Person & Work of the Holy Spirit
Courtney Hemenway · Aug 25, 2013
Holy Spirit (2013), No. 33
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926359564042

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, we are on lesson 16. We have just finished question 5, I believe, if I am tracking from what we did last week. And I hope you got that. We kind of blew through question 5 pretty quick at the end. It was in the last couple of minutes. Again, but are we equally shocked by deliberate, persistent ignoring of the unity of the Holy Spirit? What is your reaction to this question? And I said, do we do that today? Do we persistently and deliberately ignore the unity of the Holy Spirit? And what was the answer? Yes. And how do we do that? How do we do that today?

Well, we'd go to the wrong church. I don't think we actually do it deliberately. I think perhaps a lot of it is what we're taught and in ignorance. But I don't think it's a deliberate thing to do that. I think the deliverance is a lot of times we're taught things that are we just don't believe it. Remember we talked last week about the mind of Christ. Do you believe you have the mind of Christ? Yes. I mean, yes, you do. Right. But a lot of times, the mind of Christ.

What about that you're positionally seated within Christ in the heavenly right now? The Bible says. I can go through the 215 things that we handed out at the beginning and I can go through those and there are things that to me are just mind-boggling. And yet the scripture says it, and do I really deep in the recesses of my heart believe it? I believe it.

Right there. I think because we think we're not worthy of it. Why are we not worthy? We're in him. I know. It's maybe not deliberate, it's just a lack of faith. in some of the things that are spoken of us, that are true of us right now. And I think that's where I think we get, you know, as I go through all these truths, do you believe in all the things that you cannot be separated from God's love? In the depths of a trial, do you believe that you cannot be separated? Sometimes I know people go, Lord, you've abandoned me. But he didn't. He didn't. He didn't. Absolutely he didn't.

But a lot of times in the trial, that's why I always say, I bring up those verses, that I consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials. Do you do that in the midst of a trial? Can you do that? Yes you can if you believe you can't be separated from his love and he's sovereignly in control. In the depths of a trial, you can still have joy knowing that he loves you. And he's sovereignly in control of it.

But a lot of times in the midst of a trial, you forget about that. Or you ignore that. That's the kind of thing I say how we either deliberately or sometimes persistently ignore that. The facts that are true about us. And I think that's just things as we mature, he's taking us through those things so we know our dependency on him. He's taking us through that for the very fact of he's wanting to go understand that. You need dependency on him. So I think the trials are meant for your benefit. In the depths of it, a lot of times, wow, that's for my benefit? But that's what I mean. So I think we still do that today.

And I just want to go through that again a little bit. All those things that we say are true. Well, I went back and one of the ones is Ephesians 1, 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Do you believe that? Every. You've been blessed with every spiritual blessing of the heavenlies.

But it takes a long time to really understand. And that's why I say, I think this is what I'm saying about the unity of the Spirit. Once you start understanding that, that's the Spirit working on you to make that a truth in your life. That you truly understand that. And I think that's why the trials are meant to show those things to you. You know, you're asking for these things. A lot of times we're asking for things that we already have. You know, that's the thing. We already have this. Why are we asking for it?

Just believe what's true about you and what's in the scripture. Well, you know, all of us, I think, came from you Hills. That was really a very trying experience. And it is so wonderful to believe, you know, what you just said, that God is in control of everything. You know, in our building, one of my best friends is a Jewish lady. She has been so worried about me when I thought, this is the end.

And she said to me the other day, are you still going to that little church over here? And I said, yeah. And she keeps asking about it. And the other day she said, I may have to go over there. You know, that's the same thing. My experiences from the old church, I was out and being an elder and different things and how that was some of the toughest time.

But being here and where I'm at right now, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I related also, as I said, you know, when Joseph was in the bottom of the pit, He wasn't just doing, praise the Lord, happy-go-lucky, I'm doing fine, this is awesome, my brother's throwing me in the bin, I'm doing great. He wasn't doing that. But as he went through that, and he got to the position he was in Egypt, he understood.

How many times have you gone through something, not understanding a clue as to why you're going through it, But five years, one year, ten years later, I praise the Lord for what He did. I didn't understand it in any way, shape, or form while I was going through it. But after I'd gone through it, I'd look back with 20-20 hindsight, and it's like, man, thank you, Lord.

