Consequences are the result of and not necessarily the punishment for conduct. God knew the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit, and even though He was willing to forgive Adam and Eve, the consequences were not nullified. The alcoholic, as he repents, is welcomed by God, but his liver continues to bear the consequences of years of abuse. The young girl may have repented of her sin, but the consequence of aids or an illegitimate child may follow her to the grave. Such is the nature of consequences. For the purpose of this article I would like to focus on a few visible consequences of Satan's implanted divisiveness. In the city of San Antonio alone which, with several smaller incorporated cities, has a population of a little over one million, there are one-thousand-ninety-nine, (1,099) denominated religious organizations (churches) listed in the yellow pages. The cathedrals and other buildings owned by these organizations represent a tax base of well over three-hundred-million dollars, ($300,000,000.00). Every one of these organizations applies for and gets tax exclusion. Madeleine O'Hare is reported to have said that she had no argument with the various sects, but that she did object to having her tax bill impacted because of them. She has a legitimate point. This same scenario is seen in the smaller rural towns. The large majority, which are non-church people, are forced to pick up the tab for the religious church goers. How can we win them to Christ when we have our hands in their back pockets? Recently Andy Rooney exposed, on national T.V., tremendous waste in the name of religion. He showed several multi-million dollar cathedrals with no more than forty or fifty members in attendance. He closed his expose' by suggesting that if the members of the various sects knew how much their personal tax bills were being impacted by this extravagant waste, they would be willing to assemble together for worship. Many fundamentally conservative, denominated, religious organizations boast that over eighty percent of their budget goes for evangelizing. There was a time when I believed this. My church was spending over fifty-thousand dollars ($50,000.00) per year for a pulpit minister who spent almost all of his time promoting our church and its party positions. The missionaries we were supporting in Mexico were not evangelizing but, rather, they were down there stirring up the "liberal" brethren. They were down there promoting our brand of orthodoxy. This is not evangelizing. It is preaching a "party" gospel. As I investigated further, I found that our entire building expense was included in this eighty percent figure. When you consider what is involved in keeping up a huge cathedral with its parking lot, offices, and utilities you a considering a huge amount of money. One church in San Antonio was recently milking its membership for a reported twelve million dollar building expansion program. One sad aspect of this is that many sincere church members give all of their available charity money to their church. Consequently, when family, friends, or neighbors need help, they are unable to give it. Now I implore you to ask yourself this question: Is this modern-day "corban" or is it not? "I have pledged it to the church". "I have no money for widows and orphans." "It is pledged". Does this sound like the true religion of James l:27? Is the practice of OUR religion preventing us from practicing TRUE religion? Is there any difference between us and the Pharisees? One Sunday morning we had gotten to church early and observed that one of our deacons had discovered a street person asleep behind a secluded area of our building and was ushering him off our property because he was interfering with our practice of religion. He was making our members uncomfortable. He was defiling our building. Is there something wrong here? Have our cathedrals caused us to miss the point? Cathedrals are but monuments to our pride. We are not storing up treasures in heaven when we build them. "God dwells not in temples made with hands". A few years ago, in McCall, Idaho, an elder and veteran of World War II, was lamenting the terrible sin of divisiveness among Christians. He reported that when the war was over the Japanese completely surrendered to us. They were also ready to give up their gods since our God had given us the victory. The call went out for a million Bibles and a thousand evangelists, but the order was not filled because we were too busy fighting among ourselves. We were too occupied with church splits, each one of which required a new building and a new paid pulpit minister. We were too busy fighting over whether or not the bread should be broken before it is blessed. We were bogged down in such weighty matters as whether or not more than one cup should be used. We were too busy proving that our particular brand of orthodoxy was "true religion". In short, we were eaten up with the divisive spirit. San Antonio was used in our earlier example. Suppose we enlarge the scenario to cover the United States. Would you believe that we are talking about more than forty-nine billion dollars ($49,000,000,000)? (Conservative extimate based on Rand McNally l995 population figures-add another forty million ($40,000,000.00) ANNUALLY for locally situated pulpit ministers.) We are talking about money used for our own comfort. We are talking about money used to hire pulpit ministers to tell us what we like to hear. Imagine how much closer we could come to winning the world for Christ if this money were diverted into feeding the widows and the homeless. The extravagance of denominated religious organizations, huge edifices, and paid pulpit ministers is the natural consequence of our own divisiveness. "Is Christ divided?" We make it appear to be so. Could the world be won without these non-scriptural aids? When the Christians were scattered from Jerusalem the Gospel was spread and they did it in the complete absence of denominated religious organizations. Every believer was a minister of the Gospel. They did it without cathedrals, and they did it without paid pulpit ministers. Why couldn't it be done today? It could be done today. But I suppose the most awful consequence of our divisiveness is that with any organization that cost so much, the organization, of necessity, must be the big promotion. The organization must perpetuate itself or it ceases to be. Jesus plays second fiddle. The grand promotion is the system. This is not right. This is not good. This is not by the Book. Please think on these things. I believe them to be true to the Word.

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