HOW TO KILL
A CHURCHDAVIS W. HUCKABEE New Testament churches do not naturally die; they are so
constituted that they cannot die a natural death. They may,
however, be killed, but even in this, they can hardly be killed
by outsiders except by the annihilation of the entire member-
ship. Churches are most often killed from the inside; their own
members kill them. A church is not just an organization; it is
also an organism -- a living thing, and as such, it has the poten-
tial of either growing and thriving, or of languishing and dying.
The Lord promised that His church, considered as an institu-
tion, would not die, Matt. 16:18, but this only means that there
will be a continuity of churches like the Jerusalem church until
His return; it does not guarantee the continued existence of any
individual church. How then may a church be killed?I. BY STAYING AWAY FROM IT The Scriptures liken church members to the members of a
physical body, I Cor. 12:12ff, and just as certain organs of the
human body cannot be removed without death coming to the
body, so it is with the church, the body of Christ. When the
members of the church start staying away from it, this soon
leads to its death.
This is generally a gradual thing, starting first with the
neglect of the business meetings because "it doesn't matter
whether I am there or not. The others are going to run things to
please themselves."
The night services are really the acid test of a church
member's love for the Lord, for many people come to church
for the morning services simply because there is nothing else to
do except stay home. Of course, there are many professed
Christians who will even forsake the House of God Sunday
morning in order to sleep in; these are the very most unfaithful
kind. But of those who attend the Sunday morning services
regularly, many could not be gotten out for evening services for
anything. But the same excuses that are thought valid for stay-
ing away from church services, will not do when one is invited
to a party, or when money is to be made by being in a certain
place, etc. But the Lord will one day settle up the accounts.
"All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord
weigheth the spirits," Prov. 16:2.
Some church members permanently forsake the church,
never more to return; but if we consider the connections bet-
ween the two verses in Heb. 10:25-26, we find that this is an in-
dication that the individual was only a false Christian. The
same is true in I Jn. 2:19, "They went out from us, but they
were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt
have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be
made manifest that they were not all of us."II. BY STARVING IT. A church lives and grows only by conversions and the addi-
tions of those converts to its number, and therefore if it is not
nourished by conversions as a result of preaching and praying,
it will soon die off from lack of additions. Souls being saved are
a blood transfusion to any church. "And the Lord added to the
church daily such as should be saved" Acts 2:47. God does the
adding to the church, yet He does it through the prayers and the
preaching and the witnessing of His people.
A church may be killed by starving it of spirituality; we must
remember that the degenerate Church of Rome was once a New
Testament church until it lost its spirituality. Heresy in doctrine
is first preceded by heresy in practice; i.e., by a carnal life.
How may this be prevented? By its members living a sanctified
(dedicated) life from day to day (not week by week, nor month
by month). But dedication requires self-denial, and all too
many professed Christians are unwilling to do this.
Then it is possible to starve a church to death by not suppor-
ting it with one's prayers and finances. A church is a business
-- the grandest, most worthwhile business in the world, and
therefore it must have money to operate. Because it is a heaven-
ly business, it needs, in addition to money, the prayers of the
Lord's people. Some professed believers are much more
diligent in running down the church, the pastor, and those who
are faithfully working in the church, than they are in praying
for these and helping them. The same thing is true of Christians
as it is of mules: They can't pull while they are kicking, and
they can't kick while they are pulling. As to the failure of
God's people to support the church financially, Mal. 3:8-10 is
still in the Bible, and it calls the withholder of the tithes and of-
ferings just what he is -- a thief. Nor will it do to say "But
that's in the Old Testament." The division of the Bible into the
Old and the New Testament is strictly a man-made division; the
Scriptures themselves know nothing of this. But in any case, I
Cor. 9:1-14 obligates believers to support the church in
precisely the same way that the Tabernacle was supported -- by
tithes and offerings. See especially v.14.III. BY STRIFE IN IT. Strife has probably killed almost as many churches as any
other one thing. When two people are in disagreement, and
both are utterly selfish, it will cause a strife which will grow
until it consumes the whole church, unless the church takes
steps to end the strife. Strife is a mark of spiritual immaturity
and carnality: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as
unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in
Christ...For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you
envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk
as men?" I Cor. 3:1,3.
