The Changing Church - Part 1

The Changing Church

Revelation 2:1-7 (NLT)

  “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands: “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting, but I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!  Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. But this is in your favor: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, (those who practice unholy things) just as I do. “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.”

            In the book of Revelation, the church went through many changes just as it does today.  All around us we see churches change from the gospel of Jesus Christ to the church of “Make Me Feel Comfortable”.  There are even churches who leave the name, Jesus, out of all the praise songs so no one will be offended. There are churches who have turned to the ‘Grace’ doctrine.  They believe that once you are ‘saved’, you can do anything and never have to ask for forgiveness again because you have been forgiven from past sins, present sins and sins you may commit in the future. They are actually churches of false doctrine.

 There are also churches that give you a prophecy for a certain amount of money.  There are churches whose aim is to entertain you. They may have a Christian Comedian one Sunday and a visiting evangelist the next.  Then the following Sunday it may be a singing quartet or a group of beautiful dancers.

Then there’s the Coffee Clutch group who need to drink coffee in order to worship.  I think the caffeine works on keeping people awake during the message.  We also host the Breakfast Club.  This is where you fill up on food so you won’t get hungry if church runs after noon. If you still get hungry you can buy from the bake sale in the hallway. 

Of course, we don’t want to forget the church of “The Social Club”.  If you go there you can catch the latest gossip, make plans for parties and picnics and the news of the week.  I could go on and on, but I’m sure you get the picture.  Many of these churches are not doing anything wrong, but some of them are teetering on the edge.

The point of this is not to cut down churches, (although Jesus did) but to take a minute to think about why we go to church at all.  People go to church for many reasons, but the truth is that there should only be one reason we want to attend church and that is because we want to hear the Word of God and to praise and worship God.  We don’t find that in a lot of churches, instead we see people walk in and look around for someone to talk to.

To be honest there are few churches today where you feel the Holiness of God when you walk into them.  What you do see is disrespect in the sanctuary.  There may be one group trying to pray with someone and another group laughing loudly and children running around without supervision. It is not the setting for those who come to worship our heavenly Father.  The worse part of all this is that most of us don’t pay any attention to it; it has become a ‘norm’ for today.

(Part One)