You're Not a Good Christian Because You Go To Church

Matthew 15:7-9, “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”

How Religious is Your Church?

Most people will recognize what I'm about to say is true if you've visited different churches. Most churches today are nothing more than an empty shell, going through the motions, lifeless, lacking any youth department and dying (if not dead) as a church. I've been to numerous Catholic services, because I wanted to see firsthand what they are about. The one big thing I noticed is the total lack of the Holy Spirit in the Roman Catholic Church. Their churches are coffins! Since Catholics are not born-again, they don't have the Holy Spirit indwelling them as we do as believers (Romans 8:9). The Catholic church is dead!!!

Tragically, I see that same deadness in many Baptist churches as well. There is no teaching or preaching about the Holy Spirit. There is no warning about Hell, fire and damnation for the unsaved. There is no hard-preaching from the pulpit. There is no concern for lost souls. There is no soul-winning program. The alters are empty at invitation time, if there's an invitation at all. Please read Pastor Harry Ironside's excellent chapter titled, “The Preaching That Produces Repentance,” from his great book, “Except Ye Repent.” Most churches are fortunate to use the baptistry every 6 months for two saved people. This is because the pulpit is dead!

Ladies and gentleman, we've gotten into the business of religion in our churches. Christianity is about sinners being washed in the blood of Jesus! Christianity is about God dealing in mercy with sinners, and about sinners dealing in mercy with other sinners (MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “The Happiest Man”). All this garbage in our Bible colleges these days about entertainment, banquets, pool tables, playing sports and shopping amenities is foreign to Christianity. The Christian life is a war, not a vacation!!! Bible colleges are trying to lure new students by pampering them! I'd rather have 100 students that mean business for God and have to lay off 90% of my teachers and staff, than dip my sails in sinful compromise, trim my convictions and turn the Bible college into just another run-of-the-mill college to attract worldly students. No Sir, I'd close the doors first!!! We've gone backwards!!!

“Nobody can love God who doesn't love sinners!” —Dr. Jack Hyles, “The Happiest Man” (happiest is the man who will not impute sin to others!)

I can tell where your church is at spiritually simply by seeing how you respond to the truth. My concern is NOT where a church is at spiritual; but rather, are they willing to bring their views into line with the truth? There's a big, big, difference between an imperfect church verses a church that doesn't want to be perfect. If a church's congregation and pastor are unresponsive, indifferent and nonchalant toward important doctrinal issues; such as, the truth that the literal blood of Jesus Christ is sprinkled upon the mercy seat in Heaven, and the truth that all modern Bible versions have been corrupted by Satan, and the truth that you don't have to surrender to serve God (which is human effort) to be saved, then they have become religious and don't care about truth. If your church rejects these truths, then they have embraced religion rather than truth, and you should look for a caring local New Testament church. Something is spiritually wrong with any pastor who desires to GO ALONG TO GET ALONG!!!

I'm sick and tired of pastors who won't take a stand and don't care about doctrinal issues because they are content just to have a job and make money. No wonder Jesus said that no man can serve God and money (mammon), because he WILL hate the one and love the other (Luke 16:13). The Church is the ground and pillar of THE TRUTH; thus, if a church stops fighting for and upholding the truth, then they have ceased to qualify as a church. Roman Catholicism is not a church! Seventh Day Adventism is not a church. Why? It's because they don't have the truth. Churches that drop the ball concerning truth have become a religious institution instead of a local New Testament church.

A church is not a big building adorned with stained-glass windows, plush-carpeting, padded-pews and a choir. Literally, this is what most churches have deteriorated into. The pastor's function has been diminished to merely performing weddings and funerals. I'm not against those things by themselves, but this is not the purpose of the church. Jesus said in John 4:24 that the Father MUST be worshipped in spirit and truth! Truth seems to be the least important concern in churches today; but it should be our very first concern! Without truth there is no reason for everything else! Our churches need to have a revival concerning their loyalty, attitude and commitment to THE TRUTH!!!

