When Sheep Bite

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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May 21, 2020

00:00: Let's open our Bibles.
00:00: Let's go to Galatians 5.
00:05: We are back in Galatians.
00:07: I know we took a couple of weeks off to have some questions and answers on theology questions, but we've got to get through Galatians.
00:17: And I have an assignment for you.
00:21: We're almost done with Galatians.
00:24: We're at chapter 5, which means we've only got a chapter left, chapter and a half left, which means we'll only be in it for another year.
00:34: That's kind of a joke, but it takes me a while to get through a book.
00:39: But when I get done with Galatians, I want to go somewhere else.
00:42: And so I wanted to ask you guys to think about what you would like me to teach on.
00:56: And there's an assignment coming.
00:58: I wasn't done.
00:59: Everybody starts yelling.
01:02: Write it down.
01:03: Write down what you want me to teach on.
01:07: My primary fields of study are systematic theology, church history, history of the biblical text.
01:16: Those are all things that I've taught on and specialized in.
01:20: I've written a book on the Trinity.
01:21: I've written a book on the doctrine of the church.
01:23: So those are two things if you're interested in.
01:25: So just think about it.
01:27: If you're interested on a subject, write it down and give it to me next week.
01:34: And I'll put them in a hat and pull one out or look through them and see which one.
01:37: Because it might be something, if you ask me certain things, I would say no, just because they're not things that I would be too keen on teaching on.
01:46: There are certain subjects I just wouldn't want to deal with, in all honesty.
01:52: Like somebody said, preach on the end times.
01:54: Don't ask me to preach.
01:55: I'm not the guy you want to preach on the end times.
01:58: I just ain't the guy.
01:59: So it's just not my field.
02:03: Alright, so today we are going to be looking at Galatians 5, verse 15.
02:10: Galatians 5, verse 15.
02:13: Now normally we would take a section of text, but this text, even though it does fit well within the context, and we're going to look at the context, this particular text stands on its own with the subject that we're going to talk about today.
02:30: And the title of today's lesson is, When Sheep Bite.
02:36: When Sheep Bite.
02:39: When I first became a pastor, I was given a piece of advice by another pastor who had been in the ministry much longer than I had.
02:50: And he said, Always remember that you have been called to tend God's flock, but sheep bite.
03:02: That's what he said.
03:03: He said, you have been called to tend God's flock, but remember, sheep bite.
03:09: And this reference was to the unfortunate reality that Christians can be very hurtful people.
03:17: No.
03:20: I like the sarcasm.
03:24: In 15 years, I have experienced firsthand the reality of his warning, and I have many bite marks, if you will, to remind me.
03:38: I remember when I first was in the ministry for a few years, there was a group within the church that tried to have me fired.
03:44: I've mentioned that story before.
03:46: They had private meetings in their homes.
03:49: They tried to develop a coalition to divide the church and to have me removed.
03:54: I remember receiving hate-filled letters, being called all sorts of names.
03:59: I still keep some of those letters as reminders of things that I've been through in the past.
04:05: I've been called horrible names, both publicly and on social media.
04:09: I've been yelled at.
04:10: I've been cursed at.
04:12: And even my wife and children have not been immune to hurtful and insulting language.
04:19: And all of those who gossiped, slandered, attacked, and insulted me and my family were at the same time calling themselves Christians.
04:32: Now, I don't share that to make myself a martyr or a victim.
04:36: I don't have time for that, neither do you.
04:38: And as ministries go, I would say I have had a fairly easy one compared to some of what I have seen other men go through.
04:49: I've attended meetings with ministers who were broken, who were crying, who've had horror stories that I could not even imagine.
04:58: Pastors who were called by their deacons in the middle of the night just to be told that they had had an emergency meeting and that they were fired, not even to come in the next day.
05:07: My wife is part of a pastor's wife group, and she comes home from her meetings always sharing struggles that the pastor's wives have had to go through.
05:18: And I remember years ago, a particular instance where a minister confided in me that he had gone to a meeting in the church where he was being chastised for his preaching.
05:31: And the woman who was in charge of the group, it was an executive committee, she told him point blank, you need to understand we pay you so you're gonna say what we tell you to say.
05:47: That's bold, you know who it is.
05:49: If I told you, it's Joe Jones.
05:51: Really? Yeah.
05:54: Yeah, he told me, he said he was sitting in a meeting and a lady looked at him and said, we pay you to tell us what we want to hear.
06:04: I'm not saying you people, you people.
06:10: So, the reality is sheep bite.
06:15: And pastors are not the only ones who struggle with church hurt.
06:19: Pastors themselves have been culprits, have been the victimizers.
06:23: Several years ago, there was a popular pastor out in Seattle who was well known and popular.
06:32: I mean, hugely popular around the nation.
06:34: He had gone to one of the most unchurched cities in America and created one of the largest churches in America.
06:41: But just a few years after his church became a mega church, he was found to have misused over $200,000 in church funds because he wrote a book and he wanted his book to be on the bestseller list.
06:59: So he used church funds to buy hundreds of copies or thousands of copies of his own book to put himself on the bestseller list.
07:09: After a while, it came to light that he was an abusive, hurtful, bullyish man.
