Hymenæus: Delivered to Satan

Every person has a conscience and whether they’re saved or whether they’re lost makes no difference and so, we saw the conscience and we also saw how that how that the conscience when we do something that we know to be wrong, that we know to be to to be something that is evil and just as a side note, as a believer, our conscience is supposed to be informed, not necessarily by the way we’re brought up, although that might be helpful if that was true, but ultimately, the most important source of information that informs our conscience is supposed to be God’s Word. And when that’s the case, then, our conscience functions as god intends it to function and it’s good and helpful to us as Christians which is why in the New Testament, we see Paul and Peter and various others tell us to maintain a good conscience because it’s helpful and good to a believer And sometimes there’s things in our lives that are a bit doubtful or sometimes it’s not even a matter of doubt. Sometimes we know better and our conscience is there to to prick our hearts that we’re doing, we’re get we’re getting out of the way and going in a direction that we should not go based simply upon what we know to be right or wrong.

And so, we saw how that when that conscience is defiled or violated, that sometimes that sometimes that when when that conscience is violated, it will then have a an effect upon our faith and we looked at the example of Balaam and the example of the children of Israel who through their participation in activity that was wicked and evil which they knew was evil, it affected directly affected their faith and this is exactly what we see here in verse number 19. Again, this is just a little bit of review.

Holding faith and a good conscience which some referring to the con... Good conscience, some having put away. So they they they despite the fact that they knew what was right and wrong, they nevertheless continued to to pursue a course of action they knew was wrong and they put away the good conscience and it says, concerning faith have made shipwrecked. So, they wrecked not just their conscience and no morality and their ethic but they wrecked also their beliefs.

And and so, we we saw how that that those two go together. We saw a number of scriptures where that actually happens and so just just to kind of put a final period on this before we look at the man Hymenius tonight is, you know, you know, very often people make decisions regarding what they believe, that is their faith, right? Their faith system. They make decisions about what they believe, the Bible says, not out of the text of scripture.

But they make decisions about what the Bible says out of some consideration about their moral desires and that that affects the conscience, right? What I want to do, what I’m engaged in, what I’m doing and so, if someone, for instance, if someone is involved in something that is not good and they know it but they of course aren’t willing to repent of that. They aren’t willing to turn from it. Yeah, I just let’s just pause here and and just just just sit here a minute. It is a it is a miserable life of a Christian who lives with a defiled conscience. That is not a good life for a Christian. So, if you if if we’re living in a life with with a defiled conscience, we have that burden, that guilt, and that’s that’s really what it is, guilt.

That and and it’s proper guilt, right guilt. When we live with that burden because we are we are set, we are we are are hardened that we’re gonna pursue this avenue that we know is not right. That is not a happy life. That’s a heavy burden to bear. You know, a lot of people without Christ, that’s the very burden they bear. They carry a lot of guilt in their life for the things that they can’t change, that they’ve done, that are that tar their history, that tar their record, and they know it and it it weighs them down and that’s what the gospel frees us from because the moment the lord tells us, hey, listen, thy sins be forgiven thee. Go and sin no more. All of a sudden, they’re free, right? Their conscience is free. Not only are they forgiven before god but in inwardly because of the conscience is inward, their conscience is is has has been freed and so they go and they can serve god without that burden of guilt that their conscience bring brings them but not only that, as a believer, living with the defiled conscience and that weight of guilt is very very unhappy and I think that’s why a lot of Christians are just unhappy.

They’re just not happy. You know why? And I say this because I’ve lived in periods of my life like this where where there was there were things that were in my life that weren’t right and I knew they weren’t right and I was not willing to make them right. And so, you know what it did? That that pain of the of the of the accusatory conscience, what it did is it sucked every bit of joy out of my life and on top of that, you have the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit and the conscience are not the same. You have the Holy Spirit. He’s like, listen, big boy. You, oh, you don’t want to repent of that. We need to have a talk. And it’s always a painful talk because he is serious and intent about bringing us back to himself. And that’s just not a happy life. It’s not a life of joy. It’s not a life of peace and happiness. And that’s not the life, when the Lord says He wants us to have life, eternal life, and that more abundantly, means that we have eternal life, but our present life, which is the beginning of our eternal life, is supposed to be joyous as well. Right? And so, you can’t have that when your conscience is defiled.

