We Cannot Always Take it to the Church but we can Take it to Christ

Matthew 18:15-18
"15 “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
16 But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.
17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
18 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

In our day our Christian relationships are diverse. Often we have friends and acquaintances who do not attend the same church gathering as we do. How is it possible to take a relationship problem to the church when you do not attend the same gathering?

God said that we should attempt to fix relationship problems by going first to the person, if they will not listen then we are to go to the church. Sadly though in our day the church is no help because it is part of the problem. The church often embraces the one who sins while beating up on the one who wishes help to resolve a problem.

With the mentality of keeping sins secret, ignoring them or many people calling those who expose sin in the body as mean spirited, we have a church that coddles and embraces the one who sins while beating up on the one who exposes the sin. This is not only common in our churches today it is normal.

When we find ourselves in a situation where a "Christian" will not listen to us and we have no "church" to take it to, then there is nothing left to do but to remove these sinners from our lives and move on to build relationships with authentic believer who love the Word of God.

This is not always easy since we are living in the "days of Noah" in which everyone does what is right in their own eyes and no one will listen to rational Biblical reasoning. In fact most people in the churches today cannot tolerate lengthy reasonable dialogue to resolve a problem. In short the church is full of pride without compassion or concern for others except those who refuse to confess their sin.

Many authentic believers today have only one place to go for comfort and relief and that is Christ Himself. There is no better place to go than to God. However the Word of God tells us to go to the church but the church is often the place that fosters and enables sin, they have little to no help for the believer who wants to obey Christ.

If you are fortunate to be in a fellowship that defends truth, adhere's to the Biblical mandates for church discipline then you are truly blessed. These gatherings are rare, many people do not have the blessing of a church like this. They walk alone, without comfort from others and against the tide of rebellion that looms large in the Christian gatherings today.

Matthew 24:37-39
37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.
38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be."

The people in Noah's day were warned and yet they were oblivious to what was coming because they would not listen to Noah. Keep in mind too that Noah had many relatives who drown in the flood. When God closed the door of the ark as the waters were rising, there were all of Noah's relatives down below in the waters, except the immediate family of Noah who did listen to him. Only eight people were on that ark, eight people who loved God and were saved.

Think about that! Today there are more than eight who are born again but far fewer compared to the population of the world. This tells us why it is so difficult to find authentic believers who seem to love God with all their hearts.

The days of noah and now are clearly days described in 2 Timothy 3.

Take away for this post: Do not be discouraged that you cannot find a friend or a gathering who obeys the Word of God. We are living in rebellious irrational times of raging insanity. You are not alone even though it feels like it often.

There will be few people we can confide in and few people who care about Christ or anyone else. But the sweet blessing of living in these times is that we know what is coming.

We understand that God knows all about this and told us in His Word this was coming. Probably nearly every generation who loved God thought theirs was the one that was like this, but we are living in the end of the end in which much of prophesy is being fulfilled before our very eyes.

If we focus on Christ and His promises we can observe what is going on without sucking it into our soul or affecting our walk with Him. We need not be in despair, but in joy and gladness at the wisdom and hope He has given us.

Titus 2:13
"13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;"

Romans 8:22-23
"For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body."

We know where wee are going and that God has this covered.