Church Sins

A Yet Worse Sin

My recent blog was about what seem to me to be the Church’s besetting sins of lack of love, judgementalism, and gossip. As I published that blog, I thought I heard the Lord asking if these are the greatest sins of the Church? “Is there not another that is yet worse than all the others?” As we all know, there are many sins in the Church – but worse than these??

It does appear to me that the Church may have one failing greater than all the others added together. (Please note I am spelling the word ‘Church’ with a capital ‘C’ denoting the Church at large and not any individual church or body of believers). With very few exceptions, I believe that the Church is failing, and has indeed failed, in the area of the Great Commission! I can hear the shock waves thundering through the Church already. “Failing in the Great Commission – Never – It cannot be so.” Sadly, I believe it is so.

Mark 16:15-19 NIV “He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” ‘

“Go into all the world . . .” ‘GO’, when most churches expect people to come to them. “All are welcome”, they say. Very few of them take the gospel outside their own front door, and those that do are ostracised as ‘fanatics’.

“Preach the good news . . .” – I think it was in 2007, statistics showed that in the huge majority of churches throughout the Western world, the Gospel was never preached once. Theology was preached – politics was preached – Bible teaching was preached – but not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. One of the few things to make my faith soar is to hear the Gospel preached with love and with passion – a passion for the millions of lost souls right outside our front doors.

“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Once again, let me ask you – How many salvations were there in your church this past year? In thousands upon thousands of churches throughout the world last year, there were ZERO – NONE – NIL – no salvations perhaps for years and years. Why is this I wonder? Perhaps it is because we no longer preach the Gospel. Even when we do it is to our own people inside the church and hardly ever to those outside our walls.

“In my name they will drive out demons; “ I could almost write a book on this topic alone. Statement of fact – the Church in general, please hear me on this, the Church in general knows very little about the deliverance ministry and, for the most part, is actually frightened by it.

“They will speak in new tongues; “ Somewhat surprisingly, to me at least, is the fact that much of the Church still believes that speaking in tongues is of the devil or at least something that died out with the early church. I was confronted recently by a house-to-house church team who roundly condemned me for being Pentecostal and especially for speaking in tongues.

“they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Another ministry the Church at large does not practice nor even particularly believe in.

With all these huge gaps in their ministry how can the Church be fulfilling the Great Commission. The trouble is, it seems to me, that individual churches pick and choose those parts of the Great Commission that they will believe, and preach, and act upon based purely on a whim, or maybe their denominational beliefs.

Here’s an interesting question for you. These churches that don’t teach these things from the great commission – who choose only those parts of it that suit their purposes - are they teaching and mis-leading their flock close to, or even into hell? Interesting question indeed.

In my next few blogs I may try to outline the biblical relevance of tongues and interpretation, of healing, and of deliverance ministries for today’s church – maybe even touching on other gifts of the Spirit too like words of knowledge, the gift of faith, and the gift of wisdom.

Watch this space :-)