-Transcript-
00:26 Amen. Glory to God. Welcome to the program.
00:30 Welcome to the Cafe. Here we are in the second part of a two-part series on unity within the church and why it’s so important that we’re unified as a church, regardless of denomination, as long as we’re biblically sound on doctrine.
00:42 And that’s where we’re going to pick up here today, the caveat, why we have to be sound on doctrine and not compromise doctrine for the sake of unity.
00:50 So let’s jump right in here. Now what is this caveat I mentioned earlier? What is the one exception to this?
00:57 We’re talking about unity. Well, the idea here is we don’t want to let unity be an occasion for false worship.
01:07 Let’s start by getting this out of the way. False doctrine should always be condemned.
01:15 Nowhere am I saying that it pleases the Lord for us to be unified, for us to work together, that it brings joy to the Lord, that it should be what we do.
01:25 Nowhere am I saying that we should let the cause of unification come before standing on firm biblical doctrine.
01:32 The example I gave in the introduction was about, even so, Lord, come. That’s biblically accurate.
01:39 That’s the mentality we’re supposed to have. And that surprised me from seeing them on these signs, because I don’t know. I’ve not been to a service in either church.
01:50 I’m familiar with both of them. And if you want to take it further, you know, my kids have been at events at both of them because it’s in the community, it’s near where we live, and they’ve had a good experience so far, so forth.
02:01 But I don’t know what they’re saying, what they’re preaching, but that sign is biblically accurate, right?
02:11 Romans 16:17-18. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them.
02:19 So here Romans 16:17, Paul is saying, mark them, who? Those that cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned. So here in KJV Cafe, we spent a lot of time preaching from Paul’s epistles, because Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles, amen.
02:41 And so we, that’s, he’s our apostle, so we get our doctrine from him, and we follow him because he followed Christ.
02:49 And so when we see something contrary, we are to mark that individual, we are to stay away from them, right? Avoid them. Verse 18, for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ.
02:58 See, they’re not serving God, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
03:05 This immediately brings to mind many modern preachers. I saw an ad on my, I don’t have a Facebook profile. We have a Facebook page for KJV Cafe, you should check it out.
03:17 We have a church page as well. So I’ll go on there, and they’ll still show me ads and stuff with my little account. And I saw an ad for a false prophet, the best way to put it, a big name preacher that does not preach sound biblical doctrine, and has a big following.
03:35 And I was blessed by reading the comments. Over and over again, Christians, Bible-believing Christians were calling this man out for who he is and what he was trying to do, and telling people, don’t get in, don’t buy into this.
03:46 And hopefully that’s a witness to that individual, that they can reform their ways before it’s eternally too late, and they can stop leading the flock astray.
03:54 But if you say, oh, let’s be unified, and let’s go with this individual who’s teaching an example that is so awful that is not biblically sound, in fact, it is the opposite.
04:05 Let me tell you, when the preachers start saying, let’s get along with the world, right?
04:15 So they start taking unity and perverting it. So instead of unity in the church and the body of Christ, now they want unity with the world.
04:20 Well, Jesus is not from this world, amen? He came to separate us from this world. We are not from this world, and we’re born again.
04:32 We are pilgrims passing through, amen. So any kind of doctrine that deals with succeeding in this world, thriving in this world, getting along with this world, acclimating to this world, that’s heresy.
04:39 That’s false doctrine, amen? By the way, a lot of different modern churches, they’re preaching something like this. And I believe it grieves the Lord because it’s creating a spiritually adulterous nation.
04:54 We’re creating people that truly want to get to know God and are under false preaching and are taken afar off from God.
05:01 And it’s like God’s standing there watching his bride kissing a strange man. Now I don’t know about you, I’ve already started talking about my son and his beard plucked out.
05:11 Okay, now my wife, and now someone’s kissing my wife, and I don’t know that person.
05:18 That is going to be one of the worst feelings in the world. And again, I’m going to want to deal with that person just like I want to deal with the person messing with my son, amen.
05:23 I don’t know why. I’m conjuring up all kinds of images of confrontation here today on the program, but I promise there’s nothing behind that other than that’s how God feels, but 10 times more, amen.
05:33 His creation is cheating on him with a modern church that’s preaching some candy sweet gospel that makes no sense biblically.
05:39 It’s not found in the Bible. I could go on and on, and I’m going to give a simple example. There was a ridiculous sermon that we shared it when we were in our last building, and it was about Top Gun,
05:53 and the preacher there was all dressed up in all kinds of garb, and the lights were going and all, and he was talking about the Israelites when they were sending spies over there,
06:06 and he was kind of twisting that to be like God was with them and everything was great, and they were sending spies over there because they didn’t have faith, the Israelites being in the wilderness, sending spies to Canaan, they were doing that because they didn’t have faith,
06:17 and all of them ended up dying in the wilderness because God was so wroth or angry with them, and this preacher is up there saying God’s got you like he’s got them.
06:31 Well, okay, hold on a minute. What are you preaching? That’s absolutely perverted and crazy, and again, what it was doing, it may sound silly, but what he was doing was removing sin from the picture, and that’s what these modern churches do.
06:42 I could go on, but for time’s sake, I got to keep moving here.
06:47 God, John 4:24, a lot of scripture from John here, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. This is a simple verse, but so powerful.
06:55 God’s a spirit, and they that must worship him must worship him in spirit, what spirit? The Holy Spirit, amen, and in truth.
07:01 God will not accept worship that is not in truth, and so am I telling you that if you’re in some congregation that is absolutely wild for the Lord,
07:16 you’re dancing, you’re singing, you’re screaming praises, and there’s a bunch of false preaching going on, a bunch of false everything going on, and the shallowest emotion in you is what’s being displayed over and over again,
07:28 nothing with your soul and who you are, and nothing with the Bible, most importantly, but all about just your emotion, am I telling you that God won’t accept that worship?
