Hot or Cold?

In several places in the New Testament; Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, Luke 17 and 21, we see Jesus teaching at length regarding His Second Coming. In these discourses Jesus reveals to us the signs that we should be able to see that will signify His return is nearing. Many are well known; false christs, wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilences, earthquakes in various places. One to me stands out though as the predominant sign of His imminent return. In Matthew 24:12 Jesus says, "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold." For the Christian, love is the Greatest Commandment. So what does it say about the church that a mark of Christ's return will be hearts growing weary, and love growing cold?

I'm a Southern Baptist so I will use my denomination as an example for the point I hope to make. But let me say this, every major denomination has statistics that either mirror the SBC or are worse. In the calendar year 2008, 30% of SBC churches did not baptize one person, and 50% baptized 5 or less. Of those baptized, though the statistics are not available, I wonder how many were actually people we won in the world as the bible instructs and how many were our children or others already in our churches? The fact that the SBC, with tens of thousands of more churches, millions more church members and countless millions more people in the United States is baptizing fewer people now than we did in the 1950's is indicative of one very clear thing; our concern and love for the lost is at an all-time low. "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold."

Of those people baptized by SBC churches 10 years ago, we can locate about 20% of them. 2 out of 10 people who made a profession of faith and obeyed in the commandment to be baptized can now be found in an SBC church. In others words, of the nearly 400,000 people baptized 10 years ago, we can find about 80,000. 320,000 are whereabouts, unknown. "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold."

Their are many theories as to why these statistics are so discouraging. Some say, and I believe rightly, that we have not discipled well those we have supposedly led to Christ. Some blame the hypocrisy that exists in many church peoples lives for driving new believers away from the church. Others say, and I believe rightly, that many who call themselves Christians do not desire the "sincere" milk of the word, and instead want their "ears tickled," so they reject proper biblical preaching in favor of being entertained. I have yet another opinion on the subject, one echoed by some but not many, at least yet. What do I believe? I believe we've lost the biblical way of presenting the gospel and are thus not making disciples, but rather, false converts who fall away from the truth as all false converts do.

The gospel when it comes to evangelism has been watered down to the point to where Jesus is our buddy, our pal, who will make everything in our lives better if we'll just say a prayer and ask Him into our heart. Now I believe a heartfelt prayer is part of receiving Christ, but if I do not pray that prayer as one broken over my sinful condition, but rather, as someone looking for a better life, can I be truly converted? If we read the bible we'll see that when Jesus talks to a sinner He first uses the Law to reveal their sins. Then, and only then, is the good news of the gospel and Jesus Christ presented. Evangelism has become about numbers instead of radically changed lives, and as a result we see the church at large not only winning few souls, but of those they supposedly win, few remain in church.

Think of it like this. On a cool spring morning many times we'll wear jacket out early in the morning, but by lunchtime it's warmed to the point we no longer need the coat so we take it off. With Jesus, it's the same thing. Unless we realize the need for Him because of our sinfulness and wickedness, eventually, when a trial or valley, when something happens where Jesus is not our pal in our eyes anymore occurs, we'll take Him off. Have we increased our numbers by presenting an unbiblical gospel? The answer, I fear, is yes. We've tried to make Jesus palatable to sinners, and as a result they have not been truly converted. And because of this unbiblical gospel, folks have discarded Jesus like a coat when the day warms up. If He can't help them, they don't need Him.

In my short time in ministry I've heard the call from many of the need to evangelize better and make disciples. I've seen uncountable numbers of classes offered and methods proposed to address this issue that haunts the church. But the answer, in my mind, is simple. Are we hot or cold? You can't be both and you can't mix them, as they become lukewarm. If we were hot, things WOULD be different. If we are cold or lukewarm, the statistics make sense. "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold."