What is Excommunication in the Bible?

So tonight we're going to be looking at the subject of, well, excommunication.

So this is a New Testament command. It's not a suggestion. It's a

New Testament command. So Jesus talked about it. The apostle Paul talked about it.

It has its roots in the Old Testament. If you take notes, you could just write this down.

Leviticus 18 29 says, whoever commits any of these abominations, which it listed before this, the person who commits them shall be cut off from among their people.

And you can sort of hear what excommunication is just in the word excommunication, which

I'll describe in a moment or define. But let me point out at the beginning that New Testament excommunication, or as we call it sometimes church discipline, the purpose is to correct the one in error, to get them to recognize that their behavior, their belief system, whatever it is, to get them to recognize how destructive it is so that they'll stop doing it.

And then ultimately our hope is to pray for them, that they would receive forgiveness and be welcomed back into fellowship with Christ and his church.

So as an outline, I'm going to use an article from the website. Guess which website got questions .org.

Liking this website more and more, but their article is called what is excommunication in the

Bible? Because a lot of churches just don't practice it anymore. Or if they do, it's like a halfway measure.

They're not really doing what the Bible says. So I'll read what the article states. I'm going to have a lot to add.

And if you have any questions as we go along, feel free to raise your hand to get clarification, because this is an important subject.

And depending on the church you go to, you've heard about it before, I'm sure, but some churches you would just never hear about it.

So why do some churches refuse to talk about it?

I don't know, different reasons we'll get into maybe, but I would say this is partially why some churches have a lot of problems, because they refuse to practice church discipline.

So I'll just add one thing before I read from the article. I really believe that one of the reasons why our church has the unity that we do is because we have in the past practiced discipline.

So some churches, once a person, you'd probably have heard about this.

Some churches, once a person gets their name on the membership list, they are a voting member for the rest of their life, no matter what.

No matter what they do, no matter how they live, no matter how they treat people. And bad behavior is just kind of swept under the rug.

And when you do that, when you ignore problems and you refuse to confront the issue, then guess what happens?

Things just over time get worse and worse and they pile up. So all of that to say this, if it seems like a negative subject, like, whoa, excommunication, this is really negative.

But this is true for the Bible. You can read the Bible and view everything as negative, or you can view the

Bible and see everything as, hey, this is the solution, right? You can look at the 10 commandments and, oh man,

God's just trying to ruin all my fun with all these do's and don'ts. Or you can look at it and say, hey, praise

God. This is how we should live. If we just do this, life will be better. So you can always look at it from either perspective, but you can either call this lesson excommunication.

But if that seems too negative for you, we can call this lesson how to preserve peace and unity in the local church, because that's what we want, don't we?

Okay. So the article begins, what is excommunication in the

Bible? First, they say, we should note that the Bible never uses the word excommunication.

And already I'm going to stop and add my own thoughts. All right. So what are some other terms that we have heard?

So excommunication is one. What's another one? Church discipline.

That's another, there's a third word I'm thinking of. Okay. Shunning is part of this that we'll touch on.

Disfellowshipping is another term that you'll hear. So really they all refer to the same thing ultimately.

So the prefix X means out of. So when a person is excommunicated, they are out of communication, right?

So in other words, their relationship with the church and its members has been cut off basically is what's being said.

So the purpose of this is not just to be mean or to be rude. And we don't advocate being rude or anything like that.

But the purpose of this is to wake people up. So they come to realize how serious their unrepentant sin is.

So let's see what Jesus says about this. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 18. And we'll look at this in a moment, but really the article focuses on Matthew 18.

As you're turning there, the apostle Paul said this in second Thessalonians 3 .14,

Paul writes, and if anyone does not obey our word in this epistle, note that person and do not keep company with him that he may be ashamed.

And really this is true in any social setting. Someone's behavior can get so bad that people just step away.

I mean, that's true in any setting. So the church does have some standards.

Obviously it should, but some churches don't. And that's why there's all these problems.

So all too often today, church discipline kind of gets ignored. And even if a church does put someone through discipline, sometimes the members of that church will sort of disregard it.

And if they see that person out and about, they'll be like, Hey, you know, how you doing? Good to see you. Or they get together with them as friends.

