CHAPTER 4
My company installs large, heavy industrial
machinery. It is not uncommon for some
of this equipment to cost one million dollars or more. My customers know that we have the best
skilled rigging staff in town to handle their new machinery. Some of our customers have plants out of
state and we are often asked to install these machines as well. Quality work produces sales.
The Lord designed the church to produce the best
quality Christians in the shortest possible time. Would He do any less? Community,
commitment and accountability were the reality and benefit of the small
church. It took some time for the
apostle’s doctrine and tradition to be understood and implemented in this young
church. Let us not forget the effort of
the Judaizers and the false apostles who were working to undermine the new
covenant. Satan used all his power to
stop this advancing Christian army.
The new Christian was taught how to have a deep
and personal relationship with Jesus.
Their daily walk with Jesus was exciting, especially after serving many
god's that were made by men’s hands. They felt the presence and power of the
Lord, especially after He gifted them to serve the body. They learned to live in victory, regardless
of the problems life threw their way.
Their self-esteem increased because the Holy Spirit was with them, to
teach and lead them through their daily walk.
They became quality individuals.
Their friends and family noticed the change in their life and wanted the
same. Sharing their faith with others
was a natural expression of their walk.
The house church became a warm sanctuary for the
early Christians, much like a womb to an unborn child. It satisfied the spiritual and social needs of
its members. They became family-tight
and committed to each other. The Lord
blessed it with a recipe of special dynamics as is explained in
the following two passages of Scripture:
His intention was the perfecting of God's people for works of service, so that the
body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the
knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure
of the fullness of Christ. Then we will
no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and
there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in
their deceitful scheming. Instead,
speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the
Head, that is, Christ (Ephesians
4:12-16 emphasis added).
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting
ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work
(Ephesians 4:16).
Christianity witnessed God's new intention to
write his law on the tablets of the heart.
They watched Him assert His sovereignty there, and His only. It announces itself as the Power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth.
Andrew Miller captures the mighty Christian army advancing on the
miserable heathens with the hope only the Gospel offers:
It proposed to raise
man from the deepest depths of degradation to the loftiest heights of eternal
glory. Who can estimate, in spite of
every prejudice, the effect of the proclamation of such a Gospel to miserable
heathens? Thousands, millions, tired of
a worthless and worn out religion, responded to its heavenly voice, gathered
around the Name of Jesus, took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, and were
ready to suffer for His sake. [i]
Even
though the Lord and Paul were powerful teachers the following Scriptures give
us an indication that the Holy Spirit, who taught Paul, preferred that each
Christian in a gathering present something they had personally received from
the Lord. What then shall we say,
brothers? When you come together, everyone
has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an
interpretation. All of these must be
done for the strengthening of the church (I Corinthians 14:26 emphasis
added). Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you
sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God
(Colossians 3:16 emphasis added).
Therefore, if a strong teacher dominates the
meeting, others may be intimidated, become lazy and depend only on him for
spiritual nourishment. They may feel
inadequate and somehow unqualified to hear from the Lord themselves. The truth is that the gift of hearing from
the Lord is available to all.
Even the most eloquent preachers and teachers have to develop this
gift. It essentially takes discipline, a
devoted time to pray, meditation on the Word of God and a listening room for
the gift to develop.
It takes many years of apprenticeship to become a master cabinet-maker. However, most Christians won't invest in biblical apprenticeship and so choose to hear everything secondhand. As a result, the process of perfecting God's people is stifled. Some would say, "That is what we pay a preacher for," and, without realizing it, they get to know the preacher better than they do God. A large number of Christians don't even bring their Bibles to church anymore. The perfecting and growth of the saints must include hearing directly from the Lord. I personally enjoy and could sit literally for hours listening to good preachers and teachers of the Word. But I don't use them to replace my daily time with the Lord.
