Father, we are glad to be able
to sing songs that teach truth. Lord, the truth of the gospel,
the truth of your Word. Father, we pray for those who
are lost in this world, those who seem to be so far away that
there's no hope for them. There's hope in Christ alone. Father, burn inside of us a fire
that kicks the idols of this world off the cliff. Or that we might live fully for
you and all that we do. Father, we pray that we would
be the voice of the gospel, that we would go and preach to the
lost world, that they might be saved. Father, I pray for those
who are traveling today, Lord, specifically the Smiths, Father,
and Others who are not able to be here because of illness and
other obligations. Lord, I pray for our communities. For the efforts that you place
in our hearts to reach them and to study the word together and
father that. We know that the darkness will
not overcome the light, and so we do not lose hope, but we stand
not worried and burdened, but blessed. And worship. And as we look today at a very
controversial issue, Lord, about rebuking false teachers. Oh,
God, let us not forget that if it weren't for your grace. And
if we decide that we are truly right so much that our pride
steps in our way, we will fall right back into that hole. So
we thank you and humbly we ask that you would speak to us through
your word today. In Jesus name, Amen. Thank you, Church. Titus chapter one. I know that some of you were. Thinking, wow, I thought we'd
be. Moved on a little bit and it won't be long now, you might
say, well, there's a lot more to say here in terms of words,
but thought It's about to get real fast and get up into chapter
two soon. But in Titus chapter one, we've
learned over the last five weeks. Who we are. Who God is, who Christ
is, who it is that Christ calls. To what end and what purpose,
what sound doctrine is and why it's essential, who the pastors
of the church should be and what qualifies them to do so. We've seen the positive and the
negative of the elders. We've seen the fact that we are
stewards of God's word. Thus, we are stewards of God's
face, his character, his nature. And if he, God, who does not
lie promised, than we who teach God's word must not lie either.
Whether it be intentional or not intentional, if we do not
preach the truth or teach the truth, we are liars and we make
God to be liars, even though we may lie in ignorance. As you'll
see in this introduction and then into really down into verse
sixteen, We've read through this several times over the last few
weeks, and you'll find as you read scripture over and over,
it begins to become more palatable, becomes more observable. It becomes more. You have the
ability to be able to digest it more. We had our end times
look yesterday and had some folks here, some of you guys are here
and. We looked at all the different views of in times interpretation
and different views of the millennium and different views of the rapture
and different views of judgment, different views of the kingdom
of heaven and the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Earth
and all of these things. And then we looked fully at proper
understanding of interpretation and began to ask questions on
how we can filter the scripture specifically in those particular
genres. for that particular genre and
filter it through proper understanding of the scripture as a whole.
And I made the comment that if if everyone would go and listen
to the reading of the book of Revelation. You would hear it
for the first time. Because in all honesty, most
of us have really just sort of read it with an ear to hear something
that we wanted to find. or with an eye to try to seek
out something hidden that wasn't obvious to us before and probably
never in our lives as we have we ever heard someone just read
it as it was intended to be heard. The same is true for Titus Paul
writing to Titus. We can get so bogged down in
the fullness of the little Johnson titles of our argument here are
the sentences of the syntax of the grammar or the discussion
that we can miss the full picture. So I want to encourage you to
read through not just the first chapter of Titus every week,
but read through Titus and go online and listen to someone
else read Titus or let someone else in your home read Titus
to you. It would take about eight minutes if you read it at a good
pace. It probably be faster if I read it to you and my auctioneer
voice. But it's not going to take long.
You would hear the word and then as we came to it today see for
me reading it Not necessarily that we would exposit everything
we can't preach all five chapters all the time every time we turn
around and So in what attempt to understand it fully We must
read it on an ongoing basis Now there was a little Mistruth there
how many of you have read chapters four and five of Titus I? Because
they're not there. It's like turning to the book
of, you know, the 32nd chapter of John. You know how many times
I've done something like that and people will flip, flip, flip.
It's not that we don't know, it's just we're not thinking.
And when someone stands up here and they say, hey, do this or
think this or believe that or listen to this, we just do it.
We just do it. We just do it. I've been in conferences
before with the speaker. They're going to take up money.
Maybe you've seen something sort of like this, possibly even in
the church, where it says, I want everybody to put down their items
and take out your wallet. Ladies, you take out your wallet.
Men, you take it. Ever seen anything like that? Take out your wallet.
Now look inside there and in your mind, picture the largest
bill that you see. And then they'll do that. And I've been in it. I've been
in it with my wallet. I'm like, oh, I should have broke that
up because I know what's coming. And you say, all right, put your
hands on it, put your fingers on it. See it, pull it out just
a little bit. Now, pass your wallet to the
left. Now, you take that money to stack it out, put it in the
plate. I mean, I've seen that. I've been a part of that. And
it's a little rude because I'm like, yeah, right. Put it back.
Here's your dollar, you know, for the concession stand because
we've got to pay for this conference. No, I paid $350 to come here.
I shouldn't have to take an offering to, you know, stuff like that.
But people do that stuff, and for the most part, they get a
lot more money that day because people just follow along. Guys,
it's very... You might say, well, I'm not
just following along. Yes, you are. You follow along when I teach and when I
talk. You just follow along. You follow along. And that's
good. It's called paying attention and being observant. But be a
Berean. Listen to what's being said and
ask yourself, how does he know that? Is it there? And if it's
not, confront me with it, because that's what we're going to talk
about today. And understand that when you hear the word rebuke
and when you hear the word false teacher, Oftentimes, because
of how we're how we're wired personally, our temperament,
we may think something different than what is actually meant or
what's actually been said. So if I say the word rebuke,
most people, especially children and young adults, think it as
a negative thing. Are you going to get in my face?
But the Bible very clearly says rebuke is something that you
do gently. That you admonish one another, you warn and you
guide and you discipline. Now, when you go in and start kicking
people out of church, that's not very gentle, but it is in
spirit. Discipline. We think it's punitive.
Most people think it's punitive. Are you going to discipline me?
