THE REAL CIVIL WAR IN THE CHURCH
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Civil War in the Church is not a new thing. It has been raging since the first century.
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But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully. For I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent apostles. [2Corinthians 11:3-5]
I read about a recent tent revival. Giant tent. Things were going great. Then the leaders thereof lost the use of the tent. The revival came to a sudden end.
Then the leaders thereof pleaded for financial supporters to buy them their own tent. Great amounts of money were quickly raised. The last I read the leaders of the revival were making big plans to buy their own tent and all the other stuff needed to build out the interior with all the modern conveniences, the tractor trailers needed to transport the tent, and one presumes all the salaries necessary to keep the leaders thereof and their helpers taken care of, in order to resume the revival and get it back on track.
They are calling it a miracle provision from God.
UNLESS THE LORD BUILDS THE TENT
Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. [Psalm 127:1]
I decided not to read about this revival any further, having only read a brief synopsis on a Christian news site. I’m sure many good things are associated with this tent revival but it cannot be more obvious that the leaders thereof are absolutely dependent on a tent. Why not just build a church building like everyone else? Everyone knows Christianity is impossible without church buildings.
As a friend told me once, incredulous than I could not understand this principle, “We have to have a place to MEET.”
This friend happened to own a very large house with a very large meeting room with leather couches and chairs that would have been absolutely perfect as a place to meet. They were friendly people with many associates who made great hosts. They really loved people and were dedicated to the Lord. When I brought up the possibility that their house would make an excellent meeting place and that they could easily invite all their many friends I was told, “Well, if the Lord ever tells us to do that…”
In other words, the “church” they were meeting at was the “official” place. Period. Guess what their “church” was? It was a large room in a single story office and recreational building. It had a low, drop-tile commercial ceiling and a mass of folding chairs all in rows. There were next to no welcoming warm adornments or furniture except maybe a couple of church banners and the walls were a bland neutral color. But this was “church.” They set up a rudimentary sound system and, believe it or not, had a pulpit and a one-step platform. My friend’s house would have been MUCH better. But it never happened.
REAL REVIVALS AND MOVING MOUNTAINS
As we speak there are Christians all over the world in probably a million locations meeting somewhere other than an official church building. For many there are no buildings at all. They meet outside. Some meet in crude huts. Some meet in crude structures that barely keep the rain out when it is raining and out in the open otherwise. Multiple millions are meeting in underground illegal locations all over China. Most of these places are packed full because they are small. Those people worship the Lord and minister all day long. They are always subject to arrest and being ratted on by spies. These are very powerful Spirit-filled spiritual people who know how to move giant things in the spirit and defeat powerful spiritual enemies.
The same thing happens in several second and third world countries. It is mandatory, however, that most of these meetings be held in secret. We therefore do not know the full extent of their existence. But we know this: When real Christians obey the Lord Jesus, allow Him to be in charge, and take their discipleship seriously, MOUNTAINS MOVE. Mountains are moving right now the world over.
It is even happening in America to a degree but one cannot see it very good if their frame of reference is “church.” It’s because mostly nothing all that world-shaking or special is happening in “church.” People are satisfied with what they have and aren’t going to change. In the great tradition of the Pharisees most of Christianity has become a stage play. Most Christians have become mere actors or spectators. Most have no idea whatsoever that they’ve become co-opted.
Real Christianity is the only hope America has left and most American Christians don’t want real Christianity.
Evil people who trash the teachings of the Lord are still in control of this country, the nation’s morals have long since descended into a pit, and “official” Christianity is being led around by the world and is in a race to be more like the world. It continues to spend an inordinate time seeking money, prestige, and political power. It must have the material world. It cannot exist without the material world. Take away the huge outlays in the material world and it would collapse in a day.
A SPIRITUAL KINGDOM
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” [John 18:36]
I could go on. The Lord God commanded Moses to build a dynamic MOBILE tabernacle—a relatively small tent. It was not meant to house everybody. It was not built to cram everyone into it. There are obvious spiritual implications to this. Five centuries later the tent was no more because Solomon built a static located stone temple, just like the heathen nations. Remember, Israel had demanded that God give them a “king” so it could it be like all the heathen nations even though it already had the ONLY KING. They rejected God. This was the beginning of the slippery slope going into hyper space. WHOOSH. The next thing you know they had a big old stone temple, just like the heathen. They had decided to become heathen.
