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Which Is theTrue Church?
W
HY
so
MANY
churches? Why
any
church at all? Are all really
GOD'S churches?
"There must be one
TRUE
Church," 1 said 55 years ago, "but where is it?" 1
had just been shocked, dumbfounded, disillusioned,
to see with my own eyes in the Bible that the
respected Christian church in which 1 had been
reared taught the very opposite in most respects
from the plain teachings of Christ and the Holy
Bible.
1 had supposed the churches of the Christian
religion had received their beliefs from the
Bible. Haven't you? T hen 1 asked myself,
candidly, WHY so many different churches,
teaching different doctrines? And why A Y
church at all?
1 read in the Bible wherc J esus Christ said,
" 1 will build my church." But for what
PURPOSE? Like
l
did until then, most people
simply take the existence of churches for
granted, never wondering whether there is any
need or PURPOSE for them.
Jt was early 1927, before World War
JI ,
that
these thoughts challenged me. l t was during that
war that Wins ton Churchill said befa re the
United States Congress, as 1 have so often
quoted, ' 'There is a PURPOSE being worked out
here below." Most people never think about
that, or have any realization of the real PURPOSE
for humanity's presence on the earth, or of the
AWESOME, incredible human potentíal.
1 was to learn that the Church is, indeed,
God's ins t rumentalíty for working out that
supreme PURPOSE! Yet humanity has been lulled
to sleep, deceived, blinded to this great PURPOSE!
" The god of this world [Satan the devil) hath
blinded the minds of them which believe not,
les t the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ ... should shine unto them"
( JI
Cor. 4:4) .
June/ July 1982
But WHY did J esus Christ start the Church?
Look at the world into which he was born, and
in which he lived. It was the same world in
which you and 1 live today, except for two
changes:
1)
This same world has made AWESOME
progress, especially during this 20th century-in
terms of technology, science and industry; and 2)
it has undergone APPALLING retrogression in
troubles and evils. All the fantastic progress has
been in the materialistic area- working with
matter from the ground. All the retrogression has
occurred in the SPIRITUAL area- man dealing
with man.
WHY díd Jesus found the Church? To become
God's instrument for working out his grand
PURPOSE here below- ultimately to make
SPIRITUAL progress and glorious benefits far more
awesome than materialistic progress has been! To
correct and eradicate the troubles, evils,
discontents, sufferings of this world's
humanity-to replace them with contentment,
happi ness and joy, constant eager anticipation of
further glorious accomplishments, both spiritually
and materially- and to give a then happy and
glorified humanity ETERNAL LIFE in vigorous and
joyful accomplishment!
What was wrong with the world in which
Christ started the Church? What's even far more
wrong today? We need to understand how
civilization started. lt s tar ted with the creation of
MAN!
God had created vertebrate animals, each
after its own kind- "cattle after their kind"
(Gen. 1:25), dogs aftcr the dog kind, elephants
after the elephant kind. Then God said (verse
26), " Let us make MAN in OUR image, after OUR
likeness"-after the GOD kind. But man
at that physical creation was not given
God-UFE-immortal, inherent, self-containing life.
He was gíven only temporary physiochemical
existence, the same as an imals (Gen. 2:7).
However, God offered him eterna! GOD-LIFE! But