OUR POST WAR STRATEGY

As America contemplates war with Iraq, President Bush and his advisors are developing a post war strategy to help rebuild that nation and hopefully instill a love for freedom and democracy in the hearts of the Iraqi people.
As we in the church do battle with the forces of the change movement, we too must be thinking of a meaningful postwar strategy.

It will not be enough just to win. If God is with us and we block the advance of this destructive movement; if the agents of change flee to the denominations which they so admire, what will our condition then be?  Our mission must be bigger and broader than just defeating the enemy among us.

There is a positive and constructive side of Christianity that must be pursued.  Preachers or people who have no greater goal than do battle with their own errant brethren have failed to understand our reason for existing.

We must not be content to save the status quo of the last 40 years.  The church is in dire need of renewal by the restoration of Scriptural emphasis on all things related to her life and work, her faith and worship.

• For 30 years our growth has been stagnant. We must renew our commitment to aggressive evangelism. The great commission is still our primary mission (Matt. 28:19).

• A lost world still languishes for the simple gospel. We must send forth a new wave of missionaries Even as Americans grow cold and indifferent to the gospel, millions in other nations are begging for the bread of life.

• America families, including many within the church, are being ravaged and shattered by the corrupting influences of our modern culture.  We must provide teaching and training to prepare young adults for lasting marriage and to strengthen those already wed.

• Our children are being corrupted by a decadent culture.  School have been captured by humanists and are being used to undermine their faith in God and his Word. Corrupting music, television and movies are blurring their sense of moral judgment.  We must renew our approach to educating them, rooting and grounding them in the faith of the gospel (Prov. 22:6).

• Our members, generally, are deficient in Biblical knowledge .  This has left thousands of them vulnerable to false teaching such as that of the change movement.  We must do a better job of educating and indoctrinating them in the fundamentals of the faith.

• The change agents have captured and spoiled some of the major schools that heretofore have provided advanced education for our young people and training for young preachers. Those lost to their clutches should be abandoned and the surviving faithful schools must be supported and encouraged to greater service.

• Many preachers have lost their faith in the authority of God’s Word and the need to restore the original facets of the faith and practice of the church.  Such are no longer of useful service to the church. They must be rejected and in their place a new generation of faithful men must be encouraged to take up the work of preaching and be trained for true and loyal service.

• We must rebuild a sense of brotherhood.  Those who are older can remember the sense of love, loyalty, concern and cooperation that existing among our brethren prior to the 1960s. Somewhere, somehow, that sense of brotherhood has been allowed to wither and atrophy.  We must reverse this destructive trend. This sense of congregational isolation has contributed to the success of the change agents who have been able to prey on a given congregation while others ignored the danger of their brethren.

This conflict will be years in resolving.  With God’s help we will defeat those who have turned against the church they once loved and served.  The big question is, “Are we committed to a workable postwar strategy?” Without such a strategy, the victors will eventually vanish away.