I have been speaking a lot recently about the sleeping and slumbering church. By "church", I mean the Body of Christ on the earth or the ekklesia. This is the church that has been under the duvet and sucking the soother or the dummy. Listening to the lullaby of the world and the enemy, placating itself while the world shifts around them and cultural battles are being lost. Instead of engaging with culture, many in the church have been backpedalling away trying to be neutral and bland enough to avoid confrontation. Lukewarm and with no saltiness! This has led to the wokification of the church and what I call the deJesusification of the Church. Talking maybe about God but de-emphasising the central position of Jesus as the only mediator between God and man. We can talk about community transformation and social causes but not the curse and the fact that the only solution to the problems we are facing is Jesus.
In that reality, I have been calling upon people to wake up, to raise a righteous standard and to declare Kingdom on the earth - Thy Kingdom Come on Earth as it is in Heaven! We are to be watchmen on the earth, shouting warnings and blowing the alarm. While this applies to all countries, I was speaking recently about Canada and I felt this word drop into my spirit: "In Canada the church is not just sleeping and slumbering, but if someone may be waking up they reach for the needle or the drink to put themselves back into an altered state where they don't have to address issues." Don't mention abortion, gender and sexuality, biological males in women's sports, the trucker protests, medical tyranny, the arrest of pastors, or anything that could be perceived as "political" or perspectives that are considered "socially conservative." The most political thing a Christian can say is that they don't want to engage in politics. They are like the priest and the Levite that walked by the person in the ditch (Luke 10:25-37). They did not want to be confronted by the naked man in the ditch, it was easier to remain blind, bland, anodyne, and unengaged. The gray men and women of the church. They did not want to be woken up or confronted enough to engage and care. They wanted to remain in the Matrix and avoid confrontation because to awaken was to confront. Things have gotten so perverse during the slumbering that awakening means having to engage!
The church is acting like the people described in Zechariah 7:11-12: "...they refused to listen and turn a rebellious and stubborn shoulder and made heavy and dull their ears that the might not hear." That speaks to the sleeping and slumbering but the passage goes on: "...they made their hearts as an adamant stone or diamond point, lest they should hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit..." (emphasis added) . The result was judgement as their closed ears resulted in God not listening to their cry when the inevitable judgement came.
I was reminded of the cautionary vision in Ezekiel:
And [the Lord] called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer’s ink bottle at his side. And the Lord said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in the midst of it. And to the others He said in my hearing, Follow [the man with the ink bottle] through the city and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have any pity. Slay outright the elderly, the young man and the virgin, the infant and the women; but do not touch or go near anyone on whom is the mark. Begin at My sanctuary... Ez. 9:4
We are to sigh and groan over that which God cares about. We are to be known by our care for what God cares about. Those without the mark were taken out in judgment. Are we known for caring about what God cares about? In the area of sexuality, family life, abortion, honesty, integrity and the like, are our voices being heard? Like Elijah, we are to be cultural architects, reworking the mess that is going on around us.
Elijah Confronts - he confronted the death of the young person, confronted the hunger of the widow, but mainly he was JEALOUS for the LORD and confronted His enemies and destroyed the prophets of Baal. He was moved by the wickedness of the day and he confronted the dominant world system of religion and its economy. He stopped the FLOW OF RAIN (the economy). Ahab, the ruler, said in 1 Kings 18:17-18:
When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Are you he who troubles Israel?
Elijah replied, I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, by forsaking the commandments of the Lord and by following the Baals.
Likewise, we are to be troublers in the land. We must trouble those who oppose righteousness and be known for our righteous standard raised as servants of the great King Jesus.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Eph. 2:10
We are called to works - there are things that God wants us to do and they involve the things God cares about! Guess what, it is not about freedom, ease, and slumber!
“For long ago in Egypt I broke your yoke and burst your bonds not that you might be free, but that you might serve me…”Jer. 2;20
We are to be engaged in works of service, breaking the curse over people's lives through the name of Jesus. We must be awakened to shout the warning to those in the church and those around us.
My attention was then drawn to Ezekiel 33 where the standards for these awake watchman were set out. I think it is important to look at this. If we see danger coming then we are to "blow the trumpet" to raise a warning. If we blow the trumpet, and the people do not listen then their blood is on their head. However, if we see the danger coming and do not then:
But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, he is taken away in and for his perversity and iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand. Ez.33:6
What does this warning entail - there is good information here and it continues as follows:
When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his perversity and iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his evil way and he does not turn from his evil way, he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life. Ez. 33: 7-8
Let's be clear, the warning is to declare the consequences of the curse, sin and iniquity! We are to be warning those in our culture about their pending judgment and the consequences for sin. It is directly targeting the Ez. 9: 4 abominations in the land, perversity and iniquity.
EVIL WAY - we must raise a righteous standard against these evil ways, and call on the wicked to turn or repent. We must declare to them about the Blessing that makes rich and adds no sorrow (Prov. 10:22). How does this requirement fit with the sleeping, slumbering, and "inoffensive" church. By being inoffensive to wickedness they are offending God and by not warning the wicked and showing them the righteous standard then the blood of the wicked is on the heads of these sleeping believers.
Brothers and sisters, it is not about being woke and inoffensive. Lukewarmness means that God will spit us from His mouth. We are called to raise a righteous standard in the land and show the way forward. All of the church have to wake up and be the righteous watchmen that God has called us to be. I think the church in Canada should receive this as a kind, heartfelt warning - you cannot alter your state to avoid confrontation. To wake up in the middle of a battle is to confront.
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