And so, as I was saying, a lot of people make decisions about what they believe, not based upon the text of scripture but they make the decisions about what they believe out of consideration of will I be able to do this thing that I’m doing that I know is not right. That’s how they sometimes people make decisions about the church they go to or the religion they join, right?

Or or whatever it might be. You know, there’s a lot of people that don’t want to come to a church like ours because we don’t approve of drinking alcohol. Amen. Just that simple. And we were gonna say things about it and they wanna drink and that’s what they’re gonna do. And they make decisions on that basis. Now, I see someone’s heart. I don’t know if the Lord’s pricked their heart in their conscience about alcohol or if they have doubt. I have no idea. I just know that people make decisions based upon that.

So... But in this case, when we make these decisions about what we believe the Bible says, not based upon the text of Scripture, but by the thing that we want to do, the Word of God ceases to be the authority and the standard of what is true and what is right. And is that not the way the Word of God should be? The Word of God should be what it is regardless of whether I’m on the right side of or the wrong side of it.

Right? We should never seek. We should never seek to find a doctrine that accommodates our desire. I’ll say that again, we should never seek to find a doctrine that accommodates our desire. Amen. Our desire must bow to what god says. You know an indicator of this, listen, I’m saying this and to be honest with you and transparent, I have a hard time really applying this, but you see it all the time.

Have you ever seen somebody go through a really hard and terrible thing in their life or a very difficult moment in their life and then all of a sudden their whole religious viewpoint, their faith is totally different than it was? Like it totally changes. A lot of times, absolutely when people get divorced, that can totally alter someone’s faith. And you’ll see someone, they used to be a, you know, a whatever, a Presbyterian and now they’re a Catholic.

And you’re or they become a Muslim. And you’re like, hold on. The the truth didn’t change because you went through a difficult time in your life. Right? And and so when a good indicator of this is when someone changes what they believe and you know, it’s all over the it’s all over the internet and social media. People are like, you know, whatever they used to be and all of a sudden they changed. I know people I went to college with and they are, I mean, in Bible College now, these are people that are in ministry and they have just totally veered into a different direction. I’m not talking about in small things. I’m talking about major.

What happened? You you’re you’re telling me we we through careful, conscientious study of the scripture, we came to a different conclusion. I mean, it hadn’t changed. It’s often some personal consideration that has kind of led into that. And can’t say in every case because not even our text. Look at what it says in verse number 19. Holding faith and good conscience, which, what does it say? Some.

So not everybody this is like that. You know, there are plenty of Christians who go against their conscience and the Lord corrects them and they come back, you know, they come back to the lord, get that thing right, and they’re they don’t wreck their faith but some do. But some do. And so and so we we gotta be careful and we have to like I was saying this morning, we have to make sure that the word of god is the standard and that and that the scripture is the basis and we and we have to be careful that we try and maintain a good conscience before god. Lord, this is true. This is right and I’m gonna live in a way that is consistent and in agreement with that. Now you look at the man Hymenaeus, verse 20, because verse 19 has Paul’s point in verse number 19 has an example. Two examples, Hymenius and Alexander.

You see, Hymenius and Alexander were men who put away a good conscience. In other words, they knew what was right and deliberately chose to violate that and for... Now we don’t know the details. We’re gonna look in a little more detail, but they deliberately chose to violate that and when they’re... When they were compromised in conscience on the moral question, that led directly to them shipwrecking their faith, and then they were delivered to Satan. You see that in verse 20.

