Is Any Church Better Than No Church?

After this series of lessons, you have to be thinking “But where will I go to church?” Maybe you’re even thinking “isn’t it better to compromise a little bit, so that I can have fellowship with other Christians?” “After all, you’ve got to go to church somewhere… right?” These questions are based on the premise that…

A. You have to go to church.

Therefore

B. Any church is better than no church.

But is that really true? Let’s challenge conclusion B by asking if a church can be so bad you’re commanded not to attend it, no matter what; Revelation 18:4. If you attend a church that worships the image of the beast (the Catholic Church), is that better than no church at all? Revelation 14:9-11. So obviously, if all the churches in the world blew up tonight and the only church left was a Catholic church, based on this, you’d be better off attending NO church than going to the Catholic Church. Thus,

it is clearly possible for a church to be so bad that it is far worse to worship with them than not to worship with anyone at all. But how bad does that church have to be, before it is in that category? Well, those same verses you just read said anyone who has his MARK will be treated with the rest of the false Christians. As you know, the mark is Sunday worship, and by extension the sign of the cross; and, by extension, any of the sun-worship doctrines of the beast; Easter, Christmas, the immortality of the soul, going to heaven or hell, and so on; all of these are marks of the beast’s worship of the sun.

Let me underline this point one more time; if your church worships on Sunday, they have the mark of the beast. By extension, if they have the sign of cross, or any of the doctrines of Tammuz, they have the mark of the beast. And if you worship on Sunday with them under the cross which tops their very djed-like steeple, you are voluntarily accepting that mark and accepting the authority of the Catholic Church, and indeed the devil himself.

So yes, it is better not to attend church at all, than to attend church when the price is taking upon yourself the mark of the beast! Did the saints of God ever have this mark? Revelation 20:4. (Note: Worshiping on Sunday in the past, before you knew better, doesn’t count (Acts 17:30).) So you are better off not going to church at all than to worship with ANY SUNDAY CHURCH. How is it possible to “remember the Sabbath” and “keep it holy”, while assembling on Sunday with false Christians? You can’t serve the true God by assembling with false Christians as they worship their false god!

FELLOWSHIPPING WITH UNBELIEVERS

Everyone associates being religious with going to church/temple/mosque/synagogue regularly. The connection is so strong, that a Christian who doesn’t go to church is like a bird who doesn’t fly; it might exist, but it’s so uncommon it’s an object of ridicule (I’m looking at you, Ostrich).

There is not a single word connecting fellowship with church attendance or the Sabbath in the Bible; go ahead and search for the word “fellowship” in the Bible. Read every place the word is used, right now. You’ll find we have fellowship with God through the holy spirit, shouldn’t have fellowship with Satan, and should have fellowship with other believers; but it is never mentioned in connection with going to church! I’m not saying it’s wrong to fellowship with believers; of course, it isn’t. But it’s wrong to need fellowship so badly that you’re willing to lower the bar and fellowship with Babylonians in the name of fellowship!

They do not believe God when He said, “if you love me, keep my commandments”. They do not believe God when He said, “no man has ascended up to heaven”. They don’t believe Him when He said Jesus was “in all points tempted like as we are”. In fact, if you look at it honestly the average Protestant church does not believe a single thing about God that is right. What doctrine do they understand the way the Bible plainly teaches it? Law, faith, grace, heaven, hell, immortality of the soul, the plan of God, the nature of God, the nature of Jesus, Christmas, Easter, the identity of the holy spirit, communion bread, the wrong day of worship, they believe God is a trinity not a family…

Do you begin to see? There is not a single thing they have right. Not one! They are UNBELIEVERS, by definition. So should you assemble with them just for the sake of “fellowship”? 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. Is it better to go to their table and eat their wafer on Sunday morning, than to do nothing at all? 1 Corinthians 10:20-21. How is it better to fellowship with Babylonians whom you know break the commands of God, than not to go to church at all? Where, exactly, did He command you to fellowship weekly with other Christians even if you disagree about the fundamentals of Truth?

