THE EMMAUS WALK PRESENTS:

"Return Offensive Leadership to the Church,"

by Dave Welch, Levitt Letter, May 2009

Good as it is, ss the message expressed in the graphic above the full Gospel we should be preaching or is there more? Many, past evangelists such as Charles Finney for a notable example, would say there is more to the Gospel--there is a world to take back from Satan for Almighty God's kingdom and for man too as its divinely instituted sovereign. What good is a world that is ruled by Satan while Christ sits in heaven on his throne. Where is the kingdom described by the Lord in his prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..."? Obviously, Satan must be driven out, even after he was defeated on the Cross. He stilL holds captive multitudes as well as being emperor of the worldly system. A Church that resigns itself to Satanic control over the world is not the Church that Christ would have--since he prayed as he did, we know that, and so we know he wanted a total change of the earth, from being Satan's captive in his kingdom, to becoming what He created it to be in God's kingdom and what we shall see transpire in the Millennial Reign of Christ on earth.

For thousands of years, prophets, priests, and pastors have served as the voice of spiritual, moral, cultural, and governmental accountability to the laws and sovereignty of God. The clergy during the colonial era were known as the "Black Regiment" and were feared by the British for their role in birthing the fire of freedom. Pastors like Lyman Beecher, Charles Finney, and hundreds of others among their peers stirred the flames of abolition, temperance, and racial justice [in this illustrious list would be the outstanding Martin Luther King, a fiery preacher in the political arena who exhorted all Americans to join and love one another, repent of discrimination and create social and racial justice for all Americans including black people, and he died a martyr for that cause too, sealing his message with his life-blood.--Ed.].

We could list columns of names and situations of those filling pulpits who took responsibility for the condition of their flock, their community, and their nation. However, beginning sometime in the last 100 years, a new "Gnosticism" asserted itself, an old heresy asserting that only the spiritual has value and that all things physical are evil [in this Gnostic view, politics and government service were "dirty" and, thus, Christians should stay out, which relegated the public sphere to non-Christians and even enemies of Christ--a total disaster which greatly aided the takeover of Christian-based America by anti-christ forces in day.

Also, the same heretical view in the Church was applied to entertainment, and Hollywood was treated the same, viewed as a "dirty thing Christians should strenuously avoid," so Christians withheld their participation in film production and did not go to films and express their preferences of which films they liked and thus this enormously powerful influence over American life and morals became Satan's tool for the advancement of his kingdom and the conquest of America.

Only now, in 2009, are many Christians waking up to the disaster and trying to rectify it by invading politics and also entertainment, but it is a generation late, and a generation already has been lost, and with them America's soul has seemingly been lost too.--Ed.].

As Christian historian Timothy Paul Jones describes the distinction exposing the lie of Gnosticism, "For Christians, salvation isn't a spiritual retreat from the physical realm; it is a renewal that unites and restores both realms." Our salvation brings hope for redemption to every aspect of the physical creation and created order [we would like to present the article by a theologian which details the aspects of this mandate given man of stewardship over the earth, granted by Almighty God the Creator when Adam and Eve were created by Him. Please look for it soon, as it counters the Darwinian views that are now prevailing, that man is just another animal species, a higher primate who has usurped sovereigty over the earth and its species and is "destroying" it by his use of it, whereas God granted soverignty to man exclusively over the earth and its species as His chief stewards.--Ed.].

From the first-century Christians on, the Cultural Mandate given by God to his stewards in Genesis was accepted to mean that everything on earth is under God's sovereignty, under our stewardship, and therefore "our business." As false teachings crept in over the last century, the Church moved into a sacred-versus-secular separation that opened the door wide for many kinds of evil to triumph.

In "The Late, Great Evangelical Church," by C. Vaughn Doner, nationally renowned theologian, and biblical scholar, Dr. Jay Grimstead the author states, "The studied creedlessness of American Protestantism...its ignorance of the teaching of Scripture, its preoccupation with millennialism, its anti-sacramental and anti-ecclesiastical bias are all indications of an essential Gnostic world-view."

Does it really matter as long as we "preach Jesus crucified and rose again"?

Thankfully, there are many pastors and theologians who would say there is much more to Christianity than just preaching the salvation message, doing Bible studies, and waiting for the Rapture. Among them was legendary evangelist of teh first Great Awakening, Charles G. Finney, who wrote in "The Decay of Conscience" in 1873:

"Brethren, our preaching will bear its legitimate fruits. If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours in a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the public press lacks moral discrimination, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the church is degenerate and worldly, the pulpit is responsible for it. If the world loses its interest in religion, the pulpit is responsible for it. If Satan rules in our halls of legislature, the pulpit is responsible for it. If our politics becomes so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it. Let us not ignore this fact, my dear brethren; but let us lay it to heart, and be thoroughly awake to our responsibility in respect to the morals of our nation."

We are at a point when thousands of pastors across America must take the challenge, honestly assess whether we are accepting the full mandate in every area shown above and providing the "offensive" leadership that the Church so desperately needs. The cost of not doing so can already be measured in the broken lives and a weak nation. Our God demands more and our people deserve better, so bring it on!

This brief message by Dave Welch is worth ten thousand non-controversial, compromising-with-the-world sermons and church services. Pass it on! and as he says, in regard to "offensive" leadership in the Church, we heartily agree with him, to "Bring it on!"--Ed.

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