Most people who attend traditional buildings where Christians meet do not understand the concept of a Christian gathering.
Mark 7:13 "13 Thus you nullify the word of God by the tradition you have handed down. And you do so in many such matters.”
There is nowhere in the Scriptures that tells believers to send men to a formal school to be taught by teachers with degrees. What happens when the men depend on the teachers for their training is that they begin to trust in the teachers instead of the Holy Spirit. Another thing that happens is these schooled my men people become arrogant and think no one else is allowed to challenge their teaching unless they have also had that formal training.
The Holy Spirit is challenging many institutionally-educated men and those men are resisting even hostile toward the Holy Spirit.
John 16:13-14 "13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"
Nowhere did God tell believers to build edifices, houses to worship in, the early believers met in homes or the already-built synagogues because that's where the Jews met. Their God was in the building but after Christ came their God dwelt in the born-again believer, there was no longer a need for a building. They used the already-built buildings but they didn't need them.
Many people who attended the church buildings over the centuries falsely believed that they could only pray if they were in that building, that God dwelt there, but He did not, He dwells in every born-again believer.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.…"
John 4:23-24 "…23 But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there..." "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them."
Because man thought they could do better than God they established rules and standards that God never commanded. The men who thought they were smarter than God built huge buildings to gather in causing the attendees to think in terms of a concert or theater, leaving all the goings on to be done by the preacher up front, and now sadly the "worship team."
The people in the pews rely on the educated preacher to teach them instead of the Holy Spirit and they rely on the worship team to worship on their behalf.
There is no concept in the Bible of a "worship team", it is Christ in every believer who leads our worship, not a human being. In the modern church, the paid "educated by men" pastor is the focal point, not Christ. The worship team does the work of worshiping for the pew person. These things are antithetical to the Word of God.
The pew people remain in the pews almost in a lethargic state doing their day of obligation so they can go home feeling good about themselves but never having worshiped and nothing changes them. They come week after week going home to resume the same old them without the name of the Lord Jesus Christ on their lips or an open Bible anywhere in their home.
I have asked people; "how was worship today" and their response was to praise the music and the good message but they coulnt' remember what the message was. I suggest they couldn't remember because they were not listening to learn and it was not all that interesting to them.
I have had people tell me they couldn't remember the sermon or the songs but on another day they could recite to me the goings on in a movie they watched days ago.
The pew people have no witness in the community because they are no different from the unbelievers. They endorse many things God hates while hating many things God commanded. They have no love for the brethren as God commanded and no love for the Word of God.
Welcome to the end times God describes in His Word. Religious people sit in the pew every week with anger and hate in their heart toward anyone who will cause them to question what they want in their lives. Anyone who obediently calls out sin will be shunned by the pew people.
2 Timothy 4:2-4 "…2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears, they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. 4 So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.…"
Many people in the church buildings today worship a god of their own ideas, one who defies most of what Christ teaches as well as lacking love for the brethren.
1 John 3:14-18
"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us."
No one who rages at a brother or sister for speaking the truth of God is a born-again believer."
Sadly we are living in a time when most who say they are "Christians" never speak the name of Jesus Christ and are even uncomfortable when they hear someone else speaking it. This is the clue that most attendees of these false churches are not born again, they are pretenders who have never known the Lord Jesus Christ.
Matthew 7:21-23 "21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Most people who attend church gatherings today have never known Christ but like to think they are safe from problems and hell for merely attending.
My purpose in this article is not to hammer on pretenders but rather to challenge them to self-reflect about their motives for attending church and even become convicted over their sin of pretense, so they can become born again for real this time.
Mostly, I care how pretenders are smudging the name of Christ with their false gospel and their arrogant disrespect for His Word. They lead many non-believers to think Christians are no different from the world and often worse than the world. But the truth is that authentic believers are not like the world or worse than the world, they are dedicated to loving people to the point of death through their warnings and encouragement to turn to Christ.
Authentic believers love everyone, sometimes that love is a warning or a spanking but it is done to help not to harm and never out of self-focus but Christ-focus.
