Book of Romans, 14:1 - Freedom in Christ | Handling Doubtful Disputations, Pt. 1 (03/20/2022)

Let's go into Romans chapter 14. So we're starting a new chapter today. We actually finished a chapter, didn't take too long as measured by Park Meadows time, didn't take too long.

So now we're in Romans chapter 14, verse one. And first one is kind of an introduction to the whole chapter.

And this whole chapter is about freedom in Christ and handling doubtful disputations in the church.

So let's have a word of prayer and we'll start. Father, thank you so much for today, giving us freedom and peace in this nation still while it lasts.

Lord, we ask you to bless our leaders by putting Christian men and women who have knowledge of scripture in their presence to speak to them and speak some wisdom into them that they might make right choices.

But we know Lord that ultimately they will make your choice to bring about the proper chronology of the end times.

We sense that this is all part of that story and that what's going on in Russia and Ukraine right now is setting the stage for things to come maybe in our near future.

And so Lord, we ask you to give our leaders wisdom and Father protect those

Americans who are in the area ministering and fighting and take care of them, watch over them.

Lord, we ask you to bless the message today, encourage our hearts with all the negative news going on around us.

Give us something positive today, something that brings us joy and happiness and because of your presence with us.

And we ask it in Jesus name, amen. Well, verse one, him that is weak in the faith receive ye but not to doubtful disputations.

So that last phrase in the sentence is kind of what the whole chapter is about. Doubtful disputations, we'll give a pretty good definition of what that is here in a minute.

But first of all, where it says he that is weak in the faith receive him, that word weak literally means feeble, so that's easy to remember, feeble in the faith, you like that?

Alliteration, pretty cool. So we're supposed to receive people that are weak in the faith.

Now, what do we like to do? We like to push them away because they like to ask doubtful disputations or to create those by asking questions that we are tired of answering.

How many times does that happen? You gotta show another person who wants to argue about something that you have long since figured out exactly what it means in the

Bible. And so this whole chapter is gonna kind of work on us because we all humans and especially

Christian humans want everyone else to believe exactly as we believe. Wouldn't you agree with that?

Like we're just not comfortable until they finally come across that line and they agree with us on each point.

And the problem is that seldom happens and probably if we got real nitty gritty, it wouldn't happen even with those of us in the room on every issue and every single point in scripture.

And so this whole chapter is speaking to us and it's hard on those of us like myself who really do like to bring people right over to a proper viewpoint of everything, right?

And so this will be a great one for me to remember as I walk in my daily life, because I get the opportunity every time

I go out and do a trade way meeting to talk to people that disagree with me. It's all over the place. And last week when

Dave and I talked three -day meeting, we had a man, he argued with me for an hour, argued with Dave for an hour and we could hardly stop the argument, but he didn't like to let us say much.

He liked to do all the talking, which meant he wasn't doing any of the learning. So we got to learn quite a bit, but it's one of the most difficult things in life is when you have someone that's trying to see something that you saw years ago and you may have even believed like this person once you may have believed like he does now and you saw the light and he just knows he's right and he's going to help you see the light.

You know, it's just so aggravating. And this chapter helps with that whole issue. And the first thing it says we are to do with these folks is to receive them.

That's the opposite of what we want to do. We want to run them off because they create division, don't they? They could.

And so now all of a sudden we have to be careful with our rules, don't we? If we're going to make any rules, like, okay, let's, you know, someone comes in and they want to bring this in or that in, we just ask them, you know, find another church we'll be happy with.

Now we have to be careful because we can't always say that some of these people were supposed to receive. And it's funny because Dave Huber and I have had an opportunity and really

Katie too, although it ended up being Dave and I that had to do most of what we did and speaking to a couple of young men that were going to be speakers at our tradeway meetings and talk to them, figure out where they were with the

Lord and all this sort of thing. And really they were the kind of young men that you might have said, you know, let's just don't receive them.

Let's look for someone else. And yet what you have to do is you can't really have a set of rules.

It's like so many other things in life. You just need to walk with the Holy Spirit and do what he tells you to do. You need to do what he leads you to do.

And so in this case, he led us to work with these young men and try to be a witness to them.

And so far that's going pretty well. So we'll see how that goes with these two individuals. But that's why you can't just say always, you know, for the sake of unity, let's just push these people away.

