As a heretic, after the first and second
admonition, reject.
Knowing that he that is such is subverted,
and sinneth, being condemned of himself, when I
shall send Artemis unto thee, or Tychicus, be
diligent to come unto me, to a Nicopolis,
for I have determined there to winter.
Bring Zenith the lawyer, and to Paulus on
their journey, diligently, that nothing be wanting unto
them.
And let ours, I think if I remember
my Bible, this is the only place in
the New Testament this occurs.
Ours, let ours also learn to maintain good
works, for necessary uses, that they be not
unfruitful.
All that are with me salute thee, greet
them that love us in the faith.
Grace be with you all.
Amen.
He said, avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and
contentions, and strivings about the law.
There used to be a very fine writer
who wrote for the Chicago Daily News.
It was syndicated, but we had it here
in the Chicago Daily News.
I think he had gotten his start with
the news.
His name was Howard O'Brien, H.
V.
O'Brien.
And he was also a critic, literary and
theatrical critic, a man of the world, a
very fine man, he was kind.
At one time a show came to the
city called La Sistriza, written as I remember
by Aristophanes, the old Greek writer.
And I didn't go to see it, of
course.
I haven't seen a show since I was
converted, as I remember, ever.
I don't even believe him in church.
Say nothing of going to the theater to
see it.
But O'Brien started out his criticism of
this play, La Sistriza, by saying this.
I don't remember anything else he said, but
I do remember this.
He said, it is rather depressing to go
and see La Sistriza and learn that nobody's
thought of a new joke in 3,000
years.
They were still rehashing the same old jokes
that Aristophanes had thought up if he thought
them up back there nearly a thousand years,
several hundred years before Christ.
Now I thought of that when I hear
these words of Paul, avoid foolish questions.
It's rather depressing to know that people haven't
mended their ways any in 2,000 years.
Paul wrote this nearly 1,900 years ago,
and we still have these people with us.
Human nature hasn't changed.
Nothing's been able to change human nature, nothing,
except the grace of God.
The problems of debate and argument are still
with us.
Our brother Knight and I were discussing religious
journalism, and we rather agreed that a great
many magazines are running, and running well, by
the simple gadget of introducing argumentative articles to
raise contention and get people arguing and writing
in angry letters and then subscribing in order
to read what else there might be.
But it's simply foolish questions.
They're to a large extent genealogies and contentions
and strivings about the law.
We have them today.
Churches are filled with them.
I think we have a minimum here, but
I would not be so naive as to
think we don't have any.
He said, avoid foolish questions.
That is, he didn't say avoid asking foolish
questions.
That's not what the word question means, but
it's proposition, something to debate.
That's what the word question means, and genealogies,
then, he said.
Now, the Jews had the biblical records, and
those biblical records were very important to them,
very important to you and me.
Because when the Messiah came, he had to
be born of the seed of Abraham.
But not only of Abraham, he had to
be born of Isaac.
For in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Not only Isaac, but he had to come
through Jacob.
And not only Jacob, but he had to
come through what was that son of Jacob,
and then on down through David, and on
down the line.
The genealogies were very important.
God was keeping Israel separated, and they had
to have their family tree, their records.
Talk about birth certificates.
We think that this is a modern invention,
and that there are people now living that
didn't have birth certificates when they were born.
I didn't.
I had to have my father after I
became a grown man.
I had my father swear to the fact
that I'd been born.
And he did, and had it notarized.
But birth certificates were issued back in the
days of the fathers, way back there.
I don't know that they handed them to
you, but they put your record down.
For instance, the sons of Joseph after their
families were Manasseh and Ephraim, and the sons
of Manasseh of Maker, and the family of
the Makarites, and the Makarite begat Gilead.
Maker begat Gilead.
Of Gilead come the family of the Gileadites.
He was the sons of Gilead, and so
on down the line.
The page after page after page of these
genealogies.
They had to be there so that when
a man came saying, I am Christ, they
could go to the records and see whether
he could prove that he came of the
seed of David, and of the seed of
Nathan, not Solomon, and of the seed of
Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham.
So they were very important.
But you know, religious people can't let things
alone.
So the Jews abused these genealogies.
In order to give them something to do,
they began to work with them, and give
meanings never intended.
