Unholy Charade - Jeff Crippen

Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Author: Jeff Crippen Page 27 of 88

A Perversion of God’s Word Regarding Women

By

On February 15, 2023

In Abusers, Biblical Teaching

I am conservative in my theology. I believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God. And I believe that God has instructed us to appoint qualified (godly) men to the offices of pastor and elder in the local church. (Even though I have known a lot of godly women I would rather have as elders any day than many of the ungodly men I have had the sad experience to work with!!).

But all of this said, I maintain that it is an error and a perversion of Scripture to base these requirements upon a notion that women are inferior beings. I want to give you an ugly illustration here that I came across recently of the kind of thing that infects the body of Christ so often. This statement was a comment to a social media post which (the post) was pointing out false teachers – and correctly so. The list happened to be 8 women who in fact are false teachers to be avoided. Here is what a man said:

Any, every and ALL women teachers and preachers MUST BE AVOIDED because God NEVERY CHANGES AND HE NEVER GOES AGAINST HIS SOVEREIGN WRITTEN WORD!!!!!!! Thou shalt not SUFFER A WOMAN TO PREACH OR TO HAVE AUTHORITY OVER MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those and every woman who does these are ABOMINATIONS UNTO THE LORD GOD AND ARE ACCURSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pretty ugly, right? I mean, even if the listed false teachers are in fact accursed by God – is it simply because they are women who are preaching and teaching Scripture? No, the grounds for their condemnation is that they are false teachers – Jezebels who lead God’s people astray.

You can pretty easily pick up on the fact that being married to this guy and his kind would be no picnic. As he walks into church on Sunday mornings carrying his King James Bible (nothing against the KJV by the way), he haughtily misses the log in his own eye while minutely looking for a speck in the other fellow’s.

I still am not crystal clear on the details of Scripture which address husband and wife in marriage, men and women in the church, and I am not ready to conclude that women just as well as men (godly women and godly men) should be pastors or elders. God meant something when He told us that the husband is the head of the wife, the wife is to submit to her husband as to the Lord, and so on. The Scriptures addressing this subject are in our Bibles and we must not ignore them. I cannot conclude that therefore every Bible commentary or theological or devotional book written by a woman must never be read by a man!!! Printed with some disclaimer on the cover – “For women’s eyes only. All men who read this will be seduced and led down Eve’s path to destruction.”

BUT, I can tell you this – whatever the specific applications of those Scriptures are, they do not teach what this evil man is teaching.

He put his name on his comment by the way. He says he is a retired pastor. We can be thankful he is retired. It would be interesting to learn more about his “pastorate.” You can bet that the women in his church were viewed and treated as pawns for the glory of men, brow-beaten into their “place.”

P.S. – Over my 40 years as a pastor, my experience has been that the numbers of faithful, godly, genuine Christian men and women have been quite equal. In fact I think that the numbers of such women may well have been somewhat higher. And I think that a look at the New Testament probably would reveal that the same was true in Jesus and Paul’s day. Think of the cross and who it was that remained there while others fled.

Growing Up with a “Christian” Abuser Father

By

On February 13, 2023

In Abusers, Churches/Church Response, Evil

This post is taken from an excellent comment by one of our readers (Dawn). I am posting it here as a stand-alone post so that more of you will see it. I am very grateful to her for sharing her story, particularly because she really nails the evil and sin which victims of abusers/narcissists/sociopaths parading as Christians in the church encounter when they ask for help. Her words are also a great encouragement to me because I am so often accused of being too harsh, to negative…too…not looking on the sunny side enough.

So, here is Dawn:

What you say, while true, doesn’t go far enough. The reality, as I understand it, is far, FAR worse. Here’s why I say that:

I am not the spouse of an Christian abuser but the daughter of one. I was close to 30 when I got my divorce from *surprise* my abusive husband. And I used that as an opportunity to look at myself, figure out how I’d managed to make such a mess of my life and change how I was living and what choices I was making. It took me a long while to actually understand that my dad was abusive to us, and to me especially because, growing up, I could always somehow see through his BS, even if I didn’t understand exactly what I was seeing. My mom always told me that she thought he was afraid of me.

