Unity - the Forgotten Factor — Bill McLeod

The Forgotten Factor in Seeking God’s Blessing

Tonight I want to share with you a very important but forgotten factor in seeking blessing from God. I presume that all of you are either members of a church or you're adherents to an evangelical church.

That may not be true for all, but I would think for most, if not all. And as a result of that, that is a result of your experience of God, you're concerned to have blessing. I mean, you want blessing in your church.

I don't know if I've ever met a person who didn't want blessing in his church. He wants to see people converted. He wants to see missionaries going out, money raised for projects for the glory of God.

He wants to see God blessing. That's true of all the pastors I talk with, but they're not all having blessing. And sometimes people say, well, you know, how come we've been here for 75 years, this church, and here's a church just down the block, and they started five years ago, and they're already three times the size of our church.

Now I get asked that question sometimes. And if I don't get asked it, I ask the question myself sometimes. Now certainly it's not because God is any respecter of denominations, because he is not. We know that.

There must be some other factor, there must be some other reason why God is blessing some churches in some places, and yet a church of the same denomination with an equal opportunity for reaching out is not getting the job done.

Now then, in seeking for blessing from God, what is this forgotten factor? Well, I think it's quite simple. And we're going to look at Psalm 133, where we'll get an immediate and very direct answer to the question.

He says, Behold how good, that is how good to God, and how pleasant, pleasant to men, what a pleasant experience for brethren to dwell together in unity. Then he says, It's like the ointment upon the head that went down on Aaron's beard.

And if you know anything about the way in which that ointment was concocted, you'll know it's a symbol of the Spirit of God. It went right down to the skirts of his garment, it says. He says, Brethren dwelling together in unity, it's like the Jew.

And in the Bible, Jew is a picture of the blessing of God. It's like the Jew that descended upon the mountains of Zion. As a Jew of Hermon, he says, first of all. And then as the Jew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, then notice the next statement.

He says, There, there the Lord commanded the blessing. Do you believe it? Absolutely true. There the Lord commanded the blessing, even life forevermore. And people will be converted to Christ. Where there is this spirit of unity.

Now I'm not talking about what we might describe as being a mindless unity. Because you have that in churches sometimes, where nobody's fighting, but nobody's doing anything else either. It's totally a mindless thing.

Preacher says do this, they do that. Lord says do this, they do that. And they go along with it, not because they're convinced it's right or true, they're not even concerned. And so there's much that we might describe as being mindless unity, and that doesn't bring the blessing of God.

But where brethren dwell together in a purposeful unity, there God commands the blessing. Now that's what he says. And I believe it. And to me this is the forgotten factor in seeking the blessing of God in our work for Him.

Unity in the Book of Acts

Now this is the testimony, the clear testimony for example, of the book of Acts. Even before Pentecost, in Acts 1 .14, it says these all continued with one accord, in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.

A hundred and twenty people prayed for days with one accord. Now I knew a church that had a week of prayer meetings, and then had a fight and a split. So obviously when they were praying, they were not praying with one accord.

Because it's not a matter of a bunch of people saying, well, let's just get together and pray. Then we try to have one accord while we pray. Well, the one accord may not last any longer than the prayer meeting.

It's something that goes much deeper than that. And there are other things involved. And we'll try and deal with these matters tonight, as God will be with us. Alright, Acts 2 .1. It says when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord, in one place, and suddenly the world was changed.

And it's never been the same since. Because a group of people, I'm looking at it from the human side now, because a group of people were all together, in one place, with one accord, and God came. God came.

Later on in the same chapter you read that all that believed were together and had all things common. Then in chapter 4 you read again, and the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul, neither said any of them that all of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common.

Then in Acts chapter 5, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch, just like one person before God. What was the result? It says, And believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes of men and of women.

And a few chapters on it says that the churches, they walked in the fear of the Lord, in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and they were multiplied. The churches were multiplied. I know an evangelical church in the States.

They started 20 years ago with 14 churches. They now have over 2 ,000 churches. God is with them, but they have a purpose, a goal, and they're given to that goal and purpose. I'm sure they have churches that are not doing too well, but they have many churches that are doing very, very well.

