Thank you for taking the time to read my blogs. I hope that you have been inspired, encouraged, challenged, or have had your faith ignited as you read each post. Today, as I witness the attitude and dark conduct displayed in our current culture, I am taken back to the question that Christ pondered in Luke 18:7-8: “Now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Christ looked out on the condition of man’s ways over 2000 years ago and pondered how His ministry of salvation for the world would continue. I have been in the faith for over 34 years now, and I have seen many instances where Christ’s question is fair. In the 90’s, when I first entered the life of faith, there were already many questionable doctrines and teachers on the scene. The purpose-driven church was one of those questionable teachings. It taught the church body to become seeker-friendly and not focus so much on fire and brimstone, hell, and sin. This teaching taught that instead of focusing on those offensive things, church leaders should focus on what individuals felt they needed. Well, we can think we need a lot of things, but we can be entirely wrong. In this instance, church leaders replaced the teachings of Christ with the teachings of man. When I learned about this teaching, I warned that barreling down the seeker-friendly sensation would harm the Body of Christ instead of building it up.

At the same time, the prosperity gospel and the Pentecostal movement were also creeping into the church. Both movements began years earlier, but their popularity spread during the 1960s and 70s through TV preachers like Kenneth Hagin. These teachings taught that God wanted everyone to be rich and free from disabilities and poor health. Just like those who ran to Christ when He fed the 4000 and 5000, healed the sick and lame, and made the blind to see. Those who embraced this teaching wanted the goodies that this new faith offered, without offering their hearts in obedience to God’s Word. Here again, church leaders exchanged the teaching of God’s Word for the teaching of man. Interwoven with these false teachings was the rise of New Age and Postmodernism. Since then, church leaders have allowed more and more man-made doctrine to infiltrate the Body of Christ, rendering the church’s true work ineffective. Christ left His disciples with a mandate to make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey the commands God has given them in the Scriptures, not man’s. Paul, who Christ personally commissioned to the Gentiles, also warned believers that self-seeking leaders would come into the church to draw believers from the faith.

This is what he said in Acts 20:28-30, “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” And in Galatians 1:6-9, he says, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

Even the Prophets warned the children of Israel about their disobedience in following after man and after other gods. As time has gone on, many strange doctrines have come into the church and have drawn those who profess faith in God away from the church. But what if we who profess faith would actually listen to, study, and apply God’s Word to our lives? We would be able to discern ravenous wolves who are fleecing and deceiving the flock of Christ. We would be those who have spiritual maturity and live in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and His fruit would be visible in our lives. We would flee from false teachers and their itchy-eared teaching. We would love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves. Salvation would be something those in the world would thirst after and run to, as we who profess faith conduct ourselves as disciples of Christ instead of appeasers of men. Instead of focusing on church affiliation and pastors, we would love one another regardless of where one worships. Our churches would be led by shepherds who tend Christ’s lambs and love His sheep. And the sheep would love each other instead of shredding each other to pieces.

The sheep would be well-groomed and well-fed in God’s Word. There should not be evil and wickedness in the church of Christ by those who profess to be followers of Christ, and especially not the leadership. We should be human lanterns illuminating the world with the love and grace of God. Instead, today’s church is filled with leaders who are wolves in sheep’s clothing who abuse and mistreat the sheep with their unholy and ungodly conduct. And the sheep who suffer from chronic spiritual malnutrition treat each other in the most unloving and unbecoming ways, which goes against everything we learn in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. People of faith should not have to leave church after church because of false teachers, ungodly leaders, and badly behaving church members. The church of Christ should be a refuge for the believer. It is the place where one learns through discipleship how to reflect and imitate the teachings of Christ as a witness to those in their sphere of influence. It is where the lost find a loving family that nurtures and guides them in spiritual maturity. What if the church of Christ and followers of Christ actually lived by the instructions and commandments He has given us in His Word and abided under the leadership of the Holy Spirit? Would the Son of Man really find faith on the earth when He comes again? Think about it and be blessed!