My dad had destroyed our relationship by the time I was 16 and I’m pretty sure he never noticed because he simply didn’t care. He found the Lord when I was 18 and it didn’t really change anything other than that he could use G_d as a cudgel to try to get us in line. I’ve been told things over the years like “Since G_d has forgiven him, I have no right to complain about his behavior”, “I owe it to G_d to forgive him and tolerate his behavior”, “Yeah, he might have done some bad things before he was saved, but that was a long time ago and, therefore, it doesn’t count anymore”. I call my dad the Teflon King because nothing sticks to him. And my concerns don’t count. Never have. Never will. So, when I graduated from college, I moved to the other side of the country and never looked back. Best decision of my life!!!

A couple of years after my divorce, when I was really trying to put the pieces of my life into perspective, my dad married wife #3 and was interested in convincing her that he was a good family-man. So he reached out to me. Even though I figured there was some sort of “catch”, I agreed to meet with him and a counselor. The main outcome was that he wanted me to basically give him a free pass for everything that had happened in the past. I agreed mostly because I knew he would never apologize or even acknowledge anything and, really, I wasn’t all that interested apologies anyway. I just wanted the ugliness to end. So I agreed to wipe away the past, provided that moving forward he would “be nice”. So literally, the only thing I’ve ever asked of the man is for him to “be nice”. That’s it. To my face, in the counselor’s office, he agreed. A couple of months later, I went back home to visit the rest of the family for the holidays and found out from my sister that he was telling everyone that I wanted nothing more to do with him. So basically his real response to my request to “be nice” was to end our relationship, lie to the family, lie to his church and publicly assassinate my character. If he was expecting that I would feel enough pain to beg him for forgiveness, I never bit. We have now been estranged for about 25 years and it truly the best gift he ever gave me. He freed me from his evil influence. And between that and moving away, it has given me an opportunity to unlearn the lessons of my youth and develop much better, happier, healthier ways to live my life. I am convinced had I stayed in the Chicago-area where I was raised that I would be dead by now and most likely at my own hand. That is how amazingly destructive abuse can be.

Anyway, at the time I was trying to figure all this out including how to respond to his ending contact with me, I was active in the church and naturally shared what was going on with people that I knew there, like with people in my Sunday School class. I was shocked because EVERY SINGLE ONE backed my dad. And they didn’t even know him. They would tell me that he was correct in saying that I have no right to complain about his behavior since he was saved. And that while maybe he shouldnt act the way he does (which they knew was described as abusive), they would tell me his behavior is actually OK and that G_d forgives him!!!! *Can’t make this up.* Then they would say something dumb about how it is wrong to judge others and then immediately condemn me for my “unforgiving heart”. Guess it is ok to judge me but not him. After I eventually left the church, the comments morphed into how G_d loves him and forgives him but I am going to hell. G_d must really hate me if he wants me to suffer so much.

Sadly, I have heard the exact same sort of thing from pretty much every Christian I have told my story to over the last 25 years. Here’s what I think is the true state of the current church:

1) The average Christian has no idea what evil (or abuse) is.
2) Worse, they have no desire to find out. It would be too much work and effort.
3) In response to evil, suffering, oppression, etc., they don’t really want to be bothered and so their “solutions” are superficial at best and damaging to the real victims at worst.
4) They love their “superficial” solutions because they don’t have to expend any effort in making sure they understand what is really going on and
5) they can pat themselves on the back about what wonderful people they are and how they were able to be so incredibly helpful and brilliant.
6) And the situation is set up so that if it turns out that the solution doesn’t really work, then it is clearly MY fault (not theirs) because I clearly didn’t follow their wonderful, fabulous, brilliant, amazing guidance.

Honestly, I personally think the average Christian would prefer that I just go ahead and slit my own throat because then the problem would go away without any discomfort for them, they can blame me, and feel justified in how helpful and brilliant they are. I don’t believe G_d would condemn me to hell because I endured an abusive childhood and no longer wear a specific label.

I appreciate your ministry in service to those who have suffered at the hands of Christian abusers. Over the last 10 years, give or take, I’ve finally been seeing people stand up against the teachings of the church which support and encourage abusive conduct while expecting that the victims will passively and silently accept their situation, effectively abusing the victims a second time. It is nice to see the change.

BTW, I don’t know if my mom was right when she told me as a child that she thought my dad was afraid of me. But I know that he should be afraid of me NOW. I have more integrity in my little pinkie than he has in his entire body. I am solid in who I am as a person, I know exactly who and what he is about, and I know the tactics to watch out for. I am a bigger, stronger, better person than he will ever be and because I am willing to look at my own failings and weed them out of my life, I am continually improving, growing, and learning.

