Transformation Part 2: The Renewing of the Mind: – From Inner Renewal to Church Building

Now, why is this important? What difference does it make? Why be on the altar? Why set your mind on the Spirit? Why be rid of the world, and why speak about the outward dealing of the outward man? Because, brothers and sisters, when you come to this matter of being membered, this is the real transformation. And it is the real dealing of the Lord with us. This is when God gets what he wants. In a practical way. This is real. This is not a test. This is real. For the Lord has His eternal purpose, that you be built up together.

Now then, brothers and sisters. It’s very, very hard to take a big rock like this that’s round, and a little rock that’s half square, and another in this oblong, and fit them all in together. The Lord has to hew here and hone here and cut here and file here. Chisel here and sand there and whittle here, that they might all fit together.

Now, brothers and sisters, when I came to visit you two months ago, it was the worst thing that ever happened to you. I really mean that. You couldn’t have had a greater disaster. If you had just continued the way you were, kind of here together, fellowshipping, I promise you one of two things would have happened. Someone among you, out of the distress of being kind of unglued, someone would have raised up kind of as a minister, or there would have been some sort of split, or both. We have watched this all over America and all over the world. And it happens all the time. Do any of you have a Schofield Bible? Read the preface. It is an amazing thing. Have you ever read it? It speaks of…this is in the 1800s…it speaks of people having Bible studies all over America. At the turn of the century, there were thousands of people getting out of the so-called organized church, and the big thing then was Bible study classes. They sprang up everywhere, and the Schofield Bible was created to meet the needs of all these Bible studies meeting in homes. And brothers and sisters, they are gone today. Well, there may be one or two left on this whole planet. They are utterly gone. They sat there and studied the Word, and they read the Word, and they got to know the Bible, and the more Bible they knew, the more they were divided. Out of some of these old Bible studies groups have grown up the Baraken Church, the Berean Church, and what are called the Bible Churches, and the Independent Churches. As people came in and took over the Bible studies and turned them into churches by some men coming in and acting as preacher.

This has been the story over and over and over. Brothers, there was on this earth at one time a group of people who made a real recovery of the church. They are called the Brethren, the Plymouth Brethren. They were never large, but they made one big mistake, or two big mistakes. They did not take Christ as life, they took the Bible as doctrine, and they never saw that the church was practically, locally one. If you don’t see that the church is one and that we are to represent the Lord in oneness, then I can get mad at you and you can get mad at me, and I can get my marbles, and I’ll go home. And they saw Bible study as the way of transformation. Nobody on earth has ever known the word of God like the Plymouth brethren. This is incredible. They began in the 1800s; by the year 1900, there were 500 splits, and by 1960, there were 1500 splits. These people got closer to the recovery of the church than any group of people has since the first day, but they took the Bible as doctrine instead of Christ as life. And they would not be transformed by the consuming of the outer man.

Brothers and sisters, the Lord will have his way in you if you are in the church. The Lord began to teach this lesson to me sovereignly when I was seven years old. I didn’t realize this until years later. When I was a little bitty boy, I was in an organized denominational church. And one night, my family and I came into the meeting, and there was a big, vicious hassle. They tried to vote the preacher out. As long as I stayed in these churches, every year or two, there was a great, big fight. You know what the fight was over? It was over love for the Lord. I love the Lord; we’re not going to let them do this to our church. We love the Lord. That piano is going to stay on that side of the room because we love the Lord. We ain’t love this church too much to see this go on like that, but we’re going to put the piano over there.

I ask you, where’s the transformation? In the organized system, there is never a transformation; there is only splitting. All of a sudden, I don’t like you. I just don’t like this sister. And soon the friction builds up between us. “I don’t like him, do you?” Brother, did you know about this sister over here? Did you hear what she said?” And then I get over here, and boy, am I renewed in the mind. This was the first thing she did; oh, that was so terrible. And the second thing, I should have said to her, such and such…how could anyone do that? And I begin to resent this sister, and not only do I begin to resent her, but I take this resentment home with me, and I nurse it. As far as that goes, I adopt it and take it to live with me. I feed it and clothe it, and I just nourish it and grow it up until I can get it just as big as I can. I find every reason in the world to add more and more logic and more and more reason why I don’t like you. Then this thing begins to fester and grow, and pretty soon, there is real division. Well, maybe it’s just hard feelings, but it counts. There’s a little rent that can easily break later under pressure. Brothers and sisters, this story is as old as the second century. It’s been happening over and over and over.

