How The Faithless "Church" Exacerbate True Believers
“There is no perfect church” … “Nobody is perfect” … “Everybody sins” … “Jesus said ‘judge not’…” — church member
When James addressed the division among those professing faith versus others boasting in their works, he concluded that a genuine faith, works (James 2:18). A claim to one without the other means you simply don’t belong to Jesus. Today, churches are still full of people professing Christ that knowingly and willfully disobey him.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” - Luke 6:46
I am broadly speaking about my context and not every specific church across the globe. However, if my small town context is any indication of a larger issue, than it’s a major problem that needs addressing. I’ve done the small town life for almost two decades. Small town churches and church “elders” are greatly suffering in more ways than I can express today.
Why bring this up? I’m tired of the destruction to faith, families, marriages, witness, and most importantly the assault against the kingdom of God that hypocrites cause. If it were the Lord’s desire for his church to sit idly by as others wreak havoc within, then so be it. But it’s not. He equips the church with garments of war (Ephesians 6:10-20) and sends her out to the ends of the earth to advance his kingdom reign (Psalm 2:8; Matthew 28:19-20), while equipping her for purity and beauty in her newness of life. But where does the enemy love to strike? From within (Acts 20:29).
(I will take a momentary interlude to confess that I am working on my tact and gentleness. I’ve even taken up a new writing project—DearJes.us—to focus on that effort. This is not that. And I believe it’s a good and God-fearing work of ministry today to be the prophetic voice of reason in a world raging against the seated King, especially when it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish the church from the world.) /interlude
Here are a few assertions that I believe should be made in light of the current state of many professing Christians today:
If your church does not practice church discipline, you are not a church.
If you don’t think your church needs discipline, you are not a pastor.
If your pastor is a woman, she is actually a ravenous wolf.
If your church does not advance the abolition of abortion or affirm and teach the simple truth that God created and instituted only male and female, you probably fit into one of the first three…
I’m not bringing up random sin. These are particular and egregious sins being committed in most churches today.
Church Discipline - I list the lack of discipline first, because I think it is the most prevalent and was overwhelmingly the main compromise that lead to leavened lumps across the globe (Galatians 5:9). If you deny the need your church has for discipline, John says the truth is not in you (1 John 1:8). If you do not follow the discipline of unrepentant sin to excommunication, you are in the sin of disobedience and should now be disciplined (Matthew 18:17). The simple truth is if we are not battling sin, we are being killed by it. Sin is present in every church and Paul said that if it is not dealt with it will destroy the church.
Unqualified pastors - The Holy Spirit appoints overseers (Acts 20:28) and the church tests to verify the calling. A pastor/elder/overseer must be above reproach (Titus 1:6-9). However, just like the excuse that “nobody is perfect” led to license to sin, we have compromised on the qualifications for elders that lead our churches. “The requirements are just too great!” … “Nobody would qualify if we actually obeyed what God’s word says…”. The Holy Spirit doesn’t appoint unqualified men to pastor the flock. My plea to unqualified pastors: step down. You are doing more harm than good. My plea to congregants with unqualified pastors: remove them from office. Christians will be far better off without overseers than with unqualified ones.
The lady “pastor” - There is no such thing as a female pastor and a female placing herself in such a role commits the same image-marring sin as homosexual “marriage” does. God created and did it orderly. He cares about how we image him and the institutions he created to do it. A woman cannot exercise authority over a man (1 Timothy 2:12) and a pastor must be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2). Some have at least made embarrassing attempts to twist the text in defense of such abominable practices, but most just ignore those problem passages altogether.
Abortion and the LGBT agenda - I link these two together—as most reprobate “churches” affirm both together—purposefully. The aggressive agenda to sexualize society and destroy the family unit is driven by the LGBT movement. It’s a lot harder to sexualize a culture when the ramifications of sex exists… the child that is created. Birth control made great strides to this end starting in the 1950’s but wasn’t fullproof. If birth control doesn’t work today, murder the child. Now we have professing churches affirming both the murder of the unborn and an acronym for different ways people like to have and idolize sex. I came from a small town that didn’t flaunt this wickedness, but now live among small towns with churches openly celebrating both. In both contexts outwardly faithful churches would fellowship with the unfaithful. Paul said not to even associate with the sexually immoral who profess Christ. What was the response by professing Christians? Let’s do a joint potluck outreach event for the community! Did any of these congregations ever have actual Christians among them? The Lord only knows. But like the apostle said, a little leaven… it permeates.
I do want to make clear that my lament and call to repentance is accompanied by much pain and anguish over many, many, years. I do not write these words with my own skewed sense of activism. I see real faces, know real names, have watched marriages crumble, weak men fail their wives and families without recourse, husbands in tears over unfaithful wives, churchgoing parents give their children over to the government for indoctrination, and all while an unbelieving world watches the professing church in awe and ask, “why on earth would I want that?!”.
How does church discipline relate to failing marriages? Men are responsible for the health of their marriage and the sanctification of his wife and kids. The wife is to submit to her husband. What does she do with a disobedient husband? She should be able to go to the elders of her church, or other healthy church members, to correct the husband. But this also extends to qualification…
Qualified overseers would be active in the lives of those they shepherd. They would be involved in the lives and direction of the church. And when the need arises they would be able to exhort and correct sin because they usually wouldn’t also be guilty of the same thing…
Qualified overseers would raise up qualified church members. With the exception of the actual desire and appointment to the office, all matured men in a church should be qualified to serve as an overseer. Instead, we have unqualified men preaching feel-good story-saturated sermons to people still drinking milk. “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food” - Hebrews 5:12.
If men were properly taught and held accountable in their churches, women wouldn’t need to look with desperation at the lack of qualified men to pastor congregations and then volunteer to fill the need themselves. This is happening in great numbers in other countries right now! The church desperately needs strong, qualified, and able men to lead.
The worst part of all this is that we have always had a simple solution to all this chaos: Faith with works. Not as a means of salvation but as evidence of true conversion. God gave us his word to lead us in truth. There will always be cults and false Christians out there. But if we use the same simple statement Jesus made to distinguish his own from the unbelieving world, a lot fewer people would be hurt by the cults and the kingdom would advance with more clarity and glory.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. - John 17:15-20