A Holy People-Set Apart
There is no doubt that America’s culture has become more vulgar and coarse in the past few decades. This coarseness has made its way into the culture of the church and it has taken its toll on the Christian community.
Why do you come together?
The Apostle Paul’s rebuke to the church in Corinth including this assessment of the effect in the lives of the people attending that church, “ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.” The Corinth Church had adopted the world’s, actions and behavior into their fellowship and the end result was not just a lowering of the moral standards in the assembly of believers but providing an environment for a culture to develop that was more vulgar than what was found in the community of Corinth.
Coexisting
The secular approach to worship that is being adopted by many church groups has established a comfortable environment for unbelievers to co-exist with the God’s people. The outcome of a adopting the culture of the world into the church is not just providing a non-confrontational environment for the unbeliever but has established a culture where the morality of the world is being adopted by the Christian community.
This is a biblical truth, “evil communications corrupt good manners,” the ESV translates this teaching as, “Bad Company ruins good morals.” Why should we be surprised when immoral lifestyles are accepted in the church community? God’s word establishes this as the outcome when you accept immoral people in the fellowship that is reserved for the born-again followers of Christ.
Teaching the Truth
It is not uncommon for people who are co-habiting to be accepted into full fellowship in many church groups today. The acceptance and promotion of sodomy in America’s Church are reaching a point where many pastors, leaders and church members are not willing to teach the truth about the spiritual effects of this abomination. The decline of the Church in America is documented in the book The Church from Conception to Misconception and reveals how the truth of God’s word is a sacrifice on the altar of numerical growth in the institution of the Church.
The teaching of this biblical truth,
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God”
is absent from many church groups today.
If this message is missing from the teaching of a church group, then the words that follow this warning will not be applicable,
“And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
Hiding the need for the Savior
To be open to lifestyles that God finds worthy of death is not the way to love a sinner, “Open rebuke is better than secret love.” To accept sinful behaviors in the church assembly with the end goal to expose them to God’s love is a tool of the devil. At the very best you are hiding the need for the Saviour from the lost. Hiding the truth of God’s righteousness from the sinner is unconscionable and by so doing you become their enemy,
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
Vulgarity in the Lord’s church is beneath who you are in Christ. The measure of a Church is not the coarseness of this world tolerated in the name of evangelism but the ability to stand apart, alone and powerful not in the shadow of the culture of this world but in the power of God’s Spirit.
