Well praise Jesus today everyone. I wanted to make a message regarding the apostate church, you could say the bad church or the church that's fallen away from the truth. But it's four reasons why virtually every church has gone bad, they've fallen to Satan. There are some people that say, "Well Andy, you're making a blanket statement. Not every church is bad. You know, there's a lot of good churches out there." The truth is, guys, almost every church across America and across the world is apostate. There may be a few people there that have the love of Jesus in them that are still coming out of deception. But practically every single church across America and across the world is in an apostasy, meaning they have fallen away from the true faith. And I want to give you four major reasons why.
The first reason and the most important reason why I would never go back to church, what the Lord has showed His church about why He has called people out, is due to the huge sin problem in church.
There is a huge sin problem in church guys. Everyone likes to say, "Come to church as you are. Come just as you are. Come homosexual. Come with all your problems." But really what they're saying is, "Don't worry, God will accept you as you are." So it becomes this soft acceptance of sin or even a complete denial that you have to truly repent. And this is a huge problem because people are convinced that if they just pray a prayer of salvation, say "Lord Jesus, I believe that you are real, I believe that you died on the cross and resurrected." As long as they can listen to what the church believes to be true about Jesus and about baptism and about salvation, they feel like because they have professed with their mouth that they will be saved. I want to read to you what Jesus really said in regard to sin and people who continue to sin. And this should be convincing proof to you if you can look with your mind and your heart openly that 99% of churches, maybe 80-90% disagree with this. They're wanting to receive all these people into their church so they can continue to pay their bills, so they can get their tithes. They accept wickedness into their church because they're allowing for sin. I want to read you this. This is found in John 8; I'm starting in verse 31. 31Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 33They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?”
And a huge amount of Christians are looking over the fact that sin is a huge problem in taking people to hell. The Christian church has allowed for as much sin inside of her than there is outside of the church. So listen to what Jesus says to this, "I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin." a pastor, an evangelical, someone who believes in Jesus or God or the Bible, it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're an atheist or a Christian, you are still a slave to sin if you are sinning. Then Jesus says,35And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
So what Jesus is saying is sinners are not going to be in the kingdom of God forever. They may try to be in for a little bit, but if you're playing the hypocrite, if you haven't really repented, if you don't really love Jesus, you're not truly His child. And these Christians that say, "Come as you are, we accept you as you are", they're not really Jesus's children because they allow for sin. They are willful sinners. That's why they're saying, "Come as you are". They're saying you can't ever stop sinning. They openly confess that they're sinners. "We're all sinners", they say. But what they're doing is excluding themselves from the kingdom of God. So if your church does this, you can know that your church is a bad church. They have fallen away from the truth. In other words, they are apostate. So Jesus also says, Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. That means, guys, if Jesus sets you free because you call on His name and He touches your heart and He brings you into His new covenant, then you truly are free indeed, which means you're not going back to your sin every day like a dog back to its vomit.
"A lot of Christians say, Well, I'm a new creature. I've been made new." Well, how are you new if you are still living the old life? Is there fresh water and salt water coming from the same spring? Or do we know that the ocean is salt water and that the fresh springs come from the mountains? You cannot be brackish water.
You can't be lukewarm. You are either hot or you're cold. You're good or you're bad. So you have to make yourself or whatever church you're part of a good tree, a good church, or a bad tree, a bad church producing bad fruit. But you can't be both. But if Jesus sets you free, and this is what the church also does not believe in regards to sin, that you shall be free indeed. That is not what the church is teaching. They deny, they reject Jesus's words. They say you will always be a sinner. As long as you're alive, you'll be sinning. You'll always be disobeying God. And they reject what Jesus says "therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed". Free from what? Of course, free from sin. The American church and these churches across the world that are apostate, they are not free from sin, and they openly confess that. So you can know, No. 1, if your church is saying that you can go on sinning, come as you are, and all of those sorts of things, that your church is truly bad. So that probably covers 90% of the American church.
