Cleansing of the Body

I'd like to read the last verse of Jeremiah 8 and the first verse of Jeremiah 9. Is there no balm, Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? Oh, that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. In the very oldest times, there were men and women who loved Israel so much that when they saw uncleanness in the nation and wrong among the people, they didn't just criticize or point the accusing finger and then turn their backs, but they wept before the Lord. And it was through these weeping saints that God restored his people again and again.

And from the day that the fig tree of Israel produced this new shoot, the church of Jesus Christ, there have again been some saints who love the body of Christ enough to weep for her sins. And it's been through these weeping saints that God has brought cleansing to the church time and time again. Now, there has never been a greater need, never since the day of Pentecost, for such saints as there is right now.

Now, there are all kinds of people who can diagnose, diagnosticians who will tell us everything that's wrong with the church. And there is many self-appointed Moses who wants to lead the church to some new promised land. But how few people, men and women, who come before the living God the way Moses came before God, eating his heart out, crying, weeping tears, calling on God to spare the nation.

And when he returned to Capernaum, after some days, it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door. And he was preaching the word of God to them.

And they came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic lay.

And when Jesus saw their fate, he said to the paralytic, my son, your sins are forgiven. Now, the four men and whoever else might have been with them who brought this paralytic to Jesus represent those believers who are, you know, troubled about the condition of the church. They don't weep for him.

You know, it grieves them and they're not going to be satisfied until they see some kind of healing come. And the paralyzed man himself is a sign, you know, represents the church in his present state, bound, discouraged, weak, and just laid him down with guilt and sin and trouble. These men bring their friend and lay him before Jesus.

And when Jesus sees their fate, he says to the paralyzed man, my son, your sins are forgiven. Now, from that point on, we know the rest of the story, how the man is lifted up and healed and so forth. But from that point on, no more mention is made of those four men who brought the paralyzed man.

You know, once they opened up the roof and lowered him down in front of Jesus so that Jesus had to do something for him, their job is done. Jesus takes over from that point and he forgives the man's sins, gives him a clean heart, lifts him on his feet, sends him on his way. But this miracle would not have taken place in the man's life if it had not been for these four men who took the trouble to bring him.

Now, the question the Spirit of God is putting to us today, and no doubt to many others in other places, is do you really care about the condition of my church? Because, my friends, until we really care about the body of Christ, in all places, all our brothers and sisters, everywhere, really care, until that begins to work in our hearts, that kind of concern, we ourselves are nothing but another source of the church's uncleanness. So long as we think that we can have a thriving fellowship in our part of town, and at the same time hold attitudes against brothers or sisters in another part of town, or even just be indifferent to what's going on among the saints in another part of town, well, we're not bringing life to the body, we're polluting the body. See, and as long as we even half think that we are the only ones who are right, and in some way imply that those saints on the east side, or the north side, or the down river side, or wherever they may be, aren't safe to be around, look out for them, brother, what are we doing but polluting the body? See, and this atmosphere of death, and this lack of substance, and this weariness, and this paralysis, and this legalism, and this hardness, and this thoughtfulness, and all the other things that characterize the body all across this town, these things are directly connected with our attitudes, never mind anybody else's attitudes.

Now, we have come to a time when God is about to cleanse the body of Christ on earth. In fact, that cleansing has already begun. God is cleansing His church, first of all, by raising up a people, men and women, who care enough about the body, you know, to weep for her, and fast and pray for her, and who absolutely are not going to take any rest until something good, healing, comes to her.

And God is also cleansing His church by removing from the doorway of His kingdom those people who for years and years have been blocking the entrance because they don't care about their brothers and sisters. They say they love God, yet they never lift a finger to help the body, or bring it some kind of healing, or to soothe its wounds. Now, as the fires get hotter, and they will, and they're going to cleanse and purge, and as the press of the Spirit of God increases upon the body for its cleansing, every single one of us in this place who has any connection with the body of Christ at all will find himself or herself, either among those who are being raised up, our hearts are going to be warmed up enough inside that we really begin to edify the body, weep for the body, pray for the body, and then we begin to minister to our brothers and sisters in ways that we've never done before, never even imagined we'd do, or we ourselves will be driven from the door of the kingdom by the offense of the cross.

Make no mistake about it, God is cleansing His church, but the only people who are being used for this cleansing really are those saints who allow themselves to be gripped by the Spirit of Cleansing sufficiently that their lives begin to actually change. For when the Spirit of Cleansing comes upon us, my brothers and sisters, we will change. And the first change that will happen to us when the Spirit of Cleansing gets hold of our hearts is that we will start to turn our criticisms into prayers.

Now, granted, there are situations that call for hard words. If we have to turn over the tables of the money changers and disrupt those money changers in order to cleanse the temple, let's do it. See, but most of us aren't disrupting the money changers, and we're not speaking those hard words that perhaps have to be spoken to the scribes and pharisees, even the scribes and pharisees that live inside us.

We're not doing that. What we're doing is walking around with a kind of sour attitude toward everybody. We have our binoculars out, and we're scanning the horizon.