Destroying Hindrances

All Hindrances to Revival are Due to Sin

By Jonathan Goforth

[Revivalist & Missionary in Manchuria and China, 1888-1935]

Upon returning to China in the fall of 1901, after having recuperated from the harrowing effects of the Boxer Rebellion, I began to experience a growing dissatisfaction with the results of my missionary work.

In the early pioneering years I had buoyed myself with the assurance that a seed-time must always precede a harvest, and had, therefore, been content to persist in the apparently futile struggle.

But now thirteen years had passed and the harvest seemed further away than ever. I felt sure there was something larger ahead of me, if I only had the vision to see what it was, and the faith to grasp it.

Restless and discontented, I was led to a more intensive study of the Scriptures. Every passage that had any bearing upon the price of, or the road to the enduement of power, became life and breath to me. There were a number of books on revival in my library.

These I read over and over. So much did it become a burden on my mind that my wife began to fear that my mind would not stand it.

Of great inspiration to me were the reports of the Welsh Revival of 1904-1905, for they made me to know that revivals were not a thing of the past. Late in the fall of 1905 a pamphlet containing selections from Charles G. Finney’s Autobiography and Revival Lectures were sent to me by a friend in India. It was the final something that set me on fire!

On the front page there was a statement to the effect that a farmer might just as well pray for a temporal harvest without fulfilling the laws of nature, as for Christians to expect a great ingathering of souls by simply asking for it, and without bothering to fulfill the laws governing the spiritual harvest.

“If Finney is right,” I vowed, “then I am going to find out what those laws are, and obey them no matter what it costs!” Later a brother missionary loaned me the full “Autobiography of Finney.” It is impossible to estimate all that book meant to me.

Now I began to see stirrings in the hearts of the people, so much so that a native evangelist said in an awed whisper, “Why the people are being moved on just as they were by Peter’s sermon at Pentecost.”

At one meeting as I spoke on “He bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” conviction seemed to be written on every face and when I called for decisions, the whole audience stood up as a man crying, “We want to follow this Jesus Who died for us.”

About this time our Foreign Mission Secretary asked me to visit the revival in Korea. Witnessing the Lord at work in the Korean revival was of incalculable significance in my life because it showed me at firsthand the boundless possibilities of the revival method. Korea made me feel, as it did many others, that Revival was God’s plan for setting the world aflame.

The missionaries in Korea were just ordinary people. I did not notice any outstanding people among them. It was in prayer that they were different. Never have I been so conscious of the Divine Presence as I was in these Korean prayer meetings. Those missionaries seemed to carry us right up in prayer to the Throne of God. One indeed had the feeling they were communing face to face with God.

What impressed me was the practical nature of the revival. It was no wild gust of “religious enthusiasm” dying with the wind upon whose wings it had been borne. There were the usual outward manifestations that accompany such miraculous outpourings of spiritual power. But beyond that there were tens of thousands of Korean men and women whose lives had been completely transformed by the divine power.

Every one seemed almost pathetically eager to spread the “Glad Tidings.” Even little boys would run up to people on the street and plead with them to accept Christ as their Saviour. Everywhere I saw an evident devotion for the Holy Word. Everyone seemed to carry a Bible. And permeating it all was that marvelous spirit of prayer.

On my return to China, I was asked by the missionaries of Kikunsghan to tell them the story of the Korean Revival. On Sunday evening as I drew to a close my account of the Spirit’s outpouring on the churches of Korea, it seemed the stillness of death pervaded the assembly. The suppressed sobs became audible here and there. In a little while missionaries were rising to their feet and in tears were confessing their faults one to another.

Revival Is The Beginning Of A New Obedience Towards God

In the autumn of 1906, I was preparing to set out to see what could be done about reviving the outstations. There was a matter, however, between a brother missionary and myself that had to be made right. I honestly felt that I was right. Nevertheless I felt it would please the Lord for me to go and make this matter absolutely straight. But I argued with the Lord, saying it was the other missionary’s fault, not mine, and that it was up to him to come to me, not for me to go to him.

But the pressure continued until I cried out to the Lord saying, “He came to my study and in tears confessed his fault. Does that not settle the matter?”

“You hypocrite!” I seemed to hear Him say, “You know you are not loving each other as brethren, as I have commanded you to do.”

Still I would not yield.

Then came the final word from the Lord, “If you do not straighten this thing out before you go on that trip, you may expect to fail, for I cannot go with you.” That humbled me. I did not want to go on that difficult trip without His help.

The night before I was to start on the trip I had to lead a prayer meeting for the Chinese Christians. All the way to the church the pressure continued: “Go and straighten this thing out, so that I may go with you to the outstations.”

