Go Ye

Jesus Christ, just before His ascension to glory gave the disciples an intriguing commandment-‘Go ye into the world and preach the gospel.’ Prompt after His ascension and the Pentecostal visitation of the Holy Ghost, they started going from place to place declaring the gospel of salvation. Great was their exploit that they soon became a threat to the system of the day and this led to serious persecution that left many wounded and dead. This persecution helped strengthened the body of believers then; who were later called Christians because they had only one occupation, and that was 'go ye.'
Throughout the book of Acts we see a moving church, a church that was totally committed to the injunction that we call Great Commission today. It was such a relevant church that changed the history and ways things were done. It was a church that went everywhere in search of such that should be saved. It was not a church that was burden with building cathedrals and massive structures compared to the church of today. They were content with preaching from house to house, and often landed in trouble whenever they tried to operate from the organized structure of the cathedrals of their day; the Synagogues. They were chased initially from the synagogue; they met at Solomon’s porch. Apostle Paul was doing great, preaching and teaching from house to house until he decided to go into the synagogue at Jerusalem; he was beaten, arrested, and sent to Rome as a prisoner.
Has the modern church not deviated from the injunction to ‘go ye’? Today’s church has changed this ‘go ye’ to ‘come ye.’ We emphasize our buildings, music, and preaching. Our church auditoria had become like the theaters where secular shows are held. Our churches have become merely entertainment houses where you go to get high and celebrate ‘holy celebs.’ Christians no longer go ye, but we stir so much noise and excitement in our churches- probably trying to re-enact the noise of the Day of Pentecost. The only difference however is that ours is noise stirred by man to draw attention to our preaching skills and anointing. The noise on the day of Pentecost drew men to salvation and repentance.
The louder the noise, the louder the presence of God in our services; so it seems. In the days of the Bible, whenever God showed up, there was absolute silence. Whenever the glory of God appeared, man fizzled out from the focus; in fact man could not stand to minister. Is our church any reflection of God’s presence or 'holified' secular shows?
This is not to condemn the church but to awake us to the extent of the degeneration the church as suffered because we have changed the emphasis. God’s emphasis is to go out into the world where the sinners, the hurting, the hopeless, and the dejected are, and bring them to a relationship with God, and then they would be qualified to join with us in our assembly. In the days of the Acts, sinners were afraid to join the body of believers. The opposite is what we have today. As a matter of fact, sinners are looking forward to our gatherings today because of the ‘high spirit.’
It is time we go ye. We are sent to the world not the church. The church is to prepare and release us into the world where the hurting are. We are sent into our communities to bring the love of God to them. We are to preach what constitute Good New to our world; depending on which world we live in. We are sent to build people not buildings and houses. If only 20% of what goes into cathedrals building and entertainment would go into reaching our world; then we can bring back our Master as quickly as possible.