(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, thanks for coming everyone, we'll go ahead and get started this afternoon. Thanks for coming. We're going to read from Ezekiel chapter 22, Ezekiel chapter 22 the Bible reads, The Lord came unto me, saying, Now thou son of man wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations. Then say thou, Thus saith the Lord God, The city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself, to defile herself. Thou art become guilty in thy blood, that thou hast shed, and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made. And thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and thou art come even unto thy years. Therefore have I made thee your approach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries. Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which are infamous and much vexed. Behold the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood. In thee they have set light by father and mother, in the midst of thee they have dealt by oppression with the stranger, in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised mine holy things, thou hast profaned my Sabbaths. In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood, in thee they eat upon the mountains, in the midst of thee they commit lewdness. In thee they have discovered thy father's nakedness, in thee they have humbled her that was set apart for pollution. And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife, another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law, and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter. In thee they have taken gifts to shed blood, thou hast taken usury and increase, thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God. Behold therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain, which thou hast made, and at thy blood, which thou hast been in the midst of thee. Can thine heart endure, or can thine hand be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? I, the Lord, have spoken it, and will do it, and I will scatter thee among the heathen and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee. And thou shalt take thine inheritance and thyself in the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross. All they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace, they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Because ye are become drossed, behold therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem, as they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, in the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it. So I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof. And ye shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out my fury upon you. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor reigned upon, in the day of indignation. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls, they have taken the treasure and precious things, they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things, they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I have profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening to the prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have dobbed her with untempered mortar, seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken. The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery and have vexed the poor and needy, yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully. And I have sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I have found none. Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them, I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath. Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God." Let's go and pray. Dear Lord, again, thank you for this opportunity that we have to come together for the preaching of your word. Lord, I pray that you would help me to preach it and that we would be better for having been here tonight, we ask in Christ's name, amen. So of course I'm going through 1 Corinthians, well again it could be in Ezekiel chapter 22 if you want to keep something there, but go over to 1 Corinthians 5 because if you remember I'm going through a series right now called Get Right or Get Out, Get Right or Get Out. And basically what we're doing in this series in 1 Corinthians 5 is just going through and touching on every one of those sins that are listed there that the Bible teaches a person would actually be kicked out of church for. That these are certain sins that God gives authority to the church to exercise church discipline and so we just want to go through these things and again just review them. Now again keep something in Ezekiel 22, but what we see in 1 Corinthians 5 again is that specific sins are listed here that they warrant this church discipline and it's important that we keep these sins in mind because not every sin is punishable by being kicked out of church. Not every sin warrants that. But the sins that are we should probably take even all the more heed to not be found guilty of because we certainly don't want to find ourselves kicked out of church. This whole ordeal that we're kind of going through with having to limit services and stuff like that, I'm sure a lot of people are missing church. They're saying man, they're seeing what it's like to not have church in their life. And again it's not because of anything that they've done, it's because of the circumstances that we're in, but at least we can get a sense of what it's like to not have church on a regular basis. Now imagine, my point being that we should take the time to look at these sins and remember them because that's not something, being kicked out of church or not having church as a part of our life is not something that we want to experience. Some people are getting a taste of that, of not having church in their life, again not because of anything that they've done. But we want to go through this series too, not necessarily because this is a problem in the church or something like that, but because of the fact that it's good to have preventative maintenance. It's good to preach on these things before they happen so that people can be on guard. And to be honest, there's several sins that we've already preached about and I'm going to jump ahead here and it's going to be a little bit maybe of a shorter sermon because the one I'm going to touch on tonight is extortion, which is actually the last one on it. Now as we're going through the list, if you look there in 1 Corinthians 5, look at verse 11, but it says in verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 5, And I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner was such a one not to eat. So as we're going through that list, you know, I've already preached on fornication and covetousness and so we would say, well, idolatry would be the next one. And you know, if we were going through it chronologically, yeah, that's what I do. But I felt very compelled to jump ahead to extortion for some