Is it necessary to go to church SOMEWHERE, regardless of what day they keep, regardless of whether they are a part of a false Christianity and whether or not they teach the doctrines of antichrist? Is that really what the Bible says? Jeremiah 15:17. In Revelation 17:5, God calls Catholicism the great whore, “mother of harlots”. In earlier lessons, you learned these “harlots” are the daughter-churches of Catholicism, which we call Protestant Christianity. These churches “protest” against the whore’s authority, but like her they commit fornication with the doctrines of the devil, and they carry all of the marks of the beast.

But does God dwell in church? Acts 17:24. Do we have to go far to find him? Acts 17:27, Romans 10:5- 8. Where does God dwell today? 1 Corinthians 3:16. You, if you are a true Christian, are a member of the body of Christ – the church of God. Why shouldn’t you fellowship with these harlots? 1 Corinthians 6:15-16. Because fellowshipping with them makes you and them “one flesh” in God’s eyes!

This doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have business relationships, worldly interactions, and even shallow friendships with such people (1 Corinthians 5:9-11). But if someone is called a BROTHER – if they think of themselves as your brother in Christ, and you would be FELLOWSHIPPING with them in a religious sense, as equals who share a common Father – you can’t do that. Because you don’t have a common Father, and pretending you do is like joining the body of Christ to the body of a harlot – and brings us full circle to James 4:4. He called them adulterers because they were supposed to be a part of His bride, and yet they had a weekly tryst with the god of this world!

Think about it in the context of the golden rule; how would you feel if your wife was lonely when you were out of town, and her desperate need for “fellowship” drove her into the arms of your worst enemy. How would you feel about that? This, then, is how you should treat God – as a faithful wife awaiting her true love’s return.

WHAT ABOUT SABBATH-KEEPERS?

So we’ve eliminated churches that have the marks of the beast; but the Sabbath is the mark of God; is, therefore, any Sabbath-keeping church better than no church at all? There are many Sabbath-keeping groups to choose from. So should you find your nearest Sabbath church and attend with them? Sabbath-keeping is certainly a step in the right direction. But the Sabbath is only one commandment. In the context of church attendance, 3 John 1:11 tells us “follow not that which is evil”. Evil is breaking of the commandments, and how many must you break to be considered guilty? James 2:10-11.

If you are attending with brethren who break the commandments and don’t follow the examples of the first century church, what should you do? 2 Thessalonians 3:6. And if you find them disagreeing with the Bible and unwilling to change, what should you do? 2 Thessalonians 3:14. How many times should you argue with them before you give up? Titus 3:10.

If someone comes to you and doesn’t teach the doctrine of the Bible, what should you do? 2 John 1:10-11. If you shouldn’t even invite him into your house, or tell him “goodbye”, because you might be a partaker of his evil deeds… can you imagine what would happen if you go to a church filled with such people? Is it possible to appear to be a true church of God in doctrine, but in works deny God? In other words, to have the doctrines all right, but have the ministry and membership be a false church in practice?

Titus 1:16. If their focus isn’t on truth, then no matter what their appearance, what should you do? 1 Timothy 6:5. Can people seem to love God and love truth – and yet not be true Christians? Ezekiel 33:31-32. What should you do if people SEEM to be a Godly church, but deny the power of God? 2 Timothy 3:5. What is the power of God? 1 Peter 1:5, 1 Corinthians 2:5. Faith is your access to the power of God! If your church seems like a church of God but their works deny God, and they don’t demonstrate faith in God, you are commanded “from such, turn away”!

ANTICHRIST – THE TEST OF TRUTH

And finally, the surest test of all. John wrote his books about thirty years later in the first century than any other writer, and he saw the church he and the other apostles had built in tatters, overcome by deception and “the mystery of iniquity” on every side. It was very important in that time, as it is in ours, to have a CLEAR way to tell whether God was in a church or not. That way was given to us in 1 John 4:1-3. See, people can be deceived. They may know considerably less than you do about God. Most of what they know may be wrong. That doesn’t mean they aren’t sincere and God isn’t working with them, even if they keep Sunday! After all, God worked with you when you kept Sunday.