So Hymenaeus, on Hymenaeus, let’s look really quick at second Timothy verse chapter two. Second Timothy chapter two on Hymenaeus because he’s mentioned one other time in the Bible. Second Timothy chapter two verse number 19.

Now notice, we’re gonna get to verse number... Verse nine, it’s actually verse 18. We’re gonna get to verse number 18 in just a minute, but look at verse 16 because this goes directly to what we studied prior in first Timothy. It says, but shun profane and vain babblings for they will increase unto more ungodliness. You see that? Babblings producing godliness. So here’s how it works. The the conscience being violated, that that that pressing those moral questions that that should not be done can lead to the alteration of the faith but the reverse is also true. The alteration of the faith in turn then changes the morals.

Right? You see what it says? For they will increase, that is the the babblings, the questionings, the vain janglings we talked about before, they will produce ungodliness. Verse seven, and their word will eat as doth a canker, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some. So this was Hymenaeus’ error, his error in faith. We don’t know his moral error, but we know his error in faith was he he was started to tell people that the resurrection was passed already.

Now now as I said before, sometimes we have these questionings and vain janglings, these questions that only are questions, they... There are no answers to them and we covered all of that and and the uses of the Bible that, you know, that only leave open ended questions that produce strife and discontent and discord and division and those kinds of things, and that’s how this apparently started, but it it digressed.

It degraded into what we read in verse number 17 because now we have not only is it just people asking questions and debating and arguing about things, now we have straight up false doctrine. It says, their word will eat as doth a canker. You know what a canker is, right? This is growth, but it’s not the good kind. Right? It’s growth that kills, and that’s what’s happening. What started small is getting bigger.

It’s getting bigger. And then it says, he mentions Hymenaeus in verse 17, then he says, who concerning the truth have erred. So basically, they said that the resurrection is past already.

And so the error of Hymenius in faith, remember conscience, bad conscience led to bad faith, There the error was that essentially Christ had already come and that was actually something that was covered in second Thessalonians two two. In second Thessalonians, Paul addresses some who thought that Jesus has already come And he goes through it and says, no, the second coming has not happened yet for these reasons, that’s what second Thessalonians chapter two is all about.

And the second coming is the time of the resurrection, the resurrection of the body. And it was actually also similar to what we read in first Corinthians. Take a peek at first Corinthians if you would, chapter 15. I just wanna show it to you.

Second Corinthians chapter 15. So if someone said, hey, the resurrection is past already. We’re not talking about the resurrection of Jesus now. We’re talking about the resurrection of the saints. If we say, the resurrection is past already, what does that mean for you? What does that mean for me? You know what it means?

What does it mean? It means there is no resurrection which goes straight back to first Corinthians. Look at first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 12. Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? You see, so, what Hymenius is pushing is not too dissimilar from what Paul was dealing with in Thessalonica and among the Corinthians. There were people that were saying the resurrection, the resurrect, there is no resurrection.

Now, that might be a little bit different but in practice, it’s the same thing. Then, you look down at verse number 32. Look at what it says. Now you say, well, why does it even matter if the resurrection, there is no resurrection, you know, we just die and that’s it. Well, it makes a big difference, here’s why, verse 32. If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage if it me if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Notice, be not deceived.

Evil communications, that’s the false doctrine, corrupt good manners. In other words, you listen to that junk will affect the way you live. Poison will poison your personal moral life. Okay. So here you got Hymenaeus who poisoned his personal moral life because there was something he wanted to do even though he knew it was wrong. Hymenaeus was a man who had set himself to do something he knew was wrong, that was morally wrong, right? That’s the violation of the conscience.

