Message for Sunday Morning, July 11, 2010 Christian Hope Church of Christ, Plymouth, North Carolina by Reggie A. Braziel, Minister Three Deadly Trends in Today s Church II Timothy 4:1-5 READ: II Timothy 4:1-5 P R A Y E R ***************** INTRODUCTION I want to draw your attention to VERSES 3, 4 of our scripture text once again. 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. These were the very last words written by the Apostle Paul just before he was martyred. It is interesting that Paul s last words were NOT written to a CHURCH, but rather to a young preacher of the gospel named, TIMOTHY. In VERSES 3, 4 Paul is warning Timothy of a coming apostasy or a great falling away from the faith that will occur in the Church before the return of Christ.
CHRIST also warned us about this coming apostasy in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 24 when He said, At that time MANY will turn AWAY from the FAITH and will betray and hate each other, and many FALSE PROPHETS will appear and deceive MANY people. (Matthew 24:10,11 NIV) PETER also warned about this coming apostasy in his Second Letter: 1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. (II Peter 2:1-3 NIV) THE APOSTLE JOHN warns us about this coming apostasy in I John 2:18, 19 18 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. (I John 2:18, 19)
JUDE also warns us about this coming apostasy in his brief one chapter book. 3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 3, 4 NIV) Now you have heard me use that term apostasy several times already and perhaps you are wondering, what does apostasy mean? The word apostasy simply means to fall away from one s faith. To forsake one s beliefs and loyalty to Christ. This Great Apostasy that Christ, Paul, Peter and others warned us about in the New Testament is not some sudden, specific event that will occur overnight, but rather it is a slow, subtle process that will occur over a period of time. The truth is there has always been apostates since the humble beginnings of the Church. -In II Timothy 2:10 Paul mentions a man named DEMAS who deserted him because he fell in love with the world again. -In I Timothy 1:20 Paul mentions two men named, Hymanaeus and Alexander who shipwrecked their faith. But while there has always been apostates, the scriptures make it very clear that this APOSTASY will become more wide spread in the Church as the time for Christ s return draws near.
For the remainder of the message I would like for us to consider THREE DEADLY TRENDS in today s Church that reveal just how serious this problem of apostasy is in our own day and time. ********** I. The Trend Toward Soft Preaching verse 3 1. Look again at Paul s warning to Timothy in verse 3 3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2. GOD S WORD has been powerful enough to change lives for over 2,000 years. And GOD S WORD still has the power to change lives and save souls. The apostle Paul wrote in ROMANS 1:16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the POWER of GOD for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jews, then for the Gentile. The Greek word Paul used for power in that verse is the word dynamos, from which we get our English word: DYNAMITE. The Word of GOD is like DYNAMITE, it is POWERFUL it is EXPLOSIVE!
3. But in order for the word of GOD to have that kind of impact on the lives of people it has to be preached consistently and boldly. Is that happening in today s Church? Listen to these startling statistics from a survey conducted of 10,000 American Preachers. The question was asked, Do you believe the Bible is the inerrant word of God? In other words, Do you believe the Bible is the absolute truth? 95% of Episcopalians said, NO! 87% of Methodist preachers said, NO! 82% of Presbyterian ministers said, NO! 77% of American Lutherans said, NO! and 67% of American Baptist preachers said, NO! 4. Many Churches and many preachers today have bought into the idea that preaching is old-fashioned, ineffective and outdated, and if you want to draw in today s more sophisticated crowd you have to give people what they want. ILLUSTRATION Perhaps some of you can remember hearing about this story on the NEWS several months ago. (April 2010) The Bay Area Fellowship Church in Corpus Christi, Texas gave away more than $2 MILLION worth of prizes to those who attended their Easter Sunday Service this year. Among the prizes given away that day were 16 automobiles 15 flat-screen TV s.furniture sets.bicycles.. laptop computers and gym memberships. While everyone did not win the BIG PRIZES, everyone in attendance that day received a gift bag containing $300 worth of merchandise and coupons to area restaurants and businesses.
ILLUSTRATION I read of another Church recently that had an ex-rodeo champion perform rope tricks and calf-tying exhibitions during their Sunday morning worship service. ILLUSTRATION First Baptist Church in Decatur, Alabama had a team of Muscle-rippled strong men perform in their worship service one Sunday. Their act included picking up telephone poles.breaking concrete with their bare fist, bending steal bars and ripping giant telephone books in half while interspersing their testimony about Christ in between their feats of strength. ILLUSTRATION Two years ago (2008) the Granger Community Church near South Bend, Indiana put up a suggestive billboard beside the local HOOTERS which read: Lame sex life? (question mark) The billboard was announcing their preacher s upcoming sermon series entitled: Pure Sex. What s even worse is since then a number of preachers from all over America have bought that minister s sermon series to preach in their own Churches. One of those ministers, by the name of Gary Lamb boasted how they even played secular music such as Bad Company s Feel Like Makin Love to You in their worship service to set the tone for his sex messages. 5. These are just a few examples of some of the things PREACHERS are doing just to get a crowd. 6. Well let me tell you something. When Jesus Christ was on earth he attracted crowds. He attracted great multitudes of people..hundreds..even thousands of people. And He didn t do it with gimmicks or prize give aways, HE did it by preaching and teaching the life changing good news of the gospel.