07:20: And the people that he worked with were scared of him because of his behavior behind the scenes.
07:29: Another pastor, again, if I named his name, you'd know who he is because he's on the radio, very popular, at least he used to be.
07:38: And it was just last year that his ministry fell and fell hard.
07:43: He had reached thousands on television and on the internet, but now his church has let him go.
07:51: And a statement from the church says, quote, he had a pattern of being disruptive, insulting, belittling, verbally abusing others, improperly exercising positional and spiritual authority and an extravagant spending, utilizing church resources, resulting in his own personal benefit.
08:11: So not only do sheep bite, but apparently shepherds have teeth as well.
08:17: And some people would use these stories to say, oh, well, the whole church needs to be abandoned.
08:21: I mean, church members are bad.
08:23: People are bad.
08:24: Church pastors are bad.
08:25: They're bad.
08:27: And I wanna assure you today or assure you that that's not my point.
08:32: My point, I'm a churchman.
08:33: And I believe that Christ, when He said, I came to build my church, the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
08:39: I believe the church has a place and a purpose in the world.
08:42: It is God's church.
08:44: It is Christ's bride.
08:46: We must not forsake the bride of Christ.
08:49: And I would take issue with anyone who would say church is unnecessary, but the church can be a dangerous place because sheep have teeth and sheep bite.
09:01: So all that being said, let's read the text.
09:03: And now you maybe get an idea of why I'm telling you all this.
09:07: In Galatians 5, 15, the apostle Paul has just called the church to love one another.
09:15: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
09:17: Then in verse 15, he says, but if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
09:29: Let's pray.
09:31: Father, I pray that today, as I seek to give an exposition of this text, that You would keep me from error.
09:38: For Lord, I am a fallible man and I am capable of preaching error.
09:42: So for the sake of Your name and for the sake of Your Word and for the sake of these men and for the sake of my conscience, I pray that You would keep me from error.
09:52: I pray, Lord, that the ears of these men would be opened, that their eyes would be opened.
09:59: And Lord, that the message would go from their ears to the mind and even to the heart.
10:04: And Lord, only Your Spirit can do that.
10:07: So I pray that Your Spirit would be the ultimate teacher today.
10:10: I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
10:17: This passage, as I said, fits in a context, but it can stand on its own as a warning for how the church ought to act and how it ought not to act.
10:35: Remember what the context is.
10:38: The Apostle Paul has been talking about freedom.
10:40: You remember the beginning of chapter five? Those of you who haven't been here, I know there's like three or four new guys.
10:45: I preach verse by verse through books of the Bible.
10:47: So if you've been here, we've been going verse by verse through this book, but if this is your first time or maybe you've only been here a few weeks and you haven't heard this, here's the situation.
10:56: Paul has planted a church in a place called Galatia.
11:03: It's a region.
11:04: If you remember reading through the book of Acts, you read about Lystra and Iconium and Derbe.
11:09: Those are all places in Galatia.
11:12: It's a region in what would now be called Turkey.
11:15: Paul had passed through there and in passing through there on his missionary journeys, he had planted churches in that area.
11:21: They were known as the Galatian churches.
11:23: After Paul left, another group came in and argued that Paul had not given the Galatians the whole gospel because Paul had not commanded them to be circumcised.
11:35: This group was known as the Judaizers.
11:37: They believed that if you were going to be a right Christian in right standing with God, you had to keep the whole law of God, which included being circumcised and including maintaining a dietary restriction and maintaining the Sabbath, maintaining the feasts, all of those things.
11:53: And so this group known as the Judaizers had come in and demanded law keeping.
11:59: And the Apostle Paul is now writing this letter to the Galatians and he is saying you are not justified or made right with God by law keeping because no one is justified by keeping the law.
12:14: The law does not have the power to save.
12:16: The law only has the power to condemn.
12:19: The law is not intended to save, it is intended to condemn and point you to Christ who can save.
12:27: You see, if you look at the law, it will tell you how bad you are.
12:31: Just go through the law.
12:32: Have you ever told a lie? Yes, you're a liar.
12:34: Have you ever stolen anything? Yes, you're a thief.
12:37: Have you ever looked with lust in your heart? Then you're an adulterer.
12:40: Have you ever blasphemed the name of the Lord? Yes, then you're a blasphemer.
12:44: The law, all it does is condemn you and you stand condemned before the God of the universe who knows your very heart and knows how bad you are and therefore you are without excuse.
12:56: You stand condemned.
13:00: And Christ comes and He takes upon Himself the guilt you deserve, the punishment rather you deserve, the guilt you have, the punishment you deserve and He dies in your place.
13:11: He provides to you an atonement, meaning a reconciliation with God.
13:17: You who were separated with God because of sin have been reconciled through the cross, the Bible says.
13:23: And your sin is given to Christ and He pays the penalty.
13:26: His righteousness is given to you and you stand, as the Apostle Paul says, not having a righteousness of your own that comes from the law, but a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.
13:37: As Martin Luther called it, it's an alien righteousness, or meaning a righteousness that comes from the outside.
13:43: It's not inherent.
13:44: It's not yours.
