How to Speak to a Wolf #2

In showing you these passages that we're about to look at, I'm not proposing an exact script to quote, but I want you to see the depth of the severity of the rebuke that is given to false teachers. Democracy can be a wonderful thing in the political arena, not so in a church setting, which is really a benign monarchy under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

There is no place for false teachers who would usurp authority not granted to them. We learned who they are last time on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today, Don will tell us how to deal with them as he presents more of a series in the book of Titus titled, God's Glorious Plan of Grace. We'll hear part two of the message, How to Speak to a Wolf. Actually, we're to silence these wolves. The book of Titus tells us the steps we need to take.

So turn there in your Bible as we join our teacher now in The Truth Pulpit. Somewhere in the midst of the wolves activity, you'll find a motive. You'll see as you observe, you'll see what they're after. Paul says that they're teaching things that they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. A lot of people in it for the money. Some people in it for the control. Paul said in Acts 20 in the passage that we looked at earlier, they're seeking to draw the disciples after them. You've got a man teaching certain doctrines who's wanting to get his own following, can't get it on his own, so he'll come into a place where there's already a following, and then he'll just try to pick off some sheep that he can pull after himself. Watch out for men like that.

This is real. This is a problem. This was true in the first century, and it's been true in the church in the intervening 2,000 years. We just can't think that we're exempt from it. If we're wanting to be a gospel-preaching, Bible-teaching church, we're going to expect this to come.

We're going to attract men like that. They can't build their own following, so they'll come and try to siphon off some after themselves. And so they're after something other than a pure motive of honoring Christ and seeking to be a blessing to the sheep. They want something from the sheep rather than giving ministry to the sheep. That's the mark of a wolf.

That's how you spot a wolf. In Titus' situation, this is kind of almost humorous in a sense. Look at verse 12. Paul, to reinforce his point about the deadliness of these wolves in that first century situation, particularly on the island of Crete, says this in verse 12. One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. As it is at the start of verse 13, this testimony is true. What he's doing there, he's quoting an actual Cretan prophet who lived about 600 years before the time of Christ by the name of Epimenides. And Epimenides said this. He was a Cretan, and he said this about his own people, 600 years prior to the time that Paul was writing. Looking at his own people, he said, they're liars, they're evil beasts, and they're lazy gluttons. Going back to what Paul said, they're empty talkers. They're lazy, and they don't work.

And you can't trust them. The Greek language actually has a verb called to, in English it would be to cretize. But they made a verb out of the noun of a Cretan to indicate someone who was a liar and an untrustworthy man.

That's how bad the situation was. It became part of the Greek language these people were so bad. And Paul says, this is true. This is the national character in which you are ministering, Titus. And these false prophets, these wolves, not only are doing this in spiritual motives, this is embedded in their national character.

So the testimony of what that guy said 600 years ago remains true today. Their own people recognize that they're like this. And what he's doing is, he's alerting Titus. He's saying, Titus, this is a deep-rooted problem.

This isn't superficial. This is a profoundly deep problem, and you have to be prepared to meet it with force in order to protect the sheep. He says, this has no place in the church of Jesus Christ, these wolves. You don't let wolves run free in a sheep pen. You stop them. Stop them right where they're at.

What do you do with the wolves? You silence them. The second question that we're going to answer, how do we silence them? How do we silence them?

We're going to answer that question biblically. Those of you with concealed carry, it has nothing to do with that. We're not going to take them out physically. Although sometimes that's a temptation, I admit.

No. No, Paul says, he says you have to silence them in verse 11. How do you silence them, Paul?