reason. Now I don't know if that's because there's somebody in this room today that, you know, is considering blackmail or something like that. No, I'm sure that's not the case. But then I got here this morning and Pastor Anderson actually preached a sermon this morning on idolatry and I thought, well, there you go. That's probably why we were not having back to back sermons on idolatry. So maybe I'll put the idolatry one off until later. But we're actually going to jump ahead here in this list to extortion, which is the last one. And it says there in verse 12, for what have I to do with that, to judge them also that are without? Do you not judge them that are within, but them that are without God judgeth, therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. So we see here that the church has authority to put people out of church when they are found guilty of these sins. And what we should take from this whole series is, you know, maybe we'll never be guilty of any of these sins, you know, we pray God that's the case, you know, and we should always of course, you know, you know, want that for ourselves. But here's what we could take away, even if we're never guilty of this or have to suffer church discipline directly ourselves is that, you know, we should learn to respect the authority that the church has. You know, our church as a body has a certain authority, you know, obviously, that doesn't mean that church can dictate every aspect of your life, you know, leadership has no desire to do that, to get in there and to check up on you and things like that. But there is a boundary, there is a certain amount of authority that the church does have in the believer's life, you know, and church should be something that's very important to us. And we should respect that authority so that we don't ever find ourselves, you know, without the ability to go to church to actually have to suffer this. And one way we could show that respect for the authority that the church has is, you know, even if we're not the ones being disciplined is to, you know, to respect the decision of the church that when somebody is disciplined, and what I mean by that is we ourselves are not going to go fellowship with somebody who's found guilty of one of these sins and has been kicked out of the congregation. You know, a lot of times people won't pipe up and say, well, I disagree with the fact that, you know, brother or sister or so-and-so have been kicked out of the church for being found guilty of one of these things, you know, I'm not going to say anything publicly, I'm not going to go around, but I'm just going to call that person, you know, I'm just going to text them, I'm going to get a hold of them on Facebook, you know, we're going to get together outside of church and I'm going to, you know, be there for them and fellowship with them. Look, if you're getting together with somebody that's been kicked out of church for one of these reasons, you know, you're not respecting the authority of the church. Because what does it say here? It says right there that if you're guilty of one of these things, with such a one, know not to eat. You know, we're not to even to eat with that person, you know, and that's a big part of Baptist Fellowship right there, right, I mean, that should cut out like 80% of what we do. But go over to Matthew chapter 18, Matthew chapter 18. You know, it's not just talking about, well, they can't come eat at church, you know, they can't, they're not invited to the potluck. You know, it's also referring to the fact that we should not on an individual basis be fellowshipping with these people, and we'll get more into this here in a minute. I mean, that's what it says, you know, it says down there at the end of 1 Corinthians 5, it says, put away from among yourselves that wicked person, right, and that's talking about the body. You know, we are supposed to put that person out from the body of the church, but it also tells us not to eat with them and not to fellowship with them on a personal, individual, one-on-one basis. And we see that in Matthew chapter 18. Look at verse 15, excuse me, Matthew 18, 15, it says, moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, and go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother, but if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more than in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if you neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church. What he's talking about is actually, you know, telling it to the entire congregation, you know, getting up and saying, hey, we could not resolve this issue with this individual, there's been a trespass here, and now we need to take care of it. And it says in verse 17, and if you neglect to hear them, meaning, you know, he says tell it unto the church, but if you neglect to hear the church, you know, if he neglects to hear the admonition that the church is giving them, you know, often through the mouthpiece of the pastor, and him, you know, using biblical, you know, reasoning with the Scriptures with them and saying, look, you're found guilty of this, you know, this is a sin that's worthy of discipline, you're not going to repent, and now you have to be put out from among the congregation. And he said, but he says there, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. So he's saying, look, if he doesn't hear the church, then let him be unto thee. You know, that's a singular, you know, he's saying, you should, as an individual, treat this person that way. Meaning this, that when the church decides that, when the church exercises the authority that it has to kick somebody out, we as individuals should respect that authority. We should respect the fact that this decision has been made. And when we decide not to, when we say, well, you know, I'm going to fellowship with that person anyway, we're going to meet up at Starbucks, you know, we're going to go get a meal together, you know, I'm going to be with them, and I'm going to, you know, help them through this difficult time and be, you know, and be a friend to them. What you're doing, you know, that might sound nice, you know, you might even, your heart might even be in the right, you know, quote, unquote, right place. You might be trying to do it out of maybe, you know, what you perceive as a proper motive, but what you're really doing when you do that, when you fellowship with somebody that's been put out, when you do not treat them as a heathen man, as the Bible says, when you do not treat them as a publican, what you're doing is you're undermining the church's authority. You're saying, yeah, I know the church said that, but let me undermine it, let me, I'm not going to respect that decision, I'm going to go ahead and have fellowship with this person anyway. And what you're doing is you're sabotaging the entire purpose behind church discipline. The whole purpose behind church discipline is that a person would be put out of the fellowship and then they