Paul gives us two results of being conned. Two things are happening here. Number one, families are being turned upside down.
He writes further, these false teachers are upsetting whole families. They're turning everything upside down. The word upsetting is the same word used of Jesus Christ who turned over the tables in the temple. He upset them, Matthew 21 verse 12.
Everything is turned upside down. So you can only imagine what he's referring to with the conflict and the anger and the emotion and the frustration in these churches on the island of Crete as these false teachers have literally turned everything over. Have you ever had someone close to you adopt a false belief? If so, you can relate to the situation Stephen was describing a moment ago. When members of your family or close friends begin to embrace false teaching, it's very upsetting to the family dynamics.
It causes conflict. Oftentimes, people who believe false teaching want to convince you that they're right. So when false teachers promote false doctrine, Paul says they're literally turning families upside down. Today, Stephen's going to explore more of the effects of false teaching.
So stay with us. He thinks so critically. He says and he explains that Christless Christianity does not mean that false religion or false spirituality is missing words like Jesus and Lord and Savior. What he says is that those terms are taken out of the context of Scripture, the contexts of sin and rebellion and a divine rescue and heaven and hell. He writes, Jesus in contemporary evangelical false teaching has been baptized into the church, has turned Jesus into a therapist, into a buddy, into a significant other, into a good model, into a political messiah. They may tack on the gospel at the end of a sermon, but that's only for evangelical window dressing and I've seen it happen. He, in fact, extensively evaluates in his book the content of messages objectively parsing them down by popular speakers and authors like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes and Joyce Meyer and Kenneth Copeland and others. They may wrap up their sermons by asking people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, which makes them sound all the more biblical, but a Savior of what? A Lord over what? Saved from where?
These questions are unanswered unless you're talking about being saved from an unfulfilling job, being redeemed from oppression or sickness or low self-esteem. So again, the Bible is a resource for terminology and advice, but it isn't the source of meaning or exposition. He used an interesting illustration and it might tweak your thinking at first, but follow me carefully through this. He says, you know, he said, when my wife and I had triplets, we needed advice.
You can only imagine it. And all of our advice didn't come from Christians. In fact, he says, I got great advice from my barber and his wife. And he makes the interesting point that you don't need the Bible in order to know that your child needs regular sleep patterns and how to get them on it. Or for that matter, that the secret of a good marriage is talking to each other. Or that divorce can be devastating for children or that if you don't rule over your credit cards, your credit cards will rule over you. Of course, the Bible gives us a lot of wisdom on subjects like these, but there are plenty of non-Christians who actually do a better job at giving out and following advice than Christians. That unbeliever who lives in your neighborhood might be a better financial manager than you.
Their children may be sleeping six hours through the night, which isn't fair. He makes this point. Someone can lose weight, stop smoking, improve one's marriage, and become a nicer person without Jesus.
There are a lot of people that do it. So if Christianity is nothing more than ethical advice on how to live a really good and clean and happy and you sleep well at night life, how to become a better person with a more positive attitude to live the best life possible now, who are we then to say that our religion is the only true religion when there are other religions with the same doctrines, the same golden rule, and their people are becoming better people because of that too. So if religion is basically ethics, if you reduce Christianity down to just good advice that you could get anywhere, it just will blend in with the culture of religion. Our teaching may sound relevant.
It may seem to connect, but it actually gets lost in a marketplace of ethical ideologies, and the world looks at us and says, why would you think yours is the only one? So who are we then to say that Christianity is the only true religion, especially when the kind of Christianity now peddled by so many false teachers is nothing more than good advice and moral platitudes and creative principles. Here's the point. What distinguishes Christianity at its heart is not necessarily its moral code, although it ought to impact that, but its truth about a creator who was rejected and denied by those he created in his image, and he then stooped to reconcile them to himself through his son by faith in Christ alone.
See, Christianity at its heart, which makes it unique, is the gospel, and Jesus Christ is the crucified, atoning Lamb of God for sinners slain, and even now the soon coming King for whom we wait. That's the good news. The con artist gives you something you think you want, but then you realize it really doesn't satisfy. Now think about it. If money makes you happy, then the happiest people on the planet ought to be the wealthiest people, right? You know that isn't true. If good health made you satisfied, then sick people would have no joy, and personal trainers and bodybuilders would be the happiest people on the planet.
