Judas and the Modern Sin of Cults

 The name Judas actually means "Jew." This is important because Judas represents the betrayal that God's people are enacting toward Christ. 

First, Judas believes that Jesus is in fact the Christ. That is clear. This is not just a speculation from the fact that Judas has witnessed all of Christ's miracles, but in his own confession when he sees that Christ was :crucified, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!" (Matt 27:4). He knows that Christ is innocent because He is who He says He is. So Judas believes.

Why does he betray Him? This is the most important question that most people never ask and then apply to themselves and it is the very sin we find in most churches and cults today.

Judas is also said to be dipping into the offering box. He likes the benefits that following Jesus has brought him. That's important to note because what it tells us is that Judas is in love with the benefits of following Christ more than he loves Christ.

This is likely why he hands Christ over to the authorities. He wants to force a confrontation where Jesus will take over and likely wipe out the Roman Empire, rule the world, and that brings even more benefits to Judas. He's had a little taste of luxury and riches and wants more. He's done sleeping in the fields. He wants to sleep in palaces. He wants that throne Jesus promised him. He wants the world bringing offerings. He wants the benefits and those benefits are more important than what Jesus wants. So he betrays Him.

How are modern churches and cults betraying Christ? I've seen the same thing over and over again. If you were to prove to the average Mormon that Mormonism is false, do you think they care? Nope. Because they love the community of the church they created. They love the people. They love the activities. They love the benefits. Whether Christ is distorted and replaced with a false Christ is secondary. They are so in love with what surrounded their false religion that they are unwilling to sacrifice it to lift Christ up.

Likewise, I cannot tell you how many church scandal videos I have watched in the last two weeks where the congregation does not care about their pastor's disqualifying sins. They love the church they have. They love the people. They love the activities. They love the relationship they have with the pastor. They love the benefits and so Christ is thrown under the bus. His holiness and what He says He wants in the Scripture when it comes to ministers doesn't matter. It's easier to make excuses and not look at it, say it's forgiven, say it's a long time ago, emphasize all of his good qualities and ignore the bad, etc. 

This is the danger in falling in love with the benefits of Christ over Christ Himself. If we love Christ more than the benefits of following Him in a particular community then we will lift up His Word over what we want to happen. We will lift up His holiness over our protection of the community, a pastor or pastors, etc. We will acknowledge His lordship by lifting up what His Word requires of us and lifting up what He says about qualifications of a minister and place them over our personal views and opinions that do not appear in Scripture. But if we love the benefits? Now we have to make excuses. Now we have to talk about how much this guy has been with me through thick and thin. Now I have to talk about how we're all sinners saved by grace. Now I have to belittle the sins. Now I have to belittle those who expose those sins. Now I have to slander and attack those people. Now I have to defend what no Christian who is loyal to the Lord should ever defend.

But if I love the community, I love the denomination the church is in, I'm in love with not having to make another move, I'm in love with comfort over confrontation, I'm in love with the benefits more than I love Christ, then I will find myself defending the indefensible and buying into whitewashed lies. 

You don't become a Judas by verbally rejecting the faith. You become a Judas by loving what you have as a result of following Christ just a little bit more than Christ Himself. When it comes time to choose between them, you will sell what you love less to buy what you truly love. 

Judas didn't see himself as a Judas. He saw himself as faithful while getting what he wanted and surely what he thought Christ would be happy with in the end. Instead, the Scripture remembers him as the son of perdition and he is removed from his eternal throne to spend eternity outside of Christ's kingdom that exists only for those who love Christ more than the kingdom one receives from following Him.

Unqualified Forgiven Sinners

 A minister was out preaching the gospel on the street one day and came across a horrible sinner. As he was preaching, the sinner came up to him and said that he believed and repents of his sin. The minister was overjoyed and told him that he should come to church. The man instantly replied, "Should I prepare a sermon? I would like to hold a meeting with the elders and see if we can make some changes in the church and direct the funds to certain areas I think would be best?" The minister was puzzled. Did this man think that because he was forgiven that he was someone qualified to be an elder? 

