We live in an era of history where the ultimate values in society are tolerance and niceness. Therefore the worst thing to do is to draw a line in the sand and say "No, you are wrong." However, the biblical teaching is that there comes a time in a local church when certain people advance such dangerous and deceptive doctrines that they must be stopped and opposed openly. The Bible calls the church, and the elders of the church particularly, to forcefully oppose both false teaching and the false teachers themselves.

Well, Scott said I'd be doing this exposition in 30 minutes or less. There was considerable amount of snickering in the room and so I want to register that I'm an offended party And I'll be receiving your individual apologies immediately following the session. This session is on the text Titus chapter 3, verses 8 through 11. It's dealing with false teachers. And there's much, much, much crossover with what Rob Ventura brought to us yesterday from Romans 16 verses 17 through 19.

That was a very careful, good handling of that text. And there's much that doesn't need to be reset because we got it yesterday well and that's the reason why I think this can be done more concisely. So we're going to go to this text but I'd like to open up in prayer. Let's pray. Oh Lord we are your people.

We were purchased at a great price. It took a great price because of our many sins and our great sins against you we thank you for the blood of your son Jesus Christ and your word says that you were pleased to crush him not that you took any any pleasure in it but that it would purchase you a people and set sinners free and allow for lives to be transformed out of darkness into your marvelous light and then to be transformed from glory to glory is a marvelous thing that you love. So I pray that you would be exalted in us, that you would receive the reward for the great sacrifice that has been made by Jesus our Lord and I pray God now that you would come in this time and help us to acquire wisdom from your word thank you for your word Lord we need it every day we're happily under the authority of it in Jesus' name, amen. So please open your Bibles to Titus chapter three, I'd like to begin by reading our text, it's a short text, it is eight through eleven. Titus is known as a pastoral epistle.

Paul is writing to a younger man who is a leader in churches. He's actually in chapter 1. He's commanded by the apostle Paul to appoint elders so he's sort of a leader of leaders in churches and he's given him very specific instructions about false teaching and false teachers. And this is what Paul says to Titus in Titus 3 beginning in verse 8. This is a faithful saying.

And these things I want you to affirm constantly that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men. But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless, rejected divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned." Here in this text, there's something that is commended, and then there's something that is condemned, and then the Apostle Paul tells Titus what to do about that which is condemned. So it's a very logical flow as it always is with Paul you can really track with the logic. I commend this, I condemn that, and here's what you do about what I condemn.

In verse 8 and verse 9 we have a striking contrast meaning verse 8 is one pole and verse 9 is all the way to the other pole. It's a complete contrast. It's a mirror image. These are polar opposites. In verse 8 Paul commands Titus, teach this, teach this, teach this.

Like repeat it, keep going back to it, pound the pulpit about it. Run towards this and then in verse nine it's the exact mirror image of that, it's the polar opposite. Avoid this, avoid this, avoid this, run away from this. Get as far as you can from this. So let's look at these.

In verse 8 there's something that Paul wants Titus to constantly affirm. Okay, so this is teach, teach, teach. Run towards this. Keep going back and drawing water from this well. What is it that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.

Paul is telling Titus he can't go back to that well and draw water from it too often. Constantly affirm this. Now the believing in God here is not something that's plucked out of the air, it's really well established in the first verses of this book, the preceding verses. We won't take time to go there, but some of the most refreshing, beautiful words about justification by faith, about a sovereign God choosing a people and then pouring out his blood and their cleansing being not of their own works but only of the blood of Jesus Christ. Some of the most beautiful descriptions of that are in verses 1 through 7.

So when he says those who believe God that's what he's talking about he's talking about not believe in a God but believe in the God of the Bible who sent his son to redeem the people that those who have embraced the gospel the God of the gospel and his gospel, his good news in Jesus Christ, that they should be careful to maintain good works. Paul does hear what he does everywhere else, which is to always maintain the connection between faith and fruit from faith. Paul knows nothing of a faith that doesn't produce fruit because it's not a saving faith it's a dead faith as James says. So this is the well that Paul wants Titus to keep drawing from and keep drawing from and keep drawing from. Believe in God, the God of the Bible, the God of the Gospel.

