Tell it to the church for what purpose? What is always the purpose of discipline?
Restoration. So what do you tell the church? Church, go after them. An individual went, no response.
Two or three went, no response. Now we all go and we just, we drown them. The brother drifts away into sin, you go. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. In handling matters of criminal law, lawyers follow a set of procedures. One of the more usual ones is to call on the testimony of eyewitnesses. Well, the Bible outlines specific ways, actually a step-by-step formula, for dealing with sin in the church, and it can call for witnesses.
But what role do they play, and when are they necessary? Today, John MacArthur considers those and other aspects of this thing called church discipline, continuing his study called My Brother's Keeper. But before the lesson, there's something we can't say often enough, and that is thank you to the people who run this station. John, I know that these people are dear to you, so tell our listeners why that is. Well, station managers and station owners and station staff are obviously partners with us. I mean, radio depends on radio stations, which makes us extremely grateful for those who willingly take up Grace to You's cause and allow us to be a part of their programming. We need to say a thank you consistently to station managers, the staff of this station, all those who support these stations for their partnership with us.
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And on that note, here again is John MacArthur to continue his study, My Brother's Keeper. Continue chapter 18. Now we started into the text and you can look at it now for a moment. And we said there are several elements of discipline that come out of this text. First is the place of discipline. And if you'll notice verse 17, it is in the ekklesia, the church.
The word is used twice there. Secondly, we see the purpose of discipline and it's indicated to us at the end of verse 15, thou hast gained thy brother. The intention of discipline is not to put people out, it's to keep people in. Thirdly, the person in discipline, the place and the purpose and then the person. Who is the person? Well it's fairly clear who the person is.
It's you and me. Well that takes me to a fourth point, the provocation in discipline. What sets it off? How do you know when to do this?
How do you know when to approach someone? The question is, what constitutes a sin that needs discipline? What's the answer? What sins need to be corrected? Which ones? All of them.
That's why the text is general. All of them. Now that brings us to point five, the process in discipline. What do you do? You know what's to happen in God's redeemed assembly? You know you're the person. You know the purpose is to gain your brother back.
You know any sin qualifies. Now what do you do? How do you go about it? Four steps. Four steps.
Very clearly delineated in outline. Step one, verse 15, go and tell him his sin between thee and him alone. That's simple enough, isn't it? Go and tell him his sin. But what if he refuses to hear? Then you go to step two, verse 16. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more in order that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And of course, the Jewish people knew well that God had established that law in Deuteronomy 19 and verse 15, that all things were to be confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses. This was for protection so that no one was passing on slanderous information about anybody which was unconfirmed. There had to be the affirmation of two or three witnesses. And so the text says this is step two. If there is a definite refusal to be convicted, if as Lenski says, the devil has plunged the person into the pit of impenitence, if they will not respond, then step two, take one or two more with you.
Now this begins to put the pressure on. You take a couple people and the same objective in mind, you want to gain your brother. So you're pursuing again.
You're going again. And the idea is to show him his sin so that he really understands it or that she really understands it. And you've opened it up so that it's very clear and very obvious and there might be genuine confession and genuine repentance and restoration. This is the second attack in the battle for this drifting brother or sister. Now why have one or two more? Well, I think it intensifies the approach. It multiplies the caring concern, the love. But there's a reason even beyond that given here. In order of that, here's the purpose. In the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. Very important.
Listen carefully. These are not one or two people who saw the sin or who knew about the sin. I don't think that's the intent. They are witnesses of the confrontation who can come back and confirm the words that were spoken there. In other words, it is really as much a protection for the one being approached as it is the one approaching. So that when a report comes back, a biased person doesn't say, well, I tried to confront him but he's impenitent and his heart is hard and so forth and so forth and so forth, as if one person could make that ultimate determination, especially one person who may have been sinned against and be somewhat bitter. So to protect against that, you take one or two others who can witness the second confrontation and they'll come back and report either, yes, there was a heart of repentance, yes there was a heart of confession, yes there was a heart of turning away from sin, or no there was not.
In other words, now you can act because you know this to be the case, you have the witnesses to verify it beyond just the one individual. Has this ever occurred in the New Testament? Is there an illustration here like there was of the first step?