Thank you. My observation has been that it always turns out so much larger and grander than your fondest dreams. It may not be exactly the same, but it's so much better than you thought of. Remember those verses I read in Job? You know, where were you? Where were you? Your plans are so great. Tell me about them. God just goes down and lists all the things he does. I mean, I was in Colossians 1 where he's in charge of basically the micro and the macro. Everything. the cell to the universe. He's in control of that.

How are you doing today? What did you do? I was lucky to put my shoes into the right socks on today. When you put it in perspective, it's amazing what his plans are versus yours. It kind of sounds like this is talking about two individual responsibilities for obedience and how that can affect the whole body. Like if you were going through a trial and kind of lost it, you know, kind of got really angry or really, you know, fallen away, how that affects the unity of everybody. And maybe you don't even realize it.

Well, you get it. And we'll get into a little bit about it. Well, we start out with the unity of the body. That's positional truth. We're all part of one body. And, you know, if I'm working out, on a well, and I bumped my thumb. The rest of the body hurts. I mean, I'm not able to do anything else other than think about what that thumb is doing right now. Same thing with the body concept.

We're all part of the body. If one is hurting, we all hurt. And if one is hurting, we should all go to the comfort of that. When one rejoices, we shouldn't be jealous of the one who has been blessed. We should be rejoicing in it. And we'll get into that a little bit more in the body concept.

But yeah, the unity of the spirit, I think, is one that... Question 5 went through pretty quick last week, but we do that today. And I think we do that because of either lack of knowledge or lack of faith. Because we just don't... You know, it's so great. I mean, do you understand all these things?

As I said, for me to be able to go to the God of the universe and say, Daddy. Abba Father. That's really the translation of that, is Daddy. This is the one who controls the micro to the macro, and I can go to him and say, Daddy, I'm hurt. Whatever. I can go to him freely because of what Christ did on the cross. You go before the God of the universe and end speaking with him. That one alone just blows me away.

So, I mean, that's where, you know, as we grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, Peter 3.18, you know, that's where I think we start to understand this. And we start to have that unity of the Spirit in a much more consistent basis as we start to understand and grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, let's move on. Question 6, Lesson 16. In 1 Corinthians 1, 9-13, an example is given. What does the author say the evil of sectarianism is? I'll read that section of scripture now. 1 Corinthians 1, 9-13.

God is faithful through whom you were called in the fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas, and I am of Christ. Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? So, what does the author, well, either from those verses or what the author says, what is the evil of sectarianism. It misses the very core of the message.

Which is? Jesus Christ above everything. I mean everybody wants to go off in a different direction and they don't get it. Okay. What is the problem with sectarianism? Division. Division. You know we just talked about the unity of the body. Unity of the spirit. Let's have division now.

This is probably politically incorrect, but one of the things that just frustrates me, and we do, you know, might have to edit this one out. This is one of those ones, I think, what did you have? We're not going to say what it is. But it's amazing, as an engineer, I'm an engineer, Even at school, there's American Society of Civil Engineers, ASCE. You're part of that.

Okay, we're just engineers. There's still a little separation there. We're engineers. We're over in our group over here. You have the business group. You have this. We're immediately separated. That's okay. Within there, now we have... the Hispanic engineer group, the black engineer group, the Asian engineer group, the whatever.

And now we further subdivide. And I was like, why are we dividing? What is this division that comes up all the time? And it's the old man or something that wants to divide us out. Because the first thing we do is divide. And I'm like, why do we do that? It's got to be the old man wanting to do that. and it goes against the unity of the body principle, where we are to be one.

We immediately, I'm a Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas. We immediately, in the first part of the early church, the first thing they did was divide each other. I think that's why Paul is very explicit about that in Colossians 3, where he says there's no Greek, there's no Jew, there's no slave, no Scythian, no free. And we are one in Christ.

He has to be explicit about it because we're often trained. I mean, as a child who grew up in today's education system, I've been told over and over again, I better be proud to be an American. But within the church, there was never, at least when I was growing up, an addressing of the fact that I have a heavenly citizenship. And that should be my ethnicity and my origin. Yeah, fortunately our citizenship is in heaven where there is no male, no female, no any division.

