Chapter 1: The Carcass of Christianity

The word carcass is used to describe something that is dead or no longer living. My dictionary has a few meanings for this word and one of them is this, “the remains of something being discarded, dismembered, or worthless.” Maybe you know someone that has deemed a life of Christianity as being worthless, or perhaps even going as far as saying that the modern-day Church has been dismembered? Do you know of anybody that feels or has felt this way, even to the point of causing them to discard their faith? Well, whether you know of anyone that thinks or feels this way or not, I am here to let you know that they are correct. Yes, you read that correctly, these people are right.

The Church has been dead for a while now and I can and will prove this to be true. If you are upset with me at this point that is just fine, it is only a tell-tale sign that this book is already doing what it is supposed to do. Keep reading and we will explore how and why the modern-day Christian Church is as dead as a doorknob.

Now as I have already stated the Church has been dead for a while now, however I must note that there are a few signs of life here and there. What I mean by this is that there are a few parts of the body that have been revived and are thriving. How do we know this to be true? It is very simple to understand, the Bible gives us the answer in the book of James, chapter two, and verse seventeen.

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” James 2:17 KJV

Now what we have just read in James states that faith is dead and alone if it is not accompanied by works. Does this sound like dismemberment? What about worthlessness? If the faith is dead and alone, how can it be accompanied by works? Let me show you what I mean.

Have you ever been to a church that feels more like a business meeting than a worship service? What about a preacher delivering a sermon that sounds more like a professor giving a lecture? Did the experience you had feel like they had discarded the life right out the front door? I would venture to say that you did not see anyone raising their hands in worship, being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in other tongues or being miraculously healed. Now you are probably thinking that I must have visited that same church before, I can almost certainly promise you that I have not. However, I have been to many churches that are just the same as that one. This is the dead church.

We know that it is dead because it has no works that point to its faith. If this church had faith, then it would have works that proved such. Are you still not convinced? Let’s take a closer look with another verse in the Bible, this one being found in the book of Matthew, chapter twelve, and verse thirty-three.

“Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.” Matthew 12:33 KJV

Take the tree as being the church and take the fruit as being its works. What fruit are we getting from the dead church? The fruit certainly is not good or else we would see works of faith being manifested within it. Therefore, the fruit must be corrupt and if the fruit is corrupt then the tree must be also, since the fruit is a product of the tree.

Now if we have a corrupt tree producing corrupt fruit, then what do you think is happening to the people that are eating this fruit? The answer lies in one of the definitions of the word corrupt. My dictionary has this word as meaning this “in a state of decay; rotten or putrid.” If the people in the dead church are being made corrupt, do we really have to wonder why people do not want to go to church? To eat what, the rotten fruit?

While we are on the topic of fruit let’s see what else the Bible has to say about it. We can read about what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit in the book of Galatians, chapter five, verses twenty-two and twenty-three.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 KJV

Is this the fruit that we are seeing produced by the dead church? You might say that they have a couple of these or maybe even a few, but I imagine you wouldn’t say that they had all of them, at least not all at the same time and all the time. Therefore, that is another way in which this church is made corrupt, another definition of the word corrupt is this “change or debase by making errors or unintentional alterations.” This church is errored in its way of operating simply because it has altered the fruit of the Spirit, whether this was done intentionally or not, the ending result is the same, which is death.

If you have made it this far you can start to understand that the modern-day Christian Church is in big trouble. It has a need for a revival and rejuvenation of its fruit. In order to revive the fruit, we must first revive the tree itself. This all starts with properly maintaining the roots of the tree.

Throughout the following pages of this book, we are going to explore this concept and at the end of it, by the Grace of God, we will be putting this concept into action and be executing the perfect will of God. As you continue in your reading, I would like you to keep this thought in mind “to get the fruit, we must start at the root.”