Page 14 - God Got His Hands Dirty

Bob Brock
leaders, and pay all the bills. Pastors are frustrated because the
doors are closing before they can achieve the vision God gave them.
An article in the New York Week described it like this. “When
the saints go marching out.”
The Religion Editor of CNN recently wrote, “The Millennials
are leaving the church in droves.”
In the 1980s, Ross Perot spoke about the national budget
deficit as “the crazy aunt living in the basement that nobody
wanted to talk about.” We have our own “crazy aunt” — tens of
thousands of dead or dying churches. Like that “crazy aunt,” we
love her. We want to treat
God has an answer for the her with dignity. But,
church that was on the ropes ultimately, we think she is
and sucking down oxygen just hopeless and best
to keep the doors open. ignored. John

characterized this sad
situation by writing the following words in Revelation 3:1-2. “And
unto the angel of the church in Sardis write: these things saith he
that has the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know your
works that you have a name that you are alive and not dead. Be
watchful, and strengthen the things which remain that are READY
TO DIE.” Not dead but dying!
That’s what God said, not a church consultant specialist,
but God has an answer for the church that was on the ropes
and sucking down oxygen just to keep the doors open. It’s all in
Heaven’s diagnostic report.

Number 1, be watchful. (3:2) It is just another way of saying,
“Be aware of what’s happening to you. Be honest about what you
see. Don’t ignore the obvious.” If you listen to ministers greeting
each other at a conference, you would think everything is GREAT.
How are you doing? Great. How is the church? Great. They are
not intentionally exaggerating or stretching the truth. They must
be speaking by faith and living by the rule of II Corinthians 4:18
which says, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but
at the things which are not seen; for the thing which are seen are
temporal; ” If you look at the ecclesiastical scene in general, things
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