WWUTT 2575 Q&A End Times Theology, Can Protestants Be Catholic, Church Discipline

What is the period of great tribulation anyway? What does it mean to be

Catholic? Can Protestants be Catholic? And what is the way that discipline needs to be handled in the church?

The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text, a daily

Bible teaching podcast that we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings, everyone. I'm gonna start off here by reading Psalm 30, and I pray it blesses you.

I will exalt you, O Yahweh, for you have lifted me up and have not let my enemies be glad over me.

O Yahweh, my God, I cried to you for help, and you healed me.

O Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You have kept me alive that I would not go down to the pit.

Sing praise to Yahweh, you his holy ones, and give thanks for the remembrance of his holy name, for his anger is but for a moment.

His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.

And especially that great morning, when we will open our eyes in the presence of our

God in our eternal home forever in heaven. I am so looking forward to that day.

The things that we go through in this life can't even compare with the glory that awaits us, as the

Apostle Paul put it in the book of Romans. This is the most suffering that we will ever have to go through if you are in Christ.

Eternal bliss awaits you with your King in his forever kingdom.

If you haven't read anything else today, I encourage you to open up Psalm 30, and may it bless you.

Well, this is the Friday edition of When We Understand the Text, when we take questions from the listeners, and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com

or go to www .utt .com, still under construction, but if you click on that contact tab, it will open up for you a page where there is a link.

You click on that link to record us a voicemail, and you can record it through your phone or your computer.

Ever since talking about that, the last couple of weeks, our voicemails have increased, and I've got a couple

I'm going to respond to. As you can probably tell, I'm flying solo. Becky is not with me.

Well, actually, she is with me, because we're driving to Kansas. By the time you hear this, we've probably already hit the road, and we're going to go see some of her family in Kansas, visit some friends there as well, attending

Countryside Bible Church in Mead, Kansas on Sunday. Where is Mead, Kansas? Well, if you pull out a map, you'll find it,

Little Farming Town in the southwest corner of the state. Pull out a map. Who pulls out a map anymore?

I guess they still have, you can go to Walmart and get the Rand McNally atlases, right? Anybody ever play with those when

I was a kid? We would go on road trips, and my dad would have me be his navigator, and so he'd give me the big

Rand McNally atlas, and I'm telling him where all the exits are. Nobody carries those anymore.

It's not in the back of the seat of your vehicle, is it? Because we all have phones.

You can just pull up a map, and the map will even tell you where to go. You can verbally receive instructions as to where you're supposed to go.

Anyway, if you look it up with your phone, you'll find that little bitty town in southwest

Kansas where I graduated high school. I was baptized there, a little

Mennonite church in Mead. I remember hating it when I was growing up, always wanted to get away from it, and now it's a joyous occasion whenever I'm able to get back there, and it's been several years since I've been in Mead.

One of the deacons in my church, Brother Josh, has been in Mead more recently than I've been.

I can't remember where he was traveling or why, but somewhere on that trip, he went through my old stomping grounds, and knowing that's where I was from, he took a picture of it while he was driving through and sent it to me.

I was like, yeah, I know exactly where you are. I know that intersection, that intercession, bah, that intersection, exactly, intercession, yeah.

You can be doing that for us as we're traveling. Intercede for us, because it's seven people in a little vehicle.

It's not, we got a minivan, but it feels like tight quarters when there's seven people inside.

Our kids travel well. Still good to have the prayers for safe travels. After we go to Kansas, we're going to go down to Texas, visit our friends at Lyndale, First Baptist Church there, and then over to Georgia, where I'm going to see my dad.

And some of you know about my dad. I've shared about him before. He was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, and his memory is rapidly slipping from him.

Like so fast, the last conversation that I remember having with my dad, where I felt like I was talking to my dad, like the usual kinds of conversations

I have with my dad, it was probably October. And then after that, he began steadily sounding more and more like a different person.

