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With God all things are possible


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The title of this thread is from Matthew 19:26.....
“But Jesus beheld [them], and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”

The reason I chose this as a title, is because this thread is about an “impossible situation”, that Scripture seems to be giving us.
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The impossible situation that I am referring to, has to do with one of God’s particular instructions to His Church.....

“But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.”

(1 Corinthians 5:11)

In light of....

“Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from [her] husband committeth adultery.”
(Luke 16:18)

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The context of 1 Corinthians 5:11, calls for the local Church to kick Church members out of its fellowship, who are practicing any of these “6" sins. But following through on just one of them(“a fornicator”), would almost shut down, most Churches today!!

What a dark, Christ rejecting world that we live in; When most “professing” Christians will have to be kicked out of Church, if the Church followed God’s instructions!   This is why, we aren’t seeing Revival in our Churches; The whole has become leavened!

“Your glorying [is] not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Corinthians 5:6)

 

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We live in a day when even churches have adopted the worldly, secular humanists concept of tolerance (wrongly defined and used), acceptance, equality (wrongly defined and used), and a very wrongly defined and overused "love".

Today, even in many churches, we are told to "love" those living openly in these sins to the point of ignoring or even accepting their sin. This is a false, secular "love", not the love of Scripture which tells us to address these sins, to confront the offenders following the biblical model with the hopes of them coming to repentance and restoration of a right walk with the Lord and fellowship with the brethren.

Our pastor acknowledges following this governing of the church regarding this matter as Scripture commands is a difficult thing. He then points out our Lord never promised us all things would be easy. While it's a difficult thing to deal with, it's something we must do if we truly want to follow Christ and have a Christ honouring congregation.

Thankfully we live in a very rural area where folks are still relatively "conservative" and traditional in their "family values", and most folks know one another and many are related in some way. For these reasons we probably face this issue much less than some larger churches and churches in or near cities. At the same time, it makes dealing with such matters when they do arise  even more personal and far reaching for many around, but it still must be biblically addressed.

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We don't have that issue too much at my church. God has been merciful to us and I'm thankful. When it does happen they leave the church. Most of the time they find them a church that doesn't preach against sex sins. I think our Pastor and Deacons talked to one couple. The couple said our church was full of fanatics and meddle in other people's business. 

Sin is so awful, it hurts people. 

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Hello John81 & MountainChristian
It seems to be getting more and more clear to me, that the time for “large” Churches that are sticking to God’s Word about Holiness among it’s leadership and it’s members, is past.  As MountainChristian said, many of today’s families will not stay in a Church that expects Holiness from it’s membership.
With the way things are looking with all this sin in our Churches AND with the way things are looking in and around Israel TODAY, I am truly expecting our Lord’s return at any moment. Soon we won’t need the internet, to sit and fellowship.
Praise the Lord

 

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Over the years we've had a few of those church hoppers pass through our church. These have been couples, sometimes with a family, who attend a church for awhile until they decide they don't like some aspect of the biblical preaching. Sometimes they make a fuss and then leave, other times they just leave. Then it's on to the next church where they repeat and move on to the next. Being in a very rural area most of the pastors know who these people and we've had a few come in and go out our doors.

Typically they stay in a church until the pastor preaches upon something from Scripture which says they need to stop doing something or start doing something. The pastor didn't write his sermon with them in mind, it's the sermon the Lord led them to deliver, but the offended couple take it as a personal assault, get huffy and leave.

Considering how many pleasing to the ears churches there are out there today I really don't know why such people don't go to one of those to begin with.

Last year we had a slight "falling away" at our own church. While it only amounts to a few families, the fact they all fell away during the same year and for no real reason made it stand out. In most cases it was the husband/dad of the family which either lost interest in attending church or decided there were better or more important things to be doing on Sunday. This again shows the importance of the spiritual leadership of men in their families. We've reached out to them, heard pleasant words from most, even a few comments of them saying they need to get back to church or they will be back soon, but they don't show up and they make themselves scarce in this area.

So very sad, especially for those families with children that are being taught church isn't a priority, Christ and His Word aren't that important.

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“But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.”

In my IFB church, the only ones I remember being "kicked out" was a pastor and a "railer".  I witnessed a 'clique' of three men rail on two(2) different pastors; one in the congregation on a Wednesday or Sunday night and the other was in a men's meeting. One died from cancer, the second tried to give a fit to a third pastor who showed him the door (good riddance) and the third repented. I don't know why they voted the pastor out; that happened when I was very young and before I was saved. I just remember them sending us kids out while they had their meeting and when the meeting was over, he was no longer the pastor.