You can't always do that. Sometimes it is the right thing. Sometimes it's not. And you can only know by what the

Holy Spirit leads. So once again, we have to be walking with the Spirit all the time to get it right.

You can't just have a list of things. It's go by this list and get it right. And God made it that way.

Sometimes that's aggravating to us. And so this whole chapter is going to be working on our aggravation level and hope, bring it down a little bit, help us be a little more meek, help us be a little bit more open to listening to other people.

And we know they're probably wrong, but we have to listen to them, right? And to instruct them, by the way.

And if they are saying things, they're obviously unbiblical, then you listen to them and you instruct them.

The scripture says, we'll see that a little bit. You've already seen it before, because I've brought it up in the past. All right, so this feeble person, we're supposed to receive people that are feeble in the faith, but we don't receive them to doubtful disputations.

What does that mean? We don't let them stand up in the church and talk about things that are just for disputation, for argument, to create division in the church.

There is a line that we draw there, especially if what they're saying is unbiblical or not in the

Bible, and they're acting like it is in the Bible, then we have to put a stop to that. But we can do it in meekness and kindness.

So that's kind of sets the stage for this chapter. Now, when we look here and it says, but not to doubtful disputations, the word doubtful itself in the

Greek almost carries the connotation of disputation as well. So it's almost like a double, it's like an emphasis.

Like, don't allow them to dispute as they dispute.

It's almost what it says in Greek. It's like an emphasis on don't let them create division and disputations.

And by doubtful, it means things that really are not in the Bible, and they're trying to suggest that you have to live by this because they believe it.

That's where you have to be really careful. So let's take a look at this word doubtful in the

Greek. Dialogismos, dialogismos. Can you kind of hear it sound like dialogue in English?

It's where our word comes from same root as this. It literally means internal consideration, like thinking about something in your mind, or it can be external debate.

It could mean either one. So it could be a person that while you're talking, they're just thinking of all the reasons they disagree with you internally, right?

So secondly, it could be a person who literally begins to debate with you. Or a dispute is another word.

It's been translated into the English Bible into the word dispute or the word imagination, perhaps in the concept of vain imaginings.

Like they're thinking of things in their mind that they think are true, but they don't line up with scripture. We're not to allow that sort of debate to go on in the church.

Now, sometimes we run into that out in the world, though, in our lives, maybe at a Christmas party with family there or whatever.

And so what happens there is, we'll get to this in a little bit, but God tells us how to deal with it in that scenario too.

But in the scenario of the church, it says not to allow doubtful disputation.

So you don't let it rise up and be taught in the church and cause other people to doubt the scriptures, all right?

So let me look at a little bit bigger dictionary. I got one about this big, and it's called the

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. So that instead of a little couple of sentences for a definition of a

Greek word, it'll have like three pages to define one Greek word. It'll go all the way back to Aristotle and see how he used the word in ancient

Greek literature, and then bring it forth and look at how it's used in biblical language. And it'll give you a lot better idea of the root meaning of the word and possibly exactly what it means in the context.

So this particular word, it sounds like dialogue in English. I'm gonna quote from this dictionary.

It says it can also be used for anxious reflection or doubt. Have you ever noticed how when someone gets in a religious, or you might call it a biblical argument with you that the adrenaline tends to flow in both people?

And it's kind of like the truths that we hold onto, we sort of personalize them as if they're our truths.

You ever noticed that? And really, you learned it either from the Bible or the Holy Spirit or another person. It's not yours.

You didn't originate it. But we become possessive of our beliefs. And so you have this anxious reflection going on in both parties in their minds while the argument's going on.

And it's kind of what this word means. It's that feeling. It's that adrenaline that starts to flow.

When you sense that that's flowing, that's what this word means. And it says, receive those who are feeble in the faith, but not to doubtful disputations, this kind of anxious reflection that's going on in their mind.

It can mean torturing doubts. And when you look at, there's a place this same word is used in Luke chapter 24, verse 38.

Let me read that to you and you get an idea of the definition of this word. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said unto them, peace be unto you.

But they were terrified and affrighted and supposed that they had seen a spirit. Now, this was after Jesus' resurrection and these

Christians saw him and they thought they saw a ghost because they believed in ghosts in that day.

And he said to them, why are you troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

This word troubled is this same word that sounds like dialogue in the English.

So why are you troubled? Why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Jesus, he knew what they were thinking, didn't he?

Behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have.