And now when I talk to him, he thinks he's doing something like 20 or 30 years ago.

My mom told me that she went and visited him recently. Of course, she goes all the time.

She just lives a few miles away. But on one of these recent visits, he didn't recognize her.

And it's the first time that's ever happened. So this may be the last time that I see my dad that he recognizes me.

And I pray that he does. Pray for my mom and dad. They would appreciate your prayers as well.

So this is part of that great big long road trip. We're going to get to Georgia, see my dad, and then journey from Georgia all the way back to Arizona.

I have recorded enough episodes in advance that you'll still have devotionals next week, but not the week after that.

I just wasn't able to do that many. I got some work to head, but not too far. So the 16th through the 20th, you won't have any episodes.

And then God willing, I'll be back on for the 23rd. But next week, you will have episodes. You're only missing one week here.

Well, let's get to some questions. So the first question I have is a voicemail and then an email, both of these about the same topic.

Becky and I were talking about some end time stuff last week when we had a question about tribulation.

Is Jesus coming back at the beginning of a seven -year period of tribulation? Is the church raptured then?

Is it a mid -trib rapture view where it happens in the middle of the seven years? Or does it happen at the end of the seven years?

And you know, I don't think I really defined what tribulation is when we were talking about that.

I think I kind of said it, but didn't give you a real definition of it for those of you who don't know.

So the seven -year period of tribulation, especially according to the dispensational view, it refers to a future period of intense global suffering.

God's divine judgment being poured out during that period of time. There is persecution and there's great upheaval preceding the second coming of Jesus Christ.

So the rapture of the church happens at the beginning of the seven years. This is according to the dispensational view, which

I don't share, but I'm just, you know, telling you this is the viewpoint. And then, so the church is raptured at the beginning of that seven years.

Jesus returns. The second coming is really identified as his return at the end of that seven years.

And then ushering in his kingdom, you have the thousand -year reign of Christ on the earth that happens after that.

This whole idea of a secret rapture, then a seven -year period of tribulation, and then

Christ's return is derived from a passage out of Daniel chapter nine. And it's not explicit.

So it's reading that view into that text. Now, a dispensationalist will also say that they rely upon Matthew 24, 21.

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.

But as I had mentioned last week with Becky, that's about the destruction of the temple.

That's not about a seven -year period of tribulation. Now, you can certainly see that discourse, what's called the

Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapters 24 and 25. You can certainly see that as a micro -fulfillment of something that will happen on a much greater scale later.

We sometimes refer to this as double -fulfillment or partial or progressive fulfillment, where one prophecy means something in the immediate, but then it has a greater fulfillment later on.

A good example of this is Isaiah 7, 14. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name

Emmanuel. Well, that had a very specific application when

Isaiah gave it to King Ahaz. But then we know from the book of Matthew that ultimately it was pointing to the coming of Christ, who was born of the

Virgin Mary. So there was an immediate fulfillment and then a much larger fulfillment that came later on.

So you could view the Olivet Discourse in the same way. It's still necessary to read it as Jesus talking about the destruction of the temple.

And I've talked about this before. People will call me a preterist for saying that. I'm not a full preterist.

It's just common sense when you read Matthew 24. Anybody who reads that, who has never read

Matthew 24 before, is gonna see that as Jesus telling his disciples about something that was coming even within their lifetimes.

Again, we can see from that types and shadows of something that will happen on a greater scale.

But for the immediate answer that he's giving to his disciples, it is about the destruction of the temple and of Jerusalem that would happen 40 years after that conversation in AD 70.

And that is an incredible prophecy for even liberal scholars will acknowledge that the book of Matthew was written before AD 70.

And so when they're willing to acknowledge that, then they're gonna have to say, Jesus did accurately predict exactly what was coming within that generation with the

Romans destroying Jerusalem and obliterating the temple, stripping it straight down to the foundation.

That foundation that's there in Jerusalem now is the foundation that Herod's temple was upon.

