Sexual Immorality in Church

 

¹ It is actually being reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans. A man has his father’s wife. ²And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?  ⁵ …Hand this man over to Lucifer, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.  ¹¹ …You must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral… With such a man do not even eat. ¹² What business is it of mine to judge those outside the Church? Are you not to judge those inside? ¹³ God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked man from among you. 1 CORINTHIANS 5

How to deal with the kind of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart who admitted to sexual sin while doing God’s ministry? How to deal with the Catholic priests and deacons guilty of committing sexual and child abuses? 1 Corinthians 5:5 says hand them over to Lucifer. Expel them from the church fellowship, for obviously they are decided to associate themselves with wickedness. 

Treat them with love before, during and after the disciplinary action, however. Lucifer would punish them severely just as an enemy would, enough for them to come to their senses and make amends. Allow them to rejoin the fellowship after spiritual detoxification is made.  

Kill No Sexual Offender

The Old Testament tells us to stone to death sex offenders.

³ The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group ⁴ and said to Y’shua, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. ⁵ In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 …Y’shua bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. ⁷ When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” JOHN 8

The new covenant has deferred the practice of putting sexual offenders to death. God is a God of second chances and He has chosen to sit on His throne of grace. He wants the sexual offenders restored, not condemned. He is allowing them to live longer that they might do spiritual detoxification and discipline themselves in love and faithfulness.

What if no spiritual detoxification is made? What if they continue in their offences? Then God’s personal curse would cling to them in this lifetime and hereafter. The impure would stay impure. The dead would stay dead.

³⁸ O adulterous and sinful generation! MARK 8

²⁰ Cursed is the man who sleeps with his father’s wife, for he dishonors his father’s bed. ²¹ Cursed is the man who has sexual relations with any animal. ²² Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, [his step-sister] the daughter of his father, or [his half-sister] the daughter of his mother. ²³ Cursed is the man who sleeps with his mother-in-law. DEUTERONOMY 27

⁸ The sexually immoral… their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the Second Death. REVELATION 21

⁷ Don’t forget the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, all full of lust of every kind, including lust of men for other men. Those cities were destroyed by fire and continue to be a warning to us that there is a hell in which sinners are punished. JUDE tlb

¹² The night is nearly over; the day almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. ¹⁴ Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Y’shua the Messiah, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. ROMANS 13

¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Y’shua, so that the life of Y’shua may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Y’shua’s sake, so that the life of Y’shua may be revealed in our mortal body. 2 CORINTHIANS 4