John
Chapter 17
is a profound message. It shows us the
relationship of Jesus to the Father, of Jesus to
those who followed Him, and
to those yet to come (us). It is humbling and
comforting to know that our Lord Jesus had us on
his mind just hours before He made the greatest
sacrifice ever given. He did this for you and He
did it for me. Why? Because we are His. Because
He loves us. So that we can have a joyful
reunion with Him very soon. And, soon we will.
Many use
John 17 to promote “unity” between people of all
faiths. This is a perversion of God's word and
when we see the message of unity in
John 17 being misued to
promote interfaith religion. John 17 is a
message of unity with
other believers of the one
true God, the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the meaning of
that “oneness” that Jesus was frevently praying
for. In the 20th century and into the 21st
century, efforts are being made to bring
all of the churches back together again. This is
called the ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT. Those involved
in this movement are saying things like this:
"LET’S ALL
UNITE. Let’s FORGET OUR DIFFERENCES and all join
together!"
"We must
LOVE ONE ANOTHER and be divided no more!"
"It does
not matter what we believe, AS LONG AS WE CAN
ALL BE ONE!"
This is
where the physical churches are today. We must
understand that this is not Biblical. But
remember, truth must never be
sacrificed for the sake of UNITY.
TRUTH is more important than
UNITY. Truth is found in the Word of God, and
not distorted or twisted for those who
self-servingly use it to promote false religion
or doctrines. Which is more pleasing to God--to
stand on the truth even if you are all alone or
to stand on error along with thousands of
others?
We must
never THROW AWAY THE BIBLE so that we can have
unity! When the Lord Jesus prayed for His church
He made this request: "THAT THEY ALL MAY BE
ONE.” (John 17:21).
What happened? Why do
we not have a united, unified Church on earth
today? Why do we find the churches DIVIDED
instead of UNITED?
These
divisions do exist and we need to recognize them
and understand them. God did not bring about
these divisions; man
did. These schisms and divisions
exist BECAUSE OF MAN...man’s ignorance ,
man’s failure, man’s pride, man’s lust for power
and position, man’s selfishness, man wanting to
do his
ownthing in
hisown
way
Divisions
come about because of
MAN'S FAILURE TO STAY RIGHT WITH GOD.
If men would maintain a right relationship with
God then they would also be in a right
relationship with each other and there would be
a UNITY and a ONENESS. In order for men to have
fellowship with each other, who must they
first
have fellowship (1
John 1:3)? with our Heavenly
Father!
In the
days of the early Church, would you find
thousands and thousands of different
denominations and groups and churches all
teaching different things? If you were to visit
the church at Corinth and the church at
Jerusalem and the church at Antioch, what would
you find? Would you find three different
churches all "doing their own thing"? No,
instead you would find three churches each
pointing to the same
Christ,
proclaiming the same gospel
and practicing
the same truth.
The
churches were in different locations but they
each had the same
Christ, the same Holy Spirit, the same Holy
Scriptures and the same burning desire to do
God’s will and obey Christ’s commands.
If you had lived in the first century and had to
move from Philippi to Ephesus, you would have
found the same kind of church in Ephesus as you
had left in Philippi.
If an
unsaved person were to travel from Rome to
Thessalonica, he would not say, "Oh, this church
in Thessalonica is so very different from the
church in Rome." No, instead he would say, "The
believers here in Thessalonica are just like
those I knew in Rome!"
Believers in both of these
cities pointed to the same Christ and to the
same Bible.
This is the way believers are
to be today. I ask,
what has changed? God has not.
Today the
situation is quite different than it was in the
first century. Many churches have moved away
from the Bible and moved away from the God of
the Bible. Churches have been divided and have
split and new churches have formed. Today there
are thousands of different kinds of churches.
Some of these churches are good, and many are
not so good. Some churches today still believe
and teach the Bible. Many other churches no
longer believe the Bible (even though they may
still use the Bible or read from the Bible), and
they do not teach people what the Bible says
about how to get to heaven.
The devil has
successfully brought about much confusion in our
day. People look
at all the different kinds of churches and all
the different kinds of religions and they say
things like this:
"There are
so many churches, and they all believe different
things, so I suppose it does not really matter
what a person believes."
"All of
these churches are telling people how to get to
God, so there must be many ways to get to God."
"All of
these churches interpret the Bible differently.
The Bible seems to mean different things to
different people. The Bible must be a very
confusing Book!"
"All these
churches teach different things. Who can know
the truth? Who can know what is right?"
God has
not changed. The Bible has not changed. The
truth has not changed, but the devil has done
very well at causing confusion and the truth of
God seems lost in the middle of all the mess!
What would
you say to someone who said, "There are so many
religions that it seems impossible to find out
what the truth really is"?
How would
you answer this: "It is all right to believe
anything you want to believe as long as you are
sincere!"?
Never
LEAVE the TRUTH.
If others want UNITY they must come and stand on
the truth
with you. Never sacrifice the TRUTH for
anything. Never LEAVE
THE TRUTH for the sake of UNITY
(this is what the ecumenical movement is doing
today). Always stand
on the Bible. If others want to
stand with you, that’s fine. If not, don’t leave
where you are standing to join them!
We
need to be so right and so true that those who
are wrong will find it necessary to break off
from us.Those
who are hindering and hurting the cause of true
Christian unity are those who REFUSE to stand
faithfully and obediently upon all of the Word
of God, from Genesis to Revelation.
Remember,
many people walked away from the Lord Jesus
because they refused to stand on the truth and
follow the Lord’s teaching. This is illustrated
in John Chapter 6.
Nothing
that happens takes God by surprise. He knows all
about the failures of men. God can even use such
divisions in His grace. In
Galatians 3:28 we read:
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither bond (slave) nor free, there is neither
male nor female for ye are all ONE in Christ
Jesus."
Will you
stand on God's word? Will you have the
relationship with Him that He wants?
The Lord
God certainly wants unity and oneness. This is
what the Lord prayed for (John
17:21-23 and see
Ephesians 4:3-6,13).
In the future kingdom age there will not be
hundreds of different religions on earth. There
will be a UNITY of worship because all will
worship the KING OF KINGS (see
Zechariah 14:16), and
those who do not worship God’s King in God’s way
will be punished (see
Zech.14:17-19). See also
Isaiah 2:1-3.
No cults or false
religions will be allowed on the face of the
earth.
During the
tribulation period there will also be a UNITY of
worship, but this will be the wrong kind of
worship. The man of sin (ANTICHRIST) will not
allow other religions. (see
Revelation 13:4,8,12,15,16)
Often
people will UNITE together for a common cause or
purpose. Herod and Pilate had hated each other
but they both joined together in a common hatred
of Jesus Christ. During the Second World War
many
different countries joined
together and united so that they could fight
against Germany and Japan and defeat them. At
the end of the tribulation people the WHOLE
WORLD WILL UNITE TOGETHER
AGAINST
GOD. You can read about this in
Psalm 2.
Our time
in the world as we know it is quickly coming to
an end. Let us seek God's will for our lives,
glorify Him in all we do and pray for those who
are lost. Remember, Jesus had you on His mind
just hours before His death. He died for all.
All will not accept Him, but we must abide in
hope, love one another and care for one another
until our job here is complete. Then we will
enter into the eternal Joy of the Lord.
