"Why do you seek
the living among the dead?" Luke 24:5
Two angelic messengers asked this powerful question to those fearful women who had made their way to the tomb on Sunday morning in order to ensure that Jesus had a more proper burial. But the One they believed needed appropriate spices added to His grave clothes, had already walked out of His borrowed tomb. The sting of death had been swallowed up in victory, and His glorious gospel was about to embark on a global tour that continues to change lives around the world - Amen!
I remember several years ago, while traveling in itinerant ministry, how the Lord led me to only speak on these weighty subjects of biblical revival: a continual lifestyle of repentance, personal humility revealed through brokenness, and the need to be emptied of self and filled with the Spirit in order to accomplish the eternal work of God. As I was obedient to what I believed was His will, I noticed how few church members wanted to hear these truths. Although He gave me great liberty and fresh anointing to preach His word, the responses during these meetings were always the same: personal indifference and corporate unconcern.
Knowing that I was doing what He required of me, I began asking for a demonstration of His mighty power at work in and among His people. There were times when I wept at how callous the hearts of church members were to God's truth. Easter season was approaching at that time, and I was re-reading the gospel accounts of this most blessed event, when I saw Luke 24:5 in a whole different light. As I had been burdened to pray for a work among God's people, desiring to see church members repent of their sin and renew their love for Jesus in order to experience abundant life in His grace, God seemed to ask me: "Charles, why do you seek the living among the dead?" In other words, why are you looking for a demonstration of the abiding life of Christ in those people who might be considered religious, who wear a Baptist label, yet remain spiritually dead?
Alarming statistics are once again moving me when I read that we have some 13.5 million Southern Baptists on our church rolls, but on any given Sunday just 3.6 million of those members will be actively involved in the life of their church. This means that only about 25% of members actually attend, while the other 75% rarely see the need for worship, fellowship and discipleship. Now I understand that some certainly have legitimate reasons for non-participation, but this would only represent a very small minority. Most are absent because of illegitimate excuses! They are not enthusiastically involved in the life of the church because they don't want to be. Which reminds me of another verse: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that they were not of us." 1 John 2:19
We need to experience an awakening among the membership rolls of our Southern Baptist, as well as other evangelical, Bible-believing churches. The lost in our communities will not be interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ until they see a demonstration of His life in those who name His name, and especially in those who proclaim His name! In October of 1740, the great evangelist George Whitefield said, "The reason why many congregations have been so dead, is because dead men preach to them. Oh, that the Lord may quicken and revive them for His own name's sake! For how can dead men beget living children?" I was stirred recently when reading this testimony by a devotional writer concerning a man named Brett: "It was a natural step for Brett to attend a Christian college and study the Bible. After all, he’d been around people who knew Jesus his whole life - at home, at school, at church. He was even using his college studies to prepare himself for a career in Christian work and ministry. But at the age of twenty-one, as he sat with the small congregation in an old country church and listened to a pastor preach from 1 John, he made a startling discovery. He realized that he was depending upon his own understanding and the trappings of his religious traditions, and that he’d never truly received salvation in Jesus Christ. He felt the Lord tugging at his heart that day with a sobering message: “You don’t know Me!” That very day, Brett repented of his sin and placed his faith in Christ alone. Today, his deep passion for Jesus and His marvelous salvation is no secret. It comes through loud and clear every time he steps behind the pulpit and preaches the word of God."
Please
join me in praying for a heart breaking, sin killing, life changing move of
God's Spirit within our convention, and in our churches, beginning in our
pulpits! AMEN!!
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