by David J. Stewart | May 2016
Matthew 23:15, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”
We frequently hear the lost unsaved world making accusations against
churches for their hypocrisy, greed and folly. While talking about the
things of God as Christians, we've all heard someone bring up shady
ministers like Jim Bakker, Jim Jones, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn and
televangelists in general. They do this in a sinful attempt to exclude God
from their own lives. Certainly, there are many hypocrites and
phonies in today's churches. This is because all men are sinners, including
believers. Getting saved doesn't guarantee that a Christian will never sin
or hurt someone again. It just means that now God's Holy Spirit lives inside
that believer's body; and if they're right with God, they are trying with
God's help to live righteously (Christlike).
Many people have utter contempt for churches today. They're tired of seeing richy-rich pastors take frequent vacations to Israel, being pressured to empty their bank accounts for the “work of Christ,” while watching lukewarm churches shirk aside the Word of God to go along with mainstream apostate evangelicalism. Despite evangelical churchgoers singing “Holy holy, holy, Lord God almighty,” the divorce rate amongst Christians is just as high as the unbelieving world. “What's the use of becoming a Christian?,” they ask themselves. Others see the shenanigans on television, bilking widows out of their retirement money, and are deterred from attending any church. When TV, internet and radio preachers beg for money, it turns many people away from the Gospel.
You've heard the world's popular excuses for not getting saved or going to church . . .
“Look at all those phony televangelists who make millions-of-dollars by exploiting poor widows, and take advantage of afflicted people; and yet they live in million-dollar mansions, drive expensive automobiles and live extravagant lavish lifestyles!” Yes, you are right. It is evil.
“Look at all those fake preachers who tell people how to live, pounding the pulpit with 'Thus saith the Lord,' and yet they sin themselves, and some go to prison for breaking the law!” Yes, you are right. It is not right! A preacher ought not behave that way. But Christians at best are still people, and people at best are still sinners! I'm not making excuses for preachers. The average pastor is paid $58,000 a year. That's great compared to Diesel mechanics who only average $42,000 a year. Even firemen and police men only make around $50,000 a year on average. And don't you dare tell me how rough pastors have it. Oh, shut up! Congregations shower their pastors with gifts, love notes, candies, money, home-cooking and their every beaconing need; whereas, a Diesel mechanic or automobile shop manager gets nothing! So shut up about how rough pastors have it, because it's a lie of the Devil in most cases. There are a few pastors who really get their hands dirty, so to speak, working relentlessly to fulfill their ministry in the Lord, but they are rare indeed. Pastors are a privileged group in America. Preachers on the other hand, don't get anything either, and they (not pastors) are the backbone of our nation's spiritual character. I wouldn't give you a dime for a pastor who isn't a preacher!
“Look at all those nuts in backhill Appalachian churches, who pass around snakes and act like fools! And those Charismatic nuts who speak-in-tongues like crazy people, barking like dogs and rolling around on the floor!” Yes, you are right too. This is insanity! Many of our churches and pastors have gone wild!
“Look at all the phony and hypocritical church pastors, who beg like dogs all the time for money, money, money? Yet, many of them drive brand new cars, take regular expensive vacations to the Holy Land, and live lavish wealthy lifestyles. And how about all these hypocritical ministers who don't pay any taxes, hounding their congregation for more money all the time (who do have to pay taxes)? If God is so omnipotent, how 'come He's always broke and needs everyone's money?” That's a good point. I sympathize and share your sentiments. It's not God that needs your money, but the people asking for it. I have a problem myself with pastors who take frequent annual trips to the Holy Land. Nearly all of those pastors promote the modern corrupt Alexandrian Bible revisions of the Devil, which is why they have as much money as they do, from being a lukewarm, wishy-washy, dirty, wicked, neo-evangelical, compromiser! The preacher who stands true to THE TRUTH very likely won't have much money or followers! That's OK, I'd rather be broke for God, than a billionaire for Satan! You can't put a price on peace of soul my friend!!!
