I Corinthians chapter 5 says,
It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you,
and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles,
that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and
have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might
be taken away from among you. For I verily as absent in body,
but present in spirit, have judged already. as though I were present,
concerning him that hath so done this deed. In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one
unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your glorying is
not good. Know ye not that a little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven,
that ye may be a new lump as ye are unleavened. For even Christ
our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the
feast not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice
and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity
and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle
not to company with fornicators. yet not altogether with the fornicators
of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters. For then must ye needs go out
of the world. 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 idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or
an extortioner. For such in one know not to eat. For what have I to do to judge
them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are
within, but them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away
from among yourselves that wicked person." Now we had begun to
look at this last week and made a few comments about this and
the nature of this man's wickedness as he was there in the church. Now, we learn from that that
a man can be among the saints of God and be reputed among them as
being a brother and yet fall into sin. Now, this is not the
case of a man who was quietly going about doing something unbeknownst
to the brethren. But this was something that was
known among the brethren that Paul is upbraiding them about. Now evidently this man who was
the guilty party was one who was esteemed among them. Perhaps
he was one with a gift of oratory or he was somehow esteemed among
them so that they were reluctant to say anything about him. And
they were willing to turn a blind eye to what he had done and just
to go on as if nothing happened. And he said in that you are puffed
up, you are full of pride in that you think it is your, that
you have the right to do that. Because you don't have the right
to do that for several reasons. Number one, if the Lord has said
that something is a wicked thing, and you know it's a wicked thing
because He said what this man is doing is not even something
that is normally received among the Gentiles, that is, among
those who have no real moral fiber or standing, and they would
be repelled at such actions as this man has taken. He said,
How much more should it be that you as the children of God...
Now, keeping in mind that these Corinthians were primarily Gentiles. They were from pagan culture. And so they didn't regard things
in the same way that the Jews did. Paul, coming from the Jewish
culture, he had a much more restrictive view on the subject of fornication,
for instance, than they did. But he said even among the Gentiles,
the type of fornication that I'm speaking to you, and again,
this word fornication is a broad term. It means all sorts of sexual
impurity. In this particular case, it's
having to do with a man who is either living with or married
to his mother-in-law, or not his mother-in-law, his stepmother.
He's either living with her or, like I say, married to her and
yet continuing on as part of the church and no one saying
anything about it. And so Paul said, You've got
to do something about this. He says, I've already decided
what to do. He said, for verily I, as absent
in the body but present in the spirit, I've already made judgment
on this. He said, I don't have to be there
to know whether or not this is a bad thing. He said, it is a
bad thing. So he said, when you come together,
then you come together in the name of Christ and I'm there
with you in spirit. This is my judgment upon this,
that you should turn this man over to Satan." Now that's pretty
strong words, is it not? Now what we learn about this
man because of Paul's statement here is that this man was in
an unrepentant state. He was going on with this relationship
as though nothing was wrong. And he was carrying on with this. And so Paul said, you've got
to point this out. And that's what the whole subject
and object of the language there of turning this man over to Satan
is. Now, we know that in one measure
that's not in the Men don't have the power to do that. Now some
have surmised that Paul, being an apostle, he had the capability
to turn somebody over to Satan. I don't know about that. I know this. And that is that
the church, according to what the Lord said, has power to bind
things in earth. as they're bound in heaven. And
so that means that we do have power as a body of believers
and that among those who are spiritual, this carries weight. Now to the world, this doesn't
mean anything. But you see, if a man has within
him the Spirit of God, that does not mean that that man may not
fall into egregious sin. He may. David was a man after
God's own heart, yet David fell into egregious sin on more than
one occasion. And so it is that we are not
immune as brethren in the Lord from falling into sin. It is incumbent upon those who
are spiritual, as the Scripture says, to, if a brother be overtaken
in a fault, go to him. And this is more or less, as
Paul is saying here, he said you need to take some drastic
action here. Because perhaps this man had
been confronted with it, but nobody had done anything about
it. And he was in an unrepentant state. He said, He said, if this
man is indeed, and I'm reading between the lines, he's saying
if this man is indeed a brother in the Lord, if he has been born
again by the Spirit of God, then if you cast him out from your
midst, if you turn him over to Satan, this will be a beneficial
thing to him that he might be restored. Because you see, that's
the whole point of any action that would be taken by the church
in this respect, is not just to punish the person or make
them feel bad, but it is to cause them to be brought to repentance.
And so, you know, the Lord uses such things as these to teach
the whole body. Think of what he did when Ananias
and Sapphira did what they did. Now whether or not they were
brethren in the Lord, I do not know. Some have surmised one
way, some another. I do not know if they were brethren
in the Lord or not. I know one thing, and that is
that they were dealt with very harshly and perhaps If they were
brethren in the Lord, this was a thing that brought them to
repentance before they actually expired, I don't know what happened. But I know this, whether they
were or they were not, it did cause the saints of God who were
in the church, it caused fear among them. It caused them to
say, oh wait, this isn't anything to play with. It did. stir them
up. The Scripture says, No man darth
join himself to them. I mean, this was a thing that
really made an impression on men. So that's the purpose. You see that the Lord sometimes
brings and orders things to occur in people's lives to teach them
a lesson and to teach the church a lesson that we might know what
way we ought to go, that we might be apprised of the proper path.
