Book of 1 Timothy - Ch. 5, Vs. 1-25 (05/26/2002)

I believe we're in 1 Timothy chapter 5, even though we're really farther along than that, but we're going to go back and pick up on and finish this little study we started the week before last.

And verse 1, rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren, the elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters, with all purity.

And then down to verse 17, let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine, for the scripture saith thou shall not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the labor is worthy of his reward.

Against an elder, receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses, them that sin rebuke before all that others also may fear.

Verse 22, lay hand suddenly on no man. Now those were the verses we looked at.

And it starts off talking about not rebuking an elder, and then in verse 20 it says to rebuke an elder.

So there are times you do and times you don't. The time you do is when there have been two or three reputable witnesses that have identified this thing that needs to be rebuked.

And at that point, you're rebuking in front of others so that other elders will learn that it might happen to them.

It's a corrective measure in the church. So the general rule then is you don't rebuke an elder.

The exception to the rule that hopefully is truly an exception, that happens very seldom, is when there is open sin in the life of a pastor and two or three witnesses are aware of it, they bring it before some other leaders in the church or men in the church, whatever, and so then they are supposed to openly rebuke the elder for that so that others also may fear.

So that's the teaching on it. But what we discovered as we read down through verses one, two, and three is that it opens it up to a broader definition than just a pastor.

It also includes older women in the church.

It also includes younger women in the church. It says, do not rebuke the older women, but entreat them as if they were your mother.

Do not rebuke the younger women, but entreat them as if they were your sisters.

Don't rebuke an elder, but entreat him as a father. Don't rebuke younger men, but entreat them as a brother.

So that led to a fairly interesting word study through the

Bible of the concept of rebuking, the whole idea of rebuking.

Now, a rebuke is the strongest form of verbal correction in the

Bible. Admonish is strong, but not nearly that strong, because admonish carries the connotation of to encourage.

So, rebuke is like to, it's a corrective tone, it's a corrective attitude, and it's very strong.

So what I'd like to do is take you through just a few verses in the Old Testament and the New. I've looked at every verse where the word rebuke is used in the whole

Bible, but we don't have time to do that. But I'll show you a few that give some different thoughts.

Turn first to Leviticus chapter 19 and verse 17. Now, I think this is a little study that will be real surprising to you, because I think the general understanding in the church is basically a lack of understanding on when you rebuke someone, when you don't, who's supposed to do the rebuking, and in fact, what the

Bible says about it in general. I just don't think it's been studied very much, probably. But Leviticus 19, 17,

Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart, thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.

Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

I am the Lord. This, of course, these

Old Testament verses do not deal specifically with the economy of the church, but I thought we would look at a few of them anyway.

If you want to look at God's instruction on how to behave in the household of God, then you're going to look at the pastoral epistles of Timothy, and a little bit of 1

Peter, and some of the Thessalonians, and some of the writings of Paul, and so forth.

But I thought we would look and see what the Old Testament says about it. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart, thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.

Now that's a difficult interpretation to me, at least in the English, and since I am not fluent in Hebrew, this is a very difficult phrase.

You can read it one way, and it sounds like it says, you should never rebuke your neighbor. And you can read it another way, and it sounds like it says, you should not hate him, you should have love in your heart from him, which comes from verse 18, but you would rebuke him in order not to allow sin to come upon him.

So, I'm not sure which is the proper interpretation, and it would take a

Hebrew study, I think, to totally be sure of it. But let's look at some of the other verses in the

Old Testament. I'll say this about this one. If this one is, in fact, teaching that you should rebuke a neighbor, it will be the only one you'll find in the

Old Testament that deals with that as if one of us rebukes another. Everywhere else, what you're going to find is the one doing the rebuking is

God, in the Old Testament, or the prophet, who we've known has rebuked kings before.

So let's look at Deuteronomy 28 .20. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand unto for it to do, etc.

And we go down, I'm not going to read all these, but if you want to mark them just so you can check them out, 2

Kings 19, 3 and 4. It's kind of an interesting place.

You have the enemy, Rabshakeh, who is sending out threats and blaspheming and rebukes to God's people.

But he is a son of Satan. He is part of the enemy who's doing this rebuking.

So you see it used in that way. And then in 1 Chronicles 12, 17,

Proverbs 13, 1, you do see in 1 Chronicles 12, 17, and most other places such as Isaiah 66, 15, you see that it's

God that does the rebuking. In Proverbs 13, 1, and many other Proverbs, you do see that it gives ground for parents, especially the father, to rebuke his children.

