The following address was delivered
at the 1990 New England Baptist Family Conference. Now, as we did last evening,
I want to read a portion of the Word of God to which reference
will be made in the course of our study, but I think it good
for us to have our minds impacted with the Word of God itself before
we begin the second in our series of studies on the very vast and
vital subject of Church unity. Will you follow, please, in your
Bibles, as I read Ephesians 4, verses 1 through 6? I therefore, the prisoner in
the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith
you were called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering,
forbearing one another in love, giving diligence to keep the
unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and
one spirit. even as also you were called
in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and
in all. As we come to this second study
of our subject on church unity, Let me, particularly for the
sake of those of you who have joined us today or have come
in just for the evening session, take just a few moments and try
to, as it were, flash upon the peaks of those truths that we
considered in our initial study last evening. By way of introduction,
I sought to identify precisely what we will be studying in these
four messages. And by church unity, I mean that
unity that comes to expression in specific local congregations
and not church union, the great goal of the modern ecumenical
movement, or church cooperation, the goal of every single church
that is seeking to act according to the norms of Scripture. Then,
having isolated the field of our concern, I sought to address
three broad categories in setting, as it were, the field for our
further study. I laid before you a working definition
and description of Church unity. Then we considered the attainability
of Church unity and, thirdly, the importance of Church unity. And if you are convinced by the
portions of the Word of God that we studied last night of the
importance and the attainability of church unity, what must be
done to experience that unity? How can we, by the power of redemptive
grace, attain and maintain as the prevailing climate of our
churches a fundamental oneness and harmony of understanding,
affection, purpose, and activity, while unashamedly maintaining
and manifesting all the legitimate expressions of diversity and
individuality which do not disturb that unity, but rather enhance
it. And that will be the question
that we take up tonight and in the subsequent studies together. I trust, convinced of the importance
and the attainability, and having a somewhat comprehensive, though
not technical definition of that unity, we are now prepared to
address the question, how shall we attain it and maintain it
by the grace of God? And in seeking to sort out the
biblical witness in answer to that question, I suggest that
you may find it helpful, as I do, to think in terms of the unity
of the Church, obtained and maintained in terms of the foundation of
a building and its superstructure. In the attaining and the maintenance
of church unity, there are certain things that lie at the very foundation
of that unity. Without it, there can be no substantial
church unity in the superstructure of our church life. If that foundation
is properly laid, there may be times when a shingle or two are
blown off the roof of that unity, Occasionally a window may be
blown out and even a wall caved in. But if the foundation is
firmly laid and sustained by the Word and the Spirit, then
we can always tack back on a new shingle, we can replace a window,
we can even repair and patch up a caved-in wall. But in the
language of the psalmist, if the foundations be destroyed,
what can the righteous do? And we may well ask, if the foundation
is never laid, what will the superstructure do with the first
little gust of wind? And you remember from our Lord's
closing illustration in the Sermon on the Mount how foolish it is
to build any structure of any kind in the realm of religion
that does not have proper foundations. For sooner or later, the winds
which have their origin in remaining human sin, in the pressure of
the world, or in the machinations of a wicked devil, will huff
and will puff, and they will surely blow our house down unless
it has biblical foundations. And so tonight we're going to
concentrate on answering the question, how shall we attain
and maintain church unity with reference to this concern about
foundations? And I suggest to you that the
foundation of church unity is made up of the reinforced concrete
that has three commodities. as reinforced concrete has gravel
and it has cement and iron or steel rods. Those are the three
basic commodities that make up, no doubt, the reinforced concrete
that constitute the walls of this rather strange and exotic
building in which we meet. Well, so likewise, there are
three basic elements to the reinforced concrete which constitute the
foundational structure of biblical church unity. I'll name the elements,
and then we shall look at them one by one from the Word of God. There must first of all be a
common experience of the grace of God. Secondly, common convictions
regarding the truth of God. And thirdly, a common commitment
to the great concerns of God. So we have a common experience
of the grace of God as the first element in true biblical church
unity. It is interesting that in every
pivotal passage where the unity of the people of God is the focus
either of the assertions of the passage or the exhortations of
the passage, it is assumed that those to whom those assertions
or exhortations come possess in common an experience of the
application of God's grace by the supernatural power of the
Holy Spirit. There is not one explicit passage
on the subject of church unity, to my knowledge, anywhere in
the New Testament that does not assume or explicitly state some
element of the application of God's almighty transforming grace
as the common denominator of those to whom these assertions
or these exhortations come. Now, I did not say we must have
a common experience of conversion. The ways of God in turning sinners
from darkness to light are as diverse as are the faces that
are present. And in conversion there is no
distinct pattern that God follows with all of His people. There
is a marvelous and fascinating variety of the ways of God in
the work of converting sinners to Himself. But when we dig beneath
all of the cosmetic elements of their conversion experience,
we find at the base of it a common experience of the saving grace
of God. Now, why is this common experience
of the saving grace of God the most fundamental element in any
true biblical church unity? Well, let me seek to answer that
question, first of all, by reminding you of what we are by nature
in relationship to one another. In Romans 8, 7, we read, The
carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither, indeed, can it be. So then, they that
are in the flesh cannot please God. In other words, the prevailing
disposition of every man's heart and spirit—that's what it means,
the carnal mind—the prevailing disposition of every man's heart
and spirit by nature is not at enmity with God. Paul says it
is enmity itself. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. The whole prevailing disposition
is one large, clenched fist in the face of God. That's it. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. Now, how does it show its enmity?
