Part 12 - What The American Church Needs To Know Series

Watch this message at https://youtu.be/bBWkYzE5WGY

Grace Community Church

Winchester, VA

www.gracecommunity.com

Introduction

In the course of the last 5 or 6 months, you and I were a part of a dismantling of our culture. This is something that started years ago. Some would say it was when prayer was taken out of school. Others would say it is in Roe Vs Wade. Those were detrimental events, but I do not believe they were the catalyst to where we are today. I believe it is only going to get worse.

We are a Godless society and we have been for some time. We are a secular society in a post-modern era. The church has slept in our pews and becomes comfortable with our plight. We worship the Donkey or the Elephant, more than the Lamb. The greatest threat to America today is not existential. It is not our climate. It is not our injustices. It is not our foreign enemies. It is not our legislators or judges. The single most pervasive threat to our country today is the apostate church, who is emasculated, and powerless because we fail to recognize the spiritual war around us. Essentially America is godless because the church is generally godless. Paul tells us this is 'Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof'"…. And then goes on to admonish us, "from such turn away." 2 Timothy 3:5, NASB:"

At the turn of the 20th century, the atheist Friedrich Nietzsche wrote an alarming depiction of where we are at as a godless society:

Haven't you heard of that madman who in the bright morning lit a lantern and ran around the marketplace crying incessantly, 'I'm looking for God! I'm looking for God!' Since many of those who did not believe in God were standing around together just then, he caused great laughter. Has he been lost, then? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone to sea? Emigrated? - Thus they shouted and laughed, one interrupting the other. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. 'Where is God?' he cried; 'I'll tell you! We have killed him - you and me! We are all his murderers. But how did we do this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the strange to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? here is it moving to now? Where are we moving to? Away from all suns? Are we not continually falling? And backward, sidewards, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an up and a down? Aren't we straying as though through an infinite nothing? Isn't empty space breathing at us? Hasn't it got colder? Isn't night and more night coming again and again? Don't lanterns have to be lit in the morning? Do we still hear nothing of the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we still smell nothing of the divine decomposition?- Gods, too, decompose! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him!

“Religion is the essence of culture and culture becomes the dress of religion.” Ravi Zacharias.

“What has happened in America?” is a question I often face as I travel. The question should go deeper. What has happened to America’s soul? We are on the precipitous and the fall will be long and deadly. It may already be too late. Why? The only cure, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, has been disparaged and mocked by the elite and the powerful. We slaughter the unborn in the name of medical and personal convenience. We openly mock God and His Word. We endorse sexual promiscuity with fanfare and we sell everything, from clothes to food to children’s toys with sexual provocative advertising. We removed all sacredness in holy matrimony. We glorify violence and celebrate licentiousness in every form of entertainment; nothing is too taboo.

We are sliding into the future with evil stalking us but no morality, no truth, and no reason to guide us. America may be flirting with a self-inflicted mortal wound. All the while our churches are nothing more than Sunday entertainment. Even the Lord’s days have lost all sacredness. All the while our pulpits proclaim, ‘peace, peace when there is no peace.’ (Jer 6:14). And when the pastor preaches the word of truth, the congregations erupt with clamor. ‘Why don’t you preach something that will motivate and uplift us?”

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, (Is 5:20)

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor 1:18)