THEIR BACKS TOWARD THE TEMPLE

MID-COAST BAPTIST CHURCH

 

". . . At the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the alter, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east . . ." (Ezekiel 8:16)

Compare this with 1 Cor 3:16-17--"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

Those words were written to a visible, local, New Testament church that was made up of saved, baptized believers in Christ. "Ye" is a plural pronoun. The New Testament church is the temple of God.

The same abomination that was committed in Ezekiel's day is being committed in this New Testament Age-- the Church Age. So-called Christians (including pastors, missionaries, and evangelists) willfully turn their backs on the temple of God-- the visible, local, New Testament Baptist Church.

They are concerned with popularity, acceptance, having a recognized ministry, furthering their agenda, gaining a bigger following, and a host of other carnal objectives. They are so eager to achieve these fleshly goals that they will bypass, run over, and even turn their backs on the New Testament church to reach them.

"Church-hoppers" ravage local churches like a plague. In most churches Biblical discipline is impossible to administer because the minute a "brother" is confronted with his sin he just slips out the side door and is accepted into the church across town before the sun sets!

Even preachers have been seen vehemently proclaiming the autonomy and authority of the church and then "hopping" to another church because of the slightest disagreement with their senior pastor.

We have seen men who claim to be "local-church" men jump and run from a Baptist church without even giving the pastor a few minutes to discuss the difficulty. Men are turning their backs on the temple of God and looking to the eastern sky of their own personal advancement in the ministry!

In recent years we have witnessed pastors split their churches to stay in good standing with certain universities, colleges, and fellowships. Many refuse to stand for the Bible (KJB) and against the modern perversions of Scripture because they fear rejection and retaliation at the hand of groups that operate outside of the authority of the church.

They knew that if they boldly declared the position that they were taught and had taught their church they would not be "accepted" at the big meetings and conferences. Men who are known to be strong-willed with stiff backbones are seen to melt at the very suggeston of standing up to certain leaders, fellowships, and schools that embrace the Critical Text-based Bible versions.

They are looking to the eastern sky of approval from man! They ought to be more concerned for the truth of God being declared in the local church than they are the acceptance into the "big boys club."

We see the authority and the autonomy of the New Testament church sacrificed to advance colleges, universities, fellowships, and mission boards. For instance some fundamental Baptist and "Baptistic" (try to find that term in the Bible) institutions of higher learning are guilty of largely ignoring the local church in their practice. They may strongly declare their belief in the autonomy, necessity, importance, and primacy of the church. They may even teach it in their classrooms. But, in their practice they defy the temple of God as they operate outside of church authority in the training of preachers for the ministry, in ordination of preachers, and in the starting of "churches." Those three practices are the business of the churches, not the schools! Worse, one of them resists the attendance and participation of their students in legitimate New Testament churches on Sunday while another attempts to operate a "church" under the umbrella of the school! That may be a neat concept, but it is not Biblical!

In this turning of the back by the majority, the distinctives that Baptists have died for are being relegated to "background" status. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are abused, misunderstood, and observed in non-New Testament fashion. Consider the following quote from www.ianpaisley.org : "Baptism -- The Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, under Christ the Great King and Head of the Church, Realizing that bitter controversy raging around the mode and proper subjects of the ordinance of Christian baptism has divided the Body of Christ when that Body should have been united in Christian love and Holy Ghost power to stem the onslaughts and hell-inspired assaults of modernism, hereby affirms that each member of the Free Presbyterian Church shall have liberty to decide for himself which course to adopt on these controverted issues, each member giving due honor in love to the views held by differing brethren, but none espousing the error of baptismal regeneration." (Underlining by Bobby Mitchell)

That reminds me of Judges 17:6, "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes." There would be no division over baptism if Protestants and interdenominationalists would simply admit that the Bible is right and that the unbiblical practices of pouring and sprinkling are wrong! The Bible is very plain concerning the mode and proper subjects of baptism. The mode is by immersion in water. The proper subjects are those who have been saved. They are never to be infants that have no concept of sin, judgement, repentance, or faith. The proper authority to baptize is the New Testament church. None of these are mysterious, hidden, "nuggets" that are tucked away in some difficult passage of Scripture. They are plainly shown for all that are interested in the truth.

