Schreier and Boden Peterson. Photo / Per Peterson
The fulfilling of Prophecy
I love having conversations with people. I love talking to people about what they believe; not just about God and religion, but what they believe about any subject, which team will win the World Series, who they are going to vote for, what their dream car is, their favorite meal, and so on. Regardless of the topic, once I hear what, I almost always ask, “Why?”
When you ask why, you will begin to learn where the person’s opinion comes from.
“I’ve been a Cleveland Browns fan since I was a kid.” That person is speaking from tradition.
“Every Chevy I’ve ever owned was a lemon.” That person is speaking from personal experience.
“I’ve read that gargling a mixture of water and honey will get rid of a sore throat.” That person is speaking from acquired knowledge, without necessarily having observed actual results.
As a minister, I have many conversations with people about God, church, religion, prophecy, and other Bible topics. In the last six months, I have been seeing a trend when I talk to strangers, or people I barely know, who claim to be a Christian. Before I tell you what the trend is, let me give you some history. I preached my first sermon in 1975. I became a Senior Pastor in 1987.
During the 1900s, when I met someone who said they were a Christian, but were not going to church at the time, it was almost always prefaced with statements like, “We are between churches”, or “I’m currently looking for a new church”, or “we’re new to the area and haven’t found where God wants us to serve yet.” In other words, as Christians, they knew they should be in church, and if you take them at their word, their plan was to find a church to attend relatively soon.
Then, around the turn of the century, I started running across people claiming to be Christians who did not go to church and had no desire to find one. At first, they were few and far between, but as time passed, the few and far between became more regular.
However, in the last six months or so, it seems like the percentage of professing Christians who do not go to church and have no desire to ever attend church again has skyrocketed. I am speaking from personal experience here. In the last six months, our church has had a booth at various events (four) at our county fairgrounds. The population of our county is just over 16,000. The number of people who tell us they are Christians and do not go to church, and either imply or straight out tell us that they have no desire to ever attend any church, is roughly the same as those who tell us they are Christians and attend this church or that church.
The reasons these people left the church are specific to each individual, of course, but you can categorize them into three groups. Either someone said or did something to the offended party, or they felt the church was filled with hypocrites, or the minister preached on something they disagreed with. It is one thing to leave a church and go to another, but it is entirely different to leave a church and decide never to go to any church again. If you do take that stand, don’t be a hypocrite yourself by eating in a restaurant ever again. Everyone has gone to a restaurant where the waitress was rude, and gave poor service (someone did or said something we didn’t like), or where the food was not as good as advertised, and certain menu items were not available (hypocritical), or the ambiance just wasn’t to our liking (the atmosphere was something we disagreed with). We have all had a bad experience at a restaurant and have gone out to eat somewhere else. As an eater, you will try another restaurant, so why, as a Christian, will you not give another church a try?
This attitude of I am a Christian, but I don’t go to church is only part of a larger problem, and prophecy being fulfilled before our eyes.
Paul prophesied that before Jesus would return, there would “come a falling away first” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
Paul gives some detail to the young preacher Timothy about what the falling away will look like. 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
Notice the specific wording. People will not “endure sound doctrine.” They will not endure it; in other words, they will not put up with it. People will not put up with sound Bible teaching. They have itching ears that need scratching. “Preacher, just tell us what we want to hear. Make us feel good.”
Much of what Christians believe today comes from their own feelings rather than from Scripture. Hurt feelings, hypocrites, and disagreements with the preacher take precedence over God’s command to not forsake the assembly (Hebrews 10:25).
Forsaking God’s house is only one of hundreds of ways we can see the falling away. Sin, in many churches, is ignored, never preached against, explained away, or completely ignored. This, as well, goes against the teachings of Scripture.
Jumping back to those who claim Christianity, but have decided to never go to church again. I’m sure in most cases there is blame to be found on both sides, which in and of itself is another sign of the falling away. The fact that we don’t treat fellow believers with love and compassion, and the fact that there are hypocrites in the church, are all indicators of the falling away.
In John 13:35, Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Can the world see that we are His disciples if we can’t stand to be in the same building with each other for an hour or two a week?