I triple dog dare you to hand Dr. Al Lacy's book titled, “NIV: The Antichrist's Bible” to most pastor's today and see how they respond. In all likelihood the pastor will either give the book back to you, throw it away or ignore it, and then ask you not to show it to anyone else in the church. A respectable pastor would announce the following Sunday that he has changed his position to the King James Bible only, and will not pastor the church anymore unless they do the same!!! Honestly, I cannot stomach most churches today!!! They're a nauseating joke! I say that kindly with a loving spirit. I care about you!

Genuine Christianity means being born-again and then allowing Christ's Holy Spirit to live through us. Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” I Am Crucified With Christ (MP3, Dr. Hyles; you cannot crucify yourself, someone else must do it! You can only nail one hand, but then you have no free hand to crucify your other hand. God must crucify us!). You won't hear about the power of the Holy Spirit in most churches today, because they don't seek Him. They are attempting to serve God in the arm of human flesh.

Brother Lester Roloff (1914-1982) rightly states:

Folks, the end time's come. The field is white, the laborers are few. We have the greatest opportunity of any generation, that ever lived, to reach desperate souls for the Lord Jesus Christ! —Brother Lester Roloff, from the classic MP3 sermon, “JESUS IS LORD!!!”

You're Not a Good Christian Just Because You Go To Church

Listen, you're not a success in God's eyes just because you go through the motions at church each week. God is far more pleased with a Christian who doesn't attend church in disgust over today's apostate churches (knowing that his life falls short of pleasing God); than God is with some apostate church member who is at ease on Zion, complacent in the pew, playing church three times a week, never lifting a finger to do anything for God (who thinks he is doing just fine in God's eyes!!!). Many of you need to stop kidding yourself. The man with no hope is better off than the man with a false hope, because the man without hope is still looking.

The same is true of a Christian whose out of church, but knows that he or she needs to find a good church to attend. God is far more pleased with this person than He is with the lukewarm believer who faithfully attends a lukewarm church and never does anything for Christ. And may I say, I am so sick and disgusted with churches who think that they've done something for God just because they donate school packs to poor kids once a year. That's a nice good work to do, but what about having a soul-winning program???

There's nothing worse than seeing hundreds of staff members, teachers and full-time church workers in a church congregation who are obligated to attend church services that are boring, dry, dead and lack hard-preaching! Kids are playing video games. Parents are surfing the internet. All during church!!! The staff are spiritually starving for doctrine. I've seen it in independent Baptist churches. This is religion, not Christianity. No church can be pleasing to God with a dead preacher behind the pulpit.

The pastor sets the tone in the church. A loving and morally upright pastor cannot compensate for a lack of doctrinal integrity, a lack of contending for the faith, a lack of preaching against sin, a lack of soul-winning, a lack of warning lost sinners of hell-fire and eternal punishment, a lack of preaching against women wearing pants, a lack of teaching about the power of the Holy Spirit, et cetera. Truly, a lot of pastors don't belong behind the pulpit. Do it right or don't waste your time doing it at all.

Oh Christian, if you're not very careful, over time you'll swap out genuine Spirit-led Christianity for a religious life that renders you useless for the cause of Jesus Christ!!! Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life without ever being born-again. But if Satan cannot hinder you from being saved, then he'll do the next most damaging thing by conning you into living a religious life totally void of serving God. Our churches are filled with people who go through the religious motions of singing, tithing, fellowshipping, eating, helping each other, buying the pastor ties, enrolling their kids in religious school, et cetera; but they have been inoculated from the genuine Christian life.

Many churches today fail to seek the power of the Holy Spirit, fail to preach the Gospel (instead they teach the satanic heresy of Lordship Salvation), fail to preach against sin, fail to love sinners, fail to warn lost sinners about a burning Hell where Christ-rejecting sinners will suffer for eternity, fail to care about doctrinal correctness, and fail to even use an uncorrupted translation of the Holy Bible (if you ain't got a King James Bible, you don't have a Holy Bible).