Titus 3:10

Titus chapter 3 verses 3 to 10, our focus is going to be on verse 10 in particular. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God, our Savior, toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, us by the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, these things I will, that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. these things are good and profitable on demand, but avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable in vain. A man that is a heretic after the first and second admonition reject. God bless to us His sacred and holy word this evening. In 1836, there was a New York preaching. by the name of William Miller, who announced supposedly after two years of intensive Bible study, that life on earth would end in 1843. He began a barn-storming tour of northeastern churches, gathering adherents. Well, January 1843 arrived with no visible sign of apocalypse. He amended his timetable. I am fully convinced that somewhere between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844, Christ will come. In the winter of 1844, the Millerites, as they had become, called, at this time, took a passing comet as a sure sign of the eminent return of Christ. Soon, the number of Miller rights swelled to 50,000 people. Many sold their earthly goods, but the last Trump never sounded. It was called a great disappointment. Eventually, one of Miller’s followers, Mrs. Ellen G. White, preached that Christ had stopped to clean out heaven first. And then he would come back to the earth. In time, the Miller writes, looking to Mrs. White’s teachings, and she became their leader and chief preacher, became known as the Seventh-day Adventist, and a cult, new cult, was born. Sadly, down through history, the church has had to deal with a multitude of people who are known as heretics. The real danger with such people is they often draw followers from true churches of Jesus Christ and lead them astray. Now, Paul has already warned Titus in Chapter 1 about those who would suffer whole households teaching things which they ought not in Chapter 1, verse 11. At this point, Paul tells Titus and the people of God there on Crete. how they are to deal with heretics. In one sense, certainly there is a desire to see such people repent of their sin. At the same time, there is a need to protect the church so that others are not drawn away by them. So I want to speak tonight on the topic of admonishing heretics. Now, you will find the church must deal with heretics. Let me take a moment here and try to define the term heretic for you. This term that is used into Greek, it comes from a verb that means a choosing or choice, a self-willed opinion, causing a division by a party spirit. So it has the idea of choosing a party or sect in its teachings rather than, believing the teachings that are found in Scripture in the faithful church. Heretical person is someone who creates a schism or a division in the church. Thus the term, in some Bibles, is translated a divisive person. In our age, a heretic is often considered a hero. They’re admired for their courage against going. against the established church or the rigidity, the rigidness of a scriptural doctrine. Biblically speaking, here is how we might define a heretic. First, a heretic must at least profess to be a follower of Christ. You know, pagans, infidels, atheists are not considered heretics. or without God in this world. They might hate the Christian faith, and they may hate Christians and wish the rid the world of the true faith. However, they’re not heretics. You took the most Muslim fanatic that there is. He’s not a heretic, because a heretic is someone that is found within the true church. A terror among the wheat, if you would. In order for the church to reject such an individual, we will find here in verse 10. They must, first of all, be classified as a member of a church and a follower of Christ. So we would classify this person as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Maybe even for a time this person has professed Orthodox doctrine, but somewhere along the line has gone astray. And he renounces what he wants to profess to believe, and he strays from the truth. faith. Second, a heretic must hold serious doctrinal error. Paul has just stated what he considered vital truth. He said, this is a faithful saying in verse 8. Concerning the way of salvation that he talked about in verses 3 to 7. He has emphasized that these things are to be affirmed constantly in verse 8. those who deny these fundamental truths that we have talked about in verses 3 to 7 must be heretics. If a person heirs in practice may call him a hypocrite. He may even call the person profane, but not necessarily heretical. In other words, if a professing Christian businessman deserts his wife and his family and runs off with his secretary to Hawaii, he’s not considered a heretic. He’s certainly a profane person, and no doubt will be disciplined by the church, perhaps excommunicated by the church. If a true Christian tells a lie, we would classify him as a hypocrite. He’s doing something which goes against his belief system. He has been commanded to speak the truth in love, and he has not done so. But we wouldn’t classify the truth. that person as a heretic necessarily. Heresy is directly related with false doctrine, and this doctrinal error must be of a fundamental nature. It’s not, well, this person happens to believe in foot washing as an ordinance of the church. As wrong as that may be, I wouldn’t classify that person necessarily as a heretic. Maybe this person believes that Putin is the Antichrist. We might say, I don’t think. so, but we wouldn’t classify that person as a heretic. Perhaps this person believes that owning property is forbidden. We wouldn’t classify that person as a heretic. Or perhaps they believe that pacifism is commanded