The purpose of the Church.
People have all kinds of ideas about churches and why they should exist. If we were to survey people in churches and ask them, "What is the main purpose of the church, or why does the church exist?" we will get a number of answers. People start churches for all kinds of reasons that miss the biblical point.
Many would suggest, for example, that the purpose of the church is fellowship. It's a place to make friends, to provide activity for the family, to enjoy friendships, to enjoy spiritual activities together, recreation, cultivate relationships, to work together in families, and raising children, etc. And sort of hang out together until death or the rapture.
Ecclesiastes 5:1. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen
John 7:17. Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
There has to first be a willingness and a desire to do God’s will before we know God’s will.
There has to be two-way communication.
The Lord must hear us and we must hear Him.
When you stop listening, God stops talking.
Mark 4:23-25. He who has ears to hear let him hear. Consider carefully what you hear, with the measure you use it will be given to you and even more. He who hears will be given more, he who does not hear even that which he has will be taken away.
Revelation 3:20.
Here I am, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person and they with me.
Jesus will not speak guidance and direction into our lives through a closed door like some unwanted visitor or salesman, we must open the door.
I want to draw to your attention that you cannot wait for some convenient time.
Anything but a prompt response is an indication that you have something more important to attend to.
Hebrews 10:25.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much more, as you see the day approaching.
We saw that one of the ways to open the door to the Lord is through fellowship.
Most Christians don’t have a problem talking to God, they neglect to do it at times and remember very quickly when challenging situations arise, but many Christians don’t listen to the Lord.
Some don’t know how to, some don’t care to and still others hear him and choose to ignore him and in so doing silence him.
God speaks to us through creation and nature.
God speaks to us through his Son.
On rare occasions God speaks with an audible voice.
God speaks to us through his Word.
God speaks to us in a still small inner voice in our heart and mind.
God speaks to us through people.
God speaks to us through circumstances.
God speaks to us through dreams and visions.
God speaks to us through signs and wonders.
God speaks to us through the Godly example of others.
But beware because Satan counterfeits God's voice:
1. He speaks by separating creation from God's design, encouraging us to worship the creation instead of the Creator, defending animals but not unborn babies, worshiping sex outside God's design, promoting evolution
(Romans 1:18-32; 2 Peter 3:3-7).
2. He speaks by misrepresenting God's Word, twisting, cutting, pasting, and misusing it (Matthew 4:1-11, esp. v. 6).
3. He offers a fake version of godliness, using false definitions of love to persuade us to accept our culture's moral values and do things against God's Word
(2 Corinthians 11:3-4).
4. He speaks through people, watering down the gospel, persuading us to take the easy way, to put self first (Ephesians 5:6).
5. He speaks through circumstances, opening doors of temptation (Genesis 3:1-7).
When you see animals eating, you are witnessing God’s provision in the earth and can, as a result, know that he will provide for you. When you see snow fall, ice form, and springtime come to melt away the cold you can know that God is at work around you and in your life. To miss out on all creation speaks to us is to miss an important part of God’s voice.
You see, while God does an incredible job taking care of a world wrought with the effects of sin, he promises to take care of you even more. Jesus commands us in Matthew 6:26-30 to “Consider the lilies of the field”.
Matthew 6:25-30.
Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?
Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
Matthew 6:25-30.
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?
Romans 1:18-22.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.
Satan says look around you, everything you see is an accident, it came from nothing.
There is no designer and you are just a highly evolved animal.
When Charles Darwin wrote his famous book on the Origin of Species, he was in essence writing his view concerning the history of death.
The battle between Creation and evolution is a battle between two totally different histories of death.
If a Christian accepts the history of death over millions of years, then when God stated in Genesis 1:31 that everything He had made was “very good”.
This would mean that death, suffering, violence, and diseases like cancer (as represented in the fossil record) were also “very good”.
If a Christian accepts the history of death as given by a literal reading of the Genesis account, then this history can be represented by this diagram where death is as a result of man’s sin.
From his evolutionary perspective on the origin
of life, Darwin surmised that death had to be a
permanent part of the world.
Undoubtedly, he struggled with this issue as he
sought to reconcile some sort of belief in God
with the death and suffering he observed all
around him, and which he believed had gone on
for millions of years.
His daughter “Annie’s cruel death, destroyed Charles’s beliefs in a moral, just universe. Later he would say that this period chimed the final death-knell for his Christianity. Charles [Darwin] now took his stand as an unbeliever.
Belief in evolution and/or millions of years necessitates that death has been a part of history since life first appeared on this planet.
Romans 5:12.
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
Adam’s sin did not result in only spiritual death (Separation from God) but also physical death (Separation from the body).
Genesis 3:17, 19.
Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it: Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. . . .
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return
Hebrews 1:1-2.
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
John 12:47-50.
As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.
For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So what I say is just what the Father has told me to say.
Satan gives power to this man some time in the near future and he will deceive the vast majority to pledge allegiance to him so that he can bring about world peace. Even the Jews will claim him as their Messiah.
John 5:43.
I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12.
The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing.
They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.
Antichrist (1 John 2:18)
Little Horn (Daniel 7:8; 8:9)
Prince (Daniel 9:26-27)
One who makes desolate (Daniel 9:27)
Wilful king (Daniel 11:3)
Man of Lawlessness (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
Son of perdition (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
Beast (Revelation 13)
Romans 2:12-16.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans 2:12-16.
Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.
They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.
1 Timothy 1:5-7.
The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
God speaks through our conscience.
God speaks through our conscience.
1 Timothy 1:18-20.
Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith.
Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.
Your conscience is your navigator, ignore it and you will shipwreck your life.
Man is left with 3 choices with regards to his troubled conscience.
