God is searching our hearts, demanding that we sweep out the old leaven and keep the feast, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I Corinthians 5:1–8 will bring us to more of the heart searching. It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst.
For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present. In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?
Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
We are living in a most permissive society, and little by little, by court decisions, by practice, by legal evasions, we are finding that the so-called sexual revolution perhaps would better be called the sexual “devolution,” so combined is it with witchcraft and many other practices that are flourishing throughout the land. Back in 1970 it was estimated that in the United States there were at least eight million practicing mate-swappers. While many are holding to the old principles and truths that undergird us as a society, within a generation many have forsaken them.
It is not my purpose to dwell on that. I find myself preoccupied more and more, not with the age about us (for that will come to naught), but with another phase of it.
Because iniquity abounds, the love of many will wax cold. I am concerned about the effect of this upon the people of God, as they see sin all around them, with malice and wickedness so predominant. It seems malice is always foremost. The most popular TV programs are those portraying violence and crime, but with it is also portrayed the deep wickedness of men’s hearts.
We, as believers when we keep the feast of Passover, should look to God to give us real words about how to live and what to do. We cannot accomplish anything by legalism, for all the discipline of the flesh nature only leads to suppressing it in one area and watching it pop up in another.
Legalism is not an answer, because it only brings to us the knowledge of sin. “If I had not received the law, I had not known sin” (Romans 7:7). Beyond that, we must come to a revelation of the integrity and righteousness of God, and what He can do in our hearts.
At the present time we are living in the midst of an environment so contaminating that unless we are very careful, it will overtake us.
We have to walk circumspectly, lest we become partakers of the terrible evil round about us or become tolerant of it. Some of our young people were snatched as brands from the burning. They have a rough time as they walk on with the Lord, and it is very easy for them to become a little tolerant of the former life that was so deadly, of the sin that was so terrible, and begin to adopt the ideas and thinking of the world around them.
We need to warn our young people about the lusts of deceit that Ephesians speaks of which are warring against the people of God, trying to bring them under the greatest deception ever known.
This is not a new condition; it has been with us for a long time. Even Paul saw it. The Corinthian church was situated in the midst of a society with more permissiveness than any other place; consequently the Epistles to the Corinthians have some amazing teaching and present a close parallel to the end time.
The Corinthian church came behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of the Lord. They were gifted in all utterance and all knowledge, yet they coexisted with the great carnality in the world round about them.
Paul speaks about fornicators, adulterers, harlots, effeminate (translated perverts), and homosexuals, declaring that none of these will have any part or inheritance in the Kingdom of God. Then he continues, And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.… I Corinthians 6:11.
From this letter to the Corinthians we conclude, “Oh Corinth, you were not much different than the United States!” It was not difficult for any sailor, landing at the port of Corinth, to walk through the streets and find a woman of easy virtue. It was very simple. These things existed there, and they exist here also.
It is possible to be so affected by the abounding iniquity around you that your love begins to grow a little cold and you worship the Lord with that leaven working in your heart.
“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” The world can make its glitter seem very attractive, and at times a walk with God seems very lonely. While going through something difficult, you may be worshiping in the congregation, yet it seems as if you are all alone.
The Scripture tells how Jesus went up in the mountain alone to pray, His disciples being with Him (Luke 9:18). The disciples loved Him and would have laid down their lives for Him after they received the Holy Spirit, but before this even when they were with Him, He was alone. Sometimes this is a very lonely walk, and you may look for some comfort as you feel lonely and desolate, harassed by the pressures.
The battle will not be less intense, but in these last days more. We are running a race and stripping off everything we can in order to reach the goal, and just about the time we think we have made it, some damnable lie or some deceit, the deceit of lust, comes at us. I am burdened about this because this is my business, this is my life. Those who study under my ministry are my joy and my crown in the day of the Lord Jesus.
You dare not let the world get to your spirit. You must learn how to walk with God, right down through Sodom and Gomorrah. You will learn how to be God’s holy saints, a New Testament church, the remnant, the sons of God, right in the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah!
You cannot do this unless you have a realization of the deadliness of sin, the awfulness of that which will bring unbelievable judgment on this generation. As it was in the days of Noah, and in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, so it will be in the end time. And we are in that time.
How are we to live? We live and walk as the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a perverse and crooked generation, among whom we shine as lights in the world.
This is what God wants, and it may require some repentance. It may require some to say, “Lord, change my opinion, change my ideas, and change my attitude toward the world.”
The Word is saying, “Clean out the old leaven; sweep it out.” To the Jews, the Passover has become only a little ritual in which they take a whisk broom and sweep out the corners. Oh Israel, Israel, how art thou fallen! How far you are from knowing the real meaning?