Yes, I think there is. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 13, and this is a somewhat difficult passage to translate. I will just basically share its idea with you. In 2 Corinthians 13 it says this is the third time I'm coming to you, Paul is writing to the Corinthians, in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. Now he throws in that Deuteronomy 19.15 principle and we know we're in a disciplined situation. I told you before and tell you beforehand as if I were present the second time. And being absent now, I write to them who heretofore have sinned and to all others that if I come again, I will not spare.
Now what does he say? You that are sinning in the Corinthian assembly, I've told you once, I've told you twice. It has been confirmed, verse 1 says, in the mouth of two or three witnesses and if I come and you still have not repented, I won't spare the discipline. There is an illustration where Paul calls the Corinthians to respond to the second approach to their sin, those that are sinning. Now let's go back again to Matthew chapter 18.
It's so helpful that the New Testament gives us that illustration of this working out principle. What happens if they don't hear the two or three who come? Verse 17, if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church.
Tell it to the whole assembly. Now this may mean a public proclamation to everybody. It may mean that you tell enough folks representative of the church so that the Word gets out that this person is sinning and not coming back.
But the intention is the key here, folks. When you tell it to the church, and certainly by now the church leadership to some extent are involved because the Word has come back from the witnesses, this is an impenitent person, we must tell the church. And so through whatever means are chosen, the church is told.
Sometimes the leaders disseminate it through the group. Sometimes we may say it at a communion service. Sometimes it may be said at a class or a fellowship or a Bible study or association where the person is known. But the statement is this, they're sinning, our brother is lost to us, tell it to the church for what purpose? What is always the purpose of discipline?
Restoration. So what do you tell the church? Church, go after them. An individual went, no response.
Two or three went, no response. Now we all go. That's right. And we just...we drown them.
Wouldn't that be wonderful? Can you imagine how...you know, so many times in the life of a church, people just drift away. And I have examined my heart over the last years and I've said, how many people did I know who drifted away into sin and I've lost them?
Because I didn't follow up on step one. Or having gone step one, I said, though, they're not going to repent and maybe went step two and then just tried to let it go. And you hear people say, oh well, they're gone.
They were never much help anyway or all kinds of things like that. The point being, if a brother drifts away into sin, you go. You just don't let that happen. If you don't see them or if you know something's wrong in their life, you go. And then you take somebody and then we need to tell everybody to go. And we just make life miserable because we're just crowding around them.
That's the idea. We just go with pursuing meek love, calling them back from sin, calling them back to the fellowship. By the way, as a footnote here, there's no different standard for elders or pastors. First Timothy 5, 19 and 20 says that elders are to be disciplined the same way. Any accusation against them should be confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses, says Paul to Timothy. And when they sin, too, and continue in it, they are to be rebuked before all that others may fear so that others won't follow the same sinning pattern because they'll know of the public consequences. So when they fall into sin, the pattern is set in motion. One goes, two or three go, then we all go. We all go pursuing them. We all go wanting to restore them. I really don't know that the church even thinks of doing this.
Churches, I don't know if they do this. I said to someone the other day, the Lord brought back across my path after many years, I said, I failed you. And I failed you because I didn't pursue you.
I let you go. I failed you and I failed the Lord in that. Now this isn't the task of one person. We don't have one person who is in charge of this.
They had one person in charge of this in only one church that I know of and it was a disaster. You want to meet him? His name is Diotrephes. John wrote about him in his third epistle. He says, I wrote to the church...imagine this...I wrote to the church, this is John the Apostle. But Diotrephes who loves to have the preeminence among them received us not. Now this is a guy with an amazing ego. He won't even receive John the Apostle.
Of course he's intimidated by him. Wherefore, if I come, I'll remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words and not content with that, neither doth he himself receive the brethren and forbideth them that would and casteth them out of the church. Here was a self-appointed guy throwing people out of the church.
This is not one man's task. This is not one man to decide this. If we ever have to put a person out of the church...listen, if we ever have to put a person out of the church, it isn't after one person went to them they didn't repent. It isn't after two or three went and they didn't repent. It's after everybody went and they didn't repent.