by Christ. And the Christians should not have firearms or go to war or anything of this nature. We wouldn’t classify those people as heretics. But rejecting fundamental doctrine, embracing false doctrine that inevitably leads to sinful living, when we come to this situation, the root of the problem goes back to a person’s theology. If anyone professed to believe justification by works or by faith plus works, that meriting God favor is based upon good works. Talks about man’s innocence and goodness, speaks of baptismal regeneration, this person is holding heresy. In 1924, 1,300 Presbyterian ministers signed the Alburn affirmation stating that the virgin birth, the miracles of the Bible, the atonement and resurrection of Christ, were unimportant and non-essential. Therefore, we would classify them as theoretical. This is why we have confessions of faith drawn up by the true church in order to combat heresy. The third thing I would say is this. A heretic must obstinately maintain doctrinal error. The heretic rejects admonition by the church. After the first and second admonition reject this person and maintains his false doctrine. After the error has been pointed out, and the person has been told the truth of Scripture, and he refuses to own it, and he stubbornly holds to his particular error. I’m afraid we have to classify this person now as a heretic. They’ve held to this false teaching. Now it’s possible because of poor teaching, because of simple-mindedness, because of rashness. fall into error. You could mistakenly believe the wrong thing. That would be fundamentally wrong. However, the true believer doesn’t continue to contend for the error. The true believer gets admonished and is told what the scriptures teach and the true believers says, oh, oh yes, therefore he changes his ways and cast aside the error. We would say that person’s not a heretic. He’s just got misled. Some among the Corinthian Church you recall denied that there was a resurrection of the debt. In 1st Corinthians 15, Paul has to argue for the resurrection of the dead, and he says, if there’s no resurrection of the dead, then you are undermining the gospel because if there’s no resurrection, then Christ didn’t rise from the dead. And Christ, and is the first fruits of those who will be resurrected. So he points out the error their way. We assume that the Corinthians corrected their mistake because he doesn’t mention it again in chapter, or the second book of Corinthians. But the heretic after listening to biblical truth refuses to repent of his serious error. Since branding someone as a heretic is a very serious matter, we have to take care in this regard. We don’t want to quickly pass judgment. But at the same time, must recognize there are heretics. So this is what I mean when I’m talking about a heretic. Now, heretics are a continuous problem for the church. The very fact that Paul has to provide instruction for the people of God about how to handle heretics indicates this is a common problem that crops up. ongoing for the church. Satan is ever busy trying to trouble the true people of God, trying to mix them up, try to confuse them, try to lead them to stray. He wants to obscure the light of the gospel. Heretics cause schism. They split the church. They pull people after them. It’s a terrible sin. Church members are led astray into very serious, often soul, damning, heresy. The unity of the body of Christ is broken. The entire work and life of the church becomes disrupted. Heretics create contentions and strivings, which always are a hindrance to the growth and progress spiritually of the church. False teachers bring in, as Peter says, in 2. 2.1, damnable heresies. They end up subverting whole households, as Titus has been told in 1, verse 11. So sometimes the scattered church is left picking up the pieces of these individuals who come in and create these problems. Some of you that have lived in Pennsylvania for a while may be familiar with a man named Scott Hahn. He once was a Presbyterian minister. He was raised in a Protestant home. He claimed to come to a spiritual transformation. during his sophomore year in high school. He claimed to be interested in Luther and Calvin and attended the conservative Grove City College here in Pennsylvania. He affiliated with the mainline Presbyterian Church. While there, he became enamored with the work of Thomas Aquinas, who was a Catholic. and he devired many of his philosophical writings. He went to Gordon Cromwell Seminary. His tuition was paid for by a Calvinistic Christian businessman who wanted to support the student. There he became obsessed with Catholic theology. Eventually, he became a pastor of a Reconstructionist Church in Fairfax, Virginia, known as the Trinity Presbyterian Church. But Hawn adopted the Roman Catholic view of justification. Here’s what he said. I discovered that nowhere did St. Paul ever teach that we are justified by faith alone. Solofede was unscriptural, according to him. And this is what he said. I became so excited about this discovery I shared it with some friends who were amazed at how much sense it made. When he introduced liturgy into the church, there, he said the people became excited. Soon he was convinced that the Roman Catholic teaching on the Lord’s Supper was correct, that Christ was physically present in the table of the Lord. Han began teaching at Dominion Theological Institute. He taught seminary students contrary to the teaching of the seminary itself and what it believed, the just of the seminary. by faith alone was false. Hong began to feel that God was calling him into the Roman Catholic Church. Supposedly, he received alleged messages from God and from Mary about this matter. Someone mailed him a rosary. He decided he would put Mary to the test by praying about what he called an impossible situation. He said the impossible situation and cleared up within three months of him praying to Mary and so he began to pray to Mary daily. The Presbyterian minister, John Gerstner, attempted to persuade Scott Hahn here of the errors of Catholicism but was unable to do so. Han persuaded another family, the tactics, to embrace the key to Catholic doctrine and joined the Roman Catholic Church with him. Soon he was off to Rome to visit the Pope. Hans’ obsession now is to become a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in order to convert professing Christians to Catholicism. I’ve listened to various tapes, 12 of them, I believe, by Scott Hahn. