RELIGIOUS FREEDOM has its benefits for unhindered preaching of the Gospel. These freedoms have allowed some vibrant godly forms of Christianity to grow and prosper and yet these freedoms have sadly also allowed many of the vilest perversions of Christianity to prosper. One cannot begin to calculate the effects of cults, heretical groups and false gospels that have been allowed to prosper under the banner of religious freedom and expression.
In the past hundred years more cults then ever in Church history have sprung up and many with end time focus and deception. Such groups start as a guise and deception of the true working of the Holy Spirit in that day. We must “test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”393 We must not shun away from focusing on God’s end time purposes and the second coming of Jesus Christ, though many cult groups394 are perverting this great hope of the Church.
However, a far worse epidemic of division in the body of Christ has also been fostered in this environment. There are groups of people meeting in homes, churches, and in public meeting areas all divided from each other under the premise that a specific doctrine they hold is right. Therefore the rest of believers are not with them in their truth.395 Such thinking has resulted in the splitting and splintering of denominations to the place where there are easily over 40,000 registered denominations396 worldwide in Christendom.
Not all division is wrong and there are times for groups to be formed for a recovery of lost truth.397 Therefore, some of these groups are started for good reasons, namely, the preserving of the testimony of Jesus Christ in their local area. Many groups splintered from a larger group because of the defection from truth (apostasy) that was beginning to happen.398 Even some church bodies that claim themselves to be the only true church started from a sincere desire to preserve the truth when so many around them were deviating from God’s Word.
Yet this calls for the maturity of the saints of God in our day who are gathering together under the Headship of Jesus Christ to also have a heart for the larger body of Christ.399 In some areas a specific group will exist for the purpose of calling the body of Christ to further purity, holiness and life. Yet these groups also need to have a realization and acceptance for others in the body of Christ who are even in churches they do not agree with.400 God has a Remnant in many fellowships all over the world who have not bowed the knee to baal.401
One way we can start to pray is for God to unify the elect people of God in local areas who are of the true body of Christ. God will hear such a prayer for His desire is to see victorious overcomers in local Assemblies gathering together.402 Devoting ourselves to such prayers will begin to build in us a spiritual vision of how the Lord sees His end times Bride.403