The month of October brought a staggering wake-up call to many church members. Some had been in attendance for months and some for years. A few had been active for a decade. They loved their church family and felt the pulpit was sound.
Their church has salvation right, and baptism. The music is acceptable and the youth program is outstanding. It is missions-minded. And, after all, no church is perfect.
The Rude Awakening
But in October, many church attendees were going to get a rude awakening because too many hadn’t done a deep dive on all of the church’s theology.
Many had been grieved over the silence in the pulpit as it concerned Bible prophecy and current events. They accepted the flaw and got daily doses of those items online. After all, the church didn’t get involved in the cultural issues either. It is not unusual for a church to not take a stand.
Then came October 7 in Israel. What would the church response be that next day – October 8? What happened on October 7 was a game-changer! Surely, this would be front-and-center at their church!
It is true—the headlines, photos, and videos coming out of the latest Mideast conflict are not seekersensitive. They won’t make church attendees feel good. Talking about the sensitive situation won’t fit into any church-growth strategy. It won’t encourage anyone to become purpose-driven. It could even create divisiveness.
So, I should not have been so thrown when I began to get e-mails from across the country stating variations of the following:
Jan, I was very dismayed that the church we attended did not even make mention of what was going on in Israel on Sunday, October 8. Nor did the topic arise on Wednesday night—though there were several mentions of the Houston Astros game…
No One Can Say We Didn’t Know
Since then, there has been wall-towall coverage on all media outlets, day and night, for over three months. Can anybody claim they didn’t know? We have now all watched the sickening demonstrations begging the world to “gas the Jews.” Some are saying World War III is at hand. We have evil at a new level on display. The likelihood of terror cells embedded in America, Canada, Europe, and other places is a guarantee.
The Silence of the Shepherds Is Rooted in Theology
And yet, I was hearing many times a day about the silence of the shepherds! Could this silence be rooted in theology? A resounding “yes”!
I encourage all readers to do a study on modern theology. People hear terms that need to be explored: Replacement Theology, Covenant Theology, Amillennial Theology, Dominion Theology, and more. You just might not be in agreement with what all of these theologies entail! Most of these teach that the Church is the new Israel; that God has cast away His people Israel due to unbelief.
Prayer: The Only Effective Weapon
Human suffering has been on display since October 7, 2023. Media outlets that have a shred of integrity, revealed the darkened hearts and deeds of Islamic thugs. There is only one adequate weapon in our arsenal: prayer, and better yet, corporate prayer.
Prayer from the pulpit. Prayer from a radio, TV, or Internet website. Prayer for innocent hostages, although now it is likely too late. Prayer for any innocent caught in a battle crossfire. Prayer for soldiers trying to liberate and set captives free.
And pastors, your people want you to lead in this effort! People are now tired of the silence of the shepherds. Our world is too volatile, too angry, and too evil, to stand on the sidelines and be silent! You must take a stand and set theology aside.
Yes, your theology says you should minimize Israel, but then you marginalize the suffering, which Jesus would never do!
When Should I Leave a Church?
All of my radio guests have stated since October 7 that if a church will not relent on this, then it is time to leave. Period. God cannot bless this church or congregation. It is weighed in the balances and found wanting (Dan. 5:7). It is time to move on to much greener—and more spiritually fruitful—pastures.
Perhaps this is the next big church divider. Churches will either be for Israel, or against her. Which side will you be on? Israel is to become the world’s burdensome stone (Zech. 12:3), but God will destroy ALL who come against Jerusalem (Zech.12:9). You want to be on God’s side!
In the new year of 2024, I pray that all in leadership will at least take a stand against evil, for much of the world is calling evil good (Isaiah 5:20). And evil is spreading like a cancer throughout the world as we trend towards the Tribulation.
Terry James Prophecy Line 
Wow, is this timely in view of recent events for me!
Last month a Congregational church in a nearby town incorporated a “winter solstice” spiral walk event into Advent. The “walk” is clearly has pagan underpinnings. I wrote a letter to a local newspaper pointing this out and that a church shouldn’t ever mix in a pagan practice when it is supposed to be accurately teaching and preaching Scripture.
I recently got a letter back essentially saying I was being too judgmental and narrow in my view. I submitted another in response saying that by not using the Bible as a standard to determine right or wrong, then just who decides what the standard should be?
The problem with a “relative morality,” I pointed out, is that anything can be justified. Taken to the extreme we end up with a situation like Hitler’s Germany, where it was “good” to kill Jews.
