Years ago the Lord made it clear to me that I was to stop reading what men said the Bible said, and start reading what it actually says. I became a literalist. A literalist is one who starts with the assumption that God, in the Word, said what He wanted and meant what He said. A literalist is one who believes God is perfect and does what He does perfect. A literalist looks for the clear meaning first. This requires knowing we have a new and better covenant in which God speaks clearly and plainly. Jesus did not deal in types and shadows, did not use allegories and when He did, made it plain that He was. When He used an illustration, He made it clear it was an illustration.
Sounds simple? It is simple but it is powerful, it is liberating. It is simple, but you will find yourself constantly being challenged to believe what God says, or what men say God says. The warning I would give is that it may well give you a feeling of isolation and strangeness that you will have to fight. One of the things you will discover, and keep discovering, is that much of what we call Christianity, or church, is not based on the Bible. In fact, much of it has no relationship to the Bible at all. That will give you a pause. These groups may be good, do good works, and even make heaven (I am not a judge) but they are not Bible based. They are based on their understandings of whatever Bible verse or theme that has attracted them, but there ends the relationship.
Here is where you will see the problem facing the American church. We don't want to take God literally. We don't want to take His word literally. We don't want to use the Bible as a defining document, which of course is a way to become unraveled. It is the same reason the constitution is so important to America. It is a defining document, without which a society, such as ours, will come unraveled. (and we are). Men are working very hard to remake America into whatever they dream it to be. It is the same with the church. Men working hard to remodel the church to fit their understanding, their dream. How do men excuse this? Listen carefully with your ears and eyes. This is their excuse: the church is evolving. When you accept that theory, the Bible is more or less useless. If we are evolved, what are we evolved to? What are the guidelines? Whose versions of the evolved church are we to trust in? When you here them say "this is our vision", you better look carefully.
Here is the facts: A perfect God sent a perfect Son. A perfect God wrote a perfect book. A perfect God sent the perfect Holy Ghost. A perfect God birthed a perfect church, just as seen in the book of Acts. Out of that cloud of glory stepped a perfect church, a perfect body of Christ. My friend, there is no need of evolution but there is a great need of restoration. The church was birthed with the ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost that empowered every disciple. and confirmed to every disciple the ascension and Lordship of Jesus. The new testament reveals a church who enjoyed the companionship, the power, the leadership of the Holy Ghost, just as the first disciples did with Jesus. The evolving church runs from the Holy Ghost like a rabbit before the hound. That martyr Stephen, in his dying breath uttered these words "Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit", perhaps the most accurate prophetical warning given to us. The early church was birthed in the perfection ability of God. He did not birth something and then say "oops". He did not create a man and then say "oops". We are fearfully and wonderfully made, just as the psalmist said. If we are evolving, as man, we are going backwards not forwards. We are becoming more like a monkey, not less. The church, the body of Christ on earth was birthed perfect. It came into being with a sound from heaven. It came into being with every member so filled with the Holy Ghost they were as though drunken. It came into being with cowards like Peter turned to bold preachers. It came into being with out a care about what religious people thought about it.
The center of being for the early church was the Holy Ghost. Oh, they loved Jesus, but they did it through His representative, the Holy Ghost. They worshiped the Lord, but they did it through the Holy Ghost, knowing that no man could call Him Lord, except by the Spirit. They testified of the resurrected Jesus but they did it with what the Bible calls the testimony of Christ, the gifts of the Spirit. They went out preaching the gospel and every step they took, the Holy Ghost went with them, confirming their word and their message with signs, wonders and demonstrations. Their faith, according to the word was based on the manifestations of Spirit, not the words of men. They wanted to know the Lord but they knew the Spirit of God had come with a mission to tell them of the Lord, to speak for Him and about Him, to show His glory, to shed abroad His love on each of us.
Do you believe all that? If you do, you are going to be uncomfortable with the evolved church.
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