If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. (James 3:13-16).I never could figure out why a person will tear a church up to get what they want. But I have seen it over and over. It is ultimately what drove me from the ministry.
We are dealing with things eternal, things holy, the will and work of God; and yet someone decides that his or her opinions on things are so vital and so powerful that they are willing to kill a church rather than give up their opinions.
And it happens a lot.
It may be the way we worship, or who is in charge of a certain program, or what slant on a doctrine is preached, or what translation of the Bible is used, or even whether or not a certain program is used. I have even seen someone quit coming because someone drank coffee in the sanctuary.
The pettiness of the complaint makes no difference. It seems, in fact, that the more petty the complaint, the larger the ruckus.
The person says, in essence, this complaint of mine, this desire of mine is so great that it supercedes the will of God for this church. It is so vital, it is greater than the gospel message.
How the message is preached is greater than the message itself. How the praise is sung is greater than the praise itself. How the lost are reached is greater than reaching the lost.
And sooner or later, that which is holy cannot stand before that which is divisive. It is a fact that no matter who holy God was, his power for goodness was eliminated by the fact that Israel insisted on following their own wishes.
A church cannot stand up under this kind of satanic opposition. Sooner or later, people begin to leave. Those who want the control know that, if the church is to survive, it will have to give in to them, or it will die.
So on one level the church survives, but the Spirit of God leaves it. As Jesus said in Revelation 2:5, if this continues, Jesus will remove that church’s lampstand. It may still be alive on one level, but on that vital level – in the sight of God – it will be dead.
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