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what he’s teaching. And he’s paving the way for many to cast aside the truth and embrace soul-damming error that the Catholic Church teaches. He’s acting, if I can put it this way, as a Catholic evangelist. He has trouble the Church of Jesus Christ. He’s an enemy of Jesus Christ, and he’s a heretic. Down through history, we see these kinds of people raising a, being raised up. Somewhere along the line, we see them showing up in the church. Satan never ceases to attempt to corrupt the true church of Christ. And this is why the Lord has told Paul here in the church, how to deal with the situation. Now, you might ask yourself, if the Lord controls all things, how is it that he allows for heretics to trouble the church? Let me give you four thoughts on this subject. First, to try and prove his people, to see if they will cleave to the truth. This is an interesting statement in Deuteronomy chapter 13, verse 3. Thou shalt not harken under the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. These false prophets that are. rise. The dream these dreams and give you false teaching, God says, I am using these in order to test my people to see if they will remain faithful to me. The second reason. To make known the faithful servants, the elders or pastors, of the people of God. In 1 Corinthians 1119, we read this. For there must also be also be. heres among you that or so that they which are approved may be manifest among you. Now what does he mean by that? Heretics are the means by which God points out to the church. Who is the faithful ones? Who are the ones who are the ones that are going to adhere to the truth? So it’s a way of, in a sense, making these men stand up. out. Thirdly, it’s a way to punish false professors among the people of God. If you back up just a couple of pages to the book of Second Thessalonians, chapter 2, and verses 8 to 10, we read these words. Then shall that wicked one, or that wicked, be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the wicked, with the brightness of his coming, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Now, those who carelessly listen to the Word of God don’t have a true love for the truth here. eventually are given over to strong delusions and are pulled away by heretics. And so God uses this to separate his true people from those who are hypocritical or false professors among them. And lastly, he does this to establish and confirm the truth of Scripture. Controversies, as hated as it as it is as it is, as it is, as it is, forces the people of God to carefully define the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, and that’s why we ended up with the great confessions of faith that we have, like the Westminster Confession, our London Baptist Confession of Faith. We have these confessions in order to combat error, and we wouldn’t have them without these errors arising. So you find the church must deal with heretics. Secondly, tonight, you will find that church must deal with heretics. the church must first admonish heretics. We read here about the admonishment of heretics. He says, a heretic after the first and second admonition reject, even when error is serious and it’s dangerous, the church has to show some patience in dealing with those who have heretical doctrine. They have to be admonition. They have to be warned. They have to be reproved. The Greek word seems to indicate a putting in mind. Put them in mind of the truth, basically. So the heretic has to be confronted that his position as a doctrinal deviation from Scripture. We don’t merely talk theology with the vice of people. We rebuke them, admonish them, warn them, warn them about the state they’re in. Now, Paul here appears to have in mind the procedure of church discipline that is taught us in the book of Matthew chapter 18 by Christ. Remember, he says if you have a lot against your brother, first you go to your brother and tell him his fault. If he repents, great. Things are cleared up. If not, you get one or two others and then go to the person and try to say to see if this will not correct the person. If that doesn’t work, you take it to the church. And if he won’t listen to the church, then he’s cast out of the church and treated as a person who is to be despised and rejected like a publican, as the scripture indicates to us. Now, Jesus talks about three warnings. It seems that Paul here is talking about two words. warnings. So what is the difference here? Well, I think Paul is concentrating on what the church is to do, and therefore we’re looking at more of a public warning. The first situation may be, maybe this heretic talks to someone and that person says, wait a minute, well, your teaching is wrong. But it has become known to the church now that this person is teaching wrong things. And so the next thing is that maybe the elders and some of the other men of the church or something go to the person and try to correct them. If that doesn’t work, then we have the whole church rebuking this individual. If that doesn’t work, then they have to be rejected and cast out of the church. Remember, we said that a heretic is a divisive person. He doesn’t keep his false ideas to himself, and therefore the