“Look at all these millionaire preachers today, who always have some latest New York Times Best-Seller book to push off on the naive public, raking in tens-of-millions-of-dollars in sales profits. Aren't they supposed to serve their followers, since the word 'minister' means 'servant,' instead of serving themselves?” Yes, you are absolutely right.
“Why should I go to church or get saved? . . . So I can be like the rest of these religious nuts, and give more donations to some money-hungry preacher? And look at all these child-molesting homosexual Catholic priests!” Yes, you are right. I don't blame people for avoiding churches these days. Note: Roman Catholicism is a satanic organization, not a Biblical New Testament Church in any sense. 2nd Corinthians 11:13-15 teaches and warns us as believers that Satan and his ministers are actors, who masquerade as being righteous to confuse people (We see plenty of that today in the world). A deliberately overlooked fact, by both the lying media and the sick public, is that more than 50% of all Roman Catholic priests are homosexuals. The public is sick for continuing to support the Catholic Church.
You see, if Joe Citizen rapes a little boy, and the dark secret comes out 30-40 years later, Joe goes to prison; but if the local Catholic Archdiocese rapes the little boy, then he gets a gentle slap on the hand and never spends a day in prison. HELL WILL BE HOT! . . . inconceivably hot for the prosecutor who doesn't prosecute, the judge who doesn't judge, and everyone involved who whitewashes the rape of little children by demonic butt-raping Catholic priests!!! It makes God sick!!! And you're sick in the brain if you allow your children to attend a hellhole like the Roman Catholic Church. How many more rapes will it take to get to the center of the rat's nest of the RCC? There's been over 50,000 child molestations in the Catholic “church” since 1950!!! There are numerous studies which show that homosexuals have a higher rate of cases of pedophilia than heterosexual men. Gay literature is saturated with themes of pedophilia. Gay rights equates to pervert's rights!!! Please, get your children out of the Catholic cesspool of perverts! Revelation 12:9 teaches that Satan is deceiving the whole world. Religion is one of Satan's most effect deceptions.
“When I let my son attend some Baptist church, they baptized him in water fifteen times!” A woman once told me this very statement, which she used as an excuse to be hostile against the things of God. If she hadn't used this reason, she would have found another, whatever it takes to maintain ill-will against the Church, Jesus Christ, believers and Christianity as a whole. A little honest common sense would have told her that in a ministry so big, with several thousand children in attendance each and every Sunday, there's no way to screen every child who wants to receive Jesus Christ and then be water baptized. If that bad mother would attend church with her child, instead of leaving him alone to go by himself, then she would have been present to monitor the situation. What a hypocrite mama!
“I don't want to go to a Baptist church. Look at all those nuts jumping around like idiots in some storefront rental unit that they use for a church!” I've heard Catholics say such things about Christians, in comparison to the extravagant marbled floors, brass chandeliers, exquisite church building architecture, and billionaire-dollar bank accounts of the Roman Catholic Church. People make all kinds of excuses for not attending church. Sadly, and tragically, they use these same excuses for not coming to Jesus Christ to be saved. Please don't let the Devil take you to Hell with him.
“I used to go to church but I quit, because ______________.” You could put a thousand things on this line for the reasons people give for not attending church anymore. Although you don't have to attend church to be saved, usually people who are antagonistic toward the church usually feel the same toward God and the Gospel.
“I'm mad at God because he took my parents from me at an early age.” There are many people who are mad at God, and use that as an excuse to avoid believing the Gospel and get involved with the things of God. Ecclesiastes 9:11 teaches that TIME AND CHANCE HAPPEN TO ALL. It's not God's fault that some drunk crossed the centerline in the road and murdered your loved one. Our nation's courts don't prosecute drunk drivers as first degree murderers, but they should! There was nothing “involuntary” about murdering someone, when you VOLUNTARILY drank the drug alcohol (booze)!!! So how can drunk-driving murders be called “involuntary murder”? It is a total failure of our legal system in America!
