I am speaking solely of the physical group of people who are called the church of God, and who have, over the last 2000 years had some large portion of the truth. The amount has varied greatly with the time and generation, from the Waldenses to the Millerites, to the Anabaptists to the Church at Ephesus to the Seventh-day Baptists to the 5000 who came into the church in the time of the apostles, to the Worldwide Church of God. What did God intend for each, and every one of these organizations to do – what was their purpose, and what SHOULD they have become?
The answer is dual; what the church, ideally, could have done; and what God, knowing that the church would not be run perfectly for very long, expected, and therefore intended to happen.
First, the ideal.
2 Timothy 2:1-2 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
This is the scripture that describes what SHOULD have happened! Christ taught the Apostles, each of whom should have gone out and found others like themselves, and gathered disciples of their own, and each of THEM should have ultimately grown to be just as righteous and faithful as the Apostles themselves, and then taught it to others, ad infinitum! That is what Paul commanded Timothy to do!
And had the Apostles not compromised, and allowed sin to creep into the church later in life... in other words, had Christ, Himself remained a VISIBLE leader of the church and run it perfectly, the church would have spread out from Jerusalem with God's blessing and in as little as a few years, spread around the world and turned the entire world around!
This is what COULD have happened! The church of God truly would have been the salt of the earth, the tiny bit of seasoning that can take a bland earth and turn it into a sensational, beautiful planet!
That is the IDEAL, the GOAL we work towards! Because until you know the ideal, the perfection that it COULD be, you'll never know how far from that ideal you are, and in what direction to change!
That was what God “Intended” the church to be. Sort of a pyramid scheme, only with men instead of money. Many scriptures support this, and I'll quote just one more...
Matthew 28:19-20 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
They were to take what He had given them, and teach others. They, according to Paul, should in turn have taught others, who should have taught others... but you get the idea. If this had been done, in a matter of a decade, everyone on earth would know of the Church of God.
But, back to reality, it didn't happen. And I'm quite certain God knew that it wouldn't. But it IS what He WANTED, and it's what He STILL WANTS, because He never changes. And so when you are trying to decide what to do, REMEMBER THAT GOAL!
Next we have the question of what God (speaking practically now, not ideally) intended for the church to do. Bearing in mind that each church He raised up ultimately wound up in apostasy, and fell away from the truth.
Acts 2:47 ... And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.
In the beginning, God sends the church people in the world, one way or another, and teaches them about God. And there is MUCH these people can learn from this church! But there is a problem. One that is not a part of the system, but a flaw in the men who have administered it.
Sooner or later this church, whichever one it is, becomes the vicar of Christ. The church becomes the all encompassing entity that the membership serves, and God is relegated to the background. The membership begins to look to the ministry as if they were gods themselves – and the ministry fosters that attitude! These men LIKE being worshiped as demigods, and THAT is why the church has always failed to achieve the ideal laid out at the first part of this article!
But surely God was able to see this coming – after all, He invented man. And the church. Even Paul saw this coming to a church He'd spent years building.
Acts 20:28-31 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
And so since God built a system that this could happen to, and knew what was going to happen – why did He do it? What could come of such a system? And now we come to the truly astounding and wonderful part!
God MUST KNOW the moral fiber and the dedication of each and every being ever to have a part in His kingdom! And even more importantly, He must know whether that being worships HIM, or worships the Church! He must know WHERE your loyalty lies! And He must know that you are incorruptible, and undeceivable before He dare trust you with UNLIMITED POWER!
Hebrews 12:26-27 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.
While specifically speaking of Angels, it shows God's attitude on the subject well; He wants to know, nay, HE MUST KNOW that those things which CANNOT be shaken remain – He must know WHO those members are who CANNOT be deceived by soft words from a false minister masquerading as a minister of God!
Zechariah 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.
This is how God selects His people! This is how He ensures Himself that those who CANNOT be shaken are the only ones who remain! And that process is not pleasant at times, and it requires the use of men like Diotrephes...
3 John 1:9-10 I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church.
This man, who was a false minister, serving himself, and preventing John from teaching the truth SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN FOLLOWED! And I submit that those members who understood the truth, and WERE NOT CORRUPTIBLE, had already left, or been put out! Those who remained were those who WERE still deceivable!
2 Thessalonians 2:7-9 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
Again, why would God let this happen? Because THIS is how He “shakes” the church, to prove WHICH of them cannot be deceived!
10-12 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And FOR THIS CAUSE God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
HE MUST KNOW if you can be deceived – and if you CAN be deceived, He will make sure it happens! This, so that anyone who, deep down, was NOT committed to this way of life and who, deep down, LOVED and PREFERRED unrighteousness, if they could find any way to justify it, would be condemned for what they are, “that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness”!
So back to the subject – God created the church so that people could initially, see the truth. And learn to love it. But then, as the church degenerates into the inevitable apostasy, these people that the church initially taught so much, will see the church subtly change doctrines, and they will be forced to make a choice;
Most will be carried away by the tide of deception, without even noticing there is any such. These were the chaff, the packing peanuts God fills up the church with to insulate the real prize from harm. A few will notice a problem, and take it to the ministry, who will tell them that they needed to trust “God's ministers” and to “Shut up, pay, and pray”.
Most of those will also, sadly, knuckle under to the ministry of the church that taught them so much, not realizing that the church, being composed of men, is imminently fallible. These, too, since they can be shaken from the tree of righteousness, are not destined for the Kingdom of God.
Some few stubborn, independent souls, however, will not take “shut up, pay, and pray” for an answer; but will insist that the changes in the faith that they had once been taught are not from God. These few people will soon find themselves unwelcome in the church. The thousands of friends they once knew will all act as if they had never existed. The friends who had sold themselves, body and soul, to the church, would act as if these independent thinkers were antichrist.
And as macabre and depressing as it sometimes seems, this is the glorious purpose of the church of God on earth. To sort out those few independent souls who cannot be torn from the words of God through the clever words of soulless minister or silver-tongued devil.
This process is the one used to find the SILVER that is on the earth, and to sort out the UNTARNISHABLE GOLD from the billions of people composed of wood, hay, stubble and tin! It is how God sorts out the men who LOVE HIM, from those who LOVE a church, and HOW HE LEARNS WHAT YOUR HEART IS MADE OF!
Daniel 12:10 Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
THIS IS HOW GOD purifies man! THIS IS HOW He tries YOU to discover if YOU are made of GOLD, or MUD!
James 1:12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
And those few people who reject the church, and reject any influence, from anyone and anything that draws them away from God, from those PRECIOUS FEW ENTITIES WILL BE constructed a NEW WORLD GOVERNMENT, one composed of RIGHTEOUS MEN, JUST men, who have been tried and found incorruptible!
1 Corinthians 3:12-13 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1 Peter 1:7 That the trial of your FAITH, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
THAT is the purpose of the Church of God! To teach you truth, to help you learn more, and find others who believe like you – but ultimately, that same church will try to take away what truth it gave you, and demand your SOLE allegiance! And God ordained it to do this, to see if YOU can be SHAKEN from your convictions, or if you really do LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, ALL YOUR MIND, AND ALL YOUR STRENGTH!
Revelations 3:11-12 Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.