Faith In A Divided World Series

The Critical, the Passive, and the Protestant

Inside every congregation, three kinds of spirits contend for control. You can find them in the pews, the committees, and sometimes in your own heart.

The critical spirit sees only what is wrong. It magnifies flaws, repeats gossip, and baptizes frustration as discernment. It speaks loudly of failure but softly of grace. It may carry the vocabulary of truth, yet it wounds the very body it claims to defend.

The passive spirit does the opposite. It avoids conflict at any cost. It keeps the peace by saying nothing, by letting the fire burn so long as no smoke reaches its own doorstep. It may seem gentle, but it silently concedes the ground that truth should hold.

Then there is the Protestant spirit. This is not a denominational label; it is a heart condition. The Protestant spirit loves the church enough to speak truth within it, to labor for its reform rather than to walk away. It stands in the city’s midst, sighing and crying for the abominations that are done there, not shouting from outside the walls.

Ezekiel 9 describes such people as those whom God seals. They grieve the sin but do not abandon the sinner. They lift the trumpet, not to destroy, but to awaken. That is the true spirit of Protestantism.

If a congregation loses that spirit, two outcomes remain: a house divided by criticism or a house lulled by silence. Both lead to the same ruin.

The Test of Allegiance Within

The greatest threats to the remnant church are not persecution from without but corrosion from within. Paul foresaw it when he said, “From among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.” The devil’s strategy is simple—if he cannot break the church from the outside, he will get it to dismantle itself from the inside.

We see it when ministries compete rather than cooperate, when social media replaces Scripture as our measure of truth, when we label one another faster than we pray for one another. A subversive element thrives on magnifying the faults of God’s people until those faults seem bigger than the cross that covers them.

To dwell endlessly on the imperfections of the church is to forget the perfection of its Savior. The gospel teaches that God uses cracked vessels because there are no others available.

The Ethnicity Battle

Pastor Lomacang warned against allowing ethnicity to replace identity in Christ. Miriam challenged Moses over a Cushite woman, and God Himself intervened. The issue beneath her complaint was not culture but control—who God chooses to use.

When the church makes ethnicity or nation the measure of authority, it loses the vision of Revelation 7, where every tribe and language stands together before the throne. Heaven does not erase heritage; it sanctifies it. Our unity is not in sameness but in shared surrender to the Lamb.

America is not a one-race nation; the Advent movement is not a one-culture church. Our mission is global because our Savior is universal. When we divide along lines of color or politics, we are playing an old game the enemy designed to distract us from our calling.

The Voice That Must Not Be Silent

Isaiah 58:1 commands, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression.” That is not a call to anger; it is a call to clarity. The trumpet must sound distinct, or no one will prepare for battle.

The messenger of God is not free to choose silence when truth is at stake. Yet the tone of that trumpet matters. We do not cry aloud to shame; we cry aloud to save. We confront not because we despise the church but because we love it enough to risk misunderstanding.

Every age of reformation has required someone who would rather obey God than preserve reputation. That is why Jesus said, “Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad.”

Allegiance in the Everyday

The silent war is fought in the ordinary. In every home, in every choice, we declare whom we serve. When a believer chooses honesty over gain, faithfulness over popularity, service over self-interest, the kingdom of God advances by one quiet victory.

True allegiance is not proven in crisis but in constancy. Daniel was ready for the lions’ den because he had already chosen loyalty in his daily prayers. Esther was ready for the throne room because she had already chosen courage in obscurity.

The call today is the same: be found faithful. Do not let the noise of the world, the fractures of the church, or the weariness of waiting erode your allegiance to Christ.