Kennystix's podcast
Watch Out for Those Who Lead You Away from the Truth
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. It's my privilege to read the scripture text for this evening, which is Romans 16 verses 17 through 20. That can be found in the Pew Bible on page 950 in front of you. Romans 16, 17 through 20. I appeal to your brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Let's pray. Lord we need your help. We need it physically. We need it spiritually and in every way. Without you we can do nothing. And so I ask that you would come and give me wisdom for the interpretation and application of this text and that you would protect your people from error and guide me in the truth. And I pray that its effect would be to produce a unified band of lovers who are willing to die for each other and to reach the world. So draw near now and do exceedingly and abundantly beyond everything I'm able to do or we as a people are able to do because you are God and this is your word. I asked this in Jesus name. Amen. I remember talking with a missions executive, a leader of a large missions organization and saying to him that I thought doctrinal faithfulness in the mission was very important. And he said something to this effect. He said it's crucial and so is unity. Some people emphasize the one he said and some people emphasize the other. Our organization, this is the part I remember so well, our organization he said are made up of two kinds of people, unity boys and purity boys. This is my interpretation now. The unity boys naturally emphasize the preciousness of personal relationships and tend to neglect an emphasis on truth. And the purity boys naturally emphasize the preciousness of truth and tend to neglect the nurture of personal relationships. In fact, I think as you look out across the landscape of evangelicalism today or maybe even American culture in general, you could probably line up people in these two categories, people, churches, denominations, institutions, movements. Some emphasize doctrinal purity and some emphasize relational unity. Now, I hope that a lot of you, as you sit there, are feeling uncomfortable with that division. And I hope that you're saying inside right now doesn't have to be either or does it? I hope that's what you're feeling. That would be a good biblical impulse. If you were sitting there feeling like I don't like this division, I don't want that. In fact, it would even be more biblical if you moved beyond that and say, I don't think it's even possible to be a unity boy without being a purity boy. I don't think it's even possible to love people if you don't care about truth. How are you going to do what is ultimately good for people if you don't have any strong convictions about what ultimate good is? So I hope that you resist that division, that categorization as unfortunate necessity in churches. Well, you've got to be one or the other or in your soul that you have to be one or the other. And yet, there is simply no escaping that in reality, as we look around, that's what happens. People and churches and denominations and schools and even whole periods in history lean towards truth types or relational types, the one tending to diminish the other. In fact, I think we're in such a period of history where it is not easy to be a purity boy, not easy to be a lover of truth in America in the West today. It's not easy to take stands because if you take a stand that implies by your stand that others should believe what you believe, you know what you will be accused of. You'll be accused of arrogance and the Bible says that arrogance is the opposite of love in 1 Corinthians 13, 4. And so if you're arrogant, you're not loving and you're wrecking relationships by taking these stands, that's kind of the air we breathe today. For many thoughtful people today, the only path to peaceful relationships in a pluralistic world is the path of no truth that deserves a cent from everyone. You can't make a claim that the truth you hold deserves belief by everybody. The only path people can conceive of toward peaceful relationships in a pluralistic milieu is to abandon that kind of dealing in truth. When one claims that what he believes deserves a cent from everyone, well, we know what they're like and they are hurting American peacefulness. But the problem is it doesn't work. It doesn't work to say the only path towards peaceful pluralism is the abandonment of truth claims that they claim on everybody. If you claim abandon truth as the arbiter of which desires, which of the competing desires in the culture will win, if you say truth will not be the way we work that out, you know the only other thing that comes in to take its place is power. And the weak guy always gets the short end of the stick here. When you abandon a truth that deserves a cent from everyone and make that the crusade that you're on, you don't lead to peaceful pluralism. You lead to concentration camps and gulags. If truth doesn't define right, might makes right. Those are your two alternatives in history. Now, my aim from the Bible in this service is that you would see from the Bible and feel in your bones the importance of being a purity boy for