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Personal from...
Why Churches Are Divided
W
HY
are the churches
divided?
Have the churches
failed?
Do
we
real/y
understand what is
the real PURPOSE- the divine
MISSION- of the Church Jesus Christ
founded?
Did Jesus Christ intend his Church to
become divided?
Did Jesus Christ give bis Church the commission
to work actively in this world's governments, its
society, its commerce and industry,
to make this
world a better world?
Is the divine mission of the Church of God to
make this a BETTER world?
If
so, it has failed
abysmally.
Should you
join
a cburch- and if so,
which one?
WHERE is tbe original
true
Church that Jesus
Christ founded? That is the question that haunted
me, back in 1926 and 1927. I had been challenged
on a point of God's law in the Bible. 1 had been
angered
into an intensive, almost night-and-day
study of the Bible.
My wife had taken up with a teaching she said she
got out of the Bible-a teaching and practice utterly
contrary to the CHURCHES. On this particular point all
the churches appeared to be in agreement-excep_t
possibly one 1 had branded as fanatical.
Yes, I was angered. 1 was indignant! I was plain
MAD! My wife taking up with religious fanaticism?
Surely
no
advertising man could tolerate
that!
She
said it was Bible teaching.
"LooK!" I exclaimed, "you can't tell me all
these churches can be wrong!" 1 firmly believed
that. 1 believed these churches-at least the
Protestant churches- were CHRIST'S churches,
firmly based on the BIBLE!
Haven' t vou believed it?
So 1 was goaded into opening the Bible. 1 was
going to
prove
to my wife that "all these churches
can't be wrong." Desperately I searched for biblical
March 1982
evidence to refute my wife's fanaticism. But 1
couldn't find that evidence. What I
did
find
staggered me!
I had been reared in one of the smaller, but
older and respected Protestant denominations.
From birtb I had been taken to Sunday School. I
had taken for granted and assumed the usual
teaching of the immortality of the soul , the going
to heaven or hell at death and the idea that I was
"saved" from birth, since I had a "birthright
membership" in the church.
When I read Romans 6:23, 1 stared at that verse in
my Bible in shocked, incredible disbelief! lt said, "For
the wages of sin is DEATH; but the
gift
of God is
eternallife through Jesus Christ our Lord." 1 had
always believed the wages we earn for SIN was
just the
opposite
ojDEATH. 1 had been taught that what we
get paid for SIN was ETERNAL LJFE-in hell fire! This
verse says eternallife is something we can only
receive AS AGIFT from God.
But NO! Surely no! We already
have
eterna!
life-so 1 supposed- we are immortal souls! llearned
that many Protestants INTERPRET that verse-that is,
they PUT ADIFFERENT MEANING INTO IT. They
change
the meaning of the words. They manufacture
a new definition of the word
death.
They define
death
to mean "separation from God." I looked at this verse
again. On the one hand, for sin, we get DEATH. On the
other hand, the
opposite
of that penalty is ETERNAL
LIFE. Now, it certainly was clear, if ETERNAL LIFE is
the very
opposite
of DEATH, then DEATH cannot mean
eterna! life!
1 was confused! My head was swimming!
But there it was, in plain language. Then I read
that souLS can
die!
"The soul that sinnetb, it shall
die" (Ezek. 18:4, 20). Then my startled eyes read, in
Revelation 16:3: "and every living
soul
DIED in the
sea. " That said sou LS can DIE. Then 1 saw where
Jesus said souls can be DESTROYED! " ... but rather
fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell" (Matt. 10:28).
It began to look like sorne of the churcbes
were