Church Destroyers (Part 1)

No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

The Obvious Warning About Church Unity

Take your Bibles, please, and open to 1 Corinthians. We are going verse by verse through the book of 1 Corinthians. And we're coming to a passage today that I call an obvious passage, an obvious truth.

It's like a duh moment. You think, oh, that's obvious. Everyone can see that. Yet God in His infinite wisdom knows that we need to be reminded of this truth. And it's a warning passage, but it's obvious.

And we are a forgetful people, and so we need to be reminded what God says about Himself, His Son, and His church. But as you're turning there, I found a few warning labels that were real, but they were from the file of obvious, since that's going to be the passage today.

And it's truth. It's just so obvious, warning on a real package, a real warning label. This product can burn eyes. And I found it on a curling iron. Do not use while sleeping. It was actually a sign on a hairdryer.

This one, Sir Scott Walkton, do not eat toner on a toner cartridge for a laser printer. Caution shoots rubber bands on a product called rubber band shooter, simple. Do not iron clothes on body. Warning, wearing this garment does not enable you to fly on a child-sized Superman costume.

Warning, may contain nuts on a package of peanuts. The one I found the most interesting of all was do not put in mouth. Found on a box of pop bottle rocket fireworks. Okay, I'll give you another one. The contents of this bottle should not be fed to fish on a bottle of dog shampoo.

You know, I never start off with humor, so I want you to know the knife's coming. This is just to get you relaxed and you are in so much trouble today. Hardy har har, laugh all you can. For use on animals only, on an electric cattle prod.

Here's the warning label that comes on Christ's blood-bought church. Warning, handle with care. Handle with kid gloves. Be careful how you treat the local bride because it is the bride of Christ. If you turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 3, we're going to see that warning today fleshed out in chapter 3, verses 18 through 23.

Paul is dealing with a carnal church, a sinful church, a church that says, I think I like the wisdom of the world so much that we should run our church that way. Whatever is hot in the business world, let's use in the church.

Whatever wisdom is available at the higher institutions of learning, let's use that in the church. And Paul has to correct them and he tells them from the get-go, this is all about a crucified savior that doesn't seem in the world's eyes too wise.

I mean, after all, can you imagine a man crucified, naked, tortured for hours on a tree in Calvary 2 ,000 years ago? What you think about him determines your fate forever and ever and ever. What kind of sense does that make?

And so Paul systematically is going to go through the book in 1 Corinthians and try to encourage the church with truth because what you believe determines how you behave. Did you know that? Say, well, we want more practical application of this church.

Well, I think there is plenty of practical application, but here's where the practical application comes from, what you think and what you believe. What you believe credenda determines your agenda, what you do.

Doctrine, duty, belief, and what? Behavior. And so he's after what you think because repentance means at its core to change your what? Mind. And if your mind is changed, you'll do things commensurate with the changed mind.

And so Paul's after their mind and he uses more than monosyllabic words. He uses big words. He uses concepts that you have to actually think through and say, how does this fit? And out of all the time he spends in 1 Corinthians, he spends the most time at this problematic church dealing with disunity.

Marriages are important. Ministries are important. Spiritual gifts are important. Would you say love is important? Sure, chapter 13, love is important. The resurrection is important. But based on the amount of verses that he spends on unity, it seems like this is at the top of the list.

Because they were a fragmented church. They were in a divided church. And Paul spends chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, you all know that by now, on disunity. And so he says, basically, be careful how you deal with the church.

After all, the church is the bride of Christ. I don't know how you treated your bride when you were first married, but I think you probably treated her, or attempted to treat her, wonderfully, kindly, compassionately, with love, didn't you?

And if anyone else came along that wanted to hurt your spouse, denigrate your spouse, I hope whether you are 6 '9", or 4 '2", you wanted to stand up for your bride. Paul had written to the church at Ephesus, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

He loved her and he gave himself up for her. And so here's the question of the hour. If Jesus loved the church so much that he laid down his life for her, how should you treat the church? How should you treat this church?

