By Pastor Glynn Adams
June 16, 2024
What we have in this nation is a religious church system that is designed and operated by man, and for man and his pleasures and the gates of hell have overtaken this church religious system and also this nation. On the other hand, in Matthew 16:13-16, Jesus said He will build His ekklesia (church) and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Jesus did build His ekklesia and the fruit of it is shown in the First Century. Just observe how Luke describes Jesus’ ekklesia in the Book of Acts. “These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer.” (Acts 1:14) These disciples of Jesus obeyed Him and waited in the upper room and each were filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter preached the whole gospel to repent and many received the Word and souls added to the Kingdom of God. “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” The fruit of Jesus continued to come forth the remander of the first century, into the second century, but then in the third century man took it upon himself to build his own church and attach the name of Jesus to it.
In approximately AD 313, the Roman Emperor Constantine became a Christian. He promptly legalized Christianity in order to end persecution of Christians. While Constantine’s benevolence towards Christianity stopped short of establishing it as the official religion, forty years after his death, the Emperor Theodosius I did make Christianity the religion of the state in AD 380. Everything changed. The apostolic ekklesia became a pastoral church, settled, calm, steady and predictable. In the process, the pioneering spirit was eroded, the pastor was elevated; control of the masses and appeasement of powerful people became the focus; a kingdom mindset became a business mindset and the early believers’ identity was stripped of passion and skewed in the direction of conformity.
William Tyndale was the first person to translate the Bible directly from the Hebrew and Greek texts. Unfortunately, he was not authorized by the king to translate the Bible into English so he paid dearly for his great work. In 1525, he finished the entire New Testament and the Pentateuch. His translation of the Bible was also the first to be mass printed using an early printing press. As a result, the Bible made it into the hands of the common people posing a dire threat to the two reigning religious institutions at the time: the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England (which was controlled by the King of England). Control of Scripture was vital to both church organizations as it enabled control of the people.
Had Tyndale stopped with just translation, he might have been all right but he also included his commentaries with his Bible translations which were considered heresy to both of these powerful churches, thus making him their enemy. Tyndale’s greatest offense was his translation of Matthew 16 and 18. Specifically, he did not use the English word “church” for this was not invented yet. Instead, he used “congregation.” Congregation refers to the people not just to leadership. Tyndale’s translation – in line with Jesus’ intent – told the people they were free to receive Christ and be part of the ekklesia and that they had authority given to them by God. In 1535, Tyndale was arrested and tried and convicted of heresy and imprisoned in horrible conditions. He was strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard in 1536. His last words on earth were, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”
But we are still in bondage to religion and religious ways in America; just the names have changed. Until we forsake our false religion and let Jesus build the church, we will remain in bondage to the demonic religious powers. In America we have moved from apostolic leadership to pastoral leadership. We went from developing an army of leaders to merely feeding and nursing flocks of sheep.
We have shifted from occupying the land to mere existence and from dominion to survival – and grateful to attend a church where someone will spoon-feed us. We have gone from truth to error. Our religious mindset has produced a consumer-based product of watered down goods that require little to no sacrifice. Just attend church and do nothing and be nothing. Our self- produced business minded model has caused us to redefine success. We have based success on how my business/church is doing and not how the city or region that we have been called to is doing.
That’s why we can proudly boast and brag how wonderful our church is while we assume no spiritual responsibility for the city and nation that we live in that is full of crime, drugs, sexual immorality, perversion, lies, deception, hate, and going to hell. Every Sunday as we so proudly attend our church. we despicably fail to assess the most critical judgment to our own existence: IS MY CITY OR REGION WHERE ‘OUR’ CHURCH IS LOOKING MORE LIKE THE KINGDOM OF GOD OR THE DOMAIN OF DARKNESS AND HELL?
We have become a religious cult and inward social club organizing “our” church to please people and not the LORD while the world around us looks more like hell. We have believed the lie about who we really are and how we are to function!!! We have lost our way. We have lost our identity and as a result, we have lost our true function and purpose Jesus set before us. Our false religion doctrine will cause our downfall. We think God will come rescue us from the dilemma we have made for ourselves. But God did not rescue the great Biblical translator, William Tyndale. Nor did he rescue the obedient Peter, Paul, and the other first century disciples. All these men and many more where faithful in tribulation and died honoring the Name of Christ.