I sympathize with you if you feel that God has betrayed you, but I assure you He has not. I apologize to you on behalf of God, because I know He wouldn't want you to hate Him for something that would go against His holy character. You see, when men rebel against God, there are consequences. If God were to ignore and fix everything so that when men sin, no one else suffers, then God would not be a just and holy God. Sin must be punished. Romans 6:23 teaches that the penalty for our sins is DEATH, and that includes all the misery, sickness, hardships, heartache and suffering of this present earthly life that ultimately leads to DEATH!!! We live in a fallen world, because of the sins of Adam and Eve (Romans 5:12).
But praise be to God, the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross of Calvary and paid our sin debt. Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay. JESUS PAID IT ALL!!! Jesus DIED on the cross for our sins. He was BURIED. And three days later, the Lord bodily RESURRECTED from the dread for our justification. These three things constitute “the Gospel,” by which we are saved if we simply BELIEVE (1st Corinthians 15:1-4). The good news friend is that you don't have to die the SECOND DEATH (Revelation 21:8). Sickness can only afflict us to the grave, but then we are free from “the body of this death” (Romans 7:24). Great things await the child of God. Such as, a new glorified body at the Rapture (Philippians 3:21), a place prepared just for us (John 14:1-3), and a family in Heaven (Ephesians 3:15). God is so good!
I wrote this article, thinking about all the excuses that I've heard people make why they despise God, church, the Bible, Christians and the things of God. Sadly, they have opposed themselves, becoming their own worst enemy. God is not your enemy! The Church is not your enemy. Satan is your enemy, and he would love for nothing more than to somehow compel you to hate God and the Church. I like comedian George Carlin (1937-2008), but he has done much to provide unsaved people with tons of excuses not to get saved. People loved Carlin for his brilliant wit, candid honesty, and clever way with words. Yet, sadly, I have heard many people, including former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, say that their religion is the same as George Carlin's (which is atheism). George Carlin is now burning in the fires of Hell. How tragic it is that Carlin is in Hell, knowing that his own videos mocking God are still on YouTube and elsewhere, convincing people why God doesn't exist, and why they should avoid the Church. Tragically, they will go to Hell with Mr. Carlin. Their blood will be on his hands!
Please don't let the excuses, mockery, and skepticism of other unsaved people take you to Hell. On Judgment Day, God will hold you accountable as an individual (Romans 14:10-12; Ecclesiastes 12:14; James 4:12; Revelation 20:13-15; Proverbs 24:12; Matthew 12:36). Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, because not only were they going to Hell in unbelief, but they were leading others to follow them into Hell. Jesus called them TWO-FOLD THE CHILDREN OF HELL. Matthew 23:15, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” I don't want you to go to Hell, which is why I took the time to type this article. There are all kinds of unsaved skeptics, mockers and naysayers in the world today, who think they know more than God, but they don't. You don't have to listen to them, but some people unfortunately will, and they'll go to Hell. Skepticism blinds the lost from the Gospel. Please don't become a victim.
There have always been phony believers and imperfect churches. Please don't focus upon man's failures and sins, and use that to reject a perfect, loving and awesome Savior! Man will always fail you. Family will hurt you. Churches are filled with judgmental hypocrites and one-day-a-week Christians. But that doesn't mean all Christians are that way. I'd dare say that one-out-of-fifty born-again Christians are truly sold-out to God, living as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. The Doctrine That Almost Nobody Believes (MP3, Dr. Jack Hyles; Most Christians despise a true disciple of Christ). Most parents want their child to become a Christian, but they don't want their child becoming a missionary or full-time religious worker. Most women want a Christian husband, but they don't want to be married to a preacher. Most men want a Christian wife, but they don't want a wife that prays, wears long dresses, and goes soul-winning. Do we really want to please the Lord? I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, and I have paid the price, bearing my cross, and am being persecuted for my stand for Christ (2nd Timothy 3:12). Tragically, most of the persecution against me has been from fellow believers, go figure! END
