Transcript

1 Corinthians chapter 5,  as we continue and complete tonight a message that we started last time on how do deal with sin that brings reproach on the name of Christ and his church, and this type sin you deal with differently then other type sins in the body of Christ, and the Apostle Paul gives us a clear outline of how it is to be dealt with in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Let’s read the chapter and then do a brief review and then pick up with new material.

I Corinthians 5:1. “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order to remove the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst”.

Verse 3. “For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him, him who has so committed this as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; and I did not not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for them you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler–not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with the judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”

How do you deal with a sin that brings public reproach on Christ and his church. Now, by public reproach we mean generally in the community, someone is committing a sin, or, or rather a church member is committing a sin that generally in the community, it is shameful and embarrassing and a disgrace. And they bring that on Christ and his church because that church member is suppose to be representing Jesus in the community, not bringing shame and disgrace on his name. Now in the last message we understood that this kind of sin is to be dealt with differently than other type sins in the body. Now folks, the church at Corinth had all kinds of sin that needed to be dealt with. Many, many, many things, we’re going to see that as we go through.

But this particular sin of this young man having an incestuous relationship with what was probably his step mother, that brought such shame and disgrace, it was to be put on the top of the priority list of sins. It was to be dealt with urgently and then he’s going to deal with others also, but this one was to be dealt with urgently. And we pointed out two reasons why its to be dealt with urgently. Number one, because it does bring disgrace to the name of Christ. And we went all the way back to the Old Testament and went all the way up through the New Testament, showing how God acted with urgency when a sin was committed or actions were exhibited that brought public shame and disgrace to his name. That’s what really gets God’s attention and that’s one reason why and the Bible is consistent on this truth that we’re to deal urgently with a sin that brings public shame, disgrace, i.e., reproach on the name of Christ.

But secondly, not only because it brings disgrace to his name, but secondly because it brings disease to the whole body of believers. Now this is something that we’ve got a long way to go as far as understanding here in the American church. Now notice that some of our churches in Europe and other places don’t have much of a problem with this. That’s because they have long had a nationalistic spirit, they sensed a oneness, because they could trace their ancestry back hundreds and thousands of years even. But here in America we’re such a mixture of everybody from everywhere, there’s a strong spirit of independence and individuality and we forget that once you are saved and God adds you to a local church, key phrase there, you need to know that God saves you and he’s added you to the church. You need to know that you didn’t just pick it out, because if you picked it out, you think that you can just drop it and do something else one day.

Well, if you feel, if you know that God saved you and God put you in a church, then you have a corporate solidarity with the rest of that membership. And what happens and the Bible teaches it so plainly, we don’t have time to go back over the text, but what happens is if one person in the body is in willful, open, reproachable sin, we all are guilty with that one brother. There is a corporate unity and a solidarity. And so if we do like the Corinthians do and don’t deal with it, kind of laugh it off, and, and so proud of how maybe yuh tolerant we are, and open minded and everything, and the point Paul makes here and God makes it very clear with the sin of Achan in the Old Testament, you can either judge that brother in that willful open sin, or I will have to judge the whole church.

Now we think, now wait a minute, that’s not fair. God isn’t fair, God’s just. God isn’t fair, God is just. You know we have this concept in America today that you know, if a child does something, mom and dad’s not responsible. Well, I’m real glad to see that its moving the other way a little bit, that they are going to start holding mom and dad responsible for what the children do. Because there’s a solidarity there, we’re all involved. And that’s the way it is in the church family. My friend, listen to me, when Jesus gave the model prayer, what’s the first pronoun he told them to pray by. “Our Father”. He says, when you come to me in prayer, your whole thought shouldn’t be just for you, but for the whole church family. I’m not talking about the church family universally, I’m talking about the local church family. And I believe that’s the emphasis of the biblical text.