And the message that that sends is, Hey, this is no big deal, right? And it actually can undermine, not just the teachings of the

Bible. It can undermine the church because if a person isn't abiding by the

X communication, if they treat people, continue to hang around with them and treat them like it's no big deal.

That's the message they're sending. It doesn't matter if you say, I disagree with what you're doing. If you treat them, uh, like it's no big deal, that's the message you're sending.

It actually emboldens the person in their sin. So yeah, the church X communicated me, but we're still hanging out.

So, you know, I feel like you're telling me I'm okay. And the church is telling me I'm wrong.

And it kind of pits them against the church. So really all Christians should be on the same page, but when we're not, that just, you know, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of what the problem.

Now, nobody should do this because I say so, right? Who are we following?

Jesus. So Jesus really is the preeminent teacher on the subject of church discipline or X communication.

Look at Matthew 18, starting in verse 15. So Jesus says, moreover, if your brother sins against you and go and tell him his fault, you and him alone.

If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established.

And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But he, if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like what a heathen and a tax collector.

And in Jewish society, the Jews did not hang around with heathens, right? So these are people that they wouldn't have over for dinner.

And then Jesus says, assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

And whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. So in other words, Jesus is saying whatever decision the church makes, uh, in heaven, it's going to be upheld.

So now obviously this can be abused. There are cults and some churches that have maybe abusive leaders where they make decisions and they're just the wrong decision.

Okay. So just because the church does something doesn't automatically make them, right. It has to be tested.

How do we know what's right? It has to be tested against the scripture, obviously. So we need to know what the scripture says on this.

Okay. Uh, with that as the foundation, I'll go back to the article. And if you want to read this on your own, just type in this phrase, what is excommunication in the

Bible? And it's on again, got questions .org. So excommunication, the article says it's a word that has been adopted by some religious groups, especially by the

Catholic church to denote the formal process of removing someone from membership and participation in the church and from a relationship with the church community or in the

Catholic view, even from the family of God. Now I do want to say the excommunication is not strictly a

Catholic term. Other Protestants and Baptists do use the term, but again, church discipline, disfellowship, excommunication, really it we're all talking about the same thing.

Uh, where the Catholics I think go too far is they say, if you've been excommunicated, that severs you from the family of God.

Uh, here's the thing. They believe that you can lose your salvation through excommunication.

We don't believe you can lose your salvation. Uh, rather excommunication might just be recognizing that no, the person was never saved to begin with.

So there's that difference between evangelicals and Catholics, but the article goes on while the

Bible does not teach that a Christian can lose his salvation. It does describe the process of church discipline in several passages.

The final step of church discipline is excommunication, a removal from the local church.

So any questions so far? Okay. No questions.

So as I said, many pastors and churches refuse to carry this out. Uh, some who do practice a form of discipline, it's been reduced.

These, this is what's very common these days. Church discipline has been reduced from just kind of crossing someone's name off of the membership list.

That's not excommunication. Why not? Because go ahead.

Especially if they're still attending. Yeah. If they're still attending, it really doesn't matter whether their name is on a piece of paper somewhere.

So that is not excommunication. So if the person can still attend church services, take communion and people greet them and treat them like a brother in Christ, like it's no big deal.

That is not excommunication. Now someone at this point will say, well, wait a second.

What are you advocating for? Are you really advocating that people be shunned?

Like pastor, is that really what you're saying? I'm not saying that. Okay. Now the question is, does the

Bible say that? Uh, I would, I would say this, and we've talked about this before.

Um, take the Amish. For example, the Amish are known for shunning of all the religious groups.

They are known for that. I think the Amish have given shunning a bad name.

Uh, they, first of all, they will shun you for things that aren't even simple. So that's the first problem.

Second of all, they, they won't even look at a person. They won't even speak to them, including their own children sometimes.

So I would definitely not advocate for taking it that far. But at the same time, we had an example, and this is kind of what led me to do this study because we had an example of this, uh, in recent months, locally, a guy from the area, uh, who most of you know who this is by now, he's going around preaching heresy.

His behavior is teaching is so extreme and multiple people have reached out and tried to talk to this guy on so many different occasions.

And he refuses to listen. Therefore, the leadership of Morse quarter church has said, you are not allowed here at Morse court.