Brothers and sisters, you have come together here, and the Lord is going to… I’m not telling you that you have to do anything. The Lord is going to press you, mold you, and break you. And transform you, and conform you, and he is going to build you up, but it’s going to take burning. A very dear spiritual brother once told a brother, he said, “Brother, you must get married, and you have to have two children.” And he wasn’t teasing. This brother came to him, and He said, “You’ve got to get married and you have to have two children, otherwise, the Lord will never have his way.” Brothers and sisters, when you come to the Lord in the church, to live by him as your life and to have the church, you have to come and consecrate yourself to the Lord, for whatever dealings there may be. The Lord may send persecution or suffering, but I promise you…I can’t promise you that…but I promise you that you are going to have to be chiseled and sanded and whittled and burned. You don’t have to do anything; all you have to do is be in the church.

The church in itself, brothers and sisters, is the transformation. For what is the church? The church is nothing in the world but Jesus Christ, and everything that is not the church is not Christ. And brother, God wants to build up something here that will reflect Him. And over and over and over, He, from the outward working inward, with the circumstances, whittles away the things that are not Christ. And inside, inside, you are touching him and turning to him and being renewed in the spirit of your mind by Him, and the Lord is working, with your cooperation, from the inside out. He whittles the outside in, and He renews from the inside out, until there is a group of brothers and sisters who have the Lord as their everything together. I promise you, all you have to do is come to Him. You don’t start working on this. Oh, what am I going to do to be built up? Relax; that’s all you have to do. What am I going to have to do to be transformed? Relax. God will do it. This is not something you’re going to have to do, but it is something you’re going to have to be willing to go along with.

I just want to say to you sisters and brothers that everybody’s ready to do this. Oh Lord, I’m just willing to be adjusted to this brother over here. I’m just going to go along, Lord. When I need to know the Lord’s temporal will about a matter, I’m going to come over here and I’m going to fellowship with a couple or three sisters, and this you have to do. You have to do it. You come and fellowship, and you pray together. You don’t talk. You come and bring your burden, and you pray. Now, the proper way to do it – sister Sandy comes to these three sisters, and she has a real burden before the lord. So, the proper way is for the sisters to just pray together and bear the burden. But I will tell you this: if the sister is not very transformed, and she says, “Sandy, you’ve got to do so and so, and so and so, and so and so, and so and so.” Sandy, if you’re proper, what will you say? Dear sister, you see, you are a new Christian in the Lord…and is that what you do? Sister, if you really want the Lord to make fast haste with you, you’ll say, “Amen,” and do it. You’ll just go on, even if you feel she’s wrong. You say, Gene, that’s crazy. That’s absolutely insane. That’s against all logic, rhyme, and reason. I agree.

Now then, sister, it may be that you cannot go along with this sister; alright, don’t go along with it. I assure you that the Lord will work it out sovereignly, but I believe, sister, the day will come, maybe a year later, you’ll say, “You know, that was a young sister in Christ, she didn’t know anything, but she was right in the Lord.” It’s best to go along with the brothers and sisters. Now, what about these two brothers right here? Sister Sandy comes over here and calls the ships with them, and they pray together, and maybe the sisters feel Sandy should do so and so. It’s not wise for the sisters to really have an opinion, but let’s say they do. And Sister Sandy says, not on your life. Then what happens? Do these two brothers say, “Sandy is in the soul. She’s rebellious. She’s acting independent. Well, brother, so are you.

We mustn’t do that. Do you see what I’m trying to say? I’m trying to say, brothers, you get your fellowship with the brothers and sisters. You pray with them. You get built up with them. You go along with them. Together you learn, for none of us know anything about the Lord. And we are learning together. And if a brother can’t go along, he can’t go along. He’ll learn his lessons. Relax. God is sovereign. Don’t throw rocks. Don’t talk about it. He goes along. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. If he doesn’t go along, that’s just as good, maybe a little better. I assure you, maybe even a little better.

I told you once here, someone said…we were talking about Matthew 18, and two or three come together, trying to work out a problem…and someone said, What if you’ve got your friends together and ganged up against them? I assure you, if the church here in Goleta is properly built up, there won’t be a friend left in this room. This brother and this brother love one another very much. Brother, if the Lord really has his way in the church, you two guys will stop being friends. Do you know what I mean? Do you really know what I mean? I trust, brothers, that one day you too will have a falling out. I really hope so. For the Lord’s sake, I hope you have a falling out. Let me illustrate what I mean.