It's one. We're one in Christ. You know, that was it. Well, I don't believe it. I don't believe it where I was before. It makes me think of the old saying, divide and conquer. It is. That's the whole thing, is we become divided, we become weaker. Leaders who do that, they divide to conquer. We weaken as we divide. And so the sectarianism, when we look at the early church, well they were Baptists and Presbyterians and Catholics and they were all there, right? At the early church? No, they were gathering together in one name, in Christ.

And then we suddenly have now, over the years and all, we have now become all these divisions. You can go down, all of them. All these divisions now that we have. And I wonder about that. Why? We're one body. Unity of the body. And yet we immediately go to divisions.

So, right out basically addresses this as a problem, as Paul does. You know, the other thing that I always love, is that in the early church, we've progressed so much from the early church, right? We've gotten so much better. Because Paul addressed it to the early church, and we immediately eradicated that. If Paul was standing here, he'd be saying the same thing. You of whatever sect here, you of this sect, and you of this sect, is Christ divided? The same warnings are out that Paul had back then for the early church is the same today.

I was going to say the biggest problem that we face in a conditional sense, this is entirely conditional, is the need for doctrinal purity and whenever there's a A lot of those divisions are born out of people ignoring biblical principles in interpretation and understanding, and instead pursuing a...

I've heard people say to me, you know, I don't care what it says, this is what I think, this is what I believe, or what I feel. And at that point in time, that's not unity. It's not unity in the spirit, because they're walking in the flesh. It's not a submission to God's Word. And I don't want to, you know, with all the different divisions, I don't want to doubt that there are believers in every one of these different things.

The gospel message of salvation is simple and pure. And we add a lot of stuff to it after the fact. So I don't say that if you're not at Holly Hills, you're not saved or you're not a member of the body or anything like that. I want that clear. then I think the salvation message is to everybody and it's simple and so that a child would understand that.

After that, as we grow and we start to divide, as Randy was saying, the facts become clouded or misrepresented or whatever. So I think there's tons of believers that probably, as I say, as I think Vern was addressing last week, there's the milk and the meat. There are a lot of people who are still in the nursery. They're having milk when they should have meat, but they're believers. And that's what I want to make sure that I don't want to say that if you're not at Holy Hills, you're not a believer.

It's not in any way, shape, or form there. Salvation is to everybody and it's simple. And everybody, there are gazillions of people who are saved. It's just in their growth, I think their growth may be less if they're not broadly denying the word and growing through that. So I just want to make that clear. And it would have been the same then, right? Like Paul and they're all believers, but they're just... Yeah, they get off track. Yeah, exactly. He's not calling him out and saying, you're not believers. He's just saying, what are you doing? And then he's saying, I'm Paul. Was I crucified?

I think there is a problem though in that in a lot of churches you're depending on adhering to rules or depending on the church for your salvation. You're not depending on Christ's perfect act. And that makes them unsaved if that's what they're putting their faith in.

Yeah, you know, I'm not gonna... there's so many different things. I'm just saying that there are a lot of people who are may be doctrinally different than us, but they're saved people. It's like Catholics and Episcopalians and Baptists, they run the gamut, but they're believers in all of those. The gospel message of the death, burial, and resurrection, ascension, and saving of Christ, is the simple message that I believe there are millions of people who are like that. They just, when they get off the doctrine lane, they don't grow. Because they're not getting the truth milk and meat.

Just thinking, we have a danger here too. I'd rather hear Courtney, or I'd rather hear Mike, or I'd rather do it. You beat me to my next. That goes right along with this reaction to ignoring the unity of the spirit. I'll get there. You beat me there. I'll just say it. What Rydout states is, now here's an instance of failure to keep the unity of the spirit. Let us look at it with some care.

So he starts out that way. Then he also states, the lesson is thus made all the clearer. No one could question the devotedness of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas. If forming schools and sects with such worthy names was wrong, then all sectarianism is wrong. That's a pretty hard one. I hope that's not mine. Oh, they're fine. Just curious. Curious that it happened anyway. If you see the blue truck out there flashing, let me know.

