Sound Familiar?

Sound Familiar?

“The chief danger of the twentieth century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, and heaven without hell.” William Booth founder of the Salvation Army

These words from William Booth sound very familiar to me. Don’t they sound familiar to you? William Booth was not known for his prophetic utterances but more for the fiery and passionate preaching. Yet this list could be straight from a handbook of current church practices in the 21^st century. The phrases read like a medical report on the state of health of the present day church.

Religion without the Holy Ghost is like trying to make bread with no yeast. Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. How on earth can so many churches remember Him in name only? How can they refuse the Helper’s help? How can they deny His gifts and His baptism? Life without Holy Spirit is as unthinkable to me as it was to the first church. He is indispensible and His role in our lives is both undeniable and impossible to over-estimate.

Christianity without Christ is a new phenomenon which only those who practice it may be able to explain. Christ IS Christianity. Christianity IS Christ. To hear and read about this form of religion, I cannot dignify it as a form of Christianity, is apostate at best and blasphemous at worst. Yet there is a church movement that refuses to allow its missionaries and chaplains to pray or preach the Name of Jesus – it is offensive.

Forgiveness without repentance is part of the watered down Gospel being peddled as what I would call “The Easy Christianity Movement”. Repentance is too hard so let us preach salvation without repentance and forgiveness of sin without repentance or remorse or even any expression of slight regret. They say, “God is a merciful God and He wouldn’t be so unkind as to refuse to forgive someone if they turn to Him?” Acts 2:38 says “Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. “

Salvation without regeneration is  not a new although it is much more prevalent than it used to be. I am unsure as to how a person can receive salvation and not change, but it happens. Some say they receive it just to be accepted, some for reasons best known to themselves. Either way, there are those who do not truly receive it in their hearts and that is just so very sad.

Heaven without hell. Here’s an interesting one for you. When was the last time anyone spoke to you or preached about hell? Hell has almost become a taboo subject – not to be spoken of as it offends, or worse, scares people away from church. Yet the Bible teaches very clearly all about hell. The Bible speaks of fire and brimstone, of eternity spent in the flames of hell, of the punishment for ignoring God’s Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. How can we not teach people about hell? So much is spoken about heaven, about no more pain, nor tears, nor illness. Yet we do not tell about the consequences of not going to heaven????

This is a shameful list. I would only comment that it has always been thus. We have always tried to ignore the Holy Spirit because we do not know Him. The person of Jesus Christ has recently been pushed further and further into the background – reduced in importance or marginalised into insignificance. Repentance has all but been removed from our evangelism and theology as we seek to bring in the lost at zero cost to them but at too high a price for God. Salvation without a change of life is the result of false or no repentance, and that hell doesn’t even exist is one of Satan’s great lies. All of this is an abomination to the Lord, and Booth was right except he put too short a timescale on it.

It is time to clean up our act; to get right with God the way He asks us; to be the church as Jesus wants us to be.