Earlier last year, another Congregational church in the same town had a “drag bingo” fundraiser, to which I also objected in the same manner. Didn’t get any response that time.
It’s a case not even of these places doing something wrong, but totally lacking the capacity to realize it.
These two examples show just how far organized religion has fallen.
It certainly is yet another sign of our times.
“It’s a case not even of these places doing something wrong, but totally lacking the capacity to realize it.”
So true Ed, and so very tragic. They are leading others astray from the true path to God’s grace, as so many are doing or have done.
Having experienced being enticed onto the wrong path, I know very well how easy it can be for the unwary. I once lived close to a store that sold all things wicca and new age. The inviting smell of incense, the pretty clothes from India, and my curiosity got the best of me. I bought a book that sounded so helpful for my situation at the time. I don’t recall the title; something about how to find serenity and peace and to never feel anxious again. I read it through completely the first time just to get an idea about the subject matter, and then started it again, absorbing and practicing what it explained.
The entire message of it was to learn how to let go of this world and everything it contained and to empty my mind completely to allow peace and quiet to enter. I followed all the instructions and practiced emptying my mind to allow the quiet and mindlessness to engulf me. It felt so soothing, and peaceful at first. Then, about a fourth of the way into the book the second time, it slowly began to dawn on me, that NO, I was prepping myself for an entity other than God to have control of my life and my soul. I threw the book into the trash. It took a while to lose all the influence of the spirit of that trip off my good path, and get all the way back to God’s care, and to forgive myself for having strayed.
I was a baptized, saved Christian who had read about the New Age beliefs, and had seen, and known, many people who were caught up in the lifestyle and the beliefs. They all seemed like good people, but that they had substituted something else for the Holy Spirit.
God knows everything, of course, so I think now that He allowed me, maybe even encouraged me, to follow where my curiosity led me, so that I would learn to never judge those who have strayed, and to understand just how tempting it is when the snake approaches you and whispers into your ear “Did God really say….” I thank God every day for keeping me safe. For loving me so much that He doesn’t even see my transgressions. And for giving me the gift of discernment. Most of all, for giving me the Holy Spirit to help me stay on the narrow path. It can be so easy to be misled. It’s an enticing, beckoning world, that wide path. Thank you for having the courage to speak out about those who lead God’s people astray. Hopefully there were some congregants who read your remarks and realized what was happening. I’ll pray with you that God’s Holy Spirit touched them and caused them to open their eyes. I do believe in OSAS; once saved, always saved because Jesus assured us of it. But we can lose the close, personal relationship we have if we stray away from Him.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
John 10:27-28
I’m just waiting to go Home. See you there soon!
Thank you very much for sharing your experience and for your gracious words, Bonnie. Even though I knew that God was real when I was 6 years old, I strayed many times, fell into the bottle, and finally, with God’s help, got free of it. It has been over 45 years since I had a drink.
Paul hit it right on the head when he said this:
2 Corinthians {11:14} And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. {11:15} Therefore [it is] no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the
ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
Sadly, all too many people don’t get that second chance. Maybe part of it is either not realizing they need one or just not wanting it. I, too, am hoping that perhaps the letters will strike a responsive chord for someone.
Speaking of second chances, I’ve had many more than that, the most recent of which was surviving a cardiac arrest last year. I was clinically dead for ten minutes and yet recovered with no perceptible impairment, physical or mental. As if this isn’t remarkable enough, my heart functions better now than when I dropped. Definitely in miracle territory here!
As far as OSAS, I’ll be honest with you in saying that I have seen reasonable arguments both pro and con, so the jury is still out on this for me. I do consider the argument that anyone who does fall away and never turns back was never saved in the first place is a strong one and might very well be true, but since only God knows someone’s heart, I don’t think any of us can know for sure so I am keeping an open mind.
I do believe wholeheartedly in the Bible and everything it says. I also have no doubt the Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life and by maintaining this belief, my eternal salvation is assured. I think that is what is most important.
Again, thank you for your comments. They are much appreciated.
And yes, I’m getting pretty homesick myself!
God bless!