Now that makes sense, doesn't it? And so we do see that. In fact, it says,

A wise son hears his father's instruction, but a scorner heareth not rebuke. That means a scornful son does not hear the rebuke of his father.

He just turns his head and walks the other way and he doesn't listen. But a wise son, when his father rebukes him, he may not like the way it feels.

In fact, he never will like the way it feels, but he will listen and learn from it if he's wise. So you do see that.

Now, in Zechariah 3, 1, this is fascinating. I want you to turn to this. So let's just summarize so far what we've got.

We've got a verse in Leviticus 19, 17 that I'm going to have to search out each individual

Hebrew word, and I didn't do that for today's lesson, to determine the exact meaning of it.

If it is, in fact, saying that you can rebuke your neighbor, then it says you must do it in love and with the attitude of not allowing sin to come upon him.

It's hard for me to picture it meaning that a lot because why would you rebuke him before the sin came upon him?

So I tend to lean towards it saying, don't rebuke your neighbor.

But I'm not going to be dogmatic on that one because I can't be at this point. But on the other verses, we see where God does the rebuking.

Then we see in Proverbs where the father can rebuke his son. And now look at Zechariah 3, 1.

Very fascinating. And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the

Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the

Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee. Now that's amazing.

Verse 2 is amazing. What do we see here? We see

Joshua the high priest which could picture you as a believer priest certainly.

And he's standing there. And we see that he is standing before the angel or the word messenger here would be best, the messenger of the

Lord. Now many would say that is a theophany and that's the Lord Jesus Christ as the messenger of the

Lord. Some would say that this is a good angel. And then we see

Satan standing at his right hand to resist this priest. Now I don't know what your personal belief is on that particular use of angel of the

Lord. There are some places where it's very evident that that is a theophany. It's actually Jesus in the Old Testament. There are other places where it's not as evident.

The word angel, remember always when you see it, the literal rendering is messenger.

It is the only word that's ever used to mean an angel so it can mean an angel also.

So this could be a good angel or this could be Jesus. But either way, whoever it is, is standing there with this priest and Satan is standing there at the right hand of the priest to resist him.

Now as you come into verse 2, it seems to me that it lends itself more in the context of the angel of the

Lord actually being a theophany, being an appearance of Jesus in the

Old Testament. Because I don't see how it makes much sense to say that God the

Father says unto Satan, God the Father rebuke thee. That's an awkward rendering.

It makes more sense to read verse 2 as if it says the Son of God, Jesus, says unto

Satan, May the Father rebuke thee. O Satan, even the

Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a band plucked out of the fire?

A brand plucked out of the fire. Now, any way you look at this, this is awesome because we know from other scriptures that the angels will not rebuke

Satan. They will not rebuke him. Remember the time they were wrestling for Moses' body?

And the angel would not rebuke Satan. He said, the Lord rebuke thee.

In this case, it appears that even the Lord Jesus Christ is looking at Satan and saying, the

Lord rebuke thee. It would not imply that Jesus couldn't rebuke him. It just shows that in this case, he said, the

Father rebuke you. O Satan, even the Lord that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee.

Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? And he's saying, see here,

Joshua is a representative of God's people. And he says, isn't this a brand plucked out of the fire?

He's telling Satan, yes. They're barely saved. Isn't that amazing?

Think about it. So as by fire, the scripture talks about. Yes, we know. We know that this was a lost race.

But this is part of that race that has been plucked. Plucked out of the fire.

These are God's people. So may God rebuke you for attempting to touch them and to resist them.

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. That's his own righteousness. It's filthy.

And stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, take away the filthy garments from him.

And to him he said, behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee. And I will clothe thee with chains of raiment.

Wow, isn't that great? Isn't that great? Satan stands at your right hand, trying to resist and buffet you.

And the scripture says, then may the Lord rebuke Satan. And here we stand with our own righteousnesses.

Anytime we try to dwell in it, we're like filthy rags. And that's why Satan comes to accuse us, is when we are walking in our own righteousness, our flesh.

And pridefully attempting things that we ought not perhaps. And yet we've been plucked as a firebrand from the fire.

We've been saved. And the Lord removes the filthy garments and gives us a clean change of clothes.

And then looks at Satan and rebukes him. So we find that angels won't rebuke

Satan. In this case, the Lord said, may the Lord rebuke thee. So there's another incident of the use of the word rebuke that has to do with rebuking the devil.

So anytime you see on television somebody that says, loose, rebuke you, or stuff like that, just realize they haven't read much of the

Bible. Because you're not to go there. It is appropriate to say,

Lord, rebuke the devil, these demons. But never do it yourself.

There are times when you as fathers over households, over your wife and your children, will find occasion to ask the

Lord to rebuke the devil and send them away. Send them away from this place.

