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“Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all.”
1 Thessalonians 5:14

I am angry. I am saddened. I am disgusted with what is tolerated and condoned by silence in the Church of Jesus Christ (If we dare yet to take His name, and so vainly attach it to our dens of thieves and murderers!)! It is true that evil triumphs when good people do nothing; but how good do we think ourselves to be, when we allow the weakest in our ranks to be devoured by the strong. Do we yet wonder why so many churches have been decimated in their attendance? Can we not smell the stench of the corpses which lie all around us? The spiritual lives of so many believers which have been destroyed by the condemnation of holier-than-thou hypocrites! I say condemnation; I mean cannibalism! The weak have been served up as prey, and only the unruly hypocrites and the soft spoken cowards yet remain in the halls of what may once have been a church. Oh, how aptly descriptive are the words of the Apostle who decried this atrocious legalistic behavior: “if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Gal 5:15)

We have been ordered to WARN THOSE WHO ARE UNRULY! Our churches are to be safe havens from the Enemy, not a breeding ground for the children of perdition. We might as well design crucifixes with Judas, instead of Jesus, hanging upon them, since we revel in worship of such deviousness as he exemplifies; especially since we would rather have a thief like Judas in our midst than a repentant fisherman like Peter. We must put an end to this, and our pulpits must emphasize and enforce a Zero Tolerance policy for such behavior.

How many names can I count, of people who have been injured by this contemptuous and wicked breed who spout their rules and standards as cover for their pride and prejudice, and undermine God‘s Grace with their strange doctrines of laws and legalism, which “things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” (Col 2:23) I teach the Word of God, but these wolves quickly pounce upon the sheep to criticize the Bible they carry in hand, if it be not their venerated KJV, and undermine the message by undermining the Word of God, as they cast suspicion upon their Bible. I proclaim the Good News of God’s Grace, and these dogs rush to lay legalistic burdens on the backs of the sheep. As fast as I can declare that Jesus has come to set the captives free, these venomous serpents are poisoning the flock with their religion of works, commanding that hair should be this way, clothes should be that way, baptism like this, communion like that, KJV only, NIV never, music this soft or this loud, with this instrument, but not that style, by this writer not that one, sermons this length with such a tone, tithing is mandatory, while love is optional, our rules make us better, while grace is only a song! On and on it goes, as more and more people fall by the wayside, thrown there by their Christian brothers and sisters!

Beyond warning the brazen hypocrites, we are told to “uphold the weak”, not to trample them underfoot as we march to the beat of our own selfish drum. Perhaps its time to work on evangelizing the lost believers. Maybe its time we did some soul-searching, some forgiveness asking, some rescuing, restoring and revisiting. Jesus resigned Judas to his proper place, but reassured Peter of His love for him. I’m afraid too many of us have this backwards in our churches! Jesus said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) Using this measurement, can you identify Christians in the Church today? Be sure it is so in your church.