A Remnant

In a way, this post is a follow-up to the post Consider the Sources. This subject has been on my heart for a long time, but more and more I'm noticing it on the hearts of others, so I am going to try to address some of the issues involved. To really delve into the full depths of this subject properly is probably beyond my abilities, nevertheless I will try.

It seems to me that our group is in the beginning phases of becoming a denomination. I've said before that we use the phrase "Body of Christ" in a way that is analogous to a denomination. Bro. Shaw at the meeting in DuQuoin, IL, said openly to the ministers there that he believed that our group was organizing, which he also stated he was against.

There seems to be a rash of people just waking up to the fact that our group is made up of men, organized by men and even founded by a man. We've had the better part of a century to realize this, but for some reason it seems that this realization is only culminating now. What's got me puzzled about this is why so few people have caught on to this earlier. Still the fact of the matter is that there are an increasing number of people whom I've heard from either directly or indirectly that have begun questioning our group. Moreover there are some that are looking for a better alternative to our group, or even more subtle, an eventual escape plan. I have something to say about this.

I caution anyone who is looking to leave one of our churches regardless if it is for another church in our group, another church in another group, or no church at all, be careful. Reacting to a situation is one of the ways that humans operate, but that operation is often on an instinctive level. When you touch something hot, you don't go through the mental exercise of equating the level of heat with possible burn injuries and the effects that they will have on your everyday activities and then decide to quit touching what is hot. No, you just jerk away. Instincts are good, but they are not foolproof however. In paramedic classes I learned that stab victims will instinctively try to remove the knife which often causes them to bleed out. While they are making the move that will end their life, they still feel like they are making the right decision. An instinctive reaction to a new found disillusionment of our group has the real potential of causing you more harm than good and I urge anyone to think any step that they are going to take through, considering all of the ramifications before they make any move and to not succumb to an instinctive mentality.

Still, even if you are not operating instinctively that doesn't mean that you will make a good decision. Remember you too are a man (or woman) and just because you make a decision, that does not make it right or the best decision for you. Often it seems to me that we tend to make things worse for ourselves, not better. In my opinion, people in general have an uncanny ability to make the worst possible decision for themselves. If we as a race were truly capable of making the best decisions for ourselves there would certainly be fewer unfaithful spouses, divorces, crime, bankruptcies, unwanted pregnancies, and a myriad of other things that have enormous detrimental impacts on our lives. The fact of the matter is that we never see the full picture and are not capable of making unerring decisions. We have to settle for "the best we can do", but still there is another consideration that I haven't addressed yet.

God. I don't know about you, but God placed me in the church that I am in. I've had several chances to leave, yet I know that Great Lakes Christian Church in Warren, MI, is where God put me and regardless of my own opinions and perceptions, that is where I am meant to stay and if I were to leave, I would be going against God. I know that the vast majority of us feel that we are where God put us, and do not feel the Lord moving us elsewhere. I can't express strongly enough that reacting instinctively to a revelation that our group has its problems or relying on ourselves for answers totally ignores the leading of God. Those who have just reacted and moved off may have ignored God to the point of moving out from under His covering. This is why I urge caution.

I've been directly asked on multiple occasions why I would stick with a group that isn't completely following God in the fullness that they ought and instead have made their faith about themselves. I admit that it's a valid question, but my best answer to it is another question. What other kind of group is there?

I had a brother say to me that he doubted that if Jesus himself were to come to a ministers meeting and speak that everyone there would accept what He had to say. He also seemed to have a problem with the fact that not only did I agree with him, but I told him that if this actually happened, it wouldn't be a factor to me as to whether I remained a part of this group or not. That really threw him for a loop, and maybe I wasn't being totally fair to him as it was early in the morning when I told him this and he hadn't finished his first cup of coffee quite yet, but I still stand by this. The leadership of our group is not the primary factor by which I determine whether or not to continue to be a part of this fellowship; No man is.

I hate to disappoint those who haven't come to this realization themselves yet but there is no perfect group that we can choose to associate with. To attempt to find one is an exercise in futility. Man's order is always out of order and when you are talking about a group that is made up of men and led by men, there will always be some of man's order in it, it can't be helped. All of those people who I've heard say "I'm here because I just can't find anything better" about our group don't understand that it wouldn't matter if they did find something better because finding it still wouldn't make God any better.

