Ephesians 4:30-32, “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”
I admit that I have a contrarian way of looking at things. God is a contrarian too...
Isaiah 55:58-59, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
When I attended the Smyrna Baptist Church in Pensacola for several months in 2024, I cried often from my pew. I cried when I heard the old hymns of the Christian faith being played beautifully on the church piano. I cried being around God's children.
But then I met the horrible pastor's wife, who is rude and obnoxious to say the least. When I attended their 2024 Memorial Day picnic, Pastor Bill Adams sat in his chair under a tee and never so much as waved to me. He never welcomed me or cared that I bothered to show up as a newcomer to their so-called “church.” I kindly said “hello” to a woman carrying food from the church to the picnic area, but she totally ignored me all three times, which hurt my feelings.
After the picnic they invited everyone to watch a religious film inside the church, so I went. I needed to take my prescription pain medications, and kindly asked the pastor's wife who was standing in the kitchen with a few other females if I could please have some water. The rude pastor's wife said, “Why didn't you get some water outside?” She was so lazy that she refused to walk over to the sink and pour me a glass of water. That is so horrible. This is today's pathetic churches! Shame on Bill Adams' terrible carnal wife; and he is just as carnal.
I titled this article, “The Good Thing About Not Going To Church.” Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) used to wisely say that the easiest place to backslide is in Bible college, because you hear Bible preaching every day of the week and become accustomed to it. The same is true of those who attend church for a long times, three times per week. Bill Adams and his wife have been playing church as a game for so long (for decades) that they have become immune to the Holy Spirit's conviction. I have seen this again and again throughout my life, where people who live a religious life become hardened and calloused toward people.
To be honest, I do not attend church regularly, simply because those ungodly churches keep kicking me out their door. But a good thing, a silver lining to the storm clouds you might say, is that by not being in church on a regular basis my heart has remained tender and submissive toward the Holy Spirit's leading. That is why I cry when I do sit in a church service. My heart is still soft and tender toward God, truth and people. I don't ever want to grow thicker skin. I don't ever want to become tough and calloused like the sinful world (1st John 5:19).
I love what Brother Hyles said about this problem in professed Christians today:
“One of the great sins of Christianity, and especially fundamental Christianity, is this sin of losing our responsiveness; and losing our response to stimuli, or to a given stimulus. That's the first step that sets in when churches begin to die. The first step—no response, no response.” —Pastor Jack Hyles, “Piping And No Dancing”
Dr. Hyles nailed it! People in today's churches, particularly fundamentalist Baptists, have become cold, unresponsive and calloused toward people. That is why Pastor Bob Gray Sr. recently unfriended and blocked me out on Facebook, as did also Steven Anderson. These two cold-hearted phonies know nothing about God's unconditional love for sinners. They do more harm than good when they elevate hard preaching over compassion and love. People just want to be loved. Positions and titles will come and go, but the way that you treat people will always be remembered. There is a coldness in churches today toward people.
When I attended Campus Church at PCC in 2021, their phony pastor Jeff Redlin just coldheartedly walked away when I told him at their July 4th picnic that I was sleeping homeless in Walmart's parking lot. I had just landed the day before from Guam. I flew 9,000 miles to find out that the wicked Woodspring Suites Hotel in Pensacola abruptly cancelled my 30-day confirmed reservation (which I had reserved over a month in advance) without notice. Redlin couldn't have cared less! 1st John 3:17, “But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”
Sadly, most fundamentalist Baptist churches are spiritually dead today. There is a woeful lack of genuine love, concern and compassion for human beings. The very thought that a pastor's wife would refuse to give a cup of water to a 57 year old man who needs to take his pain medication is alarming. Pastor Adam's rude wife at Smyrna Baptist Church asked me why I didn't get some water outside. I didn't need to take my pain medication outside. She is very wrong and irresponsible as a pastor's wife to antagonize a man who just needed some water. Even the heathen world isn't usually that cruel. Unreal. God will be their only Judge (Romans 14:10-12; Matthew 12:36; James 4:12; Matthew 7:1-2). But I believe in “word of mouth” reviews.
In the months to follow at Smyrna Baptist Church, it became clear that they all hated me because of my website ministry, specifically over my preaching against Pensacola Christian College (PCC) where the pastor's daughter attends. As far as I am concerned, she is a victim of PCC! I make no apologies for preaching THE TRUTH. The Apostle Paul was despised, rejected and hated by phony churchgoers too for telling THE TRUTH. Galatians 4:16-17, “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them.” PCC zealously affect many churches, but not for good. PCC is wrong on God's simple plan of salvation!
When I attended Smyrna Baptist Church in Pensacola, I saw that they distribute toxic Chick Tracts. Jack Chick (1924-2016) was a religious cartoonist, not a sound Bible preacher. Mr. Chick was wrong on God's simple plan of salvation. Since 1960 they have distributed well over one billion of their poisonous religious Chick Tracts throughout the world. Chick Tracts preach another gospel. Bible repentance does not mean to be willing to turn from your sin.
Am I such a horrible troublemaker because I refuse to go along with PCC's, Smyrna's and Jack Chick's counterfeit plan of salvation, to just pretend that everything is okay and play church while singing pretty songs, dropping some money into the offering plate, and staying quiet amidst blatant false teaching? And to be transparent, I never once brought up any doctrinal matters while attending Smyrna. I was a complete gentleman, but they scrutinized my website ministry and condemned me for telling the truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, somebody needs to preach THE TRUTH...
