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In another article (172) we laid claim to the fact that the agenda that seeks to make room in the church for homosexual relationships is an agenda foreign to the Bible. That makes it antagonistic to God. The agenda that seeks to push ordination for women to be in the pulpits of the church is also directly contrary to the agenda of the Bible. This also antagonizes God. Also the agenda which seeks to give the church political clout to enforce her agenda on the world is contrary to the example and teaching of Christ. This also antagonizes God. These are watershed concepts that mark out the true church from pretenders.
However, we also mentioned some other issues last time that we wish to pursue in this article. One of those is the issue of authority for the church. In the Bible, authority rests in God and His Word. Even the apostles of Jesus were subject to this authority. They commanded those who heard and read what they had to say to study the Bible and subject the teachings of every man to what they found in that Word of God. This means that even the apostles were not above the Word of God. This also means that the authority of the church has always been, and ever will be, the Word of God. This means that no human organization that calls itself a church can ever exalt tradition, men, or accepted teachings above the Word of God and the conscience of the man who is a diligent student of it. Every organization that seeks to implant its authority over the people of God by replacing the Word of God with human authorities is a false church and needs to be forsaken by every person who really wants to know God in truth.
Another of those issues that serves as an early warning of falsehood is the issue of the priesthood. Anyone who knows the Bible knows that it teaches that every believer is a priest to God in his/her own right who is called upon to offer the spiritual sacrifices identified in the New Testament. This means that every so-called church that exalts a priesthood over the so-called laymen is a false church. Jesus clearly declared that we are to call no man father in the sense of spiritual authority, yet we have churches today who exalt that word as the title of their priests. This is a direct contradiction of Jesus, and makes every organization that establishes this practice a false church. And this error is compounded by the teaching that these priests are somehow more holy because they are required to be celibate--in clear contradiction of the apostolic teaching that the leaders of the church are to be the husbands of their own wives. It is amazing how far from the Word of God traditional religion can go in its ignorance of God's command to subject every notion of man to the written Word of God.
And finally we come to the present push to ecumenical tolerance in the name of loving tolerance. Those who tolerate what God despises are not loving what God loves. They are easy to get along with because they seek in every way to be inoffensive, but in seeking the fellowship of men they abandon the fellowship of God. Paul said we could not seek to be men-pleasers and still be servants of Christ. That is, fortunately, still true today.