Strife generally has its roots in pride, for where there is
strife, both parties proudly assume that they are right, and will
not admit even the possibility of being wrong. At the same
time, neither will try to see the other's point of view, nor will
either admit that the other could be right in the least degree. It is
a fortunate church which does not have such an undercurrent of
strife.
Strife is also promoted by self-righteousness in that one looks
down upon others, while exalting self in his own mind. He
takes the attitude of the Pharisee in Luke 18:9ff. Pride stands in
the way of humility, which is always the first step toward
repentance.
One of the most tragic forms of church strife is when a
member, or group of members, get their feelings hurt by the
preaching (which is very common when the preacher is faithful
to preach against sin, and to declare the members' duty). Often
the dissident members will mount a campaign to run the
preacher off, and the most common excuse used is that he is a
"dictator." Now we have no sympathy with a genuine dictator
in the pulpit, but ere a man of God is stigmatized as a dictator,
men had best consider what the preacher is commissioned and
commanded to do: he is to "Preach the word; be instant in
season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuf-
fering and doctrine," II Tim. 4:2. "Them that sin rebuke
before all, that others also may fear," I Tim. 5:20. "These
things speak, and exhort, and rebuke them sharply, that they
may be sound in the faith," Tit. 1:13.
On the basis of these, and the many other similar texts, the
preacher has a duty to not only declare the truth, but also to
rebuke those members who are living wayward lives, and no
one has a right to call him a dictator for only doing his duty.
This is not to say that he may use the pulpit to chide members
for personal differences of opinion, nor that he should jump
upon and spur every one for every little misstep. The wise
pastor will quickly learn to use Christian psychology even in
the most serious breaches of Christian ethics, and that "A soft
answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger,"
Prov. 15:1. A belligerent or overbearing preacher will produce
only heartache for himself and discouragement for the church.
Strife between the members of a church and the pastor often
destroys a church for the simple reason that by rebellion against
the pastor, the members are rebelling against the Lord, for
though the church may vote to call a man as pastor, yet if they
are led of the Lord in doing so, the pastor is made the
superintendent or overseer (Grk. "bishop") over the flock,
Acts 20:28. Not only so, but the preacher, when he stands to
declare the Gospel, is an ambassador for Christ, beseeching
men in the stead of Christ to be reconciled to God, II Cor.
5:18-20. And yet more so, when he preaches Christian respon-
sibility to believers, they are obligated to obey and submit
themselves, for the pastor is accountable to God for them, and
thus it is a solemn thing to disobey when the pastor is only
endeavoring to lead one on to serve the Lord better and more
faithfully. "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit
yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give
account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that
is unprofitable for you," Heb. 13:17.
Some churches degrade the pastoral office to that of a mere
figurehead, and treat the pastor with less respect than any
layman in the church; sometimes they let their independency
and autonomy go to their heads, and they think they can run the
preacher off any time they don't like what he says. But it is
noteworthy that the Scriptures give not a single example of the
dismissal of a pastor from a church, nor of a church even
challenging the authority of the pastoral office.
It is to be granted that the church has authority over its
members, including the pastor, but it is also true that the pastor
is a man specially called of God to his office, and he stands in a
special relationship to God, and while on rare occasions it may
be necessary to dismiss and exclude a preacher because of im-
morality or heresy, yet a church should be very slow to take
any action against one of the Lord's prophets without good
reason. "Against an elder receive not an accusation, but before
two or three witnesses," I Tim. 5:19. "Touch not mine
anointed, and do my prophets no harm," Ps. 105:15.IV. BY STUBBORNNESS. In the Scriptures, stubbornness is a sin that is compared to
witchcraft and idolatry, I Sam. 15:22, and yet some people
seem to delight in stubbornly resisting all spiritual progress and
activity in the church. It is no virtue to be so set in one's ways
that one hinders a church from changing for the better. No
church was ever so perfect when it started but that it has room
to change for the better. Indeed, sanctification is itself a pro-
gressive changing for the better of individuals, and if the
members daily change for the better, so should the church. The
sin of the Sardis Church was that it stubbornly refused to repent
of sin, Rev. 3:3, and consequently it slowly died on the vine, all
the while refusing to admit its cold and indifferent state. There
is such a thing as dead orthodoxy -- a doctrinal soundness
which is devoid of any real love to Christ.
