The Church in Decline

The Church in Decline
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Hello, welcome, a Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. This is a show where I'm gonna talk about tough issues and give you some real Holy Spirit led answers. Today's show I want to talk about, is the church in decline. You hear this all the time now. The church is in decline. Christianity is in decline.

You know, what is God - what is God up to? You know, how do we respond to this? What's happening to America's pastors? Do we have any real pastors anymore? Are all these megachurch pastors? Are they pastors are just great motivational speakers? A lot of things we need to talk about. You know, Christ loved the church. I love the church.

I'm sure you love the church. I don't wanna see our church in declining, but maybe God's up to something different that we need to talk about. Hey, I need you to, if you could follow and subscribe to Self Talk, you can do this at the my podcast website. Go to. The easiest way is go to icmcollege.org/selftalk icmcollege.org/selftalk.

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Hello. Welcome to Self Talk. Here we go. Dr. Ray Self here. Got something really on my heart. And you know it's very interesting as I'm recording this show, Hurricane Ian is headed my way, but we're gonna get this show done before the hurricane hits. Yes sir, we are. Yes ma'am, we are. We're gonna do it. You see a lot in social media that the church is in decline.

Christianity is declining. Christianity. Is in trouble. Well, let's talk about that. There's a lot of stuff in social media that's trying to rip the church apart, criticize the church. Everybody, it seems like everybody's always got a theological argument. There, there's a speech or a sermon that it's ripping other pastors apart, other churches apart, other denominations apart.

A lot of division, a lot of strife, a lot of criticism of today's church. And that's hard. And it's hard for me to take. And the reason for this is when we talk about the church and is the church in decline? Well, if you're talking about numbers and church members, population wise, attendance wise, the numbers have probably decreased.

That could be. But does that mean the church is in decline? I don't think so. When we discuss the church, listen to me, folks, you must understand something before you go and criticize the church or um, gossip about the church or say anything negative about the church, make sure you understand the value of the church.

How important is the church? Ephesians 5:25. Is a scripture that we use in marriage. But really it's more about the church. Ephesians 5: 25, 26 and 27 says, Husbands love your wives. How? Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. This scripture says Christ loved the church and gave himself.

What does that mean? He died for the church. He sacrificed himself for the church, and of course, concerning marriage, a husband is to love a wife, for example, the same way Christ loved the church, sacrificially giving himself up for the church. But let's focus on the church part of the scripture. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

So if I'm going to talk about the church, we need to be careful and remember the value that God places on the church because He gave his son not only to die for us, but to die for the church. Now what? What is he doing? Why did he give himself up for the church? Verse 26. Ephesians chapter five. So that he might sanctify her set apart having cleansed her.

When he says her means the church. So he might sanctify her, the church having cleansed her the church by the washing of water with the word. Verse 27, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or no such thing that she would be holy and blameless. This is Christ.

This is Christ's desire for the church. This is why he gave himself up for the church. So the church means a lot to Jesus. The church has tremendous value for God. So when I hear these people, oh the churches in decline, you know the church, you know, Oh my gosh, it's going disappear. No, I don't think so. I do not think so.

Could attendance be less? Absolutely. Are there issues with the church? Absolutely. Do you have issues? I have issues. The church has issues. We all have issues. If you say you have no issues, you really have issues. Years ago, Lord gave me a picture of the church. He said, You know, he was showing me the church is like a person.

The church is a body, and every one of you listening to me, you have your strengths, you have your weaknesses, you have your gifts, you have your talents, you have things you do well. You have things you do not do so well. You have things you like, things you don't like. Then you have your opinions, your ideas, your emotions, and your thoughts.

So does the church just like you. Are you perfect? No. Do, do you mess up? Do you make mistakes? Absolutely. I do too. So does the church. So the church is a living body that Christ gave himself for. So when I hear these people, you know, do on social media and with thousands of followers, all the churches in decline, you know, it makes good press, it makes a good story.

But I don't think it's the truth. I do not think it's the truth, and I wanna tell you why I do not think it's the truth. Now, I'm not looking at attendance numbers cause you know and I know everybody that goes to church is not saved. Everybody that goes to church is not necessarily filled with the spirit. Come there to really worship God.

There's a lot of people that go to church because this is what you're supposed to do. And I think there's a lot of different levels of Christianity. Now, God's not a respecter of persons, but there are people who are serving the Lord, allowing the Lord to be Lord. And there's people who know about Jesus going to church because that's what it's supposed to be on Sunday morning to be a good person.

