Fundamental Hypocrites

They wouldn't have to "make Him conform;" He would do it willingly. He told His disciples in Matthew 23 to do everything the Pharisees required of them because they were their spiritual leaders, but not to follow their hypocritical actions. Basically, He said, "Do as they say, not as they do."

 

Just walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

It's not in the rules, it's in the Spirit.

There's been an awful lot of lost children in the fundamental circles - kids who have seen the hypocrisy and experienced the harshness, and have simply walked away, many throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

 

As far as men and earrings, please note that these have just come from Egypt as slaves. Every slave wore a ring in the ear.
Exodus 21:6 Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.

It is cultural for women to wear revealing clothing, and furthermore it is cultural for men to gave at "Victoria's Secrets!" Culture does not determine holiness. Culture cannot be a barometer for Christ's righteousness. Only the bible can do that.

As far as going to the beach, I have been to the Atlantic very very early in the morning with my family when hardly no one was there. Hardly meaning there were exactly 30 people on the beach within eyesight. Most were older folks walking along holding hands. There were some younger men playing in the ocean. There was no immodestly dressed women there within my field of view. I knew that most folks were either at work or drunk or too lazy to get out as early as we did. There is no such thing as wrestling with the sin of lust! You can lie to yourself and others on this board but you cannot lie to God. He said to flee youthful lusts! It is no wonder that Joseph ran the way he did.

What say ye?
-DeaconLew

 

I say it seems IFB's just are'nt happy unless they have something to attack.When they have nothing else to attack they attack each other.Remember Jesus did'nt spend his time hanging around all of the bigtime preachers of His day.

 

Boys should not wear earrings.
When I was a kid I would ride the church bus to a IFB church. One of the other boys was wearing an earring. The coordinator for the bus ministry saw the earring and said to this little ten year old kid, "What is that in your ear? An earring? Are you a little girl, or are you a faggot?" Needless to say, I kind of resented hearing this man tell this to a little kid. Years later, I myself got my year pierced and said to the same man, "I dare you to call me a little girl or a faggot." (Pardon the expression) Even though I got rid of the earring by the time I enrolled in Seminary, I actually do see some pastors who wear earrings. The one that this pastor wore was the cross. This concept of men not wearing earrings is another example of legalism. Even though there is a mention about not cutting the flesh in the OT, (this might be taken out of context), today we live in an age of grace, with the gospel being the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, not "thou shalt not any male wear earrings"

 

Rustynail, we just had something similar happen at our church about 6 months ago... one of our teen boys from the bus route who has(had) his ears pierced got saved after coming on and off for a couple of years... he seemed to change alot! For a couple months he was there every Sunday and was even finding rides in on Wednesday nights. He still wore his earring sometimes but the youth pastor nor I ever spoke of it to him. Neither of us considered it. All of a sudden he quit coming completely. We tried to contact him by phone but he avoided us. We finally went to his house and were able to speak to him face to face. We asked why the sudden drop off, why did he stop coming to church. Evidently one of our "pillars of the church" decided to stop him in the hallway one day and say "Hey, only homos wear earrings". Needless to say the youth pastor was livid. We tried to explain to him that it was ridiculous and we didn't feel that way etc...etc.... It didn't do any good. We lost him, he hasn't been back since. We're talking about a kid with unsaved parents, growing up in a high crime, run-down neighborhood. Last time we visited, he said he doesn't know what he believes anymore...We aren't giving up on him though!

Just thought I'd relay the story. I know every church has someone who doesn't have a clue when to keep their mouth shut and their personal feelings or convictions about something to themselves.

Todd

 

Only "homos" wear earrings, or women! Now, there is a more prudent way to get the point across than that, but that is the truth. Where in the bible you say? Here:
Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

God called it an abomination! The young man should have been given a more solid foundation of truth. God REQUIRES change IN us AFTER we are SAVED. There SHOULD be some evidence of a change on the inside. What is on the inside WILL come out!
Matthew 15:18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
Please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the young man did not get saved. What I am saying is that once a person is saved, there is work to be done. Your "pillar" should have excersized discretion in dealing with the young man.
Proverbs 5:2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

This is soooo important when dealing with new born agains.

-DeaconLew

 

That verse has absolutly NO application to guys wearing ear rings....

Amazing!

 

Deaconlew wrote:

That is not true, I know several males that wear an earring and they are not homosexual. And your response about the Israelites only having earrings because they were slaves, If they thought that wearing an earring was "bad" wouldn't they have removed the earring immediately when leaving Egypt? Also, doesn't explain the JOB example...

Todd

 

Todd-
I hope that the young man who was in this situation comes back to church again, and I hope that the youth pastor of this church rebuked the "pillar of the church" who had made this comment. When a person gets saved, sometimes the change is gradual, for example, when my pastor got saved, he still continued to smoke cigerettes until he started to get the conviction that this wasn't glorifying God, and eventually he stopped altogether. I've heard of instances where woman who would dress inappropriately, such as dressing "Goth" had started to dress more decent after salvation. There is a young woman in our church who was into Wicca, and chose to come to Christ, and has literally turned her life around.
An earring isn't such such a bad thing, but words that are spoken by "well meaning people" are. As a result, saying the wrong thing can result in someone leaving the church for good.
Blessings,
Rustynail

 

Sadly, many folks in church want to play "Holy Spirit". By doing so they often cause young, immature believers to stumble and forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

After I had repented and returned to the fold, my hair was below my shoulders for a long time. I held on to a saying that Mike Warnke said. "Jesus didn't come to cut my hair, He came to save my soul."

I used that to justify my own refusal leave my old ways and to follow a new life in Christ. Fortunately, I was still in prison at the time, or I suspect some well meaning soul would have castigated me for my "rebellion". God worked it out however, that I was transferred to a different facility which required decent haircuts for all inmates. My hair has been short ever since then. (1992)

Moral of the story? Let God do the cleaning up of your outside.

