I can remember several years ago when preachers used to teach on the Second Coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The fire and brimstone, turn or burn and the get right or get left message seemed to stimulate the average Christian into Biblical thinking (2 Pet 3:1-2).

For the most part, you never used to hear much about the misuse of funds, sexual immorality, pornography and divorce among leadership within the four walls of many main line churches. Unfortunately, within the past ten years or so, since the SIN of COMPROMISE has filtered into much of the mainline church, the headlines and the nightly news has been having a field day with those who claim to be God’s anointed. What does Jesus say? “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow seducing and deceiving spirits and things taught by demons”(1 Tim 4:1).

It was not to long ago when the big change started to happen. Many seemed to be more interested in church growth instead of spiritual growth. It appeared that some in leadership felt that if the fire and brimstone message was eliminated from behind the pulpit, people would feel more comfortable in attending church and they would have the tendency to give more. For a while, some churches were catching on to this compromise and they started to pack out the crowds, filling people with a false sense of hope and security. Some pastors who were filling the seats convinced the community and fellow believers that God’s hand was into this new revival. Those who were packing out the crowds were actually being recognized as God’s super apostles. Love, grace, forgiveness and the blessings of God were still being taught. Preachers were teaching the basic truths right out of the Holy Bible concerning basic salvation.

Yet something was missing. Slowly, Christians started to observe through the main line media that some preachers were no longer practicing what they were preaching. Unfortunately, within the past several months, God has truly revealed that this burst of church growth was not truly of Him.

Modern day Christianity, for the most part, has fallen into the deadly sin of compromise and apostasy

( 2 Thess 2:1-3 Amplified). “Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the APOSTASY comes first [unless the predicted great FALLING AWAY of those who profess to be Christians has come].”

In my opinion, it was not so much what some of these preachers were preaching, it was what they were LEAVING OUT of their message that opened the door for compromise. This compromise has staggered Christian behavior in the eyes of the unsaved world. “The Roper polling organization reports that born-again Christians do not necessarily behave any better after their conversion. According to recent Roper survey, while 4 percent of born-agains admitted to drunken driving before conversion, three times as many-12 percent-acknowledge doing so after. Similar slippage was discovered in the use of illegal drugs: 5 percent before, 9 percent after. And adultery more than doubled among the born-agains: 2 percent before, 5 percent after.”

The fear of failure, the love of money, the competition between local churches, and the pride of success, have motivated many who claim to be God’s anointed, to water down the truth. Many have placed the last day’s message of the soon coming of our Lord in a closet with the door locked. When our Lord Jesus was on earth, He showed us what He felt about the sin of compromise. He saw what had become of those who claimed to be righteous. He walked into the temple, pulled out His whip, turned over the tables and chased out the money changers. He said, “My house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. How dare you turn My Fathers house into a market” (Luke 19:25, John 2:16)!

For the past several years, the gospel of grace has been thinned down to the bone. Again, it is not so much what preachers are teaching out of the gospel, it is what they are leaving out. For example: Many will focus on the scriptures that teach if you give, you will be blessed (Malachi 3:8-18). Again, they fail to read the rest of what the Word has to say. You rarely hear them teach on 1 Timothy 6:9-10 that says,

“ People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have WANDERED FROM the TRUTH and have pierced themselves with many grief’s.”

1 Thessalonians says, “On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be ENTRUSTED with the gospel. We are not trying to PLEASE men but God, who TESTS our hearts. You know we never used FLATTERY, nor did we put on a MASK to COVER up GREED – God is our witness. We were not looking for PRAISE from men, not from you or anyone else.”

Today, sexual immorality, divorce, adultery, the misuse of church funds, the use of illegal drugs, gay relationships, and idolatry are being reported within the four walls of many churches. Instead of churches reaching this lost world with the truth, hope and love of Jesus, the media is reaching the world with end time reality. What does our Lord say? In Revelation chapter 2:18-25, Jesus first commends the church of Thyatira for their good deeds. He commended them for their love, faith, service and perseverance, and that they were doing more than they had done at first. However, He then rebuked and warned the church for tolerating the woman Jezebel who was compromising the truth by teaching that the grace covered their willful and deliberate sexual immorality and idolatry. They rejected the true meaning of repentance and were compromising the truth to the point that they had no more desire to turn from the works of the deliberate acts of the flesh (1 Cor 6:9-11, Eph 5:3-15, Gal 5:19-21).

The church of Sardis in Revelation 3:1-3 was deceived into thinking they were ALIVE! They were packing out the crowds and they were developing a reputation of being a church blessed of God. Yet Jesus explains to them that they are really DEAD! Why? The different translations explain that they are not being watchful and that they need to wake up!

Why were they not being watchful? They were not being watchful of the soon coming of our Lord because they were too focused on worldly wealth instead of heavenly riches. They had become more concerned with their own worldly desires and not of the soon coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Did the Lord not warn us about this in His Word? “Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears AWAY FROM the TRUTH and TURN ASIDE to myths” (2 Tim 4:3-4).
Since many leaders within the church have failed to present a Biblical example of Godliness to the lost, the unsaved world has not been under as much conviction as it was in the past. Could there be a link? Crime of all kinds in our schools and communities has been rising off of the charts including, divorce, abortion, rape, murder and theft. This latest murder rampage in Virginia is a clear sign that we are in the very last days and that Jesus is coming soon. This lost world does not need to read about main line pastors who are falling into adultery, gay relationships and the use of illegal drugs, and then turn on the TV at night to here other evangelists preaching about the money! Even Christians fall into sin and struggle with every day life. However, true born-again Christians are supposed to be TURNING from sin, not deliberately practicing it.

The signs of the times are hear friends and the sin of compromise that is sweeping throughout modern day Christianity is a sure indication that Jesus could come at any minute. The true 2 Thessalonians 2:3 –12 RESTRAINING FORCE is losing its edge and the world can see it. “For as I have often told you before and say again, even with tears, MANY live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their MIND is on EARTHLY THINGS.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we EAGERLY AWAIT a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body”( Phil 3:13-20).

Yes friends, the SIN of COMPROMISE is widespread throughout our main line churches today, and do not forget one thing, Jesus is coming soon, and He WILL DEAL WITH IT !(1 Pet 4:16-17). Jesus is not going to care if you have five or five thousand members in your church.

If you are COMPROMISING the truth by shoving the last days message of the soon coming of our Lord under the rug, YOU are going to have to be held accountable when the Lord comes! Are we truly reaching out to our lost communities by living our lives as examples of righteousness? “But among you there must not be even a HINT of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity or of GREED”(Eph 5:3). Many today friends are being misled down the broad road of unrighteousness and compromise and they are not truly saved. “Only by this gospel you are saved”(Gal 1:6-8). You cannot change the gospel of grace and call it Biblical Christianity. I pray I will be found worthy to escape all that is about to happen and that I will not be disqualified from the prize, after I have preached to others (Luke 21:34-36, 1 Cor 9:24-27).

Until next time, Jesus is coming soon, are you going to be ready?