I have been in the ministry 44 years and have seen a major shift in the mission of the church. The mission of the church was to bring the message of salvation to a lost world. Today there are very few individuals finding salvation in the church. As our country quickly slides down the board path towards destruction we have a tendency to blame the liberals for our destruction. However, I would say that the reason our country is in the mess we are today can be laid at the door of the evangelical churches. As Christians we are the salt and light of the world and have been commissioned with the task of spreading the true message of salvation. This country is falling apart because we no longer are concerned about sin or sinners- we have lost what preserves—Jesus Christ.
The evangelical churches became so anti-everything that we allowed the unbelievers to control our education, media, law, medicine, and politics. The end result is a godless nation. That is the end results when a nation no longer has the influence of godly people. We can separate ourselves out of existence. The evangelicals pride themselves on their high standards of Christianity at the cost of reaching the lost. We have misplaced our hatred for sin with a hatred for people. We have no problem crying out against the sins that disgust us but harbor the sins of arrogance, pride, and self-righteousness. We no longer carry a burden for lost souls. Our pray life is consumed with selfish requests and we disregard the mission of the church to win souls to Christ Jesus by lifting him up. When the church gets away from the message of Jesus we have lost our way.
We begin to wander away from God when we gave up our responsibility to raise our own families. We have slowly given our families to the control of Satan without protest. The Christian training of children is vital to sustaining the Christian faith. But as Christian we have lost sight of the importance of education with a Christian view.
The education system in this country had its foundation in Christianity. In the state of Indiana where I live, the Quakers had a major impact on early education. In the late 1900’s they turned their schools and academies over to the state and education became secularized. Abraham Lincoln rightly prophesied when he said, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.” Today evangelical Christians have lost their children to the secularized education. This has become a serious problem. In fact, the problem is at epidemic levels — 75% of young adults raised in a Christian home leave the church after they leave the home. Think about that — on average, three out of every four kids attending your youth group won’t be attending any church a few years from now.
When the church gave up the training of their children to the secular public education system we set this country into a moral decline. Christians actually paid to make their children atheist. Before you become so defensive let me explain. Our children are taught to think the church is irrelevant. Sports take a priority over church. What makes this so sad is that there are coaches who claim to be Christians but demand that your child put sports before God. Sporting events at one time would never be held on Sunday; today it is a common practice. There a fathers and mother who are condemning their children to eternal punishment because they refused to invest in their spiritual future.
If high school has not made your child an atheist wait until college. College professors are five times more likely to identify themselves as atheists than the general public. On top of having an avowed atheist teach your child keep this in mind, half of all college professors view evangelical Christian students unfavorably. The whole philosophy of education today is atheistic. The evangelical church has not prepared our children to resist the false-teaching. Maybe it is because most evangelical Christians do not know what they believe. We live in a day when only one (1) percent of adults in America have a Biblical worldview.
Next to education, the greatest influence today on the American public is the media both news and entertainment. Millions of Americans are so hooked on television that they fit the criteria for substance abuse. Television has also become the major tool to spread anti-Christian views. Anti-Christian hostility is reaching a new, more violent level. Christians are mocked and our faith and values are increasingly maligned. Anti-Christian bias within the media has played a large part in stirring anti-Christian sentiments.
Again, who is to blame? I would have to say the church. The church has some repenting to do. Outside of those who hate the church because they are just evil, what has the church done to cause individuals to hate Christians? In my years in the ministry there have been many who have left the church because of being seriously wounded by something they heard in church or from someone in a position of spiritual authority. It is no doubt that we are reaping what we have sown.
Recently I spoke with some retail people who said they hated to see one particular group of evangelical Christians come into their store because they were demanding, arrogant, self-righteous and insulting. That is a great testimony for the Christian faith. No wonder making fun of Christians is becoming a past time for many in the media. No doubt they too have run into this type of Christian. We need to do some repenting.
I blame the evangelical church for the moral decline of America today. Yes, I am aware there are exceptions; however, most American churches over-emphasize entertainment and ignore the biblical commands. Many of the small evangelical churches that are teaching the WORD are finding the younger generation is leaving to go to larger churches where their children will be entertained with skits, rock bands and fast paced videos. The result is a generation that has no ability to reason, no foundation in what is truth, or a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We’ve failed to recognize that what we win them with we win them to. If we win them with entertainment we win them to entertainment. If we train them to ignore God they will deny God.
So if you’re a true believer who is upset because our country is going down the broad road of destruction by killing the unborn, subverting marriage, legislating immorality, denying God from the public place, making our children into a generation that does not know God then do something about it!
First, you need to make Jesus Christ a priority in YOUR life, in YOUR family, and in YOUR church. You need to prepare YOUR children for the future. Teach them the importance of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Don’t get caught up in the attitude of the world. Don’t rot your soul with the thing that quickly passes away. Seek first the Kingdom of God.
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