"I'm not sure what you mean," the minister replied. "You would be coming to church as a layman, not a pastor."

"But I'm forgiven by grace. You just said that it isn't by works. We're all sinners, and that means that you too are a sinner. If you're a sinner and I'm a sinner then we are equally qualified to be a pastor."

"I don't think you understand," the minister said. Although it is true that everyone has sinned, not everyone has come to master themselves in a way so that they walk not in the flesh and sin but in the Spirit. Ministers are to have mastered themselves in such a way so as to not commit egregious sins or have a pattern of conduct in their lives where sin widely marks their character. If a minister sins, it should not be of an egregious nature, i.e., a sin that leads to death or gets the death penalty in the law, but rather sins that can be atoned for in the law, but even they should be fewer and far between rather than making up his overall character."

"That seems like you are saying that you are better than me," the man replied. "That sounds like the sinner and publican story in the Bible, where he says he's not as great as a sinner as the other man."

The minister replied, "Well, first that story isn't about whether someone can have mastered their sin more than another. It's about the fact that both men are sinners and one refuses to acknowledge his sin and the other acknowledges it." There is nothing in that story that has to do with qualifications for ministry but rather it is a story of forgiveness and right standing with God."

"I just think if we're all saved by grace, then no one is better than anyone," said the man.

"I think you're thinking of it as a competition," said the pastor. "It's simply a matter that some are infants, some are children, some are young men, and some are old men, or elders in terms of their maturity in the Lord. It has nothing to do with being better in nature. An old man is not better than an infant. They are both human. But an old man is better at understanding than an infant. An old man is better at lots of things an infant is not as good at doing until he matures. There is a difference between one's value in nature versus what he is fit to do in life. A brain surgeon is not better than I am as a human being, nor is he somehow less in need of God's forgiveness and grace than I am. But he is more qualified to be a brain surgeon than I am."

"I see," said the man. "So being forgiven is a completely different issue than whether someone is qualified for a specific ministry."

"Yes," replied the minister. 

"I get it now. I should then just participate in the church as a layman until the day, perhaps, that I might mature. If I evidence immaturity by sinning egregiously or having my life characterized by the struggle of sin then I should refrain from ministry because that is evidence, not that I am not forgiven, but that I have not obtained maturity yet."

"That is correct," said the minister. "If only everyone understood that."

Old Sins and the Qualification of the Pastor's Household

 Old sins. What a weird term. If you knew a man who raped women in the past, but said that was a decade ago, would you let him date your daughter because his sins were old? If someone used to murder people but hasn't since he's been kept from people by going to jail, and now seems like a great guy, should you let him out of jail because those murders were old sins? 

What if while someone is a pastor, he not only has sons that are involved in sexual immorality but he participates in those sins by both encouraging and failing to discourage them from those sins, not separating from them but instead letting them remain as a part of his house, but now that his kids are out of the house and the situations have changed and maybe his sons are no longer in these sins for a while, being now grown up, has concluded that he's good now? 

Let me ask a different question: "What if a woman who engages in an adulterous affair and abandons her family to go off and marry her affair partner experiences the death of her former husband? Is she no longer an adulterous because her former husband suddenly has died or is she still an adulterous and you just can't see it now. From now on, everyone who meets her will know nothing about her adultery. Her former husband will only be known as having died and she married a new one. Her adultery is now invisible but it has not truly disappeared. Instead, she is still an adulterous, but you just can't see it now. If you were to try and see whether she is an adulterous, you have to look at the time when her husband was alive and what she did during that time. That's the only way to see it.

Likewise, when it comes to whether a pastor is qualified with the qualification of being a good father who rules his household well, and by that the Scripture means, none of his children can be rightly accused as committing an egregious sin while in a good standing relationship with their father who should discipline and cut them off from his household while they are in that sin, one can only see whether someone does not rule his household well by looking back at the time he ruled his household. Once his sons are grown, and maybe even in different life circumstances so that they are no longer visibly doing those sins, whether he is a good ruler of his household cannot be seen anymore. Like the adulterous who's husband dies, it is impossible to measure this qualification unless one looks back at the time he was a father who had a relational authority over his children. It is not whether he is still doing being a poor ruler of his household now that his children are gone or different. It is how he ruled his household at the time he actually ruled over the household. (The household is extended as long as one has a good-standing relationship with his children even if he has allowed them to move out.)