Moravian Revival and Missionary Unity

It's a forgotten factor. Church history. I don't know if you've read anything about the Moravian Church and the great missionary movement that was spawned by God through that church many years ago in Europe, a place called Herrnhup, if I'm pronouncing it right, Count Zinzendorf.

You know, it was a very scrappy church. Every time they got together for a business meeting, they had a fight. I mean, literally. They were torn in all directions. Somebody described the average evangelical church as being 75 tigers with their tails all tied together, and the preacher's job is to untie the tails without getting scratched.

And you know, the strongest tiger, he pulls the church in his direction. Well, often that's what goes on. And that's how that church was. And then God came. Some people were praying for revival. And revival came.

And the church got straightened out and they became like one person before God. And you know what some of the results were? They had a round-the-clock prayer meeting that lasted for 100 years. It never quit for 100 years.

And you know what their goal was for missions? One missionary for every member of a church. They didn't quite make it. I was just doing a little arithmetic today. And I know an evangelical church in North America.

They have one missionary for every 5 ,000 people. I know another group and they pride themselves on their strong missionary program. And they have one missionary for every 500 people. Not 5 ,000, 500.

That's a little better. One missionary for every person? Is it possible? There are other factors here. But that beautiful spirit of unity that the Holy Spirit saw and blessed. I'll say again, it's the forgotten factor.

Paul's Teaching on Unity

The Apostle Paul wrote 9 epistles to 7 different churches. He wrote a total of 13 letters altogether. But he wrote 9 epistles to 7 different churches. And in every epistle, he stressed this matter of unity.

When he wrote to the church of Corinth, 1 Corinthians 1 .10, he said, Brethren, I beseech you, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing. And that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

And in every one of those 9 epistles, he talks about unity, unity, unity. Because he knows what this means. That's where God commands a blessing. How beautiful to God. How pleasant to men. It's awful to be in a church that's having a fight all the time.

And maybe some of you have been in that kind of a church. It's horrible. And sometimes people get scars that last the rest of their life because they're in a scrappy church. I know one evangelical denomination, if they get a church like that that's scrappy and will not straighten out, they write them off.

They tell that church, You're no longer in fellowship with us. Go where you are. I'd rather like that. I mean, give them a chance. But if they don't take it, let them go their own way. All right? So it's a very, very important thing.

How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, for there the Lord commanded the blessing. Now, we're not all from the same church. But if you're praying for the blessing of God in your church, this is one factor.

Perhaps the most important factor of all. And it must be dealt with. And we ought to be praying to this end. A friend of mine used to be a member of the church I was pastor of in Saskatoon years ago. He lives now in Vancouver.

Church Discipline and the Danger of Discord

He was in Saskatoon recently, spent some time with us, telling us something of the blessing of God in the church he was in. But they had one man in that church that was just a constant, he was just like a bunch of mad bees all by himself.

Always stirring up the pot. Always criticizing. And a forceful personality, pushing people around, influencing people in the church. And he just seemed to be going from bad to worse. And at a business meeting one night, and this guy just blew his top and just disrupted the whole thing.

And so the pastor called him to prayer. And while one of the brethren was leading in prayer, this man I'm talking about that was in my home, he said, Pastor, I was so distraught at the way that the devil was using this man.

He said, I just prayed in my own soul. He said, just like the Lord and I were there. And he said, I just called on God and I said, God, you can't let this go on. And he said he heard a crash. He opened his eyes and looked and the man was dead on the floor.

Meaning he was lying dead on the floor. He didn't ask God to take the man's life. But apparently, there was no other way that God could do it with that person. So God took them out. And sometimes it's necessary.

Why should one person hold up the blessing of God? Achan did it, and almost 40 people died. And the whole program of God just ground to halt until Achan was dealt with. You know, the first time I went out preaching, well, I was in a church and I stayed there a year and a half, thought I burnt all the grass over.