The result is that I am able to hear directly from the Lord, and this increases my faith, trust, obedience and love for Him. Andrew Miller, reports how the heathen were astonished at the natural and orderly conduct of the Christians:
Can we catch a
glimpse of the natural order the heathen saw in the daily lives of the pioneer
church from this next passage? The
conduct of Christians in their earthly relationships, as found in Scripture,
was another reason for the acceptance of the Gospel among the heathen. Each one was exhorted to remain in these
relationships, and seek to glorify God therein.
The blessings of Christianity to wives, children, and servants, are
unspeakable. Their love, happiness, and
comfort were an astonishment to the heathen, and a new thing among them. Yet all was natural and orderly. [ii]
In a matter of days after Pentecost there were
five thousand people that accepted Jesus as their savior in Jerusalem. Surely today's elders would have hired an
architect to draw up plans pronto for a huge building to house five thousand
people. “Just think of the choir we
could have!” The Lord's plan was to stay
away from constructing buildings. After
all, hadn’t the conspiracy to crucify Christ and shedding the blood of the
prophets come from the Temple? For
three centuries, the body of Christ met in homes except when persecution broke
out then they gathered secretly in cemeteries, catacombs or changed locations
frequently.
From the start, Christianity was a missionary
movement. Lacking sacred temples or a
special class of priests, the early Christians naturally made the home their
base of operations. The home was a
natural, grassroots base for spreading the gospel message. Michael Green, in his often-cited study, Evangelism in the Early Church, said,
"One of the most important methods of spreading the gospel in antiquity
was by the use of homes." Referring
to the home of Aquila and Priscilla, Green went on to say, "Homes like
this must have been exceedingly effective in the evangelistic outreach of the
church." Robert and Julia Banks, a
prominent Australian couple and key leaders in the worldwide home church
movement, echo this same point: "It is often forgotten that the
Christianity which conquered the Roman Empire was essentially a home-centered
movement." The home thus became a
hub for evangelism and teaching. Paul
used the home as a base from which to propagate God's Word. Speaking to the Ephesian elders, Paul
said, "I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable,
and teaching you publicly and from house to house (Acts 20:20, see also
Acts 28:23).
Our historian friend Andrew Miller, tell us about the effects meeting in the new buildings had on their intimate small churches:
For the most part,
this successful divine pattern of house churches was abandoned some time in the
third century. An important point in the
history of the Church, and one that proves its altered position in the Roman Empire,
now comes before us for the first time.
It was during the reign of Alexander Serverus, an excellent prince, that
public buildings were first erected for the assemblies of Christians. A little circumstance connected with a piece
of land in Rome shows the true spirit of the Emperor and the growing power and
influence of Christians. This piece of
land, which had been considered as a common, was selected by a congregation as
a site for a building. The Company of
Victuallers contended that they had a prior claim. The case was judged by the Emperor. He awarded the land to the Christians, on the
ground that it was better to devote it to the worship of God in any form than
apply it to a profane and unworthy use.
Public building --Christian Churches
so-called --now began to rise in different parts of the empire, possessing
endowments in land. The heathen had
never been able to understand why the Christians had neither temples nor
altars. Their religious assemblies, up
till this time, had been held in private.
The private house, the catacombs, the cemetery of their dead, contained
their peaceful congregations.
The outward condition of Christianity
was now changed, but alas, not in favor of spiritual health and growth. Christianity was now recognized as one of the
various forms of worship, which the government did not prohibit.
The student of Church history now meets with the manifest and appalling effect of the world in the Church. It is a very sad thought, but it ought to be a profitable lesson to the Christian reader. What was then, is now and ever must be. The Holy Spirit, who dwells in us, is no less sensitive now to the foul breath of the world than He was then.
What the enemy could not do by bloody
edicts and cruel tyrants, he accomplished by the friendship of the world. This is an old stratagem of Satan. The wily serpent proved more dangerous than
the roaring lion. By means of the favor
of great men, and especially of emperors, he threw the clergy off their guard,
led them to join hands with the world, and deceived them by their
flatteries. The Christians could now
erect temples as well as the heathen, and their bishops were received at the
imperial court on equal terms with the idolatrous priests. This unhallowed intercourse with the world
sapped the very foundations of their Christianity. This became painfully manifest when the violent
storm of persecution succeeded the long calm of their worldly prosperity.”[iii]
Now, instead of the believers being the church,
the building became the church.
