Steer Clear! (Part 2 of 2)

You've heard people described as wolves and sheep. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg teaches us how to recognize a wolf in disguise and what to do if we find one in our congregation.

Here's Alistair with part two of a message titled, Steer Clear. I want you to make sure that you avoid foolish, ignorant controversies, because he points out in that context, because you only know that they breed quarrels, and that's no good, because the Lord's servant is not to be quarreling. Paul is not saying any kind of controversy is out. That's why it's important to look carefully at our Bibles, and you will notice that the adjective is the thing that keeps us on track. He says, I want you to make sure that you avoid foolish controversies—in other words, where theology is replaced with mythology, where biblical convictions are challenged by human concoctions, absolutely hopeless and worthless stuff.

And some people rejoice in that. And what about the genealogies? Are we not supposed to pay attention to the introduction that we have in the Gospel of Luke and in the Gospel of Matthew? Aren't they there for our benefit?

Of course they are. Now, why do we have the genealogies? Well, the genealogies are present there in order that the readers of them might know that Jesus is a very man, that he is a true man, that he is a real man, that this Jesus is the seed of Abraham, that Jesus is the great King who sits on David's throne. So we read the genealogies in order to discover that Christ is the Redeemer promised in the Old Testament. But that's not what these people were doing.

No. They found in the genealogies all kinds of speculative ideas and concepts, and they managed to fiddle with them in such a way as to wrest them to their own destruction. Then what about these dissensions and quarrels about the law? Well, I think this is where you need to go back to verse 10 of chapter 1 to help us to discover that this element here is present, and it was unsettling, folks, in Crete. Notice, there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers.

You see that adjective again? They talk—a lot of talk—but it's empty talk. They want to engage in controversy. They want to get you all tied up in genealogies. They want to quarrel about the matters of the law, and especially, he says, those of the circumcision party.

So the inference is that these individuals treated the law of God, the Old Testament in its entirety, perhaps the Jewish law in particular, as a kind of happy hunting ground for their speculations. And Paul says to Titus, Make sure that you don't get embroiled in this stuff. Make sure that your people don't become masters of this. Avoid these things.

That's what he means. Well, why does it matter? He tells us why it matters—the reason it matters. Because when you have the inventiveness of these false teachers matched by the curiosity of naïve listeners, it may create the impression that there is a sort of meaningful debate and wonderful discovery being made. But not so says Paul, because these sort of things are unprofitable and worthless.

They're worse than quack remedies for physical ailments. Don't you tire of that stuff on the radio? Do you ever hear these people selling everything?

It's usually in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning when all good people should be asleep or at work. And, you know, I hope you don't buy that stuff. And maybe you do. Maybe you sell it.

Then I feel even worse, I suppose. But I always find myself saying, Does this fellow really expect me to believe this? And especially when he tells me that I will get the third bottle for nothing, you know? It's so wonderful that we're giving the junk away. But if you rub it, whatever… No, I mean, that stuff, those quack remedies for physical ailments, we can handle. We can fiddle with them if we want. They're just absolutely useless. They're usually not harmful. I haven't discovered anybody growing a second nose with it or anything unusual like that.

Usually they're either self-verifiable or they just get put in the bottom of the medicine cabinet. But what he's saying here is that this kind of stuff is actually harmful. You see, this harms people.

When people begin to get a mindset that treats the Word of God, the truth of God, as some kind of gigantic jigsaw puzzle whereby they can move the pieces around to suit their own satisfaction, then they will be chaotic. And so, these things are to be avoided, because they lead nowhere and they settle nothing. They lead nowhere, they settle nothing. Secondly, if those are the kind of issues to be avoided, who is the kind of person to be confronted? As for a person who stirs up division.

As for a person who stirs up division. Now, we need to be careful with this as well, don't we? We need to make sure that we are not attributing to others the characteristics of this unique individual. This is not simply the kind of person who asks a lot of difficult questions.

All right? Although we do need to be aware of those individuals who constantly are asking questions about things that can never be resolved. But even that person is not in view here. In fact, those difficult questions should be encouraged, shouldn't they? Because those difficult questions may prove to be a legitimate avenue from ignorance to faith and to obedience. How do we find things out if we don't ask questions?

How do we make progress if we don't take the things about which we are unclear and come and ask people? Well, what does this mean, and how does that fit with that? That's not what he's talking about.

Clearly not. Nor is he simply talking about the kind of person who opposes the pastoral ministry of Titus, simply because he or she doesn't like him. Calvin, who was not unfamiliar with this kind of opposition, notes, it wouldn't be right to condemn those who simply dislike us. It wouldn't be right to condemn those who simply dislike us. And you remember, we've said all the way along that part of the challenge of pastoral ministry is, do you want to lead people or do you want the people just to like you?