Now, we're not talking about the building. I hope you don't scuff up the halls. But that's not the church. If this church burns down today, this building, I hope we carry on. But how do you treat the church, each other?

That's the issue. And I think we're not so careful when we're not thinking properly. So this morning, let me give you two warnings from 1 Corinthians 3, 18 through 23, so that you will love the church in a fashion like Christ, and this will help us stay unified.

Say, I've heard enough about church unity. I think the Corinthians probably were thinking the same thing. From heaven, he came and sought her to be his holy bride. With his own blood, he bought her, and for her life, he died.

Knowing that truth, how do you treat other people? And that's the sermon today. Two warnings about the local church that leaders and congregants need to put in the forefront of their minds so that we stay unified.

Handling the church with kid gloves. I thought it was with kit gloves, like Kit Carson, maybe. But I looked it up this week. Kid gloves made from the skin of young goat or lamb became a symbol of elegance and gentility in the early 1800s.

Softness and kindness. Handle something. Handle China with kid gloves. The opposite is you would take your gloves off. I'm going to take my gloves off, and we're going to wallop you. So handling the church with kid gloves.

Do Not Destroy God’s Temple

Warning number one, God loves his church, so you ought to build it up. Now, listen to these verses here. Verses 16 and 17. I don't know of a more powerful way to say something than Paul says it right here, and it is fascinating.

It is convicting. For those of you that are here today and you want to build up the church and you want to help the church and you try to say things so we might grow in grace and maturity, great. But if you're sitting here today and you're the church problem and you hop from church to church to church and you're the central problem with gossip and factiousness and insubordination and lack of submission, these verses, I hope, resonate with you because they're ferocious.

Do you not know, he says to the church of Corinth, that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, the local church, God will destroy him. Let me say that again.

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy and you are that temple. How would you like to have Paul the apostle come in for a guest sermon and stand up here today and say, if you destroy the church of God, God's going to destroy you?

It's amazing. And look at how he says it in verse 16, do you not know? Ten times Paul says in this book, do you not know, implying what? You should know. You should know this truth. Paul was at Corinth for how many months in Acts 18?

It's easy to remember. Acts 18, 18 months. In Acts 18, he was there for 18 months teaching them the truth. And what do you think he taught them? Taught them big eschatology maps and here's the newspaper and let's put it up there and here are the seven dispensations and let's figure it all out.

I don't think Paul taught that at all. I think Paul taught them things like the holiness of God, the sinfulness of mankind, the substitutionary atonement, literal resurrection. And Paul says, church at Corinth.

You know, all those big temples over there in Corinth, the gaudy, beautiful, huge temples, the pagan temples that are so big, you are God's temple, even though you're sitting in some dingy, dirty, small living room with seven or eight other people, 70 or 80 other people.

You're the temple of God and you ought to know that, he says. I think BBC knows that truth as well. And that God's spirit dwells in you. This is between a mild rebuke and really scolding them. You're going to try to fracture God's temple?

You know better. Have you ever said that to one of your kids or as your father? My father used to say this to me all the time. Son, you know better. I've taught you. You know better than that. You are God's temple.

Now, that you is plural. What does that mean? Later, he's going to talk about you are the temple of God and if you are sexually immoral, don't you know you're bringing God's holiness, as it were, with this prostitute or this defiled relationship it's affecting the church?

He's not saying that here. He's saying you are the temple of God. You plural. And that truth should make you live a certain way. It should affect you. And then he says, and if you build, let's go back to chapter three a little bit earlier.

If you build on the church with gold, silver, precious stones, good job. You're helping build the local church. A day will reveal what you've done and that'll be good. And if you build with wood, hay, or what?

Stubble kind of shoddy work, that'll do work, government work, union work. Maybe if you're a lazy union worker. I'm sure some union workers are not lazy, but you're building kind of just half-baked. Now he moves away from the good builders and the shoddy builders and now he says, for those of you that are church wrecking balls that destroy the temple, your days are done.

