I want you to imagine that behind the counter of a Health Food store is a salesman who is an emaciated, sickly individual with sunken eyes and ashen complexion. He coughs, brings up some phlegm, gasps for breath, and attempts to sell you his latest line of vitamins. In spite of his excellent sales pitch, you are completely persuaded to buy absolutely nothing from his shelves. Now imagine yourself turning around and quickly exiting the store. Why? You're no fool! His personal condition betrays the validity of his product.
I realize this is a morbidly humorous picture, but it illustrates an important point concerning the Church and her relationship to the world. How can a Church that resembles the wheezing salesman in our story make bold claims of joy, peace and fulfillment and expect the secular community to take it seriously? Can we really provoke them to embrace Christ while our attitudes resemble the book of Lamentations and our worship services are no more exciting than a television rerun? If all they see when they walk through the doors of our churches are spiritually emaciated Christians gasping for breath, then our spiritual condition betrays the validity of the Gospel.
A Church that claims the supernatural but experiences the superficial can never be effective in persuading a world seeking for deliverance that Christ is the answer. You see, it isn't enough to merely speak about a Christianity meant to be lived. A declaration of Christianity is no substitute for a demonstration of it. Herein lies the essence of hypocrisy and pretense. We talk it. but we rarely walk it. We speak heavy cream, but we're living skim milk. What a reproach we are to the One who said, "Why call ye me Lord, Lord and do not the things that I say?" (Luke 6:46)
Walt Whitman once said, "What you are speaks so loudly I can't hear what you say." Someone else put it this way, "Actions speak louder than words." The salient point is that the messenger must embody his message if it is to have any impact in the world around him.
The lives of Peter and John contained no such contradictions. As we read in the book of Acts, they had more than rhetoric the day they went up together into the temple through the gate beautiful at the hour of prayer. Fastening their eyes upon he that was lame from birth, the healing virtue of Jesus Christ flowed out of them as naturally as rain out of the sky:
Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. (Acts 3:6)
This miraculous healing led to the salvation of over 5000 souls in one day! (Acts 4:4)
It is no wonder Satan is doing all in his devious power to undermine this most glorious of institutions, the Church. It is no wonder that Satan is resisting every believer's effort to come to a full knowledge of the mission and ministry of the Church. If Satan had his way, he would extract every trace of authentic Christianity from the face of the earth and replace it with something that offends the world rather than wins it.
He hates the local church because it is the only institution on planet earth that can dethrone his authority and tear down his stronghold in the minds and hearts of men. He is out to destroy the testimony and witness of any local church that would dare to fulfill its biblical mandate as salt and light to the world. He attempts to accomplish his devious intention by instigating schisms, divisions and compromises within her ranks. His one supreme ambition is to sponsor the funeral service of the bride of Christ and neutralize her effectiveness on earth.
As we stand upon the threshold of a new millennium, an authentic Christianity utterly committed to Christ-likeness and the embodiment of the lifestyle of Jesus is urgently required. In these desperate times our nation must see the attributes and excellencies of Christ modeled in the church. Unless America witnesses firsthand a glorious church of apostolic consecration and power within her borders, her fate will hang in the balance and be found wanting.
Our godless society has sown seeds of iniquity for over four decades and is now reaping a bitter harvest. Our young generation tragically believes there is more power in an MTV rock video than in many of our Christian Churches today. They are hoping that drugs, sex, rock and rap can divorce them from the pain, but it never does. If crack doesn't kill them, a drive by shooter will.
Even more alarming, we live in the presence of a political and medical community that tells us that abortion isn't murder. They tell us it's morally right to rip an unborn baby from its mother's womb in the first trimester of pregnancy with a powerful suction machine. If the baby is too big to fit through the cervix, they say it's politically correct to dismember the child piece by piece with medical pliers. It's an abomination.
Just as bleak, Americans spend billions of dollars on pornography, gambling, alcohol and drugs each year. No price is to dear to finance her pleasure-craving lusts. My head hangs low at the thought that an unbelieving society will give more for their dying causes than the redeemed church will give to a living Christ.
Adding insult to injury, multitudes of would-be and should-be Christians are running to New Age, psychic hotlines, TM, positive thinking, existentialism and secular humanism in a vain attempt to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. They should be running to the Church for answers--and they would be if we were living the way we were meant to be.
We are compelled to lay the blame on the doorstep of a Church filled with believers who look more like our emaciated vitamin salesman than the "city set on a hill." Sterile religion has enough Christianity to ease the conscience, but too little to make a difference in a sin-sick world. We have just enough to inoculate ourselves against the real thing, but not enough to cure the ills existing in our own ranks.
Sterile religion is killing America!
But enough of the negative! Let's accentuate the positive. There is a new courageous and bold generation rising that can't be paid off, bought off, scared off or run off from their conviction of true revival and authentic Christianity. God is building an uncommon Church today filled with a new breed of Christ-conquered people who have come through the crucible of testing and survived it.
They will be the church of Matthew 16 where Jesus promised, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt 16:18) They are the Church Peter wrote about in his first epistle, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;" (I Pet 2:9) They are the Church John saw after he was caught up in the Spirit on the Lord's day.
This emerging Church in our day will make the real Jesus visible and tangible in every sphere of life. As the Moon is the glory of the Sun through the principle of reflection, so the Church is the glory of Christ. She will be the vehicle of Hisexpression in the earth and the showcase of divine things.
Jesus said, "…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father;" (John 14:9) He fulfilled His role as the earthly representation of His heavenly Father. We are now called to fulfill our role as the earthly representation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can we dare declare that to see us is to have seen the Son?
We need to understand that God does nothing but through the Church. He moves only as we move. If Christ is to reach out in compassion and touch the world again with His healing and delivering power, it will be through the Church. If His glory is again to be revealed as it was in His earthly body 2,000 years ago, it will be through His body, the Church. We are His nail scarred hands extended in grace and truth to broken humanity. This is why I believe the local church will be at the heart of this final revival.
According to history, Napoleon Bonaparte, while speaking to his generals, ran his index finger around the vast borders of a great country on a world map. He said to them, "There lies a sleeping giant; let it sleep! Because," he continued, "if that country ever wakes up and harnesses its man power to its mineral power, it will shake the world." The country he outlined was none other than China, our most dangerous threat in the world today.
Now I want you to imagine the devil standing there in Napoleon's stead. Satan isn't running his crooked finger around a map. Oh no! He is running his finger around the Church of Jesus Christ and with fear in his eyes, and a trembling voice, he says to his hordes of hell, "There lies a sleeping giant; let it sleep! Because if this Church ever rediscovers the resurrection power of the Holy Ghost, if she ever rediscovers the superior position of authority given to her by Jesus Christ in the earth, she will rise up and shake the world to its very foundations."
The once sleeping giant, the Church, is awakening to her grand position of superiority. This awakening of the Church will prove to be the single greatest event of our time. Under the administration of the Holy Spirit, she is about to launch a massive attack against the kingdom of darkness, crash the gates of hell and plunder it of all its spoil. Those who have ears to hear are hearing it everywhere: A triumphant Church! A militant people! A glorious nation! An invincible army! The Church is finally awakening in the earth and the devil can do nothing to stop it because it was purposed, promised and prophesied by God in the sacred pages of His Holy Book!