The Dome of the Rock is there now, a Muslim worship site, but that has prevented any temple from being built there again.

Now, the dispensationalists believe there will be another temple that will be built there.

They're looking toward what they refer to as the third temple period. You may have heard this talked about with some of the stuff that's going on in the

Middle East right now. By the way, be in prayer for our soldiers, American soldiers that are fighting over there.

Be in prayer for our brothers and sisters in the Lord who are in the midst of this conflict as well and suffering as a result of this war.

In fact, this first email, or sorry, the first voicemail that I have to get to, Brother Chris shares something about that, sharing his own experience with the way that he grew up in end times teaching, and then relating that to things that we're having or that we're seeing happening around the world right now.

Not in the way you might think though. Here's Brother Chris. Good morning, Pastor Gabe and Becky. This is

Chris from North Carolina. I just wanted to weigh in to say that I appreciate the conversation on the different views of the end times that you had.

I appreciate the balance, the scriptural foundation and everything. I grew up dispensational as well and came out of that as I've been studying scriptures and hearing from other pastors, other viewpoints, and finding out that there was another viewpoint.

But my observation is that the pre -tribulational rapture sort of neglects the fact that the church around the world has been pursued and persecuted and goes through very hard tribulations.

Think of our brothers and sisters in Iran. I mean, since last week's podcast, we've had this conflict, this war start.

And of course, Christians have been persecuted heavily there. I just don't see how the church escapes tribulation when it's been going through tribulation ever since Christ ascended.

We just have the luxury of peace in the West right now. That peace may be waning.

And I think we ought to certainly prepare, like your father wisely said, pray for pre, prepare for post.

So I'm encouraged. Y 'all be encouraged. Look forward to hearing from y 'all again. Yeah, indeed.

Thank you so much, Chris. I remember this too when I was younger, when I was a kid. So that period of tribulation, that seven -year period of tribulation, it said that there will be intense suffering around the world.

And any Christians who are alive during that period of time will be severely persecuted. Now, keep in mind that pre -trib rapture view is the idea that we get taken out of the world before that seven -year period of tribulation.

But then there's going to be Christians that will get saved during that seven years. They certainly undergo tribulation.

So if there are Christians alive on the earth in that seven years going through tribulation, then the church is going through tribulation.

So that was something that I wrestled with when I was a kid. I was like, okay, we're being told that the church is getting raptured out, but then the church is still, but there's

Christians that will become Christians during that seven years. So aren't they part of the church?

And now they're being persecuted. So then the church is going through tribulation. And as you pointed out,

Chris, there are Christians all over the world that are going through severe tribulation right now.

It cannot get worse for them. Worse for them is death. And we know that there are

Christians being put to death everywhere. We've talked about Nigeria before and the attempted genocide of Christians that is happening there at the hands of the

Muslims in that region. Christians severely persecuted in North Korea, in China, in India, and several other places around the world.

And where they undergo that persecution, I mean, it feels like the end of the world. How could tribulation possibly be worse than this?

Now, the dispensationalist is gonna respond to that and say, well, it's just gonna be on a global scale. Right now, it's not on a global scale.

Okay, but those who go through it, how can you say to them, hey, it gets worse than this.

It cannot get worse for them who are being put to death for sharing the gospel. I remember there was a letter that was sent by Ruth Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, the evangelist, was sent to a missionary whose name was

Dave McPherson. And Dave shared this letter in, I think, a newsletter of his, but you can find it online now.

This is what he says. I received this letter in March of 1975. In light of the recent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, one wonders if American Christians are as unprepared for big time trouble as the

Chinese Christians were when communism conquered China a half century ago. And this was the letter that he received from Ruth.

Dear Dave, thank you for your letter of January 22nd. We were out of the country at that time and I am still finding letters on my desk that I have not answered.

And thank you for the copy of your book, The Late Great Pre -Trib Rapture. I get the impression that that book was about how there isn't going to be a pre -trib rapture.