But if that doesn't convince you that most of the church is apostate, the next one, most every church that considers herself biblical falls into this category. So maybe your church rejects sin, maybe they have a doctrine that they kick people out of the church if they're homosexual， they're very hard against sin. Most churches in America today and across the world, they are idolizing the Bible, which this is the second big reason that the church is apostate, not just in America, but across the world. We have a huge amount of Christians that say they believe in Jesus, they believe themselves to be better than you, better than me, better than other people because they are educated, they know the Bible, they've went to seminary, they have their doctorates, they have spent a lot of time with their nose in the book, therefore they are good Christians and close to God because they know the Bible. They worship the Bible. They call the Bible the infallible word of God. And they are convinced that they are the elect, that they're going to heaven because they know the scripture. I could name a lot of preachers that you know that have this doctrine, but I'm going to leave names out. But this includes almost all Baptist churches, pretty much all Pentecostal churches in America, includes Lutheran churches, and Catholic churches. It includes pretty much every establishment in America that you can think of. And I want to read to you what Jesus says about these sorts of people. This is John chapter 5. Don't believe me that it's become idolatry. Believe what Jesus says. From John chapter 5, I'm going to start in verse 38.
Jesus says to these people, 38But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. 39You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
So this is the American church today and the church around the world. They say, “we are like the Bereans, guys, we search the scriptures, we're more noble than you. We know the Bible, we're educated. We keep the commandments of God. We know the Big Ten. We know the Old Testament, the New Testament, we're part of the New Covenant. We don't just sprinkle like the Catholic Church. We baptize completely in water. We do things the Biblical way.” And they're very convinced that they're close to God, because they are Biblical.
But they are in idolatry. They constantly call their Bible, the Word of God. But if you look throughout the scriptures, Jesus' name is the Word of God. You can find that in John chapter 1, you can find that in Revelation. Throughout the scriptures, Jesus' name is the Word of God, He is alive. And throughout the scriptures, when the Word of God would come to a prophet, it wasn't this book walking in, waddling in to talk to the prophet.
But the Word of God was the voice of the living God, it was Jesus. And He would speak to the prophets. That's why when Jesus came later, He would say that He knew those guys. And then He would talk to the Jews that were rejected and say, but you guys have rejected me, you're not Abraham's father, you don't know Elijah and those people. You have nothing to do with his God.
And today it's the same way. You have preachers and pastors and Christians that think they know God, because they idolize the Bible. And they love to talk about it being the infallible, meaning the perfect scripture, but the irony of it is, they don't know which version. If it really is the perfect book and completely straight from God, then there should only be one version. But there's over a hundred versions. And so, the fact that there are so many versions, and they clash with each other, means that it obviously had people, men, who are interpreting the scriptures to the best of their ability most of the time.
There’re some bad versions. But men had a part in it, and men are not perfect. So if you try to say that the Bible is perfect, then the obvious question comes up of which version is perfect, guys. And no one can show which version. There’re people that say the King James Version, 1611. Other people think it's Geneva, or it's the original manuscripts. But the truth is, the Bible is not the Word of God. The Bible is the Word of men. It's what men gave as a testimony to the Word of God. The Bible is the testimony of men. It's the Word of men. And Jesus Christ is the Word of God. And you can find that in the testimony of men. That doesn't mean that God didn't inspire the prophets.
It doesn't mean that God didn't inspire the Bible. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't read the Bible. I've been accused of all those things. And the Bible is very valid. You can read the Bible in virtually any version, and the Holy Spirit will convict you of the truth if you want to know the truth. But if you want to idolize the scripture, it doesn't matter if it's from the 1611 King James, or a Geneva Bible, or something, an original manuscript, you will still miss the point like the Pharisees did, that are continuing to idolize the Bible, thinking that they know about God because they know the Bible. Meanwhile, all along, rejecting the Christ, Jesus Christ. They are the ones that crucified Him, even though they were biblical. They knew the scriptures.
So this, guys, number one sin, that's probably about 90% of the churches across the world. Number two, Bible idolatry. If you did the math on it, I don't know exactly, but probably by the time you got to number two here, between Christian churches that are accepting of sin, and that idolize the Bible, I would say that's probably up to 99% or more of all the churches in America, and probably in the world. But number three, so this is the third reason why the church has gone bad. The church is led by men, not God, and people are idolizing men, not God. Pretty much every church has a pastor, and people go around talking about Pastor So-and-so, or Father So-and-so, and they make that man their spiritual leader, their guide, and they say that they're going to church to get fed. And so, instead of the church being a group of people that come with a new song, a new revelation from God, a new word from the Holy Spirit, they all go around to put themselves at the feet of their pastor, and their pastor will teach them. And the pastor becomes an idolized man, and most pastors at churches, they love their title of Father So-and-so, or Elder, or just Pastor Whoever.
I want to read to you what Jesus said about this, and this is found in Matthew 23. So Matthew 23, I'm starting in verse 8.