church has to address these things and cannot let them stand. When a heretic first begins to share his teaching and doctrine with others, there may be a personal admonition to correct the error. But eventually, it has to go beyond that. It has to be public. And it has to be more of a church-oriented situation. Because it’s fast-spreading, sometimes the people of God have to act quickly. And these admonitions may come back to back in order to stop their radical teaching before it does much damage. So the admonition of a heretic. Now, admonition is for the purpose of bringing this person. person to repentance. The goal is to restore this person to the true faith. The church begins with gentleness before proceeding to more severe and harsher measures. There’s love shown to this individual. Perhaps they’ve, you know, fallen into error. And after due warning and correction by the church, maybe they will repent and change their ways. If you look at the book of James with me, chapter 5, verses 19 and 20. Notice what James ends this section of this book with this phrase, this teaching. He says, Brother, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. The goal is restoration. And you’ll notice here that the words any of you refer back to the word, Brother, he’s dealing with people who at least profess to be, and it appears to be members of the true church. But they do err from the truth. They have strayed from the doctrine they once embraced. Now, the seriousness of the error is this person is called a sinner and his endanger of eternal death. But there is a fatalness, perhaps, to the air. Now, the word convert here is to turn this person from his error back to the truth, to turn him around, to bring repentance to this person. That the person may be forgiven and all their sins washed away. What is the mark of a repentant person, who perhaps has gotten wrapped up in some heretical teaching? The mark of a repentant person, person is a willingness to hear, to receive, and properly respond to the teaching of the Word of God on these fundamental doctrines. You can’t always judge the depth of remorse that a person will have. Only God can do that. He knows the heart. But we can judge their response to the Word of God. And that’s where we focus on. That’s the thing we focus on. Is this person willing to renounce the air? that they once embraced. Or does he go on spreading his false teaching? You know, Dr. Gershner said to young friends and students and other associates that if any of them ever thought about leaving the Roman Catholic Church that he would like to sit down and talk with him. Well, he did sit down and talk with Scott Hawn and Gary Natick’s for someone. six hours trying to persuade them to not go to the Catholic Church. This was prior to Hahn writing his book, Rome Sweet Home. Gershner responds that he spent all this time, and he said, others never had to endure the grief I suffered, seeing those two dear friends make that fatal step. misstep. He couldn’t persuade them. And you’ll notice that he sees the seriousness of it. He said it’s a fatal misstep. The difficulty is, and I think this is true, as Hebrew 6 tells us, once you know the way of truth, and you cast it aside, there is no restoring to repentance. And therefore, people perish. It’s not that they just slipped and fell, they went off the cliff. That’s how Gershner viewed the situation. And that’s how it seems it is with many who were classified as heretics. So contrary to today’s thinking, it’s the doctrine doesn’t really matter. Let’s just get together. It just worship God. It doesn’t really matter what we believe. You’ll notice it does matter what you believe. That heresy is a very serious sin. in God’s eyes. It is a parting from the truth and true teaching. It is a matter of eternal damnation to turn away from such fundamental truths like the resurrection of Christ and and so forth. And once enlightened, if a person turns away from the Orthodox doctrine and casts it aside, that may be fatal for them, and often is. I suggest that all of us realize how important it is to have the grace of humility. For humility would be willing to sit and listen to what God says in his word and take it seriously. To be diligent in reading, in hearing the word of God and obeying it. Learn to love the truth of God’s word. For then, you will progressively hate every false way. as Psalm 111.13 says, beware of erratical books and people. I can’t tell you how often I say this, but it seems important. You don’t just pick up any religious book and read it. Just because it’s popular and everybody’s reading, and that doesn’t mean it’s a good book for you to read. The Internet is particularly dangerous in this regard. Heretics abound with their false teaching on the Internet. Be very careful. about these matters. Be extremely wary of entertaining any doctrine that runs contrary to our confession of faith. Not that the confession is inerrant, because obviously it’s made by man. But it provides a historical record of what the people of God, down through history, held to be the fundamental doctrines of the faith. So when one looks at the Westminster, or One looks at the Baptist Confession of Faith, the 1689. We’re looking at fundamental teaching that people have held for centuries. That helps us to be aware of what is in error, so that we are guided. You can use it as a help or a guide to us with regard to fundamental doctrines. And so therefore use it in that way. But don’t let it bind your conscience to the point where that you have to agree with every single jot and tittle of it. But indeed, the fundamental doctrines of it, we should agree with. It should be something we adhere to. Well, may the Lord bless us his people and keep us from air, and may we see here that it is important that we deal with heretics properly when we face that situation. Let’s close.