I'll punish. You're not punished. Discipline and punishment are
totally separate things. Discipline of God is always corrected. It's always great. It's always
to grow us and mold us and bring us. And so from that perspective,
when you think of false teaching, we automatically do the same
thing we do when we think of rebuke or discipline. We think
of negative heretics, satanic people who are just out there
trying to stir trouble. And I would tell you that Paul
is talking about those people. But what we do is that we have
a very wide brush about the size of Georgia and we brush everyone
who says anything that's not necessarily absolutely true or
we make inference on what has been said and we go that false
teacher and we just brush them right over. And we think they're
skunks when really they're cats that walked underneath the painted
bar. Looney Tunes reference there, Pepe Le Pew. And we don't want to do anything
to deal with it, or either we go above and beyond. And instead
of talking to somebody, we just get decided we're going to open
up. So we're going to open us a blog. And we're going to just
that whole purpose of this blog and the whole purpose for our
YouTube channel, the whole purpose of our Facebook posts are just going
to be slamming people and talking bad about people. Listen, there
is nothing in Scripture that gives us that type of thing.
And so I say all that to prep us, because as we talk about
the if I were to title entitled today's sermon, It would be stewards
of God's word. Correct. Wrong. Correct, wrong, wrong teaching,
wrong living, wrong thinking. Corrected. They correct. Not
only do they correct that, they have to correct it. It's not
a choice. Paul doesn't say there, as you'll
see in a minute, if you want to, it's a command. So let's
look at this text. I want to start at the beginning,
verse one, I want to go down and just read the first chapter one
more time. Paul, the servant of God and
an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's
elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with
godliness and hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies,
promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested
his word through the preaching, which I have been entrusted by
the command of God, our Savior, to Titus, my true child and a
common faith, grace and peace from God, the Father and Christ
Jesus, our Savior. This is why I left you in Crete,
so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders
in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach,
the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not
open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer,
as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant,
nor quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain,
but he must be hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright,
holy and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy
word is taught so that he may be able to give instruction and
sound doctrine and also rebuke those who contradict it. For
there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers,
especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced. Since they are upsetting whole
families by teaching for shameful gain, what they ought not to
teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet
of their own, said Cretans are always liars, evil beasts and
lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore,
command, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the
faith. Not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands
of people who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things
are pure. But to the defiled and unbelieving,
nothing is pure. But both their minds and their
consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but
they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient,
unfit for every good work. So it's it's easy to get your
heart pumping here. Oh, yeah. Come on, false teacher. Ninja swords out. I'm coming
for you. We just start chopping. The word
of God is like Hebrews, a double edged sword that cuts bone and
flesh and marrow and soul. And that's what we want. We don't want one sword, we want
two swords for the left and the right. You see the imagery that
I'm just quoting some scripture. Weapons of righteousness in the
both the left and the right, you know, the sword of the spirit.
We're going to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. And
my friend, you are he. And so, you know, we're just
we're ready just to pull in there and turn to Edward Scissorhands
and make confetti, cross cut confetti out of everybody who
doesn't think and believe the same way we do. It's it's the
way we think. Friends, there is nothing in
that example. That was according with God,
with with with Paul's heart when he wrote this to Titus. For the
most part, I want you to understand and I'm going to go to first
Timothy chapter one, I'm going to flip back into not necessarily
like in a parallel, but in some sense, I want you to understand
what Paul teaches Timothy is the very same thing he teaches
Titus. But Paul teaches Timothy something specifically for some
individuals. Paul teaches Titus for a large group of people.
And if there's ever been a day where false teaching is absolutely
pervade and mass communicative style is today, nobody had a
voice. Nobody had a voice 20 years ago,
literally. Unless you were published, or
unless you had a column in a paper, or unless you had access to a
public television network, or had a lot of money, you didn't
have a voice. But now, the nobodies of nothing-ville have a voice
bigger than the everybodies of everywhere. Because all you've
got to do is know how to work the system. All you've got to
do is know how to put the right SEO factors into your headers, and
in 10 to 12 hours, you can be in the top five of Google if
you know what you're doing. So when somebody searches for
something, you can put yourself there if you want to be. So anybody
can have a voice and everybody's got a voice, and it's amazing
to me that as someone who has written for years and years and
years and years, I really, in some sense, write to a specific
people, but it seems so funny that those people don't read
it, but everybody else does. And then when we read what we
find, we we end up chiming in and getting a whole bunch of
other opinions. And then the next thing you know, there's an interbread
fighting amongst the brethren rather than an absolute response
to the scripture and dealing with what is false. False teaching
is never going to go away. False doctrine is never going
to leave. There's never going to be a time in any particular
place and in a particular congregation, in a particular spot in the world
where everything that goes on in the hearts and minds of every
single person that's together is pure. and perfect. There's
never going to be a congregation that's the right one. There's
never going to be a scholar or a theologian or a pastor who's
got all of his ducks in a row when it comes to right teaching.
So what do you do? Well, you stand in your little
hut and your little cave on the top of your little hill with
your own little church and your own little living room, and you keep telling
everybody that you're right and they're wrong and see how far
you get with being obedient to God. You must say, well, that's
a little harsh. Well, that's my story. That's
my story. That's where I felt like I was
15 years ago. Everybody else was just an idiot.
I had all the answers, had it right. And if they would just
listen to me for 10 minutes, I'd straighten them all out.
See how that's. And I'd like to say it was youthful ignorance,
it was just pride. I want to tell you, I have I've been disqualified
many times the shepherd, but yet I continue to stay in the
office because I didn't even know how to read the Bible to
tell if I was disqualified at a particular moment. It's there. So what do we want to see here?
