Why Division
This teaching really hits home with me and it
should with you also during these trying times in which we live.
Set your affection on things above, not on
things on the earth. – Colossians 3: 2
The word ‘affection’ means thinking. You are to think on things that are above –
things that are spiritual. It’s been
said to me by a teacher in the ministry which taught me God’s Word, that
sometimes it is a good thing if we do not watch the 6 o’clock news. I’m sure many of us understand that at this
time in which we are living. I am going
to present to you a teaching that hopefully will get your mind off of our
present worldly situation. It is a
teaching that explains why we have so many problems in churches today. One church believes one thing and another
church teaches something different about the same subject. We have division in our churches today mainly
because of one Scripture that is not understood or applied.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth. – II Timothy 2: 15
I want to point out that there are two words in this verse
that you should find interesting. These
two words are ‘rightly dividing’. The
English words “rightly dividing” are the Greek word orthotomounta. Orthos
means “perfectly right” or “perfectly straight”. Temno means “to
cut”. Putting these two words together
in the word orthotomounta , translated
’rightly dividing’ in the King James Version, literally means “a perfectly
right cutting.” This is what great
meaning and precision II Timothy 2: 15 can have in our lives when even that
verse is rightly divided. All Scripture
must be rightly divided. Take a closer
look at the verse and read it again. I
also want to point out to you that the words ‘rightly dividing’ are used only
once in all of the Bible. You will not
find those two words again anywhere in the Bible. Now let me take you to another extremely
important verse in the Old Testament that explains clearly what can happen to
us when we do not rightly divide the Word of God.
My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge: because thou hast rejected
knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy
God, I will also forget thy children. – Hosea 4: 6
What type of knowledge do you think that God is referring
to? Is it knowledge that you read in the
Wall Street Journal? Is it what you read
in Playboy magazine? Of course not. God is referring to people who are destroyed
for a lack of the knowledge of His Word.
Then God goes on to say why. He
says that we have rejected His Word by our free will because everyone has free
will. Now He says something that seems
to startle some people, but on the plus side, maybe it will wake us up. God says that because you have forgotten me
and my Word, I will also forget you, my children.
This sounds so utterly sad to me that it makes me want to
cry. God does not want to forsake us,
because He loves us more than we can imagine.
There is something about God which I have taught you many times
before. To receive anything from God,
there is always a condition. The
condition that God is speaking of here is that we study His Word. And how many people in this world don’t even
seem to act like God exists. We are in a
very serious worldly situation now and all that I hear about is the conditions
that man has set for us. Why aren’t
people and politicians making prayer a federal mandate? I won’t say anything else about this. But division occurs amongst so many churches
and so many believers because the Word of God is not rightly divided. Many people never even pick up a Bible in
their lifetime and the Bible is our blueprint for living. If we do not start to gain a knowledge of God
in these serious times in which we live, I feel like this world is going to
come to an end because Christ is going to come back and he’s going to knock
some heads. Everyone is going to be
raised from the dead except the people who are alive at his coming. Believe me, no one is going to hang him on a
cross this time. He is coming back as
King of Kings and Lord of Lords. My God,
what a great day!
I am going to take most of this teaching on
“Why Division” from one of my research materials. God has taught me that it makes no sense and
it is a total waste of time to reinvent the wheel. I will edit some of this teaching with my own
teaching based on experience but first, I would like to give you the name of
the book from which this teaching was originally published. The book is “The New Dynamic Church”
published by the American Christian Press.
I would like you to pay specific attention to the beginning of this
teaching which will follow. I lived one
of those situations in my own life. I
saw the same thing happen as I witnessed to a person who was torn way from the
rightly divided Word of God by people.
These people blamed me for bringing nothing but dissension into their
family. It was a terrible situation and
one that I will never forget. I will tell
you more about this as the following teaching begins using my research
material. What happened is explained in
the first paragraph of the following teaching.
Hang on.
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Somewhere in our thinking, many of us have
erroneously embraced the idea that when God moves, peace and tranquility
prevail. This concept was succinctly
stated in a radio broadcast when the minister explained it as follows:
Frequently we are mixed up when it comes to
defining a movement of God. We think
that confusion of any sort indicates that the whole thing is of Satan. Nothing could be further from the truth. A move of God always upsets the equilibrium
of established order. For a time it
seems to bring chaos into orderly lives and churches. The smug, complacent, and self-satisfied are
tremendously disturbed. It is quoted
that ‘God is not a God of confusion but of peace.’ This is true, but only in the Church will
this peace be found. In the world, as
well as in the ‘merely professing’ church, there is to be found confusion and
every evil work. The movement of the
true God upsets everything carnal, fleshly, selfish and devilish.
My girlfriend’s parents in my college days threatened
her daughter that if she kept seeing me, they were not going to pay for her
education. I did nothing with their
daughter but share the rightly divided Word with her. There were no problems and we both were
happier together than we ever were in our lifetime. She enrolled in a 36 hour Biblical Research
and Teaching class – 12 sessions and she had to quit in the 10th
session. Her mother said that the
teachings conflicted with her Catholic beliefs and threatened her
daughter. She told me that there was
more dissension in her house than any time before and what I believed in could
not be from the true God. How wrong she
was. Her father was so ignorant of the
Scriptures that he told me there was no devil!
