At a Salvation Army meeting in Mooroolbark in Melbourne, I was chatting with one of the salvation army officers, he said words to the effect of and close to verbatim, "I would never say to a muslim or a hindu that they were wrong, because it might turn out that they are right".
The worst part is that I went to the Major, Pastor, and asked if officers needed to be born again christians. After telling the story I just heard he defended the officer. Although I think this guy was a christian, he had a lot of pride in his little work.
I am sure there are some wonderful christians in the salvation army, I met a few in that citadel?
How do we encourage people to leave the world out of the church? How do we encourage people to soften to the word of God when they see themselves as our leaders?
I know arguing doesn't work, discussion is often fruitless, it has got to be prayer and looking for the opening of the spirit.
I was in a meeting one day and the majors wife got up to speak, I started to turn off thinking how boring this was going to be. Howeever I felt led to listen just on the off chance she had something to say that was christian not just religious.
This was difficult because I did not think anything was going to be profitable, however as I struggled with this I determined that I would listen on the off chance there maybe a nugget of truth somewhere.
As I did this, I had a vision, there was a very soft circle of light about twenty years in diameter on the ground. In the middle was an alter maybe ten or more yards long. I was standing at the edge of the circle, I was transparent or opaque, however there was a patchwork of light and grey and dark patches over me or through me.
The Lord said this was my state, he also stated that the light was very low as I could not have tolerated my own darkness in the light.
Had I not deigned to lower myself to listen ever so reluctantly to this woman, I would not have had this insight as to my own state. As I recall she mentioned a verse that was very important to me at the time, it had to be God.
We need to be careful when we see darkness in the church especially in the leadership that we don't elevate ourselves, i was so full of righteous indignation I could not see the pride and sin of the pharassees that had gripped my heart.
Blessings Oskar