The believer became less
important, the building became more important. Sometimes I wonder what were the
greater cause of the demise of the early Christians’ powerful forward movement
the new
buildings or the pulpit? The
world has not yet reproduced a more productive three hundred years that
influenced humanity in such a positive way.
Remember that the style of Jesus in communicating
with the crowds was not to lecture but to have a discussion and encourage
questions to which He would respond. He
presented the truth, He is the Truth, and the Word became flesh. His answers were always correct. Unfortunately, the style of today’s pastors
is not discussion but a lecture with no opportunity for the congregation to
respond.
When Jesus spoke, the crowds received the truth
firsthand. When today’s clergy speak,
the crowd gets everything second hand.
It is like chewing cud. Although
cud is nourishing, someone else first processes it. The processing of the truth by one person, as
hard as he tries to get it right, will be swayed either by his limited
reference points, the denominational seminary he attended or his personal
doctrinal agenda. Every traditional
church has chosen specific doctrinal agendas that often times conflict with the
church down the street, and that is what continues to keep the body of Christ
divided.
A problem develops when the lecture method is
consistently used in presenting the Gospel.
It allows each member to choose what part of the lecture he will accept
or reject, because he has no opportunity to discuss any part he has a question
about. If the member hears too many
lectures that he rejects he may stop attending altogether or possibly look for another
church. This keeps many pastors
adjusting their sermons not to lose anyone.
The gospel then becomes a social gospel, one that can be accepted by
most anyone. Lord help the pastor who
tries to go back to preaching a gospel of repentance, because many that have
compromised the church want now to sit comfortably under a social gospel.
The right to choose has been raised to the level
of idol worship in our secular society. Our society doesn't care much if your choice is
right or wrong, only that you have the right to choose. This worldly idol has subtly infiltrated the
church and sits in the pew every Sunday morning waiting to do its thing. There are people sitting in churches today
with a limited knowledge about Jesus and the Scriptures. They rarely read the Bible and depend upon
their minister for their weekly spiritual feeding. Because the pastor is a man (human), they
believe they have a right to critique what he says and choose what they will
believe. Without having any input in the sermon, how many times have we sat
around the table eating Sunday dinner and struggled to remember what the sermon
was about?
On the other hand, the discussion method is the
standard format for the house church, whose roots go all the way back to the
apostles. It gives every member
opportunity to ask or answer questions or just contribute to the subject on
hand. The search for truth is not
reliant on one individual. What is said
is instantly supported or refined by Scripture.
It is a sight to behold when the Holy Spirit is orchestrating the
teaching by working through everyone contributing their thoughts to a scripture
or particular subject with Bibles opened on everyone's lap. The result is that the message sticks because
everyone took part in building it. It is
very humbling when some of our old doctrinal baggage gets refined a bit by the
Church. That process however, is
essential, to prepare the Bride for the soon-coming King.
There are times that the Lord
tries by severe means to alter our course back into His authorized
direction. Sometimes it works and
sometimes it doesn’t. Andrew Miller,
shares about one such incident that did not alter the direction of the clergy.
Scarcely had the new Churches been built, and the
bishops received at court, than the hand of the Lord was turned against
them. It happened this way. Maximin a rude Thracian peasant, raised himself
to the imperial throne. He had been the
chief instigator, if not the actual murderer, of the virtuous Alexander. He began his reign by seizing and putting to
death all the friends of the previous Emperor.
