WHY WE AGREE BUT DISAGREE

9-13-2005

In the 17th chap. of John we have recorded for us the Lord’s Prayer for his disciples. He knew his death was imminent and he prayed his disciples would remain united. During his prayer he asked four different times that his disciples might be united.

In vs 11 he asked God to “keep them in thy name which thou has given me, that they might all be one, even as we.” In vs 20-21 he prayed not only for his disciples then but, “For them also that believe on me through their word, that they all might be one.” In the 22 and 23rd vss he prayed that the “glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them and that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one.”

So our Lord’s dying prayer was for all people to be united in God, united in his teaching and belief and that we all might be one in purpose, communion and work.

Jesus had taught them to be as one, and had kept them united while he was with them. Because he knew when he departed they would face many obstacles which could possibly cause division, not only among them, but his people. The Apostle Paul saw the dangers of division in the Corinthian congregation when he said in I Cor 1:10, “Now I beseech you, brethren, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no division among you; but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” And he went on to ask, “is Christ divided?”

Jesus left them well prepared to teach his word which would eventually be recorded for all generations to follow.

And they followed our Lord’s commands by carrying the same message to every part of the known world. And this was God’s plan that faithful saints have followed throughout the centuries.

And you would think that the entire world would become united in God’s word and we would all believe the same way.

But when we study the five major religions of the world, it is astonishing at the great differences by which they view God and religion in general. Beheading someone because they will not accept your religion makes perfect sense to them but leaves others scratching their head in bewilderment, because we can’t understand how they arrived at such views. Of course we see the main reason for that is, most of the religions of the world don’t accept God’s word or his Son’s.

And this is made abundantly clear in the Christian world.

Numerous attempts have been made over the years to unite all denominations and urge them to accept one another as brethren regardless of what they believe or practice. They do this on the grounds that we all hold certain beliefs in common. And it appears that 99% of the denominations not only accepts this but also encourages it.

And in many cases those in the more liberal denominations seem to be proud of the fact they think they have found a way to fellowship those in obvious error, without compromising their consciences. Even though we are supposed to be united in our beliefs, there has always been some disagreement over certain points of doctrines. And it seems no matter what someone teaches there are others who will disagree with or take exception to it, either in part or totally.

And I’ve given this quite a bit of thought over the years as perhaps you have. And I asked myself, are there any subjects in the Christian religion on which we all can agree?

Well, there appears to be several primary or fundamental beliefs that we have in common.

For example: our belief in God, in Christ, the bible, its message, that is, the gospel, and the Holy Spirit. Just to name a few.

And if that is true, I asked myself another question,

“Why are we not united?” Why don’t we all believe the same things?

And this is the focus of our lesson this morning. Which asks, “How can we agree on so many basic teachings and yet, not be in total agreement?”

I want to begin with the belief in God and his word.

Every denomination that I am aware of claims to base its belief on the teachings found in its scared pages.

And you would think that alone would be the most unifying factor of all; that it would pull us all together. And it would seem logical if we all based our beliefs on the same book, we would all believe the same thing. But we don’t all believe the same things. So what happened? Well here are some reasons why.

For one thing, not everyone believes the bible is an inspired book. They certainly will tell you it is a wonderful book, filled with good moral teachings, but inspired or infallible? No, they just don’t believe that. There are others that believe the translation from the Greek to English is based on faulty manuscripts. And there are thousands of mistakes to be found in it.

To correct that, many denominations have written their own versions of the bible, one that is more appealing and that conforms more to their particular denominational views. Then it is much easier to go to their altered version when showing support for their erroneous teachings. Although the bible has only one message concerning God’s will for us. It is used to prove almost any doctrine that man can invent!

And when that happens, we find they have not only mistranslated the scriptures, but many times have forced the interpretation completely out of context in order to make it appear to support their absurd teachings. Is it any wonder the bible is confusing to many. And to add to this confusion, there are any number of supposedly educated people in religious things who have set themselves up as “spokesmen” for all in the Christian religion. And they are certain they alone have all of the answers and feel anyone that accepts the bible as it is written is quite ignorant; and such deep things are well over the heads of the average man on the street. Therefore, these weightier matters should be left to the professionals, you know, the ones with all of the degrees behind their names. And they will tell us what we should believe. While we hold in common this book we call the bible, we believe it to be inspired and infallible while others don’t. Therefore, we agree, yet, we don’t agree!

Now let’s look at the message of the bible, and particularly the gospel message.

If you ask any Christian if they believe the gospel or ask any preacher if they preach the gospel, I’m sure they would say yes, without hesitation. But most denominational version of the gospel and what the scriptures teach quickly part company when compared to each other.

For example: They believe Christ to be the founder of his own church, but they rarely use his name or any scriptural terminology to identify it. Common sense should dictate scriptural things have scriptural names. And naming a church or religion after a person is not honoring God or Christ but the one whose name it bears. What they say his church teaches varies profoundly with what the Apostles actually taught.

They claim to be Jesus’ disciples, but they believe whatever pleases them. They believe all churches belong to Christ, no matter how weird or far out the teaching or practices. They believe the bible contains everything one needs to know to become a Christian. Yet, they add all sorts of things or sometimes just ignore the basic teaching of the gospel. And every single one will contradict themselves or each other in some way. So while we agree with them the bible has a message, we disagree as to what that message is.

