A MESSAGE TO AMERICAN PASTORS AND THEIR CONGREGATIONS
by Dr. Laurence White
Let me begin with a story about an incident that took place a few years ago as the president of a Christian university addressed the crowd. “Today is November the 9th, the 50th anniversary of the ‘kristal nacht’…the night of the broken glass. On this day in 1938, Nazi thugs moved through the cities of Germany smashing the windows of German homes and shops, burning the synagogues. Innocent people; men, women and children were beaten and killed simply because they were Jews. I was there as a young man,” the president went on to say, through tears, “There were many of us who were Christians then, but we did nothing.” He went on to quote the words inscribed at the Auschwitz memorial in Poland, a place where so many died. “Never again”, he pleaded.
My friends, it is happening again. It is happening again today in our beautiful America, so richly and abundantly blessed by a gracious God. It is happening today as the innocent are slaughtered in a holocaust that has seen well over forty million little boys and girls brutally done to death. It is happening again as families are fractured and marriages are broken, while self-obsessed people pursue the immediate gratification of their every desire. It is happening again as militant homosexuals pursue absolute approval, complete acceptance, and preferential legal treatment for their perversion. It is happening again as our young people have lost their way, and often their lives, in a maze of alcohol and drugs; and the corridors and classrooms of the high schools of our land are littered with the bodies of murdered teenagers. It is happening again as the nation’s leaders wallow in decadence and deceit, while the people look on in apathetic indifference.
While the killing goes on and the nation is led down the path of destruction, the church and her pastors stand silent and afraid. This country that we love, our America, is fighting for her life. Not against the military power of foreign enemies, but against the principalities and powers of this dark age. You and I, as sons and daughters of the Lord Jesus Christ, are being called upon to take a stand at this moment of crisis. And let there be no one among us who doubts the urgency of this hour. To compare what is happening in America today to Nazi Germany is no mere flight of rhetorical exaggeration.
Continue reading here…
Dr. White has some guts!
For much of the church, their guts have been ripped out of them by an attitude of tolerence and moral equivalence.
So many in the church covet the praises of men rather than follow the Word of God.
Lord have mercy.
Thanks for the great post. The story goes a christian leader was asked “What is the greatest problem in the church today .Ignorance or apathy?” The answer ” I don’t know and I don,t care” Keep fighting ignorance and apathy.
White quotes Hitler: “We should trap the preachers by their notorious greed and self-indulgence. We shall thus be able to settle everything with them in perfect peace and harmony. I shall give them a few years reprieve, why should we quarrel? They will swallow anything in order to keep their material advantage. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves, they will betray their God for us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miserable jobs and incomes.”
I’ve often wondered how many churches would be willing to surrender their 503(c) status in order to avoid fulfilling Luther’s view: “The great reformer Martin Luther once declared that the preacher who does not rebuke the sins of the rulers through God’s word spoken publicly, boldly and honestly, strengthens the sins of the tyrants; becoming a partaker in them and bearing responsibility for them.”
May God have mercy and raise up men who fear Him rather than love the world.
What is the greatest problem, ignorance or apathy? Right now I am thinking apathy. I went to lunch at work with others I work with and as soon as I got alone I wrote a rant that I would like to share if that is okay.
Apathy! I am tired of apathy! I am tired of apathy in myself and in others! We have grown so callous in this world. We have grown worldly and callous! Things that should make us blush in shame no longer cause any discomfort. Things that should enrage us no longer cause us any alarm. Things that should make us hide in fear no longer even make us blink. O Lord, come soon!
What makes me rant like this is the lack of concern on people’s part when it comes to hearing other people blaspheme God. There are other things as well, but this is the poignant one right now. I just heard comments like, “oh, well” and “let ‘em”, when I mentioned that a university in Iowa had a day set aside for all the students to come up with new, creative ways to blaspheme God. My comment came after seeing a article on the news about a picture of a (I have a hard time even typing this) transsexual Jesus. I have had it with people mocking and blaspheming the love of my heart. After hearing the careless comments of apathy from supposed Christian men I asked them if they would have the same reaction if the people around the table spent a whole day trash talking their wives. If all kinds of filth and depravity were used in regards to the woman they love would they just slough it off and say “oh well”? They laughed that off, knowing that it will not happen. I was embarrassed because I felt myself losing control. I just sat back in silence after that and listened to them talk of nonsense and trivial things.