Anyway, Ruth goes on, the news from around the world of Christians suffering unbelievably is bound to make a pre -tribber do some serious thinking.

Of course, I am sure they would say that the tribulation they have undergone is nothing to be compared with the great tribulation and they may be right.

However, I would rather prepare myself to go through the tribulation and be happily surprised by an unexpected rapture than expect to be raptured only to find myself going through tribulation.

Perhaps not a very scholarly way of approaching the problem, but true nonetheless. So just like my dad said, pray for pre, prepare for post.

So she goes on, I was talking recently with an elderly missionary from China who told me that her greatest regrets now are not having prepared the

Chinese Christians for the tribulation that they would undergo. She said in her years in China, she went everywhere teaching the pre -tribulation rapture and getting

Christians to believe that they would not have to suffer for the Lord in that sense. The great tribulation may absolutely stagger the imagination, but still there is only so much one person can suffer.

Anyway, thank you for your thought provoking book. I shall see that it gets into Billy's hands.

I'm sure it's going to do a lot of good. Thank you for writing it cordially, Ruth. This next email comes from Courtney, also having to do with this discussion from last week.

Hey there, Pastor Gabe. I'm listening through your recent Q &A about pre -trib, post -trib.

And I was encouraged to hear that you and I have had a similar experience growing up. I grew up mostly with dispensationalists.

My family holds a Seventh -day Adventist pre -trib view. Well, that's interesting because I don't think the

Seventh -day Adventists are necessarily pre -trib, are they? Some of them are, obviously.

I didn't know that was like the position or the opinion of Seventh -day Adventists. I know they have a pre -millennial view.

I just didn't know there was a pre -trib view. Anyway, the church I go to is very

MacArthur dispensational. I still cannot grasp the pre -trib view because of what you have spoken about regarding the trumpet blast, but also because when

I understand the view, it sounds a lot like there will be three comings total. Though I know they reject that.

I also grew up exclusively hearing of the Olivet Discourse being taught as eschatological.

It wasn't until I sat down and studied from John Gill and Matthew Henry and others that I realized the discourse is primarily about the destruction of the temple.

So much so that I finally picked up a copy of the works of Josephus to read the history instead of reading quotes and references.

Also, every time you said your grandma Mimi's name, it reminded me a lot of my toddler daughter saying

Mimi, which is how she says raspberry. I love that name now.

Blessings to you and your family, your brother in Christ, Courtney. Well, I appreciate that so much. Yeah, and like I said last week from 1

Thessalonians chapters four and five, in both places, Paul says, encourage one another with these words.

So we're gonna have our differences of opinion. And I love a good eschatology conversation as long as it doesn't get heated.

And as long as we're not throwing heretic back and forth at each other, just because we have different end times views.

All of these things concern future events and there is no timeline explicitly laid out in the

Bible. It's definitely this, then it's this, then it's this. And so this is why there is so much uncertainty concerning the order of these events and why there are different views.

But we can kindly engage in these things, not slamming one another because we have these differing viewpoints.

It's supposed to be encouraging. We're looking forward to the day of Christ. Why fight and argue over that?

Let's rejoice together in that we will be united with him forever in glory.

This is our inheritance. It is our promise for all who have put their faith and trust in him who died on the cross for us, who rose again from the dead, who ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of God, interceding for us on our behalf and is coming back again to judge the living and the dead.

We will be taken up together with him forever. All right, let's go to this next voicemail.

This is from Kenneth. Good morning, Pastor Gabe and Becky.

This is Kenneth Coleman from Vaughtham, Mississippi. I had a couple of questions.

My first question is, is Roman Catholics and Catholic, is that the same thing?

Are they the same? And also, what is confirmation?

What does it mean to be confirmed as a Catholic? My son -in -law had asked me that question yesterday and I wasn't sure he's going to be talking to a

Catholic and he was trying to get a view of, you know, what they're all about.