So if forming schools of sex with such worthy names is wrong, then all sectarianism is wrong. When we come then to examine sectarianism, we set aside, as already evidently evil, all party-making resulting from envy, jealousy, and other petty worldly causes. Such things are, alas, not uncommon. But all would condemn them at once. But many will say that it is wrong to class all sectarianism with spite and quarrels.

And with this, I agree. So if you understand what he's saying, if he says Paul is calling out with Paul, Cephas, Apollos, you guys are all splitting off like that. If that's wrong, well, Paul's one of the key people who described how the church and the body is to function. And he's saying it's wrong to be I of Paul. So we're saying sectarianism is not good. Don't start splitting the body. Don't start dividing out into different groups. So I said, is there sectarianism today? Maybe some. We named a lot of the churches and different things. You know, we've been talking about separation within the church. What about my Jewish friend?

I mean, she's not a part of the church. And I have been so shy about really you know, witnessing to her, witnessing. But you know, I think, even though I'm so inadequate, that really the Holy Spirit is working on her. Yeah, you know, well that's not, it's not curative within the body. If she's not part of the body, there isn't part of that division.

There, you know, the tracks going down, Jew, Gentile, and the Church. You know, there's the three different... Therefore you have been raised with the Christ. Thank you. So, what about all these different things going on now? Rick Warren, the purpose-driven, and all these people who follow him, or a while ago it was the Prayer of Jabez, and who will follow that? And all these different things that come out, these different programs and people. Rick Warren, I had to do this, I just wanted to bring it up, I saw him on the TV the other day. and just, you know, the following that he has. When I went through my Christian life, I've looked and, you know, every time you put your faith in a man, what is the result? Failure. Failure.

Even the best of, you know, any of these guys, any great teachers even, you know, J.B. Stoney or all these guys that we hold up as old brethren teachers who are really good, if you put your faith and trust in them, or the year of J.B. Stoney, or Darby, or Kelly, or any of these old guys. Who I really respect their teaching. There are a lot of the old brethren teachers. I thought I had tried all of them.

I was just going to say, one of the members of our church, which is being dedicated today by the way, was in a hospital out in Los Angeles with Rick Warren's father and he said he was dying and he was just so intent on getting out of bed and just winning one more soul.

You know, and you can't argue with that. So I just sort of think that here, Rick Warren has this huge ministry, certainly. But, you know, there was his father. The point being is that you put your faith in Rick Warren. Or, as I was going to get to, but Wayne beat me to it. What about, you know, I of Vern Peterman or I of Mike Doyle?

You know, you're only going to listen to his teaching. Well, they say they, you know, it said they got that from being in those schools of philosophy and so forth where they had the teachers that they followed and they just carried that over into the church and had to learn better. And what was Paul's response?

Don't do that. Yeah. You know, that's where sometimes even here, you know, whether we have the same people who listen excuse me, listen to Mike and I and several who listen to Vern and several who listen to Bob and Jim and Roger and it almost becomes I of Mike or I of Vern and those things. The point being is that the separation or this division is not good.

And that's all they're saying is unity of the body, unity of the spirit. What are those key words in there? Unity. Division is not unity. And that's the point he's trying to make, is just don't get into all these divisions. It's not healthy for the body. It's not healthy for the unity of the spirit, if we divide.

Remember, and I think I go back to what Vern had upstairs, too. I like that. The facts are the tracks of the train. Facts first, and then what, faith? And then the feelings come behind. Know the facts. We all have the same Bible. the same word. Now those are the facts. By faith, believe in what those facts say. And we're all heading on the same tracks at that point. Whether we're here or somewhere else, as long as we're rightly dividing the word, we're going down the same tracks. OK? Uh-oh. She's got her hand in her hand. This could be a bad one. I don't know.

Now someone that helps me a lot and has throughout the years, like raising my kids and everything, and I don't agree with everything she says, but now I can't think of her name. But she's on TV. She's Joyce Meyer. And I know a lot of people say, Joyce Meyer, oh my gosh, again. But she has changed. I mean, I've listened to her since my kids were at home. And she's changed. And she talks a lot about grace and about, you know, what's important and what isn't important.

There are a lot of these things, you know, Dobson. Dobson, you know, for Christian families was kind of the you know, the leader of how to raise children and do all these different things. Well, whether you agree or not, he has a very big following. So again, my point is putting your faith and trust in that person.

