God’s righteous judgment will begin in the church…
God won’t judge lust in the culture until we’ve dealt with lust in the church.
34% of women, 37% of pastors, an around 65% of men in the church currently struggle with or intentionally access pornography. Pastoral stats are about the same.
God won’t judge abortion in our culture until we have dealt with abortion in the church.
The Alan Guttmacher Institute reports that 43% of aborting women identify themselves as Protestant, while 27% identify themselves as Catholic. That’s 70% of all abortions in the U.S. The best place to protest, pray and offer counsel is close to churches.
God won’t judge sexual sin in the culture until we have dealt with sexual sin in the church.
Approximately 45 percent of Christians indicate having done something sexually inappropriate, and 23 percent having sex outside of marriage. The church has its own #metoo movement right now.
Since 1993, about 2.4 million young people have signed a TLW pledge. Just 12 percent kept their promise. The rates for having sexually transmitted diseases "were almost identical for the teenagers who took pledges and those who did not."
“For the last twenty years, thousands of men from across America struggling with sexual sin have come to our intensive counseling workshop. Over half were pastors and missionaries.” – Harry Schaumburg, “Sexual Sin In The Ministry”
God won’t judge materialism and greed in the culture until we have dealt with materialism and greed in the church.
“Meaning and purpose comes from working hard to earn as much as possible so you can make the most of life.” This is a view held by one-fifth of practicing Christians (20%); it’s held by 37% of those under 40.”
"Today, on average, evangelicals in the U.S. give about 4% to the church. In 2002, Barna discovered that only 6 % of born-again adults did so—a 50 percent decline from 2000, when 12 percent did. And in 2002, just 9 percent of Barna's narrow class of evangelicals gave to the church.” So, 9% give an average of 4%.
God won’t judge gossip and lies in the culture until we have dealt with gossip and lies in the church.
I am pretty sure I have seen just as much fake news spread on social media by Christians than by non-Christians. We seem eager to want the worst to be true of others, and we have no problem distorting facts or fabricating them to further our agenda.
God won’t judge the vulgarity and the coarseness of our culture until we have dealt with vulgarity and coarseness in the church.
The White House Correspondent’s roast was disrespectful and demeaning to our President and his administration (as well as a lot of other people). Our President has been just as offensive in his disrespect and demeaning of others. Why would Christians decry one and not the other when God is displeased with both? If judgment is going to begin about what people enable or even applaud in our culture, let it begin with what people of God defend and applaud.
I hear a lot of discussion about how our nation is increasingly offering legal challenges to Christian actions and morality. Even as President Trump appoints more professing Christians to political positions than any other President and issues 25 page memos from the Justice Department on religious freedom, we seem to be losing ground in how people view us and how our rights play out.
My opinion – and it’s just my opinion – is that the OT gives us insight meant for us today. God will get His people’s attention, even if He has to use Babylon as the means to do so. If there is to be judgment, it will begin in His people, and it will begin in His Temple, with His priests. And the church is the temple, and we are all priests.
“If my people….” We love that verse in 2 Chronicles 7. It’s worth noting there are two “if’s”. This was for Israel and Solomon, but I think there is a broader, timeless principles worth noting. God cannot and will not bless unholiness in His people. As we read, think of Israel as Christians, the temple as the ‘church’, and the land as their ‘sphere of influence’ or reputation:
19 “But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given youand go off to serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 21 This temple will become a heap of rubble. Allwho pass by will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 22 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them.’”
“13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.”
