-
Wake Up, Church! Awaken The Truth Series
Contributed by Duane Wente on Aug 20, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: Our world today has abandoned the truth. As a church, we need to wake up! We need to be standing up for the truth, sharing the truth with the world through God’s love.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 7
- 8
- Next
Many in our country today are claiming to be “woke”.
Being “woke” started as being attune to racist behaviors and attitudes several years ago. As a Christian, we should all be opposed to racism, treating people differently because of their skin color, their accent, their family heritage, or where they were born. After all, all of mankind is made in God’s own image. We are called to love all people.
But being “woke” has morphed into much bigger philosophies and world views — being “woke” today is being progressive, rejecting the traditions of the past as oppressive and racist. This includes many fundamental beliefs and institutions in our world today, not the least of which, includes the church.
History is being redefined on a daily basis.
Fundamental truths are being thrown out with the garbage.
All the while, the morals in our society are quickly sliding further and further into decay.
Instead of punishing the wrongdoers, we make the wrongs to be right.
Instead of consequences for breaking the rules, we punish those who attempt to enforce the rules.
Our country today is out of control.
This same mentality is now attacking churches in Canada.
(https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2021/july/dark-days-for-religious-liberty-journalist-likens-canadian-church-arsons-to-kristallnacht)
(https://aleteia.org/2021/07/09/more-churches-in-canada-and-one-in-la-burn/)
In Canada, churches are being burned down in apparent retaliation for the reported abuses of indigenous children in schools on the reservations.
Since June 21, there have been fires at 10 Canadian churches — mostly Catholic — and over 20 acts of vandalism at churches.
The leader of British Columbia Civil Liberties Association endorses the arsons, calling for even more churches to be set ablaze. Harsha Walia, the executive director tweeted “Burn it all down.”
Gerald Butts, the former Canadian principal secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, described the arsons as “understandable.”
Bishop Gregory Bittman of Nelson, in British Columbia’s West Kootenay (coo - ten - a) region said, “We’re all moral human beings, we have emotions, but it’s to do something constructive with the emotions, not destructive.… [The arson] just reinforces and continues the anger … it’s not going to solve the issues.”
What a mess our world is in.
Instead of trying to change the future to make it better, people in Canada are trying to burn it down with the past.
Though we are not burning churches down in America, the same kind of mentality of retaliation for past sins is destroying America today as well!
I believe all of this insanity is a direct result of the church falling asleep.
We are just like Eutychus in Acts 20. We are sitting there, not actively listening to the messages of the Gospel, to the messages of hope, to the messages of repentance. We dose off to sleep when we should have been paying attention.
The church has become apathetic to the attitudes, events, and problems of the world. Maybe it’s because we are afraid of bringing attention to ourselves. Maybe it’s because we are afraid of making enemies. Maybe we are afraid of being persecuted. Maybe we are just simply afraid to stand up for what is right.
But the time is coming that if we are not careful, the church will fall out of the window, landing on the ground below, dead.
That’s the future of the church if we do not wake up!
We need an awakening in the church in our country today!
(https://www.christianpost.com/news/ted-cruz-calls-on-church-to-wake-up-to-defeat-woke-assault.html
CP Politics, Monday, June 21, 2021)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for the Church to “wake up” if the “woke assault” is to be defeated in the United States, promising during his speech at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Road to Majority" conference on Friday, June 28, that a “revival is coming.”
Cruz’s address to the crowd of Christian conservatives gathered for the national evangelical grassroots organization's annual conference centered around two messages: the need to "defend America" and a coming revival.
“If we are going to defeat the woke assault, then all of us need to wake up,” he said.
“The slumbering Church needs to wake up...," Cruz continued. "We need to wake up. We need to energize. We need to engage. … We can win and we will win.”
This isn’t the first time, though, that the church has dozed off to sleep.
(https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/great-awakening)
In a not so long ago time, secular rationalism was growing rampantly, and religious faithfulness was waining. People were “enlightened” during this time. Focus was on science and logic, and religion was written off out the picture.
“Christians were feeling complacent with their methods of worship, and some were disillusioned with how wealth and rationalism were dominating culture.”
Sounds a lot like our world today, doesn’t it. Interestingly, it was during the 1700s.
Through the great preaching and leadership of men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield and others, a revival was sparked in America. They preached a message of fundamentals, to awaken the Christian faith and “return to a religion that was relevant to the people of the day.”