Thoughts on Discipleship by Dr. W. A. Dillard - HTML preview

HOW MANY, HOW MANY, I WONDER

“Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Ephesians 3:21.

The enormity of the gross error of finite beings believing they may fashion codes of conduct, worship, and practice that will please the infinite, even though contradictory to His stated Word, continues to be literally astounding. But it never stops.

Some time ago a question was posed to a small group of seminary students: “which church do you think is correct?” One answered immediately, “What do you mean which church? God established only one!” Is it possible to identify that one, if it still exists? If so, how?

Dr. L. D. Foreman, former president of Missionary Baptist Seminary in Little Rock, Arkansas, in class lectures, used the illustration of a train being watched by a father and son in a beautiful meadow by a railroad track. Soon a train came by. It was a blue engine with a fuel car, eight box cars, three passenger cars, a dining car, and a caboose. The number on the engine was 712. It was then that the train entered a tunnel and disappeared. The little boy cried that it had been swallowed. To appease him, the father took him to the train yard so he could see that it was there. However in the train yard there were many trains: engines of red, yellow, black. Some were connected to coal bearing cars; others carried logs, still others were all box cars. Finally, they found a train with a blue engine, with numbers 712. It had a fuel car, eight box cars, three passenger cars, a dining car and a caboose. Certainly, they had found the very train which had disappeared into the tunnel earlier.

When Jesus started His church, he promised it perpetuity. So, if the Bible is true, and it is, then the church Jesus started is still on the earth. It is still being governed by His Word, adhering to His doctrines and practices. It is still free from the encroachments of designing men, and unions with governmental powers.

His church still teaches the total hereditary depravity of man, salvation by grace through faith, plus nothing else, deep water immersion of a professed believer by a New Testament church; believes that Jesus’ church is local only, and the highest echelon of spiritual organization on earth. It was started by Jesus! It was started in 30 A.D. in the land of Palestine, and has had monuments of its existence in every century since. I want to meet Jesus as a member in good standing of that church.

FOR THOUGHT: Do you know the origin of the church of your membership? If its faith and practice cannot be traced back to the apostles, do you see that as a problem? Do you think Jesus will receive and reward any church that is not his own? Why?