| Editorial: Mike Bain |
| Jesus told his disciples to stay awake, to keep on the watch, to watch out that no one deceives you. Those were not optional suggestions. They were commands. Yet here we stand in New Zealand with a church that has drifted into a spiritual coma while the return of Christ draws near. |
| The call to vigilance is not sentimental. It is urgent and uncompromising. To be awake means to test teaching, to measure every sermon and every policy against the Word, and to refuse the soft seduction of cultural approval. Watching is not passive. It is active resistance. |
| When I say “church” I mean both the people and the institution that claims to lead them. The institution has a way of swallowing the people’s faith and regurgitating a version of Christianity that fits the moment. The gathering of believers often mirrors that compromise because leadership sets the course. The result is a people who still attend on Sunday but leave unchanged, spiritually malnourished, and ill-equipped for the journey God intended. |
 |
| There are those who climb the pulpit with the voice of God but the agenda of the age. They preach what is popular, profitable, and palatable. They trade prophetic courage for cultural applause. They shepherd toward convenience, not covenant. These are not always obvious villains. They smile, they quote scripture selectively, they baptize compromise with pious language. The flock follows because the path is easy and the shepherd’s voice is familiar. |
| Centuries ago the Reformation rose because the institution had become arrogant and corrupt. Reformers risked everything to call the church back to truth. Today the danger is subtler but no less deadly: an institution that has traded moral clarity for cultural relevance, that has lowered standards and redefined holiness to fit the marketplace. Moses led a people forty years because of leadership failure. Today, Christian leaders are guiding flocks into barren spiritual landscapes where faith withers. |
| A church that is awake produces disciples who think, who resist, who live by conscience and conviction. A church that sleeps produces consumers who attend services as entertainment, who confuse emotion for transformation, and who mistake window dressing for worship. The cost is not merely cultural embarrassment. It is souls wandering in the wilderness, generations without a firm foundation, and a witness that no longer points to Christ. |
| This is not a call to cynicism but to repentance and courage. Leaders must be held accountable. Congregations must demand teaching that convicts and corrects. We must recover the disciplines that form character: Scripture read and obeyed, prayer that wrestles, preaching that confronts sin and calls to holiness. We must refuse the easy path and choose the narrow road. |
| Wake up. Test every teaching. Refuse the pulpit predators who dress compromise in sacred language. Stand firm in the eyes of God, not in the eyes of culture. The return of Christ is not a distant headline. It is the horizon that should sharpen our vision and steady our feet. If the institution will not lead, the people must rise. If the leaders will not repent, the flock must demand truth. No more window dressing. No more shallow Sundays. Stay awake. Keep on the watch. Do not be deceived. |