Still I would not yield. I started the meeting. It was all right while they sang, and during the reading of the Scripture. But as soon as I opened my mouth in prayer I became confused, for all the time the Spirit kept saying: You hypocrite! Why don’t you straighten this thing out?” I became still more troubled while delivering a short talk on prayer. Finally, when halfway through my talk, the burden became utterly intolerable and I yielded.

“Lord,” I promised in my heart, “as soon as this meeting is over, I’ll go and make the matter right.”

Instantly something in the audience seemed to snap. In a moment the whole atmosphere changed. Upon the meeting being thrown open for prayer, one after another rose to their feet to pray, only to break down, weeping. For almost twenty years we missionaries had longed to see a tear of repentance roll down a Chinese cheek.

It was late at night when the meeting closed. As soon as I could I hastened over to the house of my brother-missionary…the difficulty was settled, and because I was led of the Spirit and obeyed the Lord, the blessings on my tour of the outstations far exceeded anything I had dared to hope for.

At each station the Spirit of judgment was made manifest.

Wrongs were righted and crooked things were made straight. At one station, I was only able to spend one night but that night the whole audience broke down before the Lord….

Often during the meetings, great waves of prayer would sweep the congregation. Some one would cry, “Pray for my outstation, we are so cold and dead.” Or another would ask prayer for their unsaved loved ones and plead with the people to join them in prayer. Instantly scores all over the audience would respond.

It seemed nothing could resist such importunity. A number of influential Chinese leaders had opposed the meetings and declared they would not attend them. Special intercession was offered upon their behalf, and some of the most broken confessions during these meetings came from them.

Hindrances To Revival

We cannot emphasize too strongly our conviction that all hindrances to revival in the Church are due to sin! The appalling fact is that every sin found without the Church is found also within the Church although perhaps to a lesser degree.

It is sin in individual Church members, whether at home or on the foreign field, which grieves and quenches the Holy Spirit! I imagine that we would lose much of our self-righteousness if we were to find that pride, jealousy, envy, greed, bad temper, backbiting, gossip, talebearing, and all their kindred are just as heinous in God’s sight as the so-called grosser sins.

All sin in the believer, of whatever kind, mars the redemptive work of Christ. The filth and bloodguiltiness of the churches can only be swept away by the Spirit of Judgment, and the Spirit of Burning.

In view of the prominence that is given to confession of sin in this article, perhaps I ought to make plain my own views on the subject.

We have a strong feeling that sins committed before conversion are under the blood of God’s Son and never should be confessed.

To do so is to bring dishonor upon Christ’s Calvary sacrifice.

We believe that as regards secret sin, that is sin which is only known to the individual soul and God, to confess it at the private altar is, as a rule, sufficient to ensure pardon and cleansing. Yet there are times when secret acknowledgment of secret sin is not sufficient and public confession is the only way to secure relief…

As to sin against an individual, the Scriptures are quite plain.

“Therefore, if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matt. 5:22,24).

It is vain for us to pray while conscious that we have injured another. Let us first make amends to the injured one before we dare approach God at either private or public altar.

I am confident revival would break out in most churches if this was done. Then again, as regards public sins, experience has shown us that those can only be swept away by public confession.

True, this amounts to crucifixion; but by our willful disobedience, we have put the Lord of Glory to open shame, and it is the price we must be willing to pay if we are to see revival sweeping through our churches.

That Is Victory!!

Others May : You Cannot

By G. D. Watson (1845-1924)

If God has called you to be really like Jesus He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious He may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make YOUR REWARD TEN Times GREATER when JESUS COMES.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. SO make up your mind that God is an Infinitely Sovereign Being, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in Jealous Love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then that you are to DEAL DIRECTLY WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this PECULIAR, PERSONAL, PRIVATE, JEALOUS GUARDIANSHIP and MANAGEMENT OF the HOLY SPIRIT OVER YOUR LIFE, then you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

WHEN YOU ARE forgotten, neglected, or purposefully set at naught, and you smile inwardly, glorying in the insult or the oversight, because thereby you are counted worthy to suffer with Christ, THAT IS VICTORY.

WHEN YOUR GOOD is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, when your taste is offended, when your advise is disregarded, when your opinions are ridiculed, and you take it all in patient, loving silence, THAT IS VICTORY.

WHEN YOU ARE content with any food, raiment, climate, society, solitude,or any interruption by the will of God, THAT IS VICTORY.

Which One is Babylon?

B A B Y L O N

Is it organized churches?

Is it independents?

In recent years the number of church drop-outs has been increasing. Young people especially have become more dissatisfied with established Christian institutions. Youth movements, home prayer groups and underground churches have been increasing rapidly, while attendance at formal worship services has dropped off.