the sake of being a unity boy. That's my goal, that you would feel the necessity of being a person who is passionate about truths that lay claim on all people for the sake of unity and peace, not as an alternative to it. I want you to see how out of step this text is that was just read for us with Western culture. It pictures a way of thinking and a way of living that most Americans would call offensive, unloving, fundamentalistic, out of date. It's mainly a purity text, but not only a purity text. In fact, the way the purity boys and the unity boys relate in this text, I'm only going to deal with the first two verses, 17 and 18, and we'll do the next two, Lord willing, next week. The way they relate in this text is very striking to me, was very, very unusual. My hope in preaching just from verses 17 and 18 is that you will be freed, set free in a new measure from the air you breathe. You will not be as blind and as in as much bondage to the spirit of the age as most of us are. We breathe this. We can't not breathe the relativism around us. And so my prayer is that this text would help some of you who feel very much at home in relativism and very much a unity boy at the expense of being a purity boy would be blown away and that you would feel a biblical new sense of how they relate in your bones. So let's read verses 17 and 18 again. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. Here's the structure. Verse 17 has two commands in it. These two commands feel contradictory to me and the solution to why they're not contradictory is given by the connecting pieces that are between them. That's verse 17. Verse 18 gives two reasons why these two commands in verse 17 are so crucial. That's what we're going to do and walk through the two commands, the connecting piece, and the two reasons why these two commands are so crucial. That's what I see in verses 17 and 18. Command number one in verse 17 is the command to watch out for people who cause divisions. Let's read the first part of that verse. I appeal to you, brothers, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles. Now here's the surprising thing, manifestly Paul is concerned with unity here. I appeal to you, watch out for those who cause division, disunity. So it starts by being a unity text. He's on a crusade to preserve unity and not let this happen. Watch out for these kinds of people who make that happen. Command number two is at the end of the verse. Avoid them. I appeal to you, brothers, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles and then jump to the end of the verse. Avoid them. Now that's division. You see the tension? I feel. Paul's remedy for people who are about to cause division is to divide from them. When I see those kinds of things in the Bible, I kind of... He set me to several hours worth of thinking on a Friday afternoon. What will I say about that? Stay away from them so that I think the tension is clear. The first command is driven by a passion for unity. And the second command is a call for division. Withdraw. There, there, you're here. Don't go there. Separate. Avoid them. Now, why are they not in contradiction? Because what is in the middle between them, namely the word doctrine. This word doctrine. This becomes a very powerful purity text, not just a unity text. And the relationship is going to be made very plain. I think if you just think it through, through seventeen, I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles. Now here comes contrary to the doctrine or the teaching that you have been taught. So the issue here is not like chapter fourteen. If I remember back to chapter fourteen, chapter fourteen was very concerned with unity. And the issues there never elicited the command. Avoid them. Just the opposite. The issues being dealt with in chapter fourteen don't avoid each other. Don't withdraw from each other. Figure out how to get along when you got different ideas about wine and different ideas about meat and different ideas about what days you're going to celebrate. Figure that out. Don't withdraw from each other. Let everyone be fully convinced in his own mind. Wow, talk about relativism. That's verse five of chapter fourteen. But not here. This is different. This is not minor, non-essential conviction difference in how we deal with those things. This is you are leaving the doctrine taught by the apostles. So here it's not let everyone be fully convinced in his own mind and get along but rather avoid them. That's a big difference. That's an amazing change. Watch out for those who caused divisions among you by leaving the doctrine that they were taught avoid them. Now Paul's response I suppose could have been when he saw this person departing from the truth and taking some people with him he could have said well nobody has all the truth. And we see through a glass dark and everybody's got a little feel on this elephant called truth and one feels a leg and another feels a snake and another feels a whatever you know. But he doesn't go that direction at all. That's not the impulse that drives him. He says watch out for them and avoid them. For the sake of unity, here's the striking thing. For the sake of unity that is truth