WE ARE DIVIDED as a brotherhood in the Church of Christ, in spite of the fact that each person of each group has endeavored to the best of his ability, and in the light of God’s

Word as he understood it, to stand for what is true and right and good and honest. We have not always felt that this is true of those with whom we disagree, but we must believe it now, or for the sake of present efforts accept this as true of past efforts.

God says that when men say they love Him and cannot get along with one another, they are liars. To say it in another way - estrangement from our brother is a symptom of our estrangement from God, and to say we love God under these circumstances is dishonest.

If we believe that the unity for which Jesus prayed and about which Paul talked when he wrote to the church at Ephesus is attainable, then obviously some very vital ingredient has been missing and has eluded us in past efforts to be one.

The dishonesty that God spoke of, in that case and in ours, is not a lack of honesty with each other, but with Him. We have been honest with each other in discussing our areas of disagreement, but we have not been honest to God or to His Word in one area where we are basically agreed.

"Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness produced by the Spirit in the binding power of peace" (Eph. 4:3, Amp.).

From my earliest memory with my parents at the 26th and Spruce congregation in Kansas City, I heard that if a person would lay aside all his preconceived ideas and notions and just study the Bible, he would learn God’s will and God’s way. I continued to / believe this even through my teen years and early twenties, when

constant turmoil and debate in the church caused me to stop attending as soon as I could find an excuse. After returning and obeying my Lord in baptism in 1943, I continued to encourage men to follow this course as I worked with several congregations, actively teaching Bible school classes, filling the pulpit as opportunity presented its6lf, teaching home classes, and organizing personal evangelism programs.

Almost five years ago circumstances placed me in the role of full-time, congregation-supported elder. At that time the minister suggested that I set aside time each day to familiarize myself with Scripture in all areas. With my background I felt that this was really not necessary, but decided I would try to study as I had always encouraged others - as though I had never read it before and had no interests to guard.

My first discovery was that I had always read and studied to confirm what I already believed and, try as I might, that was still the case. This bothered me somewhat, and I asked God to make such a study possible in my life. To help Him out, I secured some translations that I was not so familiar with as the King James Version. As I began anew, I discovered that many passages did not say what I had always thought they said. Attributing this to the difference in translation, I went back to the Authorized, but it was different also. God had heard and was answering.

I went to my fellow elders, told them what was happening, and urged that we study together. I could already see that if I continued in this vein, a gulf would be formed between us. Also, I needed them, their ideas, and their support and stability. Enough of what I had founded my faith on was slipping away, or being snatched away from me by God, that I was alarmed and concerned. We were never able to study together, however, and I knew then that I must rely solely upon God. I stayed in His Word; there was no other place, and no other place was needed.

Parts of Scripture that I had read and pondered over for years, and applied to others, became alive and convicting to me; they had my name on them.

I was told that I could not be addressed as a spiritual man, but as a man of the flesh, as a babe in Christ; that I had been fed with milk not solid food, because I was not ready for it, and that even yet I was not ready, because I was still of the flesh. I was told that so long as there was jealousy and strife between me and others for whom Christ died, I had not been looking to Him but to ordinary man (I Cor. 3:3).

Here, after many years, I stood convicted as a carnal believer. Even in presenting God’s Word I had relied on my skill and my manipulation of the minds of others to get my points across.

God, through His Word, told me that the unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit for they are folly to him, and that he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. This did not bother me greatly, because I had accepted the gifts for their role and purpose in the early church. What did bother me was the fact that when I used the portion of Scripture dealing with the inner workings of a congregation where the gifts were present, as I had always done in the past, it didn’t seem to be talking about the situation in which I found myself. What I had been calling gifts were the natural talents and abilities that each member possessed being utilized for the Lord’s work. These were indeed gifts but they left the non-Christian every bit as gifted as the Christian, and the Christian using talents he had that had made him such a "good prospect." Here again, I stood convicted. This time, rather than finding myself labeled by the Lord as a carnal believer, I had to admit to standing with the natural man - an unbeliever.

As I explored statements by Jesus and the recorders of Scripture, I became aware of the binding power of unbelief and the surpassing power of God which was promised to those who believe. I saw that, as the great commission was given to the apostles, power and equipment was provided them for the task. If the commission given them was for all believers, was not the equipment for accomplishment given to all believers? Jesus said, "He who believes in me will do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father." He also said, "These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. Here again I sat in the seat of the unbeliever.

I returned to Acts 2, where Peter applied Joel’s prophesy to the era beginning at that time and extending to the Lord’s return. I read that Jesus had been raised by God to His right hand, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out that which they saw and heard. I read that the promise is to them, to their children, and to all

that were afar off, even to everyone whom the Lord God called to Himself.

