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The Church: Lost and Found
Jeremiah 6:16, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in my ways, and see and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein."
This response to God's appeal expresses somewhat of a climax to numerous appeals by the prophet of God to the people of Judah who had departed from the ways of the Lord. That nation, like so many before It and many since then, are representative of man's apostasy and self imposed alienation from his Creator.
Genesis three records the first mutiny and revolt against God. Even as man was expelled from the Garden of Eden we read of the first indication of God's intent to provide the way of redemption for mankind. Genesis 3:15 has properly been recognized as referring to the Christ that would come, the "seed of woman" that would bruise Satan, He being bruised Himself by Satan when He died at Calvary.
Genesis six, after the flood in the time of Noah that destroyed all living except the eight in the ark, tells of another of man's apostasies with the erection of the Tower of Babel. That structure, built to get for themselves a name, was to prevent the spread of mankind throughout the world in direct contradiction to the instructions of God. It was something man erected to bring upon himself certain glory. But God frustrated this evil plot with the confusion of their languages that prohibited the completion of their intent. It was another instance where man preferred to govern himself rather than submit to the Almighty.
After God gave the wonderful promises to Abraham and the becoming into reality of that special nation called Israel. we read time and again how Israel marred its history by its backsliding from God. The prophets God sent would plead with the priests, princes, false prophets, and the people, but to no avail. As Hosea wrote, Hosea 11:7, "And my people are bent to backsliding From me." Conditions so deteriorated that God's chosen people were taken into Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. Many efforts were made to produce reforms, but the ones who needed to reform would not have it so.
The text says to stand (stop), ask (listen), and see (look), walk (go). Stop, look, listen, and then go. Seeing what is right, follow what is right. There are many ways to be wrong, but only one way to be right. Finding that way depends on seeking for It.
Man Versus God
The revolts and rebellions of Israel underscore how there is a difference between God and man, God's ways and man's wicked ways. Jeremiah 10:23, Proverbs 14:12, Isaiah 55:8,9 all warn and advise that people follow folly to pursue their own course rather than God s. The same sentiment is stressed in Paul's letter to the Galatians, chapter one, verses six through nine. A perverted gospel in not the gospel at all. One of the more effective ways to pervert the gospel is to add to it. One can contaminate a perfectly good loaf of bread by inserting a small portion of poison into it. Pollution of fresh water can be accomplished by adding foul ingredients. Jeremiah accused the false prophets, "For ye have perverted the words of the living God." (Jeremiah 23:26). People still do this same thing by teaching their creeds, feelings, perverted modern versions of the Bible, catechisms, disciplines, manuals, etc. that men have invented for religious guides. God said In Jeremiah 23:34, "I will punish that man and his house." As then, so today, the perversion of the Word of the Lord has figured prominently in the history of man, even in the history of the church.
Periods of Church History
Church history can be divided into at least five periods, starting from the beginning of it. Actually, more than five periods can be designated if you include the periods when the church existed in the mind of God before It was founded on Pentecost In Jerusalem, and when It existed in promise. prophecy, and preparation. But our periods in this study will begin with the origin of the church and its perfection.
The church was designed as Deity determined. As God created mankind in perfection, so the church began in perfection. The New Testament reveals the church as God planned It to be, exactly as He wanted it, and came at the time He set for It to come. The church began under the divine guidance of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the apostles and other inspired men. The way the church was at the beginning Is why we turn to that stage of its existence to learn what the church ought to be.
Departure
The second period is the period of departure. Just as man degenerated and departed from God's way through submitting to the temptations of the devil, so was it with the church. Gradually. slowly, step by step, men began to show their dissatisfaction with the church as God gave It, and made changes in its government, manner of worship, doctrine, mission, making accommodations and compromises with the ways of the world, imitating paganism, following human traditionalism, altering almost every facet of God's church into a perverted distortion. The very rule of faith, the Word of God, was set aside and other authorities instigated.
Apostasy
This led to the third period, the period of apostasy. The apostles had foretold this very tragic circumstance (I Timothy 4:1,2; II Timothy 4:3: II Thessalonians 2:3). As time proceeded there emerged a dominant religious power that came to be called Roman Catholicism. This was not the Lord's church, but an apostate church that had come Into being as the result of men leaving God's way for their own. Man was subjected to that period of history known as the Dark Ages.
Reformation
The fourth period of religious history can be called the period of Reformation. It consists of a series of attempts by many people to reform the existing apostate system from within. It was the effort of people who recognized the gross corruption of religion that was falsely called Christian and took note how far removed from God's Law it was.
Usually those who made these noble attempts were either suppressed or possibly annihilated. Entire groups of people were martyred. Notable names among the leaders of these efforts are Zwingll, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and many others. But their attempts of Reformation were only to produce a different kind of heresy. The dominance and assumed authority of the papacy were replaced by human creeds, disciplines, and divisions Into denominations. The original ideas and goals to correct what was In error were proper as far as they were executed. These reformers tried to get back to the Bible, hut were sidetracked by the doctrines of men that resulted in the clutter of churches of Protestantism.
Restoration
Eventually there came the period of Restoration. It Is fair to say that compared to the periods of apostasy and Reformation the efforts of restoration have had little lasting impact on the religious world generally. Some have even rejected the efforts because they have lacked the "bigness" for which some religionists clamor. The idea of restoring New Testament Christianity Is generally repudiated by those caught up In denominationalism. But it Is the effort to go behind denominationalism and Roman apostasy, and go to the Bible with greater success than the Reformation. It was and is the determination to see the Lord's church as He intended it before men led It into apostasy. The movement is based on the thought of I Peter 4:11, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God."
Preachers from various religious backgrounds began to preach that men should believe what the first church believed, do as they did, practice what they practiced, organize as they were organized, worship as they worshiped, be as they were, calling themselves by the same name, and following the same standard, the Word of God. Such is the labor that faithful children of God are undertaking even In our time. We are thankful to be a part of such an effort. It is a continuing process in that every generation must be taught everything.
There Is the story of some who were caught up in the 1849 gold rush of California. One party was making its way westward but lacked water. With great hope they came upon a stream, but it was brackish, bitter, and unfit for drinking. One member of the party wandered upstream and found the spring from which the stream flowed. There he found pure and refreshing water before it became contaminated on its way downstream. He brought his companions to this thirst quenching spring and they drank and were spared destruction. He had found the original source and its goodness as the water existed before the side streams poured in their pollution.
Back to the Original Fountain
This is an illustration of the scene of religion in the world. We need to go back to the fountain from which life flows. We must return to the perfect water of life and drink deeply of the Word of God. We cannot rely on the waters that have become soiled by the ways and doctrines of men. When we, or any people, will do this. we will find the Lord's church as the Lord gave it and revealed it. The intrusions of mankind into those realms reserved only for Deity caused the church to become "lost" in our world, even though the "seed of the kingdom," the Word of God, was never lost. But the consumption of that which God has revealed to us in the Bible will cause the church to be "found" for ourselves and for those who follow after us. Should not such an effort strike a responsive cord in our hearts?