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The Source of Strife

A sermon by M. John Allen

For August 2, 1997

Many people are bewildered today. They ask themselves “How could the church have gotten into such trouble?” It’s a valid question.

I have had the Ambassador College experience. I know what it is like to be “at the center of God’s Work today,” and feel that I was privileged and lucky to be there. I remember being told that I was at “The West Point of God’s Work.” This of course, was preparing the Work to an army and the brethren to the foot soldiers. I was told that I was one of the “Elite, the chosen; one called especially by God for service directly to His Work.” And that was true, but not in the way that they meant it.

Yes, I knew what it was like to feel that the lovely Ambassador Auditorium was my second home. I know what it was like to be there over and over during the week. It seemed to virtually be a center of life. And all of the important people were there over the years that I was in Pasadena. All of the “top men.” I had been in an officer’s training course, leading me to lead the foot soldiers -- the brethren in t he field. And someday, if I was very good, maybe I could become a general -- even a Pastor General!

And that’s what I called myself, brethren, in the Winter of 1992 when this Work was founded. I was inspired to write the book that was the doctrinal basis for The restoration Church of God, The Restoration of Truth. That book is now being revised and rewritten, released serially in The Real Truth, although I feel a need to jump forward and include the final chapter of that book in the next edition of The Restoration Times, because, in that chapter, I discuss some of the most important things that God’s Church needs to hear today: how we can all become part of the Christian Family in preparation for entering God’s Family and His Kingdom at the resurrection. This is VITAL information for us today, and I urge you to read it when it comes out. It is perhaps the most important message God could have for us at this time. So watch the website for this very important upcoming article.

But, without rewriting that chapter here, I need to touch on some important issues brought up there. What should a family be like? What should a family act like?

Unfortunately, if you are a long time WCG member who can remember back to the 1960’s, your answer will be that there is a rigid chain of command, that comes down from God the Father to Jesus Christ to Herbert Armstrong to ........ to the local pastor to the Husband, to the wife, to the oldest kids to the youngest kids to the pets? To those old timers and their children out there, I know this will sound familiar.

You see, something happened as the church went along and grew. What started out as a fairly democratic, collegial church government in the ‘30’s devolved into a military style dictatorship by the time of Mr. Armstrong’s death. What started out as the right approach towards government metamorphosed over time into a rigid power structure -- and West Point was the way to get new members for the self perpetuating hierarchy.

If you are still confused on the government issue, I urge you to immediately stop reading this sermon, and go to the library section of this website and read my article on church government. Only once you get that straightened out in your head should you return here, because I am going to build on what I discuss there, and assume that you are already over that hurdle before I continue.

Now, to continue. Even though I had proved the hierarchical form of church government wrong by the time the book was written and this Work started, I was still confused enough to call myself Pastor General. I realized that the title was an inversion of the original title for Mr. Armstrong, which was General Pastor, but just as the name was turned upside down so was the church’s concept of church government over the years. We have seen the sad results and the bitter fruit of this approach. What the church should have realized in FULL instead of in words only is that we are one big FAMILY, and if we are to attain our potential as a people, we must come to grasp this concept fully and understand it. This is such an important point that I can hardly wait until this article / chapter is once more revised and can be made available for all of God’s people to understand.

In any event, back then we did not understand how Satan had deceived us all on the government issue and thus on God’s Family too. This was our first and one of our major steps into oblivion. But a great deal of damage has been done by this false concept, and we are still reaping the bitter harvest.

Now, though, we have a situation where the sheep are scattered. Some have been betrayed over and over by what they see as hirelings and hypocrites. Tens of thousands are so shattered that they sit at home in their living rooms every Sabbath, wondering “what has gone wrong? What should I do about it? Where can I turn?” The answers are there, but they might not just happen to be quite so obvious.

I think without realizing it, the first sins and the first lies have allowed the rest to brew and bubble under the surface. Like Paul said, a “little leaven leavens the whole lump,” and in the same manner, what started out as something just slightly off the track has now grown to outrageous proportions. The fruit is all around us. Sheep are lost. Sheep are dying. Sheep are wounded. But, sheep, if you are sick, or lost, or dying, or wounded, then you are a sick, lost, dying, or wounded sheep, aren’t you? This means you aren’t healthy. This means there is something wrong that your True Shepherd needs to heal.

I think we have lost sight of this somehow. There is plenty of blame to go around for what has happened, and if everyone is so busy pointing the finger at everyone else, they don’t have time for self examination.

Lately, I have launched into attacks against the modern day hirelings and hypocrites. They have done what they have done. They are dysfunctional. They are sick, just like the sheep, but upon them lies the chief responsibility because they were supposed to be WATCHING THE SHEEP instead of SHEERING THEM.

But, brethren, no matter how painful and callous this may sound, we have got to forget the past and move on. We have all wronged and been wronged, but the wounds must be healed and we must look ahead to the Work ahead instead of looking back the way we have come lest we turn into pillars of salt. And that seems to be what’s happening. People are now looking back with great fixation on the past and are thus unable to move forward/ It’s becoming an increasingly critical situation. This doesn’t mean we don’t learn from the past -- we have to -- but what I am saying today is that God’s time has come, and it’s time to pick ourselves up, clean off the dirt and dust, and start moving forward down the path of our Father’s business, as I discussed last week.