Thanks, I love what y 'all do and I'll talk to y 'all later. Thank you, Brother Ken. So yeah, there is a difference between Catholic and Roman Catholic.

And this is the reason why I, whenever I'm talking about the Roman Catholic Church, I call them the

Roman Catholic Church and not the Catholic Church because we're

Catholic. Like I, as a reformed Baptist, am Catholic.

The word Catholic means universal. And so we're talking about the church everywhere. Like as I was talking about the different end times views, how many different views of the end times there are and we might have different opinions about it, but we should still encourage one another with these words.

So that's a demonstration of the Catholic Church. We might have these differing viewpoints, but we're still all together in the same church in Christ Jesus, encouraging one another with these words.

Even when you have a Baptist church and a Presbyterian church, we're still Catholic. We're still of that universal church together.

Baptism is not a salvific thing. What are baptisms specifically? There's nothing about the waters of our baptism that saves us.

It's faith in Jesus Christ that saves us. It's the washing, the cleansing of the Holy Spirit.

And then we do that outwardly to demonstrate the change that has happened inwardly.

But the baptism in water doesn't save you. You were saved before you got wet, before you got dunked.

So because the waters of our baptism don't save us, then that is not a salvation principle upon which we divide.

So even though it's a secondary doctrine and we'll have different congregations with a Baptist church, a

Presbyterian church, a Lutheran church, the Reformed church, there's even different Presbyterian churches.

But anyway, so we'll have these different denominations because we differ on secondary doctrines, but we don't disagree on the primary things, which is why we're all still part of the

Catholic church. So we who believe that you are saved by grace through faith alone in Christ alone, this is a

Catholic belief. This is the Catholic faith. So we can read the confessions and proclaim to be

Catholic together because it's not a declaration of being Roman Catholic. Roman Catholic is an entirely different thing.

This is the church that was infected by Roman imperialism. And a lot of the

Roman paganism as well had come into those practices, including the idol worship that they do.

The very fact that there is a Pope, like there was a high priest in Rome who oversaw all of the religion that happened in the

Roman empire. And then that guy eventually just became the Pope. So you see how it was like the

Roman imperialism that affected the church at that time. And then it got so bad after 1500 years of just the bad doctrine after bad doctrine that it finally got to the point where it was gonna come to a head and there was going to be a split of sorts.

And so you had the Protestant reformation that took place in the early 16th century.

Well, really it was going on before that as well, but that's where it culminated. It culminated there with Martin Luther nailing his 95 thesis to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Saxony.

And that is considered to be the beginning of the Protestant reformation. And this was a return to the doctrine that the church had left behind after years and years and years of false doctrine and adding false teaching after false teaching.

What we believe now as Protestants is to return us back to the original doctrines that were taught by the apostles in the

Bible. And by the way, it was the printing of the Bible that really helped facilitate the

Protestant reformation, that really launched it, that people could read the Bible in their own language and they could have a copy of it in their home instead of going to the church and hearing it read in Latin and not understanding it and just doing whatever your priest told you to do.

Once people could read God's word for themselves and compare it with the Roman Catholic church they recognized this is not what the

Bible says. And so we have returned back to the apostolic teaching that came from those whom

Christ had appointed to go out in the world preaching the gospel. We have come back to the apostolic tradition of scripture.

And now we are Catholic. It's the universal church. Roman Catholic, again, being a different thing, which is why

I try to offer the distinction. Though most of the time when a person says Catholic, what they mean is the

Roman Catholic church. It is after all the largest denomination. A false church, it's an apostate church, but it is the biggest with nearly a billion adherents around the world.

So confirmation was the other thing that you asked about. Catholic confirmation is one of the sacraments.

So we as Baptists, we as Protestants really claim that there's only two sacraments or two ordinances as we would term it.

And that's the Lord's supper and baptism. Well, the Roman Catholic church says there's seven and the sacrament of confirmation is one of them.

