Mission Venture Ministries

Sadly, many pastors are exchanging truth for passivity, boldness for cowardliness, and conviction for comfort; they are not anxious to teach righteousness. The goal of a great majority is to be motivational speakers rather than preachers of righteousness.

We need to understand that in the church, the pulpit regulates the spiritual condition of God’s people which affects the nation. Therefore, a lukewarm, sex-saturated culture in the church reflects the lack of conviction in the pulpit.

Pastors and Christian leaders alike must take responsibility for the spiritual health of today’s church, and the nation. We don’t need more marketing plans, demographic studies, how to dazzle the congregation on Sunday morning, or whatever your church is doing; we need men filled with the Spirit of God.

Pastors must be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit and have the courage to expose hypocrisy, pride, and rebellion in the church. They are called to teach God’s Word and convict the flock, so that godly change takes place. There are some good pastors and churches, but, as a whole, the church has drifted off course. They have lost the scope of truth.

Let’s look at some points:

If a pastor fills his mind with the world all week and expects the Spirit of God to speak boldly through him from the pulpit, he will be gravely mistaken. “The sermon cannot rise in its life-giving forces above the man. Dead men give out dead sermons, and dead sermons kill. Everything depends on the spiritual character of the preacher” (E.M. Bounds). The person he is all week, is who he will be when he steps on the pulpit.

Secondly, without prayer, “the church becomes a graveyard, not an army equipped for battle. Praise and prayer are stifled and worship is dead. Therefore, without prayer, the preacher creates death and not life” (E.M. Bounds).

God brings great change, when prayer is the catalyst.

The boring and dead condition or the need for an egocentric performance in the church simply reflects an ineffective and week prayer life. We need powerful times of prayer, devotion, and worship. “Without the heartbeat of prayer, the body of Christ will resemble a corpse. The church is dying on her feet because she is not living on her knees” (Al Whittinghill).

Sermons should not come from popular psychology and the latest fad; they must come from the prayer closet where God prepares the messenger, before a godly pastor is led by the Spirit to the message he needs to convey. Pastors, church leaders, Sunday school teachers and worship leaders need to unplug the TV, turn off Facebook, and get back into the Word of God, prayer, and worship before leading the flock. A pastor or any church leader who does not take time to pray is not prepared to preach or to teach.

In worship, many sing “about” God but they have never truly experienced Him; they have head knowledge lacking the most vital one, which is heart knowledge. The main point is that all worship needs to be centered on God, and must be doctrinally sound for people to have a time to exalt their Creator and Savior.

God honoring worship is extremely powerful and allows us to shift our focus and praise toward God. The issue is: are you truly worshipping God in “spirit and in truth”? He is the Creator of heaven and earth. He is not a cosmic force, a universal love; He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We must worship Him in the most humble and honorable way, since He created, redeemed, and saved us. Worship is honoring God and not the performance of a secular show.

So many of our worship services today put emphasis on the music. The acoustic, sound system and worship leaders are the ones who end up being the focus of attention, and people do not come to the Lord with humble and true devotion. There are churches that have few of these things, but where people truly worship the Lord with a humble and devoted heart. God could care less if we have the latest sound system and the best worship teams if we do not come to worship Him from our hearts.

Our outward worship is not what God wants. Great worship services are not necessarily what God desires. We think we are pleasing God by holding worship services that are great in the eyes of men. Yet, God may not be pleased with our worship services at all. The Bible condemns worship services that are not what God wants. Listen to what God says in Amos 5:21-24 – “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” God is more interested in our heart devotion to Him and our obedience to His Word than He is in our offerings and songs. We may have all kinds of praise songs and gifted song leaders and a great variety of musical instruments and the latest in sound and projection systems. We may have all of that with lively worship services but unless our hearts are devoted to the Lord and we are walking in obedience to Him, all of this is useless.

The church can also not allow water-down sermons that avoid preaching sin, repentance, or the fear of the Lord in the hope of not offending or securing an audience. Truth often offends, and rightly so, it should be a wake up call to sinners that are on their way to the Lake of fire before it is too late.

The goal of preaching truths is faithfulness to God, not crowd appeal. Let it not be said of us today: And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord (Judges 2:10), because pastors failed to be preachers of righteousness. Remember, the burden of responsibility rests directly upon the pastor’s shoulders.

Only when the church finally acknowledges sin, can they begin the journey back to the place God has reserved for us. However, when the church looses the fear of God, they loose the power of God. And at that point, as it says in Isaiah 29:13, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”

Remember Jesus’ warning to the church of Laodicea:  “These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent” (Revelations 3:14-19)

If your church is failing God’s word says: “Therefore tell the people: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 1:3).

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