Those who had been his friends, he reckoned as his own enemies. He ordered the bishops, and particularly
those who had been the intimate friends of Alexander, to be put to death. His vengeance fell more or less on all
classes of Christians, but chiefly on the clergy. It was not, however, for their Christianity
that they suffered on this occasion, for Maximin was utterly regardless of all
religions, but because of the position they had reached in the world. What can be more sorrowful than this
reflection?” [iv]
It didn't take long for things to go from bad to
worse. The clergy, believing they were
the only ones who could hear from God and deliver His message, collected all
the Scriptures and plunged the world into the Dark Ages. Many new spiritual inventions could now be
used to keep the common people in bondage and subservient to the clergy, who were
now in complete control. Massive opulent cathedrals were built, and a way had
to be devised to pay for these statements of stone. Indulgences were the rascal finally settled
on. Purgatory became a place from which
only money could release you on your journey to heaven. This plan puts modern con men to shame. Infant baptism kept parishioners safely
shackled to the church. And a further
tampering with the ceremony of Holy Communion produced transubstantiation. Now only the clergy elite could handle the
host. The pope replaced Christ as the
authority of the church, and the clergy were now mediators between man and
God. They had it all, or so they
thought. The corruption of the church
was now evident and scandalous, and God was not asleep. There is no need for me to mention all the
evil liberties the church hierarchy engaged in. For good reason the Lord
wanted the future church to realize how distant they could get from Him and
still insist that all is done in His name.
The method the Lord used to bring correction to
this church is the same one He uses today; through
those who love Him and hunger for His truth. The Lord started to infiltrate the clergy
with men bearing this desire. It cost
many of them their lives. None had the
notion to form new denominations, nor did they seek to break from the church;
rather, they passionately desired that the church reform from within and
correct abuses that had crept in over many generations. Let’s take a glimpse at the lives of some of
these great men as presented by the Christian History Institute.
John Wycliffe: Reformation Morningstar
(1330-1384)
If you had lived in Wycliffe's time, you would
have found many of the same uncertainties and pressures that are common to our
own age Seismic shifts dislocated the settled patterns of life. The "Black Plague" swept across
England and Europe, and in some places wiped out one-third of the
population. What was known as the "100
Year War" between England and France sapped energy and resources. Wage controls locked the poor into a marginal
existence and led to the violent Peasant's Revolt in England in 1381.Z
Wycliffe cared deeply for the poor and common
folk and railed against the abuses of the church. The church owned over one-third of the land
in England. Clergy were often illiterate
and immoral. High offices in the church
were bought or given out as political plums.
But the problems went even deeper.
Wycliffe, a devoted student of the Bible, saw that some of the doctrines
of the church had departed from biblical moorings. Based on his study of the Scripture, he wrote
and preached against the teachings about purgatory, the sale of indulgences and
the doctrine of transubstantiation.
This was
too much. Even his highly placed
political friends deserted him. Church
authorities had him banished from his university teaching post at Oxford. But his exile turned into a kind of
liberation. Some of his students joined
him at the parish church in Lutterworth.
There they undertook the monumental task of translating all the
Scriptures into English, working from a hand written Latin translation that was
over 1000 years old. And they continued
Wycliffe's practice of training "poor preachers," known as Lollards,
who took the Word out to the common people across the land.
Think for a moment what it would mean to you if
you could not own a Bible or if the Bible was not even available in your
language. What if you were taught that
the Bible was only for church officials to study and interpret? That was exactly the case in Wycliffe's
England.”
So, nothing was more important to him than
getting the Bible and its message into the language and hearts of the
people. He knew the Scriptures would
change lives. As he put it: "God's
words will give men new life more than the other words that are for
pleasure. O marvelous power of the
Divine Seed which overpowers strong men in arms, softens hard hearts, and
renews and changes into divine men, those men who had been brutalized by sins,
and departed infinitely far from God.
Obviously such miraculous power could never be worked by the work of a
priest, if the Spirit of Life and the Eternal Word did not, above all things
else, work with it.
Wycliffe was condemned by the church and died of
a stroke on New Year's Eve in 1384. But
his memory and influence continued so strong that he was formally condemned
again thirty years later at the Council of Constance. Orders were given for his writings to be
destroyed, his bones exhumed and burned, and the ashes to be thrown into the
nearby river. Somehow the Church
authorities thought that by burning his remains they might erase his
memory.