So that just gives you an idea like when they saw Jesus and he was resurrected, it troubled them because they thought they were seeing a ghost.

He said, no, it's me. Look here, see my hands? Touch me. I'm real. This is really me.

So they would have these troubling thoughts. Now, it's interesting to think about how they felt, you know, put yourself in their shoes.

And yet that's a similar feeling that we have sometimes when we get in a debate with someone who in our opinion totally has got it wrong.

I mean, they're not only unbiblical, they may be anti -biblical or they may be extra biblical, which means they're adding stuff that's not even in the

Bible and talking to it as if it's part of scripture or it's authoritative. And we start to get this weird feeling like, yeah,

I wonder how long this debate's gonna last and I could be doing something else and I wonder if it's gonna do any good and all this stuff.

And the last thing we should try to work on not thinking is I hope I win this argument because it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter who wins the argument. What matters is that you instruct them. You just tell them what the

Bible says. They don't need to agree with us. God takes care of that part. And you might have other people standing around listening, right, anyway, that it might help them.

It may not help the person that you're talking to at all. All right, so there was an example that was actually listed in the theological dictionary of the

New Testament, that passage in Luke. We thus do better to follow the linguistic instinct of the

Greek exegetes and interpret this word as doubt or questioning.

This also has advantage of giving a wider range to the admonition in Romans 14, one.

There is to be no disputing about trifles, the dictionary says.

So in the church, we're supposed to welcome or receive feeble people, feeble in the faith, weak

Christians, but we're not supposed to allow them to dispute about trifles. What is a trifle?

It's something that doesn't even matter and make up a big, like almost divide the church over something that doesn't even matter or something you can't prove, something that may not even be in the

Bible. You can't prove it. Or maybe it's something that would require a lot of study in the scripture to even try to prove the truth on this issue and people bringing this up to create divisions.

We're not supposed to allow that. So that's kind of gives you an understanding of what this chapter is gonna talk about because the first verse lines it all out for us.

So I got three thoughts from this. First, we must examine and perceive any perceived imperative by its context before judging others by it.

Now, what's an imperative? We go back to our grammar when we were in grammar school. I mean, we had 12 years of grammar and all the way up through high school, four more years in college and they never stopped teaching grammar.

So we all know what an imperative is. So what is an imperative? We've all forgotten, rest my case, we don't need 12 years of grammar or maybe we need 15 years of grammar.

So like it's a command sort of, think of it that way. So if you, I love talking with brother

Raj Kripalani, my friend's got two doctorates in theology and you would never know it.

I knew him for years before he ever told me that he even had one and I had to pull that out of him, but he's so smart.

He knows many languages and so I remember one day we were having a talk and we were talking about grace and how

Paul said, all things are lawful for me, yet not all things are expedient. We're talking about the grace side of things.

And he said, yes, but brother David, there are imperatives. There are, have you ever looked at the verbs in the

Bible, in the New Testament and seen how many are in the imperative? And I'm thinking, no,

I have not noticed that. And his point was, there are a lot of places where Jesus says you need to live this way, right?

Those are called imperatives. So this chapter is not talking about those. You see my point?

It's not talking about plain, like places in the Bible where it plainly says, don't do that or do this, even in the

New Testament. I know we don't live under law, but wouldn't you agree there are things that Jesus says, here's how you should live and you shouldn't live this way.

Don't you think so? I mean, it's full of it, isn't it? And usually if you check the Greek, it's in the imperative.

And so those, so this chapter is not about those. It's not saying you don't have to, you don't need to obey the

Lord. It's not saying that. It's talking about places where it's not in the Bible. It is not a clear command taught anywhere in the

Bible and certainly not in the New Testament. So here's what we need to do. When people come into our church or in our family meetings or business out there in the world, wherever we are, and they began to say, act like something is an imperative with the authority of scripture behind it, we need to examine their perceived imperative by looking at the context, if it is in the

Bible, have a look at the context of the passage to make sure it's even talking about what they say it is or not. And then when we think we have an imperative and someone's not living by it,

I have a few in my mind that I'm kind of a place, well, I wish the Bible said that, don't do that, but it doesn't actually say don't do that.

I would wish it did, but it doesn't. And one is alcohol. That one bothers me.

If I were the Lord, I would have said, don't drink. Don't have a drink, don't ever touch it.