would realize what life is like without brethren in it. They would realize what life is like without Christian fellowship, without having somebody there to encourage you in the Lord, without being there for the services to receive, you know, the exhortation of the preaching of the word of God. And to have the friends and the relationships that are there. So when we go ahead and disregard the church's authority and maintain that relationship, you know, we're actually undermining the very purpose of church discipline. If you would, go over to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3. You know, and a lot of people would get upset with this, a lot of people would disagree with this, but this is scripture. I mean, we're reading right from the Bible. The Bible's saying, you know, put these people out. Let this man be as a heathen and a publican, to have no fellowship with them. No one was such a one not to eat. And he says here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 14, and if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed. That's the whole purpose is that they would be ashamed and how, and how is it that they become come to that place of being ashamed? That's when we do not have fellowship with them. So when we're going to somebody that's been church discipline, we're reaching out to them, calling them, texting them, getting together with them, whatever it is, and you know, being their support in this time, we're undermining them, we're undermining the church's authority rather, excuse me, and what we're doing is we're taking away some of that shame. They're saying, oh well, you know, so and so, he's with me on this. You know, I know I got kicked out of this church for this sin or that sin, but you know, so and so, they're still my friend. They're still supporting me. They know I'm right. And they're not coming to a place where they're going to repent because that is the goal of church discipline. It's not just to put people out and then forget about them, it's so that they will repent. You know, and this is something this church practices and it, you know, a lot of people, you know, and mainly it's the online crowd, you know, they catch a lot of flack for this online in comment sections and elsewhere, but, and they say, oh I can't believe you do that. But what they don't see is the fact that this works, is that often when people are put out, they do get right and they do come back and they never see that because of the fact that, you know, that's not something we broadcast. You know, we don't broadcast people being disciplined and when people come back, we don't broadcast the fact that they're back. We just move on with their lives accordingly. So here's the thing. It says here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 in verse 15, yet count him not as an enemy. You know, our desire is that this person that's been disciplined would get right, that they'd get the sin out of their life and that they would come back and that they would be a part of the church and that they could move on with their life. It says, not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. And I think this is where people get confused because they say, well, you know, yeah, he's being disciplined, but it says to admonish him as a brother. But here's the thing. What is that admonishment? Is that admonishment? You texting them, hey, I'm praying for you, I'm thinking about you, hey, would you like to get some coffee and talk about things? Is it you giving them, you know, giving them your ear to let them kind of plead their case and justify them? Is that what this admonishment he's talking about is? Well, what does admonishment even mean? Admonishment is a warning or it's to warn or reprimand somebody very firmly. See I think today we think admonish means to like encourage somebody or comfort someone. That's not what admonishment means. Admonishment means to reprimand somebody. It means to warn them, say, hey, you're wrong. You're out of line. You need to get it right. So what is this brotherly admonishment that he's talking about here? Well, the not accompanying with him, that is the admonishment, I believe. I believe if you want to admonish somebody that's been put out of the local church, you want to admonish them as a brother, it means you follow through and you don't company with them. That would be that harsh rebuke. Say hey, can we get together? No, you're in sin. The church kicked you out. Get it right and then we can talk and you know, we hang up the phone. That is the brotherly admonishment that he's talking about there and hopefully you can see that there. But today we're talking specifically, you know, whenever we bring up this topic of church discipline, we got to kind of cover all that a little bit. But here's the thing. We're talking today about the sin of extortion, you know, and that's not something we really see a lot of. I mean, there's other sins on this list, you know, the fornication, the drunkenness. When we talk about 1 Corinthians 5 and the sins that kicked out of church, those are probably the things that come to mind the most because those are the things that actually take place the most. You know, we have kicked people out for drunkenness and fornication. You know, I don't know, you know, about covetousness. I don't know about extortion, not to my knowledge. You know, this is kind of one of those stranger sins that you would think, really, does that even take place in a church? Well, obviously it's taking place if Paul's taking the time to mention it. Obviously it's something that has the potential happening if Paul is warning about it here. So what is extortion? Well, extortion, first of all, we have to understand is a wicked sin and the more we read about it, the more we understand it, we're going to see that. We're going to see just how wicked of a sin extortion really is. I mean, it's, it's associated with, you know, oppressing people. It's you know, bloodshed is involved. It's a very wicked sin and I believe there's even milder forms that we would potentially could be guilty of in our modern day too. So first of all, extortion is a wicked sin. Now go over to Luke chapter 18, Luke chapter 18. I'll read to you from Matthew chapter 23, it says, woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. So this is of course Jesus rebuking the Pharisees. So he's, you know, if you're going to be guilty of extortion, you're guilty of something that some very wicked people were guilty of. I mean the Pharisees were often, in many cases, reprobate, you know, they rejected the Lord, very wicked people. And one of the things that they practiced was extortion. So this is not something, you know, we want our reputation to be. He says in Psalm 109, David prayed, let the extortioner catch all that he hath and the strangers spoil his labor. So to fall prey or fall victim to an extortioner is a curse. It's something that David, a curse that David actually prayed upon wicked people. So we don't, you know, extortion is not something to be taken lightly because it's very wicked. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 16, let mine outcasts dwell with thee Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler for the extortioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth the oppressors are consumed out of the land. So we could see the type of people that are considered to be extortioners, you know, the wicked, uh, you know, uh, Pharisees Jesus's day. And then of course, back in Isaiah's day, backslid in Israel, he said that they were extortioners. And what did they do? They spoiled and they oppressed. So these are, these are things that are associated with extortion. When you're spoiling somebody, you know, you're, you're taking their goods by force. You're oppressing someone, you know, you're keeping them under your control, your power. And this is something that's practiced, you know, a great deal in the unsaved world. But here's the thing, even the unsaved world understands how wicked this sin is. Even they have stepped back and say, whoa, you know, there are laws in our land against extortion. And look there in Luke chapter 18 verse 11, the irony that, you know, Jesus calls the Pharisees extortioners, right, that they're full of extortion in excess. And then you got a Pharisee praying in Luke 18 that he's not. He says in verse 11, the Pharisee stood and prayed with himself, thus with themselves as God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners, right? The irony is, is that he was, you know, that the Pharisees in fact were extortioners, unjust adulterers or even as this publican. So even the unsaved world, even these men who, you know, like this Pharisee who was there praying by himself, this unsaved man understands the wickedness and the evil of the sin of extortion. And that's why there's laws against it. You know, that's why even the unsaved world has taken measures to punish extortioners. In fact, most states define extortion, extortion, excuse me, as the gaining of property or money by almost any kind of force or threat of violence, property damage, harmed reputation or unfavorable government action. While usually viewed as a form of theft, larceny, extortion differs from robbery in that the threat in question does not pose an imminent physical danger to the victim. So what is extortion? It's gaining property or money by threat, by force or by the threat of violence. You know, we would think of, you know, the mafia often, right? They practice this a lot. You know, they would come and they would offer you protection. You know, and say, hey, you know, I'll offer your, you know, your store here in this neighborhood protection against vandalism and robbery for a small fee. You know, and then you say, oh, no, thanks. I don't need it. Well, I hate to see anything happen to your kids. You know, you know, they know their names, they know their ages, you know, they know where they live, they know what school they go, they tell you all this, you know, I hate to see it happen, something happen to your kid, you know, a little Johnny who goes over, you know, doesn't he live with you at your apartment over on, you know, West 7th? You know, and they're, you're like, whoa, you know, what he's doing, he's, he's subtly saying, no, you go ahead and give me $400 a week or whatever it is, and I'll offer you protection for myself. That's what extortion is. It's the threat of violence, right? This is a, this is a modern day form of it. This is one way of doing it. You know, it could take other forms. You know, another one we would think of was probably blackmail. You know, we get some dirt on somebody and they say, hey, we're going to, you know, release these pictures to the press or we're going to release this audio cording or this video recording of you in this compromising situation unless you give us money, unless you do this or you do that. What they're doing is, you know, is they're strong arming this person. They're blackmailing them. It's extortion. And extortion is a felony in all states. I mean, even the world understands how wicked this is. Blackmail is a form of extortion. You know, just strong arming somebody or, or, or you know, threatening them, whether, you know, from the, of your threat, you're threatening that I'm going to do something or have somebody else do something to you, your body or your property. Another common extort, a common extortion crime is offering protection. We already talked about that, right? And it can take place over the telephone. It can be through mail. You know, it could be through text, email or other computer or wireless communication. So this is something that can happen in a lot of different forms. You know, and this is something that goes on today and I, you know, a lot of, probably a lot of times we don't realize, we probably don't realize how much it's going on because of the fact that people who are being blackmailed or exhorted aren't, they're not piping up because they're being blackmailed. I mean, they're, that's how it works. You know, you're not going to say anything about it and therefore we don't realize how much it really happens. But extortion at the end of the day, if you would go back to Ecclesiastes 22 is, is a means of dishonest gain. Well, why would somebody even do that? Why would somebody go and, you know, blackmail someone or threaten somebody to expose them for something or, or make threats of violence? It's because they're trying to make money. They're trying to make dishonest gain or they're trying to gain some kind of influence or some kind of action out of the person. But look there in Ezekiel 22 verse 12, it says in, in thee they have taken gifts to shed blood. Now right there, that's bribery, right? That's a form of a bribery, taking a gift to shed blood. That's like hiring the hit man, right? Hey, I'm going to give you so much money. You're going to go knock off so and so. That was taken usury and increase and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion. So it's, you know, people who don't want to make an honest living, people who don't want to, you know, work by the, you know, earn a living by the sweat of their brow, put in a, you know, hard day's work for an honest day's pay. You know, they're criminals. It's a criminal element that, that wants to just have easy money. They're greedy of gain. So what they're willing to do, you know, being very unscrupulous is they're willing to just go blackmail somebody. They're willing to just go threaten people, you know, for protection and, and, and, and, you know, threaten to expose them and so on and so forth. Is greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion and has forgotten me, sayeth the Lord. You know, whether it's extortion or any one of these sins. You know, fornication, drunkenness, covetousness, idolatry, extortion, or any other sin, often when people get involved in sins, you know, that is the problem right there. Why is it? Because