Dr. Harry Ironside was one of the most respected and beloved preachers that Christianity ever produced. Even though he was best known for his tenure as the pastor of Chicago’s Moody Church from 1930 until 1948, his preaching ministry was truly a worldwide one that crossed over denominational lines. He died in 1951, but his influence is still being felt through his many commentaries and books. I have several of those on the shelves of my own study.

It goes without saying that Dr. Ironside knew a thing or two about churches. That’s why we should pay attention to a particular quote from him. He said:

The curse of Christianity today is that vast numbers of members of Christian churches have never been saved. Their hearts are in the world, and they love the things of the world. This mixed multitude has always hurt the testimony of the church.

Now, was Dr. Ironside correct in his contention that vast numbers of church members aren’t even genuine Christians? Surely he was. How do we know this? We know it because the problem of lost people corrupting the purity of Christian congregations goes all the way back to the days of the early church. It’s not that Christian churches have ever knowingly made it a practice to accept lost people into their ranks. Nevertheless, the problem has traditionally stemmed from the fact that churches typically accept at face value anyone who says, “I’m a Christian.”

The little one-chapter book of Jude provides us with the Bible’s best description of this problem of lost people infiltrating the ranks of churches. Specifically, Jude wrote to warn his fellow Christians about false teachers who were being welcomed to teach in some of the Christian congregations of that day. Concerning those false teachers, Jude called them men who had “crept in unnoticed” and didn’t hesitate to say that they weren’t true Christians. He then went on to describe them in the following ways (all references from the N.K.J.V.):

1. “spots in your love feasts (fellowship meals)” (v.12)

2. “serving only themselves” (v.12)

3. “clouds without water, carried about by the winds” (v.12)

4. “late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up the roots” (v.12)

5. “raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame” (v.13)

6. “wandering stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (v.13)

7. “ungodly” (v.15)

8. “grumblers” (v.16)

9. “complainers” (v.16)

10. “walking according to their own lusts” (v.16)

11. “they mouth great swelling words” (v.16)

12. “flattering people to great advantage” (v.16)

13. “mockers” (v.18)

14. “who…walk according to their own ungodly lusts” (v.18)

15. “sensual persons” (v.19)

16. “who cause divisions” (v.19)

17. “not having the Spirit” (v.19)

In regards to that last description – “not having the Spirit” – I’ll remind you that Romans 8:9 flatly says that anyone who doesn’t have the Spirit is not a true believer in Christ. You see, it’s the state of not being indwelt by God the Holy Spirit that creates the rest of the laundry list of problems. And I think we can all agree that people such as Jude describes would certainly reek havoc within churches. Someone says, “But Jude is talking about lost teachers (preachers), not lost lay people.” That’s true, but that in no way means there aren’t any lost lay people. He surely could have written on that subject just as easily if God had so inspired him.

So, my point is that we shouldn’t be shocked that our churches have the problems they have. Authentic Christians behaving in carnal ways cause plenty enough wildfire within the ranks, but throw the gasoline of a high percentage of lost people behaving normally onto those ranks and watch how much worse the fire gets! I don’t present this imagery as a doom-and-gloom kind of thing but simply as an assessment of the status quo. Just as lost people (preachers or otherwise) had crept into the churches of Jude’s day, they’ve crept into our churches as well. The evidence for it consists of: divided congregations, contentious business meetings, church votes that turn out nowhere near unanimous, church splits, and church scandals.

Therefore, Christian, if you ever find yourself in the midst of such a mess, just remember that even the early Christians had to deal with it. Also remember that God knows all about it and will set everything right when when He has His final say. This is what Jesus taught in His parable of the wheat and the tares when He said of the wheat and tares:

Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”…..Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! (Matthew 13:30, 40-43 N.K.J.V.)

Someone might ask, “But what about church discipline?” While the Bible certainly does promote the practice of “churching” unrepentant church members who have committed obvious, outward sins (Matthew 18:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:1-13), even church discipline isn’t enough to combat the overall negative effects of a church having unregenerated (Titus 1:5) people on its membership roll. For one thing, church discipline is to be primarily used only for sins that are especially egregious. For another, even coming up with a definitive list of which sins come under that category can be difficult. The point is, a lost person masquerading as a born-again Christian can do a lot of damage in a church before his or her actions ever rise to the level of requiring church discipline.

Since I’ve built this post around the book of Jude, let me now close with something else that Jude says about lost people. The language of this final quote is similar to the language of eternal judgment that Jesus employed in that reference I mentioned earlier about the tares and the wheat. Jude’s quote can be used in two equally valid ways. First, it can serve as an encouragement to authentic Christians to let them know that God isn’t going to let the ungodly deeds of lost people go unpunished forever. Second, it can serve as a stark warning to all lost people. Jude says:

Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. (Jude 1:14-15, N.K.J.V.)