When The Church Becomes A Whore

 

January 6, 2021

 

I wrote this a few days ago, but then thought maybe it was too strong and I put it aside. Now it isn’t strong enough. Shame, shame, shame on so many “professing Christians” who have abandoned the Way of the Prince of Peace.

 

What sacrilege, what idolatry. What a disgrace of the Gospel.

 

It seems we’ve traded the white linen of Christ for the brownshirts of the “man of lawlessness.”

 

Robert L. Withers

 

The Price of Infidelity – When the Church Becomes a Whore

 

How can we explain the alignment of professing Christians with people who engage in vitriol, weave webs of lies, and advocate lawlessness and violence? How can we explain the adoption of these sins by professing Christians?

 

How is it that those who purport to be followers of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, engage in verbal and physical violence and intimidation; idolizing and defending the narcissistic and indefensible?

 

How is it that knowing that the devil is the accuser and slanderer, that professing Christians propagate accusations and slander?

 

Let’s remember that the primary Biblical image for idolatry is adultery, spiritual promiscuity. With this in mind, consider Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:15 – 20:

 

“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Far from it! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “The two shall become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” (NASB)

 

While the immediate context of this passage is physical promiscuity, note the introduction of the spiritual in, “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” As we see throughout the Bible, we become what we worship; we take on the characteristics of that which we join ourselves to – and no amount of rationalization can alter this fact. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 – 7:1 Paul writes:

 

“Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said,

 

“I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people, says the Lord. And do not touch the unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty.

 

“Therefore, having these promises, believed, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness n the fear of God.” (NASB)

 

So then, how do we account for the fact that so many professing Christians are manifesting the spirit of lawlessness and violence, rather than fulfilling their calling in Christ Jesus to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9; Hebrews 12:14; James 3:13 – 18)?

 

It is because rather than being faithful to Christ as a pure virgin (2 Corinthians 11:1 – 3), much of His Bride has believed the, “Has God really said?” of the serpent. Having believed that, they have engaged in adultery with those elements which war against our Lord Jesus (Psalm 2) to the point where they take on the characteristics of these elements…forgetting that they are called to be the sons and daughters of the living God.

 

When God’s people join themselves to prostitutes, they take on the characteristics of prostitutes. Though as the Lord says concerning His people in Ezekiel 16:32 – 34:

 

“You adulteress wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband! Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers to bribe them to come to you from every direction for your harlotries. Thus you are different from those women in your harlotries, in that no one plays the harlot as you do, because you give money and no money is given you; thus you are different.”