Judgment is Coming

So many are groaning about the increasing persecution of the churches and Christianity in our country in these Last Days. I would suggest to you the complacency in the pews have not only accepted but demanded the wimpishness in the pulpits coupled with false teaching and preaching even as prophesied to come by the Apostle Paul to his son in the faith Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3 & 4:

 

 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

 

I have been preaching that at every ordination service I have been invited to participate in for nearly thirty years.

 

                How many demand wimpy preaching that must not offend, where hearers feel they have been ill-used if the sermon goes over twenty minutes; runs past the noon hour, or effects their place in line at the local restaurant. How many have attended travesties called prayer meetings where one forgettable “Polly wants a cracker” general prayer is uttered for the sick and shut-in to be followed by ridiculous ill prepared talk about some Bible passage?

 

                Let me share with you the first prayer uttered in the Continental Congress of the United States by Jacob Duche’ the rector of Christ Church in Philadelphia at 9a.m. 7 September 1774:[i]

 

“O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their Cause and if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, of own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle! 

 

Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that order, harmony and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.”

 

                I submit to you that if we had more praying like that to begin our solemn assemblies in the House of God we would have less problems in the Nation today. But this was not even a church meeting but the conduct of the critical business of seeking the sort of freedom they believed God would have His people to possess. If the Presbyterian Church has men who prayed like that today perhaps it would not be turning against Israel and tolerating all manner of evil to be creeping in! But then they are but one of the religious bodies that have left their first love in America!