Ed
You’re welcome, Ed. You and others who comment here are such a strong inspiration for me. I don’t have a home church, so my online sources have become my church, and it’s actually preferable for me. As in your case, I’ve found so very many “brick and mortar” churches to be too far from the Bible to fit me. For years I attended and was saved and baptized in when I was 14, old time, tongues speaking, holy-roller Pentecostal churches in the deep South. The type of churches where you received biblical preaching from a Pastor who was sincerely “in the Spirit” and would bring his congregation to tears of joy and love of God and shouts of “Hallelujah” and “Amen”! And sometimes Brother Bob would get so moved by the Spirit and the great preaching, he would jump up from the pew and start dancing back and forth down the aisle, talking and singling in tongues and praising God, holding a hand over his right ear the whole time as if to more clearly hear God’s voice talking to him. And the preacher would just keep on preaching. I miss that so much. Is it any wonder I can’t find a home church here? Maybe, if I was still in Memphis, but I’m not. I hold tight to the knowledge that soon I’ll be in the real thing and not an earthly mock-up, and worshiping my savior for real, and not simply hearing a sermon about Him!
Glory to God for not keeping you when you had your heart attack. He certainly had plans for your future! And your story of salvation from some of the strongest chains there are, touches me in ways you can’t imagine. I lost a son to alcoholism, 3 yrs. ago last Christmas Day. No amount of prayer or pleading could save him in this life, but I thank God for saving him in His way. My son was born again and talked of his shame and regret for not being able to quit alcohol. He often talked about how desperately he wanted to be sober when he was called home. And God heard that prayer, and took my son home when he in the hospital, sober. Having seen in person how very difficult alcohol can be to quit I can appreciate what an amazing miracle you received—not once, but twice!
It’s so thrilling to me that people who have the Holy Spirit in them are recognizable to others who also have it. Walking past each other in a store, or at a dull meeting, or even online, never meeting in person, God’s Spirit reaches out to others. I’m thankful you’re still here, and that you’re willing and able to share your faith. And I’m also thankful you’re a member of my online Church!
God bless and keep you in His Hands until He calls us all Home!
Maranatha
Again, I am moved by your witness. I am very sorry your son could not get free of his alcohol addiction in this life, but am glad that his faith has freed him forever in the world to come. Very few people do get off alcohol, as I did (with God’s help alone) and that ranks right up there as miraculous as recovering from cardiac arrest intact, which was actually different than a heart attack in my case. My problem was more of an electrical shutdown rather than something ischemic, which would be a blockage where part of the heart muscle dies.
I belonged to an Episcopal church which was a lot more laid back than a Pentecostal one, but it worked for me until it fell into error at the turn of this century. It was there I first knew that God was real. I was six years old in Sunday school and we were singing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” I looked out the window into a blue, spring sky, punctuated by large, fluffy, cumulus clouds and in that moment, I knew without a doubt that everything that song said was absolutely true. I recall it now some 65 years later as if it happened yesterday.
Like you my church is here at websites like this and in discussion with people about God whenever the opportunity presents itself. I am DONE with organized religion after being burned more than once.
So, my friend, thanks again for your testimony and encouragement. I look forward to meeting you “topside” when Jesus calls us home!
God bless!
Ed
Hi Ed,
An apology; I should’ve said “our Church”! Certainly it’s not just my Church, and I don’t know why I referred to it in that way. There are so many of us, maybe even hundreds of billions! Who can know except God?
You’re right, that it is sad that so many don’t get a second chance. I think about that whenever I learn of a sudden death like in a car crash. And I console myself with the thought that maybe they did have a “second” or third or even more chances for salvation.
I too was a child of maybe 5 when I confessed my belief in God and that He had sent His Son to save us all from death. In that instant I felt something unusual, but very pleasant, happen inside me. I had been attending a church, alone, and people there questioned me about coming alone to church services. Daddy worked, and Mother refused to accompany me, so I walked alone the 3 blocks each way. It was possibly a year before I caught diphtheria and had my death experience and was not allowed to leave here. Your doctors must have been stunned speechless when you came back to life, virtually unharmed, from your cardiac arrest! In my experience, far too many of them have a ‘god complex’ and refuse any other possible reason for obvious miracles except themselves, of course!
There are so very many people who don’t want to hear that our God is real. Their eyes and ears are closed and their heart is a rock. I grieve for them. And I know that all born-again Christians do also. I keep trying to witness wherever I can, though, online and with people I meet. The ones who will pretend to listen, and the ones who actually do are a blessing. The ones who absolutely refuse to acknowledge there is a God are the saddest, and they’re all over the internet. I encounter them every day. But we all do what we can. Time is so short.
Thank you for joining me for our online Church service.
Bonnie
P.S. When I mention God’s holy Church, the one His believers belong to, I capitalize it. An earthly, brick and mortar house of worship to me, is a church.
