“That you will know how one should act in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” 1 Timothy 3:15
Sixth Indictment: An Ignorance Regarding the Nature of the Church – Part Two
“And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” Jeremiah 32:38-40
Now look at this: “And I will give them one heart, and one way.” Do you see the contrast? The 70s and 80s had many “Jesus marches,” and thousands of people weeping and crying things like: “The Church is so divided. The Church is not one.” My dear friend, let me tell you something: If the Church is not one, this new covenant promise is assailed. And there would be a prayer that God the Father did not answer for His Son:
“Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are…Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.”—John 17:11, 20-22
So, I want to submit to you: The Church is one! She has always been one.
Have you ever sat down on an airplane, or maybe in a marketplace, and met someone you didn’t even know. And you, being truly evangelical, truly Christian, you talk to him for no more than a few minutes, and you discover, “He is a believer. This one is the real thing.” And, at that moment, you know you would give your life for him if need be. You would give your life for him!
I remember one time we were in the mountains of Peru, and it was during the time of the civil war there. We rode twenty-two hours up in the back of a grain truck under a black tarp. At about midnight the truck stopped, we pulled the tarp off, and we jumped off into the jungle. We stayed that night just at the edge of the jungle, and made our way up to a small town on the mountain. About half-way up we got lost in the dark, me and my dear friend Paco, so we were praying, “Oh, God, give us some direction. We are lost. If we are found in here, the terrorists own this place. The military wouldn’t even come in to find us.” We cried out, “Oh, God, give us some direction. Help us.”
We heard a bell. And then we heard somebody talking. It was a strange conversation at first, we thought. Then we realized it was a little boy coming in from the fields with his burro, and he was talking to his burro. And so we got behind him and followed him. Then we stood on the edge of a little village, with huts and adobe homes, and I said, “Paco, you know, if terrorists own this thing—we are dead.”
“Yes, but we have come to somewhere.” So we came out, walked up to a man who was drunk in the dark, and said, “Are there brothers here?”—because everybody knows what that means in the mountains: it means a real Christian.
And he said, “The old woman over there.” So I went over there. There was an old Nazarene woman, and I knocked on the door. I said, “I am an evangelical pastor. Please help us!” That old woman reached out with that lantern. She grabbed me. She pulled me inside. She grabbed Paco. Her house was cut out of a kind of a cliff in the mud, and she took us down into a basement where there was some hay and chickens and things. And she sat us down there and she lit a lamp. Then a little boy came in, and she called to him and said, “Go get the other brothers.” And men started coming in from nowhere, bringing chickens and yucca and everything else—risking their lives for us! Why?— because the Church is one!
Stop saying all these silly things that you are saying, that the body of Christ is divided, and that it is a mess and full of sin. I would not talk about the bride of Christ that way if I were you.
What you actually have in so many congregations today is a bunch of goats and tares among the sheep (Mat 25:31-46; 13:24-30). And because very little biblical, compassionate church discipline is practiced, they live among the sheep, they feed on the sheep, and they destroy the sheep. And those of you who are leaders in those churches are going to pay a high penalty when you stand before the One who loves them—because you did not have enough courage to stand up and confront the wicked.
Now, listen to me. The average scenario in North America with regard to churches, by and large, is that the churches are democracies. And I don’t want to get into the pros and cons of that. But here is what happens. Because the preaching of the Gospel is so low, the majority of the church is carnal lost people, and because it is a democracy, they by and large govern the direction of the church. And because the pastor doesn’t want to lose the greatest number of the people; and because he has wrong ideas regarding evangelism and true conversion, he caters to the wicked in his church. And his little group of true sheep, who truly belong to Jesus Christ, are sitting there in the midst of all the theater, worldliness, and multimedia, crying out, “We just want to worship Jesus. We just want someone to teach us the Bible!” Dear friends, these pastors are going to pay for this terrible condition of their churches.
So many pastors are trying to keep together a bunch of wicked people, while a little flock in the midst of them is starving to death and made to go in directions they don’t want to go. They are made to go along with the carnal majority!
Listen to me. If my wife were at a store late one night, and, as a man, you walked by and saw several men abusing her, and you put your head down in the name of self-preservation and walked right by, I want to tell you something, my friend: I will not only look for those men—I will look for you.
The Church is the bride of Christ, and she is precious to Him. It is going to cost you to serve Jesus. It could cost you your church, your reputation, and your denomination— it could cost you absolutely everything. But the bride of Jesus Christ is worth it!
Look what it says. I love this. “I will give them one heart and one way.” And what is that way? It is Christ and His holiness. All true believers I have ever met speak much of Christ—and have a longing desire to be more holy than they are, more conformed to Christ.
“I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good.” Now, so many lost people go to church on Sunday, and they hear this verse. And they say to themselves, “Yes, God has made an everlasting covenant with me. He will never turn away from me—never, never. I am secure because of God’s grace.” But, they fail to read the second part.
Look at what it says: “I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.” The evidence that God has made an everlasting covenant with you, sir, is that He has put the fear of God in you, so that you will not turn away from Him. And if you turn away from Him and He does not discipline you, and you continue turning away from Him, it is evidence that He has not put His fear in you. This is evidence that you have not been regenerated—you have no covenant with God at all! This, dear friends, is biblical truth.