I had a discussion with a man I've know for many years. I used to attend his church about 20 years ago. He asked me why I no longer attend his church. I was trying to think of a diplomatic answer. I couldn't. So I said nothing. Although I really enjoyed most of the people I knew from there and held some fond memories, it was one of the most painful spiritual experiences I have had in life, however I count myself blessed by the Lord in what He taught me from it.

It started out as a wonderful place to worship and learn. The first few years I was there, we had a pastor who was one of the most well-educated but down-to-earth Christian men I have ever known. He had a way of relating God's Word to people's hearts. He did a wonderful job of teaching from the pulpit. He taught us what the Bible said. One of the most often heard remarks in the body was that people often said they felt as if he had written the message personally for them. (laughing here) Yeah, that happens when the pastor speaks in submission to the will of the Holy Spirit.

Unfortunately, the church was run by the congregation. Biblically, that's sort of like the fox guarding the henhouse. Because the pastor spoke on things he felt led to give a Biblical teaching on, a faction of offended people began to plot against him.

They were offended by the notion that he would speak out against abortion. They were offended because he taught that social (alcohol) drinking was unwise. They were offended by many things like that, which I considered to be no-brainers for Bible believing Christians. The people who were against the pastor did everything they could to make him miserable while trying to keep themselves looking good. The people who wanted the pastor to remain were gossiping about the ones who were plotting and they developed plots of their own. The pastor was caught in the middle, and because of the way the church was structured governmentally he, mercifully, relied totally on prayer and the righteous intervention of God in the situation.

The situation got so ugly that he bowed out and was led to a church of 800 which flourished under the teaching of the Lord and grew to over 4,000 souls before he subsequently retired. The "congregation," he left here, then sought to find a pastor who would meet their standards, but the "search committee" now had a preconceived notion in mind that believe me, no man could live up to. They ended up with the same sort of hounding attitude toward that man. I left to find another church and the new pastor left sometime afterwards.

They have gone through an "interim" pastor twice since then and finally landed on the man and woman they have now. They have also now landed all over the Scriptures and are slowly pushing them out the door. The congregation doesn't like being told not to drink socially, so nobody steps on those toes. Wink wink, nod nod, elbow elbow. They now take the position that abortion is unfortunate, but that a woman has a "right" to choose. A friend told me that he left after I did because some years later, the pastor did a baby dedication for a lesbian couple, and there was no outcry. (My friend was out of town that Sunday.)

I could not believe that something like that would happen in a church. I was young and ignorant.

The guy I was now talking to told me that I should start attending there again. I still said nothing to him and tried to slip the conversation past him but he would have none of it. He brought up several things about his church and their unbiblical doctrines and it seemed to me as if he was ashamed of the situation but that he didn't know what to do about it.

When I suggested that these practices were unbiblical, he got very upset with me. We maintained a civil tone with each other, but he told me that people who judged others were going to be in serious trouble when they "get in front of God." He told me that "people who judge" are going to get a surprise, and that he wouldn't want to be one of them. He left quite unhappy with me. Hey......he brought it up. (laughing here)

I would rather surrender many things than my Biblical judgment and the ability to be able to Biblically discern right from wrong. That doesn't mean that I haven't made mistakes and had to admit them. It doesn't mean that I haven't totally blown my witness at times and had to deal with that either, but we have to make judgments every day. No? Which of those who are parents doesn't judge the character of the babysitter before allowing him or her to baby-sit their kids? Yeah. Yeaaaaaaaaaah! Think about it. There are all kinds of legitimate ways in which we should judge other people and other things.

The whole judge not lest ye be judged passage is a whole study in itself, but that is only one of many Bible verses which is used for misapplication to what we are talking about here. The whole "tolerance" issue is lie from the pit. It's a well-crafted veil designed to hide man's own sin from his own eyes in order to make him feel comfortable and justified in it. God does not tolerate sin. Not one sin, not one million. That's why Jesus had to come, so that our sins could be taken away, if we repent and ask His forgiveness. Tolerating sin, is just cowardly spiritual laziness and builds a heart hardened against God.