You have heard it said, “the Christian is called to fellowship and is disobedient if he doesn’t go to church.”
What is the Church but those who meditate on God’s Law day and night? Who has fellowship except she be conformed to Christ so as to repudiate every lie and deceit, even with a whip for now, and a sword when He returns? Who is blessed except he who hungers and thirsts for justice, empowered to explicitly declare and confess sins and call God, according to the Spirit’s wisdom, to “break the arm of the wicked,” and “break the fangs in his mouth.”? Who but the righteous are called and chosen to dwell together in unity, not by the will of man, but by the will of God, Who joins men and women to the Communion of Saints when He calls and chooses them?
Consider what the Scriptures say:
“Better to live in a desert [wilderness] than dwell with a contentious and ill-tempered wife.” -Prov 21:19
Solomon doubtless had in mind the incorrigibly malicious Michal in mind when he wrote this proverb, though he likely also had one or more “michals” in his own harem. If the Scripture not only permits, but sanctions and encourages distance between those who are bound as “one flesh” when one is malicious, deceitful, and contentious, how much more will it sanction us parting from the man of charming words who harbors deceit and whose heart is filled with seven abominations (Prov 26)? So likewise with the charming woman, whose ways are as deceitful as Becky Sharp (Prov 31, Vanity Fair). Let the idols of “family values” and “local church” fall like Dagon and stoop like Bel before the truth of Micah 7 and Luke 12:49-53.
“Better to meet a mother bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly.” –Prov 17:12
And what greater fool than the Pharisee, the man of Deuteronomy 29 who invokes God’s blessing while living the lawless, disobient, and stiff-necked self-life? Would the God who declares that He will never be willing to forgive such a man enjoin His own to counter His unfailing wisdom by cozying up with impenitently lawless men and women?
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.” –II Tim 3:1-5
The chosen saint has been chosen to be truly just in the purity of God’s righteousness. This is a matter of doctrine and good works, without which she will not have woven the garments required for the wedding banquet. For to be the LORD’s is to, like Him, speak truly and act justly. If “bad company corrupts good manners,” how much more do impenitent blasphemers who live for themselves rather than God, deceitfully rendering lip service while their hearts despise Him, torment God’s children as the people of Sodom tormented Lot? God does not call His people into Babylon, to dally with it’s whore, the false church. He calls them out of Bablyon so that they may be conformed to Christ, who always spoke truly and acted justly, in keeping with the Law and the just and true Lawgiver. In his humanity, He learned obedience. How much more must we, who are lesser than our master, follow humbly and willingly in His footsteps, meditating on and delighting in the Law, which is our milk to distiguish evil from good so that we will have appetite for the meat of God’s full righteousness.