Time to return to primitive Apostolic Christianity?
Posted by appolus on March 14, 2010
James 3:1 (ASV)
1 Be not many of you teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.
There is a great pride that comes along with teaching. This is the reason for the above Scripture. Vanity and pride and ego have separated the Church since the Reformation. One corrupt Catholic church was replaced by thousands of corrupt Protestant churches. The time is at hand to return to primitive, Apostolic Christianity. Listen to what Jon Amos Comenius(1592-1670) wrote………….
The great number of teachers is the reason of the multitude of sects, for which we shall soon have no names left. Each church reckons itself as the true one, or at least the purest, truest part of it, while amongst themselves they persecute each other with the bitterest of hatred. No reconciliation is to be hoped for between them ; they meet enmity with irreconcilable enmity. Out of the Bible they forge their different creeds; these are their fortresses and bulwarks behind which they entrench themselves and resist all attacks. I will not say that these confessions of faith-for that they are so we can admit in most cases-are bad in themselves. They become so, however, in that they feed the fire of enmity;only by putting them away altogether would it be possible to set to work on healing the wounds of the Church…….To this labyrinth of sects and various confessions another belongs; the love of disputation.
What is attained by it” Has a single learned strife ever been settled? Never. Their number has only ever increased. Satan is the greatest sophist; he has never been overcome in a strife of words….In Divine service the words of men are usually heard more than the Word of God. Each one chatters as he pleases, or kills time by learned disquisitions and disproving the case of the others. Of the new birth and how a man must be changed into the likeness of Christ to become a partaker of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) scarcely anything is said. Of the power of the keys of the Church has almost lost the power of binding, only the power of loosing remains.
In short, Christendom has become a labyrinth. The faith has been split into a thousand little parts and you are made a heretic if there is one of them you do not accept….What can help? Only the one thing needful; return to Christ, looking to Christ as the only Leader, and walking in His footsteps, setting aside all other ways until we reach that goal, and have come to the unity of the faith (Eph. 4:13). As the Heavenly Master built everything on the grounds of the Scriptures, so should we leave all particularities of our special confessions and be satisfied with the revealed Word of God which belongs to us all. With the Bible in our hand we should cry ; I believe what God has revealed in this Book ; I will obediently keep His commands ; I hope for that which He has promised . Christians, give ear! There is only one Life, but Death comes to us in a thousand forms. There is only one Truth, but Error has a thousand forms. There is only one Christ, but a thousand Anti-Christs…..So thou knowest, O Christendom, what is the one thing needful. Either thou turnest back to Christ or thou goest to destruction like the Anti-Christ. If thou art wise and wilt live, follow the Leader of Life. But you, Christians, rejoice in your being caught up…hear the Words of your Heavenly leader , “Come unto me,’…..Answer with one voice, ” We come! (The Voice of the Morning , 1660)
“Jan Amos Comenius, known later the world over for his reform of education, is a heroic figure in this time of distress. He did not approve of the way in which the Brethren had engaged in politics and war. at the time of the great disaster, he had only been three years settled as minister of the congregation of brethren at Fulneck Moravia, and this place was sacked and destroyed by Spanish soldiers, compelling him to fly. He took refuge in the castle of Charles of Zerotin, where he became leader of the band of refugees that gathered there. While there, he wrote a book, “The Labyrinth of the World and the paradise of the Heart,” in which, in allegorical form, he taught that peace is not to be found in the world, but in the indwelling of Christ in the heart. Driven from Zerotin, Comenius led the last band of fugitives from Moravia. He had lost everything. His wife and child died of privations on the way. As they said farewell to their native land, he encouraged their faith to believe that God would preserve there a “hidden seed,” which would afterwards grow and bear fruit. (The Pilgrim Church, E.H Broadbent)
A Call To The Remnant 
David said
In short, Christendom has become a labyrinth. The faith has been split into a thousand little parts and you are made a heretic if there is one of them you do not accept….
What can help?
…
It’s coming, it’s coming quickly.
https://scottishwarriors.wordpress.com/a-coming-reformation/
Come Lord Jesus!
