Man-Made Yokes

[Guest]

Trey Ratcliff- http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/

Man-Made Yokes

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 1Co_12:12

Soon the old year, with its burden of record, will have passed into eternity, and the new year will have begun. Let us gather up the treasures of the past year, and carry with us into the new year the remembrance of God's goodness and mercy. Let us brighten the future by the thought of past blessings.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" (Php_2:12-13). We must cooperate with the Lord Jesus. Only thus shall we be able to accomplish our part of the work. We are to hold fast to all we gain through Christ.

O what wonderful advantages and opportunities there are for those who wear Christ's yoke! Our troubles come because we manufacture yokes for ourselves, refusing to wear Christ's yoke. He is our efficiency. He will give us power. Our part is to plant our feet firmly on the platform of eternal truth; then we may know that over us is the protection of God.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom_5:1). To be justified means to be pardoned. To those whom God justifies He imputes Christ's righteousness, for the Saviour has taken away our sin. We stand before the throne of God justified and sanctified. We are emptied of self, and, through the sanctification of the truth, Christ abides in our hearts. . . .

We are being tried and tested. May the Lord of heaven shut us in with Him, that the wicked one may have no power over us. . . .

Christ is the great Master Worker. We are laborers together with Him. He has a right to give each one his work. And let each one be sure to do the work given him. Let us do faithfully the work that the Lord has placed in our minds. He who neglects his definite work for the work that some one else has in charge is out of place. Time is lost, confidence abused and shaken, and the work hindered. When we learn to attend closely to our own special work, the Lord will help us, and all parts of His cause will move in harmony.--Letter 202, Dec. 15, 1902, to "My Dear Brethren and Sisters."

This Day With God- EGW

[skyblue888]

Istead of choosing to have a man as the church world leader, if we instead chose to have Christ and Him alone, and trusted in His merits alone for our acceptance with God and for the gift of the Holy Spirit, would He not perform His wonderful works?

sky

[Guest]

Yes but we want a king. Just like Israel of old.

[skyblue888]

yup! And the Lord gave us kings and even gave instructions to them through the prophet just as He did for Israel of old. But to too many of us this is interpreted as God's will for us to have a man as the leader of the world church just as many think that it was God's will for the Israelites to have kings until they said, "We have no king but Caezar."

In 1901 at the General Conference, the Lord spoke through Mrs. White and said, "I want a change here. I want the Holy Ghost King."

The presidency was eliminated that year but the next year it was assumed by A.D. Daniells and in 1903 it was fastened in General Conference and this order of things has continued to this day and now it is no longer questioned as if it were God's will for us to have a man as the leader of the church of Christ.

sky

[Guest]

Interesting.....

[skyblue888]

Yes Richard, very interesting to say the very least of it. To have a man as the leader of the church means that we have put God aside and accepted the devisings of men. (T.M.481) It means adopting man's constitutions with their policies, by-laws, resolutions, elections, church manuals, creeds, to bring men under the control of men.

The Early Christian Church had none of these. We know that the church of Christ in the first century did not have a general Conference with a president. Peter was not the leader--president--of the Early Church. Christ was. But the mystery of iniquity was already at work in the Early Church. 2 Thess.2:7. Diotrephes was seeking for pre-eminence. 3 John 9,10. It developed and became the papacy (Nico-laitans: to dominate over the laity) and those who opposed it (Anti-pas) were martyred.

A reform and a revival of primitive faith and godliness is supposed to bring us back to the order of things that prevailed in the Early Church before the apostasy.

That is why Mrs. White often sounded the call: "Cease ye from men. Break every yoke."

sky

[Guest]

God's plan for Israel was that it should not be a nation. We are apt to look at what was, as though it was what ought to have been, forgetting that from first to last the people refused, to a greater or less extent, to walk in the counsel of God. We see the Jewish people with judges, and officers, and all the paraphernalia of civil government; but we must remember that God's covenant provided something far different, which, on account of unbelief, they never fully realized.

The word "church" is in very common use, yet perhaps comparatively few of those who use it realize that it is from a Greek word which means "called out,"

There is but one church, for the church is Christ's body (Eph. 1. 19-23), and there is but one body. That one church is composed of those who hear and follow the voice of Christ, for Christ says: "My sheep hear My voice," "and they follow Me." {1900 E.J. Waggoner, EVCO 399,400}

[Guest]

There are two distinct classes on earth--the church and the world; but when the church forms an alliance with the world, whether formally, or by adopting the world's methods or principles, then there is really only one class--the world. By the grace of God, however, there have always been a faithful few, even in the time of greatest apostasy. {1900 EJW, EVCO 402.1}

[skyblue888]

Well done Richard. :)

[Guest]

Thank you. E.J. Waggoner said it well.