IS THE CHURCH STILL RELEVANT IN THIS 21ST CENTURY?
Forever, March 3rd, 2013, will remain a memorial for me. On this Lord's Day, I was ordained in Lagos into the pastoral ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ during the inauguration of Starplace Bible Church. The Holy Scriptures completely and totally reject the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints which still “ordains” into two priesthoods: Aaron and Levi! This is strange news to the Old and New Testaments of the living Jesus – PSA. 110:4, HEB. 3: 1-3, 4:14-15, 5:5-10. It is written: “If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for on the basis of it the law was given to the people), why was there still need for another priest to come – one in the order of Melchizedek, not in the order of Aaron?” - HEB. 7:11-12 {NIV}. Again, God affirms: “The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but He {Jesus} became a priest with an oath when God said to Him: 'The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind: 'You are a priest forever.' Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, Who has been made perfect forever.'” – HEB. 7:18-21, 28 {NIV}. I rejoice in the Holy Scriptures: “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” – HEB. 8:7, 9:15 {NIV}. Let's go back to my ordination. On that day, families and friends, school and class mates, neighbours and Christian brethren, pastoral colleagues and acquaintances, in-laws and admirers took off quality time to honour God and celebrate with me. God be praised for the bountiful grace of the Lord Jesus Christ was sufficient for me to go through pastoral training for two years amidst great challenges. I bless the Triune God because “no man takes this honour to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was” - {HEB. 5:4, NKJV}. In all things pertaining to life, salvation, sanctification, education, marriage and eternity in heaven, I am forever indebted to Jesus Christ of Nazareth the Son of the living God Who loved me and gave up His sinless life for my sinful life. I celebrate Princess Josephine, the Bluebird who two decades ago testified mightily before me of the living and loving power of Almighty God, thus leading to my salvation and later to our marriage. I bless God for King David {the beginning of my strength} and Bubu Jo {my Benjamin}, my two sons and adorable friends. God's wonderful saints, Princess and our boys are the greatest human joy in my life. I thank God for everyone [dead and alive} who has a hand in this glory: My venerable grandparents, my dutiful dear parents, siblings, teachers, uncles, aunties, Christian fathers/mothers and authors. All who labored in God's vineyard for my benefit are blessed by God. In the Anumbor family, I give God praise and celebrate the following saints who were ordained before me: Pastors Ben and Emmanuel Anumbor {RCCG}, Mrs Tina Anumbor {Foursquare} and Deaconess {Mrs} Philo Anumbor {RCCG}. In the Molokwu family, I thank God for Christopher Molokwu of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry. Under many blessed pastors from Rev. Dr Tunde Joda to Rev. Dr Life Alegbemi, God touched and taught me graciously. Particularly, I am grateful to Pastor Dan Ogbemudia, the senior cleric in Starplace Bible Church who called me into ministry. He's a faithful warrior of righteousness anointed by Jehovah to ignite stars to shine by preaching God's undiluted word of power. A man met me a day after the program and said: “Congratulations! From your profile that was read yesterday, you must hail from the same town with Pastor John Mmobosi. Do you know him?” I replied: “Thank you sir! And yes, I do know Pastor John Mmobosi! He's my egbon! And sir, who's he to you?” Then the man laughed and answered: “Pastor John Okonne is my name and I am the assistant to Pastor Mmobosi in the ministry.” That added to the testimony of my ordination. While congratulating me same day, one patrician gentleman riding with a neighbour voiced the possible extinction of the house of God, hinging his theory on the obsolescence affecting the church in the west. He even tried to derail me from the ministry that I was ordained into barely a day before: “While holidaying in the US last year, I accidentally read THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS and never for the life of me imagined that I would one day meet the author. Pastor Emeka, congratulations.” Before I could ask if he was congratulating me for my book or my ordination or both, he railed on: “I think that you are better off writing more tomes like THE INTERCOURSE….. I think that life holds more promises for you as a writer than as a pastor!” I thanked him for complimenting my writing, but rejected his opinion about stewardship in the house of God, assuring him that I entered the pastoral ministry only after hearing from the Lord Jesus and not for financial benefits. For days after this encounter, I prayed, meditated, read scriptures and secular articles about the church of Jesus Christ of today. Is it on the brink of extinction? No! Is there any relevance for the church of God in this 21st century? Yes! Is all well with the church today? No!