As of this moment, there's only one person on earth who's not allowed at this church and it's him.

So just to reiterate, if, if a church allows someone like that in, and they can attend services, if you let them through the door to attend services, and you're having communion, then they're going to be taking communion.

So it's just not something, uh, churches should be doing. So let's look at the article again,

Matthew 18, 15 through 17, Jesus teaches his disciples about X communication.

And I can just imagine someone from the community here in Leverett hearing this and saying, Oh, this is terrible.

Look at these people. Yeah. But you know that there's people in town who look at us with some of our beliefs and they'd give us the cold shoulder.

Right? So, I mean, this goes all different directions, but Jesus teaches his disciples about X communication.

The Lord details a multi -step approach for responding to sinful offenses in the church community.

Now that story that we were just talking about, I think that's actually a different category because he's a false teacher.

He's trying to recruit people into his cult and he's out teaching false doctrine.

I don't think this act, Matthew 18, I don't think that actually even applies to false teachers because false teachers are not part of the local church.

They're guys out there trying to lead people astray. So I gave this example that I don't need to sit down and have a private meeting with the

Pope before I tell you, Hey, you shouldn't listen to the Pope and his teachings. Well, did you go to the

Pope and talk to him? Like, I can't, I can't get the guy on the phone. Okay. Like that's not even, it's not even practical or like Benny Hinn.

Like I would say, mark and avoid Benny Hinn. He's not someone you should listen to. Well, did you go to Benny Hinn and admonish him twice?

Yeah. It doesn't apply. I don't think, but if you can go to someone just as a good rule of thumb, if you can go to the person and talk to them, that's something that we ought to do if we can.

And definitely if it's in a local church setting. So step number one, this is in the article, go to the person privately, uh, tell him or her how he has sinned against you and be reconciled if he is willing.

Cause that's the goal, right? Reconciliation. The goal is to fix the problem. If the offending person repents, no more action is required.

Step number two, if he won't listen, go back with two or three witnesses. And ideally they would be witnesses who saw the original event, if that's possible.

And then have the conversation again, establishing the facts and the evidence. Step number three, if he still refuses to listen to you and the two or three, uh, bring him before the full church body and make the case against him.

Whenever this has happened here, uh, the person always just leaves. They never want to come before the church.

So when you get to the second step, they always just leave. And we've never actually had to bring, I've never had to bring someone before the church, which

I guess is a good thing. But when people leave and they leave Morris corner, what, guess what they do?

They just go to another church. One time that happened. And I called the pastor of the church in Greenfield when someone left and there was a problem and it was unresolved.

So they started attending a church in Greenfield. I told him the situation. He's like, well, I don't know what you want me to do about it.

But unfortunately that's the kind of thing that happens out there. But step number four, if they're still here and you're still talking to them, if there's still no repentance, the church is to excommunicate the center.

Jesus's words are, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector.

Basically you are to regard them as an unbeliever. And because they left the church on bad terms and they've been excommunicated, that means don't have them over to your house for dinner.

Don't be hanging around with them. And I realized people will do that anyways, because I've seen it happen before.

People will do it anyways. And just know if you do it, you're undermining the church's decision and you're going against the teachings of Jesus.

So that's really what we want to remember. So everyone saw this. These are the teachings of Christ, right?

Matthew 18. I've never heard an alternative interpretation of this because you know how some people are.

Well, that's not really what Jesus means. I honestly have never heard anyone argue that he meant something else.

It was just people that don't regard it. The article says the Jews saw both groups.

Jesus mentions that is heathen and tax collector as outsiders. Heathens were pagan idolaters and tax collectors were inclusion with Rome.

In Jesus's day, religious Israelites would not associate beyond what was strictly necessary with Gentiles or tax collectors.

It's not that they wouldn't even speak to them. It's just I'll only converse with them as much as I have to, just to kind of get along in daily life.

They would not have meals with them. For instance, they would not invite them to social gatherings.

So when Jesus says to view the unrepentant sinner in the church as a heathen or a tax collector, he's instructing the church to officially and with clear communication, stop having close fellowship with the unrepentant sinner.

The center is to be put out of the close -knit community of Christians. This is excommunication.

