“Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” Jeremiah 20:9
Many Christians have a hard time preaching the good news to others. We need that to turn around. We need the Spirit to move so mightily on this generation that the word of God is like a burning fire that we cannot keep shut up in our bones. Grant it to us O Lord
“For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword.” Jeremiah 20:4
If our present day ministers don’t knock it off with all their strategies, techniques and programs to build the church instead of depending on the leading and the power of the Holy Spirit, they will become “a terror to thyself.” They will see the church they have built and gloried in, fall apart right before their eyes. The only thing that will remain is that which was founded on the Rock.
“Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.” Jeremiah 14:13
We have those prophets today, just like the prophets of old, who tell the church everything is fine. You don’t have to be concerned with any trouble coming your way. They say there is nothing but good times ahead and all God wants to do is pour riches on you. God has an answer for these false prophets of our day. “Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart” (Jeremiah 14:14). Saint’s don’t fall for those lies.
“But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.” Luke 10:40
The problem with Martha may not be so much that she was serving, but that she was cumbered with it, meaning she was distracted by it. The true heart of a servant is they serve others as if they were serving Christ. Otherwise what happens, a person starts to complain, just like Martha did.
“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes” (Haggai 1:6).
There are a lot of activities churches are engaged in these days. There are loads of programs inside the church setting and there are evangelistic and social outreaches of various kinds that go on outside the church. I am speaking for the most part about the church in America. There is also the other side where a large part of the church membership is happy to go and fulfill their little Sunday morning commitment and then go on the rest of the week with their worldly business as usual. On one hand, we have a church that is busy with doing a lot of things like the church in Ephesus who lost their first love. “And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love” (Revelation 2:3-4). Then on the other hand, we have a church like the one that is seen in Samaria when the king of Assyria sent men from Babylon and other nations to go and dwell there. “And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava, and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities thereof…. . They feared the LORD, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence” (II Kings 17:24,33). The last verse of the chapter says, “So these nations feared the LORD, and served their graven images, both their children, and their children’s children: as did their fathers, so do they unto this day” (II Kings 17:41). So from generation to generation, we have had a church full of Babylonians who claim they fear the Lord, but they serve their graven images. People may not literally bow down to statues, but when men seek after riches and success, instead of God, then they are serving false idols. Come on saints, you know there are those who say they love God, but yet they still serve their appetites and seek acceptance in this world. They go through the religious rituals on Sunday morning and then live like the world from Sunday afternoon till church starts again next Sunday.
With much of the church in the condition that she is in, she is like a bag with a hole in it. I have lost some change because I put them in my pant pocket that had a hole in it. What if the church were to experience a great successful season of evangelism and lost sinners were coming to Christ. If the church continues to have a hole in it, those new members of the body of Christ will enter the church, but will eventually fall out of the church.
I am convinced that this is the reason the Lord has put such a strong burden on my heart for His church. That is why the focus of ministry today needs to be concerned with the spiritual health of the church first. Ministers, as well as the whole body of Christ need to once again understand the reason the church exists. To make as simple of an analogy as possible, I ask this question. If you were going berry picking, but discovered your container had a hole in it, would you not close up the hole first before you went to pick the berries? Of course you would. In the same way, don’t you think the Lord wants the church to be strong and healthy with no hole in it before He is going to put a fresh picked harvest in it?
I have a thought that I want to share with you. It is certainly not a conventional thought of our day. What if the Lord is postponing the conversion of souls until the church seals up the hole that is in her? What if the Spirit of God is keeping conviction down, in particular lost souls, until He has a church that is ready to receive them? Could it be that the Spirit is withholding His power to save souls until the timing is right? Just as you would not be so foolish as to collect berries in a container with a hole, God as well would not be so foolish as to save people only to put them in a place that they would just fall out and be lost again. Haggai says, you sow much, but bring in little. This could be the very reason much sowing is being done by the church, but little has come in. It could be the very hand of God that keeps the lost reserved for a day when His vessel, His church, is mended and ready to be filled with souls.
I suppose there are some skeptical Christians who would think that the church will never be mended. I am not one of those. I have the highest hope that God will have for Himself, in this generation and this nation, a church that will fully represent Him. A church that represents Christ and has an abundance of His presence amongst them, is a church that has no hole in it. It is a safe place. It is a place where God can send freshly saved souls to grow. A place He knows they will be discipled and perfected into real genuine men and women of God.
I have run into many so-called Christians who don’t believe in church any more. Some of them are just rebels against authority or not even really Christians. But then there are those genuine born-again believers who have been hurt by the church to such a point that they no longer attend. There are those people who were saved, but then brought into a church that has a lot of false doctrine or a lot of bickering and it eventually left them on the outside all confused. I know of a precious elderly sister in Christ who found herself, after many years of faithful church attendance, being rejected by some of the saints in her church. They would force on her some false doctrines that had come in. The church developed a hole and she fell out. She was so frustrated that she said she would never attend church again. Thank the Lord that she was not true to those words and did find a healthy church. Now she flows with such love she has become a patch to close up any hole.
When churches forget that they are called to make disciples, not just converts, then a hole is created. The main reason the church is to gather is, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). When the ministers and elders of any church understand this, then it keeps their churches from having a hole in it. It is then that they can begin to sow much and reap much.
I understand that any believer can fall away from the church, but let it not be because the church has a hole in it.
“I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all:” I Corinthians 14:18
So why would Paul thank God that he spoke in tongues more than all the rest. Was he in competition with them? Was he to fill some mandate that a minister is supposed to speak in tongues more than others? Was he proud that others didn’t speak in tongues more than him and therefore he felt more spiritual? I don’t think so. I believe he said it because he wanted to make a strong point that he is not belittling tongues or trying to get the church to quit doing it. So he emphasized that he does it quite often to encourage believers to speak in tongues often. The whole idea of chapter 14 is not to have tongues cease, but to keep it in order during the church meeting.
“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Romans 6:22
The Greek word that “servant” was translated from means to enslave. Some other versions of the Bible use the word slave instead of servant which would be a more accurate translation. Anyway, sure a lot talk about the evils of slavery. No one should ever own another man. In spite of that, we believers are slaves to God. I can’t help ask, what is so bad about being a slave? Christians are one on purpose.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Romans 6:14
Grace isn’t about God accepting us in our sin, it is about God delivering us from our sin.
“God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” Romans 6:2
There is a difference between falling into sin once in a while and living in sin. Just as Jesus Himself was tempted, though He never gave into it, we are tempted too. Though we choose to live a life apart from sin, we do at times sin. Thank God for the blood of Jesus which keeps us in right standing while we are working out our salvation. It is the attitude one has toward sin that exposes the real believer from the false. The real believer hates sin and wants to be free of it, while the pretender has not shook loose from the appetite for sin.
“Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.” Acts 27:31
Sometimes the sea of life gets stormy. Sometimes you may feel like your boat is about to fill up with water or bust apart and sink. Don’t forget, Jesus is with you. You must stay in the ship with Him. Unless you abide in the ship with Jesus “ye cannot be saved.”