13:45: It's Christ's.
13:45: And when you stand before God, you will stand before God in one of two ways.
13:49: You will stand before God in the righteousness of Christ or you will stand before God in your own righteousness.
13:55: And guess what? Your righteousness is as filthy rags.
13:58: It is not good enough.
14:00: And therefore you will be condemned.
14:02: So the Apostle Paul's message is simple.
14:04: Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, receive His righteousness and be saved.
14:08: The message of the Judaizers is Christ is not enough.
14:11: You have to keep the law.
14:12: And Paul has said, no.
14:14: If you try to go the way of the law, you will be condemned.
14:18: There's two mountains.
14:19: Remember, guys, we talked about the two mountains.
14:20: There's Law Mountain and there's Grace Mountain.
14:23: If you try to climb Law Mountain, you will never reach the top because you will always fail.
14:29: But Grace Mountain is what God sets you on.
14:31: The Bible says you are dead in your trespasses and sins.
14:34: But God, being rich in mercy, has seated you in heavenly places with Christ.
14:39: He picked you up and put you there.
14:40: You didn't climb it.
14:42: It was a gift.
14:44: So you're either on Law Mountain or Grace Mountain.
14:46: If you're on Law Mountain, it's going to crush you.
14:49: If you're on Grace Mountain, you will be saved.
14:52: So that's the simple sort of boiling it down.
14:55: And so Paul is dealing with the Judaizers.
14:57: He's saying you guys are bringing a message of condemnation because you're bringing the law.
15:02: And all the law can do is condemn.
15:04: In the beginning of chapter 5, he talks about freedom.
15:06: He says, for freedom, Christ has set us free.
15:09: In what way has Christ set us free? He set us free in our conscience.
15:13: Because now, whenever we look at God, we can look at God with a clear conscience.
15:18: Because if Christ has taken our sin, we no longer have any condemnation.
15:22: Romans 8 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
15:28: No condemnation.
15:29: So we have a free conscience.
15:31: We don't have the freedom to continue to sin willy-nilly.
15:34: That's not what Paul's saying.
15:35: He's not saying we have the freedom to just go out and murder and steal and rape and pillage and plunder.
15:39: No, he's saying we have the freedom to stand before God and say all my sins are covered in the blood of Christ.
15:45: And so that's the freedom that we have.
15:48: And then he says in verse 13, and you remember this from a few weeks ago, you are called to freedom, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.
15:57: What does he mean there? If you're free in Christ, that doesn't mean you're free to go on and sin.
16:01: It means that you ought to love one another.
16:03: That's what he goes on to say.
16:04: He says, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another.
16:11: For the whole law is fulfilled in one word.
16:13: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
16:17: And so that's what leads into verse 15.
16:19: He's talked about the freedom that we have.
16:21: He's talked about us being free in Christ.
16:23: And now he says, based on this freedom, do not bite and devour one another.
16:31: Actually, that's not what he says.
16:32: He says, but if you bite and devour one another.
16:36: And actually, in the Greek, it's even a little different because in the English, if I say, if you bite and devour, that sounds like it's possible, right? You might or you might not.
16:46: But in the Greek, it's a little bit more assured.
16:50: He's saying, sorry, apparently I'm 13 again.
16:55: He said, since you bite and devour.
17:00: It's almost as if he's implying that this is what's happening.
17:04: It's not if you do it, but since you are doing it, be careful.
17:09: And the question is, well, why? Why are the Galatians biting and devouring one another? Why are they attacking one another? Well, what has Paul been talking about the whole time? He's been talking about the issue of legalism because that's really what the Judaizers were.
17:27: They were the consummate legalists.
17:28: They were the ones who were saying, if you wanna be right with God, you gotta keep this list of right and wrong.
17:33: And you know what? When your list of right and wrong is different than my list of right and wrong, I'm gonna condemn you.
17:38: You're gonna condemn me.
17:40: Think about this.
17:41: Some of the people, some of the churches in this world, and I'm gonna speak right now.
17:45: I'm gonna say a few things and I'm not here to offend.
17:50: So if this just happens to be your church background, I'm not trying to offend you, but this is a reality.
17:57: In the independent fundamentalist Baptist movement, there's a very strict standard as to what you should and should not do.
18:07: And one of the harshest things that I have seen in that movement is their willingness to condemn others.
18:13: For instance, women ought not wear pants.
18:16: That's one of their arguments.
18:18: And so if they see a woman wear pants, she's backsliding.
18:22: Or if a woman ought not have her hair shorter than her shoulders, if she does, she's backsliding.
18:27: Remember that happened to my mama.
18:29: My mama wasn't an independent fundamentalist Baptist, but it was a holiness church, sort of like Church of God type church.
18:42: And when she cut her hair a little shorter than they thought she should, they said, oh look, you're backsliding.
18:47: So I mean, that was the attitude, right? And so when you have this list that you have created that is the list of the legal demands, whatever they are, you shouldn't go to the movies.
18:59: You go to the movies, you're backsliding, right? You shouldn't watch television.
19:03: You got a TV in your house, you're backsliding, right? What's that? That's what I'm saying, is you got this list, right? And so when you have a list and then somebody else has a list and your lists don't agree, see, that's how you can always tell when people are excited.
