Why We Are Failing the Great Commission
Chapter Twenty-four
Trial by Fire
(Division)
Truth is the truth.
Truth is reality. Truth is
facts. Truth is black and white; right
and wrong. Truth is the kind of light that casts no
shadows. Truth exposes anything and
everything of contradiction. Truth has
no preferences or prejudices. Truth is
what truth is. Truth is an unbending
“rod of iron.” Truth is impersonal. Truth is accurately judgmental without any
bias. Truth has no concern about
feelings. Truth just tells it like it
is. Truth is often cutting and hurtful
because truth must be honest, or it ceases to be truth.
For
this very reason, God commands believers to speak “the truth in love”
(Ephesians 4:15). When asked, “does this dress make
me look fat,” truth answers, “you are what you are.” Love’s answer says, “You are beautiful in
ways far beyond the dress you wear.” Love sees
beyond the truth without distorting the truth or misrepresenting the truth. Love sees other truths that comfort without
lies or corruption of the truth. Love can
see qualities with compassion and can communicate truth with concern about how
that truth touches a person’s feelings and emotions. Love knows that truth often hurts, but love
wants to soften those hurts with an embrace or a smile of acceptance and
understanding. Truth can be a slap in
the face. Love seeks to make truth a
gentle, healing, soothing caress that can be received with a sigh of relief.
Most
people despise the tensions that accompany disagreements about truth. That is normal. Other people relish in confrontations and
emotional drama. They cultivate such
nonsense at every opportunity. They seek
this type of drama on television and in the movies they watch. They enjoy it and are entertained by it. This is abnormal.
Living righteously amid the curse of sin and interacting
with sinful people can be, and often is, extremely difficult, even
painful. The pain of living righteously is
increased exponentially when you love others and you know the only solution to
the pains in which they live is about getting them to accept the very truths
they have already rejected. It is painful to see such people
spiritually decimated by life choices that emaciate them. They have closed their eyes from seeing the
truth of the choices that cause their pains.
They have stopped their ears from hearing the Words of life. Such a scenario is described by God with the
words “the voice of one crying in the
wilderness” (Matthew 3:3). None the less, the “voice” must “cry” for
there is no hope apart from the truth getting to their hearts.
The “fire” of God’s judgment has already been “kindled.” The only remedy to stop that “fire” are the
tears of genuine repentance of sin and doctrinal lies. Then a person can step into the middle of
God’s “fire” of judgment knowing he will be purged of his sin and find relief
from his self-inflicted pains of sinful life choices.
“49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will
I, if it be already kindled? 50 But I have a
baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! 51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?
I tell you, Nay; but rather division: 52 For from
henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two
against three. 53 The father shall
be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against
the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against
her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 54 And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud
rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is. 55 And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say,
There will be heat; and it cometh to pass. 56 Ye
hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it
that ye do not discern this time? 57 Yea, and why
even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? 58 When thou goest with thine adversary to the
magistrate, as thou art in the way, give diligence that thou mayest be
delivered from him; lest he hale thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee
to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison. 59 I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou
hast paid the very last mite” (Luke 12:49-59).
As God
allows a local church to be tested by stress and by the conflict of division,
He is trying the hearts of those who profess to love Him and who profess to be
disciples of Jesus. One of the ways God
tests our love for Him is by how we deal with one another. Two spiritual qualities are being tested:
TRUTH and LOVE.
Truth,
by itself, could care less about a person’s feelings or what another person
thinks about it. Truth is impersonal. Truth is just truth. Truth is just harsh reality. However, when we think of Biblical truth, this
kind of truth is intended to be accompanied with certain character traits
called the communicable attributes of God. A few of these communicable attributes are
described with such words as love, compassion, mercy, and grace. Although Biblical truth will never compromise
itself or bend in contortion to accommodate sinful practices or desire,
Biblical truth understands the sinner’s propensity for sin. Although Biblical truth will never be
complicit with sin, love will be patient and walk sinners out of the darkness
of lusts and away from the destructive evils of sin and selfishness. The great dilemma is ignorant people do not
understand the danger of living in false doctrines.
“33 Little children, yet a little while I
am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye
cannot come; so now I say to you. 34 A new commandment I give unto
you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love
one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my
disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:33-35).
Discipleship
is teaching the truths Jesus taught.
Discipleship is teaching sinners to live righteousnessly by learning to
yield to the indwelling Holy Spirit Who will then enable those yielded sinners
to live as righteously as Jesus taught. Discipleship
is spiritual surgery and it is ALWAYS done without anesthetics. Therefore, discipleship requires a person to
be careful and loving. Discipleship is
time consuming, tedious, painful, and stressful. Discipleship is taking pigs and getting their
natures changed through conversion/regeneration, and THEN teaching those
converted pigs to appreciate the difference between “pearls” of truth and wallowing
in their own filthy mire.