But you know that isn't true either. A con artist gives you what you want, and that's part of the danger. We pander to that stuff. We think that really is what life is all about.
We're easy marks, aren't we? But in the end, they're empty promises. If an angel were to show up and give us one wish, I wonder how many of us would fit the evangelical culture and ask that one wish and whatever that may be, being temporary and not be like Solomon, the only man ever to have been given a one-wish opportunity from God, to ask for something deeper like wisdom. I thought you'd enjoy this story I received this past week. An angel came to a married couple, and they were given one wish.
They were in their mid-60s. The angel said, look, I've been allowed to grant each of you one wish, ladies first. The woman said, oh, my husband would never do this for me, so I get to wish that I've just always wanted to go on a Caribbean cruise, and I'd love tickets for my husband and I to go first class all the way. The angel said, sure, and poof, she was holding two first class tickets. The angel looked at her husband and said, okay, your turn. He looked down at his wife and kind of grinned and said, well, I'd like to go on that cruise with a woman 30 years younger than me. And the angel said, okay, and poof, he was 96. You worried me.
I thought you missed it. You know, I'm really glad. You know, one of the reasons we are, in fact, one of the reasons there will always be a market for spiritual con artists is because we do pander after those shortcuts and those easy roads to spiritual maturity and, yeah, I guess we ought to be happy and we ought to be healthy and surely as children of God we ought to be wealthy. The truth is these false teachers are promising something they can't produce because the Word of God doesn't promise it until, until we are glorified and in his presence. And now as we suffer and long for the redemption of our bodies and the redemption as creation itself groans, we long for his coming. The truth is if people got everything these empty talkers promised, why would we ever want to go to heaven? Heaven would be anticlimactic.
Why would we need it? In an issue of the Christian Post they ran an article recently with this headline that caught my attention, why Muslims are converting to Christianity. You're not going to see this on CBS, but you ought to know in our ministry that is now in the Middle East and Arabic and the fruit of ministry.
That's not ours per se, but just the ministry of the gospel in that area is bringing a pout, incredible fruit. Here's an article, why Muslims are converting to Christianity. Let me read you some of the reasons.
Among the leading reasons were these. As they read the Bible they are convicted by its truth. They are attracted by the concept of God's unconditional love through Jesus Christ. They can never be certain of their forgiveness from sin as Christians can be. You catch those words convicted, truth, sin, forgiveness. The very words the false teachers never want to mention.
Conviction, sin, truth, forgiveness. Because of that they promise things that they can't even produce anyway. So Paul tells Titus, here's the description for shepherds. They need to be alerted to, they need to protect the flock from, and the church itself needs to be alerted and trained and disciplined to think critically. And here are the characteristics of con artists spiritually. Number one, they're known for their unaccountable personalities. Number two, they are known for their empty promises.
And number three, they are known as deceptive promoters. Notice Paul writes further in verse 10, there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. Now follow me here, literally out of the circumcision. In other words they are supposedly converts from among the Jewish people and they've entered the church and they've never really left their past. They're bringing in the baggage of Old Testament law ritual ceremony. Much of the book of Acts is going to attempt to deal with the issue of Jewish and Gentile believers reaching doctrinal consensus based on the gospel of the new covenant. And by the way this brand new organism called the church, nobody in the Old Testament had ever conceived of. These Jewish false teachers, especially those among the Jewish or the circumcision who would be Gentile false teachers as well, but they wanted Gentiles to become Jews in order to become Christians.
You had to walk through the gates of the temple so to speak to become a believer. So they demanded Gentiles be circumcised, Gentiles adhere to the Sabbath, they abstain from eating non-kosher meat, they keep the Mosaic law, they bow to rabbinical teachings. Basically these false teachers wanted to turn Christianity in just one more Jewish sect. Paul will spend, if you read his letters you'll know, he spends most of his life battling these Judaizers. They dogged his footsteps, they subverted his converts, they attacked his apostleship, they challenged his authority, they undermined his teaching, they distorted his gospel. To put it simply, here's what they're doing. They're teaching that the gospel isn't sufficient for faith and they were teaching that grace was not satisfying for life.