And was in search of a doctrine that would accommodate that moral framework, alright? Now we don’t know what that was, but you can see why the resurrection question would be one of those. After all, I’m not gonna give an account to anything. You know, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die. You know, it doesn’t really matter, right? And that’s that’s that goes back to what I was saying about atheism. Yeah, of course, the purposeless, directionless, randomness idea of atheism, right? This just uncaused, there’s nothing here, there’s nothing after this, of course that appeals to people who want to throw themselves at hedonism and pleasure, because if that this is all there is, on the other hand, there’s they have great incentive to reject a god who is holy and righteous who has said plainly, he will bring them into judgement. Yeah, well, this is I’m gonna customize my doctrine to fit my moral, you know, my moral pattern and and what I wanna do morally. So, it’s the same thing. It’s the it’s the same same truth. Here’s the thing.

This idea that the resurrection was past already was a lie. But notice what it says back in our text, in second not in our text, in second Timothy chapter two verse 17, it says or 18 says, who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some.

So not only was their doctrine only was their doctrine a lie, but it was actually affecting other people. It was affecting other people. It led to a change in his faith and that canker started to hurt others, and that’s a big big big problem. Now, here’s what I think. Look if you would at first Timothy chapter six. Here’s what I think Hymenaeus was involved in. First Timothy chapter six.

First Timothy chapter six verse number nine. The Bible says, But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. This is a warning against the desire... Not not riches per se, but the desire for riches. Alright? That’s what we’re talking about in verse nine. But notice it uses the word drown. You know how it’s not the same, but you you notice how similar that is to a shipwreck. You know what a shipwreck is, right?

It’s boat that sinks, that’s drowned, right? That’s the idea. And so what I think is happening here, I think that Hymenaeus, this is my theory, so you’re welcome to have a different theory, this is my theory. My theory is, I think Hymenaeus’ error in his doctrine came about because of a defiled conscience that he had been involved in things that he knew were morally wrong regarding money.

I think it might have been out of the pursuit of money. In other words, money had changed what he had what he believed. You know, it’s amazing how appealing a particular doctrine becomes when you have this thing that’s motivating that change, right? You know, when you’re looking at something and a lucrative position in ministry requires this particular doctrine. All of a sudden, every verse seems to teach that doctrine. And if you ask Hymenius and you were to say, but Hymenius is what you believe based only on the Bible and Hymenius would say, yes, I’m a Bible believing Christian.

And behind it all, was this his defiled conscience. He was chasing something that was wicked and he knew it and he threw it all away in pursuit of whatever that was. I think it probably had to do with I don’t know that for certain, but I think that’s probably what it was. Maybe he embraced a doctrine that he found more profitable, because certainly being with Paul was not profitable.

And so the response, if you go back to the first Timothy one, what is the response? Verse 20 says, Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. What in the world is we talking about delivering him unto Satan? There’s one other time this is found in Scripture, look at it in one Corinthians chapter five and that’s where we will park for the rest of our time. One Corinthians chapter five.

So just to summarize what’s happening with Hymenaeus. Hymenaeus is morally compromised, he has changed his doctrine and now he’s spreading it. He’s seeking to teach others, that’s the canker, right, we read about? And he’s actually harming others, other people are being negatively affected by him, right, as he spreads this doctrine.

Other people are turning away from the true biblical truth and it’s then as a result, it’s affecting their lives, their godliness. Evil communications corrupt good manners. And so, Paul delivers him to Satan. First Corinthians chapter five verse number one. 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. So in the church at Corinth, this is a different situation, but in the church at Corinth, there was a man who apparently was having a sexual relationship with his stepmom.

Okay, that’s what we read here in verse one. Verse two, and ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from you, 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 done has so done this deed. Now, notice verse four, in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. Now, stop there a second.

Now, I’m going to give you a few points on this but notice the action that the church is about to take is done in the name of the lord Jesus Christ. Now, look, these words in scripture are not just they’re not just filler. When the church in this case, Paul is telling the church to do this. When the church takes an action in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they’re taking that action representing him.