Embrace the Gospel and then make sure that there's fruit from it. And he says this, these things are good and profitable to men. This is what's good and profitable, that people embrace the real gospel and that it produces something in their lives. This is what all of our discipleship is about, embracing sound doctrine, gospel doctrine, and then having it produce something in our lives. This is good for us.

This is profitable to us. And then you have the exact mirror image, the exact polar opposite in verse 9. There's that which should be avoided. These are things that so far from being good and profitable, they're unprofitable and useless and they actually divide us. The gospel and the fruit of the gospel brings the church together.

Foolish controversies and genealogies and strife about the law only divides us. It's unprofitable and it's useless at its best and it divides us at its worst. So we've been given these polar opposites. Now I think Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse 29 has a bearing on this. This is a familiar verse but think about how it relates to Titus chapter 3, Deuteronomy 29 verse 29.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God. But those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." So there are secret things. God's turf, and he maintains it for himself, and he doesn't share it with us. They're secret. He holds them to himself.

But then there's this other category, and it's a big category, and it's a wonderful category, and it's a beautiful category. It's the things that are revealed to us they're ours they're our possession they're the possession of our children forever and they're given to us for a specific reason that we can obey. So sound doctrine, the revealed things, the clear things are given to us so that we can have a generational possession that leads to obedience like following the Lord following him fruit in our lives doctrine that leads to something good in life, it's profitable and good for us, but some people want nothing to do with that. Some people want to continually encroach on God's turf, the secret things. The revealed things are for our obedience.

The secret things don't lead to obedience. Calvin when you read his words of comment on Titus 3 he calls these people questionnaires, questionnaires, questionnarians, that's what the term was. Questionnarians, okay they love the secret things. God has revealed so much and it leads to fruit and obedience in our lives that they want really not a lot to do with that. They want to encroach on God's turf and they're questionerians.

They always want to question the things that God has held to himself. So Paul is calling Titus to fill churches, the churches that he's dealing with, with sound gospel doctrine that will result in fruit in the life, lives of the people that are in those churches, and to keep the church away from these speculative things that are always advanced by questionarians because of what it does. Now this all has context. Paul has already opened up this vein earlier in the letter. So flip back a couple of pages to Titus chapter 1.

Titus chapter 1 is a very very helpful text to all churches because it contains one of the two lists of qualifications for elders. And I'm going to begin at the very last qualification for the elders. So I'm going to begin right in mid-sentence because it's Paul and we can't go back that far to the beginning of the sentence. And so I'm going to start in verse 9 mid-sentence, but this is the last of the qualifications for elders. And then I'll be reading through 16.

And I'm just going to do a running commentary. I'm going to just sort of be in and out of the text as we go. Titus chapter 1, verse 9. Holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and convict those who contradict. So Paul in this list of qualifications is saying that a man who's going to be an elder must be sound in doctrine to the point where he is able to deal with those who contradict.

So there's an acknowledgement that usually there is someone in churches that is contradicting sound doctrine and so an elder has to be able to stand on his own two feet because that's always going to be happening. Verse 10, for there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. So when we come to Titus chapter 3 and he talks about some of these things some of these secret things that they like to talk about they like to talk about genealogies They like to talk about disputes over the law. This has a very Jewish flavor to it, and we understand why it's that way in chapter three, because in chapter one he says there are many within the church that are of the circumcision. They're Judaizers, so this is the immediate context.

Verse 11. Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not for the sake of dishonest gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.

To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. When we get to chapter three, he's going to be calling these men warped or perverted. But even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, disqualified for every good work. So we get the context for chapter three in chapter one where Paul begins to talk about those who are in the church who would contradict sound doctrine and bring in falsehoods into the church and Paul says their mouths must be stopped you have to make them stop.

