When we think like that, we surely ignore the lessons of history. When Rehoboam, the son of Solomon came to the throne in Israel, he followed the practice of the previous kings and called in the elders who served his father. These men with years of experience under their belt thought it would be best to lighten the load of the people. They said, "Rehoboam if you will serve the people now, they will always be your servants." But the young king didn't like what he heard, so he called in the young men - buddies and pals from his years of growing up. He wanted to know "What do you guys think?" They had very different advice. They said "You need to increase the burdens, push the people harder, make 'em pay more taxes." So he did. He tried to "show the people who was boss." The first thing he knew, Rehoboam had a rebellion on his hand. His number one strong man was Adoniram. Adoniram was going to put some teeth in the forced labor project. He got himself killed instead and Rehoboam barely escaped with his skin. He ended up losing 80 percent of the kingdom.

A friend once said to me, "Norman, you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you set out to do something." We don't have to make the same mistakes others made before us, especially those who didn't listen to the voice of experience. Those of us, who have been down the road, could learn some things from the younger folks. They're more daring, more innovative, more willing to ask the questions that we don't want to even think about, more intense in their devotion when they are devoted. On the other hand it's suicidal to discount the voice of experience. All experience isn't valid. If a person has been on the wrong track for fifty years, fifty years of experience won't put him on the right track. There's one thing you can count on, however. The Word of God has stood the test of time. You can count on it when the chips are down. Although our ultimate confidence is not in man, we can learn from Godly men and women who have fought some of the same battles we fight now.

THE GOAL OF PURSUING PEACE

Paul urged his readers "be of one mind; live in peace." When he said "be of one mind," he was not talking about some kind of artificial framework of unity, in which every Christ is a precise duplicate of every other Christian. We are not a cloned people, never have been and never will be.

In the Restoration Movement, one of our great concerns has been unity. We have given lip service to the condemnation of division and then turned around and practiced it. We right point to the prayer of Jesus in John 17, when he prayed that we might all be one.

Unfortunately, we taught that unity comes about only when we have complete conformity of thought in all details and we never have been able to pull that one off. You've probably seen tracts which ask the question, "Can We All Understand the Bible Alike?" Well, yes, theoretically it's possible, but in practical terms we've got about as much chance of seeing the Bible alike as Mark McGwire has of hitting a home run every time he comes to bat next season. He's good, but he's not that good.

Granted, there must be conformity of thought on certain basic truths. There is such a thing as doctrinal error, but our unity doesn't grow out of our ability to see all the issues alike. It grows out of a relationship to Jesus. According to Galatians 3:26-27, we put on Christ, when by faith we are baptized into Christ. God is our father and we are his children. Anywhere God has children, you and I have brothers and sisters.

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