The Problem Of Churches That Are Not Fulfilling Their Purpose.

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened. *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, “I guess I’m making the whole thing up.” It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn’t want God to rule over him.

To many, it seems that the church is not fulfilling its purpose. The reason Christians are leaving many church organizations is because there is no scriptural way provided by which they may grow to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, which is spoken of in the Scripture. Yet, the Bible plainly lays out the way. The churches, in many cases, prefer man-made ways to the Bible. That means that those who hunger for a deeper walk with God are not fed. The ones who do see a vision for higher heights and deeper depths often feel that their church is not seeing that vision or is trying to use man-made methods to attain the goal. For many organizations, there is not even any sense that there are higher heights and deeper depths. The Christians who desire a deeper walk either give up attending or fall prey to neo-paganism, a la The Da Vinci Code. Had they been allowed to partake of real spiritual meat, they would never have been tempted toward the occult. And the pattern in Scripture is very plain and simple. A man, though he were a fool, would not err therein.

Churches can become spiritually dead. Many have fallen into this spiritual deadness.

Are churches commercial institutions rather than institutions of faith?

Unfortunately, it is true that some churches are merely commercial institutions. The denominational system is prophetically the great Babylon of confusion.

God has been restoring the Church since the great falling away that brought on the dark ages when the Church began to change the orders that God had established.

The Church government was a theocracy. Christ ruled over the Church. Every service was led by the Holy Spirit. Apostles were appointed by the indication of the Holy Spirit to the existing apostles. Elders and deacons were appointed by the indication of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. Every member had a ministry and was a ministry. It was understood that the ministry was Christ in them, and was distinct and separate from the fleshly nature. Every ministry was set in place by prophecy and the laying on of hands of the presbytery. Paul mentions that he was part of the presbytery that set Timothy into his ministry. Timothy was a traveling deacon, an apostle. Paul was a traveling elder, an apostle who directed the work of traveling deacons such as Timothy and Titus. There was no chief elder in the local Churches, nor was there a salary for local elders. Paul mentioned the order that a local elder receives a double-measure of honor. In another place, Paul mentions that he, as a traveling elder is entitled to his living, though he would never take it.

These are just a few examples of the Church that God built. How different it is today!

By the second century, the Church had changed drastically. The elders were also called bishops, meaning overseers. They changed that and made the bishop kind of a chief elder. Then they gave the bishop a salary. Later, they became priests. And the traveling elders stopped traveling and took over cities. Finally, the Roman bishop grew in power and eventually became the Pope. Later, the Pope claimed to be infallible, something the original apostles never claimed. In fact, the Bible tells of their fallibility. The Church became a worldly government that was corrupt in many ways. Eventually, they ended up selling salvation for money and murdering any who opposed them.

Then, God began to restore. Hess, Luther, Zwingli, the Wesleys, and more. The move of the Spirit at the end of the 19th Century restoring the infilling of the holy Spirit. The move of the Spirit in 1948.

With every move of God, counterfeits also grew up like the tares in the parable that Jesus told.

From each move ended up going through a process and spawning denominations, divisions in the Church. The process is as follows. God gave a revelation. A person or several persons received the revelation and rejoiced. They became fearful that something would happen to the revelation and set up barriers to keep it from being distorted or defiled. There human-engineered methods did not allow the Holy Spirit to lead them any further. They got stuck. Refusing to follow the Holy Spirit is very serious, and the Holy Spirit lifted. Before several decades had passed, they no longer served Christ but followed the doctrine that came out of the revelation. Then, the organization grew and became a business. Eventually, the people followed the organization and the organization existed to bring more people into it and to bring more money into it.

So God is restoring. Each move of God restored something. God is still restoring the pattern of Scripture, and many Christian brothers and sisters oppose God’s restoration. There are many counterfeits, some of which still have born-again believers in them and some of which are totally dead. In addition, there are many of the denominations that came out of genuine moves of God which are fighting to keep their doctrine pure. As part of the effort to keep themselves pure, these groups have sub-divided repeatedly. So, now you can find many denominations that have forgotten about even how to be born again. They are just businesses. Many have gone to a social gospel of human-generated works. They are more Secular Humanist than Christian. We are indeed looking at the great Babylon of the Book of Revelation. The Holy Spirit is calling, "Come out, come out of her my people that you be not partakers of her sins."

Yet, God is working with a remnant. Yes. There are counterfeit apostles, but the true unity of the headship of the Church has been restored in a remnant. It is a glorious day in which to live. May the Saints keep pressing toward the mark. Amen!

The Problem Of Churches That Are Not Fulfilling Their Purpose.

How can we know anything about anything

Are churches commercial institutions rather than institutions of faith?

Apostles

The Church, What Is It and What Is Its Purpose

God's Way

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