So that there's nobody calling all the shots. They're all out there trying to restore that person and if they still do not respond, then the motion goes into effect to put them out, but not until the whole church has gone after them. Now is there a case in the New Testament of this?
Do we see any third stage discipline? I think we do. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 2...2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 5. It says this, and I'll read from the New American Standard, it's much clearer, but if any has caused sorrow, that is bringing sorrow to the assembly because of sin, he has caused sorrow not to me but in some degree in order not to say too much to all of you. Sin, he's saying, doesn't just affect me, it affects everybody. And that's again back to our point that we said you can be sinned against indirectly.
Any sin touches the whole body. So he says, look, if any has sinned, it's not just to me but to all of you. But then it assumes then that all of the church is aware of this and all of the church is concerned about this.
Verse 6 then, sufficient to such a man as this, punishment, which was inflicted by the majority. In other words, apparently the whole church said this guy is in sin. And the whole church knew and they went after the guy and he repented. And so verse 7 says, on the contrary...on the other hand, ye rather should forgive him, which assumes that he has repented in response to the whole church coming after him, and then comfort him lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with over much sorrow. And then he says in verse 8, confirm your love to him. Now here's a case where the whole church knew and the whole church went and apparently the guy responded and he says now that he's responded, don't let him stay out there, don't hold him at arm's length and browbeat him because of what he did, you embrace him again and you forgive him and you love him. That's the way the church is supposed to do it. So how long do we do that?
I don't know. I guess until you feel he's getting harder and harder. Sometimes when we've gone out like this to go after someone, you can see them breaking down. You can see, I'm not going to stop my sin, I'm going to do what I'm going to do, I'm going to...and sometimes you see them softening. Sometimes they're getting harder and I guess the Spirit of God has to give you that sort of subjective wisdom as to when it's time to just say, that's it, they're not responding. I think it's usually a shorter time than we think because God wants response.
So what if they don't respond? Look at verse 17 again. But if he neglect to hear the church, and that phrase is between each step.
It's after step one, it's after step two, and it's after step three. If he doesn't hear the whole church, well what if they don't respond? Then it says, step four, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a tax collector. You say, boy, in the New Testament, the tax collectors really take it in the neck.
And in a sense that's very true. In Israel, there was the covenant people. And basically, a heathen was somebody outside the covenant, an outcast.
It wasn't that they didn't want to include him, it's just that if he wouldn't be included, he was outside. He couldn't associate with them, he didn't assemble with them, he didn't worship with them, he wasn't a part of them. But the other kind of outcast, in many ways it might even be a worse, was the Jewish person who had sold himself to the Roman government to exact taxes from his own people. He was not only an outcast by birth, he was an outcast by choice.
He had defected to the enemy. And so when you talk about a heathen man and a tax collector, in the parlance of the time of the Lord Jesus Christ, the people would have understood him to be speaking of those outside the fellowship, outside the synagogue, outside the covenant. And that's exactly what Jesus is intending to say.
Not that you don't care about those people. Matthew, who wrote this passage down in this gospel, was a tax collector. And Jesus was in the business of saving tax collectors and sinners.
Think of the wonderful story of Zacchaeus. It isn't that this is something that's cast as disparaging remarks on those people, it is simply to say that you treat them when they sin as if they were outside your fellowship. What does that mean?
It means two things. And I'm going to draw this to a conclusion right here. Listen carefully. The first thing, what happens when the whole process is unproductive? Step one, put them out. Put them out. Put them out of what? Put them out of the fellowship. Put them out of the assembly. Don't let them associate. Don't let them have the blessings and the benefits.
Put them out. First Corinthians chapter 5 makes this very clear. In the Corinthian church there was a man who was having sexual relationships with his father's wife, his stepmother, a form of incest, abominable to God. And instead of being brokenhearted over the incest, the people were proud about it. It says, Paul says, you're puffed up and you haven't mourned. Instead of being sad, you're glad.
You think it's a notch in his belt to have an affair with his own stepmother. That's pretty sick. He says this, verse 4, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together and my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, next time you come together in your assembly, deliver such a one to Satan. Put them out. You turn them out, delivering them to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. In other words, their spirit may be redeemed in the end. God can hold on to the Spirit, but they may have to have the destruction of that flesh, that flesh which pulls them toward their sin. And that's going to have to be devastated in putting them out.
