Overtaken In A Fault

but there is a passage near the end, beginning at 5:13, going through 6:10, that deals with spiritual maturity.

For example, look at our text, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, YE WHICH ARE SPIRITUAL, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”

This verse of scripture is so simple that if all the verses in the Bible were this simple we would not need any commentaries.

Paul is addressing this to the SPIRITUALLY MATURE Christians. He is telling those who are spiritually mature to assist weaker brothers who may be, “...overtaken in a fault...” It is obvious he is not writing to spiritual weaklings because he would not expect someone to help someone else if he could not help himself. For example-

Illus: When a man is drowning, the last thing he needs is someone trying to save him who is not able to swim. The rescuer may have the best of intentions, but all his efforts would only add to the burdens the drowning man already has.

We have many today who have fallen “out of the boat” of Christian fellowship and who need someone to pull them back in. However, only the SPIRITUALLY MATURE can do this.

In churches there are at least two kinds of people who claim to be saved and commit sins.

(1) Those who claim to be saved, but have deliberately chosen the path of sin.

Illus: That is, many backsliders in the church have sinned. They INTENTIONALLY played around in the ocean of sin too long and the undertow of temptation was too much for them to resist and it swept them into the sea of sin.

Any time a man plays around with sin, even though he may be as strong as Samson, he is going to be defeated.

These WILL NOT be RESTORED because they do not want to be RESTORED. The Bible teaches these should be disciplined. Any church that believes in the Bible has to believe in church discipline. That is, if a man or woman is living in known sin and refuses to confess it and repent (turn from it), that person should be disciplined by the church.

One of the great tragedies in the church today is that we allow the name of God to be smeared by church members who have deliberately chosen to live in sin.

The church that PREACHES THE SCRIPTURES should also be a church that PRACTICES THE SCRIPTURES. One of the things the scriptures teach is CHURCH DISCIPLINE. Why? Because there are things this Bible teaches and if we PREACH them but do not PRACTICE them, we are no more than a group of hypocrites bringing disgrace to the name of God.

Again, there are many in churches today who have DELIBERATELY chosen the path of sin and they refuse to repent and get right with God. You could go to any of these and talk to them all day long and could do no good with them. Why? Because they are “bend” on doing evil.

However, there is another kind of person who claims to be saved. Ones like these are the ones Paul was talking about. Who are these?

(2) Those who, in an unguarded moment, were overthrown by sin. They did not set out to sin any more than a man who is walking down a road sets out to fall into a pot hole.

The one who “falls into sin” is not like the person who INTENTIONALLY CHOOSES TO SIN.

Illus: Even the laws of our land make a distinction between a PRE-MEDITATED crime and one that is UN-PREMEDITATED. For instance, in the crime of murder, they recognize some murders are planned and others are not.

So we can understand that not ALL sin is premeditated. Look at the word “overtaken” This implies a particular aggressiveness. If you have been saved any length of time you know how Satan aggressively attacks us and before we know it, when we let our guard down, we fall into sin that we thought we would never find ourselves in again.

This is why Paul warned Christians, and wanted to remind them of the subtle trickery of Satan.

• This is why he told the Corinthians that, “Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light.”

• This is why he told the Ephesians to, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Why did Paul warn the Ephesians and the Corinthians about these things? Because God had shown him that there was no person who was immune to Satan’s attacks. The Christian who lets his guard down may find himself OVERTHROWN in a moment’s time by sin. When this happens to a child of God, we who are spiritual are encouraged by Paul to “restore” that one to the Lord.