There has never been a year I wanted to be over more than 2020. I don’t need to recap this year nor remind anybody how awful this year as been. It wasn’t even March and most people were ready to toss their 2020 calendars into the garbage. But now that we have seemingly weathered out the storm that is called 2020, I’m not as relieved as I thought I would be. I wish I could write a positive message about closing out the year and looking forward to a better new year but I’m hindered. My spirit grieves because I sense we’re only in the calm of the storm and two, God has been trying to get our attention all year but many of us missed the message.
Earlier this year, God revealed to me that He was preparing America for a great spiritual harvest but the church isn’t ready to receive it. The reason is because the western church has fallen into a deep spiritual slumber. In 1959, Leonard Ravenhill published a book titled Why Revival Tarries. In Ravenhill’s book, he gave this warning to the church, “The tragedy of this late hour is that we have too many dead men in the pulpits giving out too many dead sermons to too many dead people.” If this statement was true 61 years ago, how much truer it is today!
I know a lot of Christians who have only ever attended one church their entire lives. I however have attended a handful of different churches in my lifetime. My mom raised my siblings and I in multiple churches but we didn’t church hop for the same reasons as most people do such as bitterness, drama, etc. My mom simply wanted to be where the presence of the Lord was. As soon as the glory of the Lord departed the church we were attending (Ichabod), she settled us into another church. Because of the way I was raised, I learned to spot the difference between a dead church and a church that truly has God’s presence. I also learned that staying in a dead church for too long makes people comfortable with stagnancy. The tragedy today is there aren’t very many churches where God is present because God has long departed many of them.
God’s presence is missing in many churches today because leadership wink at sin instead of putting it out of the house of God. I’m reminded of a celebrity pastor of a well-known megachurch in NYC who was recently caught committing adultery with multiple women. Instead of repenting, this pastor dismissed his sin as “pastoral burnout.” It’s a disgraceful thing but stories like this do not surprise me anymore because I’ve come to learn something about the modern church. Holiness is rarely the cry from the pulpit today because we do not have enough God fearing ministers. What we have instead are too many Eli and sons running our churches and many cannot discern that God isn’t talking! (1 Samuel 3:1). In fact, I cannot remember when was the last time I heard a sermon preached that I knew the message was birthed in the prayer closet and not from the Internet. We should be hearing from God regularly but instead we get sermons that are no different than self help books sold at the local bookstore and a gospel that is so watered down, the majority of those who attend church today have never been truly saved!
One of the greatest ironies concerning the church today is despite being more equipped with resources, the church is far less equipped with the Source than ever before.
I weep for the condition of the church because it’s so clear to me that we have fallen a long way from our roots. We’re not that same Holy Ghost empowered church of Acts that we once were so we have very little to offer to a perishing world. Many churches today are nothing more than knock-offs of secular institutions. Our namby-pamby missions statements are no different than those of fortune 500 companies. Our worship of God is no different than second-rate bands who make a livelihood performing in pubs and nightclubs. Our community is no different than the camaraderie one would expect to find in a service organization. What could we possibly offer to a world that desperately needs Jesus that they couldn’t already get from a Starbucks or a movie theater? The church is compromised and our compromise is the very reason God’s judgment has fallen upon us all.
In 2020, the majority of prayers offered to God went something like this, “Lord, put a stop to COVID-19 and heal our land from the civil unrest. Bring revival to our nation!” Nothing would give me greater joy than seeing revival breakout in America but there is a price to be paid.
“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 will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 NKJV
I placed an emphasis on the word “then” to show that revival is contingent upon God’s people turning from their wicked ways. There can be no revival without repentance. The reason revival hasn’t happened yet is because God’s people haven’t become broken over their sin yet. This was the message God has been trying to speak to His church all year – REPENT. The message was simple but the church missed it. The response to the church shutdowns earlier this year should have been prayer and repentance but the majority of churches overwhelmingly veered to live streaming and online giving in an attempt to circumvent the shakings. Many Christians failed to discern God has been shaking the nations with COVID-19 and attributed His judgment as a spiritual attack from Satan. Because the church missed God’s message in 2020 and because God’s correction was despised, the shakings will only be greater in 2021.
This certainly isn’t good news but I will end this blog on a positive note. Repentance is still on the table for 2021. It’s not too late to get things in order. Perhaps we missed the message for 2020 but let us not miss the message again this time around.
“See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.” Hebrews 12:25-27 NKJV
Joshua Hawk 