Thinking that if they do all the right things and all the good things, they're gonna go to heaven by their good works. And you know that's not gonna work. You know, I saw something the other day. What's the requirement to get to heaven? Perfection. Be perfect here. Perfection. Jesus was perfect and he offers us his standing, his righteousness through faith.

This is what he died for, to make us perfect. Not that we are perfect, but he gives us his perfection. It's called the gift of righteous. So what's going on with the church? This is what I think; you can call this prophetic. You can call this revelation. This is what I think is happening with the church, and I think it happened during Covid and maybe continuing, continuing to happen.

I believe it's a manifestation of Hebrews 12:27 and, the writer of Hebrews says this expression, yet once more denotes the removing of those things, which can be shaken of creative things. So if those things which cannot be shaken, may remain. Now let's look at that again. The removing of things which can be shaken is of created things so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

I will tell you something, The things that are of God will always remain. Things that are not of God can be shaken away. And you have seen this in your own life. How many times in your life has God shaken you and maybe shaken away relationships, jobs, and situations that were not the best for you? So what was the best for you could remain, and I think this has happened in the church. I believe Covid created a great shaking of the church. Was Covid God's will? No, it was not God's will, but all things worked for good, for those who loved the Lord. Let me tell you something. Some people just thought, Well, God's in control. God's in control.

You know, God's sovereign, okay? God is sovereign. God's can control anything he wants to control. I get all that. But so many things happen in our world. God is fully aware of it, knew it was gonna happen, but just because God has fore knowledge of the future doesn't mean that everything is according to his will.

Sin is never the will of God. Disease, curses, all this horrible stuff going on, division strife, lying, cheating, fornication. This not the will of God, the will of God, is that we would all be filled with the spirit coming to the full knowledge of Jesus Christ, living and worshiping the Lord. So I believe what we're seeing is a shaking in the church, and I think that there are some things that God wanted...he wanted shaken away. They were not of him. And, and sadly to say, sometimes a shaking involves people. I believe that the, those, look at Hebrews 12:27 again, those things which can be shaken is of created things. So those things which cannot be shaken remain. So the things that can be shaken allow the things that cannot be shaken to remain.

I wanna tell you something. What's of God cannot be shaken. And the church, the church that belongs to Jesus Christ is not in decline cause it cannot be shaken cause it's God's church. Now if we were looking at, uh, statistics, worldview, oh yeah, it's in decline. But in God's view, the church is not in decline. It's not in decline at all.

There's a shaking. There's been a removing. It's not about numbers with God, it's about truth in true worshipers. I think what we're seeing right now in our church, as we're seeing Christians that may be more committed than any time before. We're in a very tough, hard season in our nation and in the world.

With so many lies, the evil, the deception, the celebration of sin and perversion. It's all over the place, but God has shaken the church or he has allowed the church to be shaken. You see the scripture that says all things that work for good. You know, God, all things work for good. For those who love the Lord and called according to his purposes.

God takes things that are of Satan. Things that are not good and somehow some way turns it for our good. Covid was not good, but God will bring some good out of it. You've been through some hard situations that were not of God, but, but God can turn it for your good. I, I call it finding treasure in tragedy and of all this tragedy with covid and all this horrible stuff that seems to be going on with the church. Pastors being attacked by Jezebel, Jezebel, leading these pastors into sexual immorality and the falling of it.

How can anything good come, uh, come out of that? Well, I don't know, but I know God will redeem his church and something good will come out of that. Maybe that pastor repents and becomes more of a godly man than ever before. Maybe there's a new pastor that's gonna rise up, but I wanna tell you something. I don't believe the church has declined.

I believe the church has been shaken. I believe the church has been shaken so that things that are of God will remain. It looks like a decline. It's not, in my opinion. In my prophetic opinion, it's not a decline. It is God shaking things. So what remains is purely of him. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Why? So he might present himself to the church at all her glory. God loves the church. He's not done with the church at all. Don't, don't let the social media and the naysayers drive you away from church. It's not the in thing right now. It's not the cool thing. Church may be more pure now than it's been in a long time.

Pastors are dealing with a lot of issues that pastors shouldn't have to deal with and you know, and I know there are pastors, there are true shepherds, there are false shepherds. Nothing's changed under the sun. Been going on for thousands of years. They're false shepherds. They're people that are in it for the wrong motivation.

And then you have people that call themselves pastors, but they're really just a motivational speaker. Nothing wrong with a motivational speaker, but they're not shepherding the sheep. They're giving a motivational speech on Sunday, which is encouraging a lot of people. And they delegate the pastoral duties to to staff members, and they break 'em into groups, you know?