In other words, we got, we’re all one in Christ, one body. We have differing spiritual gifts and we are all worthless, unless we combine our gifts together. Our power, our strength, our witness, all that we are, is continued upon this corporate solidarity. So the, these guys, perhaps, who knows all of the motives, they were not dealing with this sin, and, and Paul says very clearly, you’ve got to realize that one sin infects and affects the whole body. He says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. And it will start multiplying and increasing, and that’s the first way it diseases the body is that it spreads. You ask any doctors about an infectious disease, and they will say, man, you need to hit it quick and hit it hard, because it will spread and hinder the whole body.

And that’s what happens when willful open sin, especially a public reproachable sin is not dealt with, pretty soon, varying types of sin start infecting the whole body. I mean, after all, old Joe Blow out here can shack up in open immorality, it isn’t a big deal for me to lie. It isn’t a big deal for me to gossip, is it. I mean, a thousand and one other sins we all start to uh, uh condone in our own lives and one another, because, well, its not as bad as his. It infects, it spreads, it multiples sin, it, it diseases the whole body. And then secondly, it weakens the body. You remember what happened to Israel. They’d just conquered Jericho and I want to tell you, after they conquered mighty Jericho, they were flying high and feeling mean. And they went down to Ai and only took two or three thousand fellows down to Ai because Ai was nothing.

And they came against the city of Ai and the men of Ai rose up and chased them off and killed, what thirty something of them, and they come back and they are mourning and they are repentant, and thought, what happened. We destroyed mighty Jericho, and now little Ai is destroying us. What happened. One man out of I guess, what several million people, one man took some of the things out of Jericho that God said not to take. And the whole nation was weakened because of it. You want me to tell you why up to 70, 80 percent of Southern Baptist churches are declining or plateauing, God is not going to put his power on willful sin. And even though its just this one and this one and that one on the church role that’s doing it, the weakness comes to the whole community. Just like it came on all of Israel for Achan’s sin. What happened, they dealt with Achan’s sin and went back out and just whopped Ai. The power was back.

Well, that’s all review. We’re to deal with that kind of sin urgently, but secondly, we’re to deal with it completely. Completely. We see this in verse 2-5 and verses 7-13. Now the first subpoint under completely is this. You are to remove the person from church fellowship, or you could say membership, you could call it excommunication. You could call it throwing them out of the church. Because that’s exactly what the tense of the verb means when God, when Paul deals with that. You know I had people say that, well, you just going to throw me out of the church. Well, it is biblical. I’m going to show you in just a minute. If you’ve got a problem with God, you can take it up with him.

Alright, notice, you remove him from the church, look at verse 2. He says, “and you” that’s an emphatic you there, it means you look at you, Paul is saying, look at you. “You’ve become arrogant”. You’re proud about how wise and how above everybody else you are and how spiritual you are as a church, and right the total opposite is what is true. And then he said, “you have not mourned”. They should have been mourning in shame. When they heard about this boy in this open willful sin that even the Gentiles would look at and say, look at that, that’s despicable. They should have been grieving, it should have sickened their spirits. But this kind of sin was among a person who was a church member. Then he says “in order that the one who has done this deed might be removed”. The Greek scholars tell us the word removed means to lift up and carry off, that’s about like throwing out, isn’t it? Lift up and carry off. That’s what it means. It shows the urgent and complete action that this sin that’s bringing public reproach on Christ and the church demands.

As a matter of fact, keep your ribbon there in I Corinthians 5 and look at Ephesians 5, would you do that. Let’s see, over to the right, just a few pages there, to Ephesians chapter 5 and look at verse 3. Paul writing to the church at Ephesus says, Ephesians 5:3 “but do not let immorality, that’s any kind of sexual immorality, or any impurity or greed, even be named among you. As if proper among saints.” That phrase even be named means there shouldn’t be the hint of that around you. Make it your goal church, that those kind of wilful, open type sins shouldn’t even be a hint of that in our fellowship. That’s what he’s saying. And then verse 11. Paul reemphasizes this. “And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead, even expose them.” It just shows you how completely, completely we’re suppose to be dealing with this sin.

