One Sabbath, while I was sitting in church, listening to a particularly boring sermon, it dawned on me, like a bolt out of the blue—GOD IS NOT HERE ANY MORE!

Oh, He may be observing, but He is not participating. These people are not really seeking a deep personal relationship with God. They have found a relationship with which they are comfortable. They may not be spiritually dead, but neither are they striving to grow closer to God. They are at best stagnant.

They know about God and because they know about His Commandments, it could be said that they even know Him a little. The problem is, they know Him as well as they want to. They are without any real faith, or power of God, and they know this. They have consciously chosen to settle for this emaciated form of Christianity, when they could easily return to the Church in the first few Chapters of Acts. How incredibly sad!

But the true faith of Christ requires action. If you have faith, but refuse to act on that faith, it weakens and dies. It becomes a dead faith.

These poor people no longer want what I want. They are content in their belief that they are God's people—but then, what church is not filled with people who believe they are God's people?

What church believes they are lukewarm, or indifferent toward God?

What church will tell you that they have turned a deaf ear to the Spirit of Jesus Christ?

No, these people have willingly deluded themselves, because true faith requires independent thought and independent action and constant attention and work and they are spiritually lazy and proud of their church. If you dare to pierce this cocoon of deception, in which they have so carefully wrapped themselves—If you expose their nakedness for what it is—do they thank you?

Or do they hate you?

It is difficult to step out of this world and even begin this Christian way of life, but it is even more difficult to maintain it over a span of decades. The pull to return to the values of the world around you never lets up. It requires a great deal of faith to stand alone and be different from the world—to be weird, odd, strange—and to happily remain that way for the rest of your life.

Ultimately, each and every church which Christ has raised up, has succumbed to this pull, and has been reabsorbed by the world. This is an undeniable fact of history—and not really open to debate! So once again, the Church of God is falling prey to this redefined, unbiblical faith of the Protestant world around them. They still retain a form of Godliness, but are denying the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5).

The TRUE Faith of Christ is a burden they are no longer willing to carry. It is so much easier to maintain a relationship with a church and trust a church, than it is to trust God. It is so much easier to develop a relationship with a man, who cannot see into your heart—such as your minister or your doctor, than it is to develop, and maintain, a deep, personal, honest and sincere relationship with your Creator, who knows your every thought!

But without true faith, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

We read in 1 John 3:21-22, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.”

They have compromised many points of the pure truth that the Holy Spirit has told them and in their hearts, they know this. That’s the problem! THEIR OWN HEARTS ARE CONDEMNING THEM!

Now, when they pray, their prayers are no longer answered. When they are anointed, they are no longer healed. Their faith is failing them. They no longer believe that what God promises in His Word, He has bound Himself to perform! When this happens to a person, or a church, they are in grave danger! At this point, Satan has almost won! Unless they acknowledge their sins and their lack of faith, their reward is lost to them!

But such people can almost never admit their own lack of righteousness and faith—even to themselves, much less out loud—so through the defensive mechanism of their own vanity, they are forced to conclude that God can not be trusted! This is a pitiful sight!

With faint hope, they cling to a dying church, because it is all they have left. The pitiful remains of a once vibrant, radiant, and enthusiastic people; filled with hope, excitement, and the faith of Jesus Christ, now sit lifeless, bored, spiritless—clinging to a dead hope—a dead church! It remains as the only reminder of the faith they once had.

They cannot bear the truth. They hate you for telling it to them. They redefined what they used to believe, until they had molded it into a “New Truth” with which they could be comfortable! Now, they are no longer troubled by the “little things” like smoking or like pork gelatin in their foods, or poisoning their children with the bleached white foods and bringing misery and suffering upon them, for the rest of their lives and the lives of their children!

They are no longer troubled by the symbols of the enemies of their Savior decorating their homes and their clothes. They are no longer troubled by showing their homes on the Sabbath or by contractors working for them on the Sabbath or by owning 49% of corporations who sell pork and cigarettes on the Sabbath! Hundreds of other perversions of God’s truth abound within the Churches of God today.

Soon they will begin to persecute those who dare to remind them of this or of their former glory. But the truth does not change!

When you accept these false definitions of faith, you have set up an impenetrable barrier which utterly prevents the development of true faith.

As long as you are able to convince yourself that your faith is fine as it is, you will have no need to correct it. If, because of some man's opinion, you accept this false definition of faith, that man has "taken your crown!"

But then brethren, if you do not value God’s TRUTH enough to hold on to it, you are not fit to have it, and you will not be in the first resurrection!