As I was praying this morning I started to meditate on some fundamental questions with respect to our modern religious practices.
Amongst those who believe that true religion matters, there are many different belief systems and religious organizations. Some of these organizations are growing in number, and some are not.
Now it doesn't take much to see that the size of one's organization has a strong relationship to one's credibility, prestiege, financial power and influence.
We tend to talk about people who are influential, and their words are often assigned more weight than the words of others whose circle of influence is much smaller. For example, if someone can say that they have taught 100,000 pastors through their seminars, even the world will give that person's sayings weight and credibility.
Most of us like to be influential, to have impact, to make a difference. To fulfil this desire, we would tend to look to the ideas and systems of others who have already achieved influence before us. The tendency is to copy and adapt what others are doing. Thats a lot easier than going to God and getting a genuine revelation from the Lord about His will for our lives and ministries. But leaders are many times encouraging us to be followers of their ministries and systems in such a way that we really do not need a supernatural revelation of the mind of God.
To see what we are really valuing as a block of Christians, we could read the marketing material on the back cover of Christian books. "Ps XYZ pastors a fast growing church of 15,000 in affluent area W", or "ABC has preached the gospel through television to over n million people" or "More than 500,000 copies sold". Nowadays, we measure the credibility of a person's message by considering the scope of their influence. Tell me it isn't so.
How much of what we do in church and life REALLY requires the leading of the Holy Spirit? How much of what we do can be done by any religionist in his own way? If our organization is growing and God seems to be blessing it, does that really mean God approves?
The Mormon church is one of the fastest growing cults in the world. They have an outstanding religious system which year after year gains adherents for them. If we as full gospel or evangelical believers wanted a system that could swell our numbers, we could look the mormons for some good ideas. The distinctives of their message are ridiculous and totally without any kind of solid foundation. They are rooted in the imagination of man. Yet, year after year, they gain adherents, money, property, influence and so on.
Islam is also growing fast. One of the arguments muslim use to defend their religion is precisely this. They argue that Allah is with them and that is why their religion is triumphing. They don't consider that it could be rather that Satan is with them. The Bible declares that the whole world l
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