Let's Study Revelation (Chapter 3) by E. G. Cook

We who are living in the very last days of this church age have a great advantage over our forefathers in the matter of interpreting the prophecy concerning the church. When prophecy has become history, that is, when the prophecy has been fulfilled before our very eyes, it is easy to see what was meant by the prophecy. It should be easy for any student of history who has an open mind to see that the churches who were holding to the heretical doctrines and practices in the third century were the ones who were exalted (in the eyes of the world) by their marriage to the world in the fourth century. In Philippians 4:19 Paul told the Philippian Church that, “My God shall supply all your need”, but here we see the world taking over that responsibility. Upon the so-called conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great the world assumed all the financial responsibilities of these churches, and even kept them supplied with doctrines.

If we follow the clear trail of these churches it should be easy for us to see that these churches became the Catholic (universal) Church upon the appointment of Boniface III as the first pope in the seventh century. And it certainly should be easy for us to trail the Catholic Church through the thousand years of the “dark ages”, which are so characteristic of Catholicism, by the suffering and bloodshed which she inflicted upon the saints.

But let us not for one fleeting moment forget the fact that our Lord’s true churches, the Smyrna type churches were scattered here and there throughout this entire time. In Revelation 2:10 we read, “Ye shall have tribulation ten days”, and in II Peter 3:8 we read, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” Since our Lord can look upon a thousand years as a day, could He not do the same for a hundred years? If so, could not the ten days of tribulation in Revelation 2:10 speak of the terrible slaughter of the Smyrna saints during the ten centuries in which darkness and ignorance fostered by the Catholic Church hovered over the earth like a heavy fog?

Finally, after the centuries of darkness, ignorance and slaughter we can see an altogether new kind of churches coming out of the monstrous Catholic Church. And though these new churches were very different from their mother, the old Babylonish whore, in many respects, still the resemblance was so striking it was easy to tell from whence they came. For instance, their man-made, God dishonoring baptism stood out like a Roman nose. And their robes and heathen gods which they brought along with them were, and still are, an abomination in the sight of Almighty God. Their doctrines were many and varied, some of them bordering on truth, but their practices are still nothing more than Baalism and Nicolaitanism, both of which God hates. They came out of the Catholic Church, but they did not even consider coming into our Lord’s churches that were in the world at that time.

In the letter to the church at Sardis we read, “These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God”. Surely no one would dare say there are seven different Holy Spirits. The Holy Spirit is just One of the members of the Trinity, so the expression here in Revelation 3:1 must of necessity mean the sevenfold Spirit of God. In Isaiah 11:2 we find six of the seven functions of the Holy Spirit, and in John 16:8 we find the seventh one. Then our Lord says, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead”. When these churches came out of this monster it seemed to signify that there was Spiritual life there. It was the natural thing to say that because they came out of the Catholic Church, they had Spiritual life. But the natural thing is always wrong, Isaiah 55:8. It was wonderful to see them come out of this terrible thing, but they did not come out far enough. So, our Lord still tells them that they are dead. If they had left all the old heathen doctrines and practices in the Catholic Church, where they belonged, and had taken their Bible as their sole source of faith and practice, they would not have stopped until they had been baptized into one of those hated Anabaptist churches of that day. But, as the Israelites came out of Egypt dragging those old Egyptian gods along with them, so the Protestants came out of the Catholic Church dragging a lot of heathenism along with them. We hear a lot of squawk out of these new church founders on the subject of justification by faith, but never a tiny squeak on the subject of our identification with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. We see a lot of baptizing being done by them, but never much water.

In the Amplified version we read in verse 2, “I have not found a thing that you have done [any work of yours] meeting the requirements of my God or perfect in His sight.” They made a wonderful start when they came out of the Catholic Church, but they never finished anything they started. Their works do not meet our Lord’s requirements, therefore they are “rejects.” “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain,” that is, go on and finish what you started. “If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief.” The true saints are not to be overtaken as a thief, I Thessalonians 5:4. The reason is that the true saints are watching for Him expectantly. But the vast majority in Christendom are not looking for Him at all. Of the young preachers in the seminaries today 56 percent of them do not believe in the Virgin Birth, 71 percent of them do not believe in a real heaven and a real Hell, 98 percent of them do not believe in the immortality of the soul and 99 percent of them do not believe that our Lord is coming back to the earth, (REDBOOK, Aug. 1961). “Unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time.” Hebrews 9:28.

“Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white.” This should prove to everyone for all time that salvation is not in the church. Our Lord says these churches are dead, but He goes on to say that He has a few saints even in these dead churches. And even though these few saints are in these dead churches He says, “I will not blot out his name out of the book of life.” How comforting it is to know that our names are never to be blotted out of the book of life.

One can hardly refrain from feeling sorry for our Protestant friends as they grope for a way out when they come to this precious letter to the church at Philadelphia. This letter prophetically sets forth our Lord’s true, New Testament churches in our day. And even with their warped conception of what a New Testament church is, their writers are forced to admit that the dead Sardis church sets forth prophetically the Protestant churches. H. A. Ironside, one of their truly great, and one from whom this writer has received much valuable help says, “Following the Reformation there came a time when a cold, lifeless formalism seemed to settle down over all Protestant Christendom.” There are your Sardis churches, “cold, lifeless formalism.” Then not being able to lay any claim on the Philadelphia church which our Lord loves so much, he says, “For any particular company to claim to be Philadelphia is but detestable ecclesiastical pretension.” This dear Brother is unintentionally trying to explain away these churches that are so precious to our Lord simply because he could not, or would not see them. To him, Philadelphia consists of those protestants who, as he says. “Emphasize the authority of the Word of God, and the preciousness of the name of Christ.” If these people cannot see our Lord’s true churches in the world today, they are most pitiable. On the other hand, if they just refuse to see them, they are detestable.

Our Lord has at all times in this church age had His churches who emphasize the authority of His Word and the preciousness of His name, and He will continue to have them until He comes back for them. They have never been, they are not now, and they never will be any part of Protestantism. The Ephesus type churches, the Smyrna type churches, and now the Philadelphia type churches are intricately woven together to form a continuous chain of churches who are true to our Lord and to His Word from the time of the little group who walked the Judean hills with our Lord until the time of His return in the air for them, I Thessalonians 4:16-17. Our Protestant brethren’s mouths may water for the precious things found in the Philadelphian churches, but before they can enjoy them they must come out of the dead Protestant churches and be baptized into one of these churches. These churches may be small, insignificant, and even contemptible in the eyes of the religious world, and so much better if they are, for “The friendship of the world is enmity with God.” James 4:4.

To this church our Lord is “He that is holy, He that is true”. He would have His true churches to be ever mindful of the fact that their head is one who is not only holy, but also true. Then He informs His churches that He has “the key of David” and that “He opens and no man shuts”. In Isaiah 22:22 we see the key of the house of David being laid upon the shoulder of Eliakim, and in II Kings 18:18 we find that Eliakim was over the house of David. Eliakim, over the house of David, is a type of Jesus Christ over, that is, head of the house of God (His churches). And as Eliakim had the key, so does our Lord have the key. “He opens and no man shuts.” At the turn of this century the door to practically every country in the world was open to our missionaries. But we also note that He says, “He shuts and no man opens”. Today many of these doors are being shut, and they are not being shut against His will, but because of it. “Thou hast a little strength.” This does not sound too complimentary until you look at it in the light of verse 1 where our Lord tells the Sardis churches that they are dead. A dead church does not have any strength at all. So, when we see that, we are made to say “thank you Lord for a little strength.” We must remember that He is the one who has all power, Matthew 28:18. And when He imparts a little of it to us we should hasten to say, “Thank you Lord for a little strength.”

In verse 9 we see those who lie, in that they claim to be the church when they are not, being forced to bow down and worship at the feet of those who make up the Philadelphian churches. He will make them to know that it is His true churches that He loves. It is easy for us to say that He is talking about professing Christians here, and let it go at that. But it would seem that having to worship at the feet of those who make up His true churches would be such an infinitesimal part of their suffering that it would hardly be worth mentioning. So, could it be that our Lord is warning his blood bought saints who remain in all these other churches of what they can expect? Could it be that He is saying this to show these saints of His that it is better to suffer with Him in His despised churches than it is to be popular with the religious world in churches that are a stench in His nostrils?

What a striking comparison we see here between those who will be His heavenly people and those in Isaiah 60:14 who will be His earthly people. “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world”, Revelation 3:10, or as Phillips translates it “I will keep you safe from the hour of trial which is to come upon the whole world”. Since this trial is to come upon the whole world, it can be none other than the seven years of the great Tribulation. The word “from” here in this Scripture does not come from the preposition EIS but rather from EK, which really means “out of”. So, our Lord is going to keep these churches out of the great Tribulation. They will be raptured out of the world before that time comes.

