RIGHTEOUS CONDEMNATION AND REJECTION

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this. So when you are assembled and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. “Expel the wicked person from among you.”

1 Corinthians 5:1-5, 12-13

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

What happens when the church becomes too complicit with the world’s ways?

It starts to look like the world and that’s not what God intended the Christian church to be.

Unfortunately, we see more and more of this kind of behavior in places of worship today. More and more principles that the scriptures call out as being blatantly sinful are embraced as acceptable and so instead of conforming the people of the world to a different life where they becomes new creations through belief in Jesus, sadly the church is conforming itself to the world’s ways so that the church doesn’t look any different.

In other words, instead of being in the world but not of it, many Christian churches are espousing that it’s okay to live in the world and be fully of it, all the while proclaiming an allegiance to Jesus. Indeed, Satan has found his way into places of worship and is polluting the holiness and righteousness the Lord demands and expects.

Oh yeah, and don’t speak up and call this problem out as I am doing today in this message because you can be sure to stir up a hornet’s nest of believers who are blind to the misdirection of Christian churches, usually ones they are paired with. Yet, Jesus would never have accepted this and would have spoken out too. This is why faithful Christ followers have to be His mouthpiece in the world today, a mouthpiece speaking words of righteous condemnation and rejection against the sinful acceptance of sinful behavior within the church.

Now, this is far from a twenty-first century problem for as we see in the opening and closing verses of 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, the apostle Paul unleashes a verbal assault against the Christian church in Corinth. The scriptures tell us that there was adulterous sexual immorality happening, specifically a man who was sleeping with his father’s wife and when we read “sleeping with” in the Bible, it is always code for sexual intimacy.

How severe was the nature of this adultery?

So severe that the same behavior would have been rejected by pagan, non-believers. In other words, the Corinthian church was actually accepting acts of immorality that the world shunned. That’s how whacked out things were and Paul wasn’t having anything of it.

And so we find the apostle rebuking (and even threatening) the Corinth church which should have taken a stand against the blatant sexual sin that God commanded against. Instead of embracing the depravity, the Corinthian Christians should have “gone into mourning” and then exercised a righteous condemnation and rejection, censuring the adulterous man, excommunicating him and handing him “over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh”.

What would be the purpose of this disciplinary action?

The hope was that the man would see the wrongs of his ways, repent, and recommit to model his life after Jesus “so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord”.

Ultimately, the Corinth church (and the Christian church today) bore responsibility to judge the Christian believers within it, establishing a modicum of accountability. If a person within the church decided to live a willing wicked lifestyle, the church would be obligated to rebuke and expel them, sending a clear message about how such behavior is unacceptable. At its core, Christian living needs to be centered on being like Jesus and Jesus would never encourage anyone to openly live a life of sin in violation of His Father’s commandments. Neither should His church.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com