Mal. 3:18 “Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.”
It’s not the Church in the world that is a problem; it’s the world in the church. In His prayer to the Father, Jesus spoke of His disciples and said, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” Jn. 17:15-16. The righteous is defined as the one who serves God. The wicked is defined as the one who does NOT serve Him. In our society we have tried to redefine wickedness and righteousness. The end result is that righteousness is not all that good and wickedness is ok. Malachi gives us an entirely new direction. Righteousness is serving God. We are told that the church is not a part of the world, yet in reality, too often we have brought the world into the church. We adopt the world’s thoughts, we adopt the world’s language, we adopt the world’s dress and we adopt the world’s behavior. The world hides in the facade of Christianity. In one of the kingdom parables, Jesus warned concerning this problem, Matt. 13:24. Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “”The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. ‘” In this parable the illustration shows that there is tares growing in the wheat. Jesus understood that within the kingdom there would be both good and bad. There would be righteous and unrighteous. There would be worldliness in the church. Jesus is not condoning such nor is He tolerating this behavior. He is merely waiting until the judgment to put the sickle into the field. It will not be just the world that will be judged, but also His church. “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” 1 Peter 4:17.
There will be a judgment. “And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” Heb 9:27. Notice this warning to the Hebrew brethren in Heb 10:26-27, “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.”
As Christians we must guard ourselves from becoming too involved in this world. “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.” 2 Tim. 2:4.