Acts 7:36-38

THE CHURCH

36-38. “This is the one who is in the church in the wilderness along with the angel speaking to him in Mt. Sinai and with our fathers.” As ecclesia, the word constantly used by the Holy Ghost for church, from ek, “out,” and kaleoo, “call,” simply means “the called out,” i. e., all the people in all ages who have responded to the call of the Holy Ghost, come out of the world and separated themselves unto God, therefore we find the church in the world from the days of Abel. Dispensations have changed, but the church never. The birth of the Spirit per se takes you out of the world and makes you a member of the church, though in the middle of a desert, or tossed mid-ocean, a thousand miles from a church edifice, a preacher, or a baptismal font, none of which ever did have anything to do with church membership, being only symbolic, indicative and catechetical. Another work of grace, so prominent in the New Testament as well as the Old, is sanctification for every church member. For this work the Holy Ghost says hagiadzoo, from a, “not,” and gee, “the world.” Hence it means to take the world out of you. Therefore these two works so plain and clear, regeneration taking you out of the world and constituting you a true member of God's church in spiritual infancy, and sanctification, taking the world out of you, promoting you out of spiritual infancy into spiritual adultage, thus qualifying you for every office of the church to which the Holy Ghost may call you. Good Lord, help us all to be satisfied with God's Word, come back to New Testament simplicity, losing sight of those human ecclesiasticisms which through the chicanery of Satan and carnal leaders have so covered up the church in the rubbish of Ashdod and the superfluities of Babylon that the multitudes of so-called Christendom have actually lost sight of the amiable, simple, pure, humble Bride of Christ, the loving companion of her ascended Lord, still surviving upon the earth to prepare all nations for the coming kingdom.