When Victims Confront Power Structures: Lessons from Moses and Pharaoh

By

On February 8, 2023

In Churches/Church Response

Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” But Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.” (Exodus 5:1-2)

I am writing here about a subject that I am certain others know far more about than I do, but I am going to broach the subject and hope that many of you can weigh in.

There are certain psychological mechanisms and dynamics that accompany entrenched power and its reaction to those who confront it. No doubt psychologists have studied these attitudes and patterns.  Whether it be the top dogs in some powerful corporation, a dictator like Pharaoh who imagines himself to be God, an abuser who sees himself entitled to power and control, or church leaders who long ago left off Christ’s example of greatness through humble, sacrificial servanthood, the very same kinds of reactions can be expected when we look to such power brokers for justice.
What happens when power goes wrong?

For our purposes, let’s consider specifically what happens in a local church or denomination when power goes wrong. We could spend quite a lot of time on HOW it went wrong as well, but we leave that for someone doing a PhD thesis in psychology or sociology. Such dissertations have no doubt already been written and hopefully with some benefit.  But what do we have when power goes wrong in a local church, for instance? That, after all, is the typical stage where the Christian abuse victim is dealt so much injustice.

Those at “the top” in such a local church have jettisoned Christ’s example and teachings about greatness in the kingdom of God. He said it very clearly. Just as He came not to be served, but to serve and give His live as a ransom, so must we do also if we are to be “great” in God’s measure of greatness. When local church leaders yield to the temptation of personal, worldly “greatness,” they have been seduced by the sirens of “privilege.” Power and privilege, you see. The one follows the other. Get to the top, get in control, get that power “over,” and you can then enjoy the perks. Reputation. Adulation. Veneration. Money. Being served. Benefits. Privileges. Advantages. It is the spirit of “I will be like the Most High.”

Of course there are costs. Just like the Old West in which the quickest draw was always being challenged, and eventually someone even faster came along, so it is at the top. It turns out to be rather precarious up there and behind the scenes there are very often “shoot outs” as church leaders vie for top gun status. “Where is Associate Pastor Jones?” “Oh, he felt he was called by the Lord to another field of ministry and resigned.” Reality? Associate Pastor Jones got to be too threatening to the head honcho. Or at least Honcho perceived him as a threat.

Alright, power and privilege.  Now, what do you suppose is going to happen when Linda comes along and reveals that her husband, a long time church member, significant donor, and let’s say, deacon, has been wickedly abusing her and the children for a long, long time? That he is, in fact, not what he portrays himself to be on Sundays? What do you think is going to happen?
Well, we all know, don’t we?

To the degree that unmasking what this wicked man really is will cause a shakeup in that church, to that degree the power/privilege enjoying elite are going to tell Linda (in pious-sounding language of course) to be quiet, get back home, and let’s hear no more about it. If that sounds too critical of these power/privilege fellows, then just do some reading on “whistle-blowing.” Books on that subject are not hard to find. Because Linda, you see, has just blown the whistle. Turns out all is not perfect in Camelot after all, and Linda is rocking the peace of the kingdom.

I am a pessimist/realist when it comes to confronting the possessors of power and privilege in the local church. Just as Moses found when he confronted Pharaoh — and remember, Moses was given some pretty convincing tools to use! We call them the plagues! — just as Moses found, so will we.  Pharaohs don’t appreciate being threatened. They don’t like being told what to do. Not even if God Himself is telling them anything! Did Pharaoh repent? Nope. And I believe that is the normal outcome we can expect from people “at the top.”

Therefore, just what does this say about the spiritual condition of most local churches today? It is the experience of so many of our readers, and our own personal experience as well, that the typical and even expected outcome of an abuse victim going to her pastor and church for help, for justice, is to be dealt a heaping serving of injustice. Ok, we might grant that in some of the cases this is due to pastors being naive about the nature and mentality of abuse. But even in those cases, if such church leaders and members would honestly examine themselves, there is a sense of power and privilege being threatened. And so we ask again — what does this all say about the true spiritual condition of most local churches?

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)

Evil Always Wears a Disguise

By

On February 6, 2023

In Churches/Church Response, Evil

Evil invariably manifests itself in the guise of the good.

I was reading a chapter entitled “The Antichrist” in a theology book by G.C. Berkouwer [The Return of Christ, Eerdman’s Publishing], and came across that quote above. It struck me as true truth. Evil invariably manifests itself in the guise of the good.