If you're simply driven by having them like you, like you, like you, then probably you're gonna adopt a certain posture in order to achieve that as an objective. And inevitably, if you don't, there will be people who dislike you. They dislike Paul, they dislike Titus, some like Apollos better, some like Cephas better.

That's the way it goes. You can't be in pastoral ministry without understanding that. But that doesn't give Titus the prerogative to condemn to the darkness an individual who just doesn't like him and who apparently opposes him. No, once again, the English language will help us here as for a person who, notice, stirs up division. Stirs up division. In other words, this is an individual who has not only unsettled themselves but who becomes an unsetler of others—somebody, presumably, who has deliberately chosen to follow the false teachings and practices that Paul has just referred to in verse 9.

It would seem that there's a logical progression of thought there, isn't it? Avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law—they're unprofitable and worthless. However, the kind of person who doesn't pay attention to me when I tell you this and who engages in all of these things is the kind of individual who stirs up division, the kind of person who refuses to consent to the truth of God's Word. And as a result of that, separates themselves from the faith and in turn separates himself from the faithful. Now, this is not someone who has simply a problem with, let's say, some area of theological understanding or some disagreement with a theological perspective.

Because if we're going to hold to the notion that the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things, then we're gonna have to recognize that in a congregation such as our own, there will be divergent views on certain areas of theology—hopefully not in the central verities of the faith, but in relationship to the age and timing of baptism, in relationship to the doctrine of eschatology and the nature and timing of the return of Christ, and other things too. So this individual is not an individual who is just addressing, perhaps, piecemeal some area. But this individual is the kind of individual whose very theological house, if you like, has collapsed on itself. This kind of individual is someone who is not simply bringing a question to bear, and he still has within him the fear of God. Therefore, he is still open to the instruction and tutelage of the Bible. Therefore, he is still, if you like, reclaimable.

Therefore, he is still teachable. That's not the kind of person that Paul is addressing here. Paul is describing a different character. This is a character whose theological presuppositions have now collapsed as a result of his commitment to things other than the gospel itself. And this individual is committed to stirring up division.

Do you understand what I'm saying there? Remember, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, the person who hears my words and puts them into practice is like a man who built his house upon a rock, and when the winds came and the storm flew and everything, it stood firm. The person who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built his house on the sand, and when the storms came, his house collapsed. The description here of this kind of person is the kind of person who has now built his whole edifice, his entire life now, crumbles, because he hears the words of God and flat-out refuses to put them into practice, and he stirs up division, and he curries the favor of those who are naïve to these things, and he creates disruption among the fellowship. So says Paul, let me tell you how this individual is to be treated. He is to be warned once and then twice. Now, let's remind ourselves of something even in this. The Bible tells us, asks the question, Who knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man that is in him?

Right? So, when we are confronted by, let's say, the stirring up of division in a fellowship, it would be wrong for us, I think, immediately to go to the tenth and eleventh verse of Titus chapter 3. Because in the first encounter, how can any of us know whether this soul is reclaimable or not? How can we know unless we give to him the warnings that are described for us here? This is not dissimilar, incidentally, to what Jesus teaches in Matthew chapter 18, concerning the nature of church discipline. And so, when we warn the individual, we warn such an individual with a view to his reclamation, with a view to his restoration. We're not, if you like, warning him with a stick.

We're warning him with an embrace. We're saying, Sir, do you realize what you are propounding here? Do you realize that that is not true to the Bible? Do you realize that you are the creator of division amongst the people of God?

Is that really how you want to spend your life? And we warn him a second time. But if he continues to despise God openly, if he continues to disrupt and to divide, if he continues, as Calvin says quaintly, to go forward in his naughtiness… It shows you how a word changes over time, doesn't it?

If he continues to go forward in his naughtiness. In other words, here is the individual who hardens his heart to a gentle reproof. Here is an individual who displays a spirit of bitterness. Here is an individual who shows no fear of God and no signs of repentance. Now that individual, says Paul, we may safely assume, is warped and sinful, standing self-condemned by his own actions and by his attitude. Such a person is not a sheep but a wolf. And when you think in those terms, you realize that it is not compassion and tenderness which invites the wolf into the presence of the lambs under your care. It is, one, to disobey the Bible. It is, two, to pretend to be wiser than God, which is always true when we disobey the Bible. And it is, three, to wreak havoc within the congregation.