19:22: Their lists agree.
19:24: But when do they break up? When one thing on the list don't agree.
19:29: It's like the guy who found the other guy standing about to jump off a bridge.
19:35: He walked up and sees this guy, he's standing there, he's holding onto the pole, he's sort of leaned out, and the guy says, what are you doing? And he says, I can't go on.
19:44: I'm ready to end it all.
19:46: And he says, oh, don't do that.
19:47: He said, I'll be your friend.
19:48: I want us to be friends.
19:50: And he says, I don't want you to be my friend.
19:53: I want to die.
19:53: And he says, no, let's be friends.
19:55: He said, listen, let's talk about our lives.
19:57: I'm from this town.
19:59: And the guy said, well, I'm from that town too.
20:02: Well, that's interesting.
20:02: See, we have something in common.
20:04: He says, you know what? I was brought up in the church.
20:07: I was brought up in the church too.
20:09: Well, we have something in common.
20:11: And the guy says, what kind of church? He goes, a Baptist church.
20:14: Well, I was brought up in a Baptist.
20:15: Well, look at there.
20:16: We're practically family.
20:18: He says, you were brought up in a Baptist church.
20:20: What kind of Baptist church? Well, I was a Southern Baptist.
20:22: I was a Southern Baptist too.
20:25: He said, what confession of faith did you guys use? And he goes, well, we were 1689, London Baptist confession of faith.
20:31: And he goes, oh, die, heretic.
20:33: And he pushed him off the bridge.
20:35: It's only the 1644.
20:39: So you see the kind of the ridiculousness, how easily these things can create division.
20:46: And within the Galatian church, I believe what was creating division, based on the context of Galatians, not just my own feeble mind, but based on the context, the Judaizers had brought in their legalism.
21:02: And when you go down the path of law, what have we learned over the last several months? When you go down the path of law, you never go far enough.
21:10: If you say, okay, you gotta be circumcised.
21:12: Okay, that's good.
21:13: No, no, now you gotta keep the dietary laws.
21:14: Well, which ones? All of them.
21:16: All of them, right? So if I see that, you got that pork sandwich.
21:19: Would you let me come over there and see you eat that pork sandwich? Right, so, and that bacon.
21:26: We're not gonna do that.
21:28: Can't have that bacon.
21:30: Cheeseburger.
21:34: Huh? That's what I'm saying.
21:37: And so the law demands, just keep piling on.
21:43: And so within the Galatian church, I believe what was causing this biting was division over what and how to keep the law.
21:55: And what ways are you keeping the law and what ways should you be keeping the law? And the idea of biting and devouring, this is important, it's the idea of a hurtful language.
22:09: See, Christians don't often hit each other with sticks.
22:12: They hit each other with words.
22:15: What's that? And fishes.
22:18: And fishes.
22:19: Yeah, Jonah, okay.
22:20: I don't know if they'll get that.
22:21: That's a VeggieTales reference.
22:25: But Christians don't often hit each other with weapons of war.
22:30: They hit each other with weapons of words.
22:35: And so Paul is using the language of biting and devouring.
22:38: I like the, I don't use a lot of various translations that are a little far out, but sometimes I'll go look and see how something's translated in a more dynamic equivalent translation.
22:50: And one of those is the God's Word translation.
22:53: And God's Word translation says this.
22:54: If you criticize each other.
22:57: I think that's the idea here.
22:59: When he says bite, I think the idea is criticize.
23:04: And so Paul is warning the church not to give into the temptation to allow the doctrinal disputes that are going on to produce hateful dispositions within the body.
23:17: He's called them to serve one another in love, not to snap at one another in loathing.
23:22: And that's what they're doing.
23:24: You guys remember Martin Luther? I've mentioned him several times because his commentary is very useful on Galatians.
23:30: He says this.
23:31: And this is not Martin Luther King, by the way.
23:34: A lot of times when I say Martin Luther, people think of the 60s civil rights leader.
23:38: Yeah, we saw the movie.
23:40: Martin Luther.
23:40: You know who I'm talking about.
23:42: 16th century reformer.
23:44: Okay, German guy from the 16th century.
23:48: This is what he says.
23:50: When faith in Christ is overthrown, peace and unity come to an end in the church.
23:59: Diverse opinions and dissensions about doctrine and life spring up and one member bites and devours the other, i.e.
24:07: they condemn each other until they are consumed.
24:10: To this the scriptures and the experience of all time bears witness.
24:15: The many sects at present have come into being because one sect condemns the other sect.
24:22: When the unity of the spirit has been lost, there can be no agreement in doctrine or life.
24:27: New errors must appear without measure and without end.
24:34: Think about what he's saying.
24:36: He's saying one sect crops up against another sect in the church and that's how these divisions come about.
24:45: And oftentimes both of the groups are saying God is on our side.
24:50: Yeah.
24:51: Who was it that said, I think once they translated the Bible into the language of the people, they would start seeing divisions in the church.
25:00: Yep.
25:00: Wasn't there? Well, that's actually, first person to translate the Bible into English was John Wycliffe in the 1300s.
