Playing Church Part 1

 This written sermon was by Pastor L.R. Shelton, Sr. He was a Baptist preacher for years before he actually got saved. It has served as an inspiration to me for several of the sermons and articles I have written. 

Playing Church L. R. Shelton, Sr. 1967 BACK TO PRINTED SERMONS I want to bring you a special message on the subject, "Playing Church." I have never witnessed such in all my life as I have in these last few days, as I have watched people playing church. This carries us to the story found in the eleventh chapter of Matthew. John the Baptist was in prison. He sent some of his disciples to question the Lord Jesus Christ, and they came to Him and asked Him this question, "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" Then the Lord Jesus said unto them, "Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see." There before that group of disciples of John the Baptist the Lord Jesus opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame to walk, healed lepers, cleansed the vile, opened the ears of the deaf, raised the dead, and preached the Gospel. Christ considered this enough to convince John and said, "Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me." After this group left, the Lord Jesus gave His estimate of John the Baptist, closing with this statement, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." Then He turned to the Pharisees and Sadducees and said to them, "But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children" (Matt. 11:16-19). As we said, these words were addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religionists and churchgoers of Christ's day. He said to them, "Whereunto shall I liken this generation" of religious leaders? Then Christ answers His own question, "You religious leaders are like children sitting in the markets, calling unto their fellows, and playing church. You are just playing at the game. You are like a bunch of children who would sit down and play dolls or a game of marbles, or to imitate a dance. You are inventing everything in the world to try to attract the attention of your fellows. Here came John the Baptist fasting and preaching repentance, and you say he has a devil, or he's devil possessed: 'We'll not have him; we do not want his message. Who does he think we are - children.' " Christ said, "That's exactly what you are; just a bunch of children playing church." Then Christ said, "The Son of man came eating and drinking, and you say, Here is a gluttonous man, here is a drunkard; here is a man who is a friend of publicans and sinners. I came preaching the same message John did; you wouldn't have the truth under him, therefore you won't have it under My preaching. Therefore wisdom is justified of her children. You are just a group of children playing church, and you won't have the truth under any consideration." If you will read the remainder of the eleventh chapter of Matthew through the twenty-fourth verse, you will find that the Lord Jesus Christ pronounced judgment and woe upon that group of unsaved religionists who were just playing church.

This scene reminds me of the time when as a child I would get a group of children together and play church. I never dreamed that I would be a preacher, that God would thrust me into the ministry as He has today with the truth of God's Word and the Gospel of a sinner's salvation. As a child I would get a box for a pulpit, and the rest of the children would sit on the ground in a semicircle, while I stood on that box and preached to them. I would take a text and exhort them to give their hearts to Jesus. At the close of my sermon I would call for mourners, and one by one these children would come down to the front and give me their hand, making a profession of faith - playing church. I would then dismiss them; they would go to their homes and get extra clothes, then I would take them down to the creek and baptize them - playing church, We never thought anything about it, because I was brought up in the church from birth, and I did exactly what I had seen done in outward form. When we children grew up, we made professions of faith in a more serious manner in the church building, were then taken down to the baptismal pool and were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The outward lives of most of us gave no evidence that we knew Christ. I for one reached the age of forty-three before I was ever convicted by the Holy Spirit that I was a lost sinner and came to Christ for salvation. But between the years of eleven and forty-three, twenty-five of these years were spent preaching. I was ordained by my church at the age of nineteen, and for twenty-five years I played church, only on a higher plane than when I was a child. Thank God, one day the Lord Jesus Christ broke up that church-playing and opened my heart to let me see that I was a lost sinner on the road to Hell and brought me to Christ for salvation. Yes - playing church! I am wondering, if the Lord Jesus Christ should come on the scene today and walk in our midst, whether He would not quote the same words, "You are like children playing church." We gather for services on a Sunday morning in what we call our Sunday School classes, and the opening of the class is taken up with discussion about the parties or dances of the week past, or planning for the socials for the week to come. Very little tine is given to the teaching of the Word. Then in the average class the Bible is not used, they have what is called the Sunday School Quarterly, if they haven't lost it. Down in the classes of smaller children you will find what they call Visual Aid; they are teaching those children with pictures and drawings, and talking to them about the birds and bees and flowers, and how to be good to each other and kind to dumb animals. Those children know nothing about the Word of God. What are we doing? Playing Church, just as I did when I was a kid - just as Christ said those Pharisees and Sadducees were doing. You face those teachers with the truth of God's Word and impress upon their hearts and minds the fact that they must become lost sinners before they can know the grace of God in salvation in Christ Jesus, and they think you are crazy, because this present religious generation knows nothing about Holy Spirit conviction. The average teacher in our Sunday Schools today smokes, dances, plays cards, goes to the movies and a great percent of them are now becoming television addicts. No time for prayer life; no time to develop spiritual life. Just playing church. Then step within our auditoriums at the hour of worship, and you will find the robed choirs; the presence of the Lord is not there, and about the only thing that stands out about the average song is the harmony and sentiment. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is a foreign element in the vast majority of our present-day songs. What is the choir doing? Playing church. In connection with that, most of our congregational singing is not worship, but a device to create an interest or to work up the emotions, preparing them, for what they call the preaching service. My friends, I am trying to get you to think - are we just playing church? Then the preacher in the pulpit comes forth with his joke-telling because he thinks he has to entertain his audience. God never calls a man to entertain sinners on the road to Hell. Who ever heard of Spurgeon telling a joke in the pulpit? Who ever heard of men like the Apostle Paul, or the Apostle Peter, cracking a joke in the pulpit before dying men? No preacher would think about telling jokes to entertain folks at a funeral when the hearts of the loved ones are grieved and mourning. So it is, so it should be, that we preachers standing before the souls of men should be weeping and mourning over sinners going to Hell. Brethren, let's stop playing church! May the Spirit of grace fall upon us at this time and let us see the shallowness and the emptiness of our religious profession, and that the great percent of us are just entertaining our audience, drawing our breath , drawing our salaries and letting our congregations go to Hell. Then our invitations appealing to the minds of men to come forward, give their hearts to Jesus and join the church and be baptized is just playing church. Such converts are not saved, never have been saved, and never will be saved under such invitations. There is not one verse of Scripture in God's Word that would authorize or intimate that any preacher has the right and authority to open the doors of the church and receive members under any consideration. In the second chapter of Acts it says, "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." Someone asked me the other night, "Then how would you know when sinners got saved?" My answer was, "The old yellow dog in the backyard will know when a sinner gets saved." In our playing church today we have so confused the minds of the people into thinking that church membership is salvation - that the average individual today in his or her thinking does not and cannot separate church membership and salvation in Christ. It is one mad rush today to get members into the church. If you are invited to hold a meeting in any church, the one thing they are thinking of is getting a number of new members into their church; they are never thinking about the salvation of a lost soul from sin and from Hell, because they do not know the difference between church membership and salvation. It's just a game of playing church.