So the way you can tell if God is working with them or not is the doctrine of Antichrist. Talk to them about the nature of God and Jesus; the carnal nature Jesus had, His temptation in all points that we are tempted in, His humanity. If they go insane, begin frothing at the mouth and biting you on the leg… then that probably isn’t a church of God. At best, you will usually be asked to leave the church as fast as they can shove you out the door. But if they hear you, then there is hope for them. For now.

That doesn’t mean they won’t reject the truth as soon as they hear more of it. It doesn’t make them a true church of God, but it does mean God may be calling them, and you have an opportunity to share the truths with them that God has given you, confessing Him before men.

SO WHERE SHOULD YOU ATTEND?

We eliminated pretty much all churches with the last few pages. Simply because “the devil deceives the whole world” (Revelation 12:9), and “the whole world lies in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). We’ve also established you are better off going to NO church, than to go to one that has the doctrines of antichrist, the mark of the beast, or has a form of godliness but denies the power of God. Now we’ll ask where you SHOULD attend. To start with, we have to ask who is your brother in Christ? You’ve been trained from your earliest Christian memories that all of these other Christian churches are your brothers in Christ. You were told “sure, those other denominations are not as enlightened as mine”, but “we’re all spokes of a giant wheel heading towards Jesus in the center”.

Does Jesus agree? WHO is His brother? Matthew 12:47-50. There is your answer! A faithful Catholic is NOT my brother – Christ just said so – because he is NOT doing my Father’s will. Neither is my Baptist neighbor my brother. He may be a wonderful person on a physical, sort-of-Old-Covenant level but unless he keeps my Father’s commandments (all of them), he isn’t my brother in Christ – he is a false Christian! (1 John 2:3-4). Your brother obeys the will of your Father. It’s that simple. Most people object right here and say “well, nobody’s perfect! You can’t expect someone to be PERFECT before you go to church with them” – and I didn’t say you should. If someone is ignorant of the law – even of the Sabbath – that sin doesn’t count against them (Romans 5:13).

But when someone tells them Sunday is the mark of the beast and they keep it anyway, they are no longer ignorant. They are now WILFULLY breaking the command of God, and no brother of Jesus would do that! (Hebrews 10:26). So no, you don’t have to find a PERFECT church to attend with. But you must find one that is sincerely SEEKING TRUTH. They all say they are – but remember what you’ve read! All churches PROFESS they know God! They all CLAIM to love God more than life! But most deny him in their works! And it is by their WORKS that you shall know them! How can you tell if a church is sincerely seeking truth or not? Matthew 7:16-20.

Easy! If they don’t know that, for example, heaven and hell are unbiblical doctrines… tell them! Prove it to them, using your Bible! If they accept it, they love truth! If they hate you and shun you and push you out of their church, their works have proved they do NOT love God – they love their church! If someone objects and says “but you can’t know their heart!” (and someone will), tell them you don’t have to know their heart! Show them Luke 6:45. Their works and their words COME FROM THEIR HEART! If their heart loves God, their words and their works will show it! If their heart hates the true God, their words and their works will show that too – by their FRUITS! After all, where do their words and their works come from? Matthew 15:18-20.

The whole question of whether any church is better than no church is solved so easily in Exodus 23:2. What else is a false church doing, if not following a multitude to do evil? Isaiah 59:3-4 describes so many modern churches today! But they continue to attend church and seem to be a Christian church! Isaiah 58:2. All churches LOVE to pray, they LOVE to sing praises to God, and they LOVE to worship Him daily! But are those things what make a person a brother of Christ? Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 15:8-9. And who is Jesus’ brother? Luke 8:21.

COMMANDED ASSEMBLY

The only scripture that seems to command you to assemble with brethren in the NT is Hebrews 10:25. But as always, read the context, and ask yourself: WHAT EXACTLY DOES THIS SAY? Does it say “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves with antichrists”? Does it say “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves with the beast-worshipers”? Does it say “do not forsake the assembling of yourselves with those who have a form of godliness but who deny the power thereof”? – most importantly, does it even IMPLY that “any church is better than no church”??

