How to Destroy Your Church

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2 verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Jesus Builds His Church, So Don't Try to Destroy It

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. I think I say regularly that I'm glad to be your host. I think I am. It's 1 .30 today on Friday, my time. I don't know when the show will actually air, but this is the kind of day that I think I should probably be getting ready to be on wretched radio to host it.

I was glad to host it a couple weeks ago. Two hours of live radio, how does Todd do that? Actually, the other day, someone gave me an old wretched radio T-shirt, and I put it on, took a picture of myself with it.

You know, you can do that now. No matter how hard you try, you still know that that person's arm is extended trying to take a self-portrait, and sent it to Todd. And here's wretched radio, Mike Abendroth.

Now, Todd usually writes me back when I email him, but he didn't this time. Thanks a lot, Todd. In all seriousness, I'm super happy to get on the show on wretched radio. And actually, if some of you wrote in, or when you do write in, actually, you tell me that you first heard the show via wretched radio.

So there you have it. So I'm happy for that. All right, today in front of me, I have a poisonous recipe. It is a noxious potion. And it is from a christianpost .com news article. I am trying to see who this is from.

At the very bottom of the page, it says Scott Brown, but that can't be. One of our deacons, excuse me, one of our elders is named Scott Brown here. He used to be a deacon. And so, poisonous recipe, Tuesday, October 9th, 2012, christianpost .com.

That's the only thing I can give you. It does not have a person who wrote it. Copyrightchristianpost .com has got that. A poisonous recipe, how to destroy your church. And so I like the church. I think Jesus Christ bought the church.

He is building the church. And even death can't stop that. Aren't you glad? Matthew chapter 16, Jesus talks about that very thing. And I think you, if you listen to this show, you love the church as well.

Now it's easier to love Jesus than it is the church because Jesus is perfect and Jesus isn't here, right? He's in heaven. And so let me just read to you right here. Matthew 16. Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the son of man is?

And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and others Jeremiah are one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.

And Jesus answered him, blessed are you Simon Barjona for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. But my father who is in heaven and I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell, gates of Hades, shall not prevail against it.

And so one thing about Christians is they should love what Jesus loves. They should love the church. We're told to love one another. We're told to love our enemies. We're told to love people in the church.

That's what we're supposed to do. Jesus did and we are as well, even though they might cause problems, even though they might bite back, even though, even though, even though. And so when you think of your local church, I hope you consider it as something that Jesus loves and is building.

If you go to a very liberal church that would be nicknamed Sardis, well, rest assured then Jesus is outside the church and he's knocking and he's basically saying, you're dead and so through the proclaimed word, I make alive and that's a whole other sermon.

But here, this is called the poisonous recipe, how to destroy your church. And if Jesus is building the church, you don't want to destroy it, do you? Do you want to try to make your name by destroying the church?

Boy, that just seems so precarious. That seems so unwise. That seems so immature. That seems so sinful. Say, well, I want to get at the church because they've hurt me, so I'll hurt them. Danger, danger.

I think I'd like to get the church because the pastors have bugged me and so they love the church, so let's get what they love. Careful. One needs to be very, very careful with the church. Now, I do not mean the building.

I learned early on at Calvary Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, the church meets here. That was at the sign. Calvary Lutheran Church, I think it was LCA at the time, ELC, now it's ELCA. Calvary Lutheran Church meets here.

That is correct. We aren't talking about the building. Sometimes people write graffiti or something on the church or they try to hurt the church by doing that. That's what I'm after, the church building.

Now, one time we had our sign up front and I don't know how they did this. I think there's a computer program. They used the exact letters, they meaning some young kids probably, took the letters, I think out there now is here a body, there a body, talking in 1 Corinthians 15 about we have a body here and we will have a body in heaven, but it'll be different.

How could it be different? What will it be like? Will we recognize people in heaven? That's 1 Corinthians 15. Pull that up online at bbcchurch .org and you can listen, verse 35 and following. So they took all the letters, the sign of the church, and then they said something like, Britney Spears is hot.

This was several years ago. So how do you do that? How do you say, I guess, word with friends or something like that, words with friends. You know exactly what things you have and you can get online and beat them because you cheat online and put XI or something.