In this regard, the old sins are the new sins in the sense that the old sins committed that would disqualify a pastor back then when his sons were in sexual immorality disqualify him now because they are the current metric that are to be used as to whether a man is qualified in this area. As Paul argues, a man who is disqualified in this area should not rule the household of God.

1. The sins of his family are his sins unless he breaks from his children (or wife), as Eli's sons' sins cause God to give the death penalty, not only to his sons, but to Eli because he does not cut them off. 

2. He will rule the church the same way by fudging on sin and not removing evil people from among the church, thus corrupting the church in a manner that Achan corrupted Israel.

3. A man who disregards God in order to retain a relationship with his children has no business leading people to follow God above all else.

Old sins? No, there are just qualifications to use as a measuring stick to see if God has prepared a man in his life for ministry or whether a man who is disqualified is wrongfully in ministry. 

If someone shows themselves to be disqualified in these things while doing ministry, he is disqualified, the Spirit is not with him, and his ministry will belong to the devil, along with all of those who are a part of that ministry. The only thing that would save a church would be if people placed themselves under the ministry of other elders who are qualified. Like children under an unbelieving father but a believing wife, the believing wife makes the children holy. But if such qualified elders should be removed, and the entire ministry of the church becomes his ministry, then the entire church will become the possession of the devil. 

Old sins? Old sins are simply the report of sins that were once in the present. The sins in the present will one day be revealed and they will be called old sins; but they're really all sins that God demands we use as a measuring stick as to whether one is qualified for ministry, and this is true whether they are repented of or not.

The murderer repents but he's still not qualified to walk free among us. The rapist repents but he's still not qualified to marry my daughter. Forgiven? If truly repentant. Qualified? Absolutely not! 

Follow Up from My Last Post

 You may be wondering what became of the sins I mentioned in the previous post. We heard out the multiple witness accusations as the judges of these matters, and the elders informed both the church that left and their denomination of our decision. Their response? As someone we know in the military said it, it's according to what those in the military are taught: Deny, deny, deflection!

First, their entire response was based upon the false assumption that these are charges that I was making instead of understanding that these are charges based upon our investigation into these matters based upon eye witness testimony, some of which included family members and the accused themselves over the years. I am simply one witness, although a key one, since I had the most access to what was being said and done behind the scenes.

But we were not submitting accusations for their elders to judge [Who would ever find themselves guilty if they were the judges of their own qualifications? Conflict of interest would dictate that they cannot] or for their denomination to judge [What authority does God through His Word give to denominations? None. They're manmade.] or for their laity to judge [The laity in a church judging a matter either way is evil as Christ does not give that authority to them. The layman who judges the matter on his own speaks against Christ]. Instead, these are charges that are made as a verdict of the judgment that Christ has given the rightful judges, the elders of the church from which they were never released, to make.

Second, they argued that we did release them as a church plant, and therefore, we don't have authority to judge them. This is a very interesting claim. For one, we (i.e., both their leadership and ours) have put churches and people under church discipline, i.e., excommunicated and handed them over to the devil, who were in other churches, including pastors of other churches. Christ isn't bound by walls. So even if they had been released from us, this is a nonargument. On another point, however, no one actually came to us and asked whether they could go to this church. Now, this may be controversial to the American mindset, but if you are under authority you need to be released from that authority. If you can just choose to be under any authority at any given time that you like, then you are not under any authority but your own. I'm not sure how the prodigal son becomes a prodigal if he doesn't need to be released from his father. His father seems to think that he's dead until he repents and returns to him.