For it is not subject to the law of God. You see, its enmity
is manifested not in what the lips may say concerning God,
but in the prevailing disposition of the will to the authority
of God as manifested in the law of God. The carnal mind is enmity
against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can it be. It has no power to renovate itself
from enmity to amity, from a clenched fist to an open hand. It cannot be left to itself. It was conceived enmity. It shall live enmity. It shall
die enmity. It shall go out into hell enmity
and remain enmity forever and forever. and forever. Now, what
is the summation of the law of God? It terminates upon two great
spheres of duty. Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength, and, the
second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. As God is to be the supreme object
of religious devotion with no rival, So I am to have this disposition
of love to my neighbor that is equal to the love that I natively
have to myself. And Paul, in commenting on that
duty in Romans further on, says, love works no ill to his neighbor. And so if the very disposition
of our hearts, the prevailing bent of mind and spirit, is one
clenched fist in the face of God, and it manifests itself
by refusal to be submissive to the law of God, then obviously
All men by nature, when it comes to their relationship to God,
do not love Him, do not serve Him, do not delight in Him. The
thing we heard about this morning is boredom personified worship. There is nothing as it is a greater
bore to the unregenerate man than the thought of worship,
especially if it is spiritual, biblical worship. But likewise,
there is no heart. to love one's neighbor as oneself. There is no heart to care for
my neighbor's needs in a manner equal to my natural disposition
to care for my own. And therefore, when Paul describes
the works of the flesh, the kind of lifestyle that comes out of
those who have a carnal mind that is enmity against God, notice
how many of the characteristics focus on horizontal relationships,
which are the total absence of peace, of harmony, of unity. Galatians chapter 5 and verse
19. Now the works of the flesh are
manifest. They are open and plain for everyone
to see. You don't need to drive seventy-five
miles down dirt roads and have a map that leads you to some
obscure place to get a little glance at the works of the flesh. They are manifest everywhere,
in all circumstances and situations. They are manifest in what are
they? Fornication. uncleanness, lasciviousness,
sins of sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, sins that are a blatant
expression of ungodliness and irreligion, a turning from the
true God to worship false gods. But now notice, enmities, relationships
to others, strife, relationship to others, Jealousies, relationships
to others. Wraths, relationships to others. Factions, relationships to others. Divisions, relationships to others. Parties or heresies, views of
truth that separate rather than unite, relationships to others. Envyings. Now, do you see where
the predominant emphasis falls in this text of Scripture? It
is not a mishandling of the Word of God to say that the Holy Spirit
has declared to us that the primary manifestations of unregenerate
human nature are found at the level of interpersonal relationships. Why? Because the carnal mind
is enmity against God. And though it may not be bold
enough to curse the God whom it cannot see, it will curse
the creatures made in his image and do it with impunity. And
therefore the apostle focuses upon these sins. And it's interesting,
he goes on to say that anyone who lives in any one or combination
of these sins as a way of life, hear me carefully now, not as
an occasional sin into which one falls, or a heart disposition
against which one is wrestling. But anyone who lives in any one
or combination of these things as his lifestyle is not a child
of God. Look at the text. Having completed
the list, he says, Of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you
that they who practice such things shall lose a few rewards at the
behemoth seat of Christ. That wretched teaching is not
from the Bible. They who do such things shall
not inherit the kingdom of God. If you live a lifestyle characterized
by fornication, by lechery, by uncleanness, you will not enter
the kingdom. Equally true, if you live a lifestyle
characterized by envy, by strife, by jealousy, by wrath, by divisions,
you will perish with the lecherous whoremonger and the shameless
fornicator. and the unblushing idolater.
