Bad Company Will Corrupt You, Part 2

July, 2002

by: Jack Hughes

• Spiritual Growth

Many well-intentioned Christians have been deceived into thinking that they can spend time with bad company and not be affected. Last month we looked at I Cor. 15:33, where Paul says, Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. From this one verse we learned that it is common for believers to think that who they spend time with has no effect on their morals or doctrine. Yet, the Scriptures teach otherwise. In this Calvary Review we want to investigate this topic in more detail and look at some more Scriptures, which help explain this in more detail.

As a review, we learned that the reason bad company corrupts good morals is that Paul defines bad company in I Cor. 15:34 as those who have no knowledge of God or, in other words, unbelievers. We must not forget that unbelievers are not neutral in their relationship to God, but hostile to Him and cannot please Him (Rom. 8:5-9). They are of their father the devil and do the deeds of Satan being spiritually dead, and they cannot understand the Word of God (Jn. 8:44; I Cor. 2:14; Eph. 2:1-3). We also learned that it is faulty reasoning to try and justify having close relationships with unbelievers because “Jesus ate with tax gatherers and sinners.” Jesus did do that, but we learned that it was not to have fun with them, but to call sinners to repentance (Lk. 5:31-32). We also learned from I Cor. 5 that when a believer has their morals corrupted, they often corrupt the morals of other people in the church for a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. Sin is like leaven, in that it spreads to those that come near it.

We might think that some have their good morals corrupted by bad company because they are not very wise and if they knew "what we know" they wouldn't be corrupted. Yet, wisdom is no cure for being corrupted by bad company. Listen to what Nehemiah said to the people of his day who had sinned by marrying unbelievers. Speaking of King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, he said:

Did not Solomon king of Israel sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; nevertheless the foreign women caused even him to sin. Do we then hear about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women? (Neh. 13:26-27)

Did Solomon's great wisdom spare him from being corrupted by foreign women? No. He married unbelieving pagan women in order to create political ties with surrounding nations, but those women corrupted him and after a while he fell into idolatry! Others might argue that a person needs to have strong convictions and if they have strong convictions those convictions will allow them to escape being corrupted by bad company. It is true, we need to have strong convictions, but it is no cure against being corrupted by bad company. Listen to what Prov. 1:10-19 says:

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause; Let us swallow them alive like Sheol, Even whole, as those who go down to the pit; We will find all kinds of precious wealth, we will fill our houses with spoil; Throw in your lot with us, we shall all have one purse,” my son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path, for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood. Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net in the sight of any bird; But they lie in wait for their own blood; They ambush their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence; It takes away the life of its possessors.

Here, Solomon warns us of the perils of being led astray by bad company. Again, in Prov. 13:20, Solomon says, He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. In Prov. 14:7 he says, Leave the presence of a fool, or you will not discern words of knowledge. Prov. 22:24-25 gives us more wisdom saying, Do not associate with a man given to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man, or you will learn his ways and find a snare for yourself.

All of these verses warn against being enticed to sin. They tell us that if we hang around bad company we will lie in wait for our own blood, ambush our own lives, deal ourselves a mortal blow, suffer ourselves harm, be unable to discern the words of knowledge, learn evil ways and find a snare for ourselves! As believers we need to keep ourselves holy, which means to separate ourselves from those who will entice us to sin. Of course we cannot remove ourselves from the world. We will have contact with unbelievers as a regular course of life. But we learned from II Cor. 6:14-17 that we must be careful not to be bound, or have close intimate relationships with those who don't know Christ, for just as righteousness has no partnership with lawlessness, or light with darkness, or Christ and Satan, so a believer has nothing spiritual in common with an unbeliever.

Paul describes the corrupting influence of unbelievers as being like gangrene in II Tim. 2:16-18 when he says:

But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, men who have gone astray from the truth saying that the resurrection has already taken place, and they upset the faith of some.

In Paul's day, the only way to treat a limb that had gangrene was to cut it off. In like manner we must cut off close relationships with unbelievers as their corrupting influence upsets the faith of some.

Peter warns against this also. Speaking of the corrupting influence of false teachers and their enticements he says in II Pet. 2:2, 18-19: “Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned.”

Peter explains that one of the common enticements of false teachers is sexual pleasures, which they use as bait, to lure people away from the truth. Peter goes on to elaborate how they corrupt others in vss. 18-19 when he says:

For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

Here, the principle is clear. These people, not knowing God, being children of Satan, do not respect the morals of God, and hence they use words of vanity, they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, by promising them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. Then Peter explains that the very ones who promise freedom and “Christian liberty” are already overcome by sin and enslaved to it.

It is time to take a close look at your relationships. Who are you spending time with? Do you spend time with unbelievers? Why? Do you do it to call them to repentance or to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin? Are you involved in a relationship that is leading you away from God? If so, what are you going to do about it? Now is the time to confess your sins to God and stop being deceived, for bad company corrupts good morals.