1. He kills or deadens his conscience.
1 Timothy 4:1–2:
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
If the conscience is “seared”—literally “cauterized”—then it has been rendered insensitive.
Such a conscience does not work properly; it’s as if “spiritual scar tissue” has dulled the sense of right and wrong.
Just as the hide of an animal scarred with a branding iron becomes numb to further pain, so the heart of an individual with a seared conscience is desensitized to moral pangs.
But, there is no substitute for obedience.
God does not look at the good works we do, or how much money we give to His cause, but solely at our obedience.
1 Samuel 15:22. To obey is better than sacrifice…
Unfortunately, many Christians do not obey, instead, they try to silence the voice of conscience with one or both of the following methods.
Arguing with their conscience. Here people try to convince themselves that something is all right because it seems so reasonable.
They may point to what others are doing or may talk it over with another believer in order to get the other person to agree with them.
Doing good works.
Those who take this course try to ease their conscience by doing good works.
Though not obeying God, they think that what they’re doing is just as good or perhaps even better than what God has told them to do.
One of the foundation doctrines that a new convert needs to be taught is in Hebrews 6:1.
“Repentance from dead works”
Hebrews 9:14. (NIV)
Cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death (c) so that we may serve the living God!
(c) Or from useless rituals
Satan has got counterfeits to lead man astray, false religions, false doctrines false theories presented as science.
Hebrews 9:13-14 (AMP)
For if the sprinkling of [ceremonially] defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a [burnt] heifer is sufficient for the cleansing of the body, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal [Holy] Spirit willingly offered Himself unblemished [that is, without moral or spiritual imperfection as a sacrifice] to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works and lifeless observances to serve the ever living God?
God speaks into our heart and mind.
1 Kings 19:11-13.
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
John 14:23-26.
Jesus replied, Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
Mark 13:11.
Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.
He conversed with Adam in the garden of Eden.
He answered Job.
He told Noah to build an ark.
He promised Abraham a son.
He spoke to Moses in a burning bush.
He spoke to Samuel when he was just a young boy.
Paul heard His voice on the way to Damascus.
1 Samuel 3:1. Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation. And it came to pass at that time, while Eli was lying down in his place, and when his eyes had begun to grow so dim that he could not see, and before the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle of the LORD where the ark of God was, and while Samuel was lying down, that the LORD called Samuel. And he answered, Here I am! So he ran to Eli and said, Here I am, for you called me. And he said, I did not call; lie down again. And he went and lay down.
1 Samuel 3.1
Then the LORD called yet again, Samuel! So Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here I am, for you called me.
He answered, I did not call, my son; lie down again. (Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, nor was the word of the LORD yet revealed to him.)
And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. So he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here I am, for you did call me. Then Eli perceived that the LORD had called the boy.
1 Samuel 3:9-14.
Therefore Eli said to Samuel, Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, Speak, LORD, for Your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
Now the LORD came and stood and called as at other times, Samuel! Samuel! And Samuel answered, Speak, for Your servant hears.
1 Samuel 3:9-14.
Then the LORD said to Samuel: Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end.
For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them.
And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.
Genesis 18:17.
Then the Lord said, Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?
Exodus 33:11.
The Lord would speak to Moses' face to face, as one speaks to a friend.
Moses had a special relationship with God.
Numbers 12:6-8.
Then the Lord said, Listen to my words. Suppose there is a prophet among you. I, the Lord, make myself known to them in visions. I speak to them in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses. He is faithful in everything he does in my house. With Moses I speak face to face. I speak with him clearly. I do not speak in riddles. I let him see something of what I look like. So why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
John 12:28. (Jesus prayed) Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from Heaven, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again. The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an Angel had spoken to him. Jesus said, This voice was for your benefit not mine.
God speaks to us through his Word and in the absence of all other directives this must be our guide. It is also the standard by which we judge whether we are hearing from God, man, our own flesh or Satan.
Acts 17:11.
Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
The most common way. God speaks to us is through His Word
2 Peter 1:16-19.
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honour and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
When Satan tempted Jesus, he used Scripture.
Matthew 4:5-6.
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down.
For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone”.
Titus 2:1-4.
You, however, must teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children.
Listen to the mature Christians mentors.
Mark 8:31-33.
He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
The Unknown prophet was killed by a lion when he listened to another Prophet.
1 Kings 13:7-10 & 15-25.
The king said to the man of God, Come home with me for a meal, and I will give you a gift. But the man of God answered the king, Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here.
For I was commanded by the word of the Lord: You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came. So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.
1 Kings 13:7-10 & 15-25.
Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel, whose sons came and told him all that the man of God had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king. Their father asked them, Which way did he go?
And his sons showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken. So, he said to his sons, saddle the donkey for me. And when they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it and rode after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, Are you the man of God who came from Judah?
I am, he replied.
1 Kings 13:7-10 & 15-25.
So the prophet said to him, “Come home with me and eat. The man of God said, I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. I have been told by the word of the Lord: You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.
The old prophet answered, I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord: Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water (But he was lying to him.)
1 Kings 13:7-10 & 15-25
So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house. While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back. He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah.
This is what the Lord says: You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your ancestors.
1 Kings 13:7-10 & 15-25.
When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it.
Some people who passed by saw the body lying there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15.
For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.
This may be who you are listening to!
John 10:3-5, 8, 14-16.
The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.
But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.....
John 10:3-5, 8, 14-16.
All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them....
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.
I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
It is possible to know the voice of the Lord as we cultivate a close relationship with Him and we have His Word as a safeguard to prevent us from going astray.
If you hear a sermon or teaching, check it against God’s Word.
If you receive counsel or advice or if you have a dream or a vision, check it against the Word of God.