Holiness
What
has happened to the church? Have we lost our understanding of the darkness and
total depravity of sin? Sin is deadly, my friend. God didn’t just make rules
because He wanted to, to form a cute little society where streets go one way
then another, forming order. No! God made rules because sin is bad. It is evil.
Sin leads to death.
How
long has it been since you have heard a message on holiness? How long has it been
since you have heard a message on fornication? How many people do you know in
church that are living in blatant sin? Is there no fear of God before our eyes?
The
church has slid into numbness without a cry or whimper from her leaders. Not
just the ones who stand at the podium, no, all her leaders: you and me. Do we
preach holiness? Do we warn those who are fornicating? No we call it “living
together.” Maybe even worse, we don’t even know those in our church well enough
to know whether or not they are living for the Lord or not.
Yesterday
my husband, George, and I had a conversation about Sunday morning service. What
is the purpose of it anyway? We get up early, shower, eat, feed the dogs, rush
out the door to horses in order to get to church on time. A little fellowship, “worship,”
announcements, message, song, prayer (maybe), then out the door with a “good to
see ya” to others. So
many messages seem to be so well put together. Listeners can tell time was spent putting sentences together, adding a relevant story or two, and adding a joke, but where is the anointing of
the Holy Spirit? Where is the depth? Is the Sunday service supposed to surround a well put together
message? Or is it meant, in God’s heart, to be something far different? Better
yet, is Sunday service, in God’s heart, even supposed to be the focus?
In
the Book of Acts Christians met often. They went from house to house. They
broke bread together. They knew each other. They lived and died together. And because they lived in
community they knew each other’s business. The Corinthian church knew about the
man who was fornicating with his step-mother. Paul, their apostle, told them to
deal with it: expel the immoral—no wicked—person from among you (1 Corinthians
5:13):
I
wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not
at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers,
or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am
writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he
is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard,
or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12 For what have I to do with
judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13
God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”
1 Corinthians 5:9-13
Do we preach this
anymore? Do we even hear this anymore? Do we call sin sin? Sin, I’m afraid, in
the church, has lost its sting. Probably better stated, the church has lost her
fear of God. Yes, I believe that is it. We do not know God and therefore we do not fear God. We wink at sin and
think that it has no impact on us. Oh, but my friends, we are sadly mistaken.
Sin is so dark
Sin is so evil
Sin is so costly to mankind
That God died to set us
free from it.
And yet, the church
rarely even talks about it.
Something is terribly
wrong.
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