A vision of God's glory and coming unity of the Body of Christ

” It is amazing how unbelieving a believer can become. One might as well call Christ a liar, and His apostles false witnesses of God, as to deny that God is going to have a Body functioning in absolute unity of the Spirit, with each member in his proper place, and all members working together as one harmonious whole. Here again, there is only one reason why ” believers” refuse to believe it, and it is because we have never seen it wither in our own experience or in the history of the church…….The churches long and bitter history of disunity and strife does not prove that God’s word means disunity when it speaks of unity. If God said it, it is going to come to pass; and if Jesus prayed for it, all the devices of Satan cannot prevent the glorious fulfillment of that prayer of faith.” ( George Warnock)

I read this passage from George Warnock the other day as I was reading a small book by him a friend and brother from Canada sent me. He sent it a couple of years ago and I am just getting around to reading it. It is always exciting when God confirms a word that He gave to you and that is what the above passage was for me. The Lord burned the above truth into my spirit last year. I was out walking in the springtime last year and I came to the entry point of a path that I walk. I was amazed when I looked down the small hill. The path was gone, and had been replaced by a raging river that could not be crossed. The Spirit of God fell on me and He began to show me things.

Now first let me talk about the passage that George is referring to when he said ” If Jesus prayed for it,” ( meaning the unity of the saints) for this is the Scripture the Lord burned into my soul as He gave me the vision. The Scripture is from John 17…………..

” Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which believe in me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou , Father art in me and I in thee, that they may also be one in us; that the world may believe that thou has sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one; I in them and them in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may now that thou has sent me, and has loved them as thou loved me.”

And the Lord asked me if I believed that. Did I believe that? Do you believe that? And so the vision. The vision was of the Church. In the natural I was looking at my path which was now gone, swallowed up by spring time flood waters. All the landmarks were gone. The small creek that meandered beside the path, its path defined by the landscape, was gone. In the spirit the small creek represented the Church as we know it. In the natural the confining banks no longer existed, and the mighty river was flattening everything and re-creating the landscape, such was its power. Everything that was not anchored or deeply lodged was simply swept away. In the spirit this represented the Church of God visible in one-ness. One Body, one Church , one Christ, One glory. The banks and the landscape could not contain it and it began to flow straight and it had immense power. It could not be stopped. This brothers and sisters, is a vision of the Church coming out. Coming out of what? Coming out of everything that is not of God. And as it does, as it rises up and overwhelms the banks that has contained it for 2000 years, the banks being the confining work of men and their own kingdoms and denominations , it begins to gather enormous power. Finally, it begins to flow as one, as it has always been designed to do, and as God said it would and as Jesus prayed in faith to the Father for.

Do you believe it? Can you see it? Is the Spirit even now speaking to you? Believe it brothers and sisters, not because I tell you or anyone else tells you but believe it because it is written and therefore will come to pass before the Lord returns. And why will it come to pass? ” That they may be made perfect in one and that the world will know that you sent me and loved them as you have loved me.” So you see brothers and sisters it is for the perfecting of the saints and for a witness to the world. "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13)

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. (Mat 24:13-14) You see brothers and sisters, it is for a witness to the world, it is so that the world will know that God sent His son. Can we say that Christendom has been a witness to the world? Has it not in fact been quite the opposite? Marked by factions and strife and division. A mosaic and labyrinth of denominational walls and vanity and disunity. This is not the Church of the high priestly prayer of John 17 or the promise of Matt 24. It comes down to this, will Jesus’ words come to pass? When the river begins to rise up, and it is rising brothers and sisters, will you join it? Will you leave the well-worn meandering creek that has been contained by its bank that has been shaped by its landscape?

Will you join with a mighty rushing river that recognizes no containment but is simply swept along with the force of the Spirit? This one-ness is coming, even now it begins. The Church will be one before the Lord comes back. Of course their will be counterfeit unity, and it will be at the expense of the Truth. The counterfeit unity will seek to be identified in a one-ness with the world. The genuine unified Body will be a mighty remnant of believers who refuse to be identified with anything other than Jesus, no matter the cost. The Truth standing upon the foundation of love is the bedrock of the mighty flowing river of God which flows straight and true, back to the heart of the Father from where it originated.

