Evangel, are you me? I can relate almost one hundred percent!

Through the struggle, I have realized, in humility, that God is opening my eyes to the needs in the fellowships I am attending. And I feel inclined to, cry out to God for them (as well as be an exemplary christian...), although I am only learning what it really means to intercede.

I am also quite lonely in my walk with Christ, a feeling that I am learning many men that went before us dealt with. Paul the apostle, David Brainard, George Muller, A.W Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, to mention but a few, speak in one way or the other, that at some point in their lives, they could hardly find an edifying companion whose heart was truly set on Christ. (2 Tim 4:9-22, for example)
Could it be that the Lord is preparing us for something? And not just us, but an army of believers, whose captain is Jesus Christ, that may or may not be aware of the great plan of the Lord to accomplish His work in the last days. I can only speculate, but the Lord knows exactly where everything is going.

In Christ,
Dlight.

PS. I apologize for not giving references for my claims concerning these men's messages. I basically relied on my memory, but I have read/listened to their work, and this is a general theme I remember, among other themes.

Hey Dlight,

Haha I'm sorry to say that I am not you. However, I have the same Jesus living inside of me.

Yes, I do believe that the Lord is at work to unify and restore His Body that has been so ravaged by the enemy. And He is raising people like us for that task. I guess we have the same calling from the Master so we are able to relate. This is very encouraging.

A sister of mine was recently reading Judges 19 about the Levite whose concubine was brutally raped by his own people and God gave us an understanding of what this passage meant. The concubine are those that Christ has called but are unfaithful - returning to their father's house. Christ, symbolized by the Levite, is the Shepherd who goes after the one lost sheep and patiently waits with the concubine who is persuaded by her father to stay at his house (the world). (It is interesting how the concubine is passive and allows the Levite to deal with her father.) However, the Levite finally leaves, taking the concubine with him. On the journey home, he does not allow himself nor his concubine to rest until he finds his own people to lodge with. He wants his concubine to be safe among his own people - the 99 other sheep in the fold. However, even in this town, no one is hospitible to him except one person (the faithful remnant) who still recognizes and allows christ to dwell in their house. In the middle of the night, the wicked men from the town go to the house of the host and asked that they may rape the man - rape symbolizing the men wanting to use Christ for their own pleasures and purposes. The host, being honorable towards the Levite, offers his virgin daughter to protect the servant of God - his virgin daughter symbolizing everything that is dear to him - he gives his very heart in love to these people, but still that is not enough. In the end, the host offers the Levite's concubine and they rape her all night. They take the closest thing to the Levite's heart and abuse her. This symbolizes false teachings and religious burdens placed on the one sheep to the point where they are spiritually killed. The one sheep was supposed to find fellowship with the 99, but instead the sheep was faced with 99 wolves dressed as sheep, who tear it apart.

The Levite, upon waking, finds his concubine dead at the front door and cuts her into 12 pieces, sending them to all the tribes of Israel. The tribes of Israel gather together and ask that the wicked men (their own brothers) handed over to them. However, the tribe of Benjamin (of the wicked men) did not hand them over and because of this the tribe was almost completely destroyed. There was great weeping over this amongst the rest of the tribes of Israel.

So basically, I think that we are at a time similar to this, where parts of the Body of Christ harm the precious sheep that is brought back by the Shepherd. We are called to be the ones who make retribution and to destroy the wickedness within the Body (the yeast of the Pharisees and false teachings). However, we must completely destroy this "cancer" in the Body, understanding that these are brothers and sisters with a disease that need to be restored back to the Head. This is a very different type of battle we are fighting - it is one where we must be as wise as serpents, innocent as doves and as strong as lions. We do not want to fall into the trap that they set for us and be abused by them, but we also don't want to kill them. We want to be able to destroy what's wrong without destroying them completely, just as the tribe of Benjamin was not completely destroyed. This kind of "civil" guerrila-like warfare is very difficult; in guerrila warfare, everything is very scattered and it is hard to tell who is on which side, and the attacks are hit-and-miss. One must be very alert and strategic in how they move or at any moment we can be destroyed. The enemy has really put a cloud of confusion over us so that we fight one another, not really knowing who is actually against us, and who seems they are against us but in reality are for us.

In Christ
Evangel

Lindi,

I'm glad that you realized that WOF is not a healthy place to be. It would indeed be wise to leave there and find a place where the Word is rightly divided and the people are connected to the Head.

You said:
"So in essence can we still love each other but from afar."

I hope people have not misunderstood you and thought that leaving the fellowship of the body is good. Upon leaving this group you ought to immediately seek His guidance in finding the body He wants you to be in. An early tactic the enemy uses is to isolate so that he can tear away at you until you are in despair or sin. I know this well.

When Paul excommunicated the disobedient brother in Corinth it was to remove him from the protection of the body so that Satan could get at him for the purpose of discipline, however, he was brought back upon repentence. We should not want to be outside of this protection.

The word saint is never found in scripture only saints.

_________________
Randy Lambert

_________________
Lisa