Again, all the body can be used to help and assist and to do things. But everyone, it's, they should be, the key to all of this is they should be pointing you to Christ and to his word. If they're not doing that, but if you get into a lot of the teaching, I get a lot, and I've looked at a bunch of stuff, it sounds great in the first three or four pages, about the fifth or sixth, it's like, what you need to do, or it's pointing back to them, and it's like, wait a minute, no, that's not pointing me to Christ, it's not pointing me to his word. And that's where a lot of people If you look at their teaching, are they pointing you to Christ, pointing you to his word? or is it pointing it to a program, or to their thing, or their stuff, or to go over here and do all that. And that's the point. I get it. It's not only for you, it's for some of us out there. Can I throw some more in on top of that?

I actually was, I believe I was saved through one of Joyce Meyer's books. And I think, personally, because I would almost feel like I'm I don't know where I was going with that, but I would say I think the Holy Spirit gives us the gift of discernment and I think we can choose and I don't agree with categorizing people. That's a Joyce Myers, that's a this person, that's a that person, because then all of a sudden you just stop listening to what they might have to say. And I think it's important to, like you know that Joyce Meyer changed and I believe the same thing. You see where she went and she'll even say, you know, this was a growth process for me as well.

And then I think you can get a lot of good stuff from people. Like in the morning I'll listen to the radio to different people and I can I believe through the discernment of the Holy Spirit that I can pick out what is truth because you compare it to the Bible.

My point being is that even all of these great, you know, I like J.B. Stoney, great stuff, but I don't agree with everything he says. Right, exactly, discernment. And that's as you, I'm not saying you don't have to, you know, it's like, we have this at camp, you know, the speakers who are at camp. I may not agree with everything that they say, but they have some very good things. Yes, there is discernment, and you have to do that, but the underlying point is putting your faith in that person. That's my point. It's I of Paul, I of Joyce, and I hook, line, and sink her, and how she goes, I go.

That's my point, is that people get That's what his point is, I am Paul, I am Apollos, I am Cephas. To the exclusion of, you know, I'm only Paul, I'm only Cephas, I'm only Apollos. And that's my point, is that when you put your faith and trust in a person, rather than Christ and His word, everything is based on that faith. But on the other hand, not to cause division the other way, to say, nothing of Paul. It's like, I love Paul. Paul has some stuff, but I'm of Christ.

Right. Yeah, the reason why Paul, Paul is one who basically, through his epistles, tells us who we are in Christ. He's the one who gave us the mysteries that were to the Old Testament and all those. He's now the one who tells us, I mean, of all the ones we should be reading is Paul, because he basically tells us who we are in Christ and how we function and all those things.

But it's not to worship Paul. That's the point. It's not to worship Paul. It's just Paul was the vessel, the straw that God used to get to us. I was going to say, it's like we shouldn't focus on the fruit. We should focus on the vine. The same way we shouldn't focus on the branches or our branches.

Right. Exactly. Exactly. Bernie's always said, get to question what has been said. We are to question it over to question it. You should question everything I say. You should question everything forever. That's just a given, right? That's just a given. But I mean, like you might learn any of them. You're ultimately it's to the scripture. That's it.

Paul warns us there will be false teachers, and so we need to have discernment. It is okay to say that that person is entirely wrong. When we talk about unity of the spirit, it's because we are abiding, and we are agreeing on God's word unanimously on those things. It's not that we don't have... There are acceptable reasons in a conditional sense to recognize that there are division, divisions in the church, not because we want to promote division, but because we have to protect ourselves. If the shepherds at Holly Hills, if the elders at Holly Hills said anybody who believes anything can come in and teach anytime they want because we don't want to be divisive, what would happen?

So there needs to be discernment and judgment. If we go back to the grace teaching, he has allotted authorities in grace. And part of those are the local body is the elders. The elders are the ones who shepherd us. And so their responsibility is to shepherd us. So there are some things that he has left us to protect us and allow some shared authority here under grace. And that's where the elders come in.

If they said, yeah, anybody can come and teach, do I stay here? No, I wouldn't be under their command. their authority at that point. If they just said anybody can come in and teach anything they want, that's what the elders of this body believe, I would not be here.