Now let’s look at some beliefs concerning Christ.

I’ve watched several documentaries on the life of Christ. And after watching three or four on different areas of his life,

I begin to see a common theme emerge. They seemed to portray Jesus quite differently from the picture one may get from reading the bible. They paint a picture of a man who really didn’t know what his purpose was in life. A man just wandering aimlessly through life until he “joined the Baptist” movement as one commentator put it. Soon after that, he begins having confrontations with the religious leaders as well as the Roman authorities, which eventually caused his death. And they say he was basically a nice Jewish boy, who fell in with the wrong crowd, because he associated with publicans and sinners, and this caused him to become rebellious.

Many of these documentaries dispute the city in which Jesus was born saying, that he was really from Nazareth, and not Bethlehem as the scriptures teach. And they say this is because he was known as “Jesus of Nazareth.” And they don’t seem to understand the difference between someone being born in one place and raised in another.

They even question his parentage, saying he was really the son of a Roman soldier stationed at Capernaum. They don’t believe he was born of a virgin, that he was not resurrected as the bible plainly states. Or that he was the actual Son of God.

Almost all of the events of his life and work they say were added years later after his death to enhance the “Christian movement.”

And the miracles he worked, well, that was from the magic he learned while he and his family was living in Egypt!

They also state that it was not Judas that betrayed him, but one of his inner circle of friends probably James, Peter or John!

Oddly enough, one documentary explored the theory that Jesus had actually asked Judas to betray him to the Jewish leaders,

Knowing he would be crucified and that he would become a martyr, which would cause more people to follow him.

And other documentaries claim he didn’t die on the cross but only passed out and was mistaken for dead. One stated he was given a powerful drug that made him appear to be dead. After he was taken down from the cross, he was revived and lived among the Essenes, which was a small obscure Jewish religious group that existed during his time in the Palestine area, and that he lived among them until his death, never to be heard from again.

Practically all of these documentaries claim the gospel writers contradict themselves or have gotten certain facts wrong. And as I watched these documentaries I kept asking myself, “How did they know this? Where did they get this kind of information because they offered no creditable proof to any of their claims? They just state these things as matters of fact. I noticed another strange pattern also. Usually they start by saying, “because of recently discovered documents found in some obscure monastery in some remote country, maybe written in the 3rd of 4th century, that contradicts conventional beliefs, we must begin to rethink what we have believed for so long.”

And I thought “why would they accept some writing from a person no one ever heard of and certainly cannot be verified in any way and not what our bible teaches, which has been as well documented as any book we have?”

None of the gospel writers or any writer of the New Testament suggests anything like these so-called scholars claim. And rarely does anything harmonize with known facts concerning Jesus’ life. It seems to me, they have made a concerted effort not only to strip Jesus of his divinity, but also to portray him as a homeless fanatic and troublemaker.

And no creditable scholar would accept or even consider for one moment anything from these highly questionable sources.

One thing I did agree with them was, they said, “they couldn’t explain how such an ordinary man’s influence has remained so prominent over the centuries, and that his teachings have endured to this day!”

And you know the irony of all of this is, almost to a person, they were either church leaders, or professors associated with some liberal college with many degrees behind their names. And every one of them professing to be Christians!

And you are probably wondering as I did, “how can they say they are Christians or believe in Christ when, according to them, Jesus’ whole life was based on lies and deceptions?”

Another thing just as alarming if not more so is, more of this thinking is being taught in our nation’s schools and colleges. More and more I see newspaper articles and television programs that reflect these errors. And very few seem to be concerned or even aware of what is going on.

It has taken these groups many years, but they have for the most part reduced Christ to nothing more that some rebel rouser who tried to reform the world and died because of his views.

So we agree there was a man called Jesus, but we disagree as to whom he was and to what his mission was.

Finally, let’s look at some beliefs about God.

Every religion believes in a god of some kind. Even heathens believe in some kind of Supreme Being. And every Christian I know would be in total agreement there is only one God.

But what many disagree on is the nature of that one God. Of the many erroneous beliefs concerning God. I believe the most common is: that God will not always do as he has promised. Now there are some promises they readily accept, such as the ones found in James 1:12 and 2:5. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to them that love him.” And, Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him?”

Promises of this nature they absolutely believe God will fulfill. It is what they consider the unpleasant promises they don’t want to accept. They don’t believe God would send anyone to hell. And they base this assumption on the belief that God is just too good and merciful to do such a terrible thing.

And they have further assumed that God will overlook any unrepented of sins, and that all will be given a home in heaven.

But we need to ask ourselves, if God intends to save everyone, why did he mention the possibility of going to a place called hell (Gehenna)? Why warn us about a place no one will ever go? Others teach some may go there but it’s only temporarily and eventually they will get out. But my scriptures teach me, in Matt 25:46a, “And these shall go away into eternal punishment…” Does not the word eternal have any significance? Mk.16:16 says, “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be condemned.” That’s just as much a promise as any other he gave.

So while we agree there is a God, we disagree as to his nature.

We hope this lesson will help you see why people may appear to hold the same beliefs, but are miles apart.

And we hope you may see more clearly why we can’t always accept their teachings on these subjects, unless they change their views and accept plain bible teaching.

If you have never obeyed the gospel, then you might say you believe in God and Christ and agree with what they say. But your actions say you do not agree.

J.D. Williams~