This is pretty weighty stuff. I mean, this is men with a lot of tradition, and there's a lot of things going on, and it's the national character. What do we do? How do we do this, Paul? How do we silence them? Look at the rest of verse 13. He says this testimony is true. For this reason, reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. What Paul is saying here is he says you have to reprove, you have to rebuke, you have to reprimand these false teachers severely so that error and disunity cannot take root in the church. You rebuke them severely. When a man has been identified as a wolf, you don't try to win him over and accommodate him, you have to confront his error directly and sharply so that the issue is clear and there can be no mistake about where the truth lies and where the error lies, and that there can be no room for misunderstanding that that kind of an approach, that a wolf has no place moving about in the flock of Christ.

That's the responsibility of elders, to go and to rebuke a man like that so that his influence cannot fester, so that it can't take root. What does severity look like? Well, in this day of modern flabby tolerance where everybody has their own truth and we're all conditioned to that more than we probably realize, we need to take a biblical look at what severity looks like because it's not what our culture would condition us to say. We're told to let everything go. All manner of perversity is fair game. You know, you have your truth, you have mine, let's coexist, as the bumper sticker says.

You don't know how many times I've nearly gotten into rear-end accidents when I've seen that and wanted to accelerate just to take that bumper out. What does severity look like? Well, what I want you to see is that when the Bible talks about severity in this, it uses severe language. Look back at how Jesus spoke in Matthew chapter 23 when he was addressing and rebuking the Pharisees.

And in showing you these passages that we're about to look at, I'm not proposing an exact script to quote, but I want you to see the depth of the severity of the rebuke that is given to false teachers. Look at Matthew chapter 23, verse 13. Jesus is addressing the Pharisees, again, interestingly, those with Jewish ties and Jewish regulations and Jewish traditions that they tried to bind on men. Jesus says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people.

You do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Look at verse 15. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Woe to you, blind guides, who say whoever swears by the temple, that is nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the temple is obligated.

You fools and blind men, which is more important, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold? Look at the way he addresses them. You fools, you hypocrites, you blind guides, you sons of hell. This is sharp, breathtaking language that, follow me here, that is fitting to address an agent of the devil who is leading people into eternal destruction. This kind of sharp language is necessary to define the issue, to frame it. And one of the great failures of Christian scholarship today is the tendency to want to dance with each other, and as you read reviews of books that are absolutely heretical, they'll start out routinely. This is their boilerplate. They'll spend six paragraphs talking about what's good in the book before they get around to saying, now I differ with the esteemed scholar on the fact that Jesus shed his blood as a sacrifice for our sins.

Are you kidding me? You're going to commend a guy who's preaching a false gospel just to ingratiate yourself for academic reasons? That is not the biblical pattern, beloved, and it is a shame. It is a mark of disgrace on Christian scholarship that they've drifted into that kind of mealy-mouth rebuke when Paul says, rebuke wolves sharply. The fact that you're in scholarship doesn't excuse you from the biblical responsibility to be the one who protects the sheep. If you're a Christian scholar, act like one.

If it sounds like I've had personal experience with that by my tone, well, there's a reason. That's for another time. Look, beloved, this is serious.

This matters. This is the purity of the gospel. These are the sheep for whom Christ died that are at stake. We can't pretend like a wolf is maybe okay and maybe rehabilitated. We can't accommodate him and give him respectful greetings in the marketplace.

We have to make the issue clear because there are individuals, there are families behind this interchange who are going to be affected and influenced by what is said, by the way that this interaction takes place. And unless you rebuke them and say, you have no place in the church of Christ, they're not going to go away on their own. They're like the ducks that get in our pool right now day by day.

And it's a major pain. But these ducks are incredibly persistent. I chase them away. I throw things at them. I chase them with a rake.

And you know what? I go back into my office, I look out, I look across, and there they are just kind of waddling over going back to the pool again. That's the way false teachers operate in the church.