Now back over to I Corinthians, chapter 5. Now Chrysostom was an early church father. Chrysostom’s ministry was around 300 A. D. , roughly 270 years after Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. And looking at this verse, here’s what Chrysostom, one of our early church fathers said. He said, they, the church at Corinth should have acted as they would have done had a pestilence appeared among them which called for mourning and supplication in order that that pestilence might be removed. Listen to what Hodge, I guess Charles Hodge is sort of the standard bearer in theology for conservative evangelicals. Hodge said this about this passage. He said, “it is a right inherent in every society and necessary for that society’s existence to judge of the qualification of its own members, to receive those whom it judges worthy and to exclude the unworthy”.

A. T. Robertson, probably the greatest Greek scholar who ever lived and a Southern Baptist said this about this text. “Decent self respect should have compelled the instant expulsion of this man instead of pride in his rascality”. Well, that’s how completely authorities and church fathers view that this should have been carried out. Now I want you to notice something here, in verse 2 when he says, and you, he’s not talking about the pastor or the elders, the whole church is to blame for not practicing church discipline. Sometimes we get in our mind, well, that’s the preacher’s job, or that’s the elders’ job, or that’s the leaders’ job, its the church’s job. Now certainly the pastor and the elders have the responsibility when it comes before the church, but you are to be out there, aware of sin, and dealing with it, according to Matthew 18 and we’ll look at that maybe in a week or two and then if its bringing public reproach or if the person doesn’t repent, then you bring it to the membership. Remember, the leadership was not rebuked here, the whole church was rebuked. And certainly that included the leadership, but the whole church was responsible here. They should have been dealing completely with this thing.

Now look at verse 3, look at what Paul’s going to do because they were unwilling to do anything. He says, “for I on my part”, that phrase emphasizes the righteous indignation of Paul against this sin and against their inactivity toward the sin. Now folks, human anger is always sin, but there is a righteous anger that the holy spirit births in a man’s heart. That’s what Paul has. He, he’s angry, and he says, I on my part am going to do something. Remember Dr. Criswell talking bout pastoring a church out in the country one time and they were going to have a high attendance day, he couldn’t get them excited, he couldn’t have them, get them motivated, he said, he got in the pulpit and said, “I tell you what I want you to do, I want you to sit right there where you are and I don’t want you to do a blooming thing and he said, I went out myself and knocked on every door in the community and we reached our goal”.

That’s sort of the way Paul’s spirit is here. He’s saying, you’re not going to do anything, but I’m going to do something about it. “I for my part”, then he says, “though absent in body, but present in spirit have already judged”. The word judged there means decided. Now when he says “I’ve already judged”, he says, I’m not waiting for you to form a committee on it, I’m not waiting for you to have a business meeting on it, and I’m not even waiting until I can get there, this is going to be dealt with right away. And completely. Now look at verse 4. He says, “in the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus.” Alright, what does that mean, “in the name of Jesus and in the power of Jesus”. I believe it means this.

When you see the name of Jesus, that doesn’t mean that’s some sort of phrase you are to use so that you can manipulate God’s power to the achievement of your victory goals. The name of Jesus means his character, all that he is. So he’s, Paul is saying, I know Jesus well enough to know, its in keeping with his character and its according to his will, what I am about to do about this problem. Its the will of God, name of Jesus, and in the power of Jesus, and the power of God is going to back me up. So he says, this is according to the will of God what I’m about to do, and the power of God is going to back me up on it. Now folks, that’s strong, isn’t it. Now you’ve got to understand something. Paul was an Apostle. There are no more Apostles. I could not say these type things, nor do them, nor could any other human on earth today. But these early Apostles had unique authority and special authority, over the churches.

Now notice what he’s going to do there in verse 5. He says, “I have decided to deliver such a one to satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”. Now what does that mean. Paul says, what I’m going to do is “I’m going to deliver him over to satan, for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”. Well, we have an insight or two, look at Luke chapter 22 for just a second. Keep your Bible ribbon in I Corinthians 5, but look at Luke chapter 22. In Luke 22, notice what the Lord Jesus says to Peter here, calling him Simon. Luke 22:31. “Simon, Simon,” and when Jesus calls your name twice, listen. “Behold satan has demanded,” the Greek word there means he’s begged, he’s pleaded for this.