7. This deadly trend toward SOFT, SUGAR-COATED PREACHING is just one of the warning signs that the great apostasy Paul, Christ and others spoke about in the New Testament has intensified in our day and time. But there s another disturbing trend in today s Church and that is.. II. The Trend Toward Superficial Living verses 3,4 READ: VERSES 3, 4 1. When you compare the kind of life Christ called Christians to live in the New Testament with the kind of lifestyle many professing Christians live today, one can hardly see any resemblance. ILLUSTRATION Brother Chuck Baldwin reveals just how superficial many of today s Christians really are in his article entitled: CHRISTIANS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE WORLD Baldwin writes: Recently, pollster George Barna released his research regarding the beliefs and conduct of today's Christians. The results are shocking! According to Barna, only 9% of America's born again Christians have a Biblical worldview. Only 9%! To determine a Biblical worldview, Barna used the following 8 point criteria: Believing that absolute moral truths exist. Such truths are defined by the Bible. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. God is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator and still rules today. Salvation is a gift of God and cannot be earned.
Christians have a responsibility to share their faith in Christ. Satan is real. The Bible is accurate in all its teachings. As any real Christian can see, these 8 points comprise basic Biblical truth. To think that more than 90% of born again Christians would deny any one of these fundamental truths suggests that the vast majority of professing Christians today have no clue as to what being a Christian really means. As a result, the obvious question that must be asked is, "What in the world are our preachers and church leaders teaching their congregations?" It would appear that whatever they are teaching, it isn't the Bible! Barna's research gets even more disturbing. His survey reveals that only 3% of Christian parents include the salvation of their children in the list of critical parental emphasis. What?? Does this mean that 97% of America's Christian parents really don't think it "critical" that their own children go to heaven? At the same time, 39% of America's Christian parents believe it is "critical" that their children get a good education. Barna's research also revealed that only 36% of America's Christian parents monitor or regulate the time and quality of T.V., music, and other media that their children were allowed to access. In addition, 45% of America's Christian parents teach their children that there are NO moral absolutes. While 43% teach their children that there are SOME moral absolutes. George Barna summarized his findings by saying, "Faith makes very little difference in their [Christians] lives: believers do not train their children to think or act differently [from the world]. It's no wonder that they [Christian children] grow up to be just as involved in gambling, excessive drinking, and any other unbiblical behavior as everyone else." The problem with America's Christianity today is that, for the most part, it doesn't exist! What passes for Christianity is instead an anemic, spineless, diluted substitute without convictions or principle.
No wonder so many unbelievers see nothing in the church that would draw them to a life-transforming faith in Christ. No wonder so many political leaders ignore the church. No wonder that despite some 300,000 evangelical churches, scores and hundreds of television and radio ministries, and millions of professing Christians, our nation is still on a collision course with calamity. 3. Brothers and sisters, the Christianity of old was so real, so genuine it toppled the Roman Empire. Today s Christianity has become so shallow & superficial we hardly have an impact on our own local communities. 4. This trend toward SUPERFICIAL CHRISTIANITY is just more evidence that THE GREAT APOSTASY has broadened in our generation. We have looked at The Trend Toward Soft Preaching and we have looked at The Trend Toward Superficial Christianity, and the third deadly trend we want to consider is: III. The Trend Toward Sinful Tolerance TOLERANCE has become a major issue in this country in recent years. TOLERANCE used to mean recognizing and respecting the beliefs of others' without sharing them. But today tolerance means that everyone's values, everyone's belief systems, everyone's lifestyles, are acceptable. Tolerance today means agreeing that everybody is RIGHT and nobody is WRONG. And many Christians today are of the mindset that is wrong to speak out or denounce sin in the lives of anyone because we re supposed to be tolerant and not judge sin in anyone s lives. Well apparently some very important people never got that MEMO!
JOHN THE BAPTIST wasn t very tolerant when he called the Pharisees a brood of vipers. He also spoke out against the immoral relationship between King Herod and his own sister-in-law, Herodius. JESUS wasn t very tolerant either. He called the Pharisees hypocrites.. blind guides. white-washed washed tombs full of dead men s bones and dirty dishes that looked clean on the outside but were filthy dirty on the inside. THE APOSTLE PETER wasn t very tolerant lerant when he stood up on the Day of Pentecost and told thousands of people who were gathered there they were guilty of murdering ring the Son of God. And STEPHEN certainly wasn t very tolerant when he called his listeners, stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears. And the APOSTLE PAUL wasn t very tolerant when he named the names of people p who were causing him trouble in the various Churches he ministered in. 1. Do you know why so many who profess to be Christians today are so tolerant of SIN? I believe Paul answers that for us in the previous chapter. Let s read.. II TIMOTHY 3:1-5 2. One would think Paul is describing non-christian, unbelievers here. But actually Paul is describing the condition of apostate Christians in the last days. The reason why many professing Christians will become more and more tolerant of sinful behavior inside and outside the Church is because they are in love with the same things the world is in love with: SELF..MONEY..and PLEASURE.
CONCLUSION Not far from our home in the nearby town of Pantego, a small black congregation gathers each Lord s Day to worship at the Weeping Mary Church of Christ. Several years ago the Weeping Mary Church building was struck by lightning when a powerful thunderstorm moved through the area. Firefighters tried unsuccessfully to save the building, but it was too late. But inside the charred rubble of that Church building stood a rather remarkable site. Miraculously, the pulpit was still standing and on top of the pulpit lay AN OPEN BIBLE, completely unharmed. What a vivid image of the indestructible nature of the Word of God! In this day and time when so many people are falling away from the faith and abandoning the TRUTH for A LIE, our greatest protection.our only protection is THE WORD OF GOD. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. ----Jesus (Matthew 24:35)