Now, what in the world does all of this have to do with the doctrine
of church unity? Well, I hope you begin to see what it has
to do. I've said that the first element, the first ingredient
in the foundation materials of biblical church unity is a common
experience of the saving grace of God. Now what kind of people
does that grace come to? It comes to people who have carnal
minds, enmity against God, who manifest that enmity by refusal
to be subject to the law of God, the cardinal expression of which
at the horizontal level comes out in the friction, the animosity,
the envying, the bitterness, the jealousies in interpersonal
relationships. Now what happens when God in
grace effectually lays hold of a sinner, and through the preaching
of the gospel applied to his heart by power, God secretly
but powerfully takes out the heart of stone and gives that
sinner a heart of flesh? And the first beatings of that
heart of flesh are the beatings of repentance and faith and faith
and repentance We might call repentance the oracles and the
end of faith, the ventricles of a newly implanted spiritual
heart. And any heart that is a living
heart that pulses life through a living human being will have
both sets of chambers pumping. And when God gives a new heart,
its first beats are the beats of repentance and faith and faith
and repentance. that faith and repentance will
manifest themselves almost immediately, not only in the turning from
sin and the laying hold of Christ, but now as we read in the next
verses in Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit will begin to be
manifested. And what is that fruit? Love
to God, love to the creature, joy, peace. But now look how
many again focus on horizontal relationships. Long suffering. What's that? That's when you
suffer long with someone who makes you suffer. How can long suffering be shown
in any other relationship than one in which someone makes you
suffer? Maybe they make you suffer by their bad breath. Chronic
halitosis. Dragon's mouth, morning, noon,
and night. That's a form of suffering that
comes in terms of your olfactory nerves. It's not pleasant, but
if you're a child of God, long suffering. In interpersonal relationships,
when we confront those who, in terms of something about their
person or their actions, make us suffer inwardly or outwardly,
we suffer long. There is kindness, the opposite
of harshness. Goodness, the opposite of indifference
to human need. Faithfulness, trustworthiness,
meekness, the opposite of self-centered assertiveness. not demanding
my rights, not demanding the vindication of my name and my
cause. Do you see how many of the fruit
of the Spirit focus on interpersonal relationships? And when the Spirit
of God comes to dwell in the hearts of those whom God has
effectually called, He never comes to dwell as a dormant,
hidden force. He comes to dwell as a transforming
power. That's why Paul goes on to say
in Romans 8, after he says in verse 8, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God, he says, but you are not in the flesh,
but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwells in you. And if any man have not the spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. You are no longer dominated by
those characteristics Paul calls the works of the flesh. If the
Spirit dwells in you, you have been brought into the fundamental
realm of the operations of the Spirit. And in that realm, in
place of enmity and wrath and strife and factions, there is
longsuffering, gentleness, meekness, and these other graces that do
not grow out of Adamic soil, but grow out of the heart blessed
by the transforming work of the Spirit of God. So then, when
appeals for unity go forth in Scripture, the assumption of
the Scriptural writers is that those to whom the appeal comes
have experienced this mighty, transforming grace of God. They have a common experience
of the saving grace of God, which is the baseline, which is the
slab of the foundation of their unity in Christ. Now, having
asserted that and shown the rationale for it, let me demonstrate it
in three pivotal passages on the subject of unity. As I tell
my people all the time, he who asserts from the pulpit must
prove. Never believe anything because
it is asserted. No matter how forcefully or convincingly
it is asserted, he who asserts must prove. And that burden is
upon me, and I ask you to turn now to our Lord's prayer for
the unity of his people in John 17. As we saw last night, four
great strands of concern in this prayer. Our Lord prays for the
preservation, sanctification, glorification of all his people,
but he prays for their unification And that prayer for unification
comes to its most focused expression in the latter part of the chapter,
John 17. And beginning in verse 23, I
in them, thou in me, that they may, I'm sorry, verse 21, that
they may all be one is thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they may be in us, that the world may believe that thou
didst send me. And the glory which you've given
me I've given unto them, that they may be one, even as we are
one, I in them, thou in me, that they may be perfected into one,
that the world may know that thou didst send me and lovest
them, even as thou lovest me." But now who are these people
that he's praying for? These people that they may be
one. What is their common religious experience? for the Lord has
described it. Notice. He says, first of all,
they are part of the number given to him in the great multitude
whom no man can number out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue
and nation known as the elect of God. Verse 2, even as you
gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given
him he should give eternal life. His prayer begins by describing
his people as those who were given to him as a divine deposit
that he might impart to them eternal life. And what was that
life that they had come to possess? Verse 3, And this is life eternal,
that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou
didst send, even Jesus Christ. They are God's elect. They are
those who have come to a saving acquaintance with God the Father
and with His Son, Jesus Christ. Furthermore, They are described
in verse 6 as those to whom Christ has disclosed the very being
and character of God. I manifested thy name unto the
men whom thou gavest me out of the world. They have had a saving
revelation made to them of the glory of God reflected in the
face of Jesus Christ. Christ has done something as
He did to Peter when Peter responded concerning the identity of Christ. Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God. You are indeed the express image
of the Father. He says, Peter, flesh and blood
did not reveal this to you. You didn't get this because you
were catechized. You didn't get this because you
were merely well instructed. You got this because there was
a supernatural revelatory work by the ministry of my Father
through the Spirit. Furthermore, they are described
at the end of verse six, and they have kept thy word. They have kept the Word that
was delivered through the Lord Jesus. They have embraced Christ
as their prophet. They have cherished, they hold
as a treasure, the Word of God through the incarnate Word. Now
they know that all things whatsoever you have given me are from thee.