Or does it say we should not forsake the assembling of OURSELVES together! OURSELVES – those who believe like US, those who are our true BROTHERS in Christ, fellow true Christians who obey the commands of our Father! And back up to Hebrews 10:24, where it says we should provoke those brethren to love and good works, as “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17). And we should continue to assemble with these brethren at every opportunity. But keep reading in Hebrews 10:26! There it tells you what happens after you have PROVOKED these people, if they reject the truth you gave them!

If they are true brethren, when you provoke them to good works they will love you (Proverbs 9:8). If they don’t, and if they “stop their ears”, or if the truth you said offended them, what does Jesus say about them? Matthew 15:12-14. Can you offend people with the truth? Psalms 119:165. You can’t hurt people with the truth. It is not possible! If you provoke the brethren to love and good works and they reject you, then they weren’t true brethren. A church doesn’t have to be perfect for you to attend with them. But they do have to be willing to learn, and have a sincere heart and a genuine wish for growth and more understanding of God. Otherwise, they are a church of the false Jesus, serving a false god.

SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

I don’t know of a church I can tell you to attend. If I did, I’d never have written this course – I’d simply have sent you there. I’ve been to most of the Sabbath-keeping churches, and I have satisfied myself there is nothing for me in them. I don’t want you to take my word for that however. See for yourself. Because not only did I learn a great deal during my journey through the modern-day apostate churches of God, I did some good things for them as well, even if it was nothing more than giving them another opportunity to hear the truth and reject it. Ezekiel 2:4-5.

So I encourage you to go, attend with whomever you like. But take your Bible with you, and keep it open. When you hear a ridiculous, unbiblical doctrine spouted from the pulpit, you are armed with the tools you need to discredit it. Don’t be afraid to stand up for the truth and tell people when they teach a doctrine directly contradicted in your Bible. But as you enter these churches, remember the words in Luke 9:26, 2 Timothy 2:12, and Matthew 10:34. If you aren’t prepared to stand your ground against unbelievers, you don’t love truth enough.

Not long ago, someone told me “what you say is absolutely right, I know it’s what the Bible says… but if I tell anyone at church, I’ll get kicked out as a heretic!” And his answer is Matthew 10:33. Is that man a Christian, or a brother of mine? Matthew 12:48-50. Does it matter what he believes, what day of the week he attends, or how good of a person he might be, if he denies Christ before men? If he, out of fear of his church, refuses to share the truth God has shown him? John 12:42-43, 48. He is guilty of the sin in Job 31:34.

This man might have been able to save others in his church from their deception; save them “partaking of her plagues”. How did God feel about that? Proverbs 24:10-12. Remember the first lessons; if you know the truth, and can save someone from death, the positive side of the sixth commandment says “Thou shalt save their lives”. It’s just as much a commandment as not killing them. And like a drowning man, trying to save them will cause them to thrash and bruise you, and they might drown both of you… but God promises if you fight against them to try and save them, you won’t be alone (Jeremiah 1:17-19, Ezekiel 3:4-11).

That’s not just for old prophets – that’s for you and me. See Matthew 10:14-33. If this doesn’t describe you, if you don’t have enemies who hate you for the truth’s sake, you aren’t doing something right. Eventually, when you’ve gone through enough churches to learn what I have learned, what should you do then?

BACK TO THE COMMANDMENT

I still haven’t given you a good answer for the question “if there are no true brethren that live nearby, what should you do every Sabbath?” When in doubt, go back to the basics. WHAT DID God command you to do on the Sabbath? Exodus 20:8-11. The command is two parts:

1. Do no work.

2. Remember the Sabbath day (what it represents), so that you can keep it holy.

No mention is made of congregating with other believers; much less that “any church is better than no church”. Here, there is no explicit command that you HAVE to assemble with other people in order to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is mentioned many times throughout the Bible, and most of them have to do with not working on the Sabbath. Very, very few have any context of assembling. There is one command however, in Leviticus 23:3, where it commands “a holy convocation”. Convocation simply means “a calling together, an assembly”.

It makes sense that the meaning of the Sabbath is best “remembered”, when you assemble with other true Christians. But what if there are no brethren? Or what if they live so far away it would be impractical to visit every week? Whenever the Bible lacks clear commands, the next step is to see what examples God gave us in the Bible. In 1 Kings 19:14, Elijah said he was the only prophet of God left in Israel. Now, there were churches (synagogues) all over Israel. They kept the Sabbath, were “Bible churches” and looked like the people of God. But in reality, they served Baal!