And this is done, but it's never done where you say, I rebuke you, Satan. You won't get anywhere with that.

You might get hurt doing that. Malachi 3 .11 brings another case of a similar situation.

It says, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes. You see, you're not supposed to do it yourself.

But the Lord says, I will do it for your sake. I will rebuke him for your sake. I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground.

Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. So God is there, and remember, it's his battle in those areas.

So that pretty much covers the use of the word rebuke in the Old Testament. Ninety -nine percent of the time, it's

God doing the rebuking. Any time it has to do with Satan being rebuked, it's God doing the rebuking.

And the other times, we see that it's the fathers rebuking the children. Now let's go on to the

New Testament. Matthew 16, verse 22. Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying,

Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. But he turned and said unto

Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

So here we have a case where Peter did rebuke an elder, so to speak.

It's the Lord Jesus, certainly more than an elder. But it would give the picture of the idea of a person attempting to do this.

And Jesus turned to Peter and addressed Satan within Peter and said,

Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me. He did not tell

Peter that Peter was an offense to him, because that would be impossible. Thou art an offense unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Satan had taken over Peter's heart for a moment and caused him to be in the flesh and to say things that were totally wrong and unscriptural and unbiblical, and even to rebuke the

Lord Jesus. Now, that is very dangerous ground for a man to be in.

That's why it's so important that we battle spiritual warfare and we keep on the whole armor of God and that we walk in the

Spirit, because when you're in the Spirit, there's no way that can happen to you. You get in the flesh, and that can happen.

There's nothing about your flesh that is going to repel

Satan or demons. Your new man cannot mix. It's like oil and water.

Nor can the Holy Spirit who dwells within your new man. So we see this example that most of the time in church life when a person rebukes an elder or a teacher of the

Word, it is actually Satan doing it. He may be using a backslidden saint.

He may be using a lost person who's a tare, who's dressed up like wheat, but he's not really wheat. It's very difficult for us to judge those things because they are identical in outward appearance.

A saint who is in the flesh is just as filthy in his ability to do filthy and wrong things as a lost person because your flesh is just as lost as it was before you got saved.

Paul said, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. So we have to be very careful.

You have to always keep your eye on a person who would rebuke an elder or a teacher of the Word in the church.

It should not be done, and really it's not that person doing it. It would be the enemy that we really deal with that would be doing it.

Luke 17, verse 3. Take heed to yourselves, if thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him.

And if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying,

I repent, thou shalt forgive him. Now, remember in the passage in 1

Timothy chapter 5 where it says, Rebuke not an elder, that that is the general rule. There is an exception to the rule.

What is the exception? Where you're supposed to rebuke the elder. When they have been found in open sin by two or three witnesses.

Then you rebuke him publicly to be an example to other elders so that they might fear. So likewise, when we deal with other people as it talks about the younger woman and the younger men and the older women.

That includes everybody, if you think about it mathematically. You got the old men, the young men, the old women, the young women, that's everybody.

The general rule, I believe, is don't rebuke them. But there is an exception to the rule just like there is with the pastor elder and that is found here in Luke chapter 17.

If a brother trespass against thee, rebuke him. Now, I happen to believe that that means in private.

And the reason I believe that is because of the other scriptures where it says, Go to the brother. Then it says,

But if he won't hear you, take one or two brothers with you. Then go to him again. Then if he won't hear you, bring it before the church.

So there is an order that God has set up. You don't publicly rebuke a person to start off with.

I mean, the exception to the rule is if this person has trespassed against you and that would have to be open sin because you wouldn't know about it if it weren't.

This person has wronged you and it's supposed to be a Christian brother that's done this.

Well, in that case, you have the right to go to him privately and rebuke him and tell him,

You know, you did something hurtful to me and here's what you did. That's a rebuke.

Here's how you can tell if something is a rebuke. Turn it around and pretend someone came up to you and said the same thing in the same way you're thinking about saying it and ask,

How would you respond? How would you feel? You'll know if it's a rebuke or not.

So, the general rule is don't rebuke anybody. The exception to the rule is if they trespass against you openly and you know that it's happened because you saw it happen because it happened to you, then go to the person and correct him and say,

That was wrong. A Christian shouldn't do that to another Christian. You did that to me. And if he apologizes and wants to get right with you, the

Bible says, even if he comes back and does it to you seven more times and each time he and you go to him and you point out to him that he did this and he apologizes again, you gotta forgive him again.

Now, seven is God's perfect number so it's not limited to seven. It's however many times this happens.

As long as his heart is real and he really truly apologizes and gets right with you, you forgive him again.

