The Dangers of Extremism

Adrian Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances. And you'll hear that in today's message.

Now, let's join Adrian Rogers. Take God's word and go back to the book of Titus where we began this series of messages on grace. And find Titus chapter 2. And in a moment I'm going to begin reading in verse 14.

Now grace Is a wonderful, wonderful attribute of God, and we're saved by the grace of God. And the grace of God affirms something. And the grace of God tells us to avoid something. And the grace of God achieves something, and that's what we're going to see today. As we deal with this message, on the dangers of extremism.

Last week, We dealt with perfectionism. Today with extremism. and both perfectionism and extremism are the enemies of grace. I've been in the ministry long enough to know that the cause of Christ. has been deeply hurt.

by extremists. with their misguided zeal. These are the people who need to understand more and more about the grace of our Lord.

Now look, if you will, please, in verse 14, I'm going to just jump right into the middle of a sentence. It's speaking of Jesus, and this is what it says. who gave himself forests. that he might redeem us from all iniquity. and purify unto himself a peculiar people.

Zealous. of good works. Underscore the word zealous. Zealous of good works. These things speak and exhort and rebuke.

with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

Now what Paul says to Timothy is, affirm this. This is what grace affirms, and what does grace affirm? That we are to be zealous. of good works. Do you know what we need in the churches in America today?

is zeal. A burning, passionate, emotional zeal for the Lord Jesus. Our Lord had rather have you out and out against Him than to have you lukewarm pretending to be for Him. The middle of the road is a bad place to drive. It's a bad place to live.

We ought to be all out, out and out, 100% for the Lord Jesus Christ. And in our lives, we ought to be zealous for the Word of God and for truth. There are certain things that are non-negotiable. There's certain hills that are big enough to die on. There's certain things that we ought to be willing to let bring division.

It's better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. Would you not agree? And Jesus didn't come to just make all of us jealous in truth in order to get along. He said in Matthew chapter 10, verse 14, think not that I came to send peace on the earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.

One of the most divisive things that has come along is truth. and Martin Luther. Who began the Protestant Reformation said, and I quote, I do not want to know anything of peace and concord when the word of God is thereby lost. He was that man when they put him on trial and asked him to recant, said, here I stand, God help me, I can do no other. And so we ought to be moderate about some things.

If a man's house is on fire and his children are perishing in the flames, you ought not to be moderate about the rescue. If your wife is being Attacked by some man who wants to assault her, you ought not to be moderate in your defense. If she asks you, do you love me? Don't say I love you moderately. You'll be in bad trouble if you do.

And we're not to love the Lord Jesus moderately. We need to be zealous. The very word zealous means to be on fire. It means to be aflame with the love of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to leave that point because the middle point is the big one.

But I just simply want to say there is something that grace affirms and it is zeal. Grace affirms zeal. Because when I'm finished the message, you might think. If you don't listen very carefully, that I'm opposed. to Zealous Living.

that I'm asking us just to be half-hearted. And lackadaisical about our service to Jesus. If you hear that, You have misheard the message.

Now, What does grace affirm? Zeal. What does grace avoid? Look, if you will, in chapter 3. Verse 9.

But Avoid foolish questions. and genealogies. and contentions. and strivings about the law. for they are unprofitable and vain.

A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition Reject. There is a zeal. That is divisive. destructive and deadly. It can divide homes, it can divide churches, it can divide communities.

What is this misguided zeal?

Well, it is defined an error. and tried to perpetuate it. or to find a principle and overdo it even if it's a good principle. Principles are like tools.

Now you can take a hammer and build a house with it or you can beat somebody to death with it. Anything can become a bad thing if taken to an extreme. And we need to learn the difference between. The zeal. and moderation.

Paul said in Philippians, Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. That doesn't mean let your lukewarmness be known unto all men. Let your moderation, your sweet reasonableness be known unto all men. I took Joyce to a steakhouse.

Now she doesn't let me eat a lot of steak. And she says, You know, you don't need too much red meat, but you have to admit a steak is good. And we went to a good steakhouse. And they had the menu. And there were all of these fine stakes there.

And I looked at one. And it said a petite. Filet Mignon. Filet mignon? That's zeal.

Yeah. That's moderation. And so, with all of the zeal that I could muster, I said, I want the filet mignon. The petite. See, zeal and moderation go together.

properly understood and zeal and moderation are not enemies. They're friends. But extremism. Extremism is the enemy of both zeal and moderation. And what Paul is talking about here is extremism.