Going back to divisions, there are still divisions, and I kind of want to go to, that we're all, and we'll get a little bit in this, we're all part of the body. We're not all fingers, we're not all toes, we're not all elbows. So there are different gifts, which we'll get in lesson 17, in different parts of the body. So there are differences within us. But again, it all goes back to what? One body and His Word. That's the key.

So you can go and listen to somebody, but if you're a new believer, I may not send you to Rick Warren or to Joel Olsteen or one of these guys. You know, I wouldn't send anybody, but I can say that I got, boy, and it was actually Joyce Meyer who said, go find yourself a good Bible church. That's the reason I'm here. There can be some nuggets, even though some of the other stuff she might have been famous for. Absolutely. But she's a true believer. I agree with Randy. If it's junk, then don't bring it around.

How does my body grow? If I'm eating marshmallows and junk all day long, or if I'm eating meat, Yeah, that's totally true. I got Holly Hill. So the growth is someone who doesn't. I mean, so there's still you can, you know, if you go and listen to a bunch of junk and you grab a nugget out of it. OK, I'm eating 59 ice cream bars and I had a little, you know, how am I feeling? How am I growing? You know, I'm not growing too well. So, I mean, I agree, but if I purposely go out and eat junk all day long, I'm not going to grow.

So it still comes back to His word. It just shows how much learning there is. That's why we have the Holy Spirit. It's His job. Thank God. Alright, moving on to question 7. Fourth verse that Paul used to demonstrate the positional oneness of the Corinthians. To which verse did you find out that demonstrates Paul's position of oneness with the Corinthians?

1 Corinthians 1.2. Do you want to read it?

1 Corinthians 1.2.

To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. So he's identifying with them, the oneness, the unity of the body. And he also states, in the first place, in writing the assembly of Corinth, representing the entire church, the apostle uses unequivocal language as to its oneness. Under the church of God, which is Corinth. And he quotes that verse. That is, the church of God is one, composed of all who are in Christ, saints by the calling, including all such in every place. So again, he's identifying with them, that the oneness, the one body, the unity of the body, he is identifying with them in Corinth. Okay? All right, let's move on. Question eight. The author uses three men, Paul, Apollos, and Peter, as characterizing needed gifted men in the church. Describe each man's contribution to the unity of the local body. So, what does Paul do? What did he write out to say about Paul? Great doctrinal teacher. What else? He said something else which I kind of... Order of administration? Truth of Christianity. Yeah, I'm told the truth of Christianity and that's what I say. Paul is the one who teaches us about the church and the body of Christ.

He's the one who really lays out what that is. And so he was to unfold the truths of Christianity, and no one familiar with his epistles can fail to see this. Doctrines abound throughout all his writings. He was thus the great doctrinal teacher. Metapolis, what about Apollos? He knew scripture. He was convincing of a preacher and taught to newly converted. Apollos was a man of fervent and devout spirit. He was an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures.

That's brought out in Acts 18.24. So, you know, that's the one, you know, that's the one who is, today we have whoever, you know, some of the names I brought out. They're very popular, you know. But he knew the scripture.

He was an eloquent man, mighty in the scriptures. So, he'd be one that would be easily drawn to because he was an eloquent man. He was very eloquent and people were drawn to him. Instead of his bodily presence being weak and his speech contemptible, he was a most convincing preacher.

Further from what we are told of his work, he watered and then that is confirmed and established, those newly converted. He was thus a most valuable man. So that was Apollos. Now, Cephas or Peter? church order and pastoral work. Yep. Unity. So it stands for order and administration. Yep. Somehow it doesn't seem right for Peter though. He was so prejudiced. Well, you know, he was the one who was told three times, feed my sheep. He said, I'll give you the keys to, what was it? The kingdom of it. The kingdom of it. What was it? The kingdom? No, I don't know what the kingdom was.

He said, I'll give you the keys. Peter is one about administration. He's the one who, even though he's impetuous and running tent and getting crazy all the time, seems that Peter stands for church order and pastoral work. He was commissioned thrice to tend and feed the lambs and sheep of Christ's flock. To him, not exclusively, had been committed the keys of the King of Heaven. That's right there. I knew I'd seen it. He thus stands for order and administration.

