False Churches Are A Blessing

The true church is defined in the Bible as a called-out assembly of those who are true followers of Jesus Christ. Of his true disciples, Jesus said, "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matt. 12:50) The corollary would then mean that a false believer does not do the will of the Father. We know the will of the Father by what His Word says. It follows that false disciples must deny what scripture teaches:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1-3)

Therefore, it can be said that a "false church" is one that does not teach the plain things of the Bible. I like this definition:

The false church: The body of self-identified Christians who may, or may not, have begun the process of sanctification through belief upon...Christ. The false church either rejects the infallibility of scripture outright, or seeks to rationalize and radically "reform," revise or reinterpret scripture to justify sin.

False churches exist because of false believers. They do not want to hear the truth of the Bible, so these false brethren join together and create a church of their liking, complete with a false teacher:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. (2 Tim. 4:3-4)

If all the preaching and teaching at a false church suddenly became good and biblically-sound, do you think the people that attend would also become true disciples? Perhaps a few would, but for the most part they would no longer attend that particular church. They would either go elsewhere or stop going anywhere. French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) said "In democracy we get the government we deserve." With the freedom to choose one's government, comes the responsibility for that government. The same is true in countries with religious freedom, where a group can easily set-up a church of their liking. It could be said, "With religious liberty, we get the church we deserve."

In Romans 1, the Bible speaks of God giving people over to their sins:

Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. (verse 24) 

For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural... (verse 26) 

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper... (verse 28)

This is a form of judgement: the removal of God's restraining grace. Restraining grace is present even for unbelievers. Charles Spurgeon said of it:

Oh! what a mercy to be prevented from sinning, when God puts chains across the road, digs ditches, makes hedges, builds walls, and says to us, “No, you shall not go that way, I will not let you; you shall never have that to regret; you may desire it, but I will hedge up your way with thorns; you may wish it, but it never shall be yours.”

A false church is likewise an indication that God has removed his restraining grace. He has given that church over to the desires of its' members. He is no longer preventing false teaching.

False churches are a blessing. First, they keep a lot of false converts out of the good churches. There are enough false believers in our doctrinally-sound churches already. If we closed all the false churches, where do you think their members would go? A lot would end up in your local, Bible-believing place of worship. Then they would undoubtedly begin to make changes to what is taught, which brings up the second reason false churches are a blessing: they keep out false teachers. A bad church gives a bad teacher somewhere to go other than to your good church.

We should pray for those that are in false churches: both the members and their leadership. What is being taught will send them to hell if they do not repent. They must be evangelized with the true gospel of Jesus Christ. God will call out his elect from these false churches.

then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, (2 Peter 2:9)

False churches are then a curse to those within them, and a blessing to those without.

Is Andy Stanley About To Be Gay-Affirming?

     Back in 2012, I was pretty unfamiliar with pastor Andy Stanley of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. I was, however, familiar with his father, pastor Charles Stanley of FBC Atlanta. In fact, I had bought several of the elder Stanley's books. Some minor disagreements aside, I have always viewed him as a faithful teacher & preacher. I would have expected the same from his son, but that was my mistake. So it took me by surprise when in April 2012, Andy Stanley delivered his "When Gracie Met Truthy" sermon. From The Christian Post:

While preaching on the tension between grace and truth ("the truth is 'you're a sinner,' and the grace is 'I don't condemn you'"), Stanley told the story of a divorced couple who formerly attended North Point together. They separated after the woman's husband began a same-sex relationship with another man, who was still married to a woman.

The man and his partner wanted to serve as volunteers at the church, but Stanley explained that the two men were committing adultery since one of them did not finalize his divorce yet and thus could not serve as volunteers.
The "messy" story, as Stanley described it, ends with the gay couple, the first man's ex-wife and their child, as well as her new boyfriend and his child from another relationship, all coming together to worship together at a big service at North Point Church. The pastor refers to them as an example of a modern day family. Christians, he said, are called not only to hold on to the truth, but also to grace which includes forgiveness and love.

Which was followed by this analysis by Albert Mohler:

The most puzzling and shocking part of the message was the illustration and the account of the homosexual couple, however. The inescapable impression left by the account was that the sin of concern was adultery, but not homosexuality. Stanley clearly and repeatedly stressed the sin of adultery, but then left the reality of the homosexual relationship between the two men unaddressed as sin. To the contrary, he seemed to normalize their relationship. They would be allowed to serve on the host team if both were divorced. The moral status of their relationship seemed to be questioned only in terms of adultery, with no moral judgment on their homosexuality.

Dr. Mohler then went on to ask:

Does this signal the normalization of homosexuality at North Point Community Church? This hardly seems possible, but it appeared to be the implication of the message. Given the volatility of this issue, ambiguity will be replaced by clarity one way or the other, and likely sooner than later.

     What hardly seemed possible in 2012 is now, it seems, likely. Last month, in January 2015, Andy Stanley gave an interview regarding his new book, The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating. When asked why he wrote the book without addressing the "LGBT community", he said:

When I taught this content to our churches, I met with about 13 of our attenders who are apart of the LGBT community. I met with them to ask lots of questions, including their response to the series because I did not address the LGBT community directly. It was unanimous that they thought it was helpful and shared some of the stuff they learned.

So there are people attending North Point that identify as LGBT. The problem is that Stanley is not calling them to repentance. Instead, he seems to be very sensitive not to offend them. This is just a small step shy of "gay-affirming".

     Then on February 1, 2015, Stanley gave a sermon in which he declared that the church has become "unnecessarily resistible" to unbelievers. Take a look:

“The Church really should be … nothing more than a community of people who follow the teaching of a man sent from God to explain God and to clear the path to God. You don’t have to agree but you shouldn’t dislike it unless there’s more to it.” 

“How is it there are things that people say about us (Christians), the reasons they don’t like us have nothing to do with the fact that Jesus is ultimately our ultimate authority?” Stanley asked. “How did we become so resistible? … (Jesus’) three top commandments [were] to love God, love one another, love your enemy. What is there to resist about that? There should be nothing resistible about the church except … our loyalty to Jesus Christ.”

There is just so much wrong with these statements. "You don't have to agree"? On key doctrine, oh yes, we do. Philippians 2:2 tells us we are to be "of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose."

     “How is it there are things that people say about us, the reasons they don’t like us have nothing to do with the fact that Jesus is ultimately our ultimate authority?” Could we have some specifics here? I'm not sure to what he's referring, but all the reasons I ever see for unbelievers not liking Christians are indeed relating to the truth of Jesus and the bible. It's those so-called Christians that never speak the truth of scripture and never call unbelievers to repentance that the world loves.

     Stanley also stated:

"We are going to figure it out," he told North Point attendees. "We are going to let go of the things that have been holding us back. We are going to do our best to re-embrace what Jesus had in mind when he said this is something new." 

"By God's grace, perhaps in our generation, we will be used to strip away everything that makes the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ unnecessarily resistible."

     As I said, the primary thing that makes the church resistible is the truth of Christ. The necessity to turn from sin and turn to Christ in faith. The unregenerate love their sin and the only "church" they will attend is one which accepts, or even applauds, their lifestyle.
     I will hold out hope that Stanley's church is not going to become gay-affirming, but it certainly appears headed in that direction. Sadly, Andy Stanley's North Point would not be the first gay-affirming evangelical megachurch in the country. It would be the third, following Seattle's EastLake Community Church and GracePointe of the greater Nashville area.