Bible Lesson 204

A BIBLICAL VIEW OF THE CHURCH AND ITS MINISTERS

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she should be holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:23

“When the pulpit is used to glorify the preacher, when the music only shows off the singers, when church membership only enhances community status, when the prayer house becomes a play house, and when we come more interested in recreation than in re-creation, then the church becomes a house of merchandise. Vance Havner. See John 2:13-16.

This month we want to study the Word of God to find the Will of God concerning His Church. What constitutes a church in the eyes of God; and what we as creatures have sought to make the church. This is always an uncomfortable issue but God requires His ministers to deal with uncomfortable issues and it is past time that we began to deal with the idea that Church membership equates to salvation in the eyes of our God.

Where did we ever get the idea that the church was established to save souls’ The Bible says that that is the thing that Christ came to die for! Matthew chapter One and verse twenty one, tells us’..

“And, she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sin.” The favorite verse of most church-members in our day is John 3:16, which does, if it is taken out of context and used as a pretext to make sinners feel good about themselves, becomes a comfortable verse for sinners.

That verse (John 3:16) says “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” However, that verse cannot be lifted without several verses prior and after verse 16.

If we read that verse in context verses 16-21, we find that it plainly states that those who are not put to death with Christ and resurrected in Christ, recreated in Christ Jesus and indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and enabled by the power of God to walk in the light of the truth of God, are condemned. Read those verses (John 3:16-21) and see for yourself that Salvation is much more than deciding to be a better man or woman, joining a church group and being baptized and attending the meeting of that group.

True salvation consists of a dying and burial, a resurrection, and a subsequent walking in newness of life. It always, without fail, results in a New Creature in Christ, dead to sin and self, and alive to God, obeying all that has been commanded of every Christian which is a Christ-like life. (Ephesians 2:8-10; Romans 6:1-14; 2nd Corinthians 5:17; Titus 2:11-14; Romans 8:1-17; Galatians 2:20).

Have you ever heard the truths of the Bible stated like that’ If you haven’t and you will read all of the posted scripture referenced above, you will see that it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Nowhere in the Word of God, the Bible, can you find that the church is anything except a gathering of the Saints, those who are truly saved and obedient to God. The Word that is translated as Church in our Bibles is from the Greek language root of Ekklesia, which speaks of a gathering or assembly of those who belong to Christ. In our society we have always thought of the church as a building, where church members gather for worship. The Church of Jesus Christ consists of those who have been recreated in Christ, to be conformed to the image of Christ, who worship God in spirit and truth. It does not require a building with a spire, or bells, or stained glass windows. It does not require anything except that those who meet there to worship are new Creatures in Christ. We must correct the understanding that When we speak of The Church, that we think of the edifice that we helped to build and pay for.

Although it may be huge, and with a spire that reaches to heaven, it is only the place where God’s Children meet to worship, and plan and implement His will. I am not demeaning any church building but I am attempting to cause us to realize that God is after Souls, not real estate. He owns it all, and we must understand that whenever two or more are gathered together in His Name, He is there among them. When your particular church meets, is every member truly a Child of God’ I know that some who read this will say, ‘Well, we are all God’s children’. That is not so, and Christ Himself preached that it was not true. There are two kinds of people in the modern church: There are the ekklesia (saved people) and there are the children of the devil. We have allowed denominations who have rushed to compete with the denomination down the street, to ‘Grow our church’ and we have short-cut salvation in favor of gaining more members, more money, and more masonry (bigger buildings).

The modern church has found no problem with lifting little promise verses and shying away from the meat of the Gospel. We have refined the way to skirt the Lord’s will, and deserted His way of Salvation. Apparently we have forgotten that we cannot save souls, that God is the only Savior, and He has set the path for mankind to seek that salvation. God says that to be saved we must know about God; and in Romans 10:14-17, God inspired the Apostle Paul to write and say that ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Faith is not something that we can conjure up or learn about, it is a gift of God! (Ephesians 2:8-9). Those who are saved must have confronted their ego, their self, and found it as dirty rags. The sinner then must cast himself on the only name under heaven where salvation is found, and that is Jesus Christ. We cannot decide to be saved, we must be drawn (dragged) to Jesus Christ by the Father (John 6:44). Think about this, we are all born dead in trespass and sin, under the wrath of God, because we love sin and we can will to do nothing but sin, because we are rebels against God, just like our grandfather Adam. Now, dead men and women can do nothing, especially decide to be saved by the blood of Christ. Something has to happen outside of us, and that is where God begins His free gift of salvation. Remember what Christ told Nicodemus back there in John chapter 3:3,5, when Christ told Nicodemus who was certainly a ‘church-member’, in fact he was a pastor and teacher; but Christ told him that he had to be ‘born again’; born of water and the Spirit. It is important that we understand what Christ meant when He mentioned water here, because it was not water like we drink, but the Word and Will of God that cleanses the soul of man.