Now, you're sensible people, and you're gonna have to think this out. But if you remember, when Paul leaves the Ephesians, in that wonderful scene described by Luke in Acts chapter 20, when he is going to leave them now, and he knows that he will never see their faces again, this site of eternity, and they pray together on the beach, and he leaves them. Remember what he says to them. He says, For all these years, for three years, I've not hesitated to tell you the whole show. I've been teaching you, I've been preaching to you, I've been trying to show you how everything fits together in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you're gonna be fine.

No. He says, I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you and savage and destroy the flock. Therefore, he says, elders, stay alert.

Stay alert. So that the pastor-teacher, the shepherd-teacher, must have in his voice the gentleness of welcome to the bruised, battered, beaten-up sheep who are going their own way—the gentleness of the welcome that explains that the Lord has laid on his Son Christ the iniquity of us all, so that those who are aware of the fact that they're in are just a disgraceful and royal mess, that they have turned their backs on God, that the welcome, the tenderness of that welcome is a real welcome, so that the gentleness of the voice that welcomes. But the shepherd-teacher also needs the loudness of the voice that warns. And some of us are more prone to lean here, and others of us more prone to lean here. That's why Jesus is the perfect shepherd, because he always got it right, reserving stinging rebukes for religious hypocrites, granting forgiveness to the least and the last and the left out.

Let me just finish in this way. I'm quoting from Cranmer and Latimer and Ridley in the sixteenth century, right? In the Anglican Church, the established Church of England, which gives us the Episcopal Church in America. What a long journey from Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer to the triennial general convention of the Episcopal Church in Indianapolis. I don't say this in a spirit of judgment but with deep sadness of heart.

That is one of the largest legislative bodies that exists in the world. A thousand of them, the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops, gather together, discussing topics like whether to develop funeral rites for dogs and cats, quote, and whether to ratify resolutions condemning genetically modified foods. Did Cranmer burn for this? Did Ridley die at the stake for this? And genetically modified foods and burial rites for cats and dogs took second place to the approval of the blessing of same-sex relationships and the renewed anti-discrimination language for transgendered clergy, candidates, and church members. Loved ones, read your Bibles. Think. Cry out to God.

The decisions, the convictions that underlay the sixteenth century in England no longer hold sway. The church in Crete that Titus pastored—who knows much of the church in Crete today. Build your house on the solid rock. Stay away from the sandy stuff. Avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, quarrels about the law. Stick with the gospel.

Keep the main things the plain things. Tell people about Jesus. He saves people. He loves saving people. And he'll save them. And he'll save you if you will turn to him.

The Bible gives us a clear warning about the importance of dealing firmly and yet compassionately with divisiveness in a church. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close with prayer. Now I hope you've started thinking about Easter.

It's just around the corner. As you prepare, we want to suggest you listen to a brief five-message study from Alistair titled Journey to the Cross. In this series, Alistair traces the events told in John's Gospel from Jesus' arrest to his resurrection. And listening to this series is a great way to revisit these important events as you prepare for Resurrection Sunday. Again, the title of the series is Journey to the Cross. You'll find it online at truthforlife.org, or you can search the title and listen through the mobile app.

The book we're recommending today is one that will help you prepare for Easter as well. It's a new release from Sinclair Ferguson. It's titled Lessons from the Upper Room. In this book, Sinclair explores the events and the dialogue that took place between Jesus and his disciples on the evening before his death. When you read this book, you'll get a close-up look at the scene described in chapters 13 through 17 of John's Gospel, which is often referred to as the Upper Room Discourse. John is describing an upper room where Jesus told his followers many things that they struggled to understand. Sinclair takes us through this remarkable exchange that includes Jesus washing his disciples' feet. Then he explains that during these historic hours, Jesus' teaching was personal, intimate, and full of grace. The whole evening was one of cleansing. He cleansed the disciples' feet, and then he cleansed their lives by pouring his word into them. You can request your copy of the book Lessons from the Upper Room when you donate today.

To give, click the image you see in the mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer. Gracious God, we thank you for your Word.

It is a lamp that shines out on our pathway. It turns us again to the wonder of your Son. And so we pray that the love of the Lord Jesus might draw us to himself, that the peace of the Lord Jesus might guard and keep our hearts and minds, that the joy of the Lord Jesus might be our strength, so that we might stand as soldiers in the battle of our day, holding high the cross of Christ. Hear our prayers, O God, and let our cries come unto you. For Jesus' sake. Amen. I'm Bob Lapeen. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll learn how to look for and see God not only in the significant moments of life, but also in our ordinary, daily routines. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.