Many revolutionary voices have been raised. The cry, "Come out of Babylon!" has been heard again and again. Any by Babylon, the voices generally mean the institutional, organized churches. Down through the centuries the voices of reformation have repeatedly tagged the existing order of things with this label. The Reformers in the days of Luther and Calvin saw the Roman church as "Babylon" and the "Come-outers" of every generation since have seen the groups they left as Babylon.

Today, some who emphasize freedom and simplicity say any organized, institutionalized church is part of Babylon, while others who place a strong emphasis on the unity of the body point more to all divisions of the church—even down to the independent home meetings—as representing Babylon. Either of these groups would tend to equate denominations with Babylon, and urge all Christians to come out.

Is this right? If it is, then sincere Christians in denominations had better get out before the judgment falls, and those outside should even more zealously urge this action upon their brethren. But if this view is not right, then what is Babylon? For there is something meant by God when He says, Come out of her my people." Could it be that both denominational and un- (or anti-) denominational Christians are missing the real point?

The Testimony Of History

The history of all Christians who have dropped out of the existing church structure to begin a new thing in their day shows one of two things: either they disintegrated or in their success they formed another institution. Certainly Luther and Calvin did so, although in their case they apparently did so deliberately. Others, such as John Darby and the "Plymouth" Brethren, for all their strong willed intention not to do so, only formed another denomination. Of course, many in that group even today will deny this, but how are they different? Merely saying we are not a denomination (or division) does not make it true! The fact remains that all the marks of a sect or denomination are obvious.

The early Pentecostal movement was universal and truly catholic, including any and all. But it quickly became as sectarian, institutionalized and divisive—if not more so—than the rest of Christendom. It seems no matter what the intentions are of those who "come out of Babylon", they themselves wind up being Babylon for the next generation of come-outers!

Is Babylon "Division"?

As the Spirit of God moved in many hearts with a longing for manifest Christian unity, many groups have sprung up claiming to be or to represent the true Church, separate from all division. Their ground of meeting is simply unity in the Body of Christ. Such groups range from non-denominational churches, virtually indistinguishable from any denominational evangelical congregation, to little, fiercely independent, home meetings.

Some of these refer to the historic captivity of the Jews in Babylon, pointing our that God’s call to His people then was to come out and return to Jerusalem. They say God had only one place where Jews were to worship, and that was Jerusalem. There were many synagogues built in captivity but only one temple in Jerusalem. To remain in Babylon when God was calling to return was an act of divisiveness. Likewise today, they say, where Christians are scattered among the various denomination, God is calling us to unity, to come out of the divisions—which are Babylon—and return to the ground of unity.

On the surface, this is a powerful argument. It seems true to the Scriptural type. But it depends on one assumption: that Babylon represents divisions. If this can be proved, the argument stands. We will return to his point in a moment.

Objections

These views of coming out of Babylon is that they tend to created spiritual pride in those who hold them. "WE" have come out; "you" have not. "We" have seen the light;

"you" have not. "We" have come out and will be blessed; "others" will be cursed or fall into limbo.

Even the move toward unity tends to create the very division it vocally deplores. "We" are on the ground of unity; "you" are not. "We" have the truth; come and join us. There is a pronounced awareness that some are "in" and some are "out".

Every attempted move to recover the true church, the New Testament church, seems to have ended in splintering, sectarian division. Somehow no one seems to have found the right combination, but there is always someone who thinks that he has at last uncovered the key and so makes another attempt, only to fail again.

A Misunderstanding Of Babylon

If every attempt to follow the divine injunction to come out of Babylon results in only more confusion and division, we must be misunderstanding what it is we are to come out of; we must be misunderstanding Babylon. The conclusion is inescapable, so I suggest that we re-open the question. Just what is Babylon?

The origins of Babylon date back to the eleventh chapter of Genesis and the tower of Babel. "Babe" means confusion, or division, and so some find further ground here for identifying Babylon with division. A closer look at the text however, tells a different story.

"The whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

And they said one to another. Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime hand they for mortar.

And they said, Let us build us a city and a tower whose tope may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of men builded.

And the Lord said, Behold, the people are one and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained (or withheld) from them, which they have imagined to do.

Let us go down and there confound their language, and that they may no understand one another’s speech.

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did confound the language of the earth; and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."

The People Were One

Note verses 1 and 5. All the people of the earth had one language and one speech. They gathered together in the land of Shinar. God Himself said, "The people are one"! And they began to build a tower "unto heaven". There was a unity there more profound and complete than any unity mankind since has ever known.

Everybody had one language with one pronunciation. All linguistic research tends to bear out this fact that once only one language existed on earth, enabling mankind in the flesh to be perfectly united.