“But it was Solomon who built a house for Him. However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says: ‘HEAVEN IS MY THRONE, AND EARTH IS THE FOOTSTOOL OF MY FEET; WHAT KIND OF HOUSE WILL YOU BUILD FOR ME?’ says the Lord, ‘OR WHAT PLACE IS THERE FOR MY REPOSE? WAS IT NOT MY HAND WHICH MADE ALL THESE THINGS?’ You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.” [Acts 7:47-51]
There is a disconnect in Christianity that must be dealt with. Most Christians keep insisting on somehow cramming an open-ended powerful spiritual kingdom into small three-dimensional “official” material spaces. At best, all this does is render the kingdom less powerful and less able. This is in part why the majority of American “churches” are spiritually dead. There is no spiritual life because there is no spiritual kingdom because there is no Spirit of the Lord!
But there are vast material resources, huge amounts of real estate, and billions of dollars serving no spiritual purpose. And the Lord Jesus is rejected. Sound familiar? And counterfeit shiny substitutes are put in His place.
We should all know this. Many do but do nothing about it. And the ones that do know and do something about it are shown the door that is not even supposed to exist.
WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE, STEPHEN!
If we were all like Stephen we would be tearing up the devil on every front and the entire world would be filled with Upper Rooms and Pentecosts. Instead, far too many Christians, in defending their turf, look more like this:
“Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become; you who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. [Acts 7:52-54] [1]
This is why legitimate attempts at proper reform always expose the devil in Christian leadership. The leaders thereof don’t want reform. They like things exactly the way they are, wrong or dead though it may be, and will always rise up in defense and teach their people the same. It is why they killed Stephen. It is why they killed the Lord.
It is also why Civil War in the Church will only get more intense, because real revival is coming and it will never fit in conventional old wineskins.
© 2017 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Posted on May 23, 2017, in Current Events and tagged America, Ancient Israel, Hidden Agenda, Lord Jesus, Real Christianity, Spiritual Warfare, Stephen, The Great Awakening, The Real Temple, The Tabernacle in the Wilderness. Bookmark the permalink. 17 Comments.
I speak with people frequently about the problems with the “church” system. They completely ignore my statements, resume the conversation about their “church” and even invite me to it because their “church” is “not like other churches”. It does not compute that you can walk with Christ outside the parameters of a church building. I become the pitied and crazy one in their eyes. You cannot pull people out of there as Stephen discovered.
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Thank you, Stephanie. I was there for decades. I saw it that way. Most of that time, however, I could see all the problems and the way things didn’t add up, and how church as we know it did not agree with the New Covenant Scriptures. But I was also loyal to a fault and spent all those years being the good soldier and wanting to do “the right thing.” I stayed because the Lord wanted me to stay. I ended up with a great experiential education. The time came when He told me to leave.
Church as we know it, or at least as I knew it then, can be a great thing even with the rejection of core New Covenant teachings. But if we know anything about the Lord at all, we know He wants progress. There is so much work to do. But most Christians are satisfied with what they have. Most will not pay the great spiritual price that is necessary for reform and revival. You often never see great prayer meetings of weeping and travail, and great intercession sessions, and long fasts. You don’t often see preachers breaking down in the pulpit because of heavy spiritual burdens. You don’t often see a powerful movement of the Lord’s people in the congregation.
In the world we do see it often appears that all is well. Outside of that world many know this isn’t true. The people with most of the power and money could be doing the right thing. At the end of the day it only proves that the Lord’s great love and spiritual power is what matters and gets the job done and He proved by His own ministry that it does not require all the things most Christians insist they must have to do His work.
Blessings to you.
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It is one thing to take the boy/girl out of the church. It is a completely different and much more difficult to take the church out of the girl/boy.
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Good point. Much thanks, Tony. Reminds me of brainwashing or mind control or religious programming. You don’t think…
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We’re you aware that the word, “dwelt”, as in ” the Word became flesh and dwelt among us from the gospel of John is the Greek word σκηνόω ( skēnoō) literally means tented. So the Word became flesh and tented among us. A tent is moveable, a building is not.
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Excellent. Thanks Tony. I have studied this often. From the perspective of this world and judging by the beliefs and practices of many Christians, it wasn’t much of a tent.
Be Blessed.
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Good mornin brother.
I enjoyed your article. I too haven’t found institutionalised church to be what I’m looking for.
Primarily, because I haven’t found resting in the finished work of Christ promoted.
