Month: August 2014

I believe that it was Vance Havner who said, “Every revival begins in a cave, and ends in a cathedral.”  It is a succinct way of saying that no great move of God is going to last.  History proves that this is the truth.  Long ago I watched film by Luis Palau entitled, “God Has No Grandchildren.”  It was about the 1904 Wales revival.  The Wales revival was so powerful that the populations of entire cities were saved.  Jails were unused, pubs were closed from lack of customers, and the police force was idle.  So accustomed were the animals to vulgarity that miners and other ones had difficulty getting their horses and mules to respond.  Years later, Palau went to Wales to discover how the revival had fared and found only symbolic remnants.  Among the remnants were churches that had become pubs now frequented by drunken soccer fans.  Linked arm in arm, they swayed back and forth while singing their team’s victory song to the tune of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”

We should not be surprised today at the many denominations that appear on the brink or in the clutches of full blown apostasy.  Neither should we desire to stay in those denominations in order to retain the trappings.  The people of God who are determined not to sink into the mire of compromise and sin do not get to keep the “cathedral” when apostasy arrives.  As always, they must go back to the “cave” and start all over.  The common mistake is for the remnant to believe that when revival dies they will somehow keep the “cathedral” and all its earthly benefits.  They are convinced that against all odds they will manage to fan the flames of revival back to life.  Unwittingly, they shift the focus of the battle from defending and maintaining the truth to fighting for rights to the “cathedral”.  The question looms; if they were not capable of keeping spiritual death from coming in, how are they now strong enough to force it out?

Truly, God has no grandchildren.  Every generation needs its own revival.   I’ve come to the conclusion that a true revival needs a “cave”.  There is something about faith that makes it work best from the point of need rather than from a position of sufficiency.  It may well be the reason why God calls “the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty”(1Corinthians 1:27).  Apostasy seldom if ever breaks out in a “cave”.  But faith thrives there.  We are stripped of our sufficiency in the “cave”.  It is a place of recognizing and understanding our inadequacies and our dependency upon God.  The “cathedral” is quite otherwise.

But how does revival die?  Is it simply because we move from the “cave” to the “cathedral”?  Of course not.  As revival bears fruit, and souls are added, the “cave” becomes too small and inconvenient for us.  We gradually move into the “cathedral” singing “Victory in Jesus” as we go.  Everything is fine until the generation upon whom revival had fallen passes on.  Generation cedes control to generation until a generation (usually the third one) takes control that never knew God supernaturally.  They know much about God, but they have no relationship with Him.  The proof is that the leaders of that generation always attempt to know God through unbiblical means and methods.  They insist with absolutely no biblical evidence that it is not the way the ancestors would do it, that God has commissioned them to do it differently.  We are seeing that paradigm today as denominational leaders delve into Contemplative Spirituality and other pagan practices while claiming a greater experience with God.  Shamelessly, they court demons, dismantle every godly landmark, discard sacred truth, and call it new and improved Christianity.

Of all people who stand before God on Judgment Day, I would not want to be the ones who refused to revisit the “cave” and that killed revival in the “cathedral”.  Those people always surface when the fire of revival grows lukewarm or cold.  It is proof that no matter how evil, how bizarre, how apostate, or destructive Satan’s plan is, there are always people standing ready to accept the job at the price offered.  All they need is the support of enough people to secure their positions.  The truth is that there are always enough lukewarm or cold professing Christians to give them authority over the masses.

Today, God is sending out a call; “Would you forsake everything to follow Me?”  Satan is also sending out a call; “Will you join me in uniting the world’s religions?”  The people who were born in revival answer “yes” to God’s call.  Their answer requires full surrender.  The ones that were born in the religious doldrums of Laodicean lukewarmness are excitedly answering Satan’s call.  Their answer requires compromise.  It is the classic and time-honored battle between the “cave” and the “cathedral”, between the old paths and a way that seems right unto men (Proverbs 16:25).  Every true Christian has to decide if they can let go of the “cathedral” and, as Elijah did, meet God in the “cave”.  It’s a simple but often difficult choice; requiring one to wash with tears of repentance the glitter of the “cathedral” from his or her eyes.

When Lot’s family were fleeing God’s judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, the only factor that could prevent their complete deliverance would be to look back.  Lot’s wife could not help herself and was destroyed. It is the same type of choice true Christians have to make today.  Will we stay in the “cathedral” and die, or will we with total abandon to God flee from its apostasy and soon to arrive judgment and not look back?

Vance Havner made another statement that is relevant here.  He said, “I was born in the fire, and I’m not about to die in the smoke.”  I pray, “Father God, kindle in us a fiery heat that burns out the chaff and every other thing that hinders Your will in our lives!”  If He is calling us to meet Him in the “cave” again, then to the “cave” we must go.  It is there that we will hear His still, small voice and receive a fresh commission.  In the “cathedral” we will only join the march of those that have aligned their compasses to the path of apostasy.

When I first heard of the Seeker Friendly Willow Creek church, I was baffled that something so wrong could be accepted as true Christianity.  Next came the Emergent church that appeared to take the church growth philosophy of the Seeker Friendly movement to its next logical step.  The conclusion is a brand of Universalism that even declares salvation for cults and other false religions.  Now there are mega churches that form their own belief systems.  Some of those belief systems faintly resemble Christianity while other ones are far outside the boundaries.  It finally dawned on me how and why these aberrations have occurred.

We could blame it all on Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and other heretics, and they well deserve some of the blame.  But the bulk of the blame lies upon people that never made it into the spotlight.  Most Christians have never heard of them and would not recognize their faces if they saw them.  However, almost everyone would recognize their work.  They were the shadow leadership in churches that nudged them into the latest fads and concepts of church growth.  However, the ground for these flawed ideas was laid by a reduction of reliance upon the Holy Spirit, and a decision that God would no longer add to the church daily such as should be saved (Acts 2:47).

