Great Preaching, Little Action

This Sunday (June 28, 2015), following today's SCOTUS ruling declaring any State ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional (June 26, 2015), hundreds if not thousands of Christian pastors will stand up and declare something like this:

• The SCOTUS does not have the final say!  God has the final say!
• Regardless of this ungodly ruling, marriage is still between one man and one woman!
• Now is like the time of Daniel; we must not submit to an ungodly, idolatrous ruling!
• Now is like the time of Caesar Nero, where the world was commanded to worship his image.  We will declare Jesus is Lord!
• We must obey God rather than men and continue to preach the Gospel!
• We will not bow to lawlessness; we will fight!

And you know what?  Every one of those statements will be right and very much needed.  Christian pulpits will be on fire this Sunday.  And praise God!

BUT…(you knew a “but” was coming right?)

How many of us will urge the sort of action that prevents and hopefully rolls back the sort of thinking that got us here?  How DID we get here anyway?

I’m just a crazy, nobody local pastor, but here is what I think.

1. We gave up the Gospel.  Somehow, it became about breakthroughs and blessings and now seasons, NOT the forgiveness of sin.  Christ and eternity are in large part, no longer our objective.  Actually making disciples isn't in focus.
2. We gave up Holiness and the Fear of the Lord.  Somebody told us holiness was unloving, and we believed it.
3. We gave up the Family.  Easy and celebrated fornication.  Happy shacking up.  Hook ups.  Immodesty.  Easy divorce.  Fathers, God’s primary hedge against unbiblical thinking, gave their children to others to teach…if he raised them at all.  Mothers, mostly overwhelmed, couldn’t be dads and moms too.
4. We gave up Stewardship.  Money constraints often force decisions that don’t lend themselves to discipleship.
5. We gave up the Church.  Some of the same BAD hermeneutics used to validate a disorderly, unbiblical church are used to validate same-sex behavior.  “Paul didn’t mean that.”  “That was for then, not for now.”  "God gave me a revelation that that Scripture no longer applies."  Etc.
6. We gave up Worldview.  Again, we’ve allowed the very people pushing the mindset that gave us this evil ruling to teach our children, promote it in our entertainment, head our colleges, hold political office, and sometimes preach in our pulpits!

Note: See our book, "The Playbook" on all the above.

In other words, after we “speak and declare” that we must be like Daniel (insert hoop), I pray we both “hear and do” as it relates to concrete action in the areas above.  Otherwise, the great preaching coming this Sunday will only be that….great preaching.

Communities Versus Culture: Some Hope for Revival

We all see the craziness.  We see the celebration of sin.  We see the systematic pushing forward of an ungodly agenda, worsening worldview numbers, pastoral moral failures, the scary "isms"  we hear about every day, and more.  In fact, as a culture-watcher, I'm having to pull back from that pastime some.  It's so discouraging it drains my strength!  

But I had a thought this morning I wanted to share...

I'm not sure what is going to happen culture-wide over the next few decades, but NOTHING is stopping a right-now revival at YOUR HOUSE!  What I mean is this....

1. We will never give up on the greater culture, but your home has a culture!
2. We will continue to preach the Gospel and make disciples everywhere, but why can't the Gospel's power hit your home now?
3. Your home and community (church family, etc) can reform DESPITE what is happening around you!

For example, the McLeod household has been in a revival for years (more prayer, wonderful family worship, loving each other)!  Not because we are special.  We are simply trying to do what God said, and HE is faithful!  And many others I know of are reviving!  Why not you?  Why not your home?  Why not your children?  I'm not sure if television or social media or politics or education or the national economy will become more godly anytime soon...

BUT...

I do believe that, by God's grace, it can happen at YOUR house!  Again, I'm not saying totally unplug and be uncaring about society.  I AM saying do not allow a sin-promoting culture to dictate its values to your home or church!

Revival CAN and IS happening in individual homes and small communities.  Put some effort there and watch what happens!  Let us take responsibility for our own self-government, our homes, and for encouraging those closest to us.  Let us build strong, Christian communities where Christ is central, His Gospel is the focus, Holiness is the lifestyle, Family is reformed, Financial Stewardship is for His glory, we Lead according to Scripture, and we think in line with His precepts (a Biblical Worldview)!

Don't allow yourself to become hopeless.  Revive where you are!  This is where I've found some new hope...a perspective that has blessed my morning.  

Revival is possible...one family and small group of people at a time.

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."  (Mat 7:24-27 ESV)

The Church...what is going on?

Friends,

There is so much happening right now it is hard to process.

As I write, yesterday a coward killed nine precious people in an AME church is Charleston, South Carolina.  They were in a Bible Study!  Heart is broken.  But there is so much more...

A church was recently set on fire in Israel.  Christians are being slaughtered in Africa and the Middle East.  The Western moral crisis is fully underway with almost no biblical worldview, unbelief on the rise, and a looming vote by the SCOTUS on gay "marriage."  

Racial animosity is at a level that I've not seen in my 45 years...even in the church.  A massive debt crisis.  Gender fluidity?  What in the world is that?  The destruction of the family.  Continued killings on our streets.  Human trafficking.  Perversions against children.  Pastors divorcing.  Even good Bible-teaching churches having to endure strife over what the Bible says.

It is overwhelming.  It is of the devil no doubt.  He simply wants to destroy.

But through it all, we must be determined to love and obey Jesus.  Preach Jesus.  Preach His Gospel and the fruit of it.  Walk in holiness.  Reform the Family.  Be a good steward.  Be a humble leader.  Preach a biblical worldview. 

But saints, we need to pray.  We need to be faithful.  We need to hold on to one another and encourage The Church.  The entire Church is under assault...as in the Lord's Body worldwide.  

Now is NOT a time to shrink back.  Now is a time to join hands, lift one another, and make disciples.

PS - Wrote this just 3 weeks ago!

Confronting Evil

Holiness and Humility

"Let all teachers of holiness, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, and all seekers after holiness, whether in the closet or the convention, take warning. There is no pride so dangerous, because none so subtle and insidious, as the pride of holiness. It is not that a man ever says, or even thinks, "Stand by; I am holier than you." No, indeed, the thought would be regarded with abhorrence. But there grows up, all unconsciously, a hidden habit of soul, which feels complacency its attainments, and cannot help seeing how far it is in advance of others. It can be recognized, not always in any special self-assertion or self-laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep self-abasement which cannot but be the mark of the soul that has seen the glory of God (Job 42: 5, 6; Isa.6: 5).

It reveals itself, not only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of others, in which those who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but recognize the power of self. Even the world with its keen eyes notices it, and points to it as a proof that the profession of a heavenly life does not bear any specially heavenly fruits. O brethren! let us beware. Unless we make, with each advance in what we think holiness, the increase of humility our study, we may find that we have been delighting in beautiful thoughts and feelings, in solemn acts of consecration and faith, while the only sure mark of the presence of God, the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting.

Come and let us flee to Jesus, and hide ourselves in Him until we be clothed upon with His humility. That alone is our holiness." --Andrew Murray, Humility

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Convicted.  Repentant.  Must, by His grace, do better.