Crisis in the Western Christian World – Fire in the backyard?

Rev 2:5 “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

It has been nearly five hundred years since Martin Luther, who began the Reformation (1517) that changed the whole world.

It has been more than two hundred years since William Carey’s Modern Mission (1792).

The revival of Wesley, Fletcher, Finnay and Moody etc has been gone for over two centuries now.

In this day and age, the Western Christian world is like ‘an old person without fuel’, who has gradually lost their first love, enthusiasm, faith and heart of redemption. Some still have a bit of fire, in the hope to retain the disappearing sunset; some are struggling in their faith, tradition and morality; some are like a kite without string, follow the wind of the world, sin and unbelief! In the midst of this huge storm of “unbelief” and “anti-God” mentality, most churches have lost the courage to ‘fight against this battle’. Most cannot go against the current, let alone being the pillar of witness.

In the 19th and 20th century, J. Gresham Machen, A.W. Tozer, Francis Schaeffer, and Carl Henry were the leaders who tried to fix these serious problems. In the 21st century, the ‘heroes’ in the church have gradually been disappearing. The church has lost its influence. It follows and is led by the world.

Since the beginning of the church, in relation to the vision of global mission, Satan has been using politics, culture, racial differences and indigenous religions etc to destroy and stop the frontier mission work, so as to stop the spreading of the gospel.

Recently, Satan has used a second strategy, and that is to attack the ‘backyard’ of global mission, and to attack the Western Christian countries. For hundreds of years, Western Christian countries are the starting point of global mission and the gospel. Satan attacked them by destroying faith, morality, family and misleading the youth.

This is a powerful strategy. Western Christian countries have been falling one by one. Countries in Western Europe (eg: the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, The UK, Sweden, Norway etc.) have legalized homosexual marriage. The United States is following suit (May God protect them). If the society of a country has become “Sodom and Gomorrah”, can they still engage in overseas mission?

Because of the ‘break down of the backbone’, there are churches in the Western countries where global mission is disappearing without reasons (in fact disappearing with reasons), mission has become the past!

We would like to appeal and warn the churches (no matter Eastern or Western), our spiritual warfare is two-folded:

Frontier – continue to be involved in global mission, preach the gospel, plant churches and train workers.
Backbone – protect the Christian faith, morality and culture. Be alert in these areas!

May God revive this generation, starting from our churches!