“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8 ESV)
So, what is the context here? A man within the gatherings of the church was apparently in a sexual relationship with his father’s wife, which could be his mother or his stepmother, but still this was regarded as incest. And this was being tolerated by the church, for no action was being taken against the man. And the church, instead of mourning and grieving over this blatant sin happening amongst them, were proud of their gatherings.
Now this is a long passage of Scripture here in 1 Corinthians 5, so I have divided it up into three sections, and so this devotion will be in three segments, the first of which was “Blatant Sexual Immorality Among You,” which is where I deal more with our current situation in the church, at least here in America, where so many are sexually addicted, but where not much at all is being done to correct the situation, and so lives are being destroyed.
And this destruction of human lives and of the congregation of the saints is what I will cover in this writing, for that is grossly being overlooked and ignored these days. For many are ignoring the damage being done to human lives in order to “draw in large crowds of people” from the world into their gatherings. So they entertain them so that they will come back for more, and they dilute the gospel message to make it more appeasing to the flesh.
And it isn’t as though the leaders of these “church” congregations are not aware of the blatant sexual immorality going on within their members, nor that they are unaware of the destruction that this is causing to marriages and to families. But few seem to want to do anything to correct the situation which has now gotten way out of hand, for the “leaven” has worked its way all throughout these congregations of what are called “churches.”
I see that a few make some effort to correct this by providing self-help groups for men (usually just men) who are addicted to pornography, but many of these groups are following humanistic philosophy and don’t even allow for the reading of the Scriptures nor do they allow for biblical solutions to be taught among them because they don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable or to be offended. So many men continue in addiction.
Now I am not excluding women here. I am just not aware of groups for women having the same issues being provided by church congregations, but there may be. I just don’t know about them. And generally speaking, porn addiction or sexual addiction is more of a male issue than it is a female issue, but there are women and children who are addicted to porn and to other sexual deviances and practices which are sinful.
So we have this serious sin addiction and porn addiction situation ongoing within the gatherings of the church. And the leaders do know what is going on, at least generally speaking, though they may not know all the specifics. But it appears that few are taking action to remove from their congregations those who have had plenty of time to repent but who have continued on in their addictions, some of them for a lifetime, if truth be told.
And little appears to be being done to work with these broken marriages and these households to help them to come out from underneath their bondage to sin or to rescue those who are not living in sin but who are subject to the abuses of those who are living in addictive sin and so are sinning against their family members. And often or sometimes the spouse of the addicted is treated as the enemy if he/she dares to try to get help for their situation.
Often or sometimes the counsel given is just to leave the addict, but that isn’t the biblical solution, and that only puts more hardship and more suffering on the ones who are subject to abuse by the addicted. And so the spouse feels abandoned, not only by the addicted, but by church leadership who are supposed to be there to help and to heal and to not cast off. And sometimes the leadership just heaps even more abuse on the spouse of the addicted.
So all of this is the opposite of what it is supposed to be. But honestly, if “the church” literally did a “house cleaning” today of all those who are living in sin, in practice, who have had plenty of opportunity to change, but who have continued in their addictive practices, I fear there would not be too many people left in the gatherings. For so many are following a diluted gospel which is giving them permission to keep on sinning without feeling guilty.
But we as the body of Christ are biblically responsible before God to be addressing these issues, and to be calling for repentance, and to be calling for our leaders to be pure in heart and mind and behaviors themselves so that they can clean out the old leaven so that the church may be a “new lump” for God’s purposes and for his glory in walks of holiness and in righteousness and in obedience to our Lord and no longer in deliberate sin.
[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2]
Songs in the Night
An Original Work / December 18, 2013
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.” Acts 16:25 NIV ‘84
Lord, I praise You forevermore.
You, my Savior, I now adore.
Hope in heaven awaiting me,
Because You died at Calvary.
I have been forgiven,
And I’m bound for heaven.
Jesus set me free from
All my sin, I say.
I will praise Him always!
Lord, I love You for all You’ve done:
Overcame death, my vict’ry won!
Jesus saved me, and now I’m free!
I rejoice in His love for me.
I will walk in vict’ry!
My sin is but hist’ry!
I am free to please Him
With my life today.
I will love Him always!
Lord, I thank You for giving me
A new life bought at Calvary.
Loving Jesus, I meet with Him.
Tender mercies now flow within.
Lord, I am so thankful;
Through my Lord, I’m able
To sit at His table;
Fellowship with Him.
I will thank Him always!
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It might take a while. All that I know is that the Catholic and Orthodox faith are thousands of years old.
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