The Barna Group - Most American Christians Do Not Believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit Exist
What is terrifying to me is that 1/4 of Americans who describe themselves as Christians, do not believe God is the All Powerful Supreme Being who created the universe. They describe Him as “everyone is god”, “he is the realization of human potential”.
Oh, my goodness, where are we going?
I believe that this new survey by the Barna Group is clearly indicative of why we’ve found ourselves in the gutter covered in filth. Here is why:
Four out of ten Christians (40%) strongly agreed that Satan “is not a living being but is a symbol of evil.” An additional two out of ten Christians (19%) said they “agree somewhat” with that perspective. A minority of Christians indicated that they believe Satan is real by disagreeing with the statement: one-quarter (26%) disagreed strongly and about one-tenth (9%) disagreed somewhat. The remaining 8% were not sure what they believe about the existence of Satan.
I know precisely where this comes from. It comes from mothers not teaching their children, from fathers setting bad examples and from parents not taking their children to church, and from Sunday School teachers not adhering The Word. We Christians are at fault.
We have lost the urgency and love for the lost. We think that because someone professes Jesus, he or she is a full-blood brother or sister. It is not so.
Statistics like this frighten me, yet it will get a lot worse. This earth will never get better because it is ruled by the Father of Lies. What can we do? Oh, Lord God, what can we do?
Father, forgive us. Hear our prayer as you heard Daniel.
O Lord, the great and awesome God, keeping the covenant and mercy to those who love Him, and to those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Your commandments and from Your judgments. Neither have we listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our forefathers, our rulers, and our presidents, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us the shame of our faces, as it is today to the people of America. and to all who are near and who are afar off, through all the countries where You have driven them because of their sin which they have sinned against You. O Lord, shame of face belongs to us, to our kings, to our rulers, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him. We have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah our God, to walk in His Laws which He set before us by His servants the prophets.
Yea, all America has transgressed Your Law, and turned aside, that they might not obey Your voice. Therefore the curse has been poured out on us, and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against Him. And He has confirmed His Words which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us. Yet we did not make our prayer before Jehovah our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand Your truth. For Jehovah our God is righteous in all His works which He does; but we are not obeying His voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out from the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and brought fame to Yourself down through the ages, as it is today, we have sinned, we have done wrong. Lord, I pray You, according to all Your righteousness let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from America, the country built on You as a foundation.
And now, O our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, filled with holy desires, and cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. O my God, bow down Your ear and hear. Open Your eyes and behold for we do not present our prayers before You on account of our righteousness, but because of Your great mercies.
O Jehovah, hear; O Jehovah, forgive; O Jehovah, listen and do. Do not delay, for Your own sake, O my God; for Your country and Your people are called by Your name.
In Jesus name, for His sake. Amen and Amen. Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.
6 comments:
Dearest sister, forgive me for having forgotten to send you a card for your Birthday.
I hope to be able to make it up with this belated Birthday wish:
A Happy Belated Birthday, Gina!
May your day have been filled with lots of blessings and may God bless you abundantly each day.
(((HUGS)))
God's Grace.
Jesus told "a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart" (Luke 18:1). In the telling of the parable Jesus asks, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"
As in so many things, I have mixed feelings. On one hand I weep for those so deluded as to think they can consider themselves "Christians" while ignoring everything "Christian". They believe "the lie" ... "It's all about me." Thinking they're safe, they are headed for hell. (The Barna Group headline is a falsehood, by the way, to suggest that "Most American Christians do not believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit exist" because these kind of things are basic to being a Christian.)
On the other hand, 1) Jesus told us it would be the case that when His time to return got close, it would seem like there was very little in the way of genuine faith, and 2) Jesus said, "I will build My church" (Matt 16:18). So we expect a decline in genuine faith and we know that Christ cannot fail to build His Church. On those truths we can have hope.
Oh, Corry, you are such a sweet sister and such a blessing to me! Thank you, God, for her!
Stan, you such a great way of putting things in perspective! I did not notice that the headline was a falsehood, but you are absolutely correct.
I do put my whole faith in Him. It isn't like He did not warn us! I just cannot imagine how things can get worse, but I know they will.
Greetings from the land of cricket and proper spelling. :)
Here's a nice quote from the article..."It’s hard for achievement-driven, self-reliant, independent people to believe that their lives can be impacted by unseen forces."
Interesting that the author didn't say "unseen beings" (hehe)
Must be one of the 40% group, eh?
Anyway, rubbishy statistics like this are too feeble to be worth getting upset about. In a country of 500 million people, they surveyed a whole 1,871 of them? Wow. Less than 1000th of 1% !
It is like measuring the moral state of a high school by asking the brother of one of the students whether or not he smokes.
Doh...
Nick, I fully appreciate what you are saying. You put it in great perspective. I love the remark about statistics!
gb
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