But even such bizarre and extreme actions could
not stop the hunger for God's Word and truth that Wycliffe had uncompromisingly
advocated.
John Hus: Faithful Unto Death
(1374-1415)
John was born in 1374 to a humble family. He was ordained as a priest in 1401 and spent
much of his career teaching at the Charles University in Prague, Bohemia. He was also the preacher at the Bethlehem
Chapel in Prague. (Don't let the word
"chapel" mislead you. Three
thousand people packed in to hear his sermons.)
The reform-centered writings of John Wycliffe
found their way into Bohemia. Studying
in the days before the printing press, Hus painstakingly copied Wycliffe's
books for his own use. Like Wycliffe,
Hus emphasized personal piety and purity of life. He stressed the role of the Bible as
authority in the Church, and consequently, he lifted biblical preaching to an
important status in church services.
Bethlehem Chapel itself was a tangible
illustration of Hus's teachings. On its
walls were paintings contrasting the behavior of the popes and Christ. For example, the pope rode a horse while
Christ walked barefoot, and Jesus washed the disciples' feet while the pope had
his feet kissed. Many of the clergy felt
rightly that their lifestyle was being questioned. But Hus was popular with the masses and with
some of the aristocracy, including the queen.
The archbishop of Prague told Hus to stop
preaching and asked the university to burn Wycliffe's writings. Hus refused to comply, and the archbishop
condemned him. Meanwhile, Hus preached
against the sale of indulgences, which were being used to finance the pope's
expedition against the king of Naples.
The pope excommunicated Hus and placed Prague in interdict, roughly
meaning that the entire city was excommunicated and could not receive the
sacraments. To relieve the situation,
Hus left Prague, but he continued to preach in various churches and in the open
air. And, like Jesus, "the common
people heard him gladly."
Why was the hierarchy so opposed to Hus? Not only did he denounce the often immoral
and extravagant lifestyles of the clergy (including the pope himself), but he
also made the bold claim that Christ alone is head of the Church. In his book On the Church he defended the
authority of the clergy but claimed that God alone can forgive sins. He also claimed that no pope or bishop could
establish doctrine contrary to the Bible, nor could any true Christian obey a
clergyman's order if it was plainly wrong.
Hus could only meet with trouble for such
teachings. In 1415 he was summoned to
the Council of Constance to defend his teachings. The Council condemned the teachings of Wycliff,
and Hus was condemned for supporting those teachings.
Hus, sick and physically wasted by long
imprisonment, illness and lack of sleep,
protested his innocence and refused to renounce his alleged errors
unless he could be shown otherwise from Scripture. To the council he said, "I would not,
for a chapel full of gold, recede from the truth.”
On the way to the place of execution, he passed a
churchyard and saw a bonfire of his books.
He laughed and told the bystanders not to believe the lies circulated
about him. Arriving at the place of
execution, he was asked by the empire's marshal if he would finally retract his
views. Hus replied, "God is my
witness that the evidence against me is false.
I have never thought nor preached except with the one intention of
winning men, if possible, from their sins.
Today I will gladly die."
The fire was lit. As the flames
engulfed him, Hus began to sing in Latin a Christian chant: "Christ, Thou Son of the Living God,
have mercy upon me."
Martin Luther: Monumental Reformer
(1483-1546)
Even if your job is a dishwasher or stable boy,
yours is a divinely appointed vocation, as sacred as that of any pastor or
church official. Even if you attend church twice every Sunday without fail,
give most of your income to the poor, read your Bible and pray every day, and
live a rigorously moral life, this will not earn you acceptance with God and
entrance into heaven. That only comes as
a free gift from God, apart from all of your religious dedication.
These were the things that Martin Luther
proclaimed in a time when the church held a frightening control over the lives
and consciences of the common people.
These teachings changed the world.
Luther didn't set out to become a world class
leader. He was headed for a career as a
lawyer. Those plans were upset when, as
a promising 22 year old university student, on July 2, 1505, he was caught in a
violent thunderstorm. Lightning struck
close to him. Thrown to the ground and
fearing for his life, he prayed to St. Anne that, if she would save him, he
would become a monk.
