It’s interesting that when Jesus was born, there were wise men who brought gifts. There was gold, and that’s the gift for a King. There was frankincense, which is used by the high priest. There was myrrh, and that’s used to prepare a man’s body for burial. Whether those wise men in Matthew 2 realized it or not, in those gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, they were honoring Him Who had become King—and King He is!—and High Priest. According to Hebrews 3[:1], He is our “High Priest.” And, He is the Savior of the world, indeed! His very Name means it, Matthew 1:21.

But what part does the church have to play? The church is the family of God. The “disciples were called Christians,” Acts 11:26. The word “Christians” means “those who follow Christ.” Jesus talks about “My sheep” in John 10. He talks about “My kingdom,” John 18:36. He talks about “My church,” Matthew 16:18. All of these terms are referring to the same people. And so today, the Lord is working through that church. Part of God’s eternal purpose was that through “the church the manifold wisdom of God” is to be made “known” to the world, Ephesians 3:8 to 11.

Back to what we were saying a while ago, when a man is in the body, he’s in the church; when he’s in Christ, he’s in the church; when he’s in the family of God, he’s in the church; when he’s in the kingdom, he’s in the church. But it’s by the new birth that he gets “into the kingdom,” John 3:5. That means that when a man has been born again, he’s in the church. It’s by conversion that he “enters” “the kingdom,” Matthew 18:1 to 3, so, by conversation, he comes into the church. The Bible says that those “who do the Will of My Father” “shall enter the Kingdom,” Matthew 7:21 to 23. So, those who do the Will of the Father come into the church.

What did Paul mean that by “one spirit” are we all baptized into “one body”? I want you to notice that the Bible does mention “one” in that list of seven things—seven “one’s.” In Ephesians 4:4 to 7, Paul mentions not only “one Lord,” and we understand that; he mentions not only “one God,” and we understand that, but he also mentions “one body.” In Romans 12:4 and 5, he again says “one body.” In 1 Corinthians 10:17, he speaks of “one body.” In 1 Corinthians 12:12 to 13, two or three times more he mentions “one body.” In 1 Corinthians 12:20, he mentions there are “many members, yet but one body,” making it even more emphatic. And then in Ephesians 2:16, “one body;” Ephesians 4:4 and 5, “one body;” and Colossians 3:15, “one body.” Ten times in seven Scriptures, he mentions “one body.”

How many heads does that body have? One! How many bodies does the one head have? One! We are a “holy nation,” 1 Peter 2:9, but how many “holy nations” does He have? One! We are a “household,” but how many “households” does He have? One! “Family”—how many families? One! Why, then, would people quibble or question: “Now we need to know exactly whether or not we are in the One Body the Lord speaks of.” You go through the New Testament and people say, “Well you can’t really be sure.” Why can’t we? Aren’t we told to “prove all things; hold fast that which is good,” 1 Thessalonians 5:21? Aren’t we told “do not believe all the spirits, but prove them,” 1 John 4:1? Back in Jeremiah 2:13, the old prophet said something that is still true. He said, “God’s people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Him, the Fountain of Living Waters, and [have] hewn out cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Isn’t that still true? People have forsaken Him, the Living Water—the Living Fountain—and they’ve hewn out other fountains, but they won’t hold any water.

In the Old Testament times, this was done because of envy—and envy is always destructive, always.Envy always seeks to get rid of the object that it envies. In 'color:black'>Genesis 26:14-15, “the Philistines envied” Isaac and they “filled” up “all the wells which his father had dug.” Then, in Genesis 26, verses 16 to 18, “Isaac digged again those wells,” and the Bible says they were called by the same names that they had been formerly called. Now, isn’t that what we’re doing tonight—re-digging old wells, old spiritual wells, and calling them the same names, referring to them in the same way? “Thus saith the Lord, stand in the ways, and see, and ask for the Old Paths, where is the Good Way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk therein,” Jeremiah 6:16 and 17. Aren’t we told not to go “beyond that which is written,” 1 Corinthians 4:6?

How do we account for all the religious bodies today? All of them claim to come from the same source. Let’s say that five farmers buy a bag of seed together. From that one bag, they are going to plant their respective fields. In a few months, they are going to come together and are going to report the yield. They planted their fields and came back together. The first farmer said, “You know, my seed out of that bag produced the best pumpkins I think I have ever seen!” The second farmer said, “You know that is strange! Mine produced the best peanuts I have ever seen!” The third farmer said, “I don’t understand this. The same seed that I took out of that bag produced watermelons!” The other one said, “Well, mine produced cotton!” And the other said, “You know, mine produced plums!” What if that really happened? Well, it’s not likely to happen, but if it did, there would be only one of three or four explanations and that’s all! Number one: everybody had the same thing and they didn’t know the difference. They called it “plums,” but it was really “pumpkins.” They just didn’t know the difference. That’s one explanation. Another explanation is that the fields had been previously sewn with other things that really choked out the seed later planted, which was taken from the same bag. That’s another explanation. Or the third explanation is, they just didn’t take from that same bag and plant the seed in those fields. [They took seed from five different bags.]