Jesus Christ said, "I will Build my church." Did He build it? That Church. said Jesus, would never be extinguished, "And the gates of hell [the grave]," He said, "shall not prevail against it" {Matt. 16:18}. Christ's Church is to last through all ages. Has it? Where is it, today?
Is it divided --- composed of more than 400 different, disagreeing arguing sects?
ONLY ONE CHURCH
What is a "sect"? According to Webster, it is "a group that has broken away from the established church." And all of today's host of sects or denominations have broken away from the Church originally established --- they teach different doctrines and observe different practices.
But who "established" the true church? Jesus Christ. The religious sects of the Jews --- Pharisees, Sadducee, Essene, Samaritans --- had all broken away from the true parent Testament Church He established through Moses. So Jesus when He was on earth joined none of them. On the contrary, He called His disciples out of them when He built His new Testament Church. The Greek word "ecclesia" translated "church" in English, has the meaning of "called out ones."
Every thinking person --- every denomination --- realities that, at sometime in history, there has been another great apostasy or falling away from original New testament truth. Protestants and Catholics may dispute the time of its occurrence, but they agree that it happened.
What really happened --- especially after 70 A.D --- to the church of the bible? Was it shifted to Rome? Has it ceased to exist? What did happened?
Did God's church rapidly grew big, became a [powerful organisation, exerting powerful influence on the world? Did it gradually turn to false doctrines, finally splitting up into today's hundreds of different and disagreeing sects and denominations, all founded by men, each professing to teach the truth, yet contradicting and disagreeing with the others in a modern religious Babylon?
You need to ask --- and to answer --- these questions.
It's time you know how to recognize the true church Jesus built. For the actual facts of history --- both Biblical and secular --- are astonishing. And strange to say, almost everyone --- for these past nineteen centuries --- has been looking at the wrong church, in the wrong place, for the church Jesus founded.
WORLD'S CHURCHES DECEIVED
All the prophecies foretold there would be false religion -- a world apostasy, deception and division in a counterfeit "Christianity."
Jesus foretold the very first event -- great deception -- to come on the world immediately after His day and last to a climax in ours.
"Take heed," He said, "That no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying i am Christ, and shall deceive many" (Matt. 24:4,5). Few would be true Christians. The many would come in Jesus name, proclaiming Jesus Christ, preaching Christ to the world -- yet deceiving.
Jesus had pictured this same condition, when He said: "Wide is the gate, broad is the the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto Life, and Few there be that find it" (matt. 7:13-14)
That is not what the world believes, is it? probably that is not what you have always heard, and come to assume. But it is what Christ said. How deceived this world has become.
And no wonder. For Satan himself is pictured in the bible as the "god of this world" (II cor. 4:4). He appears, not as a devil, but as a god -- as an angel of light. And in Rev. 12:9, you read of "satan, which deceiveth the whole world."
CLEVER COUNTERFEIT
Astounding? Of course it is:
Hard to believe? Yes, but it's true: How have the many been deceived? Simply by preaching about the Person of Christ -- extolling His virtues, worshiping Him, yet denying his message -- His Gospel -- by substituting pagan beliefs while preaching About Christ.
What a clever counterfeit: and many -- perhaps most -- of those so preaching in Christ's name are sincere -- themselves deceived. It is satan who has deceived even them, who has made himself the "god of this world" -- and thus is worshiped as God. This world doesn't know the true God, strange as that may seem.
And this world doesn't know the church of true God.
WHAT IS THE TRUE CHURCH?
The true church -- the "church of God" (I cor. 1:2) -- is not many divided, quarreling denominations, but One church, composed of many members perhaps geographically scattered yet united in spirit, mind, attitude and heart because they have totally surrendered their wills to God and have yielded to correction and reproof from the word of God -- the bible.
How many denominational members have been willing to admit where they have been wrong,How many allow the holy spirit to guide them into the truth? The church which Jesus is building is the collective body of those scattered individuals who have God's holy spirit, who admit it when they are wrong and who accept the truth.
You can't join the true church, only God can put you into it by his spirit. "For by one spirit are we baptized (put into) one body" (I Cor. 12:13). Joining a local church congregation does not put you into God's church. But God makes you a member of it if you surrender your life to Him, even if you j=have no local church with which to fellowship.
The true church is called the body of Christ because it is a spiritual organisation through which Christ does his worked today, and who living, active head he is, in the same sense that the husband is the head of the wife. (eph. 5:23, 31).
Jesus has purchased the members of his church individually by shedding his own blood for them (Acts 20:28). He did not die for a religious organization.
How does one enter this true church of God? -- This spiritual union?
When God's church first began on the day of Pentecost, 31 A.D, Peter gave the answer: "Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the the gift of the holy spirit" (Acts 2:38)
Now notice Jesus promise in John 16:13. He would send the spirit of truth who will guide you into the all truth"
Here is the key that proves which individuals are in God's church. It is composed only of those who are growing into truth as God reveals it. The amount anyone ceases to Grow, but wants to retain only what he had five or ten years ago, from that moment on the Holy spirit ceases to live in him. And if anyone does not have "the spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. 8:9).
THE CHURCH'S MISSION
You have never heard or read very much of the history of this church which is led by God's spirit. But how could you? For even the historians have never known where to look for the true church -- they did not even know what the true Church is.
That is not the church who grew great and conquered the Roman empire. That was not the church mission.
Christ instruction to his church through the new testament was not to participate in this world's politics and affairs in an effort to make this world a better world. Instead, His commend is "Come out from among them and be ye separate" (II Cor. 6:17).
In his final prayer for his one church, Jesus prayed: "I pray for them: I pay not for the world ... Holy father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. I have given them thy word, and the world hateth them because they are not of the world, even as i am not of the world "(john 17:9-16).
But Jesus did command His body -- the collective Body through which the spirit of God does the work of God -- to go into all the world and preach and publish His gospel. And those of his Church are described as being strangers and foreigners in this world -- as Ambassadors for Christ, representing His kingdom which is foreign to the world -- yet never being of the world.