Galatians 6:1, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”
When a fellow believer sins, the mature Christian believer has the mindset, “WE HAVE SINNED!” The immature believers thinks, “YOU HAVE SINNED!” I love the following quote from Pastor John Wilkerson, who said these beautiful words in a Sunday evening service from November 13, 2016 . . .
“I don't like it when someone in church falls, has a moral failure, a problem, and they have to leave here to go heal somewhere else. I think people need a place of grace. Listen, all of us are just dirt pots. We go around saying, 'Well you got more dirt on your pot than I got on my pot.' That's stupid. All of us are prone to fail. 'And ye who are spiritual, restore such a one.'
By the way, if you ever mess up, don't leave. If you ever have to leave First Baptist Church, leave on a high point. Leave when you're strong and you're going to affect someone else in the will of God. But if you're hurt don't leave. Heal where you hurt! Confess and forsake sin and let the Lord help restore you.
And God give us spiritual people within this body of believers, who are spiritual, and will restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. And that word meekness means, 'a willingness to adjust to another's pace. Another's agenda.' The Bible tells us that Jesus is meek and lowly, and we can find help for our souls. He'll come back. He's way out in front, but He'll come back, He'll adjust to our pace, to help us.”
SOURCE: Pastor John Wilkerson - https://youtu.be/FjZJSV7_0dQ?t=20m25s - First Baptist Church of Hammond; Sunday evening service, November 13, 2016.
Here are some great quotes from Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001):
“God will still use you, I don't care what you've done!” —an encouraging quote from the MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “If Thou Should Mark Iniquities, Who Could Stand?”
“If there's anybody in the Bible that God had disdain for, it was those that had disdain for other sinners!” —an awesome quote from the MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “If Thou Should Mark Iniquities, Who Could Stand?”
“The Devil will make you guilty about your past... You're not worthy to serve God, but neither is anybody else worthy to serve God, and so God's gotta have unworthy people serving Him... That's one reason why we should do everything we can to salvage people.” —a beautiful quote from the MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “If Thou Should Mark Iniquities, Who Could Stand?”
The Good Man Verses The Spiritual Man (an MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles - Few fundamentalists are spiritual). In the preceding sermon Dr. Hyles teaches a great truth. A good man mourns his pasts failures, sins and shortcomings. Since he doesn't do those bad things anymore, he is intolerant toward others who do still commit them. He is impatient toward others who still do bad things. He is a good man. He doesn't want to do bad things anymore. He is trying to live right with God's help.
The spiritual man on the other hands mourns over what he is. He mourns that he is a sinner. The apostle Paul exclaimed in Romans 7:24, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Paul mourned what he is, not the bad things he had done. The good man mourns the things he has done wrong, but the spiritual man mourns that he is wrong. The spiritual man cannot bring himself to judge others, because he sees himself as the biggest sinner. The spiritual man does not point fingers at other sinners, because he is continually aware of what he is, a woeful sinner! Do you see the big difference? By God's grace, I want to be a spiritual man, not just a good man. The Good Man Verses The Spiritual Man (MP3, Dr. Hyles; few fundamentalists are spiritual).
When a brother or sister in Christ backslides, choosing to go into sin, we ought to say, “WE HAVE SINNED!,” but never, “YOU HAVE SINNED!” We need to lower our self in humility to their level of suffering and pain, admonishing them in love with the Scriptures, but not from a judgmental standpoint. The last thing a hurting person wants to hear is some smart-aleck throwing Scriptures in their face. The best thing to do is to share some of your own spiritual failures to encourage them, BUT NEVER CONFESS YOUR SINS TO ANYONE. It's OK to admit to others that you have feet of clay, but never show them your feet. If you do confess to them, they may post it in a YouTube video or internet blog one day when you offend them, or they become disgruntled toward the church. There is no need for you to go into detail about your sinful past, unless you truly believe that it is God's will for you to do so, to help others.
The worst thing you can do when someone falters is give up on them. I know the lonely feeling of being given up on by a church. Once the pastor gives up on you, the entire church will follow his lead. I think that is ungodly. No church ought to ever give up on anyone, not even the worst sinner, or someone who doctrinally disagrees with you (which was my situation). You can still (and ought to) befriend the person with God's love. You have no idea how how just a card, or a call, once every 3 months can mean to a person. The church that gave up on me is independent Baptist, but they are neo-evangelical, not fundamental. I took a faithful stand for the King James Bible. They use the “Easy-To-Read Version” (which is impossible to comprehend because it's not God's Word). They excommunicated me.
The wealthy members in the church still take trips to manmade Israel (the spoiled pastor is always included). They make a pilgrimage trip every few years to the unholy land (they fit right in). They enjoy the good life with all their orchestras, food, entertainment, large religious school, and the money keeps flowing in). Meanwhile, they gave up on me, and I'm doing 10,000 times more to serve the Lord than they are. In fact, how are they serving God at all? How are they serving God with fake Bible revisions? How are they serving God by teaching Lordship Salvation? In fact, they are serving Satan in the church, and I believe God wanted me out of that mess. I was hurting in my soul, seeking a loving church family to love and be a part of, but when I realize what they were about (i.e., neo-evangelical), it complicated things. I learned the hard way that fundamentalists don't mix with neo-evangelicals!!!