This is not shoddy work. This is for church destroyers. And you know what? I've met church destroyers before and they think they're attacking the pastor, the elder board, the deacon board, the trustee board, the fellowship board, and they think they're trying to personally run this person down or run them out of town.

And you know who they're after ultimately? Who they're hurting and who they'll answer to? God who hates factiousness and loves his bride and who will destroy those kind of people. I don't know about you, but I do not want to be on the receiving end of God's destruction.

I want to help the church. I want to keep her unified. Not because I want to win against another personality, not because I don't like a certain elder and I'm going to try to run them out and do this or that, but because it's Christ's bride.

And it doesn't even tell us how God destroys them. It doesn't say how, when, or anything else. It just tells us why. And with certainty, you destroy the church by factiousness and follow me and don't follow that other person instead of saying follow Jesus Christ, the captain of our salvation, and God, just hear it again, God will destroy you.

How's that for a church growth sermon? But you know the good thing about our church? You love the truth. You want to know. People are starving for the truth. Everyone in this building, if you're a regular attender or a member, knows that we are a holy possession of God, His bride, the apple of His eye, based not on our worthiness, not on our looks and our goodness, but based on God's love.

And God, His Son, laying down His life in our place, dying for our sins, redeeming us, reconciling us, making us friends of God. If God has so loved us, how ought we to love one another and not tear down?

We're the temple of God. You know, pagans, they'd have a temple and inside the temple there'd be some little god, some little figurine, some big god, some fertility god, and you'd go in their temples and there was something tangible, Dagon, the fish god.

But for the Jews, they always got chastened by other people because when you go in the tabernacle or you go into the temple and you go into the Holy of Holies, what's inside the Holy of Holies? It's empty.

The invisible God. The invisible God, there's nothing in there. Paul says, you are the temple of God now. People, we are the temple of God and when God saves us, the Holy Spirit, what kind of spirit? The Holy Spirit dwells in us.

And if God's building something, don't you want to help build? It's like the kid, you know, when your dad's out mowing the lawn and then what's the son want to do? Before you know it, he wants to get one of those little plastic mowers, green and yellow mowers, those John Deere mowers, and he's just following the dad around.

I'm helping the yard and you're thinking, just don't come over to this side because if I run over a bolt, it's going to go flying and enter into your temple. And, you know, you're just kind of being careful.

That happens. You just want to help. You think, my dad's building this and I got to hammer in a few nails and what I didn't see was after I hammered in the nail crookedly, dad had to pull it out and redo it, but I was a part.

I want to help build. If you wanted to help your dad build, how about God the Father is building his church? Jesus is building the church and don't you want to help? Because it's the flesh, it's carnality that says, I don't like this, I don't want that, I grumble, I complain, I tried to do it at the last church and I'll do it at this church and I am anti-authority, anti-submission and you know what you are?

Anti-God's church. If you act like that. On the flip side, for those of you, and most of you are this way, I want to build the church. God's sovereign over the sinful leadership. God's sovereign over other people that don't measure up and they let me down and God's going to build this church.

God, I deserve hell. I deserve lake of fire. And you've given me a place to worship you and build. I want to build. And for the majority of you, good job, you're building. Paul says to the church of Corinth and I say to you, there should be a warning for each of you, sobering warning that says, do I contribute strife and jealousy and factiousness?

Do I build the church with love? This is not some shed. This is the house of God. We are the temple of God. Look at verse 17 again. If anyone, this is not just leaders, although they're addressed in chapter 3 mainly.

If anyone destroys God's temple, literally the Greek is, if you've got the temple of God destroyed, destroyed God him. For emphasis. Want to ruin the church, corrupt the church, corrode the church. It's serious.

It's sobering. Message to all church wrecking ball people. God will destroy you. I don't want to mess with God's holiness. I don't want to attack. Turn with me, if you would, to Romans 16. Let me show you a couple of the passages that highlight for us the importance of staying unified, walking circumspectly, not running around, tearing down, stirring up.