But I wasn't the Lord and his ways are higher than ours. But if you really study the issue,

God made alcohol for some very nice purposes. One is, he says, when you're injured on the battlefield, you should get drunk.

You should drink until you're drunk because it kills the pain. And that's what God gave it for.

Or if you lose a loved one to death, drink it. But if you need it, drink it, it takes some of the pain away.

Those are the only two things I can find in scripture where the Bible says this is the proper use of alcohol.

So I can't say you never drink alcohol, can I? Now you ask me, well, can we have a social drink?

You know, well, I just may get to that later, but I just think that's the wrong question.

So I don't ever answer it. I ask another question, and you've heard me say it before. Like, the better question is, does that make you a better witness to drink?

Is it where people that are having tragedy in their life are going to come to you for help or not?

Would it help that? That's a better question. But we're not to that yet. So the second point I would have is this.

We must ask, is this imperative actually found in the scriptures? Like the example

I'm giving, like if I were to be the type preacher, and we used to be, I mean, when I was 20, I used to preach, you just, you don't ever drink.

And I wish I could still preach that, but I can't, because the Bible didn't teach it that way. So was

I wrong to teach, well, the Bible says you can't ever touch alcohol or drink it? Yes, I was wrong to teach that, because my imperative was not found in scripture.

You see the point? I wish I didn't have to use this example, but I can't find them any other places where I was wrong, except that one.

No, I'm kidding. But I mean, that one just popped in my mind, because I know I used to teach that incorrectly.

There were others too. I do not like listening to things I taught when I was 20 something. So first of all, we must examine any perceived imperative by its context, if it is in the

Bible, make sure it's actually teaching what the person or what we are saying that it teaches. And we certainly need to do that before we judge another person for what they're doing.

Secondly, we must ask, is this imperative actually even found in the scripture before we judge the other person?

And the third thing is this, the word of God is the only true test. So if the

Bible doesn't speak to it, now we're in chapter 14, because that's what it's talking about.

Doubtful disputations have to do with things that are not even directly spoken to and probably not even indirectly spoken to in the

Bible. And yet we're wanting to make a rule as if it's authoritative and we shouldn't be doing it. And we're judging people by that.

That's where we have to be really careful. Okay, so you get a feeling for what the chapter is about. I told

Charlotte, you know, I'm preaching verse by verse through Romans. This is not a particularly exciting chapter for me, you know, probably because I need to hear this chapter.

All right, so let me give you a sort of a little bit of parallel passage here in Philippians 2, verse 12.

Just a second to type it in, hit search, boom, there it is on your phone. If you have an old fashioned

Bible, you will never get there in time. So Philippians chapter two, verse 12. Wherefore my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Now here's why I love this when I found this. It said that goes in the sermon is because not only is it gonna deal with doubtful disputations, but it's gonna give us an example that will bother us in this church, okay?

It's like a, it's something that could easily come up in discussion with family or friends that we don't think have it right.

And then in this passage, it teaches on the subject. So follow me, you'll see. All right, so do you see here where it says, work out your own salvation?

It could, that someone, one of your church Christ friends could easily point this verse out and say, see right there, it says you have to do works to be saved.

Do you see it? Work out your own, how's it say it? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

And if all you had in the whole Bible was that verse, would you not conclude that you have to do good works to stay saved?

And you should be fearful and tremble that God's gonna send you to hell all the time because you're not doing good works, which is what church

Christ believed. Catholics believe it. Some Methodists believe it. Some Pentecostals believe it. Mormons believe it.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe it. Every false religion in the world believes it. But a lot of Christians believe it because they get it from that verse.

So this kind of falls under my first point that I gave is we must examine any perceived imperative.

Like that imperative seems to say, you gotta do good works to stay saved, doesn't it?

All right, so you have to examine these perceived imperatives by the context that you find them in, which means you've got to read scriptures above it and below it.

Or you may not, you may get it wrong. And if one of the two parties that are in this debate have not done that, he will probably easily be defeated in the debate if he's honest at all.

If most people are not honest, they will not give in even when you show them a scripture that they're wrong.

And I hope I'm not that way anymore. I don't like to be that way. If you show me in a scripture where I'm wrong,

I will hope that in a nanosecond, I will change. Or I might say, well, I gotta make sure that fits the whole Bible.

It may take me two weeks to figure out if I'm gonna change, but I will change. And I think most of us in here are that way, but there's a lot of people out there that we can run into, especially at trade way meetings that are not there yet.