If you don't deal with them severely, they're going to come back and they're just going to try to stay and deposit their filth all around. And so we have to be diligent. And beloved, we make no apologies for the fact that as a church we're not going to give quarter, we're not going to give wolves room when they come to be known by us. Paul says to reprove them severely. What did Paul have in mind? Well, we can maybe see it in his own words. Look over at Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians chapter 3. And the thing with the ducks is maybe a little more instructive than I think as you think about it. You know, you look at those ducks and look at them from a distance. They're kind of cute and they just waddle around and, you know, they wouldn't hurt a thing. Oh, are they a pain? Oh, are they messy? Oh, do they disrupt things? Well, magnify that exponentially.

And you have the problem of false teachers introduced to you. Paul says in Philippians chapter 3. And notice this. Notice his language at the end of verse 1. Chapter 3 verse 1.

He says, finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me and it is a safeguard to you. You see, he's writing and he says, I'm mindful of the fact that I need to provide a safeguard for you. Why is a safeguard on his mind?

Well, he goes right into it in verse 2 with a very sharp contrast. He says, beware of the dogs. Beware of the evil workers.

Beware of the false circumcision. He calls them dogs and evil workers. Right after he said, I'm trying to protect you, watch out for the dogs and these evil workers that are around. You see, he's speaking with those two voices where he's speaking gently to the flock and he's flaring out words of warning and rebuke of a most severe kind to those who would try to attack those sheep that he's responsible to protect. All I want you to see, the only reason I took you to Matthew 23 and Philippians 2, was for you to see the level of severity that Jesus and the apostle Paul used in addressing false teachers.

I could have multiplied examples from other places, but didn't for the sake of time. Beloved, this is not done with an angry spirit. We're not angry, we're vigilant, we're protective. It's a reprimand with unmistakable clarity so that the issues can't be missed. And if they refuse to listen, what do you do?

You send them away. Titus chapter 3 verse 10, right after Paul said, Avoid these disputes about the law. This is unprofitable and worthless. It's a distraction to real ministry.

Don't waste your time on this. Verse 10, reject a factious man after a first and second warning. No matter what you do, look at Titus chapter 3. Again, reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.

There's your sense of severity, there's your sense of urgency that Paul has. Reject him, speak to him once, speak to him again, and if he continues in his insubordination, if he continues in his rebellion and says, I will teach what I want to teach, you send him away. And as you send him away, you can know in your mind that that man is perverted and is sinning, and his actions and his words condemn him.

His own actions and words condemn him. And you send him away. You don't give him room to devastate a flock. That's how you deal with a wolf. That's how you speak to them. You speak to them sharply, you speak to them clearly, you make it clear. They have an opportunity to respond. They say, no. You say, look, we're serious, no.

It's time to go. That's the biblical pattern. That's the way that it's done. Now, with that in mind, go back to Titus 1, verse 13 as we wrap this up now. There are multiple pronouns that are at work here in verses 13, and I think Paul is using pronouns to address two different groups here. I'm not dogmatic on this, but this is what makes sense to me as I read the passage in its overall context. Paul says, for this reason, reprove them severely.

Reprove who, obviously? Reprove the false teachers. Reprove the wolves severely, so that they may be sound in the faith. Now, it's possible to take that and say that he's looking to reclaim the false teachers so that the false teachers could be sound in the faith. I don't think that's the best way to read this passage. I think the they that will be sound in the faith that he's referring to are the families from verse 11 that are totally upset and undermined by the false teaching. Titus rebuked these false teachers soundly so that the flock that is confused can be sound in the faith. And he goes on and says in verse 14, he says, so that they, meaning the families, meaning the innocent believers, would not pay attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. See, he isolates out the men who are turning away from the truth. Those are the ones that you rebuked in verse 13. In the middle there, you say, so that they, so that the innocent believers could be sound in the faith and that they would turn away from those men who are trying to lead them astray.

Rebuke the false teachers so that others don't follow them and do it with clarity and do it with severity because the issues at stake are so great. See, beloved, remember that the whole context of this, look back at chapter 1, verse 5. Paul said, I want you to appoint elders who hold fast the faithful word so that they could deal with these false teachers so that they could help the families that are upset by what's going on around them.

