Very few things are as devastating as discovering immorality in a marriage. It impacts far more people than the couple. If there are kids, they are thrust into a state of confusion. Extended family and friends don’t know how to proceed, which will often divide churches. Sadly, the offender is often let off the hook because no one wants confrontation. Confronting immorality in the home and the church is difficult but essential.
1 Corinthians 5:1-2
It is reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
Confronting Immorality
The church has a process for confronting immorality. There were some sexual sins in the church at Corinth that the pagans didn’t tolerate. A man was with his step-mom. Even the thought of that is sickening, yet the Corinthians did nothing. They were arrogant about it. It gave God a bad name and was a sad witness for the church. This should’ve caused mourning and remorse for the sin, but it didn’t. The Corinthians had become calloused to sin. Paul demands that this person be removed from the church and delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
So that None Shall Perish
We are way too accepting of sexual sin in the church today. In the name of grace, we overlook the need for repentance and allow people to continue as if nothing happened. If someone has sinned sexually, they are to be called on it with the chance to recognize the sin and repent of it. If they resist that, they will be removed from the church and given over to Satan. That means they are out from under the church’s covering and are on their own. This is done in hopes that it will wake them up to their sin, and they return in repentance. God desires that none of us perish but that we turn from our sins and to the church’s fellowship. This is difficult to do as a church, but neglecting it will cause a cancer to begin to grow that will be tough to eradicate.