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If you miss one part of the puzzle that is being put together in these studies, you will never see and understand the whole picture.
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9. Jerald Finney
Copyright © December 18, 2024
As a lead up to the next lesson, “How to Recognize a New Testament Church,” one more matter needs to be understood. A “church of the living God” is to be the “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). The church is to support the truth, as does a pillar a building. Truth sustains the church—as does a pillar a building—against all the inevitable assaults foretold in God’s word. It sustains it amidst the war of elements, the natural tendency to fall, and the assaults which may be made on it, and preserves it when it would otherwise tumble into ruin. God entrusted the church to maintain the truth and transmit it to the future.
The ground here is that upon which the church rests, the basis or foundation. ” The church is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Eph. 2:22). “Jesus Christ is the truth, and his word is truth” (Jn. 14:6, Jn. 17:7). Thus, truth is to be supported by the church, within and without. Truth makes stable when “systems of error are swept away. Truth makes a church stable and fixed, unchangeable, amidst the storms that surround it.” The stability of an individual, a family, a nation, and a church depends upon the truth, and only the church is equipped to support such a heavy load.
God’s word is truth for individuals, families, nations, and churches. The instructions for individuals and families begins in Genesis 1. Instructions for nations and civil government begins at the end of Genesis 8. God ordained the nations and gave them their marching orders. He picked out one nation for special purposes, the nation Israel. Israel was the only nation he ever ordained as a “theocracy,” a nation where religion and civil government were to be combined under God. Israel was to be the light of God for all other nations. Israel failed miserably, even though they had God’s truth and even though God told them the consequences of both obedience and disobedience. See, Bible Doctrine of Government.
In the New Testament, God revealed something new, the church. The Holy Spirit disclosed the mystery of the church “unto his holy apostles and prophets,” a mystery which was not made known unto men before (Ep. 3.5-6). That mystery was that “the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.” A church, is “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit (Ep.2.22). A church may know “the manifold wisdom of God,” God’s “eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ep. 3.10; see also, 1 Cor. 2:5-8).”
God’s plan for every new believer in Christ is that they become a member of a local church (Ac. 2:41-47). Within the church, individual believers are “builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). A church body consists of born-again believers (See, I Cor. 12-14, Eph. 4). Only the person who has trusted Christ as Saviour can know and understand God’s truth (See, e.g., 1 Cor. 2). How can a new believer know the truth if he is not taught it? How can he teach it if he does not know it? A church is to teach new believers, and all members of the church are to work together as a spiritual body “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till “the church all come in unity of the faith…” See Eph. 4.
Within, the church is to know, understand, and teach all God’s revealed truth, including that for individuals, families, nations, and churches. Churches and church members are to apply individual, family, and church truth. Members of a church body are to assemble “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Till [they] all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:12-13). “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love” (See Eph. 4:16).
Without, believers are to be “the light of the world,” and they are to let their “light shine before men, that they may see your good works, ad glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14-16). Christ prayed, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world” (John 17:17-18). In the world, God’s children are to “walk as children of light,” “having not fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,” “but rather [reproving] them” (Ep. 5:8). Without, church members are to proclaim and apply God’s truth for individuals, families, nations and human government, and churches.
For both within and without, the church is instructed: “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness sin high places.” “Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth” (Ep. 6:14). Believers are to stand against the darkness of this world, and the truth which girts their loins holds all the pieces of armour together. The spiritual weapons of the church and the child of God “are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”
A believer who is not in a church or who is in a church which has not prepared them for spiritual warfare both within and without will do much harm to the cause of Christ, either by omission or commission. Millions of believers in America, having not been grounded in the truth, are failing in their God-given goal of glorifying God because they know not God’s truths. Christian political activists come out of churches who are not right with God, expecting to get America right with God. It will not work. Their work has proven counterproductive. “Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways” (Hebrews 3:10).
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