The Antichrist (and all of his servants at work even now, see 1 John 4:1ff), will most likely emerge from within the church. Paul warned the Ephesian elders that after his departure savage wolves would arise from among themselves (see Acts 19 on this). Jesus told the Pharisees that they were of their father the devil, even though they put themselves off as models of holiness. Satan showed up in Eden supposedly speaking truths about God and if you follow the New Testament (and the Old for that matter), you will soon find that the creeps, the wolves, the antichrists, which we are warned of are to be found wearing a “Christian” mask.

Many of you have seen this very thing up close and personal. Your abuser, that reviler and even sociopath who targeted you did so in a “saintly” context. He (or she) presented himself as a fine Christian, a church member, or even a pastor or elder. Evil manifests itself in the guise of the good.

Now, I want to ask this question – why is it that Christians are so typically in ignorance about or in denial of this truth? Why are they so quickly deceived? Some of this blindness is intentional – “I just want to look on the sunny side of life.” Other cases are due to faulty and false teaching dished up to them.

  • Don’t judge
  • Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven
  • We are all sinners
  • Love them anyway

And on and on the list could go. Paul was amazed that the Galatians could so quickly abandon the gospel he delivered to them and embrace the false gospel being served up to them by false teachers. Numbers of the seven churches addressed by Christ in Revelation 2-3 had wicked ones among themselves leading people astray.

Rev 2:20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

Duped by the disguise. By evil masquerading as good. What would the Lord say about churches today who tolerate wicked people practicing their dark trade, putting themselves off as sons of righteousness? “Saints” when abroad, devils at home.

Our Yes Must Mean Yes

By

On February 1, 2023

In Abusers

Rom 13:12 The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

2Co 1:16-18 I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on my way to Judea. (17) Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to the flesh, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time? (18) As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been Yes and No.

Have you known people who regularly leave you guessing? They say something but then later you find yourself wondering – what did they really mean by that? They take you halfway there when they say something, but it’s as if they are purposely leaving it to you to complete the thought. In fact, I suspect that more often their motive is to leave you in the dark about the rest of their thought.

Why would anyone do this as a habit? I can only think of a couple of reasons – 1) They have secrets to be kept, or 2) They enjoy keeping you in the dark, keeping you wondering. If it is the latter, it seems to me that some real arrogance is involved. “I know, but you don’t.” That kind of thing. And maybe there is a third reason – 3) If they speak clearly, if they plainly complete the thought, then they are going to have to defend what they say. But they can’t defend it. They can’t prove it. So they just speak in halfways. Half-truths are good fuel for unproven accusations. Implications. Nuances. Innuendos.

Darkness is not to be something that characterizes a Christian. We are people of Light and our Lord is the Light of the World. His truth is Light. As Paul put it, we are to be yes OR no, not both. We are to say what we mean and mean what we say.

A New Playlist on a very Important Question – “Does God Love Everyone?”

By

On January 31, 2023

In Abusers, Biblical Teaching

I have created a new playlist on our Youtube Channel, Light for Dark Times – Jeff Crippen (I guess you have to search for that whole title including my name). There are 11 videos there now under the playlist title – “Does God Love Everyone.”

These 11 videos are part of the bigger series on the Gospel of John, but these 11 deal with the question, “does God love everyone?” This “unconditional love” thing we are assailed with so often is not a biblical doctrine and it causes all kinds of serious problems – some of which many of you have suffered from.

The fact is, the Bible is plain – God does not love everyone, and if anyone doubts the truth of this, they need to listen to this series which takes us through Scripture by Scripture which speak to this question. God’s love for His people in Christ is unique toward them alone. He shows kindnesses to all, including the wicked – providing them with many good things. But it is a serious error and even a distortion of the gospel to maintain that God loves everyone no matter what. In fact, He hates the wicked. They are under His condemnation and will perish in their sins unless they come to saving faith in Christ.

Insights into the Devil’s Strategies – by A.W. Pink

By

On January 30, 2023

In Biblical Teaching, Evil

The following is from the introduction to Arthur Pink’s Book, Satan and His Gospel. You can read a copy on Kindle for free. If you aren’t familiar with A.W. Pink, I highly recommend you read at least one of his books. I am currently reading from his commentary on the Gospel of John in our mid-week Gospel of John livestream.