It's actually one of three sacraments of Christian initiation along with baptism in the

Eucharist. And confirmation is really to confirm that a person is truly a

Christian. This is from the Roman Catholic catechism, 1285. Baptism, the

Eucharist and the sacrament of confirmation together constitute the sacraments of Christian initiation whose unity must be safeguarded.

It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the sacrament of confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace.

I'll explain that in a moment. For by the sacrament of confirmation, the baptized are more perfectly bound to the church and are enriched with a special strength of the

Holy Spirit. Hence they are as true witnesses of Christ more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.

So really what the Roman Catholic church is doing here is expounding on baptism.

That baptism is not enough, you actually have to have confirmation. So you've been baptized, maybe you were baptized as an infant, maybe you were baptized as an adult, but either way, now you need to be confirmed.

It may include infants and young children, it could be adults or those who have been catechized, who are baptized or now receive full communion with the church.

Anyone validly baptized in Roman Catholicism would then need to go through confirmation.

And if Becky was here with me on this episode, she would say, yeah, I had to do that. She would share her story about that as well.

But anyway, that's what that is. I think I answered all your questions there, but appreciate hearing from you,

Ken. We got one more question to get to, and this one is to be kept anonymous.

This young lady says, Pastor Gabe, I have been praising God for your podcast. I am a new listener.

So please forgive me if I ask something that has already been addressed. My local church taught on church discipline for numerous weeks.

We covered it during Sunday school, morning service, and during our midweek Bible study.

While I believe what was taught is sound, I have some concerns.

Two young women in their early 20s who have attended my church since they were babies have had babies out of wedlock.

The first young lady had her baby two years ago, still unmarried and continues to attend church occasionally.

The second young lady had her baby only a few weeks ago and secretly married the baby's father right after the baby was born.

My question is, since getting pregnant without being married is public evidence of sexual immorality, shouldn't they have been publicly disciplined?

I do understand that this is a sensitive subject, but I guess this is my concern. Is my pastor and church walking in Christ or are we just talk and no evidence?

That's a very good question. Now, I want to say to you first, just based on what you've told me here, you talk about your church being sound.

It is a Bible -teaching church. You walked through the church discipline steps, and I would guess that would be like Matthew 18.

There's more than one passage on church discipline, but that's the main one. So let me review that quick before continuing on.

So Matthew 18, verse 15. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

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. So that's Matthew 18, verses 15 to 17. Really what you're talking about there in verse 17 is excommunication.

If he's regarded as a Gentile and a tax collector, then he's an unbeliever.

He's outside the body because after going through these steps, he would not repent.

And therefore the church can no longer say that we vouch for this man's salvation. He is choosing his sin instead of repenting and being united with the body of Christ.

Now, what we see over this process of church discipline is that more people get added to it as you go.

So a person sins, they are confronted, and if they repent, then that's as far as it needs to go.

Now, Jesus starts this by saying, if your brother sins against you, but you might also recognize this as if you see a brother or sister sinning, then you have the obligation to go to them one -on -one and say,

I saw what you did, and you need to repent for that. Now, if that person will not listen, then you take two or three others along with you.

That they can establish this person is guilty. It's not getting two or three other people to disagree with you, but they have to be able to witness that this person has sinned and is refusing to repent.

That every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the person repents there, then again, you've gained your brother, and there's no need for it to go any further.

But if he refuses to listen to them, then you tell it to the church. And that has various interpretations as well.

It may not be the entire body of the church, and most churches are gonna discourage that, as they should.

You don't get to a business meeting, and somebody just goes, I have something that I need to say about so -and -so who sinned, and they won't listen to reason.

Okay, that's not the way that you handle those things. It could be that you're going to the pastors or the elders, and then the elders are making a determination as to how that's gonna be brought before the congregation.

