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March 17, 2022 4:00 am
You are diagnosed with malignant tumor, your doctors, set up a plan to treated quickly, completely and ruthlessly before it spreads through your whole body today on Truth for Life will learn how to deal similarly with hypocrisy and false teaching in the local church is Alistair Begg teaching from chapter 1 in the book of Titus verses 10 through 16 problem here, he says, is a religious problem we're facing. These people have a routine but I have no reality.
These people have a creamed their conduct does not match their cream. These people have faith talk by there is no fruit that is seen in their life's successful summarizing it at end of verse 16 professing to know God denying them by their works they are detestable their disobedient and their disqualifying unfit for any good work. He then just very briefly mentions that the impact of these people is such that they have to be dealt with properly.
And he tells us what's going on that they are unsettling. Verse 11 unsettling whole families in the NIV, I think it is ruining households now again Paul and is just one page overview going to turn to one page by Paul addresses the same problem in Ephesus and I wonder if he doesn't, doesn't. When he when he write second Timothy Amy doesn't have in the back of his mind. The problem that was there in Crete is nothing new under the sun when it comes to these things because in verse five and two Timothy three strong about those who have an appearance of godliness but denying its power. That shams their hypocrites. There there there vacuous and there to be avoided. Avoid such people is very important to recognize the nursing avoid non-Christian people he say avoid hypocrites, avoid people who are suggesting by their words that they are Orthodox and yet they are denying them by their life's and he said, let me tell you what they're like. They're the kind who Crete into households and capture week when I was not a description of women per se as a description of a certain kind of woman the kind of woman he says who is burdened by our sins, who is vulnerable.
Julie emotionally certainly spiritually you like a cork on an ocean. She has no settled conviction. She has no fundamental grasp of the truth of talk is a tragic picture and hearing Crete. He says these kind of characters play on these kind of people.
This is how they get into homes like this. They don't come through the front door announcing the fact that they are opposed to the truth of the gospel. They come in through the back door, suggesting that they know the key to the gospel and it has to do not with the plainness of the gospel itself, but it has to do with the elements to which the that that that that they bring to so we need these people all the time.
I had a conversation. I told the people in the first service at a conversation with a lady that my wife and I know that we see her in the community regularly.
She may be here this morning and I hope she is.
We were very frank in our interchange with one another. I would never speak behind her back, but she always is the hardest questions for me I needed in the store and she asked as it was a question of the day. The last one was why is why is the name of God being taken out of all the Jewish scriptures that was requested civil who told you that she said while it was a man on the on the radio and he was explaining suicide like a question for him because I don't know what you mean and I said well why do you even care to. All I care. I care about everything around here is Christian or Jewish or whatever it is I find things out as well as helping said not very well since you you know the Bible talks about people like you who are always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Fascinated by this notion and that notion. In this view, and think it charts and diagrams and CDs in the things since you know when we just start with Jesus who he is, why he's come that he is the one who provides a reconciliation that is absolutely essential because of the fighter. We are alienated from God that your sense of alienation from your family as you mention it from your psyche as you are prepared to acknowledge it spiritually.
All of these things are subsumed under the find of the great alienation that where alienated from God in our rebellion and are wondering where exiles were wilderness wanderers were strangers, our forefathers started in the garden. We live in the jungle and Jesus has come to bring us back to the garden and all of its beauty in all its symmetry in all of its old. Can we just start with Jesus.
And I think there were then have to be having these conversations a lot. I run into these people and their unique and you run into them as well and are nice people seeking people learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
Novelty subtlety in the commands of men are a really bad concoction listening banal learning investigating, but never believing see in the teaching of the Bible is a form mechanism of rearranging our external life's as opposed to discovering in the teaching of the Bible. This amended story of the inside out revolution that is being brought about as a result of Jesus and his workup on the amazing upside down transformation that he may when he takes hold of a life in chains as it until the reality of that grips, heart grips are household grips the church than those who attend church will be susceptible to the intriguing, alluring, appealing concoction of novelty and myth combined with very authoritarian rules and regulations.