And folks, I want to tell you something, satan doesn’t demand anything from God. Get off this silly notion that God’s up here working, he’s fighting against satan and his demons, and, and with his holy angels, and satan and the un holy demons, they are fighting and they are going back and forth, one wins a little while, that’s stupid. That’s not biblical. God is in absolute, total, completely, sovereign, control of everything, including satan. And if satan comes, he’s got to come begging and pleading. Now, now God has not in his perfect sovereignty, decided to cast satan away and all evil in the world yet, so satan has some dominion and rule and influence right now. But that day is coming for him.

“Simon, Simon, behold satan has begged permission to sift you like wheat.” Verse 32. “But I’ve prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and you when you, when once you’ve turned again, strengthen your brothers.” I believe that’s talking about satan tempting old peter, and he sure did, and Peter denied the LORD three times, didn’t he. But he repented and turned and what did he do. He strengthened his brothers, he became a leader among them again. So we see here very clearly that God in his perfect sovereignty, can use satan for his own righteous ends. Now if you have a problem with that see me later and I’ve got about 17 more texts I want to show you. Now I don’t understand that completely, but I want to tell you, God is not the author of evil, he’s not the author of satan’s evil, but satan and his evil is in the world and God in his perfection and sovereignty, infinitely above our ability to understand, does and can use satan for his own ends and means.

Look at the Old Testament, God constantly used Egypt, used Assyria, used Babylon, used those evil empires who had satan behind them for what. His own ultimate purposes and glory. He used them as a chastening rod for what. Israel. Israel. So you’d better be careful, every time you cast down satan you may be casting out something that God is going to use to help you. Its biblical folks, I’m just telling you, there’s a balance here, don’t get hung up on one end of the balance. But anyway, Paul says, its God’s will to turn him over, just like satan was used in Peter’s life, satan is going to be used in this man’s life, to work on him.

Alright. Look at 1 Timothy, turn over there, 1 Timothy 1:20. That’s way on over to the right a little bit, past I Corinthians, let’s see, 1 Timothy:1:20. Paul is writing to his understudy, Timothy, teaching Timothy how to oversee and lead the churches and here’s what Paul says to Timothy about a couple of fellows in the church. He says, “among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.” So there’s a couple of guys in the church, I don’t know if they are totally apostates or not, Hymenaeus and Alexander that Paul said, I delivered them over to satan so that they God could get their attention. And we have that same principle here in 1 Corinthians 5:5, when Paul says, we’re going to deliver this one over to satan, and then he adds a descriptive phrase, “for the destruction of his flesh”. You know, the scholars cannot agree at all what that means, but I think two things are involved. I think it means physical suffering, there’s going to be an element of physical suffering, once this fellow is removed form the church, you see my friend, when you’re a member in good standing of the church, you are under a protection.

You are under a protection of being in harmony and in good with the family of God. But if you so sin you have to be removed from the family, you are removed form that protection and you’re fair game for everything that satan’s got. And I believe it does include physical suffering, but I think it also includes the purging out of fleshly lust. There’s a destruction of the old fleshly lust. I think it works like this. God says, you like lust. You like rebellion, you like sin, I’m going to take my inhibitions off of you, I’m going to take my restraining spirit off of you, I’m going to put you outside the protection of a local church family, and I’m going to turn you over to your lust, so it can just make you thoroughly sick of your fleshly lust.

And man, when your fleshly lust gets you down to the rock bottom rut and the mirey pit of sin and strongholds of sin, you’ll, you’ll get sick of that stuff and want to get back right with God again. I believe that’s what he’s talking about. And I, I believe this, and I would not say it with dogmatic emphasis, but I believe this, if you’re a child of God, and, and you have such a reproachable sin that you have to be removed form church membership, God will either get your attention, or he’ll take you home. One or the two. Or, and this is very true in scripture, a lot of those that are removed never were saved. A lot of them never were sheep, and that’s why they love sin so much. And so when you remove them, they never get right and they never go home, because they never were one of us. They never were sheep to start with.

