We’re going to hear constantly from this visible church.  Let’s call it what the Bible calls it: the great whore.  It calls, not just professed Christians, but religion as a whole, the great whore.  For all of the principles and doctrines that they want to promote, every one of those doctrines must bow its knee to Jesus Christ and the authority of the Word of God.  So, when we’re listening, we’re listening with those kind of ears.  We’re going, “Wait a minute.  Is this message promoting the guy preaching it, building his own kingdom?  Who’s being glorified here?  Who’s being worshiped?”

The Scripture tells us that corrupt man, from the very beginning, refused to bow and worship the Creator, but worshiped the creature instead.  The rebellion and the solidarity of the unregenerated, today, of all religions—we’re dealing primarily with fake Christianity.  Those religions were started as direct opposition and declaration to the fact that, “We do not recognize you as Lord over us.  We are gods unto ourselves.  The answer, truth, is within us.”  It will be discovered by transcendental meditation, dropping a little acid, this pursuit of a spiritual experience.  There’s only one spiritual experience that has any worth to it and that is regeneration (amen?), that creation that makes all of the old pass away and makes a hunger, a delight, a boasting in everything new.

We reject anything that has its basis in Freudian psychology.  It’s demonic.  It is anti-Christ.  It deifies the creature.  It finds the answer.  Now, remember, when they’re talking about, “Looking for the answer,” they’re not looking for the answer of, “What is truth?”  They’re looking at the answer to, “What will fix me, momentarily, and get me out of this momentary torment?  How can I be enlightened?  How can I be delivered from this inner turmoil?”  “You must be born again” (John 3:7).  Hallelujah!

The problem is found with so many people in the church today.  When we’re out in the highways and byways, we’re so quick to embrace everybody who names themselves a Christian.  I think the question we need to ask, possibly in conversation with them, “Which Jesus are you serving?  The one that you and your religion created, or the one of the Bible?  Who is Jesus Christ to you?”  Isn’t that the vital question that was asked?

“Some say You’re a great prophet.”  I was just talking to a Muslim the other day.  He said, “Oh, we recognize Jesus Christ.  We love Jesus Christ.  He’s one of the prophets we recognize.”  He’s not one of the prophets, He is God Almighty; amen?  He is deity.  He is truth, praise God!  Ephesians 1 says in verses 22 and 23 that Jesus is “head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him,” praise God!

I want to look at Jesus as He relates to the church, the visible church, the church that was bought with His precious blood, metaphorically, the body of Christ.  Metaphorically, Jesus is the husband of this great bride that is to be purifying herself.  The true church, today, is unifying around the preparation for the soon coming of our great Savior, our Lord, our Betrothed, and He’s coming at any moment!  If you have that hope, you’re purifying yourself as He is pure.  Purification, as we’re looking at it here, isn’t just moral purification.  We are not just making ourselves more holy in our physical lives.  Purification is doctrinal purification.  The bride is preparing herself, purifying herself doctrinally, seeking the truth, applying the truth, being “a doer of the Word, and not a hearer only.”  You are not being purified if you’re not living a life of obedience to the revelation you have; amen?