How sad

In our modern society so many people see ‘church’ as something that must be attended every Sunday. I saw online where someone asked ‘do you think it’s wrong to play hooky from Church?’ When I saw that my mind immediate answered ‘no’ but then there came one after another responses I could have given.

I wanted to ask her why she would see not attending a service in a worship building as playing hooky from ‘church’. I wanted to say that to even ask such a question was to put too much emphasis on the building and the service. I wanted to say a lot. Instead I said nothing.

But I’m still left with the surprise, amazement, and sadness that came from knowing that this woman put so much importance on ‘church’ that she needed to ask the question. And although I say it was a surprise, it really wasn’t all that surprising. I know of people that equate being a ‘Christian’ with whether or not they go to ‘church’.

It is a product of the lessons taught in so many ‘churches’ even in reformed ‘churches’, so I hear. In a recent blog post I spoke of ‘church’ as being an institution that depends on the people in it falling in line with what is expected of them. That is very much what it is. ‘Church’ buildings depend on member to be there Sunday after Sunday. Preachers depend on the congregation to quietly listen.

They don’t want empty pews and they don’t want their audience asking questions and pointing out where they are wrong. And many of them don’t want you missing a service unless you are deathly ill. They tell you that you need to be in ‘church’ but in reality they need you to be there.

And ‘Christians’ fall for that kind of teaching. They succumb to what they are taught because it’s what the preacher says they need to do and the preacher knows more than they do, right? They think that if a preacher says it, it must be right. They believe what they are taught over what the Bible says because they often don’t know what the Bible says and if they do they assume that they must not know enough of what the Bible says.

They have been raised in the institution of ‘church’ and they fall in line with the teachings it contains much the way a child in elementary schools learns to form their letters a certain way because the teacher tells them they are wrong if they form them a different way. The teacher must know what they’re talking about so the child changes what comes naturally to them to do what the teacher says is the right way. The ‘Christian’ in the ‘church’ does the same thing. They accept what the ‘teacher’ says as the gospel because they assume that that man, being a preacher, knows what he’s talking about. And many times what he’s talking about isn’t from Scripture but from what he thinks is in Scripture or what he’s been told is in there.

The ‘church’ I sometimes attend has a preacher that is fond of quoting James 4:2…You do not have, because you do not ask… I’ve heard him say that many times, in many different sermons. It seems like everytime I visit that ‘church’ he works that verse into the sermon. And yet he fails to read the next part. He stands before a thousand people and tells them ‘you do not have because you do not ask’ and that is where he stops. I have never heard him go any further with that verse…

You do not have, because you do not ask. ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. ⁴ You adulterous people!^[c] Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:2-4

Where is the rest of the verse? Where is the rest of the teaching? Where is the part that might teach his listeners, his followers, to believe in more than their own wants and desires?

And so sermon after sermon this preacher teaches a half-truth that tells those he teaches that all they need to do is ask to receive. And his listeners put stock in what he says because he is the preacher.

And that is only one example of things preachers teach that don’t portray what Scripture says. And so the false teachings continue. Week after week. ‘Church’ after ‘church’.

And the people that fill the pews don’t suspect that they are being led wrong. They don’t realize that they are placing their faith in the teachings of man and not in the true Christ.

One of the biggest false teachings in the modern ‘church’ is that man must come to Christ, that he must find Christ, that he must ‘choose’ to believe in Jesus, ask Jesus into his heart. Nowhere in Scripture is that taught. Nowhere within the pages of the Bible…except in those added notes and introductions…will you find that. It is a system of working for salvation that in no way supports the true way to salvation.

You did not choose me, but I chose you…John 15:16

Man does not find Christ. Christ draws us to Him and through Him we are saved. But so many ‘Christians’ believe that they must ask Jesus into their hearts to be saved, they believe in the false teaching of the sinners prayer and they place their lives, their salvation in that belief. They are essentially playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun. There is no salvation in a prayer that comes from what man does.

Yet it is a false teaching that is taught in ‘church’ after ‘church’. There are huge mission organizations that spend millions of dollars to further that teaching. They go into foreign countries and teach it to people desperate for a way out of the life they live every day. They teach it to the rich, the poor, and the desperate. They teach it to anyone that will listen then they speak of how many have been saved.

They spread the false gospel that man can save himself by what he does and by what he believes. They are taught that man chooses of his own accord to come to salvation. It is on their own merit that they make the choice to believe in Jesus. It is his decision alone that saves him and only after he makes that decision does he receive grace.

It is a teaching that goes against Scripture.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast… Ephesians 2:8-9

That false teaching has such a strong hold that trying to dissuade anyone of that belief is pretty much like trying to pick up the ocean and move it. It simply can’t be done. There are those, I’m sure, that will listen to Truth but they are few and far between among the I-said-the-prayer-I’m-saved believers.

Despite the fact that so much of what is being taught in the modern ‘church’ people flock to it in large numbers. They accept what is being taught as gospel. So much so that they wind up asking questions like ‘is it okay to play hooky from ‘church?’

They need permission, confirmation, acceptance to be able to stay home from a physical building that labels itself as ‘the church’.

How sad.