What a mess His temple seems to be in! "Build the temple", I was told. I guess I should understand that to mean "build in the temple" because The Lord God Himself, The Lord Jesus Himself and the Blessed Holy Spirit are the True, Archetypal Builders of the Temple of The True and Living God. What a blessed Truth that is. But I seem to be faced with a scattering of piles of stones which somehow need a lot of bringing and building together to be considered any kind of building, let alone a temple. Here where I live there is one group following one leader, another group just across the road following another organisation of leaders. Then just down the road again more groups, more leaders, more organisations. Perhaps some leaders don't add their own teachings to God's but some undoubtably do ("to draw away disciples unto themselves", as a great New Testament writer and Apostle put it). Some groups look more like they are being "built up into Christ" than others. Some don't even seem to realise that Christ is still to be followed as That Great Shepherd of The Sheep, but they follow human leaders instead. Not that following an earthly leader is wrong, unless that leader leads them away from the True Path of course. How on earth to make any positive contribution to help these scattered stones adhere to the living Christ? To the ancient prophet of Israel, the Spirit of God said "prophesy to these dry bones" so that the dry bones would live. He did, they did, and there was a great army formed. So it remains: "Prophesy!", "What shall I prophesy?", "All flesh is grass and all its glory as the grass of the field. The grass withers ... because the Spirit of God breathes on it." Oh dear, a lot of grass is going to wither, then, and a lot of beauty will be destroyed. But may the dry bones yet live and the temple yet be built to be the Glory of God in His Blessed Holy Son established by Him to the joyful glory of His Holy Name. I want to attend these groups and see what the Spirit gives me to prophesy but two problems: one - I get most certainty in what I say when it is an interpretation of spiritual 'tongues' but hardly any real spiritual tongues which are to be interpreted by spiritual power from the Holy Spirit seem to be 'out there' and two - when I attend I get forced into the very sins such as deceit from which the Lord has been setting me free as people mislead everyone around them to say things they do not really know to be true (and I'm too weak to not get led astray with everyone else). On account of the latter I can only echo the many leaders of God's people in the past who have warned about causing God's people to sin - it ends in severe judgement (because when people sin against the Lord like this there is nobody to intercede with the Lord who is Himself the intercessor against whom they have sinned). I'll just to to keep looking for a flock where believers truly speak in tongues and hope I can still be obedient in using my gift for the benefit of the Church. And besides: Living by the spirit rather than the 'flesh' is the way to avoid the 'sins of the flesh'.
