2nd Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
Kindly said, I was thinking the other day
about how many church congregations and pastors selfishly use each other. This
is especially true when a religious school is involved. The teachers are all
getting paid. The pastors are making a living, getting paid for everything
they do.
And the people in the congregation want a good school for their children to learn to read, write and perhaps play a musical instrument. For those in the congregation who don't have kids in the school, they attend church for socialization and ulterior motives than pleasing God. Everybody is merely using each other for their own benefit. No thanks to that!
Sadly, instead of being fishers of men, most of our churches are aquarium keepers.
I can't think of many things more frustrating than having to attend church as an obligation, only because you have to be there, showing up merely because it's your job or you have a position there, or you've been taught that God wants you there in a dead church, or your kids are in the school, et cetera. The pastors of dead churches don't mind being there, because they're getting paid (most very well paid).
I've been in Baptist churches where the staff was miserable, and I could sense their feeling of frustration having to be in a place that was boring, lacked solid Biblical teaching and the pulpit was completely dead. There's nothing worse than a dead church service with no spiritual life.
I absolutely loath expository, dead, boring, milquetoast, wimpy, preacherettes who deliver sermonettes! Talk about a slow form of torture! I feel sorry for religious people who have no choice but sit through dead-sermon-after-dead-sermon, trying to stay awake through dry, dull and shallow blah, blah, blah! Bless God, give me a Billy Sunday! Give me a Jack Hyles! Give me a Harry Ironside! Give me a John the Baptist! Give me a preacher who says-it-like-it-is, willing to offend people with THE TRUTH!
Of course, such churches are nearly all in denial, because our human nature is such that we always want to believe that even our most selfish decisions are done with noble and good intent. Argue as some may, the fact remains that everybody is gaining something from the arrangement. I am not saying that it is wrong for a pastor to receive a salary; however, it is sinful when he does it as a job instead of as a holy calling from the Lord Jesus Christ. I wouldn't give you a dime for anyone who enters the ministry merely as a profession. It is a great spiritual responsibility to enter into the ministry, that few people take seriously.
You'd be shocked if you knew how many people become pastors, clergy
and chaplains just to pursue an ease line of work. Most of them are not even
born-again Christians! There's nothing more sickening than a “salad-bar
minister” who caters to all different religious affiliations, changing colors
like a chameleon. For Baptists he gives a Baptist sermon. For Catholics he
gives a Catholic sermon. For Muslims he gives an Islamic sermon. That's the
Devil's sinister minister (2nd Corinthians 11:13-15)!
Autopsy of a Dead Church
How can you determine if your pastor is using the congregation, or if the congregation is using the pastor(s)? It is very simple. A pastor must first and foremost be a man of God—a man who walks with God, stands with God and stands for God. Pastors these days no longer stand for anything! If your pastor dips-his-sails, trims his messages, kowtows, beats-around-the-bush, avoids controversial topics, never takes a stand against sin, and avoids preaching on eternal punishment in the fires of Hell... then he is merely using his people to make a living!
A sure sign of a dead church is one without outreach ministries. You'd be surprised how many churches think they are serving God because they have church barbeques, chili suppers, buy school supplies once a year for local poor children, or decorate the church with Christmas lights once a year. Such churches don't teach, encourage nor organize any soul-winning efforts. They gather together each Sunday, they sing, they go through the motions, the rich people keep the church financed and they play the church game. That's not a Biblical Church; but rather, a 501c3 state-licensed business. Christianity is a new birth, not a new business!
I'm sick of hearing pastors make the lame excuse that they are first time pastors, as if that justifies not taking a stand. There's something wrong with a man who's been in fulltime Christian service for 35 years and tries to justify his lukewarmness. With that sorry attitude, a pastor can justify all his shortcomings, failures and apostasy. Every pastor is in training! We're all living life for the first time! There's no excuse not to stand for THE TRUTH! Bless God, if 8-year-old Josiah in the Old Testament can stand for God, then so can us adults!
There's only ONE BOOK that we can trust today, and that is the very pure KING JAMES BIBLE (KJB)!!! Shame on pastors who use umpteen Bible versions. If you don't believe that the King James Bible is the ONE BOOK that God authored, inspired and preserved, then prey tell me, which one is it? God didn't author 150 Bible versions! Since all of the modern Bible versions DRASTICALLY disagree theologically, they cannot all be God's Holy Words.
I am amazed how the average pastor can plainly see that Satan is behind false religions; such as, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventism and Roman Catholicism; yet those naive and deceived pastors utterly fail to see that Satan also has his own counterfeit Bible versions (and there's a new one published every few months)! Have you believed a lie? END OF ARTICLE
