WHAT IS A CHURCH?
What should our church be? A place for Saints to gather, a house of prayer, a building where we meet and worshipping together? Yes, I would say all of the above, however the church is something else besides a place for good people to fulfill scripture and assemble together. It is a place where the sick, the needy, the down cast, the sinner and the backslider can find help and healing. We should never forget that.
The church is a hospital to care for the needs of those that have need to be cared for. The good Samaritan is an example; he stopped and cared for the man that fell among thieves having been robbed and left for dead. The religious crowd were too pious to stop and help, they had better things to do.
Then enters the good Samaritan; he stops and cares for the wounded man with his own provisions, takes him too the inn which is a type of the church, where the inn keeper (the pastor) can care for him. Yes, the church is much more that a place for good people to assemble together in, it is a hospital, a place to bring those in great need!
I always thank God for the wonderful hospital we have, called Living Word Tabernacle, we need more patients, the hopeless, the helpless and those that need Christ the most!
William Branham said it like this; "Remember the good Samaritan that found the man wounded? He brought him to the inn (That's the church.) and gave the man there two pence, and told him if he needed any more, he'd pay him when he come. So, he's got two pence; he's able to doctor you up if he's a man of God. If he's a man of God that stands on the Word of God, he's got what God give him: the Spirit and the Word."
Pastor Bill Ivy - Living Word Tabernacle, Campbell Missouri - www.livingwordtabernacle.com