As I continued in Acts to examine the cases of conversion, I could no longer discern the clear-cut, five-step plan. If it was a sequenced series of steps, I was forced to increase the number of steps to at least six and include the elementary first principle step of "laying on of hands." What I had always been taught, and had taught myself concerning the reception of God’s Spirit at the time of immersion, did not take place at Samaria nor Ephesus. It did not

happen to Saul in this way, neither at Pentecost or at Cornelius’ house. These were special cases, I realized that; but I came to see that there are no cases that are not special cases to the Lord. That baptism in the Holy Spirit, if recognizable by the evidences attributed to it, was not limited to twice once for Jew and once for Gentile - but took place whenever men and women, in faith, staked their all on Jesus. Jesus was the one who baptized - the element was the Holy Spirit.

In Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, he referred to the age or era in which we live as "the dispensation of the Spirit" and termed it as permanent, accompanied by great splendor. He also said that when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed and that the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

I had turned to the Lord, the veil was lifting and I could see that I had not accepted the Lord in this way because I hadn’t believed it possible. I re-examined all the scripture that had been used on me, and that I had used on others, to show why the age of miracles was past. These passages did not say what we had claimed - rather they said and taught just the opposite. When re-reading the commentaries and books our brotherhood had prepared on the subject, it had the same effect on me as the appendix and footnotes in the New World Translation published by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Just as they had been forced to write a new scripture to strip Christ of the position and authority Jehovah God had given Him, we had used truth to teach error in order to explain the absence of an active Lord among an unbelieving people. We had deprived the Spirit of His role and place among us.

Since I was "Paul-oriented," I went to examine his approach again. "Do all to the glory of God," he said. "Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me as I am of Christ." His stated ambition was to preach the Gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest he build on another man’s foundation, but to fulfill the prophecy, "They shall see who have never been told of him, and they shall understand who have never heard of him." Paul said Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the Gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Paul quotes Isaiah’s prophesy, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the

How did I stack up in light of these few statements of Paul? I had been offensive and was part of a group noted for its offensiveness. Paul - imitated Christ by allowing himself to be used as God’s instrument and vessel, relying totally on God’s faithfulness and the equipment he had received from God’s hands. He went to those who did not know who Jesus was, and when he got there he preached Christ and Him crucified. I had attempted to mimic the actions of Paul and Jesus and parrot their words; the life, the anointing by God, and the power were not there. Further, what I and those around me had been able to come up with, we had presented, in nearly every case, to those who already had some knowledge of Jesus. Furthermore, in many cases I had questioned their right to trust in Jesus or even claim to, because they did not accept baptism as I understood it.

Filled with a lifetime of distrust of those in the denominations, and surrounded by those with whom I could no longer communicate because of their distrust in me—where was I to go? Whom should I contact?

God had taken over. He sent letters from people I had never heard of in our brotherhood who were experiencing the same judgment at the Lord’s hand. He sent personal testimony from those who had sought Him in the fulness described in Scripture. He sent some of these joyous disciples to me.

While laying new flooring in some East New York apartments soon to be occupied by Christians who had chosen to serve in that area, a young man with glowing countenance told me about his Jesus - what his Jesus had done for him and was continuing to do - a story that I could never have taken seriously a year before.

The next day, I asked him to my office. I still had doubts, questions; I still reacted to what I had always associated with people who held these views. In spite of all this, I decided that I would restate my case against tongues and their value, and then expose myself to the laying on of hands if I could persuade him to pray for me, and with me, that I might receive more of what I could see Scripture promised those who believe and trust God.

To my surprise he knew why he was there - he had known before he came to West Islip. (He never told me this; I later discovered it from other sources.) He explained to me that I might or might not feel that anything happened when he prayed but that I would, if not immediately, within a short period receive some manifestation of the Spirit, as enumerated in I Corinthians 12. As he laid his hands upon me and we prayed together, I felt an intense penetrating warmth pass from him to me and the sensation of electrical flow, as best as I could describe it. I knew that feeling wasn’t necessary, but whatever it was, it was as real as anything I had ever experienced. However, I didn’t burst forth in tongues as others said they had.

Before we prayed I had expressed my needs and had listed the gift of faith, the gifts of discernment and wisdom. The next few days were wonderful days. They were different, and I was filled with wonder and questioning, trying to determine which of the gifts I had sought that I had received. Again I had missed the boat, but this time I had placed myself into the hands of One who hadn’t.

I had asked for gifts but He saw my need as Life, and that is what He gave. I was a new creature! I had been born again. The great physician had completed the delivery—a breach birth of over 20 years duration. I had accepted His blood but not His Spirit. As in physical birth, even though there is life in the womb, and the heart is beating, the process is not complete until the baby is out in the world and breathing deeply of the air that the blood must have. A part of me came alive that I had never even truly been aware of before. "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." This area of the soul is the outer nature that must be allowed to waste away, the Adamic nature that is ours by physical birth, the realm of walking by sight, where "seeing is believing" and the attainment of God’s favor is by physical exertion and intellectual attainment and a fear of the dangers of "faith only." The area of the spirit is our inner nature that must be renewed every day, the divine nature that is ours by spiritual birth, the realm of walking by faith, where believing is seeing, the attainment of God’s favor is upon Christ’s merit, and where the surpassing love of Christ is ours as fear is cast out.

"Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me." To the degree that we open the door, He will come in.