What I Would Not Do In Church

1 TIM. 3:15 “WHAT I WOULD NOT DO IN CHURCH”

A) I love my church … I look forward with joy to attend it … Why do I love it?

* Attending the services is like a shower of rain after a dry spell …….

* Like a table of food when I’m hungry … Like a bath when I’m dirty …

* Like a cool drink when I’m thirsty … Like finding a friend when I’m lonely.

B) I love it because Eph. 5:25 says that “Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it;”

* Now, let me ask you … Shouldn’t Christians love the church like Jesus does?

C) Look at the church at Ephesus in Rev. 2:1-7 …

* It was commended by Paul earlier as a strong, stable church, but they left their first love (Jesus).

* But ladies and gentlemen, the church will only be what I am!

* Therefore, there are some things that I don’t want to do in church …….

(1) I DON’T WANT TO STOP THE BLESSINGS OF GOD! * Joshua 6-7 …….

A) The only trouble was that he had not dug the hole deep enough!

* That is always the trouble with sin … You can’t dig a hole deep enough to hide it, NEVER!

* Midnight over the ruins of Jericho … No artillery had blasted its walls … Yet, there it lay, a

heap of desolation and ruin.

* The moon looks down upon the fragments of gigantic walls … Pillars of the temples of Baal, the

dust and rubble of theaters, shops, mansions of the rich, cottages of the poor.

B) For seven consecutive days the army of Joshua had marched around the walls …….

* Carrying with them the Ark of the Covenant and the priests blowing on the rams’ horns.

* On the seventh day, the army marched seven times around the walls of the city.

* When the seventh circle was completed, the people gave a great shout and the walls of Jericho

fell flat, burying in their collapse the shops, temples, and homes of the people.

* Of all the inhabitants, only one survived the catastrophe … That one was Rahab, the harlot!

C) Outside the broken walls of the city, the army of Israel lies encamped!

* The tents of each tribe are pitched around, and in the midst of the camp are the Ark of the

Covenant and the tabernacle.

* In the ruins of Jericho, not a soul is alive … In the camp of Israel, no one is stirring.

D) All are asleep … All but one … Look … Out of a tent comes a man, one solitary man!

* He stands for a little at the fly of his tent and looks this way and that way to see if anyone is

looking … Then cautiously and carefully, stopping every now and then …….

* To look back and make sure that he is not observed … He makes his way out of the camp of

Israel and enters the ruins of Jericho.

E) There he crouches for a time behind a fallen wall, staring at his shadow from the

moonlight on the ground!

* Now he steps over a column of the temple of Baal and carefully makes his way over the heaps

of debris until he reaches the street where the shops had once flourished.

* There he begins to search amid the ruins … In the moonlight he sees something bright and white

shining before him.

F) Reaching down, he finds that it is 200 shekels of silver!

* He fills both hands with the silver and then, opening his fingers, lets it flow through his fingers

like a stream … Once … Twice … Three times …….

* And the sound of silver falling on silver is music to his soul.

G) A little farther along he comes upon a wedge of gold!

* Still farther, he sees something flashing like fire on the ground.

* Reaching down, he lays hold of the precious stone and finds that it’s an ornament on a very nice

Babylonian garment … “Better luck than I’d expected,” he says to himself …….

* As he fills his soldier’s sack with the silver, the gold and the Babylonian garment.

H) Now he cautiously retraces his steps and leaving the silent, ruined city behind him, enters

again the camp of Israel!

* When he reaches his own tent, he pauses and hesitates for a moment, and listens to hear if

anyone is stirring in the camp.

* No one is awake … In the tents of his family, all are sound asleep.

* Then entering his own tent and taking the spade that every Israelite carried with them in the