Well, we know that first Titus left was left in Crete to appoint
elders in every city as he was commanded by Paul. Why? Because
he needed to keep things in order. Part of that order is to keep
sound teaching. Last week, if you did not hear
last week's sermon, you need to go listen to it. And I know I
ranted a lot in some sense and went a little bit longer and
just and in my slumberous stupor, I'm thankful that God is faithful. But even if I misspeak, I want
you just to say, oh, wow, I didn't really look for patterns, look
for consistency and see what the word of God says. But God
Paul tells us he went and he's telling Titus put elders in every
city to keep it in order. Part of that order is to maintain
right teaching, because the right teaching is the only way that
the church sanctifies itself through through the desire to
be holy before God. If we live in the face of God
and we're not sitting under sound doctrine, And by the way, no
doctrine is false doctrine. No biblical exposition is false
biblical exposition. If I say turn to Romans chapter
one and then I give you ten ways in which you can really start
to worship God and one of them is to, you know, set your clocks
early on Sunday. Well, I mean, that might be a
good practical way of getting your life in order, but that's
not what the Bible teaches. So why are we saying that this
is the Bible? And I'm saying that Somewhat sarcastically,
but I am offering a review for those who would think that that's
good preaching. And at the same time, when I say it's not good
preaching, I'm not saying, listen to this, this is good, but it's
not good. This is just this is just me talking about what God's
word says. And by the grace of God, prayerfully,
the spirit of God will speak to you through it. And if I'm
wrong, then maybe I'll die. That's my prayer. But maybe before
I die, some of you come and say, well, let's straighten this out
because it's and it's happened before. There's been many times
where people have had to come to me through the years and say,
what do you mean by that? I don't I don't quite follow
you. And some people have not even been that nice. That's how
I say things now. But they've not been that nice.
You know what? You're just you're a heretic. That's usually what
it says. You don't believe the Bible. That's the last one I
got. You don't even believe the Bible. So what part? The maps? The concordance, the note section,
I don't believe anything written in there, nothing in there. So what's the what's the point?
What's the point of of dealing with false teaching? Well, look
at this. He must be verse nine. He must
hold firm to trust what the word is taught so they may be able
to give instruction and sound doctrine, sound teaching, and
also to rebuke those who contradict it. Now, the good news is this. That Paul didn't leave it open
for us to interpret what the contradiction was. Paul didn't
sit there and say, you know what, if people contradict what you
think is right, then you just rebuke them. And Paul also didn't
leave it open for us to know what rebuke meant and how we
are to do it. It's there. It's prior to that
very statement. And then how we are to rebuke
is before that and why we are to rebuke is after that. So let's
look at it. So first, how are we to rebuke? How are we to rebuke? Look back.
What does an overseer must be? First, we need to go back to
the introduction and see the reality that as a steward of
God's word, we are the ones who give life. You hold the keys
to heaven and hell. Do you remember those words?
Whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven. Whatever
you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Peter, it is not man
who has told you these things, but the Spirit of God. The church
is the steward of salvation. God doesn't just go with his
Holy Spirit and blow wind when Benny Hinn blows his blanket
on the stage and saves people. Nobody's ever been saved by being
blown down by a blanket or a coat. Nobody's ever been shot like
a Pokemon and blown back and wake up a Christian. Nobody's
going to bed and then through intercessory prayer, woken up,
regenerated. Everybody who's ever been saved
in the history of humanity, even Adam and Eve, have been saved
by faith in the faithfulness of God and the promise of salvation
alone. Now, in the New Testament, we
know that promise is Jesus Christ, God, our Savior. And we also
know that God has never changed the way he saves people, nor
has he changed the covenant of salvation, though it was hidden,
now revealed. But what God does is that now
that the covenant is there, we proclaim the covenant of which
I preach to you, that which we have seen, that which, you know,
we were once dead, God has made alive. How? By hearing of the
word of Christ. And then through hearing, through
preaching and sharing and teaching the word, not a little, not a
quip, not a saying, not a not a pretext, but the context of
the gospel from the word of God, because we hear that when the
spirit of God blows in the hearts of the hearers, they get real
ears to really hear and they're born again. And they exercise
faith. Why? Because they've been born
again and they repent of their sin continually. Why? Because
they've been born again. They've been made alive. They're
no longer dead in their sins. They're alive. And so the reason that
we are to rebuke or the how are we to rebuke, it's we're we're
commanded to do so. And the spirit in which we rebuke
comes from the reality that Jesus Christ and his character and
his person and salvation is in the balance. False teaching is
an unloving thing. If we're hungry and let's say
we have an orphanage and we've got a hundred children in our
orphanage and we don't have enough food to go around. So what we
do and the staff needs to eat, the children are half sick anyway. And so what we do is we feed
them. Just organic matter as much as we can, we mix up some
salt or some dirt or some leaves or some grass out of the yard,
and we give it to the children and tell them it's lemonade,
and then we drink milk. And then we sit down behind closed
doors and we eat a full meal while we give them some bread
and a little small thing of water. And we're like, we're feeding
them, but they're not going to live that way. And it's not loving. Love said, I'll give my food
to you. I'll die that you could live. And so to not correct false
teaching or unteaching. Is wicked. Because it's hateful,
it's saying to someone who sits under the teaching of someone
who says, let's say it's the Lord for your power, for your
glory, for your salvation, for your edification, and they don't
give it. And for us to go, well, stinks
for them. I'm going to eat the buffet. But let me get you off the hook.
There's a problem in ecclesiology in America. When every church
thinks their autonomy means that they're special under themselves,
autonomy, meaning that they you know, we don't go up to the church
down the street and say, hey, I need to do this. They do what
they feel like doing, but the word of God commands them to
do what they have to do. The Word of God commands us.
The Word of God does not leave it open for interpretation and
congregationalism to decide what's taught and how it's taught and
what's important, what's vital, what's foundational and what's
food. The menu has been set and the table has been set and the
one who cooking it has been said he's serving us. The problem
is, is when we see Crete, we see all the elders in every city,
they are the elders plural over the church singular. See the problem? Yeah, it's about
denominations. No, denominations are important
because at least we can delineate what we believe on certain aspects
of things. But it doesn't mean we don't. I mean, are we are
the Methodist saved or the Baptist saved? I think it's going to
be a real shock when we get to heaven and find neither. Because we won't have those labels.
