When the Church Omits Preaching Repentance, Anything Goes!
When the Church Omits Preaching Repentance, Anything Goes!
By Rev. Steve Williams on 9 October, 2017
Once a person or group no longer believes in the state of future rewards and punishments, that individual or crowd are likely not to seek salvation through Christ Jesus, and most probably will determine that they have no sin for which to repent.
It seems much of the modern Church has left off the preaching of repentance and salvation, with a new approach adopted, where there is no need for repentance, but only good deeds are required and a nominal acclimation to the teachings of Christ.
An immoral-majority of America has forsaken tried and true moral deportment for self-seeking, self-gratifying indulgence. Without concern for the general welfare of our nation, these are blown to and fro by the winds of change, and lead astray multitudes on an ever-shifting landscape of moral turpitude, offering little to no hope for our posterity. This immoral-majority wishes to silence the moral-minority, constituted, as far as the former is concerned, by hatemongers, the politically insensitive, bigots, and the self-righteous.
Truly, we now have a national religion in the United States, one that is polytheistic, and affords an umbrella of protection for our ever growing polymorphously perverse society. A culture where anything goes, and as Cole Porter wrote in 1934, “The world has gone mad today and good’s bad today.”[1]
I believe there is no doubt that what once was considered wholesome, venerable and worthy of great effort by most Americans, is now thought of as plebeian and contemptible. The Bible which was respected as containing the Righteousness of God, has been ridiculed, derided and diluted to make sinners (sinners in and outside the Church) comfortable in their practiced transgressions.
Yet, nonetheless, the Bible instructs us to repent.[2] But if sin has been done away with then there is nothing to repent for, at least that is the slippery slope taken by the teachings of the immoralists of today.
Every sinful behavior has a group or movement to champion its cause, to defend its place in America, with little concern where it will lead US, only that it feels and seems right. America finds herself in the same position as Israel in the time of the Judges, where “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”[3]
When there is no gold standard to measure individual or group conduct, then the law of the land becomes: anything goes. For many a decade this country followed the true Gold Standard of comportment, the Bible, it now has been relegated by many in this land and across the world as nothing more than a mission statement for ministering to the homeless, the hungry and the destitute, which is a part of the ministry of the Gospel of Christ.
But because of the tunnel vision of the immoral-majority, they have omitted a profound statement issued by God Himself: Ye shall be holy.[4] The United States of America has replaced (to a great extent) righteousness with reproach, as the Proverb so infallibly says: “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”[5]
Many of our country have fallen into that ignoble category forecast by then President John Adams:
“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.[6]”
Our forefathers understood national righteousness and reproach, they defined repeatedly, and offer still near two hundred fifty years later, sage advice to our erring nation. A wealth of avuncular testament and warnings have they left for all subsequent generations, if we will but listen.
Samuel Adams wrote:
“I fully agree in Opinion with a vary celebrated author, that ‘Freedom or Slavery will prevail in a (City or) Country according as the Disposition & Manners of the People render them fit for the one or the other’; and I have long been convinced that our Enemies have made it an Object, to eradicate from the Minds of the People in general a Sense of true Religion & Virtue, in hopes thereby the more easily to carry their Point of enslaving them. Indeed my Friend, this is a Subject so important in my Mind that I know not how to leave it.
Revelation assures us that ‘Righteousness exalteth a Nation’—Communities are dealt with in this World by the wise and just Ruler of the Universe. He rewards or punishes them according to their general Character. The diminution of publick Virtue is usually attended with that of publick Happiness, and the publick Liberty will not long survive the total Extinction of Morals. ‘The Roman Empire, says the Historian, must have sunk, though the Goths had not invaded it. Why? Because the Roman Virtue was sun.’ Could I be assured that America would remain virtuous, I would venture to defy the utmost Efforts of Enemies to subjugate her.[7]”
While not everyone in the Founding era were Christians, the lay of the land was governed by Christian behavior and attributes. In the twenty-some-odd decades hence, a good portion of American society obeyed the restrictions of the Bible upon corrupted human nature. Not too many years ago, the Bible was still offered a place for study in our high schools, prayer was still sought daily in halls from first grade till twelfth. All of that has been supplanted, and we wonder why our country is in the shape she is. Why crime as mighty tidal waves overwhelm us, why there is rioting in the streets against law and order, why too many children lack a father, why so many are born out of wedlock, why so many are addicted to drugs and pornography.
The reason why, is the common sense of the Commandments of the Bible have been put aside, and this immoral-majority, has put the Bible in the trash. Yes, I do believe that we as a people, should and need to return to our Christian roots, and every Christian and Church must seek God and turn this nation from its wicked ways.[8]