ith much fervor Brother Leonard,
the visiting preacher, began his message by asking the congregation to turn to the gospel
of John, chapter 15. He readily established that Jesus is the true vine and we were the
branches. Then he made a startling point of saying that fruit-bearing was not the most
important issue in this passage; abiding was. "Bearing fruit is mentioned four
times," he pointed out, "while abiding is mentioned nine times." He
hammered repeatedly the phrase, "We must abide." "We must abide." I
waited for him to complete his sentence by saying, "We must abide in the vine who is
Jesus." He never did. Then I saw it coming. He had to say it. It was the abundance of
his heart. He was, after all, a church man. He stepped back from the podium,
pointed an accusatory finger at his unsuspecting victims in the congregation, and said,
"The problem we have in society today, and especially in the church, is people don't
abide. They go from church to church and never make a commitment to the church or to the
pastor."
Did he actually believe that abiding in that system we call church
is what it means to abide in Jesus? Did he believe that committing to a church or
the pastor is the same as committing to Jesus? His conclusion was an outrageous
misrepresentation of scripture, spoken for the benefit of that local pastor whose church
had a history of losing members. Rather than liberating the saints to have a deeper
relationship with their Lord, he set a snare to enslave them even more to that Thing we
call church.
He did not set out to deliberately deceive the people. In all
truthfulness, he was deceived himself. We have all been deceived. Lied to. Beguiled. This
deception has been passed through the generations of Christians since at least the third
century A.D. Those who perpetuate this lie are equally victims of it. This deception is so
deep and cruel that we have believed it as the truth. We minister death with this
deception, thinking we are offering life.
Worse yet, people are unknowingly missing out on their glorious union
with Christ because they have been given a false assurance of their salvation. This
beguilement has puffed us up in self-importance. It has caused many believers to forsake
their first love, Jesus. The devil has seduced us into dancing with him while making us
think we were dancing with the Lord.
THE LIE
This is the lie: We have been made to believe that this Thing we call church
is of God and that our membership and participation in it is essential to our Christian
walk when in fact it is an idolatrous substitute for Jesus and quite often a hindrance to
our walk with Him.
This Thing we call church, as we have come to experience it,
is an idolatrous extension of our own Selves. Though it exists as an entity unto itself,
we are in it and it is in us. It is an icon of self-worship
that has grown out of the traditions of men and has no basis in scripture. We proclaim
that this Thing we call church is the Kingdom of God when in fact it has nothing
to do with the Kingdom of God. Rather, it is the modern-day Babylonian captivity
of the elect of God.
We have confused our relationship with Christ by fusing it with this
Thing we call church. We are led to believe that when we are in a proper
relationship with it we are in a proper relationship with Christ; that we have to
be a member of a church to be saved or to be a good Christian; that serving it
is serving Christ; that loving it is loving Christ; that tithing to it
is tithing to Christ.
In many instances this Thing we call church is like a tent we
have made to spread over the moves and revelations of God in order to preserve them, touch
them, contain them, maintain them, manipulate them, own and control other people in them,
and use the people and the system for our sordid, fleshly gain. We find comfort in the
restrictions these church walls set for us. We can hide in them and feel good in
them. We widen these tent pegs just enough to let others in who want to walk, talk, and
dress as we do.
We talk about this Thing we call church in strange ways. Where
do you go to church? What is the name of your church? How was church
today? Are you building an annex onto your church? Wow, did we ever have church
at prayer meeting last night! The pastor or priest often greets the Sunday morning crowd,
saying, "Good morning, Church." These statements make church
out to be a building, an institution with a name, a service, a meeting, the kind of time
we have together, and people.
The word "church" as it is used in English translations of
the New Testament refers to the people of God, but we no longer limit its meaning to
people. If we really meant that people are the "church" when we use that term,
these same statements would have to be made this way: Where do you go to you?
What is the name of you? How was you today? Are you building an annex
onto you? Wow, did we ever have us at prayer meeting last night. We know
better and insist in theory that we, the redeemed people of God, are the church. Yet, in
practice, we make no distinction between the people and this Thing we call church.
That the word church is used interchangeably this way is not the problem though. Much more
is going on here than meets the eye.
The word church, as we use it, speaks of an illegal, unholy
mystical union which embodies buildings, institutions, denominations, and people. These
have been so fused and confused with each other that they perpetuate the dangerous lie
that this Thing we call church (buildings, institutions, denominations, and the
people associated with them) is Christ's assembly of called-out-ones. This Thing we call church
looks good in its outward appearance, but is often inwardly controlled by men and women
ambitiously, often unknowingly, seeking something for themselves.
SUBSTITUTE FOR JESUS
When we preach church, as we craftily do, we thereby preach
another gospel, a false gospel. We perpetuate the lie. We are often zealous to evangelize
people into our churches; yet, we are uncomfortable calling them to deny
themselves and take up their crosses to follow Jesus. Such a command by Jesus is a foreign
concept to most Christians today. If we happen to lead someone to Christ, we immediately
impose church membership upon them, especially hoping that they will join
"our" church.