We all need to be reminded frequently that the people who oppress us in this fallen world are evil, yes – but they are also the servants of that most evil of evil spirits – Satan. Every real Christian is going to be attacked, and those attacks can come overtly or very covertly. So listen to these words of A.W. Pink and think carefully about them:

Is the Devil a living reality, or is he nothing more than a figment of the imagination? Is the word “Satan” merely a synonym for wickedness, or does it stand for a concrete entity? In cultured circles it has become the custom to return a negative answer to these questions, and to flatly deny the existence of the Tempter. Among such people it is regarded as a mark of intellectual superiority to repudiate the personality of the Devil. By many, Satan is now looked upon as a product of priestcraft, a relic of superstition, the myth of a bygone age.

With others, Satan is simply an abstraction, a mere negation, the opposite of good. “All the Devil there is is the devil within you,” is the last word of “modern thought.” The words which Goethe puts into the mouth of Mephistopholes—“I am the Spirit of Negation”—is accepted as a good workable definition of the Devil. He is regarded as a mere abstract principle of evil. As someone has quaintly put it, “They spell Devil without a ‘d’, as they spell God with two ‘o’s’. Good and evil is their scheme.”

But the more general conception of Satan is different from the above. The popular idea, the one that prevails among the masses, may be gathered from the pictorial representations of him which appear on the street posters, which are to be met with in our illustrated magazines, and which are displayed upon the stage— where he is pictured as a grotesque monster in human form, having horns, hoofs and forked tail. Such a conception is an insult to intelligent people, and in consequence, the Devil has come to be regarded either as a bogey with which to frighten naughty children, or as a fit subject for jest and joke.

It need hardly be said that both of the above conceptions are far from the truth. The fact that they have gained such wide credence is due largely to ignorance—ignorance concerning the teaching of God’s Word, ignorance concerning the Satan of Holy Scripture. But it is to Satan’s interests to keep people in such ignorance. An intelligent enemy always keeps in the background and remains hidden out of sight. It is an important consideration with him that his identity should be concealed.

Many an evil enterprise owes its success to its perpetrator remaining secreted. The assassin who plunges a knife into the back of his victim is usually hired for the purpose. The one who throws the bomb is merely a tool, the mastermind that planned the deed is unseen and unsuspected. Therefore, it need not surprise us to find that the masses do not believe in the existence of a personal Devil. It serves his purpose well to keep his dupes in ignorance concerning his real existence.

The Devil has always worked secretly and sought to hide his true identity. When he beguiled Eve he did so through a serpent. When he appeared before God to accuse Job, he waited until a day when “the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them” (Job 1:6). When he sowed his “tares,” he did so secretly, in the night —“while men slept” (Matt 13:25). When he betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ into the hands of His enemies, he worked through Judas! Satan is an adept at disguising himself: he comes to us not as a Dragon of Darkness but “is transformed into an Angel of Light” (II Cor 11:14).

Pink, Arthur W.. Satan and His Gospel (Arthur Pink Collection Book 47) . Prisbrary Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Head Over to LFDT’s and Read About this common trait of the wicked

By

On January 27, 2023

In Blog News, Evil, Narcissist

Here is an important post published today over at Light for Dark Times

I bet you will be able to identify with what I have to say over there.

The Common Hesitancy to Expel Evil

By

On January 25, 2023

In Biblical Teaching, Churches/Church Response, Evil

Rev 2:14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.

1Co 5:1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife….1Co 5:6-7 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (7) Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

One of the most common scenarios which is so hurtful and maddening to those who have been oppressed by wicked ones who parade as eminent Christians is that such evil people are permitted to remain in the local church. And to not only sit in the pew, but often appointed to committees, to church offices such as elder, deacon, or even pastor. All of this while the victim of such wicked “saints” are expelled, formally (ex-communicated) or informally. Many of you have experienced this very thing.

As we see in the Scriptures quoted above, and in many others, there is a bent, a tendency, for evil to be excused, minimized, and tolerated by professing Christians. Jezebel (or often a man) is tolerated in the church’s midst even though she leads Christ’s servants astray. Paul had to rebuke the Corinthians for not only letting a gross sinful man (who claimed to be a Christian) remain in the church, but for their boasting about doing so!

Why? Why this very common disobedience to the Lord’s command to put evil out from among us and be separate from it? Wouldn’t you think that it is a biblical “no-brainer” that evil people who are fake Christians, barren fig trees (Luke 13) must be expelled from the fellowship of Christ’s people? Jude soundly rebukes the “creeps” who creep in among us, shamelessly participating in the Lord’s table. Paul tells us that if anyone claims to be a Christian but walks in unrepentant sin, we are not even to eat with such a one (1 Cor 5).