I don't know what you do. But I did have to say, like Luke 16, they were wrong to do it, but they were clever as they did that. And so it could have been a lot worse, but maybe the right letters weren't put up there.

Poisonous recipe, christianpost .com, how to destroy your church. I'll just use this as a jumping off point, right? The veritable jumping off point, et cetera. Number one, well, let me read the preface first, the precursor, preface.

Preface. Here is a step-by-step recipe I have seen work successfully over and over again throughout the course of my life. I share this dangerous recipe today so that you identify these poisonous ingredients in your life, you will know that you may be inadvertently stirring up.

So this is something obviously not to do, but it's a good contrast today. And it's crazy Friday today. The fall leaves are falling. It's windy, it's rainy. And I have, I don't know, am I stuffy? Don't forget November 30th, you need to have your $300 in if you want to go to Greece with us.

We'd love to have you go. Number one, how to destroy your church. Be a whisperer. Proverbs 16 .28, a perverse man sows strife and a whisperer separates the best of friends. If you'd like to destroy your church, then sin by being a whisperer.

Now, the one thing I've noticed with the whispers and the whispering that has gone on that I've seen at this church or other churches, there's always a good reason, allegedly, from the people. And it's a greater good.

It's a lesser evil. It's a family member you don't quite understand. We had to do it. It's between brothers and sisters in Christ. It is full of reasons like that. And whispering, gossiping is sinful in the Bible.

If you're going to talk about someone in a negative way, leadership or other people in the church, it's not helpful for the church. It doesn't glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if actually you're born again, think about it.

You have been forgiven freely, graciously, the distinguishing sovereign grace of a triune God who elected you in eternity past, sent Jesus to die for you as a representative and substitute, was raised from the dead, and he has granted you new life through the preaching of the good news.

And you have, by the grace of God, repented and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you have the hope of heaven. You have the Spirit of God. You once were in the flesh and you could not please God, and now you can please God in the flesh.

You'll have a glorified body one day. I mean, the list. I think Lewis Barrett Schaeffer used to say, when a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ by grace, 33 things happen to that person. And so there's a long list of blessings that happen both in this life and are secured for you in heaven because of what Christ did.

Isn't that true? So you want to make sure you walk wisely when it comes to the church, and you don't want to be a whisper. If the elders are at the church and they talk about someone, they do it because they're trying to help that person.

A good way to think about it is, we're trying to solve this problem, and one of the things we have to do to solve the problem is to go talk to the person. So if there's a problem that you have with someone, you don't whisper about that someone to someone else, no matter how pious you come across, no matter what your rationale or your reasoning is, you go to that person.

Isn't that what the Lord of the church said? I think actually in Matthew 16, it's the first time church is mentioned with that word church. And I think the next time it's mentioned, it's hardly mentioned in the New Testament Gospels.

Here, it's mentioned in Matthew chapter 18. If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault. And then it says, if he listens to you, you have gained your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, right, to talk to that person about it, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Church language is we go to the person. Don't be a whisper. And this is basically what people do today. They want to gossip. They want to listen to other people gossip.

And People Magazine, Us Magazine, Self Magazine, gossip channels, gossip places, this is exactly the thing that's popular in the world today. We don't want it to be popular in the church. Number two, how'd you like to destroy your church?

Christianpost .com. Allow your tongue and the tongues of your family members to run unbridled. When you do that, your tongue can easily destroy. Now, often we can use our tongue for encouragement, sing praises to the Lord, evangelize, witness, pray.

But James says, even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles. And the tongue is a fiery world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature.

And it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird of reptile and creature of the sea is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison.

And so when you open your mouth and you just start saying things, you can get into a lot of trouble, talking, babbling, running your mouth, as my father would say. So we wanna be careful. We wanna use our words wholesomely.

Remember Ephesians four, don't let unwholesome words proceed from your mouth. What you say can hurt a lot of people and it can hurt a church as well. Number three, how would you like to destroy your church?

Number three, hold others to a higher standard than yourself. That is to say, focus on other people and not you in light of who you are in Christ and your role. Always thinking about someone else. The proverb listed here on the website, christianpost .com is Proverbs 11, nine, the hypocrite with his mouth destroys his neighbor.

Hold others to a higher standard than yourself. Sadly, all these things seem so easy to do. Aren't you glad that God is powerful, that God is sovereign, that God overrides our sinful propensities and our tendencies and the deviations we have in our life?

