Ungodly Church Leadership Protected.

I find it extremely disheartening and also extremely encouraging when I hear of Gospel ministers being vilified for their Gospel stance in their dead, liberal congregations.  Disheartened because in connexional churches where mutual support ought to be seen as clear as day, but isn't; yet encouraged because these men are taking the Gospel into congregations where it has not been preached with any clarity in the past.

Unbelievers have been allowed to remain unbelievers who are under God's heaven-revealed wrath simply because they are church members.  They have been allowed to remain in their sin yet serve as church elders; they can maintain their sinful lifestyles, yet hold their office.  And no one can say a word about it.

Very often, these are the very people who oppose the Gospel and do all they can to prevent the Gospel having definite influence within the congregation.  Elders can continue to live with their girlfriends, and retain their office.  Elders can blaspheme the Lord's precious Name, yet serve as spiritual leaders within their church.  Elders can use the foulest of language imaginable, yet be kept in office.  Notorious womanisers are allowed to hold church office because no one is to bring a charge against an elder without very good cause, and womanising is not a good cause to bring such an allegation.  Foul language and blasphemy is not a good reason to report elders to their line managers/supervisors because the moral tone within today's church accepts such a perversion. 

Do church elders, by whatever name, have licence to frequent prostitutes in England under the guise of business travel, and be kept on?  It seems so, because a distinction is drawn between one's public and one's private lives.  It's none of our business to tell a man how to live his life, they say.

The reason?  Once an elder, always an elder.  Such men cannot, even with the most charitable attitude possible, be regarded as regenerate men, can they?  These are ungodly men who love darkness rather than light, and whose motivation in life is to extinguish that light wherever it shines.

Given that Gospel ministers are expected to regard such rascals as godly and spiritual men, and work with them in the spiritual oversight of the congregation, is it any wonder that their Gospel preaching is opposed with all the might and main of these church apostates?  But because they are elders, regularly called and ordained, their opposition to the Gospel must be given as much weight as the minister's Gospel stand.

Is that ridiculous or what?  Does that please God?  Is the Lord who brought us honoured by such spiritual cowardice?  These church men might even be found praying for revival and reformation within the church; yet they are guaranteeing that such will be further away than ever, but is urgently needed, and God will send it despite their worst efforts at preventing it.  These churchmen are keeping and protecting ungodly church leadership within the very church they say they love.  These men would bring the great men of the past - the Calvinists of Europe, the Huguenots, the Covenanters, the Puritans, the Welsh and English Methodist Fathers of the eighteenth century, and their faithful successors - to shame and indescribable embarrassment were they to return to this time and see what is happening.

May God have mercy on us in these dreadful days of apostasy and corruption.