Now I'd like us to consider quickly two places in Paul's instruction to Timothy another student and what we're going to find is that Paul's teaching the same thing to all his students. What he's teaching to Titus he's teaching to Timothy, what he's teaching to Timothy he's also teaching to Titus and it's because the churches have common sets of problems and pastors have common needs. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 1. You'll see immediately the bearing that this has on Titus chapter 3. 1 Timothy chapter 1, I'll be reading 3 through 7.

Paul writes to Timothy, as I urged you when I went into Macedonia, remain in Ephesus, that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine, nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith, from which some, having strayed, have turned aside to idle talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor the things which they affirm. So here in this text we learn that the same things are going to be encountered everywhere. He says He's addressing the same problem with Timothy that he's addressing to Titus in Titus chapter 3. So there's going to be a common experience in the churches which means that there's going to be people who are bringing this false doctrine into the church.

But look at what he says in verse 5. Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith. That's so much like what we see in Titus 3, that he's to constantly be affirming that those who believe in God would maintain good works. That love from a pure heart is the purpose of the commandment. And that what stands in contrast to that is those who devote themselves to idle talk and to wanting to be teachers of the law when they don't even understand what they're saying.

It's the same problem. Now to 2 Timothy chapter 2. This addresses the same problem but it comes at it from a slightly different angle and gives us some clarifications that we need. This is 2 Timothy chapter 2 verses 14 through 18 is the section I'd like to read verse fourteen remind them of these things charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit It's like he just keeps saying the same things over and over again doesn't it? To the ruin of the hearers.

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth, but shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness, and their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past, and they overthrow the faith of some." What we get from here, again, is that there's a common experience in the churches and that if you allow these teachers to advance these teachings that it ruins the hearers. Okay, so we're learning As we go from place to place in Paul's commands and counsel to church leaders how high the stakes are. Are you getting this? How high the stakes are?

It ruins the hearers. And so he should shun the profane and idle babblings because they increase to more ungodliness. Now doctrine is supposed to do exactly the opposite of that. Okay, when you have false teachings it increases to more ungodliness. There's fruit from every kind of doctrine.

It's not just good fruit from good doctrine, bad doctrine, there's fruit also. It's an increase of ungodliness. Now many times the ungodliness has a cloak of religion, it's religious ungodliness, but there's a growth of ungodliness and it's called a cancer here in 2 Timothy chapter 2. It spreads like cancer. Okay so it aggressively advances and spreads and it will kill you.

Okay that's cancer right? If you get cancer you're on the clock to get treatment because it spreads aggressively and it'll kill you and Paul's argument is that false teaching is like that so you cannot tolerate false teachers in the church. Something must be done to wage war against this and Titus 3 is a call by the Apostle Paul to a leader in the church to wage war against false teachings by doing something about false teachers. In verse 9 he says avoid. Leaders in the church are never to add fuel to the fire.

They're to avoid those conversations, those debates. It's so easy to get drawn in because often it starts out as an interesting sounding conversation but you got to understand like you have to troubleshoot that immediately and diagnose that this is more than an interesting sounding conversation. You better avoid and steer clear because if you don't you're just putting logs on the fire. So the first counsel of how to combat false teachers and false teachings in the church is to avoid. Don't put logs on that fire.

But verse 10 recognizes the reality that a truly divisive man fuels his own fire. He doesn't need your logs at all. He brought his own. And I think there's an important distinction here. Not everyone who likes a good debate is a divisive man.

So we don't want to go too far in what the Apostle Paul is saying. There's some guys out there who just Love a good scrap. And I don't mean that in a divisive way. They like to get ideas on the table and go round and round about them. And sometimes that can become unprofitable, but I don't think that's what's in view in Titus chapter 3.

There are some who are immature and who are lacking discernment. But with those type people, avoiding usually does it. If you just refuse to engage, they sort of get the point and they back off and they don't persist in those things endlessly or at least an admonition will do it. Okay, and a warning to say, you know what, I just don't think these things are profitable. They get the hint, okay, and they stop.

