"I feel like we are salesmen today and the reason is we do not pray. Everybody today is an echo. They go to a conference to hear what everybody else is saying, and then repeat it. But brother Dave Wilkerson was intimate with God, and that's what allowed him to be a voice." ( Pastor Tim Dilena, Brooklyn Tabernacle Church)
" Very few people are lifting their voices. All of the statistics prove, that by every measurable parameter, the Christian church is sinking. Part of the problem is what we have been fed for the last ten, fifteen, twenty years-the focus on church growth, on being user friendly, seeker sensitive. All that has opened the door to unbiblical teaching, just shallow nonsense. It's resulted in getting away from prayer, away from the Gospel, away from loving people of all races, away from dependence upon the Holy Spirit. My editor asks, " where are the Tozers, the David Wilkersons who'll say in love " that is wrong." (Jim Cymbala, senior pastor, Brooklyn Tabernacle)
Now why is Christendom sinking, what are these pastors talking about? They identify echo chambers and a lack of prayer meetings. They identify a lack of any real reliance on the Holy Spirit. Going to conference after conference and learning nothing. Their editors bemoan the lack of people like Tozer and Wilkerson, men who were more afraid of God than they were of men. Men who were not trying to build a kingdom of their own but simply walking out the Kingdom of God.
Christendom today is, for the most part, voiceless. There is not a single voice on the national stage that is a fearless voice, a voice that has heard from God and is unafraid to speak what he has heard. A voice that seeks no political influence nor is concerned with their own ministries or money or pleasing the people, in other words, a prophetic voice. All day long men will give you their political opinions and it is often tied to raising money, but where are the men with fresh fire from the altar of God?
Men hold onto their reins in their ministries so tightly that there is no room for God to speak. The Holy Spirit has been displaced and the church has plunged headlong into disaster. To most the change has taken place slowly enough to be like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water. A prophetic voice feels the burn, sees the consequences, shouts from the rooftops, to get out of the pot. That voice is full of love and passion and compassion and a sheer doggedness that most generations would have struggled with them.This generation cannot handle them on any level because their ears have been tickled for so long.They have been so drowned in worldliness that they must shut them down.This voice that pierces through the grey dimness that passes for light, that speaks to the bone and the marrow is missing and we should cry out to God that He would raise up such a voice and that He would remove every barrier to it being heard.
My advice to the younger generations of pastors and leaders is to yield. Step back. Discover the glory of allowing Jesus to be preeminent in your meetings. It will be the scariest thing you have ever done but to those who can hear, you know that your congregation is without power, it is without glory and has not bowed in reverential awe to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You know there has been no sowing in tears. You know there has been no agonizing and prevailing in prayer. Now that you know this, then why go a minute longer without addressing this head on.
Do you want to be the pastor of a religious club? Do you want to be the leader of a social work department? Or do you want the glory? Do you want it so badly that you are willing to shut down every activity not birthed and sustained in the presence of His majesty? May God find just a few men willing to lay aside everything they think they know and invite God back. He will not ignore such a plea from hearts wide open and fully given to His glory and honor. Lord Jesus, help us to stand again in this evil day and help us to be thorn in the flesh of our enemy and be what we have been called to be, more than conquerors in Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour forever............bro Frank |