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But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord [schisma] in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

Here the opposite of schism is having the “same care for one another.” So the unity is oneness of concern and care, not explicitly oneness of ideas.

The fabric of the body should be so interwoven and unified that if one thread is torn, all threads feel the stress. The oneness is a union of heart that feels what the other feels.

Do you see what this means now for us? Satan does not care if you try to keep the ten commandments, provided that you take the credit for keeping them. In fact, he will assist your moral resolve if you will do it that way. Satan does not mind if you come to church, or teach Sunday School, or preach, or work for the freeze, or lobby for a human life bill, or seek prayer in the schools—he’s all in favor of whatever your moral agenda is, provided you rely on yourself instead of the Spirit of Christ and take credit for it yourself instead of humbly giving all glory to God. So do not be unprepared. Our adversary has a clever scheme by which he aims to ruin us and the church.

And though this world with devils filled
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.

The prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure
For, lo, his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.

An example of the word that can fell Satan in our lives is Galatians 4:3-7, “When we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir.”

Do you see what that means? It means that when the appointed time came, God looked down on his own world under the dominion of Satan and said to his Son, “Prepare for the invasion. The artillery of the enemy will be heavy. In fact, before you get very far on the beach you will be killed. But I will raise you from the dead and the beachhead you established will spread until it invades every tongue and tribe and nation. And I will free town after town from slavery to demons and slavery to the law. And we will draw into our movement all those who trust in you, my Son, and we will send your Spirit to empower them and bring them to glory. And they will be my children and heirs of everything I have. Satan will be vanquished, all unbelievers will be banished to outer darkness, and our glory will fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.”

The altar call was unknown in New Testament times. For the earliest Christians it was in baptism that believers first gave expression to their faith in Christ. And in this way baptism was part of the conversion process. A simple glance through the book of Acts will bear this out. When someone came to faith in Christ that faith was immediately expressed in submission to the waters of baptism. There the new believer expressed his faith (Col. 2:12), “calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16) and making “appeal to God for a good conscience” (1Pet. 3:21).

The apostles were very clear in teaching that salvation was by faith alone, apart from works of any kind — whether works of personal merit or works of ceremony, such as circumcision. See for example Rom. 4:1-13. Justification is by faith alone. And the apostles were not contradicting themselves when they spoke in terms of being “buried with Christ in baptism” (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12) or as baptism “saving” (1Pet. 3:21). If baptism is the expression of saving faith, then “faith” and “baptism” in certain contexts can be spoken of almost interchangeably. “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16) is equivalent to “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved (Acts 16:31). The apostles were not teaching baptismal regeneration. They were speaking of faith in terms of its form of expression. The symbol and the reality are so tightly related that one can be spoken of in terms of the other.

Praise the Lord for this dear brother!!

I stress this because to celebrate a grace that bars what is not bliss, and gives flight from all distress and does not order our pain would be biblically false and experientially unrealistic.

Who is this invading enemy? It is man! And he has brought into the church his lust for worldly satisfaction and pleasure. The church has become man-centered instead of God-centered, and the focus is on felt needs instead of God’s glory. These problems are not peripheral things. I’m convinced that the very heart and nature of the church and the Gospel are at stake. The great need of the hour is revival and reform that produces true churches where God is the center, the glory of God is the focus, and the Bible is the authoritative and sufficient manual.