I like what Dr. Jimmy Miliken says about church discipline. He says, you know you can get a pen of sheep and maybe there’s one goat in there. And all of those sheep, they love being together, sheep like to be with sheep. He says, if you take one of those little sheep out and put him outside the pen, he’ll wander off a little bit, but then a little bit later, he’ll come right back to the edge of the pen, baaaaa. Wanting back in. He likes to be with other sheep. He says, but if there’s one goat in there, you can take that one goat outside of the pen of sheep and he’ll wander off and never come back. I believe this is part of the way, this is just a side sermon, alright, this is part of the way God removes the unregenerate out of his church.

Well, now look at the last part of verse 5. We looked thoroughly at the first part, “I decided to deliver such as one to satan for the destruction of his flesh”, now the last part, “that his spirit may be saved in the Lord Jesus”. Now I think that means the same thing that 1 Corinthians 1:8 means. 1 Corinthians 1:8 says, “who shall also confirm you to the end.” Whose going to confirm you to the end. Jesus is. “Who shall also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He already told them in this letter, if you are really saved, if you are born again, God’s going to confirm you to the end. Now God may have to have you removed from the church and get your attention and get you back right with him or take you on home, but he’s going to confirm you to the end.

Once you are saved, he is going to confirm what he purchased and bought with his own blood, he may have to do a lot of things in the process to get your attention, but he’s going to bring you all the way home. Philippians 1:6, “he who began a good work in you will preform it or complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Now you see, that’s the key, did he begin the good work. If he began it, he’ll finish it. I, he may have to do a lot of things in the process, but he’s going to get his children all the way home. And they always will.

Well, look at the spirit of the apostle Paul in the last part of that verse. His whole desire is that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. What is his point. Paul’s motive is restoration. His motive is redemption. Paul’s spirit and Paul’s motive is in no way vindictive. And I want to tell you why that’s why church discipline has gotten a bad name through the ages. Because very often the people administering the discipline were in the flesh as much as the ones receiving the discipline. And they were wanting to put somebody down, they were wanting to push them down, so they could put themselves up, and that’s one of the evils, but that’s not in Paul’s heart and it had better not ever be in our hearts when we practice discipline. And Paul is showing here, how thorough and complete, it has been dealt with completely, and you can remove him form church membership.

Now, number two under completeness, you are to refrain from any social fellowship with this man. You are to refrain as a church family, or as a church individual, Christian individual, with any social fellowship with a man that’s been removed form the church. He makes this very, very clear, beginning in verse 7. Look at verse 7. He says, “clean out the old leaven.” That’s an imperative aorist (greek). It means its a command, I command that you do it, don’t think about it, don’t negotiate about it, don’t discuss it, do it. Clean out the old leaven, and the aorist tense means its done and it remains finished. It means do it and do it completely and do it now and get it over with. Thoroughness, completeness, clean out the old leaven. The word “old” there means decayed. Clean out the old leaven, that you, who is the you? The whole church. The whole church. The whole church has been contaminated, the whole church has stood guilty before God, the whole church has had the rottenness of this sin on them, because they’ve allowed it and hadn’t dealt with it.

“That you may be a new lump”. That phrase, you may be a “new lump”, means that you can have a fresh start, as a new local church family, without the contamination of this sin in your midst. Get a fresh start, he’s saying. And then he says, last part of verse 7 “for Christ our passover, also has been sacrificed.” And then he talks about the fact that we are to be unleavened, and you know in scripture, almost all the time, I think there are one or two exceptions, but almost all the time, leaven or yeast is a picture of evil, and the influence of evil. And you can’t even say the arm of the flesh or the arm of man. Its the picture of flesh and man. And the unleavened bread is the picture of God’s arm. And Godly and spiritual influence.