So three different bands, three different abilities or things that would draw you to that person. Okay, what happens when we, and question nine, what happens when we force any one side of divine truth to the exclusion of others? And this is again, when you get the vision, you're, I'm Apollos, eloquent manuscript writer, what's going to happen? Peter and Paul. Becomes a sect. And what is the problem with that? Division. Division. Any other thoughts before I give a right out of it? He had a pretty good one. It's a little bit long.

But suppose the one who is much engaged with doctrine begins to despise the others, and the one who is devout and earnest speaks contemptuously of doctrine, and the follower of order becomes such a stickler for it that he can see nothing else. What will be the result? I of Paul, I of Apollos, I of Cephas, I of Christ. Even Christ's holy name would be made a Shambhala. Yeah, what is it? Did anybody look that up? Yes. Thank you, I did too. What did you find?

Chabot. Well, when they were fighting, they'd make this other side, now I've forgotten what the names are, they'd make them come forward and they had to pronounce that word. And if they didn't get sh in there, it was kill them. They killed 40,000. I went to, yes, that was on the history of that. But the actual word, amazingly enough, our good friend Webster had that in there. Webster means, the first one is a catch word, but the second one is what I think is the meaning here. Languages is a criterion for distinguishing members of a group.

So even Christ's holy name would mean a division. is what he's saying. It is not the history largely of the sectarianism of the present day. As I said, I do not charge the base or motives of ambient strife, but simply the forcing of any one side of divine truth to the exclusion of all else.

Suppose a company of Christians set themselves so exclusively to the study of doctrine that they not only neglected service and order, but actually excluded all who did not act as themselves. Would they not be a sect? And suppose they draw up a most scriptural statement of doctrine and compel all to sign that contract. Would they not be a sect?

What other creed do we need besides the word of God? Is it not gross dishonor to the word of God to prepare a substitute for it, intimating that its statements are not sufficiently clear-cut or definite? In like manner could not an evangelist revival be made the basis of a sectarian movement?

Think about those. Everything that would not bend to the methods of work or that sought to turn saints to the study of the scripture, as well as to seeking for souls, would be resented and stigmatized as not according to us, and therefore division must result. So also church order might be unduly pressed to the exclusion of all else. Thus, the good that God has given might result, shall I not say has, in the abuses we see about us, the multitudinous divisions of Christendom. So it's basically saying if you're just evangelist based, that's all you want. That's all your focus is to bring bodies. But you're not going to be teaching scripture. Is that a good body position? I hope not. No, it's not.

And what he's saying is if you start getting into the sects where you aren't sectarianism, you start pushing out other things that are part of the body. part of the unity of the spirit, because you're so focused on one thing. It seems like Catholicism is really focused on the order, like he's talking about. We face the danger here at Holly Hills, that we are so doctrinally, that we to the exclusion of some of the others, that we're so focused on the doctrine. But I think here we're giving meat. And so it's a little bit different, but we should be to the exclusion of all the others. Of order, of evangelism, all those different things. We should be to the exclusion of that.

So, alright. I have one other thing on that, but we'll start with question 10 next week, and then start on, start looking over 17, we'll start on that on the spiritual gifts. We'll get to that next week, because I think we only have one or two more questions on here. I blazed through about five or six today. We raced through ours. All right, let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank you again for this time. We thank you again just for the unity of the body, that that is a positional truth, that we are in Christ. We are all part of one body. We're all different parts of it. We're fingers, toes, knees, elbows. We're all different, but we are one body in Christ. We have been placed in Christ. and our identification is with him, and we rest in that fact, and that is an amazing fact. Positionally, we are seated in the heavenlies now, in Christ Jesus, and that's how you see us right now, is in Christ.

And we just, as we've looked into the unity of the spirit and how it can be divided, we just pray that we will not fall into those traps of division and sectarianism and different things like that. It is for the one body and the unity of the Spirit that we look for. And I pray that through the Holy Spirit convicting and convincing us that we will be in that unity with the Spirit. So Father, we just pray for, I believe it's Roger giving the message upstairs. We pray that he'll rightly devise a word and prepare our hearts to receive it. Father, we just thank you for this time. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.