Count the letters, and then use them for
puzzles, sort of, and crossword puzzles, and work
on them, and supply fanciful interpretations, and turn
them into allegory.
Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and
Jacob begat Ephraim.
And now, what does that mean in its
deeper meaning?
So they went deeper, and they found a
whole, by counting the letters, Abraham, and then
the letters Jacob, and subtracting and adding, they
managed to get some kind of a weird
old wives tale going about these genealogies.
And one brother said, this had eaten the
heart out of Judaism.
It had eaten the heart out of Judaism.
It was this kind of thing Christ fought
when he appeared.
Now, the Talmud had encouraged that.
The Talmud, as you know, was a commentary,
several times bigger than the Bible itself, a
commentary on the Bible, written by the rabbis.
Had it start, oh, maybe the time of
Ezra, and finished along maybe 400 or 500
AD.
And they still have it.
I have read.
Now, I can't say I have read the
Talmud, but I can say I have read
in the Talmud.
I've examined it and searched into it to
see what it means when he says these
genealogies and foolish questions.
Well, they're unprofitable and vain.
And always they are the proof of a
juvenile mind.
I remember when I was a young preacher,
I was walking through, past the town square
in a little town in West Virginia.
And here gathered, sitting around, chewing tobacco and
spitting on the sidewalk, whittling, were a group
of old patriarchs.
And they saw me and they knew I
was a minister.
And so they thumbed me over.
Come over here.
I went over and they propounded to me
this question.
They said, Reverend, would you give us an
answer to this question?
What is man?
Well, of course, I didn't give them an
answer.
I said the first thing like Truman usually
does that popped in my head.
And I said, oh, man's a two-legged
animal and turned my back.
And as I left, they said, well, then
God's a two-legged animal for he made
man in his image.
And of course, both my answer and their
parting shot were too foolish to be recorded.
But they spent their lifetime.
Now, here they were, old bearded and bald
fellows.
Ready soon to die and to be called
before the judge of all the earth.
To give an account of the deeds done
in the body.
And it was either heaven or hell for
them.
And they sat around and chewed and smoked
and whittled and argued endlessly over the question,
what is man?
And you know that question.
They say that's biblical.
David said, what is man?
But do you notice how David worded it?
David said, what is man that thou art
mindful of him?
Said, oh, God, who am I that you
should love me?
What a difference.
Careless men who have no thought of God.
Sitting around arguing on the technical question, what
is man?
And the loving, reverent, worshipful man looking at
the stars and say, what is man that
thou should love him?
It's all the difference in the world.
For David was not propounding a shallow philosophical
question.
He was exclaiming, oh, God, how could you
love me?
Well, the juvenile mind is always ready, no
matter what kind of head it's in.
And I apologize to all serious minded young
people when I say the juvenile mind.
The fact that you're juvenile in years doesn't
mean you need to be infantile in your
mentality.
And a lot of our young people are
mighty serious minded.
So I am not reflecting on being a
juvenile.
Everybody is at some time.
As we older folks may have a twinge
of jealousy, we're not still so young.
But the point is the juvenile mind, the
careless, irresponsible mind, I mean, and a shallow
religious curiosity springing out of a basic moral
insincerity.
The more I study the human scene and
read the word and pray, the more I'm
convinced that one thing everybody has to have
that'll ever get converted is his sincerity.
He may be so sinful.
He may be as black as the blackest
pit of hell.
He may be as corrupt as a maggot
infested pool.
But if he's sincere five minutes in the
presence of God, he can be delivered.
There isn't anything the blood of Jesus Christ
can't cleanse from.
There isn't anything God won't forgive.
It's insincerity that curses mankind.
And these people with their foolish questions in
genealogy simply were basically insincere.
And God can't save a man no matter
if he's a man of high morals.
God can't save him if he's insincere.
And no matter how deep a man is,
I repeat, if a man's sincere and looked
at Jesus Christ, he can be converted.
Now, there's only one motive, one motive that
God approves or accepts.
There's only one motive for approaching the scriptures.
And I will break that motive down into
four, for it's really one.
The motive is to seek reverently to discover
the will of God, to seek holiness of
heart and life.
To seek to know Christ intimately and to
learn how to instruct others to do the
same.