So he’s saying, you’ve been born again to be a holy spiritual family, not a family full of the leavened sin of the world. You’re an unleavened family. And in that last phase of verse 7, “for Christ our passover has also been sacrificed.” Now here’s what Paul is saying. He’s using the annual, Jewish feast of the passover and the feast of unleavened bread, they were called interchangeably the same name, as an illustration of this spiritual truth. What the Jews would do, let’s go all the way back to the passover, the last plague God brought on Egypt when Israel was in bondage to Egypt, was the death of the firstborn. And God told them to kill a spotless lamb and take the blood of that lamb and put it over the doorposts, smear that lamb, apply the blood, and every household that had the blood applied, what happened. The angel passed over. The death angel didn’t visit that house and kill the firstborn. But all those houses that didn’t have the blood applied, the death angel visited.

And so there was a perpetual statute established in Israel, that annually there are to have a passover feast, and a feast of unleavened bread. And also during the passover, they were not to have any leaven in their house, they were to remove the leaven, and only take unleavened bread. So here’s what would happen after that happened. Every year, the first thing they would do is take all the yeast and all the bread, the dough, whatever that had yeast in it, they were to take it out and burn it, get rid of all the old leaven, because that pictured sin and evil and wickedness. The arm of the flesh.

And then they were to kill the passover lamb and partake of the lamb and sacrifice it to God, of course that’s a symbol of Jesus, the Lamb of God, and then for seven days they only ate unleavened bread. And what Paul is saying here, the spiritual truth has been applied to you. Christ, your passover, has come. Christ, your passover lamb has been slain. He’s taken your sins, you’re cleansed, you’re now no longer a flesh man, you’re a spirit man, a holy man. He’s already been crucified and you’re still hanging onto leaven. You’re suppose to be in the unleavened stage now. That’s suppose to have been, that leavened stuff was suppose to have been left behind a long time ago.

Get rid of the leaven, the arm of the flesh, the influence of the flesh, and the world, you are suppose to be in the unleavened stage, just like as if you were taking the passover meal. By the time the lamb was slain, the old leavened bread was suppose to have been all gone. So what a beautiful spiritual truth he gives them here. Then verse 8, still building on this truth he says, “let us therefore celebrate the feast.” Now he’s not talking about the literal Jewish passover feast, he’s saying, we as believers have a different passover. And we celebrate it all the time. Every day is passover for us, every second of every day and every day of every year.

We celebrate that the wrath of God’s passed over us and we’ll never face it in Jesus Christ. Because, that’s why the present tense verb is used in verse 8, “let us therefore continually and perpetually celebrate our freedom in Jesus,” we’re made holy in Jesus, we’re made righteous in Jesus, and we shouldn’t have any leaven or sin in our lives. That means willful habitual, open, undealt with sin. So he says, “let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, not with that old sin stuff. Nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness,” that word malice means a vicious disposition. Doesn’t mean you got angry at somebody and you had a bad thought. It means you perpetually have a disposition of hurting somebody and wounding somebody and injuring somebody else.

He said, man, that’s the old leaven stuff of a flesh man, that ought to have been left behind. Malice and wickedness here, the word wickedness is a stronger word than just badness. Doesn’t mean you never sin, it means you delight in sinning. You make a habit of openly enjoying sin in your life. He said, that’s part of the old leaven, the old flesh man, that should have been left behind. But then he says, last part of verse 8, “but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” The word sincerity means you can hold it up to the light and see that its true through and through. Truth means a heart that responds with yieldedness and quickness to the word of God.

He said, that’s what ought to characterize you, you are sincere through and through. You’re a people who are yielded and sensitive and open to the truth of God’s word. You come to God’s word and say, change what you want to change, rearrange, have your way in my life Lord. Teach me from the word. He says, that’s the way we ought to be characterized, not by people of malice and wickedness.