So that may be the situation that you are faced with here. Now, with regard to sexual immorality, there are certain sins that don't really need to be public when they are being handled in a church disciplinary matter.

But sexual immorality is one of those sins that should be made more public, because we read in scripture that sexual immorality is a different kind of sin.

It is unique in that when you sin any other kind of sin, whatever sin you commit, you do outside your body.

Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians 6. But he says there that sexually immoral sins you do against your body.

So these are different kinds of sins. Any sexually immoral sin, any kind of sex outside of marriage is a different kind of sin than stealing something or even lying about somebody else.

Those are sins, but it's not the same as sexually immoral sins. Now, if you are sinning against your own body, you also bring that corruption into the body of Christ, which is why it needs to be dealt differently.

Now, Paul confronts sexual immorality in the previous chapter in 1

Corinthians 5. A matter of sexual immorality that the church is not doing anything about.

And Paul says, purge the evil person from among you. And he says in verse 11, this is 1

Corinthians 5 .11, but now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

So this is actually, this is a church disciplinary process as well, but this is even fewer steps in 1

Corinthians 5 than what we have in Matthew 18. Matthew 18 primarily deals with if somebody sins against you, but in 1

Corinthians 5, this is a person who is in these specific sins, sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, reviling, like anger and wrath toward people, drunkenness and swindling, like cheating people out of their money.

These kinds of sins, don't even eat with such a one if they bear the name of brother. So it's not being said of this person that they're unsaved and they're going to hell, but there is a serious kind of discipline matter that needs to follow regarding a person who sins in this way.

They really need to be put out of the church. Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

God judges those outside. This is verse 13, purge the evil person from among you.

Now that wouldn't be a permanent removal. You would be removing them temporarily that they may recognize their sin is so severe that it separates them from the body of Christ so that they would grieve over it and they would repent and they would be restored back to the body.

If repentant so that the grace of God may be demonstrated and we rejoice together that a brother or sister in the

Lord has been restored. Now I mentioned all of that. I'm explaining all of that regarding what's said in Matthew 18 and in first Corinthians five.

That's not to say that I think based on what you've said, your church is not walking with Christ.

I'm not saying that. And I can't know that just based on what you've said, this is a biblical church desires to know the scripture, teaches the scripture, follows the scripture.

But there are apparently some weaknesses there. This is not to say that your church is not walking with Christ.

I can't know that. Maybe it's not, but I would have to be there to actually know that.

But there does seem to be some inconsistency with the way that they follow church discipline. Listen, I've been in churches like this.

Most churches don't follow church discipline. I've been in a church before where it was known that adultery was happening, but it was never talked about.

And we did not even know whether that person was going through a disciplinary process. The body of the church did not know what that disciplinary process was, or if this was actually being handled.

So there was just a lot of confusion about that. And when sins are known about, but they are not publicly confronted or discussed that way, then others are going to get the impression that it's not really that bad.

You can just not talk about it and it won't really be that big a deal. And then they don't understand the severity of what they've done.

There's no lesson being learned there. Of a person being removed from the body and recognizing my sin is so severe that it has put me at odds with the body of Christ.

And this would be a testimony to everybody else as well. When they see this disciplinary process carried out, that they would see that and go, okay,

I get how serious this is. And they're gonna watch themselves and desire to stay in the path of righteousness.

So this becomes a testimony to everybody, not just the person who has been removed, but even the body that remains.

And the goal, the purpose is the purity of the body of Christ. As Paul says,

I come back to 1 Corinthians 5 again, cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump for you are really unleavened.

For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and in truth.

So purity is what we're aiming for. A lot of people will describe church discipline as the goal being the restoration of the person.

Well, if that's the goal, then if that person is not restored, then the discipline was a failure.

But if the church was obeying God and following the word and the person doesn't get restored, they just get fed up with the church and they leave.

That's on them. That is not on the church. The church still did what it was supposed to do.

And that was to purify the body of Christ. And when I say purity, I'm not saying, hey, get all the sinners out of here so that now we can be a good church again.