Now, that's the only reason, the only, only
reason I have for going to the scriptures.
If I go to the scriptures to try
to find the Sputnik, I am guilty of
foolish and unprofitable questions which can only be
vain at last.
If I go to the Bible to find
with reverence and prayer how I can do
the will of God and be holy, then
God will honor me and accept me as
a sincere man.
If I'm not a good man, at least
a sincere man and he'll go get busy
making you good after a while.
To seek to know Christ and to learn
how you can help others.
Now, this unprofitable business of seeking foolish questions,
answers to foolish questions and genealogies and all
the rest, had eaten the heart out of
Judaism and Paul sought to protect the church
from it.
And I've done it all down these years.
Maybe that's why false teaching has never got
a start in this church.
Everybody, anybody came in, you never got rooted.
I remember maybe it was 20 years ago
or 22 years ago that somebody got British
Israelism.
Somebody began to talk about it.
I think some old lady got into the
prayer band.
Somebody came and tipped me off.
I remember who it was.
I think she's here this morning.
Mrs. Sandrock.
Cued me for telemonium.
She told me, she said, you know, some
people here are beginning to believe British Israelism.
And I said, thank you for letting me
know.
So I went down to their office and
I bought a bag, a box full of
their books and I read them.
And I announced a sermon called Faith of
Our Faddis.
Moody's picked it up and advertised it for
me over the radio.
They thought it was kind of interesting.
And I preached on that British Israelism, religious
fad.
That killed that so dead I've never heard
of it since.
That's more than 20 years ago.
And I've never heard of it since it
perished and was buried and gone.
I wonder if the reason we've been so
blessedly free from crackpots and weirdies and oddballs
and all the rest.
I wonder if it might be because with
all of our faults, we've tried to be
basically sincere and tried to place the emphasis
on that where the Bible places it upon
the need to know the will of God
and do it and the need to desire
holiness of heart and righteousness of life.
I wonder if that could be one of
the reasons.
God in his goodness has helped us on
that.
Now, 1 Timothy 1, 4, Paul tells Timothy
about that same thing.
He says, neither give heed to fables and
endless genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly
edifying, which is in faith.
Now, the end of the commandment is love
out of a pure heart and of a
good conscience and faith unfeigned.
Notice, the whole purpose of the Bible is
love out of a pure heart, a good
conscience and faith unfeigned, from which some, having
swerved aside, have turned unto vain jangling, desiring
to be teachers of the law, understanding neither
what they say nor whereof they affirm.
Paul was determined he was not going to
allow any neat little tricks of interpretation to
ensnare his people.
He wanted them to be a holy people.
And you know, you have got to watch
the books you read, you have got to
watch what you hear over the radio, even
from good stations, you have got to watch,
because there are teachers who are busy.
They are not false teachers exactly.
They are simply teachers who are trying to
twist out of responsibility.
For instance, Psalm 1, Blessed is the man
that walketh not in the counsel of the
ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners,
nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of
the Lord, and in his law doth he
meditate day and night.
You know what our teachers tell us about
that psalm?
They tell us, some of them, that that
psalm is a picture of Jesus Christ.
The psalms are messianic, and that is the
introductory psalm.
Therefore, that psalm is a picture of Jesus
Christ.
And you know what that interpretation does?
It instantly relieves me of all responsibility.
If that picture is Jesus Christ, then I
don't come in on that at all.
And it isn't my business to see to
it that I walk not in the way
of the sinner, nor the counsel of the
ungodly, nor stand in sinners' way, nor sit
in a scornful seat.
If I can make that to describe Jesus,
I am perfectly willing to say, Oh, sure,
that picture is Jesus.
And so I am free.
I can kick up my heels and, as
Brown says, raise hell on the way to
heaven.
And then 1 Corinthians 13, that wonderful, terrible
chapter that gives me more trouble than any
other chapter in the entire Bible, probably.
Though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels and have not love, I
am become a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
You know what our teachers do with this?
Some of them, they say this describes Jesus.
So let it describe Jesus, and you and
I have no obligation toward it at all.
Well, of course, the terrible snare lies in
this, that Jesus Christ is described in Psalm
1, and he is described in 1 Corinthians
13, inasmuch as any time you describe a
holy man, you describe Jesus, for he was
and is a holy man.