25:12: And it was condemned.
25:14: Universally condemned.
25:15: By the leaders of the Catholic church.
25:19: Because what they said was that if men have the Bible in their own language, they will pervert it.
25:28: They will pervert it if they have, if they can, because the Bible up until that point had been for a thousand years had been Latin and it was really only understood by the people who had had training in Latin, which were the ministers.
25:46: And even some of the ministers by the time of Martin Luther's day didn't even understand the Latin.
25:51: Many of them did not properly understand it.
25:53: And so they were simply repeating the stories that they had heard and oftentimes incorrectly.
26:01: So the Bible was written in Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew.
26:07: Translated into Latin in the fourth century by Jerome.
26:14: And it was popularized in the Western church in Latin.
26:19: In the Eastern church, the Greek remained the primary.
26:21: That's why it's called the Greek Orthodox church.
26:23: And the Western church is the Latin.
26:27: And for a thousand years, it was the Bible of the church.
26:30: The Latin church or the Latin Bible was the Bible of the church.
26:36: 1300s, Wycliffe translates into English.
26:40: He is condemned.
26:41: A hundred years after he died, they dug up his bones and burned his bones just to prove that he was how much of a heretic he was, I guess.
26:53: And 200 years later, William Tyndale comes on the scene.
27:01: He translates the Bible into English.
27:02: And he said, why did he translate the Bible into English? They already had Wycliffe's translation.
27:06: Yes, they did.
27:07: But Wycliffe translated the Bible into English from Latin.
27:11: So it was a translation of a translation.
27:13: Remember Latin was not the original language.
27:15: When William Tyndale came, he translated it from Greek and Hebrew, which means he was...
27:20: Tyndale was a brilliant linguist and he was able to translate from the original languages.
27:25: And so when he translated, it was the first time that there was a direct translation into English from Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic.
27:32: So what we have is we have a church that's now saying that you can't have the Bible.
27:41: Everybody can't have the Bible in their language because if you give the Bible to everyone in their language, it's going to become twisted.
27:48: It's going to become corrupt.
27:49: And Martin Luther agreed.
27:52: He said, yes, if we give the Bible to men in their own language, they will pervert it.
28:01: They will corrupt it.
28:02: They will misunderstand it.
28:04: They will misapply it.
28:06: He said, but keeping the Bible in the hands of the magisterium, which is the Roman Catholic authorities, keeping the Bible in the hands of the priests and the bishops and the pope has not kept it from being perverted.
28:22: Keeping it in the hands of the authorities has not kept it from being mistreated or misused.
28:27: He said, so ultimately, by giving it to everyone, you have a better opportunity for people to correct one another.
28:35: You have a better opportunity for there to be wholesale wide opportunity for people to read it for themselves.
28:42: And one of the statements of the Reformation was we want the plowman to know as much about the Bible as the pope.
28:51: We want the plowman to be able to read the Bible in the same way as the pope.
28:56: And therefore, if the pope comes out and says, Jesus said X, everybody can say, no, he didn't.
29:02: Because we have it here.
29:04: And Jesus didn't say that.
29:07: You see, it was an opportunity to correct and to have the truth in our hands.
29:14: You don't understand, I don't think, I don't even understand really the weight of what you get to hold in your hand.
29:21: The blood that has been spilled.
29:22: William Tyndale died on a pyre.
29:28: He was set ablaze because he translated this into English and he sent it out.
29:33: He was called God's outlaw because he was basically a smuggler.
29:38: And he smuggled the Bible that he translated into the Western world so that English-speaking people could read the Bible in their own language.
29:48: You are sitting...
29:50: This room is filled with the Bible.
29:51: You are sitting in a room that is one of the richest rooms in the world.
29:56: And you don't even understand.
29:59: You realize there's videos of people in China receiving a box of Bibles.
30:07: And they're crying.
30:10: And they're tearing open the boxes and they're grabbing the Bible.
30:13: They're holding it to their chest like it was $1,000, like it was a million dollars.
30:19: Because to them, it's worth much more than a million dollars because it's the Word of the living God.
30:26: And they're holding it to their breast and they're crying over it.
30:29: And they're thankful to have the Word of God.
30:33: You have the Word of...
30:33: If you are an English-speaking person, which everyone in this room should be, you have...
30:41: I know, Irish, you're close.
30:45: You're an English-speaking person.
30:48: You have a wealth of opportunity.
30:51: You can read the Bible in scholarly language.
30:55: You can read the Bible in simple language.
30:59: You can read the Bible in big print.
31:03: You can read the Bible with notes attached to help you understand it.
31:07: You can read the Bible anytime you want.
31:11: There's nobody in this place that's gonna stop you from reading the Bible.
31:15: You can take it to bed with you at night.
31:18: You can read it when you wake up in the morning.
31:21: The Word of God is with you always.
31:23: You are rich in that regard.
31:30: I mean to go off on a tangent there, but yes, having the Word of God does create discussion and division because people read it differently.
31:40: But the blessing of having it outweighs that because, yeah, I mean, I've got friends who are Presbyterian.
31:50: I've got friends, you know, I would consider myself somewhat of a Reformed Baptist if you wanna know my background.