No, again, there's specific sins that are mentioned here that need to be dealt with in a certain way.

And if you allow that to remain, then the church is stained.

But you remove that person so that the church is purified, that they would be purified and then upon confessing and upon confessing and being forgiven.

And as 1 John 1, 9 says, they are cleansed of all unrighteousness. When this has happened for that person, then they are restored to the body pure.

And we're still maintaining the purity of the church. So with this specific scenario that you mentioned to me, you said that there was a young lady who had her baby two years ago, still unmarried, continues to attend church occasionally.

The second young lady had her baby only a few weeks ago and secretly married the baby's father right after the baby was born.

So my question is, since getting pregnant without being married is public evidence of sexual immorality, shouldn't they have been publicly disciplined?

Now, my answer to that as a pastor and the way that we deal with disciplinary matters in my own congregation, my answer to you is yes.

That should have been dealt with publicly or in whatever way the elders handled discipline.

Maybe there was some sort of disciplinary process that you didn't hear about. It would be upon the elders to therefore notify the body and say, you know about this sin.

We know what had happened with these two young women. Here's how it was dealt with. And they have repented.

They have sought forgiveness. And we see that they are genuine in their confession.

And so they've been restored to the body. I mean, I would think more needs to happen in that process than that, but at least the pastors are making a public acknowledgement of what everybody already knows has happened.

Now, we want to be encouraging of these young women. You want to be helpful with these young women who have children, certainly.

So there still can be a process of this discipline in which they're removed and they're still being provided for, not just left out there in the world and having to fend for themselves with a small child.

It would be caring of the church to do so, but there still needs to be some sort of recognition, some public recognition of that sin and how it was dealt with.

So I agree with you in that sense. And of course, who you should be talking about with this is your pastors.

You could talk to a Sunday school teacher about it as well. If it's somebody that you know is aware of this situation and asking, what has been done about this?

Can I talk to the elders about this? But yeah, you want to talk to your pastor. You want to ask the elders, has anything been done about this?

I got into a little bit of hot water in one of the churches that I was in a number of years ago when

I asked the pastor, like, what is the church's policy regarding how we deal with adultery?

Because there are people in this body who have committed adultery and the rest of the church doesn't know about it.

And I didn't want to be the gossip that was going around saying, hey, did you hear so -and -so slept with so -and -so?

But what is the disciplinary process here? How is the church dealing with this? Are they just like receiving counseling behind closed doors and then the whole matter of their adultery is not being discussed at all?

That is not a proper way of handling these disciplinary issues. So recognizing that there are more passages than just Matthew 18 about this, we have 1

Corinthians 5. There's also Titus 3. Galatians 6, one says, brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. And it's also said in 2

Thessalonians 3, do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

I thank you so much for your email and I hope that that was helpful for you. Blessings, friends.

And that's all I got for this week. I do have a Friday episode that I'm doing next week, a special edition on Friday the 13th.

And again, there will be episodes next week, but not the week after that. And I appreciate you praying for us as we are out on the road.

God bless. Hope to hear from you. Again, the email address is whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com, or you can send us a voicemail, www .wwutt

.com and click on the contact link. It will give you all of the information that you need to know there. Let's conclude with prayer.

I especially want to pray for those that are suffering in the midst of this conflict that's happening in the

Middle East. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your continued blessings to us. And may we continue to rejoice in the gospel of Jesus Christ that was spoken to us.

We pray for our brothers and sisters in the Lord in war -torn areas, in Iran, and in other places in which fighting might be going on.

Lord, we struggle and we suffer on this side of heaven, but we look forward to that eternal reward that is promised to us in Christ.

Help our brothers and sisters to endure in the midst of this time of tribulation, in the midst of this suffering, and we enter into heaven's gates rejoicing in the

God who saves us forever and ever. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. This is

When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good gospel -teaching

Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.