Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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Of all the strange developments of the religion of Christianity, few have the continuing power to destroy hope and prevent fellowship and spiritual growth than the tradition of hiring and firing ministers. There is no such thing as hiring a man who is truly sent from God. And if there is no such thing as hiring a servant of Christ, then there certainly can be no such thing as firing him. God's men neither come nor go for money.
Paul wrote to Timothy of the great apostasy of the saints that would eventually result in the rise of Christianity. He told Timothy that "the time will come when they [the saints] will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables [the religion of Christianity]" (2Tim. 4:3-4).
The way that God's people "heap" to themselves men who teach them lies is to hire them. But what if a congregation hires the wrong one? That would be tragic, wouldn't it? The fact is, however, that any man who can be hired to speak for God is a liar. Any man who can be hired to be a pastor is a wolf in sheep's clothing. God's men don't rent their services. They never have, and they never will. There is no greater proof that the religion of Christianity is not of God than its system of hiring and firing ministers, and of shifting them from congregation to congregation.
Shifting pastors around is one of the chief means employed by Satan to confuse the sheep and keep them immature. It takes years for a pastor and his sheep to grow together, years to get to know each other and the other people in each other's world. In God's kingdom, being a pastor is not a job; it is what a man is. It is life-long responsibility with one flock, the flock that God sends to that man. I have never sought "members" to add to the congregation that meets in my house. God sends whom He will send; and God takes away whom He will take away. I am not in charge. I have never gone out looking for members, and I have never chased after someone whom God sent away.
A few years ago, Jesus told me, "Neither expect nor desire any big thing; just make your work perfect." God can either increase the size of the congregation He wants me to care for, or He can make it smaller. That is none of my business. My business is to feed the sheep that God sends and to watch for their souls. Every person who meets in my house knows that they are not paying me to do anything and that they cannot pay me to do anything. I have never begged for money, taken up a collection, or impressed the women to cook food for bake sales, and I have never felt any need to do so. In fact, over the past decade, I have refused money offered to me by a large number of people. Their ungodly lifestyles made them unfit to bring money to Jesus.
When a Christian congregation hires a man to minister for them, they do not hire him to hear from God but to tell them what they want to hear. Baptists hire men who are willing to teach their Baptist doctrines for money; they won't hire Catholic priests. Presbyterians hire men willing to teach their Presbyterian doctrines for money; they won't hire Methodist bishops. Pentecostals hire men who will teach their Pentecostal doctrines for money; they never hire Mormons to act as their pastors.
To proclaim a certain doctrine is the only possible reason a man can be hired to teach because it is impossible to pay a man to teach the truth that he has heard from God. The Word of God cannot be bought. Jesus is not for sale. What Christian congregation would hire a man to stand before them and rebuke them for what they believed? Instead, in those cases in which a Christian minister has abandoned a congregation because he has "heard the call" to a higher paying position with a more prestigious congregation, the abandoned sheep often set aside a Sunday for men to come and audition for the part of Pastor. These men then perform for the congregations their monologues called "trial sermons". It is a contest, and it is sad to consider the anxiety that some of those men must suffer, especially the poorer ones, the ones who sincerely hope to secure a higher paying position. All those candidates certainly know that if they do not "tickle the ears" of the congregation, then they will not be hired to play Pastor. They are there to deliver a sermon for one reason: to please the people who hear them.
This is how it is among the "itching ears" mentioned by Paul, and Christians will hire only the cowards who are low enough to "scratch" their itching ears. But even after a man wins the contest and is hired to play the role of Pastor, the hired man understands well what the consequences will be if he fails to continue to please his audience, and he lives with that threat continually hanging over his head. Jesus called such men "hirelings", and because the sheep are not his, because he is hired, he cannot love the sheep as will the man whom God raises up to care for them.
The Lord told me years ago that if a congregation were wise enough to choose its own pastor, it wouldn't need one. God chooses, because the congregation doesn't know what it needs; God raises up, because man cannot raise up man above the plane of mortal power and wisdom; God anoints, because no man can set another man apart from men and make him holy. This is how it is in the kingdom of God. The system never changes. And if the saints of God on earth today hope to see how God will organize the body of Christ, then they must renounce Christianity and get still before God. We, the body of Christ on earth, need to be fixed, and nothing in Christianity can do it. Indeed, Christianity is the worst of all our problems. God's people would be much better off without it.
When Paul wrote to Timothy that believers would turn away from the truth of Christ, he did not prophesy falsely. Even while he lived, he grieved that every single assembly in Asia Minor had forsaken the truth that he had preached to them (2Tim. 1:15). From that "great falling away" eventually sprang up the religion that is now known as Christianity, a vain, contemptible religion that proclaims its false gospels in the name of the true Lord. We will please God if we refuse to participate in that religion and its foolish ways.
We will please God if we reject the opportunities that Christianity offers us to select our own pastors. It will please God if, instead, we simply confess to Jesus our ignorance of what is best for us and cast ourselves down at his feet. He will heal the body if we will listen to Him and trust in Him. He will give us pastors after His own heart who will love the sheep God gives to them and will never abandon them for more money. They will live and die with their flocks, knowing that, in the end, they must give account to Jesus for their souls.