And so, you know, like young preachers are, you feel like moving all the time. After a year, you've got it all done. You want to go somewhere else. When you get older, you realize ten years doesn't do it all.

And I went to another church and I thought I was in heaven. I was associated with a different church, a different denomination. And you know, the little bit I'd heard about this denomination, I thought it was just heaven.

And then we had a business meeting. And it was the annual business meeting. And a certain man did not get elected or voted back in as a deacon. And he leaped to his chair and he roared like a bull. I mean, he leaped to his feet.

And he pounded a chair with his fist. I thought the chair would crack in two. And he declared that the previous pastor was a thief and a robber and the present pastor, that was me. And the present pastor thought he was better than Jesus Christ.

And he was storming out of the room and his two brothers, or his one brother and his two sisters went out of the room after him. And after a bit, one of the sisters came back in and she said, He says he'll apologize if you'll make him a deacon.

I said to the people, and I was a very young pastor, I said, How long has this been going on? Oh, they said 25 years. I said, 25 years? Why don't you do something about it? And I found out that man was a blasphemer, a deacon in a church.

Sinners told me about his blasphemy. I found out he'd been treasurer of the church at one time and he'd stolen hundreds of dollars from the church treasury and the church found out, but they wouldn't discipline him because they didn't want the community to find out.

And the community always finds out that kind of garbage anyway. Because a lot of Christians have long tongues, you know. Some Christians have tongues long enough they could use them for windshield wipers.

Shoot them out the side window, you know. I heard someone say that some Christians ought to have a roller skate under their tongue. I mean, it's long enough to slide it on the sidewalk. Well, they always find out.

And the church, the community had no respect for that church because they knew some of these things were going on. Why, so why don't we apply some discipline here? And they were just as glad as can be to do it.

And it was done in the spirit of love. But that's sad that for 25 years that kind of thing went on. And there may be some people in this meeting tonight that the devil is using in this way. You better be very, very careful.

He that sows discord among brethren is an abomination to God. Worse than a skunk. An abomination to God. Watch it. Don't be part of the problem. Be part of the remedy. Now then, unity. What causes unity?

Persecution and Prayer as Forces for Unity

First of all, persecution. That's what it says in Acts chapter 4. The apostles were threatened, beaten, threatened, told not to preach or teach anymore in the name of Jesus Christ. So they went back to the church, called a meeting together, called the people together, and told them what had been told then.

Then what happened? There was a spontaneous prayer meeting right on the spot. And the people just became like one person that says, they lifted up their voices to God with one accord and they said, Lord, You are God.

You made the heaven and the earth and the sea. What happened when they finished praying? The Spirit of God, the place was shaken, the Spirit of God was poured out on them, and a second outburst of Pentecostal power was the result.

Persecution. It's not always bad. It drives Christians together. We're badly fragmented in North America because we don't feel a need of other believers. We couldn't care less whether that other evangelical church in the same village or town goes down or tuber up.

It doesn't really matter. It's not our concern. It ought to be, but it isn't. I was blessed yesterday when Dick Sipley was talking about, you know, working in a certain area with some people to help a church that was struggling.

It didn't help his own church, but he wasn't even concerned about that because he was helping a church of God. And I thought that was so beautiful. Persecution. Prayer. Prayer. You remember Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, if two of you shall agree on earth...

You know, the Greek word there is the word from which we get our English word, symphony. It's a musical term. Symphonia. I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right, but that's how it's spelled. Okay? If two of you shall find yourself in perfect agreement as concerning anything that you will ask, it shall be done for you who is in heaven.

And you know, when you begin to pray with a person, especially when you're praying meaningful, not mindless prayers... You know, oftentimes people are praying mindless prayers. I can sympathize fully with George Whitefield, the famous field preacher.

He was in a prayer meeting one time and a brother got to praying. They were all kneeling and a brother got to praying and George Whitefield was really warmed up by this prayer and he was amening and praising the Lord.

And then the fellow couldn't find a landing field. And he went on and on and the amens got fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer until finally the fellow was praying he'd lost him. And all of a sudden, Whitefield got up off his knees and he sat down.