In other words, they’re taking that action with with Christ at their back saying, this is this is the the decision. Right? We’re doing it as His representative. That’s what in the doing something in the name of Christ means. When you beget... When you are gathered together and my spirit, so Paul’s expressing support, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, verse five, to deliver such an one, that is the fornicator, 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, that goes back to the canker, remember, We read about earlier. Purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you are unleavened, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Verse nine, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. What does that mean? Not to company with fornicators. Fellowship, hang out, that’s what it means. Associate with.

Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then you must needs go out of the world. I love how practical our brother Paul is. He is so practical. He might be a Pharisee or at least in time pastors Pharisee but he doesn’t act like one. He acts like a man who is in whose whose feet are on the ground, Right?

He says, listen, what I’m not saying is to cut off all communication with everybody in the world. Right? You can’t you can’t say, well, I’m not going to I’m not going to be around sin. Well, hold on. Where are you going to go not be around sin? People getting drunk, people stealing from their employer, people committing fraud, commit people committing adultery, doing drugs. Where are you gonna go where people people aren’t committing idolatry or other kind of sin like like we read here? Where where are you gonna go in this in this world? I mean, where are gonna go? You ain’t gonna hit. There’s nowhere.

You see how practical that is? So, this idea, this not company with fornicators, He’s not talking about the world. Here it is, verse 11, But now I have written unto you not to keep company. If any man that is called a brother, you see that different class? Now we’re not talking about the world, we’re talking about someone who professes the name of Christ. Well, that’s different. Now we’re getting where the rubber meets the road.

He says, If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an 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, that is outside the church, fellowship, God judgeth. Therefore, put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

So in this case, you had this man committing this ugly and gross act of fornication with his father’s wife. The matter was public. How do we know that? Verse one, it is reported commonly. So it was well known what was happening. And not only that, but this particular egregious sin fell in the category of verse number 11. It says, a fornicator, covetous, idolater, railer, drunkard, extortioner, and listen, that’s not an exhaustive list. That’s a kind of a category of, we might say major egregious sort of sin, right?

And so this man fell into that category in verse number 11. He called himself a brother and he was involved in this wicked sin and this sin was public. And so the action of the church that we read in this chapter is this, a few things about this action to dis fellowship this man. I’ll say more about dis fellowship in a minute, but let’s cover that. So what did Paul tell the church to do? He told the church to do this.

This person is to be removed from the fellowship of the church. That does not mean their name is simply taken off of the membership role, the formal membership role. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Don’t get that confused. We’re not talking about membership roles here in this chapter. We’re talking about this person is no longer welcome among the body. Okay, you got that? You see that here?

That’s what we read in verse 13. Put away from among yourselves that wicked person. He’s not allowed back to come in. The individual, not only not only is he not allowed to come to the public meeting, notice this, the individual members are to personally disfellowship that person as well.

Is that that’s where oftentimes it it falls apart, right? Is the church says, you you’re not you’re no longer welcome here because of what you’re you’re the sin you’re involved in, and the and individuals still continue to fellowship with them. And see, that’s why it’s so important, verse number four, when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such and one unto Satan. That’s an act of the church, not of an individual and not of the pastor, that’s a church act. And it’s to follow through not only in the public meeting, but also to follow through in the personal life.

It says, I mean, look what it says, at the end of verse 11, With such in one know not to eat. That’s personal fellowship. So this is a... And listen, this is not... This is something you hope you never have to deal with in your church. Right? This is something you hope you never have to deal with. But there are times when it happens. It’s written in scripture for a reason.

You see, the design of this act of this action of the church is to shame the person. The goal of this action is to allow this person to have no place to find refuge among believers.

And the hope of this action is that the person repents, right? This is what’s being described. We call it excommunication, that’s, you know, I know in Catholicism excommunication means you go to hell. That’s not what that means at all. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about disfellowshipping a person, that’s probably the biblical way is disfellowshipping, the biblical way to describe it. But it is ultimately reformative.

