Theres no question that there is a problem with the fact that most churches are packed with people who have never been saved. I heard a statistic which said that as few as 2% of church members may actually be saved. This may well be the case when you consider the proliferation of churches in the world, although I have no idea how you would substantiate that statistic. However, there is another problem which is, in my opinion, even more devastating to Bible believing churches: it is what my Pastor calls, high pressure evangelism. Let me give an example. Several years ago a fairly well known pastor/evangelist out of Asheville, NC held a tent meeting at the fair grounds of our town. I happened to over hear a couple of his men discussing the fact that Dr. So and so, their pastor, had just had a meeting where well over 100 of the members had gotten saved. They noted that this preachers ministry was marked by this kind of activity, church members, deacons, Sunday School teachers, pianists, and I imagine an occasional preacher getting saved. Hey, if someone is lost, they need to get saved no matter who it hare lips. I did. However, the thing that bothers me is this: Do you mean to tell me, the Pastor of this church has preached to these folks, many of them faithful members, for years but it took the ministry of this evangelist with a reputation for having church members saved to get them in? According to Romans 1:16, it is the GOSPEL which is the power of God unto salvation, not the HIGH PRESSURE ARM TWISTING of this Spirit filled man of God (a man in this case who is notorious for a lack of ethics, BTW). Im convinced this involves less of the Power of the Spirit and more of the Power of suggestion. Frankly, if I had been faithfully preaching to that bunch for years and no more of them were saved than that, I would resign. If Gods word cant get em in, then I wouldnt trust the preaching of a particular man to do the job. For my part, I am confident that if that Pastor is preaching the truth of the gospel to his church, and continues to do so faithfully, I would invert that statistic, at least for that particular church. My Pastor says that he believes he doesnt have any lost members, because he questions them about whether or not they are saved and why they are saved, before he accepts them as members. So, unless they lied, they must be saved. I agree with him.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 21:00:11 +0000
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