Man desired to build a tower whose primary purpose (vs.4) was to preserve this unity. What that tower was is debatable. Some infer from the Hebrew text translated "whose top…unto heaven" that it was the culmination of astrological knowledge of the ancients. The similarity of the signs of the Zodiac the world over, adds support to this theory. Whatever the tower was, it surely demonstrates the advanced degree of civilization at that time, for it contained bricks backed in ovens cemented together with asphalt ("slime"). It clearly dealt with some kind of knowledge, for in order to destroy it God destroyed communication; he confused languages so men could no longer communicate. The tower must have been a thing of titanic importance, for God Himself said, "This they begin to do" (or "This is only the beginning"): and now nothing will be withheld from them, which they have imagined to do." (vs.6).

Utopia Achieved

If man had built the tower, everything he could imagine would have been his! Nothing would be withheld! Without God, in the power of the flesh, operating solely by the knowledge of good and the evil, mankind would have unlocked all the secrets of nature, conquered the earth and achieved the perfect society. Utopia would have arrived. This tower was to be the consummation of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, the highest accomplishment of carnal man. If men reached this stage, they would have become almost, if not completely, unredeemable if God had so allowed.

In His mercy God did not let it happen. He stepped down, confused their language so they could not understand each other, and scattered them over the earth. Acts 17:26 tells us he sets the boundaries of the nations so that men cannot join together.

National boundaries and thousands of languages still stand as the two most formidable obstacles to world unity. It is not without significance that, despite the many fantastic accomplishments of modern computers, computer language translation has been almost completely abandoned as virtually an impossible task.

Much damage has come as a result of confusion, misunderstanding of speech and national differences. Wars result almost entirely from these roots. Man tends to regard these barriers to unity as a great evil—yet it was God who ordained them! Get that: God ordained the confusion. God scattered the people. God destroyed the unity.

To sum up then: the city of Babel is a symbol of fleshly unity, man’s attempts to be one apart from the Spirit of God. Such attempts at unity God destroys. The confusion which followed was not Babel; it was the result of God’s destruction of Babel. The story of the tower of Babel is a story of God’s destruction of carnal unity.

Babylon Is A False Unity

Is this picture of Babylon as representing a false unity borne out by the rest of Scripture? Assuredly yes! In the first chapter of Daniel we see how Babylon was attempting to unite the earth under one great empire. Defeated nations were razed and their cities leveled. The intelligent youths of these nations were re-named with Babylonian names, taught Babylonian science and Babylonian language, and given Babylonian food. It was history’s first world empire, attempting history’s most ambitious brainwashing project, with an aim to produce a united earth by institutionalized force.

Right down to the book of Revelation we see Babylon as a unifying, building power attempting to set up the kingdom of man. Babylon is the utter antitheses of division! And throughout history God has continually stepped in, time and time again, to smash, scatter and destroy a whole succession of Babylon’s. In the end, however, prophecy tells us political Babylon will apparently succeed in uniting the earth under antichrist, but "the stone cut without hands" (Christ in his many-membered body) will pulverize the "image of a man" and will break them with a rod of iron.

WHAT HAS ALL THIS TO DO WITH DENOMINATIONS AND OUR COMING OUT? Simply this. As startling as it may seem, denomi-nations in a very important sense are ordained of God! What? Yes, denominational confusion and division, the scattering of Christians over the face of the earth, the theological confusion and contradiction of terminology and language, is all a direct result of God’s will! He is not opposed to denominations: He caused them.

Wait! Don’t quit reading here or you’ll miss the main point.

Denominational division is the result of God’s merciful stepping in to break up a false Christian unity. It is God’s way to keep us from going too far in the wrong direction.

Fleshly Christian Unity

From the end of the First Century, Christians began to try to "protect and preserve the unity of the Body" by fleshly, worldly means: institutions, creeds, laws and official leaders or priests. That was the beginning of religious Babylon. Eventually it got so bad that God simply had to break it up. The result was divisions and denominations.

Every time man takes it upon himself to build, "the true church", God breaks it up! That’s why every attempt has, and always will, end in failure. God is opposed to it. That isn’t His way. It is simply not in the power of man to build the Church: it is not man’s responsibility. Man is not capable of doing the job, and the minute we think we are, we begin to exercise our flesh. We get trapped in a kind of corporate salvation-by-works.

Even the best "New Testament Church" can be just another Babel to God, more dangerous than most because it looks more like the real thing. So God breaks it up even quicker. Haven’t you noticed that? The more "right" we are, the faster the failure, the more drastic the division.

Man is Not to Build the Ecclesia

Man is not supposed to build the ecclesia. Jesus said, "I will build my church" (Gk."ecclesia"). The very word "church" is so tainted with man’s carnal efforts that I prefer to use the transliteration of the Greek, "ecclesia", to help us toward new and fresh thought. There-fore, from now on I will use the term "church" to indicate what man builds and the word "ecclesia" for reference to what Jesus Christ has built.