But 1 Corinthians 13 was never written as
a description of Jesus.
It was written to show how Christians ought
to be.
And until we Christians have done everything that
we know how in prayer and surrender and
faith and obedience, to have this kind of
love in our own hearts, we have been
simply tricked by this chapter.
Imagine, if you will, a man who has
the gift of tongues and the gift of
prophecy and understands all biblical mysteries and has
all knowledge and has such faith that he
can move mountains and bestows his good to
feed the poor.
He's so generous, he's the talk of the
town.
And though he's willing to give his body
to be burned as a martyr, still he
can do all of this and still have
a bad motive in it and have not
love, and it'll profit him nothing.
Mighty easy way to get rid of this,
turn it over to Jesus Christ.
Just the way they got over the Sermon
on the Mount by giving that to the
millennium, saying that's the charter for the millennium.
That's the kingdom constitution.
And when Jesus institutes the millennium, that'll be
the constitution.
Well, my brethren, I don't want to be
abusive.
I want to be kind, but I'll tell
you this.
I can't bring myself to be so insincere
as all that.
I believe that this means me and I'm
going to take it to myself and I'm
going to struggle and labor and pray that
these passages may describe me as well as
describing Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now he says in verse 10, a man
that is an heretic reject.
Here's a strange thing and a solemn thing
about this word heretic.
It doesn't mean what it means now.
Now a heretic is a false teacher.
He's somebody who does not teach the truth
by picking out certain things and denying certain
other things.
He builds a fabric of untruth and teaches
that.
That is a heretic as understood in our
day.
That is the meaning in church history.
But that is not the meaning of the
word as Paul used it.
Anybody who knows the Greek or has access
to sources where he can learn what the
Greek means knows this is not what he's
meant.
By the word heretic here he meant not
a false teacher but a schismatic.
That is somebody or anybody who for any
reason is resentful and offended, who has his
feelings hurt, who tends to get silent and
withdraw from communion and sometimes gather a few
malcontents around him and have a little group
of quiet rebels who don't go along with
the crowd of the other Christians.
They're not teaching false doctrine.
They're schismatics.
A man that is a schismatic, a man
that is a divider, a man that is
a troublemaker, a man that is an injurious
critic, reject.
But the word reject here means shun or
avoid.
And of course it is after a first
and second admonition.
You don't just pick a man up and
throw him out.
But after you have given him a quiet
admonition, maybe a second one, after that shun
him and avoid him the scripture says.
That's in harmony with the words of Jesus
in Matthew 18 where he tells us that
if people do what they shouldn't do, try
to, try to reckon, be reconciled to them.
And if they won't listen, go to them
again with some others.
And after that, let them be publicans and
sinners.
Well, now Paul says a man that is
in heretic after you've done what you can
for him, that is the man who's a
schismatic, a troublemaker.
Up to now, I've never split anything except
a bit of wood.
When I was a boy and I hope
I will be able to run my race
as a obscure Christian minister without dividing the
children of God in any way.
But I wouldn't hesitate to divide them if
I knew it meant a matter of doctrine
and morals.
I believe that there may come a time
in the future when God will send somebody
with an axe to split the Christendom wide
open, line the men up on one side
and the boys on the other and find
out who the men are.
I believe that.
But in the meantime, to, to be a
schismatic, to, out of resentfulness or offense or
hurt feelings, withdraw, cease to testify, stop praying,
say a little, but what you say all
on the side of the devil and against
the local church.
That's what Paul had in mind.
And sometimes if a man like that was
influential enough, he managed to get a group
of malcontents around him and they started another
church.
A great many of the churches started in
this country were started that way.
Well, I never split one, but I helped
bring two back together again.
Do some of you old timers remember that?
That this church had split before I came
here about 32 years ago, it had split.
Part of them had gone down here and
part of them stayed here and had two
churches.
And after I'd been here about two years,
they all came back together again, threw their
arms around each other, made up and turned
the old building down there over to a
garage.
And we got some of you right here
now that belong to that old crowd.
So, uh, it's good to do it all.
Be over on the other side, not a
schismatic and a divider, but a healer and
a bringer together.
Now, I don't think I did that.
So don't think I'm boasting here now.
It just happened.
I was here when it happened.
