The crisis in the church- it’s way more serious than we think : Hell, salvation and intimacy

FIRST- I’m LIVE in the video discussion room right now.  Come on over and discuss the following topic with us.  The address, as always, is: http://www.praytherevolution.com/live. (7:30pm, Thursday, February 26th)

“Many people will be shocked to find themselves in Hell one day.”

That’s the chilling message that God delivered to me after what I now simply refer to as, “the dream.”

I’m sure some may wonder why I seem to emphasize prayer as our primary, daily activity as believers to such a degree.  Once somebody presumed that I was an “Anna” who’ was uniquely called to intercede.  I can assure you, I’m not an Anna (who stayed in the Temple continually and interceded until Jesus’ first arrival).

Others may feel it’s because I’m simply wired that way, that prayer is just a good fit for me.  Well, it is a good fit for me, but, again, that’s not why I am continually provoked to sound the alarm for prayer.

That prophetic call that resounds deep within is due to a few key issues, issues that must be addressed with great fear and trembling.  The urgency must be extreme.  These issues are:

• Hell
• Mission
• Normalcy

Hell: Back to my dream, or rather, “the dream.”  I won’t go into detail here as I have written extensively about the dream in my book The Terror of Hell, but suffice it to say, I was dragged by my ankles toward hell.  The white fear was so extreme that I can’t even think of hell now for more than 5 of 6 seconds without having to shut it down.  It’s too terrifying.  The main revelation from that dream was that many church going people will be shocked & terrified to find themselves there one day.  It’s mind blowing and horrific.  What’s even scarier is that so many have found false security in the repeating of the sinner’s prayer or in faithful tithing or church attendance, yet have no intimacy with Jesus.  Oh, this is so serious.  Prayer is the antidote to Hell.  A lifestyle of deep, zealous and continual prayer will cause us to fall deeply in love with Jesus.  We won’t ever have to worry about hearing, “Depart from me I never knew you.”  Or, it could also be said, “Depart from me I was never intimate with you.”  As we pray, continually, and enjoy God, and draw near to him, and experience the Truth of the Word of God, look out.  But, if we don’t enjoy God, don’t hear his voice, don’t know him, don’t want to pray, really look out.  I say in my book, “The lack of a desire, or at least the desire to desire, to be with God in intimate prayer is a sign of an at risk position in Christ.”

Mission: This is a huge topic.  There are many who aren’t deeply involved in a lifestyle of prayer that use the excuse that they don’t have the time to pray due to the need to “get out there” and “do the work.”  This is such a dangerous position to take.  It teeters on arrogance as it conveys that one can “do the work” of the Kingdom such as evangelism, feeding the hungry, etc. without the power of the King.  We simply can’t effectively and efficiently minister without living in the furnace of night and day prayer.  It can be said that the mission is prayer.  It’s the first commandment.  We must continually be in the place of intercession in a prophetic environment so we can both hear God’s instructions and minister back to him.  As we spend hours a day in prayer, evangelism and works of mercy will burn through us.  Additionally, our prayer will do more than anything in the natural ever could.  Prayer is the mission as prayer, especially unified prayer, changes kings and kingdoms more than any other activity.  Is prayer everything?  Well, in a way yes.  Prayer is continual communication and encounter with God.  But, of course, many other activities are important.  Radically so.  But, prayer must not ever be forsaken for the sake of these other activities.  It’s not either/or, but rather, it’s both/and.

Normalcy: To live a lifestyle of continual, deep prayer is to live a normal lifestyle.  This is one reason I take issue with the seeker sensitive movement, for example.  I hold to a firm belief that we must introduce people into the furnace of God’s presence.  This kind of life is the norm for believers.  I made a promise to the folks in my church that I would never tone down a dynamic, powerful atmosphere of Holy Spirit activity out of respect of those less hungry.  The life of prayer-fueled encounter is the biblically normal life.  The fire should never go out.  If we remove prayer from the equation, we have departed severely from biblical life.  This is why I feel a reformation must come.  Churches must return to their destiny as a house of prayer.  It should be normal to walk into a church service and fall on our face for a few hours in wild intercession for the nations.  People wonder why the prayer rooms are empty.  I’ll tell you why- they are empty because prayer has been relegated to an extra-curricular activity.  All the energy is spent in small groups, teaching services, etc., which, by the way, are good and important, but, I believe they are out of order.  If our Sundays were nothing but prayer, prophecy and reading some scripture as people were on their face in intercession, imagine what the mid-week teaching service and the home groups would be then!  What if every church in a city stopped every program, every childrens ministry, every small group, every teaching service, and called the people together to pray and read scripture in their place- for six months- we would not have to prove the existence of God to the lost.  The Proof would explode in power before their very eyes.

So, this is the burn in my heart.  We must have reformation in the church and we must return to the primary purpose of every believer- to encounter God night and day and invite others to burn with us.

I love how someone once said, “The church isn’t to be a house of teaching, a house of evangelism, a house of small groups or a house of study.  It’s a house of prayer for all nations.”  Job one is prayer.  The most time consuming activity every day for every believer is prayer.

I trust you can see from this post that the crisis of prayerlessness in the church is more severe than we can imagine.  Missions are powerless, a normal biblical life is evading us in many ways and people every day are suddenly finding themselves in hell after a long, churched life.

My God, send an awakening to every one of us… including this weak, broken man on fire.

(you can order The Terror of Hell at www.praytherevolution.com/resources)