Harmless Dynamite

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16)

I was reminded of something that I have been saying for a long time. Why does the proclamation of the Gospel seem not to bring the transformational power we see when we read the Bible or church history? Why do we appear to be plowing and sowing only on rocky grounds? Is our generation immune to the Gospel or we are presenting a faulty gospel, a gospel that does not activate the dynamite that is the product of the Gospel of the kingdom of God?

Where I come from, there is a market centre that can be called ancient as it had shops in 1900; yet it is still a small market centre, but with more and bigger buildings.

Some years ago I had a workshop on the circumference of the centre and so saw everything that was going on.

Incidentally, there was no weekend that lacked a crusade where the Gospel was proclaimed. It seemed as if the churches around the area and even from afar had a timetable to ensure that the market was saturated with the Gospel. There were times when the crusades went for weeks, every day of the week.

Sadly, the people who got saved were the same. But the churches would not know as each was focused on their ‘harvest’. I remember this former classmate of mine who always came drunk and would repent and get saved, only to repeat the same performance when another team came. Nothing in that centre changed, from morality to petty envies despite all that saturation with the Gospel.

Some time ago I moved to a place outside the city and have discovered a similar trait. There are very many crusades yet the area can be described as unreached if you looked at the residents, especially the natives. And there are very many churches; some so big you wonder who fills them considering the state of the residents.

What are we proclaiming as the Gospel? How are we proclaiming it? What is our spiritual state when we are proclaiming it? And what is the church according to our definitions?

Why is our country sinking to witchcraft to solve sin problems? Why doesn’t it shock us that people are turning to witchcraft to deal with infidelity, theft, insecurity? Does it mean that we fear the devil more than we fear God?

Some time ago there was an article about this wealthy witch. For me the shocking thing was that she was a member of a church. How is that even possible? But don’t we hear of pastors and bishops who look for drawing power from the other side? This is a really sad state of affairs.

A friend recently told me of his passion to remove witchdoctors’ posters on posts for a long time. If you are not aware one amazing thing is that you will find those posters in places where posters are forbidden and are an eyesore and you wonder whether city councils are also scared of witches as they will arrest any owner of any other poster not paid for, but not those, and they all have a phone contact.

Anyway my friend took it upon himself to be removing them when he found them in his way. Then one day he looked closely at Gospel crusade posters and was shocked to discover that they promised the same reliefs (services) as those of the witchdoctors.

I also remember once seeing a church in a slum I visited that had on its wall almost word for word services advertised by witchdoctors, but this time advertised as ministry.

I also recently read about the oldest harlot in the city in another paper. Interesting enough she was reported to be a very staunch Christian who never failed to attend church on Sunday.

We have the latest fad where ‘worship leaders’ take their worship events in bars at night with the entry requirement (charges) being beer.

I am not even talking about the openly homosexual clergy and worship leaders who see no problem with their lifestyle. Or the tenderpreneurs whose commitment to church and its ministry is limited to the amount of money they get in the deals involving the church or ministry that they broker. Or the ministry heads who will bless any business provided it has a package for him to activate that prayer and blessing.

How does an elder/ deacon run a bar and probably a brothel and not even blush when he is sitting on the front pews, even leading programs and ministries in church? How does a pastor not feel ashamed in front of the congregation when he knows he has broken a marriage by sleeping with a member’s spouse? Where does a preacher gather the courage to preach when he knows he has neglected his pastoral responsibilities to the extent that some things and relationships are falling or have even fallen apart?

Where did conviction disappear to? Where did the clear Gospel message that made people fall exclaiming ‘what must I do to be saved?’ disappear to?

What would God say if we gave Him the chance to define our spiritual state? Are we even interested to know whether He even has an opinion on the same?

I am just asking a question so that we can prayerfully seek God for a solution. And we must be ready to shed anything God points us to.

Let us pray that God sheds light to our eyes concerning the Gospel because it is the Gospel of His kingdom. Otherwise we may be peddling another gospel, a gospel whose reward is eternal lostness.

Ananias and his wife died because they exaggerated their giving. Herod rotted as he stood because he was deified for his excellence. Barjesus became blind for trying to obstruct the presentation of the Gospel. And of course miracles happened when the Gospel was presented and received.

Why don’t we have that in our presentation?

I am not condemning all Christendom. I just want to state that the church of Christ is not the church as we know it. Yes, His remnant is in those structures. But we must seek to seek to know whether we are that remnant or not. We could be filling the rolls of a membership that Christ does not recognize, numbers that are opposed to His agenda of winning the world to Himself.

And I hope you realize that as the days of His return draw near, the church structures will for the most part be answerable to the antichrist. Otherwise what does this mean?

For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. (Matthew 24:24)

Or this?

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. (John 16:2)

Could we be living in the times of the false prophet without realizing? Could we be raising worshippers of other gods to lead in our worship of the true God?

Once again, out of deep concern I will ask. What is the true Gospel, the Gospel of the kingdom that Christ promised? And why are we not looking to the Bible to define it?

Does my life reflect the transformation of the Gospel?