The Fall And Rise Of Humanity

The Fall and Rise of Humanity

Genesis 3:1-11

** Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_D8NkKbwGI

At the end of last year, the Lord laid on my heart the word, “remnant” and the “remnant church,” and began to show me what the remnant church was going to look like. It was that message that I brought out to start out the New Year.

What I believe the Lord was saying, in giving this message, is the need of the church to get back to the basics of our faith, because there’s been an erosion happening within the church, in that while we may know what these basic truths are, we really haven’t taken the time to apply them in our lives and in our witness to the world.

And so a spiritual famine is sweeping across the world, across our country, and across the church.

The Old Testament prophet Amos talked about this time of famine saying, “Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord God, "that I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.” (Amos 8:11 NKJV)

And this is mainly due to an overall erosion that is happening within the church. Now, to erode means to diminish or destroy by degrees, or to deteriorate. We see this erosion in nature as rain washes away topsoil leaving rivulets and gullies behind.

In the church, this erosion is seen in how churches have started to drift away from their theological moorings. These churches began by aligning their beliefs in accordance with God’s word, which is seen in their statements of faith, but over the decades and generations that followed they have allowed the norms and morals of their cultures and society to seep into their midst, and thus the erosion had begun, where many are now only shells of what their founders envisioned.

Back in November 2008, an article was written with this headline, “Russian Orthodox Church Stolen.” And the story’s byline was, “Wanted: One missing Russian Church. Last seen in July. Reward for its return.”

A 200-year-old church had closed, and then it was used as a school for the disabled. But in 1998 the doors of the school were closed as well, and it was turned back over to the Russian Orthodox Church. Now, in July 2008 they decided to reopen the church, but when they came in October to begin its reopening, the church was gone.

How can a whole church just go missing? How does one steal a church? It would seem in this case, one brick at a time. A business owner from a nearby village was paying four cents a brick. So, the local villagers dismantled the church, brick by brick, and sold it.

The local priest said this was nothing less than blasphemy and a grave sin, but I think it symbolizes the erosion that is going on within today’s churches. Little by little the church is being dismantled, not from without, but from within.

The reason is because the church is not preparing people with the truths of God’s word for the hard realities of life; like betrayals, illnesses, losses, disappointments, and death to name a few. And people need God’s truth now more than ever before in order to help them through these hard and difficult times. What people don’t need, however, is more pop psychology and philosophies that are here today and gone tomorrow, which unfortunately is being taught, sometime outright, from today’s pulpits.

The reality of this is simple, and that is, what we say we believe in is what we end up doing. Our beliefs dictate the choices and plans we make, along with the actions we take to get it done. If our beliefs are faulty, that is, if they don’t line up with God and His word, then our view of this world, and how we are to live, breathe, and have our being will be off center and out of balance.

In short, our belief system dictates our actions and how we deal with others and this world that we live in. Therefore, bad doctrine produces bad ethics, morals, and behaviors.

And so, we need to be grounded in the truth of God’s word if we ever expect to survive in the times that we are in.

Now the message I’d like to share today is actually in reverse order from how we normally see this phrase being used, like “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Actually we could entitle today’s message “The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Humanity,” because the human race began when God created us perfect, that is, we were created in the image and likeness of God, but then sin marred that image and likeness, and thus humanity fell into the bondage of sin and death. But then God, in His wonderful grace and mercy, has redeemed us through Jesus’s sacrifice upon the cross.