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Divide and Conquer, Pt. 1
Matthew 12:22-32 says, “22Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. 23And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? 24But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 25And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: 26And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? 27And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. 28But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. 29Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. 30He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad. 31Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”
The devil’s method of seeking to overcome the church is divide and conquer. The key in overcoming the enemy with the Word of God is unity. Unity is not uniformity, where everyone looks and sounds just a like. Unity is celebrated in diversity because it brings out the best in everyone in fulfilling their potential in the kingdom of God, working towards a common vision. This vision is bringing the church body into the fulness of Christ! The Word is not to be used to create disunity, but only unity. The Word is the key in discerning good from evil, good intentions from bad intentions. While the Word is very sharp, people seem nowadays to misuse the Word to cut down others. That is what Satan does. He knows the scripture, but he loves to take verses out of context to bring harm and destruction. That is what he attempted to do to Jesus in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 when he tempted Christ in the wilderness, but He spoke with boldness the Word back against Satan. Some make an entire religion out of one verse, which leads to a cult and condemns other people. Out of a thousand or so pages of the Bible, it is amazing how someone can take one verse out of historical and literary context and try to cause a church split and build a church two miles down the road. This is not of God! The kingdom of God does not grow through division but multiplication, and that multiplication can only come through unity. Not everyone that says that he or she is of God is so, and we must use discernment in those situations. However, if we are going to heaven, we are on the same side. If we want to overcome on God’s team, we must come together in unity and just take the Word as it is as absolute truth!
When Jesus faced this demon possessed man, He healed him, and it was proven because now he could see and speak. The Pharisees, who hated Jesus Christ out of jealousy and a religious spirit because they believed the kingdom of God would come through them, accused Jesus of casting out devils through Satan himself, but Jesus and Satan do not work hand-in-hand. That is when Jesus states that a house and a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and He talked about blaspheming the Holy Ghost, which is the only unforgivable sin. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is when someone labels something that is of God of the devil. We must be careful what we say and believe. As long as it is lined up with the Word of God rather than tradition, that is all that matters because bad tradition can lead you to blaspheming the Holy Ghost if you are not careful! Why go to church to die lost without God because the works of the Kingdom of God are being manifested and it is outside of your comfort zone? We must choose which side we are on!
The devil is not going to go against a work that his kingdom is trying to accomplish, which is why his kingdom is so united. The reason why the Tower of Babel was being so productive was because they were unified. However, although they were determined to do this, God was not pleased because they were seeking to build up an idolatrous kingdom that would go against Him, and He came down and confounded the language. The reason why Islam is growing so rapidly is because of the unity factor that is at hand. The devil can accomplish much when he is in unity, but the only way to cause disunity within Satan’s kingdom is when the church comes together in unity upon the Word of God!
Oftentimes the church goes against what the kingdom of God is seeking to accomplish, and Satan normally does not have to do much in order to accomplish this. Between people’s opinions in accordance to their flesh that have no spiritual backing to it and a religious spirit that believes God cannot do a new thing that our eyes have not seen, we can start warring one church against another, and it should not be so. We are to work together to overcome the kingdom of darkness. Luke 9:49-50 says, “49And John answered and said, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. 50And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” Jesus rebuked the disciples because they had forbidden someone from expanding the kingdom of God because he was not particularly labeled as one of the disciples. He had caught the vision of the kingdom of God, and the works that he did were through Christ’s name. We are not to be divided, but rather on the same team!
If there is one thing we can say about the body of Christ today, it is that we are people of diversity, from various cultures to various languages to even various beliefs. Regardless of how diverse it is, we are members of one body. Some maybe weak, while other maybe strong. Some are able to preach or play music, while others are not. Some are gifted to prophesy or have the gifts of healing operating through their hands, while others have received the gift of faith or speaking diverse tongues. Some are gifted in helps ministry or establishing order in the church, while others are called to be teachers or apostles. Regardless of the calling of God upon the members of His body, everyone is needed and expected to unite together in their particular calling or gift to do a work for God, and when we all come together to use our callings and talents for the glory of God to expand His Kingdom, it presents the body of Christ in a much more beautiful form.
However, the problem is that many in the body of Christ are “not” coming together to achieve the same goal, which is winning souls. If that is not our top priority or motivation, then what is? In all honesty, we have many smaller churches that probably average around 125 people in each church, give or take a few. They started out even much bigger than that, but so-and-so did not agree with something with the pastor, and so he decided to leave and cause a split in the church by starting his own church, and then another person became angry at the new pastor, and so he left and started his own church, etc. The trend just goes on and on and on to the point that the churches wonder why they do not have many people in their congregation, and they even question God as to why this has happened. Do you think it was God’s will for His church to be so divided? Yea, His church is to suffer just as the actual body of Christ was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities! As the church, we are to suffer together and reign together, but not one time in scripture will you ever find where Jesus’ body was divided!
A man by the name of David Barrett has given some interesting statistics concerning the different and vast number of denominations that exist in the Protestant faith. “As of 1980 David B. Barrett identified 20,800 Christian denominations worldwide…In 1985 David Barrett could count 22,150 distinct denominations worldwide…The present net increase is 270 denominations each year (five new ones a week).” As of today, there are over 33,000 distinct denominations in 238 countries! (link) While amount of denominations increase, the number of people in the church decrease! These statistics, frankly, sound just unbelievable, but they speak truths, not on the diversity of the church, but rather on the division of the church. Diversity reflects the implementations of various cultures, languages, appearances, talents and abilities. Division demonstrates a disunited, discombobulated, confused and argumentative church whose focus is on selfish pride and interpretations of scripture rather than grasping the heart of God. We seem to be chasing to build our self esteem rather than accomplish the perfect will of God on this planet. While the church is fighting, debating and dividing, hell has its mouth opened wide to consume multitudes of souls everyday. We need to focus more on winning people to Christ so that they are not a victim of hell and not be part of that number that causes hell to expand its borders every single day.