Building His Church

Who is man that he can build for our Lord a church?

Christ is the Master builder of His Church (Matthew 16:18)! Placing our Lord’s name over the doors of buildings that are replicas of Babylonian temples and establishing a religious order does not constitute His Church.

Men of a religious order tried to build a tower into the heavens, but God came down and confused their language, thus they could not continue and their efforts failed and they became scattered or divided (Genesis 11:1-9). Men of today who are trying to build a church are as the men who tried to build the tower; their efforts are destined to fail also. These men are preaching from a different spirit and/or their own intellect many different interpretations of the gospel; as result there are many different beliefs, thus there is many different denominations; much division or scattering.

On the Day of Pentecost, when men stood up to preach, they were filled with the Holy Spirit of God and all were preaching one gospel, one truth in many languages, and this same Spirit gave understanding to men of many tongues or languages, bringing the penitent into a oneness of faith (Romans 10:17), united as one in the love of Christ.

Men who have taken to the pulpit of the congregations that have gathered in our Lord’s name must, by the Holy Scriptures, with the Holy Spirit as their guide, examine themselves to see if they are preaching the truth by the Spirit given on day of Pentecost. If they find that they are speaking by a different spirit or by their own intellect, then they will know their speech is confused and divisive. Only the pure truth that is taught by the Spirit of Truth and unites men’s hearts in faith and the love of Christ is the acceptable message of the Church of our Lord.

Men’s efforts apart from the direction of the Holy Spirit is poor and miserable and without the power to preach the gospel of Christ. Any person or group of people that substitutes a mere man for the Teacher that Christ gave to teach and guide His people into all truth will find themselves in gross error and will miss the kingdom of God. Further, men who establish their own religion and twist the Scriptures to agree with their doctrines will never enter the true Church.

The heart of the gospel message is---You must be born again (John 3:2 & 5)!! Being born again is not an option; it is mandatory if one is to become a member of the true Church. One must be called of God by His Holy Spirit and enter His Church with a broken and contrite heart (Acts 2:38) completely emptied of fleshly acts and thoughts and become as a little child (Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17). Then Christ will feed and nourish His children with His word. Through the ever abiding presents of the Holy Spirit He will teach and guide His disciples into all truth, thus He is building His Church.

The summary is this---The true Church is the Church that Christ established on the day of Pentecost. His Church began with great power through the giving of the Holy Spirit; and by the power and boldness of the same Spirit, men appointed by Christ, preached His truths and three thousand souls were added to His Church that day (Acts 2). This same Spirit, working in men appointed of Christ who are preaching His gospel (Romans 1:16), is the power of His Church in the earth today. Hence the Church of our Lord is the converted souls of men, converted by the word and Spirit (John 3:5) and not of the intellect of man.

When one enters the Church of our Lord Jesus he does not become the builder and he is not allowed to take things from or add to, for Christ remains, to this present day, the builder; ---and His Church--- the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

James C Sanford