First, a false premise surfaced that the Gospel preached under the anointing would not attract children and young people; that they would not understand or respond to it.  That premise led to the belief that children and young people had to be drawn into the church meetings by other means.  There were many gimmicks employed including attendance contests and handing out free gifts.   However, there were individuals, some that worked in denominational headquarters and other ones that were free lance writers, who initiated a plan.  They had decided that children and youth should not attend the adult meetings.  That was the first and greatest mistake.  It was a spiritually fatal blow to the next generations of leadership in evangelical fundamentalist churches.  I cannot speak to the effect it may have had on the liturgical and other stoic churches where seldom anything spiritual occurred in the adult meeting.  Most of those churches produced biological Christians that simply inherited religion from their parents and/or grandparents.  However, it had a negative and lasting effect on churches where truth was preached, where God met repentant souls at altars, and lives were changed by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel.

Obsessed with church attendance, these pencil-pushers and denominational hirelings convinced most pastors that numerical value superseded or at least equaled spiritual quality.  The concept was that more children would come if church was more attractive, fun, exciting and entertaining, and the adults would follow.  They decided that the “Sesame Street” presentation of the Gospel was the best way to reach them.  Thus, millions of children and youth were subjected to literature and programs written by people whose goal was to sell books, or whose jobs were dependent on an increase in the annual statistics.  They reduced the Bible to puppets and cartoon stories.  Christ also became a cartoon figure.  And then there were the fun and games with the customary sugared treat at the end.  However, the day that the children and youth were ushered out of the main service and into separate rooms or buildings was the day they were unwittingly given over to mediocrity and shallowness.  I must be clear that although many children and youth ministries committed this error, not all of them did.  Another disclaimer is that for very young children, that method of teaching may well have been appropriate.

However, the mediocrity and shallowness continued.  In fact, they were never deemed ready for the main service.  After several years in that paltry mire, the children graduated to Youth church.  Youth church was about more fun and games with a benign and diluted gospel that convicted no one.  In many Youth churches they learned that Christianity was cool, and there was no need to change anything to become a Christian.  They developed their own music based on what they were listening to from the world.  They formed their own doctrines, and consequently their own non-offensive soteriology based on what fit in with the world system.  Nothing they heard in Youth church fed them, strengthened, or equipped them spiritually.  Their belief systems remained in flux throughout their participation in Youth church.   Consequently, not only did they never possess a strong faith, they never had a salvation experience.  Like most liturgical professing Christians, they were simply biological Christians without the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

Meanwhile, there was/is an angry and vicious world waiting to rip apart their weakly held belief in Christ and God. The consequences are that many of those young people abandoned Christianity after high school.  Many of the ones that went to college became agnostic or atheistic.  The ones that later on began attending church meetings again usually wandered into a Seeker-Friendly, Emergent, or “launch” churches that were based on the same paradigm. Consequently, they regularly hear a diluted and mixed gospel that they can easily accept, but that does not lead them into a relationship with the biblical Christ.

The ramification of replacing the anointed teaching and preaching of God’s word with entertainment, pabulum, and sensationalism, and even heresy, is that it completely altered the biblical paradigm of Christianity.  Now that generation has reached adulthood and is in control of most of Christianity.   It is no wonder that they have broken with true Christianity and are systematically rejecting time-honored biblical doctrine and practices.  They have never heard, witnessed, or experienced any of it.  What they are now doing is based on their experiences in children and youth ministry.  The driving motivation behind their dilution of truth seems to be to make the word of God palatable to people that do not really want Him, and to form ecumenical alliances with cults and other false religions.  It is what they have known all their religious lives.  Most of them have never had a salvation experience or witnessed anyone else being saved.  They have no relationship with God, and have never seen a demonstration of His power. They have no clue as to the divine continuum of Christianity, which explains why they so easily discard the truth that so many martyrs gave their lives rather than to deny.  In the place of rejected truth, they have inserted bizarre heresy and even pagan practices.  The seeds of altered, mingled, and mangled truth were planted in them long ago.  Those seeds have now become the Seeker Friendly and Emergent Movements and more.  It is the New Christianity and it is mostly apostate.

I have no doubt that cartoons and simplified Bible stories have some benefit for very young children.  However, children and youth meetings should have more of a supplemental role rather than being the sole or even primary source of spiritual input.  As they age, children must be taught the fundamentals of God’s truth in a more meaningful way.  Just as in public education, the teaching ought to mature as the student’s cognitive skills increase.  When they are old enough to rationalize and understand the difference between right and wrong, they are old enough to remain in the main service.  I remember (and other Christians my age and older will remember) when children and young people came to the altars during the main service and were genuinely saved.  In fact, revivals have broken out among the youth that revitalized entire churches.

There is no way that young people today can be ready to take their positions as church leaders when they have never experienced true Christianity.  However, they have stepped into leadership.  The results have to date been tragic in most cases.  One can only wonder how much worse it will become.  After all, the present generations of professing Christians were completely severed from its roots.  It has gone about to establish a completely different religion leaning lightly on the Bible and loosely called Christianity.  The truth is that it is a logical continuation of children and youth ministries that engendered a doctrinal system that none of the great Christians past would have tolerated from the pulpit.  It is tolerated today by the church-attending masses that have never known God, but are convinced that they know Him.  Deceived and under a delusion, some of their leaders appear to be following the god of this world.

It is up to each parent to make certain that their children are not trained to follow these pied pipers of Hades.  A good plan would be to teach their children the truth at home and find a church where they still allow children and young people to attend the main service.