Church - Who Needs It Series

CHURCH – WHO NEEDS IT

Bob Marcaurelle homeorchurchbiblestudy.com

“We must not give up assembling together as some people are in the habit of doing. We should encourage one another especially since we see the day (Of Christ’s coming) drawing near.”

(Heb. 10: 25)

Even in NT times some believers had given up on the church. They felt they did not need it to live the Christian life. In fact they may have felt the church hindered their walk with Christ. Many of us have felt this way.

One Pastor admitted, “I have been so busy going to the Bible for sermons that I don’t have time to go for food for my own soul.” In my early years at a growing church, because of the stress of the demands on my time, I felt the church was a hyge wedge driving me further away from God.

My first ministerial staff member and I, weary of church games, used to say, “We could work in a gas station; hand out tracts and win more people to the Lord than we do now keeping the church machinery running.

WHY PEOPLE DON’T GO

. Someone said, “The church is like Noah’s ark. If it weren’t for the storm on the outside, we couldn’t put up with the stink on the inside”. Why

It is often HYPOCRITICAL. It talks the talk but does not walk the walk. We see this every four years in our Country at election time when men invoke the name of Christ and make promises we know they will not keep.

We see it every day in business. I have heard over and over, if a business claims it is Christian then go somewhere else unless if you want to get cheated. I don’t know if it is true, I've seen it once or twice, I’m just repeating what I’ve heard for 50 years.

One reason is far too many Churches FIGHT. Looking through the window of the First Baptist Church of Corinth Paul said he was afraid that if he came to them he would find (2 Cor. 12:20 TEV):

“quarreling, jealousy, hot tempers, selfishness, insults, gossip, pride, and disorder.”

The church often EMBARRASES us. One TV pastor said the earthquake that hit Haiti last week causing tens of thousands to lose their homes, and many others to lose their lives, was punishment from God because the country made a pact with the devil decades ago.

One of our past presidents of our national convention made headlines when he said, “God will not answer the prayer of any Jew”

It RESISTS CHANGE Jesus told the Jewish Church, “For the sake of your traditions you set aside the word of God” (Matthew 15:6).

Baptists in their past have stood up against Sunday Schools; using any version other than the King James; baptizing in a man- made pool; using tapes in church; and having couples classes for married adults.

Rural churches are dying all over our county and they would rather die than combine with other Baptist churches nearby.

It often MISTREATS OUTSIDERS. It becomes like a country club. James 2 warned against welcoming the wealthy and snubbing the poor who come to worship. The church knows how to keep undesirables at arm’s length.

Author Tennessee Williams and his sisters visited a little church and the kids made fun of their clothes. Never again, he said, was he even tempted to go to church.

This is especially true in our treatment of the UNSAVED. Baptists talk about “loving souls” but they forget that “souls” means “people”. We don’t have souls like we have gall bladders; we are living souls. Instead of investing time and effort into loving these people, we usually “witness” to them once or twice and then write them off as unreachable.

When I was in seminary in Texas, a pastor showed me a “visitation” card from his church’s past that he had framed on his desk. The card had the name and address of prospects that had been visited. The church visitor had written under, “Remarks” “They showed no interest in our church and it might be best if some other church tried to reach them.” Then the Pastor told me that was the family of Lee Harvey Oswald

A prostitute found Christ in an AA meeting in a church basement. She asked to join the church. The Pastor told her to think about her conversion and come back in a week. She did so and he told her to read her Bible and come back in a week. She did and he told her to pray and come back in a week. She never came back.

One day the Pastor saw her and asked why. She said I did what you said. I prayed and the Lord told me not to worry about it, He had been trying to get into your church for the last 20 years.