We'll either be in Christ or we'll be Baptist in hell. We'll
be there in Christ or we'll be Methodist reprobate. So I'm not
saying that it's just a nomination stuff, that's where all this
undenominational non-denominational stuff is coming from. I'm just
saying that we we're a long ways from even being able to affect
this. And either either we're going to have to do something
radically different. Or we're going to have to accept
it the way it is, which is it? But if we do review, then we
have to review, not in this way, not In a sense, it would bring
us in a reproach, not in the sense that we'd be insubordinate
to the word of God, not in a sense where our children become hateful
and unruly, not a sense that that that we would be arrogant
or quick tempered or angry or violent or greedy for gain. We don't rebuke in that spirit,
but we rebuke in the spirit of being hospitable. We rebuke in
the spirit of being a lover of good, of being self-controlled,
upright, holy, righteous, an example of Christ. Friends, Jesus in the temple,
when he cleansed the temple twice. Out of all his ministry, he did
that twice. It wasn't his ministry. And those
things pointed to the bigger picture of him having the authority
from God the Father to straighten out the religion of man. To show that worship wasn't worship
anymore. To correct false teaching. We must rebuke those who contradict
sound doctrine. We must rebuke those who contradict
things. Now, let me tell you, in the
context of being contradictory. There's two sides of that coin,
and I've already alluded to it, one side is I'm going to refute
what you teach, and the other side is just by the fact that
I don't teach or teach differently, I don't even know what you teach.
I'm refuting what you teach. Sister mentioned to me yesterday
that her Old Church is now preaching specifically by name against
any church who would be called Grace Truth Church. You know, the Grace Truth Churches
of the world. Have you read John's Gospel?
Isn't that odd? I don't even know the man. God
bless you. So who are we to rebuke? And for what? Look at verse 10.
And then we'll go back to somehow, for there are many. You see that
in Timothy chapter one there in verse nine, it says there
are insubordinate men. Certain individuals have turned
aside here in Titus one. There are insubordinate men,
futile talkers. And he says many. Many who are
insubordinate, for instance, that's not changed. There are
many today. So a false teacher, by the very
nature that they teach falsely or ignorantly or not teach. They are insubordinate to whom? To the word of truth as taught. They do not stand and hold firm
to the trustworthy word is taught. So they're insubordinate to the
authority over them, which is the word of God, who is Jesus
Christ, who is the God of heaven. They are insubordinate men and
they are many. Now, look at what they say. Versus
teaching sound doctrine, they teach empty words, emptiness,
worthless things, vain things, absolute garbage. An hour goes
by and they said nothing about God, nothing about his glory,
nothing about of any substance at all. Why? Well, they're deceivers. They go in and what they're trying
to do is they're trying to get people to think the way they
think. They're trying to patronize their own hearts and make people
think that they are indeed doing what God has called them to do.
I heard a pastor four years ago. In this area, as I sat in the
auditorium and listened to him, because their land was partially
leased, they owned the building, but the land that it was on was
partially leased and the man wanted to actually take away
the lease for where all of their parking was. And this pastor
stood in the pulpit and says, Come on, church, let's come to
the altar and let's pray that God will give us the land. And
I think, OK, I guess it's not a bad prayer. Here's our needs.
We're going to pray. And then when he prayed, he prayed that
God would give us the land, even if he had to kill and take it
away from the man who owned it. Really, imprecatory prayers for
an unbeliever? What do you do? Is that really
what we do? Is that a deceiver? You betcha
it's a deceiver. You throw some wild ivy down,
buddy. Next year, it's taking over your
house. Where'd your house go? And that's what's happening here.
We got self-proclaimed pastors and self-proclaimed churches
and self-proclaimed things. And let's not try to sit down
and figure out who's what, who's what, who's who and why they're
there. But these deceivers, they are
deceiving people. So from Paul's perspective, these
people, as they taught falsehood, are intentionally being deceptive.
Why? because they've already been
reviewed. They've already heard the truth for crying out loud,
the apostles planted the churches. You think they screwed it up?
You know, they'll whisper down the lane if we start over here
and then whisper something in each other's ear when it gets
over there to Jacob. You know, I like peanut butter, toe jam
and aspirin. I mean, by the end of the thing
is what we end up with. So as it tickles down the aisle
and whisper, you only get one shot here and one shot to say
it. You know, tell them what it will be. But that wasn't the
case here in the first century. Paul and the disciples and the
apostles planted these churches and taught these elders. And
now there are people that were out of that, had professed to
be Christians and joined the churches. And now they are deceiving
people with false teaching. Specifically, look, those are
the circumcision party. Who are those? Oh, those are
those are those are those are the Jews. They were Jews, but
they were Jews who professed to be in the faith. And they
were part of the church and creed. And they held to circumcision
as a badge of honor, not that they weren't the Judaizers. Now,
the circumcision is mandatory. These are the circumcision party.
You notice it's not a proper now. This is what Paul calls
them. That's probably their name. Then these are the ones who,
because they were circumcised, they looked at it as a way. Look,
we were those that had the oracles of God and the covenant of God.
And we're circumcised. Now we're circumcised in the
heart. Look, oh, double, double. It's that second blessing, the
anointing. I wonder how many people would
want the second blessing if it meant circumcision at 40. This pride and this arrogance.