Like a mighty flooding river
That overflows its banks
Flood the deepest parts of me
And fill me up with thanks

With love and grace and mercy Lord
Flood my heart this day
And with your mighty torrents Lord
Wash my sins away

Wash away the boundaries Lord
That speaks to who I am
Redefine me with your love
When you release your mighty dam

Where once there was a quiet creek
Rise up and overflow
May I become a river deep
And may this river ever grow

And everywhere this river goes
That flows from Calvary
Would wash men in your love and grace
Rise up and set men free

I had the same thoughts SolaVeritas. Had a brother share that same thought with me on the phone today. My only explanation was that folks like controversy and contention sometimes...........bro Frank

The Lord is bringing a unity that many will reject because the cost will be too high for them. There is a cost to join the world's false oneness unity, too. However, many will not realize that cost until it is too late.

Jesus was praying for inward unity with Him and each other and the world offers outward unity which is not real unity, at all. Unity is not conformity and does not cause you to lose your individuality in Christ.

Unity in Christ also does not guarantee that you will be able to work with a brother, but it does provide heartfelt fellowship. We see that Paul could not work with Mark for a time, but later Mark was a great benefit to him.

Years later, Paul finds the formerly useless Mark "useful,” as revealed in the apostle’s concluding epistle. "Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministering” (2 Tim. 4:11).

Though you may not be able to work with a brother, you still can have unity.

The Ecumenical Movement eventually will result in the one religion as we find in Revelation. It is entirely against God's purposes. We should not join their ranks. In order to maintain the unity of the Body of Christ, we cannot join any organization. Organizations are something foreign to the Word of God and always inject something foreign into the Body of Christ. We do not fellowship with organizations, we fellowship with people (who may be in organizations).

So, we cannot join any organization, we cannot work with any organization, but we do realize that in any organization there may be God's people there. You have God's people everywhere. Our line should be that "we do not fellowship with organizations, but we do have fellowship with God's people whether they are in an organization or not. This is where the line is drawn. If anyone is condemning you for not being interested in unity because you haven't joined their organization, you should know that they are pressuring you to support and join them and you do not have to. This spirit does not come from God and you can already discern that they would inject something foreign (un-Christlike) into your fellowship with them.

I time of great sifting and shaking is here and is intensifying as the loyalties of men's hearts are being revealed.

I too, like Warnock's writings very much.

Bro Mike writes.......

"God will have a church that is perfected in the unity of the faith. This is impossible with men but possible with God. Jesus is the one that is building His Church. There is so much disunity in the church today because there are so many carnal Christians. The perfecting of the saints will bring unity to the Body of Christ."

Amen brother. If God says it, it will come to pass. Let all men be liars and God be true............bro Frank

Such truth! Jesus will have His bride because He said He would and she will be dressed in white and she will have an abundance of oil to last through the dark night before His return!

Regarding unity, imho there is little unity of the Spirit in this country because His work and presence is so rarely seen anymore. So much of what we see is just the work and presence of men...their lofty ideals and valiant efforts. It is good religion but results in dead orthodoxy and a lukewarm church that bickers endlessly over comparatively, meaningless issues. But throughout history when there is a genuine outpouring of the Holy Spirit, petty differences among brothers fade into nothingness and the church puts aside her mere talk and returns to the front lines to reach out and save the lost.

Today, we have it reversed. Most churches and most believers are more interested in figuring out their doctrine and lining themselves up with others who agree with them...and thus they come to a smug "unity of the Mind". Ironically, that includes of course, their doctrines about the filling of the Holy Spirit. So many Christians today seem to have their doctrine ABOUT the Holy Spirit figured out just right...but very, very few are actually filled with the Holy Spirit! Entire movements have been deceived into thinking that this is all that it takes to come into the true unity of the Spirit.

