Hi there, this is Brother Ian Tabin here at Shaw Foundation Baptist Church UK.
This sixth short video in our New Believers series is to show you which churches you should avoid.
Now, there are over 40,000 church builders in the UK
and I would say that over 39,900 of them are not churches in God's eyes.
Now, we saw in the last video that there are three things that are essential for a place to be called a church.
Number one, they must believe the Gospel.
Number two, they must go out actively and preach the Gospel.
And number three, they must use the Word of God which is the King James Bible.
Now, sadly there are many, many churches out there which fail on point one.
Point one, they don't believe the Gospel.
Now, that shouldn't be a surprise because Jesus said in Matthew 7.13
It shouldn't be a surprise to us that the majority of people are going to hell.
The majority of the people aren't entering in at the straight gate
which although it's so easy to enter in, people choose not to and people are often sadly deceived.
In Matthew 7.15 Jesus says beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing
but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
And there are a variety of false prophets in the world
and they are in sheep's clothing as priests, vicars, reverends, pastors, elders.
They have many names for them but if they're preaching anything
other than what is clearly the Gospel in the Bible then they are a false prophet.
Ephesians 2.8 and 9 says for by grace are ye saved through faith
and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.
That says that there are no works at all that are required for salvation
but the vast majority of so-called churches in this country are telling you
that you have to do something other than just believing on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved.
Now this varies from things such as you must get baptised, you must take the Lord's Supper,
you must give up all your sins, you must give up certain sins to get saved.
After being saved you have to stop certain sins, you have to be willing to stop certain sins,
you have to ask forgiveness for certain sins or for all your sins
or you have to have at least wanted not to sin.
And the most confusing one, the one that seems to be commonplace now amongst churches
which used to be considered sound churches is you must repent of your sins to be saved.
What does that even mean? There is nowhere in the Bible where it says you must repent of your sins.
The word repentance is used and it's talking about a change of mind, repent and believe.
Change of mind from what you did believe to believing on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
It's pretty clear. Now I would say that if a church doesn't have someone calling themselves a pastor
you're already at a bad church because I have never seen a church with a priest, a vicar, a reverend
or any of the others which actually has a gospel right. But sadly amongst pastors as well
there are many, many which are still preaching a false gospel.
Now in Deuteronomy 22 5 the Bible says the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man
neither shall a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Now that is your vast majority of priests and clerics and all sorts wearing dresses.
They are an abomination to God and if they don't even understand a simple command like that in the Bible
they have no business calling themselves some sort of church leader.
And in the same way with that we also see many, many women calling themselves all sorts of different leadership names at churches.
Well is that biblical? In 1 Timothy 2 12 the instruction is but I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man
but to be in silence. See the Bible's clear that women aren't to lead churches and there are a few reasons for that
but either way God commands that. So how on earth does a church call itself a church with a lady leading the church?
It makes no sense and as you'll always see with these churches they all believe in some form of work salvation
however cleverly they try and hide it. Okay so that's pretty clear isn't it to avoid churches which have that.
There are also many mega rich leaders of churches, people that have big, big money. Is that biblical?
Well 2 Peter 2 3 talk your false prophets says and through covetousness shall they with famed words make merchandise of you.
They're making merchandise of you. Anything being sold in a church, any way they're trying to just get money out of you
force money out of you, charge for attendance or anything else they're making merchandise of you.
And that again is a big sign of a false prophet. Now with all of that in mind I would say the only type of church
which is biblically sound and again you have to test these churches, make sure that they practice what they preach
that they really believe the gospel would be what we call an independent fundamental Baptist church
because an independent fundamental Baptist church claims to believe the word of God.
If you believe the word of God you're not going to start adding work salvation
but sadly there are still many bad independent fundamental Baptist churches.
There are many wolves that come to you in sheep's clothing.
Now if you found an independent fundamental Baptist church regularly they should
and will have a statement of faith on a website to tell you what they say they believe
but always check with the pastor that's a good idea. If they don't have a statement of faith that is a red flag
and if the pastor cannot tell you clearly what it takes to be saved then that is a serious red flag as well.
Hope that's helped. God bless you.