PUT AWAY the Evil From Among You!
Today’s topic is not a pleasant one, but it is a critical one, and the Word of God has much to tell us about it. It is a matter of spiritual life and death for all of God’s people! It is about putting the wicked, the unrepentant and wanton sinners, out of our congregations. Paul exhorted the Corinthians, “put away from yourselves the evil person” (1 Cor. 5:13). Paul sternly rebuked the Corinthians for their tolerance of wickedness in their midst, telling them, “You are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you” (1 Cor. 5:2). Many of us in the congregations of God today are no better than the Corinthians. We have tolerated wickedness in our midst just as much as they did. We have kept company with and befriended those whom God told us to shun, and have not rather mourned, that those who had done those deeds might be taken away from among us. Many times in the Old Testament, God commanded that the wicked be purged from...