By Pastor Glynn Adams
October 6, 2024
Jesus said in Matthew 16:18b, “I will build My church and the gates of hell shall not overpower it.” Have you ever sincerely ask this question, “What kind of church did Jesus want to build?” I think that is the most important question the Body of Christ in America needs to ask ourselves!!! What would you say if I told you and can prove to you that most of our practices of the Christian faith today have absolutely nothing to do with the New Testament?!!! Practically everything we do today as Christians came to us from someone other than Jesus Christ. Virtually all our major practices came to us within 50 years of the beginning of the Emperor Constantine (AD 324) or within 50 years of the beginning of the Reformation (AD 1517).
We need a crisis of conscience in the Body of Christ today. I’m here to tell you that most of what we do today in church has a heathen or non-biblical origin. Anyone who says, “We are Bible centered. We do everything based on the New Testament” is either ignorant or a liar. We do virtually nothing that is New Testament and if we will only take the time to research the truth, we would see it. A greater tragedy here in America is we take the Bible and twists it to make it endorse what we do today!!! This mindset which is universal to both laymen and clergy and is destroying the Christian faith. We pretend what we are doing today is working when it is not.
If we would just do an honest reading of the Word of God and study what Jesus and the Biblical writers said the Body of Christ was to do here on this earth with the Name of Jesus, the authority of Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit, we would indeed have a crisis of conscience. Perhaps it would scare us enough that we would develop a good ole dose of the fear of God. The Body of Christ in America is very, very seriously in trouble. We have followed this false religion and it has put us to sleep. We are about to lose this nation as the powers of darkness are overpowering us and we have left ourselves in a situation in our nation where we have absolutely no idea how our faith should be practiced, how to resist evil, and how to get out of this mess.
When God sees Christians in America ditching this religious system, you will see God move in our midst like you have never seen before in your life. If you have ever read 2 Chronicles 7:14, forsaking our false religious system is “turning from our wicked ways.” It is wicked what we have done to the church Jesus said He would build. There is a reason Jesus chided the religious people in His day on earth, “And why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? …..And thus you invalidated the Word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, ‘”This people honors Me with their lips but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me teaching as doctrines, the precepts of men.’” (Matthew 15:3, 6-7)
In the early 80s, I was in a group with D. James Kennedy, Pastor, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida, Dr. Jerry Fallwell, and Dr. Francis Schaeffer, and many other pastors. We were warning people that Marxists/Communists had infiltrated America but the citizens, pastors, and church members laughed at us.
In 1984, I finally left the institutional- no fellowship- professional- religious church. I was deeply troubled with church politics, church bosses, and our failure to be effective. God knows all I ever wanted was to see people’s lives changed and equipped for ministry; making disciples of Jesus. It was a constant war to get people serious and involved in ministry. It was impossible to convince Christians that Jesus said the works I do, greater works shall you do. All people wanted to do was be passive and just attend church!!! It was many years later that God finally got my undivided attention and then I went into the wilderness for a season of preparation and maturity – to get to know Him, learn to have a relationship with Him, learn to hear His voice, learn His ways, learn the fear of God, to get rid of my worldly thinking and to transition to Biblical thinking by renewing my mind and dying to my flesh.
I needed to learn obedience, commitment, submission, faithfulness, and allegiance to My King. It was later that I begin to see what type of church Jesus wanted to build. I’m still in the wilderness preparing for these last days and attempting to wakeup Christians to our erroneous religious ways and citizens in general for these dangerous and difficult days that are coming.
Until we face the reality that our religious systems are corrupt and ineffective, God will remain silent and let us face the consequences. However, Christians in America will remain passive and disobedient while the Communists/Marxists demonic world takes America apart – piece by piece until we are destroyed. Someone has to adjust and it will not be God. He has the plan and pattern and the Instruction Book; we just need to get in on what He wants to do and soon!!!!!
Most of what we do in church today has little to no biblical basis. Now I want to go back to the way church was done in the First Century. This is the church Jesus built with the Apostles and it is still relevant to us today. The great Bible expositor Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, “We are living in an age hopelessly below the NT pattern – – content with a neat little religion.” Today, the reason believers say they go to church is 1) corporate worship 2) evangelism 3) hearing sermons 4) fellowship. As strange as it may seem, the NT never envisions any of these reasons as being the purpose of the church meeting. The notion of a sermon-oriented, pulpit-pew styled church service was alien to the First Century believers.
If the purpose of the First Century church was not for corporate worship, evangelism, sermonizing, or fellowship, what was it for? According to Scripture, the governing purpose of the church meeting is mutual edification. 1 Corinthians 14:26 puts it plainly: “What is the outcome, then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for EDIFICATION.”
