Religious people amaze me with some of the things they do and say, but the brethren astound me with some of the things they say and do. It is not important that I am either amazed or astounded, but what is important is the way some people believe they have the right to act and react with regard to God. That we are living in unholy, irreverent and disrespectful days is not something that anyone who is reasonably observant would deny, but in the last several months I have observed a kind of irreverence and disrespect that I have never before seen in the fifty years that I have been a Christian.
In the past ten or twelve months, I have had recounted to me stories of people, all of whom were of the liberal hue, walking out of the services of the church because they did not like something the preacher said. The first time I heard of it happening, I said, “Oh, well that was in Tennessee, it was an isolated incident, and I will probably never hear of it again.” How wrong I was! At least five times since that time I have heard of it happening again, and the last time not too far from home.
Can you imagine the colossal audacity, and the unmitigated arrogance that it takes for someone who calls himself a Christian to get up and walk out of a worship that is supposedly directed to God because he/she does not like something the preacher said? That person has said, by his/her actions, I have come here not to hear the truth, nor to hear anything that I do not like and if you do not preach to suit me I’ll leave, because I know what I want and I won’t have it any other way! This person is saying what is important in worship is that I go away feeling very well having heard nothing that will make me think or that will challenge my way of thinking in any way. People who behave as we have just described are having a very hard time, if not an impossible time of dealing with their tantrum throwing spoiled child image. Not only so, but a person who would do such a thing as what we have mentioned is so arrogant that he must believe that he knows and understands the truth about everything. Elders in the Lord’s church should take these spoiled children to the “wood shed,” but more than likely they will chastise the preacher for “offending” these prima donnas who know nothing of the truth or beauty of the Christian faith. For shame! Who are these people that the preacher should not say something that they do not like?
But the important thing in the whole matter is not so much the affect that such activity has upon the preacher or on the elders, but the affect that it has on God! The preacher has received his charge from God himself, and it is God who has designed the kind of worship that is to be carried on by the church. Among the things that the preacher is to do is to reprove, rebuke and exhort the arrogant ones. He is to speak the truth in love, and if that truth rebukes a person, then in love he is to take that rebuke. Worship is not a football game in which people have the right to get up and leave if they do not like the plays which are being ordered by the coach. Worship is a time when we come together to extol, adore, pay homage to the God of the universe in his prescribed way; it is not a time to show petulance or to throw a temper tantrum because one does not like what is said. I wonder if these people ever get the idea that the providence of God may have so ordered those statements they hate so much that they will walk out on God in order to teach them something they vitally need to be saved.
I do not see how such a person could be considered a Christian in any sense of the word, and certainly not in the New Testament sense of the word. I do not understand how anyone, unless there are highly extenuating circumstances such as sickness, death or a family emergency can walk out on worship under any circumstances, but to throw a tantrum and act like a spoiled brat is just beyond the realm of understanding by any reasonable Bible believing person! Such a person needs to spend much time on his knees with a penitent heart praying to God for forgiveness. Do you know that if the people on the day of Pentecost had conducted themselves like the prima donnas in the church today, we would never have had the church and the hope of salvation?
[Editor’s Note: In the days of antiquity, sometimes those who despised God’s Word would essentially kill God’s mailman (Acts 6:8-7:60). It was a real treat for the apostle Paul and for every faithful preacher today to find in an audience those who truly cherish the Word of God. “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe” (1 Thessalonians 2:13).]