I didn't bring them together.
They just came together.
He says, knowing that these subverters and schismatics,
knowing that he that is such is subverted
and sinneth, being self condemned.
Then to conclude, Paul instructs Titus.
Remember, he'd left Titus at Crete that he
might, uh, organize the church and appoint elders,
get everything straightened around there.
Rather a mixed up, confused church.
And Paul wanted order there.
Paul was like Wesley in that he wanted
order.
So we got order there.
And he says in verse 13, something that
I reminded me last Sunday night, he said,
bring Zenus, the lawyer and Apollos on their
journey diligently that nothing be wanting unto them.
Zenus and Apollos were, uh, Zenus was a
lawyer who had turned missionary and Apollos was
a great orator who had turned missionary.
And, uh, these two men were on their
journey somewhere.
And he said, now, when they come by
Crete on their way, have a shower for
them and, uh, give them, help them diligently
that nothing be wanting for them.
He said, be see to it.
And I thought of last Sunday night when
we, and there were time before that, times
before that, next Wednesday, when they have a
shower on Peggy Argyle, uh, receive these and
send them diligently on their way and see
that there's nothing wanting unto them.
That kind of ties us in with the
old Pauline method of doing things.
And I like it.
And I don't know what the Lord may
do with me in old age if I
live to be old.
But, uh, I remember what he said to
Peter.
He said, when thou art young, thou disgird
thyself and do what you please.
But when you get old, somebody else will
gird you and you'll have to do some
things you don't like.
Probably the Lord to finally humble me and
prepare me for heaven will let me be
a member of a church somewhere that does
everything I don't like in order to humble
me.
But I hope one thing he doesn't do.
I hope he never lets me get into
a church where they never send out a
missionary or have a shower on anybody to
send them fruitfully on their way.
Bring Zenos and Apollos on their journey diligently,
he said.
Nothing be wanting unto them.
Then verse 14, notice, and let ours also
learn to maintain good works that profess an
honest trade in order that, uh, for necessary
uses in order that they may be not
unfruitful.
You know what Paul had in mind here?
He had in mind these showers and this
preparation of missionaries.
He said, uh, send them out well equipped.
And in case any of you can't give
anything, get a job, he said, in order
that you'll have some money to take care
of things like this.
Actually, this dear old man of God, I
guess he forgot people have to live because
he tied it right in with Zenos and
Apollos and their missionary journey and said, profess
honest trade and get a job in order
you might have an income so that you'd
be not unfruitful and you can, you can
do this kind of thing.
Well, that was Paul.
And, uh, he then finally in verse 14
leaves us with, uh, maintain good works.
Paul couldn't stand idleness and Paul couldn't stand
irresponsibility.
He couldn't stand slothfulness nor unfruitfulness.
When Paul looked at a tree, there was
no fruit on it.
His heart ached.
He wanted fruit on that tree.
He looked at a Christian who was just
twiddling his thumbs.
He immediately sat down and wrote a stiff,
uh, epistle and said, get up and get
going and get a job and go to
work and let the word of God tee
you off.
Let it get you moving, get you going.
Don't simply sit in an ivory tower and
be a Christian in your head.
Get down to business, gear into life and
be useful.
Don't be unfruitful.
I think it's a good way to leave
us.
Then he says, grace be unto you.
Thank God for this old man.
Grace be unto you all.
They said he was, say he was a
Georgian, that he was a native of Atlanta.
But anyway, he closes his, uh, his passage.
Grace be with you all.
And incidentally, the students who make it their
life work to dig into such things say
that Elizabethan English, you all was a pure
Elizabethan phrase.
And the reason that he's used in the
South is that several hundred years ago, people
came there from England, lived in the mountains
and country sections and were insulated in some,
somewhat, and kept the pure language of old
England.
And so when a man comes up and
says, well, God bless you all, come back.
He's speaking Elizabethan English.
We kid about it and say he has
a Southern accent, but maybe it's us that
have the accent and they that have the
pure Elizabethan.
Let's not be so sure of ourselves.
Anyway, both are nice.
So it's all right.
All that are with me salute thee.
What a gathering it's going to be.
There they're going to be Tychicus, who is
a faithful and beloved brother.
Zenos, the lawyer turned missionary.