When God sends division, what does He divide? He divides the churches. The ecclesia is never, has never, and will never be divided. If Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, prayed that we all may be one, I believe God answered and still is answering. If we for one moment admit that division among the churches represents real division in the ecclesia, we are saying that millions of Christians have been left out of Jesus’ prayer.

If the ecclesia (not just the churches) is truly divided today and I died tomorrow, then Jesus should have prayed—for my sake—that all except myself may be one. And He should likewise have excepted all who have died in ages gone by.

But He prayed for all "that they all my be one". God hears His Son. If the Father does not answer the prayer of Jesus, we may as well give up! No, all are one; the ecclesia is not divided.

Division Exists in the Flesh

Division exists only in the flesh. Come out of the flesh, and for you the divisions cease to exist. This has been the great discovery (but little understood) in the charismatic renewal. Enter into real spiritual experience and denominational barriers seem to melt. The Holy Spirit has been able to break down that great wall of partition between Protestant and Catholic. Truly, in experience, thousands have found that "in one Spirit" we are all baptized "into one body" (1Cor.12:13).

So, coming out of Babylon does not necessarily mean leaving institutional Christianity. It does not necessarily mean leaving divisions. It means leaving every attempt to build "the true church." It means ceasing from every effort to do something that God has already done. It is essentially an inner, spiritual move, a heart move.

Yes, denominations are in the will of God, but they are not even part of the ecclesia. We cannot leave a denomination to join the ecclesia. We don’t have to leave, for we are already in the ecclesia by the fact of new birth. To the degree we live our lives for a denomination or church, to that degree we are in Babylon. But it is quite possible that we could be members of a denomination and yet be living for the ecclesia. Our hearts would simply refuse to be limited by a denominational structure, but would reach out and include all who are born of the Spirit.

Leaving Denominations

So you don’t feel that God wants you to leave your denomination? I’ll buy that! I can believe it. Many in the denominations are probably more free of the spirit of Babylon than some of those shouting loudest about coming out! But beware, my brother. Don’t confuse that "church" you belong to with the ecclesia of Jesus Christ!

Others of you feel you cannot be bound or limited by human institutions any long, you have to break free? I’ll buy that! That’s where I find myself. But beware, my brother. Don’t confuse this physical departure with a true departure of your heart. Have you ever witnessed an encounter between a denominational Christian (Mr. In) and one who has "come out" (Mr. Out)? The conversation eventually comes to this:

Mr. In: What church or denomination do you belong to?

Mr. Out: I belong to none.

Mr. In: That sounds awfully independent to me. Do you think you’re superior or something?

Instead of "I belong to none", Mr. Out could have more wisely answered, "I belong to all of them". It expresses the spirit of Paul when he said, "All are yours", and "You are all members, each one of the other." True., I don’t belong to any denominational organization, but I do belong to my brothers and sister who are in them! And they belong to me, regardless of whether or not they realize it.

That’s who Paul argued with the Corinthians. They were saying, "we are of Paul, we are of Apollo, we are of Cephas, we are of Christ". They were saying they were divided. Paul replied, "You cannot be divided! Is Christ divided? If you say you are divided, you are being carnal, behaving like ordinary men. You are looking on things with the eyes of the flesh. All of these leaders belong to you all, and together you all belong to Christ." (1Cor.1:12,13; 2:3,21-23).

"Is Christ divided?" If we can admit to a divided Christ, then and only then can we admit to a divided Body of Christ. To admit to the division of the Body is to admit to the division of the Head! Let go of that fleshly viewpoint! See and confess that there is one Lord, and one Body.

I say again, it is not the ecclesia which is divided; it is the human additions and mutations. I am no longer striving for Christian unity. I am celebrating it. Why should I strive for something already accomplished? "Henceforth know we no man after the flesh. "I simply refuse to see that any brother is divided from me. I confess the fact of our unity. He may think he is separated from me, but I will never believe that lie; I will never look on the fleshly separations; I will look on the unifying life of God we both share.

How the Ecclesia is Made Visible

Maybe you are thinking as you read this, "I agree that in spirit we are all one Body, and that this must be emphasized; but what about the expression or manifestation of that unity? How can this unity be made visible and practical? Don’t we need to leave all divisions behind and come together in a united testimony of oneness?

Well, brother, first of all, if you do that you are in danger of repeating the mistakes of others, merely starting another tower with will end in confusion. You will be confessing your unity with all the people who share your vision, but what about all the ones you leave behind? You’re separated from them. What then?, you say, "Do you believe just in some ethereal, invisible church?"

No, I intensely believe the ecclesia must be visible and that the oneness of the Body of Christ must be seen. Once again, however, we are clouded with an age old misunderstanding. That misunderstanding relates to how the ecclesia is to be made visible.