And if you had caught me when I was 30, I doubt I would think too much about what you're showing me.

I would just win the argument as quickly as I could, if possible. So I'm glad I've grown beyond that. So let's keep going here.

So let's look at a little bit of context. What's fascinating about this is the very next verse. If you add it to verse 12, there's an awful lot of help in understanding what it actually means.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure.

I love it. What does that say? God is sovereign and it's him that's actually working in us both to make us want to do the right thing.

In other words, the good work that verse 12 is talking about. It's God working in us that makes us want to do the good work.

And it's God working in us to make us do the good work. So he does two things.

He makes us want to do it and then he makes us do it. So if you want to say that you can't stay safe without doing good works, you have to also add the truth.

It's in the next verse, is that God's gonna make sure you do it. You do see that, right? God is gonna make sure that you number one, wanna do the good works and number two, that you will do them.

So it becomes a moot point. All saved people are going to do good works. So a lack of good work cannot cause you to lose your salvation because verse 13 shows

God's gonna make sure you do good work. See that? So you gotta put it together to make sense out of it. Well, what's interesting, look at verse 14.

Very next verse says, as if, as if, I hear brother Otis now. As if brother

David, as if the Lord knew. I was about to say, as if the Lord knew that he needed to add verse 14.

And then brothers, Otis spoke to me from heaven. And he said, as if the Lord knew brother

David. Oh, he talks to me all the time. The next verse on purpose says this, do all things without murmurings and disputings.

Isn't that funny? It's the same as verse one in chapter 14 of Romans. In the church, do everything without murmuring and disputing about it.

Well, don't you think verse 12 and 13 has caused a lot of disputing among the church?

If you include church of Christ in the church, which now, because I'm studying chapter 14 of Romans, I probably have to receive them, right?

But anyway, you see my point. It's right there in a perfect place because it's dealing with something that is disputed quite often.

And it is, by the way, that word dispute is the same Greek word, dialogismos, dialogue, dialogismos.

All right, in the Philippians passage, it continues. It says, do everything without murmurings and disputings.

Why? So that you may be blameless and harmless as sons of God without rebuke. Who would it be that would rebuke us?

I think that's maybe speaking of the judgment seat of Christ. In the midst of a crooked, or maybe not, if we look at the context here, in the midst of, or both, a crooked and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights in the world.

So one thing, when the world sees two Christians arguing, do you think that's a good witness for lost people to see?

Not so much. Holding forth the word of life. So again and again, when you see these passages, and there are a lot of parallel passages that deal with doubtful disputations, it always brings us back to the word of God to settle the doubtful disputation, or to point out that it truly is doubtful, which means you can't find it in the

Bible, so we shouldn't be arguing about it. And we certainly shouldn't make a rule that you have to do it if it's not found in here. One of those things should happen.

So here it brings us to holding forth the word of life. It brings you back to the Bible to settle the issue.

That I may rejoice in the day of Christ. Well, let's see, that's kind of why I think it might have to do with the judgment seat of Christ as well, not just how the world perceives us, but both.

That I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Now, that's the

Apostle Paul kind of talking. Is that my phone? Oh, sounds just like mine.

It's okay if yours does it. I just didn't want mine to do it. So think about this. This is the

Apostle Paul speaking to his disciples, teaching them, okay, be kind to people, gentle -hearted, instruct them in meekness, but don't allow doubtful disputations to create a situation where the world's looking at us and acting like we have no unity, that we don't even love each other.

Don't let it go that far. And Paul says, so that I don't have to be disappointed in you and have lived my life in vain and labored among you in vain, which means

I'm disappointed in you if I find you doing this. Isn't that interesting? So that's pretty strong. It's not a rebuke from Paul, but it's an exhortation to his disciples to not let this happen, where you're arguing over things and not loving one another and getting out of hand and disputing, especially things that are not even in the scripture.

Or if you're disputing something that's easily settled in the scripture, go to the scripture and settle it so that I haven't labored in vain.

All right, let me give you another one. Look at 1 Timothy 1 .3. In 1 Timothy 1, we know

Timothy is one of the so -called pastoral epistles. And I agree with that understanding because it's

Paul teaching Timothy how to, he's a young man, teach him how to be a good pastor and how churches ought to be run.