It's taking a principle and distorting it. Running it into the ground. I was in Madrid, the city of Madrid one day, walking down the street, and I came to a city square, and they were getting ready for a concert. and they had built an incredible concert stage. And they had sound speakers there.

and they were tweaking and tuning those things. And folks, you have never heard the volume of sound that could come out of speakers that I was hearing.

Now it was meant to convey a message. Our music. But they were tuning that thing. in Madrid and the people in Antarctica were putting their fingers in their ears.

Now Amplification is good, but amplification overdone is what? It is distortion and it is pain. Extremism. Extremism is the enemy of the gospel of the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And it is a part of our fallen nature to want to be extreme.

And what it is, it is very counterproductive. For example, In chapter 2, he tells us to be zealous. But now look in chapter 3, verse 1. He says to these saints, Timothy tell these saints, put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. That is, teach them to be good citizens, to honor the king, to honor the government.

and then look to speak evil of no man. to be no brawlers, but gentle. showing all meekness unto all men. Very frankly, Some of our Christian causes Are lost because of the extremism of people who stand for those causes. We hurt our cause.

By extremism. I'm not saying compromise. I'm talking about extremism.

Now, we come at these folks like they are the enemy. But notice what Paul says. For we ourselves were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. You say, Pastor Rogers, they're a bunch of ungodly sinners. Paul said, that's right, and so were you before the grace of God found you.

You say, well, they're living like sin. Of course, they are. That's what sinners do. They're sinners. What do you expect of them?

Paul says these people need to see the grace of God in our lives.

Now, that doesn't mean that we compromise at all, but we need to learn to live by grace. The cause of Christ The cause of Christ has been hurt by misguided zeal. Let me give you two or three examples taken right out of the Bible. Jesus was in Samaria. The Samaritans were mistreating the Lord Jesus Christ.

James and John were with Jesus and they became very zealous for Jesus. And here's what they said. Put this in your margin, Luke 9, verses 54 and following. And when his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned and rebuked them and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

Now, what manner of spirit they were of was the manner of spirit of a misguided zealot. They saw the way the Samaritans were living and they said, Lord. Les Newcomb. Lord, let's get a little heavenly napalm. Fry them, Lord.

Fry them. The Lord said, hey. You don't know what manner of spirit you're of. And then he said in verse 56, for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives. but to save them.

Jesus said, You don't know what manner of spirit You're up. The cause of Christ has sometimes been hurt far more in the house of its friends. than the house of its enemies. All right, I'll give you another classic example. Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying.

He's already told Simon Peter, I'm going to the cross. Simon Peter said, oh no, Lord, be it far from you, Lord. Jesus had to say, get behind me, Satan. You're an offense to me. You're acting like the devil.

And then Jesus took Peter, James, and John to the Garden of Gethsemane. And Jesus said, now you watch and pray. with me and for me. And Jesus begins to pray and intercede in the Garden of Gethsemane. And then that troop comes in to take Jesus.

Those soldiers The servants of the high priest Peter awakes out of his sleep. He's sleeping when he should have been praying. He sees what is happening and he pulls out his sword. And he goes, you remember this? John tells us about it, I think John 18.

He pulls out his sword. And he goes for the servant of the high priest. And he takes a swing at him and cuts off that man's ear.

Now, Peter didn't mean to do that. He meant to cut off his head. But I mean, what does a fisherman know about sword fighting anyway? And so he takes a whack at him, cuts off his ear. Jesus.

Rebuke Peter. Put the ear back on Malchus and healed him supernaturally. and miraculously.

Now you talk about zeal. You talk about a man of zeal? It's old Peter, full of zeal, full of misguided zeal. Lord, I'll go with you to prison and to death. Oh boy.

What a zeala. And what a flop. What was wrong with Peter?

Well, number one, he had the wrong enemy. Malchus Was a servant of the high priest. He was a slave. A lot of times we're fighting those who are slaves of Satan. Did you know that?

The Bible says we wrestle not against flesh and blood. But against principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places, we have the wrong enemy. And then, number two, he used the wrong weapon, a sword. The Bible says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal. but mighty through God.

Peter using that sword made a miserable mess. Later on, on the day of Pentecost, he filled the Holy Spirit when he used the two-edged sword of God's word, quick and powerful. 3,000 were not killed, they were made alive. or the sword of the Spirit. He used the wrong weapon.

He used the wrong strength. He was in the flesh. He was sleeping when he should have been praying. And waking up. With the flesh.

With zeal. Carnal fleshly zeal. He messed things up. And he had the wrong attitude. He was mad.

He was mad. And the Bible says the wrath of man. does not work the righteousness of God. I'm so glad Jesus healed that man. I mean, can you imagine this guy going around without one ear?