America today is a lawless nation and those who claim to be leaders and followers of Jesus Christ are the most lawless in this nation. We have forsaken the ways of God. We are no longer salt and light to our nation. Every one of us is guilty of allowing Satan to accomplish more in our nation than he should have been allowed to do. We have not come together as followers of Jesus Christ and in obedience to Him to resist this evil as we are commanded to do in Scripture. In most places in this nation, we are no longer relevant. Unlike our enemy, we are divided.
Our pitiful definition of soft and smooth preaching of “grace” has led us to lawless living which has set us up as a lawless society which could eventually lead to a lawless leader called the Antichrist. We have wildly missed the mark concerning the true reason we are in the ministry. Look how bad it has gotten in our nation with the atrocious sins of abortion, injustice, confusion over sexual orientation, gender identity and transitioning, pedophilia, and other social and cultural issues we are facing in America and most of those who claim to follow Christ have ignored what is going on and have remained silent!!!
Today, very few pastors will address these cultural issues for fear of offending someone. Shame on us. Our silence is bringing judgment on our nation and eventually destruction. God will surely judge us for lowering His standards to make sure many could continue in their sin!!!!
I will say it again in stronger terms – America is the home of an apostate church full of people who choose to ignore the Word of God and what is going on in our culture. It is not a lawless world that ushers in the end time but a lawless church. It is not a lawless world that ushers in apostasy but the Church through weak and soft preaching. Soft preaching produces soft and lawless saints – front row, back row, pulpit, deacon board, or choir!!!
Whenever God’s voice is refused to be heard, order will unravel. The result of that process is that the voice of God is no longer comforting to us; but is now confronting us and we ignore the warnings and continue to sleep. When you don’t permit the Word of God to enter into your world and hold you accountable, chaos and confusion will enter your life. Our generations in America are calling into question the veracity of the Word of God. Many see no need to read the Word anymore or to listen to God. To refuse the Word of God puts one in a very dangerous place. The absence of strong voices in our churches and culture, usher in godless and lawless societies!!!
Not only were we not paying attention to the fact we were breaking all the principles and safeguards, no one was speaking out and the Institutional denomination religious groups, the Remnant, mega churches along with the pastors were silent while evil men were stealing our nation, corrupting our educational systems, leading our nation into sexual perversion, gender disfunction, immorality and on and on and the followers of Jesus Christ were silent!!!! God is surely judging us for our blatant disobedience and silence!!!!
There is a reason why little is happening in our religious churches today. The light of the Body of Christ will never shine if we don’t go to where the darkness is. We will never win a spiritual battle if we don’t go to the battlefield. That is where the Spirit and power of Jesus will be. We have reduced Christianity to going to a building on Sunday. Jesus never intended for us to spend our time and resources in a church building as we are doing today. We have become spectators to be entertained and when the show is over, we return to this world to live our daily lives. Church in the First Century was fellowship. God’s people prayed for one another, loved one another, ministered to one another, shared revelation from God with one another; all to prepare themselves to go out into a lost and cruel world to be a witness of what Jesus has done in their lives and to make disciples – in other words – to BE the church!!!!!
The gospels show us that Jesus Christ while on this earth taught and made disciples. He sent them out to do ministry. The Book of Acts tells us Jesus went UP, the Holy Spirit CAME DOWN, and the disciples of Jesus WENT OUT. The whole Book of Acts is the story of those disciples of Jesus doing exactly what Jesus taught them to do – sharing the gospel of the Kingdom of God, healing the sick, delivering the people from demons, tearing down demonic strongholds, and making disciples of Christ – not disciples of some denomination or religious system. God has not changed anything but man has.
What we in America are demonstrating to this nation and world today is a false gospel and religious system. It is ineffective and does not work and we have the fruit to prove it!! Just look at the spiritual condition of this nation and what type of nation we are allowing Satan to make in America. Christians have the Name of Jesus, His mighty weapons, His power in the Holy Spirit, and His authority but evil is overtaking our nation.
God bless, I remain His servant and watchman, Glynn Adams (Thanks to Pastor Joe Nicola and his great book, “Ekklesia”, Dr. Michael Lake, Barclay Commentaries, and so many others without their input, I could not have written this article) (Next week: How do we get out of this spiritual mess?!!!
© 2024 Glynn Adams – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Glynn Adams: glynnadams@sbcglobal.net
