What one would expect from the
scenario above is a society where the people live in the fear and holiness of
God. We would have loved to see a society where the love for God is practiced
religiously and behaviorally. But is it actually so?

A society with millions of
worshippers cannot boast of thousands with the mind of God. Does this sound
provocative? Well, permit me to remind you that there are more religious
(Christians) in Nigeria than those we called ‘pagans’. We are going to analyze
these issues together – starting from the home – the basic unit of any society
to the public office holder to the higher institutions of learning, the streets
up to those who claim to be our leaders and finally we will make a stop at the
pulpit. At the end of the day, perhaps you will be able to give a convincing
answer to this awesome but vital question that has kept not only me awake for
so many nights. Yes, you can ask that question again – HAVE THE CHURCH FAILED?
Let us start from ‘Dress code’.
Every Sundays, all roads lead to the usual place of worship – the church.
Inside the Church building, you will see that all or rather most of the
worshippers are gorgeously and well-dressed. There is a sense of responsibility
that can be felt from the way most members are dressed. Though there are some
church denominations whose doctrine don’t permit certain kind of dress-code for
a particular gender or makes a particular dress-code mandatory for a set of
people in the church. For example, in some denominations, women are not allowed
to wear trousers while some preach that what one wears does not matter in the
house of God. Compare this with what the Apostle of old said in 1Corinthians
11:13-15 in the Holy Bible. Also, in some denominations, the wearing or
covering of the head is made compulsory for the female folks, while some allow
their female worshiper to come as they like. Is this not confusing to some
extend as we claim to get our doctrines from the same best-selling book of all
time – The Holy Bible? Or is it that the Bible is contradicting itself? Or is
it the interpreters that are not doing it rightly? The question remains to be
answered.
Well, that is just by the way. Our
concern here is what transpires after the Sunday Services. After going to the
house of God in the most adorable and respectable attires on Sunday, what
happens to us after the Church services? The funny but most worrisome part of
this is that on Monday morning, you would hardly recognize that same worshiper
of just yesterday! That would seem fare, but even on the same Sunday, after
returning from the church service: many would just put off their clothes which
seem to me as ‘Church-Dress’ and put on another more ‘fashionable’ ones.
Yes, they call them ‘fashions’ – Clothes
that makes sure more sensitive parts of our body are exposed for the pubic to
take good view. I am sure you know what I am saying. It is versatile mostly
among the younger ones of both sexes. No! even some adults now indulge in this
habit. Each time I come across them on the road, I feel sorry, very sorry for
them. I have read where many celebrities, when confronted about indecent
exposure of their bodies, say that they wear whatever pleases them. Imagine!
Whatever pleases you! If you have read the Bible a bit, you would remember that
Eve, wife of Adam, ate the forbidden fruit because ‘it was pleasing to
her eyes’. Hope you know what happens each time man decides to do what
pleases him rather than what pleases God. (Gen 3:6,7,16,17,18,19).
Now, the question is, ‘are decent
clothes made only to be worn to church services’? Are we supposed to show our
holiness only when standing in the house of God? These children who do practice
these acts of body exposure in the name of modern fashion have parents; and
surprisingly, their parents are likewise members of a Church, that is if they
are not going to the same denomination. Do their parents not see them before
leaving their homes? Or is it that their parents are ignorant of the truth? Or
is it that they just decide to neglect the words of the preachers? Or is it
that the truth has not been preached to them in their respective places of
worship? If the last question is in the affirmative, does it then mean that the
preachers are not doing the work they have been called to do?
Before I continue, let me remind the
innumerable men of God of today that majority of them do not know their duties
to God, Christ and the Church, which is Christ’s body.
Towards the end of Christ’s earthly
ministry, he repeatedly called Peter to remind him of his duties to His body –
the Church after his Heavenly rapture. In John 21:15-17, he pleaded with Peter
to ‘feed his sheep’ and to ‘take care of his lambs’. How many of
our men of God of today even know how to feed the body of Christ with the
undiluted word of God? This is supposed to be your number one duty as a man of
God – feeding and taking care of the flock left under your care, by updating it
regularly with the crisp and inspirational word of God. Sorry, the truth is
that you can hardly even hear such powerful word of God nowadays. Tell me, how
would change come when majority members of our churches are not truly
in Christ? The Bible describes to us that “if a man be in Christ, he is a new
creation… (II Cor 5:17). Are all the so-called Christians truly in Christ? If
not, what are the men of God doing in repositioning them in the proper place,
in which they are supposed to be in Christ?

In our higher institutions of
learning, the situation is not different. There are countless news on a daily
basis about some social vices like cultism, armed robbery, kidnapping, assault
on fellow students, rape, prostitution and so on and so forth. These acts are
been perpetrated by the students of the various institutions involved. And
these students, being members of the society are from a particular household or
the other. To crown it all, these students are members of various Church
denominations in our society. Is it that these young men and girls in our higher
schools of learning are not ready to listen to the advice of their parents and
preaching of the Church? Or is it that they have never been told of the
physical and spiritual repercussions of continuing to carry out such acts? The
Church is supposed to assist the families in the upbringing of these children
that are turning our supposedly schools of learning into something else. Read
II Tim 2:22.