If the church was a man-made institution, it would be gone. But the church is a God-ordained institution and he builds his church. And when the church is done, our purpose on earth is done and off we go.

What does the Bible say about holding others to a higher standard than yourself? You wouldn't want that done of you, would you? So then why would you do it of others? How to destroy your church, a poisonous recipe, number four.

This is maybe one of the biggest ones here. And sometimes people can do this if they just don't go and talk to the person. When you've got a problem with someone, you need to either cover it in love, love covers a multitude of sins, so therefore it could cover other things as well, or you go.

But the second you start stewing and crock potting and steaming and the person isn't around, everyone can fall into the trap of not thinking about others like they should. Number four, assume the worst of others.

Psalm 41 .7 is listed here. All who hate me whisper together about me, they imagine the worst for me. And in a similar fashion, the same thing happens. If you don't talk to the person, then you can't work through it.

Separated by what now? Just a phone call? That would do it, wouldn't it? Let's get together, I've got a problem, maybe you could help me. I found that if I ask people to help, they're much more receptive.

If people ask me for help, I'm much more receptive. Could you help me, I've got a problem. And then you meet and you say, you know, I've been thinking this, that, or the other, if I'm thinking rightly, or you said this, or this particular thing has happened, or what about this issue?

And then they explain it and then you go, oh, I disagree, but now I get it. Or I agree, oh, I thought wrongly for no reason, please forgive me, I now understand. But when you just hoard, when you pile, when you heap, when you let it stew, there's going to be problems.

See Ephesians chapter four, don't let your sun go down on your anger. Don't let your suns go down if you're living in a Star Wars universe. There are plenty of stars for that Tatooine, whatever the planet is.

Rumors, Accusations, and the Sin of Withholding Forgiveness

Number five, listen to rumors against others. Proverbs 17 .4 says, an evil doer gives heed to false lips, a liar listens eagerly to a spiteful tongue. That is a poisonous recipe. When someone, we've talked about this many times on the show, someone goes to you and says, did you hear this negative thing about so-and-so?

Well, you need to say, obviously you're not trying to sin now, are you, and drag me into sinning by listening? So I'm assuming that you want some help. Let me help you go to that person. I'm going to hold you accountable to go to that person that you've got a problem with.

I can't hear this, I don't want to hear it, but I'll be part of the solution to hold you accountable. And if you don't tell them within the next few days that you've got a problem with them, I'll tell them you've got a problem with you and then they'll come to you.

That's what we need to do. How much more for elders? 1 Timothy 5, verse 17. If Paul is telling Timothy, don't receive accusations against the elders without witnesses, that is a big deal. One elder receiving witnesses, accusations without witnesses about another elder, and even the principle applies for lay people.

Say, well, this elder, that elder, what about this, what about that? The Bible is clear. If you've got a problem with an elder, you don't go to someone else. You go to the elder, period, paragraph, or it is sinful.

Think how many churches are destroyed because that thing didn't happen. And you know, sometimes elders do sin. That's why Paul goes on to talk about what to do with a sinning elder. But usually there's more problem with this than the other.

That is to say, it's not that the elders are sinfully disqualified. They might make a sinful decision or a wrong decision. After all, they're not God. But it's the response to that. It's the response of an unforgiving, unsubmissive heart that just doesn't want to go talk to the elders.

And you say, well, yeah, but our elders aren't approachable. Well, you know what? Elders, I think, should be approachable. And I've been told before that I'm not very approachable. And I want to make sure that I am approachable.

If you ever have a question, you can ask me the question. You can write in, you can email, you can call. Every single weekend, people say, I'd like to meet with you about such and such. And I meet during the Sunday school hour, before church, after church, before Sunday night, after Sunday night.

I want to make sure I'm available. And certainly, I'm shorter now than I used to be, but 6 '2", 210, 12 pounds, maybe I'm intimidating. And in one sense, I want to be intimidating from the pulpit. That is to say authoritative, which sometimes people get as intimidating.

I'm not there to try to find out what the data of the group thinks about a passage. I'm there to preach to them about what the Bible says. The elders do need to be approachable. They need to be hospitable, 1 Timothy 3.