When I say, "one church", what do we immediately think of? One institution, one type of meeting, on type of church order, one set of beliefs. We think of some kind of human body which ties us together much like the Masonic order. And this is exactly what the ecclesia is not.

The Fellowship of Love

Jesus declared that we would be seen and known as His disciples. He said, "By this will all men know that ye are my disciples, (my company of called-out ones, my ecclesia), if ye have love one to another" (Jn.13:35). In Acts the unbelievers said, "Behold how they love one another." They noticed this: "These men have been with Jesus." Paul declared in 1 Corinthians that if an unbeliever walked into the Christian meeting he would confess, "God is in your midst." John, in his first epistle said, "These things declare we unto you that ye may also have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ."

The ecclesia is made visible and known by two things: the fellowship of love to one another and the fellowship of the present communion with God. Not by meetings, organization, or doctrinal creeds, but by the fellowship of love. When I love God and my brother, and express that love in action, that is the ecclesia made visible. There is a unity and communion which is unearthly and inimitable. We may be of different races, different social levels, different educational backgrounds, and different cultures—even different doctrinal beliefs—but in a living way we are manifestly united. That’s the ecclesia.

It can happen within denominations, without them, or across denominational barriers. The ecclesia is a happening! It has utterly no relationship to "churches". It is like the air; regardless of where you are, it is available. The Spirit is like the wind, and He it is who unites the ecclesia.

Or when two or three believers get together for fellowship with Jesus, and He meets with them, that’s the ecclesia. An unbeliever, seeing this, senses something real. He senses Someone who is present. That’s the ecclesia. Don’t you See. We could build a huge auditorium and gather every Christian in the world, we could all elect the same leaders and recite the same creed, participate in the same kind of worship and what would we have? It would be impressive, but not much more impressive than world Communism today. They have that kind of unity.

The ecclesia is not just the sum total of all believers. It involves the inter-action of those believers through which and by means of which God expresses His life to the world., just as a man expresses his life through the inter-acting members of his body.

In 1 John 4:12, we read, "No man hath seen God at anytime. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us." In other words, God is seen in our love, and John always understands love as in action ("in deed and in truth").

Relax and Enjoy

The unity and oneness we have is visible only in our loving fellowship with each other and with God. Institutions of any sort, small or large, are not necessary to this fellowship—but neither do they prevent our enjoying it! I personally believe that as more Christians see the ecclesia, realize that "it is finished", and relax and enjoy it, the institutions will, for the most part, simply wither away because they will have lost their significance. I am not however, going to waste my time fighting a straw man, trying to make it happen. That is the technique of Babylon. I can enjoy the ecclesia now irregardless, of my "religious" surroundings.

Oh, hallelujah! The reality of the ecclesia is changeless and unchangeable, and we can tap into it at will, by faith and enjoy the great throbbing, pulsing life of a universal Body. We can touch any Christian or group and touch them as one with them, perfectly and totally, in spirit! We can, as regards the ecclesia, simply cease from our labours and enter into His rest.

As for the practical questions of "Where do we fellowship?" and "What form shall our fellowship take?", we can see from the preceding that the answers are almost irrelevant to a true expression of the ecclesia. Our true worship is "in spirit and in truth", not "in a certain place with certain forms."

That is not to say the questions are unimportant, only that they have no pat answers. For myself, I will always seek the place or group where I feel most freedom is given for the practice and affirmation of the unity and fullness of the Body of Christ in love. But the very nature of the ecclesia means that I cannot ever be limited to any group no matter how perfectly it seems to accord with the New Testament pattern, for there is no group that includes all of this tremendous ecclesia to which alone I ultimately belong.

In the end, it comes down to our primary motivation. Are we giving our selves to building a human institution which includes only a portion of the Body of Christ, or are we first of all concerned with the edification in love of the whole Body? Are we furthering a thing, an"it", a tower of Babel., or are we developing a fellowship in spirit? Are we building a synagogue in which men meet, or the temple in which God dwells? To build synagogues is to live in Babylon, but to build the Temple..is to truly obey God when He says, "Come out of her my people."

Author unknown

Source : http://www.sigler.org/mckay/babylon.htm

The Lord's Process In Making Of All True Leaders

THE MAKING OF a TRUE LEADER

By T. Austin Sparks.

We gather from this book of Judges that those who are going to be instrumental in the Lord’s hands in helping others out of their bad condition must themselves have shared that bad condition. They do not stand apart from it, but are equal to the state of things by reason of knowing in their own experience what that state of things means. It is necessary for a spiritual leader to have suffered in the same trials as those being led; to have known the same depths of misery, to have been in the same complicated circumstances, to have passed through those very problems, and to know what it is to emerge from a dark, dismal and wretched state. All that makes a leader, but that also represents the cost to begin with.