As
any skilled tradesmen knows, there are many tools in his toolbox and the chosen
tool must fit the occasion. Before
choosing a tool, he must remember he is working on a human soul with real
feelings, mistrusts, and trepidations.
There is a time to use the sledgehammer.
There is a time to use the finish hammer. There is time to use the chain saw and there
is time to us the finish saw. There is
time to use a bone saw and there is time to use the surgeon’s scalpel.
A disciple
maker can only lead people in doing what is right. He cannot do right for them. In the stress of trials and the struggle to
establish truth in the lives of sinners, the whole of a local church is being
tested. The pastor is being tested as to
his faithfulness and loyalty to God and His truths. The congregation is being tested as to their
faithfulness and loyalty to God and His truths.
The easy thing for anyone to do is walk away from the stress of it all
and the tensions created by willful, sinful people. Walking away and abandoning ministry is always
the wrong thing to do.
Truth
always establishes what is righteous (right in the eyes of God). Stop to think about various divisions that
exist between people. What is the
central factor in almost every division you can think of? The central factor in almost every division
is the age-old question: What is truth?
Truth establishes what is right (righteousness) and who is right. That is what division is usually over. Truth also establishes what is wrong (sin)
and who is wrong. However, truth coupled
with love is never willing to leave it at that.
Truth coupled with love continues to pray and plead even
when truth is resisted and/or rejected. Truth
coupled with love DOES NOT GIVE UP!
Anything
that is not morally right is morally wrong and anything that is morally wrong
is sin. Sin needs to be dealt with
as sin. Compromise with sin and sin will
absorb you into itself, because compromising truth is sin. It takes courage to take a stand for what is
right and to do what is right. Division
will often result even when righteousness prevails, if the parties involved
cannot agree to do what is right. This
is the way it should be. In fact,
the Scriptures command this. It is
called the doctrine of separation. When
one believer refuses to do what is right, we are commanded to separate from him
and to separate him from our partnership in “the work of the ministry.” “Can
two walk together except they be agreed” (Amos 3:3)? This defines the test of faithfulness and
loyalty to truth. It is not a multiple-choice test. It is a true
or false test.
“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause
divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and
avoid them” (Romans 16:17).
“3 If any man teach otherwise, and consent
not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to
the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 He is proud, knowing
nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy,
strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5 Perverse disputings of men of
corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from
such withdraw thyself” (I Timothy 6:3-5).
“8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are
ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: 9 (For
the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. 11 And have no
fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
12 For it is a
shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.13
But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light {brought into the open}: for
whatsoever doth make manifest is light” (Ephesians 5:8-13).
“6 Now we command you, brethren, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother
that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of
us. 7 For yourselves know how ye ought to follow us: for we behaved
not ourselves disorderly among you; 8 Neither did we eat any man’s
bread for nought; but wrought with labour and travail night and day, that we
might not be chargeable to any of you: 9 Not because we have not
power, but to make ourselves an ensample unto you to follow us. . . 14
And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no
company with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Yet count him
not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother” (II Thessalonians 3:6-9
and 14-15).
The Corinthian church is the first
recorded example of trial by fire (division). Like
a parent with an unruly, rebellious child, most local churches (people) are
embarrassed by division and strife. The
fact is that every baby requires the parenting that teaches personal
disciplines. Why are we astonished by
sinners sinning and living carnally when they have never been “born again” and
discipled (taught personal, spiritual disciplines). When a child exposes character flaws, parents
are gifted by God and opportunity to correct those character flaws through teaching
and discipline. THIS IS HOW IT IS
SUPPOSED TO WORK! When the child we love is unruly and rebellious, we do not
just abandon that child and go get another.
Instead, we patiently, lovingly, compassionately, and tenderly confront
the little monster and try to make the necessary corrections in both attitudes
and actions. Changing attitudes is
ALWAYS the most demanding and difficult. Changing attitudes is about changing WANT
TO.
“1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto
you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes
in Christ {when immaturity and infantile practices are manifested in a
person’s life, such a person exposes himself/herself as a ‘babe’}. 2
I have fed you with milk {know when milk is needed}, and not with meat {know
when meet is needed}: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it,
neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas
there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions {manifestations
of spiritual immaturity and infantility having NOTHING to do with a
person’s physical age}, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4
For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye
not carnal? 5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but
ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6
I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So
then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God
that giveth the increase. 8 Now he that planteth and he that
watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his
own labour. 9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are
God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building. 10 According to
the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid
the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed
how he buildeth thereupon. 11 For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man
build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it,
because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s
work of what sort it is. 14 If any man’s work abide which he
hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man’s
work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet
so as by fire” (I Corinthians 3:1-15).