they have forgotten me, sayeth the Lord. You know, that's a little lesson we could take out of this, this passage here is that, you know, the danger of neglecting the Lord, neglecting church, neglecting prayer and Bible reading is the farther God gets away from you, the easier it is to fall into sins. You know, there's some sins that we would probably say, well, I would never be guilty of that. I mean, I don't think anyone here is really struggling with, you know, the sin of extortion. You know, and it's laughable to even think that that might be a possibility. But we don't know what could happen, you know, if we get far enough away from God and God begins to chastise us and things like that. So what I'm saying here is that, you know, that's the danger of forgetting God. It leads to these very wicked sins. He says in verse 13, Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of me. I mean, do you see the kind of things that go along that are part and parcel with this sin of extortion? Do you see now why Paul is addressing it and saying, look, if there's somebody that's even remotely guilty of this, they should be put out of the local church. You know, we don't want, you know, some gang, you know, some mafioso family setting up shop inside of Faithful Word Baptist Church and going around, you know, threatening members and things like that. You know, it can't take place. And it's very wicked people that get involved in this. There's violence here, you know, there's bloodshed, there's innocent blood. These are the results of extortion quite often. And here's the thing, you know, that happens, you know, violence does happen, bloodshed does happen, you know, it's shed by the extortioner because extortioners that go to that degree, they're not making empty threats. You know, the mafia, people paid up because they knew they meant what they said. You know, hey, if I'm going to come back here next week and if you don't have my money, X, Y, and Z. They knew they weren't just making that up, you know, that they really would put them, they would send them to swim with the fishes, you know, they'd put the cement shoes on them or whatever it is that they did. You know, they would come over there and beat them up and slap them around and do these things. So this is wicked people that get involved in this. And you know what, you say, well, this is kind of extreme, you know, does that type of thing really happen in a place, excuse me, it happened in a place like church? Probably not to this degree, probably not to where people are shedding blood where there's like physical violence going on. But I do believe that we have seen and will see smaller, you know, less, more milder forms of extortion, which are just as wicked, but maybe don't have the severe outcomes as you know, some of these other examples. So what might this look like in a church setting? Okay. What might we see this? Well, one thing you might, this might show up as, as maybe threatening to expose people for their sins. You know, maybe you get to know somebody and you realize that they have some kind of sin. You know, or they confide in you. And now you're going to, well, now later you say, well, now I know this about this person and you threatened to expose that person. Maybe it's not for money. Maybe you want them to do something or, or to, you know, whatever it is, you want to exert some kind of influence over this person and you say, well, Hey, I know all about your problem with this, that, or the other thing. I remember the time you did this or did that. And if you don't do what I want in this instance, I'm going to expose you. That kind of thing does happen. You know, threatening to expose people's sins, whether it's between congregants, you know, maybe two people get involved in the same sin, you know, and, and then they're threatening to expose one another. And if they know the other one doesn't do what they want, that kind of thing happens. Or how about this? What about leadership? What about somebody, you know, that's why it's real important when you have behind the pulpit, the person leading the church, you have people who have actual integrity and character because if you get the wrong person in that position, you know, they could use that to, to, to their own ends for, for, for wicked means, you know, and this kind of thing happens where leadership, because here's the thing, when you're in leadership, people come to you with their problems. People come to you and they confide all kinds of things. I mean, good night, random strangers email this church and sometimes, or leave voicemails and it's like, they're just, they have this closet full of skeletons. It's like they're complete stranger don't even know you and you're just laying bare all these sins. It's like, whoa. You know, people come to leadership and they say, Hey, I'm having a problem with this. I'm having a problem with that. I'm involved in this sin. I had the problem with this sin, you know, and if the wrong person is in leadership and he gets that, they could start to think, Hmm, well now let me, you know, Hey, I don't know. Let me, uh, let me pull out my phone and record this conversation so that maybe if something happens between me and you later, I can pull it out and say, Oh, remember when you had this told me about this, remember when we sat down and talked about this, you really sure you want to, you know, not do what I want you to do? You say, does that happen? Yeah. There's a church in Phoenix where that exact type of thing happened. Not a Baptist church, not any church that we would have anything to do with, but very similar things where, where leadership was caught recording conversations and then using those conversations later to quite frankly, you know, to, uh, you know, uh, you know, extort people to influence them, to strong arm them, to get them to do what they wanted. That's extortion. So yeah, these type of things do happen in a church. You know, you might not have cousin Vito back there with a crowbar, you know, waiting, you know, looking for his money, but you might have some wicked person in leadership or you might have some wicked person in the congregation who's got some information on you, some dirt on you, and they're threatening to use it in some way. Now another way that I think that this shows up is in the form of lawsuits and you know, this is my, maybe this is just more of my opinion, you know, people could disagree with me on this one, but I believe that lawsuits are a form of extortion because let's think about it. What is extortion? It's defined as, you know, gaining property or money by force, right? By using an outside force to get something that does not belong to them. You know, another example of this would be taxes, right? They say it's, you know, taxes are voluntary, no, in a voluntary system you don't end up in federal prisons for not paying it. Okay, but that's another sermon. But here's the thing. If you're going to the court of law and if you would go to 1 Corinthians 6, you know, if you're using the outside world, if you're using a court system to get something out of somebody by force, to me, I believe that is a form of extortion. You're getting somebody to do something by suing them in a court of law. So and I don't think it's any coincidence that Paul is dealing with this sin in 1 Corinthians 5. You know, he wraps it up by saying, look, the fornicators, the drunkards, the covetous, and the extortioners, right, these are sins that this church has been guilty of. You know, these things are taking place in this church and extortion is one of them. And so he lays that all out in 1 Corinthians 5 and then what does he move right into in 1 Corinthians 6 about going to law before the unbelievers, okay? That's what he says there and I don't think that's a coincidence. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 1, dare any of you having a matter against another go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? So what is he talking about going before the law? He's talking about going to court. You know, having a matter against another. You know, brother so and so ran into my car in the parking lot, you know, the paint matches the paint on his car that's now on my car, you know, and vice versa. You know, you could see where he hit it, there's the, my paint's on his bumper, the paint that was on his bumper is now on my door, whatever. And he took, you know, he squealed off out of the parking lot and now he's saying, oh, that's not mine, I didn't do it. We have witnesses, you know, he's not paying up, he doesn't want to make this right. So now instead of just, you know, being defrauded, I'm going to go ahead and take him to court before the unbelievers. And Paul's saying, don't do that. And to me, when I read, you know, about extortion being, you know, the act of using force to get something from somebody, whether it's owed you or not, you know, that is a form of extortion, in my book anyway. So he says here, dare any of you having any matter against another go before the law and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints shall judge the world, and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more the things that pertain to this life. If you then have, if then you have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. He's saying, look, it would be better to take the least esteemed person in the church and let them judge between brethren than to go before the law and unbelievers. He says, I speak this to your shame, verse 5. Is it so that it is not a wise man among you? Know not one that should be able to judge between his brethren? I mean, can not one guy sit down? Is there nobody in the church that can say, hey man, you're wrong here, you need to make this right, whatever that circumstance is. There's no one there that can do that. You need to go find the court system, and he's saying here, verse 6, but brother go to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. And that's the real problem with this, is that Paul is saying, look, you're going to law with unbelievers, before the unbelievers. You know, one, you're often bringing reproach upon Christ. You're giving unbelievers a bad impression of what church is like. If you know me and brother Nick have to go to court because brother Nick owes me 500 bucks for some work I did for him or whatever, and I gotta take him to small claims court and it comes out before the judge that we go to the same church, that we're Baptist, that we go to faithful word, they're going to be like, oh, that's what goes on in that church? You guys are a bunch of money grubbers, and you guys can't work these things out, well I don't want anything to do with church. People form their opinions very quickly, right or wrong, and he's saying, look, it'd be better to have somebody just judge between me and him right here in the church, and resolve it then. He says in verse 8, or excuse me, verse 7, now therefore there is utterly a fault among you because you go to law with one another. He's saying you shouldn't be going to law, you shouldn't be going to court, and if you do, you're at fault. There's something wrong here. What's the solution? Why do you not rather take the wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? That's what Paul's saying here is, what Paul's saying here is, look, it'd be better for you to just suffer the wrong, it'd be better for me to just never get paid that 500 bucks than for me to go to court and drag the church's name through the mud, give a bad impression, and I'm sure at the end of that court proceeding, me and brother Nick aren't going to be best friends anymore, whether I have my 500 bucks or not, it's not like we're just going to walk out of that courtroom and go have a meal together. There's going to be animosity from there on out. He's saying, look, it'd be better for you to just be defrauded. And he goes on and says, nay, you do wrong and defraud not your brother. Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And he says, and such were some of you, but ye are washed. But ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. He's saying, look, when you're going before the law, you're going before unbelievers, as you once were, you're going before these type of people. You're going to go to that judge and have him judge between you and your brother. He doesn't have the spirit of Christ. We don't have to look very far in our judicial system today to see that they don't really line up with this book in a lot of their decision making. The laws that are enforced in a lot of our courts today are not biblical. Now they're the law and the land and we obey them, we understand that, but that doesn't mean that they're necessarily the best decisions. And he's saying, look, when you go there before that judge who's not going to use, who doesn't have the spirit of God, is not going to use the word of God to judge and discern and to make a judgment, you're leaving yourselves open to maybe receiving some more severe punishment than you really want. I mean, a lot of these judges today, I mean, how many of them are getting outed? Some of them are pedophiles, some of them are taking bribes under the table. There was that judge years ago in that scandal that was taking money from a facility for minors for delinquents. They built this prison, it was called Cash for Kids, anyone ever heard of that? This judge is taking money from this system to dole out more harsh punishments to children so they would go to this delinquent center and that center could make money off of them. It was a business scheme. And I'm just bringing that up to say, look, that's the type of people that we're going to go to. Now I'm not saying all, I'm not saying every single judge is some wicked corrupt reprobate, but if they're not saved, they don't have the spirit of God. You're leaving yourself open, you don't know what you're going to get when they walk out and get behind that bench. So rather