I have personally longed to be in fellowship with other believers who
were willing to be the body of Christ with me without having to sign on to the
bondage and play the games that come with being a member of one of these institutions. I
find no satisfaction in paying my dues to church just to "shake and
howdy" with a few other believers while hiding behind our phony religious facades.
If it were true that going to church is synonymous with coming
to Jesus, then we would have to ask: Which Jesus is it? Is it the Baptist Jesus? The
Church of Christ Jesus? The Methodist Jesus? The Presbyterian Jesus? The Roman Catholic
Jesus? The Orthodox Jesus? The Protestant Jesus? The Charismatic or Pentecostal Jesus? The
Independent Jesus? There are so many to choose from. Unchurched people look at
this mix of churches they are invited to join and wonder why anyone would want to
be a part of that.
We give our hearts to these Things we call church rather than
to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are enemies of God because they stand in place--in
substitution--to what is holy, to what is His.
SHOW THE HOUSE TO THE HOUSE
This deception is not new. The children of Israel in Judah and Samaria
were spiritually blinded by their own harlot hearts. They refused to hear the words of the
prophets to return to the worship of their God. So, God scattered the people of Samaria to
Assyria and later exiled Judah to Babylon.
The prophet Ezekiel had been carried away with the captives of Judah to
Babylon. He had visions from God which he was told to tell the "stiff-faced" and
"hard-hearted" elders of Judah whether they listened to him or not. God wanted
them to know that a prophet had been in their midst. Ezek. 2-3.
Twenty-five years later, God took Ezekiel by way of a vision to the
land of Israel and showed him a man whose appearance was like brass. This man had a line
of flax and a measuring reed in his hand. He measured all around the Temple. He measured
the width and the height of the wall, the gateways, chambers, and courts. Afterwards, he
took Ezekiel to the gate that faced the east, and the glory of the God of Israel came from
the east. "His voice was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with His
glory." Ezek. 43:2. The Spirit lifted Ezekiel up and took him into the inner court as
the glory of the Lord filled the Temple. Ezek. 43:5.
Then Ezekiel heard the Lord speaking to him from out of the house and
told him that this house, the temple, was the place of His throne, the place of the soles
of His feet, where He would dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever. It would
be the place where His holy name would dwell. Ezek. 43:7. God told Ezekiel that the house
of Israel would not defile His house any more by their whoredoms; neither they, nor their
kings, nor by the carcasses of their kings in their high places. Ezek. 43:6-9.
Then the Lord charged Ezekiel to show the condition of the house of the
Lord to the house of Israel saying, "You son of man, show the house to the house
of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern.
And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house, and
the fashion thereof, and the going out thereof, and the coming in thereof, and all the
forms...ordinances...and laws thereof...this is the law of the house: upon the top of the
mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy." Ezek. 43:10-12.
Next, Ezekiel was shown a temple of stone. From the New Testament
perspective we believe this temple of stone represents God's spiritual house of lively
stones--the body of Christ which is the temple of the Holy Spirit of whom we are. The
condition of their hearts reflected the condition of God's temple. Conversely, the
condition of God's temple reflected the condition of their hearts.
It still works this way.
Centuries later, the aging apostle John was given the revelation of
Jesus in which he was asked to measure the temple again. He wrote, "There was given
me a reed like a rod: and the angel stood, saying, 'Rise, and measure the temple of God,
and the altar, and those who worship therein.'" Rev. 11:1.
Today, the Spirit of the Lord calls out for us to show the house to
the house that we might be ashamed of all that we have done; that is, show how we
have given our hearts to our denominations, institutions, buildings, stained-glass
windows, memorialized pews, patron saints, rituals, liturgies, doctrines, rules of order,
programs, the Sunday morning service--so many, many things. The Spirit of the Lord wants
to show us how we seek after our own agendas though they contradict the agenda of God. He
calls us to keep His pattern, not ours; His laws, not ours. For this is the law of the
house that we should be holy (separated) unto the Lord. Ezek. 43:12.
If we were asked to measure a physical house structure, we would pull
out our measuring tape and calculate numbers. We would check the width, length, and
height. Those who are in the institutional church typically measure themselves by
how many members they have, how big their buildings are, how many buildings they have, how
tall their steeple is, how many cars can be parked in their lot, what kind of cars are
parked in their lot, how much money they take in. They measure these Things because they
give the greater honor to those pastors and ministries who have the biggest and most. This
is a false house.
The true house of God is measured by love, faith, mercy, grace, peace,
life, light, rest, joy, hope, forgiveness, acceptance, righteousness, praise, worship,
turning the other cheek, submitting to each other, receiving the prophet in the name of
the prophet, employing the gifts of the Spirit for the building up of the body, having a
passion for Jesus, and being excited about the things that excite God. These are
expressions that define our relationship with Christ as His bride and with one another as
the household of God. We measure the temple of the Holy Spirit of whom we are by these
Biblical terms. If that which we are in that we call church is characterized by
such terms as dissension, backbiting, dead works, unbelief, legalism, manipulation, and
fear, then it is a harlot's house. We have a Thing--an idolatrous extension of Self that
is not of God.