Have any of you ever been in a church service where the pastor or speaker stopped a song in the middle of it and instructed the attendees to sing louder or with feeling as though they mean it?
During that same worship service we may hear the preacher command the people to say amen. I have also heard preachers say things like “can I hear a word of confirmation.” The people listening were not doing it before they were instructed to do so, but suddenly because they were entreated to do so, they loudly proclaimed amen. So the leader got them to do what did not enter their minds or hearts. Of what value is this?
Every time I hear this, I think of the Catholic church that I was a part of and the little booklets that we used to follow the mass. We knew which response was required for each of the statements made by the priest and which pages we needed to be looking at. We repeated what was expected after the priest’s comments. There was no feeling required, just rote recitation, we could even be dozing and responding at the same time.
Commanding the congregation to do or say anything is how cults have control over their people. Our Lord wants our hearts and all our responses to be from our heart and not out of obedience for the sake of appearances. Each person must do and say what the Holy Spirit leads them to do apart from any human bidding.
The preacher must have the faith to allow the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of people, rather than trying to manipulate the folks in their emotions. Anyone can get a response from non-thinking people, who are concerned about their appearance. It is not hard to control people in a covert manner, when the elder has instilled a sense of awe based on their position in life.
Many church goers have the preachers on a pedestal as though they have a special in with God that the parishioners do not have. This is a false perception of the office of elder. The elder is no more holy than the rest of the church goers, except that he has been called to that service and qualifies based on Biblical standards. All the people should be looking to the Word of God for their standard and not the preacher. He should be above reproach, but he is not the standard, he must meet the standards of the word of God as all of us must. We should all be above reproach, if we love Christ.
Let me say at this point that the preacher must be accountable to the congregation for their conduct. If they are not preaching the Word correctly, they must be confronted about it, and asked to reconsider their position and correct their errors.
When a preacher believes himself to be unapproachable and above the congregation then it is time for him to be removed. An arrogant and un-teachable and unreachable elder is a danger to the health of a fellowship. He will create mind numbed attendees who will not evaluate everything said, in light of the Word. When a congregation gets to this point, those who love the Lord and His Word become discouraged and leave and those who are left, forget to exercise thinking in their theology. When this happens we have a cult like attitude that continues in error until the fellowship becomes apostate.
If we have faith, we will not feel a need to control every aspect of a persons actions. We can trust the Holy Spirit to work within each believer, and then we will have a vibrant fellowship. However if our group is filled with superficial Christianity we will not hear “amen’s’ or “hallelujahs” because it is not in the hearts of the people, so what would be the point in making them respond as we think they should.
We can get people to do many things so that they will not be embarrassed if they don’t, but we have not changed their hearts, so forcing them did not make them holier, or grow in their spirits.
When we preach a hard gospel of repentance and obedience, the Lord will be able to use His Word, which does not go out void as He promised. Let’s stop attempting to manipulate the people and begin to preach the gospel with authority and then the Lord will be able to work in the hearts of the hearers.
Let’s stop being careful, depending on our flesh and good looks to hopefully win them in the flesh, and begin telling the hard truth leaving the results to the Lord. He can do it so much better than our impotent human manipulations.
Do we trust the Lord or do we do our spirituality in the flesh to be praised of men? That is the question we all need to answer. God says that the fear of man brings a snare and that we are to obey God rather than man. If we step out in faith and preach an anointed gospel, then we can see the Lord work.
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