And yet, it has been my experience these 40 years as a pastor that there is typically a very strong resistance to such expulsion. You see it on church signs – “Everyone is welcome.” You hear it in the preaching in such places – “God loves everyone” (He doesn’t, by the way. See my teaching series online “Does God Love Everyone?”). Or “God accepts you just as you are.” Or, “We are all sinners, who are we to judge?”

Paul minces no words with the Corinthians and neither did Jesus in His rebukes of the churches. “1Co 5:2 And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.” “Rev 2:20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.”

To sidestep such plain commands and rebukes in the Word of God is rank disobedience to the Lord. It is unbelief. It is cowardliness. It is the fear of man, love for the world and a craving for the approval of man instead of that of God. And this disobedience (sin) hurts Christ’s true sheep.

Why? Why is this disobedience so typical? Well, there are a number of reasons:

  • Prideful arrogance. Boasting in the “greatness of our love for all,” instead of hating the things God hates.
  • The craving for popularity with the world.
  • Embracing a false gospel which does not call for repentance
  • Unwillingness to pay the price of following Christ.
  • And, probably far more often the case is this – the “church” is led by and filled with false brethren who are not Christ’s people at all. They are not born again.

I have, on numbers of occasions, opened my Bible and pointed to the Lord’s commands in cases where professing Christians are commanded to put evil out from among them. And very typically the response has been, “well, pastor, I just don’t agree with what you are saying.” What?? It isn’t ME who is saying it! It is the Lord! Such a response evidences an unregenerate heart. Jesus said (Matthew 10) that following Him will result in being hated, even by the closest relationships (father, mother, sister, brother). And He went on to say that anyone who is not willing to pay the price cannot be His disciple. He won’t have it. “But they are family!” That is the statement of people who worship family above Christ. They worship a false god. They love this present world.

This bent toward disobedience also works to short circuit Christ’s own method of dealing with professing Christians who are walking in habitual, unrepentant sin (see Matthew 18). That church discipline process is not only designed for the protection of the church, it is given as Christ’s means of working to call the sinner to repentance and restoration. But I cannot think of one single case of church discipline we have practiced in which one or more professing Christian/church members did not balk, criticize, or even leave the church. They pronounce themselves to be more “loving” and call us too “harsh.” So many churches and church leaders are simply not willing to pay this price, so they instead sacrifice the victim and retain the evil one. After all, to stand with the victim is costly. The evil one generally is more popular, his lies are believed and the foolish are deceived, and he typically has fare more influence and resources than does his victim.

How many professing Christians have sacrificed the innocent in order to keep in with the Baal crowd?

Now, one final point. If we were to tell these things I have just written to most professing Christians, they would adamantly deny that they are guilty. The sinner is a master at devising excuses. They will shift the blame. They will project the wicked one’s evils upon us and upon the victim. They will pronounce themselves more merciful and kind. And they will demonstrate their ignorance of the Word of God. Believe it or not on numbers of occasions I have suggested to a professing Christian that church discipline be enacted upon an evil counterfeit, and the response has been “that is something I have never heard.” “I just don’t know about such things.” I can see right now in my mind a church board member of a large evangelical church sitting in my living room asking for advice as to how to deal with a pastor who was fornicating with a woman in the church. His response to my showing Him Matthew 18 and 1 Cor 5 was just that. With a perplexed look on his face, he said, “That is something I have never heard before.” Apparently reading and studying his Bible was not part of his religion!

These things are not uncommon. They are typical and widespread. What is going to be the obvious result of such disobedience to the Lord? Well, it leads toward Him departing from among us, and it creates – rather quickly – a synagogue of Satan where perhaps a church once was. Recently one of our elders and myself were talking about these very things and we concluded that for at least the first 20 years of our ministry here, we were fighting battles in a synagogue of Satan instead of shepherding a flock of Christ. All because for decades evil was tolerated in the church, Christ’s clear commands were not obeyed, and spiritual dark ages swept in.

Check out “In Defense of Fellowship by Distance” at Light for Dark Times blog

By

On January 20, 2023

In Abusers

Here is the link to this morning’s blog post over at Light for Dark Times. I wanted all of you to know about it in case you don’t follow that Friday morning blog regularly. Hey, hit that subscribe (follow) button, as youtubers say.

Page 27 of 88

Previous

Next