And so this action that is done by the church, notice a few things about this I want you to see. Verse four, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you be gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, notice this, when ye are gathered together. This is an action done by the church. I wanna tell you something. I’ve been... As I’ve as I’ve studied first Timothy, as I’ve studied other subjects related to the church, and as I’ve been, I have no idea, confronted in social media with certain videos, if you’re on social media you see these videos come in, you have no idea why you see these, I they just, I don’t know, algorithm or whatever. But there’s this one particular pastor I’ve been seeing a lot of and I do not. I vehemently disagree with this man but I keep seeing his stuff and it’s but I can’t bring myself to block him because I just want to fight.

He said, he made a comment the other day about, he criticized a committee run church, that’s what he was talking about, a committee, this church is not a committee run church, and he was going on about that. And and he said, he actually said, the congregation does not run this church. I thought to myself, So, who does?

And you know the answer is, what’s the answer? He does. Thank you, thank you. We’re on the same page, he runs it. And I know among independent Baptists, that has been a very common idea that the pastor runs the church. The pastor is a spiritual leader. He is not the only, he’s not supposed to be the only spiritual leader in the church. Can I get an amen?

Amen. Right? We should have other spiritual leaders in the church, But the pastor does not rule the roost. He’s not lord over god’s heritage. He’s a spiritual leader. Supposed to be an example, right? But listen, what do you read here? You do not read the pastor delivering the man over to Satan, you read the church delivering the man over to Satan. You read the church corporately making the decision to disfellowship a man. You you know what that means? That means the church runs the church under Christ.

And Christ provides spiritual leaders for guidance, for teaching, for with all of those things, examples, and all of that. But but really, listen, as the body of Christ, the church is the is is the one who runs the church under Christ. Right? You see, do you see what I’m saying here? Now, John the apostle, he mentions diatrophies who ran the church and diatrophes would not was not even welcome to the apostle John of all people and anybody who who tried to fellowship with the apostle John, diatrophes as an individual would kick them out of the church.

But what you see here in the biblical way is you see the church exercising church discipline. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. That’s the way the church is run. It’s not just about one man who dictates everything. It’s about the body of Christ working together because we are after all a body. But notice, so so this action is severe as it as it is is done by the church.

In verse four, we also see that this action is done according to the power given not to a man but to the church as a body by the lord Jesus Christ. Remember he said, whatsoever whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Here it is in practice.

This action also is done by the church to keep the church pure. He says, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump. Then verse nine, notice, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. The danger, listen, if you if you and I, even on an individual level, if we fellowship with people who call themselves Christians, but who carry on in wickedness, that will harm us.

The lord doesn’t want. He wants to keep the church pure and so he says, disfellowship this person out. Which is what was done to Hymenius. The action the church is taken by the church is intended to bring about repentance of the individual. Verse five, it says, 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.

That’s the goal. This action done by the church is an act of judging evil within. Verse 12, for what have I to do to judge them without? He’s saying what what have I to do is like saying, what business is it of mine to judge people who are outside the church? He says, do not ye judge them that are within? Well, Jesus said judge not. Paul’s saying, judge.

You know what that means? That means those who claim judge not are not understanding that verse correctly. This action done by the church is to be done with an attitude of mourning, verse two. And you’re puffed up and have not rather mourned. God forbid we’d ever have to exercise this kind of thing in our church. I hope we never have to, but if it ever comes to that, it should be done not with pride and haughtiness, but with great sorrow.

You see that? And the attitude makes the difference. And so when a person is disfellowshipped from the church, verse four, verse five rather, delivered unto Satan, I think what this is in, it’s a little hard to understand, we do see this indicated with Job, now Job didn’t sin of course, but Job was in a way delivered to Satan, was he not? And what was the effect? The protection of the Lord was removed from Job and Satan had his way.

Well, when the church makes this decision on scriptural grounds to do something to a person who has sinned in this way, and the church in the name of Christ makes this hard decision, the result is that the Lord responds by removing the protection of that person that that person enjoys from Satan to allow Satan to have his way. And Satan does what Satan does because that’s how he’s fallen, that’s what he does.