Let me reduce this down into its most concentrated form so you know exactly what it is I'm really saying. There were these twelve guys, you may have heard of them. Their names were Simon Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, the other James, Thaddeus, Simon and Judas Iscariot. These men actually had Jesus right there with them for over three years, teaching them and leading them. If I could offer you the chance to spend three years of your life to become a part of that group and to actually sit under Jesus during that time, wouldn't you do it? Seriously ask yourself would want to become the thirteenth disciple?

Before you make your decision though, let's examine the situation more closely. James and John, the sons of Zebedee were concerned about what was in it for them (Mark 10:35) and about what seats that they were to sit in (Mark 10:37). It seems to me the other ten might have been interested in playing politics too (Mark 10:41). Peter was an interesting fellow to be sure. When he walked on the water to Jesus which was proof that Jesus could and would sustain him, he still let his faith waiver (Matt 14:28-30). Judas betrayed Jesus for money (Matt 26:15). None of the disciples could manage to stay awake when Jesus asked them to pray with him (Luke 22:45). Peter physically attacked a man with a sword (John 18:12). They all scattered when Jesus was captured, and only two of them had enough courage to follow even at a distance (Luke 22:54, John 18:15). Peter denied even knowing Jesus three times (Luke 22:61), and Thomas didn't trust the other ten disciples enough to believe that Jesus has resurrected (John 20:25). These aren't the only examples of how flawed the disciples were, just some of the most well known. After this reminder, would you still trade three years of your life to join them and be counted as one of them?

I'm guessing that just maybe the last paragraph might have dissuaded a few people from wanting to associate themselves with the disciples. Consider this though. These men were hand picked by Jesus Christ himself so either Jesus was very bad when came to picking disciples or He operates on a different level than we do. Have you considered that if a group of men who were this closely associated with Jesus could be so messed up, finding a group of men that isn't messed up must be nigh impossible? So why are we spending time looking for something that doesn't exist? Let me tell you how I would answer the thirteenth disciple question. I'd jump at the opportunity to be one of them, not for the twelve men that I listed earlier, but for the chance to be with Jesus. Jesus is what's important my friends, don't ever loose sight of that.

I'm reminded of the pillars of smoke and fire in the wilderness. Let me posit a thought experiment. Let's say that the tribe of Reuben were given the chance to skip the forty years of wandering, would that tribe have come out better than the other eleven? Let's consider it from both sides. Let's say they stayed in Egypt for an extra thirty-nine years and change and left at the last minute to meet their brothers just as they crossed over into the land of milk and honey. Alternatively, let's say they took off and made it to the promised land, and when the rest of Israel caught up with them they could say "What took you so long" and they all laughed about it over kosher BBQ and big pitchers of sweet tea? In either case would the tribe of Reuben have been better off? I say no. I say that for Reuben to wander off on their own, even if they had been able to skip all of the hardship that the wilderness had to offer, would have been extremely detrimental if for no other reason that they would have taken themselves out from under the covering of God. I would also say that even though wandering through the wilderness was a punishment for Israel, the covering being manifest in their presence day and night was still a blessing. Even in reproach, God is good to His people. We can't afford to ignore that for all the turmoil and infighting that is going on in our group right now, God hasn't stopped being good to us.

Somehow however, this whole idea begs a question in my mind at least. Why would God even work through groups that are flawed? More fundamental, does He? I would go back to history for part of the answer. Historically, every group that God has ever put his covering on have managed to find their way out from under it. The nation of Israel used to exist under His covering, but eventually they were carried away and fell into apostasy. How long was the early church in existence before it became apostate, a century perhaps? That may have been how long it took for the results of apostasy to become evident, but I would suggest that the seeds were always there. What I take from history is that not only does God tolerate imperfect groups, He works through them.

God's working is not impacted by the imperfectness of the group that He is using. Put that another way, He does not require a perfect group in order to be able to operate (2 Cor 12:9). The imperfection of the group that God is working through does not in any way diminish His greatness. Friends, God is not limited by us. So when I am asked the question, "Why would you associate with an imperfect group?" my simple answer is "Because God works with and puts his covering on imperfect groups of people, they are called His children".

And yet there is still more to this subject. I was talking on the phone with my friend Steve Lewis, and he made a statement that was good, and since I'm using it, I wanted to attribute it to him. He said that he wouldn't let any man interfere with his relationship to God. He was speaking about other things, but the application to this issue is crystal clear to me. When it comes to my personal relationship with Christ, if I trust in Christ instead of a man or an organization, my faith is secure.

