Part 7: Today's Questions and Problems
Sometimes people refuse to associate with the church because Christians may seem to be less than perfect. A frequent excuse for not seeking salvation through Jesus Christ is, they say, "the church is full of hypocrites." Sadly, this charge is partly true. This is an apology, a personal confession, and a statement of fact; after all, Christians are still only people, and people often fail to be at their best. The answer is; yes, there are hypocrites in the church, but it is an overstatement to say that the church is "filled with hypocrites."
We should give Christians some benefit of the doubt and assume that, although they are human, they are earnestly trying to live in accord with their convictions. We must recognize the vast difference between those who are trying to live as Christians but who make mistakes and those who say they are Christians but do not try to live better.
The church is not the only place where we find hypocrites, however. They exist on the golf course, the highways, and in business. They are everywhere. Although you may not attend church because of them, have you given up golf, or driving your car, or working for a living because of them? Of course not! We overlook the hypocrisy of our golf companion when he cheats on his score. We do not cease to drive our car because the man in the next lane speeds. We do not refuse our paycheck even though a fellow worker steals and fails to give a day's work for a day's pay. Why, only when the church is involved, do we feel hypocrisy seriously enough to withdraw from that association? If we quit church because of a hypocritical Christian, why don't we quit work because of a hypocritical fellow worker? It would be just as logical, yet I have never heard this excuse used for quitting work, have you?
It has been said (but not by the Bible) that the church is a hospital for sinners. Jesus said nearly the same thing in Matthew 9:12:
It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."
More exactly, the church is where God places those who come to him through Christ; See Acts 2:47. However, it is clear that, of those who come, many do not remain faithful to the teachings of Christ. Jesus spoke of this situation in Matthew 13:24-30 when He told the parable of the wheat and the tares. Tares are a useless weed that, in the parable, were sown in a farmer's field by an enemy. Rather than pull out the sprouting tares, thereby destroying much of the wheat, the farmer decided to let the wheat and the tares grow together and then to separate them at harvest. Jesus explained His parable in Matthew 13:37-43 saying:
The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. But the weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be in the end of the age. The Son of man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
Admittedly, there are non-Christians who live with better morals than some who claim to be Christians. If you are one of these and you are a very good person, does that eliminate your need for a savior? The apostle, Paul, said (in Romans 3:23):
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Thus, all men need the savior Jesus Christ, and there are none who can come to God without the savior; Jesus said in John 14:6:
I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by me.
Thus, if even a good man is to be saved, it must be through the way of Jesus Christ.
Church membership is unavoidable when one obeys the will of Christ; this obedience results in God adding the obedient believer to the church. It is God who places the believer in the church; the believer has no choice in this matter. Salvation and eternal life are obtained only through Christ. Christians, themselves, must live in the church with hypocrites who claim to be Christians and whose lives embarrass both them and Christ. However, those who seek salvation must not let the hypocrites deter them, for disobedience to the will of Christ will result in condemnation.
The existence of hypocrites in the church will not be a valid excuse on judgment day.