The Church

Those who have studied the history of this church have known something about this corruption for many years.

For example, some of the problems today we are hearing about are:

(1) THE HOMOSEXUAL PROBLEM IN THE PRIESTHOOD

On the Fox News Channel, on “The Factor,” they reported that about 50% of the Catholic priests are practicing homosexuals.

But as bad as the HOMOSEXUAL PROBLEM might be, we are also hearing about -

(2) THE CHILD MOLESTING PROBLEM IN THE PRIESTHOOD

But they have also dealt with the priests molesting children. They have reported Cardinals who are over these priests, who knew about this child molestation in the Catholic church, and instead of throwing these corrupt priests out of the church, they transferred them to other churches, not even making these other churches aware of their evil deeds.

This child molestation problem is not just a church problem, this is a legal problem, and already some of the priests are having to appear in the courts of this land for the courts to decide how long they will have to serve in prison.

The news media talks about the corruption of HOMOSEXUALITY and CHILD MOLESTATION, but they do not tell us about their third problem. That is -

(3) THE FALSE TEACHING PROBLEM

This church, according to the Word of God, is filled with false teachings. Among the many things that this church teaches incorrectly is that they are, “THE CHURCH”.

In spite of all the HOMOSEXUALITY and CHILD MOLESTATION problems, they still refer to themselves as “THE CHURCH.”

They can talk all they want to about being “THE CHURCH,” but I can assure you that when the Lord said, “I will build my Church”, he was not talking about this corrupt organization.

What did the Lord have in mind when He said, “I will build my church”?

Let’s look first at-

I. THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH

When the Lord created the church He had a PURPOSE IN CREATING THE CHURCH.

Today we hear about the “INVISIBLE CHURCH”. That is, you will find people who say, “I belong to the INVISIBLE CHURCH”.

WHAT DO THEY MEAN WHEN THEY SAY THAT? They are simply saying that church is where you make it . That is, you do not have to attend a local church to worship God. You can worship God:

• ON THE GOLF COURSE

• ON THE LAKE

• AT THE BEACH

• IN THE MOUNTAINS

They are saying church is WHEREVER YOU MAKE IT! The church is not an imaginary place, IT IS A REAL PLACE.

The church in its infancy did not have a physical building as we have today, because many times they had to meet in each others homes.

But it was obvious that they were turning these homes into church buildings because when Paul made havoc of the church he knew where they met.

As we read through the New Testament, it becomes obvious they had specific places they met where God added to the church. It was no INVISIBLE CHURCH, it was a VISIBLE CHURCH.

Illus: In Eastover, South Carolina, a small suburban town, they have a large hardware store that sells about everything a person could want. This establishment also has a restaurant that is on one side of the building. Many of the farmers come there to eat at the restaurant. The fellow who owns this establishment is Mr. Bunky Carter. He often has done things that do not always sit well with the local county regulators. He decided he would play a trick on them. He had an artist come and paint a mural of four horse stables on this large addition of his building, practically next to the meat market where he sells meat. The artist painted three horses with their heads sticking out the doors of these stables, and they looked like the real thing.

Sure enough! It wasn’t too long before a county inspector came along and wanted to know why he built these stables without getting a permit or clearing it before the zoning board.

Mr. Bunky was more than happy to tell this man what he thought of him, and he wasn’t about to get a permit to build these stables.

Later, the county inspection department was embarrassed when the story was in the local newspaper and the “stables” proved to be only a mural.

In other words the mural gave the impression of a horse stable, BUT IT WAS NOT A HORSE STABLE!

Today we ride by and see a lot of folks in their imaginary church services claiming they are the “INVISIBLE CHURCH”, but they:

• Have no specific doctrine they believe

• Have no specific plan of carrying out the great commission of the church

Then we see some with VISIBLE CHURCHES, but as you go into these churches it is obvious that the PURPOSE these churches exist for is the wrong purpose.