So when the fellow was finished praying, people got looking around and they all sat down. And Whitefield said to this brother, You prayed me into a good frame of mind and then you prayed me right out again.

And sometimes we do that mindless praying. We want to make a good finish to our prayer so we're thinking of some nice phrase to use. And we bring up five or ten minutes waiting for a nice phrase to come and it doesn't come.

Because we're not talking to God. It would be better just to quit. Like I heard about a fellow who had no contact with the church at all. Somebody witnessed to him and he got converted. And then he didn't know what to say.

I mean, other people were giving testimonies. And so he got up and said, Hooray for Jesus! I mean, that's all he knew. And I'm sure that meant more to God than some of these great, great prayers you hear that touch the whole world and leave you as cold as an iceberg.

But, if you can get together with some person and you can just become one, or ten people can become one person, or twenty people or fifty or whatever, and then God begins to bless and work. So prayer can bring people together.

The Word of God and the Unity of the Faith

Persecution. And then, of course, the Word of God. It ought to go without saying that if you're reading the Bible and I'm reading the Bible, then we ought to be coming closer together all the time. Somehow it doesn't always work that way.

Now, in the Bible you have this phrase, the faith. The faith. And that means, basically, the Christian doctrines. Particularly those doctrines that refer to the incarnation of Christ, His death on the cross for the sins of the world, and His resurrection from the dead on the third day.

The faith. Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. The faith. Now, in Ephesians chapter 4, it talks about the faith. And I quoted that verse, at least part of that, this afternoon.

He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry, for the identifying of the body of Christ, until we all come in the unity of the faith.

And then notice what he adds. Unto the knowledge of the Son of God. And you can't divorce that from the faith. So if I'm learning, if I'm reading my Bible a great deal, it ought to be bringing me closer to Jesus.

And when we think in terms of unity, it's unity in Christ, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. As it's said in Romans 15. Until 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 fullness of Christ.

And he says that we henceforth be no more children. We have many baby Christians in our churches. People who have to be pampered and pat on the back and praised and all the rest of it. Or they don't operate very efficiently or well.

Preaching the Gospel and Personal Responsibility

Alright, the Word of God ought to bring us closer together. And here's something that really brings Christians close together. That's just preaching the gospel. Here's something Paul said in writing to the church at Philippi.

He said, Let your conduct be as it becomes the gospel of Christ, whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs. Let you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel and in nothing terrified by your adversaries.

That's beautiful. But the average Christian isn't involved in getting the gospel out at all. That's something the preacher does on Sunday. And it seems that very, very few Christians really think they have a personal responsibility to share Jesus Christ.

Wesley used to say, All at it and always at it. And you know what Jack Kyle says down in Hammond, Indiana. And you may not agree entirely with his program, but for two solid years, they've been baptizing 200 converts a week.

So something wonderful is happening down there. Do you know what he says? He says when we get a Christian converted, before he has a chance to find out that soul winning is not the normal thing for the average Christian today, we get him soul winning because if he ever finds out, he'll never do it.

But isn't that right? It's right, but it's so wrong. I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel. And you ought to be 100 behind your church's program for reaching the lost in Canada or in some far country, wherever it is.

One group I think of, they don't talk about home missions and foreign missions. They just talk about missions. And everything is missions. Starting a church in Canada is missions. And I think that's right.

But they've got a goal. It's not mindless unity. And one of the reasons why some churches never get anywhere is because they're not going anywhere. I mean, they don't have a program to present to the people and the people know it.

They don't really know whether they're going east, west, north, or south. There's something like the little story I heard. As a matter of fact, we had it as a skit at a camp one time. And it begins with a fellow.

He's a station agent. And he's sitting in the station with his feet up on a desk and he's reading a book. And a fellow comes in and says, Are there any trains going north today? And he comes down. He gets the big book.

He checks the schedule and everything. And after about five minutes, he says, Nope, there's no trains going north today. The fellow says thanks and takes off. The same fellow comes back about ten minutes later and says, Is it safe?

