"Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.� Ye have sown much, and bring in little...Ye looked for much, and lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it.� Why? saith the LORD of hosts.� Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house."� Haggai
Excerpts from The Torch of the Testimony
"...there are
three things which have been emphasized as a grave danger to the life of the church
and a curb on the working of the Spirit.
1. The practical refusal to recognize that life in the Spirit is the only and indispensable ground of fellowship.� Spiritual life, of course, is not simply an acknowledgement of the claims of Christ.� It is an acknowledgement which produces a divine change.� A holy life is inseparable from the possession of spiritual life, and where a practical walk which honors Christ is combined with an open acknowledgement of Him and submission to Him, there remains nothing else which should be demanded as a condition of fellowship.
2. The tendency common to all human nature to be man centered instead of God centered.� It would be difficult to over-emphasize the importance of fellowship in the life of the church.� Regeneration is essentially an entrance into a life of fellowship.� It is through the mutual dependence of fellowship in the church that God has ordained to make His mind known, but the purpose of fellowship is to enable us to see the hand of God and make us more dependent upon Him.� When the church becomes dependent upon the means of God's grace instead of upon God Himself, fellowship degenerates into dependence upon man, or hero worship, and becomes a snare.
3. The move towards centralization of control and ecclesiastical authoritarianism.� This ultimately leads to a dispute with the Lordship of Christ, for He is the Head of the church and is actively present by His Spirit in the midst of His people.� Christ alone stands as a Mediator between God and men. The church is vested with the authority to represent God to the world, but no human being or group of persons has the authority to represent God to the church, for Christ dwells there in person.� Since ecclesiastical authoritarianism detracts from the incentive to direct dependence upon God, it is not conducive to the healthy development of spiritual life, for it encourages a mechanical attitude to spiritual truth which ultimately reduces faith to a dead formalism.
As we pursue the course of the church down through the centuries, we will see these three tendencies again and again assert themselves, and the Spirit of God, hindered in His working by humanly imposed limitations, move afresh to reveal the fuller purpose of Christ on freer ground.
When that which is revealed of God is crystallized into a tradition, rigidly held and propagated with purely human energy, it becomes an impenetrable barrier to the truth.� The life of the Spirit can never be confined within the framework of religious tradition.� God is much greater than man's thoughts concerning Him, and the plant of the church grows best in a soil uncluttered by the pretty hedgerows of man's limited understanding.
Finally, a word on what the early believers were called.� The church in apostolic times maintained a plea for namelessness which has continued right up to the present day and which, in itself, would form a most interesting, historical study.� Their desire has again and again been denied them, but there has never lacked someone to espouse the cause that the Lord's name is sufficient to denote the Lord's family.� It has always seemed to be a losing battle, yet the battle still continues."
"...I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe,
though it be told you."
Habakkuk 1:5