We heard from a missionary recently that, having been waylaid during Covid shutdowns for almost two years, was looking forward to finally reuniting with his mission church family. Even though the mission family was not physically present during Covid everything was set in place to fulfill their main mission which is to train local pastors to preach God’s word to people in their own language.
The parties all kept in touch by video and electronic communications and although the missionaries missed the church they were called to assist they felt all was running well during their absence. Encouraging reports were that everyone was growing in their faith and love for one another – very much like the early church in Jerusalem.
This year the missionary family was able to obtain visas and return to the mission field. After being with the church just a short time they discovered that the pastor was having a very inappropriate relationship with one of the members. It was further discovered that many of the congregation knew of this relationship and did nothing to correct the situation.
Here in this vibrant and growing church, where morality is based on God’s word and His direction to us, unseemly and sinful acts were being deemed acceptable. The missionary was appalled and set to the task of cleaning up the sin-tainted mess.
It brought to mind the Apostle Paul having to rebuke the Corinthians for sexual immorality. Here we are 2000 years later and we are still having the same problems within the church. Why does this keep occurring and what sets us up to go askew?
Obvious to many of us is that Satan is pulling the wool over the sheep’s eyes. Sometimes we the sheep are so out of touch with the knowledge of the Bible and the expectations of ourLord (Be ye Holy as I am Holy) that our eyes are blind to obvious sin. Other times we assume that, as in this case, the pastor who is a leader must have knowledge that makes this sin acceptable. And, if it is OK for the pastor isn’t it OK for the rest of us? No. Paul is very clear in his rebuke to the Corinthians – these actions are not acceptable among God’s people.
So we have this dedicated missionary, his wife, and children all going back to a community they love and have missed for over two years and they find they are immediately faced with a battle with Satan himself.
The struggle was ugly and the result was the church threatened to split with those following the unrepentant pastor and those that realized the missionary was asking them to follow God’s plan. Thankfully God intervened and the church did not break apart but it will take more work to repair the damage done.
This certainly was not the happy homecoming which the missionaries were looking forward to.
Satan doesn’t have to wait for an invitation into God’s church because each of us sitting in the pews and at the pulpit are always vulnerable to sin and temptation. We are tempted every day. If we are not keeping our eyes on God and our hearts open to God’s rebuke of any sinful actions we will continue in our sin. Then, pretty soon that sin doesn’t seem so much like a sin anymore. After all, God hasn’t struck us dead or mute or anything has He? Or has He?
When we walk into church with our own dirty sins and then we touch the lives of others while living in that sin, it is much worse than what Covid germs might do because it affects eternal lives. One ignored sin in the church can spread quickly.
If we know our Bible well we know that sin has infected us since the first man. Sin affects us all. We are nothing but sin filled people without the saving grace of Jesus Christ and his gift of salvation. Even in the early church, within 60 years of Jesus’s death, had to deal with sin in its people. The Bible gives us instructions on how to handle sin in the church and this missionary used those corrective actions.
Thankfully, we have a strong group of saints stateside that pray constantly for our missionaries and lift them up before God for strength for the job, or battles they must face when something goes askew. The battle is really God’s but we prayer warriors are in the middle too.
So, why does God allow this to happen in His church? My opinion is it is because He allows us free will. That free will, which can be very self-serving, allows us to choose to follow either God’s wisdom or Satan’s temptations.
All of us can learn lessons from what this missionary and this church are enduring and it should make us even stronger in our faith and more obedient in our actions.
It also should encourage us to make sure that in the retelling of the story of our lives we will not be the unrepentant sinner but instead we will be the sinner saved by the beautiful grace of God.