Then notice verse 9, it gets into the very practical element of how we’re to be complete in our dealing with this kind of sin. “I wrote to you in my letter, not to associate with immoral people.” Now the word associate means to mix up with. You are not to be mixing it up with immoral people. Then he clarifies this, because he doesn’t mean all immoral people. Look at verse 10. “I did not at all mean”, in other words, not all together, not absolutely, not in all circumstances, can you stop associating with immoral people. Read it again, verse 10, “I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world.” And then he names some of the types of immoral people that are in the world. Or with “the covetous”, that means a lust for power and control. Or “swindlers”, that’s an extortion or people that cheat people out of their money. Or with “idolaters”, people that worship something other than the Lord. Cause he said, look at that last phrase of verse 10, isn’t this true. “For then you would have to go out of the world.”

Now what he means is, God doesn’t expect you to do a criminal background check on everybody you buy bread from or gas from or insurance from, or owns a restaurant you eat at or owns the motel you stay in that night. He’s not expecting you to have a checklist, and you know you go to the guy and maybe he’s a dry cleaner, I tried to think of businesses that nobody in our church owned, and I couldn’t think of any. And I thought, well, if I get on this, they’re going to think there’s some sin there, he’s talking about that, you know. But you go and you say, I’d like for you to be my dry cleaners, whatever. Now let me check you out a little bit. Have you ever done this, have you ever done that. God says, you can’t do that, you’d have to go out of the world to do that.

But folks, really, there’s no biblical mandate for that. Its good to do that, I understand that, but there’s no biblical mandate. Pretty soon if we are consistent with everything we are suppose to avoid and boycott, we’re going to have to form us another world. Are you following me. Now I join in with all the rest of them on most of these things, and some of them you feel more strongly about buying here and not buying there, but this is the point Paul is making, you can’t always follow that to a t, you’re in a world controlled by satan. Its separated from God.

The prince of the power of the air is the ruler of this present world. And until God takes you out, you are going to have some association with those kind of folks. Now we shouldn’t clamor, or try to have it, but its just going to happen, don’t worry about it if it does. So Paul says, I’m not saying you can always stay away from immoral people. But look at verse 11, “but actually”, or you could say, “but now I write to you”, in other words earlier he wrote to them about immoral people, but now he’s writing with a different emphasis. But now I write to you, “not to associate with any so called brother. Or anybody who claims to be a Christian, if he should be an immoral person, or covetous or an idolater, or reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not to even eat with such a one”.

Now he says “such a one” because he knows he doesn’t list all the sins. But he says, you know, somebody who claims to be a believer in Jesus Christ and as a habit of his life, he lives in open rebellion and sin, and its been so bad he’s had to be removed form the church, you ought not to be seen with him. You don’t associate with him, you don’t hang out with him. Because you give the appearance that what he’s doing is tolerable to the gospel when you associate with him.

Notice the completeness that we’re suppose to have in dealing with this sin. Hodge again says this about verse 11. “We are not to do anything that would give the impression that the offenses here referred to are tolerated by the gospel”. Not to give any impression, don’t go out to eat with, don’t hob nob around with, I’d even say don’t frequent the business of one who’s been removed from the church for sin until they get it right with God. Look at what he says in verse 11 though, he says, “not to even eat with such a one,” so he’s very thorough in that injunction.

As a matter of fact, keep your finger in 1 Corinthians 5 and look at 2 Thessalonians 3. So that we know that this is a consistent teaching for the churches, the church at Thessalonica received the same type of instruction. 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, look at verse 14. 2 Thessalonians 3:14 “And if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that man and do not associate with him so that he may be put to shame.” So we see the same principle again. You will have to associate with some immoral people in the world, you may sell an item and immoral people of the world come in and buy it, that’s an association, that’s going to happen. But you should avoid association with somebody who professes to be a believer who’s living in open and willful sin. He says, “don’t even eat with them.” Now it doesn’t mean you have an ugly spirit or a mean spirit, you should be kind and gentle with everyone, but you should be firm in who you associate with.

