“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.” Joel 1:5
Many plentiful harvests had caused the people of Judah to become content. They had become drinkers of wine, and were used to having plenty of it. Thus, when the wine was cut off from them by the devastation of the locusts, they would have been forced to wake up to the cold reality that they had hidden from in their alcoholic haze - that they had departed far from God.
Are we in a haze within the church? Not an alcoholic one but an emotional one. Are we encouraged to seek emotional experiences of God? Are we told that as Christians we should be happy? Are we told that Christ will pour out material blessings on those who follow him?
How much of our church life is trying to capture this subjective emotional experience? How much more is trying to get God to bless us?
The truth of the matter is that we have lost our sense of awe at the majesty of God. We have substituted God’s image with a poor reflection of what we want Him to be. We have turned away from the living God and put in his place such a feeble and paltry image as to be totally unworthy of any man’s worship.
There is a teaching that I have heard which suggests that when we do things which please God then he will bless us in various ways. An example is tithing. We are encouraged to tithe, because if we do then God will repay all that we give him and more. Scripture is used to support this (such as “he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”), but such a gospel (commonly called the prosperity gospel) is completely contrary to the gospel of Christ.
We are encouraged to believe that our good fortune is God’s divine seal of approval. We forget that some of the greatest men of God had no money whatsoever.
God does reward the faithful, but not necessarily in material things. He does promise to supply our every need, but not our every whim and want.
And what of the emotional excess of the charismatic movement? Why is it that there is so little depth in the movement? Is it because we are encouraged to run after experience rather then God?
Are we encouraged to seek the gifts whilst ignoring the giver?
I wonder.
Where are God’s giants? Where are the prophets of God who would denounce this heresy? Where are the preachers who will preach the gospel of Christ? The gospel that Paul would have recognized as true?
Where are the men who can say “Be a follower of me, as I am of Christ?”
There are a few such men, but it is a pitiful few, and they are largely ignored whilst the manipulators who preach their gospel of wealth, ease and glorious emotional experience continue to see the gullible masses following them like a flock of sheep on the road to hell.
I was glad to hear of a television program exposing the fraud of so many of these false preachers, and I was encouraged to hear calls for the church to denounce such men, but the calls are not yet loud enough.
Away with these evildoers, men of wealth and greed, false miraclers and false prophets. Let us have more men of God who will stand against such heresy.
I can agree with Leonard Ravenhill when he says:
Do you wonder that I am embarrassed to be part of the present church which I am sure is an embarrassment to God?
“There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.”Ezekiel 22:25
