5 Marks of the Apostate Church

  Yesterday on Bible News Radio we played a short 17 minute revival message from Dr. E. A. Johnston from Evangelism Awakening called 5 Marks of the Apostate Church.   I make it a practice to share with our audience messages that are not mainstream and that are designed to get the follower of Jesus and/or a simple churchgoer to think about their eternal destiny.

My desire in playing these revival messages is to inspire and encourage the follower of Christ to reflect on their relationship with the Lord and draw nearer to Him.  My hope is that if a churchgoer hears these messages that they will come to know Christ fully and repent of their sins, since the overwhelming majority of churchgoers aren’t bible believing Christians.  My hope for the Church in America is that we would wake up and repent.  I believe judgment is already here in America and I believe it will only get worse.

Dr. Johnston began his message by citing Jude 1:1-4  and Jude 1:11-13

¹ Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called:

² Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.

³ Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

⁴ For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

and

¹¹ Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

¹² These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

¹³ Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

He went on to share just five marks of the apostate church that he sees in America.  I wholeheartedly agree with his perspective.

1.  The church is apostate when she performs as a showboat rather than a lifeboat.

2.  The church is apostate when she is a house of entertainment rather than a house of prayer.

3.  The church is apostate when she dilutes the gospel message to make it more palatable to sinful man and broadens the way of salvation to make it more inclusive.

4.  The church is apostate when pastors are irreverent and use crude humor to illicit a laugh from their hearers rather than have a solemnity before God as ambassadors for Christ and preach searching sermons which convict of sin.

5.  The church is apostate when members are admitted based on a mere decision for Christ rather than displaying credible evidence of their salvation through regeneration.

I think it’s pretty clear that most churches in America fall into one of these categories.  What do you think?  Share your thoughts in our comments.  Click here to listen to Bible News Radio where we discussed and played this vital message.