Not humble, not a steward, not self-control, not upright, not
loving, not hospitable, but arrogant and deceptive. They are ruining
people's lives. Look at verse 11. How must they
be reviewed? They must be silenced. That word there means to gag
the mouth and throat. That's the word that Paul used. I don't see it anywhere else,
but here in the Greek gag them. Now, I'm sure Paul is not saying
go time up and take their mouths closed, but in the way of reviewing
them, they must be silenced. Why? Because this false teaching
was upsetting whole families. Have you ever had doctrine divide
your home? Yeah, you know, it's crazy. I
remember when the Lord showed me. Through the study of his
word. Some of the things that we would
now call the doctrines of grace and sharing these with my friends
and sharing these with my staff and sharing these, my fellow
elders and sharing these with my wife and all of a sudden there's
division at home, ministry and the community. And I have a conversation
at Starbucks with three people. Man, look what the Lord showed
me about John 3. What do you think, brothers? Coffee'd go cold, the argument
got so bad. And then two days later, we're
meeting up again, and there's somebody else. It's like the
Jehovah's Witnesses have been invaded, because they've got some expert
now. Brother, you've got to get rid of this heresy. Oh, you're
just a. And then they want to accuse
me and it doesn't change. Let's just preach the word of
God. Let's share the gospel. If we share the gospel, we preach
the word of God, we disciple people. And then all of a sudden
you're being divisive. You're divisive. You're tearing
families apart. We're not tearing families apart.
The truth does cut the family apart, but why? Because people
hold on to false doctrines so hard. It's not the false, it's
not the truth that tears it up. It's the pride and the arrogance
and the self-righteous profit of false teaching. I've known
this my whole life and I'm not changing now, but here God himself
comes out here and changes my heart. I've seen people get up and slam
their hands on tables. I'm 77 years old and ain't nobody
going to tell me what's right and wrong. That's a verbatim
quote from somebody in my past. And I'm standing there with tears
running down my face saying, brother, would you just listen to what
you said? Why is it a problem? That sermon you preached two
weeks ago, you questioned my salvation and that ain't none
of your dang business. I said, it's all of my business
because I love you. I laugh at it. The Lord has given
him enough grace to see some truth. He's one of many. They're upsetting whole families
by teaching for shameful gain, what they all want to teach,
what does that mean? Well, let's let's put it in perspective here.
Let's do the obvious shameful gain. When you think of gain,
what do you think you think of money and wealth material? And
so, you know, we think about what John says in 1 John 2, starting
verses 15 through 17, he lists out these things that are gainful.
And so we'll go through those for a minute and we'll look at
what it might be that false teachers would do for shameful gain. One
is that as you teach wrong stuff, if the Bible says, it's sort
of like we said yesterday about these these pre-tribulation rapture
type mindset. And the reason that they would
argue that is because God's not going to allow his people to
suffer. Really? The whole of the New Testament is that you're
going to suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer, suffer. And I'm not going
to take you out of the suffering. I'm going to give you glory because
of it. And then it's the suffering that
sanctifies us. It's the suffering that prepares us for works of
ministry. It's the suffering that kills idols. It's the suffering
that makes us strong. It's the suffering that brings
strength in marriage. It's the suffering that brings boldness
and courage. It's suffering that takes away the pains of just
having to deal with insecurities. It's the suffering that gives
us the peace of God. It's through suffering that Christ gave you
life. And it's through suffering that we identify with him. It's
through suffering that we get out of temptation. It's through
suffering that we learn to pray. It's through suffering that we
learn to preach. You want to know something about
people, you sit down with them one on one and you ask them this
question. Tell me about your suffering. Three times in my life, I've
had people say, I don't really have it. One time in my life,
I've had somebody Tell me that they never had any, they don't
have a problem in the world. I said, well, then tell me about
your burdens. I don't have a burden. I have no burdens, no burdens. What about burden for the lost?
What about burden for prayer? What about burden for being holy?
What about burden to see the Lord? I'm not talking about worry.
I'm talking about just this pressure that pushes down on you that's
always top of mind that Christ takes. Your burdens, you don't
have any. Are you that spiritual? You mean
Christ has taken them all? And he's like, no, I just looked
at my life and everything's great. So what is shameful gain? Well,
if you preach the truth of the gospel, if you preach the truth
of the sovereignty of God, especially in suffering, you're not going
to get people to want to come follow you over the cliff. But
if you teach a gainful gospel. The reason that you're suffering
is because you don't have faith. Trust God. I'm doing that. You know what? Put him to the
test. Give me your money. See how that works? Shameful
game. So that's the materials of the
world. What about the power? Shameful game. Is it is it cool to be famous
for being hated and you're not a criminal? Infamy goes a long way in this
world. People idolize gangsters and thugs and criminals and serial
killers, and they read and write and watch movies about them,
all this kind of stuff. But if you're a God-fearing person
who loves people and are willing to lay your life down for them,
when's the last miniseries that was ever written? And don't throw
me out the window when I say this, but when's the last miniseries
that was ever written about Mother Teresa and her work in Calcutta?
Just benevolence doesn't get noticed. Much less right teaching
of the Word of God. When's the last time you watched
the news and the headlines were filled with all the good works
of people who cared for one another when they were sick? When's the last time A&E or MTV
or whatever decided to do a series called The Humble Pastors of
Southeast Georgia? No, they want to do The Wealthy
Mega Church Pastors of L.A. Seven, eight, nine homes, hundreds
of millions, billion dollars at the cost of their own congregation.
And yet there are people who say, why would you say that?
