As we observe the multiplying of denominations, we may well wonder, “How many of these groups were closer to the Lord’s will, and how many were further?” The Lord alone knows each heart. Yet the result that followed the Reformation reminds us of the Lord’s warning through Paul in 2 Timothy 4.
Preach the word…. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:2-4)
Biblical history shows that humans tend to stray. To what are they attracted? To their own desires (James 1:14-15; 1 John 2:16 cf. Genesis 3:6). People, of course, have varying passions and priorities, which are often in competition. The inevitable result is that different groups form, each gathering its own teachers to say what that group’s “itching ears” want to hear. Even given the benefit of the doubt, even if people have the best intentions, today’s confusion seems very much like what we have seen before.
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25 cf. Deuteronomy 12:8; Proverbs 21:2)
To which we must ask, “Is there no king in Israel? Has He not come? Has He not given us something much better than the chaos of the normal human condition?”