Featured People leaving Church

There is an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed:

Who says when people leave church THEIR faith is the deficient one?

Let me tell you about some of the leavers or nearly gones in our town:

Some are Lutherans and Presbys of the groups gone liberal. They simply will not stay where ordination and weddings for gays is happening. Some are UMC and are not going to stay where the denom is rapidly heading down that path. Many of those are now over at the local Nazarene church. Others were part of churches that have swallowed the word of faith pill, and have left.

There were two Baptist churches: an SBC and a very fundamentalist one. The SBC went from dispensational free grace congregational governance to the TULIP elder ruled complete with membership covenants that have you promise not to take a job transfer without elder approval. (Or it said that years ago when those folks left. Cannot say for sure now.) The fundy one went through a church split. Now we have 4 tiny Baptist churches, 3 of which are unaffiliated with any convention. One is very much Gothard like. There is also a tiny cowboy church not officially Baptist but functions like one.

Some of the dispy free grace people simply worship at home like the leavers of those other denoms.

There are issues of worship style, worship music, sermon lengths, etc also. Folks who either due to taste or for reasons of conviction shun rock and roll are not going to stay in the local contemporary churches. Before you blast them as not saved or petty Christians or not caring about the lost, remember every blast you make could also be said of proponents of contemporary.

Folks who believe in evangelistic services of an hour or so won't sit through long dry sermons.

But here is the good news: people here are not impressed with strings of letters after names or so called erudite theology. They may be gifted singers, gifted musicians, gifted teachers, and men called to preach not theology but the Bible with a message of sin and salvation. So they meet. In the park. At McD's and Starbucks. In homes. At the rodeo arena. At the lake. At the forest service campgrounds.

In short, as Fletchers Jowers sings, they have "church at the wagon."

Sometimes we have to consider that it may be the strong, real, in-the-right believers leaving when church becomes a man ruled man centered business AKA an unholy mess.

 

Who said they had genuine faith? If they were granted the evidence of conversion which is faith then they would have been converted. But why are you replying against God as if it were an injustice? BTW a person's alleged 'root' does not save them, nor is something within man necessary in order for God to convert them, therefore your view is filled with much error.

When God revealed Himself to Moses, at his request, He stated that He is God who shows mercy to whom He wills to show mercy, and none other, Exodus 33:19; Romans 9; This was God's answer to Moses concerning who He is, and was given as revelation as to how He operates, that is, Sovereignly, and as One to be feared.

Note that also in Matthew 11:25ff we also see this same concept prior to the invitation to will whose who are weary to come. Obviously God made these persons realize their burdens, need for Christ, who Christ is, and then He invites, but not all are invited. This is and has always been the immutable God's way of saving man.

Scripture is replete with doctrine that it is God who grants faith. This supernatural faith to believe is not within man, but is the same power that raised the Christ of God from the dead; Eph. 2:19.

 

Jesus plainly stated "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”[John 10:27-30] True sheep never leave their Shepherd's side. Yes, they will sin, but they will follow Him all the way to glory.

The problem is not the preaching of the gospel, but ppl's sincrusted hearts. Baptizing goats, who will eventually leave, is the problem. Goats hate sheep food.

 

Well said.

 

I would say that His sheep may leave His side, as in the case of Peter, the balance of the apostles, and as seen in the lives of contemporary believers.

He will never leave nor forsake us; Hebrews 13:5 , but 'Prone to Wander, Lord, I feel it' seems a fitting phrase when compared with His sheep's wanderings in Holy Writ.

 

Yes...you are correct here. Thanks for the correction. Jesus stated such in Luke 15 when the Shepherd went and brought His sheep back to the fold. I think that parable is twofold in meaning. When we are saved initially, and are being saved routinely as He whacks our noggins when we stray...

 

Again, before we assume anyone is a goat we need to check on our health as a church.

