In this day and time, you will come across a myriad of people in the local churches. You will find good honest christians who do all they can to support their church, feed the poor, visit the sick and homeless, have church meetings in prison, &c. You will find the alternative lifestyle in the more radical ones. You will find those who profess to live the christian life, but in time, their works will eventually manifest themselves and show who they really are. Then there are those I wish to focus on…the self-righteous Pharisees. This last sunday…9-14-2014…I went to a church that is about 1.5-2.0 miles from my house. My grandmother was a member of one of the sister churches in this United Baptist Association. This last sunday was the weekend of their annual association meeting. For those of you who may not understand what I mean, let me explain. Each year, these associations such as the United Baptists, Old Regular Baptists, Primitive Baptists, and even Free Will Baptists(FWB’s call their’s conferences), meet to have church and also do churchwork. The churches in each of these associations will decide during the year if they want to letter-up again with the association they’re in. If they decide to, they send delegates and a letter expressing desire to maintain correspondence with that association. They have this every year at the same appointed time. Friday and saturday they do churchwork as well as preaching. Sunday’s meeting is solely a worship service. I decided to go there for their sunday worship service. I knew quite a few there, and a bunch of them are my cousins. At the end of the service, people were singing songs, so I sang one. There was a man shouting and rejoicing, and others came up and shook my hand. Suddenly, there was this old man came up and snatched my wrist and said he wanted to speak to me privately. We walked outside whilst he held to my wrist. I didn’t shake loose, because I didn’t want to cause a scene in the church, and was quite shocked by this, too. He then asked me who I thought I was by coming in and acting the way I did. I then asked him what did he mean? He then said that I wasn’t in their correspondence. Furthermore, he asked me what I thought that gave me the right to do what I did? I apologized three or four times, and told him I meant no harm. But I saw a hatred in that man…I refuse to call him a “brother”…unlike any I’ve ever seen. At the end of it, he said I could come back in if I wanted to…yeah, right. I told him, no, and that I had caused enough harm as it is. I left, and will never darken another door of one of those six United Baptists churches ever again. These United Baptists have tore into each other so much, it’s pitiful. In the mid-1970’s, a UB association called Paint Union split over taking in people divorced/remarried. Old Paint Union formed from this division. Then Old Paint Union split, and Original Old Paint Union formed from it. Then there was the New Hope Association of UB’s. They split so many times, I don’t think anyone could keep up with all the associations that formed. The last I heard, they were down to four churches. The the Tri-State Zion UB’s split tiwce that I know of. Union Bethlehem split two or three times until they disolved that association. One side of the split is still functioning with 5-6 churches. They’re like a bunch of game roosters who will fight the very moment the see each other. They put me in mind of the Ishmaelites and the prophecy Abraham told Ishamel and that his people will have a war-like spirit. Don’t get me wrong, they’re many wonderful members in that association, but that old man ain’t one of them.
Now, this man was the same sort of people John the Baptist and Jesus Christ rebuked throughout the four gospels. John the Baptist called them a “brood of vipers”(Matt. 3:7) and Jesus called them that in Matt. 12:34 and 23:33. These pharisees were resting in the Law and the fact that they were born naturally a Jew. When Jesus came to set up a new and living way, they scoffed at Jesus’ notions. They were holding to the traditions of the elders. That is what this man does, and also that association. They are down to 6 churches and ~300 members, but most of them are old and feeble. How can they fulfill the Great Commission and “preach the gospel to every creature”?(Mark 16:15) If one of their preaching Brothers preaches outside of one of those 6 churches, they are in deep trouble. Again, how can they fulfill the Great Commission? They’re at odds with the record of God right there. They take the passage of 1 Thess. 5:12 way out of context where it says, “And we ask you, brethren, to know those labouring among you, and leading you in the Lord, and admonishing you.” That isn’t talking about correspondence. It is talking about knowing them by the fruit they bare. I know many people’s labours who are not in my Old Regular Baptist associaton by their fruits. I believe they are good christian people. If we can’t fellowship and worship here on earth, then how can we when Christ comes to gather us? Are they in the UB association going to sing awhile and then dismiss and let other’s sing? As we are shouting praises, will they wait for us to be silent so they can then proceed to shout? This is the ignorance they wallow in…and they’re proud of the “old time way”. Sad part about this is those who were actually in the “old time way”, most of them couldn’t read their names in box car letters if they tried(I’m talking about their ancestors here). But, that pharisee is following right along where his ancestors stopped…and they probably couldn’t read or write.
Now, getting back to the hatred I saw in this man eye’s and the way he talked to me like I was a dog. The bible calls this man a murderer. Why would I say this? It’s found in 1 John 3:15, “Every one who is hating his brother — a man-killer he is, and ye have known that no man-killer hath life age-during in him remaining.” The KJV calls a “man-killer” a murderer, and that’s what he is in Gods eyes, imo. Then the bible says also in 1 John 4:20, “if any one may say — `I love God,’ and his brother he may hate, a liar he is; for he who is not loving his brother whom he hath seen, God — whom he hath not seen — how is he able to love?” It’s impossible to love God, who he hasn’t seen, when he showed such hatred towards me. A man such as this has no business preaching, and needs to be saved, imo. If I am wrong about this pharisee, I pray that God will forgive me. However, Jesus said we shall know them by the fruits they bare.(Matt. 7:16) This man showed me some rotten fruit.
Here’s why I said what I did. God is God of Unity, Harmony, Love, Peace, Joy, &c. Satan, the adversary, he only comes to kill, steal and destroy. After I had settled down…at first it really hurt me that I caused them to feel uncomfortable about what I did…I began to think how much in the wrong he was. Sure, if I knew it would have came to this, I would have never sang that song to begin with…I did it in ignorance. However, he sought to lambaste me over it with a rather crude, rude, and crass manner. He could have came up to me after church had ended and explained to me how things went in that church and association and I would have apologized just the same. But noooooo, he had to take the authoriataive approach. And he’s not even an officer in their asociation, iirc. Officers are Moderator, Asst.-Moderator, Clerk, and Asst-Clerk. But he had to get his “smooth on” I guess. So this man has all the makings of a tare, self-righteous pharisee, ravening wolf sent to scatter the sheep, &c. I honestly hope I never see this man ever again….
hardshelloldregularbaptist 