The Seeker-Sensitive-Altar-Call-Emotion-Driven-Biblically-Bankrupt type of “church”, I have spoken extensively against it in the past. I am well aware that such actions I have taken has caused people to label me as some over-emotional ill-driven chap that looks at everything and thinks that everyone’s wrong and I’m right. I have to confess that maybe I was thinking that way, that maybe indeed I was blinded by my own zeal that I failed to discern the hearts of men and speak rightfully the Word of truth instead of making blind accusations.

But just as God teaches those who are His, as we grow in holiness and grasp a greater revelation of His Word, I am bound by conscience that I must speak up once again against the great evils that has subtly overtaken the visible church.

One such evil is the willful denial of God’s rightful place in worship. God and His word has been so denigrated down as some sort of supportive idea in our “Church Philosophy.” As much as we try to deny it, God in our churches is not seen anymore as being truly Sovereign and Holy. He isn’t given much importance in our Sunday meetings. Yes, we may see the pastor seemingly preach and mention things about God, but then when was the last time that those same pastors really preach about who God is as revealed by scripture? They may go around about all the things that God can do for us, but do they preach God for who He is and His rightful place in worship? Do we honestly hear the majority of Sunday pulpiteers proclaim God as the ever Holy one, righteous and just? The majesty of His splendor? The wisdom of His requirements and the extents of His grace?

No, we do not hear that.

What we hear in most of our churches is a dumbed down message for the dumbed down Christian. We view theology and scripture as such high and lofty things that the ordinary lay-person doesn’t necessarily need to know.

So what happens? Preachers go through all the theology and all the years in seminary, but then for the sake of catering to the pew-dwellers felt needs they strip all those years of study away, that is if ever they did study their Bibles. Today it doesn’t really matter if you have studied theology or not, for the sake of relevance, practicality and emotional appeal, especially in our post-modern sort of “dividing of the word of truth” we dumb the message down, we dumb our discipleships down, we dumb God and His word down.

God is denied His proper place in worship. Christ and His gospel has been fundamentally discarded. The Word of the Living God has been denigrated as a self help book.

Ah, the situation is indeed a dire one. What breaks my heart the most is the inability of men to see their faults. Most are so convinced and deceived that there is no wrong in their actions, that though they see results they must be right. Results! Methods! Make Disciples! Should not what we must be striving for is true biblical conversion and raise our sheep in the knowledge of God to the fullness of His Word?!

The costs, yes there are costs. The casualties of what has been done and what is continually being done by well meaning pupliteers. The true sheep are forced to fend for themselves. The sheep are forced to search their own food. (Of course nothing apart from what the Shepherd gives them in His personal care) The goats on the other hand are deluded that they are sheep, while still enslaved in their sins encouraging true sheep that bondage in sin isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The great majority of true Christian believers all over the world, due to this evil, are then as a consequence living miserable lives, not knowing the truth of the gospel and of God. They are taught so many things, so many lies about this modern “christless christianity” that in each waking moment the only thing that they can hold on to for an assurance of their salvation is some emotional episode they have gone through in an altar call 8 years ago that they repeatedly reaffirmed once every 5 months since then. Oh poor souls! If only they were told the wonders of the gospel and the majesty of our God!

How much longer can we go in our apathy? How many more professors of our faith shall we deceive in this age of self-help individualistic “christianity”?

This evil of arrogance and delusion! They throw out the authority of scripture over their lives and they deny their wrongdoings, they would not repent. Many of us have struggled to get the message out, but how many of us have struggled with the message? How many of us have honestly gone face to face with what the Bible says that we may truly see the grave importance thereof?

I would suggest to you that the reason why God and His word has been fundamentally discarded in modern Christendom is because it is not seen as it is anymore, it is not faced as it should be anymore. God and His word is not the primary importance in Christian living today. “Me living” is what’s important in Christian living today.

To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:2-14)