Apathy, complacency, ignorance, fear, compromise, carnality, and spiritual self-satisfaction are the main enemies of revival.

Many churches today promote a shallow, compartmentalized faith—encouraging believers to worship on Sunday but live the rest of the week in spiritual compromise, indistinguishable from their unbelieving neighbors. This hollow religion breeds hypocrisy, where people honor God with their lips but deny Him with their lives. True discipleship demands more than attendance; it requires abiding, surrender, and daily obedience. The church must stop entertaining and start equipping, calling believers to live boldly and authentically every day—not just in the pews, but in the trenches of real life.

“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” — Matthew 15:8
“Having a form of godliness but denying its power.” — 2 Timothy 3:5

Apathy is a state of indifference, or the lack of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion.

To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. [Revelation 3:14-16]

Far too many Christians have fallen victim to this enemy. To put it simply; it is the mindset of I don’t care! Apathetic Christians don’t believe they have any power to change the status quo, so they just go along with the flow and do nothing at all to change their surroundings.

They don’t participate in regular Bible studies or small groups, they do not have mentors or people in their lives to encourage them, and fewer and fewer are giving or serving with their time, talents, or treasures. These apathetic Christians usually are neither involved in the life of their church nor interested in connecting deeper with others around them.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

In fact, many are not even effectively involved in their own families. Nor are they involved much in the local government; they don’t get out and vote in national elections.

Apathy and indifference are the direct opposites of God’s call for us. The vine becomes withered and there is no desire to impact one’s self with Christ. When there is no effort to impact others, the church will stagnate, our families will become dysfunctional, and our governments will decay to liberalism and discord.

Complacency sets in when you are comfortable in your life.

Complacency creeps in when comfort becomes our compass. You may feel like you’ve reached a stable place—your bills are paid, your routines are smooth, and your spiritual life feels “good enough.” But that’s exactly where the enemy wants you: satisfied, stagnant, and slowly disengaging. When we start thinking we’ve done enough, we stop pressing in. We trade pursuit for passivity, hunger for habit. But the call of Christ is never to coast—it’s to run the race with endurance, eyes fixed on Him. Comfort is not the goal. Faithfulness is.

Compromise with the world causes us to lose our focus on what is truly important.

It was just this issue of compromise that Christ addressed in His message to the church at Purgamum in Revelation 2. It’s rare today to find churches that preach God’s Law and Word to Christians in a biblical sound way that allows them to practically integrate their faith into their families and the secular aspects of their daily life. When we become like those people and situations which cause disunity, we add to the problem rather than help.

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. – Rev. 2:4-5

In their greed and insecurity and idolatry towards government, churches that have taken advantage of the 501(c )(3) tax exempt status have basically substituted the headship of Christ over their church for the headship of government. Many of these pastors teach their flocks the lie that “government is good”, when in fact, our political history proves the opposite. The Bible, on the other hand, refers to government as “the Beast” in Rev. 19:19.

“Historically, religion always represented a threat to government because it competes for the loyalties of the people. In modern America, however, most religious institutions abandoned their independence long ago, and now serve as cheerleaders for state policies like social services, faith-based welfare, and military aggression in the name of democracy. Few American churches challenge state actions at all, provided their tax-exempt status is maintained. This is why Washington politicians ostensibly celebrate religion– it no longer threatens their supremacy. Government has co-opted religion and family as the primary organizing principle of our society. The federal government is boss, and everybody knows it.” – Dr. Ron Paul

As a result, most churches don’t dare preach doctrine relating to personal sovereignty and Christian liberty, separation of church and state, Christian citizenship, ministry in areas other than salvation; such as teaching the church congregation how to apply God’s laws to secular and political affairs, morality within government, or the biblical role of government in society for fear of being confrontational or political. Apparently, many pastors are more concerned about scaring the sheep away or lowering tithes than they are with truth, justice, or social responsibility.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.” [Matthew 5:13-14]

Rather than being salt and light in today’s society, much of the Church has allowed societal norms to reshape the Church into something totally foreign to Scripture. Why is it, for example, that believers and nonbelievers alike are more likely to follow the 10 Planks of Communism than the 10 Commandment system outlined in the Mosaic Law? It has become indeed very difficult to distinguish between believers and non-believers walking the streets of our cities.

I have been confronted on numerous occasions in my own family with the disunity brought on by relativistic interpretations of Scripture.  These individuals chose to use the same ungodly paradigm of the fallen world to interpret Scripture. Rather than seeking God’s truth, they chose instead to allow their own desires to re-image God’s Word into something they were more comfortable with. Their pluralistic defense was that we each had our own “truths” about what Scripture says and about living the Christian life.

In Charles Colson’s book, Against the Night, he described “barbarians in the pews.” These are people who basically come to church on Sunday morning to get their strokes to be made to feel good, but live during the week by pagan values. And they don’t even realize it. They think they are doing their spiritual duty by showing up at church on Sunday morning and hearing a sermon that makes them feel good to get through the week. And then the rest of the week they live like everybody else.

In today’s society, the sacredness of marriage has been diluted into a temporary arrangement—treated more like a contract than a covenant. This mindset has infiltrated the church just as much as the world, with many no longer honoring the lifelong commitment marriage was designed to be. Divorce has touched nearly every family, leaving behind emotional and spiritual fallout. But marriage is not merely a bond between two people—it’s a holy covenant with God Himself. It reflects His faithfulness, His design, and His glory. When we treat it casually, we dishonor not just our spouse, but the One who authored the union.

Compromise will not work in religion. We cannot put aside the truth of Jesus just because it offends Muslims, atheists or homosexuals. We cannot agree to worship their gods in the spirit of multiculturalism. Nor can we stand idly by while our children are taught that New Age mysticism or TV paganism is to be embraced if they are to be “citizens of the global village.” Sorry, we are to be strangers and aliens of such a place.

Spiritual self-satisfaction is the condition where you may think you are rich and don’t need anything.

To the self satisfied you may think you can get along fine without a close walk with God. You have a good salary, investments are strong and a secure retirement is on the horizon. But if you are spiritually lukewarm your condition is wretched, pitiful, blind, naked and poor.

You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. – Revelation 3:17-18