Can you imagine yourself as a 91 year old Christian who’s been waiting 50 years for your first Bible – or 40, 30, 20 years, depending on your age? It’s commonplace in China. The 91 year old is not featured in this video clip but no doubt his reaction would be the same as those who are featured in it. If the reports are correct there are 100 million Christians in that nation, but less than half are in possession of a Bible. It’s hard to imagine people starving for the word of God but no doubt that’s their experience, as it will be for the Christians in North Korea and all Muslim-oppressed countries. I wonder if their experience will become ours in the rest of the world as we face the days ahead.
There is a world-wide movement with one agenda in mind – take the Bible out of the hands of those in possession of it. How successful the movement will be with its agenda only God knows, but when looking at what Bible enemies in the USA and Europe are presently achieving, they’re doing okay so far. However, maybe God will beat them to it! Holy Spirit-led leaders are speaking out in protest of evil and warning the church of the persecutions to come, but they are few and far between. So for the most part, the protests are ignored and the warnings go unheeded. 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. We’re facing this.
Israel faced it – the famine continues. The seven churches of Asia faced it – the famine continues. The church of Rome faced it – the famine continues. The church of Germany faced it – for the most part the famine continues. Now the entire Christian world is facing it but most don’t know it! Indifference, opposition and contempt for the words of the LORD and unfruitfulness under it ensures at some point, a spiritual famine of gigantic proportions. With exceptions (God always has the remnant), the church has been hijacked. Its leaders no longer represent Jesus Christ, they have no biblical integrity – they are liars and thieves similar to their counterparts in the unbelieving world. I say similar, because what they lie about and steal is different.
They lie about the word of God. They misinterpret the Scriptures, mishandle the Scriptures and misrepresent the Scriptures. That’s what makes them liars! They steal the truth, they steal the power and they steal the authority of the word of God. That’s what makes them thieves! A church leader who writes on his outside church notice board, “Jesus had 2 dads and He turned out ok” is a liar and a thief! A church leader who says, “It’s not up to me to judge” regarding the sin of sodomy, is a liar and a thief! A church leader who doesn’t preach on sin, righteous and judgment is a liar and a thief! A church leader who preaches the need to “Save the Planet” but not the need to save human souls is a liar and a thief!
And everyone who embraces the teachings of such liars and thieves become exactly like them. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher Luke 6:39-40. This is a reality for the unholy as well as the holy. Yes, I am aware that these are taken from the Judge not passage, but I’m also aware of the preach the word! passage 2 Timothy 4:2-5. The church world-wide is now fulfilling the prophecy the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine……… The church is failing to be watchful in all things, it is failing to endure afflictions, it is failing to do the work of an evangelist.
Believers and unbelievers alike are being slaughtered in the Middle East. Remnant aside, where’s the church? Sickening riots in Ferguson and Baltimore USA. Where’s the church? World-wide slaughter of defenseless unborn. Where’s the church? World-wide sexual perversions of the grossest kind. Where’s the church? Filth on unprecedented scales spewing from commercial television. Where’s the church? Legal and illegal drug dependency. Where’s the church? Break-up of families, break-down of society. Where’s the church? You are the salt of the earth…. You are the light of the world Matthew 5:13-14. Is this true? Yes, but not for church liars and thieves, only for the remnant.
Am I suggesting the church should be out there doing protest street marches against all these things? No. In any case, in its present diabolical spiritual condition it would become a greater laughing stock than it already is. Salt preserves from putrefaction it doesn’t purify what’s putrefied; only the blood of Jesus has the power to do that. Similarly, when the church light goes out, only the Holy Spirit can turn it on again. But there’s no blood-washing or Spirit-enlightening without humility and repentance first, and then the desire to be severed from church liars and thieves. Jesus stands at the door and He knocks Revelation 3:20, but He doesn’t break the door down! Too, a day is coming when He will knock no more.
However, imagine a group of churches in any one neighborhood with 10, 20 or 30 people in them all committed to prayer and intercession on behalf of their sin-sick communities and nations. Take the sex perverts and baby-murderers for example: Imagine if half a dozen churches regularly communicated and fellowshipped with one another, making it their business to daily storm heaven on those two evils and keep it up until God acted, even if that meant years of waiting. What kind of churches would they be? In God’s eyes they would be normal churches; churches where each member is in possession of a poor (broken) and contrite spirit and who trembles at My word Isaiah 66:2. If they did protest and march the demons would scatter to hell!
If church liars and thieves do not prostrate themselves to the floor and cry out for God’s mercy and forgiveness He’s going to judge them. Because of their indifference, opposition and contempt for the words of the LORD and their unfruitfulness under it, they’re already under judgment; the fact that they’re liars and thieves is evidence enough of that, but when He really begins to put them through the wringer they won’t know what stuck them. They’ll prostrate themselves and cry out then, but God will delay all answers to a time of His choosing, which for some people will be many years. If the redeemed Chinese, Korean and Middle-Eastern Christians who are not liars and thieves have to wait years, what about these people?
They may not spend fifty years starving for the word of God, but so intense will their hunger be, it’s going to feel like it! Length of time in their famine will be a lessor issue for them than the intensity of it; that’ll be horrendous. They may not have a Bible literally taken from their hands, but for all the good it’s going to do them it might as well be. “Is there a word from the Lord?” they’ll ask. Some unrepentant liar and thief is going to say, “Yes.” But like the prophets of Baal, all they’ll have is a lie, which will add to their suffering; it will remind them of their own day when that’s all they stood for. Something else: They will be reminded of the times they spent rejecting and fighting the truth brought to them by true men and women of God.
Worse: Whilst they will remember the rejecting and fighting, they will have great difficulty remembering the actual truths or Scriptures they rejected and fought. And those they do remember will not have the power to minister the much-needed relief they seek because it will seem as though the Holy Spirit is a million miles away. Imagine reading, And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free John 8:32, but you’re not free. Imagine reading: Feed My lambs…. Feed My sheep John 21:15, 17, but all you can remember is feeding them slops from the pit of hell. Imagine reading, Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is Ephesians 5:17, but you don’t understand.
Starving for the word of God. Only those hungering and thirsting for righteousness have any worthwhile understanding of what that may feel like. Certainly those few Chinese Christians understand. Now they also have a glorious understanding of what it’s like to be filled Matthew 5:6. Glory to God! Up ahead it may be Bible enemies who bring the persecution, but it will be God who brings the famine. Church liars and thieves, God has put you on notice. Will you be starving for the word of God during the persecution or will you be filled with the word of God?Jesus knocks today; He may not knock tomorrow. I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst John 6:35.
“However, imagine a group of churches in any one neighborhood with 10, 20 or 30 people in them all committed to prayer and intercession on behalf of their sin-sick communities and nations.”
This is what I pray for almost daily – churches of 10, 20, or 30 willing to fast and pray and give to the poor. It’s America’s only hope.
Thanks Roger…keep preaching.
And the Lord hears your prayer, Larry. Thanks for the encouragement.