Some say, "Well, it is my life, and it is my business whether
I repent or not," but this is not true, for every person is an ex-
ample to someone else, and his bad example will lead others
astray, perhaps concerning something much worse. Besides,
the corruption of a church member is a corruption of that much
of the church, and "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,"
I Cor. 5:6. No one can afford to indulge any sin, because sin in
church members is what kills churches.
There are many ways to kill a church, but the important thing
to notice is the solemn consequences of tearing down a church
of the living God: "If any man defile ['destroy'--the Greek
word is the same as that translated 'destroy'] the temple of God
[a church, as the preceding verse shows], him shall God
destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," I
Cor. 3:17. It matters not what excuses may be given, if an in-
dividual or group of individuals so conduct themselves as to
cause the death of a church, they had better prepare to shortly
face the judgment of God in the loss of their physical lives.
A church is of more importance than the collective rights of
all the members, for a church exists, not just for its own present
members, but is a witness to many who may never join it, but
who may be led to the Lord through its ministry. Not only so,
but the rights of future members must also be considered when
taking any action that might be detrimental to the church. Many
carnal church members, in their zeal to get their own way,
justify their own sins, sooth their own pride and hurt feelings,
do not care that they may quench the only faithful lighthouse of
the truth in their community. Nor that future generations may
not have opportunity to hear the Gospel and to be saved because
a church was destroyed by the carnality of its members. The at-
titude of some is "I'm saved, so let the rest of the world go to
hell for all I care." Such an attitude hardly evidences genuine
salvation. If it be true that "Whoso hath this world's good, and
seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of com-
passion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" (I Jn.
3:17), how much more so is this true of those who have no con-
cern for the welfare of the souls of others? God pity the man
who destroys a church: if he is saved at all, he puts himself
under the judgment of physical death for putting his own selfish
wants and will above the welfare of a church of the living God.V. BY SELFISHNESS. All of the foregoing points may be summed up in this one,
but we venture to make a few more comments which fall
specifically under this heading. We live in the most affluent
society that this world has ever known. Add to this the fact that
this generation has greater means to get the Gospel to every
race, nation and tribe of people than any previous generation.
Radio, TV, and the press make evangelism possible as never
before. But what happens? Instead of using these means for the
glory of God, men become so selfishly involved in them that all
of these become definite detriments to the truth.
It has been found that people spend hundreds of times more
on pets than on all religious enterprises combined, and
Newscaster Paul Harvey reports that for every dollar that is
spent on churches, $12,000 is spent on crime. It should be ob-
vious from this that we are working at the wrong end of the pro-
blem.
There are many foreign mission fields on which a native mis-
sionary can be supported for only $25 to $30 per month -- no
more than what many people spend per month on cigarettes
alone, yet how many individual Christians does one hear of do-
ing this? Often when mission needs are presented to the church
by the pastor, someone will counter with the proposition that
"We ought to use some of our money on home missions." Cer-
tainly home missions are essential, if they are truly mission
projects, but unfortunately all too often the term is used to ex-
cuse the spending of the Lord's money on something that caters
only to the fleshly nature of the church members, such as hav-
ing the tallest steeple in town, or the most modernistic building
design, or the largest organ, or the fanciest choir robes, etc. By
"home missions" some only mean, "Let's spend the money
locally on something that we can get the benefit of." For the
money that the Lord's people have spent foolishly and for mere
fleshly gratification in the last hundred years, the world could
have been reached with the Gospel several times.What has all this to do with killing a church? Just this: giving
to missions is the thermometer which shows the spiritual at-
mosphere of a church. It is generally the gauge of godliness in
the church. Call it home missions or whatever one pleases, but
the selfish use of the Lord's money for the gratification of the
members of a church will kill that church as quickly as almost
any one thing. May God give us more sound and serviceable
churches by stirring up church members to be more dedicated
and obedient.
Are you killing your church by your sinfulness, by your
selfishness, by your neglect? Then repent before both the
church and yourself are destroyed.Tract # B-317 Order From: Tabernacle Baptist Church
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