Unified (Pentecost Of 2023)

UNIFIED

Text: 1 Corinthians 12:1 - 11

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1 Corinthians 12:1-31  Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.  (2)  You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak.  (3)  Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.  (4)  Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;  (5)  and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord;  (6)  and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.  (7)  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  (8)  To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,  (9)  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,  (10)  to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  (11)  All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.  (12)  For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  (13)  For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  

Today is a big day---a huge day in the life of the church. It is the Church’s birthday.

“There is the story of a little teeny pygmy who was standing over a rhinoceros that he killed. This was an odd sight to behold, a big, violent rhinoceros under the feet of a teeny pygmy. A guy saw this dead rhinoceros and this little pygmy over it and said,

“Did you kill that?”

The little pygmy said “Yeah I killed it.”

Curious, the man asked, “So how did you, a little pygmy, kill this rhinoceros?”

“With my club. Yep! I killed this rhinoceros wit my club.”

The man was still thoroughly confused, “Well, how big is your club?”

In other words, he was surrounded by folk who had the same belief systems and worked together so that they could handle being attacked by a rhinoceros.” (Tony Evans. Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009, p. 337). Hearing this story prompts us to ask divided, assembled or unified.

DIVISIVENESS

Would anyone disagree that we are a divided country with divided people and divided churches?

There are all kinds of divisiveness.

The right and the wrong; the haves and the have-nots; the privileged and the deprived; the liberals and conservatives; the republicans and democrats; the Christians and the atheists; pro-life and pro-choice and so on and on. Who is the author of all this division?

Who is the author of subtraction and division?

1) Who: We all know the answer don’t we? Why would the enemy want to divide us? Follow me, “United we stand …… Divided we fall”. That’s true for the Church; that’s true for teamwork; that’s true for armies; that’s true for families; that’s true for friendship.

2) Why?: We all know the who but what about the why?

Is the ultimate goal of division our destruction? What happens to nations that separate from God? They get taken over by what Jonathon Cahn calls the Dark Trinity. “Baal ushered in Ishtar. And it was Istar that ushered in Molech” (Jonathon Cahn. Return of the Gods. Lake Mary Florida: Front Line, 2022, p. 104).

First in the Dark Trinity: Baal is the possessor (p.39) and the god of apostasy (p. 42).

?Baal’s mission is to cause a nation that has known God to stop knowing Him (p. 43).

?In the 60’s they took prayer out of the public schools (p. 44).

?The Ten Commandments and the Law are the foundation of Western civilization (p. 45).

? Baal turned Israel in upon itself and has done the same to America----spiritual schizophrenia (p. 45).

Judges 3:7

Second in the Dark Trinity: Ishtar---the breaker of rules, the trespasser o boundaries and the transgressor of standards and conventions; the goddess of prostitution (73).

?Seducer, temptress, goddess who captivated, allured, and snatched away; mixed

sexuality with intoxication (p. 74).

?Her aim is to destroy morality and faith (p. 79) Anesthetized us subtly removing taboos (pp. 80 - 82). She creates familiarity followed by numbness, followed by toleration and then acceptance (p. 83)

?She paved the way for America to become the world’s leading exporter of pornography (p. 87).