So any, yes. So I'm just thinking about the fact that he said tax collector and the fact that Matthew was a tax collector.

So it leads me back to like Matthew 9 when he tells him to follow him and have dinner with him and sinners.

Yeah, I mean, this is a good question because I'm, I was thinking about this earlier. Jesus is saying, you know, have no fellowship with them.

And then you're like, well, there's that time where Jesus ate with the tax collectors and sinners, right? Well, here's, here's the thing about that.

The tax collectors and sinners that Jesus ate with were not excommunicated, excommunicated from the church.

They were just unbelievers. So it might seem like a subtle difference, but it's a, it's a big difference.

If someone is an unbeliever, you can have them over for dinner. You can be friendly with them. As a matter of fact,

I think we should be friendly with unbelievers because we want to convert them to Christ. But once somebody professes faith in the gospel and then they turn away from it, then they, that's a whole different category.

And I would point out when Jesus ate with the tax collectors and sinners, he said he was called, he did it to do what?

Call them to repentance. So he wasn't just, and people like to say this, oh yeah, Jesus, he, on Friday night, he used to hang out with the sinners and he wasn't hanging out with them.

Okay. That's dumb, but you hear that often. And Matthew did become a disciple.

That's true. But he repented, right? He didn't continue to be a tax collector.

He's a disciple of Christ for part -time and then tax collector of the other half. No, he, he turned away from that.

So that was a very good question. All right. So we have any questions, any other questions?

It gets difficult when, you know, it plays out and there's a unique situation. I understand it's not always crystal clear how to react to each specific situation, but these guidelines in general,

I think are pretty clear. So we have an example, the article says of excommunication and its aftermath and two passages from the apostle

Paul, a man in the church in Corinth was having sexual relations with his stepmother, a sin.

So egregious that even the pagans didn't tolerate it. You can imagine this in a church.

Someone in the church was doing something so bad that even the unbelievers in the community were shocked by it, but the church was allowing it.

Why? Well, we believe in the grace of God. See a lot of, a lot of people do this. Oh, we believe in great.

Well, we believe in grace, but grace doesn't give you a license to just do whatever you want and continue to do whatever you want.

So Paul rebukes the Christians in Corinth for accepting this man's incest.

Apparently the Corinthians had misunderstood the grace of God so badly that they had come to believe all sin should be tolerated, maybe even celebrated proudly.

Now that sort of sounds like a lot of churches today. The grace of God is an excuse to celebrate sin.

And of course they do that, but Paul, what was Paul's reaction? He says, no way.

I guess this is a paraphrase. I don't know what version that is where he says, no way it's not in the King James version, but, but Paul says, no way sin in the church must be dealt with.

He instructs the Corinthians to come together for the purpose of excommunication. The local body of believers was under apostolic authority to turn this man over to Satan.

Paul says for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

Lord Jesus. So let me just read that verse first Corinthians, because this sounds like a whole different thing, right?

First Corinthians five, five, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

Lord Jesus. So evidently in this particular case, there was a physical affliction of supernatural origin associated with the excommunication.

There was an added apostolic curse. Now there's some debate whether or not this is included in every excommunication, or was this just a special event where Paul said,

Hey, this one guy, I'm turning him over to Satan. And then, you know, some bad things started to happen.

I don't know that that happens in every case. Some people would say it does, but it's a general principle.

Then when somebody is put out of the church community, the, the, the restraint is lifted and maybe the protection of God is lifted from that person.

Just one comment I've seen people go through discipline, or maybe they, you know, they just turn there.

Maybe they don't even go through discipline. They just walk away from the faith, walk away from the church. Some people, and I've seen this as soon as they're out of fellowship, their life enters into the downward spiral.

And some of those people are no longer with us. Now, is that because they were handed over to the devil for that?

I don't know what's going on in the spiritual realm, because on the other hand, I've seen people turn their back on Christ and they've lived the rest of their life, or at least up until this point with nothing bad happening at all.

So how do you make sense of that? I tend to think that the people whose life entered into the downward spiral,

I tend to think those people were probably saved and they're coming under the chastening of God.

Isn't this what the scripture says? All whom the Lord loves, he chastens. So when somebody is put out of the church or they just walk away from the faith and their life gets worse and worse and worse,

I assume they're being punished by God. For what purpose? Again, to wake them up.

