Are You A Religious Drunkard?
Maurice M. Johnson
Circa 1940
When a man thinks he sees two light poles where there is only one, or drives his car back and forth across the center line on the highway, he is usually judged to be drunk - intoxicated with liquor.
What about denominational preachers who think they see two (or more) Christian churches (different kinds) in the Bible? They tell us that "there is one, true, spiritual, invisible church but there are many local visible Christian churches." Part of the time these clergymen profess to walk "in the Spirit" and part of the time as visible Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterian, "Assemblies of God," "Christian," "Church of Christ" (Campbellite), Roman Catholic, or Fundamentalists, etc.
"They are drunk; but not with wine." Isa 29:9"Drunk with the wine of her fornication." - Rev. 17:2"Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils; They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water," - Jer. 2:12-13.If there is only "one, true, spiritual church" then, of course, the so-called "visible" churches are not "true" and they are not "spiritual." Since the Lord Jesus Christ is building only one church, the one concerning which He promised: "Upon this rock I will build my church," who but a "drunk" could think He is building any one of these man-made, local churches - to say nothing of the 666 varying, competing, sectarian corporations called Christian Churches?
If you think sectarian preachers are not drunk with Rome's Babylonish brew, get one to explain Acts 7:48 and 17:22 "the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands." He will say he agrees perfectly with that, but he will turn right around and contend that his Baptist steeple house (or Roman or Campbellite) is "a house of God" or a "sanctuary." Then, when faced with the clear revelation as to exactly where God does dwell (on earth) today, namely, in the hearts of saved sinners (2 Cor. 13:5) the reeling cleric will lunge into that lane as though he were actually driving there.
Many comparatively honest and sincere people are disgusted with the sorry spectacle that sectarian religion is presenting with its increased emphasis on machines rather than men; physical loveliness instead of spiritual love; and gold rather than God. And the devil is using this older and more evidently money-controlled "churchanity" to drive thousands of discouraged souls into newer sects and cults whose unspiritual machinery and counterfeit Christianity are not yet so obviously entrenched and enriched by the world, the flesh and the devil. The Watchtower cult, falsely called "Jehovah's Witnesses," is a sickening example.
The cure for those who have become intoxicated on the "aged" liquors of "the mother of harlots" and her older daughters, is not to go up some creek and get the utterly poisonous "bootleg likker" of Russell, Judge Rutherford, Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith, Mrs. Ellen G. White, Kansas City's canned "Unity," or Herbert W. Armstrong of Pasadena, California.
The sole cure of those addicted to "the wine of her fornication" is to go to "the pure blood of the grape." - Deut. 32-14. This is the "wine that is without money and without price." - Isa. 55:1. The Lord Jesus Christ is "the true vine" (John 15:1) from which this life-giving and life-sustaining "drink" comes. "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit/" - Eph. 5:18. The name of this true church is "Christ." 1 Cor.12:12.
According to God's clear Word there is but one, true spiritual church; but to contend that it is only invisible is either dishonest or inexcusably ignorant. Christ said "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if you have love one to another." John 13:35. And again, "By their fruits shall ye know them." - Matt. 7:20. Is this glorious, nine-fold fruit of the Spirit "invisible": "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance"?? - Gal. 5:22-23.
When a broken-hearted sinner calls on the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and salvation, that penitent believer is instantly born again. "For the wages of sins is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." - Rom. 6:23; 10:13. And that gracious miracle or new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17) makes him a living member of the one, true, spiritual church. "For in (by) one Spirit are we ALL baptized into one body ..." - 1 Cor. 12:13. See also Eph. 1:22-23.
You who "judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24) can readily see that this Christ-honouring message in no sense ignores anything that God is doing in the lives of individual Christians in the man-made sects in spite of their unscriptural "unequal yokes." - 2 Cor. 6:14.