A Clear Vision of God’s Church

I felt my burden to labor where I was beginning to lift. The Lord led me to make a long trip, attending meetings in different congregations and distributing literature. Toward the end of this effort, I prayed earnestly that God would direct me where I should live and labor next. I was plainly directed to a certain congregation, and it was in that place that I first plainly and clearly saw the church of God functioning as it should.

There, for the first time, I sang the songs with the understanding (1 Corinthians 14:15); songs about the church of God in the beginning of our hymnal, “Evening Light Songs” (a compilation of many songs from the 1880 holiness reformation). I was conscious that I was seeing the reality in the songs in the reality of the services which I attended. The glory of the church that Jesus built filled my soul.

“ ’Twas sung by the poets, foreseen in the spirit,
A time of refreshing is near;
When creeds and divisions would fall to demerit,
And saints in sweet union appear.

“We stand in the glory that Jesus has given,
The moon, as the dayspring doth shine;
The light of the sun is now equal to seven,
So bright is the glory divine.

“Now filled with the Spirit and clad in the armor
Of light and omnipotent truth;
We’ll testify ever, and Jesus we’ll honor
And stand from sin Babel aloof.

“The prophet’s keen vision, transpiercing the ages,
Beheld us to Zion return;
We’ll sing of our freedom, though Babylon rages,
We’ll shout as her city doth burn.”*

These words rang in my heart (and ring yet) with the same inspiration as when they were first written. I had believed in God’s church, that the ministers saw eye to eye, that the teachers taught with anointing and fed the soul, that a clear and definite standard of holiness and deliverance to holiness was held high, that there was definite unity of the hearts in God; but for the first time, I saw a congregation of God’s church in action. It was beautiful, and it was glorious. For the first time, I was pastored according to Jeremiah 3:15 and 23:4, and it was very different from my parents’ congregation. The only way to tell the difference between a skillful counterfeit and the genuine is to experience the differences of both, and I have had the wonderful privilege of having my soul fed Sunday after Sunday on the well-balanced and nutritious food of heaven. What a difference it makes in one’s spiritual health!

The spirituality of the congregation, both laity and leadership, showed itself in many ways. Both my wife and I were accustomed to an all-pervading “grapevine” throughout most of the congregations of this movement. She had grown up with it. There were kinfolk ties everywhere, and they talked about everything with one another. Anything said in an unguarded moment would go everywhere, especially if it was something shameful or scandalous. This is a great disgrace and disregards the Bible (Proverbs 11:13; 1 Timothy 5:13), but it was a reality. My wife, supposing that things were no different in this church of God congregation, mentioned something to someone. She thought it would get passed around in the usual way. The grapevine could thus be used as a public announcement system. Nothing was heard of the matter. She told someone else. Again, nothing was heard of the matter. People in this congregation did not gossip; they were careful with what they saw and heard. In this characteristic and many others, they were quite different from many other congregations in the church movement.

Naturally, they were talked about and criticized. They didn’t fit with the others. Numerous people in other congregations were very upset that we went there. One person said that people that went there lost their ability to see themselves. The ministry from that congregation was condemned by popular opinion. In accordance with 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, the ministry from that place did not fit well with the fleshly wisdom and philosophy that had arisen in many other places.

But while others talked, resisted, and condemned, the sheep in that place were well fed. The preaching was “down where you lived,” and there was a definite line between right and wrong that made it possible to get a real deliverance (Jeremiah 15:19). In many other places, the “gray” area between right and wrong was so broad, and the line was so blurred, that sincere ones trying to find deliverance would just flail around. One of the brethren who taught Sunday School in that congregation had escaped from a falling congregation at great cost. He lived a life above reproach. When he died, his foreman at his place of work asked for permission to speak at his funeral. “This man was a saint,” this man of the world said. Another older couple said that they would have been divorced if they had not gotten saved. Their one great regret was that they found the Lord later in life after their children were grown, and therefore had not opportunity to raise them in the fear and nurture of the Lord. The man and wife were extremely different in their temperaments—practically incompatible. It was not hard to see why they said they would have ended up in the divorce court without salvation. But God had so worked in their lives that they were very careful and gentle with each other in their differences. Another sister had been mistreated by her husband pitifully. She had to raise a large number of children by herself, while desperately poor and in extremely fragile health. But spiritually, she shone like a lighthouse. Her faith in God was unshakable. Another older, widowed sister had been taken against her will to the doctors by her unsaved children. The pastor said, “We do wrong when we meddle with God’s plan. I believe that Sister —— would have been taken home to glory at that point, but God allowed her children to interfere.” The sister suffered for many years as a result of the children’s actions, but her life was a reproach to her children’s lives. She continued to live for God in the face of their disobedience and unbelief. And so it went. The entire congregation was full of people with holy testimonies, which emerged publicly every now and then, and there were many in that place that either yielded to the Lord or went away unwilling to pay the cost of a real experience.

A real vision of God’s church will spoil you for sectism forever. How we would plead with you to stop playing religion and get down to business with God! The vision of Zion that God has built filled my heart. “Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments. Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.”* (Psalms 48:11-14) I resolved to be loyal to nothing else than the doings of my God; I have no interest in the works of the hands of men.

“From Babel confusion most gladly I fled,
And came to the heights of fair Zion instead;
I’m feasting this moment on heavenly bread;
I’ll never go back, I’ll never go back.
The beast and his image, his mark, and his name,
My love or allegiance no longer can claim,
Though men may exalt them to honor and fame;
I’ll never go back again.”*

I resolved to be true to God no matter what the cost. I consecrated to be true to God and the vision of His way that He had given to me even if all others forsook it. I still feel that way.