They have embraced from the heart the true identity of Christ. He is not Michael the archangel,
according to the heresy of the Russellites. He is the Son of
the Father, to whom the Father has delivered in his messianic
mission all authority in heaven and upon earth. They have known
that whatsoever you have given me, the things you have given
me are from thee. For the words which you gave
me I have given unto them, and they have received them." You
see, he is describing a saving experience of the grace of God. Now it is for these people that
he prays that they may be won. And frankly, it angers me. when the modern ecumenical movement
that thumbs its nose at 99% of the Bible will take this one
phrase out of the end of John 17 and make it their whole religion,
that they may be one. Who? Who won? Oh, now, as they're doing down
in Trinidad, where our dear brother Amresh Shemarath labors, the
ecumenical movement is as bold. It wants to make the Hindu priests
one, and the Roman Catholic priests one, with all evangelicals and
Protestants, that they all may be one. Didn't Jesus pray that? Ah, but the question, who is
the they? Who is the they? But they are those given to Jesus
by the Father whom He says are not of the world. A select, distinct
group given to Him by the Father. A group who have come to a saving
knowledge of the Father and of His Son. A group who have had
a supernatural revelation made in their hearts of who Christ
is as sent by the Father Those who have been transformed from
rebels into willing subjects so that their minds embrace the
words of Christ as the very words of God. And they keep them and
they treasure them. That's the they. And anyone else
doesn't fit in this prayer. Only the they, described by Jesus,
and then the they that shall come to the same experience.
How? Through their word. I pray not only for them, But
for those who shall believe on me through their word, and what
was the apostolic word? It was the word that preached
these very same truths, which were the instrument of their
own entrance into life. You see, there can be no true
unity at the church level unless there is a common experience
of the saving grace of God. That's the emphasis of John 17. It's the emphasis of the passage
I read in your hearing in introducing our message tonight. Ephesians
chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. Notice
when the apostle moves. from his more densely didactic
or teaching portion of the epistle. Notice I said more densely. I
don't like this splitting up Ephesians 1 to 3, doctrine Ephesians
4 to 6, exhortation. God doesn't split up the things
that neatly. There is a wealth of exhortation
in the first three chapters. There's a wealth of doctrine
in the last three. But there is a marked shift of
dominant emphasis. And the marked shift begins in
chapter four, and the dominant emphasis is exhortation, buttressed
by doctrinal realities and glorious doctrinal truths. But now he
says, I beseech you, the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily
of the calling wherewith you were called, with all lowliness
and meekness, here is our word again, with longsuffering, forbearing
one another in love. giving diligence to keep the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Here is an explicit
exhortation to foster at the level of conscious spiritual
endeavor this matter of church unity. Do you see that in the
text? Give diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace. This is an exhortation to a conscious,
diligent, spiritual effort to maintain spiritual unity in the
Church. But now notice on what it is
based. There is one body, one spirit,
even as you were called in one hope of your calling. He says, every one of you to
whom I give this exhortation has been a subject of the effectual
calling of God the Father through the gospel. You to whom I say,
give diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit, I base my exhortation
for the building of the superstructure of church unity. upon the foundation
of a common experience of the saving grace of God, you were
all called in one hope of your calling. No matter how you may
have differed in your entrance into the kingdom, this you all
have in common, one sovereign, almighty Father By the operations
of the Spirit in conjunction with the gospel, He called you
into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 9. What happened to these people?
