Tuesday, September
23, 2014, 10:31 p.m. – The Lord Jesus put the song in mind, “Songs in The Night.” Speak, Lord, your
words to my heart. I read 1 Corinthians
5 (NASB).
A Personal
Illustration
A while ago my husband installed the computer software
program “Acronis” on my PC to take care of backups. As far as I know it had
been working fine. Then this past Sunday I tried to shut down my PC when it
came up with a message: "Operations Are In Progress, Please Wait..."
It went on forever and so I shut it down, or at least I thought I did. I turned
it back on today but got the same message. Evidently it is a problem with
Acronis.
All we had was a blue screen. We were not getting anywhere
with it. I prayed. And then I had the idea to remove the battery. When Rick put
the battery back in, now we had access again. Rick tried to uninstall Acronis,
but that program hung on for dear life. The program itself acted like a virus
that just wouldn’t let go. I have never seen a program so difficult to
uninstall before. He tried all kinds of things to try to remove it, but it
would not budge.
The computer system ended up crashing. I prayed again. Then
I suggested going back to Friday night, when the last Windows system restore
point was created (9/19 at 11 p.m.), and doing a system restore, which restores
the “computer's system to an earlier date when everything worked correctly” (1).
Once the system restore was complete, he tried uninstalling
the program again. The uninstall was successful now. Wow! That was like
performing a root canal. It took a hard reboot to bring the system back up, so
we could access it to work on it, and then it took a system restore to be able
to uninstall the vicious software, and now it seems to be running smoothly.
Needs to Be Removed
It
is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such
a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s
wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one
who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
As I contemplated what was taking place this evening with my
PC, I could not help but see a spiritual application to the whole scenario. I
see much of today’s church here in America like my PC. Programs have been “installed”
within the church which seem safe on the surface, but they have a vicious side
to them. Serious sin and worldliness have infiltrated the church, some of it barely
even noticed, being introduced through what has been “installed” within the
church: The church, for the most part, has adopted the ways of this world and
of big business in order to grow their “churches.” The gospel of salvation has
been watered down, made more acceptable and less judgmental, and so “believers”
feel as though they have the freedom to continue in sin and still be covered by
the blood of Christ.
Because the church leadership wants the world to be comfortable
in their churches so that they will come back and will feel at home there, they
have made many compromises of truth and have introduced much worldliness into
the church. This has opened the door wide for sin to be rampant within the church,
going on unchecked or ignored, because the people are being taught that they
should not be judgmental, that they should not confront anyone, and that they
should “stay in their own lane” and not get in anyone’s face. The church, in
fact, is being taught that they should “immerse” themselves in the culture, and
that they should just go around “blessing” people through acts of kindness,
being “nice” to people in place of sharing the gospel, because, after all, they
don’t want to be too preachy. It might turn people away, they say.
Clean It Out!
For
I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged
him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our
Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of
our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the
destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord Jesus.
Your
boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole
lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as
you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.
Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven
of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
So, what needs to be removed from the church today is their “Acronis,”
i.e. the teachings, philosophies and marketing schemes of human origin that
have been “installed” within the church and have grown and multiplied within
the church to where there is not much difference at all between the church and
the world anymore. But, the church leadership and many of the people are
stubbornly holding on, and are not willing to let go. They are proud of their
church meetings and their worship services, but worldliness continues to
consume and to grow within the church like gangrene, the gospel continues to be
diluted, the truth of God’s word is ignored, disdained or twisted, and the Lord’s
messengers are rejected.
So, there is going to have to be a “hard reboot” in order to
gain access within the church so that the problem can be addressed, and then
there is going to have to be a “system restore” so that the vicious “program”
can be removed. In other words, God is going to have to take his church through
some hard times in order to revive (reboot) her. He is going to have to take
her back in time to when she first became corrupted with the world so that he
can restore her to what she was like when everything worked correctly. I
believe God is going to have to judge (discipline; the hard reboot) his church,
which will involve taking her back in time (confronting her with her sin and/or
the removing of modern conveniences) so that they will willingly let go of
their idols (their “Acronis”) and they will return to their “first love” and to
how they were before they went astray.
Bad Associations
I
wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all
mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers,
or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But
actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is
an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or
a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging
outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are
outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.
We are supposed to judge sin within the church. It is not
mean to do so if it is done in love. To ignore sin is not love. It is
selfishness. There is nothing kind about ignoring sin.
We are also not to associate with believers who are willfully
living sinful lifestyles. So, if the majority of institutional churches of
today in America are practicing sin by conforming to the ways of this world, by
diluting the gospel to make it more appealing to the flesh, by teaching a false
grace, by replacing the word of God with movies and with books written by
humans, by ignoring scripture in favor of human philosophy, and by practicing
the rejection and persecution of those who do teach the true gospel, then
should we continue to associate with these institutions of humankind? I say
not. By continuing to support them, we are giving our approval to their
wickedness, which makes us just like this Corinthian church which was proud and
did not remove the wickedness from among them.
I believe because most of the church here in America is
stubborn and unrepentant and she continues in her humanistic, worldly and
ungodly ways, the Lord Jesus is going to have to give her a “hard reboot” and
he is going to have to give her a “system restore” in order to remove (uninstall)
from among her the “Acronis” of the church of today which is corrupting the
church and is keeping the true gospel from going forth. Yet, I also believe
that the church will be revived during this time, and that through revival the
church will go forth with the gospel to the ends of the earth, and then the
Lord Jesus will return. Amen!
Songs in the Night
/ An Original Work / December 18, 2013
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing
hymns to God,
And the other prisoners were listening to them.” Acts
16:25 NIV ‘84
Lord, I praise You forevermore.
You, my Savior, I now adore.
Hope in heaven awaiting me,
Because You died at Calvary.
I have been forgiven,
And I’m bound for heaven.
Jesus set me free from
All my sin, I say.
I will praise Him always!
Lord, I love You for all You’ve done:
Overcame death, my vict’ry won!
Jesus saved me, and now I’m free!
I rejoice in His love for me.
I will walk in vict’ry!
My sin is but hist’ry!
I am free to please Him
With my life today.
I will love Him always!
Lord, I thank You for giving me
A new life bought at Calvary.
Loving Jesus, I meet with Him.
Tender mercies now flow within.
Lord, I am so thankful;
Through my Lord, I’m able
To sit at His table;
Fellowship with Him.
I will thank Him always!
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