To answer the question asked in the headline; Quite a while ago. With hardly anyone professing to be a Christ follower saying a thing. Just remaining silent as it seeped in and took root and grew into the deadly choking weed it is.
For starters, oh, and the following includes women;
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:4
For certain men, and women. And young people are always imagined to be benign and the demographic churches play to thinking they will have continued members and the treasury continued dollars. No matter what has been brought in it has been accepted, applauded, and approved of. Be it music, false doctrines including adding every false god demonic faith into the faith of the God of the Christian and Jewish Bibles, pagan beliefs and practices. Sorcery. Pantheism. Witchcraft. Politics have gone amuck because instead of mentioning political matters pertaining to the erosion of the faith and contradicting what is in God’s Word the politics brought in have been social justice, DEI, wokeism, marxism, socialism, feminism, environmentalism — every ism of paganism the doors have been thrown open to along with every evil aspect of human politics being passed off as being a loving Christian, compassionate, etcetera. Such as approving of the premeditated murder of a human child, saying they have no clue as to when life begins, and approving of sexual deviancy, immorality, and perversion.
A massive shift, as foretold in God’s Word would happen prior to the coming end of the world.
That’s how and when.
The churches aren’t sleeping. They are very awakened. To evil, to false teachings, to being involved in so much and everything else — except in God’s Word and living according to God’s Word faithfully, obediently.
The churches, many, are serving their master — the world. And we all ought to know who the master of the world and its views, ways, practices, and beliefs serve, shouldn’t we?
Contrary to the old axiom, silence is not golden. Silence leads to evil getting its way. Silence leads to rot, decay, sin, and destruction to enter in. To permit those in Jude 1:4 and those elsewhere foretold to us would arrive and enter. Silence is anything but golden. Silence, being always so, so busy, always moving, denying, hiding, and pretending can, no not can — always leads to death. Imagine that.
Pastors, many of them, most of them in America, in Western churches, aren’t trained in the Word of God. They don’t believe. They are groomed in presentation. How to construct a winning formula sermon [as they pray by rote in their voices for their words to be the Holy Spirit’s when their words have been written down and rehearsed for many days, many times during the week. Or they go to their file and pull out Sermon #507]. It’s more about pleasing people and keeping them entertained, making the people feel good, and saying what they think the people want to hear rather than what the people need to hear. Sermons presented in the hope of having people coming back and financially supporting the church, [insert throat clearing sound] support the pastor who doesn’t know what else to do for a job. They aren’t all “called” you know. And most of them do not believe in many of the events and miracles of the Holy Bible. From Creation to the parting of the Red Sea, the events the prophets experienced, to the virgin birth of our Lord, to His resurrection and conquering death. They don’t believe. It’s a job to them. Ask them what they truly believe. Ask them what most of the time in seminary, theology school, and Bible college was spent on. Go ahead, ask them.
Maybe I’m all wrong. I’d find out if I’m all wet, wrong, if I were you. If I’m wrong?
Why then are things as they are? Why is what is being said, or not said from the pulpits occurring? Why are people writing articles as the one below?
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE DO NOT SPEND TIME IN THE HOLY BIBLE. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE ARE BIBLE ILLITERATE AND LACKING BIBLE KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM, AND DISCERNMENT. WHEN PEOPLE NEGLECT READING, STUDYING, AND MEDITATING DAILY, AND NIGHTLY UPON THE WORD OF GOD. WHEN PEOPLE CAST ASIDE GOD’S WORD, CAST ASIDE THE GOD OF THE BIBLE.
Read on…
Ken Pullen, Thursday, April 25th, 2024
The Churches Are Sleeping: When Did The ‘Woke’ Pulpits Become The Norm?
April 15, 2024
By David Bowen
Reprinted from Harbinger’s Daily & Prophecy News Watch
In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, Paul also prophesized and warned: “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?”
This apostasy or rebellion is when people turn from their faith.
Sleeping Churches
I used to wonder how it would ever happen. What would this look like? I have had a passion for Bible prophecy for years. However, reading and studying Bible prophecy and seeing it lived out before your eyes is totally different. It is extremely exciting to live in a day when so many prophetic events are converging, yet when I speak with my peers, many pastors and churches are sleeping, not concerned about the events unfolding right before us.