“The world will go to Hell unless somebody is authoritative!” —Pastor Jack Hyles, “I Shall Not Be Moved”
My only crime is that I cared enough to TELL THE TRUTH. It is shocking that human behavior is so corrupt that even professed Christian leaders would be calloused and unresponsive toward truth and hurting people. In August of 2024, Bill Adams' ungodly wife deliberately approached me in a Sunday morning church service to shake my hand, but when I did she suddenly looked hard right 45 degrees off at the wall with an impudent face to diss me. She wanted to offend me, hoping that I would leave and never return. I am not that shallow.
I contacted her husband, the pastor, when I got home, but he completely ignored me. I reached out to Pastor Adams again a few days later, and to his secretary in case he was away. I mentioned in my correspondence to Pastor Adams that I am divorced, suffering from chronic neck pain with burning nerves and related health afflictions, and would appreciate his friendship. His response, to his utter shame, was to completely ignore me. Great pastor, huh? Of course I never went back, who would? They got their wicked way. John 8:45, “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.”
These ungodly hypocrites have joined together with the deadly cult at Pensacola Christian College. PCC's present net assets is roughly $650,000,000. Their college president Troy Shoemaker gets paid $219,000 per year. That is sickening! PCC are not serving the Lord, they are serving their own bellies, preaching another gospel...
Romans 16:17-18, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”
The good thing about not going to church these days is manifold.
First, you won't be corrupted by another gospel in the case of PCC's Campus Church and all the fake churches (like Smyrna Baptist Church) that wickedly support and bid their college Godspeed. Other corrupt churches in Pensacola include: Victor Baptist Church, Family Baptist Church, Bible Baptist Church, Fairfield Drive Baptist Church, et cetera.
Second, you won't become so used to going through the motions of playing church that you are no longer sensitive to the conviction of the indwelling Holy Spirit if you are saved. I don't want to lose my tender heart for Christ. I am a caring person. That is why I make an issue over false doctrine that affects where men will spend eternity. Right doctrine matters!
The Importance of Local New Testament Churches
I am not endorsing staying home from church. Pastor Jack Hyles spent the third act of his life preaching THE BOOK (the inspired King James Bible), THE BLOOD (Jesus' literal liquid blood sprinkled upon the heavenly Mercy Seat), and THE BODY (the importance of attending a local New Testament church). I believe those truths as well. But sometimes staying home is truly the best option. I am often encouraged by this passage from Michael Bowen...
According to many verses in the bible, especially those warnings God gave to us through Paul in the book of Galatians, you should never listen to anyone’s message that runs counter to the message given to us by Christ, and you should never attend a church where the pastor tells the flock that they must add works of discipleship to faith in Christ’s “finished work” as the way to enter heaven. That’s exactly the reason why I no longer attend any of the local churches in my current hometown. [emphasis added] —Michael P. Bowen, “I Never Knew You,” p. 115
I am glad to know that I am not alone in my difficulties with local churches. In fact, as a faithful minister of the free grace Gospel, I have gratefully received tens of thousands of emails over the past 24 years from people around the world, many from hurting people who cannot find a doctrinally sound church to attend in their area. If that is you, you are not alone friend.
God knows that I do not hate those corrupt pastors and churches. Ironically, I had extended an olive branch of friendship to Marty Herron at the Harvest Baptist Church on Guam, and to Jeff Redlin at Campus Church at PCC, and to Bill Adams at Smyrna Baptist Church. Sadly, none of them wanted to touch me with a 10 foot pole. I know how our dear Savior felt, who was prophesied about in Isaiah 53:3, “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” The prophet Isaiah penned those inspired words 700 years before Christ lived on earth. Jesus was a man despised and rejected by people.
What saith the Scripture? 2nd Timothy 3:12, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” To the wicked world their Bible only contains two words, “Judge not” (Matthew 7:1a). We see and hear it all the time from the heathen world.
In June of 2024, Canadian singer Justin Timberlake was arrested for a DUI after dining at a hotel in New York. The next day the media asked singer Billy Joel who dined at the same hotel what he thought about the arrest, and Billy Joel interestingly quoted Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” The ironic and interesting thing is that Mr. Joel is an avowed atheist who is quoting the Holy Bible:
LONG ISLAND, N.Y. (PIX11) — Music legend Billy Joel spoke Tuesday afternoon about Justin Timberlake’s arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated on Long Island.
The “Piano Man” was eating at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor, the same East End town where Timberlake was arrested earlier Tuesday morning.
“Judge not lest ye be judged,” Billy Joel told PIX11 News.
Timberlake was arrested after police pulled him over for allegedly not stopping at a stop sign and failing to keep right twice, according to court documents. Timberlake’s mug shot was released Tuesday evening. SOURCE
John 15:19-20, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”
I think it is tragic that along with the heathen world, most of the clergy today are no better. The vast majority of churches and Bible colleges have turned sour, preaching another gospel. People are out of necessity leaving the churches to find a closer walk with God. The Lord never intended for local churches to become mere fun centers, retirement clubs and spiritual museums for self-righteous relics. Today's churches are pathetic!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
