Recently I experienced a replay of something (someone) which has happened to me countless times in my 41 years as a pastor. I suspect that most of you will say, “Oh yes, I have met that guy too.”
The setting is in the local church. Some Sunday, let’s call him Mr. Log in the Eye (LE for short), Mr. LE shows up at church. Why is he there? To worship God? Hardly. He is drawn there because religion is his chosen vehicle for self-exaltation by using and abusing others. Religion can be such a wonderful tool for – Pharisees. So here he comes.
Before his time on this particular Sunday is over, he will have minutely examined and judged just about everything and everyone. Following the morning service, he inevitably will approach the pastor and offer (unrequested of course) his judgment. Mr. LE’s words are abrasive. They are inappropriate and fundamentally unkind. He is a reviler – a person who shoots missiles with his words.
Now, Mr. LE is the kind of person who is trouble. Who is toxic. Who is divisive. He is the kind of person we do not want to be among us. And more – if he brings a wife and/or children along with him, they will be quiet and withdrawn while Mr. LE expounds. When you are on the receiving end of this fellow, you feel those darts within. In the moment, you really don’t know how to respond. You are left feeling discouraged and a bit of a failure.
Many domestic abusers I have had the sad “privilege” of dealing with in our own church, were just like Mr. LE. Arrogant. Judgmental. Unthankful. Rude and abrasive. I do not let such a person continue to use our church as his (or her) playground to feed their arrogance and entitlement. Abuse me once, shame on you. Abuse me a second time, and reject being corrected, and you will be shown the door. Mr. LE is not to be allowed to continue his abuse of Christ’s people.
Tit 3:10-11 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, (11) knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
Veronica Miyake
And that is one of the main reasons why I am at CRC and have you as my Pastor. You protect the sheep from Mr. LE and RASNs. The majority of churches out there would allow Mr. LE to sit in the pew, “spreading himself like a green laurel tree,” and probably even given a place of leadership. “I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a green laurel tree. But he passed away, and behold, he was no more; though I sought him, he could not be found.”
(Psalm 37:35-36) He could not be found because he was not allowed to stay and devour the sheep, because the sheep are being protected by a caring Shepherd and under-shepherd who obeys the Word. Thank you, Pastor.
KayJay
“There for self-exaltation..”
BAM 💥
Nita
Exactly …. and definitely NOT “self-examination”!
Jeff Crippen
Self examination is fundamental to being saved in Christ. We must confess that we are dead in sin. But the RASN as you indicate will NEVER look within.
Steph
Every single Sunday, my Ex would subject us to his rantings on our way home in the car: how long the sermon was, what was wrong with the music, can you believe how “so and so’s” daughter was dressed? What father would let their teen daughter walk out of the house that way? Can you believe those ______ kids, and how judge mental they are? “Kids, I don’t want you to have anything to do with them!”, he would then say to my children.
On and on it went. My children had such a strange idea of what attending church meant. I would just listen or placate. Finally, I told him one day that I didn’t want to hear anything bad about church or the people in it, but wanted to have a quiet drive home. He looked like he was going to throttle me.
He never once examined his own heart. Never once had remorse or guilt for anything he did.
wade
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; avoid such men as these. 2Tim 3:2-5 NASB
They come into the body of Christ to hide behind the mask of godliness. Even if they are hearing the Word or even preaching the Word…their heart is so hardened it has no effect on them. I was in a courtroom a couple of weeks ago. This “church going” man, who claims to be a Christian, was spewing lies. Pray for the victim and her babies as they attempt to leave the clutches of this evil person. When it is safe to do so, I will tell him “I know who you are, and I know what you are doing”