I am certainly in good company with our Online Church, that’s for sure. Most of the “brick and mortar” ones have become like the temple that once stood on Mount Moriah. Where it once was a place of worship for God alone, it later on it became defiled with pagan altars set up in it as well (Jeremiah 32:32-34). This, of course, was something that God could not tolerate and the result in Jeremiah’s time was the its destruction by the Babylonians.
I think there are a lot of reasons people refuse to acknowledge God, prime of which is this “terrible” word: ACCOUNTABILITY! Accepting God also means accepting responsibility for ones actions and all too many people don’t want to do that, especially now. The deal with society now is to find someone else to blame if someone messes is up. The fault always lies with someone or something else rather than the face a person sees in the mirror.
Your mention of a person who dies suddenly and unexpectedly, say in an accident, or, in my case, from a medical condition, shows us that for those people who have the idea they can “put off” making their decision for God until “later” are playing a very foolish game because he or she might not get a “later.”
Speaking of medical things, I have been fortunate to have good medical people. My cardiologist, who unfortunately just retired, was not only very competent, but respected my wishes for me not to have any invasive procedures ever done, as did my primary care physician, an APRN. And, yes, they were amazed at how things turned out for me. Me, too!
I have also dealt with some of the “god complex” types and with them my approach has been to shut them down, post haste! I am not in the habit of letting people push me around. Rightly or wrongly, being a Christian for me does not also mean being a doormat!
So, my friend, I am enjoying our dialogue and I’m sure this will continue now and in the life to come!
God bless!
I totally agree, Ed!
And to clarify, I so hope that Sir Alexander Fleming was a born-again Christian. It would be such an honor to be able to thank him in “person” for his miraculous discovery of penicillin. I too, have some wonderful Doctors taking care of my various medical needs. Especially my PCP who has been practicing as a GP for about 45 years now and is a walking, talking, medical dictionary, scholar, and medical school. He’s close to my age, so we can relate somewhat to each other’s situations! I’m fortunate that God has seen to it that I have the exact people in my life that I need when the need arises. Doctors with god complexes are – or were, at least – prevalent in the OB-GYN field, with which I had extensive experience in the 60’s and 70’s. Hopefully it’s different today, with all the advances in health care.
There have been so many articles lately about new and perplexing, unexplainable discoveries in geology, archaeology, and space, and how the scientists are baffled at how that can be. So many things have been discovered that they simply cannot explain or understand. What a shock it must be for their hubris to find out their models of our universe and life itself are faulty. Who can explain God’s creation?
Wasn’t it Anton LeVay who said, “do as thou wilt?” Yes, accountability, and the requirement to accept boundaries are unacceptable to so many today. How dare someone suggest that we are not the supreme beings in our world? There is no higher power that has permission to dictate how people are to believe and behave. And science knows all the answers to all the questions and if you question that you are a knuckle-dragging ignoramus. And we know why. But we also know who the victor is in the war of good vs. evil.
I so enjoy and appreciate your comments and our discussions. Thank you for being such a great enrichment to my Church life.
Maranatha and Amen!
I actually went to college and have an Earth Science degree from way back when. A B.S. degree in that particular field really doesn’t have much of a marketable value, come to find out. After doing heavy work for a while, I got into electronics in my mid-30’s because my back was shot.
The point is that this kind of background, like medicine or any of the sciences, can cause some people to believe that these things are the be-all and end-all. The problem is that they develop a tunnel vision and can’t see past those things these disciplines can explain – therefore, according to them, they can’t exist. This would certainly rule out God and everything associated with him, miracles included. Science does do a great job explaining how things work in this universe, but can’t answer the “Why?” it exists in the first place.
The thing is, there are various kinds of truths, such as theological, scientific, historical, etc. You can’t resolve an historical truth using science, because history is based on the accounts of witnesses who were there to observe the events, not on experiments which can be replicated in a lab. Same applies to “proving God” because you can’t analyze him in a spectrometer or see him in a telescope “out there” somewhere. You have to use the appropriate “tools” to do the job. After all, you can’t watch a TV signal on a radio!
Now if those who refuse to believe in God think that humans are the best this universe can produce are right, then the cosmos is really in pretty bad shape.
Makes me glad to know that they are wrong!
Amen Jan! I am still searching for a “living” church, not one ‘dead’ to the Lord and the Signs of the Times. We NEED to be cohesive with each other and Israel. He will come there, NOT here! Keep your eyes on Jerusalem, right?