I don't agree with all that. Nothing wrong with a large church, but you know, I, I get more value out of a small church. That's just me talking right here. I get more intimacy, more care, more fellowship out of a small church. Now, I know a large church can do things a small church cannot do. They have many more resources and are able to accomplish a lot of things, but a smaller church can do things a larger church cannot do. A small church is like an intensive care unit. This is where you get your care. This is where you get healed and nurtured and the spirit of God comes upon you to set at liberty those that are captive. The large church becomes more of a theatrical show on Sunday mornings, and I'm trying to be careful, not be overly critical of the church that Christ so loved he gave himself up for.

But to me, the issue we have is instead of having pastors, we have very influential men and women with terrific personalities, with terrific, um, charismatic type personalities that are great speakers that are entertaining. Usually they're attractive people. They wear the right clothes and they have the the right look about them, and they call themselves pastors and they're, quote, successful according to the world's standards. We see, the world says success is numbers. That's not necessarily God's version of success. What happens with so many churches today is that the church does this, what we call seeker friendly model, which I'm not high on, obviously, and the world starts coming to their church and it looks like the church is being extremely successful reaching people for the Lord.

Well, actually, sometimes the church is reaching people because the church is a little worldly and the world listens to them. It says in First John, those that of God listens to us, those that are of the world listens to them. So if you do worldly things, the world will come to your church. Therefore, it looks like you're successful and you're not really successful.

You're just attracting the world to your service. Now, pastors need to shepherd their sheep. Jesus said, If you love me, tend my sheep, a true pastor is going to be a shepherd nurturing, teaching healing, caring for, protecting the sheep. That's what a true pastor is, and that's what God has called the pastors to do.

And these pastors who are strictly motivational speakers and are not doing what scripture says for us to do, lay hands on the sick, uh, cast out demons, you know, prophesy. You know, this is what it says. Earnesty, desire, spirit, pursue love, desire, spiritual gifts. Especially if you would prophesy. A pastor who's not doing all the stuff like you see in Corinthians in the Book of Acts, Okay? I believe God's gonna hold them accountable. You know, we're not called just to be an entertaining speaker on Sunday morning. We're called to tend and take care of the sheep, to, to love people, to be there for people, to talk to people, to be available for people, not to have to go through three channels of communication.

Maybe send a text and maybe, if you're lucky, you might get a text back from the pastor someday. But probably from a staff member. I don't believe that's God's will for a shepherd or a pastor. Now there's a time for motivational speakers. I get it. I need to be motivated and encouraged sometimes, but that's not a biblical pastor.

And that's an issue that we need as a nation and as Christians to repent for and you know, how do we respond to this? We pray. I said, Lord, help the church. Lord, raise up the true pastors and Father, those pastors that have turned themselves into nothing but encouraging speakers, Lord convict them of their original call, which you called them to be Father.

Lord, I pray that in these large churches that people will be convicted of their sins. People would be repenting, that people would be healed, people would be delivered, and that the glory of God and the anointing would be there Father. People would get into the presence of God where they can be truly free and truly worship you.

That's what the church is about and that's what I wanted to say in today's podcast. So is Christianity in decline? Is the church in decline? Do we have a lot of pastors that maybe are not really pastors, but they're very influential, great speakers, good looking type of people that are very encouraging?

Yeah, there's a lot of that going on, and I think that's an issue with God. I think that's an issue with God. If you're gonna be a pastor, you have to tend the sheep in a very up close and personal way. I don't think the church is in decline. I don't think that all the pastors are in decline. I think God is making a shaking.

I think God is shaking the church. I think he's shaking the pastors. Maybe that's why we see so many pastors who have fallen recently. Maybe that's part of the shaking. I don't know. I do not think that church is in decline. I do think there's a lot of issues with pastors and if I was the devil, that's who I would attack.

Surprise, surprise, surprise. We need to pray for our pastors. Pray for the the true shepherds to be revealed and to raise up. And maybe there are pastors out there that have that call, but just haven't fully entered into it. And we pray that, that God would cause this, these pastors to repent and enter into the shepherding call that the Lord called them to.

And Father, I pray for your church, Father, that the things that would remain are of you Father. And maybe the church doesn't have as many numbers, but the anointing and the glory of your church would be revealed. You said, Father, that, that Jesus might present to himself the church in all her glory. Father, I pray that the church would be the glory that Christ is seeking, Father. I praise you, Father for all this, and I thank you, Father for each person listening to this podcast. This is Dr. Ray Self. I really appreciate you listening to my today. Uh, I care about you. This is a labor of love and, um, thank you so much. God bless you.

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