By Rev. Larry Thompson,
Pastor Martinsburg Church in Bruin
On February 13, a 44 year old Vietnamese mother of three, was brutally body slammed and left paralyzed with a spinal injury at a shopping mall in Houston, Texas. According to news reports, her alleged assailant reportedly witnessed her making a cash withdrawal from her bank and then followed her for 24 miles, before attacking her.
This is just one more unfortunate example of the cultural and political malaise at play in America today. While many are quick to offer up and opine on what they see as the “root” cause(s) of what is transpiring in America; in the end however, all this amounts to nothing more than gaslighting and political theater. The “root” cause of America’s cultural and political upheaval is a spiritual one. America has lost her heart for God and His word is clear on this: “Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. The king’s favor is toward a wise servant: but his wrath is against him that causeth shame (Prov.14:34-35).”
While the godless forces of America’s cultural and political left have done their best to malign and erase, in all matters of religion and faith, America’s rich Judeo-Christian heritage and tradition, they do not stand alone. Over the past 60 years, many of the major denominations of the American Church have, by and large, lost their heart for God. While retaining an outward appearance of Godly faith, piety and fidelity to the gospel of Christ, in reality, they have all but forsaken it. Instead of preaching and teaching a gospel premised upon, “The Book, the Blood and the Blessed Hope,” they preach and teach an empty gospel, premised on soft grace and the fleshly agenda of diversity, equity and inclusivity. Because of this, the message of the American Church has been compromised and weakened, to the spiritual peril of tens of thousands.
Jesus speaks to this very thing in Matthew 15:7-9 as he quotes the Prophet Isaiah: “Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh (near) unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for Doctrines (Godly truth) the commandments of men.”
Responding to this, the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:2-4: “Preach the word: be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” May we all stand fast in the true gospel of Jesus Christ!