A pure Christian testimony is something that false Christians will not appreciate.  It is also something which the worst hypocrites will openly scoff at or seek to counterfeit.  It is also something which will try and challenge even the righteous, forcing them into a crisis which requires a decision regarding whether they will follow Jesus further and go deeper in their faith in Him to an extent that they had lacked opportunity to until this testimony sprang up.

I don’t believe there is anything about pure Christianity which has ever been totally lost since the time of Christ’s Apostles.  Anytime someone, such as Joseph Smith and the Mormons or Charles Taze Russell and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, comes along and says that they have found the long lost gospel which had become totally lost in translation for over a thousand years, you can be sure that they are lying.  The faith once delivered to the saints is set forth in the Bible.  There is no good reason to think that any aspect of it has ever vanished and needs to be recovered from oblivion.  There is however insight which is required to apply that faith to real life and separate that faith from the innovation, compromise, and overall corruption which has prevailed in the realm of professing Christianity to a degree which has greatly increased- especially in the past 120 years (so much heresy that has become common now has sprung in the past 120 years- especially in the early 20th century).  

Even the New Testament records how Christ’s Apostles had to deal with grievous wolves and their influence in the churches which they founded.  We see the virtual certainty that the Apostle Paul had that there would be apostasy and schisms arising among the very churches he had founded, sometimes even originating from elders which he had ordained.

Acts 20:25-32: “And now, behold, I know that ye all (Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders), among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more.  Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.  For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.  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 (or, misleading) 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 now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.”

What did he warn about?  Deviations from the Word of God.

Why did he warn?  Deviations from the Word are unacceptable.  

When people talk about their church being founded by the Apostles, as if their church is the continuation of the Apostolic churches in the first century, the burden of proof is upon them.  They also have to deal with the fact that the Apostles’ themselves didn’t see a church as automatically being a righteous church with God’s stamp of approval just because they had founded it.  They also did not see a church leader as being automatically, continuously of God just because they had ordained him.  

Bishops or Overseers ordained by the Apostles fell away right within the very pages of the Bible.  

The Apostle John had been involved in working with Diotrephes’ church.  It is obvious that John or another Apostle had ordained Diotrephes.  Yet Diotrephes turned against the Apostles due to the love he acquired of having the preeminence in the church.  The Book of 3 John is basically John telling his friend Gaius to get out of Diotrephes’ church and start fellowshipping with Demetrius’ church (Demetrius had stayed faithful to the truth).  

It is our job to practice the faith once delivered as set forth in the Scriptures to the best of our ability- with all the leaven which we can possibly discern removed.  And any church which doesn’t meet that criteria as a corporate entity must be labeled as a counterfeit Christian church and membership there regarded as incompatible with following the authentic Christianity which leads to eternal life set forth in the Scriptures.

In the Book of Revelation the Risen Jesus confronts seven churches founded by the Apostles (likely founded by the Apostle John who was exiled on the Isle of Patmos by the Romans and couldn’t minister to these churches in person at the time Jesus appeared to him).  Jesus gave him a message which he was to send in a letter to these seven churches.  Being founded by the Apostles didn’t make these churches godly.  Yet two were indeed actually being truly faithful (and being truly faithful to the Lord is a concept which certain hypocrites mock, as if that’s impossible and as if anyone who says otherwise must be a liar and a hypocrite).  

Though at least one of the two faithful churches was being persecuted by man, the other five churches had issues which needed to be dealt with- or Jesus was going to deal severely with them.  In several of these cases, it wasn’t even false doctrine and idolatry being promoted from the top (which would be worse yet).  It was simply the toleration of these things from the top.  Jesus did not say such was okay and He expected this corruption to be dealt with from the top.  

It is obvious that a point was coming, coming quickly, where it would be unrighteous for the members of these churches to remain in these churches if the corruption wasn’t dealt with by the leadership.  Some people actually claim that people weren’t commanded to leave these churches that had sin in them.  But if you read Revelation chapters 2 and 3, it is obvious that Jesus Himself was going to remove the candlestick of the churches He rebuked if they did not receive His correction.  It is implied then that if the candlestick is gone, the one who would be faithful to Christ must leave the church as well.

