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What Happened To One Body?
Contributed by Dr. Ronald Shultz on Sep 3, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: People go to Hell because of our division. The early Church was one and turned the world upside down. We need to unite in the one doctrine of God not the myriads of doctrines of men.
1 Cor 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
15 Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.
Imagine that. We are to all being speaking the same thing with no divisions. Well, there is a steel ball we destroyed with a rubber hammer over the last two thousand years.
If we were to change the names, we would be saying, "I am of UMC. I am of Baptist. I am of AG. I am of COC." we would have to do three chapters to get all the alphabets and non-denominational bits listed.
Indeed, is Christ divided? Does He have seven hundred different versions of His truth or different rules within His one flock? I do not see that in this passage or anywhere in the Word.
Man has caused the divisions and man needs to get back on track with God. There is only one truth on any subject. Man may have gray areas, but God does not. A mixture of darkness and light creates gray and in Him there is no darkness. He is pure light. That means we are in trouble in any area where we do not agree with Him. That means a whole bunch of church groups are in a heap of trouble.
It is the time of the end and many churches are in apostasy. They are dead and will not revive as they have run out of oil as an institution. The virgins have lost their purity and have become harlots.
There are people who split the body over nonsense. God has truth, not preferences, and if we are looking for the church of our choice instead of His, we are in trouble. If our traditions keep us from unity then the traditions have to go.
We need to quit playing church and going along to get along tolerating division and error. We need to have a Second Reformation where we sit down and hash out the differences and admit when we are wrong on a doctrine or splitting over manmade traditions.
The world needs to see the Church unified around truth. There will be a fake one-world church and there needs to be a unity of the true Church to withstand that error until we are Raptured.
People are going to Hell because they see a church on every corner and a new one cropping up every six months. Six Baptist churches preaching the same doctrine means five are extraneous and bad stewardship dividing the Body into splinter groups.
Paul said he would not build on another man's foundation and sought to preach where they had no church, yet we have men "called" to where there are thriving churches in place. No one seems to want to go to places where there are no churches. Indeed, it is easier to build a church from disgruntled and curious members than to win souls in a tough area.
There are too many camps that do not recognize the other camps so they have to have a church from their camp in the same place where two other camps already have churches. We have way too much redundancy in ministries. We are poor, poor stewards.
We have made Christianity a competition and a consumer commodity. We wonder why we see no revivals and few souls saved. People need a Savior, not a brand name. They need the Spirit, not marketing tools and fads.
May God so shake up His Body that we may be one as He wanted us to be when He comes. May He mark those that cause divisions and bring them into confusion and failure. May the approved stand out and stand together. Maranatha!