than going to law, rather than trying to force, you know, impose our will upon somebody to get them to do what we want through the court system, you know, it would be better for us to just suffer wrong, is what the Bible is teaching us. It would be better for you to just be defrauded, to just be out that 500 bucks and to just forgive or whatever it is. And here's the thing, you know, the church can handle some of these matters in-house. You know, there's certain things that come up that you could go to law over, technically, that the church could just handle in-house. Now obviously there's a lot of things and some things that have to be turned over to the authorities. That's just the thing to do. You know, things that are worthy of death, you know, rape, you know, the molesters, sodomites, things like that, that are committing crimes against children and other things. That stuff is reported to the authorities and that's not something we're going to sweep under the rug or try to just deal with in-house. But I think specifically about this matter of, you know, maybe theft or just not paying somebody for a job or there's some kind of a money thing between brethren or there's just some kind of a dispute like that. I think something like that is something that's better handled in the church. And here's the thing, you know, if it doesn't, you know, maybe that person doesn't want to pay up, maybe they won't hear the church, then they're disciplined. And say, you know what, when you get right, you know, Brother Nick doesn't pay me my 500 bucks, well, sorry man, you're out of the church now. The church says, until you want to cough that up, you know, and make it right with Brother Corbin, you're not allowed here. You know, that kind, I believe that's the kind of thing that could be handled in-house, you know. And by the way, Brother Nick does not owe me 500 bucks, it's 100 bucks, I'm just kidding. But here's the thing. I think that's the proper use of Matthew 18. That's the type of thing you can bring to the church, you can take two or three witnesses, that's the type of thing that that's referring to. Not just, you know, he gave me a dirty look, he wouldn't shake my hand, he didn't say hello. People want to apply Matthew 18 to every little offense that takes place sometimes. There are actual offenses that Matthew 18 would cover and it's not just these personal insults and things like that. But what we see from 1 Corinthians 6 is it would be better to be defrauded than to sit there and go to court and to sue your brother. And by the way, that happens. I have no churches that, there's a church split, and you know, there's a building involved, there's property involved, and now you have a church, an entire body that's split in two groups of people, and they're suing each other for their rights. I've seen that happen, where they sue each other for their rights to the building. They sue each other for their rights to the, you know, the wood table in front of the pulpit that somebody made for the, you know, for communion. Who's going to get the offering plates and the chairs in this split? Well, we're going to go to court to figure that out. You know, what would happen if there was a wise man among them, if there was somebody that was actually spiritual there, they'd just say, you know what, you can have it. Just go ahead and take it. It'd be better to be defrauded than to actually go to court, especially as a church, and say, hey, judge, hey, unsaved judge, without the Spirit of God, can you decide who in this matter is right, who's going to get the church building and the property and so on and so forth? It's pathetic. And it's not the spirit that Christ wants us to have. If you would, turn to Luke chapter 11. Luke chapter 11, we're going to wrap it up here. But he says, I mean, what were we taught to pray? When the disciples asked Jesus to teach us to pray, what did he say? He said, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. You know, if somebody owes you money and they're not going to pay up, maybe the best thing for you to do is just forgive them. And just say, oh well, you know, I guess I'm out that money. You know, maybe not even have to take it before the church, maybe you could just let it go. You know, forgive us our sins as we forgive everyone that is indebted to us, right? It would be better to just be defrauded than to actually go before the law. Look at Luke chapter 17, I had to go to Luke 11, I had to go to Luke 17, Luke 17. He said in Luke 17 verse 3, take heed to yourselves, if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him, and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times a day, turn to thee and say, I repent, thou shalt forgive him. You know, that's what we want, is we want people to just repent and people to just be forgiven. And it would be better to do that than to sit there and say, well let's let some court of law, you know, decide who's right and who's wrong. Let's let have some, you know, some third party determine the outcome here. Because the law, you know, it's often, it has, it's full of unbelievers and sometimes of the worst kind, you know, and it's not something we want to leave ourselves open to. So, you know, just to kind of conclude here, you know, extortion, you know, is kind of a rare, is a rare sin, but it's there. Is it as common in a church as maybe fornication or drunkenness or covetousness or even idolatry? No. Probably not. But it is there. And it has the potential to happen. And you know, it's one of those things that we can't just, if we hear about, look, it needs to get dealt with. You know, it needs, it's something that has to, there has something, action has to be taken. It's not something you can just gloss over. You know, the whole purpose of those sins of 1 Corinthians 5 is, he's telling him, look, purge out there for the leaven that you may be a new lump. You know, for a little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump. You know, if we let these things slide in a church, it's only going to get worse. If you let fornication go, it's not going to be long before every, you know, it's filled with fornication. You know, you let one couple come and hang around and everyone knows they're living in sin, they're living in fornication. Pretty soon the other singles are looking around saying, well why can't we do the same? Obviously if it's okay for them to do it, we're going to do it too. And that's how these things snowball and build and grow within a church. Whether it's fornication or extortion or any one of these things. Go over to 1 Peter chapter 2. And extortion, you know, is an extremely harmful sin. I mean it can have, I mean, it can get to the place of, as we read earlier, I mean just bloodshed, violence, it can get pretty nasty. But even in its milder forms, you know, what it ends up doing is causing division in the body of Christ. You know, and it's just, you know, having that mindset and that attitude of being willing to exhort