The ‘New Birth” is that action that occurs when God takes the initiative and calls a sinner to Himself in salvation. He does not simply forgive the old person and polish him up a little bit, no indeed, God puts the old creature to death and raises up a new Creature in Christ, and by that I mean that the saved person’s position is ‘In Christ”. That’s what the Apostle Paul was inspired by God to say to us in Galatians 2:20, where we read that Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live I live by the faith of Him who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Hallelujah! Now what does this new creature have that he/she never had before’ They have the Almighty power of God to live for Christ. He gets up every morning and thanks God for whatever that day has in store for him, he puts on his clothes and heads out to reflect the life and mission of Christ on this earth. He is free to do whatever Christ would do, and what the Spirit leads him to do. In our time we have been taught that the saved person is humble, but we don’t understand what a humble person does. Our image of the saved person is one in which the person is weak and goes about with his shoulders humped and wringing his hands. We are people who do not know what to believe; because we have not been equipped by the church we attend to do anything but warm a pew. Was that what Jesus Christ did when He walked on the earth’ Absolutely not, what He did was, He healed the sick, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, and fed the hungry.

Jesus even did something that would be a blessing today and that is he cleansed the house of God a couple of times. Don’t misunderstand me now, we will never be Christ but we are born again Saints, who will reflect His life, to sinners. We are not saved to sit, we are saved to stand, like Christ and for Christ. Humble means power under control, it means that Christians will teach and preach and witness just like Christ did when He tabernacled with us here on the earth. We are to be witnesses for Christ, beginning with our family, our friends, our community, our nation and the world. We are aware and awake and conscience of our duty and we exercise our gift of salvation to influence the lost. Now, we are quick to make exceptions for our failure to do all of that, but the truth is that we are for the most part asleep at the wheel. Let me be quick to say that what most church-members think is witness for Christ, is a casual ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘God bless you’; or maybe visitation of a sinner where the sinner convinces you that you shouldn’t discuss politics or religion.

That my friend is nowhere near a witness. Witness is speaking the Word of God in such a way that sinners see their sin, and their need for a Savior. Every sinner must be brought to the lick log and own their sinfulness or they will never feel the need for forgiveness. That is what happens when we witness from the Word of God, the Bible. When we fail to witness we are sinners in the eyes of God because we have not done what He has commanded us to do. When we fail to witness, God takes it out of our hands and works on the soul of the sinner. Remember that is what happened to the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15. The Prodigal, which is what every sinner is, demanded his inheritance from his loving father, and squandered it with riotous living. He had many friends until his money ran out, and then he ended up having to eat with the hogs. God brought him to his right mind and he saw his sin and saw himself as a sinner and arose and went to his father. Sinners who do not have people who love them enough to tell the gospel truth, must ‘come to themselves which is by the grace of God’ then they will run to the Cross and cast themselves upon the Grace and Mercy of God for their forgiveness. Have you done that’ Can you look back to a place where you know, that you know for a fact, that you had been with Christ, on the cross’ If you are saved you were more than on His mind when He was on the cross, you were in Christ when He was crucified. He died for those who would obey Him, not to create some potential that you may or may not chose to complete. (2nd Corinthians 13:5; Hebrews 5:8-9; Hebrews 2:10-18; John 3:16-21).

I know that I have given you a lot of facts (Biblically proven) to consider, so I will close by choosing some words from an old Hymn, that says be sure, be very sure, your anchor holds and grips the solid rock: of Christ .

In times like these you need a Savior
In times like these you need an anchor;
Be very sure, be very sure
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

Chorus This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He’s the One;
This Rock is Jesus, the only One!
Be very sure, be very sure
your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

In times like these you need the Bible,
In times like these O be not idle;
Be very sure, be very sure
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

Chorus This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He’s the One;
This Rock is Jesus, the only One!
Be very sure, be very sure
your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

In times like these I have a Savior,
In times like these I have an anchor;
I’m very sure, I’m very sure
My anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock

Chorus This Rock is Jesus, Yes, He’s the One;
This Rock is Jesus, the only One!
Be very sure, be very sure
Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock!

Until next time,

may God bless and keep you

This is Bro. Bob