In other words, Jesus isn't enough and you've got to keep all these rules in order to earn heaven. That was the false teaching core. Paul was not going to take this sitting down. I mean, this little fire under him. So he tells Titus, 11, in very strong words, they must be silenced.
You notice that? They've got to be silenced. Silence them. The word for silence literally means to muzzle, to cover over the mouth. The present tense indicates this is continuous action which lets you know that an elder shepherd believer in the body is never really off duty and watching for and being alerted to false teaching.
You're never really two paces past it. Titus, Paul says these false teachers need to be caught. They need to be exposed. They need to be silenced. Now, not by literally gagging them, but silencing them by delivering the truth. And the truth silences them. The truth protects the flock. This goes back to the qualification of an elder where he must be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.
And would you notice what they're doing to the flock? Take a look at what they're doing. Paul gives us two results of being conned. Two things are happening here. Number one, families are being turned upside down.
He writes further, these false teachers are upsetting whole families. They're turning everything upside down. The word upsetting is the same word used of Jesus Christ who turned over the tables in the temple. He upset them, Matthew 21 verse 12.
Everything is turned upside down. So you can only imagine what he's referring to with the conflict and the anger and the emotion and the frustration in these churches on the island of Crete as these false teachers have literally turned everything over. I may have shared with you before I can't remember, but I traveled to Africa several years ago and I came to preach in several churches not long after one particular so-called prophet by the name of Benny Hinn had delivered a week-long conference in an arena nearby and during his week of meetings he announced that Jesus had personally told him that he would be appearing on stage with him one night that week.
I can't remember if it was Tuesday or Thursday. But on that particular night then he suddenly looked over, over off the stage and he began to get very excited acting as if he was seeing Jesus and kind of went through all kinds of little gyrations. Then he said to the mob of thousands of people, did you see him?
Did you see him? People were fainting. I was having lunch a month later in Kenya with two church leaders who served as secretaries over two evangelical denominations and they told me that so many of their churches are frustrated now and confused and there are churches that are even splitting. They're splitting over those who believed Jesus appeared and those who don't believe Jesus appeared.
Those who believe this man was a prophet and those who believe he told something that never really happened. Families turned upside down. A false teaching about Jesus and a false teacher who claimed to have direct communication with Jesus is now dividing the church into factions.
This is happening on the island of Crete. Perhaps not the same way with the same message but the same result. Not only were families being turned upside down, the second result of being conned was that the personal bank accounts of the teachers were filling up. Paul writes in verse 11, they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of what?
Sorted gain. The preposition for the sake of indicates that this is the goal of their activity. This is why they're doing what they're doing. Now they're not going to necessarily admit that but Paul pulls the mask off and says they're really after your money. They really don't want to care to feed the flock. They want to fleece the flock. Let me add to that thought because Paul uses a word here for sorted gain that can mean money but Paul also uses that word a couple of other times in his pastoral epistles for non-financial advantages like prestige and power and influence. These false teachers are really more interested in what they can get out of people than what they can invest in people. As it relates to money, I've heard them say they can defend their lifestyles by saying that since they preach prosperity, they above all should live prosperously.
I guess people just nod their head and say I guess that's right. They keep sending in their little seed gifts. It never ceases to amaze me what false teachers get out of the Bible and what their followers never question. A number of the more prominent false teachers, many of them have 30 minute programs on cable. Sometimes on Sunday nights I'm so wired, wide awake, so excited about the day and what's happened and I can't sleep I'll go upstairs and turn on that cable channel and I'll watch them one after another.
That's where I get my illustrations. I just watch them. It occurs to me that if you eliminated everything from their programs having to do with wealth and health and prosperity and I'm a prophet of God, all you'd end up with is the opening music and the closing credits. Everything in between is false promotion, ultimately promoting themselves for the sake of gain. False teachers are not driven to build up believers, they are driven to fill up their pockets. They're nothing more than spiritual con artists.
