that can be found at Apostasy Watch are accounts of persecutions around the world. We believers in America live an incredibly sheltered and fictional lifestyle, especially as it pertains to the Christian faith. All around the world in many different places our brothers and sisters in Christ are being harassed, persecuted, and even martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ. It is impossible to accurately assess the number of believers who have lost their lives, and it is impossible to weight the amount of persecution that takes place on a daily basis.
Wives have watched as their husbands have been slaughtered; parents have had their children taken from them; fathers rot in totalitarian prisons; men are denied work to provide for their families; and all this suffering goes on with little notice, compassion, or help from the western church. Rarely is a tear shed, and rarer still are the midnight lanterns lit in a prayer chamber filled with believers interceding for their brethren. We are living in a fantasy world of our own self serving creation.
Read the writings from and about the Apostle Paul and you will see a heart that beats for His brethren around the known world. Paul did not settle into a nice, Roman neighborhood and read some newsletter between watching football games. His life was consumed with serving Christ, and a large part of that service was ministering to His persecuted brethren. In fact, He himself embraced his own persecution and victoriously went to his own sacred martyrdom.
Where is that spirit today? How can we go day after day in a dry eyed stupor being slaves to the culture and the dictates of our own desires? People, real people, who trust in the Risen Christ are suffering greatly and yet we who swim in abundance walk with blinded eyes and stopped up ears. Does it not break your heart that your heart is not broken? What kind of disciples are we when we care more about the welfare of our pets than we do about the welfare of our brothers and sisters? It is our sacred duty to investigate opportunities to serve, as well as stir up our inner man and give sacrificial time to deep and penetrating prayer for those on the “front lines”.
Can you imagine your children being taken from you unless you denounce your Savior? You struggle to pay your bills, but what if your husbands and fathers were whisked away during the night and imprisoned unless they recant their profession of faith. Soon after John Bunyan became a believer, he began to preach wherever he could. The authorities had him arrested. But the judge was disinclined to have him imprisoned, so he asked Bunyan if he would curtail his preaching voluntarily.
Now remember, Bunyan was also the primary source for his family's food, shelter, and welfare and if he went to prison his family would suffer greatly. But when Bunyan was offered the deal from the judge, he replied, “If you release me today, I will be preaching tomorrow!” He spent many years in prison, and he wove shoe laces to provide something for his family, and while in prison he continually preached to scores of prisoners. Oh yes, while in prison the Spirit led him to write the greatest Christian book ( beside the Bible) ever penned called “The Pilgrim’s Progress”. Where, I ask you, is that spirit today? And today we see millions of carnal books like “Your Best Life Now” and “The Purpose Driven Life” that devalue the faith sold to millions and the proceeds designed to make carnal men millionaires.
It is literally impossible to juxtapose the faith of Bunyan against the faith of the western church and not come to the conclusion that they cannot both be Christian. And if we are living in the land of spiritual apostasy, then each believer has a mandate from the Spirit to come out from among them and be separate. Not in a spirit self righteousness, and not haughty, and not by the power of your own flesh, but with a humble and broken spirit of personal repentance we must submit ourselves to God’s Spirit and take up our own sacred cross which we have so diligently avoided.
Oh yes, we in the west live! But God continues to call us to die. We are addicted to the narcotics of self, material, and earthly self esteem. And only the Spirit can wean us. Millions of our brethren around the world are waiting for an awakening in the west that allows God to use the recourses that are His to help His people and reach the poor with material needs and the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what exactly is it that keeps us from sacrificially following the Lord Jesus? In a word, idolatry. The book of 1st John is known as the love book. But it is not just coincidence that the very last verse says:
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
Many times in the life of God’s people in the Old Testament they would attempt to serve and worship God while retaining and constructing idols upon the “high places”. These were hills upon which idols were raised and reverenced and given places of spiritual elevation. But God never allowed them, and He would refuse their worship until those idols were removed from those high places. How primitive you say?
Well we have idols in high places today. Politics, nationalism, hedonism, entertainment, sports, relationships, dating, sex, success, and the highest of all - money. Until we are willing to completely tear down and renounce those idols then we will continue to be in bondage to them while using a thin blanket of religion to cover our sin. To think what God could do with a few million believers who would repent of our sins and embrace the Apostle Paul’s testimony before the elders of Ephesus.
“But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”
And there it is! To the extent we count our own lives dear is to the extent we do not count His life dear. But how glorious would it be to connect spiritually with the body of Christ around the world! I realize that most of them do not have a light show, or state of the art sound systems, or magnificent auditoriums, but are those things what move us? And if so, then who are we really serving?
Be prepared. If by God’s grace He removes the rose colored western glasses the church now wears, we may be shocked. It is much worse than one can imagine, and in fact, those who speak like me or Steve Lumbley are considered unbalanced, critical, and even cultish. But I contend that our words cannot fully expose the depth of the spiritual treachery being loved and practiced in the west. And I also publicly state that I have much, much territory to cover spiritually, and that I must never suggest that my life aligns itself fully with everything I say, or even that my life or yours should be our spiritual template. God forbid! Friends, it isn’t my life we should be looking at - it must always be His and His alone to the glory of Almighty God! Let us seek His face with a love and passion that denies this world and ourselves as well.
I Tim.6:14-16 - That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:
15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.