Hebrews 10:24-25 puts it even plainer: “And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” This allowed for every member to participate in the building up of the Body. (Ephesians 4:16)
In like manner, each believer who possessed a word from the Lord had the liberty to supply it through his or her unique gift. A typical first-century meeting may have looked like this: The saints would sing songs with the whole group leading the singing. Each saint offers a prayer. Some give their testimony or what revelation they received, all as led by the Spirit. Every person has the freedom to participate in the meeting.
All the biblical examples about the church meeting solidly rest upon the Headship of Jesus Christ. The NT church meeting was based upon the “round-table” principle. That is every member was encouraged to function in the church meeting. The modern denomination, institutional church today is built on the “pulpit-pew” principle. It divides the members into the active few and the passive many. The common practice of a professional minister assuming all the important activities of the church, while the rest of the saints remain passive was utterly foreign to the early church and cannot be found anywhere in Scripture.
These early church meetings reflected the fact that the Holy Spirit so governed the early church. The meetings reflected a flexible spontaneity where the Spirit of God was in total control. Jesus Christ was free to move through any member of His Body as He willed. And since He was leading the meeting, everything was done in an orderly fashion. Such a meeting is unthinkable in the institutional church of today. Most pastors as well as church goers fear trusting the leadership of the Spirit to direct and shape their church services. If we do not know the Spirit’s working in our own life, how can we know it when we gather together?
Nowhere in the NT do we find grounds for a church meeting that is dominated, directed, or facilitated by a human being. Neither do we find a gathering that is rooted in a pulpit centrality that is focused upon one man. The early church made real the NT doctrine of the priesthood of all believers that according to Peter, it is the teaching that all believers are spiritual priest called to offer up “spiritual sacrifices” unto the Lord.
It’s ironic that today we are being destroyed for a lack of knowledge and God says in Hosea 4:6, that because we have rejected His knowledge and His law, He will reject you from being His priest and will forget our children!!! We grow into God’s fullness when the different parts of His Body minister Christ to one another. (Ephesians 3:16-19) The early church certainly understood the Headship of Christ that He leads His Body in all things.
Today, our institutional churches and especially the mega churches are essentially a nursery for overgrown spiritual babes. It habituates God’s people into being passive receivers. It stunts their spiritual growth and development and keeps them in spiritual infancy. But there is something even worse. When the Holy Spirit leaves a disobedient pastor or church, they are so organized they can keep on having church and don’t even know the Spirit has left them!!! Watchman Nee, after touring America Churches, was asked what he thought about the American Church. He replied, “I am amazed how much Americans can accomplish without God!!!!”
The First Century Church met out of necessity. They were in a hostile world and they needed the edification, encouragement, being built up in Christ, the prayers and fellowship. The early believers in the First Century saw the church, all in one accord and every citizen of the Kingdom was working through the church to make disciples of Christ, to enlarge their King’s Kingdom, and to influence the culture, government, and nation to the ways of God. As the prayer says, “Thy Kingdom come by doing the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven.” (My paraphrase)
After the house service, the disciples would leave the house and go out to share the Kingdom Message to the people and to face death or imprisonment but the joy and encouragement they received from one another made them faithful and aggressive warriors for Jesus Christ. The early Christians had but one message – Jesus Christ.
As they experienced Him during their week, they came together to share Him with one another (there is over 59 “one another” verses, love one another, comfort one another, submit to one another, etc.) and then out to share the Kingdom and make disciples. Here is what you are going to have to consider. It has been clearly shown that our religious system in America was put together by man Do you want to rest your eternal destination on what man has made or the Scriptures and the true church Jesus built?
Jesus said in 8:31-32, “If you abide in MY Word, then you are truly disciples of Mine and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Jesus said, “He who is of God hears the Words of God, for this reason you do not hear them because you are not of God.” (John 8:4-7) Jesus said also said in Matthew 7:26-27, “And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act upon them will be like a foolish man who build his house upon the sand and when the storms of life come, that house will fall.
Look at John 15:1-11, Jesus said He was the Vine and you are the branch and if you abide in the vine, you would bear much fruit. However, Jesus said in John 15:6, if anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. Did you get that? Is that clear? If you claim to follow Christ and do not abide in Him and in His Word, you condemn yourself to an eternal hell.
We have the whole concept about the church that Jesus built all wrong. Today we see it as a building and a place to go on Sunday to lift up our religion. We must repent, that is change our religious ways because Jesus Christ and His way is our only hope!!
In 2001 and 2003, Frank Viola wrote two books, “Rethinking the Wineskin” and “Pagan Christianity” (I think he is in the progress of updating these books) which has helped me more than any two books I have ever read. I highly recommend them to learn about the church Jesus built. I could have not written this article without those two books by Frank Viola!!!
God bless, I remain His warrior and watchman, Glynn Adams (Thanks for Pagan Christianity, Rethinking the Wineskin by Frank Viola, Ekklesia by Joe Nisola, Revival or We Die by Michael Brown, and Transformation by Bob Roberts, Jr.)
© 2024 Glynn Adams – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Glynn Adams: glynnadams@sbcglobal.net