Now, if a brother is brought into a place of repentance, then
we are taught that we are to be forgiving, are we not? If
he is not brought to repentance, then we are to be those who would
cast him out from our midst. That is what the Scripture would
indicate to us. What is the reason for that? For his benefit and
for ours, that we might remember that if we go into such a thing
as that, it may be us on the other end of the deal as well
as him. So it is. This is, I believe,
the import of what it means here when Paul says, turn him over
to Satan. that the flesh might be destroyed.
That is, that he might see what he is. If he's a brother in Christ,
if he's been born again, if the Spirit of God does indeed dwell
in him, he says this is going to stir him up and it's going
to bring him to a place of repentance, that the Spirit may be saved
in the day of the Lord Jesus. That is not speaking about the
day of the Lord Jesus like often in the future, but it's talking
about when the Lord when the Lord does a work in him, when
the power of God is put upon him in the day of the Lord Jesus.
He says your glorying is not good. It's not a good thing that
you just go along with this. Because he said, don't you understand
that a little leaven leavens a whole lump? It doesn't take
but a little bit of that. You see, when we entertain sin
in our personal life, It's easier then to go a little further with
it, is it not? I mean it's like a man that has
a problem with drinking. If he takes one drink, then the
next drink is easier to take, is it not? I mean, whatever a
man does, that's just the way the flesh is. And so it is that
he says, here, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. He said,
if you turn a blind eye to a brother's waywardness, this is just going
to encourage other brethren to do the same thing. And that's
what he goes on to tell them. as he gets on into this chapter
about doing things that would cause your brother to stumble.
He said, don't do that because you are allowing these little
bits of something to contaminate the whole. Purge out therefore
the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened,
for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. It is not
because we think that we are holier than thou or that we are
able to point out other people's faults, but rather that we know
that Christ died for His people. He died for our sin. And if He
died for our sin, if our sin is what put Him to death, then
sin cannot be a good thing in any form that it takes. And so
we are to be mindful of that. even as Christ, our Passover,
sacrificed for us. Of course, you know, as we come
to this today, we are reminded of that, the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the reason why we are
to be our brother's keeper. This is why we are to look out
for one another, because Christ died for us. And if any man be
a brother, then Christ died for him. And would we want to bring
dishonor to the name of Christ? Would we want to spit upon the
blood of Christ? No. And so we are to be looking
out for one another. And ye which are spiritual, restore
such a one with the spirit of meekness, considering your own
selves, lest ye be tempted, because we are all prone to the same
thing. Maybe not the exact same sin,
you see. We've talked about this before.
All men don't have a problem with the same problems, but all
men have problems. You know, all men have certain
things that they would have a problem with that other people don't.
We have to be mindful of those things and be mindful of ourselves
and one another. Therefore, let us keep the feast. not with the old leaven, neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle
not to company with fornicators." Now, what he is speaking about
here is fellowship. Now, of course, the picture of
fellowship is the keeping of the Feast of the Passover in
the sense that we regard the blood and the flesh of Jesus
Christ as we eat that to be a reminder of us of the Lord passing over
our sin, of the Lord taking our sin away. And this is the feast
that we take of. I'm not necessarily saying he's
specifically speaking about that here, but he is alluding to it. But what he's mainly speaking
about here is the feast of fellowship together in Christ. How can,
as he goes on to say in another place, how can that which is
darkness and light have fellowship one with the other? You can't
do it. You know, we can't embrace our sin and say it's okay, just
go along with it, it's fine. and say we shouldn't sin. I mean, you can't do those. Those
two things are not compatible. So that he's saying, therefore
let us keep the feast not with the old leaven, neither with
the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth. That's what we desire is truth
in the inward parts, not something we're not making believe. No,
we don't come down here and make believe that we don't have any
sin. But we come down here together acknowledging our sin. And that
was the problem with this man here is that he was not acknowledging
his sin. And that's the problem with coming
to this table right here with unacknowledged sin. See, if a
man is sinning, if he's going on in his pride and he's saying,
well, I'm just going to go on anyway, then he has no right
to take of this table. Because he is taking it in that
sense unworthily because he does not have regard to what this
table represents. Because this table represents
what we, as we remember the Lord's death, then it becomes what was
it that He died for? It was our sin. So how can we
be proud of our sin or say that it's okay in our mind No, we
know that it is not. And so we are humbled before
it. And in the bread of sincerity and truth, we come to partake
of this. There is no other way to come.
No other way that we are to come without a due consideration of
what it is that Christ has done. Now any due consideration of
what we are is always going to bring us to one conclusion, is
it not? I mean, a proper consideration
of what we are is going to always bring us to one conclusion, that
we don't have any right to eat at this table. We don't have
any right to eat at this table. But we've been given the privilege
to eat at this table because Christ said, what you do here
is showing forth the evidence of the fact that I have made
you worthy. to enter into the Kingdom of
the Living God. And that's the only reason, you
know, is because of what He did. And that's what it is when we
come here with a proper consideration, when we have regard to the blood
of Jesus Christ and the body of Jesus Christ broken for us.
Then and only then can we take this with a proper and due consideration. And if we come in any other sense,
if we come because we just think it's the thing that we just do
out of habit, then we've done it for the wrong thing. But when
we come here acknowledging what we are by nature, one worthy
of the least of the Lord's mercies, but confessing that it is His
blood and His righteousness that gives us standing with God, then
He says, Come and dine because I've spread it for you. Here
it is. He is our Passover.