somebody, not exhort, extort somebody, you know, to blackmail them, strong arm them, you know, threaten them, you know, that's not a Christ-like spirit. That is not becoming of a Christian. That is improper conduct. And that's not something we ever want to be guilty of. Look there in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 19, for this is thank-worthy if a man for conscious sake towards God endured grief, suffering wrongfully. That's thanks-worthy. Okay? For what glory is it if ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently. But when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable before God. You know, Lord, brother so-and-so, you know, they're doing me dirty. They robbed me. And I'm just going to let it slide. God says, well that's thank-worthy. That's good. He says that's fine. You know, that's what you ought to do. For here unto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow in his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled, reviled not again. When he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. That should be our attitude. You know, ideally that's the thing, that the best attitude you could have when somebody's doing you wrong. You know, whether it's a matter of money or whatever, you know, they're offending you, you know, wrongfully and you're taking it, the best attitude you could have is the attitude that Christ had. You know, follow his example, and I guarantee you there's no suffering that's going to take place in your life that can compare to the suffering that he did. You know, two people get a source with one another over a financial matter or something like that. It's not really that big of an ask for you to just be defrauded. I mean, and that's the example of Christ, he was allowing himself to just suffer wrongfully. But as you being out, you know, some money anywhere near, come anywhere near the degree of suffering that Christ had, not even close. And he's our example. And when he suffered, you know, he threatened not, but what did he do? Committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. That's the best thing we can do in these circumstances, when we're at aught with a brother, is just to say, you know what, the Lord judge between me and you. You know, I'm not going to go to some worldly judge, I'm just going to let, you know, the church decide, I'm just going to let God decide who's right and who's wrong here. And you know what, you might not, you might not ever, you know, have things made right in this life, you know, but it might come later. Maybe you'll get to heaven and the Lord will reward you, say, look, I know you, you know, you suffered and you allowed yourself to be defrauded, you know, I'll pay you back tenfold. So you know, go over to Proverbs chapter 19, our last verse, Proverbs chapter 19. Bible says in Proverbs 17, he that covereth a transgression seeketh love, but he that repeateth the matter, seperateth very friends. You know, it would be better to just cover a transgression, what does that mean, to just, you know, just say, you know what, let's just forget about this. Let's just cover that. You know, I'm not saying cover up sin that needs to be exposed, I'm not saying cover up, you know, things that need to be dealt with by the proper authorities, but I'm saying when there's just ought between brethren, when there's just some kind of division, there's some kind of an offense, you know, the spiritual one would just say, well, you know what, I'm just going to cover that. I'm just going to pretend that that didn't happen and we're just going to move on with our life. And why? Because he seeketh love. You know, I'm just going to say to brother Nick, I keep picking on him, he's my example, and say, you know what, that 500 bucks, my friendship is more important to me, the love that we have as brethren is more important to me than 500 dollars, I'm not going to ruin that relationship over 500 bucks. You know, I'm just going to forget about it. You know, rather than repeating a matter, which separates very friends, right, going to court and just repeating a matter, you know, making a matter of public record, you know, repeating a matter in the forms of a threat, you know, pulling out the phone and saying, oh, yeah, well, you remember back when we had this conversation? I know you didn't know I was recording it, but I got this dirt on you. You know, that's not going to, that's not love. That's wicked. That's going to separate friends. That's going to create division in a body. The Bible says, look there in Proverbs chapter 19 verse 11, the discretion of a man deferreth his anger. So look, overlooking something, you know, for the sake of love, you know, that's something that spiritual people do. It says there the discretion of a man, somebody who has a discerning spirit, who could actually, you know, judge and say, look, this, you know, it'd be better for me to just suffer here than to cause division. You know, that would be ideal there. And he says, and it is a glory to pass over a transgression. I think sometimes we forget that. Sometimes we just want, we want, we want to right every wrong that's ever been committed against us. You know, someone does something, offends us and we just, they need to know about it and they need to apologize and they need to grovel and they need to say they're sorry and I need to feel vindicated about being, about the offense here. You know, I need you to admit that you, you, you, you know, you did me wrong and I need to hear it. And we're the tears, you know, I want some repentance. And here's the thing that it says there, it's a glory to pass over a transgression. It's better to say, you know what, you offended me, but I'm just going to go ahead and forgive you without you even saying anything, without you even going ahead and apologizing. You know, it'd be better to just pass over a transgression. That would be seeking love. You know, we can do that on different levels, obviously, different degrees of offenses, but at the, at the end of the day, what we don't want to do is resort, you know, to the world's methods, you know, of extortion or lawsuits, you know, where we're using force to get what we want out of somebody. We don't want to resort to that. And we should just be willing to just suffer, suffer for doing right now and understand that that reward will come later. So let's go ahead and pray. Dear Lord, just ask now that you would bless us as we go our separate ways. Lord, help us to never be people that are so bitter and envious and covetous that we would go to such great degrees as, you know, blackmailing people or extorting them or threatening them. And Lord, help us to be willing to suffer wrongfully. Help us to be willing to pass over transgressions. Help us to seek love and not division. Lord, I pray again that you would just bless the surfaces this evening, and Lord, that you would keep us all safe. We ask in Christ's name, amen. All right, thanks for coming. We're dismissed.