Be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater: My 2 pence concerning New Age Preachers and the 'sins' of "Men of God".

The discourse about the church and its ills continue everyday unfortunately, and we are not in short supply of ‘men of God’ who have continued to bring the body of Christ into ridicule. Earlier this evening,  my wife was watching a video on WhatsApp where a prominent ‘holy ghost fire church was through into a free for all, blow-landing, chair throwing fight in, of all places, the city of London! Why? The Pastors and elders of the church were alleged by the laity to have embezzled church funds to buy luxury cars and houses back in Lagos.

I could not bring myself to watch the lengthy video with her, because my heart was broken again. Another church; another scandal. When will it stop? I had written the piece below in the past as an argument to a group of friends to alert them to the responsibility that they have in making the church accountable. 

I thought I’d put it up and share to the public. So hope you make some sense out of it. 

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If you want to know the truth about God, you have to search His word, or search His Spirit. We know that there is no other place for truth about God outside of his word. So the person who wants the truth of faith and relationship with God must look into the word and get the revelation he needs to work by faith.

The Church according to the bible is the pillar and the foundation of faith (! Tim 3:15), so the church is a guide to all who seek the truth.

However, there is no gain saying the fact there are all kinds of men of God who are preaching the word for their gain (The bible also have foretold this one in Timothy). They are leading the brethren astray but again, it is because the brethren are not in love with their God. 2Tim 3:2 In the last days. terrible times will come. 2For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good….

So I say that we have a responsibility to know God for ourselves so we can discern ‘Holy’ wrong from right. I posit that a Christian who has the sincere yearning for the truth of God will not be misled by a man of God’ preaching falsehoods or preaching God for gain. Whoever is so misled does not have the sincere yearning for God, because if you did, God will correct the deception planted in your heart.

How does this all concern us? A few people have taken the ‘siddon look’ approach, choosing to separate themselves from the church so they are not part of them. Not going to church is the wrong response to the issue. Not going to church makes you unaware of the evil in the first place and makes you a target for a life of heresy.

However, going to church means you can influence the truth, and you can be a light. As to the toddler in Christ I peter 2:2 says “2Like newborn infants, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation”

So even a newborn has no excuse from seeking the truth of God in the bible. And I say this to you not as an argument, but God loves his little children and he will not allow them to be confused if their hearts yearn for him. As for the person who tries to mislead them, his punishment is stated in the bible too.

As per the new age church, I say that these things are proliferating these days, but they have always been there in measures since the time of Christ and the apostles. But Jesus already said that because there will be increase in wickedness, the love of men will wax cold. So for me, people are using the unrighteous pastors to deny themselves of the fellowship they can find in the church…. Their love waxing cold.

My point about us knowing the truth is like this. We all know these truth, about the church…. And if we are students of the bible, we should know that this is expected. We should therefore not malign the church because of the sins of many. The church is still the place of truth. Sometimes, for a lot of Christians, the situation is very convenient, and internally they like that they can ‘escape’ godly injunctions with the excuse of unrighteous priests. However, this is wrong, because your service is onto God. If you are not meant to be in a church or the church is preaching heresy, ask God to lead you to another place and He will. 

So I say to my friends, what does God want you to do? To abandon the church or to contribute to its reform? I don’t think God will have us abandon the church and paint it black. It will be a matter of our convenience if we do that. 

Finally, as I earlier said, we all know the truth, but if we are confused, let’s ask God to reveal Himself to us. As we know, where two or three people are gathered for God, he is there. The race is not carnal, and is not physical. We need to know what he has called us to do, and we really can’t do it outside of church, whatever we call a church.