Corruption, Part 2, A Confident yet Cautious Rebuke for Believers

If you have not read the previous entry, please stop reading this, and read it first.

As before, I want to be clear that wisdom comes from God, therefore, this rebuke is a reminder to me as well as other believers. If you don’t have God’s Spirit guiding you as you read his word, you will distort it because of your own selfish desires. We must not forget that our natural hearts are “deceitful above all things and desperately sick…”

There are many practices our culture accepts and even condones that are wrong and despised by God, and some of them are even becoming accepted by the Church. The one that I will look at today is our culture’s standards regarding sex and marriage and God’s standard presented clearly in his word.

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let not the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterous.” Hebrews 13:4

Throughout scripture it is clear that God designed sex for within the covenant bond of marriage. It is the God ordained means of the “two becoming one flesh (Gen. 2:24).” God intends this commitment to last for life. Of course, anyone can see the obvious emotional advantages to a marriage lasting for life for the couple and for their children. Statistically, there are typically even financial advantages to a couple staying together. Even with this knowledge, with our incomplete view of love and attempting it in our own strength instead of God’s, many become discouraged and believe it is better to divorce than to remain married (I do believe that divorce is allowed by God when one spouse has been unfaithful and remains unrepentant. I also believe that separation and possibly divorce are also necessary in cases of abuse). However, I think that most Christians still oppose divorce even though they have failed marriages just like unbelievers, but for some reason the view of sexual purity before marriage, including the engagement period, has become a grey area even for many Christians. It is not a grey area. It is difficult, and the temptation is extreme, but it is not grey. As Christians we are called to the standard taught by Jesus Christ. He says in Matthew 5:28, “… But I say to you that everyone who looks with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” By his standard even our thoughts should be pure. Other than those gifted by God to have no sexual desire, everyone is guilty of adultery of the heart. So we are all in the same sinful state. This reminder should help keep us humble when standing up for Christ and his standard of purity. We all fall short, but by God’s grace and his Sprit working in us, we can do better, not perfectly in this life, but better. With all our shortcomings in mind, we must say what is right even if we are hated because of the truth we speak. To my Catholic friend who is living with her fiancé, I must say, “You know this is not right.” That is not an enjoyable thing to do. I don’t want to upset my friend or put a rift between us, but if I really love my friend, I’ll tell her the truth gently.

Because I have been tempted to be sexually impure, I can identify with others who struggle with this, but nearly everyone can. However, when it comes to the temptation to engage in sexual activity with a person of the same sex, I don’t have a clue. That is why, I am even more afraid to touch that subject, but any sexual activity outside of the bond of marriage is wrong. We should not engage in it or indorse it. Some Christians have said that a homosexual lifestyle is good as long as it is in a lifelong commitment just like a heterosexual marriage. Therefore, they are for same sex marriage. No matter how sweet a homosexual relationship appears, no matter how good the friendship, no matter how long-lasting, God still calls it impure and degrading.

Before you agree or disagree, take time to read Romans chapter one with a prayerful and humble heart and mind. There are many more passages to read and study about sexual purity as well as marriage that will give you understanding with God’s guidance.

Don’t be afraid. Search your heart, take the “log out of your own eye” so you can see clearly, and then speak the truth confidently with love.

Better is an open rebuke

Than love that is concealed.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend,

But deceitful are the kisses of an enemy.

Proverbs 27:5-6

Corruption

Ephesians 4:18-22

“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Chirst! - assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off you old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires…”

The passage above is just one of many describing the terrible state our hearts are in without the regeneration of Christ, and as long as we remain in this world, we are temped and weakened by our own sinful desires. That is why we must constantly seek the truth through time studying God’s word, praying for his guidance, and encouraging one another as believers. Without using the means God has provided for us to seek him, we will be deceived. I should at this point also recognize I can be deceived and what I write may not be quite correct, but the following comes out of my desire to know the truth and express it so that by this exercise I may be able to clarify things in my own head and so that other believers may be encouraged as well.

In many areas our culture has taken what is corrupt and made it seem right and even beautiful, and what is good has become seen as intolerant or hateful. When we understand the deceitfulness of our own hearts, this is not at all surprising. Before I even attempt to attack any of our skewed views, I would like to look at a few more passages about the “heart” or “natural man.” Jeremiah 17:9 probably states the most bluntly the condition of our heart:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

Not only is the hearts' condition deceitful and sick, but it is blind, foolish and helpless as shown in the two following passages.

“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:3-4

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’” 1 Corinthians 1:18-19

I encourage you to read these passages in context to understand them more clearly, but I think it is clear hear that our understanding is clouded and incomplete; only wisdom that comes from God can allow one to see the truth. Relying on one’s own understanding is foolish, and God will allow you to remain foolish while seeking your own understanding. God’s ways are beyond our human understanding, so we must have his guidance.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9

Since understanding and wisdom come from God, it does not concern me to the same degree when those who do not claim to follow Christ are corrupt and not only willing to break God’s commands but encourage others to do the same. However, when Christ’s church is blind to sin and corruption and even endorses it, that is tragic and weighs heavily on my mind.

I have written this cautiously and will do the same for my next entry as I attempt to bring to light some terrible things that I see fellow brothers and sisters in Christ doing or supporting. The main reason I must be so careful is that my pride is always lurking around me ready to take my best efforts and twist them into selfish and spiteful things.

Fighting for Peace

Here is a link to the book by John Owen referenced below. It is not an easy read partly because it was written in the 1600’s, but it is definitely worth reading. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/owen/mort

“…the life and vigour, and comfort our spiritual life depend much on our mortification of sin.”

-John Owen ch 4 of, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers

True sorrow over sin will lead to repentance, and the guilt and sorrow will be short, but the joy and comfort in the work of Christ is profound and lasting. Though more sorrow, guilt, and then again repentance will come, our joy and comfort in Christ can be ever increasing. Speaking of the comfort from God, John Owen says,

“The use of means for the obtaining of the peace is ours; the bestowing of it is God’s prerogative.”

We are to be actively fighting our sin with the power given to us by the Holy Spirit and by the understanding we have been given of God’s word. While studying the mortification of sin, the following question repeatedly comes to mind. How does this constant battle with sin fit with the peace and rest in God? It seems that the constant battle and rest go together, and that you can’t have one without the other.

Desires

As a result of reading Galatians and the first three chapters of John Owen’s Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, I have written some things that came to mind. Actually as I reread what I wrote, I remember pieces of Philippians and much of John Piper’s writing. Keep in mind this has not yet been particularly well thought out.

We can rejoice in God’s fulfillment of our comforts and respond with gratitude, and we can rejoice amid sorrow because it is allowed by God and can be used to glorify him. No circumstance can keep us from seeking him and enjoying him. We are not commanded to be happy but to rejoice – to praise him, and we have plenty of reason to do that. With God as our greatest desires, other desires when left unfulfilled, do (should not) not consume us or even hinder our complete passion for God. God gives us the desires of our hearts, but he does not always fulfill the desires of our bodies for the sake of our hearts. I am not talking about desires of our sinful nature (“the flesh”) but simply our desires for comfort. Even our amoral desires may have to be tempered at times to allow complete focus on our new heart’s desire to glorify God and enjoy him.

Something New

I have set this up since some things are just too long and maybe a little boring for Facebook. I don't want to fill up the news feed with my random thoughts, so I'll give this a try. With this I'll feel no pressure to keep things brief or even interesting to anyone else. If by some chance you find something I write to be interesting or even helpful, then this has been a better idea than just a folder full of Word documents saved to my computer or something handwritten in a notebook.