Removing a person from church membership is what a church must do when the reverberating of God’s Word appears to have grown utterly silent in someone’s heart. Given a choice between obedience to God’s Word and a particular sin, the individual chooses the sin. And he shows no sign of wanting to do otherwise. It’s not any sin, of course. It’s an unrepentant sin. It’s a serious sin. And it’s a sin that can be seen with the eyes or heard with the ears. The Lord has not given us the ability to judge the heart, so a church should not discipline for suspected sins of the heart, like pride or greed. We can only assess by external fruit (Matt. 3:8; 7:17-20). But based on that external fruit, discipline must happen when a person’s profession of faith in God’s gospel Word no longer appears credible.