So expose them and silence them at least for the sake of the flock over which God has entrusted you as elders and shepherds for their spiritual well-being. After spending Thanksgiving with their family in Seattle, Washington, a family of four began their long journey back to San Francisco. Parents names were James and Katie and they had two daughters ages four and seven months. They traveled south on Interstate 5 until late into the evening. They intended to exit onto Highway 42 and spend the night in a lodge but they missed their turn. Instead of backtracking, they decided to follow a map that seemed to show a shortcut to the coast. They didn't notice the fine print and the warning that this particular road might be closed during winter months. It was the dead of winter. After encountering on Highway 42 drifts too high to drive through, they turned off onto a spur road the map seemed to indicate that would get them to their destination.
According to one area resident interviewed later, he said that was a tragic decision. He said once you get off the main road, you're lost. After struggling for 15 miles along that unpaved road, their station wagon became stuck in the drifting snow. Rather than attempting to backtrack on foot, the family decided to remain with the car and hope to be rescued. They remained there for one week, this article said, running the car intermittently for heat and rationing their small amount of food. Once the car ran out of gas, they burned magazines and wet wood and eventually the tires on their car to try and keep warm enough. James, the father, eventually decided to hike back for help thinking that he was about four miles from the nearest town. He was actually 15 miles away.
A search party eventually rescued his wife and two children, but James never made it out alive. You know when I read a story like that, I immediately think of the flock. Traveling on a road leading home and false teachers standing on the roadside selling imitation maps, not pointing out the fine print, promising shortcuts to the coast. Saying, you know, there's no need to struggle through long valleys, you don't have to bother with thin air on mountain tops. You follow our way, it's easier, it's better, it's happier, it's healthier, it's faster.
You can have all your wishes come true. Dear flock, don't be conned. Be careful. Here's the startling warning from Paul. Don't be conned by Christians who come in the name of Jesus. Listen, saying Jesus is part of their scam. Saying, now why don't you right now ask him to be your Lord is part of their scam. They're deceptive promoters of truths that don't match up with the word of God.
They offer empty, shallow, temporary promises as the core content of their teaching and they are unaccountable to anybody. Don't be conned. Stay the course. May we be a flock of believers willing to avoid the advertisements for all the shortcuts but be willing to travel the long way home no matter how difficult. May God also give us shepherds who know how to read the map and are willing to teach it correctly. Titus, go find men who are willing to wear the mantle of a true teacher, promising only what God promises, speaking only what God has spoken.
Go find them. They wear the mantle of a true shepherd. That's what our society needs more than ever. True shepherds who will lead God's people in truth. I'm so glad you've joined us here today on Wisdom for the Heart. Your Bible teacher is Steven Davey, the founder and president of Shepherds Theological Seminary in Cary, North Carolina. If the Ministry of Wisdom International is a blessing to you, it would encourage us to hear about that.
I'll share with you a couple of notes that we've received. One listener said, I listen to Wisdom for the Heart on my local radio station. I use the manuscripts that you provide when I teach in a nursing home ministry I'm part of.
And Robert from Florida said, I'm currently unemployed and fighting through stage four cancer. Listening to the Wisdom broadcast has been a daily source of strength. I pray for the Lord's protection over Steven as he teaches the truth of God's word. Well, thanks for sharing that Robert and we'll be praying for you as you face your cancer treatments and also that the Lord will make it possible for you to be employed. And thank you for praying for us. Steven often reminds us that our ministry is empowered by the prayers of our listeners.
So we're grateful for that. If you'd like to send Steven a note, our email address is info at wisdom online.org. That's info at wisdom online.org. In the first note that I read, the listener referred to the free manuscripts that we make available on our website. The complete archive of Steven's four decades of Bible teaching is available on our site. The audio of Steven's teaching and the printed manuscript of every lesson are available free of charge. You'll find that if you go to wisdom online.org. That's wisdom online.org.
While you're there, be sure and look around. We have a resource section where all of Steven's books, commentaries, Bible study guides and devotional resources are available. There's more information about our ministry and a way for you to send us a note all through that website. If we can help you personally, please feel free to call us here in our office. You can reach us at 866-48-BIBLE. That's 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. We're going to continue through this current series next time. So join us here on Wisdom for the Heart.