“If there's anybody in the Bible that God had disdain for, it was those that had disdain for other sinners!” —an awesome quote from the MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “If Thou Should Mark Iniquities, Who Could Stand?”
My friend, please don't ever give up on anyone. Did you know that 90% of the people who go to church, do so simply because SOMEBODY INVITED THEM? That's a shocking thing, isn't it? In other words, most people never attend church merely because no one cared enough to invite them to go. Oh, how lousy we are as Christians today! The average church operates more like a secret society, where souls saved are required to be voted in to be a part of the family. If you don't ask to be voted in, you're treated like a subclass citizen. I'm not kidding. In the awful church that I attended, you weren't guaranteed a hospital visit from the church if you were hospitalized, unless you were a voted-in-member of the church. I think that is foolish and unbiblical. If you are saved and water baptized, you ought to be considered a member of the Baptist church. If you are saved, you are a part of the Body of Christ.
Our churches have gone to the Devil. They support manmade Illuminati Israel, woefully ignorant of recent secular history. They promote heretics on repentance like John MacArthur, Paul Washer and Ray Comfort. They are corrupt on the Gospel, using corruptible seed (false Bible revisions), and call the King James Bible only crowd “ ”a cult” (that's exactly what a Bob Jones University graduate called me and Dr. Jack Hyles). Brother, if believing that God wrote only one Book, and that those inspired words have been divinely preserved in the good ole King James Bible, makes me a cult member, then bless God... I'M A PROUD CULT MEMBER!!!
Again, Dr. Jack Hyles eloquently says:
“The Devil will make you guilty about your past... You're not worthy to serve God, but neither is anybody else worthy to serve God, and so God's gotta have unworthy people serving Him... That's one reason why we should do everything we can to salvage people.” —a beautiful quote from the MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “If Thou Should Mark Iniquities, Who Could Stand?”
One of the things that I love about Pastor Jack Hyles is that he always gave fallen people a second chance. Jonah 3:1a, “And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time.” Brother Hyles didn't throw people away. There were two deacons in the church who literally decided to swap wives. They did! They took each others wives home and swapped women. I don't know the full story of the mess. If memory serves correctly, both second marriages also ended in ruin. I know from Dr. Hyles' preaching that one of the deacons came back several years later, divorced, broken and repentant. The repentant man asked Brother Hyles if God could still use him. Dr. Hyles embraced him with God's unconditional love. The man could no longer be a church deacon, but he began driving a church bus every Sunday. He bought a chauffeur's uniform and served the Lord faithfully for the rest of his life. I love that story. There is hope for everyone!
“God will still use you, I don't care what you've done!” —an encouraging quote from the MP3 sermon by Dr. Jack Hyles titled, “If Thou Should Mark Iniquities, Who Could Stand?”
The greatest tragedy of a life of sin is not the sins committed; but rather, a wasted life for God. The worst thing about sin is not the sins them self, but the hindered life one could have lived for the Lord. We are all sinners! The Christian army is the only army in the world that slays its wounded. If there's anyone that we ought to love and befriend, it is a fellow believer that has gone into sin. Instead, Christians are often cruel, disowning a wounded member of their own church family. In most cases, once the pastor rejects a disgruntled member, the whole church as a body also rejects that person. Pastors ought never give up on anyone, just as God never forsakes or leaves His own (Hebrews 13:5).
I knew a man who divorced his wife and the church voted him out. The man reasonably quit attending the church and his life went astray. Yet, that same independent Baptist church uses satanic Bible versions, teaches Lordship Salvation, promotes the music of Walt Disney (whose CEO is an open homosexual), the women staff members wear pants, and sin is rarely preached against. Who's the hypocrites? If a man divorces his wife, it is a sin. He ought not be allowed to work on staff, be a deacon, or serve in any official capacity (such as a Sunday School teacher, janitor, et cetera). But he should never be kicked out of the church family!!! I have found that churches often use membership privileges as a means of trying to force people to live a holy life, as a replacement for preaching against sin from the church pulpit. Such behavior turns the church into a form of secret society, where you have a privileged inner class, and outsiders are made to feel ostracized instead. That's just my two cents.
There's nothing in the New Testament about being voted into a church. In Acts 2:41 we read that 3,000 souls added to the church. The only requirements were: 1) get saved, and 2) partake of believer's baptism (which is the public profession of one's faith). Water baptism is not required to be saved, but obviously is a requirement to join a Baptist church. If God doesn't require new converts to be “voted” into a church, then neither should we. Sadly, many church operate more like occult organizations... Us four and no more!