Luther kept his vow and pursued the monastic life
with an intensity that went far beyond the already strict requirements. He wore out his superiors with his excessive
and interminable confessions. "I
kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to
heaven by his monkery it was I. All my
brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I should have
killed myself with vigils, prayers, readings and other work." But even these superhuman efforts did not
bring peace to his tormented soul. When
he said his first mass, he was "utterly stupefied and terror
stricken" at the though of standing before the Almighty God.
His wise confessor and superior, Dr. Johann
Staupitz, secured for himself a noble niche in church history in his decision
to appoint Luther as a professor of the Bible at Wittenberg. Through his laborious studies of the Scriptures,
Luther came to see that the guilt that consumed him could not be lifted by more
religion, and the God he dreaded so much was not the God that Christ has
revealed. Shooting forth from the book
of Romans (1:17), another thunderbolt crossed his path: "Night and day I
pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the
statement that "the just shall live by faith." Then I grasped that the justice of God is
that righteousness by which, through grace and sheer mercy, God justifies us
through faith. Thereupon I felt myself
to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning,
and whereas before the 'justice of God' had filled me with hate, now it became
to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love.
This passage of Paul became to me a gate to heaven.
Luther was also a pastor at the city church in
Wittenberg and began to preach his new found faith to his congregation. But at the same time a representative of Pope
Leo X, a monk named John Tetzel, was selling indulgences to raise money to
finance the building of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. Indulgences were letters of pardon, which
guaranteed forgiveness of sins.
Luther saw this as a perversion of the
Gospel. He wrote up 95 theses in Latin
and posted them on the door of the castle church inviting scholars to debate
the issue of indulgences. The printing
press had recently been invented and Luther's theses were printed up. Within weeks copies were in demand and
stimulating debate across Europe.
Branded a heretic, excommunicated, banished and
condemned by the emperor Charles V, he was to be captured or killed on
sight. But he was kidnapped and
protected by Duke Frederick of Saxony.
He poured out his energy in study, writing, and
translating the New Testament into a German that everyone could
understand. Later he returned to
Wittenberg to deal with crises there, while his ideas and writings spread
across Europe like water from a burst dam.
The Reformation could not be stopped.
The Anabaptists: Reformation Radicals
(1525-present)
The Anabaptists (or "rebaptizers") were
one of several smaller groups in church history that endured unspeakable
suffering to establish and maintain their witness. They began in the midst of the reform at Zurich
under Zwingli in the mid 1520s. Some
felt that Zwingli and the reform there were not going far enough or fast
enough. More was needed, they felt, than
to reform a corrupt, unfaithful Church.
They wanted to return to a New Testament Church.
Two issues are important to mention. First, they thought that reformers like
Luther and Zwingli were still captive to a political marriage of Church and
state. The Anabaptists insisted that the
Church be separate, govern itself, and have no official ties to the state. This sounds rather sane and acceptable to us
today, but then, it set off a frightening explosion. Throughout history until that time, religion
and government had always been linked together.
Second, these believers could find nothing about
infant baptism in the Bible, so they concluded it was an invention of a corrupt
Church, and therefore illegitimate. They
would get baptized all over again as believers and form a believer's church
that was composed only of the converted.
One of the early Anabaptist leaders was Michael Sattler. Born around 1490 in southwestern Germany,
Sattler became a monk at the monastery of St. Peter's of the Black Forest and
there rose to the position of Prior, next in authority under the Abbot. Disillusioned by the corruption he saw in
church life, perplexed by his study of the Bible, and moved by the horrible
conditions of peasant life, Sattler left the monastery. He was a man in painful search for truth.
Sattler moved on to take up pastoral duties at Horb, an area under the Austrian
control of Ferdinand, an aggressive Catholic persecutor of alleged
heretics. Michael, his wife, and others
were arrested and kept in jail for nearly twelve weeks. He was brought to trial and his calm,
reasoned, and brilliant defense of his now fervently held Anabaptist
convictions failed to move his accusers.