And that's why they're called pastoral epistles. So he's now teaching Timothy how to deal with this if he sees it in the church someday.

1 Timothy 1 .3, as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when

I went into Macedonia, that thou might charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

So now Paul is telling Timothy, now, when you go out to this church, I want you to teach them to not teach things that I didn't teach.

Make sure that they're continuing with the doctrine that Paul taught when he won them to the

Lord. Don't let other teachers come in and change their viewpoint on these major Bible themes.

Let's keep them like I taught them. And he's telling Timothy, make sure you check and that their doctrine is still sound because there are many false teachers in the world, right?

So he's concerned about his baby Christians. All preachers feel that way. That's one reason preachers want everyone to believe exactly like he does, because like,

I wanna make sure they don't believe like the false teachers teach. All right, so verse four, neither give heed to fables or endless genealogies.

Now we start to get a more defined position on what these things are we shouldn't be disputing about.

And it's so interesting because it's the very things that Judaizers and legalizers wanna bring into the church.

And I can't mention names because I have people,

I don't know who else is listening on the internet. I don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings, but someone in my circle of life, and it's a big circle, because I'm not talking about just this church, of course, can't even, but the big trade way world, the exoskeletal space world where I meet people all the time.

Someone in my circle of life was saying some things that disturbed me because they were quoting a book that is not part of the canon.

You know what the canon is, right? The true scriptures of God. He was quoting extra biblical information and that happened to be found in the

Dead Sea Scrolls along with scripture, but there's other extra biblical information. There are some fiction books found there.

Ancient people wrote fiction, the Eliad and the Odyssey are two great examples of that. So it doesn't mean that the men that were living in the monastery and preserved these ancient fragments of scripture doesn't mean they weren't reading other things, does it?

I mean, they had other books and those got preserved too, because it's in part of a very arid area in the desert and there was no moisture and they didn't rot.

So all that was preserved. And the problem with my friend was he was quoting almost as if it had the same authority of scripture just because it was found among the

Dead Sea Scrolls and that gives it authority. I say, I don't agree with that. It gives it no authority. It's just be like reading

Time Magazine. Does that have authority? No, not really. Unless it matches science or the word of God, those are the two books

God wrote, unless it matches it and agrees with it, it doesn't have any authority in my book. And this is what we would call fables.

Now, what's interesting about the book that this gentleman was quoting is that if you read that book,

I've read parts of it, it gives endless genealogies of angelic beings that are not listed anywhere in this

Bible. Now, a couple of them are listed like Gabriel and Michael, but then it goes on and names many other angels that are listed nowhere in scripture.

And it talks about a genealogy of angelic beings as if it's fact, but it's extra biblical, which means it has no authority.

So to me, it's just more likely fiction than anything. And he was quoting it as if it had authority.

See, that bothers me. That's where we have to be really careful. And Paul is warning them. He's saying, look,

Timothy, when you go out into these churches, make sure they're sticking with the doctrines that I taught, Bible, sound

Bible doctrines, and not getting into fables, which is like made up stuff that's not even true as if it's part of the canon.

And there's another thing, and endless genealogies. What are fables? Well, this book that I'm referring to that was being quoted was telling all kinds of stories of things that supposedly happened in heaven that's not in the

Bible. Those are called fables. I mean, it's fiction. Don't quote fiction as if it has authority.

I don't care where it was found. It can be found right next to a Bible. In fact, if I look around this pulpit, I'd probably find some fiction in it sitting right next to my

Bible. It doesn't give it any authority. It's such a ridiculous logic, don't you think? All right, so neither give heed to fables or endless genealogies, which minister only questions.

It just causes people to debate about things and have disagreements and ask questions and waste their time on things that God's not even trying to teach us.

Rather than what they should be doing, rather than godly edifying, which is in faith, spend your time teaching people, instructing people with what you know is authoritative.

Don't debate with them over genealogies and stories that are not in the word of God, that probably have nothing to do with anything that ever happened.

And you spend all that time when you could be edifying, which means building one another in faith by talking about the actual scriptures, like Dave Huber's been doing with me lately, reading the book of Ezekiel and showing me how it's so similar to this war in Russia right now.

That's edifying. It's somewhat frightening too, but it's kind of edifying. It's not, I mean, it's kind of a mixed emotion.

It can be frightening, but listen, it just means the Lord's coming in sooner. He's coming back sooner and that's exciting.