Pulses Titus, you need to understand this so that your elders understand it so that the members of the congregation will be able to deal properly with those that they find who are inviting them to drink of this ruinous potion and I is what he then says to them, he said, let me tell you how they are to be handled in UC adjusting to phrases. First of all, they must be silenced or the world. The world could be translated and muzzled. They must be muzzled. Why because their upsetting whole families with any means. Household churches already means families nuclear families doesn't really matter.
It could be both. Many years ago, C-reactive silence and you just the dog has to be muzzled if the dog bites people at time of the bar at the dog's all the time of the dog is a jolly nuisance and muzzled the dog as I say Muslim. Those are very nice. Admit that he says just tell them to shut up shut them up, silenced, how are they to be silenced by compelling argument by the approaches of church discipline. I don't know what you dare an appointment to lead small groups in your church, let loose with a small company of your congregation hearing Crete that will ruin the entire thing and not because baseball had this as I am opposed to the fundamental doctrine that is represented in the truth of the Bible, but because he said when I get my little group together and when I explained to them that this little element here is absolutely the key to and I can bring them into line with these external commands that I've come up with and bring them all into subjection to this as I don't put them in your Sunday school leader silenced and then rebuke them sharply. Doesn't sound any better either does it differ rebuke them sharply why so that they may be sound in the faith now than then there is difficult is difficult in English and is difficult in Greek who was there then who's then is he saying, rebuke, then the teachers or is he saying, rebuke, then the listeners are sure to tell you the truth, but both of them will be do well to be rebuked the teachers should be reviewed sharply if that's the kind of nonsense that they're skewing and the congregation that is susceptible to buying the potion should be reviewed sharply so that they then may actually become healthy, that they may become sound Christians so that they may devote themselves to the gospel, not to Jewish myths and so they will not be on the receiving end of the commands of people are actually turning away from the truth. That's why he began as he did in verse nine and that's why he's going to continue in verse one of chapter 2 is an interesting verse nine that that the two slices of bread around this rather distasteful sandwich in the middle of the ingredients in the middle. The two slices of bread or teaching verse nine. Make sure that your elders hold hold firmly to the message so that they can convey the truth so that they can refute error and then what is he going to say in verse one is he goes into chapter 2 but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
Teaching. Teaching and it is the teaching of God's word, the understanding of the learning of then provides the antidote to the kind of confusion that is represented in the middle. Our time is gone I just might make one point browse by way of application. When you read this passage and I've read a lot this week. You have to if you if you listen to it with the ears of an outsider.
Then you've got to say that is understandable, but someone will say well I know much about Paul, but I always thought he was a mean guy and unlike Jesus, who was apparently a nice guy.
I've heard about Paul and up and is a mean guy and actually not read this thing II think he is a mean guy ketamine is shot up building sharply deal with this deal with that. Is he just a mean guy and furthermore, there's a level of intolerance here that I don't really like is not politically correct until the ears of the outsider here. This kind of thing we would have to translate for them if they are not, then, to reject the actual truth of the gospel because of their misunderstanding of what was being said. Now if this came to my mind yesterday. Yesterday when I pulled up behind a car 91 and Canyon Road. I was immediately struck by the fight that was in my in my way and and and it was government stickers. I'm sorry I had to wait and for your reader stickers and that there were some that I hadn't seen, but my my favorite was was right there on the right coexist places that all the symbols of these religions that I was sitting interesting about this morning's address and I was thing about the.
The driver of the car and I thought I wonder what the fellow in the car would think of what Paul is is doing here and speaking so sharply. I wonder how I could then communicate this to this fellow who I think would probably say I like the sound of that is mean like mean people or who would say that's the kind of intolerance that I expect from the Bible you see that's the reason I don't believe the Bible. So how would I said was or how to talk to my coexist friend that I don't know yet because he's he's in his box and I'm in my blogs and I sue, I would have to we have to start a little bit by without the start and talk about Revelation rather than human speculation. We have to talk about the fight in Christianity is a revealed truth that God has disclosed himself. We have to start working on that. We have to speak about Jesus and his distinction amongst religious leaders of all time, and so on. But we would also have to address this idea of coexistence I would want to say to him that I like the idea of because I actually kinda like getting on with people. I mean I speak English people as a Scotsman, that's coexistence, I will include the Welsh and even the Irish as well. I want to go into.