We clean out the leaven of the flesh, that we may keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Malice and wickedness has to go, that defilement which creeps in like a mold, and like an icy finger gripping the heart, causes the first love and the purity to leave. Soon we are struggling with the flesh and the spirit, each vying for supremacy. And often, with rebellion coming up, we wonder, “How can I walk with God?”
We must live this walk and walk the narrow path, leaning on the arm of the Lord completely. In this generation the remnant will be called upon to walk with God as no one else ever has walked in the history of the world. Even though you are tired and you work hard, stick with it. …be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. I Corinthians 15:58.
Cheer up; your eyes will soon see the King in His beauty. You are to be the people, as was John, who have been partakers of the patience of Jesus (Revelation 1:9). You are to be those who encourage His patience. He is at the right hand of the Father, henceforth expecting until His enemies be made the footstool of His feet.
Soon His Kingdom will prevail over all. He has been expecting, sitting at the right hand of the Father, waiting for this hour. “Be patient therefore brethren, unto the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7). Stay with it a little longer, Do not be discouraged now. Do not give up during this last lap, when the race is about to be won. Do not be discouraged because of problems on a personal level, on the financial level, on a physical level, or circumstances and satanic pressures of the spirit realm, and say, “How can I go on?” We will go on!
According to the Scriptures, Satan tries to wear out the saints of the Most High (Daniel 7:25). He is not going to wear us out, for the longsuffering of Jesus, the patience that endures, will be wrought in our spirits. Do not become a dropout from grace.
When the young man in the Corinthian church committed incest with his father’s wife, Paul wrote, “Such a thing is not even named among the Gentiles.” I would say to Paul, “People have changed since your day, for even more abominations are named among them today. It seems they are sitting up nights trying to invent new depravities.” The iniquity which is filling this earth is no respecter of persons.
What did they do to that young man? They set him out of the church. Then what happened? God dealt with the situation and the church went on to be blessed. You may say, “That was cruel; that poor kid needed the church more than ever.” No! He needed God’s dealings upon him. As long as he was inside the church, the church had to deal with it, according to Paul’s instructions. But when the church set him outside, then God could deal with him.
Why wouldn’t God deal with him while he was in the church? There was no way to do it. Because the church was one, and whether or not all agree together makes no difference. We are all one in Christ Jesus and anything that affects one, affects another. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, until it goes through the whole church.
Because of the defilement of this sin, Paul said, “I have waited; now you purge it out. Absent in body, but present in spirit, I have judged this thing.” The psychics call this astral projection, but what Paul was doing was not astral projection. I know the difference.
He was able to put the whole focus of his spirit into another area thousands of miles away, and see what was happening there. Then he could evaluate and discern the spirits. That may sound like a freakish experience, but ministries of authority will have to come into this, for how else will we be able to take care of all the churches and the transportation problems? There must be a way to tune into the need.
Paul said, “I have already made my decision; I have delivered this one over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
He needed a broken spirit before the Lord, that he may be granted repentance.
What happened to the young man? As nearly as we can tell, the outcome is described in the second chapter of the second epistle. Time had passed and another epistle was written about the same situation.
For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not that you should be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you. But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree—in order not to say too much—to all of you. Sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, lest somehow such a one be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. For to this end also I wrote that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. But whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, in order that no advantage be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his schemes. II Corinthians 2:4–11.
Oh, the wisdom of the apostle! First he saw that Satan had a scheme to defile and corrupt the church, so he set the young man out. Then he watched him being swallowed up by too much sorrow, but the church was not yet flexible.
Previously he had said, “You are arrogant; you have not mourned.” There was a harshness in their action, as they put him out. The young man grieved, wondering if he was lost, a soul damned forever. So Paul exhorted the church, “You cannot let him be swallowed up by too much sorrow. Show your love to him. He has repented; take him back in. The defilement has ceased.”
When anyone in the Body violates the righteousness of God, a spirit is turned loose that will rage throughout the entire Body. So when you walk in the Body, you better walk right and walk in righteousness. Help one another to walk virtuously and correctly before the Lord. If you step out of line while you are in a Body so knitted together in one spirit in the love of God, anything that one does will affect the whole Body.
Let everyone love God and bear his brother’s burden; and if anyone is overtaken in a fault, restore that one in a spirit of meekness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted (Galatians 6:1). If you are not spiritually mature do not try and restore someone.
The family of God must watch carefully, being doubly alert to help those on the outside who are trying to come in and walk with God and to help those in the Body who are struggling to get on their feet. We will keep the Passover of the Lamb with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
We are being prepared for something great. I speak that release in the name of the Lord, the outpouring that is not many days hence. Thou shalt enter in to experiences in which thou art literally projected from death into resurrection life, and the glory of the Lord will come down upon His people.
It is prophesied in the Word of the Lord that the rain shall fall upon us as upon mown grass. The Lord has cut us down and now He will rain upon us, pouring out of His Spirit, and we shall rejoice in it with all our heart.