Mike,

I was reading in a Sunday School book about “men [ who] had turned the grace of God into lasciviousness” and looked up that quote on the internet and found your website. I just wanted to share my testimony regarding this.

There were many pastors, ministers, leaders in the Church who threw the word “grace” at me when my husband, who had been in ministry for over 30 years and pastored for 22 years, was caught in an adulterous relationship with a married woman on the church staff which relationship had been going on for five years. The church’s staff knew about it the whole time and just looked the other way because they knew that exposing him would affect their pay checks. These men (and women) took my husband from me and put him back into ministry while he was still married to me and refusing to reconcile, and he continued on in adultery with a new 28 year old girl, divorced me, and the new pastor of the church performed the wedding ceremony for them.

I was judged by them as unforgiving and forced out of my church. These people are all still in their positions of leadership in the Church. I am alone and homeless after being married for 28 years and being a pastor’s wife for 22 years, giving birth to and raising 4 sons and a daughter.

A “Christian” lawyer helped my ex- husband take custody of my 10 yr old daughter away from me illegally. I forgave him and pursued reconciliation, even appealing to the judge to not grant the divorce in hopes of reconciliation, but here I sit, alone and forsaken. I’d say that is not only injustice but a turning of the “grace of God into lasciviousness”.

B____

Hi B____,

Based upon what you say here, I would agree that the people you were dealing with were indeed turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

I pray you are given to avoid having a root of bitterness over this travesty. It all serves to demonstrate how little regard for the doctrines of scripture there is in churches that condone and accommodate such outrageous actions, supporting the blatant sinners, while accusing the person who wants to obey all the scriptures which instruct us how we are to keep the house of God clean and healthy.

Here are just a few verses of scripture, which if obeyed will bring down upon you the wrath of the leaders of the daughters of the great harlot:

1Co 5:1 It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
1Co 5:2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.
1Co 5:3 For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
1Co 5:4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Co 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
1Co 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
1Co 5:7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Those are very clear instructions, but instead of obeying our Lord’s words given us by His apostles, the powers that be in the churches of Babylon cut off a healthy limb, and cast it out of the body in order to preserve a cancerous limb. Obeying the commandments of scripture are deemed to be unloving and divisive simply because no one even knows that the only way we can really know whether we are truly loving our brothers and sisters in Christ is whether we obey God’s commandments.

1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

But the tolerance of such immorality is just a carryover of the willingness to tolerate false doctrines and the unwillingness to deal with spiritual adultery within the body of Christ. Spiritual adulterers are known as heretics, and they, too, are preferred above those who want to be obedient to God’s commandments about how we are to deal with heretics within our midst:

Tit 3:10 A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject;
Tit 3:11 Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.

Allowing spiritual heresy to remain in our midst is just as damaging spiritually to the body of Christ as is physical fornication such as the Corinthians were so willing to tolerate, and such damage as you have experienced. No one fears God to the extent of being obedient to His instructions concerning such false doctrines:

Rom 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Rom 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

Should we obey these words of scripture? If you even suggest that we should, you will be labeled as ‘unloving and divisive’ by most Christians who think differences should be tolerated instead of being discussed and resolved with “a multitude of counselors” as our Lord Himself instructed us:

Mat 18:15 Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee [ morally or doctrinally], go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.
Mat 18:16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
Mat 18:17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

There is also these very clear words:

Tit 1:10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
Tit 1:11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.
Tit 1:12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
Tit 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;

You tell me they did what they did to keep their jobs. That is exactly what “for filthy lucre’s sake” means. Tolerating sin within the body to retain a tithepayer is the same corrupt spirit. It is all a spirit of turning God’s grace into lasciviousness.

Who in the churches of Babylon would dare to obey these words of scripture?…

Eph 5:10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

The way we “prove what is acceptable unto the Lord” is by “trying the spirits to see whether they are of God, [ realizing] that many false prophets [ with false doctrines] have gone out into the world”.

1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

You have been given the trial of having to deal with a few of the “many false prophets [ which have] gone out into the world”.

If this experience leads you to “try the spirits” and come to know that “grace chastens us to forsake ungodliness and worldly lusts” and you are given eyes to see that the churches of this world are the great harlot of Babylon, then in reality the loss of your home and your children will have been worth it, according to our Lord:

Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Mat 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
Mat 10:36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
Mat 10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Read what Christ had just told His disciples:

Mat 10:17 But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues [ in their churches];
Mat 10:18 And ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
Mat 10:19 But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak.
Mat 10:20 For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.
Mat 10:21 And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death.
Mat 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
Mat 10:23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.
Mat 10:24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.
Mat 10:25 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?
Mat 10:26 Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.

You have lived all of this, and if you can weather this time of trial with the help of Christ, and if you will read more on iswasandwillbe. com and come to see that God is working all things after the counsel of His own will, and by knowing that, avoid developing a bitter spirit toward people who simply have not been given eyes to see or ears to hear, then this will all have been for your good.

This e- mail is already too long, but I want you to read about the function of grace and about the sovereignty of God in these two links as the Lord leads you:

http:// iswasandwillbe. com/ sovereignty. php

http:// www. iswasandwillbe. com/ Carlton_ Pearson_ et_ al. php

I hope all these verses of scripture and these links are of some help to you.

Your brother in Christ,

Mike