07:37 Yes, I’m telling you that, and I’m not telling you that out of my opinion. I’m telling you that because John 4:24 says God is a spirit, and they that worship him must.
07:39 The operative word is must, not should be, could be, would be, must worship him in spirit and truth.
07:52 That means that it must be done, and you say, well, Brother Clark, how can I worship God in truth?
08:03 Well, you got to get in the word, and you got to see what the word says, and specifically if we’re talking about New Testament believers, we’re talking about the church age, the age of grace, we’re talking about Paul’s epistles, Paul’s letters, amen,
08:09 we get into the doctrine of Paul, so if you’re in a church that doesn’t want to talk about Paul, that’s a big warning sign because Paul tells us that he is the apostle to the Gentiles.
08:17 Why did Jesus have to die for our sins? Because we needed him to. This is the point of the cross and his church in the second coming.
08:24 What is he offering to the lost? Salvation, not condemnation to all that believe. What about this should fuel divisions?
08:32 Nothing, right? So we see that Jesus came to resolve a problem we couldn’t resolve that had eternal implications, heaven or hell, and that we can be saved only by believing on him,
08:44 and so we are here to number one, get saved, number two, to witness and be fruitful and win others to Christ and also edify and strengthen the church body, that’s why we’re here, amen,
08:55 and what about this should divide us? So if you have a church that believes in the blood, which is called the substitutionary death of Christ, the atonement, if you have a church that believes in that, and they believe that to be saved is to believe on the risen Christ,
09:13 the Bible tells us that this is what matters, right? And so let’s say the church meets on Thursdays instead of Wednesdays.
09:20 Let’s say the church does communion every service or never does communion, even though they should, right? Let’s say the church has a baptismal pool.
09:32 Let’s say one doesn’t. Let’s say the church does church camp, but the other one doesn’t do church camp. Let’s say the church is mainly just doing Bible studies and a little bit of ministry when they can,
09:46 and the other church is doing a bus ministry and it’s, you know, they’re everywhere and they’re witnessing to everyone and door-to-door soul winning.
09:57 Let’s say the church is doing street preachers, another one is not able to send out street preachers.
09:56 None of these things are taking away from the core belief, amen, the foundational belief. And what is that belief? The gospel, 1 Corinthians 15:1-4
10:10 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel, which I preached unto you, which alsoyou’ve received wherein you stand, by which also you’re saved. If you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
10:27 That is the gospel. And if a church is like-minded, then they too would read that and say, that is the gospel, right? It’s not that complicated. And so a lot of things, again, can split us.
10:42 And again, it’s not wrong to, you know, a good Bible believing church that has the capacity should be doing soul winning and should be doing street preaching and should be doing Sunday school
10:54 and should be doing women’s studies and should be doing food ministry and should be supporting missions.
11:01 That’s great. We’re in the era here after COVID where some churches are under a dozen, amen? Our congregation is very small, amen. And I have a missionary friend and they went to a church and they got new support.
11:13 And they said that the congregation there was essentially less than half a dozen, I think it was, and they had to rent a little dance studio or a little theater to have their church at.
11:21 Oh goodness, we’re in the last days. So let’s not split hairs, amen. Let’s not split hairs.
11:28 Here’s the point. Here’s the point. He’s coming soon.
11:33 No man knows the hour or time, thus we have no time to waste. Psalm 133, verse 1, behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron’s beard that went down to the skirts of his garments as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion.
11:58 For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. You know, the symbolism of anointing an oil with its heavy amounts, it’s symbolic of theHoly Spirit, amen.
12:07 That here David’s writing in Psalm 133, how good and pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell together in unity. You know, it’s marking something when you anoint someone an oil, you’re kind of setting them apart.
12:19 You’re marking them for the Lord and you’re saying, this is so good. This is so perfect. And so think about it.
12:26 That’s enriching the Holy Spirit. Well, what does the world say? Let’s fight and debate and drag things out in public and it’s tabloid and the flesh desires these things.
12:36 Yeah, I mean, I even gave an example, like if there was a coach that said something about a player, another player said something about another team in sports, you know, I get sucked into that.
12:43 So I can’t criticize the next person that’s saying something about a celebrity or whatever.
12:53 The point is the flesh, the worldliness in us desires those things. And God is saying, don’t bring that into the church, repent, get rid of that stuff and have the church be unified.
12:58 We should dwell in unity in the church, in other churches, in the causes for Christ and in soul winning, we should dwell in unity the best that we can. Think about the plan of the enemy. It’s to cause conflict.
13:08 It’s to break the peace and the progress of the church. That’s what the devil wants to do. How does the devil accomplish that? By creating divisions in the church.
13:13 How does the devil create divisions? Saying, well, you can’t be fellowship with this person. You can’t fellowship with that person.
13:20 A divided church is weaker and not able to progress for the causes of Christ like a unified church can.
13:26 I mean, think about that. The body of Christ is to be fruitful and productive for the Lord. And that comes with a single mindedness that only comes by the way of unity in the church.
13:43 Right? You know, the devil can disrupt Christians if they fall into divisions and get distracted from the cause. You know, Christ, he wants us to be unified. And I don’t have time, but, you know,
13:54 there in the book of John 17:11-23, Jesus prays a prayer asking God that he keeps all those that are his and all those that are his by virtue of those that he’s taught.
14:03 And he’s praying that he gives us as followers the same oneness that he has with God. So to be Christ like is to be one in the church as Christ is with the Lord, his father, amen. And so let’s keep this in mind as best we can here.
14:20 I thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this. I wish we had more time to talk about the importance of unity in the church. But for now, my time’s up.
14:27 Tune in next time. Take care. God bless and amen.