Spiritual Prepper by Jake McCandless

Author:Jake McCandless
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Firebrand Technologies

LUKEWARM AND UNAWARE

Again the seven letters to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation provide us with the greatest identification and warnings of ways in which our faith can fail. These very real, struggling churches were evaluated and assessed by Jesus Himself. Oh, how beneficial it would be to know exactly what Jesus thinks of our faithfulness. Five of the seven churches were at dangerous points. They were in danger of abandoning the faith. Three of them were especially susceptible to faith failure because of faulty foundations. There were attitudes and Christian mind-sets that put them in danger.

The most striking was the mind-set of the Laodicean church. They perceived themselves as faithful. They thought they were strong and doing God-pleasing things, but their perception was far from the truth. Their deeds made God want to vomit. He said they were neither extremely hot, like the hot springs of nearby Hierapolis, nor extremely cold, like the cold springs of nearby Colossae. Rather, they were lukewarm. They were complacent.

Reading between the lines, it appears they’d been polluted and diluted by the world. They weren’t any different than the sinful world around them.

If the church made God want to vomit, then it’s fair to say they were weak.

The tares far outnumbered the fruitful wheat.

The tares were choking out the wheat.

The tares were setting the church doctrines and controlling the church.

The church was so weak that they were in grave danger.

And the greatest problem was they were completely unaware of their weak state – like Samson rising to fight the Philistines after his hair had been cut. He was so complacent he didn’t even realize his God-infused strength had vanished. He had no idea he was weak, so he took on the dangerous enemy and fell. (See Judges 16.)

Complacency may be the best word to describe the big picture of the American church. It doesn’t describe every believer or every church. There are those who are very faithful, but they champion a church culture that may be as worldly as any church culture in history – rivaling the pre-Reformation church.

Like the Laodiceans, who thought they were rich and blessed by God, our American church thinks they are rich and in need of nothing, but in actuality we’re not rich. Author Randy Alcorn told about a church planter in China who explained that at their church planting seminars they teach their ministry students three things: (1) Never turn down an invitation to preach. (2) Look for a place to run when you are finished preaching. (3) Be ready to die that day.4 This church, the one that meets faithfully in secret, is the one who’s rich.

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