Daydreaming about a committed and powerful Church that can take down this upstart Philistine culture by faith in God

I don't know how many pastors preached against homosexuality today as Michael Brown suggested they should and I was hoping they would, in support of those in Houston being harassed by the Gay Agenda.  I haven't seen any news on it, though maybe it's just early.  I hope a good number were involved. 

 

I'm wishing as usual that this could be a trend, and thinking of it as the only hope we have to actually do something against this tide of evil that's been flooding the land.  This is the work of Satan and we're his greatest enemy, supposedly, but here we sit as if gagged and bound.   I don't think I can stand any more analysis, we need action.  But what action?  We're paralyzed, and it's not completely clear why.  Just sitting around waiting for the end times prophecies to manifest as we see them developing all over the place. 

 

How I'd love to see the churches unite to preach down the issues of the day in one voice as a regular thing, from time to time, or since the times are so emergently bad drop everything else and preach and fast and pray in the same unison more often than that until God hears us.  Great revivals came about with daily prayer but just praying for revival now isn't going to do it because there's too much wrong that has to be faced down first.

 

Weak Church, divided Church, compromising apostasizing Church.

 

Well, Gideon didn't need big numbers, just a small number, and God.  Samson destroyed the Philistine temple bound and blind and all alone, with God.  David felled the Philistine giant all alone, with God.  I'd even point to the little state of Israel who, surrounded by giant Arab nations who want her dead, defeated them in the wars they started against her.  I have no doubt that was with God too.

 

So OK, a remnant of churches. we don't need big numbers, just the purest of the churches
Start with self-examination and repentance, strip down to essentials.

 

Keep hearing how tax-exempt status conferred by Big Brother has a stranglehold on the churches, so GIVE IT UP.  Without freedom to preach the truth it's not worth it.

 

Pray for the churches, against the apostasizing, against fear and weakness, pray for strength of faith

 

Concertedly, systematically, consistently Preach and Pray down:

• The Gay Agenda
• Push back against the sexual sins that are undermining the nation and led to the gay agenda, unmarried cohabitation, "sex education" the "freedom" of pornography, easy divorce and of course abortion; pray to restore respect for God's Law.
• Marxism and Political Correctness in general. Take a few weeks on this one
• Islam. A few weeks here too. Pray for the salvation of many Muslims out of that murderous satanic religion. Pray for strengthening of laws against such a subversive "religion."
• The Roman Church. Take a few weeks on this one too. This will divide the sheep from the goats.  That eyes would be opened to false doctrine, that Catholics be saved.
• Against all the cults, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Emergent Church, all of them, that eyes would be opened, people saved.
• And let's pray against the twisting of the Constitution and for some kind of reformation of the Supreme Court which is a major conduit for all these evils.

Keep up the self-examination and repentance, that's fuel for the work.

The list could grow quite a bit from here of course, and it may need to be rewritten, it's just meant to be an idea for how we could approach the problems.

Individuals can participate up to their ability even outside the church sessions.  Fasting helps.  Some can't do a complete fast, but just cutting back counts as fasting, cutting back on food but also on all the other comforts of life.  Turn off the TV except for the news programs, spend the time praying or reading up on the issues of the day that we're focusing on.  Eliminating specially loved foods and eating simple foods just for nourishment is a fast, you can do it as a version of Daniel's fast in Daniel 10:3 if you want, and that's one you can keep up for a long time.  If there's one thing I've discovered about fasting it's that it's important not to turn it into a hard and fast set of rules or deprive yourself of things that are only going to make you rebel and give up too soon. It's supposed to be a sacrifice but there's no point in pushing your limits or you can defeat the whole purpose. Eating half of what you'd normally eat at a given meal counts as a fast.  Make a sandwich, cut it in half and save half for another meal.  Do it for as many meals as you can;  do it for a few days in a row and you'll feel quite hungry.  But when you have to, go back to normal eating, then do it again when you feel you should.  Remember to pray though, the point of fasting is to clear the channels for prayer and especially for hearing from God, who will give wisdom for dealing with these issues we're praying about.

Just my daydream for today.

Update:

 Can't believe I forgot to mention that since revival could very well be the result of such a concerted effort by the Church, we need to pray that the phenomena the Charismatic Movement embraces won't dominate such a revival. Andrew Strom (see link top right of page) did a good job of proving that they are not Christian phenomena but commonly occur in Hindu settings, even under the evil guru Rajneesh. John MacArthur's Strange Fire Conference last year effectively debunked the claim that such phenomena have anything to do with the gifts of the Spirit given to the New Testament Church.

Nevertheless, such phenomena have often occurred in genuine revivals, even under Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield and Wesley, so they probably can't and shouldn't be totally suppressed. But they should be treated as aberrations, kept to the sidelines and not made the center of attention as if they are the whole point of the revival, which has often been the case in the "signs and wonders" charismatic fiascos such as the "Toronto Blessing," the Brownsville "revival," the Lakeland "revival" and whatever it is that has been going on in Redding California.

We want a Church full of people who resemble Jesus, and that is salt and light to the culture, not a Church that is breathlessly awestruck by physical manifestations.