Awaiting death, he wrote to his flock.
In such dangers I have surrendered myself entirely to the will of the
Lord and am, with all my brothers, my wife, and some other sisters, prepared to
witness for him even unto death."
On May 20, 1527, his tongue was cut out, he was tortured, and then
burned alive. As the flames consumed
him, he held up his forefingers as a prearranged sign to his fellow believers,
verifying that God would give the strength to endure faithful to the end. A few days later, after refusing a final
opportunity to recant, Margaretha followed her husband in martyrdom and was
drowned.
The Sattlers were only two of scores of
Anabaptists who remained faithful unto death.
Their stories would undergird the Anabaptists for generations as they
were scorned, exiled, ridiculed, and persecuted by governments, Catholics, and
Protestants alike.
Anabaptist descendants today can be found in the Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, Brethren in Christ, and other groups.
It
took revelation, also great
courage for these men to see truth they had not seen before and act upon it,
even if it meant losing their lives.
They worked hard in prayer and study and wanted answers from God
concerning all the problems they witnessed in the Kingdom of God. Their hearts, like a farmer's field in the
spring, were made fertile and ready for the Lord's seed of new understanding. A deep hunger for truth was their
passion. How does this happen to some
and not others? And why have we seen
truth come to some, who then build walls around it and cannot accept future
truth? A good place to begin answering these questions might be with the
example of Israel in the wilderness. God
had called a whole nation to bring the light of the Lord to a very dark
world. As time went on, because
of their choices and conduct toward God, they were rejected and only
their children were chosen to enter the Promise Land.
In my small business, from time to time I have to
hire people with special skills. I put
an ad in the newspaper and give a general call to those who would like to be
interviewed for the position. We usually
get somewhere around fifty applications.
After reviewing them, we call in only those we think may qualify for the
position. After one or two interviews, a
final selection is made. Many are called
but few are chosen. Only a few had
developed the skills I needed. So in
essence I chose only the ones who prequalified themselves.
My wife and I have invited people to the church
that meets in our home. Some have come
in the course of time, having watched and inquired about the church. We plant the seed of this great move of the
Holy Spirit and watch what happens to them.
Those that come vary in their commitment to the Lord. Some come only once, others stay awhile
longer, and I have honestly asked the Lord, “Why do people not want Your best,
Your designed church?” I believe the
Lord has answered my question. I listen
to all their excuses for not continuing, and one thing always stands out. It is their personal choice and preference
for something else and not the Lord leading them away. I hear them start out by saying, “I want” or
“I need” or “I like” something else. The
truth is, some Christians develop the fertile ground in their heart to desire
and receive the Lord's way and some simply do not. The responsibility of having fertile ground
in our hearts to receive and understand the truths in God's Word rest entirely
on the individual. There is no mysticism
about this. The Lord does not sit up in
heaven and unjustly choose some to have a close intimate walk with Him and some
to not have it. After three years of
ministry on earth, death and resurrection, there were only 120 believers in the
upper room to receive the promised Holy Spirit.
For all of Jesus’ personal effort, that is a remarkably small number of
converts, to usher in the New Covenant. If mysticism were involved, I'm sure Jesus
would have chosen many more people to be a part of Pentecost, if only to
present a good image for you and me.
A good example of what I am talking about can be
found in the lengthy discussion Jesus had with many disciples about Him being
the bread of life.
From this time many of his disciples turned back
and no longer followed him. "You do
not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom
shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One
of God” (John 6:66-69).
The disciples who left had their feet still
anchored in their past traditions of the Old Covenant. They lacked the fertile ground in their
hearts to wait and understand more from Jesus.
Although Simon Peter did not have full understanding of this teaching,
yet he confessed for the twelve that they would not leave because there was
nowhere to go. His past tradition could
not lure him away from Christ and His eternal words of life.
As Christ reveals to us more understanding about
His Last-Day Church, what will we do with it?