Thanks again for the article Brother Frank.
appolus said
There has been an ancient battle which will soon unveil itself once again. There are the genuine saints and then there are the religious, the people of the world. In the Reformation, Luther made a fatal mistake. He rejected the notion of a church of “believers,’ in favor of the State church. The State church gives aid and false comfort to the general population at large. It lulls them into a false sense of security, in effect it says “peace, peace, where there is no peace.” The State church today is represented by the thousands of denominational and non-denominational churches. In the average church in America for instance, almost half of every congregation is divorced, yet the hirelings remain silent. Materialism and worldliness is rampant, yet again, silence. This modern church model is based on the Catholic model where the power lies in the hands of the priest, which we now call minister or pastor. It is true that he does not claim to turn the bread into the body of Jesus or the wine into His blood, but none-the less, the power resides within the one man, who relies on the people to put food on his table. When this structure is swept away, then the genuine priesthood of believers will arise. This sleeping body of people will awake and walk in their giftings. Now Satan has always violently opposed the genuine witness of the the Lord Jesus here on this earth, and he has typically used the religious man and woman to do it, this tactic will not change. What now simmers under the surface, resentment of the religious man toward those who have a genuine faith and walk in the holiness of the Lord, will come boiling and bubbling to the surface and Satan will seek a “final solution, for the “Christian problem.” Yet, as the enemy comes in like a flood, so the Lord will raise up a standard, He will pour His Spirit out upon His children and they will walk in a biblical power that the world has not seen for a long time. The Lord always enables those that He calls, He equips us for what He calls us to do. And all of this is surely at the door. What will be the catalyst for this change? Only the Lord knows……………….brother Frank
timbob said
A labyrinth. What an appropriate descrition of what has become known as Christianity. There is one Christ, one faith, and one baptism, however, this has been obscurred by the teachings of man, traditions that become more intrenched with each subsequent generation, and an array of denominational titles too numerous to mention. When we read of the early saints in scripture and compare it with what passes for the church today, it’s beyond heart-breaking.
Yet there is a holy remnant who follow Jesus and are not interested in linking up with the kingdoms of this world. They don’t fit the mold of a particular denomination, but they follow the Lord Jesus and have their affections on thing above. Their lives and words bear witness of a life that has been transformed by the blood of Jesus.
The statement at the top of this post is certainly anacurate one. There is one truth but a thousand look-alikes all trying to scream louder than the other look-alikes. And all of them will feel somewhat threatened by those saints who circumvent their institution and follow the Lord Jesus directly. In a post several months ago, I was openly pondering the notion of a home fellowship and received flack from one well meaning saint went on to highlight the dangers of such a thing. This saint is hard-wired to a particular denomination and the notion of a home fellowship seemed to threaten their denominationally filtered world view.
The idea of a home fellowship is still in my heart. It simply wont go away. If a persons affections are completely on Christ (this isn’t to say that I’ve arrived; I have MUCH growing to do) they will find no life in the superstructure of institution.
A most enlightening post. It’s been a while since I dropped by due to the constraints of time. I’ll have to make more egular stops.
Blessings always in Jesus name.
timbob
appolus said
Dear brother Timbob, surely a remnant saint 🙂 I love you brother and I love your heart, a heart that hungers after the Lord. You are right brother, the saints will always find it hard to walk and survive in the institutions of man. We are to be living epistles, read of men. It has been said that we must “preach the Gospel at all times, and if we must, speak.” In every generation for 2000 years the Royal Priesthood has walked the path, so oftentimes the lonely path. I am comforted to know that our Lord walked a lonely path to Calvary, He is a High Priest that knows every struggle, every part of the journey. Find saints and gather with them brother, if you can, what sweet fellowship there is when one finds a brother or a sister who cares nothing for the things of this world, nor is interested in building a kingdom here on earth. Its all for Jesus, or its nothing for Jesus. I am not talking about perfection here, because the saint could cry himself to sleep every night knowing how far short he has fallen this very day of His Lord and Master. I am talking about a heart that burns when he talks about His Lord, a heart that burns when he walks in His presence, a heart that burns when he praises the living God. Oh what a sweet aroma there will be when God calls His remnent people together just before the Bridegroom comes. So many saints around the world have heard the shofar blow, and something in their hearts know that the time is short. Come Lord Jesus, come……………brother Frank