We will analyse that more, and deal with it in a different way. The cost of leadership is

a) All that is involved in the transition from the natural to the spiritual

We have spoken of spiritual understanding. There must be, then, a spiritual transition from natural understanding to spiritual understanding. What is the transition? By what course, by what road, is this transition made? Always through the grave. Before we ever come to spiritual understanding we shall have all our own understanding pulverized, ground to powder, so that we do not understand anything, and we know it. If we are asked to explain we can give no explanation. It is not in us to explain. All understanding has gone. God breaks down the natural to make way for the spiritual. That transition is through death, through the grave. Then presently we emerge, and we are seeing things now from God’s side, we are understanding with a faculty and capacity that we never before possessed. Somehow or other a resurrection work has been done; that is, something has been quickened which we never had before. We are made alive to that of which we had no knowledge before. We have a new standard of judgement now, a new standard of values, a new sense of differences. It is just something done, not something which we have created or made. It comes, as it were, to birth, and we know it, and as we move accordingly, in obedience to it, it grows. There is all the difference between natural understanding and spiritual understanding, and the difference is between death and life, and a grave is between. Oh, those dark days, when we lost all natural understanding and there was no light. It is a terrible cost.

We are not speaking about just understanding certain events. It may have to do with trials of a certain nature through which we pass, but it is the general faculty to which we are referring. There is all the difference between a natural faculty for understanding things and a spiritual faculty for understanding the things of the Lord, which cannot be defined, but can be declared as a fact. That cost is the cost bound up with spiritual leadership.

b) The assurance of understanding

There was a time when some of us were most sure. Oh yes, we knew, no one could tell us. We were the most sure people. We could lay down the law to anybody as to what they ought to do. The Lord has taken in hand and has ground to powder, made pulp of all that assurance. We have lost all self-assurance. We have come to the place where we feel that we could question everything in ourselves, doubt everything about ourselves. We have come to the place where, when we tell the Lord that we mean to be all for Him there is something inside which says we meant it, but come up against the test and we find that we are not that. Peter was a most self-confident man; “Lord, I will follow thee even unto death.” I am certain that if we had met Peter later on, after the cross, we should have found him a man who would never for a moment say a word about his own certainty or self-assurance. Yet you find the man marked by boldness; there is nothing more sure than his statement on the day of Pentecost; but he is a different man. He has gone through the grave, and self-assurance has been broken in him and replaced with the assurance of God. There is the full assurance of understanding of the Lord. It is costly, but it is the way of spiritual leadership, the way to spiritual values.

c) Active faith

We spoke of active faith. It comes the same way. The time through which we pass is a time when we lose all. There are times when we feel that the bottom has fallen out of everything. What have we to rest upon? Faith. Where is our faith? If God is not merciful to us it is a poor lookout for us. If this whole thing depends upon our faith today, the Lord help us!

Yes, these are dark, strange experiences, things you may not say to the unconverted. They are not bound up with our salvation, our acceptance before God. It is another side, the side of our usefulness to the Lord, the measure of our spiritual value to the Lord for the sake of others. The cost of spiritual leadership and a faith of this true, pure kind is borne out of a grave. It grows like a new child; it is quiet, steady faith in God. You have been through the depths, and you have found the Lord faithful, and you have had to say, “It was not because of my wonderful faith in God, not because of my saying I am able to hold on, to persist! God was faithful to me when I had nothing of faith as far as I was concerned.” That comes back from the grave. It is the cost of leadership.

d) Initiative

This is quite true also in the matter of initiative. Naturally there was a time when initiative was not difficult to some of us. The bigger the proposition the more we gloried in tackling it, and lacked no initiative in these things. Then the Lord took us in hand and broke all that natural force, or began to break it, and we came steadily to the place where, so far as we were concerned, the initiative left us: that is, the natural initiative, the taking of big responsibility, and we became deeply conscious that we were needing a divine energy to move in relation to the Lord’s interests. And now to some extent we do know that energising of God in relation to His interests. When we have no natural energy, when it does not spring from ourselves, and if it were left with us, we should not do it, we would not move, but just lie there, refuse, decline, and yet we know that for the Lord’s interests there is an energy which we have not got. We lay hold of that divine energy, and the initiative of God is appropriated by faith, and there are accomplishments.