Why would you talk about it? Because they're teaching false
doctrine, deceiving people, ruining lives for shameful gain. Power. It feels good to the sinful flesh
to be elevated above God. Isn't that the sin of Satan? I'll become like you. I will
sit next to you. I will ascend your mountain. And that was why Eve fell, and
that's why Adam fell, and that's why you and I fell. And that's
why we needed a Savior, Jesus Christ, the righteous, who humbled
himself in obedience to the Father to live a holy life, that he
might be an ample and worthy sacrifice to take the suffering
that is due us. They must be silenced as they're
upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they must
not teach. So now, if we stopped here. We wouldn't really understand
a whole lot. Epimenides said this about his own people, one
of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, verse 12, Cretans
are always liars, evil beasts and lazy gluttons. Now, here
we've got Jews in Crete being called Cretans. false teachers. Alexander Clement and Jerome
both alluded to this statement. Paul quoted this statement. And then he says in verse 13,
this testimony is true. These people are liars and gluttons
and lazy and evil. Therefore, because it is true,
because they are doing this, look what he says here, rebuke
them sharply. I see most of us can get a hold
of that, can't we? Most of us can get can can can
almost sing that song in perfect pitch. We know what that sounds
like. We know what preacher looks like. He's on a roll and he's
just fine. It's just, oh, yeah, that's how we're going to do
it. No, there's a difference in exposition and preaching,
communication and sharp rebuke. Because sharp rebuke comes from humility and lowliness and
forgiveness. Because look, why rebuke them
sharply? So that they may be sound in
the faith. He didn't say rebuke them sharply
so we stick a gag in their mouth and kick them in the ocean. He
says rebuke them sharply that we stick a gag in their mouth
that they may correct their teaching. that they may be sound in the
faith. We want to rebuke them sharply,
but see, the rebuke comes humbly, then where does the sharply come
from? From God's word. Let God be the one that slaps. They do not love you because
they do not love me, they hate you because they first hated
me. Anyone who desires to live a
godly life will be persecuted, will suffer. The sharpness of rebuke doesn't
come to the attitude of the one who rebukes. There's been a lot
of talk in the last few weeks about the polemic preaching. What that means is standing up
here and saying, today I'm going to preach a sermon about Joel
Osteen. Today I'm going to preach a sermon about Benny Hinn. Today
I'm going to preach a sermon about Joyce Meyer. Today I'm
going to preach a sermon about whoever. I'm going to preach
a sermon about those Grace Truth Searches. Is there a place for that interjection? Yes. But is that a sermon? No.
It's a sermon when they're named. It's a sermon here. The Cretans,
the Jewish, the Circumcision Party, The false teachers, who
are they? How does that apply to us today?
So the rebuke comes. How are they rebuked? What does
Paul tell Timothy? Correct them. First Timothy,
chapter one. I'd get to chapter one, I'd be
there. There we go. Verse three is, I urge you, when
I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may change
certain, charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. Nor to devote themselves to myths
and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than
the stewardship from God that is by faith. The aim of our charge
is what? Hate? Ridicule? Humiliation? No, the aim of our
charge is love. that issues from a pure heart
and that is issued from a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving
from these, have wandered away into vain discussion. Do you
know what vain discussion is? Worthless chatter. Empty words. Desiring to be teachers of the
law without understanding either what they're saying or the things
about which they make confident assertions. Now, we know that
the law is good. One uses it lawfully, understanding
this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the
lawless and disobedient and ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and
profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for
murderers, for sexually immoral men who practice homosexuality
and slavers, liars, perjurers and whatever else is contrary
to sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel of the glory
of the blessed God in which I have been entrusted. And Timothy continues and Paul
continues to tell Timothy in chapter two to pray for people.
And he says this, I desire them that in every place men should
pray. Lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling, likewise
also women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with mosques
and self-control, not with braided hair, gold, pearls, costly attire,
but for what is proper with women. He talks about the teaching over
women. He talks about other things and how it's pleasing to God. Right before that, at the end
of chapter one, he talks about those two who have left the faith and
he's handed them over to Satan. They may learn not to blaspheme.
But in all these things, we who are in Christ hold good and to
the sound teaching that our actions and behavior may prove such things. And we look at those who don't
live that way and we say, well, why don't they live that way?
Because they're not being instructed with sound teaching. So another
way that someone is profitable by bad gain, shameful gain, is
that they're able to gain a debased lifestyle by teaching wrong doctrine.
They're able to just have filthy lucre and look at what I have
and look at the stuff that I got from you. Because you've got
faith. Well, why don't I have that way?
Not enough, I guess. Give me, give me, give me. Rebuke them sharply that they
may be sound in the faith, not verse 14, very much sounds like
what I just read out of Timothy, not devoting themselves to Jewish
myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
So what are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to do when
we know that there are people out there? Teaching false stuff,
so. Should I start a blog, you might
ask? Should I start a video channel from YouTube and just start going
in the phone book and listen to sermons of every church and
that be my call to correct the wrong teaching of the world?
No, never. Not God's will. First and foremost,
who is Paul talking to? Those who put into order what
remains. Now be careful. The command of
Scripture to correct false teaching is from those who teach what
is right. The elders of the church are to protect the church. It's
not up for the congregations to go spread out like a virus
and just start trying to cleanse false teaching. And never is it orderly to publicly
rebuke anyone without first privately trying to correct. So I'll take
it off your heart and your chest right now. Friends, it didn't
call of you to correct false teachers as a habit. But as the pastors of the tribe,
the elders of the church teach sound doctrine and unsound doctrine
creeps up amongst us, we are to fend that off. What kind of unsound doctrine
could possibly come up here? You'd be surprised. Some of you
probably have some that you haven't even let us know yet. We'll get
to it one day, but when it does come, how hard would it be? Is
if you said something that was absolutely innocent in your understanding,
for example, I had this told me years ago. About the sacrifice
of Jesus Christ. Specifically, that Jesus, it's
almost modalism, Jesus was not gone, and so after the resurrection.
And I looked at this person and I thought to myself, oh, dear
heaven, about to splash holy water on her and stab her with
a spike, you know, a vampire or something. I didn't know what
to do. And we're in a room full of people. And, oh, you know,
Jesus, he wasn't God until after the resurrection. He's just a
man. OK, how do I do that? So I go
to her and we have a meeting. I said, I'd love to talk to you
more about that. What I wanted to do was just, you know, that I
was like, God, just burst into flames and let everybody see
that was false. And some of the brethren come up and say, you
know what she said? Oh my God, we better drag her out and start
her now! And I'm like, just chill out, dude. I've heard you say
stuff like that, too. I mean, there's a humility there.
There's a correctiveness. There's a protection. But it's
not like a lion has jumped in and started devouring people.