Let me put it this way, have you been or know anyone who has been shaken when someone prominent and respected falls away? Sure we all wonder how they let themselves slide, but if you are impacted personally to the point that your relationship with Christ is effected, then aren't you building your foundations on other than Him? Those of us who were blessed enough to attend more than a handful of Sunday school classes as a child have been exposed to the folly of this idea. I can remember singing about the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. You have to understand that if you build your Christianity on Christ, it will be secure because it's founded on the Rock. However anything built upon anything else is some different -ianity, built on a foundation that will, not can, fail. Storms are going to happen in each of our lives, so why would we knowingly build ourselves on a foundation that is vulnerable to storms when we could instead build on one that is impervious to storms? The question to ask yourself is if you have been "too" shaken by someone loosing out, has your faith become dependent on the wrong thing? If so, beware my friend, that faith will let you down.

The same thing goes for groups. Don't let your faith become structurally dependent on a group of people, you will be shaken. Don't let this group or any other group become your source of strength. This applies not only the group as a whole, but also to individual elements of the group (1 Cor 13:8). I don't care how good a group is, it simply can't take the place of Jesus in your life.

Up to this point I've addressed how we should handle ourselves in the situation that we are finding ourselves in. Still, I want to address our current situation for what it is, not in a hope to divert our course from becoming a denomination, but perhaps as a reminder of what we are based on in an effort to slow it down just a bit.

I want to take you back in time to one of our founding moments. William Sowders had a chance to organize with the Assemblies of God in 1914 and was actually planning to go to an organization convention when the Lord gave him a dream. In this dream he was in a hayloft and was looking down at all the animals wandering around in the muddy barn floor getting filthy. The impression that he got was that the men who were organizing in Hot Springs were the animals that were mired in filth of their own creating (not the best mental picture) and that he was to remain separate from that. This was a very good message for Bro. Sowders, but I notice one more subtle thing about the story. God was telling him to avoid organization, not how to create a perfect organization of men. There was no better organizational choice to be had in that hayloft, organization was merely to be avoided.

But avoiding organization is what we've done, isn't it? Well, we've talked about avoiding it enough that's for certain. I've spoken on this before in Order, Organized, Organization, so I won't rehash it again, but I do have a few questions to ask.

When we have a "head table" where a group of leading brethren sit, are they not the heads of our organization, at least in situ? How does this jive with Jesus being the head?

If we are starting to determine who can and cannot be a part of us, I ask you what exactly is it that we are deciding they can or cannot be a part of?

When someone lays down specific guidelines for our entire group and says "This is the way", as has been suggested that we do in our meetings, how is that inline with what Jesus said? (John 14:6)

The reason that we find ourselves where we are right now is because we have misunderstood a purpose that God has imposed on our lives. You see, we do have a commission, and that is to spread the Gospel. Mark 16:15 does not implore us to build a church organization that blankets the world. We are told to let our lights shine to a lost world, not to stay holy by shutting the world out.

We seem to have lost some of this vision. For all of our scriptural scholasticism, we've lost some of the remedial principles that define Christianity, at least as a group. I am not worried about this however because even when the dispensation during which God is using a group is over, there will remain a remnant who will keep the faith and not lose out, and sometimes that remnant, because it has had so much artifice stripped away from it, can be used by God in a greater measure than the group that it came out of if for nothing else than because of a greater willingness to be used. In every age God sustains a remnant that will stay true to Him and praise His name as it should be. One day God will call a remnant out of our group as well. Actually, we teach this, though perhaps not in exactly the fashion that I have laid out to get to this point.

I'm almost done, but before I close I want to circle around to address one final aspect of this question that needs to be addressed, and that is why I personally stay with this group. I've called this group a good group and a special group, and although that has been questioned, I stand by what I've said that this is a special group. I have a reason for believing this, and that is because I still see the covering of God on this group of people. I still see God moving in and out of our midst, and that is just not able to be said of every group of people that attaches to themselves the name of Christian. Understand though, it is for no other reason than that God's covering is on us that I call us special. It's nothing that we have done, nor is it a quality that is intrinsic to our people. It is a transitive quality that will only remain on us while we choose to remain under the covering of God. Even still, if we do eventually move out from under that covering, I believe that there will remain a remnant, and if that is where I am supposed to reside, so be it.

Finally, to those who just do not find any alternative and decide that they still must leave, I leave you with these words:

Put Jesus first, first in your life,
He is a true friend unto the end,
Just take Him with you wherever you go,
Put Jesus first in your life.