And somebody said, what happened to your ear? He said, a hot-headed Christian cut it off. I mean, what kind of a testimony is that for the Lord Jesus Christ? The wrath of man does not work. The righteousness of God.

It's not that we're not to be zealous, we're to be zealous of good works. But this extremism that has come into the church of the Lord Jesus Christ does us more damage than it does good.

Somebody has described a A zealot. A fanatic. As someone who, having lost sight of his gold, doubles his speed. You know any people like that?

Now notice what God says about these people. Look again in verse 9. And four things. but avoid foolish questions. Foolish questions.

That means things that are light, vapid, that are the difference between Tweedle Dee Dee and Tweedle Dee Dum. The former pastor of this church, Dr. Lee, told me a story one time I'll never forget. He said, It was one of those Sundays where I preached and gave the invitation, and the Spirit of God came in like a flood. People were being saved.

They were coming down every aisle to give their heart to Christ. And the aisles were choked with people, and tears. We're choking those people. Dr. Lee said a lady came down the aisle and took him by the hand and looked into his face.

He thought she wanted to be saved. She said, Dr. Lee. I want to ask you a question. Did you know that there were people on earth before Adam and Eve.

Now this is during the invitation when people are being saved. Did you know that there were people on earth before Adam and Eve? You know what he said to her? Said, no, ma'am, I didn't know it, and you don't know it, and the angels in heaven don't know it, and nobody knows it, and go back to your seat. A foolish Question.

Look, if you will, again in verse 9, he says, strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable. And then. They don't amount to anything. He says they are profitless. They're people who will get into a narrow band, some crusade about something, and when all of the dust has settled and all of the smoke is cleared.

So what? I frequently have people come to me with Bible questions. about some esoteric thing. These people can take a theological hair and split it in nine equal sections. And yet they're not growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

and they get on their little hobby. and they want to stay on that little hobby. It is foolish. It is profitless. It is fruitless.

Look, if you will, again in verse 9, he says this. They are unprofitable and vain. What does he mean by that? He means it doesn't produce any fruit. You know who some of the greatest extremists were in the Bible?

They were the Pharisees. The Pharisees. Jesus said of the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23 and verse 15, They traverse land and sea to make a proselyte. I mean they were zealous to make converts. They had their little laws, their little peccadillos, their little ideas, their little idiosyncrasies.

They had taken the Ten Commandments and made 613 laws out of them. And Jesus said, Once they did it, once they made a convert, a proselyte, He was twice full now, the child of hell. Twice fall the child of hair. He said in Matthew 23, 23, he said, oh, they pay tithe amen, and is coming. What does he meant by that?

They had a little mint plant in their backyard. They took nine leaves for themselves and gave the tenth leaf to God. Very extreme. But he said, you have omitted The weightier matters of the law Judgment, justice, mercy, faith. You know how Jesus described them?

He said they gag at gnats. and swallow camels. Do you ever know anybody like that? Extremists. Man, deliver me from the gnat gaggers.

People who take a some small idiosyncrasy. And to them, that's their whole world.

Now what our Lord says about these things is that they're foolish. What our Lord says about them is that they are profitless. What our Lord says about them is they are fruitless. What our Lord says about them is they are divisive. Look, if you will, in the next verse, a man that is a heretic.

After the first and second admonition, reject. Just rejecting. Don't let these people. Rain on the Grace Parade. Just don't let them do it.

It's their problem. And you can't make yourself sick in order to try and make them well. The word heretic means a divider. One that brings division. That's what the word heresy literally means.

They're self-willed people. They want to bicker. They want to judge. They want to criticize. And I say, friend, it does bring division.

It's amazing what can happen. In a particular church, true story. There was a man who stood up in a business meeting. And he said, we have in our church an American flag on the platform. I move that we take the American flag off the platform.

Why? Because it would tend in the eyes of many to equate Christianity with America. And God as an American.

So, this is the house of God. We don't need a flag here. God is greater than America.

Well They thought, well, maybe to please this brother, they would take the flag down. Then somebody said, ah. If we take the flag down, what will that say? Will that say that we are un-American, that we don't love our country, that we're unpatriotic? They discussed that for a while.

Then somebody said, I have an idea. Why don't we put up a Christian flag also?

So we'll have the American flag and the Christian flag. And everybody said, that's a good idea. And they breathed a sigh of relief until someone said, now, wait a minute. If we have a Christian flag and an American flag, That will be saying that we think that America and Christ are coexistent and coequal. We can't do that.