 

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Hello John81 & MountainChristian
It seems to be getting more and more clear to me, that the time for “large” Churches that are sticking to God’s Word about Holiness among it’s leadership and it’s members, is past.  As MountainChristian said, many of today’s families will not stay in a Church that expects Holiness from it’s membership.
With the way things are looking with all this sin in our Churches AND with the way things are looking in and around Israel TODAY, I am truly expecting our Lord’s return at any moment. Soon we won’t need the internet, to sit and fellowship.
Praise the Lord

 

​In my experience I have yet to see a large or growing IFB church that is not both aggressively soulwinning via every possible route (buses, nursing homes, prisons, feeding the poor, handicapped ministries, regular door to door and event soulwinning, etc.) AND preaching hard against sin with Scriptural standards. God blesses those churches, always has and always will.

Curious what churches you are referencing? Mega's CCM, jeans/tanktops and Jesus is all love without judgement or what? Those are not churches according to the Bible anyway so why bring them up?

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  • 1 month later...
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Rather than look at the situation as we have been, which is necessary, we should go back even further in the process and look at what churches teach (or fail to teach) regarding dating/courtship, marriage, divorce, and remarriage. If these matters were addressed, rightly taught and stressed, many of the problems in churches today with rampant fornication, adultery and serial divorce and remarriage wouldn't be so large.

In too many cases churches have either taken the worlds view that people, younger and older alike, just can't avoid sexual sin so we should just expect it and accept it. Other churches have taken the view that sex and such matters aren't for church and they leave it to parents (who themselves likely need biblical teaching on the subject!) and public schools (the devils training ground) to address these subjects.

One look at the profiles of many Christians on Facebook or such sites indicates where they are. It saddens me to see so many "good Christian kids" go off to college and they post pictures of themselves in very immodest clothes, with people boozing it up or even with them holding a beer, them on dates or attending a dance (again dressed very immodestly) with a different person in each picture.

Not to be outdone, many of the older Christians freely post about their separations, adulteries, fornications, marriage, divorce, remarriage, then repeat.

No Miss Daisy, in a proper church not every remarried person would lose their membership. Repentance, forgiveness and restoration are to be our goals. There are those who flaunt their sinfulness and such should be dealt with, but there are also those who acknowledge their past sins and determine not to repeat them. We (Churches and Christians in general) have failed to teach and train our children, youth and all others in the biblical way we are to live in these areas. Often we also fail to teach ourselves through Scripture reading and study so we know the way we should go.

Those who openly ignore Scripture and declare "God wants me to be happy so I'm leaving my spouse for my lover and we can be married and happily live for God" are in open sin and Scripture says such is to be dealt with. Today, it's rare such is. We (our churches) are failing at both ends of this problem which is why it continues and grows worse.

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Hello John81 and thank you very much for the great post.

A few days ago, I saw the post from Miss Daisy, but I have been so busy, that I was unable to respond to her. But after reading your post, I see that you and I are on the exact same page in this area and I much appreciate your response!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Rather than look at the situation as we have been, which is necessary, we should go back even further in the process and look at what churches teach (or fail to teach) regarding dating/courtship, marriage, divorce, and remarriage. If these matters were addressed, rightly taught and stressed, many of the problems in churches today with rampant fornication, adultery and serial divorce and remarriage wouldn't be so large.

In too many cases churches have either taken the worlds view that people, younger and older alike, just can't avoid sexual sin so we should just expect it and accept it. Other churches have taken the view that sex and such matters aren't for church and they leave it to parents (who themselves likely need biblical teaching on the subject!) and public schools (the devils training ground) to address these subjects.

One look at the profiles of many Christians on Facebook or such sites indicates where they are. It saddens me to see so many "good Christian kids" go off to college and they post pictures of themselves in very immodest clothes, with people boozing it up or even with them holding a beer, them on dates or attending a dance (again dressed very immodestly) with a different person in each picture.

Not to be outdone, many of the older Christians freely post about their separations, adulteries, fornications, marriage, divorce, remarriage, then repeat.

No Miss Daisy, in a proper church not every remarried person would lose their membership. Repentance, forgiveness and restoration are to be our goals. There are those who flaunt their sinfulness and such should be dealt with, but there are also those who acknowledge their past sins and determine not to repeat them. We (Churches and Christians in general) have failed to teach and train our children, youth and all others in the biblical way we are to live in these areas. Often we also fail to teach ourselves through Scripture reading and study so we know the way we should go.

Those who openly ignore Scripture and declare "God wants me to be happy so I'm leaving my spouse for my lover and we can be married and happily live for God" are in open sin and Scripture says such is to be dealt with. Today, it's rare such is. We (our churches) are failing at both ends of this problem which is why it continues and grows worse.

​Thanks John,  My church back home did this very thing when one of the members was caught having an affair with the music directors wife, this matter was brought before the church by our pastor and the two that had committed the sin where dealt with strictly from Gods word at the alter, there was a lot tears of shame shed that morning, This happen in 98 and I don't remember all of the the details but both of the marriages where reconciled. we had a couple leave the church because they where angry and protested against what the pastor had done in bringing the matter before the church but I think the real reason they left was that maybe they would be next at the alter.

God bless brother

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