present, whether they are things to come, whether they are things of this world or of this life, as he says in I Corinthians 3:22, but "all things are yours." And we are in Christ and Christ is Cod's. There is no need for this kind of forced isolation among evangelical Chris tians who earnestly believe the Lord Jesus Christ and who fully ac cept His Word as our only stand ard for faith and practice. Just one last thing about divi sions. Divisions encourage rivalry. And particularly rivalries that are disruptive. I think the whole mes sage of the Epistle of III John speaks very forcefully and very effectively to this point. Friction within the church, because one man there in the third epistle of John, Diotrephes, was trying to outstrip and outdraw any of the other Christians in that commun ity. The born-again Christian, how ever, the one who knows Christ, is not limited to certain leaders, to certain ideas or doctrines pe culiar to a given man, or certain aspects of the church. All are his. He is not isolated. He is not sep arated from other believers. And he does not need to be conten tious with others. We are not in the business of seeing who can outdo the other person. We are in the business of making sure that we are following what God wants us to do. We are in the business of seeking to reach others for Christ and to strengthen and to en courage them. It is a process of encouraging one another, not the process of attempting to undercut or to breed even more contention and division. We are the temple of God. Through Christ all is ours. Strife and division will only be mini
mized when we glory in God — not man; when we seek to live, collectively, for His glory. America is flooded today with specialized books and magazines. Whether you are interested in needlepoint or motorcycles, there are books and magazines just for you. Now to make such publica tions profitable, I would assume that certain, specific ingredients are necessary. For instance, it would take a knowledgeable staff, an attractive publication, and cer tainly enough interested readers to make the project profitable. There are certain specific ingre dients that are essential if the Gos pel of the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be communicated. In I Corin thians 2:6 through the end of that chapter, we understand that there is a special process — there are special ingredients — that are es sential if the deeper things of the Word of God are to be communi cated to mankind and properly un derstood. Paul speaks of the mys teries of God, the kind of walk that the mature Christian ought to have. Tragically the people at Corinth were not able to fully comprehend the deeper things of the Christian life. Let us consider just how the mysteries of the deeper things of God become known to men. First, they are revealed to mature Chris tians by the Spirit of God. These mature Christians are the individ uals who are going to be the ve hicle or the channel through which other Christians understand what God has for them. Look at I Cor inthians 2:10-12: "But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of Page 43
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