Does God Even Go to Church Today?

"The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions." 1 Samuel 3:1

This verse says a lot about the spiritual condition of Israel towards the end of the time of the judges. First, as indicated by the fact that Samuel was in the service of Eli, the high priest, there was plenty of religious 'activity' going on. The daily sacrifices were being offered and the daily and weekly rituals were being performed. But worship had become lifeless. It seemed that they were simply going through the motions without any true regard for the God who had saved them. Eli was the high priest but he didn't hold his office with the reverence due. His sons were corrupt and took advantage of the people and Eli did nothing about it...even after being warned by a prophet. There was religion but it was dead religion. The sad thing is that nobody seemed to be bothered by it.

It mirrors the state of the church today. There's a lot of 'religious' activity going on. We have nice music and nice little sermons that really have little substance to them (if not downright heretical). Often the churches are more concerned about the style of worship than they are about whether or not the Word being preached pricks the hearts and consciences and impacts their lives for God's glory.

"The word of the Lord was rare."

We have a serious lack of expository preaching. Typically, we do not dig into the texts of the scripture and mine for the deep truths contained within them. Often the teaching is simply pandering to the congregation just to keep them happy and coming each week. It's what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:3-4:

"For the time will come when men 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. They will turn their ears away from truth and turn aside to myths."

Much of the face of Evangelical Christianity in the public eye is exactly that; teachers that do not teach the word of God but pander to what the 'itching ears' want to hear. From the prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen and Jesse Duplantis to the Emergent Church Universalists like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, they preach a message that panders to the carnal desires of those who are not truly being saved.

The VERY FIRST sermon ever preached by the disciple Peter was one that warned of coming judgment and called people to repent. That message is seldom heard today and yet that was the basis of the message of the gospel. The typical messages today use select Bible verses taken out of context that can be manipulated to mean whatever the false teacher and listeners want it to mean.

"There were not many visions"

In the other ditch we have very strong doctrinal teaching but we don't have the active work of the Holy Spirit manifesting itself. This is often typical in the old denominations. Often the teaching is very sound but tends toward ritualistic legalism. Worship has become lifeless and it follows a liturgy that had deep meaning and purpose at one time, but nobody knows why they do it anymore. Cessationism is often very prevelant in these bodies. This is the idea that when the canon of scripture was complete, the gifts of the spirit ended as well. The cessationist belief discounts things like tongues and the prophetic (healing to a certain extent as well), saying that  all of that is unnecessary now that we have the Bible in its complete form. The problem with that belief is that the Bible doesn't teach that. The cessationist relies on passages like 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and they understand the word 'perfection' in 1 Corinthians 13:10 to mean the completion of the New testament canon. The problem is that from the time 1 Corinthians was written to the time the final New testament book was written, was only about 40 years. If the cessationist view on this verse is correct, then chapter 14 is completely unnecesary. It contains detailed instruction on how the gifts of the spirit are to be used and these instructions are for the entire church for the entire church age.

In short, there is no scriptural basis for cessationism.

I asked a mentor of mine, given the lack of scriptural support for cessationism, why so many lean towards that belief. He responded, "Because we are afraid of what might happen if the Holy Spirit truly had his way among us." This is more subtle than pursuing the prosperity message or the universalist idea of anything goes, but it still means that we don't have a heart that seeks after God. It is true that spiritual gifts are mishandled and used improperly. But that doesn't discount the legitimacy of the gifts. The problem in the Corinthian church was that they were using the legitimate gifts improperly. The truth is, we need the gifts of the Holy Spirit today just as much as the early church did. To think otherwise is to mirror the Loadocian church in Revelation 3:17:

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."

In the story of God giving the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, the children of Israel told Moses not to let God speak to them directly. But that he should go speak to God and then tell them what he had said. In Exodus 34 Moses came back and his face was radiant the people didn't want to be near thim either. That is the human condition.

Fallen humans don't want God.
And they don't want people who have been with God either.

Even Peter, when he first encountered Jesus said, "Go away from me Lord. I am a sinful man." (Luke 5:8)

Is this who we have become as the church today? Does God even come to church? And more importantly; Would we even notice if He didn't show up? In Revelation 3:20 Jesus said:

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."

LET'S ANSWER THE DOOR!