That kind of person isn't in view. But let's talk about the kind of person that is in view. The New King James calls him a divisive man. The King James calls him a heretic. It's a different rendering of the same word, a heretic, and here's why you get the different rendering.

Here's the Greek scope of meaning. Schismatic, factious, a follower of a false doctrine. So you have all these things, right? There's a range of meaning in the Greek word. That's why the translators have to make a choice.

Some of them go with factious schismatic, and some of them go with a follower of a false doctrine. But I don't think we should choose or have to choose. I think what's in view here is a person who fractures people by advancing falsehood. They create fault lines in the church. And then the earthquake goes off, and the crack opens up, and people are on one side or the other.

They are schismatic because they are a follower of a false doctrine and an advancer of a false doctrine. They are obsessed with foolish disputes. They can't let them go. They think about them all the time. They talk about them all the time.

They're obsessed with genealogies. You say, well, we don't have that in the church. That's a Jewish thing. You can find people today outside the Roman Catholic Church that talk about things that are very close to apostolic succession and they trace their way back to this guy and if you don't have a link back to this guy then you're out. It exists in the church today.

They're obsessed with contentions because they must have their way. They're obsessed with strivings about the law that can quickly become unprofitable. These are all unprofitable things at best and damnable heresies at worst. The best they'll ever be is unprofitable and useless. So This is why we can't have them in our churches, because the best that they'll ever be is useless.

And it only gets worse from there. It gets to damnable heresies, okay? Soul-ruining, soul-damning things to be believed. Why? Why are they obsessed about these things?

Verse 11 tells us they're warped. The NASB renders it, they're perverted, they're perverted in their minds, they're twisted up, they're warped in their minds. Here's what Matthew Henry says, it's a really helpful way to think about this. Matthew Henry says, not so much defect of judgment as perverseness of the will. This is very important to know about false teachers in the church.

It's not defect in judgment. In other words, like you're not going to be able to talk them out of this state. It's not just that their mind sort of went down a wrong track and they need to be re-instructed, okay? With the divisive man in the church, he's warped! It's a perverseness of the will, so that if you give him all the good information of the world, all the correctives of the world, all the right texts with all the right words in the world, you won't have touched the problem.

Because the information wasn't the problem, it's the perverseness of his will, and that's why it's so cancerous. Because it's rooted in a warped man who can't be changed by instruction and the tree are the doctrines that come from this warped man and you'll not be able to touch them either. So what should church leaders do? Remember Paul is commanding, instructing, exhorting Titus who is a leader in these churches. Church leaders should reject that man.

The ESV and the NIV render it, have nothing more to do with that man. You're rejecting him. You're having nothing more to do with that man. The Greek means to shun, to avoid. But only after the first and second admonition, and I think this is where you sort out who's who in the zoo.

In the first and second admonition. Some receive an admonition, you know that's not the device of man that's being talked about here. That's not the man that needs to be rejected here because he's able to receive an admonition and he can be instructed. But he doesn't receive it so you escalate and you come back and you come back harder doesn't say that explicitly in the text but nothing else makes sense okay this is an escalation a first admonition it's ignored here comes the second admonition and it's got the full weight behind it. And if it's ignored, then you reject him.

So church leaders have an obligation to get past that and to be clear and to be calm and to give the kind of warnings that should be given to someone who may very well be a member of the people of God. So again, like we were talking about yesterday, it's not an immediate nuclear strike at the first sound of trouble, first sign of trouble. Church leaders should be clear and they should serve notice repeatedly And then if those admonitions, if those warnings are disregarded, then they should reject that man. But you come, you're delivering the admonitions with the hope that it will be heeded, not with just a desire to get through the process so you can get to the end of the process and get to the rejecting. Okay, that's not the spirit behind this.

Let's dot this I and cross that T so we can reject. No, you go with the hope that the admonitions are received, not rejected. It's not a formality just to get to the rejection. Now what does it really mean? It can't mean this.