I want to coexist with the Muslim doctors that I meet that the hospital when I visit I want to coexist with the fellow in the dairy Mart loses seek. I want to as well. II want to do all name anything know you can want to do that because because you hear things as you're right and they're all wrong.*Registers now is just our love and coexist. Let's talk about toleration. It really is quite intolerant as all the savings as white as he said we only one or two options if the Bible is just a fabrication and a monumental lie of regulations go do something else was an important conversation and but it nicely is a record accurate record of who Jesus is and what is done in ways, then we ought to view this intolerance as a kind of intolerance that is represented in the cancer specialist who is eradicating cancer from the body of his patient.
There's nothing remotely unkind about the intolerant prospective undertaking on the cancer they are seeking to deal with it as vigorously as strenuously as they possibly can in order to heal and to make new and so Paul is doing here is saying we can allow this disease to spread through the congregation is not a matter of collapsing truth into error and find in the middle ground. We can do that he says the reason we can do that is because this is who Jesus is and what Jesus has accomplished in his death on the cross challenges all of the commands of man challenges not only the religion of a world that is rejected by challenges the religion of people who profess to know God have no fruit in their life's not on how well that would go but I would hopefully have a chance to say determine and you know the love that God looks for from us is not a love of external religious orthodoxy is the love of her son for his mom. That is not marked simply by the tidiness of his room by the generosity of his spirit by his commitment to punctuality and attendance at school and I could be in place with no real living relationship between the mother and the son. The son maybe gone now living on his own and he wants his mother to know that he still tiny.
He still punctual and he never would miss sending her a birthday card is all tiny salsa room right it's also the Big Stone, but he does not give to her. The love that hard generosity of spirit and her self-sacrifice as a mother deserves. She doesn't test one is tidiness or is punctuality she wants. His heart fell devotion and love. God is not looking from heaven to try and see if there are a bunch of people that want to commit to tidiness and punctuality and external religiosity. He is looking for those who will fall down at the feet of his son and say all that I could ever do is love you in response to the majestic nature of your love for me that is been revealed in your cross the people in Crete were in danger of having that truth snuffed out and I think you would agree that both whether it is in Crete or in Cairo or in Cleveland. It is the duty and responsibility of church leadership to ensure that every time that ugly concoction raises its head that it is responded to graciously firmly ruthlessly compassionately so that the ethos of the church becomes an ethos of people who are embracing one another.
I learned all of the wonder of God's goodness to them who are doing what God says in the Bible, not in order that they might discover it to be a means of acceptance, but who are doing it because of the reality of acceptance and that is what we long for. Here apart site so that when our friends from the coexistent party come among us. They may be one them react vociferously to what is said is the encounter the clarity of the Scriptures, and it may well be then that it is in the abiding presence of Christ within his people that they discover if you like, not just the counterbalance by the context in which that kind of clarity is worked out love ones. We need to pray. To this end is not easy. This is not an easy time to to articulate these truths.
Just what the Bible says let's pray together. Father, thank you that your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path and yes a long way away to Crete both geographically and chronologically, yet it rings true were all susceptible to high sounding authority to alien dogmatic commands that come from the lips of someone who gives the appearance of godliness, and yet turns his back on the truth of God save us from these people.
And from these things and make us the kind of people that understand the gospel so that the gospel then may become the pervasive flavor of our relationships with one another and our desire to reach out to others, and abide with your church. We pray fillers with your love.
Granted our desire to remain true to the doctrine will be more than matched by our desire to live in the light of your love. We desperately need your help all of us do leaders and followers alike were all followers were learners from the one who knows the answers Jesus where Obama and his cross we all submit to his headship. Hear our prayers for Christ sake on then your learning how we can guard ourselves and our local church from false teaching listing to Alistair Begg with the conclusion of a message titled a religious problem. This is Truth for Life.
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