And I've had people share their testimony where things got so bad they knew that it was

God's hand upon them and it did bring them back. So the people that were, their life is fine or maybe even improves,

I tend to assume they were never saved, but only God knows that.

All right. So there's that case in 1 Corinthians 5, the man who

Paul handed over to the devil. And then in 2 Corinthians 2, 5 through 11,

Paul seems to follow up with that case. Paul seems to be talking about the very same person that he had instructed the church to excommunicate.

So what happened in 2 Corinthians 2? Did the guy continue on that path and things got worse and worse?

No, he actually came around. The sinner had repented. And Paul writes that the punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient.

So it's like he was kicked out of the church. The church didn't want to kick him out to start with. Paul said, you have to.

So then they did. And then he repented. And then they didn't want to welcome him back in. And Paul's like, all right, listen, he said he's sorry.

He's turned away. You got to let him back. Because remember, that's the goal. Restoration.

But they didn't want to do that. So he says to the Corinthian church in verses 6 through 8, therefore reaffirm your love for him.

And I've said this about the heretic that we were talking about. If he repented, we would all rejoice.

And we would reaffirm our love for him. Because that that's always the goal. So pay attention to this.

As soon as the excommunicated believer repents, he should be always welcome back into the church.

Welcome back, not just like begrudgingly. He should be welcomed back with warm fellowship.

That's what the article says. Why? Because when you forgive someone, you forgive them, right?

You don't. Why I forgive, but I will never forget. And you hold it over their head.

You remember when Peter asked Jesus, you know, how many times do I have to forgive people? Up to seven times.

And what did Jesus say? 70 times seven, which doesn't mean 490.

You need to keep forgiving. So here's another question.

Who is eligible for excommunication? Well, the answer, the

Bible says excommunication is only for, well, the article says church members, but I would say the, the excommunication is only for believers.

Okay. Not unbelievers. We don't excommunicate unbelievers because unbelievers are unbelievers and they're not in the church anyways, generally speaking.

So, and we only excommunicate believers in response to obvious and ongoing sin from which a person refuses to repent, despite multiple exhortations.

You know, one of the things we talked about in our church history series was the inquisition. Remember the

Catholic church started the inquisition and they went from place to place, city to city. And man, they were just looking to dig up sins.

They're putting people on trial. Any little suspect, this is not what we want to do. You may have a suspicion.

Well, I bet that guy's into this or this. Well, first of all, you shouldn't even be thinking that if there's no reason for it, but even if you have some little reason why you might think something, we do not, we do not try to do that and dig up.

It has to be obvious. It has to be clear. We don't go searching for it. So it's obvious ongoing sin, not just a one -time thing where they,

I'm sorry. I don't want, please forgive me. I'm not going to do it again. I'm going to try not to do it again. It has to be obvious.

It has to be ongoing. And you have to go to the person, talk to them, and they refuse to listen.

And we understand the process. Okay. Any questions now?

To me, this is pretty clear, but again, this just isn't carried out in a lot of churches,

Marcus. Well, in the issue of partaking of the Lord's supper in an unworthily,

Paul said, for this reason, some are sick and some sleep, meaning that, and this person that we're involved with did partake of communion and was soon thereafter hospitalized again.

Um, and I just assumed that the Lord was bearing out his, his, uh, instructions that this is, this is why.

I mean, that, that is certainly possible. I told him when he came here that I did fear for his soul.

Yeah. And I, I do. I fear for his life. Yeah. And I know him and I've known a lot longer than probably anyone here.

But you do it because you care. I know it's counter intuitive for some people, but you're doing it because you care.

Just like you have rules and you punish your children because you love them and you want to see them on the right course in life.

Right. Well, I care even more about the lies that he is saying about Jesus.

Yeah. Well, we definitely, yeah. Uh, let me just add one more thing.

It says who, who is eligible for excommunication? I mean, I guess this should be obvious, but you know, pastors are also eligible for excommunication.

So I think this is what, this is what it's one of the main differences between a church and a cult, the cult leader.

You can't question him. No one can touch him. He can say and do anything and nobody can do anything about it.

Pastors are held to the same rules. Everybody else's matter of fact, pastors be held to a higher standard.

