The Great Pretenders

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
II Timothy 3:5

Every time that I've heard this verse preached on, it's always used to refer to those that are hirelings. Those that use "Religion" as a means of financial gain. It's used to refer to the ecumenical movement, to the charismatics that work off of people's emotions rather than the spirit of God, to those that are "Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" Matthew 15:9. And certainly those can be applied, but when I read this verse I see us, Independent Fundamental Baptist. Why do I say that? We are a form, a shell of what we used to be.

There was a time when men, preachers and laymen alike, had a close personal relationship with Christ. They could do more than just talk about the power of God, they experienced it. They knew what it was to spend great amounts of time with God in prayer, meditation, and study. Men like Johnathan Edwards who would sometimes spend 18 hours a day in prayer and study, who preached the message "Sinners in the hands of an angry God". People clung to the pews and pillars of the church afraid that the ground would open beneath them they cried out

"IS THERE NO WAY OF ESCAPE"!

What about men like Charles Finney who was preaching a revival in a port town. A sea captain testified that conviction broke out among the passengers as the ship neared the town where Finney was preaching.

These are just two examples of the power of God that history is filled with. Why don't we see that manifested power today like they did in years gone by? A better question might be, why don't we care? Most people are content to sit back and talk about the "Good ol' days" with no concern about our present spiritual condition. We go to church, we sing, we pray and preach, then leave church Sunday night to go back to our worldly lifestyles that we live thru the week, there is no conviction in our services, no one gets saved, no one is changed, no one rededicates, no one surrenders their life to the service of the Lord (and I'm not only talking about surrendering to preach), and we talk about what a wonderful service that we had, and we pretend that "the spirit was there"! When in fact, we know little about the spirit that the old time preachers knew.

Why is this, did they have some kind of special power with God that was exclusive only to them? Is God a respecter of persons, giving to them a special relationship with Him that we have no access to? God is no respecter of men, we can have the same power that they had, but if we want it we have to pay the same price they paid. Why, because God is no respecter of men.

I don't want to just read about the power of God, Revival, I want to see it! I was chatting with a preacher on facebook last night, he told me of a great quote by Dr. James Stewart, "The church has been sub-normal for so long, that if we ever got normal, the world would think we were abnormal".

I'm tired of pretending, I want to see the power of God in our churches again.