What is a Remnant Church? According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary It’s s a portion of people left after a disaster, especially a disaster identified with divine judgment. Those who remain faithful to God despite suffering and who ultimately experience restoration.
As the persecution of the Bible believing church becomes more intense, there will be a greater manifestation of the “Remnant Church.“ By remnant. I am referring to the surviving vestige of the Body of Christ that remains true to biblical principles despite cultural opposition.
There is always a faithful remnant left during ties of apostasy and persecution. The prophet Elijah found that God, by His grace, always preserves a remnant that holds true to the faith. (See scriptures Kings 19; Romans 11:2-5).
The Remnant Church is not merely the so called “cultural warrior”churches that seem always to be battling for a cause. While this Canberra part of it, the gospel is much bigger than one social cause.
The remnant church will have faith and obedience to the Word of God that is practiced by humble, people-loving, community-serving members of churches who do not compromise the Word of God.
Here are a few characteristics of the modern day Remnant church.
- It will become more entrenched in the Word the more the world oppresses it.
The more resistance it faces the Remnant Church becomes more resolute in its faith. This is similar to the way the muscles in our body get harder with resistance training. Instead of comprising the message, it may change its method of presenting the Gospel without watering down biblical ethics, values, and the message of the cross.
- It will become vilified by society.
The Remnant Church used to be merely unpopular in the past, but now it has gotten to the point where it is hatred. Christian values are mocked continuously by shows like “The View,” “The late show with Steven Calvert, and more. It is now becoming popular to hate biblical truth seekers.
- It will preach counter-cultural biblical messages
The pastors in the Remnant Church will continue to preach the Gospel of Christ. The preaching of the pure gospel always has vast implications related to human sexuality, the sanctity of human life, and the definition of marriage and family. The challenge would be for the church to continuously apply the Gospel to cultural issues in a wise, winsome way. The Remnant Church will remain faithful to preaching the gospel despite any possible backlash it may receive from attendees, as well as the public.
- It will produce the most commuted Christians while making disciples.
It is a known fact that liberal, progressive, and comprising churches are shrinking while conservative evangelical churches grow in numbers. When a church is on the tip of the spear regarding biblical truth, it has more of a propensity of producing true disciples. This is because it takes great sacrifice to believe in Jesus amid hostile environments. Compromising churches produce wimpy believers, while the Remnant Church produces committed disciples. That’s all there is to it.
- It will experience a greater presence and power of God than the non-remnant church.
The first century church was a hated minority but the Book of Acts illiterates God’s great power and presence that accompanied its ministry (Acts 3:5). The more difficult it is to confess the truth of the gospel, the more God shows off His stuff. Where sin abounds, grace does more abound (Romans 5:20).
- It will become more visible and distinct as the culture becomes more decadent
I believe that in most organizations whether secular or religious there are about 25% of it’s members are the most committed to it’s vision and mission. They are the only ones willing to endure the most pain for God’s cause and the gospel. That also means that most of the people in an entity easily detach themselves when the going gets tough. The harder it becomes for the Church to practice biblical truth, the Remnant will become more evident.
- It will be more excluded and separated from mainstream secular churches and denominations.
The more in-cool it becomes to be a biblical Remnant church, the more the so-called “cool” (compromising ) churches will distance themselves from the in-cool, remnant church.
Right now it is not easy for the average person to discern between remnant churches and the compromising church. Most people still lump them together. However as things begin to heat up in the world compromising pastors and churches will accommodate the culture and compromise biblical truths.
This will then cause a more apparent distinction between the remnant church and the mainstream church. The compromising pastors and churches will continue to do their best to distance themselves from the remnant pastors and churches publicly. This is what happened in Nazi Germany when the nationalistic churches separated from the confessing churches to avoid persecution and death.
- The remnant church will change the world
Sometimes God allows difficult circumstances to weed out the uncommitted followers from commuted followers. We can see an example of this in Judges 7 with the account of Gideon’s army. When we look at the Old Testament during the days of Elijah and the early century church, and the confessing remnant church in Nazi Germany, we can conclude that the remnant church has what it takes to change the world. Only the remnant church has the conviction, the willingness to sacrifice, the devotion, the endurance, and message, and the power to change the world. The compromising church will enjoy it’s temporary popularity in the present time, but those who are wise and turn many to righteousness will shine as the stars forever and ever (Daniel 12:3).
- The remnant church will endure while the compromising church will fade away.
God promises in Malachi 3:16-18 that He has written a book of remembrance for those who speak of Him and fear His name. The reward for them is that He will spare them as a man spares his son. The implications of this are vast. While spiritual children of the compromising church will probably become agnostic, the children of the remnant will carry the torch to Christ to the next generation. They will increase in strength and do more wondrous works (John 14:12). The remnant church goes from strength to strength with faith to faith, while the comprising church goes from strength to weakness, from faith to apostasy, and eventually into oblivion (Romans 1:17).
I believe this will become more evident through the year 2024. As the world grows darker, the light of God’s people will shine brighter.
May God help us all to remain faithful to the end.
From Pity to Praise 