They may go even down further. And you have to do it, verse 6 says, because a little leaven leavens the whole lump, purge out therefore the old leaven. Get it out.
It's got to be put away. In 1 Timothy 1.20 Paul says, I took Hymenaeus and Alexander and turned them over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme. That's remedial training. They needed to learn they couldn't do that. They needed to get fully into the consequence of their sin. What happens, you see, is when you put someone out, the sanctifying graces of God's assembly are no longer there and they're left without that thing.
And when they don't have it at all and they can't get near it at all, then they begin to think about how much it really meant to them. You understand that? But if a person can have the people of God and the church of God and be accepted and have his sin too, they may continue longer in their sin. So you say, as I've said to people, I hate to think of all the people I've said it to, you have a choice.
It's either the world and the devil or the people of God and God, not both. Second Thessalonians chapter 3, verse 6 speaks to this same issue. We command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which He received of us.
The word withdraw means to flinch or avoid. You avoid them. You don't let them in your fellowship.
You don't let them in your assembly. You don't let them in your communion. You don't let them have that sanctifying grace that comes from Christ. Now we're not talking about people who don't know the Lord. We're not talking about outside people.
We want them to be exposed to this. We're talking about sinning members of the family. Verse 14, 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 14, if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed. Leave him to his shame. Leave him to his sin.
God, if he belongs to him, won't let him go but may have to drag him very low. Back to 1 Corinthians again, chapter 5 verse 9, Paul says, I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. He says, not the fornicators of the world, not the outsiders, or with covetous, extortioners, idolaters, not those or you'd have to leave the world. I'm not saying don't meet with those people. Don't fellowship with those people.
They need you. But I am writing, verse 11, so that you not keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, covetous, idolater, railer, drunkard, extortioner. Now here it comes, with such one, no not to eat. Don't have a meal with him. That's symbolic of fellowship, hospitality, cordiality, sociability, none of that. When you put a person out, you put them out.
You don't have more for a meal. You don't treat them like a brother. You treat them like an outcast. You put them out.
Second thing, you ready for this? Call them back. Put them out, call them back. Second Thessalonians 3.15 says, count him not as an enemy, but admonish all as a brother. And so there's a sense in which you never really let them go.
You put them out of the association, but you keep calling them back. People say to me, well, you know, I'm going to meet with my brother and he divorced his wife and he's been living in adultery and I'm going to see him. Is it okay if I see him? Is it okay? And I always say, it's fine if you see him. As long as the whole time you're with him, you just admonish him, admonish him, admonish him, come back, get your life right, confess your sin, repent of your sin. Those are the only terms you can be with. That may end the meeting if he knows that's coming, but those are the terms.
Has this ever happened? Sure. Is this step four in the New Testament? I just read you 1 Timothy 1.20. Paul says, I turn Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan. In Romans 16, 17, Paul says, I beseech you, brother, and mark them who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you've learned and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own body, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the innocent. Sure, step four is in the New Testament.
And so there's a balance. You put them out and you call them back. You're listening to Grace to You with John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, as he continues his study, My Brother's Keeper. And friend, back to what John mentioned before the lesson. Be sure to contact the team at this radio station and thank them for airing programs like Grace to You. And with that in mind, we would also love to hear from you. So when you have a moment, write us a note and send it our way. The address here is Grace to You, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can simply email us at letters at gty.org.
That's letters at gty.org. And thanks for remembering to mention the call letters of this radio station anytime you get in touch. This reminder also, we mention it often, but we can't say it enough. Your prayers are critical to the work we do. Your prayers are effective. God energizes them to help us reach men and women like you with biblical truth that shapes and directs lives. So thank you for bringing John and the entire Grace to You team and the team at this radio station before the Lord. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson and I've got a question for you. If you know someone in your church who is sinning, is there ever a reason to ignore it and to leave it to someone else to handle? Be here tomorrow as John shows you how God expects you to respond to sin in the church and the consequences when sin is not addressed. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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