Suppose You Were The Devil

Some are closing:

(1) Due to Covid 19

(2) Some due to the shipping of jobs to other countries

(3) Some due to inflation

(4) Some due to supply

If this trend continues some fear there will not be enough businesses for the citizens of this country to find a place of employment to feed their families.

But something else that is alarming is the closing down of churches in this country.

As you drive around in the major cities of this great country we see FOR SALE signs on churches closing down and for sale.

Also, churches that use to have an attendance of 500 to 600 each Sunday now they have an attendance 30 or 40.

Some of these churches to survive are merging with other churches.

The best estimate among different researchers is that 3,850 to 7,700 congregations closing a year, which works out to around 75 to 150 congregations a week depending on what research you are looking at.

What makes this so bad is more churches are closing each year than be opening.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that if this trend continues churches will cease to exist.

Lifeway Research states “Even before the pandemic, the pace of opening new congregations was not even providing enough replacements for those that closed their doors,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

What is the problem and even more important what is the solution?

Let me share with you this…God has instituted three things that are essential for a society to survived.

(1) Marriage

(2) Government

(3) Church

And the devil is working 24 hours a day and 365 days a year to destroy all three.

All three of these are essential for a society to exist.

But I do not have the time in this sermon to deal with all three of these but I do want to concentrate on the church.

Let me play the devil’s advocate and ask you a question.

Suppose I was the devil and I wanted to closed down God’s church.

HOW WOULD I GO ABOUT ACCOMPLISHING THIS?

I would do the same thing that the devil is doing!!!

WHAT IS HE DOING?

He attacks…

I. THE CHURCH ATTENDANCE

Like never before he is attacking the church attendance visciously!!!

WHY IS HE ATTACKING THE CHURCH ATTENDANCE VISCIOUSLY?

Because the people of God have received a lot of help from church services over the years.

• You can ask people where they got saved and most will tell you in a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church.

• I can not tell you the times I have seen folks come to church discouraged and when they left church they were greatly encouraged in the Lord.

• I can not tell you the times I have seen families that were having serious domestic problems and they came to know the Lord and they had a good marriage.

People all over the world come to church because of two reasons:

(1)They love the Lord and God’s people

(2)But they come to get spiritual nourishment also.

Illus: Mankind understand the importance of physical nourishment but just as important if not more important is spiritual nourishment.

Illus: A man wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them! So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all." Signed: Missing the message.

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time, my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals for me. But for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today. When you are DOWN to nothing... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our SPIRITUAL NOURISHMENT.”

God placed the church here because He knew that we need a strong bible-teaching-preaching church.

At the present time no other organization or institution on the face of the earth can boast of such attendance as God’s Church in the past.