A Frustrating Situation

It’s frustrating to look around your church and to see that there are unholy people. Hypocrisy is hard to hide, and some church-goers are so shameless that they don’t even try to hide their hypocrisy. A cursory glance at people in Christian churches will reveal that a small percentage are worldly, vain, or greedy. For those whose lives are contrary to Christ, you wonder what they’re doing in church. Do they come to flaunt their sin?

What should be done with false brethren in the Church? Should we kick them out? God’s time of purging the Church will come. In the meantime, we wait with the consolation that God sees all. He knows what is going on in the Church.

Nothing in all Creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13).

Those Who Turn From Evil

We know who God’s people are but we can’t be completely sure--and that’s fine. We don’t have to know. We’re not the judges. We leave the judgment to God. His name is ‘He who searches the hearts’ (Romans 8:27).

We must content ourselves waiting for the Resurrection. On that day, we will know exactly who God’s people truly are. Until then, you’ll distinguish a member of the Body of Christ mostly by the fact that they have turned away from evil. That’s what the Bible says:

God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness’ (2 Timothy 2:19).

‘Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord’ means every person who makes a public profession of faith in Jesus. In other words, the “professing Christians”—people who identify as Christians. Anybody who calls themselves a Christian must be someone who has turned their back on sin.

If anyone in a church will not turn away from evil, then their outward confession of Christ is in question. Someone spiritual needs to speak to them privately. Our job is not to kick them out of the Church, but we should deal with them to the degree that their sin is manifest. If it's hidden, there's nothing we can do but pray.

Stains on the Fellowship

But what about the people in the Church who parade their sinfulness around like a badge of honor? What about people who have no shame? What about the people whose behavior screams of their love of the World, their vanity, and self-centeredness? You look at them and it’s patently obvious that they’ve never really been converted.

Certain people in the Church have never gone through sincere repentance. Their lives are characterized by grumpiness, meanness, cowardliness, worry, gluttony, or perhaps deviant sexuality--sins that few Christians are going to rebuke. These people act like they have never been converted, but there they are, eating and drinking with believers.

These are the ones who are blemishes in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, like shepherds caring only for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, churning up their own shameful deeds like dirty foam; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever (Jude 1:12-13; NASB).

What frustration to hear people in the Church spewing out gossip and vain talk, living in a way unbecoming to someone making a profession of faith in Jesus--people who have no shame! What should we do with them? We just have to let them be.

Let Both Grow Together

There are people who will slip their way into the Kingdom by stealth, but who will be forcibly removed from the Kingdom when Jesus sends angels to weed them out. That's what Jesus taught in the parable of the wheat and the tares, a parable which has no mystery to it. Jesus explained its right interpretation to his disciples.

The parable proves that we do not need to perform a purge of the Church now because even during the Millennial reign of Christ there will be no purge. There will be no "Inquisition" while Christ rules, so there is no need for one now. Now we live in the Church Age--or, as it's called in the Bible, "the Age of the Gentiles"--and we are not judges now. We have been sent to save, not to condemn.

Jesus told them another parable: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the tares come from?’

‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the tares and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

… Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, ‘Explain to us the parable of the tares in the field.’

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the World, and the good seed stands for the people of the Kingdom. The tares are the people of the Evil One, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the End of the Age, and the harvesters are angels.

As the tares are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the End of the Age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear” (Matthew 13:24-30; 36-43).

Kick Them Out

We must be patient and wait for God to separate out of his Kingdom those whose are evil. We're talking about people whose sins are hidden. We're talking about the stealthy hypocrites among us. Those whose sins are not hidden should be corrected. If their sins are evident, and they refuse to repent, they should be kicked out of the fellowship of believers. Break fellowship with that kind of person!

The sins of some people are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after (1 Timothy 5:24; NASB).

God will judge those outside. Expel the wicked person from among you (1 Corinthians 5:13).