It can't mean that the leader just ignores them, acts like they don't exist, and the divisive man is just free to roam and eat sheep. Okay, it cannot mean that. Whatever it does mean, it doesn't mean that. Okay, so it is an admonition to church leaders to reject the man, to have nothing more to do with the man, but it can't be, now you get ignored by me because I'm a church leader and I have to avoid these kind of conversations and you're just free to whisper in the ears of the flock. It can't mean that.

Does it mean excommunication? Well, I would say this. I would say that the divisive man has proven himself to really be the divisive man by rejecting a first admonition a second admonition has put himself firmly on the road to excommunication okay he has put himself into the process and if he continues to reject the process then he should be put out of the church and verse 11 says he's self-condemned, meaning his wounds are all self-inflicted. He's had the admonitions He's had the false doctrine confronted with sound doctrine, good doctrine, doctrine that is according to the mind of the Spirit as revealed in the Scriptures. And so all his wounds are going to be self-inflicted wounds.

Here's a thought on why I don't think the text says directly, just excommunicate him, why it says reject him and why it doesn't go just directly and say just put him out of the church because many times you don't have jurisdiction over these people. So I think Paul has to be broader than that because that might not even be an option on the table. Michael Pearl's a man like this. He doesn't go to my church. Michael Pearl is a man beloved in the home school community.

Michael Pearl is loved for his child training counsel. He's a man who totally rejects the doctrine of depravity and openly teaches that Christians can go months and months at a time without sinning and who calls Luther and Calvin heretics. He's a divisive man that's not welcome in my church but I can't put him out of my church. You better be addressing things like that. False teachers often come into your congregation through books and through the internet and through sermons online.

So it's not simple to excommunicate the internet. But there are ways to reject. Let's pray for the Lord's protection of his people. God I thank you for all the many texts that we've been in, especially on this topic, Romans 16 and the teaching that we received yesterday and now Titus 3. God the stakes are so high and at times it seems like your people are so vulnerable but you are the fortress of your people.

I do thank you that you put under shepherds in place to help protect your sheep but ultimately You are the chief shepherd, the great king and head of the church, and you can protect your own. God, we pray that you would shield us. You would be our shield. You would shield us from those who would come in to divide and to advance doctrines that are not in accordance with your word. Oh Lord, please help your churches.

We feel so inadequate to do all that needs to be done and we take great comfort in the fact that you have sent your spirit into the world to be a blessing and a shield to your people we entrust ourselves into your hands in Jesus name amen I did go over 30 minutes you don't have to apologize excellent thanks Jason okay it's lunchtime but I want to tell you about this evaluation form. And if you could take some time with it, you know, during the next hour, And then you might have something to say after the final sessions. We have one more session with Lyle Weinberger and then a Q&A discussion at the very end. But we'd really like to get your feedback. On one side it says, rank the importance of the messages.

And what we mean is, rank the importance to you. And then on the back, just maybe if you could just give us some feedback we think we think that this the four questions on the on the on the front of this really will help you process the conference, go home with a greater sense of how the Lord might use it in your life to just take a few moments to consider it and process it before you leave And then we'll conclude at about three o'clock today. So Marcus Servin is going to rise and give thanks for the meal and have a great lunch. What sweet fellowship we've enjoyed this time at this conference. And what good food.

So as you go through the line, make sure to communicate to the ladies who have worked so very hard to bring some really good, nourishing food for us at this conference and tell them how much that means to you. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for all your good gifts. One of the best gifts of all is the brotherhood we share with fellow believers. To be able to love each other, to speak into each other's lives, to encourage and even to rebuke at times when it's necessary.

All Lord to help us be more conformed to the image of Christ. We give you thanks Lord that you are indeed our head elder who's the head of the church. And we pray Lord that all that we hear and we think about and that we do as we go back to our churches and congregations would be a tribute Lord to you and the wisdom that you put into Holy Scripture. So we thank you for this food that we enjoy and the fellowship in Jesus' name, amen.