>>>First I appreciate your responses, but I am still not sure where you are coming from.<<<<<
The reason you can't figure out "where I'm coming from", is because I'm not coming from "The World".
"Lo this only have I found, that God hath made man upright but they have sought out many inventions." The 'Webster's Unabridged Dictionary' defines the word "inventions" as follows: (2) a device; a contrivance to deceive; a forgery; a fiction. "Religion" as man knows it today, is an invention. And God tells us this, in that we are all created in his image (upright), but later came to believe "inventions" (contrivances to deceive). Now if you believe that there is a very real force on this earth with an express purpose to deceive, and in this, to make men believe a lie instead of the truth, then you must also believe that there is a very real counter force... God Almighty; Who created this universe and you along with it. Now if you are still following me -- and I know that you are -- which of these would have a vested interest in you believing the lie? Satan can no longer be with God -- he was expelled from Heaven because of his "PRIDE". But now Satan also has a very real objective... to take as many souls as he can to Hell with him. And since he can't do this by any power of his own, he uses inventions, to deceive God's creation -- man -- to take as many as he can with him. Many people today call themselves Christians. The sad fact of the matter is, that the great majority of them are being deceived into thinking that they are doing everything right and that, "that's enough". Like going to church every Sunday, and all kinds of great and wonderful works that will get them in favour with God... and that they will go to Heaven as the result. This my friend, just as all other "inventions", is a deception to get you to believe something that is nothing more than a counterfeit -- a lie!
(Ecclesiastes 7:29)
>>>I do not think that celebrating these externals will take you to Hell, but when you make the yardstick of these externals your basis of defining which churches are the churches of Jesus Christ, and church membership, I can see a problem, and 2,000 years of church perpetuity (not Roman Catholic) reveals a problem.<<<<<
In all of this, Brother G., I'm wondering if you really do or can in fact, "SEE" a problem. Or, put another way; Satan has had 2000 years to corrupt the original churches -- ALL OF THEM -- in some form or fashion, during that time frame. Now, ask yourself this question, What better form of deception could a very real spiritual enemy use, than to make you THINK that because you are a regular member of a local "church", you are doing everything within God's will... and even, in many cases, create the impression of a "false salvation" as the result of this? The original Church was upright and true in and of that, which they were able -- BUT even they had their "problems" -- which ALL of Paul's epistles attest to.
