Causing Division Among the Brethren
We just don’t get it.
Splitting Churches, splitting fellowships, breaking up in small bless-me clubs and building our own kingdom…..
I’ve grown tired of all this talk of people calling themselves Apostolic, without the fruit to back it up.
Can we all take a good look at ourselves and realize we have flunked some of the most basic teachings of Jesus Christ and His holy Apostles?
How can we be Apostolic if we cannot even treat one another with love and compassion? Those guys died for what we so lightly claim to have.
How can you be Apostolic, while you are quarreling and fighting with one another?
I don’t care what kind of organization or fellowship you come from or what you call yourself.
You think the world has not watched us, you think they don’t know of our petty disagreements, casting one another into hell, because we can’t agree on certain issues and pointing our finger in condemnation of people who are simply trying to do their best to get to Heaven and please God to the best of their ability and knowledge.
Have we forgotten that “the pointing of the finger” is actually mentioned in the scripture?
Do you honestly think The Holy Ghost is going to do a great work in the midst of confusion and half-steps in power and demonstration.
What’s with all of us proclaiming a mighty end-time revival when we have absolutely forgotten what it means to bind together in one mind and one accord. More splits, more dis-fellowships and in the meanwhile, claiming the same power and anointing of the Apostles!
Paul said he heard that there were divisions in this particular Church and he said he partly believed it. Why? Lord knows he cautioned against this over and again when he traveled establishing Churches.
How many messages did he teach and preach on how we in the Church are to treat one another, much less those lost outside the fold?
Strife, envy and we are Apostolic. Are we crazy?
Don’t you know that strife, envy and division will absolutely kill a deep move of the Holy Ghost?
It was prophesied to some of you that your Churches and fellowships would not prosper unless you ministers became reconciled to one another.
You talk about one another, bash each other, give snippy, curt remarks to one another and to those outside our mainstream religion and think a mighty move of God is going to just sweep over us all.
Some cannot see that their little group, their little Church or congregation is about as big as it is ever going to get.
The more we claim what we do not have the deeper hole we dig for ourselves. You think the world doesn’t know what we’re doing, that backsliders and lost members of the fold don’t know our games, our self-appointed deliverance packages that allow some of us to live like kings and queens while some of our own people do without?
Hear this: Paul said there was a reason all this division was being allowed in the Church.
The old King James Bible said so, that those who are approved might be manifested. In other words, so people could see the difference between what’s real and what is not, who’s really anointed and who’s fooling everyone, including themselves!
Because someone differs with us in our interpretation of scripture does not give us the right to shun them or be haughty. There will be no revival without unity.
The world cannot stand some of us, they literally hate to see us coming. The reason I know this is true is that some of us cannot not even tolerate one another!
We actually bristle in one another’s presence. The internet exposed us. Some of us haven’t realized it yet.
Lost and wounded sheep don’t want to see us coming — they’ve already got enough problems and difficulties without seeing our self-righteous attitudes.
All of us, we’re all guilty, but we can do better. We’ve overlooked the term “false brethren” and those who stir strife, debate and envy.
I watched these things destroy one of the mightiest moves of the Spirit I’ve ever witnessed and I’ve never gotten over it.
That Church is no more and all the people are scattered in every direction — and we all blame one another.
We could have been running hundreds by now, even thousands — and we killed it dead with our division and power struggles, pushing one another left and right and not preferring one another as the scripture dictates, staying humble before our own!
If someone is causing real division among godly people and those who truly love one another, the scripture said what? Avoid them! Don’t let it happen.
Some of us need to throw ourselves down on our faces before one another and scream and cry and shake one another until all of the bitterness and malice is washed away between us.
If we can’t do that, we are not Apostolic. We can’t heal anyone out there if we can’t even heal one another.
Alright, if we cannot perform and demonstrate all of the gifts of the Spirit, we are apostolic in theory only.
If we are not willing to let the true order of the five-fold ministry operate, first, second and third, then we are only fooling ourselves, we are not fooling the world and be honest, we are not even fooling one another anymore.
We’ve shut the mouth of the Prophet, he or she must operate only under the direction of the Pastor. That is absolutely false doctrine.
They’re all equal and they all submit to one another. We’re not the big cheese, the sole authority. We were told that God would confound those who think they’re wise by using people of less stature.
Why? Because He can! God is not the author of confusion, we are!!
If you can’t work for God or operate in the Church or assembly or fellowship you’re in, then go find somewhere you can.
Do not stay in any group and cause division and strife. However, if you cannot truly love those you’ve left and show forth humility and uprightness before them and have a good attitude when you see them again, there’s doubt as to whether you will help anyone the next place you go.
I learned this the hard way. I think some of us need to pray through and make things right with one another before we all take one more step in any direction.
God will find something or someone to lift Him up and praise Him, even if it’s stones. May a spirit of weeping and wailing fall upon each of us.
We’ve run out of time. God is already raising up his remnant, a new thing, a new work, a new people who are not called by his name, strangers and anyone else who will love Him.
We’re so divided that many of us don’t even know it’s happening.
I ask for your prayers. I want God to use me, don’t you?
If we can’t love one another and make things right with each other, God doesn’t need us.
First published: January 14, 2011.
Postscript:
Anguish! I just listened to this again.
What a moving and stirring video. How true can it be? I feel it!
I am absolutely beside myself over some things I’m hearing.
Church people and ministers are destroying one another, it seems without a thought, cold, so very cold.
See: “A Call to Anguish – David Wilkerson (Full Sermon)” here.
~ Robert Blackburn
Absolutely right.
FULL TRUTH OF TODAY. AMÉN…!