In HIS service;
Jim

 

AMEN Brother!

 

What a bunch of homos

 

Prov. 29:20, "Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him."

Prov. 17:28, "Even a fool , when he keeps silent, is considered wise; When he closes his lips, he is considered prudent.

Prov. 18:2, "A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind."

It wasn't too many years that one would have labelled a man who was swimming without a shirt as immoral. It wasn't too many years that my grandmotjher told me that women who wore dresses exposing the ankles were labelled as outcasts.

Recently I talked with my 14 year old daughter about why men wear earrings and her reponse was she didn't know why. But she saw nothing wrong with it. I have seen some tough men at the universitry wearing one or more earrings and ladies wearing many earrings.

There was a time that only prostitues wore makeup. Are all ladies who wear makeup in Baptist churches prostitutes/ If so then the Baptist Churches are worse than the Corinthian Church.

 

That "pillar of the church" needs to be confronted about his words and held accountable by making an apology to the young man and how wrong he was in his lack of wisdom.

Prov. 18:19, "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and contentions are like the bars of a citadel.

Some years ago I preached at a church for 8 days and on one of those nights I spoke on making relationships right. After that service "the pillar of the church" spoke with me about how to make a relationship right with someone he had offended. The next day he visited that man whom he had offened about five years earlier. Both of them were in church the next night. The man he had offended had not been in any church since he was offended earlier about five years earlier.

Mt. 18 talks about what to do when we offend someone. We are to always go. Nobody has perfect control of their tongue but they must make every effort to amke things right.

If that "pillar of the church" does all that he can to make things right it may be the greatest display of humility the young man has ever seen.

 

This is an interesting story. It reminds me of a preacher who has split two local churches over his legalism and is now going to our church as a regular member. (We're SB.)

He has been known to actually tell people they don't need to be coming to church as long as they are sinning.

He call preterism a heresey (sp?) and claimed it split a church. (I think it split the church because the pastor stood his ground and told them their salvation stood on belief of pre-trib.) Now I'm pre-trib, but I'm not going to take away someone's right to interpret end-times prophecy differently.

He's an older man who used to be a marine. On Wednesday night in Bible study, the pastor asks questions. Guess who answers them before ANYBODY gets a chance.

I think I am finding out why his last two churches split.

By the way, they let him teach Baptist doctrine and he was teaching landmarkism and giving download sites for "The trail of blood" or whatever the pamphlet is called that tries to track Baptists back to Jesus' day.

I only make this point to show that the IFB is not the only group having the same problems.

 

About the pillar of the church who said that only homos wear earrings.

I was told that if you are "gay", they wear it one side, and the other side was a sign that they weren't...

But, I could never remember which was which.
But I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

The bad thing about Christians making too many comments about the world to those who are living in it, is that we can attribute our "ideas" to things which aren't there. For example, while some wore denim in the 60's as a sign of rebellion, the preacher who stands up and preaches against jeans (in general), just shows how little he has kept in touch with the world's culture at large. This makes him seems somewhat of an idiot to those he is trying to rebuke.

So, we should at least speak with some "basic knowledge" of such things. i'm not advocating immersing ourselves in the culture, but taking the time to learn some things would help with credibility factors.

Becky

 

Why are SB churches sinful? You IFB guys are not much different than Roman Catholics if you believe that!

 

I have to step out on a limb here, and point out that the circular thinking of "if you go to the beach you might have sinful thoughts, so lets call going to the beach a sin," is sinful in itself. It is, in fact, the very thing that Christ fussed about the Pharasees doing.

There are many problems with doing this.
1) We are not God, and should not be vain enough to decide we can "expand" on God's law.
2) We end up spending so much time trying to catch other people in a sin-against-man-man-law that we ignore the commandments from Christ to love one another, to forgive one another, to judge not lest we be judged.....

If you feel that a beach is a temptation to you, then by all means, avoid the beach, however, don't fool yourself into thinking the problem is the beach. The problem is your own lustful thoughts, and you should work on your heart to change your susceptibility rather than just hope you can avoid temptation all your life.

Another problem with this thinking is that there is no end to the list that can be made. Certain churches prohibit any kind of instrumental music in their halls because someone decided that even a piano is sinful. Others decided that if they danced they had lustful thoughts. Where do you draw that line? Is a woman in a skirt or a woman in pants more likely to entice one particular person to sin? If you are sexually attracted to people of a certain hair-color, or build, are you going to avoid places where you might encounter them?

How are you going to find the lost and wittness to them if you lock yourself in a room and never meet them?

The answer is to get so close to God, via prayer and bible study - that you know He will guide you through temptation.

(KJV) Mark 7:6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. 9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

Or RSV 6 And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.' 8 You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men." 9 And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in order to keep your tradition!

 

If a preacher said nothing except quotations from the Bible, he'd be unnecessary. It's a mighty shallow attack to maintain that an exhortation is unbiblical because it isn't a quote from the Bible.

Probably none of us has a conviction against swallowing methyl alcohol (e.g., cough syrup), but most of us insist that our members abstain from drinking one beer, and I agree. If an onlooker wants to tell me that the sin isn't in the beer or the sin isn't in the drinking, but, instead, the sin is in my own undisciplined heart and I need to grow up to where I can drink beer without having sinful results in my life--then I can only conclude that this onlooker doesn't know enough to merit a reply.

And I say the same thing regarding a social situation where the women are dressed in something approximating underwear. A decent woman has no business undressing in the presence of men, and men have no business going to such a place.

There are ways of preaching that win the listeners, and other ways that repel. But warning the flock in no uncertain terms is a solemn responsibility. That's why the Scriptures say: Heb 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you.