The Sleeping Church

Fox News recently published an article on how religion is becoming extinct in 9 different countries and is fading around the world including in the United States.

Read the Article Here

This is alarming information, especially when you consider that within "religion" only a small portion represents Biblical Christianity. Is it possible that our country and our world could become nearly completely atheistic, that only a small handful of Christians could be left? Obviously God is in control of this world but I can't help but look around the American Church, which has in its arsenal more manpower, financial resources, gifts and abilities to use for God and wonder why so little is being used.

We Are All About Self

There is no other way to put it, the goal of young people growing up today is to find the perfect mate, go to college and "experience" life, get a high paying job, buy a nice house in the suburbs with a brand new car and go to church on Sunday Mornings. Sounds good, if life's about you. However if life is about God and His kingdom then why are we spending so much time building ours.

Misunderstanding of Ministry

Somehow we have gotten the idea that serving God is only for those in ministry. Sure we may work in the church nursery or sing in the church choir but thats about our limitation. Don't misunderstand those are good things that we should be doing and that is serving but what about giving your whole life to God? What about getting a burden for one of those 9 countries where Christianity is on the verge of becoming something you only read about in history books? What about putting God before yourself?

There is no doubt that God has a plan for this world and He is undoubtedly preparing it for the return of His Son but we are still left with the choice of Building our Kingdom or being a part of Building His.

Getting the Gospel Right - Rob Bells False Gospel

Rob Bell is a popular "Christian" author and pastor, he has written multiple books on redefining the Christian Faith. As Pastor Ayers is speaking through his series on "Getting the Gospel Right" (you can listen to the messages here) I thought it would be good for us to take a weekly look at people who have the gospel wrong.

Martin Bashir begins this interview by asking Bell a fairly simple and direct question "Is God in control and just doesn't care or Does God care and isn't in control?" The question goes directly to the heart of the matter of how do we reconcile events like the disaster in Japan with a loving sovereign God. After asking the question twice Bell still can't come up with an answer. The answer is simple, God cares and He's in control. You say "But then why isn't the world perfect, with no death, suffering or sin". That's exactly how God created the world, He created it without death, suffering or sin. He created it where everything was perfect and we had perfect fellowship with Him, but God has no desire for robots who love Him without choice. So He gave the first man Adam a choice. He could believe God and have a perfect world with perfect fellowship with God or He could go against God, believing there was something better and eat of the forbidden tree and allow sin to enter into the world. He of course chose the fruit. So God didn't chose to allow suffering into this world, we did. Truthfully it would have been perfectly just for God to allow us to forever reap the benefits of our choice but instead He offers us redemption. A chance to be forgiven of our sins and eventually spend eternity back in perfect fellowship with Him. For whatever reason, maybe he hasn't read Genesis, Bell was unable to provide an answer for this question other than "It's a paradox"

Bell has obviously created his own gospel. Which as we know from Galatians 1:8 means he is to be separated from and identified as a false teacher (which he is, in case you weren't clear on that). Bell's gospel is all about love, which sounds great right? As Bashir points out Bell basically says that in the end love wins, so God's love is going to save everyone at some point even if it is in the after life, but then Bell attempt's to go back the other way and say that he doesn't believe everyone eventually gets saved and that it is "terribly" important how we respond to Jesus in this life even though if we don't respond to him love still wins. The truth is Rob Bell seems to have no idea what he is talking about. Love does not define God, God defines Love. God has made it clear that there is one way to Heaven and that is through faith in Christ. Love already won on the cross and now we are left with the choice of how we respond to that act of love in this life.