Are there any trains going south today? Same thing. Goes through. Takes five minutes. Looks it up. No. No trains going south today. Comes back in ten minutes. Any trains going west today? Looks it up.

Checks it out. No trains going west today. Sorry. The fellow takes off. Comes back in ten minutes and says, Hey, are there any trains going east today? Looks up in the book. Checks it out. Five minutes.

No. No. He said, I'm terribly sorry. No trains going east today. So the guy turns and hollers out the door, It's safe to cross the tracks. Well, you know, some churches are operating that way. They really don't have a program.

There's no trains going east, west, north, or south. There's nothing happening. And sometimes we're wondering, we're beating the people over the head, wondering why they're not getting behind the program.

What program? I mean, it's mindless. The people don't know what's going on. They can't get behind it because they don't know what it is. It's just got to be spelled out. I've tried to read just about everything that Charles Spurgeon said and everything other people said about him.

It's not that I, you know, he's not my example. Jesus is my example. I've learned a lot from him. And you know, his church, they had marvelous, marvelous blessings from God. Thousands and thousands of people were converted.

And by the way, I read something in a publication a while ago and they were comparing Jack Hiles to Charles Spurgeon. They were pointing out that Jack Hiles was getting more people baptized than Charles Spurgeon ever did.

And they made this comparison. But there's an old saying that all comparisons are odious. For example, Charles Spurgeon could go anywhere in the British Isles and if they had two hours notice, he could get a crowd in the open air of anywhere from 5 to 25 ,000 people.

Now Jack Hiles couldn't get 2 ,000 anywhere in America. I mean, preaching in the open air. And I'm not running Jack Hiles down. God is using him. And another thing, they bring them in by buses. They got 140 buses bringing people into Hammond, Indiana.

And that's great. But when Spurgeon preached, they never had buses. Most people walked. And some people walked miles to be there. Totally different. And you can't compare one with another. But I'll tell you, they had a program for winning the lost.

They worked in every direction they possibly could. They had an orphanage. They had a preacher's college. They had a circulating library for preachers. They had coal porters. 150 coal porters in the British Isles alone, besides missionaries in the foreign field.

They raised millions of dollars for the work of God. I mean, they had a program and people just flocked in there. You know what it says in the Old Testament? They fell unto Him in Israel, from Israel in abundance, when they saw that the Lord as God was with Him.

One of the godly kings. Boy, when the people of Israel saw that God was with this man, they got right behind him. He knew where he was going. And they came in behind him. You know one of the things you read about him?

It says, Hezekiah rejoiced, and all the people, that God had prepared the people, for the thing was done suddenly. Also in Judah, the hand of God was to give them one accord. The hand of God was to give them one accord.

Now I'm sure the hand of God is to give us one accord in all our churches, if we just find out what the hand of God is. What God has in mind. And what He wants for our church. And not be a part of the problem.

He that is of a proud heart stirs up strife. It says in Proverbs. Well, we're talking about factors that promote unity. We talked about persecution and prayer. Then we talked about the Word of God. Then we talked about sharing the Gospel.

The Holy Spirit and Unity in Peace

What about the Holy Spirit? You know, we all have the same Spirit of God in us. We want to be filled, and maybe we are filled with God's Spirit. And Ephesians chapter 4 says, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Holy Spirit in our church, in the bond of peace. Be at peace among yourselves, the Bible says. And how we need to listen to that injunction from the Word of God. Not allow anything to disturb the peace of the people of God.

Speaking the truth, but always in love. Alright? So the unity of the Holy Spirit, certainly the Spirit of God wants to bring unity to a congregation because that's when He can begin to bless. And our business is to walk so with God that will not disturb the work that the Holy Spirit is trying to do in our church.

You know, I've been preaching for 37 years, I guess now, and the last seven years, well, even prior to that, I did a lot of preaching around the country. The last seven years, I get into a lot of churches, different denominations.

And I come to one church and they're just ground to an absolute halt, maybe sliding backwards. I come to another church and they're just having the blessing of God. Now, I don't think there's an exception to our rule.