So, um, this isn't something that, you know, church leaders are talking about excommunication for everyone under them.

No, I mean this, it applies to every Christian, no matter what their calling is.

So the article wraps up five important things to remember about excommunication.

Number one, the Bible never instructs individual Christians to decide on their own or even in a small group to excommunicate another believer.

So you can't decide that for yourself and I can't decide it just on my own. It has to be as a group and in a local church, it has to be the whole church really needs to be in agreement for it to work.

Now, if you're at a Baptist church, a Baptist form of government, the whole congregation is supposed to be involved.

If it's a Presbyterian form of government, it's typically just the elders, but really

I think according to the teachings of Jesus, every church member should be, if it gets to that final stage, every church member should be listening and involved and because we're all supposed to break fellowship, right?

If you've got five elders breaking fellowship, but the 50 church members are all still in communication, that's pointless.

Nothing's really happened. So it's the whole church. Number two, excommunication is primarily about relationship.

Those in the church are specifically instructed to stop sharing meals with the unrepentant person.

First Corinthians 511 and to limit their contact with him or her. Number three, the process of excommunication is for believers, uh, for those who declare themselves to have sincerely trusted in Christ for their salvation.

So, and that's why I said it's for believers, not just church members because today, you know, you have people that are officially church members and then just people that are attendees, but they're kind of involved or they are involved in.

So church membership, it really doesn't matter if you're here and you profess to be a Christian, it's, it's for people who say,

I'm a Christian, but no, I don't want to turn from my sin. Number four, the process of excommunication is not meant for someone who admits his sin and is repentant, but continues to struggle to break free of it.

So if they show a desire to change, you need to give them some, some time and some leeway.

If a believer sins and when confronted says, yes, that was wrong. I'm sorry. I want to start again.

He used to be forgiven. And then it gets into the Matthew 70 times seven, Matthew 18, 21 and 22.

Uh, and then number five, the goal of excommunication is what restoration. According to Jesus, the whole process of removing a member from the church is to be gradual, deliberate, and cautious.

If at any point in the process, the sinning person repents, then you have gained your brother,

Matthew 18, 15, and the fellowship is restored. Okay.

So that's the article. We still have a few minutes left. Uh, so I just want to ask the question, why don't churches practice excommunication?

You might have some ideas yourself. I mean, I guess this is speculation. I can't point to here's why this guy doesn't do it.

You know, I don't, I don't know what people's personal motivations are, but I can say with some confidence that in general, uh, some ministers take a more pragmatic approach.

They know what the Bible says, what it calls for, but they figure, well, my way will work better, right?

This is always the danger in ministry where you think your way is better than what the Bible says.

Like nobody would ever put it in those terms, but people do this all the time. Others, I think do it because they're weak.

They're just weak and they know people could get upset, especially, and I under, it's not right, but I understand this.

If they're part of a church with a lot of internal politics, right? Uh, some churches are pastor led, some are ruled by committee with the board of elders.

Some churches have one woman in the congregation that no one dares cross. So she's sort of the de facto leader of the church.

And that's a thing. I'm just telling you, that's a thing, not here, but it's, it is a thing out there.

Uh, and then some churches, there's a prominent family in the church and they're sort of the ones running thing.

Um, I know of one situation in a church where a particular family was prominent, a man in that family clearly was in the wrong.

The church tried to use discipline, but his family was big and they got a coalition together and they blocked, essentially blocked the excommunication.

And there was almost a church split. So that type of thing is very common. So a pastor can sort of see the handwriting on the wall.

He doesn't want to go through with it because he knows it's going to turn into this big mess and it's not going to work. So he doesn't do it.

And there's all sorts of different reasons. So let's turn to second Thessalonians three, any other reasons that you can think of why a church wouldn't practice discipline?

I suppose there's, you know, it's amazing to me if a pastor didn't know what the

Bible teaches, but I'm sure there are churches where the people actually have never been taught and they don't know.

That's no excuse, but I'm sure it exists. Linda? There could be some people that are related to somebody in the leadership, pastor or whatever, and then that gets real messy.

Nobody wants to deal with it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there's a whole host of reasons why, but there's never a good reason to disobey the word of God.