I routinely have people attend my church who say they have been searching for a church that would preach the truth about the day we live in. They say they have been trying to find a pastor who will speak about what’s happening in the world. People regularly tell me the only pastors they can discover who go deep into God’s word and explain how it applies to what’s happened in our world today are online. They can’t find a physical church where they can be part of a real like-minded community of believers who understand the days we live in.
To my fault, I have heard these voices, but I have been slow to acknowledge how correct they are. I didn’t want to fully acknowledge that our Christian pulpits have gone silent at a time when we need to be blowing the trumpet the loudest.
A Christian Worldview
I ask myself, when did this slide away from prophecy and prophetic events take place? A 2004 survey by Barna Research found that only 9% of all born-again adults have a Christian worldview. Worse, the same report said that only half of evangelical Protestant pastors, 51%, have a biblical worldview. 9% of adults and 51% of pastors! That is sad and tough to comprehend.
To define a worldview, it is believing that absolute moral truth exists and that it is based on the Bible. To have a Christian worldview, Barna’s research listed six core beliefs:
- the accuracy of biblical teaching,
- the sinless nature of Jesus,
- the literal existence of Satan,
- the omnipotence and omniscience of God,
- salvation by grace alone,
- the personal responsibility to evangelize.
That was in 2004. In 2022, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University did another survey on this topic. They found that just slightly more than a third (37%) of evangelical pastors possess a biblical worldview, and the majority, 62%, hold a hybrid worldview known as Syncretism. Syncretism is the fusion of differing systems of belief. It is the blending of multiple and different belief systems. In 18 years, the percentage of Christian evangelical pastors with a Christian worldview dropped from half to a third.
The Remnant
There is a remnant of believers who want to be awake and help sound the trumpet of the soon return of Christ and the coming judgment on this world. There is a remnant of believers who want to connect with like-minded believers. The issue is that this group of remnant believers is often separated. They are mixed in with the 91% of adult churchgoers who do not hold to a Christian worldview.
The Tipping Point
Again, how did we get here? Was there a tipping point? Yes, there was. It was Covid-19 — when churches decided to close.
Many churchgoers have shared with me that when their churches did reopen, Wokism had become the new religion. Sermons dealing with current events were now messages incompatible with biblical Christianity. The themes switched to social justice and equality; the key phrase was that we had to be tolerant. The motto switched to, “Do not preach anything that will offend anyone.”
Not of the World
Years ago, the Seeker-Sensitive Movement compromised biblical values and truths and replaced them with entertainment. The trend was to offer whatever it took to get people to attend church. The focus was no longer on being salt and light. The focus was to make it loud, add colorful lighting, and focus on motivating, not correcting. Enough time has passed now that we know that that direction did not work.
I once had a professional rock-and-roll star share his view of the church being what it was not called to be. He received Jesus and started to attend church. He was shocked to find church services use fog machines, strobe lighting, and stadium sound systems. He told me he wasn’t attending church for a concert; he wanted to hear about Jesus and be taught the Bible. He said he wanted to yell at these churches and tell them to stop trying to be like the world. Besides, he said, churches stink at it anyway. That conversation was years ago, but his words still ring true.
Universalism
In this woke culture, churches need to stop preaching a Universalist view of salvation. Universalism promotes the idea that all people will be saved regardless of their beliefs. They need to stop using the word “diversity” all the time. Instead, we need to teach a literal interpretation of Scripture. We must stop straying away from the purity and truth of God’s Word.
Israel in the Pulpits
Since October 7th, Israel has been in the news, but not in the pulpits. Research shows that Amillennialism has become a prominent view. Scripture details that Christ will return to establish His Kingdom, which He will reign over for a literal thousand years. Amillennialism sees the thousand years as spiritual and non-literal. This teaching leads directly to Replacement Theology, which teaches that the Church has replaced Israel. That’s heresy! It seems some want the Kingdom without the King.
In 1 Timothy 4:1, the Holy Spirit says, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;” This prophecy of falling away is spoken to those in church, not those in the world.
In 2 Timothy 4:3-4, the Apostle Paul prophesied, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
David Bowen is a Teaching Evangelist for Lamb & Lion Ministries, co-host of the Christ In Prophecy television program, and the Founding and Senior Pastor of Standing Stones Community Church.
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