There's blessing from God always when God's people are like one person. Then the Holy Spirit's working. How good, how pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity, like the ointment, like the jewel.

Love, Christ, and the Unity of the Church

Alright, the Holy Spirit and then love. And Paul talked about that, you know, in Philippians chapter 2. He said, Fulfill you my joy. That is, experience my joy. That you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, having the same love.

You know, if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're filled with the love of God, and I'm filled with the love of God and the Holy Spirit, you don't have a different kind of love than I have. And I don't have a different kind of love than you have.

So if you're filled with the love of God and I'm filled with the love of God, we can't have a fight in a million years. It would be impossible. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, the unity of the faith, the Word of God brings us together, the Spirit of God brings us together, the love of God brings us together.

Everything is moving in the direction of unity. And the devil is down there just snapping around and trying to get the Christians to move in other directions, to get them away from the task that God has given them.

I get so tired of hearing it. I hear it. I read it. And they keep saying the church in North America is a sleeping giant. It might as well be a sleeping pygmy. For all the good it does, giant or not, giant numerically or spiritually.

All right? And then you know the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't have 50 different names. And it was to the name of Christ that Paul appealed to the church at Corinth. Remember? I beseech you, brethren, by the name of Christ, that you all speak the same thing.

And that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. The name of Jesus. Now maybe you didn't know this, but when the revival hit in 1971, Pastor Bolt from the Alliance Church, and I was from Ebenezer Baptist Church, and we were having some great times together, prayed together a lot, and counseled and so on, and traveled together and everything.

And we felt that God was moving us in a certain direction. We had decided that when the revival meetings per se ended, that we were going to unite our two congregations Sunday evening until Jesus came, and rent the Third Avenue, was it, United Church in Saskatoon, and go all out together as two separate congregations, but working together for the salvation of the lost.

Now it didn't work out because God led us in different directions. I mean, I went on the road, and I was not around. But this is what we felt. Well, God smiles on that, you know. I've often wondered what would have happened if we had gone through with it.

Carnality, Pride, and Self-Seeking as Causes of Disunity

Anyway, here are factors that promote unity. What are some factors that promote disunity? Carnality? Remember Paul Reddington Church at Corinth? He said, Whereas it is among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal and walk as men?

Envying, strife, divisions, carnality. And he talks about this, you know, in the book of James. James 3. He says, If you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth.

This wisdom is not from above, but is earthly, sensual, that means carnal, devilish. Demons are behind it. The power of the devil is behind this kind of thing. Envying, strife, divisions. Because the devil knows what he's facing.

And he's got a program to stop the church. And it's a simple program. Divide. And anyway he can, he does it. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory.

But in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's welfare.

Do we live this way? But God wants us to. Factors that promote disunity are right here. Carnality and pride and self-seeking all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. There are many like that.

And when you have people like that in a church, you remember in the Old Testament when Israel was in the wilderness? Who was it? Who was it in the nation that fell to lusting? It was called a mixed multitude.

The people who were half for God and half for the devil, they were the ones. And you often have that in churches. We have lots of people that they don't really mean business for God. And we're not to write them off, we're not to look down our noses at them, but the Bible says, warn the unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all.

All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. Paul said that concerning Christian believers. Did you know that in Philippians 2 .21? Concerning Christians. He said, I can't find a single person, I have no man like-minded, that will naturally care for your state, except for Timothy.

And I want to send him, but I can't find anybody else. Because all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's. If you want blessing in the church, and you want unity in your church, you're going to have to work at it.

You're going to have to do something personally. You're going to have to die to yourself. You're going to have to allow yourself to be caught up in and lost in the program of the church. Even if it's going in a direction that maybe you don't exactly like.

But especially, where the program is designed to reach lost people, whether it's in Canada or in a foreign land, get behind it with all your heart. All right? Factors that promote disunity. And here's an added problem.

The Divided Heart and Spiritual Instability

And it's something a little different, but it's basic to understanding what the problem is. In Genesis 49, Jacob was talking to his son shortly before he himself died. And he called him, you know, person by person.