Watch Your Associations

“4 You don’t socialize with Wicked, or invite Evil over as your houseguest.” (Psalm 5:4 MSG).

In this verse David is talking about God’s purity. The Christian Standard Bible renders this verse, “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil cannot lodge with You.”

Years ago J.B. Phillips wrote a book entitled “Your God is Too Small.” In that book Phillips discusses the many misconceptions people have about God. A.W. Tozer referred to such misconceptions as “the essence of idolatry” in his book “Knowledge of the Holy.” He said the seeds of idolatry begin with misconceived thoughts about God. Everywhere I go in our age I am amazed at the minuscule knowledge that even professed believers have about God; we have successfully de-elevated Him and made Him again after our own private images.

This de-elevation is most clearly seen in our conception of how God deals with sin. We have people today who teach that God understands and accepts certain sexual sins; preferences. In fact, we no longer want to call certain sins by their right name! Why? We’ve substituted a misconception of God, a God of wishy-washy love a God who only cares that people are happy, for the Holy God of the Bible. I heard one minister declare that God would rather have us happy than obedient. Apparently he has forgotten large portions of the Scripture including the portion found in our text.

I say all of this to make application of our text for today. How many Christians don’t follow the Biblical example and freely socialize with the wicked, inviting into their very hearts and minds the evil that God clearly condemns? I read recently of one singles group in Atlanta that has a weekly Bible study at Hooters restaurant. They need to read this passage.

Some will seek to justify such aberrant behavior saying, “But Jesus ate with sinners.” No question. The issue is not who you associate with as much as it is who you fellowship with–there is a world of difference. Jesus mingled with sinners but didn’t play with sin. We should follow that example.