And the goal is that that person is brought low through the working of Satan, now that’s amazing, right? To bring him to repentance, to make him see his way. You know suffering and sorrow often bring people to their senses, that’s true.

So this practice that we’ve seen, which happened to Hymenaeus because of his false doctrine and spreading it and spreading cancer among the church, this shows us just a few things in closing. It shows us some things about the Lord and about His church. Number one, it shows us this, God is serious about the purity of the church of God.

God is serious about the purity of the church of God. The Lord does not want people involved in gross sin freely fellowshipping in the church. Can I get an amen? That’s true.

You know, we talk about things here like we see this. It’s like every day, every day on WYFF, I get their stuff on social media and their articles and stuff, every day a new pastor in South Carolina is being arrested for sex crimes. It’s like every day there’s a new one. At least every week, multiple a week, I see it.

You see, I mean they should be arrested, they should go to prison. But the church is supposed to be judging itself. The church is supposed to be dealing with these kinds of things inwardly. That’s what the church is supposed to. You see what we see here and for sure, that kind of stuff falls into this category. See, the church is supposed to be policing that. The church is supposed to be dealing with it when it comes about. Now, you can’t know what you don’t know but when you know it, it should be dealt with.

And it should not be allowed to continue, and certainly should... And here’s what happens in a lot of churches, not individual churches, but in the ministry click, is these guys are just moved around. That’s what happens. They’re able to keep it quiet, and then their pastor buddy sends them to another church, and they get plugged in there and until it dies down, and then they they... Yeah, and then they’re allowed to continue. When actually, first Corinthians chapter five is what should happen.

This practice also shows us that the Lord is willing in response to the corporate decision of His people to remove protection for this person from satanic attack, to allow him to be destroyed in the flesh. That’s pretty sobering. The Lord is willing to do that. I we’ve got the Lord wrong in a lot of ways to be honest with you. And that leads me to the third thing, the final thing.

This practice that the Lord gives to the church to perform, it shows that the church is not always called to be nice. Our highest calling is not to spare people’s feelings.

The church is called to be serious about wickedness. And listen, what we’re talking about is not just being critical and nitpicking everybody’s life, that’s not what we’re talking about. It’s the things in verse 11, things in that category, things about what we read in this chapter, things about what Hymenaeus was doing. So sometimes, you know, this is why we need good strong spiritual leaders who themselves have pure conscience, whose faith is is rigid and clear and biblically biblically founded. That’s why we need people like that in our church and in all churches.

Who are clear eyed and not personally compromised so that when these things come up, there’s people that are saying, hey, we know where we stand on this, we know what to how to respond to this. You can’t do that if you’re personally compromised and you have a defile conscience yourself, can you?

And we need some people that are willing, when necessary, to be not nice. I just wanna ask you, as I said, I hope, I definitely don’t mean to try to dunk on any other church or anything like that, but how many churches practice this? I thought about some of the large mega churches. They don’t know who’s there. They have 10,000 people there, they have no idea who’s in their church and what they’re doing.

Much less exercising. But even churches, smaller churches like ours, how many times is this practice? When it’s necessary, hopefully it’s not very often that it’s necessary. I just wanna tell you, this is what we read, this is what Paul had to do with Hymenius. Because of the his sin got so egregious, he had to do something to deal with it, and this is what he did and this is the lord’s direction for us. The lord wants our church to be pure. He wants us to be pure.

He wants us to take not only our personal walk with god and faith and good conscience. He wants to take that seriously but he also wants wants us to take our our church’s characteristic in that way serious.

And to have a body that is pleasing to him and glorifying to him because that’s why we’re here, that’s why Choice Hills Baptist Church is here. We’re not just a social club, we’re a body of Christ, right? We’re the body of Christ.

Let’s pray.