‭Note for 2024/05/07 - 1 Corinthians 5:1-13 KJV‬

 

‭1 Corinthians 5:1-13 KJV‬

[1] It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. [2] And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. [3] For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, [4] in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, [5] to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. [6] Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? [7] Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: [8] therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. [9] I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: [10] yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. [11] But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. [12] For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? [13] But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

https://bible.com/bible/1/1co.5.1-13.KJV

Note for 2024/05/07

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory. Forever and ever, Amen...

Friends, look at the world around you. See what it has become. To use Paul's way of explaining, look how much old leaven is in it. If this guilty party in the reading had mourned and repented, do you think Paul would still have handed him over, if he was coming in repentance, admitting his weakness? Paul used the term "leaven" precisely in my opinion, because this practice, if tolerated and permitted, sends the wrong message about sin. This man was boastful about it, proud of himself. Pride alone is enough of a problem, what still, of sexual immorality on top of that. My heart is pulled towards the account of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery, but I am soon reminded that it was about a stoning. Here it is to permit the state of the person to be troubled to the point that they may come to repentance. If the Church does nothing about it, then that lust is permitted to flourish within the congregation. What's more, is that behavior can lead to more such and even worse than that. This is about the sanctity of the church, and how it must be separated from the ways of this world to be Holy.

Remember the account when Christ spoke on the splinter in your brother's eye? How we must remove the beam in our eye before attempting to remove the splinter in his? Is it not the same for the church? Paul speaks elsewhere about the struggle inwardly of the Spirit against the flesh. How the flesh is at enmity with the Spirit and the Spirit with the flesh. Elsewhere again, he speaks on how it is better for a man to be alone without a wife, for then he will not be divided between pleasing both his wife and the Lord. But he further acknowledges that this is not possible for all to do, that if a man is weak in the flesh, it is better for him to have a wife.

I wonder who could cast a stone today. For we stand in a world where this leaven Paul spoke of, has taken over many places. What is permitted to remain in the church today, what is approved in it? Will Christ find faith when He returns?

Elsewhere, Paul writes, that which he wants to do, he does not and that which he does not want to do, that he does. But notice the heart in this, please. He is not boastful about it, he is ashamed of that in him. Think of the thorn in the flesh he prayed to GOD three times to remove from him, where He answered, "My grace is sufficient for you." We know that GOD hates pride and so too sexual immorality, we just need to read the book of Proverbs for that, but God loves a repenting heart, as we read of King David.

What should not be missed is that this excommunication applies to the one that does such things, but claims to be a believer. Because, if this was our approach to those who have not come into the faith yet, the church would run empty, the message of Salvation would cease. So should such a person not just be sent to another church because of the shame, but excommunicated so he may be troubled in the flesh and his soul may be saved.

To me, it seems like Paul had his hands full with the Corinthians. Yet, I wonder what the nature of his letters may have been if he was here today. Though the Corinthians were in the heart of pagan people, what does the world look like today? It is not strange today to see the church approve and even marry those that take strange flesh. In fact, can we still call it strange flesh if it is so common? We live in a world where people petition for murder. Man stands for rights that GOD did not give. Would the church be empty, if we had to follow his way of excommunication today? And if not excommunicated, does it then send a message of approval? Do I dare ask what church leaders today are lobbying for?

Shall we speak of garments then, is the Bride of Christ dressed in white today, without spot or blemish? Then I ask you, who is the church, is it not you and me? Now let's think about the splinter and the beam again. Oh, friends; I am focused on the log in my eye, I am simply sharing what I find in the Word while I work at removing that log from my own eye. The purification of the church starts in me. By the Holy Spirit am I guided from spot to spot for removal of it. Is that not the very essence of the process of sanctification? And should the church not be sanctified too? Are we not in the process of deliverance, both the church as a whole, but also each of us within?

The question we should ask ourselves, are we seeking occasion to sin? What is the heart in matters, for the circumcision was always intended to be of the heart, not? But, if we tolerate sin in us, and God forbid, permit sin to increase in us; are we in the process of deliverance then? Or, are we on route to “the falling away?”

So, yes! I am concerned about the state of the church, for what I see. Just a short while ago a pastor was thrown out of the church when he objected to the entertainment of a man on a stripper pole in a state of undress. What is that? I will have no part in that. And who do you imagine was the one that landed up repenting? You may think, "Oh, but that is just one congregation. It does not speak to the church as a whole." Then I gladly bring you back to today's reading and refer you to the part on the leaven. It starts with one, then soon you have a petition for diversification of the church board members. So Satan gets his way in.

Yes, we go out into the world to spread the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of GOD. Yes, we do not struggle against the flesh, but against all powers of darkness in the air, but we do not bring it in. That would lead to a full possession of the church by the powers of darkness. To the point that there will be no more sanctity in the church.

Lastly then, we know that we are the church. The church is made up by us, who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of GOD and the Savior of mankind. When we congregate in Christ, we are the church congregation. So what you tolerate in you, you bring to the congregation. If you thus permit or justify sin in you, you permit it in. For the church to be cleansed, we must be cleansed. Our misunderstanding contributes to the confusion in the greater whole. We purify or pollute, and are we then not purified in our own selves by the Holy Spirit of GOD? Purge then sin from within yourselves, as I will do; do it not just for yourself, but for the church as a whole. If you then lack concern for yourself, hold on to the concern for one another. Love, even as Christ has loved us.

Shalom

Verse of the Day

(YouVersion)

‭Galatians 6:9 KJV‬

[9] And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. 

https://bible.com/bible/1/gal.6.9.KJV