There is all the difference between that natural go-ahead attitude in the work of God, and that energising of the Holy Spirit; that initiative which is of the flesh, and that initiative which is of the Holy Spirit. You have to pass from the one to the other in a deep experience, when all that is of nature is broken down, and you come on to the ground where it is all and only of God. It is a new creation in Christ Jesus, where all things are out from God, as manifested in the Lord Jesus Himself.

e) Humility and dependence

The same law holds good. We may have been very independent or self-dependent, or dependent upon others. The Lord has dealt with all that, or will deal with it in us, and bring us to a place where every other kind of support is removed, where all our independence is dealt with, where our self-dependence is destroyed, where our dependence upon others is cut away. And we come out to a place, through trying and painful experiences, where our dependence is upon God.

Paul is an outstanding illustration of this. There is no character more self-confident than Saul of Tarsus. In the long-run there is no one more dependent upon God, and confessedly so. He said: “We despaired of life.” The sentence of death was upon him, so that he should not trust in himself, but in God who raises the dead. The way through is a deep, dark, and painful way, but this is all the way to spiritual leadership. It is all that is involved in the transition from the natural to the spiritual, and it all leads to values for others.

Your value to others in the Lord entirely depends upon your own measure of knowing the Lord for yourself as your very life, your wisdom, your strength.

There may be a little weakness in what we have been saying, that we have dealt with positives rather than negatives. Some are not in much danger of strong, natural, go-ahead-ness. Perhaps some are lacking altogether in any kind of strength like that, and may be saying, “Well, I do not have to be broken down very much, therefore I cannot come through to very much for the Lord.” Do not say that, because your painful experience will probably be from a negative to a positive, not from one positive to another positive. We mean this, that some timid people will go through an agony when God brings them out to take initiative. It is an agony for reticent people to be made to stand on their feet and take responsibility. They would sooner shrink into a corner, but the Lord will not let them get away with that. In effect He says, “You have got to be of value, you have got to count; it is no use your hiding in a corner, I want values in you for My people.” Then comes the agony of perhaps having to talk to someone, having to take initiative for the spiritual help of somebody, when you would rather be somewhere else, doing something else. It is the transition from the natural, whatever the natural is - whether positive or negative - to what is spiritual. It is costly, but it is the price of leadership, and after all, it is that the Lord should have His full measure in us, “...each several part in due measure” (Eph. 4:16). There is a “due measure” from each several part.

f) Loneliness

The cost of leadership is always loneliness. When you are going through a thing in the hands of God, your one sense is that no one has ever been through this before. The Lord sees to it that you do not escape by having someone come along who has just been through it so that you may throw yourself on them and they carry you. The Lord allows isolation. But, however it is, it is always loneliness. That is bound up with leadership. It is as though you were pioneering and no one has ever gone this way before; you are alone. It is part of the price, but it must be. No doubt you have longed for somebody who has been that way to be alongside of you while you are going through, but the Lord has not allowed it. We say in effect, “If only we had their experience in this thing to appeal to!” But somehow or other the Lord cuts it all off from us, and takes us through with Himself alone. If we refuse to go through with Him alone, we are going to miss the Lord’s object.

g) Misunderstanding

So often accompanying the loneliness is misunderstanding, and that is the more bitter side. It is the more positive or active side. Think of Nehemiah. He had to take the lead, the initiative. But it was not long before not only in his loneliness, but in misunderstanding and misrepresentation he discovered the cost of that leadership. All around things were being said: “He is building this thing to make himself a name! He is going to appoint prophets to preach about him! He is starting a new movement!” All the things which were said were lies, false; it was misrepresentation, misunderstanding. That is simply because a man or woman has come to know the will of God as it applies to them, and they are going on in that way of God.

It is strange how people will very rarely give another credit for walking with God. Others always seem to interpret their movements as though they had been captured and led astray. They never give them credit for really walking with God themselves. They blame someone else, and then blame them for getting into the hands of someone else. It is a part of the price.

h) Selflessness

It is necessary when counting the cost of leadership to be selfless and disinterested in the matter. Leaders may labour for perhaps another generation, for others to enter into their labours, and they may never see the fruit of their own labours.

Look back over the history of all who have really been used of God in the lives of His people. Very rarely has their life borne fruit until they have gone. They have laboured, and other men have entered into their labours. It means that there is to be no present glory, nothing for self, no present reward. It is a Moses leading through the wilderness, up against the real hard, tough side of things, and then passing out without seeing the fruit. That is the price of leadership so often; selfless disinterestedness, being willing to labour, to give one’s life, to suffer, to come to a place of value for others and never see the full result of it.

That is all we shall say for the time being. It has all come out of that expression of Deborah: “For that the leaders took the lead in Israel”. That is the explanation of such deliverance, of a mighty emancipation, of glorious victory, the changing of the whole face of things from servile slavery, depression and oppression, to ascendancy, liberty and progress.

Do remember, again, that this is spiritual and not official; it has nothing to do with persons as such. It is a spiritual condition which the Lord would find in us all.

Original Source :

http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/004231.html