He also said, “Going to church and sitting in that pew, does not make you a Christian any more than going into your garage and calling yourself a car.”
Being so loyal or sold out to a preacher, a denomination or a building, can cause you to be “damned” or condemned out of false loyalty.
We are all loyal to something or someone. Life does not give us too many options regarding who or what master we serve. We are serving something. We are loyal to someone, perhaps the wrong person.
In marriage. To our jobs or careers. Loyal to the almighty dollar. Hooked on our desires and addicted to things that are destroying our lives. Chained, or surrendered. It is more than a moral choice. It is eternal.
Matthew 6: 24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
Money, material wealth or any entity that promises wealth.
Yes, we know the love of money is the root of all evil. 1st Timothy 6: 10. It is not that money is evil, but it is evil to make it the God of your life.
Besides, I have said it many times in the many years of preaching. “I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer.”
We came into this world naked, and surely, we will leave the same. Job 1: 21, “And he said: Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there, The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
My perspective in all of this is the church building. Attending the church services for all the right reasons. Learning, growing in our faith. Serving and volunteering. Giving of our finances and our time. This is all good. Yet, some people believe that doing all the church things will punch their ticket to Heaven. Could not be more wrong.
Most Christians know what it means to surrender, repent, pray and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ so that we can be saved. Reconciled to the Father through the shed Blood of Jesus.
Before Christ, I had several masters. Drugs, alcohol, violence and all the ramifications of that lifestyle proved I had a master controlling my young life. It was more than my flesh getting in the way and satisfying all the desires that my flesh craved.
Because we are created by God in His image, we have a spirit, soul and body. Therefore, my physical body held the spirit and my soul. This addictive life I lived was controlled by demons and all the strongholds that come with serving Satan. I did not go to ritualistic meetings, nor did I chant around a fire pit at night sacrificing chickens.
I was possessed not just oppressed. The demonic-controlled masters in my life needed to be dealt with, and they were sent away from me on the day of my Salvation. With no one praying or screaming at me, “Come out of him!” They left because the Blood of Jesus coursed through my spiritual veins, and the spiritual house I had was swept clean.
So, let us delve into the church world as we know it, or have experience it from several perspectives.
Chained to a pew or surrendered to Christ within a sermon context, simply is a paradoxical Christian idea of surrendering one’s will to God in order to be freed from the “chains” of sin and self-will.
Over all the years of trying my best to serve Jesus Christ, my Savior, I have been in just about every known church denomination there is.
I am not against any order of business in church, or their doctrinal differences they hold that perhaps do not match mine. I live my life not striving to debate any human being on the Bible or why I believe the way I do. This is a waste of time and energy.
However, I have spent the past 35 years preaching this Gospel of Grace and Mercy to thousands of inmates all over this globe.
I have seen tradition in churches. I have witnessed the congregations, young and older, be engaged and some sleeping during the sermon and the worship.
I have experienced the “Holy rolling” in the so-called Pentecostal church, all the way to the Baptist expression.
I am not here to criticize anyone or any church.
But I have seen 80% average of all the churches I have been in or visited void of any altar invitation. No prayer, no compelling them to come to an old-fashioned altar in repentance for the Salvation of their souls. No asking the backslider to come up and repent and pray. No anointing of oil and laying on of hands for the sick, according to God’s Word.
James 5: 14-16, “Is anyone among you sick? (Physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.) Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
Sounds to me like James made a point of all I have spoken about thus far. The church has a responsibility to do exactly what this Chapter 5 said. How can they pray over the sick, unless they invite them forward to be able to reach their bodies to anoint them with oil?
How can faith grow with the ones being prayed for if there are not people around them laying hands on them and encouraging them in prayer for the healing and for their need to repent and give their hearts to Jesus?
And then, how can the believers listen to and confess to “one another” that they may be healed if there is not a gathering at the altar for the effective, fervent prayer to go forth from the righteous ones who are willing to pray and believe with the hurting and lost souls in the church?
There is no need to beat a dead horse here. (Not that I would do that.) This is just one example, a big example, why we must as ministers of the Gospel “COMPEL” them to come to the altar.
There is something about being unchained from a pew and then surrendering to God and His will for a human being who suffers. By surrounding that soul with like-minded and compassionate believers, and then confessing, praying, crying, anointing with oil, and seeing the Lord set the captives free, is supposed to be what a church service is all about.
Not just singing a few hymns or songs. Not just taking the offering. Not just about the upcoming announcements. It is not about the doxology at the end, as it is about letting the Holy Ghost be the center of everyone’s attention. Letting God move the way the Lord wants to and get completely out of the way without our agendas and systems that are in place to be so rigid. I know about rigidity.
I have sat in church services where the Pastor and his wife talked for forty minutes about the church events coming, and the guest speakers who will attend soon, etc., etc., and “blah, blah, blah.” They took up an extra 40 minutes (of time that the pastor was going to give me) to make announcements that should have been discussed at the beginning of the service. NOT right before I was to preach to over 200 addicts who were there on a Thursday evening service, geared for their needs.
I was invited to minister my story and my experience of freedom in Christ and the testimonies I have about how God can heal the broken hearted and set the captive free.
God’s time was not respected. “Why so harsh Joe.”
Listen to me for just a moment, please.
God can and will do more in a nano-second by the power of the Holy Ghost than we can do in our five-point sermons and altar invitations.
However, if church agendas, announcements and 10 minute long offering exposés to get people to give or give more, is cutting into the time that someone could get saved or healed, then I believe the Lord is grieved. This happened as well, prior to me preaching.
These types of investigative-journalism-styles of pastoring are truly designed to reveal hidden information, misconduct, or problems to the church public. Should be handled privately if it is personal and staff related. My opinion.
No matter the intent, it is sad that when I was asked to come to this church in Vancouver, Washington over 10 years ago from Texas where I live, to see what happened, grieved me and grieved the Holy Spirit.
Earlier that day I had a lunch meeting with the Pastor several hours before he allowed me into HIS pulpit.
We talked, and I revealed my message and the evangelistic way God has me preach. We got along great, prayed and when the evening came for me to preach, the “amount” of time he said he would give me to preach, pray and lay hands on all those addicts would encompass approximately 50-60 minutes.
That is plenty of time for me to do everything the Lord wanted me to express. The sound man who did the overhead display on the big screen behind me with the scriptures I was to present, did a great job. Time would only allow me to use 2 out of the 7 that I had prepared.
Well, do the math. I was left with 17 minutes from the time I walked up to the microphone and then finished everything the Lord wanted.
Seventeen minutes. Not what was planned, but the Lord did miracles for those addicted folks anyway. Over 90 surrendered to Christ for the first time, and I rapidly anointed as many as I could reach with oil and prayed a corporate prayer at the end for those who needed deliverance.
All of that took place at the end, as the pastor and his wife reappeared on to the stage to do more announcements at the end. In fact, they began their announcements as I was still praying without a microphone, kneeling at the altar with the souls there. It would have been nice if the pastor would have recognized his sheep at that altar and continued praying for them, rather than spout more announcements as over 100 continued to weep at the altar as I left my place from the altar.
It felt like the old “Gong Show” with exception of someone bringing out a big hook on a long pole to pull me off the stage.
MY POINT?
Chains came off from people, and the surrendering at the altar happened despite me or the Pastor and his wife. Yes, they should have respected God’s time, but it really does not matter.