Those churches had forsaken God’s covenant and killed all the true prophets of God. Is that so different from Christianity today? This means that anyone who was a true Christian in those days faced the same problem you do – “where do I go to church, when all the available churches have compromised with Baal’s doctrines?” So we simply have to ask the question, where did Elijah go to church? After the events of 1 Kings 17 and 18, Elijah – greatly disheartened and alone – fled to Mt. Sinai and hid in a cave for 40 days – read 1 Kings 19:1-14. Where did he go to church during that time?

He was completely alone. There were churches in Israel, with “brethren” attending every Sabbath with an ordained priesthood that traced their ancestry to Aaron… but Elijah was alone. Why? By the logic religion clings to, Elijah should have gone to these brethren for “fellowship”, “not forsaking their assembly together”! Sure, they had put some idols of Asherah in God’s temple, but so have Christian churches today. How many people wear hearts to church? They are a pagan sex symbol. How many have stars of David around? Canaanite sun symbol. Angel statues, “he is the light of the world” pictures, and of course crosses – idols, every one.

So what if Elijah’s temple had a few sun symbols, a few fertility symbols in it. Most Christians today would have told him that he wasn’t going to find a perfect church in Israel, and that he owed it to the people to go to church and help in whatever way he could, even if it was only setting up chairs and taking care of the elderly. After this, God told him in 1 Kings 19:18 that he was not alone; there were in fact 7,000 left in Israel. But Elijah didn’t know any of these people or he wouldn’t have thought he was alone! There may have been 7,000 people out there, but Elijah wasn’t going to church with them because he didn’t know who they were!

Where were those 7,000 when he was killing the prophets of Baal? Where were they, when Jezebel sought to kill him? Reading this today, most people assume that those 7,000 were saints, just as much as Elijah was. But that’s not what God said. God said these 7,000 people had two things in their favor; they had neither bowed their knees to Baal, nor kissed him. These things were a part of Baal’s regular worship services, just as they are today! Does your church pray kneeling? Usually before a cross which is a symbol of Baal? Does your church kiss the wafer, the ring, their fingers, or the toe of some idol of the sun god? (Job 31:26-28).

Refusing to bow to Baal’s cross and not kissing his idol didn’t mean these 7,000 were necessarily true Christians. It just meant they were not completely lost yet. Had they been assembling with Jezebel and Ahab at church, they would not have been God’s people! So these 7,000 were not going to church with Jezebel and Ahab! Like Elijah, they were on their own. They couldn’t go to the temple without compromising, so they didn’t go at all! And therefore they didn’t know Elijah, or each other! Only God knew who, and where, they were!

What if one of those people had decided that he had to go to church somewhere – if not for himself, then to edify others at church; if not for that, then for his children to have a social outlet; what if he had decided that any church was better than no church? (After all, they keep the right day, they’re God’s anointed priesthood, and they have a lot of the truth right!) Well, then God would have only had 6,999 people who hadn’t bowed the knee to Baal. Only 6,999 people left who were true brethren of Elijah, even though they had never met him!

JEREMIAH

Another case study of a church less prophet is Jeremiah. His people “worshiped God” in His temple (Jeremiah 7:2-11), but they had idols and incense and baked cakes to the Queen of Heaven too. In other words, they had false doctrines practiced in God’s name, in God’s house! Just like modern Christianity! So did Jeremiah go to church with them? Read Jeremiah 15:16-17. Jeremiah was a true Christian – he was called by God’s name! And he says he did NOT sit in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoice with them! Where would you SIT and ASSEMBLE and REJOICE with people who were mocking God’s ways? Church! (Jude 1:17-18).

And Jeremiah said rather than sit with those people, “I sat alone because of your hand”! He chose to sit alone rather than go to church with false Christians! He didn’t “rejoice before God” with them! He wasn’t saying “amen” to their prayers or singing “onward Christian soldiers” with false brethren who had rejected the will of his Father! What did God say to him? That he shouldn’t “lean to his own understanding”? That he should “not forsake the assembling of the brethren”? That he “shouldn’t be so self-righteous”, and should “pick the best church”, the “lesser of the evils”, “for the sake of fellowship”? Jeremiah 15:19.