They debated that for a long time. Then somebody said, Well, I have an idea. Let's have both the Christian flag and the American flag, but let's put the Christian flag higher. And then, after a while, after they debated that, somebody said it is illegal to fly any other flag. Higher.

than the American flag. That's not the way to display an American flag. And so they debated that for a while. Meant somebody said, well, Let's just put a piece of paper under the American flag. Do you see the foolishness?

Do you see all of this debate about the difference between Tweedle D D and tweedledy dumb, but as sure as I'm standing here, somebody will write me a letter. And tell me, Pastor, you were wrong about using that illustration, and they'll tell me exactly how it ought to be done. And I'll guarantee you, listen, folks, if you haven't been a preacher, you don't know some of the mail you'll get. It's incredible. What stirs people, what excites people, what moves people, and so much of it is extremism.

Now extremism. can do you damage. Taking a good thing, distorting it. For example, let me give you some examples: a quiet time. You ought to have a quiet time.

I try to have a quiet time. But you know you can become a slave to a quiet time, thinking that if you don't have your quiet time, that somehow you're under a burden of guilt. I miss my quiet time. The day's going to cave in on me.

Well, the truth of the matter is, if you read the Bible, it doesn't give you any instructions about a quiet time, when to have it or how to have it. That's some general principles. But there are no laws about a quiet time. You know, when I was a younger preacher, I used to be under such a burden about even needing to sleep. I mean, I didn't want anybody to know I slept.

You know, Jesus slept in the back of the ship during a storm, but I had to be a little more holy than that.

Somebody would call me at Five in the morning. Pick up the phone. Hello? I want them to think I'd been up all night reading lamentations, you know. We get under a burden about these things.

One great Christian said, I have so much to do today, I simply must go to bed. Jesus said to his disciples, come ye apart and rest a while. If you think I'm talking against a quiet time, you're not hearing what I'm saying. I am talking against getting under some legalistic burden. You can do the same about Bible study.

You ought to read the Bible. You ought to love the Bible. But you can get under such a burden about studying the Bible that you make a fetish out of Bible study. It becomes a legalistic thing. You think if you can read so many chapters, you have somehow done your duty and a chapter a day keeps the devil away.

And you don't read anything else. The Apostle Paul read other things. You better believe he did. You read what he wrote, and you'll find out that he read other things. And when he was in prison, he said, Bring me the parchments, bring me the scroll, and bring me the books.

I want to read, I want to study, because he wanted to be a well-rounded individual. Read the Bible, study the Bible, but don't become a fanatic in the wrong sense of the word. Separation is a godly thing that we are to be separate. Jesus was holy, undefiled, separate from sin. but not separate from sentence.

You know, there is in Bible-believing churches today a thing called secondary separation. and tertiary separation. What does that mean? They say this. that we are not to have fellowship with unbelievers.

We're not to have fellowship with compromisers. And we're to come out from among them and be ye separate.

So here's the way they would do it.

Now, let's take Brother Bill sitting over here.

Now, let's say that Bill is a good and a godly man, really loves God. But now let's suppose that Bob over here, he's a compromiser. He loves God. He believes just right. But maybe Maybe Bob.

just doesn't exactly hold the faith just exactly like I hold the faith. And like Brother Dale holds the faith.

So now I love brother Bill. And Brother Bill sits near Brother Bob and they fellowship. There are some who would tell me You can't have fellowship with Bill. Why? Because he fellowships with Bob.

Do you see that? That's secondary separation. And then there were some who would say, well, maybe. Bill and Bob. are both all right.

But Bob fellowships with Jim.

Now you can tell he's rotten to the cord. I mean, just look at him. All right, now.

So, what happens here is both of these guys may be all right, but if Bob. Fellowships with him. Bill Fellowships with Bob. then I can't fellowship with either of those guys. You say, do people actually believe that?

Yeah. You'd be surprised. The evangelical world is divided by that kind of reasoning and that kind of logic. That is extremism. As a matter of fact, they crucified Jesus for the same thing.

Jesus was a friend of sinners. Not exactly the same thing because these were out and out lost people, but the principle was there. They crucified Jesus because he was a friend of sinners, those extremists, those Pharisees. Jesus ate in the house of Matthew, a tax collector. You say, was that bad?

It'd be like you're going past a pizza parlor and seeing Jesus and they're eating pizza. with a pimp and a dope pusher. Why? They criticized him and he said, listen. It's not the whole that need a physician, but they that are sick.

Biblical separation, yes. But biblical separation is not isolation. It is not dividing and torturing the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. Extremism, it comes in many, many forms. You know, you get so separated there's nobody left standing.

Two Quakers were talking. One of them said to the other one, you know, everybody is a little strange but me and thee. And I'm not too sure about thee.

