The theme is Wake Up America – sounds like a very emphatic call for the Church. Yet most of what I have viewed today has been about Cinco De Mayo or Holocaust Remembrance. While the latter to holidays are worthy in their own right, I find a disparaging problem with America even willing to Prayer, not just for the country, church or cultural environment, but to pray period.
Isaiah 58:1 is the theme verse “Cry loudly, do not hold back; raise your voice like a trumpet, And declare to My people their transgression, and to the house of Jacob their sins.” Obviously, the organizers have in mind a time of confession and repentance from known and secret sins, both for Israel, and the nations. But repentance happens individually. I am distraught with the cultural shift to unrestrained, unremorseful sinning for personal right and identity. I was talking with a pastor friend this week, I had to ask him, “is this the End of the Age?” He said something interesting, “I never expected things like this in my own time, but for my grandchildren’s time. I didn’t expect the change would happen so fast.”
This tells me that while he did expect a “falling away” he felt he would be okay. There is great forces of evil working and lurking over most of the world. An apathy has taken hold of people, where they just want to live out their days without fighting for what is biblical truth. The Church is a micro-cosmism of the culture, it saddens me that the Church isn’t more concerned about the Lost or the direction all of humanity is going. But rather wanting their own “felt needs” met at the expense of the generations that follow.
When I saw the theme Wake Up America, I immediately thought of Revelation 3:1-6, the church at Sardis. The dead church that thought it was alive. Jesus tells the Church to “Wake Up and strengthen that which remains, and which are about to die, for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God.” Pretty much the Church had started something but did not have the desire or motivation to finish the task. I think of the Great Commission as something the Church has fallen short of completing.
If like my pastor friend thinks that these are the Last Days, and the time is short, what manner of people ought the Church be? There should be a sense of urgency about us. We must declare the Gospel and the warning of God that He will come and judge the world. I know a lot of people talk about prayer, but many only talk about it. Those days have to be over – the believers of this age must intercede for the rest of humanity. Wake Up Church, let your voice be heard over the noise of the culture!
preachbetweenthelines 