I know that in this town many walked away from a church over "storehouse tithing." Before you say you believe in it, would you believe it this way: that if you qualify for public housing because you have 4 kids and an income of 900 a month, not only do you owe the church 90 off the top, but must tithe market value of the apartment less what you pay. Which means, if the place would rent open market at 1200, you pay 300, you owe the church 1200 less 300= 900 times 10%, or another 90. Or if you are a senior on 1200 a month SS, no savings, have a medical catastrophe and a hospital bill of 100,000 and SS pays 80,000, you owe the church 8k tithe on that 80,000. Or if you hit a rough patch of car repairs and accept 50 in food from a local food pantry, you owe your church 5 for the food.

WE need to go back to the church being the church, not a business nor career, not using marketing techniques and business management, not intruding where we don't belong but preaching the gospel.

If we don't, we can expect more to leave. And not everyone of them will be unfaithful or unsaved.

And yes, I'm in church every week unless ill or travelling too far into the back country.

 

I think I get what you're asking, but your wording is a little funny. I also think I understand the context from which you're asking.

About a believer who lives this life in the flesh and doesn't mature, and is unfruitful, what is his fate during the Millennium?

I believe scripture is intentionally ambiguous here. Some will be ashamed at Christ's appearance. Christ will take the 1 talent from the one who buries it and give it to the one who had five. Some will suffer loss at the Bema Seat yet be saved himself, some will have no inheritance (which from all scriptural indication is a possession), and a few other losses which will invoke sorrow.

just like we're not told explicitly what our reward will be for faithfulness, nor what our crowns will be, or whether they're literal or figurative, etc, we're not told explicitly about the loss some will encounter.

I absolutely refuse to speculate on something so ambiguous in scripture. Now, if you're trying a roundabout way of asking if I espouse Millennial Exclusion, I do not.

 

FTR when SG made reference to goats, it was a generalized statement (as were those of others) therefore he didn't assume 'anyone' (as in naming persons) were goats. It was a generalized yet accurate comment.

 

Many churches are just not doing this at all.....

 

nodak,

maybe...maybe not.

Scripture would indicate this

while this is a valid point for discussion purposes....your view is slanted away from truth.

Any biblical Christian will leave any false church that caters to sodomites....that does not mean they will not join a true church.

people who lean away from sound doctrine are tossed to and fro....wind up in apostate churches.

That is very proper and biblical. You do not seem to realize that as you speak down on it.

If you do not know for sure from direct first hand knowledge you have no reason to repeat it and bear false witness against these brothers. repeating hear say....is gossip, and the very definition of talebearing.

Most likely 3 families who are disgruntled with a few friends, probably no God called elder....

remaining clueless....

.

No mention in your post of the regulative principle as if God has no say in how He is to be worshipped.

What if they are all to be blamed?

These rebels resist the word of God.....the truth is they want no part of the local church at all....they just want to punch a time card , and then go and do what they really want to do later....this is the real "elephant in the room"

.

No...of course not...despise God and His word....Theology is a "study of God and His word"....so such people look down on a person who trains for the ministry and serves in the study and teaching of the word....they prefer a congregation of shared ignorance, and carnal entertainment. If it "feels good" and makes them happy for a few minutes, fine, but they cannot stand to be interacting with true saints....

Not theology????? wonderful.....you prove the point. They are preaching the bible , but not theology...swell....no need for those big words....propitiation, reconciliation, mediator, surety, sanctification......

Most likely...no...not really. God did not say I will build my starbucks franchise.
These supposed meetings are not happening but they sound good on a message board.

Sometimes...but more likely it is a goat stampede for the door ....it is lot's wife looking back....remember lot's wife!

 

What I meant is this...no one has one their forehead rubberstamped with the word 'sheep' or 'goat'. When I am blessed to preach, whether it be to 5 or 5,000 sinners, I would treat everyone of those sinners as God's sheep, not knowing how many there would fall under the moniker 'goat'.

Now, throughout all of redemptive history, there have been many baptized who ended up dying lost. They held out for a little while but as Jesus said "Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root."[Matthew 13:5-5] So, ppl can hear the gospel with their natural ears, get stirred up in the flesh and be baptized, but not being in Christ, they can not hold on. They will finally leave, never to return.

 

This is the problem with churches nowadays...

 

JonC, why did you find disagreement with this? This was EXACTLY what I was trying(poorly) to express.