AN AMALGAM OF ENEMIES AT THE GATE OF THE CHURCH
Cloned in different colours, arrayed in peculiar permutations, voicing verdant verbiage, stealthily escorted by the columns of violent Islam, bade good speed by patently ungodly policies of western governments and unfortunately helped by madcap mistakes and macabre misbehaviors of the church itself, a distinguished alumni of anti-clerical advocates have taken aim at the body of Christ. Indeed, they have cashed in on some maelstrom occasioned by the church such as padeophile tolerant Catholic priesthood, mercurial, mercantile prosperity preaching Pentecostal pastors and a gay indulging, Scripture distant, ecumenical apostate church. This opposition anthill represents a small clique of influential secularists, libertarians, scientists, human rights activists, bohemian artistes in “the creative industries,” communists, ultra liberal media houses, Euro- Skeptics, UN/transnational government enthusiasts, homosexuals, New Age apostles and energized Satanists who hurriedly want the church of the living God, the pillar and house of truth to go into extinction. In nearly every corner of atheist Europe and some places in North America, these elements use their judicial, government, educational, entertainment, culture, media and P. R. outreaches to hurry and harry the church of Jesus Christ into retreat. In legislations, executive orders, movies, plays, books, Internet, school systems, music, print and electronic media, the assault on the church goes on unabated. Officialdom through some demonic policies like legalized abortion; prostitution, homosexuality, gay marriage, destruction of the traditional family and removal of parental authority over children have pushed the voice of anti-clericalism to a crescendo. In supporting and providing legislative intervention for the above wicked acts, United States President Barack Obama and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron have joined forces in one of the greatest ungodliness seen in this era. By capturing these immoral provisions in their national budgets and force feeding them down the throats of hapless and helpless poor Third World governments via well-heeded western NGOs, this well educated enemies of Jehovah have directly enthroned the rule of Satan, thus signally the eminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Under the mantra of reproductive rights, these NGOs provide free abortion even for girls in their early teens. Holding the banner of non-discrimination on the basis of sexuality, they are actually the foot soldiers of homosexuality and gay marriage. More painful is the outright turnaround of the backsliding European and American Anglican churches that in many instances are years ahead of President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron in thinking up ungodly evils.
SOME RECENT SINS OF THE CHURCH OF GOD AGAINST GOD AND MAN
During the Third Reich, the Vatican plus Evangelical and Lutheran churches in Europe all officially supported the Nazis and their Axis powers and closed their eyes to the evil called the Holocaust. Indeed, the Vatican signed a Concordant with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. The churches of God willingly submitted to the demon of communism in many lands. It wholeheartedly entered into an alliance of evil with vile dictators against the injunctions of the Holy Bible. In colonial Europe and its territories, in slave era America and its holdings, in apartheid South Africa and its minions, Catholic and Evangelical churches were the general staff of ungodly conservatism. They lent morality to the exploitation of man by man by not only approving indentured, commercial slavery, but by shunning calls for the end of this obnoxious trade. Though some prominent Christians were in the forefront of the agitation to end slavery and the civil rights war, the church of God in the west generally avoided giving its total support to the civil-rights movement. It only came out when it was clear that victory was almost certain. In Europe specifically, Christendom is presently between the scaffold and the gallows. The Nordic Lutheran churches and the Archbishopric of Canterbury, London, headquarters of the worldwide Anglican Communion were years ahead of western governments in approving homosexuality and gay marriage. A careful review of the role that the church plays in lives today and the myriad of accusations against it reveals a coalition of doubt, hatred, rejection, mockery, anger, rut, eccentricity, greed, Mammon, vanity and unrighteousness in its ranks. While the church is swarmed by huge numbers of worshippers in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the USA, even as it swims in a surplus account and though its assets register is overflowing; righteousness, honour, obedience, fellowship, holiness, care, concern, sacrifice and love are rare commodities in its pews today. And that has stopped some leery, would-be Christians from getting involved in the life of local Christian congregations. A few have painful experiences with institutionalized Christianity. The church has been ungodly quiet as secularists laid siege on the traditional family structure under the guise of destroying male chauvinism. Christendom has not unreservedly preached the gospel of Jesus Christ in all its righteousness and wholesomeness. The church has not intellectually, theologically, spiritually and emotionally tackled western secularists who rightly support governments that jail illegal immigrants, tax dodgers, traffic violators, domestic violence offenders, spies, drug dealers, gun runners, corporate criminals, child molesters, Internet fraudsters and other misdemeanors, but wrongly and loudly denounce the church of God for supporting the injunctions of Jehovah God. While these secularists correctly applaud governments that list these offences as violations in their legislations, they err in demonizing conservative Christians for agreeing with God and the Bible that homosexuality, abortion, pornography, prostitution and gay marriage are immoral and should not be legalized. The church has not eloquently and forthrightly marshaled its manpower, spiritual, media and legal resources and government outreach to point out that homosexuality, pornography and abortion are patently unnatural. While governments, civil society and the media subtly went over its head to lie to the people, the church sleepily never sought to counter this lie by reaching out to the people over the heads of governments, civil society and the media. While liberal governments and NGOs cleverly invested billions of dollars in this war of winning the mind of the people, the church greedily sat on its huge finances, uninvolved. It foolishly refused to deploy its financial arsenal for the purpose of convincing the populace that evil cannot be updated. One can then understand why irrelevance seems to be the template of the church of Jesus Christ in Europe particularly and in the west generally. In Pago's eternal lament, “we have met the enemy and he is us!” This correspondent thinks that the church of God shouldn't be bothered about being termed “reactionary” for not supporting homosexuality, gay marriage, abortion, pornography and prostitution, all great evils that are contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. If the church is labeled “anti-gay” and “sexist” for this reason, so be it! I agree with Pope Francis that the church of God shouldn't allow itself to be blackmailed into becoming a “compassionate NGO.”