Why? Because you're brothers and sisters and love covers a multitude of sins and love is the overriding factor, not anything else.

So, when there is a rebuke, I think Luke 17 3 shows very clearly that the goal behind it is to restore fellowship.

The goal is not so much a corrective thing as it is a thing to show that I'm out of fellowship with you because you said this to me or you did this to me and it was wrong.

And I'm having trouble sleeping at night and the Bible says don't let the sun go down on your anger and I don't even want to go to sleep feeling about you like this so that's why

I'm talking to you. Here's what you did. You may not have even seen it but here's what you said and here's what you did and here's what the truth is.

Wasn't even the case but you did this to me and it hurt my heart. And then just be quiet and see what they do.

If they say, well that hurts my heart but I hurt your heart. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean it that way.

I was trying to accomplish this and man, I'm sorry it did that. Then it's over.

It's forgiven. You've been reconciled to the brother and there's peace. And that's the way it ought to be.

So there shows an example of how the rebuke is properly used in the church. Luke 19 .39,

another case. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said to him, Master, rebuke your disciples.

And he answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out.

What a verse. They were wanting him to rebuke his own disciples for praising him.

And so forth. And he refused to do it. You won't find hardly any case well you won't find any case in the whole

New Testament where Jesus is dealing with his own his own, the disciples where he rebukes them in a harsh hurt where the tone of it is harsh or pointed.

The only exception is when he addressed Satan in Peter. When he addressed

Satan I mean Peter in the flesh later when he backslid and was in merely the flesh was his bothering enemy.

He didn't rebuke him. He said, Peter, do you love me? Just ask him a question. Peter, do you love me?

Why are you out here naked fishing? Feed my lambs. And he asked him that question.

You know the story. Every other time you see Jesus dealing with his own now what did the

Pharisees want him to do though? You should be rebuking them. Why? Because that was their spirit.

The spirit of a Pharisee is always to rebuke and correct everybody else when they themselves can't even live right.

Think about it. Which one of us in this room can honestly stand before another and rebuke them when we have a moat in our own eye?

And so the only time that should be done, I believe, the scripture indicates, is if that person has outwardly and obviously done something to you that's been hurtful and you're starting to grow bitterness in your heart, which is going to hurt you, so therefore the

Lord gives you the right to go to the person and point out what he did. And he calls that a rebuke because it is not going to feel good to him.

It's going to feel pointed when you tell him you made a mistake when you said that to me. So that would be a rebuke.

So there's the time when it can be done. Proper time. Philippians chapter 2, verse 13.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.

The whole mindset of the New Testament is that there ought not have to be a lot of rebuking going on in the church because if we're walking in Christ and God is working both in you to both will and to do his good will, there won't be a whole lot of opportunity for it.

We know the problem with that in practice is though that in a church, at any given time we have brothers and sisters and even ourselves, we revert to the flesh.

And when we do anything can happen. It's a dangerous place to be.

It's not a place we ought to be. The whole idea is that we be blameless and harmless sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse world that we live in where everybody else is having those problems.

1 Timothy 5 .1 Rebuke not an elder but entreat him as a father.

That's where we are. So we include that passage in the study. 2

Timothy 4 .2 Preach the word. Be instant in season, out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears.

We're living in that day. But this gives a second exception to the rule on rebuking.

The general rule is don't rebuke each other. The first exception is if someone does you wrong and you know it, you're allowed to go to them privately.

The third exception to the rule now is that those who preach the word are exhorted to both reprove and exhort but also rebuke from the pulpit but with patience and with doctrine.

Now the reason it says with patience is because I've found that the best time to rebuke is not right after the thing happened.

Have you ever had a time when you felt like the pastor was preaching right at you? Like he made the whole message with you in mind?

Well, it's not wise to do that. In my younger years of preaching,

I did that once or twice and it never works. They don't have an open mind to it and they always know you're doing it and it's stupid.

Now there may be times when you think I've done it but I'll promise you those notes were probably written two or three weeks before that sermon was preached so it wasn't aimed at you.

It's just a coincidence and maybe the Lord is aiming it at you. But that's the reason it uses the word patience.

As a pastor, when he sees something that needs to be rebuked, he is allowed to do it from the pulpit with the word of God and who is really doing the rebuking if you're using the word?

God is or his word will do the rebuking. But even then the pastor should be patient which means he didn't have to pop up and preach that the next

Sunday. He might ought to watch and wait on the Lord and see how God deals with his own sheep before he takes a part in it.

And I think that the older and more mature a pastor is, the more he's apt to be patient in that area. The younger he is and your pastors, they tend to nail you boy.