But before this can occur, the biggest segment of the church, the sheep, must listen to their chief shepherd, Jesus Christ, and be healed of their own wounds. Once the sheep are well again, God can raise up His servants the true shepherds to lead them once again into green pastures and doing our father’s business. But now is the time of healing. And that’s what I would like us to think about during this upcoming Feast: it should be a time of renewal, reunion, and rededication. A time of healing for the great Work ahead.

So, the healing process in God’s church begins with you -- each and every one of you reading these lines or hearing my words. The time to move on is almost upon us, so it is imperative that everyone be healthy before that occurs, or at least be on the way back to health.

Now, we are going to deal with fundamentals today. Fundamentals of healing. First, I want you to read James 4:1-12, and contrast it with Jn. 13:34-5. I want you to contrast these two statements very carefully. The verses in John tell us what the healthy state is for the sheep -- that we have love for one another. The passage in James shows what happens when everything goes haywire and Satan is ruling the roost, like he is today.

Christ said that the world would KNOW HIS DISCIPLES BECAUSE THEY HAVE LOVE ONE FOR THE OTHER. Let me ask you a couple of questions. If we use a slight doctrinal difference to look down on someone else and feel superior to them, is this the kind of love that Christ described? If we arrogantly think that the members of our little church group, whichever one we belong to, is somehow “better” than another group because “we are right and they are wrong,” then we have no idea about the love Christ described.

In a recent sermon Roderick Meredith of the Global Church mentioned the need for church unity. Of course, he thinks everyone should unite under Global and acknowledge him as the leader. But in this sermon he at least acknowledged the need to recognize each other and make tentative steps towards stopping the feuding. He is to be applauded for that.

However, the way he said something strikes me as part of the problem. I do not have this sermon saved on my computer, so I will have to do this from memory, but he said that we should, if we have friends in another church group, feel free to “occasionally” go over and fellowship with them. Now that’s much better than fighting, but why would we only “occasionally” show hospitality and fellowship with our brethren? Does that mean that there is a risk that sameness’ sheep might jump into another pasture if they started getting together too much? I don’t know.

But the word used by Christ for love is “agape” love, which is God’s love imparted to us by the Holy Spirit. It is the love of Christ and the love of the father. It is the love of the Divine Family, which we are in the process of joining. Think about that. It’s not the “be warmed and filled” love of word, but the helping, giving, sharing and caring type of love of Jesus Christ. This is a love even stronger than the love of a mother for a child. Humanly this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible if we will only ask Him. Love. Paul said that without it, everything else is useless. Without love, we are nothing. I want you to pause right here and read the entire 13th chapter of I Cor.

So the greatest gift of God is love. By showing it to one another, the world can know that we are Christ’s. That is, in fact, the GREATEST SIGN of our discipleship!

But, brethren, the facts of the recent path show an entirely different attitude. It shows an attitude of self-righteousness, superiority, vanity, and all the negative fruits of an entirely different spirit from the one we are supposed to have. Just how important is EVERY little bit of doctrinal and technical disagreement in light of the GREATEST SIGN Christ gave of discipleship -- love? Well, according to Paul and Jesus Christ, not much.

That doesn’t mean we should not have a love for the Truth or accept heresy, but I know people that have made such outrageous speculations and separate themselves on such PETTY technical points that don’t really mean anything when compared to LOVE, that they have entirely lost sight of true Christianity! Maybe you have rarely heard it phrased this way in God’s church, BUT WITHOUT LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER, WE ARE NOTING! We can have EVERY picky, technical point of DOCTRINE absolutely right, and still go into the Lake of Fire IF WE FAIL TO FOLLOW THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT OF ALL, WHICH IS LOVE!

Yes, I know that’s startling to some, but it is none the less true. All arguing and bickering and back biting and feeling superior to others does is feed our very own VANITY, which separates us further from God with each passing day! If we allow this process to continue, then we could eventually find ourselves WAY OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY, as a sick, wounded, dying, or lost sheep!

I don’t know abut you, but James really hits the nail on the head concerning our modern attitude problems. We are in a puffed up age puffed up with sin to the point of exploding. So let’s review what James says here again, and if the shoe fits, wear it and ask Christ to heal you of it!

In the first verse, James asks where fights from among us come from -- I mean REALLY COME FROM, not the candy coated explanation we might deceive ourselves with. People will find this HARD TO ADMIT OR SEE IN THEMSELVES because of all of their excuses and self justifications, but God sees it the way it REALLY IS, deep down inside so deep that maybe even we ourselves fail to see it.

But there are fights among us, and there must be a cause for every effect. And the Bible explains the reasons quite clearly here. All we have to do is humbly accept what God tells us on our knees, and ask for forgiveness and the help of God to see how this applies to us so that we can love one another again and become healthy sheep!