31:57: And then I have my Southern Baptist friends.
32:00: And I even have friends who are Methodists and Episcopalians, though they are few because those denominations have gone so far away from the Bible.
32:11: But the reality is the Word of God is the standard.
32:18: And so the Word of God is, if we have a disagreement, if I have a disagreement with one of my Presbyterian friends, we go to the Word of God for our answer.
32:25: And this is our standard and this is it.
32:28: And are there times when we're gonna disagree? Yes, and we can disagree.
32:33: And they're what we call primary issues and secondary issues.
32:35: And as long as we agree on the primary issues, we can disagree on the secondary issues.
32:39: As Augustine said, in essentials, there must be unity.
32:42: But in non-essentials, there must be liberty.
32:46: And in all things, there must be charity.
32:50: So again, remember that when you're here, because you're gonna have disagreements with the guys around you.
32:56: And there may be certain, there may be things I've said the last few weeks.
32:59: You know, I came in, I preached on difficult subjects.
33:02: And there may be things you disagree with me on, but most of the things I was talking about are not essential things.
33:10: They're secondary doctrines.
33:13: And so long as we agree on the things that are essential, the necessity of Christ, the necessity of the cross, the necessity of atonement, the necessity of repentance and faith, those things which are non-negotiable, then we might disagree on how we understand something like election.
33:30: We might disagree on how we understand which Bible you ought to read from.
33:34: But at the same time, at the end of the day, what is essential must remain essential, and what is non-essential must remain non-essential.
33:42: And what had happened, I believe, in the Galatian church is the non-essentials became the essentials.
33:46: And when the non-essentials become the essentials, when the minor things become the major things, and the major things become the minor things, then you have a major problem.
33:56: And a lot of people major in the minors.
34:01: They really do.
34:01: They focus on the things that are secondary to the detriment of the unity that we have in the Gospel.
34:13: During the Civil War, Martin Luther, no, excuse me.
34:16: During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was discussing with one of his leading men, and the man said to Lincoln, he said, I sure hope God is on our side.
34:37: This was during the Civil War.
34:39: I sure hope God is on our side.
34:42: And Abraham Lincoln said, I want to be on God's side.
34:50: He said, I'm not concerned if God is on my side.
34:53: I want to be on God's side.
34:57: That's an important distinction.
35:00: Because oftentimes, we're so concerned that God agrees with me, that we're not concerned whether we agree with Him.
35:11: We need to be willing to be wrong if what we say or what we believe disagrees with what God is saying.
35:19: One of the hardest things that we have to do, especially as men, and you're all men.
35:24: Men have a hard time admitting they're wrong.
35:28: Men want to be right.
35:29: Men will fight to the death, even when they realize they're wrong.
35:32: You ever been in a conversation, in an argument, and find out you were wrong? That's the worst moment.
35:39: You're excited, you're fighting, you're tooth and nail, and he says something, and you're like, that's right.
35:47: And now you say, oh no, I've been elbows deep fighting for my cause, and I was wrong.
35:58: Some guys will never admit it.
36:00: I know people that will never, ever admit they were wrong.
36:05: I guess repentance is hard for them, isn't it? Huh? I guess repentance is hard for them, isn't it? Repentance, yes.
36:12: In fact, let me say this about that.
36:13: I'm glad you mentioned that.
36:18: Because repentance necessitates the willingness to recognize our own error.
36:27: And people who will not recognize their own error will never repent.
36:31: This is what's genuinely scary.
36:34: I have people in my life that cannot be wrong.
36:39: People say that about me.
36:40: Oh, Pastor, you think you're always right.
36:42: I say, no, I don't think I'm always right.
36:44: Wouldn't be Bobby, would he? No.
36:48: Let me say this.
36:48: People say, Pastor, you think you're always right.
36:50: I say, no, I don't think I'm always right.
36:51: But I'm always confident in what I'm saying until I'm corrected.
36:54: So if I sound like I think I'm always right, no, I'm confident.
36:57: I am confident in what I believe.
36:59: If I'm corrected, I'm willing to be corrected.
37:01: And I've been corrected many times.
37:02: I wasn't always a Calvinist.
37:03: I am now because I was corrected.
37:04: You know, there's a reality.
37:06: If you are unwilling to be corrected, that is a major problem.
37:11: If you are unteachable, that's the phrase we use at our church.
37:14: Because sometimes we get people come in and I'll be preaching, and they want to argue with everything I say.
37:22: And the elders talk, and we have sort of a language that we use.
37:25: And one of the things I'll say, this person is unteachable.
37:29: Because they do not have a desire to be taught.
37:32: They only have a desire to argue.
37:34: They don't have a desire to listen.
37:36: They only have a desire to speak.
37:38: And the Bible says, he who speaks first is a fool.
37:44: He who is unwilling to listen is a fool.
37:48: So we have to be willing to be taught.
37:51: We have to be willing to be instructed.
37:53: We have to be willing to be wrong.
37:56: Now, again, on the essential things, we can stand on the essential things.
37:59: I mean, did Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door? Well, they don't anymore, that's true.
38:04: But they used to come to my door.
38:07: And we have those conversations.