But this is not the case. It is usually the unlearned ones who have very little figured out, who simply want God and to lay everything - every little thing on the altar. These are the ones upon whom the Holy Spirit will be poured out and just as on the day of Pentecost, the ensuring revival brings with it the TRUE "unity of the Spirit". Not because they had their differences squared away, but because they had the REALITY, the ACTUALITY of the Holy Spirit sweeping them up in the River of God beyond anything humanity has ever seen. Not just a toe in the river or even to the chest, but swept up fully in total surrender to the Lord Jesus.

This will be the eventual testimony once again of the Church in these last days.

Hi Sree, I think you may have been reading the post wrong, or perhaps we may just disagree. I never said nor do I believe that divisions will disappear. Divisions are within Christendom, Christendom is not the Body of Christ, Christendom is simply everything that calls itself by the name of Christ, that is a huge difference. The Body of Christ is scattered all through out Christendom. It is the Body of Christ that has and will begin to desert Christendom as the day of the Lord approaches. Christendom has and will become so corrupt and compromised with the world that genuine believers will not be able to stay. Add to that the persecution that will come to all saints all over the world at the same time and you will see the separation compelled by necessity.

This is the fulfillment of the Word of God. The gospel will be preached to all the world " as a witness," and then the end shall come, according to Jesus. Our unity, according to Jesus in John 17 will be seen by the world, " so that the world will know." No one can say that anytime in the last 2000 years that our unity has been a witness to the world, in fact quite the opposite. We have certainly seen small pockets of genuine saints resist Christendom in all it's religiosity , but we have never seen the Body of Christ visible universally and yet this is exactly what Jesus is talking about when you also consider Matt 24 and Eph4.

When this happens, the saints will not be following men and there will be no man elevated on a platform, the only man that will be elevated on a platform will be the man Christ Jesus. No man will say I am of Paul or I of apollus , for this is the essence of carnality. Jesus will be preeminent................bro Frank

ps , one last point about Christendom. Their divisions will not last not increase in the last days, in fact they will come together with other religions and become the great whore church in a counterfeit unity.

brother/sister A-Servant, what is your first name and you wouldn't happen to be an Aussie by any chance would you?

This is where I disagree with you. I do not believe in a unity that is yet to come. I believe in an unity that exists and will exist till the end time. The universal Body of Christ is something that already exists not something that will come. In this Body of Christ there is a unity. Also there is unity in many different local body of Christ. The church that I attend is an example. I have seen many unbelievers marvel at the unity we have and how we share burden of one another.

I believe both of you brothers are right, there have been local unities of the body of Christ throughout the last 2000 years. Many of these movements were greatly used of the Lord as great shining lights in this depraved world. But towards a world-wide unity of the body of Christ this has not happened it happened in the days of the Apostles but was shortly lost afterwards.

God is allowing a world-wide persecution and martyrdom so that all true believers will be unified in their testimony of the Gospel to all the kings of the earth and then the end will come. The last days missions movement will be a movement of martyrdom world-wide.

So we should desire after local unity of the body of Christ, but also world-wide unity.

I would also agree very much with brother Frank that we need to see a unity locally of saints who have their identity in the "one body of Christ" world-wide where Jesus is the head and not by men's names and specific doctrines.

Yes, I was going to say a similar thing, Dave.

The inward unity that exists will be manifested on a larger scale.

Those who are not serving two Masters recognize each other.

Just-in and Heydave have captured the essence of what I am saying.............

"It is this outward manifest unity that I believe Frank is addressing and that we do not see complete."

"the purpose of this is that we might come to the 'unity of the faith'. Unity of the spirit and unity of the faith are two different things.
Unity of the faith is the outward conformity of believers that have matured in their walk though the correct functioning of the body. It is this that we don't see much of today."

Indeed and amen. In both John 17 and Matt 24 Jesus refers to the world, so that the world might know, so that we can be a witness to the world. In Eph 4 the whole purpose of the various ministries was to bring us to a point, or , to use the word of Paul " until," we come ..........

"ph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: "

Many may claim to have that locally, although I myself have not witnessed it, but I do not think anyone would claim that we have this universally, visabily so as to be a witness to the world..........bro Frank