We are taught that grace is sufficient for us. It is by God's grace that we are not swallowed up into the depths of the earth. It is by His bountiful grace that we are offered Heaven and avoid Hell. Paul speaks of grace in his letter to the Romans. But he knew that grace would be abused. Romans 6.1-2 says, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"
Sin may be dead to us, but we love to resuscitate it. In the book of Revelation, John writes this to the church in Thyatira:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. (Revelation 2.18-23)Now, I am not going to get in to whether this is literal or figurative. There may have been a strong-willed woman in the church, but I am not saying that women should not take leadership roles in the church. The point is that she was leading them into sin. Whether she was actually seducing them into her own bed, or if she was teaching that sexual immorality was okay, God was telling the church that in this way they were acting like the pagan temples, and she was acting like a temple prostitute. God's grace allowed Him to give her time to repent. But when she refused, there were dire consequences. Again, I am not saying this verse was a foreshadowing of sexually transmitted diseases or even AIDS; but it does appear that she was bed-ridden, gravely ill because of her actions. And it was God who sent the sickness.
A similar message was given to the prophet Jeremiah.
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand at the gate of the Lord's House and there proclaim this message: "Hear the word of the Lord, all you people who come through these gates to worship the Lord. This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, 'This is the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord!' If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers, forever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears My Name, and say 'we are safe'--safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 7.1-11)Can you imagine a prophet of God standing in the door of the church, saying "don't come in if you steal office supplies, or cheat on your taxes, or get angry enough to wring somebody's neck; stay away if you are prejudiced against others, or if you refuse to help widows and orphans. Should you come into God's house if you have a porn stash at home and lie about it? Should you leave here and sacrifice to idols (i.e. kill your marriage by spending all your time and effort at your job? or kill your testimony trying to be popular? or kill your paycheck buying booze or by gambling?) Don't pat yourself on the back for being in church--it means nothing unless you give God your heart." Jesus quoted Jeremiah 7.11 when he drove out the vendors and overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Temple.
Many of us are not really Christians--we are "churchians" We go to church to be seen. Our best effort at witnessing to others is to invite them to our church, instead of asking them to invite Jesus into their hearts.
If you trust in the church to save you, you will perish. If you strive to be like others, even godly people, you might end up being like them, but you won't be like God. God wants you to be like Him, not like his servants.
David had it right when he wrote this prayer in Psalm 39: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way of everlasting life." Look back at Revelation 2.23. "Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds." See, it's not all about me. I mean, it is: Jesus did die for me, and if I was the only one who needed to be saved, He still would have come and died so I could find peace for my soul. And David did say "test me and know my anxious thoughts". We need to give all our fears and anxieties to Him. And if there is anything in me that might stand in the way of somebody else coming to know Him, I need to get rid of it. And that's how the passage in Psalm 39 ties in with the passage in Revelation 2--the end result is not my glorification. The end result is that others may know. God doesn't want me, or you, or any of the six billion people alive today to die without Him. But to make that happen, he needs to use me, and a bunch of other people like me that He calls the Church.
So all will know.
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