38:09: And they want to tell me a false gospel.
38:11: And I say, no, that's a false gospel.
38:12: And here's why.
38:13: And I explain to them why they're preaching a false gospel.
38:16: And I politely invite them to leave my neighborhood and leave my neighbors alone.
38:20: Because don't bring this false gospel into my neighborhood.
38:22: Because that's what you're doing.
38:26: So I'm not saying that we have to be willing to roll over and belly up every time we get into a discussion.
38:32: But we need to be willing to listen.
38:34: We need to be willing to be corrected.
38:37: Because if not, what we're going to do is we're going to make it impossible to have true fellowship with other believers if we're not willing to listen to other people.
38:46: And we're going to be impossible to be taught if we're not willing to actually be taught and to listen.
38:54: So again, does it matter if God is on our side? No, it matters if we're on His side.
38:59: And sometimes being on God's side means that we have to be corrected.
39:05: And that's the situation Paul is dealing with here.
39:07: He's dealing with people who are biting and devouring one another.
39:11: Why? Because both sides think they're right.
39:15: And both sides are willing to not only think they're right, they're willing to attack one another.
39:19: And it might be more than two sides.
39:21: I've been in church disputes where there were four different factions.
39:25: There were the ones who were really hard on this side.
39:28: There were the ones who were really hard on this side.
39:29: Then there were those who were on this side simply because my friend's on this side.
39:32: And there were those who were on this side because my friend's on that side.
39:35: They didn't really have a dog in the hunt, but they had a friend who had the dog in the hunt.
39:38: So they're going to be with their friend.
39:40: So you end up with several factions within the church.
39:44: And it's all based on what? An unwillingness to be taught, an unwillingness to learn, an unwillingness to be corrected.
39:52: Men, say it.
39:53: Rebellion.
39:55: And again, guys, I'm talking to you guys.
39:57: I tried to make this relevant to the situation you were all in.
40:01: Every one of you is here for a different reason.
40:04: And I don't know you all.
40:05: I haven't even met some of you yet.
40:06: But I know this.
40:08: Every one of you is here for a different reason.
40:10: And all of you come with a background.
40:12: All of you come with baggage.
40:13: Some of you come from different denominations.
40:15: Some come from different religions.
40:17: Some come from a different church family background.
40:19: Some didn't come from church at all.
40:21: And everybody comes with different ideas.
40:24: And my encouragement to you today is rather than trying to argue with one another, is why don't you be willing to be taught? Why don't you be willing to be exposed to something that may be different than what you've heard in the past? Do you know what cognitive dissonance is? You ever heard that phrase? Cognitive dissonance is what happens in your brain when you hear something that doesn't sound right.
40:53: And you all know this because you've all had it.
40:57: Somebody will say something to you, like, you know, smoking cigarettes is good for your health.
41:03: In your brain, it goes, mm-mm.
41:05: It's like your brain shakes a little.
41:08: And you say, it's an idiot.
41:10: I mean, because I would be dumb to say smoking cigarettes is good for you, right? It's not good for you.
41:15: But if I said it was, that would create, because it's not what you've heard.
41:20: For a long time, you've heard smoking is bad for you.
41:22: When I say smoking is good for you, that creates cognitive dissonance.
41:27: Dissonance is that noise, sound.
41:30: It's in your brain.
41:32: Something doesn't sound right.
41:35: Oftentimes, when you hear Pastor Mark preach, he might say something that causes a little cognitive dissonance.
41:43: And the thing about it is we are so, this is how we do things often.
41:50: We don't like cognitive dissonance.
41:52: We don't like the way it feels.
41:54: So we immediately reject it.
42:03: And this is why most people don't do well being exposed to new things and new ideas.
42:08: Because new things and new ideas create cognitive dissonance.
42:11: We don't like that.
42:12: So most people are more willing to stay ignorant than to listen to something they've never heard.
42:20: They're more willing to stay in the dark than to have their ignorance brought to light.
42:28: What else do you wanna hear? What's that? What else would you like to hear? Don't quite understand.
42:42: I'm being honest with each and every one of you.
42:44: Every time, right now.
42:47: I'm the one that's talking.
42:48: What are you talking about, Chase? Something that's different, I guess.
42:55: Like he's trying to talk about something.
42:57: You know what I'm saying? He's preaching right now, though.
43:00: I know.
43:01: You know what I'm saying, Chase? I don't speak to him, really.
43:08: You know what I mean? Well, I don't have any disrespect to him, either.
43:11: I love him.
43:13: I appreciate that.
43:13: And I love you, too.
43:15: And I'm not trying to over-talk you.
43:17: You don't.
43:18: No, I'm just saying.
43:19: I'm not trying to.
43:20: I don't love you? No.
43:21: Okay.
43:22: Okay.
43:23: Why do you say that? Because I hear you talking.
43:25: And I hear your riddles that you're preaching.
43:28: My riddles? And I don't see my own faces then.
43:31: And all the signs and everything.
43:33: But I know it's happening because I am the one that does.
43:36: And I'm here to try to help y'all.
43:40: Because I love y'all, man.
43:45: Okay.
43:47: So, church division results from an unwillingness to be taught.
