I agree, but my problem is this. I believe nearly all people who attend "Church" are sincere, loving souls who are doing their very best to learn and follow God's word, often in spite of the garbage being fed to them. How do we become separate from the lies while not abandoning our commission as a believer. I am having trouble just walking away.
Precious friend
@Seeker47, I can empathize with what you are saying. In my own experience,
it was fairly
rough, as my wife had just had a 1 lb 11 oz. preemie (
blind baby angel girl - now
35 and the sweetest thing! ) along with a hysterectomy. While she was recovering, the
( sincere/loving )wonderful ladies from church helped out bringing us food. I really had
to do some
praying about my decision the whole time.
We were very active, attending 3 times a week. It was actually a "book" I had found in the
pastor's library while I was helping the associate print up bulletins (Thursday) for the next
service. I check out three and left him a note of "what I was borrowing" to read and study.
The next Sunday he told me he really doesn't 'loan' out what he has ( poison? ) in his
personal library, and asked me to return them. By this time I was "pretty DEEP" into one
of them.
So, then I decided to
skip Sunday and Wednesday nights, and finish that particular one, prayerfully and carefully copying ALL The Scripture References it was showing me for a
Major Doctrine of the faith. (I had never heard this stuff before for 8 years: What Was God
Doing to me?). Anyways, I returned them the next Sunday, but, boy did I have questions!
About a week of more prayer went by and I printed The Scriptures I was shown about
Paul's Doctrine of
ONE [ Spiritual ] Baptism and went to see the pastor about them.
He said he
appreciated me coming with questions = he
actually 'agreed' that "Yes, all
(except the
divisive ones at Corinth) of Paul's Scriptures were about The
Spiritual Baptism
Of
1 Corinthians 12:13 AV. Then he went on [ red flag? ] with: "
But, we must always
remember water baptism!"
I thanked him and left a little
disheartened, and prayed about it some more for another
couple of weeks, and made the decision to stop attending. After a couple of weeks the
pastor and a couple of men came to find out "why we stopped going"?
They were very cordial brothers indeed, But, in this discussion (another red flag came out?):
the book that I was
studying about "Baptism and The Bible", they said in
their "fellowship
group" that they did
not agree with that author and what he taught.
After they left that statement "made me think" = Yes, there were those that
Disagreed
"with What Jesus Taught" and look what happened there.
Leaving and abandoning God's Commission (2 Corinthians 5:17-6:2 AV) to us?
Well, I am a very slow
learner, and it took me another 10 years ( God's
Timing? ) of Rightly
Divided Bible
study before I printed up
Basic Distinctions Of Prophecy vs Mystery and started
sharing with my family, friends, and co-workers. God Has Been Faithful, and even now, on the
internet, He keeps sending people from
all over the world to "pray for, discuss with, and share"
These Precious Truths from His Holy Word.
Precious friend, thanks for listening, and May The Wonderful LORD Give you
Comfort, Encouragement, and Edification on the rest of your own Grace
journey.
Amen.
More here,
if you wish:
"Distinctions" Update/Additions #’s:
(19) (20) (21) (22) (23) (24)