You know, there's always a few people at a church who love to stir the pot. They think that's their job. I'm the pot stirrer. What's your ministry? I stir the pot. And I question things, and I want to make sure that everybody knows my opinion about these things, especially when they're in opposition to the leadership.

You have to be very, very careful. It's not about you and the leadership. It's about building Christ's church. And in Romans chapter 16, Paul is just kind of preaching like preachers do, and it seems like he's kind of landing it on a high note and commending people.

Chapter 16, verse 1, our sister Phoebe, he's doing things that no good Jewish man would ever do, commend women for ministry. Eight women he picks out that have just served the Lord with wholeheartedness, who have built the church, who have not destroyed the church, and he commends them by name.

Don't you know that there are women? Yes, he does, because these women are equal in Christ Jesus, equal to the apostle Paul, salvifically. And he's greeting people. Look at just all the first words of all the verses.

Verse 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. See a pattern? 13, 14, 15, 16. And then out of nowhere, some people think Paul couldn't even have written this, because why would he say this after all these lovely greetings?

Happily ever after, be warm and be filled. Most likely, Paul picked up the pen himself and wrote these words. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.

Avoid them. This is not some time for in love we debate and we have a get-together and we have a book club thing and we sit and talk. Avoid them. Watch them. Microscope, telescope, Greek word here for watch, scope.

Scope them out. Check them out. Keep your eyes on them. There's danger. I don't know if you've ever walked near an animal that's not in a cage, but somehow you just think to yourself, I probably should pay attention.

I'll never forget it. I'm at Plantsburg Park, a national park in South Africa, and I'm seeing the animals, and you wanted to see the big five, the five big kind of famous animals. It tells you when you drive in, obvious warning, do not get out of your car.

Lions. And so you're looking, and a few places you can get out, and they've got these big kind of open walkways where the animals would put their feet through and have a hard time getting through. We pulled up to the corner, this kind of tee, and it's just thousands of acres and tons of land, and we came up to this little intersection, and the pastor, Martin Holt, said, Dear Lord, I just pray that you'd give Pastor Ebendroth, I was the guest speaker, just a great trip and show him some of your handiwork, and I need to know which way to turn, and basically do I turn left or right because I want to show Ebendroth some lions.

So he said, Okay, I'm just going to turn right. So we turned right, went down to this little water hole, and there laid this male, tawny lion right out there. And I'm trying to take pictures, and I'm looking, and we're stopped in the middle of Africa, and I'm looking and thinking, and then I had this dreadful, most dreadful thought.

As I'm leaning over and looking, who's behind me? Because I've got my window open. Here I am thinking about that, and I've got to watch my back because some kind of lion could just come in this way. As I'm watching over here, it's all a set-up.

That male lion's sleeping so the female can come and just devour me. You start looking around all the time. There's lions around here. Paul says to the church at Rome and says to the church of Corinth, there's a danger lurking.

If God tries to build, Satan tries to what? Destroy. You've got to watch out. I don't want to be factious. On Judgment Day, I don't want to say, you know, my job was to get people to follow me and to create parties and factions and dissensions, obstacles.

That's what it means there in chapter 16 of Romans, verse 17, create obstacles, literally scandalous traps. Put bait out and people fall into them. What's the text say? Avoid them. Present imperative, keep on turning from them.

These are going to be the people that want to talk, that want to debate, that want to get together, and Paul says, run. No countenance for them. And Paul describes them a little bit. Here's the heart.

Would you like to take a magnifying glass and see in the heart of a factious person? Here's what you'll see. And if you thought the new airport scanners could see everything, look at this. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ.

Why? Because if they did, they'd build. They'd encourage. They'd be part of. They don't serve the Lord. They're not Lord. They're acting like Lord. But there is a Lord, Christ. But their own appetites are some translations, their own bellies.

They worship themselves and their own belly. And by smooth talk, they're articulate, they're powerful. They know what to say. And flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. Do you hear the contempt in Paul?

Verse 18. For such persons. For those kind of people. Those sorts. They're after their own private interests. Because if they were after God's interests, they would help build.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.