“Behold I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown”, Revelation 3:11. Surely no one would be so foolish as to call this crown our eternal life. How would a man go about taking our eternal life from us? But we can forfeit our reward to someone else by our unfaithfulness.

In the letter to the church at Laodicea I find three things that lead me to believe that the churches represented by this church are some of our Lord’s own churches. In the first place He is to spue them out of His mouth. I am persuaded that none of the man-made churches have ever been in His mouth. Then He speaks of chastening these churches. He chastens only His own. Others await judgment. My third, and final reason is that He is standing at the door knocking. We see no sign of His knocking at the door of the dead Sardis church which represents the Protestant churches, the work of man’s hands. Neither do we see Him knocking at the door of Thyatira which represents the Catholic Church, the arch-enemy of His true churches. But here we see Him knocking at the door of Laodicea. I also have two reasons for believing that Laodicea represents a segment of the Baptist churches. First, I believe that all the other church groups are represented by other churches here in Revelation 2 and 3. Then I believe that the Baptist churches, and only the Baptist churches, are the churches of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I do not mean by this that there are no saved people in the man-made churches. Our Lord says He has a few even in Sardis. What I do mean is that only the Baptist churches can be the churches which had their beginning in the days of our Lord’s personal ministry.

I trust that no individual group of Baptists will get the idea that I have only them in mind. I’m talking about Baptists in all the different groups. I’m sure there are some Northern, or American Baptist churches in which the truth is preached. Then I am also sure that the truth is preached in some Southern Baptist churches. And I am fully convinced that the stuff that is preached in some Independent Baptist pulpits is not fit to feed the pigs, much less the sheep. And furthermore, I wish to say in the beginning that if any Baptist no matter what group he may be in, feels that I have misrepresented the facts relative to his particular group, I will recant before the sun goes down, if he will, in the spirit of Christian love, show me wherein I have done so.

Some of you may recall that Harry Emerson Fosdick, who was at that time pastor of a large Baptist church in New York City, said that he did not believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ, and that he did not know a Bible believing preacher who did. He denied Scripture like Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:13, Luke 1:35 and others. Then Nels Ferre who is a professor in Andover-Newton College, a Baptist school, tells us that Jesus must have been the child of a German soldier who was stationed near Nazareth at that time. This infidel Baptist further says, “The very conception of an eternal hell is monstrous and an insult to the conception of last things in other religions, not to mention the Christian doctrine of God’s sovereign love.” May I ask, what have we to do with these other religions in the first place? He then goes on to say that such a doctrine would make God a tyrant. Does this Baptist not deny God’s precious Word?

But it may be that someone is saying that these men are Northern Baptists, and that they are not our kind. So, let us come closer to home and see if we can find a reason why our Lord should say He is a true witness. E. C. Rust, a professor at the Louisville Baptist Seminary, says on page 195 of his book “Nature and Man in Biblical Thought” that he rejects the miracle of our Lord’s turning the water into wine. In a tape recorded lecture to his class of young Baptist preachers, Frank Stagg, a professor in the New Orleans Baptist Seminary denied four times that Jesus is our mediator. Stagg is now at the Louisville Seminary. Harold W. Tribble, president of Wake Forest College, a Baptist school, swore on the stand in court that he believed that Jesus had a human father (Pages 932-938 of stenographic report of the North Rocky Mount Church case in Rocky Mount, N. C.) Theodore Clark who was a professor at the New Orleans Seminary for ten years says on page 130 of his book “Saved By His Life,” “The Scriptures do not have, and never did have any authority in themselves.” And on page 176 he says “For God to torture men eternally for finite offenses would be injustice indeed.” He goes on to say “The idea of the immortality of the soul is a Greek teaching based upon a dualistic conception of man’s make-up.”

Some of the Independent Baptist professors and leaders are as bad in our Lord’s sight as the ones we have mentioned in other groups. I heard an Independent Baptist professor speak at a Bible Conference not too long ago who was just about as offensive as E. C. Rust, or Nels Ferre. And it is needless to say that all this infidelism is not leaking over, it is literally flowing over into the Baptist pulpits of our land and country like water over Niagara Falls. In spite of that, we still have a few preachers who expound the Scriptures. But as a result of that, many preachers today merely mention the Scriptures, others ignore the Scriptures, and still others outright deny them. Do you not see then why our Lord says He is a faithful and true witness?