As leaders of tomorrow, the youths
are supposed to showcase what our society will look like in the future. When
you look at the state of the behaviors of our youths presently, there is cause
for alarm! A lecturer once said to a class of students, “If the good
generations are raising bad generations, imagine what the generations raise by
the bad ones would look like”. The stance of yours sincerely is that some
things are not faring well and nobody is saying or doing anything about them.
The most disturbing part of it all now is that there are still many of them out
there that need talking to. Instead of the Church to devote a substantial part
of their time and resources to bringing this crop of individuals closer to God,
many of them are busy erecting new auditoriums, acquiring more sophisticated
automobiles, and other material stuffs for the comfort of the leaders of the
Church. Little or no attention is paid to the spiritual welfare of the upcoming
generations, both those within the walls of the Church and those outside. Mind
you, yours sincerely is not against anybody’s comfort while working for the
Lord. But there are necessities and excesses. Always check the spiritual
progress of your church members, within and outside the church auditoriums.
This is because even many of these boys and girls attending Sunday schools,
youth programs, Sunday services, etc. do not exhibit the characters of
Christians. When you see them outside the church, you can hardly differentiate
them from unbelievers because of their behaviors.
These issues raised above bring me
to ask once again, Is it that the church has lost its power to nurture, mold
and inculcate good characters into its members? What is wrong? Has the church
failed in these areas? The most important topic in most churches nowadays is
‘Money’, ‘prosperity’, ‘money’, prosperity’. Righteousness is relegated to the
background. Holiness is seen as unnecessary part of the life of a Christian.
Compare this with what the Bible says in Heb.12:14.
Have the Church failed? This
question keeps popping in my head each time I hear the way our government’s
public service and parastatals are being run. There are countless cases of
financial misappropriation, embezzlement, money laundering and other abuses of
public privileges accorded these office holders. You may ask, ‘is it your
concern’? But remember and I urge all men of God, pastoring or harboring people
of this class to read the warning of Jehovah God to his servant Ezekiel in
Ezekiel 3:17-18.
What baffles me most is that if you
look into the CVs of these corrupt-minded individuals, they refer to themselves
as Christians. Are they truly Christians or just Christians in the saying? Or
is it that they lack the knowledge and truth in the word of God? However, they
are members of some church denominations scattered across the country. They pay
tithes, donations, special offerings and other dues to help prosper the church
and its leaders, out of the money they stole from the government coffers and at
the end of the service, the minister ask them to kneel down and he blesses
them, even when he knows that the money they have donated to the church wasn’t
gotten from a clean source. Should this be allowed to continue, when the
end-time is here? If you fail to teach your members the truth about Heaven and
Hell, God will ask you on the day of reckoning. Be sure of that!
“You are the light of the world…”,
so said the founder of Christianity (Matt 5:14). Who was he talking about? His
followers, of course. And since we have decided to be in Him, as he is in his
father; are we not obligated to show the rest of the world ‘good examples’ to
portray that we are a new creation different from all others that does not know
the word of God?
Yours sincerely boldly argues here
that the filthy practices in our society today are as a result of lack of
godliness in the very heart of the people. Yes, the society needs to change for
the better when it comes to human behaviors – this span from the youngest to
the oldest in the society. For that change to be possible, the people need to
hear the truth from genuine men of God. And these men of God must be prepared to
dish out this truth no matter what it will cost them. That is what makes you
REAL!
Yes, it is your duty and mine to
speak the truth of the word of God to everyone that God has placed under your
fold. Let righteousness and holiness be brought back to the sermons and make
the congregation know that Heaven is the ultimate goal of every genuine
Christian. Teach the father and mother (or guardian) to teach their wards the
truth of the Word of God. (Proverbs 22:6).
Today, there are wars, killings,
disasters, riots, kidnappings and so many other human disturbances almost in
all parts of the earth. But these crises almost start from just one point – the
family. If every family member is filled with the Spirit of God, we will have a
society filled with people of God, devoid of any evil. Though we know there
can’t be a society without one crises or the other, it would be drastically
reduced. So, the church should refocus its lenses on building every family
under its fold on a strong, unshakeable foundation of the true word of God.
This will go a long way in helping to restore the society to what God initially
planned it to look like in Genesis. I know many of us long for such a society,
don’t we?
Conclusively, this is from me to
every family in the world, whether Christian or non-Christian: There is only
one way to peace in the world and that way is Jesus. Therefore, “believe in the
Lord Jesus and you will be saved – you and your household” (Acts 16:31).
Lawson Balogun
Benin City, Nigeria
lawson.balos@gmail.com