Banishment

Banishment? Have you ever felt outside the group?

2 Samuel 14:13 And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished. 14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

Ezra 7:26 And whosoever will not do the law of thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment.

Lamentations 2:14 Thy prophets have seen vain and foolish things for thee: and they have not discovered thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee false burdens and causes of banishment.

Banishment means to remove or drive out by authority. It means that one may become exiled, either by force or by voluntary means.

Are you exiled?

2 Samuel 15:19 Then said the king to Ittai the Gittite, Wherefore goest thou also with us? return to thy place, and abide with the king: for thou art a stranger, and also an exile. 20 Whereas thou camest but yesterday, should I this day make thee go up and down with us? seeing I go whither I may, return thou, and take back thy brethren: mercy and truth be with thee. 21 And Ittai answered the king, and said, As the LORD liveth, and as my lord the king liveth, surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be.

Isaiah 51:14 The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.

Today, these things can mean that one has become ostricized. Many times in the church history, we here of these things happening to good Christians. Why do they happen, only the LORD knows. The one thing that we can depend upon, when we are banished, exiled or ostricized, is that the LORD will remain with us, if we are truly HIS CHILD.

The truth is we can remain captives of banishment, or we can follow the LORD.

Luke 4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. 16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.

JESUS is our REDEEMER, and HE never forsakes us! AMEN.

AMEN, GloryB. The LORD is GOOD to us, and I am glad that HE has brought you here, too!

Many of us have followed the wrong crowd. We don't realize it until the party ends, and then you don't see or hear from "friends".

Christians are not immune to this within the Christian community. We have seen good, godly people, exiled from thier Church. What is the terminology? Oh, yes, I remember. It is called:

Excommunication

The diffiniton according to Merriam Webster Dictionary:

1. an ecclesiastical censure depriving a person of the rights of church membership

2. exclusion from fellowship in a group or community