Next in this letter to Laodicea our Lord says He is, “The beginning of the creation of God.” The Amplified version says, “The Origin and Beginning and Author of God’s creation.” But in spite of that E. C. Rust says on page 20 of the book already mentioned that, “The Old Testament begins with two myths of creation.” He considers the Bible story of the creation of the heavens and the earth and of the creation of man in Genesis 1 as just imaginary stories. How can our Lord’s blood bought saints continue to support a man who calls God’s precious Word a myth? He is not the only Baptist who does this. The atheistic, Bible denying theory of evolution is taught in almost all Baptist schools as if it were a proven scientific fact. In fact it is called a proven scientific fact by some of the Baptist professors. There was never a greater lie spoken by anyone, not even the old devil himself. The only proven fact about evolution is the fact that there are a lot of people, and many of them who call themselves Baptists who hate God’s precious Word, and flatly refuse to believe it. It is bad enough to see others denying His Word and teaching things contrary to it, but when we see Baptists doing this, it is heartbreaking indeed.

Then our Lord tells this church that she is lukewarm, neither cold nor hot. The Sardis church should certainly be called a cold church for our Lord says she is dead. But there is still enough Spiritual life in this church at Laodicea to keep her from being cold in death. Still on the other hand, there is not enough of this Spiritual life manifested in this church to keep her temperature up to normal. To stand up for the truth of God’s Word, that is, to contend earnestly “for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” has become an abomination in the eyes of many Baptist churches in our day. If a member of one of these churches stands firmly for the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, he is labeled a fanatic troublemaker. I ought to know. The compromising, tolerant spirit has become so prevalent in many of our Baptist churches that a Protestant who decides that the fried chicken and the broiled steaks at the Baptist church tastes better than they do at his church, or that the Baptist softball team offers his child a better opportunity to achieve popularity, he can join up with the Baptists without even being baptized and very soon finds himself teaching a Baptist Sunday School class. The Spiritual pulse in these churches is so weak it would take a real expert to find it. No wonder our Lord says, “I will spue thee out of my mouth.” If you notice carefully here you will see another reason for our Lord’s spuing these churches out of His mouth. One reason is that they are lukewarm, “neither cold nor hot.” But, in His next statement He says, “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.” The New English version says, “How rich I am! And how well I have done! I have everything I want in the world.” It is really amazing to see the enormous wealth that some Baptist churches have amassed. And if the pastors of these churches want to build a reputation for themselves they must keep the money flowing freely and the church plant growing rapidly. For some of these churches a city block is just too small. They find themselves having to decide whether to tunnel under the adjoining street, or to build over it. I heard a Baptist pastor say to his people that the Lord has blessed us so greatly that we can buy anything we need, or anything we want. That sounded so much like Revelation 3:17 that I could not help but finish the quotation for him as I said to myself, “And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind and naked.” A deacon in this same church was heard to remark, “I have never seen this church so cold Spiritually, nor so hot financially.”

But our Lord says to this church, and to the churches of today whom she represents, “Anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” What other eyesalve can there be, Spiritually speaking, but the precious Word? But the Word must be applied. He says, “anoint thine eyes with eyesalve.” This simply means for us to prayerfully study the Word in the light of the Holy Spirit. To do this will always cause us to see. We will see many things as a result of sincere Bible study. And one of the things that we will see is that our Lord is being crowded out of His own churches by the experts at head-quarters. That is why serious Bible study is frowned upon in many Baptist churches today. I heard a Baptist preacher say while teaching a Sunday School training course that the only qualifications you need to teach a Sunday School class is to be willing to teach. And if you look around a little, you will see that this is the only qualification the great majority of Baptist Sunday School teachers of today have. But, please remember, our dear Lord is still saying, “Anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” He wants us to see whether the Baptist leaders do or do not.

Our Lord goes on to tell these churches that He chastens those He loves. This certainly indicates that these churches are His. But one of the saddest pictures you and I will ever see in this old world is that of our Lord being left out of His own churches. Here we see Him knocking at the door. And please remember that the subject here is churches. For a preacher to take this out of its context and tell lost sinners that the Lord is knocking at their heart’s door is just about as Scriptural as Santa Claus. These churches had no desire, nor any intention of leaving the Lord of glory out of their activities, and 99 per cent of them would flatly deny that they have done so. They are just having so much fun they have not so much as missed Him.