Well, read Ephesians 2. They were all dead in trespasses,
in sin. They were all walking according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit who, Energeo, who is actively
working in the sons of disobedience, Paul says, among whom we all
had our manner of living in time past. Just as we had a common
experience in our spiritual death, in our spiritual bondage to the
world and to our carnal appetites and to the devil. So he says,
but God. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were
dead, hath quickened us together with Christ. For by grace ye
have been saved, and raised us up together with Christ, and
made us to sit in heavenly places in Christ. For by grace ye have
been saved, By faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the
gift of God, not of works, that no man should boast. For we are
his workmanship, created anew in union with Christ Jesus on
two good works, which he hath before ordained, that we should
walk in them. That's calling. That's Paul's
own brief dissertation on effectual calling. It's God's work, taking
dead sinners, making them alive, uniting them to his Son, bringing
them to repentance and faith, making them new creatures, ordaining
that they should walk in specific works that he has marked out
beforehand on their behalf. So when he comes to chapter four
and says, now give diligence, work at fostering, cultivating,
developing, increasing, maintaining your local church unity, he's
assuming they have a common experience of the saving grace of God. You see, he's not assuming they
all could bring out their decision card and waive it. He's not assuming
they all had a place written in the flyleaf of the Bible where
they recorded the time they walked an aisle. They've got churches
full of people with decision cards and dates in the flyleafs
of their Bibles who are at one another's throats. When I was
an evangelist in a traveling ministry for some five years
and went to evangelical churches up and down this country and
some into Canada, I found church after church that had a history
for decades of disruptions and factions and splits and all the
rest. What lay at the heart of all
of those problems? I'll tell you what lay at the
heart of it. It was the chickens coming home to roost from decisional,
cheap evangelism. How can there be any unity where
there is still a clenched fist before God and an insubmissive
heart to the law of God? How can there be a serious effort
to love one another and suffer long with someone's dragon breath,
and suffer long with someone's quirks, and someone's difficult
personality, and someone's abrasive manner? How can there be any
suffering long when there is still the clenched fist and the root of all the horrible
manifestations of the absence of the unity of the Spirit and
the bond of peace is this. There is no common experience
of the grace of God. There has been no real effectual
calling. And because of it, there is really
no hope to build a superstructure of church unity until there is
a dismantling of all the empty profession. and by the grace
of God, seeing people brought to true, vital, saving experience
in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I said we'd give
a third passage in which this is evident, and that third passage
is Philippians chapter 2. Great passage on church unity. What am I trying to prove with
these passages? my basic thesis, that in all
of them there is an assumption that people who are involved
either described as being united or prayed for in terms of unity,
as in John 17, or exhorted to unity, that they have a common
experience of the grace of God. Well, here in Philippians, as
we saw last night, Paul gives his first great exhortation to
unity in chapter one in verse 27, but he gives an even greater
one in chapter two in verse one. If there's any exhortation in
Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship in the
spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, make full my
joy. and what will make his joyful,
not that they pray that he get a release from a Roman prison,
but that word come back to Paul that they've been released from
anything that would undermine their unity. Make full my joy
that you be of the same mind, having the same love, being of
one accord, of one mind, doing nothing, nothing through faction
or vain glory, nothing in a church business meeting, nothing in
deciding whether you will or will not refurbish the church,
nothing when decisions are made about what color the walls should
be painted, Whether or not certain person ought to be supported
as a missionary. Whether or not this or that.
Nothing, nothing, nothing done through strife. Nothing done
through vain glory. Done out of a motive of promoting
yourself and your own opinions and your own feelings. But in
lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself. Not
looking each of you to his own things, but each of you to the
things of others. I tell you, those are stringent
demands. Why does Paul dare to make them
with any hope that they'll be fulfilled? I'll tell you why. Because he could say what he
did in chapter 1 in verse 6. Look at it. Being confident of
this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will
perfect it, not at the day of Jesus Christ, But until the day
of Jesus Christ, having begun it, he's going to carry it on,
and he's going to consummate it. And if he ain't carrying
it on, he ain't begun it, and he ain't going to consummate
it. He said, I'm confident, absolutely
confident, that what I've seen in you Philippians has no explanation,
but Almighty God's been messing around in grace. He's broken
in by grace. Furthermore, talk about a man
confident of the grace of God. Look what he says in chapter
two. Further on in this very chapter, he says, so then, verse
12, my beloved. Even as you obey, not as in my
presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your
own salvation in the context it has application to the exhortation
just given. And the great example of one
who lived that way, even the Lord Jesus, He said, work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling. Why? For it is
God who is working in you, Philippians, both to will and to work for
His good pleasure. He was confident that Almighty
God was as energetically sane, Greek verb used there as He used
in Ephesians 2. The devil energetically worked
in you when you were a son of disobedience. Almighty God energetically
works in you, both to will, to choose, and to perform, to have
the ability to do the things that please Him. You see, Paul
could give such an exhortation to a high standard of church
unity. Why? Because he was convinced
that they had this in common, a vital, God-brought, supernatural
experience of the saving grace of God. Now, was Paul so foolish
to think there may not have been a hypocrite or two in the Philippian
church? Of course not. But at the time
of the writing, they were such clever hypocrites that no one
knew that they were. and the visible church walking
by the rule of Scripture should have none in its ranks as the
ordinary pattern of membership, but truly regenerate people and
the most clever of hypocrites, whom only God can detect. So
he can write in the judgment of charity as though it were
true of all of the church that these things were the realities
of their spiritual experience. Now, I don't want to label the
point, but the Bible says at the mouth of two or three witnesses,
let every word be established. I've brought forward the witnesses.