Jesus said, 8But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. 9Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. 10And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. 11But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. 13“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
So there you have it. How many churches across America are calling their pastor Rabbi, Teacher, Father? How many of them are elevating a man, and listening to the words of a man, instead of making Jesus their teacher, and considering themselves all brothers? Now I know a lot of pastors, they read this, and they say, “Well, Jesus was just emphasizing that we shouldn't be prideful”. But because people are listening to the pastor on specific words from Jesus like this, instead of listening to Jesus, they are deceived. They are not coming into the truth, they are not entering into the kingdom of God, because their pastor is blocking them. Their pastor isn't entering into the kingdom of God himself, or herself, and the congregation certainly isn't, if they are being led by a con artist. So between these three major reasons, churches being in sin, churches worshipping the Bible, churches being led by men, what percent of the American church falls into this category? At this point it's like 99.9999%, guys. I don't know any church that is outside of that category, that is a 501c3 church, or that is a church that is not an organized church. Now there are individuals who have come out of sin, there are individuals who don't worship the Bible, but that worship Jesus, and there are individuals who are led by Jesus Christ and not by men. But the organizations all fall into this category, not a single one of them. You can make a blanket statement and be 99.9999% right, because you can know, even if you go to their website, you will see that they admit that they are in sin, they admit that they worship the Bible, and they admit that they are led by their pastor and their leader so and so. So right there it proves 100% that they are not the true church, they are apostate.
And the final one that I want to bring up, and there are others, but the final major reason that virtually every church is apostate is false worship. False worship in church and false brotherhood. I want to read to you from Romans chapter 1. In Romans, let's see here, Romans chapter, sorry guys, Romans chapter 12 verse 1, it's written, 1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
So if you want to be perfect and acceptable to God, you have to be transformed in your mind and in your heart. And true worship is doing this. True worship does not mean doing ceremony in church for an hour or 20 minutes. You can know that these people are not doing true worship, because after the 30 minutes of false worship that they do in their church, they go out and they talk about football, they talk about all the wicked things of the world, and then after church, they are talking about all the pornographic things and all the things that you know a Christian should never even utter.
So if they are really doing worship, they would be transformed in their mind, their heart, their tongue would be transformed, they'd be part of the new covenant, where they would be a new creation. The old would be gone. But for these people that are worshiping in church, and they are convinced that they are doing worship for half an hour, that is not true worship. Because real worship, as we know, is offering your body as a living sacrifice, and that is your reasonable act of service. That's your reasonable worship. Real worship is offering yourself to God and saying, “Here I am, I want to please you every moment of my life. I'm laying down my life for you Lord, to live for you, to obey you, to obey you in my workplace, to obey you with my family, to obey you and have integrity even behind closed doors.” That is true worship. Not walking into a church, doing phony baloney worship songs for 25 minutes.
So how many churches fall into these categories? Number one, they admit that they are sinners. Number two, they are worshiping the Bible, calling it the Word of God. Number three, they're being led by their pastor, and led by men. And number four, they're doing false worship with a false brotherhood. That includes virtually every single church across all of America. Almost every single church across all of the world.
And that is why when I have been given a message to speak against the falsehood of the church, I can make a blanket statement confidently that these churches that are 501c3, these churches that are part of the Babylon church system, they are ungodly, they are bad churches, they are apostate, they're evil, Satan has penetrated them. I don't need to go into details about every single one of the churches, where they're located. I don't need to go to every part of California and investigate to see if your specific church is bad. You can know if they fall into any one of these four categories that they are not a true church. The true church has come out of sin. The true church worships Jesus Christ, not the Bible. The true church is led by the Holy Spirit that Jesus gives. They're not led by men or another pastor or a Catholic priest. The true men and women of God who are His disciples, they offer their bodies as living sacrifice. They don't do false worship in church.
So I hope this encourages someone to come into the true church. The true church worships in spirit and in truth. They love Jesus with all of their heart. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They're not sitting in pews. They're not putting themselves before the feet of lying prophets and deceptive pastors and teachers. The true children of God sever themselves from ungodliness. They sever themselves from Babylon the Great, from the harlot church system. You have to sever yourself and touch nothing that is unclean if you want to walk with Jesus. Do you love Him? Do you love Jesus with all your heart? Or do you love the apostate false church?
You will have to choose between being part of Jesus' people and being part of the devil's people. Which side are you on? Are you on the side of truth with Jesus? Do you love Him? Are you part of those who have been called out of the world and out of the false church? Or are you part of those that are trying to justify religion and the dead works of the flesh?
May the grace of Jesus be with you.