Now, the end of the commandment is love. Now, do you see the context? Look, okay, we got people bringing up genealogies and fables in churches, if they're authoritative.

Got people arguing about it and we're tempted to argue with them and just try to blow them away. And yet, look what

Paul says. The end of the commandment is love. We gotta make sure that the love for each other is the strongest emotion.

It is the strongest element when we're debating. And boy, that's hard for my personality type.

Some of you laugh at that one, but I mean, it's like, it's hard for me to argue in meekness because I get into the argument.

I like it, I enjoy it, I like the logic behind it and I'm thinking about the logic and I'm thinking about the scripture,

I'm into it. And it gives me this serious look and people think I'm angry at them and I'm not, I'm just having fun.

Well, I need to control that better. So this chapter, I don't like this chapter, it's boring.

All right, so now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart.

That's why we're debating this person, because we love them. Jeannie, kind of the pot in the kettle right here, but anyway.

She, I said, you can do it online, which is better than me because I do it face to face with people. You at least give them a chance to turn their computer off or you do it, whichever way it goes.

All right, so now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith unfaked, not faking our faith.

We're real, like we're real. We care about the truth. Now that is partly why

Jeannie and I get serious in a debate, not with each other, but we're on the same side, but we give each other ammunition for others in involvements later.

And it's like, we do care an awful lot about truth and you do too. And that can cause us to need to pull it back a little bit, smile, everyone smile, and do it in a nice way out of a loving heart.

Told you it was boring. All right, so let's see. From which some have swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling.

Now we have another thing, Paul warns up. Fables, endless generations or genealogies that don't come from scripture and now jangling.

This word is really kind of interesting in the Greek because what it means is random talk or babbling.

It could almost mean gibberish, like people do when they say they're speaking in tongues and they're not, they're just gibberishing, which is not in the

Bible. Because in the Bible, it's actual languages without signification, the scripture says.

But it could mean that, it's kind of funny, it means babbling and the word itself, if I were to try to say it in the

Greek, it would sound like I'm babbling because it's metaiologia, you get that?

Metaiologia, I should say. Ogia, get the emphasis in the right place.

That's it, that's the word, it means babbling. So here you have people in the church that rather than teaching doctrine, truth from scripture, great

Bible methodology, out of love, they're just doing vain babbling and talking about fables and things that don't even matter and it's creating arguments in the church.

From which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling. Listen to this, now what's the bottom line on these people?

It always comes back to this, I find this so fascinating, verse seven. Desiring to be teachers of the law.

Does that kind of freak you out a little bit? You know, Dave and I had this debate with this gentleman at the

Tradeway meeting last weekend. My heart wanted to love the man, seemed like a brother, but the more he ran his mouth, the more

I wondered if he was, or maybe he was one of these snuck in unawares, you know, to take our liberty away.

But the thing was, he was not talking about what you would think the typical legalist would talk about, like rules you gotta keep, or was he?

And I thought about this discussion, much time I spent thinking about it after I left him and was on the way home and thinking about the discussions

I had with him, because he was wanting to tell me that he was on an airplane and the stewardess had back troubles.

And I'm sitting here wondering, why are you sitting around just talking to the stewardess? You know, I would have to wonder that, but he's sitting there apparently knee to knee with the stewardess.

And so he puts his hands on her legs, and one of her legs, when he did that, grew longer and it cured her back problem.

So he was faith healer, and he's making sure everybody in our trade way room was hearing his story.

Number one, so I walked by at a break and here he is with three young people who were all

Christians at these meetings, three young people who maybe hadn't studied a lot yet. And here he is telling

Dave Heber and these other three young people the story and Dave needed to be saved anyway, right? So I just had to walk,

I just walked up because I heard what he was saying and I just stood there by Dave face to face with this man and I waited until he took a breath, which was very seldom.

And I said, you know, it's interesting. And I'll tell you, I said,

I don't like to get into base with people like this much anymore, honestly don't. But if there are young believers there that they're influencing kind of like the time, well, many times, but I was like,

I will say something to correct them in front of those young believers. That's the only motive I had, I promise,

Charlie. I wasn't just trying to debate with him. But I said, well, yeah, I believe

God still heals but I don't believe he does it through people anymore. And he just took umbrage to that.

And so we went out in the hall and we had a one hour discussion after that, right?

And you know what I thought like, so his main topic was like, David, you need to get the second blessing.