I hope I've convinced your judgment that if there is to be a foundation
to support true biblical church unity, the slab of that foundation
must be a common experience of the saving grace of God. Now I want to apply this principle,
and I don't care if I get to the other two. Brethren, this
foundation is so vital. If I need to split this up into
two messages, I'm determined not to rush through material,
but to deliver my soul. If this is true, then this may
explain why some of you can never fit in any church, no matter
where you go. You only choose churches that
are orthodox in doctrine and maybe even reformed in doctrine,
but you aren't there long before you don't fit. Once you begin
to get close enough to smell someone's dragon's breath, you've
got problems. Once you get close enough to
see the things that will demand suffering long with brethren
in their faults and in their weaknesses, Once you get close
enough to realize there are people that are rather opinionated and
forward, and you will need to yield to them and not meet their
forwardness with an equal and even more forceful forwardness.
Nothing done through strife or vainglory, each counting other
better than themselves. And you become a veritable church
hopper, not because you can't find a place where there is a
commitment to truth and a commitment to walk by the rule of Scripture.
Maybe the problem is, friend, you don't have the dynamics essential
to fit in. Maybe you're still lost and dead
in your sin, and your clenched fist does not show itself primarily
in rejecting biblical doctrine, but in your inability to love
at the practical level of known relationships in a visible, concrete
assembly of God's people, real imperfect saints. Maybe that's
just your problem. And maybe someone who ought to
go back to his room tonight and say, Lord, could it be that the
reason you brought me to this conference was to show me what
I'd never considered what really is the problem. The problem is
me, Lord. My heart has never been transformed. My heart is basically a jealous,
factious, selfish, insensitive, unloving, impatient heart. Then I want to make three very
pointed applications, particularly to the leaders of the churches
And they can't lead if people don't follow, so it's an exhortation
to all of you as well. Dear brethren, I beg you, I beg
you, if you have any concern for church unity, maintain the
purity and the Spirit-anointed proclamation of the full-orbed
biblical gospel in your pulpit. Maintain the purity! and the Spirit-anointed proclamation
of the gospel in your pulpit. What do I mean by the purity?
I mean a gospel that sets forth God in His holiness, man in his
sinfulness, God in his inflexible justice, man in his culpability
and hell-deservingness. God in the glory of redemptive
love sending His Son for the primary, not exclusive, but the
primary purpose that He might bring us to God in a righteous
way. The gospel which is the power
of God unto salvation, according to Paul in Romans 1.16, is the
gospel which has as its central declaration, for therein is revealed
a righteousness of God from faith to faith. The gospel is the power
of God because it alone can answer the question, how can sinful,
hell-deserving man be right with God? and God still be right. The heart of the gospel is not
an answer to how to get your act together and how to get yourself
integrated to yourself or how to get your family together. No, the gospel is a declaration
of how wretched, hell-deserving sinners can get right with God
and still have God be right. That's the great and glorious
truth of the gospel. And then keep sounding and expounding
the old notes of Acts 20, 21. Repentance toward God. Faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said these were the two
great pivots on which his ministry turned. Repentance towards God. Keep insisting that if sinners
would be saved, they must reckon with God. His claims, his rights,
his authority, his glory. And they dare not reckon with
that God apart from casting themselves upon the mercy of a person who
is the Lord. He's on the throne. He is Jesus,
the incarnate God. He is Christ. He is the anointed
prophet, priest and king. And they've got to have dealings
in the whole man with the whole Christ. Brethren, I fear that
some of the things for which some of you paid a dear price
20 years ago, you've begun to assume Your present people really
understand and are ready to spill blood for it. Don't assume it.