My girlfriend and I still saw each other at school. Finally, her parents went so far that they
bought her a car if she would obey them.
I felt really bad for this girl.
She fell into an elaborate trap of Satan. She couldn’t move. Finally we had to part our ways. My first obligation was to God and I stood my
ground to this day. This all happened 40
years ago. It is still fresh in my mind.
In the fourteenth chapter of Acts we are told
of a movement of God. It took place in Iconium, and the evangelists were Paul and Barnabas. What happened was not just an isolated
instance; such events seemed to have been much the pattern wherever Paul and
Barnabas preached. Arriving at Iconium from Antioch in Pisidia, they witnessed the same
sort of confusion as had transpired elsewhere.
And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both
together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake,
that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. -- Acts 14: 1
There was a mighty turning to God among the
Jews and the Gentiles; but all was not sweetness and light.
But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the
Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren. -- Acts 14: 2
Did the attitude of the unbelievers stop Paul
and Barnabas from ministering? Not at
all.
Long time therefore abode they
speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace,
and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. -- Acts 14: 3
How could they cease preaching when God
continued to do great signs and wonders under their ministry? But despite these marvels of grace, there
were those who would not believe.
But the multitude of the city was
divided: and part held with the Jews,
and part with the apostles. -- Acts 14: 4
Here was division and confusion. Not just a home or a church was divided, but
an entire city. The tension did not
subside, but rather became worse.
And when there was an assault made both of
the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully,
and to stone them. – Acts 14: 5
Here was riot and violence. Some people will say, “Surely if this was of
God, all of this would not have happened.''
Yet this is what did happen and still does happen when truth is
taught. The powers of darkness, even though
religiously garbed, will fight. There must always be an exposure and
destruction of evil whenever and wherever spiritual revival comes about.
Not the trouble, but the signs and wonders
that accompanied Paul and Barnabas testified to the fact that God had called
them, and that they indeed brought about the movement of God. Signs follow those sent by the Lord. They speak with new tongues. They cast out
devils in His name. When men of God lay
hands upon the sick, they arise whole for with God there “is no
variableness.'' He answers needs
constantly.
These saints of God, Paul and Barnabas, barely
escaped with their lives from Iconium, but they moved
on into Lystra and Derbe. In Lystra the
people wanted to make gods of Paul and Barnabas, and the priest of Jupiter
could hardly be restrained from offering sacrifices to them. But Paul and his companion would have none of
this activity. They intervened among
these idolaters and succeeded in halting the entire proceeding. As a matter of fact, Paul and Barnabas were
so successful that the tide changed against them and in a short time the people
attacked and stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city supposing him to be
dead.
The number of people who would want to be
involved in such a movement, I’m sure is very small. Yet this confusion was a result of a movement
of the true God and His rightly divided Word.
So we can see what happens when the Word of God is misunderstood or
wrongly divided – division.
For where envying and strife is, there
is confusion and every evil
work. – James
3: 16
The Lollards who were organized by Wycliffe in
the fourteenth century were instructed “to go about and preach to the poor in
their own tongue, working in harmony with the clergy if they would allow them,
but against them or independent of them if they were hostile.”
The leaders of the spiritual movements in the
Church have always been ridiculed and maligned.
The confusing element in the entire situation is that it is the
religious people, those who are deeply sincere, who cause the division. The world appears to clearly show little
initial interest regarding a movement of God and pays virtually no attention. As Acts 7 points out, it is the religious
element who are the persecutors and resisters.
I can’t help but again mention my girlfriend’s
mother. She was very religious and as
sincere as can be. However, she did not
work the Word of God like we are doing here.
So she became, as the paragraph says, a persecutor and a resister.
Ye stiffnecked and
uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your
fathers did, so
do
ye. -- Acts 7: 51
Which of the prophets have not your fathers
persecuted? and
they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom
ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:
-- Acts 7: 52
The Pharisees would not accept Jesus as the
Christ. The Jews stirred up the
multitude against Paul and Barnabas. The
religious people of the day stoned Stephen.
Division always frustrates Christian efforts.
May God deliver us as the Church from being
contentious and difficult, from maligning our brethren, from bickering and
quarrelsomeness, from dividing the Body of Christ by our lack of enlightenment. There
is too much division outside the Church; our solidarity is imperative to give
us strength to move forward in spite of the opposition. May the Father in heaven, for the sake of
the only-begotten Son, bless us with such an abundance that we may cease to be
a part of the problem and become a part of the answer. May we as members of Christ's Body become so
filled with love that we may be teachable and have our hearts opened to His
Holy Word. And may we receive of Him and
carry the blessing to all we meet, that they may see us and know we are His.
I would like to conclude with a rather
humorous true story of two churches that were divided on a most unusual
detail. One half of the congregation did
not believe that Adam and Eve had navels (belly buttons). But the other half of the congregation
believed that they did!
So the latter half of the congregation built a
new church across the street from the other church and called it “The Church of
the Navelites.”
GOD
BLESS! YOU’RE THE BEST!
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