43:56: And that's often exemplified for us in ways that are difficult.
44:17: Look again at verse 15.
44:23: Yeah, it's where we are.
44:24: Verse 15.
44:28: If you bite and devour one another, watch out.
44:35: So, right there's the warning.
44:40: And remember what I said.
44:41: It's almost, in the original, it's more of this.
44:44: Since you bite and devour one another, watch out that you're not consumed by one another.
44:52: The picture that Paul is giving here is the picture of a snake.
44:59: Think about this.
45:01: Guys, let's focus here for a minute, okay? The picture is of a snake.
45:09: You ever seen a snake bite something? What does it do? It bites it.
45:14: It holds it.
45:16: It kills it.
45:17: And then it begins to devour it.
45:20: And you can actually watch the snake devour its meal and bring it all the way down.
45:28: You can see it pass through the snake until it's no more.
45:33: You know, you see a snake that just ate.
45:34: It's got a giant ball in the middle of it.
45:37: That's the animal that's still being devoured.
45:40: It's still being consumed inside the belly of the snake, right? It's being digested.
45:47: And that's the picture that Paul's giving.
45:49: He's saying if you bite and devour one another, watch out, because eventually you're going to consume one another.
45:55: What happens once the snake consumes the food? It goes away.
46:02: It goes into, it becomes dung, right? It becomes the animal's waste.
46:08: And that's what happens in the church.
46:10: It begins with biting and devouring.
46:15: And then it becomes consumed.
46:18: And the church divides.
46:22: And people leave.
46:25: And rather than being loved, people are expelled like dung.
46:32: And that's Paul's concern.
46:35: Paul's concern, Paul's concern is that if they continue to bite one another, if they continue to attack one another with their words, then eventually they're going to be consumed.
46:51: The church is going to die.
46:56: An individual church, an individual church can die.
47:04: Now the Bible says Christ very plainly, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, right? But individual churches do die.
47:19: I mean, I can take you right now all across the city of Jacksonville, and I can show you where churches have died.
47:26: I can show...
47:27: A house divided can't stand.
47:28: What's that? A house divided can't stand.
47:30: That's right.
47:30: That's right.
47:31: That's Jesus' own words.
47:33: A house divided against itself cannot stand.
47:35: So you go to places where there's big for sale signs that are in front of churches or churches that have been absorbed by other churches because they were no longer able to have their church.
47:45: And so they had to sell it to a different congregation or a different organization.
47:49: I've seen churches turn into clubs and I've seen churches overseas, over in Europe.
47:55: You go over to England and places like that.
47:58: And what you find is churches have been turned into nightclubs.
48:02: Oh man, it's a big open room.
48:04: What are you going to do? You take out all the religious stuff, you put up lights and smoke machines and you've got a really nice club.
48:11: And so that's...
48:13: And honestly, Europe, that's where the churches are dying.
48:17: Because the gospel has been removed for so long.
48:21: And you know what's funny is, you know, we used to send missionaries to places like Africa and Asia.
48:29: Now we're sending missionaries back to Europe and England because the gospel has been lost in these places where great cathedrals once stood in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
48:42: Now many of them have had their crosses removed.
48:45: Some of them have even been turned into mosques.
48:49: What's the definition of a mosque? A place where Muslims worship.
48:53: Muslim meeting facility is called a mosque.
48:56: And that's the reality.
48:59: That's what happens when you go from biting to consuming.
49:05: Church goes away.
49:07: So this really is a, this is a call to the church to watch how you behave.
49:14: Watch how you treat one another.
49:17: Watch how you love one another.
49:19: He had just told us, love one another.
49:23: And then what does he say? Watch out that you don't consume one another.
49:28: Watch out that your spirit, this spirit of legalism that is within you does not become a spirit of the serpent.
49:38: Watch out that this spirit of hatred, that this spirit of law keeping does not become a spirit of criticism and a spirit of the devil himself.
49:49: So Paul is calling us to watch our mouths.
49:56: Three verses I'm going to share with you and then I'm going to draw to a close.
50:01: Ephesians 4, 29.
50:04: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
50:14: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth.
50:17: That's a command.
50:19: Be careful what you say.
50:23: Matthew 12, 36.
50:24: Matthew 12 and 36.
50:26: I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak.
50:35: We're going to give an account for everything we've ever said.
50:38: Oh, have mercy.
50:42: 12, 36.
50:44: Matthew 12.
50:44: It was Ephesians 4, 29.
50:46: Matthew 12, 36.
50:48: And finally, James 1, 26.
50:53: If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.
51:05: If a person thinks he's religious, but he doesn't watch what he says, his religion is worthless.
51:16: How have you been using your words lately? Have you been using your words to encourage one another or to tear one another down? Have you been using your words to unite one another or to divide one another? Have you been using your words to encourage those who love you and who teach you? Or have you been using your words to tear down those who come and stand before you? How are you using your words? Because if you bite and devour one another, watch out, because you may consume one another.
51:51: Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
51:54: I thank you that you have called us to be, in our words, faithful to you.
51:59: Lord, may we be faithful to you in all that we say.
52:03: In Christ's name, amen.