Now look down at verse 12. 1 Corinthians 5, turn back there with me. 1 Corinthians 5:12. We’re almost through. He says, “for what have I to do with judging outsiders.” Now that’s a good question. They are outside of our jurisdiction. They are not a part of the family of God, we don’t judge people in the world, they are judged already, John 3:18. They are condemned and judged already. You don’t go around telling unbelievers how they ought to live. They’re out of your jurisdiction. Look at the last phrase of verse 12. “Do you not judge those who are within the church.” In other words, isn’t it obvious, don’t you understand you are suppose to judge each other in the church. And we’ve had these unbiblically out of context notions, “judge not lest you be judged.” Well, there is a type of judging that is fleshly and self exalting, that is wrong. We’ll look at that also, a little later on. But there is also a good and righteous judging. It just means to make a decision.

I’m going to tell you what, we do it in our families all the time, don’t we. If I was sitting at my table at my mama’s house, when I was 10 years old and she corrected me for something I obviously did that was obviously wrong, the next thing she would have seen was my heels pointed up toward the ceiling, because she would have smacked me back across the room if I had of said, “judge not lest you be judged.” She wouldn’t have called a committee meeting or had a business meeting or nothing else. She made a decision, she made a judgement, it was wrong, she dealt with it.

That’s the way the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is to function. And not literally in the physical way like that, but we are to look at one another and make a decision, that’s willful sin, it ought to be dealt with and deal with it. Get off of this silly unbiblical out of context notion, not suppose to judge anybody. You are suppose, that’s what Paul is saying, you’re suppose to judge folks in the family. You do it all the time at home. Ask my wife. I do it to her she does it to me, we do in the flesh way sometimes. Have to repent and ask each other to forgive each other. But we also do it in a good way sometimes, when its loving, Christ centered correction and admonition. He said, its obvious, you are suppose to judge those within the church.

Matter of fact, look at chapter 6, right there. He says, “does any of you, when he has a case against his neighbor dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints.” He said, if you’ve got a lawsuit problem with another believer, you don’t go to secular unsaved authorities. You get a couple of elders in the church to decide that legal issue if its between Christian brothers. Verse 2, “or do you not know that the saints will judge the world.” And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts. He said, man, when you’ve got these little legal things between brothers and sisters in Christ, it is sin for you to go to secular authorities.

Man, the church of Jesus Christ is going to judge the world, aren’t they big enough to judge these small matters. Verse 3, “do you not know that we shall judge angels, how much more matters of this life.” Verse 4, “if then you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are no account in the church.” We wouldn’t let them come in and be judges here, why should we go to them and let them be our judges. Verse 5. “I say this to your shame,” its shameful for a Christian to do that. Is it so that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren. But brother goes to law with brother and that before unbelievers. He says, its abominable.

What’s the point I’m making, we’re suppose to judge one another. That’s our job, but its not a judgement of I’m going to try to condemn you and put you down, its a judgement of I love my Lord and I’m concerned about his reputation you’re hurting, and secondly, I’m deeply burdened about the destruction that sin’s going to bring in your life. That’s the proper motive behind proper judging. The glory of God and the good of the person involved.

Now, Deuteronomy chapter 17, it says when somebody willfully breaks the covenant God made with Israel, they are to be taken out and stoned and that evil is to be removed from the midst of Israel. And then Paul takes that same principle here and he applies it to the church, and we’re not stoning people in this dispensation and age of course, but we are still to be removing people from our midst. And that’s why he says in verse 13, “but those who are outside, God judges.” They are already judged and they will stand at the great white throne one day and be judged and receive their punishment, but he says, you’re responsible for something else, last phrase verse 13. “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.” Its an aorist imperative (Greek). It means its a command, do it, do it now, and be done with it. Let it be stated that its done and over, he’s removed from your midst.

So the apostle Paul gives us clear instructions of how to deal with the sin that is in the life of the believer, that is such a scandalous sin that it brings public shame and disgrace on Jesus and his church. He says, first of all deal with it urgently. Don’t wait for three weeks, don’t wait for six weeks, deal with it urgently. And secondly, deal with it completely. How do you deal with it completely, you remove him from the church and you refrain from any social fellowship with that man.