On top of this, strange that a church plant began with a coup to take over the church through secret meetings and phone calls, attempted to get another elder on board with the coup to legitimize it, then when that didn't work, through our own gullibility being used to present this as some congenial split, all the while the vow to not campaign was being ignored in order to gut the church that was supposedly sending this group out as a plant. What plant do you know of that is not accountable to its sending church? What plant do you know of poisons its members into thinking that it was the other side's fault as to why you split rather than taking accountability for its rebellion and splitting the church over a single pastor's personal preferences and dislikes? What church plant promises to leave within a couple weeks and then stays in the same building for almost a year and then when asked to leave threatens to undo its sending church and attempts to manipulate its way into getting the building and taking away the time from its sending church that was so graciously given to it even when it was in sin against it? What church plant ignores the elders of its sending church that the pastor they are following is disqualified from ministry and the two elders he appointed were unqualified for ministry (something announced to them when the split was happening)? They were all told this beforehand yet they ignored it because they really, really wanted to have their own church to mold in their own images. Even by their own admission, it was a split, as they admitted that they didn't agree with the decision of the session, i.e., Christ's voice through the two or three, and therefore were going to leave and start their own church. That's not a church plant. That's a mutiny and a split, Ladies and Gents!

My fellow elder and I wish we could go back to make it clear that we did not consider it a plant, and that was never said by us. That was the propaganda of the other side to hide the sin of insurrection committed by this pastor and two or our deacons and many of the households of the church. We were so exhausted and just wanted him to leave so badly, we unfortunately just let him do what he wanted on the way out. I hugged him in the end, not to say that this was somehow all great and good, but rather my hug meant, "Goodbye" and "I'm sorry I couldn't save you," which I sincerely state not in some sarcastic manner but as heartfelt. I deeply regret not being able to pull him out of his rebellion in order to save his life. I do not believe that he, or any of his family, will enter the world to come.

Thirdly, the biggest pushback was about whether the document they got was in accordance with protocol and proper procedures. I must confess, as a Bible scholar, I'm not quite sure what protocol or procedures they're talking about as the verses cited have no relevance to what we did as we either did them or they refer to personal relationships. I can only imagine that it’s according to their denominational, man-made procedures by which we are not bound nor are helpful. In fact, their ad hoc elder wasn't interested in even asking us who the witnesses were, but proceeded to speculate that it was all from one source, that it was sinful to break his imaginary procedures of his denomination because he thought we were submitting accusations. He was not interested in asking questions, but rushing to judgment, in order to dismiss it as fast as he could, he just made blind accusations against us without even talking to us about it. Ironic, isn't it? Unfortunately, as an old friend of one of the elders, he is guilty of what he tried to pin on us (unrighteous judgment, not following the biblical procedure by even investigating the claim of at least two witnesses, i.e., us, and extreme bias). His bitterness toward us may stem from past interactions we've had with him. Whatever it may be, he just projected a bunch of irrelevant claims that would have been easily refuted had he even cared to ask any questions at all. A couple of the witnesses were even willing to reach out to him until I told them his responses and at that point didn't think he was fit to judge the matter objectively. Ironically, as well, the Scripture commands that one is not to even entertain an accusation against elders except on the basis of two or three witnesses (1 Tim 5:19, something we actually were mindful of when we wrote up our decision (we have quite a few, not just two or three), and yet, I'm pretty sure we're elders and he had no problem shooting out lots and lots of accusations based upon the assumption that we were handing him accusations rather than the judgment of Jesus Christ from his highest authority on earth, the local church.

Here is how we went about this matter and the biblical precedent for it:

1. If someone sins a sin leading to death, and it is established to have been committed, it is to be exposed and judged immediately. There is no further trial if the sin is established and it is made known to everyone along with the judgment of excommunication and the handing over to the devil. This is clear from multiple examples where judgment is made immediately either based on at least a couple witnesses or if it is committed in front of the elders/apostles so that they need no witnesses for it (Acts 5:1-11; 13:9-11; 8:20-24; Rom 16:17-20; 1 Cor 5; 1 Tim 1:18-20; 5:20-21; 2 Tim 4:10, 14; 3 John 9-11; Jude; Rev 2-3). This is built off of the idea that if a sin leads to death, the one who commits it must immediately be removed from the camp. Only if there is repentance, i.e., a confession of his crimes and a disposition to make restitution, can one be forgiven and allowed back in the camp.