Yeah, then you might have to move, move, move. But just because
someone makes a comment doesn't mean they're really trying to
deceive. It could be, but you need to find out. And so the
elders of the church met with them. And what this person told
her and her husband, And she says, I just can't in my mind
understand how God could die. So he must not have been God
until after he came back. Wow, that's that's almost a childlike. Theory, and it's actually pretty
sound logically, so let me show you how that God died and we
and she just couldn't believe it. I mean, and not to say that
she understood it, but she was willing to say, OK, you're right,
he was God. from birth forever, never thought about, never been
taught anything differently, never been taught anything about
the doctrines of the incarnation, the eternality, the immutability,
the immutability of Christ, the preexistence, the preeminence
of Christ, nothing. Probably had Colossians memorized
it. What are those words mean? They're just part and essence.
They just they just come. So what do you do? Well, another
time we had we had a lot of different people would come on Sunday nights
in California, specifically in a lot of people, a lot of people,
lots of faith, Muslims and JWs and others. And it was really
it was interesting. It was fearful sometimes. And sometimes you'd have people
that would bring some issues up that We're flat out bad. We had a conference, probably
once a quarter, and one of these gentlemen brought four or five
people with him and he was sound in the faith. And then after
about a year, he started believing in a. A full preterism on a very
bad end. And what that means is that everything
that would ever happen in prophecy has all been fulfilled. And we
are living in the new heaven and the new earth now. Therefore,
we are not bound to obedience. This was his logic. We're not
bound to the obedience of the law. It is gone. It has passed
away. And that justified him having
multiple girlfriends and going to bars and doing drugs and being
greedy and just The Lord's already got me. I'm just going to enjoy
life. This is paradise. New sign of the cross. I mean,
I don't know what to do. What do you do? So we sit down with
this guy and because he gets loud in our conversation and
then begins to start talking to others during the breaks about
how what was just said from the conference is just not true.
Let me show you in the Bible and these other books how this
is true and that's true. We had to get a little public
with that. A little harsher with that. Brother,
you need to leave. You are uninvited to this conference
if you can't be quiet, you can be quiet and you can stay and
we can talk about this later or you can leave. He left and
when we graduated our conference, we look out there and there's
stuff all over everybody's windshields, little papers and tracks and
what an apologist, what an evangelist. The gospel of debauchery. So
we sit down and we get a couple of pastors in the area and we
go to them and persona non grata. If you don't repent of this,
that means if you step back on this property, we will pick you
up physically and take you off of it. Well, that is very Christian. Oh, that is so loving. You have
no idea. Do you know what happens if you throw a wolf in the middle
of a lamb's pen? Chaos, blood and chaos. A coyote in a chicken coop. It's
awful. The sound is awful. That's what
happens when you let a deceiving false teacher run amok in the
church, so we have to be careful of that. We always, though, very
tenderly, hopefully, prayerfully thinking that maybe if we just
show them and teach them what is right, they'll come to the
knowledge of the faith. They'll come to repentance and
escape the snare of the devil, as Paul tells Timothy, that God
may grant them repentance. But if they do not, then sometimes
we have to disfellowship them. And because of the way the church
functions in our society, it's very hard to disfellowship somebody
from the body of Christ. Church discipline is almost impossible
except for this room. So and so, brother, so and so
is false teaching. He won't repent. We've tried
to go to him and we're going to bring him back up in here,
let him talk. Y'all going to talk to him. The church is going
to decide what to do. Oh, he's unrepentant. He's arrogant.
We're going to put him out of the church. And not only put
him out of the church, all you that used to go out bowling and
barbecuing with him, you can't do that. Well, I'll go bowling
and maybe we can talk about the Bible. Why don't you go Bible
talking before you go bowling and not go bowling again until
the man's repentant? Because if your friendship stays
intact, where's the consequence of disfellowship? And then what
do we do when the churches are so disjointed that if someone
is in not only just false teaching, but grievous sin and their disfellowship
for the hope that they would come back to the faith and be
repentant, lest they prove themselves a reprobate or an apostate, and
then they just go join the church up the street. You ever had a prophetess in
your congregation? prophesy over her Sunday school
class and tell 50 ladies in the church that your pastor was the
Antichrist and that the proof would be that he'd step in this
room this morning for the first time ever during class to check
on it. And then I stepped in there and
I almost got sucked into the room from the gasps. What's going
on in here? That happened to us in 2001. False teacher got a word from
God. I was the Antichrist. Really,
a lot of other light labels, not. But it stirred and it divided
homes. Talk about pastor that way, you
know what you just leave, so husband and wife leave, separate
friends, disfellowship, see what false teaching does. It destroys
the very face of God. In the world, not literally,
it destroys the testimony of God. And I know that everyone in here,
because I've had conversations with you, are very keen on some
false teaching that happens in the world today. So what do you
do with it? You can't fix it. If it's not
related to you. You can't just start, you can
write letters, but if you put a blog post up or a video, what
are you doing? You know what's crazy? Out of
a 30-minute talk about the false doctrine that somebody else is
teaching, you know what you've just done? You've taught their
false doctrine. Let's learn about the false teaching
of so-and-so. He believes this. He believes
that. Oh, we've got ten minutes left. I'd better get in the Bible.
Don't believe that stuff. Why don't we just teach the truth?
See chapter 2, verse 1? Teach what accords with sound
doctrine. So what's the outcome of false teaching? Well, to the pure, all things
are pure. Good teaching brings pure teaching. Pure teaching
brings purity. But to the defiled and unbelieving,
nothing is pure. Their minds and their consciences are defiled.
They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.
They're detestable, disobedient, unfit for any. good work. So
in some sense, we need to understand that the outcome of false teachers
is that they're worthless. It's not that they're harmless,
it's that they're worthless. And all the glory that they match
for themselves is nothing but glory that comes from man rather
than the glory that comes from God. Grace and peace is not theirs
if they do not come to their senses and turn back to right
teaching. Now, what about those who are
in error? Do you know them? Do you have opportunity to share
the truth of them, to go and sit down with someone else, a
witness and say, hey, what you're teaching consistently is wrong. Pray that the Lord may grant
them repentance. Open their eyes, if you don't have that audience,
then pray for them. Pray that the Lord would put
them in a place where they could be rebuked sharply. But in this
context, as we close for the purpose of really putting this
into application, it. Starts and very slowly grows
out of the local church. Now, what do we do about those
national false teachers, these great big, loud voices that everybody
has? Well, are they keeping you up
at night? Does the devil keep you up at
night? Should he? Because it's the devil's work.
