Links

I added a few gadgets to this blog including links. I'll tell you up front that no link appearing here necessarily has my full advocacy. Instead, it may be there simply for informational or discussion purposes. Such is the case for the link www.house-church.org.

For the most part I actually do agree with most of what I see here at first glance. However, there are three areas of serious concern:

1. The polar debate with Gene Edwards
2. The question of what to do with unbelieving family members in the house church is not addressed
3. The focus on the wrong purpose (Biblical adherence instead of worship)

I shall discuss the first point in this entry then proceed to the others later on.

What is at stake here is not who is right and who is wrong. The issue is the same one that Jesus dealt with - the fleshly desire for power. In our Lord's case, He faced the Pharisees and Sadduccees, the religious leaders of the day. In the case of House-Church vs. Edwards, they are likewise the religious leaders of their movements. In both cases, the focus is on the people in power though the articles try to lead you to believe a more righteous line.

The same can be said of denominationalism. No matter the case, since the day God made Himself known to man, man has attempted to usurp God and take control. This is the way of the flesh. It is the first and very nature of sin, that man says "No" to God and "Yes" to himself, his flesh, and the father of lies - the devil. This is the very turning away from God to self. Therefore John emphasizes so much in his Gospel that we are to believe.

To believe means to turn to the living God from idols, just as we are instructed in I Thessalonians 1:9. It is not from these sins of the flesh, of power, greed, and self that we turn. It is from the sin of unbelief. For any one of these sins must necessarily add up to guilt for all (James 2:10). That is what Jesus died for and saved us from.

This point is a lesson unto itself and I will share more about it later for it is crucial to the other two points above. I will close with this:

My ministry and calling is to the remnant, the saints of God, to be used of Him to wake up the Church according to Ephesians 5:25-27 and I Corinthians 15:34. If I stray from this into the fleshly captures of what inevitably comes from getting books published and speaking engagements, then pray boldly to God and speak boldly to me that I would repent for all that I do now is for the glory of God.

Yet throughout history, God is sovereign and has not allowed the flesh of mankind to stop His purposes. The kingdom of God is filled with wheat and tares (Matthew 13). In these last days there will be false teachers and false prophets, some of whom started out in righteousness only to be felled by the flesh. This is a great mystery and yet it is true.

God allows these things but He does not prefer them. He still holds high the standard of His truth. It never changes. We are commanded to be, to do, to live, to believe, according to His Word. We can only do this in obediece to Romans 6:11 - "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."