To anyone old enough to remember the O.J. Simpson trial you’ll know why he was acquitted. It wasn’t just that “the gloves don’t fit”, it was because the evidence collected had been contaminated. Consequently, the evidence was no good.
When something is contaminated it can’t be affective or used for it’s intended purpose. It’s a lot like many churches are today. We allowed the world to infiltrate the church.
Instead of the church affecting the world, the world is infecting the church. Consequently, what we have today is an impotent church. It’s become an empty shell of what it used to be. What we have today
is a lot of pretty buildings filled with religious feckless people. It “has a form of godliness”, but little power.
According to the National Congregation Study conducted in 2006 and 2012 there is an estimated 384,000 congregations in the US. Basically, there’s a church building on every other street corner in most towns and cities. You would think with all these churches that crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, pornography, sexual pervertion, immorality, divorce, and violence would decrease, but it hasn’t. In fact, it has progressingly gotten worse. In fact, much of the very same things that are happening in the world are happening in the church. i.e. Divorce, sexual sins, addiction and so on. Moreover, many either get deceived and sucked back into the world, or they continue in a sundry of sins and vices and remain in the congregation.
For contrast, let’s take a look at the first church found in the book of Acts. Just 12 men turned the known world upside down. People routinely got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. Healings and miracles were a common occurrence. What happened with the church today? Simply put, it’s been contaminated by the world. It has become defiled.
The Lord warned Israel, “Do not defile yourselves in any way, for the people I am driving out before you have defiled themselves in all these ways (He was referring to a list of gross sexual sins in the previous verses). Lev 18:27-28
Solomon, the then wisest man on the earth, allowed his heart to be turned from the Lord because of pegan wives. In I Kings 11:4 we read, “In Solomon’s old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God, as his father, David, had been.”
I blame the leadership of many of our churches today for the state we’re in. They’ve been too soft on sin. Their messages are designed to make you feel good. They preach only “positive” sermons. They either forget or ignore what the word of God was meant for. 2Tim. 3 Verses 16 to 17
[16] “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: [17] That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”
Sound biblical teaching fosters growth and maturity. It’s not always pleasant to hear. It makes the flesh uncomfortable. The truth does that. You either line up with it, or you can decide to reject it. But you can’t stay in the middle. There’s no gray area. The fact is God says to us, “be holy as I am holy.” Lev 19:20.
We are in a time when the Bible fortold, “The time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” IITim 4:3
And it is because many church pastors and teachers have watered down the Word, that we have weak, powerless, baby Christians laden down with verious sins. And we have allowed ourselves to become contaminated.
Some will say, “Jesus loves me the way I am.” Yes, but he doesn’t want you to stay the way you are. He wants to progressively make you more like Himself.
So to the church we should say, “come the way you are, but don’t leave the way you were.”
A cross-contaminated church will have little affect upon the world and our present culture. Much like the evidence in the O.J. Simpson trial, it will be good for nothing.