Babes in the Nursery: The State of the Church

By Eric Wheeler eric@sharingtheway.com

About eight years ago, I received a powerful dream from the Lord. Before I had drifted off to sleep that night, I had been earnestly praying to God that He would open up our church’s pastor’s eyes to the fact that the people in our local church congregation at that time were seemingly starving and in desperate need of spiritual food. To me, the pastor was seemingly blind to his parishioners’ needs and oblivious to the fact that the people were spiritually hungry. Many seemed lost and in great need of strong leadership, guidance, and direction. I went to bed that night with these thoughts in my heart and with these concerns on my mind. I prayed to God about it, and that night God spoke to me in a dream. He showed me that He was the One who was actually “starving” the church people, and that He was doing it for a specific reason.

In my dream I saw a big hospital nursery full of babies. Each baby was lying in its own little crib side by side in the nursery. The strange thing was that each tiny baby had an adult face! I recognized each “adult-baby” as being a current member in our local church congregation at the time. In fact, I was one of the “adult-babies” too! All of us adult-babies had become so dependent on the pastor to continually feed us milk that we were refusing to grow-up spiritually. We had become so dependent on him that our bodies had become totally undeveloped, immature and unable to walk. We should have long-since grown into mature fully-developed adults by then, but instead, we still had the bodies and spiritual minds of infants. The pastor was so busy faithfully giving us milk that he didn’t have any time for personal growth himself or to do anything else in service to God. Because we had grown so complacent and content with our milk, none of us hungered for anything else. Consequently, we refused to grow-up!

In my dream, I then heard the Lord sternly say, “I will do this!” At that moment, I saw the Lord remove blinders from an Amish horse, and put them on the pastor. They were the kind of blinders that you see on horses that are pulling Amish buggies down the road. These blinders keep the horses from seeing anything around them so that they aren’t spooked. In other words, God was putting “blinders” on our pastor’s eyes to keep him from seeing the Big Picture of what God was doing among the people in the congregation. He was doing this because the people had become so spiritually complacent that they were refusing to grow-up. Because of the spiritual blinders that were impeding his vision, the pastor wasn’t able to give the people their desired milk anymore. He wasn’t able to see and to comprehend the people’s needs. Therefore, he wasn’t able to satisfy them. This caused many of us in the nursery to become hungry. We began to cry out for spiritual food. In our hunger pangs, some of us began to look for other sources in our quest to satiate and satisfy our hunger. This led many of us to begin to try “solid food” and meat. Consequently, one by one, many of us quickly grew-up and walked right out the nursery doors.

As I saw this happening in my dream, I remember thinking to myself that it was like watching a nursing mother deny her baby access to her breast, thereby weaning him. Because his milk supply had been cut off, the growing child quickly learned how to find and consume other types of food. Eventually, as this weaned child matured, he was able to eat and digest solid food and meat! At that moment, I heard God say, “As it is written, ‘To whom will He teach knowledge? And to whom will He make to understand doctrine? Isn’t it those that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts?” (Isa. 28:9). Again, as I watched this scene unfold, I heard Him say, “As it is written, ‘For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you all over again the elementary truths of God’s Word. And you have come to need milk and not solid food. For anyone who lives on milk is still an infant, and is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb. 5:12-14).

It was evident that the Lord was not pleased with what “church” had become – a nursery full of babies! Therefore He began starving the people in order to force them to grow-up. In doing so, I saw a number of these adult-babies in my dream, individually, begin to cry out to God for food, and as they did, He quickly provided it to them. One by one, these adult-babies quickly grew-up and left the nursery, myself included. After a little while, when all of the adult-babies who wanted to mature and grow-up did, and consequently, quickly left the nursery, I saw God remove the blinders from the eyes of His servant — the pastor. Immediately, the pastor looked around, his own spiritual understanding being accelerated by the Lord in an instant, quickly turned and exited the nursery never to return again either.

At that moment, there was a somber realization that some of the adult-babies were still defiantly staying in their warm comfortable cribs, content to be in the nursery. I listened for a while as they wailed in hunger for their desired milk. I then heard the Lord decisively proclaim, “I will do this!” At that moment, I saw the Lord shut the doors to the nursery and coldly walk away. He turned His back on them because they refused to grow-up! Consequently, they all died.

I remember the cold chill that ran down my spine when I saw God callously walk away from these indolent “adult-babies” in my dream. At first it seemed unlikely that God would do such a thing. But then I suddenly remembered in the Parable of the Talents where Jesus spoke of the unprofitable servant who was given one talent but didn’t put forth any effort to produce or to grow. Of him, Jesus the Righteous Judge, said, “Cast that wicked and lazy unprofitable servant into outer darkness. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” (Matt. 25:26-30). Those of us who have an ear, let us hear. For God truly says to all of us: “I could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal.” (I Cor. 3:1-3). God help us all to grow and change!

Eric
eric@sharingtheway.com

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