UNASSAILABLE REASONS WHY THE CHURCH IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY
1. As an extant platform set up by Christ Himself and still headed by Him, as a living entity endowed by Jesus our Lord and Saviour as His body, as a covenant place by the blood of the Lamb, as a house of faith empowered by Christ to represent Him on earth, the church of God is still relevant and will remain eternally relevant – MT. 16:18, EPH. 5:23, COL. 1:24, MT. 26:28, 1 COR. 11:25.
2. The church has the responsibility to love sinners and bring them to His saving knowledge through genuine repentance because the church itself is a beneficiary of the love of Christ Himself – 2 COR. 5:17-19, ROM. 3:23, 5:8, EPH. 5:25. Just as Christ purposely died for His church; so it must also tell the sinner of the need to purposely die to sin – JN. 3:1-21. Since salvation is by grace and not by works, the church has a duty to bring unsaved people to Jesus Christ by telling them of this great mercy - EPH. 2:1-10.
3. The church is the house of prayer for all saints and all nations – ISA. 56:7. Indeed, the name of the church is the house of prayer! – MT. 21:13. As a house of prayer, it belongs to God the Father – JN. 2:16.As a place of prayer, the church is the pillar and foundation of truth – 1 TIM. 3:15.
4. The New Testament church is the agency through which the mystery that God hid from the world for ages was revealed unto the world– COL. 1:24-28. By the knowledge of this mystery, the church is to turn the world away from false knowledge – 1 TIM. 6:20. The church remains the repository of the true knowledge of the living God and His Christ in all ages, converting, baptizing, witnessing, encouraging and edifying – ACTS 2:14-42, MT. 8:26-39, 28:16-20, ACTS 1:8. By the Holy Spirit's leading, church councils deliberated and agreed on the inspired writings of holy men of old who spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance – 2 TIM. 3:16, 2 PET. 1:20. In monasteries, these sacred Scriptures were laboriously hand-copied while enemies of God and His word rampaged at will. The true church by the help of the Holy Spirit has stood against heresies and falsehood emanating from the gospel of demons – 1 TIM. 4:1-10.
5. Many pastors and churches eager to hold onto old adherents or draw new ones have abandoned or watered down the scriptural prerequisites for true biblical discipleship. The axiomatic dilemma of St. Augustine troubles many Christians: "The church is a whore, but she's my mother." This doubled edged ululation cryptically summaries the state of the church in our day. Indeed, the church has no time honoured or recent record of fidelity as the bride of Christ - 2 COR. 11:2. No seer is needed to vindicate this truth! The church of God is not a success seminar platform, a wealth getting avenue, but primarily a place for a sinner to be turned into a new man by the knowledge of Jesus Christ in the Holy Scriptures. The new life of the saint must be contrary to the free-wheeling, immoral, bohemian nature that served him as a sinner – ROM. 12:1-2.
6. As a “mother” organization set up by Jesus Christ, the church still teaches people, especially old and new believers about Jesus. Believers must hunger for the house of God – PSA. 23:6, 84:10. Indeed, believers are bound to obey the church – MT. 18:17. The gifts of the Spirit were given for the edification of the church – 1 COR. 14:4, 26. God's time honoured truth is that people are born into church because it is the family of God – 1 COR. 12:12-28. Just a mother's love for her children is timeless and constant despite their misbehaviours, Christ's love for His church compels Him to be faithful to her even when she always manifests gross waywardness to her Maker and Saviour – DT. 7:9, PSA. 145:13, REV. 19:11.
