Five blind men also lived in a town; they had never seen an elephant. When they heard that an elephant was in town, they wanted to find out what an elephant looked like. They could not see the elephant, but they could touch and feel the elephant, and in so doing, they could get some idea of what an elephant looked like.
The five blind men went to the place where the elephant was, and touched the
elephant. The first blind man touched the trunk of the elephant, and said that
the elephant was like a branch of a tree. The second blind who had touched the
tail of the elephant, said no he was wrong that the elephant was like a snake
or a rope. The third blind had felt a leg of the elephant. He said they were
both wrong that elephant was like a pillar. The fourth blind had touched an ear.
He said none of you know at all what you are talking about the elephant was
thin and like a huge fan. The fifth blind who had touched the side of the
elephant, said laughed and told the others that the elephant was nothing like
anyone had experienced it was like a wall.
They argued with each other, each man thinking that what he had experienced was
the truth. They couldn’t reconcile each other’s experiences as to what the
elephant really looked like.
The moral of the children’s story: The wise man responded: “Each of you have
touched only one part of the elephant. If you put together all your parts you
will know what an elephant looks like.
The lesson was that they were all right, each
man’s experience was just as valid as the next.
But this is a children’s answer, a feel-good children’s moral
The fact remained that these men were still blind and unenlightened as to
the height depth and breadth of elephant. No sooner than each man had made
contact with something of the elephant they became satisfied in their
experience, all seeking ceased, and they began to quantify their experience
into teaching and doctrine. Sadly not one of them had experienced the fullness
of the elephant. Sadly not one went on beyond his initial contact. Sadly after
they argued and became fractionalized not one said take me back to the elephant
and let me verify what I experienced and what my brother experienced.
In the end all five blind men were lulled into a
blind acceptance of what each other had felt as a man of the flesh (read this as; had supposedly discovered in God”).
Note that with the words of this wise man of earthly wisdom; none was made the
wiser or was enriched spiritually by either their experience, or hearing the
words of the wise man or even by the fleshly experiences of others – in other
words this did little or nothing to prepare them for their next major physical
encounter in life.
Why? Because the blind men had not been given an objective criteria for judging
their own experience, much less each the experience of their blind peers as to
being true or false or incomplete or complete. They were more or less told to
trust whatever they stumbled into as being true. (Think about every church and
denomination believing that they are the only ones with the pure truth and that
their Pastor like Paul the Apostle hears from God like no man hears from God).
Consider their actions that they all stopped at the first contact of “the
truth” their mission to discover the truth of the elephant completely stopped.
They all lost all desire to seek and instead they all quantified their
experience, they all doctrinalized their experience, and then all preached
their experience. It appears that all were seeking only their own
aggrandizement, rather than seeking the truth.
Look again now at how this supposed wise man exacerbates the problem – instead of rebuking them for not continuing to seek – his judgment not only made their errant behavior acceptable, but completely validated their stopping at first contact. Further his faulty judgment completely validated their carnal designs upon gaining this truth for their own personal pleasure. In other words this wise man embraces and encourages the taint – therefore this wise man can only be viewed as the corrupter of truth. And the corrupter teaches that whatever the blind men felt, or heard, does not require being tried and tested. All that they have felt or heard is to be accepted and all that they have felt and heard is completely valid this includes accepting the untried and untested testimony and teaching of other blind men. So what the corrupt wise man is really saying here is that that all this untried, and untested mixture is just to be our truth.
If this does not make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end I can offer you no help.
This is an exact image of the blind Church leadership and the blind leaders of Denominations in our day. Each has stopped with a centering around a certain set of experience – and creating their own gilded cage of teachings and doctrines to validate their level of blindness. They argue with one another, fight, and shun each other and yet none goes back to the elephant to even validate their level of blindness. or to compare their level of blindness with the level of their neighbors blindness. None care to find more of the elephant. None has experienced the fullness of the elephant, and none is any more prepared for the next major encounter than they were before they ran into the elephant.
The Church has become a death cult. The Christian religion has devolved to primarily celebrating the death sacrifice and pain of Christ. Few of us understand the resurrection of Christ. We understand the fact of the resurrection but not the implications to the Church and our walk. To most the resurrection is only a footnote in the life of Christ. We have been taught that the Gospels ended with Christ going to be with the Father. We do not understand how the Apostles became Apostles – or we would be Apostles ourselves.
We sort of know, but it very hard to admit to ourselves that when the Apostles died -- they took what they had with him. And that every successive generation after that point of time; particularly those who were called the “spiritual leadership” among believers fell back notch by notch with the coming of every new generation until the entire Church became blinded once more by the God of this world, and willingly succumbed to having their understanding darkened.
This blinding process continued until early in the third century the Church that had been without spot and wrinkle became the great whore of the book of Revelation, and then went about setting up one supreme Church in Rome, and reinstating a mock Levitical priesthood to rule over all the people, and then they created one supreme leader of their ruling church – replacing Christ with a man. Like it or not these are our spiritual forbearers, this is the corrupted stump from which we all budded. Protestants, Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics.
Every Church and Denomination had worked from
the same blind premise that it is only they that hold the whole truth, and all
others have been deceived to a greater or lesser degree. Have you ever
wondered: How it is that every Church and Denomination works from this same
exact playbook?
Can all these Churches and Denominations be correct in their carnal selfish assumption that each of them is the only true church and all the rest are deceived to a greater or lesser degree? Can all these different Gospels that are being taught by these various Churches and Denominations be correct? Isn’t it far more likely that all have been deceived to a greater or lesser degree?
Revelation 3:14-17 And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
We know that the Church of Laodicea is bad –everyone preaches about them and that we are in the Laodicean age but not one person has ever preached or said that they go to or are a member of that Church. It’s always someone else. Recently I attended some Churches were members were told that sins listed in the epistles were written to and talking about the unsaved – that none of that has to do with you once you have been born again. Before we get on our high horse and denounce this preaching we need to examine ourselves, I fear that to a greater of lesser we have deluded ourselves into believing along these lines though we have devised far more cleaver ways to state these beliefs.
Let a man examine himself that he be in the
faith. – Why would this be said to believers if it were not possible to not be
in the faith?