In Ephesians 1:22 we are told that He is head over all things to the church. That means that He should have the say so in the little things in the church as well as the big ones. If we are going to look upon Him as the head of our church, we should consult and look to Him to guide us in all the church’s activities. He guides us by means of His Word, but unless we are very careful we will do as so many Baptists are doing today. We will ask the Lord to guide us and then turn around and follow our own feelings, not being mindful of the fact that the old devil has a huge bag full of feelings that he gives out to God’s unsuspecting people just as his Santa gives candy to the kiddies. In I Corinthians11:22 our Lord asks the Corinthian church, and likewise all His churches, if they do not have houses of their own in which to eat and drink. But still one of the most popular activities of many Baptist churches of our time is eating and drinking, and then more eating and drinking. They completely ignore the precious Word and follow their feelings. A Baptist church with just one kitchen is a back number, and the Baptist church without a kitchen is a bunch of fanatics in the eyes of Christendom today. A member of one of the largest Baptist churches in Alabama told me recently that in his church there are three well equipped kitchens, one of which is as elaborately furnished as any of our better restaurants in Birmingham, and that they were building a fourth one. They are so busy building kitchens and eating they do not have time to read something like I Corinthians 11:22.

Space will not permit my giving all the phases of church activities that our Lord has been completely left out of, even if I could do that, but I will present just a few of them and challenge you to think on these things. Several years ago I helped to organize a Baptist Brotherhood in the church of which I was a member. For some two or three years I enjoyed it very much. We planned our own programs which were usually centered around Scriptures that would help us in our witnessing to the lost about us. But, as time went on some of our leaders happened to notice that we were not conducting our programs just exactly like the other Brotherhoods were conducted. So they ordered Brotherhood Journals for everyone from headquarters in Memphis. Very soon we had a genuine standard Brotherhood. No longer did we have to go to the trouble of asking the Lord to guide us in planning our programs. They were already planned for us by the experts in Memphis. These experts even gave us the official line of teaching connected with these programs. And before very long it became very clear that anyone who dared to differ with the official teaching out of Memphis was just not a very good Baptist. The time had come when all we needed the Lord to do for us was to bless what we were going to do anyway. He became unemployed so far as our Brotherhood was concerned. I lost interest real quick.

I am a great believer in the teaching ministry of the church. But I had been a Baptist for a third of a century, most of which time I had been a teacher in the church before I woke up to the fact that I had never had any occasion to join with the other members of my church in asking our Lord to guide us as to what Scriptures we should study next. Since the church is His, and since the Scriptures are His, and since He is the head of the church, who else, may I ask, has any right under heaven to tell us what we should study? I must admit that it was heart-breaking to learn that we had completely left our Lord out of this very important part of our church life. We had done it unintentionally, but we had done it just the same. But, what really made me sick at my stomach was to learn who was doing that which only the Lord of glory had a right to do. I dare say there would be a lot of other Baptists sick at their stomach too if they knew that the Communistic, Bible denying and Christ hating National Council of Churches was telling them what Scriptures to study each Sunday. When you come to see that this monstrous organization has been usurping our dear Lord’s rights, and that you have been helping to pay them $269.23 per Sunday, or $14,000 per year for doing it, it almost makes you want to vomit up your toe nails.

In case any Baptist who uses the International Uniform Sunday School lesson outlines, no matter what group he may be in, feels that I am misrepresenting the facts in this matter, I have a copy of a letter from the National Council of Churches signed by Gerald E. Knoff, Executive Secretary under date of September 29, 1960, and a copy of a telegram under date of October 26, 1964 from Gerald E. Knoff confirming my statement that they are the ones who sell these outlines. In his telegram Knoff says they are serving more than one hundred denominations. He further states that the present chairman of their committee that selects these lessons is Clifton Allen. Mr. Allen is a Southern Baptist who is currently writing the comments on these lessons in the Southern Baptist papers. The old Devil had rather have a Baptist leading his committees than to have all the gold we once had in Fort Knox. It gives him a lot of prestige, and he really loves it.