You see, beloved, this is my final point here. Elders in a local church, their responsibility, their first priority is to protect the sheep. Elders are not supposed to be worried about protecting the feelings of the wolf. We protect the sheep as elders. Spiritual leaders protect the sheep.

They protect the flock for whom Christ shed his blood. Jesus said to Peter in John chapter 21, tend my sheep, feed my sheep, watch over my lambs. That's what elders are responsible to do, to protect the lambs. And when a wolf shows up, you don't give the same tender care to the wolf that you give to the lambs. The wolf is trying to hurt your charge of protection. So you go after that wolf and you say, no, not here. You'll have to find another place to ply your wares, to sell your potions.

Not here. Not in this place where qualified elders hold the word of God and seek to protect the flock that Christ shed his blood for. That's the responsibility of elders. And we have the joy, we have the privilege from God to be able to talk about all of these things in advance.

And let me just kind of wrap it up and close it with this. If in time you find that there's a spiritual conflict at work that's taking place, that the elders are dealing with somebody over spiritual, doctrinal, theological issues, understand now in principle so that you'll recognize it in practice that when that comes, that's not a sign that the elders are failing in their job or that somehow something has gone wrong. That kind of spiritual conflict that is engaged is a sign that your elders will be doing their job.

They will be doing the protection that God calls them to do. And so you look at that and you say, oh, there's conflict, something's wrong. No, you look at it and you assess it completely differently as a result of what we've seen here today. There's conflict. We were supposed to expect this. Scripture told us to expect this, and here it is. And our elders are dealing with it.

I'm going to get on my knees and I'm going to pray that God would bless their efforts and sustain them as they deal with that difficult task. You see, elders who take this protecting function seriously are an umbrella of protection to the flock of God. It's not that they're being unkind to wolves. It's that they're being faithful to the Word of God and faithful to the sheep who are their charge from the Lord. And so they deal with wolves and they drive them away because an elder says, in effect, not on my watch. I'll spill my blood before a wolf gets to my sheep.

That's what elders do. And so whether we're doing it as a congregation or as men who will be called to leadership in the future, beloved, let's understand this. Let's be faithful to defend the truth that God has deposited to us in the Scriptures. And let's be faithful to each other. Let's be faithful to one another and realize that the sweetness of the fellowship to recognize that the peaceful serenity of that is something that we will protect. And if we see wolves in our midst, we'll collectively join together. And rather than expose ourselves to harm, we'll do what the Lord tells us to do.

Spot them, speak to them severely, and send them on their way if they don't repent. As we do that, we will provide. We will provide an environment in which we can worship in spirit and in truth.

And we will provide an environment that we trust in years to come. Other believers yet to be born again, your own children, your own children, your own flesh and blood would be able to come and find spiritual shelter and hear the truth taught unhindered by those wolves who would seek to undermine it. That is a glorious call for us to do. And let's seek the Lord's grace now as we recognize that from His Word. Jesus never minced words when it came to defending God's truths, and neither can we. False doctrine must be confronted, lest a church be disrupted and the flock upset.

An eye-opening message just concluded here on The Truth Pulpit with Pastor Don Green. Well, Don, confronting error has too often in our culture been replaced with an anything-goes kind of mentality. Some people misuse the judge-not verse in the Bible to excuse all manner of error.

Well, my friend, Bill is exactly right. That verse is used to excuse error in a way that is completely contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture. The Bible says that we are to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. And so that's part of the reason why we teach on The Truth Pulpit so that you would be able to recognize truth and discern error and stand for what God's Word truly teaches. Thank you for joining us on the program today. God bless you as you continue to study His Word. May He lead you in the truth and sanctify you in it. And, friend, we invite you to visit thetruthpulpit.com to find out how to get free CDs of Don's messages and more information about our ministry. Once more, that's thetruthpulpit.com. Now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright, inviting you back next time when Don presents more, from The Truth Pulpit.