Holiness and the Church

This morning I was reading from Ezekiel 8, where the Lord takes Ezekiel and shows him the abominations that are occurring in the temple and within the house of Israel, detestable practices, worship of other Gods, blatant turning of their backs to God to worship other gods. I was thinking about how God clearly watches over His church with the same vigilance, and sees all the detestable things that are being done in His name, or under his supposed authority. He sees the spiritual abuse, the deception, the lies, the sin, the chasing after money, the mixing of other religions or streams of thought, all are detestable to Him. Lord we pray that You will have mercy and not treat us as our sins deserve. We pray that for the sake of Your name that You would purify Your Church, and make her a shining example to all the world, of Your glory and power.


(NIV)Leviticus 20:22-23, 26
"Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. [23] You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. [26] You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own."


In the same way, we in the church, must not allow the ways of the people around us to infiltrate the church. There is supposed to be a holiness to the church, a setting apart and separation. Israel constantly allowed the practices of the nations around them into their lives, and were constantly subjecting themselves to the judgement of God, who had clearly warned them against this very thing. They combined the practices and thinking of the nations around them, and followed the practices openly.


The early church experienced this very same trouble. Shortly after the Church was birthed, there were those who tried to insert Greek thought into the truths that Christ had revealed. These were the first hereses, and the Church had to protect the truth. We are called, in the same way to know the truth, and to hold onto the truth, not giving ourselves to the ways and thinking of the world around us.


As Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:1-5:


"But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."