You have heard the expression, give such and such a fellow an inch and he will take a mile. The old devil will do still better than that. Give him an inch and he will take the whole thing. Baptists have permitted the experts in Nashville, Memphis, Richmond, and Atlanta to plan the church activities for them, and the experts in New York (N.C.C.) to plan their Sunday School lessons for them, but still the comments on these lessons are written by supposedly good Baptists. This should be a consolation to Baptists. but if you will look on page 38 of the Southern Baptist Sunday School quarterly for April, May and June, 1964, you will see that not only has our Lord been left out of the planning of the church activities and the planning of her Sunday lessons, but He has been completely left out of her salvation so far as her official teaching is concerned. There you can read these words, “Men will be judged by THEIR LIVES and will be separated according unto THEIR ETERNAL DESTINY” (emphasis mine). Look at those awful words as long as you wish. Then if you can find the faintest shadow of the Lord Jesus Christ, or of His Cross on Calvary, the slightest stain of the precious blood of Christ, or the least inkling of his marvelous grace and mercy, please point it out to me. I do not want to misjudge anyone, not even the old devil himself. I know that not all Southern Baptists believe and teach that kind of heresy, but after all that is their official teaching, and they are paying the Lord’s money for it. I hope no one will feel that I am just picking on any one group of Baptists. I do not know of any group that is above reproach. I am not fighting any group of Baptists. I am contending for my Lord’s precious Church and for His undeniable rights in His Church. If the truth hurts any Baptist of any group, he should do something about it.

In I Corinthians 14:34 women are told to “keep silence in the churches.” Please notice that it does not say in this church as many Baptists try to make it say. It says “in the churches.” Even the Catholic Bible, the Challoner-Rheims version says, “Thus I likewise teach all the churches of the Saints. Let women keep silence in the churches.” Every translation I have bears out the fact that every church of the Lord Jesus Christ is included in this Scripture. But in open defiance of this very plain command the pastor of an Independent Baptist church in the Miami area had his own mother to bring the morning message in his church on Mother’s Day. And to make it all the more insulting to our Lord, he had upon the front of the building the name “Bible Baptist Church.” Did the Roman soldiers who spat in our Lord’s face and plucked out His beard, treat Him any more shamefully than did these Independent Baptists who completely disregarded the plain teaching of the Bible and still called their church the “Bible Baptist Church?” I think not. But it seems that the different groups of Baptists vie with each other to see who can get the greatest distance from the truth. Not willing to let the Independents get ahead of them on this score the Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, N. C. ordained a woman (Miss Addie Davis) to the ministry. And I presume to make it really official, two professors from the Southeastern Baptist Seminary took part in the ordination service. So, we see the Independents permitting a woman to preach without being ordained. The Southern Baptists come along and ordain a woman And the Northern Baptists, not to be outdone, called this woman (Miss Davis) to pastor one of their churches in Readsburg, Vermont. For you to tell me you are this, or that kind of Baptist does not mean a thing anymore. Tell me what you believe, and what you practice.

Now that we see almost all of the Baptist churches looking to the experts to tell them what to do, when to do it, and how, should it not be easy for us to see why our precious Lord is knocking at their door? Oh yes! There is always room for Him in any of these churches if He is willing to take a back seat and look on while someone else usurps His rights as “Head over all things to the church”. But our Lord will never take a back seat in anybody’s church. If He is not head over all things to His church, He will just stand at the door and knock. And in view of the fact that His people called Baptists are, in a sense, treating Him more shamefully than did the Roman soldiers in the long ago, I challenge you to try and fathom His great love that keeps Him knocking. And, with a never dying love for our Lord’s saints in whatever group they may be found, I challenge both the writer and the reader to prayerfully consider our Lord’s headship of His church. If He is in reality the head of His church, then He, and He alone should rule His church in EVERYTHING. We should not so much as permit our much vaunted majority rule to come between our Lord and His leadership of His church. If there are twenty-five members present at a business meeting, please remember the Lord does not lead fifteen of them to vote one way and the other ten to vote another way. At least one group is wrong. So, why not wait and have a prayer meeting or two and give the Lord time to take over. You see He never gets in one of our great rushes. He takes His time and doeth all things well.

If you are happy and contented with your church’s practices, you should stay with it no matter what group it may be in, that is, if you have studied the Word and know what your church should practice. If you do not know what your church should practice, you should anoint your eyes with the eyesalve of God’s precious Word so you can see. On the other hand, if you know the Lord is being left out of your church’s activities, even though it may be unintentional, it’s high time you were looking for another church. And don’t be fooled by a church’s name. Check it by the Book. Remember it’s the Lord who should be pleased in the matter and not we ourselves.