The purpose of my giving the aforementioned quote is to stir up the minds of "Baptists" that go along with the ideology, compromise, and fellowship of Protestants and inter-denominationalists whether they are called "Fundamentalists," "Preservationists," or "Baptistic," or any other such label. Brethren, our Baptist forefathers "fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas" over these so-called "controverted issues." If only the "fundamentals" are important then why did our Baptist forefathers put their lives on the line by immersing their converts? After all, they could have said, "Well, you are saved. There is no sense in risking life and limb over this 'non-essential' of baptism." They did not say that because they refused to cheapen the ordinances that Christ gave to His churches. They understood baptism to be a holy duty, a message, a testimony, and a declaration of identification with Christ and His church. If we are Baptists we ought not to turn our backs on the true churches of God by accepting the teachings and practices of protestants and interdenominationalists as Biblically legitimate. We ought to be "earnestly contending" for the truth against all error and compromise.

It is no secret that today baptism by non-New Testament churches is being accepted by so-called Baptist churches. In many "Baptist" churches the Lord's Table is not observed as a church ordinance, but it is open to anyone that wants to join in. The prevailing attitude seems to be that "if we fuss over these things we won't grow and advance the cause as quickly."

PRAGMATISM!! Our duty is to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, not to "advance the cause" or "build churches." The building of churches is the work of the Lord (Matthew 16:18). We are not only to go, teach, baptize, and teach to observe, but we are to do these according to God's manual and His manual is the New Testament! We are to teach converts to observe "all things" and to observe them as they were observed by the New Testament churches. Any other way is not the New Testament way!

Today missionaries are being commissioned, ordained, and sent forth by non-church, para-church, and even interdenominational mission boards, colleges, and universities. This was not practiced in the New Testament! The Great Commission was given to the church. Jesus did not give that commission to boards, colleges, camps, universities, fellowships, newspapers, or website administrators! Let the church do the church's job. It is time that "Baptists" and "Fundamentalists" stop trying to find a better way than God's way. It is time to stop turning our backs to the temple of God and looking to the "east" for a better way. It doesn't matter if we think we have found a more productive method. Let's do God's work God's way and His way is through New Testament churches! The situation has so deteriorated that one fundamentalist university even boasts of the number of churches that it has started. That may be an interesting fact of history, but it is not Biblical. Churches are to start churches. Colleges and Universities need to stay out of the way of the work of God through His churches.

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the greatest missions advance in all of church history took place when the recruiting, training, ordaining, and sending of missionaries was all handled by local churches? Isn't it ironic that today with all of our inventions, ideas, programs, fellowships, societies, colleges, seminaries, committees, promotion, machinery, and man-made methodology we don't even come close to accomplishing what a handful of Spirit-filled, praying, fasting, God-depending churches accomplished in the first century? Have we gotten so worldly that we preach that God's program is best but then practice our own way and demand that God bless it? God promised to build and protect His churches (Matthew 16:18). No other institution or organization can claim these promises that God gave to His churches.

Even among the local churches there is an awful turning of the back upon the temple of God. Hundreds and thousands are said to be saved and yet they never enter into the membership of the church. They are not New Testament Christians! New Testament Christians followed the Lord in believer's baptism and were admitted by such into one of His churches. There they "continued" in observation of the things that were taught of Christ. "But, at least they are going Heaven, right?" I believe that a more Biblical question would be: "How can we accept as a convert a person that will not even be obedient to the first step that a CHRISTIAN is to take?" We don't find that form of "evangelism" in the BIBLE, our Baptist forefathers did not practice it, and neither should Baptists today. After all, a convert is supposed to be one who has been converted or changed. A professing convert that rebels against baptism and church membership is simply demonstrating a heart that has never been delivered from darkness and disobedience. Let him repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and he will follow Him through the waters of baptism and into the fellowship of one of His churches!

Churches that are not fulfilling ALL of the Great Commission are disobedient! The Lord told us to Evangelize, Baptize, and Catechize (Matthew 28:18-20). I don't know who gave that outline, but it is a good one. To only evangelize is to disobey the Lord! When I worked for Merrillat Cabinet factory in Mt. Jackson, VA, I would have been fired if I only did one third of what I was told to do. Yet, most churches and their missionaries are only seeing "professions" that never produce any works of obedience, and they still claim these as saved.

Brethren, may it never be said of us that we turned our backs on God's temple and looked to the eastern sky of carnal methodology to attempt to make up for disobedience to God and His Word and the ensuing lack of power to accomplish His will. There is no higher calling than service in the temple of God, the New Testament church. But, in our service we must do God's work God's way. Let all other institutions, boards, fellowships, and Bible colleges and universities be subject to and led by New Testament churches. If those that operate unbiblically continue to turn their backs upon the temple of God then we ought to turn our backs on them. The churches of the Lord Jesus Christ did great without them (if you don't believe me read the book of Acts!) and we can certainly make it today.