Jeremiah was PRAISED for keeping himself apart from the apostate Christians! God said his job was to “be as God’s mouth” – that is, to tell them what God said and “provoke them to love and good works” – and these people he’d left in these churches might return to him, but he was NOT to return to them! And to help him do that, God made him a promise in Jeremiah 15:20. And if you do as God commands and provoke them to good works, and if you are “as God’s mouth” to them, telling them the commands of God and insisting on righteousness from your members and your ministry, I promise you they will indeed fight against you and put you out of their church – but God says they will not prevail against you!

David said a nearly identical thing regarding false churches in Psalms 26:4-5. Can you say that? Can you say that “you will not go in with dissemblers” (dissemblers is better translated as “concealers of truth”, i.e., those who reject true doctrines)? Can you say that you have hated the congregation, the CHURCH congregation, of evil-doers? Can you say, as David did, that you will NOT sit with the wicked? True Christians can. That’s why the very first verse of the favorite OT book of the false Christians says…

Psalms 1:1-2 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The point of this lesson has been to show, by process of elimination, that pretty much every church in the world is unworthy of your attendance. If you look really hard, you’ll find a few who have the doctrines almost right, even though they may not practice them, and you can possibly benefit from them – for awhile. I want to make it clear that I’m not saying you should leave your church. You shouldn’t. They were your brethren for a long time, and you owe it to them to tell them the truth. To tell them what’s wrong with them, why they are not good enough for God, and, by extension, good enough for you. That’s what Hebrews 10:24-25 is all about.

You have a responsibility to tell these people the truth; but not an infinite responsibility. How often must you confront the church before you can give up? Titus 3:10-11, Galatians 1:8. So “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” doesn’t mean accept their sins and live with it for the sake of fellowship, like everyone thinks it does! It means if you’ve out grown milk and are ready to be thought a man, ACT LIKE ONE and “reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine” (2 Timothy 4:2). And after the first and second admonition, the heretic – whether member or minister, angel or church – must be rejected. And then what do you do? Shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them in the day of judgment (Mark 6:11).

I won’t lie to you, this won’t bode well for your relationships with your friends and family (1 Peter 4:4). That, too, is part of the test (Matthew 10:37-38). Do you love the truth, or not? They’ll push you, they’ll shame you, they’ll tell you you’re crazy – and you’ll have to decide if you’d rather be crazy with God, or “sane” with Tammuz. As always, there’s a verse that sums up this lesson; if you hadn’t needed to go to church so badly, if you hadn’t been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that any church is better than no church, this verse alone would have been all you needed to read: Ephesians 5:11.

If you’ve been fellowshipping with the unfruitful works of darkness, reprove them. Correct them; trust me, you won’t be fellowshipping with them much longer, and you’ll leave honorably, with your head high – not sneaking out in the night. Remember: you have nothing to be ashamed of – they’re the ones who left God, not you. They’re the ones who have no Biblical proof for their beliefs. They should be the ones who slink away, not you. And if you stand your ground, they will (Jeremiah 15:15-21).

I haven’t really told you where to go to church in this lesson because this is a choice you need to make on faith. How much are you willing to stand up for God? Mark 10:32-42. How much false doctrine are you willing to tolerate in your church? 2 Timothy 4:2-4. How much sin are you willing to tolerate in your brethren before you admit that they aren’t really your brethren… or Christ’s? Mark 3:33-35. I could give you an answer to put your mind at ease, but I won’t, not yet, because this is a choice you must make based on whether you love the truth or love your church. God, and you, must see whose side you will take when they refuse to hear sound doctrine. Mark 12:28-31. And when you both know that for sure, then you’ll get your answer.

For now, you have to answer a simple question. Would you…

A. Rather go to church with false Christians

Or would you…

B. …

The answer is B. It doesn’t matter what the rest of B is. It’s B (Revelation 18:4). But you have to prove that you believe that.