The Absolute DANGER Of Being Alone – Church Life and the Deeper Christian Life

So, there is a check built into the Christian faith. It’s the church where the church is properly born and raised. My own feeling is that we are two to three generations away from seeing proper church life because we’re going to have to have some young men and women who grow up in the best we can give them. They, in turn, working together with one another, are going to have to do a little better until there can be literally a passing on of this experience from one generation to another. I believe in the experience of the church. I think it is the most moderating, safe, secure thing that a Christian can do. That’s why you will never hear me speak on the deeper Christian life or the mysteries of our faith without speaking about the church, the body of Christ. The two cannot be separated. You will come to…if you…and you will, I know you will…and those of you who are listening, you want to know the Lord better, and you’re sitting out there alone, and there is no church life and the question that comes to me perhaps more than anything else in letters, is “What can I do, I’m out here alone,” and I would say well, experience the Lord as much as you can, and as deeply as you can. But, boy, don’t get up one day and claim you’re the Messiah or the prophet of the East. It’s better that you stand up and announce that you’re 666. You’re supposed to laugh.

You need the check of the body of Christ, but even then, I would qualify that. You need a check. You need the church. The Lord never intended to just give you the glories of the Christian life all so you can sit down like a miser and hoard the riches of Christ. I want you to know that I think that’s what most people want, and I don’t doubt there was at least one person who came here this week. Just give me the deeper Christian life so I can be blessed. Oh Lord, I want to be blessed, but within His eternal purpose is His church. The experience of Christ is to be a corporate thing, a multiple thing, because each of us can only reflect a certain element of Christ, and there’s a large portion of us that is not in any way related to the Christ who’s within us.

Now, I’m off the subject a little bit, but I think I want to pursue it just a little bit further because if someone writes and says to me, “Gene, well, what do I do? I’m living here all alone, and I need the church. I want Christ, and I need the church, but there’s no one here. Will you please send me a prophet? Or even better, send me an apostle.” Man, listen. If I could find one, I’d get him here. There are lots of apostles and prophets. The world’s full of them. I wouldn’t give you two cents for the lot. The first question I would ask them is, “Where were you when you were 22? Where were you when you were 25? Have you been, as a young man or young woman, in the body of Christ?” I wouldn’t trust many people who knock on my door and say I’m an apostle or a prophet. In fact, I wouldn’t trust anybody who would make that declaration. That in itself is arrogant and prideful.

Tom, I mean that I really don’t think too highly of the recovery of the gifts. I want the recovery of Jesus Christ. I’m really out here on thin ice, folks. I pursue this to the person who writes and says, “What shall I do?” You have one of two alternatives that I know of, and that’s to stay and relate to your Lord in the simplest way you can. Be very, very careful. The chances that you will join something and get hurt are absolutely mathematically staggering. I will only tell you my observation, an empirical observation: that every 10 people who leave a more traditional faith and join a little group, 9 out of 10 of those people get into something that does far more damage to them than good. Nine out of 10. Brother Tom, is that a reasonable from your observation, is that a reasonable, statistic?

Audience: I’d say you’re generous.

I would say I’m being very conservative. Very conservative. Audience: Better they stayed in their denomination.

Better for you to stay in the denomination. The denomination is a very safe place. Don’t undersell the structured church. That thing has got more things going for it. One of them is stability and security. The religious order of things by nature must be stable, and there’s security there, and there’s very little damage there. Alright, but the other thing you could do you can go back to your denomination or stay in it, that’s probably the smartest thing in the world to do. The smartest thing is not to ever leave. The other smart thing to do is never discover that there is a deeper Christian life. That’s the second smart thing to do, but if you’re one of these people who got to leave and you’ve got to go find the Lord in a greater reality, then you’re going to have to just stay at home and live a quiet and hidden life and get to know the Lord best you can or you’re going to have to take a tremendous gamble in associating yourself with other people, probably going to end up in great pain, and you have been warned.

Now, if you’re still determined beyond all of that, you’re still determined, then there is only one thing you can do. You are going to have to pack your bags and move somewhere. You’re going to have to move somewhere, and that stops most people. I think that’s good. I just want the wonderful Christian life. I want you to bring me a wonderful, sweet apostle to give me a wonderful Christian life, and I want it right here in my little hometown of 200 or 10,000, and I want them to come here and meet all of our needs and just forget the rest of the whole world.

You know what it takes to have a church, a really moderated, wholesome, whole church? It takes the life and death of at least one human being on this planet who gives their life forever to those people. I’m not talking about a pastor. I’m talking about some remarkable creature. Paul, as best I can tell, raised up 13 churches in his lifetime. To do it well, that would be the absolute maximum any man could ever raise up. To think you’re going to go out and found a movement with two, three, and 400 or 4,000 churches…you don’t know the fallen nature of man. You don’t know how complex this problem of the church is. It can’t be done. It takes the life and death and the suffering and the agony of at least one soul for one human being, a highly gifted human being in one town. You have to move. You have to move. Then I think one of the most tragic things that the correspondence that I read is when the dear sweet sister writes back and says,” I understand all of that, and I’m willing to do all of that, but my husband is not saved, and I just want to bow my head and cry.”

Then I see in the distance something I recognize. His name is Jesus Christ, and He’s bearing a cross, and that cross is for that sister. I don’t understand the ways of God in a situation like that. I don’t know what to say to that person. All I can say is this is your lot. Find your Lord as best you can in that situation. Well, I’d go back and say stay where you are. If you have to leave, just get out there and live a quiet and peaceful life. If you have to join a group, you’re probably going to get hurt. If you think you’ve really found a wonderful group in another city and you’re just bound and determined to move there, then move there knowing that the odds are still against you. You will probably be more damaged than helped. There’s a lot of charisma out there, folks. There is a lot of salesmanship out there, folks. We’re a long way from the restoration of the church as she ought to be, but you really feel like you found a wonderful place, and you have found that place, then you have to move. That’s a tall order, and there are not many brothers and sisters who are willing to do that.

Now, at this point, I myself develop an attitude. I may be the guy sitting here, and I hear that you’re moving here, and you think I’m here to build some super church, a big church, or even a large church. I hear somebody’s coming. I want to grab my hair and pull it out at the roots and think, Lord, what are you doing to me? What curse cometh now? I speak to you from my viewpoint. Who’s coming? Some Pentecostal who sees demons under everything? Some neurotic who’s just been let out of a mental institution? Some brother who’s been severely damaged in another group and is determined to come here, set us right, and keep us straight? Some dominant person, who by nature is domineering, and he’s coming in, and he’s going to be overpowering and overwhelming? Some young sister who says she’s coming for the Lord; she’s really coming to find a boyfriend to marry? Some young dumb single brother who’s so religious comes, and he’s got camel hair on, and he has not down to…he’s not down to one pair of shoes…he’s down to one shoe. He’s not down to a cloak; he’s down to one-third of a cloak? A young man came and lived among us, who did not believe in money; he believed it was a sin. He would not touch it, and he would not use it. Try to live with a human being who will have nothing to do with money. You have to reorient the entire universe around him.

Now I think…who’s coming now? Oh no. No. I am not a person looking for, I’m too old, I’ve been through too much. I would like to send every human being who thinks he’s coming here through six months of studies at the hands of a battery of psychiatrists who give us reams of paper telling us exactly what this thing is, and then give us the right to accept or reject. That’s how I feel.