Pastor’s corner

This verse (Matt.

7:1) is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted verses in the entire Bible.

It’s certainly a favorite text used by a fallen world to excuse sin.

But unfortunately it’s no longer limited to a fallen world.

That world has had such an impact on the professing church that its mindset toward sin (and its twisted interpretation of Matt.

7:1) has been incorporated into the church’s ranks…even into many of its constitutions and doctrinal statements.

For example, recently the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to redefine marriage in the church constitution to include a “commitment between two people,” becoming the largest protestant group to formally recognize gay marriage and allow same-sex weddings in congregations.

When I posted a Biblically based article by Franklin Graham in opposition to the PCUSA and its redefinition of marriage on Facebook, I was shocked to see that a friend of mine who professes to know Christ make a statement in opposition to that article (a statement which I have deleted from Facebook to protect his identity).

But his statement illustrates for us just how inundated the church has been by the world and its view of sin.

He wrote, “He [God] will judge our sins one day; it is not up to us to judge. It seems in today’s big C church, congregations are taking it upon themselves to judge what sins are allowable and which are not. I do not believe Christ wants us judging others.”

To this I made the following somewhat lengthy reply:

“We who are in Christ are to judge sin in the sense of discernment.

The church is not just a club or a fraternity, where we make up the rules as we go along.

This is the mistake that the liberal left - even in so-called ‘Christian’ circles - is making today.

God has made it very clear what is right and wrong, true and false, holy and sinful, etc.

We don’t determine those standards.

God has.

He’s made it abundantly clear in His Word, the Bible.

We must adhere to those standards if we claim the name of Christ and are following Him.

We’re not at liberty to take what He has called an abomination (i.e., homosexuality ~ Gen.

19:1-29; Lev. 18:22; 20:13; Rom.

1:26-27), relabel it and condone it as acceptable when God has clearly condemned it.

We love the homosexual and hate the sin, just as we hate the sin in ourselves.

But to begin to cover over it and call it something else and thus remove the conviction that someone should have for offending God’s holiness would remove from them the very opportunity they would have to acknowledge that sin for what it is, repent of it and really come to know Christ and His forgiveness!

Anyone who follows the Lord will, in time, begin to disdain the things that God disdains and love the things He loves.

And while none of us are perfect, we who follow Christ are to be like Paul who ‘pressed on’ (with the Spirit’s help) toward the goal of purity and Christ-likeness (Phil.

3:12).

Those who know Christ, because of the indwelling Spirit and constant exposure to and study of God’s Word begin to know and understand more fully what sin is, so as to call it by its true name.

A lost world cannot understand those distinctions and is constantly trying to get us - the church - into its mold…a byproduct of which is an inability (or a refusal) to call sin by its true name.

When we refuse to conform, that lost world loves to call us unloving and uncaring, and ultimately hates us.

Jesus said this would happen: He said, ‘If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own.

Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept My word, they will keep yours also’ (John 15:18-20).

The world and the liberal (apostate) church do NOT want anyone to dislike them.

But for those who are truly in Christ, that’s what we can count on...the world hating us because we identify with Christ and will not conform to them.

Unfortunately, liberal churches like the PCUSA have fallen prey to the temptation to conform and have thus called sin by a different name.

For this they will one day have to give an account.”

Two things I would add to my post: 1.

Regarding Matthew 7:1, John MacArthur writes, “As the context reveals, this does not prohibit all types of judging (v.16).

There is a righteous kind of judgment we are supposed to exercise with careful discernment (John 7:24).

Censorious, hypocritical, self-righteous, or other kinds of unfair judgments are forbidden…” (MacArthur Study Bible, Word Publishing, p.

1404).

2.

While the church’s chief end is not to “moralize” the culture religiously or through political activism (which, in essence, is trying to change the “fruit” without changing the “root”; God’s way of change is one heart at a time), we ARE to hold each other in the professing church to that higher standard revealed in God’s Word and to deal with false teaching when it encroaches (see 1 Cor.

5:12-13; 1 Tim.

5:20-22; Jude vv. 3 - 4).

And ultimately this is what this is about.

A HUGE part of the professing church (PCUSA and other groups within “Christendom”), because of the lack of doctrinal clarity and profession, have undergone an erosion of discernment and therefore become ignorant (and frankly, intolerant) of what God has revealed in His Word in regard to sin.

We love the homosexual, as does Christ.

But Christ never entered a life that He didn’t transform.

When He comes into a heart, He changes it.

He never leaves it the same.

It’s no different for the homosexual.

He told the man who He healed by the pool of Bethesda, “sin no more” (John 5:14).

And while none of us will avoid sin perfectly, that is still the standard we’re to follow in His power.

We do the homosexual no favors by making him feel more comfortable in his sin.

Rather, we are to tell them that, through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is freedom, forgiveness and wholeness through His mighty name!

Dean Ellis,

Pastor of Evangelism

First Baptist Church, Colfax