Revelation 2:5: “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.”

Revelation 3:2-3: “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.  Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.  If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.”

Revelation 3:16-19: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.  Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.  As many as I love (that word in the Greek text implies those whom He is in fellowship with; those whom He knows intimately), I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”

This light put the leadership into a crisis which would demand a swift decision.  That decision, whatever the decision was, would put the rest of the church in a crisis somehow which would demand a swift decision from them somehow.   

A church as a whole cannot be much better than its leadership- and being a member in a church is practically a statement that you endorse the church’s leadership (even if you claim otherwise).

We also learn from the two churches which didn’t get rebuked in Revelation chapters two and three (Smyrna and Philadelphia) that Jesus is not impossible to please.  His true grace, which teaches righteous conduct, enables righteous conduct, and accepts those with willing hearts in relation to His authority, is sufficient for churches as well as individuals to be spotless and blameless in His sight- without Him turning a blind eye to reality.

Jesus condemned the Jews’ oral tradition because of how it violated the written Word of God and permitted sin.  The innovations in the realm of professing Christianity are no better.  The quote “There is no salvation outside of the church” came from Augustine, a Roman Catholic, whose church hasn’t even been faithful to hold onto many obvious truths from the Bible- yet wants us to believe they have the authority to impose many extra-biblical things which have no basis in Scripture (and which often directly oppose what has been revealed in Scripture- the same can be said of the Eastern Orthodox church too).  

Jesus participated in the Jewish religious economy because it was ordained by God for the time and He could still be totally faithful to the covenant arrangement in place at the time despite the corruption of the Jewish leaders.  He did however preach against the corruption of the Jewish leaders and warned people not to practically follow them in their works- while still saying the people should heed the things from the Bible that they echoed with their lips.  God ordained a definite place of worship for Israel when His worship was centered there.  That ceased to be the case even for a span of time in the late 7th and early 6th centuries BC during the captivity of the Jews by the Babylonians.  That ceased to be the case for good when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70.  God’s rejection of Judaism going forward was then sealed.  

Christianity, the faithful continuation of Judaism, would be decentralized by nature of the fact that there is no Temple and political nation inherent therein.  Israel had an earthly priesthood with a definite genealogy for who should fill its roles.  Immoral priests were still to be removed from the priesthood.  Eli’s sons were judged severely for their wicked behavior as priests; and Eli was also judged severely for not putting them out of the priesthood.  God’s displeasure with what that Priesthood became is seen in the Book of Malachi- a book which ends with a warning regarding how God would cast the nation off if it, and particularly its religious leaders, did not repent.  That judgment did happen in AD 70 and that priesthood is gone now.  

Leadership based upon geology does not apply in the realm of Christianity nor does the principle of any type of successive line of ordination apply in discerning righteous Christian leadership to any extent.  We are even warned in 1 Timothy 1:4 not to give heed to endless genealogies.  The qualifications of righteous Christian Overseers are clearly laid out in the Bible.  They are totally related to a man’s deeds, his doctrine, and his overall character.

And that has to be so since when a church is working towards and furthering the goals of authentic Biblical Christianity without rejection of Biblical light or halfhearted compromise of Biblical light, then it is something which those who would come to the light and follow Jesus wholeheartedly ought to to join, worship with,  and work with.

Consider these Scriptures in closing: 

Isaiah 61:11: “For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”

Matthew 7:13-21: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait (or, constricted) is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.  Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.  Ye shall know them by their fruits.  Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?  Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.  A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.  Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.  Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

Luke 8:19-21: “Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press.  And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.  And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.”

2 Timothy 4:1-8: “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick (the living) and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables (fables here would mean anything that is not the sound doctrine of the Word).  But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.  For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  I (the Apostle Paul is speaking of course) have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing (and His appearing will be in relation to establishing His kingdom- as was seen by verse one of this passage and is seen in the following passage).”

Revelation 19:5-8: “And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great.  And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.  Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.  And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”

A church which is worth joining is working consistent with, and not all contrary to (and therefore not in place of either), these warnings, exhortations, and goals.

Aaron’s email is: [email protected]

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