7. The church is the place of fellowship with God and with man – 1 JN. 1:7, EPH. 4:17-30, 5:8, 17-21. The church is important for the saint who wants consistency in his Christian walk because two are better than one – PSA. 133:1-3, JN. 17:5-26, 1 THESS. 4:18, 5:11, JAS. 5:16. In God's Church, Alan Stibbs writes with finality that "any idea...of enjoying salvation or being a Christian in isolation is foreign to the New Testament writings."No Christian can be in the “universal church” without true fellowship with a local assembly - ACTS 13:1-3, 14:23, 15:3-4, 16:4-5, 20:7.God unmistakably warns against “forsaking the assembly of yourselves together, as the manner of some is” – HEB. 10:25. God places shepherds over His flock through the church – 2 TIM. 4:1-5, TITUS 2:1-10, HEB. 13:17, 1 PET. 5:1-4. Apostle Paul's priority in any town was to start a local church where it didn't exist, or appoint elders in newly formed churches – ACTS 17:11-12, 17:34, 18:8-11.
A FINAL WORD FOR CHRISTENDOM AND HER CRITICS
Cliff Knechtle in his book Give Me an Answer, answered critics of the church who accuse Christians of hypocrisy. In his well thought response: "We all either try to hide our bad sides or we try to make them look good. But deep inside we all know that we fall short of living the way we know we should. No one can escape the charge of 'hypocrite'—no one except Jesus Himself. He is the only One who has lived up to God's standards; the only One who has perfectly lived what He preached. Only through…Christ can we escape the penalty due our hypocrisy… By living within the security of Christ's love, we are free to peel off masks and to become real, honest people." In other words, everyone's standard and reference should be the Lord Jesus Himself, and not necessarily His called out ones. The experience of Ruth Bell Graham, wife of international evangelist Dr. Billy Graham with Pashi, a young India college student agrees with Knechtle's advice. Pashi once lampooned Ruth Graham: "I would like to believe in Christ. We of India would like to believe in Christ. But we have never seen a Christian who was like Christ." Puzzled, Ruth Graham turned to Dr. Akbar Haqq for the right answer. Replied Dr. Haqq promptly: "That is quite simple. I would tell Pashi, 'I am not offering you Christians. I am offering you Christ.'" I am convinced that Pashi and company truly know of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, but hiding under the covers of hypocrisy of Christians, they reject Him as Lord and Saviour! – ROM. 1:1-32.
My dear friend, are you a critic of Christians? I offer you Christ Jesus the Perfect One. Are you accusing Pastor Emeka of hypocrisy in his Christian work and pastoral duties? I offer you Christ as the Perfect Worker! Do you know some Christians who are evidentially weighed down with sins? Please look up to Christ Jesus, the One Who knew no sin, but was made sin for the sake of the world, including YOU Mr/Mrs/Ms Critic! – 2 COR. 5:21. Jesus Christ remains the author and finisher of our faith – HEB. 12:2. In other words, He's the final bus stop of perfect Christianity! Please surrender to Him NOW! He's the true emblem of Christendom! I agree with an 18th century Whig Bishop in Britain who sighed that “the church, like the Ark of Noah, is worth saving. Not for the sake of unclean beasts that almost filled it and probably made noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner of rationality that was much distressed by the stink within as by the tempest without.”
In Apostle John's most glorious vision, the Lord Jesus physically visited the angel [pastors] of seven of His Asian churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Only the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia were not rebuked by the Lord Jesus because they were without any blemish! Glory be to God! It seems safe to this correspondent to take this to be heaven's ratio for measuring true spirituality in Christendom today. And it agrees with the summation of the Whig bishop about “unclean beasts” in the church “that almost filled it” [Ephesus, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis and Laodicea} and “the little corner of rationality that was much distressed by the stink within as by the tempest without” {Smyrna and Philadelphia}. Friend, there are still a few churches serving the Lord Jesus in spirit and in truth today – JN. 4:24. Please locate one by the help of the Holy Spirit in prayer and give your life to the Lord Jesus there. Specifically, I recommend Starplace Bible Church as your place of worship if you live in Lagos and environs.
God be praised!
Bless you.
Shalom.
Historian, freelance journalist and writer, PASTOR JOSEPH EMEKA ANUMBOR is the author of THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS, a critically acclaimed discourse on homosexuality published by Author House Inc., Indiana, USA.