If you go into a lot of churches today, you would hardly be able to tell the difference between the pastor and Sigmund Freud or Oprah Winfrey. With some of the worship we have in our churches today, you would hardly be able to tell whether it's church or America's Got Talent. It's a performance or an entertainment center. Those things are far too anemic to contend with the giants that we have in our land today.
In my lifetime — I’m 63 years old now — there's never been such moral depravity as there is right now. There's never been a time where there's been such sexual perversity. There was sin in our nation certainly when I was younger, but I've never seen it openly flaunted like it is today.
It's like what Paul wrote, “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10). It could be easy to feel like we’re under the sentence of death, to give up this promise that our nation, our churches and our hearts will be delivered.
Scripture warns us about this. “Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:3-4, ESV emphasis added).
If we're going to contend as Jude calls us to, we can’t contend for some type of faith that’s not entirely biblical or a portion of faith that is your tribe's favorite parts of scripture. If you're going to contend for that most holy faith, then it must be something more than watered down, lukewarm Christianity. It has to be a faith filled with fire and the Holy Ghost. Our churches have been delivered before, and they can be delivered again. We must hold to that great hope for God’s deliverance.