HOW TO STOP CHURCH HYPOCRISY

In the video of the “Silent Sin”, I talked about how we are to remove sexually immoral people from the church. This goes against everything that we were raised practicing, but it is in the Bible; New Testament in fact.

1 Corinthians 5:9-13 9 I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner--not even to eat with such a person. 12 For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? 13 But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person."

The church has become backward on so many points, and this is one of them. The church tends to judge those in the world and remain satisfied with the sin in the church. When we read a passage like this, we tend to not like that passage; therefore the majority of churches ignore the passage. Yet, the church does not belong to anyone on this Earth, it’s God’s church. And, God wants things done a certain way in His house. We even pray, “thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven”. Do we think that there will be immorality in God’s Kingdom in Heaven? He doesn’t want it in His house here either: He want’s a house and a bride that is pure.

We see here that Paul, when He wrote about not associating with the sexually immoral, was not talking about the people in the world: we would have to leave this world, but he is specifically talking about those who call themselves Christian. Because, when we call ourselves Christian, taking on the title of Y’shua, and we knowingly live immoral lives, we defame the name of Christ.

But, what we, the church, has ended up doing is avoiding the people in the world, gathering in our little social club bubbles, condemning the world; and Paul is saying, why are you judging the world? That’s God’s job. You need to judge those in the church and expel those who refuse to walk according to Christ. Yet we’ve let these things go on in the church, and we say how evil those people are in the world.

This concept is completely the opposite of what we are told to do. Those people in the world, we are to love them and go after them.

Some reading may be thinking maybe I’m misunderstanding this section of Scripture. How else are we supposed to understand it? It’s black and white. Some may be saying, “Jesus would never do this, He would never condone this”. If you truly believe that, you don’t know Christ.

The very walk of Christ showed His compassion for the sinners in the world, but his disdain for the religious who were whitewashed tombs. He had compassion and forgiveness for the prostitute, but condemned those who proclaimed to be followers of God but did not clean up their lives.

There are people who are probably saying, this kind of message will cause people to leave the church. Well, quite honestly, if they are not willing to live according to Christ, according to Scripture, they are not really in the church: they are dead man’s bones filling the pews. If a person is continuing in sin, and they have no intent on repenting of that sin, they might as well not come and go have some fun in the world. Why would a man build a barn and not evaluate the cost beforehand?

But, what about the world, what would they think of a church who removed people from it because they refuse to repent? I think the world has been waiting for it to happen. The biggest complaint of the world is the level of hypocrisy in the church and the lack of action against it. They are ready for the church to start judging the sin that is inside the church.

It’s not until this happens that the church will become a light to the world again, and it becomes attractive to the world. How many times have you tried witnessing to someone and they say, “I don’t need your church. Half of those people in there are more immoral than I am”. But what if the church was serious about purity? And, we suddenly loved each other enough that we went after each other, and confronted each other on the things we are doing that is not pleasing to God; and we suddenly become the salt of the earth again?

So, according to 1 Corinthians, if you call yourself a Christian, and you are sexually immoral, if your greedy, idolater, a gossiper or partier, a drunkard, or an extortioner, or swindler, I am not supposed to even eat with you: not if you call yourself a Christian and are not willing to repent.

While some may be thinking that this is unloving, I totally disagree; but we’ll get to that in a moment. This practice not only protects the church but it also protects the reputation of Christ.

So, how do we expel someone from the church; and how in the world could I ever see this as loving?

Matthew 18:15-17 15 "Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.' 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

Galatians 6:1 says we are to restore those who have fallen; but how do we do that: this passage gives an explanation. “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that 'by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.' 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.

So we are to go to them in private, not tell our other friends and claim we are telling them for prayer, but go in private; just you and them.

This is the most loving thing we can do. In fact, do you know what the story is before Matthew 18:15? It’s the parable of the lost sheep. Remember, this is where Y’shua says, “which of you, if you have a hundred sheep, and one of them strays off, would not leave the other 99 to go after that one.” We have this picture in our head of Christ holding that one but who are His hands, feet, eyes, and mouth? We look at that passage of the lost sheep and think, “how loving is that” then we look at the very next verse and see, “If your brother sins against you go after him”.

People say, “that’s judgmental, that’s not loving” but the Bible is saying it’s not loving to not go after them and just allow them to stray. If you love him, you go after him; and you show him his fault. And if he hears you, you have won him back into the fold of Christ, back into the flock: that is the goal!!

Now, if your brother does not listen, take two or three along with you: lovingly go after him with a few of his friends.

If he refusing to listen to them, then talk to the church. Go to the elders and explain the situation and along with the church, love him and go after them and say, “look, you got to walk away from this addiction, you gotta walk away from him or her, you gotta quit gossiping about people” Maybe then they will come back.

Then the Bible says, if they still refuse to listen. Now, this is Y’shua talking (for those who think expelling someone from the church is not something Jesus would do), He says to treat him like a heathen or tax collector. Yes, that means to remove them from the church: this is where 1 Corinthians 5 comes in.

What’s interesting, while the parable of the lost sheep was before this passage, after these passages Y’shua says we must keep forgiving. We must keep going after that lost sheep, but he can not remain in the church until he decides to repent of his ways. He can not stay in the church because sin, in the church, will start to spread.

Again, I’m sure some are still having problems with this, but it IS what the Bible says, and it is very loving. If you go back to 1 Corinthians 5, to verse four and five:

1 Corinthians 5:4-5 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

What does that mean? Turn them over to Satan so their soul will be saved? How does that work? In this loving act, the expelling of that person from the church is the last act of desperation. We hope that the person would come to their senses at this point, because a life of sin separates us from God and we are told it will eternally separate us in the end. Maybe if that person can see that now, get a glimpse of being separated from God’s people and God now, maybe they will come to their senses and repent; and return. Because the Bible says that Godly sorrow leads to repentance, but worldly sorrow leads to death.

It’s not enough for you to come to the altar and cry how wrong you’ve been and need to change, but you don’t want to change. I will not support you in that type of sorrow. I would not be helping you.

Even though this is written clearly in Holy Scripture, and even though it is the example given to us by Christ, for us to follow, many watching this will feel that it’s judgmental; yet the Bible says we are supposed to be - to those in the church. Some will say that this is unloving but the truth is that you are unloving: you are also very arrogant; because you believe that you have a better way of restoration that what Jesus laid out. You can’t deny that this is what the passages say: you just say you have a better way.

The reason you are unloving is that you care more about your friendships, you're filling a position in the church, tithes, and the likes than you do about the person: it’s selfishness on your part. Rather than doing the right thing that will lead them to life, you’d rather do the easy thing that will keep what YOU desire the most; while that person goes to hell. If you call that loving, you’ve got your values flipped; because it's self-centered, arrogant, and unloving.

It’s time we get back to Scripture

God bless

Part 2 - The Waiting Fallacy
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