Taking God Who Does Not Change Into An Ever Changing World (2012)

Let me say without a doubt that I believe in holy living and in modest apparel…..both are ordained by God in our lives as we live it before Him.  For living for the Lord does come with a standard and so we cannot act as those who don’t know Him.  BUT……at the same time this is not my parent’s Pentecostal Apostolic church.

I can remember the day that a man could only wear a black, dark blue, or dark brown suit.  As for the ladies, it was white, black, and a few other colors, but wearing a “Red” dress was out of the question, you were marked a harlot.  Even a man could not wear a jacket that was a different color than his pants, as he was considered a double minded man. (I am serious)   But here we are in the 21^st century, where length of dresses are not as our grandmothers were, and maybe we have taken it too far, maybe not, but the question is has holiness changed?   Is what was holiness in the 1930’s the same as holiness in today’s world.  God said that he is a God that does not changed, yet the times have changed, so is the style of being a pastor in the good ole days, will it work today.  We are reading the same Bible; we are serving the same God, but like it or not, we are not ministering to the same mind set of people.  So today in the 21^st century, which I personally believe will be the last century before the rapture of the church (no revelation from God), the body of Christ plight is to preach a gospel that does not change to a ever changing world. 

I once heard my pastor; Bishop Alphonzo D. Brooks say that he is dealing with things as pastor that his father, the Late Bishop Henry C. Brooks never dealt with as a pastor.  The Late Bishop Brookes pastor from 1927-67, while the present Bishop Brooks has pastor from 1978, and while sin is still sin, the sin of today is much more brazing than it was when H.C. Brooks was pastor.  Back then it was someone was caught smoking or drinking, someone cheated on their spouse, someone had sex outside of marriage, and at worse, they had a baby, and that was just about it.  Today the pastor must deal with not only homosexuality, (which we knew always exist, even in the church) but today our eyes are now much open with lesbians.   Yes having a baby out of wedlock is out of God’s will, but making a baby is the least of the sins, with so many STD’s we are now talking about someone life.   So is the answer to bind them with so many rules as they did back then, that we put them in bondage and not introducing true repentance, but only guilt.  Do we have church 7 days a week, thinking that it will not give them opportunity to sin, which was the answer in back then.

In my opinion the answer is this, something the Lord told me doing a difficult time…..want real deliverance, then be real with God.   The leaders must admit that issues do exist in the church.  We want to attack the issue of marriage; the church must admit that there is a divorce demon in the church.   We must stop telling young people the only solution to control our nature is that it is better to marry than to burn to control sexual desires when we are single.  Though it is a Word of God and it is true, we also much teach our young to commit our bodies as a living sacrifice, to let them know it is a battle.  As the better than to marry than to burn is not working by itself, and we must be real about it.  So what we have is young people getting married at a young age, because of a burning, only to find that a burning is not love.  Then the church tells them that they cannot remarried if they divorce and expect them to live a celibate lifestyle in their late 20’s and early 3o’s, leaving the church with a fornication and masturbation issue in the church.  Is the Word wrong, nope, is the way that it is taught wrong, could be, but the way that we deal with it from the jump…is most defiantly wrong.     

That is only one issue, but there are so many more.  But dress code, though it hold its importance, is not as important as it once was. Preaching against movies and make up…..too many other big fishes to fry in today’s world.   There is depression, spousal abuse, sexual abuse, all in the church, and while the Word still works, the Blood still prevails, and Jesus is still the answer, the church must take that which  

some call obsolete, and bring it into today’s time and admit that we are fighting a new kind of demon and let the Holy Ghost do what it do.   For the answer is not in sowing a seed, the answer is not giving your neighbor a high-five.  The answer to bring the Word that does not change into an ever changing world, and then take it to a God that cannot change, and be real with him, with our ever changing struggles of today.