It doesn't matter what the reason is. It's never good enough. All right. Where did I tell you to turn? Second Thessalonians three.

All right. Second Thessalonians three verse six. Paul says, but we command you brethren.

So notice this is not, Hey, I think you should probably do this. You know, if you, if you feel like it now, he says,

I command you brethren in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition, which he received from us.

So you see that term disorderly. That's a nice way of saying, uh, he, this guy is in sin.

And again, it would be obvious this isn't nitpicking. This isn't suspicion. Like it's, it's clear to everybody.

This guy is involved in some really bad stuff. Look at verses 14 and 15.

And if anyone does not obey our word and this epistle note that person and do not keep company with him that he may be ashamed yet.

Do not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

You probably know people and it might be your sibling or it might be your best friend. They could come to, no one else might do this, but they will come to you and tell you,

Hey, what are you thinking? Why are you doing this? You know, you have those relationships with people that you're close to.

They can tell you things that other people can't. Why? Because you have that closeness. Um, and that should be the way we are as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Some people may be in a better position to do that than others, but admonish him as a brother, Paul says.

And then finally Galatians 1 .6 says, brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.

I think that's Galatians 6 .1. Did I, what did I say? Oh yeah, sorry. 6 .1

Galatians 6 .1. So do it in a, in a gentle, a gentle way, if at all possible.

Now I'd said before, when it comes to heretics and false teachers,

I'm not so sure the Matthew 18 process applies because in Bible times, false prophets, false teachers typically were itinerant preachers.

So they'd be, they'd be kind of out there going from place to place. So you really wouldn't even have the ability to follow the steps of Matthew 18.

How are you going to bring them before the church? They're not even in your church, right? So just as an example,

I alluded to this before. Again, I don't need to call Benny Hinn and get him on the phone and have a private meeting with the

Dalai Lama or someone before I tell you, do not listen to this guy's teaching. He's the false teacher.

Again, that doesn't even make sense. You, you wouldn't be able to do that, but false teachers and heretics clearly need to be excommunicated.

You say, but they're not part of our church. Well, how would you excommunicate someone who's not part of the church?

You can still like have nothing to do with them. You can not listen to them, not share their material, right?

And one last point for the person who ignores, especially with false teachers for the person who ignores this command, let's turn to second

John, because if a person ignores this and they support the false teacher and welcome them in,

John actually says that you become a partaker of their evil deeds.

So to me, this is kind of the most frightening thing with our current situation that yeah, there's this guy and we know who he is and every saved individual

I know recognizes what this guy is saying is totally, totally wrong, totally off base, but he's being welcomed into the church and he's being allowed in and he's taking communion and, and like these guys know better.

So this is what's frightening to me. Second John nine through 11, whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctor of Christ does not have

God. He who abides in the doctor of Christ has both the father and the son.

If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine. So just to summarize that if they don't believe in the true

Jesus, if they don't believe in the true gospel, their teachings undercut the true

Christ, the true nature of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ. If they come to you and they don't have the true doctrine of Christ, what does

John say? Do not receive him into your house, nor greet him for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

So if you welcome him in and regard him as just a kind of an erring brother, when he is a clear antichrist false teacher, you're guilty along with him.

So that to me, that's kind of the most frightening thing. And I know a lot of people, their attitude is

Mike, just tune all this out, just open your Bible and just focus what's on the page.

Don't worry about what's going on in, in what the church, like if a pastor isn't supposed to be paying attention to things going on in the community, who is,

I mean, because if I am ignorant to the things going on and there's a false teacher coming from place to place, coming in here.

And if I don't know, I might welcome him in. I don't want to be whether on purpose or by accident,

I don't want to be a partaker of his evil deeds. So it's really the responsibility of pastors to know what's going on.

I never want to become a person who's just asleep at the wheel where I'm just trying to get to next

Sunday to get another paycheck or something to try to get through another week. I mean, if, if I'm asleep at the wheel, get rid of me because we do live in, in perilous times.

So in conclusion, church discipline, understanding what it is, being a hearer of the word and a doer.

This is how to keep peace and unity within the local fellowship. So we need to know, know about it.

Number one, number two, believe it. And then number three, carry it out. And it's for the sinner's sake, just as much as it is for the sake of the body of Christ.