What makes it even worse is that if someone dared to talk of taking away their guns, these same men would be ready to take up arms against whomever they needed to protect their right to bear arms. They get heated when they talk about the men in government who want to take away their guns, but are apathetic about the same men that want to take away our freedom of religion. They could care less about the government silencing the minister in the pulpit, but they get their dander up when the NRA is attacked. They sit up and cheer when someone defends their right to bear arms, but ignore those that are taking a stand for the freedom to speak freely about what we believe. These men call themselves Christians.
Another thing that got me was the comment by one that we are not to judge those individuals that dare to blaspheme God. I have not researched that in the Bible, but it does not ring true. I agree that I am not to go and rain down vengeance on them because vengeance belongs to God, not me. But if hearing someone blaspheme God does not cause righteous anger to flood into my body, I feel like I would be betraying my Lord.
As I look around this world I fear that more and more Christians are becoming desensitized to those around them that blaspheme God. We are exposed to it daily in the media whether it is television or movies or video games or even the news. We are exposed to it at work, at least those of us that work in factories. We are exposed to it when we shop. Everywhere we go we hear the name of the LORD taken in vain and blasphemed, and after a while it stops breaking our hearts. I guess that many people may think that it is easier to ignore it then to have their heart broke time after time. But we must not!! We must continue to keep our hearts sensitive to the things of God, whether it is from God, or about God, or against God.
I feel myself becoming more and more ostracized from more and more people. I do not think like they do. The things that they are interested in I find shallow and trivial. My mind is on eternity. My mind is on learning as much as I can about my Lord and Savior. I long for His return more than any other thing. I feel as if I have been on a long trip from home and am on the last days of it. I know that in just a short while I will be home again, and I can not think of anything else.
Maranatha, O Lord, come!
This is a sad commentary of the church in America but there are men preaching against sin and taking a stand! The problem is that there are very few that seek to do it. Then the Bible does say that broad is the way that leads to destruction. I expect we will see who are the wheat and who are the tares!
Dear Truther:
Your frustrations are not without validity. Increasingly those who sit next to you in church are growing more apathetic, more lukewarm, more biblically ignorant, and more in gross doctrinal error every day. There seems to be less and less iron by which to sharpen yourself.
Do not be discouraged, though. Even if you were the only faithful one in your town God will take care of you. When it seems like you’re the only wheat in a field of tares, remember that on that fateful Friday, the Lord was all alone as well as he hung upon the cross bearing our sins.
Sadly, this difficulty of finding fellow sheep in a herd of goats is not just exclusive to your neck of the woods. It’s a phenomenon experienced by many Christians in the West. As a result, many of us have found fellowship in the community of Believers on the internet. And even though it is a great encouragement, it should not prevent you from seeking out and praying for God to bring you and the fellow elect in your area together.
Remember, the internet should never be a substitute for personal fellowship with fellow Christians. And it won’t be too long before we are driven underground and will not have the ability to fellowship online with one another anyway.
Don’t lose hope.
Stay the course & never compromise!
- Pilgrim
Amen!
“Remember, the internet should never be a substitute for personal fellowship with fellow Christians.”
Amen. This is true, and you are one of the very few left who still believe it. All sorts of allegedly orthodox Christian sites are encouraging people to give up on actual church attendance, and just “do church” on the internet.
Truther: Right on!
Ignorance is no excuse, as God has given His children His word of truth, as well as the Spirit of truth. And sites like Defcon expose the need. Apathy is sin, it is disobedience. Barring mental incapacity, we can fight the enemy, according to our gifts, even if it’s just prayer.
To all the Bereans at Defcon: Keep up the fight!