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

I want to say something to that brother. Have you ever lived in common? Come down out of that pulpit and start living with those people and find out how complex the soul is. Find out how damaged human nature is. You can preach till you’re blue in the face. You can preach for a thousand years to the human soul, and the damage that it has known will hardly be affected by preaching. That is an old Greek concept that came into the Christian faith through Diogenes. The power and the glory of the pulpit and the power of preaching on Sunday morning. Fooey, let that guy take his coat off and his tie off and then come down and live with his people. I mean, live in the same building with them and watch his preaching turn out to be foolishness as far as the needs of God’s people are concerned.

That’s what I mean when I say the church of the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t know anything about the spirit, won’t touch the soul, and doesn’t know anything about helping the body, and so, we’re not really much past the starting gate. Here it is 2,000 years later. I think the first century was one of the greatest miracles that God ever had. Those people understood the spirit. They understood the other realm. They understood life forms. They understood things outside of time and space. They cared for the soul with an insight we have not yet caught up with, and they took care of the body. Maybe not as much as they did the other two, but they gave space for it.

Do you wish to pursue this subject further? You don’t have to. We usually stop here at conferences. We bless you with our knowledge of the Bible, and we point you to the glories of Christ, and you light up like a little Christmas tree bulb, and you say, “Oh, that was really wonderful. We had such a great time up there. It was great. You ought to go hear him.” Oh, we were so helped. That’s not going to move mountain saints. That is not down where the battle is. We can stop here, and you’re all going to love me, but if we go beyond this point, it’s kind of like that. Beware all those who go beyond here. Where’d that come from? That’s Dante’s Divine Comedy, I believe, as they’re about to enter purgatory. Beware, all who go beyond here, because from here on it gets serious.

The truth of the matter is that the soul is damaged. I’m coming back to my positional truth. Now, you can “positional truth” the soul from here to the kingdom and back, and it won’t change the fact that the soul is deeply damaged. Beyond all understanding, it is damaged. I intend to see these things restored to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I intend to do my part in seeing the house of God meet God’s people on every level God intended for them to be met.

Now, if you go beyond this point with me today, you’re going beyond what you’re normally exposed to. You’d better go back to your room and maybe talk to your roommate about whether you want to stay through Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, because the joy is over. We’re going to get down, and we’re going to get where it’s at. We’re going to get right to where the brass tacks and the rock bottom come to. Okay? And come back to what we’re talking about today.

We have seen the wonderful way the Lord Jesus Christ lived. He lived by a Life not His own. He had a soul untouched, but He gave us the church, His church, His body. He gave us the communion of the fellowship of the saints with God, quite similar to what He had with the Father. So that we who have a spirit in great shape might also see an avenue for God to make progress in a damaged soul.

I just want you to remember that our soul is a little bit damaged, like maybe a truck fell on it. If you are coming all the way back to the beginning of this conference and are interested in the deeper Christian life, you cannot stop with the good feelings you get from being in your spirit. You’ve got to realize that the thinking must be changed, the feeling must be changed, the doing must be changed, but oh, the interpersonal relationships…so much about us that is damaged has got to be normalized, and if not normalized, smoothed a little bit.

And Joe, for me, in my house, we’re going to fight on all fronts. I would like to see the church back being what she ought to be. Thank you.