And he said, but the reason you can't do it is you don't believe in it. And I said, on the contrary,

Charlotte knows this is true. I had a dream one time, I'm telling him this. I said, I had a dream one time and it was our church but there were 500 people stuffed in this room.

And I walk in, I said, oh my goodness, there's 500 people. I don't even have a good sermon ready for today.

Not good enough for 500 people in my dream. It's that way in real life, it's never that way because I'm so afraid of it.

I have got ammunition. I don't walk in here without ammunition but in the dream, I didn't have it. And then

I got in there and there were a bunch of people that had cancer and all kinds of things. And God in the dream gave me the power to walk down and touch each person and heal them.

And it was the best feeling I've ever had in this dream. And I didn't forget it for many days after the dream, how good that felt.

And so I told him the story, I said, my greatest desire is to have this gift. And I tried to say it with the most spiritual voice

I could say. I said, so you're wrong. It's not because I don't want the gift. But I recall Paul and I'm telling him this.

I recall the apostle Paul saying, do all speak with tongues? Do all heal?

I said, why does he ask that question? Doesn't it imply that sovereign God disperses these gifts to who he wants to have them, not everybody can do it.

Well, I disagree with that. And I said, well, you just disagreed with scripture then. Well, no, we just see it different.

And I'm thinking you hadn't even seen that. You hadn't even thought about that scripture in years is your problem, is what I'm thinking. But anyway, so see, it seemed like that that was a debate over faith healing, did it not?

But you wanna know what it actually was? And I found it so interesting in studying for this sermon, this just happened to pop up.

These same people that talk about fables and vain jangling and babbling about stuff, they're desiring to be teachers of the law.

You know what he was actually attempting to do is to bring me and Dave Huber under his law, that if we can't do these things, we're probably not even really saved.

That's what he was doing. And they're all this way because scripture says they are. They are desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm it.

They don't even know where it came from. They just know they believe it. So it's not our job to win arguments, it's our job to instruct them.

So I tried the best I could. But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully.

Now watch this. Knowing this, this kind of goes back to our previous chapter 13, doesn't it?

In Romans, talking about the law. Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man. A righteous man does not, like the 10 commandments are not for a righteous man, but for the lawless and the disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners and for unholy and profane people, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind.

We don't wanna talk about what that is. For men stealers, for liars, for perjured persons.

And if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, that's what the law is for. Isn't that something?

It's not for a born again person because we're under grace. Can't be more clear than that. But they don't get it.

According to the glorious gospel of a blessed God, who was committed to my trust, the apostle

Paul says, and it's committed to our trust as well, just as much as, almost as much.

We're not apostles, but in similar fashion. All right, let's see what time. Oh, wow, we're way out of time here.

Sorry about that. Told you this was boring. That's why you're just so tired. I guess we'll see if we need to read one more.

No, I think I've had enough. All right, you get the gist of what this chapter is about.

Let's stand in prayer. And we covered one verse, so we're doing well. I promise

I'm gonna skip away from this next time and speak from Ezekiel and give you a break. Give me a break, right?

Lord, thank you so much for your word. Seriously, Lord, this information is for me,

I know, and for some of the others in the room, I'm sure that sometimes we get in debates and we get a little too zealous and help us to be meek, help us to be guided by love first, and then scripture, and help us to instruct meekly.

And we know you'll do the rest. Help us not to even worry about these things after that, at that point, to trust you to deal with these individuals.

And Lord, thank you that you deal with us too, with scriptures, and you bring us to places that we know are just for us.

And Lord, we ask you to be with us in our time of fellowship. Bless the meal we're about to have.

Lord, we ask you to bless the people fighting right now in Ukraine, people losing their lives, losing their husbands, their sons, their daughters, their children, their babies.

Lord, it does seem that this leader of Russia fits the scripture where it says, and he had a change of mind and evil thoughts because it didn't seem like he was this way even a year ago.

And even a few months ago, and all of a sudden he's seemingly had a change of mind as far as how he wants to deal with the world.

Lord, we know some of that has to do with weak leadership in our country. So we pray for our poor, sinful, fallen country.

And Lord, we know from scripture that you tend to give nations like that bad leaders as punishment.

And so Lord, we just pray that you'll put some Christian people with Bible knowledge in the presence of these bad, weak leaders and give them some wisdom that's needed at the given time.