Building ChristianHarmony

Lesson 7

July 29, 2007

Reading the Warning SignsOf

Impending Division

2 Corinthians 13:5

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

2 Corinthians 12:20

For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder.

John 17:11, 20-23

I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Putting the individual first and forgetting the role of the Church

Ephesians 2:19 - 21

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.

A growing number of cliques and factions

Acts 20:30, 31

Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.

Ephesians 6: 10 – 12

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Isolated and absent members

Hebrews 10:25

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Lack of humility and growth of arrogance (emergence of hard-liners)

Philippians 2:3-5

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Lowered emphasis on direct study of God’s word

II Timothy 4: 3,4

For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

Jesus is weeping –

With the pain of His body

Torn in many pieces.

As each bleeding part of His body

claims to be the healthy whole,

Jesus is weeping.

Jesus is weeping –

Because his beloved children

Find it so difficult to simply

Trust in His grace.

He offers a free gift;

But as His children argue

Over who can receive His gift,

Jesus is weeping.

Jesus is weeping –For His unanswered prayerThe night He was betrayed,That all who believe in Him

Would be one,And the world would know

That He was from the Father.Knowing that His followers

Have betrayed Him,Jesus is weeping.

Jesus is weeping –For all the lost souls

Who will never hear the gospelOf His grace.

Because those who would preach itAre too absorbed with arguing

Over who is saved.And His disciples

Fervently defend their disunity,Jesus is weeping.

Galatians 5: 14-15

The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.