Apollos, the orator turned missionary.
Paul and Titus and the rest of the
brethren.
Says, everybody salutes you.
Greet them all in love and faith.
Grace be with you all.
Amen.
I love it myself.
I love this old book more now than
I ever did in all my life.
Wonderful old book.
Just turn across the page and you run
on to Epiphas and Marcus and Aristarchus and
Demas and Lucas, all these brethren.
We're going to see them there all right.
In that day, no question about their being
there.
The only question is, will we be?
They've made it.
Their journey's ended.
They've laid down their burden.
They've picked up.
Maybe not their crown yet, but at least
they're there.
We're still traveling on the way.
In John Bunyan's great classic allegory, Pilgrim's
Progress, Pilgrim and some of the others, the
Christian and some of the others, swim across
the river.
The old Christian almost sinks and hopeful says,
I found a sandbar.
Come on, pulls him over onto the sand.
Pretty soon they come up on the other
side.
And there is the great gate of the
city, Celestia.
And up before that gate struts a self
-important cocky fellow, knocks at the door, says,
well, open up.
I'm here.
And the old man who wrote handles the
door says, where's your proof?
Well, I don't have any.
Said, where's your script?
And to Bunyan, that meant the inner witness
said, where's your witness?
Well, he didn't have any.
Said, all right, go down.
And then Bunyan closed his great book with
these awful words.
And then I perceive there is a way
to hell from the gate of heaven.
Parable, old Calvinist, old Puritan, Calvinist, the Calvinist
nowadays wouldn't accept that.
They'd edit that out or at least slough
it over.
But he said, I perceive there was a
way to hell from the gate of heaven,
closed his book.
Brethren, don't take yourself for granted.
The blood cleanses and God delivers.
Wherever there's sincerity and humility and faith, God
will build a wall around you and protect
you from everything.
He'll send his angels to guard thee, and
in their hand shall they hold thee up,
lest thou dash thy foot against the stone.
But as soon as you start taking yourself
for granted, look out, Aristarchus and Demas and
Apollos and Zenos, they're over there.
You and I aren't there yet.
I'm not opening the question of eternal security
here.
I'm only saying, let's be awfully sure we're
there, we're in the grace of God, that
we have the grace of God indeed and
not only imagine we have.
Let's be awfully sure about that.
For a lot of people travel the Christian
highway that have not the credentials in their
hearts.
They only think that and they that go
from the gate of heaven to hell are
not those who have the credentials.
That's not the point and lost them.
No, they're those who never had them but
only thought they did.
And maybe that some of you got into
religion on your Sunday school teacher's reputation or
you've gone with the crowd, you moved along
with your bunch.
That's not harmful.
It's all right, I suppose, but be awfully
sure each of you, and I pray that
you young people who are going off to
schools, don't live on the enthusiasm generated by
youth.
Don't take anything for granted.
See to it that the blood cleanses and
the Holy Ghost renews and that God's accepted
you and that you've got the witness within.
For there's a way to hell from the
gate of heaven.
Goodbye, Paul.
We'll be back to see you again next
Sunday.
No later because you can't preach without Paul.
There's no use.
The Lord made him so important in the
book that you start preaching in the book
of numbers and you got to get to
Paul pretty soon.
God gave him such a place.
Paul and David.
David in the Old Testament, Paul in the
New.
What a pair they make.
I never ask anybody for his signature, his
autograph, so help me in my lifetime.
I've autographed a good many hundred things, but
I never ask anybody for one.
Outside of being on a check, it wouldn't
be of any value to me, and I
don't get many of them, but I'll say
this, there are two men I want to
meet.
I don't want to go up and meet
them as equals.
I just want to be permitted to stand
off at a little distance and gaze at
them with love and wonder.
David and Paul.
Marvelous old brother.
Paul, the man of God who couldn't stand
a tree that didn't bear fruit.
David, the man of God with his homemade
harp who looked up with tears and said,
What is man that thou art mindful of
him?
I want to meet them both.
You know what?
I got a real deep feeling I'm going
to do it one of these times.
For the God, the God eternal has taken
all my sins away, and David's royal fountain
has delivered me from all the weights that
would take me down there.
I hope you can say the same.
I trust you can.
God bless you.
Amen.