They'll talk about stepping on your toes. They'll get you. You do something wrong, you'll hear it in the pulpit the next

Sunday probably. And you'll get singled out. But they'll learn over time that's not the best way.

Patience has to be part of it. But it also says that they must rebuke with doctrine. What does that mean? It's got to be the word.

It can't just be your opinion. It can't be my opinion. Could I give a real life example of a wrong type of rebuke coming from the pulpit?

There was a time, I won't mention any names and I won't mention what church but it wasn't this church, but there was a time when there was a pastor who stood up behind the pulpit in front of a rather large crowd and he said, you know we've got

Sunday school, we've got church, we have two services, we have a

Bible study before church on Sunday evening, we have Wednesday night services, we have all kinds of Sunday school classes.

We don't need all these home Bible studies going on. And so,

I'm saying let's don't have the home Bible studies. And we've got a couple of gurus in our church that think it's up to them to have all these home

Bible studies. And he rebuked two individuals and many, many people in the church knew exactly who he was talking to.

One of those was my mom. And on that day she said the Lord told her in her heart you're released from this church.

So in her heart she was over here in this church from that point. But that was so inappropriate because what he was doing, he was sharing his opinion certainly there's no place in the word where it says that we're not that you, that the sheep can't have home

Bible studies. Okay, okay don't study the Bible except three times in the week.

Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Where's that? So that had to be his opinion not the word.

So the Bible says when the pastor rebukes you ought to do it with doctrine. It needs to come out of the

Bible it needs to come from the Lord's heart and mind. And he needs to even have patience before he does that.

Well, the scripture teaches it and then we learn it the hard way by doing it wrong sometimes too.

But that's what it teaches about it. Titus make sure

I've got the scripture right. Titus 1 -7 For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self -willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision, in other words those that want to get legal about things whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which ought not to be taught for filthy lucre's sake.

One of themselves, even a prophet of their own said that the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

For this witness is true, wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.

So we see once again an example of the bishops from time to time having to correct false prophets and they are allowed to do that in the form of a rebuke but using sound doctrine once again to do the rebuke.

Titus chapter 2 verse 14 who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise these, speaking there to a young pastor,

Timothy. So it shows that the pastor has the right to rebuke once again. Jude 8, likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, speak evil of dignities.

Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said the

Lord rebuke thee, which we discussed a while ago. There's the verse in Jude. Revelation 3, 18,

I counsel thee to buy of me gold, trident, fire, that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear, and anoint thine eyes with eye salve, that thou mayest see as many as I love,

I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore, and repent. So the Lord rebukes and does a rebuking work in the church.

So to summarize it, what I found that was different than what I had always thought or been taught is that the rebuke is generally not encouraged or allowed in the church among us.

However, there are some exceptions to the rule when the rebuke is to be used. One is with a pastor if he's found an open sin before two or three witnesses.

One is used of a brother towards another brother if that brother has wronged the first brother and he personally knows it because it happened to him.

Therefore, it's not gossip. It's not debatable. It actually happened. Then you go in private.

And the other is, of course, the pastor can rebuke from the pulpit but only by the

Word of God. So really there it fits the Old Testament idea that it's the Lord who does the rebuking.

I find that interesting. I do think it will bring more peace into any local church that would study this and understand it because the last thing any of you want is to be rebuked by another person.

And each one of you will close your mind to it and the work won't get done anyway because of human psychology. You'll close your mind.

One of us comes to the other and says, well, let me straighten you out here. And the tone of it, the language, it's a rebuke.

What we need to learn is to use exhortation or use what it says in our passage in 1

Timothy. Don't rebuke them. Don't rebuke the elder or the younger man or the older woman or the younger woman and treat them.

There's the key. God shows us how to do it. God teaches us human psychology.

He says, here's how the brain works. I built it. It works this way. If you rebuke, it won't work. If you will entreat and beg them and they see that your heart is a heart of love and that you're seeing something that's destructive in their life and maybe to the church and you're begging them not to do it, then they're a little more open.

A little more, not much, but a little more open. And so entreat them as a brother is the common thing to use, not to rebuke.

Does that make sense? That's what the Bible teaches if you seek it through every place it's found in the word of God.

Alright, let's stand. Dear Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that it's our guide into truth. It's our guide into methods of operation of the

New Testament church as well. And we thank you that our methodology is just as important as our doctrine.

And so help us to the best we can to line things up with scriptural methodology in the church.

And Lord, we thank you for each person here today. Ask your protection as we go our ways on our travel and as we have a holiday this

Monday. Protect everyone. Protect the children as they play and the families as they travel and bring us back together once again safely.