By Daniel Yoder
God spoke to me this afternoon (4-10-13). He said he is tired of people trying to destroy the local assemblies that are preaching the true word of God, and that He is going to start destroying them. This is the message that He gave to me to give to such people and to tell the church to stand up for itself because He is standing with you.
“If any man defile the temple of God, God Himself will destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.”
In this verse, the temple of God refers to a local assembly. Paul is not speaking to individual Christians but to believers collectively when he says “which temple ye (plural) are.” The saints of Corinth comprised a temple of God.
It is also true, of course, that individual believers are a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle brings this out in 1st Corinthians 6: 19 “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” The Holy Spirit of God dwells in the body of every child of God.
But in what I’m showing you from Scripture today is it is the assembly that is in view. Paul is saying that if any man destroys the assembly, God will destroy him. It is the same word that is translated “defile” and “destroy” in this verse. It is used of marring a local church by leading it away from that condition of holiness of life and purity of the word of God in which it should abide, and of God’s retributive destruction of the offender who is guilty of this sin.
So our verse warns us that it is a serious thing to tamper with a local fellowship. In fact, it is a form of self-destruction. Yet how diffident people often are in this very area. Here is a man who doesn’t get his own way in the assembly. Or he becomes involved in a violent personality crash with another brother. Rather than make things right in a Scriptural manner , he lines up people to take his side and form a faction in the church. Things go from bad to worse and soon there is an open split.
Or perhaps it is a carnal sister who carries on a campaign of gossip and back-biting against someone else. Her slanderous tongue lashes out until the church is filled with bitterness and strife. She will not stop until a once-prosperous assembly lies in ruins.
People like this are playing a perilous game. They cannot get away with it. The Great God of the universe is commited to wreck those who wreck His assembly. Let all who are inclined beware! GOD IS NOT MOCKED!