If people could really grasp this beautiful truth, I believe that revival would happen.
And good mornin to you. 😃
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Thank you Lee. Good to meet you. Christians in general seem to be unaware of the great benefits the Lord Jesus wishes to bestow upon them which are derived from and made possible by His completed work. The Lord completed His work in part so we could be engaged in our work, which is the work He called us to do. This work is also a great gift. Yet again, most are not aware of their gifts and callings and are therefore not engaged in their work. He made all of us to be His ministers and revivals are more likely to happen when everyone gets involved. Blessings to you.
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God bless you and thank you for this post. Really enjoyed reading it and the truth of it shines to those who walk in the Spirit. I have been ousted out of many churches, I have no credibility left in the mainstream churches. The reality of the deception which is greater than most folks know has for me personally become a reality but at the same time a reality of knowing Christ Jesus my LORD. I too know that a rude awakening is coming to the ‘man made church known as Christianity’. Praise God He has reserved His Remnant may they come forth in splendour. Thank you again and God bless you. jacky
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Thank you Jacky, and thanks for an inspiring comment. There are so many real Christians who only want to answer the call, do their job, and serve the Lord. He is not asking us to water ourselves down or meet some silly common denominator but to go all out as He did. Most real Christians got their start in traditional churches, and this is good, but they have also learned that they can only go so far, there are almost no ministry opportunities, and there is certainly no place for anyone with an apostolic, prophetic, or teaching anointing unless one is a member of the club and honors the club leadership rather than the Lord Jesus. There are possibly millions of these Christians but we only always hear of the same few people who garner all the airtime and pulpit time. This complete lack of real koinonia and a spiritual aborting of the Lord’s gifted ministries have certainly served to keep the elite in control but only at the cost of destroying any hope of New Covenant spiritual power and unity to defeat the enemy in those establishments. Again, it is why so many of these places look great but have little or no spiritual depth, and why many of them have even joined the enemy.
THE REMNANT LIVES AND IS GROWING STRONGER EVERY DAY.
Blessings to you.
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John Wesley was prohibited from preaching in certain pulpits in England, so he bought a horse and preached to thousands of people on horseback. I think that Wesley mostly preached out in the open.
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You’re right, Tim. Thanks. Wesley was one of the early advocates for completely breaking convention and preaching outside. The church elders were aghast. But he saw that tens of thousands would never hear the Word of God because they were outside the establishment. These were rough-hewn blue collar workers rejected by all and Wesley decided to meet them on their turf. He preached to them in the early mornings before work and whenever he could. He ended up with massive turnouts sometimes exceeding 50,000.
This tells us where the institutional churches are completely off the mark. I saw a news story last night in which a large church made the decision to bend to the culture and stop preaching the pure Word in order to gain more attendees. They achieved their desire. It used to be that ministers preached the Word of God and majored on preaching repentance to sinners instead of coddling them. It is impossible to be saved if one never repents of sin and tries to stop sinning. So what are they gaining? Spiritually, not a blasted thing.
Be Blessed.
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Hi RJ, I just found your blog post about the Church’s Civil War and read almost all of it. I wanted to invite you to take a look at a website (www.redeemingloveonline.com) I’ve been building with podcasts, blog posts, and a Twitter feed on Church History to provide insight and tools people can use to deal with the problem you wrote about here, in the hope that people who stop and listen would well, be blessed.
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Thanks for stopping by. Be Blessed.
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Excellent! Aren’t we glad it (revival) isn’t up to us? God is prevailing.
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Thanks for the visit and comment. The Lord is certainly prevailing and always will. Countries, nations, and empires fade away but the Lord’s Kingdom will last forever. It is the one Community that will never be defeated. But because it is a Community, the Community of Called-out Ones, it is composed of all real Christians and we must each do our part. In this sense any revival or spiritual awakening is not just up to the Lord, but to His followers, the other members of the covenant, also. Being that He would prefer that we stay “revived,” He is always for it.
An example to prove this is prayer. The Lord has arranged things that His people must pray if certain results are to happen, otherwise prayer would have no meaning. We must pray but it is the Lord that answers the prayer. Speaking of which, a great number of Christians in America, perhaps millions, have been praying for a Great Awakening for many years now…
Blessings to you.
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Yes, I know. I became a Christian when I was about 31 and called to pray within a couple of years after that. I was fortunate to have two very Godly women disciple me in prayer and have been praying for many years. Revival has been on my heart from almost the time I was saved.
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