The Greatest Threat to the Church

The threat to the church is not the fiery furnace of persecution. The threat is not the stripping of native "religious freedoms" we have become accustomed to. The threat is not the pressing trials on our bodies in sickness or poverty. No, God through Paul told us that these were even to God's glory as Christ would be manifest in us through them (2 Cor 4:8-10). The great threat is not even the charlatan who boasts great blasphemes and heretical things. Such men or women are easily set aside with a few words from Scripture and left for the spiritually deprived and reprobate to follow. Not to go completely unaddressed, but His sheep know His voice. The great threat is a lackadaisical approach to sin in our every day lives. It is the insincerity of heart that in a supposed familiarity with God, breeds contempt towards His holiness and how we live up to our calling in response to it. It's not the outlandish God-hater, or blasphemer who brings the greatest threat. Rather, within an otherwise Scriptural-sound company of brothers, it's sleepiness towards God and indifference to our calling, taking root in our every day lives. The greatest threat to the church is found in the lukewarm waters of tolerance towards our own sinful state; a heart that leads to the lighthearted approval of carnal pursuits, lusts, and desires that have no actual sincere thought to the glory or holiness of Christ. We sing glory, but we do not pursue it. He would not have us lukewarm (Rev 3:15-17). This threat to the church has a mind to see another brother indulging in irreverent speech, only to long for an excuse to do the same; or, perhaps to just ignore it. Never does it lovingly take issue, as not to offend with the holiness of God, or bring a concern to how the holiness of God as expressed in us is under attack. After all, we all must have a little fun in fruitless pursuits, and all things are permissible. The great threat is the claim on "Christian liberty" as a means of fulfilling our own lusts. A smile at the audacious things of outsiders we think to be somehow set apart from the reality of how our own heart reacts to such things. Does it yearn for the holiness of God, or does it smirk? Do we not also indulge in their behavior in our hypocritical thinking? Jesus said that to lust in the heart and to be angry without just cause was to be an adulterer and a murderer. Do we get His message? Or, do we with piety in the light of day agree that we would never participate in those sinful things--but say those things are still good for a laugh! In the dark of night it delights us. Not in His light but in light of our televisions and computer screens. Then, as if sin was some joke to be trifled with we give it a subtle wink and confess "my bad", to move along quickly and go unnoticed. We are a "my bad" lukewarm society. We try not to take notice of our sin, but God notices. He notices that we have both had our light fill of sin, and our light fill of repentance. At worst this leads to mocking those brothers and sisters who do daily pine earnestly for a sanctified life after Christ; viewed as being unnecessarily "hardcore", and meanwhile being satisfied in our own hardcore pursuits of permitted carnality. So long as "grace" is invoked, then holiness needs not chased. The great threat is forgetting Him (Who He really is) Who snatched us from the files of hell to a higher calling; calling us instead to His unchanging and ever-consuming holiness, by which we are being saved.