2. If an elder commits a sin that is against another leading to death, he is disqualified from ministry and is to be exposed. 1 Timothy 5:20-21 states, "The elders who sin are to be exposed in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of His elect angels, to carefully observe these instructions without bias, doing nothing because of your personal relationship with or feelings toward someone." 

3. Matthew 18 is about personal feuds, not sins leading to death. As usual, Matthew 18 is misapplied to these circumstances. It's actually what stopped me from obeying all of the above verses throughout the years. I thought if someone said sorry that discipline could go no further. I didn't realize that (1) repentance isn't just saying sorry, and (2) Matthew 18 is a passage concerning forgiveness in one's personal relationships with one another as Christians. This is why some mss. state "if your brother sins against you." This was to make clear that since the sin is against you, you can forgive it without taking it to the church. But even this isn't talking about sins leading to death like insurrection and adultery. The Gospel of Matthew makes it clear that these sins largely have to do with calling people names and having personal feuds with one another. Now, even calling a brother a name or feuding with him may lead to death as murder if it is not repented of and reconciled, but some sins are far more egregious and cannot be dealt with on an individual level because they have consequences for the whole community.

For instance, in Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus warns that calling a brother a name is worthy of hell but can be remedied through repentance so that he no longer has an accusation against him. The phrase, "Truly, I say to you, you will not come out of there until you have paid up the very last penny," is echoed in the statement of Matthew 18:34, "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him." Verse 35 of Matthew 18 makes it very clear that this is about personal forgiveness and not church discipline. Church discipline is only cited in Matthew 18:17-20 if the sin turns into a murder through unrepentance. The rest of the chapter is about these types of sins in personal relationships, as Peter's question assumes.

Likewise, Matthew 5:44 indicates that there will be feuds within the covenant community where some people "persecute you." Whereas one might be inclined to think of this as a Roman persecution where Christians are being thrown in jail and killed, Matthew defines persecution in v. 11 as insults and false accusations. Again, these have to do with personal relationships of sins that can be atoned for through repentance and restitution even in the Mosaic law itself (Lev 6:1-8). There is no sacrifice in the Mosaic Law for an intentional/high handed/purposeful sin leading to death. Although in the NT, one can be forgiven of such sins, they are disqualifying from ministry since the person has proven themselves to be spiritually immature.

Hence, since we went through the biblical process, have the authority according to Jesus Christ to judge issues of church discipline according to the one part of Matthew 18 that does involve church discipline and because we have apostolic succession to render judgment (vv. 17-20, see the parallel in Matt 16:18-19; John 20:22-23), and have done so in accordance with the way the apostles both render judgment and commanded we must do so as well, we have rendered our verdict and warning, which is Christ's verdict and warning. All who have received Christ's words through us and have rejected it have now placed themselves outside of His loving care and have given themselves over to the devil.

So that's how that all went.

As for us, the only repentance that came out of this was from us. I submitted to the judgment of our leadership, presented it to our people, and gave the option for anyone to object to my staying in ministry. 

So what was the point of all of this if the other church wasn't going to budge one ounce toward true repentance? It really was a cleansing for us, me personally, and a great catalyst for teaching. We had been as wrong about church discipline and repentance as these people are, and over the last year, God has been showing us our error so that we might now come to the right of it. 

Time does nothing toward sin. As Christ states in Matthew 5, a sin committed against someone will carry over into eternity. It is not forgiven or lessened in any way simply because it has been a long time since committed. When people are thrown into the lake of fire, though it be a trillion years later, the sin committed in their lives here will continue to be as potent and poisonous as when they first committed it, perhaps, even more so. Knowing that we had committed so many errors, therefore, and have sinned ourselves, even though with sins not leading to death ourselves, and knowing that time is not a factor, we decided to do what even the other church did when they were a part of us, i.e. render judgment upon those who had sinned (in that case, they had caused a split and left and had been gone for over a year before this pastor and the other pastors/elders decided to put them on discipline--no denomination or man-made procedures needed). They were rebuked. They did not repent. The end.

Now, we are simply left to see who will jump into Korah's pit with him so that we might prepare our final verdict.