But most of the time, you know what that is? When people say the elders aren't approachable, that is a disguise and a rationale for their sin. They want to go ahead and do what the Bible says clearly not to, and they're going to find a good reason.

And then they'll blame the elders for something else. So not only are the elders doing something wrong, they're also being wrong by not being approachable. No, you get the bottom of your seat off the couch and get into the car and go deal with it for the glory of God.

If it's about Jesus's glory, that's exactly what you would do. You would say, you know what? I know you, and I've seen you with other people and preaching and ministering, and I think you really want the glory of God, but there's this major issue in my life, and I want to make sure I understand it rightly.

I'm either not perceiving things rightly or you're doing something wrongly, and we need to talk about it because I'm hung up on it. And you go do that in private. And if it's not satisfactory, then you go get the witnesses, simple.

Repeating Rumors and Forgetting How Much You Were Forgiven

Number six, repeat every rumor you hear. Well, five is listen to rumors. This says repeat every rumor you hear. Proverbs 17 .9, I alluded to this earlier, but he who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends.

So you hear something, then you can't wait to go take care of it. When we had our big trouble here in 1999, 2000, Facebook wasn't a big deal, but churches now that I minister to and try to help in the middle of the splits, people put up Facebook comments and other things.

They hear something and they run with it. The internet can be used in such a great way to reach the world and listen to sermons, but it can be used in a negative way too. Rumors and gossip and slander on the internet, no, run from that.

Number seven, the seventh poisonous recipe. This is the last one. According to christianpost .com, forget that you were forgiven much and demand that you are treated perfectly. I guess that's like seven and eight.

Forget that you were forgiven much. If you remember that you were forgiven much, you'll be a lot more lenient toward other people. Matthew 18, here it says, then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt.

But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 denarii and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, pay me what you owe. In other words, he was forgiven an unforgivable debt, but then he tried to exact a smaller debt out of one of his lendees.

What do we do? Well, that's the first part. The second part says, demand that you're treated perfectly. That just gets back to self. Thinking more about self than the glory of the church and Christ Jesus in the church.

I don't want to destroy the church. I don't want to hurt the church. I want to build the church up. I want to be doing what Jesus is doing in a very small capacity as an instrument of God's grace. I know I'm not the primary instigator nor am I the initiator of this building of the church, but I just want to get in on what Jesus is doing.

I can think of MacArthur's words to this day. And that is, I'm not trying to compete against Jesus. How do you build a church? Well, I don't build a church at all. I just do what God tells me to do and the people come or they don't come based on the sovereign grace of God.

Contrary to the vertical church ad, when God shows up, it's time to order more chairs. No, we are faithful. And when God shows up, you either keep the same amount of chairs, you order more chairs, or you take away chairs.

That's not the point. How to destroy a church. The end of this little article says, be warned though, following this recipe always calls the judgment of God down on the heads of those who use it. And tragically, I've seen some of the sweetest people's lives destroyed by this poison being stirred up in their homes.

And some of the happiest churches have been crippled and even destroyed by it. Psalm 101, whoever slanders his neighbor secretly, I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart, I will not endure.

Psalm 101, verse five. And the great news is, like in everything else, there's repentance. God loves repentance and you can restore things very, very quickly. And it's easy to do because if you talk about somebody behind their back in a negative way, even though couched with all your reasons, why don't you just tell the people that you said these things to that you were wrong, could you please forgive me?

Do you have it in your heart to forgive me for talking about somebody else in a negative manner? And then you go to the person that you talked about and say, do you know what? Like my father would say, I just lost my head.

I wasn't thinking rightly. I was thinking wrongly and sinfully. I've already asked God to forgive me. But do you think that you have it in your heart to forgive me for talking about you behind your back?

I said that sinfully and I wanna honor Christ. I wanna honor the church. I wanna do the right thing. It's never too late to do the right thing. Then if there really are issues, they're dealt with. If they're not dealt with, then what do the people do?

They do the wrong thing, then they leave the church wrongly and then they go someplace else. And the same thing follows them there because they are there. So we'll look to the Lord Jesus Christ and great grace when it comes to speaking properly and going after the unity of Christ's church.

First Corinthians 1, 2, 3, 4. My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Info at nocompromiseradio .com or bbcchurch .org. God bless you.

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 six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .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.