Chapter 1 

The Alarming Condition of the Church Today

  We are now living in the time of the great falling way: "Let no man deceived you by any means: for that day (the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ) shall not come, except there come a falling away first" (2 Thess. 2:3).

  “Falling away” simply means that people turn away from faith in God and begin trusting other things. These other things become idols in their hearts, “golden calves” which they depend upon to lead them through this life and then into heaven. People who have fallen away begin calling something church that is not the church. They begin calling people Christians who are not Christians. Almost every funeral service is preached today as though the person who died has gone to heaven.  But the Bible says, “straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which lead to life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 4:17).

 When the children of Israel saw that Moses, their leader whom God had chosen for them, delayed in coming down from the mountain, they tore off their golden earrings and brought them to Aaron. “And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt” (Ex. 32:4).  

 The fleshly hearts of the children of Israel needed a god they could see with their eyes and a god who did not impose disciplines upon them. Then they could fulfill their fleshly lusts and be religious, too. So it is today.

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Ch. 1

Traditions Replaced the Word of God  

 Many of the churches and denominations of today began as genuine movements of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit moved Martin Luther through the Word of God as he received a fresh word from God for his day. As this “new light” was spreading, more and more people saw the same truths that Luther had seen. These people gathered around this light and treated it as if it were the whole gospel.

 The result was the formation of a new religious structure, both in doctrine and organization, which later became the Lutheran denomination. Generally speaking, those who follow Luther will accept only the light he had. The amazing truth is that if Martin Luther were alive today, he would be diligently seeking for more light from the Word of God. Almost every religious structure in existence today began in this same way.

 Many of the traditions developed by religious structures were started with good motives. Through the years they have become so ritualized that the Holy Spirit can rarely work through them any longer.

 For example the “mourner’s bench” was used by the Holy Spirit during the ministry of Charles Finney.  People would come in repentance and prayer to seek for God for hours or days, until their hearts were changed by the Spirit and power of God. After that the Salvation Army used the mourner’s bench as they called multitudes to repentance. Today “walking the aisle” or “raising your hand” has replaced the mourner’s bench and people “pray the sinners prayer” to be saved, but it is seldom that you see brokenness over sin and true heart repentance in those who come to join the church.

 The hearts of unsaved church members by the millions blindly trust their church doctrines and programs, which have become their idols (golden calves), to lead them to heaven.  By so doing they have blinded themselves to many of the truths of God’s Word.

 People whose hearts are set on pleasing their flesh nature need a physical, tangible God. Today this need is fulfilled through a form of godliness manifested by many religious organizations. These, like Aaron’s golden calf, have been fashioned by the hands of religious leaders of the past to please men, and are protected by the religious leaders today.

 The hearts of the people are captured by partial truths and religious slogans. Years of teaching Scriptures that fit into a doctrinal structure have blinded them to the other parts of the Gospel and have given them to the other parts of the Gospel and have given them a false security. They can only see in the Bible the parts of the Bible that fit into their particular structure. Like the Pharisees, they are offended when they hear the other parts of the Bible.

 When the Word of God is resisted, Jesus becomes a rock of offense and a stumbling stone! “The stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them which stumble at the word” (1 Pet. 2:7,8).

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