Notice, James asks where these fights REALLY COME FROM! The first thing he mentions is the sensual, fleshly, LUST FOR PLEASURE that we all share. THIS IS THE ROOT CAUSE that causes war in our members and among the members of the Body of Christ! God tells us here that it is plain, ordinary, carnal LUST for various pleasures and THINGS that does all of the dirty work, deep down inside!

But James goes further. He says that not only do we lust, but we do not have whatever it is that we want. This really inflames the passions of the flesh, so much so that this lust turns into covetousness and could even go as far as MURDER. Of course, it’s all under some kind of holy sounding pretext, but this WAR is because of lust denied, and can lead to murder. And remember that Christ said to hate our brother is MURDER!

But, there are many things we can lust and covet. We can covet authority and position -- the CHIEF SEATS IN THE SYNAGOGUE, so that everyone can look up to the GREAT LEADER OF GOD! And this has happened! Whole groups of people have been abused and herded into corporate corrals for this LUST by a jaded leadership for money, power, and position. And brethren go along with it for their own impure reasons as well. A sense of being part of the “in group” that might have the first tickets to a place of safety, for instance, leaving all of those wicked “Laodiceans” behind. We think we are God’s special pets because our leaders stroke our egos to think like this so that they can keep on milking us for all we are worth, and we many times go along with it because this fulfills some of our OWN LUSTS.

Yes, there are many lusts that cause these wars. There are many reasons for all of this. Once the smokescrean of Satan is stripped away, the raw vanity of human nature is laid bare for all to see!

But, all or many of the things we TRULY DESIRE deep down inside, James says God DESIRES TO GIVE THEM TO US AND WOULD IF WE WOULD ONLY ASK HIM! But instead of doing it God’s way and crucifying the flesh, we GIVE INTO IT! This is the root cause of the wars among us. And the solution is also given here: we need to humbly ASK, but if we don’t ask, we won’t receive.

But there ARE those who are asking but still don’t receive BECAUSE THEIR MOTIVATION IS TO GO OUT AND SPEND GOD’S GIFT ON THEIR FLESHLY LUST!

James then goes on to call such adulterers and adulteresses. They try to keep one foot in the Kingdom while compromising with the world and their own flesh. AND BRETHREN, FOR A PROBLEM THIS SERIOUS TO DEVELOP IN THE BODY OF CHRIST, IT WOULD SEEM THAT ALMOST EVERYONE IS DOING IT, NOT JUST THE LEADERSHIP! Otherwise it would stop dead in its tracks as people easily recognized those out of step with Christ. But people don’t recognize it in their leaders and others BECAUSE THEY ARE GOING THE SAME WAY AS WELL -- the way of the world.

James then goes on to remind us that if we are a friend of the world we are an enemy of God! There’s no middle ground here! We are either with Christ or with His arch enemy, Satan the Devil.

James then reminds us in verse 5 that God’s Holy Spirit n us yearns for this situation to change very much. We must not quench this desire of the Spirit. James then reminds us that if we remain stiff necked in our pride and vanity and lust of the flesh that God will resist the proud attitudes of the lust of the flesh. This is for our own good.

At the end of this passage, James gives God’s formula to overcome these problems. If we submit humbly to God, He will give us the strength to resist the Devil, and he will flee from us. Then, we can draw near to God and He will draw near to us. Then, God will give us the power to cleanse our hands of sin (our actions)followed by a purification of the heart, which leads to the end of the double minded condition caused by this war against sin! It’s just that simple, and it leads step by step back to God and His way of life.

James ends this passage by showing how series our sinful condition is. We are to mourn and weep and turn our laughter into crying, so that we can humble ourselves before God, and He can lift us up and begin to make us well again!

There you have it. The answer to all of our mutual problems. Those who are God’s True Sheep will hear their Shepherd’s voice and turn and be healed. The false shepherds have been warned to repent. Their fate is now in their hands. Now, God is calling to the sheep directly, pointing out what THEY NEED TO DO as individuals to end their own little corner of this scandalous battle among God’s people. We must admit that this is all because of human nature and the lust of the flesh. We must humble ourselves before God. We must resist the Devil and his temptations and he will flee from us. God will then turn and cleanse our hands from sin. Afterwards, He will cleanse our hearts from their state of pollution. And finally, this will end our double minded condition where we are just as likely to give into the flesh as to the spirit and love of God.

So how about it, brethren? Are we ready to drop our weapons and quite fighting among ourselves? Are we ready to give into God’s HOLY SPIRIT for once and stop being friends of the world by acting like those in the world? Are we willing to drop feelings of superiority and a desire to lord it over others? And, the most important question: are we willing to allow God to fill us with His Love so that we can show it one to the other, and thus prove that we are Christ’s disciples?

Why don’t we examine ourselves for once and let the Holy Spirit begin to work again with us, the people of God? And if we do, the sounds of war will disappear and be replaced with a hearty handshake and a “Hello brother” from the heart, and perhaps a reunion we thought would never come. The choice belongs to each and every sick sheep in the pasture. Let’s all recognize our sick and lost condition, hear the healing voice of the True Shepherd, and lay down in peace in His Pasture again.