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Saints who want to be loyal to the Truth often find themselves in a congregation nowadays that no longer is. When urged to leave and find a faithful church, they may be heard to say, “While I am terribly upset at what is going on here, I am not willing to leave and surrender the property to error.”
It is noble to want to protect and preserve physical properties that were originally built for and dedicated to preaching the Truth. This is even more understandable when one has contributed money and labor of his own hands to build and maintain them. Again, where there is a possibility that the leadership of a congregation that is flirting with liberalism can be diverted from it, faithful brethren should stay and fight for the Truth. However, this excuse for staying is often given where no such possibility exists. Once a brother called me to ask advice about dealing with apostasy in his congregation. It (and its preachers) had been identified with liberalism for several years, and he told me of many additional telltale indicators. He also told of once being an elder there, but of resigning because his repeated protests were ignored. When asked why he (and others like him) stayed he said that they could not stand the thought of giving up the building to the liberals. What he did not seem to understand was that the liberals had long before gained control of the building! In such a case it is folly to think that one is “saving the building” by staying.
What brethren must realize is that we have again reached a point in the history of the church (as brethren did a century ago) when we must be willing to accept the fact that apostate brethren are in the “driver’s seat” in many congregations and they have already stolen the congregation, including its property, from the Lord and His faithful ones.
Let us remember that a building is only a building and although it is lost, new buildings can be built. However, a soul that stays in a digressive group is in danger of being lost to it, without the possibility of being recovered for the Truth or for Heaven. We would unhesitatingly urge a person who is reluctant to leave his fire-engulfed house to give it up to the flames that control it and flee for his life. So would we counsel brethren who remain in liberal-controlled churches, unrealistically thinking they might “save the building” from the raging fire of liberalism which already controls it! The Lord counseled: “Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Edifier, weekly bulletin of Pearl Street Church of Christ, Denton, TX, July 5, 1990, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
