I have written this in part to what I will be including in the book I intend to write and publish, "Why The Church Is Failing".
The church has great wealth and it is found to be lacking in true outreach to the lost and those in real spiritual and physical needs, as commanded by Christ. It prefers to feed itself and it's own kind. Now, to a limit that is fine, but not to the excess that it actually does.
The organization operates in the opposite of what God's "Ekklesia" should be, if led and inspired by and administered by the Holy Spirit.
If the organizational church really is the Ekklesia, then it is a very poor example of the love that Christ described that calls us to lay down ourselves for others.
It seeks it's good, not that of those outside of it- overall. Let us look at the proof of what I am saying.
For example, let's look at some statistics that have been gathered over the years on church wealth.
According to a national study of how religious affiliation affects the amount of wealth Americans accumulate, Jews amass the most wealth ($150,890 average net worth); “mainline Protestants” and Catholics are about average with the rest of the population ($48,200 average net worth); and “conservative Protestants” accumulate the least ($26,200 average net worth). (Note: The author includes major cults in her definition of “mainline Protestants” and “conservative Protestants.”)
Total Christian [including nominal] income in the United States is $5.2 trillion annually, nearly half of the world’s total Christian income.
Wealth Accumulation (American Evangelicals)
In 2000, American evangelicals (pop. 98.6 million) collectively made $2.66 trillion in personal income.
There is an estimated $850 billion per year of disposable income among evangelicals in the United States.
The wealth of the Church elevates it to an unsurpassed prestige. The contributions of the congregations of twenty-five denominations in the United States for even back in 1928 was $402,682,961.82. Can the Standard Oil of New Jersey show anything like that? Not even the greatest of our financial corporations can boast either the financial or social or political prestige of either the Catholic, Methodist or Episcopal churches here. Thus, the gifts from the living as well as income on permanent funds and legacies controlled by these twenty-five church denominations in America totaled in 1928 $532,368,714.80. The Methodist Episcopals alone, one little subsidiary of this great group, received in 1928, $98,758,030. The Presbyterians had $75,054,538 to spend. The Methodist Episcopals in the South, a separate group, collected $42,837,679; the Protestant Episcopals $46,088,274, and the Baptists, in the South only, $40,038,259. Obviously this is why the Church (speaking of all denominations collectively) is able to organize tremendous political lobbies.
I just read tonight of a Southern Baptist Church that just made $885,000 from a film they produced, they intend to spend the largest part for themselves in paying off their own debts, buildings and other associated cost and the other $200,000 is be used to build a sports arena. Self gratifying always!
As I showed earlier, American evangelicals- a misnomer of a name - as the only one benefiting and being evangelized with the money is the organization and leaders themselves.
1. In 2000, American evangelicals collectively made $2.66 trillion in income.
2. Total Christian [including nominal] income in the United States is $5.2 trillion annually, nearly half of the world’s total Christian income.
NOW WHO ENJOYS THE SPLENDOR OF HER WEALTH AND PRIDE -
In 2000, nearly 97 percent of the entire income of all Christian organizations was spent on, and primarily benefited, other Christians at home or abroad: $261 billion spent on ministering to Christians, $7.8 billion on already-evangelized non-Christians, and $0.81 billion on unevangelized non-Christians. Of all the money it has taken in, it spends less than a billion on true outreach to the lost and despairing of this world who have never heard the Gospel!
Eighty percent of the world’s evangelical wealth is in North America—and the total represents way more than enough to fund the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
She enjoys her delicasies does she not. While men go unclothed and unfed across the world and in our streets, she feeds herself, and clothes herself and relishes in her riches. Men die everyday withour health care, the basic necessities of life, little children are starving, people need water.
Thousands across the world have yet to hear the Gospel or be discipled in Christ, yet the organizational church, just keeps building towers to heaven. Keeps paying it's builders, it's program directors, it's corporate CEO's.
Now you tell me who was the Lord addressing in Revelation if it is not the churches of today and tell me who it is that is Babylon in the book of Revelation if not the organized church?
There is a great need for the restoration of the "Ekklesia" of the living Christ, the true body assemblying where money is not involved to support itself, but as originally intended to only care for the poor and the downtrodden, the captive, and the lost. This means it will mean the complete dismantling of a system Satan begin to build 1900 years ago, to draw men away from this heresy to a true community in Christ and the call to go ye forth - preaching the Gospel to all the world.
The organizational churches and their power and wealth, will have to be dismantled. Paid clergy and building the buildings and cathedrals to itself will have to cease, if the world is to ever really know Christ. The wealth of those who go by the name of Christ, will have to be expended on someone other then themselves, to reach a lost and dying world.
The marketplace tables will have to be overturned and their money scattered to the sidewalks if the real Church of Jesus Christ is to ever reach the dying, the hungry , the thirsty and the lost.
It is a sad state of falsehood that Christians have been blinded by for far too long.
I pray that we may recall the Words of the Lord in speaking through the Apostle John in Revelation 3:14 -22
And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write:These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God: 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot:I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and miserable and poor and blind and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest; and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I reprove and chasten:be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock:if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 21 He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. 22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
Truth is truth and we must examine ourselves before Almighty God and then repent.
For we have peddled the Word of God for profit unto ourselves. We lavish in riches, but are broke, we dress ourselves, up but we are naked.
Dr. J.
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