Pastor Jeff Crippen
The following is a comment submitted to me at my other blog, unholycharade.com I am posting it here, and there, as a stand-alone post because of its importance. Many, many thanks to the courageous lady who wrote and shared her story with us. We want to honor her desire that as many people as possible hear what she has to say so that they too can be wise:
Continue reading “A Powerful True Account of How False Teaching on Forgiveness is Dangerous”
Pro 18:5 It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice.
I listened to a phone message today from a lady I don’t know – I don’t even know her name. She called our church office to thank us for the domestic abuse sermon series we have online at sermonaudio.com/crc If she reads this, many thanks for her encouragement.
One of the things she said was very wise. Having grown up being abused by evil family members, she said that she finally came to see two Scriptures in particular clarity that the Lord used to set her free. One is quoted above, Proverbs 18:5. The other was from Matthew –
Mat 10:21-22 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, (22) and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
She realized in regard to the Matthew text that a Christian may well find themselves hated intensely even by their own brother, father, and children. It occurred to her that this means the abuse she experienced from family was not her fault.
John 10:1-5 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. (2) But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. (3) To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. (4) When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. (5) A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
I was raised in my earliest years in Bible churches and Baptist churches. Churches where the Bible was said to be central, where sinners were called upon to repent and believe the gospel and where you underlined your Bible as the pastor preached.
And where sin was generally, but not specifically addressed.
What I mean by “generally” but not “specifically,” is that “sinners” were called upon to turn to Christ and be saved. “Sin” was preached against. And yet church members, professing Christians, who were walking in sin habitually, showing no fruit of regeneration in their lives, were never called out. In fact many of them held positions of leadership. This is why the constant infighting and divisions kept happening in those churches. Pastors would come and go, but very few people really knew why. This was the condition of the church I have pastored now for some 26 years when I first came.
The underlying assumption in such “churches” is that everyone who claims to be a Christian must be believed. In fact, as many of you know, even the most wicked domestic abuser (usually operating in secret of course), when exposed, is still assumed to be a real Christian and treated as such by the church. Woe to the victim of such an abuse if she balks at doing the same.
Jesus and the Apostles, as clearly recorded for us in Scripture, make it very plain that not all sheep are sheep. Not all shepherds are really shepherds. That is what Jesus was saying here in the tenth chapter of John. Here are His points:
There is reality. That is the condition of the visible church (in contrast to the IN-visible church which consists of all true Christians in heaven and on earth). The visible church has false sheep and false shepherds in it. In fact it is generally true that there are far more counterfeits than real sheep – thus the Bible calls the true church the “remnant.”
I suggest to you that these are truths that are currently out of vogue in most local churches and this is the reason that so many of Christ’s true people are being so sorely oppressed and rejected by those “churches.” That is to say, congregations are being taught for the most part that everyone in their church, with maybe a very few exceptions, are objects of God’s mercy, adopted children in His household, certain shoe-ins to heaven on the Day of Judgment. And no one must ever, ever say otherwise.
Therefore, evil abounds in the churches. Evil is people. Evil people. People who are of the darkness rather than the light. People who therefore oppose the Light lest they be revealed for what they really are.
The solution? God’s Word! This is the mission of Christ’s true pastors and people. “Preach the Word!” Paul told Timothy. His Word is light. It cleanses His body. It exposes evil and the wicked flee from it. His Word is powerful – it restores the soul of the downcast and calls those who hear to repentance and faith and life. Tweak it, even a little bit, and the lights go out, the power is unplugged, and darkness returns.
Jesus’ truth is plain. There are many false sheep. There are many false shepherds. False sheep hear the voice of the false shepherd and refuse to hear Christ’s voice. Not so His real sheep. They hear Him. They follow Him. This is His truth. And we need to proclaim it loudly and clearly.