Well, uh take the principle of submission. Should a wife be submissive to her husband? Yes. But that's not subjugation. What if your husband tells you to do something that's wrong?

Should you do it? No. Don't do it. There's a higher authority than your husband. As a matter of fact, there are men who have used the principle of submission rather than as a hammer to build their house, they use it as a weapon to club their wife.

Did you know that Jesus is the head of the church, but he has never forced me? To do anything? He's never forced me to do one thing. He leads by love. I believe that children ought to be submissive to the parents.

But some of your parents. are so overzealous in this matter of making children comply. that what you're going to do is to raise rebels. because you have not learned the grace of God. in the home.

I'm not saying that there's not a principle of submission. If you hear me say that there's not a principle of children obeying their parents, you've missed it altogether. But I'm saying that we need to put the sweet grace of God in what we do and how we live. I think it's a matter of how many children you ought to have, family planning. There are people telling folks today, you ought to have as many children as you biologically can.

And some people have been put under tremendous burden about that.

Now the Bible does say we're to replenish the earth, but you're not to do it all by yourself. I believe in a big family. Big families have more fun. I love, I came from a large family. Joyce and I have five children, got a little boy in heaven, four here.

But there are people, always people. We're going around pushing a principle to an extreme. and putting people under bondage. In the matter of music, Boy, you talk about the extremists in the matter of music. You can get extremists, we've got them in every church.

There's some people who love southern gospel. If we were to announce tonight we were going to have a quartet Southern Gospel, so there'd be people come out of the woodwork who don't normally come, be sitting out here, you know, just ready for the southern gospel. Other people can't stand it. I think it's beneath. The gospel of Jesus Christ.

Other people love. Anthem. Yeah. And an anthem is fine. You know the difference between a normal song and an anthem?

A normal song you could say the cow got in the corn. An anthem, you say the cow, the cow, the cow, the corn, the corn, the corn, the cow, the corn, the cow, the corn, the cow, the cot, and the corn. And then anthems are fine.

Somebody say, that's music. And somebody else likes something else. And they take a principle and they go to an extreme. There's a well-known Bible teacher who will teach that if music has any rhythm, any beat to it. It's of the devil.

And contemporary music is out.

Well, all music was contemporary music at one time. I mean everything's got to start somewhere. What are we doing? We are trying sometimes to move people back a couple of centuries. No, listen, friend, there is a sweet reasonableness.

And if you think that you can please everybody in a church like this, a small one or a big one, you are W-R-O-N-G wrong. Isn't that right? You can't do it. Have people. You know, something will happen and somebody sing wonderful and people applaud.

Somebody says, Hey, this is not a theater. This is a church.

Well, others say the Bible says, clap your hands, all ye people. I'm praising the Lord. I'm excited. Who's right and who's wrong?

Somebody wants to lift their hands and worship.

Somebody says, I'm not so sure about that.

Well, the Bible speaks of lifting holy hands to God and say, well, just lift one hand. I mean It's amazing. How we want to take A principle and use it as a hammer. to destroy other people and get in little arguments about little things that really don't make that much difference. I'm not talking about jettisoning great biblical principles.

I'm not talking about compromising truth. But folks, I'm saying that there's something that we should affirm, and that is zeal, a burning, blazing, emotional, passionate love. For Jesus Christ in His Word, there's something we should avoid. And that is extremism. There's something not only that grace affirms and grace avoids, there's something that grace achieves.

Chapter 3, verse 15: All that are with me salute thee. Greet them that love us. In the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.

Don't you love that? Oh, can't you see the pastor's heart here? Can't you see Paul just saying, look. Lock. It's grace.

It's grace. Grace is not an excuse to sin. Grace is not an encouragement to laziness. Oh, serve God with all of your heart. If you're a singer and you have a mediocre voice, The desire of your heart ought to be to make that voice sing the sweetest note it can sing for Jesus Christ.

If you have a limited IQ, Every point of that IQ ought to be given to him, and you ought to study to show yourself approved unto God. If you don't have mountains of muscles and bulging biceps, Still every nerve, every fiber, every sinew. Every corpuscle ought to beat for Jesus Christ. Zealous. Zealous.

Zealous of good works, all to Jesus, I surrender. All to him. I freely give. I'm not talking against zeal. I'm not in favor of compromise.

But old friend, there are two things that are enemies of grace. One is perfectionism. The other's extremism. We'll not always agree with everybody on everything. Let's keep the main thing.

The main thing. Father, bless this message to our hearts. In Jesus' wonderful name. Amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org.

For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org. or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.