We are on the threshold of a horrible danger of the second generation
in our churches, and the great danger of the second generation
is that we assume that the truths for which we shed blood, they
both understand and are willing to shed blood for. Don't count
on it. I find it very, very humbling.
to ask some very simple questions and realize, in spite of all
of my labors in the study, on my knees, in the pulpit, there is an awful lot not getting
through. And the day our churches cease
to be marked by clear, incisive, Spirit-anointed gospel preaching
where the great issues of God and sin and righteousness and
imputed righteousness, imputed sin to the Son of God, repentance
and faith and the necessity of a changed life. When those notes
cease to be dominant, don't be surprised if church unity begins
to be shaken. In an effort to keep things peaceful,
You are causing fissures in the foundation. My brethren, I beg you, don't
kowtow to the experts who want the deep things of God. Go home
and preach a series of sermons on repentance and faith, like
you're preaching to ten-year-olds. You'd be amazed. You'd be amazed
at the response. Our second exhortation is if
we love the unity of the church and we're convinced from these
portions that the foundation of that unity is a common experience
of the grace of God and the grace of God is most likely to operate
where the gospel of God is preached most purely and powerfully, then
we'll want to not only maintain the purity and power of gospel
preaching, But we will determine to maintain a biblical standard
for admission into the visible church. We will determine to
maintain a biblical standard of admission into the visible
church. And what is the biblical standard?
That men and women are able to give a credible profession of
their faith. That is, they are able to articulate
sufficient amounts of fundamental saving doctrine to believe that
their professed faith has enough content to be real faith. There's no such thing as saving
faith without content upon which the faith terminates. It's got
to be more than that poor chap I met years ago in a parking
lot and was witnessing to him somewhere in the South. And I
said, Do you believe on Christ? He said, Oh yeah, I believe on
Christ. I said, What do you believe about him? I believe he's for
good. I said, Run that by again. What do you believe about Christ?
I believe he's for good. What else do you believe about
him? Oh, nothing much. He just, I believe he's for good.
Somebody led that man to think that was saving faith. All he
knew about Christ is he's for good. Now, how did that happen? That
didn't happen overnight. Church member in good standing.
Why? You walk down an aisle, you believe
in Christ. I believe in Christ. Good. No concern to see if it
was a credible profession. Did he know enough about Christ
that there could be faith in Christ as sin-bearer and divinely
appointed substitute, dying the death he should have died, living
the life he could not but ought to have lived? A credible profession
involves sufficient content in the judgment of charity to believe
there can be true faith, and it also means sufficient testimony
and manifestation of the transforming power of the gospel. We don't
expect people to be full-grown men. But if a man comes with
his arm locked on his paramour and says, I'm applying for church
membership. Why? I believe God has saved me. Has?
What makes you think so? And he gives a glorious account
of his sin. You can trace it all the way
back to Adamic solidarity. And he can open up the doctrine
of of solidarity in Adam and his condemnation in Adam and
his inbred, concreated sinfulness. And he can quote all the texts.
I tell you, you'd think you'd listen to Hodge talking in a
twentieth-century Americanese. And when he's all done, you say,
fellow, what did your faith do for you? Oh, it made me happy.
Oh, it do anything else for you? Well, nothing much else. Who's
this woman? Oh, that's my girlfriend. Oh,
it's your girlfriend. What kind of relationship you got? Oh,
we really love one another. Oh, you do? Oh, yes. We express
it quite frequently in the most intimate way you can. You mean
you're living together? You're having sex? Oh, yeah.
You have faith in Christ? Oh, yeah. Would you believe his profession
credible? You'd say, no, I question the validity of it. All right. Don't make distinction. God doesn't.
because God not only says that those who practice fornication
shall not enter the kingdom, he says those who live in a known
pattern of strife, of envies, of jealousies, divisions, party
spirit, they shall not enter the kingdom either. And if the
person coming for that membership interview is known to have a
tongue fourteen feet long and every bit of it is full of the
venom of gossip and ill will, you better ask if the Holy Ghost
has chopped a few feet off that tongue. And if she can't testify
or he can't testify that the Holy Ghost has begun to chop
that tongue off or shrink it, that profession is not credible.
Remember the emphasis Dean Allen gave, Pastor Allen gave this
morning? When those people came to John the Baptist and said,
What do we do to bring forth fruits, meat for repentance?
He didn't say, I leave that between you and the Lord. I don't judge
men's hearts. That's what a lot of people in our day say. Not
John. He says, You bring in forth fruit,
meat for repentance, you soldiers. Every time I pass you, you know
what you're always doing? Telling dirty jokes and grousing about
your wages. Now stop it. Be content with
your wages. You publicans know what you do.
You're extorting more than is just. Stop it. And until you
can demonstrate to me, you have. There's no repentance. There's
no baptism. You will not enter this emerging
new covenant community. And don't stop and say, oh, but
my religious bloodlines are excellent. God can raise up stones and make
them into perfect Pharisees. But it's only the work of grace
that changes lovers of sin into lovers of righteousness. And
until God's done that, don't you come to be part of this new
community I'm forming for the one who is greater than I, who's
coming after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am unworthy
to unloose. Maintain a biblical standard
of admission into the visible church. Without it, you are undermining
the very foundation of church unity. And I've lived long enough to
see what's happened to churches that have lowered the standard
of admission. No longer is it a credible profession
of faith. It's any kind of profession of
faith. We're so tired of being small.