We know the context of this text is an actual example
of what Christ said in Luke 12:49-53.
Trials by “fire” will continue until refining and purification takes
place. (Purification is defined by what
is left after the “fire.”) Although
trials by fire are usually painful, they are also necessary to the purging/purification
process of a local church. Since
God’s purpose is purification and refining, He will continue to
repeat whatever needs to be done to get purification and refining
accomplished. Some people will resist
discipleship and being established in spiritual doctrines and disciplines. Although God is patient and merciful with
such people, as should be every disciple maker, He must keep His local churches
pure of false doctrine and sinful carnality.
I have
watched many local churches go through trial by fire, pastor after pastor, split
after split, until the church either is willing to do what is right or it burns
out in a smoldering heap of ashes of wood, hay and stubble. According to I
Corinthians 3:13, the focus of God’s trying of a local church, or His trying of
the lives of individual Christians, is to test quality, not quantity
(“what sort it is”).
What was going on at Corinth that
necessitated God’s trial by fire for purification and refining? Carnality in every shape, style, and color
was going on. They were bragging about who baptized them (I
Corinthians 1:10-17). They were a bunch
of intellectual idiots who gloried in their humanistic wisdom before men
(I Corinthians 1:20-31). They criticized
and challenged Pastoral authority and refused accountability (I Corinthians 4:9-21). Many were indifferent to personal holiness,
were tolerant of sin in their own lives, and in the lives of others, and were
unwilling to practice church discipline (I Corinthians 5:1-13).
They
were suing each other in public courts and bringing reproach on the Name of
Christ rather than settling the matter in the church. The church had become a social club and the
meetings became an excuse for fellowship (I Corinthians 11:1-34). To top it all off, there was a group of
spiritual elitists who were pretending to have spiritual gifts they did not
possess to gain influence in the church.
The result of all this selfish carnality was “envy, strife, and
divisions.”
The
truth here is simple. Any
division/purging that is not the result of major, fundamental doctrinal
differences is always the result of carnality. The solution to the division is equally
simple. Declare war on carnality. Deal with the carnality according to the Matthew
18 principle until the carnality is gone.
The Church must centrifugate on Jesus Christ, getting people saved, and preparing saved people to live for Christ (I Corinthians 3: 10-11). If a church is ever going to continue in the future to be what it was in its inception, it necessitates that each succeeding generation maintain its focus on keeping Jesus Christ at its center.
1. This means reaching souls, not gathering crowds.
2. This means making disciples, not making friends with the world.
3. This means being separate from worldliness (being holy) and unto
God (sanctified).
Everything
built upon the foundation of the doctrine of Christ must center on Jesus
Christ, not men. When bringing glory to Christ is not the goal
of everything done by every person in a local church, someone just laid a brick
of flesh (‘wood, hay, and stubble”).
People looking for personal glory do not build solid local
churches. Only people whose sole desire
in life is to glorify their Lord Jesus Christ build solid local churches. Standing for truth demands that we stand against
doctrinal error. Standing for truth with
cost us friendships. However, the
discipled believer understands one central, overwhelming truth; “Ye {spiritual}
adulterers and {spiritual} adulteresses, know ye not that the
friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a
friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).
Although the “fire” of I Corinthians
3:13 primarily refers to the
Judgment Seat of Christ, God will regularly test every local Church by fire
(“Every man’s work shall be made manifest” (I Corinthians 3:13).
“Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the
Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and
will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (I Corinthians 4:5).
When a local church is made up of spiritual people who
have learned to do what is right, a trial by fire (division) will
be quickly dealt with and will pass off the scene (pretty much) unnoticed by
most people. That church will be
purified. However, when trial by
fire comes to a church made of people living in the flesh, it will spread
because those people will be unwilling to confront it and put out the
“fire.” (They usually just want to manage
it.) This church will be consumed by
degrees until people learn (or are willing) to confront sin and discipline
sinners.
What
is your part in insuring that your local church is purified and refined rather
than burned to a heap of ashes?
1. Work hard at staying Christ
centered, rather than man centered.
2. Do what is right regardless of what it costs you personally.
3. Ask yourself one simple question.
What does God’s Word tell me to do?
Then do that!
Anonymous comments will not be allowed.
Numerous studies and series are available free of charge for local churches at: http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/
Dr. Lance Ketchum serves the Lord as a Church Planter, Evangelist/Revivalist.
He has served the Lord for over 50 years.
Posts