Don't let it keep you up at night. Don't let it come down and put
a place where you feel like you've got to be the crusade. Hey, do
you know so-and-so? Never heard of him. Let me tell
you all about it. Good. Why mention him? But you will
be engaging. with some brother or sister,
some professing Christian, and they will come to you and say,
hey, you should read this book that I just read and they'll
put it on the table and you'll go, whoa, you'll throw holy water
on it, stab it with a spike. That's what you want to do. That's
heresy. Then God has opened the door
for you to correct that and rebuke that teaching. And I really just
I think maybe we ought to do a little class, a three hour
class on how to how to defend the faith against false teaching
in a personal way. Because it doesn't come natural.
And I hate to say it doesn't come supernatural either. We
may know it supernaturally what is truth and what is not, but
there comes a there comes a time where we have to really think
about conversations. But pray that the Lord would
open those opportunities, open those doors that you would When
someone comes across to you and they say, hey, I just heard a
sermon from Pastor X and it was about this and about that, that
you can come back to them and say, isn't it great that the
Bible teaches this? God doesn't lie, and God said
that he manifested his word as he promised, and the word is
Jesus, and that word gives life to all who believe, alone, period,
nothing else. And aren't you glad that though
somebody would preach a sermon that way and tell you, you must
do this and you've got to do that and you've got to think
this and you've got to say that in order to have rightness with
God, that Jesus Christ paid it all. To all to him, I owe him. There's no other place under
heaven or earth or under the earth that gives salvation, there's
no other person but Jesus Christ. He is the God of the universe
who spoke in all that we know left into existence. And we,
by our nature and existence, rebel against his very authority,
his very holiness. And we spit in the face of his
gracious mercy. But because of the love with
which he loved us and the deep mercy that he has for us, he
calls us to be born again to a living hope. There's Ephesians
and Peter together. There is no other. that is more
glorious than Jesus Christ. That's how you answer false teaching.
Is that what your pastor just preached to you? You would say.
Is that what you're talking about? Oh, no. Well, that's what the
Bible says. Just preach the gospel. Proclaim
the gospel. Don't get into this worthless,
empty, vain debates. I'd love to have open forums.
We've got full preterists and pulpits here whom I love dearly. We've got decisional regenerationists
and pulpits here in the city, and I love them, too. We've got
free will folks who believe that you can do whatever you want
to do and God can't stop you. We've got folks that believe
that the Holy Spirit is just sort of how God connects to people
through the sun. God made Jesus in the incarnation. And then the spirit sort of comes
through Jesus, people believe that pastor evangelical pastors
believe that. Now, people who believe that
the church. Holds the authority of believing of deciphering the
word of God. Almost Catholic. So what are we going to do? We're
going to teach the truth. We're going to rebuke them as
we have opportunity sharply, because the word of God will
be a sharp change to what they think. Because if I come to you
and say this is wrong, this is right, this is wrong, this is
right, this is wrong, this is right. I have come to you in
a negative place and told you that what I have to say positively
trumps what I have said to say about you and about your feelings
and about your beliefs negatively. Rather than just coming and saying,
here's Jesus. And then going, well, I don't
fit with what I think, and I'm not saying we don't call out
false teaching by name. But it's never the message. The gospel is the message. And that's why the pulpit needs
to be a steward of good news. Brother Dave, that passage you
read out this morning is bad news until the end. And the gospel is there. Friends, until the Lord returns.
There will be many insubordinate, empty talkers who are deceivers. There'll be many people who will
preach many things for their own power, prestige and glory. Pray for them. And praise God that he has given
you the grace not to fall prey to them. and pray for the protection
of your church that your pastor doesn't become one of them. Because
the minute we think we've got it and we're so far from the
edge is when the ground will open up and swallow us. And if you don't know what that
means. Just keep living a little bit longer. Because the hardest
thing to see is when you sit there and you lay in the bed
and you go, oh, Lord, Thank you that you've worked so much grace
into my life. I never thought I'd be where
I am. I never thought my marriage would be so blissful. I never
thought my children would be so obedient. I am so thankful. And the alarm goes off or the
sun comes out and you put your foot to the floor. And all of
that that you thank God for has come undone through the night.
And something your wife says makes you want to jump through
a fire. and stop halfway in. And something your children do
make you want to put them in there with you. And then you
realize that your prayer should have been, oh, thank you, God,
for having mercy on me, a sinner. And it's, lead me not into temptation.
Deliver me from evil. That's how Jesus taught us to
pray. And so I pray that by all that the Lord is and can do,
that you would be at rest And this type of sermon, it seems
so different in the theme, but it's not something we need to
just move over. And by the Lord's grace, I pray
that some of us in this room would have peace in our hearts
about how we handle this garbage that's constantly pervading our
lives. Trust in the gospel, trust in
Christ, who is the king of it all, and know that God, before
there was time, who is not a liar, has promised to put everything
under the feet of Jesus. So what do we do? We preach the
good news. We fight the good fight and we
live that which we learn by the grace of God. Let's pray. Lord,
we are so glad and grateful and humble that you work in us these
things. Father, I thank you for this
opportunity again, that we've been able to worship together
through song, that we've been able to just fellowship together,
Father, and pray for one another. And Lord, I pray that we would
just be more relaxed about all the bad things that are going
on, not in an apathetic sense, but with the peace and grace
that comes from you and the Son whom you sent. We must always
be at peace, even when the world is in turmoil. And that we can rightly divide
the word, we can rebuke those who need correcting so that they
may be strong in the faith. And if they do not. See, if they do not repent, we
pray that you would grant them repentance. I pray, Lord, that you would
save people through hearing The gospel. From our own mouths,
from our preaching, from our lives as we share it day to day. Lord, I pray that we would just
continue to grow inwardly as we look upwardly to worship you
together as one body. And I pray these things in Jesus
name. Amen.