We're so tired of having people mock us for our lack of growth.
So we're going to lower the standard. My friends, never forget it.
I'll never forget when A.W. Tozer said it either publicly
or in a personal conversation, I don't know which, he said,
never forget that cancer is an abnormally fast multiplication
of human cells, but it's deadly. And the fact that the church
is growing may be nothing but a manifestation of spiritual
cancer. people being brought into the
body who will eventually destroy it because they are yet in their
sins. And then my third and final exhortation
under this head is not only to maintain the purity and spirit-empowered
proclamation of the basic truths of the gospel, if you value Church
unity, maintain a biblical standard of admission into the visible
Church, If you value church unity, but maintain a biblical standard
of continuance in the membership of the visible church, if you
value church unity, how can there be oneness of harmony and harmony
of understanding and affection and purpose and activity if you
have sons of darkness and sons of light? living together in
the same fellowship, no longer sons of darkness who are clever
hypocrites, as Ananias and Sapphira were until God exposed them.
We can't blame Peter and the other apostles for tolerating
them. They didn't know. But Paul blames the church at
Corinth for tolerating that immoral man because they did know. The
Lord doesn't blame the Jerusalem church. Ananias and Sapphira
were so clever, their sin was hidden. Only God saw it. And
God said, I'll be the church disciplinarian. And thank God
he doesn't do that too often. He killed them. Fear came upon
all. But now Paul does not tell the
Corinthians. Now you pray that God will kill
this man. He said, next time you get together, you cast him
out. Nothing about following the steps
of Matthew 18. I'm sick and tired of people
excusing their lack of moral courage behind Matthew 18 as
though it were an inflexible rubric for every situation of
church discipline. It is not. The subject is the
matter of private offenses, if thy brother sinned against thee.
Nobody else even knows about it, so you don't go blabbing
it abroad. You go to him and tell him his fault alone. The
knowledge of the sin is only to go as far as the sin itself.
And only if he will not hear you with a view to gaining him
do you take two or three others to bear witness. And if it's
dealt with, it doesn't go any further. 1 Corinthians 5 and
2 Thessalonians 3 and Romans 16-17 and Titus 3, 10 and 11,
they envision an entirely different situation. Here the sin is public. Here the sin is known. Where
it is, he says, when you are gathered together by my spirit
in the name of the Lord Jesus, deliver such a one unto Satan
for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must maintain a biblical
standard of continuance in the membership of the church. If
we don't, if we don't, we're undermining the very foundation
of unity. And if we're to have gracious,
biblical, realistic standards of continuance in the membership
of the Church, there must be close, discriminating, applicatory
preaching maintained as the standard diet of the people of God. If
we should judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord.
And where the ministry of the Word brings men week by week
in the theater of conscience into direct contact with God,
you are much less likely to have deep-seated pockets of hypocrisy
and duplicity. But then that close, discriminating,
applicatory preaching of the Word must be followed by close,
loving, intimate, pastor-flock relationships. that we might
monitor the progress of our people and know the difference between
a true saint struggling with all his might against the dominant,
evident, besetting sin and a spurious, professed saint who is utterly
indifferent to a closet sin. There is a difference between the two. The person who does not struggle
and mourn over his secret closet sins may well be a hypocrite,
whereas that person has a sin that's evident to all. He knows
it, and he's struggling, and he's crying to God, and he's
using all the means of grace. Where does he belong? In the
most warm, loving embrace of the whole flock of God to help
him overcome that sin and become more like Christ. But where does
that sophisticated person who has a heart sin, not known to
the people of God, but acknowledged under close, intimate pastoral
scrutiny and loving admonition, where does that person belong
if they determine to continue impenitent and indifferent to
heart sins? My Bible says, well, you turn
to it. I've just found again, less people
see things with their own eyes so many times. Well, preacher
said this, preacher said that. But what does the word of God
say? First Corinthians chapter six. Know ye not that the unrighteous
shall not Inherit the kingdom of God, be not deceived, verse
9, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers,
nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. In the list
of all these gross immoralities, God puts revilers. You know what
a reviler is? a man or woman guilty of a pattern
of abusive, derisive, demeaning, hurtful speech. That's a reviler. And covetousness, where does
that operate? In the heart. And God says reviling is a pattern
of life and covetousness as a prevailing disposition of the heart are
inconsistent with being in a state of grace.