based, there's the key. For the sake of unity that is truth based, doctrine based, he calls for truth based division. Avoid them. If you see somebody departing from the teaching, that's going to bring harm into the church, avoid them. So create disunity for the sake of truth based unity. I don't know any text in the Bible that's clear on this, on how Paul thinks about the relationship between being a unity boy and being a purity boy. Because this text just won't make any sense unless being a purity boy is the foundation of being a unity boy. It just is totally contradictory to say withdraw from them, avoid them, stand away from them if unity is at all costs. It won't work. And so he's real clear, doctrine forms the foundation of the Christian unity. When a person departs from the doctrine of the apostles, Paul sees that as a greater threat to unity than the disunity caused by separating from them. How can that be? How can dividing from a false teacher who rises up in the church promote unity? How can dividing promote unity? Which is what he evidently believes it does because he says, watch out for those who cause disunity, withdraw from them, divide from them. Watch out for the dividers, divide from them. The only way you can make sense out of that is to believe there's some kind of division that's right and something's wrong and what's wrong is the kind or what's right is the kind that's based on those people having left the doctrine. So Paul's strategy here for preserving unity that he so longs for in the first part of verse 17 is to call for another kind of disunity. Namely, that doesn't hang out with people who are on their way away from the doctrine. Now, before we turn to verse 18, give reasons for these two commands and why they're so important. I want to step back and make a clarifying comment about all three of these things. The first command to watch out for these folks and the doctrine in the middle and the last command to avoid them. Just a clarifying comment about each because all of them are vulnerable to misuse, aren't they? With regard to the command, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught, it's possible to go overboard with that watching out. It's possible to go overboard. I'm really hesitant to even say this because I don't think we live in a world where that's our sin by and large. Some churches, some people, maybe it's not America's besetting sin. So I'm hesitant and yet I know that it happens and so I want to warn you against it and summon you back to a biblical balance. What I mean by going overboard with watching out is that you can become so obsessed with doctrinal error that you lose the ability to rejoice in doctrinal truth. Again, I've seen it, I've seen it. You can become so obsessed with purity, you cannot rejoice in the truth that should undergird it. I thought it's like one of those dogs, they're beagles usually, who are trained to sniff out drugs at the airport. And they're trained maybe, I've never seen one on his off hours, they're trained so completely to sniff out drugs, that's all they do is sniff out drugs. If you come into their house they just go sniffing at you, sniffing your purse and sniffing at your pockets and sniffing at anything you have in your hands. Well this is not a way to welcome people in the church. So it's possible to become so obsessed, to be so trained in drug sniffing that all you do is sniff drugs. I mean sniff trying to find them. And I don't want us to go there as a church, I don't want to be there as a person. When I read the book of Romans, you step back and look at the whole book of Romans, yes Paul pauses, chapter 3, chapter 8, these places, he pauses and he draws attention to the mess people are making of his teaching. Let's see in the grace of me about it, and he warns, but in the big picture Romans is just a magnificent display of the work of God in Christ for our salvation. It's a magnificent display that should cause us not mainly to say, now I've got ten weapons with which I can destroy enemies, but rather I'm saved. I'm saved, I've got a solid rock under my feet, I'm going to heaven, I'll see him someday. And so let the spirit of delight in the truth be the main thing people taste at this church, and then pray, especially for the elders, that we do have a good beagle nose for any kind of slippage or any kind of movement that would be away from the apostolic teaching. That's clarification number one, here's clarification number two with regard to the doctrine, verse 17, don't miss the obvious. Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine, contrary to the doctrine, the teaching that you have been taught. There is such a thing as a body of doctrine from which if you move away, you should be forsaken by other Christians. That's obvious, but let it land on you. There is such a thing as a body of teaching which if you move away from it, other believers should move away from you. That's huge, just to let that land on you. Let me give you some names for that body of teaching to show you that this is not an isolated place where that's taught. Romans 6, 17, you have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, standard of teaching. Or 2 Timothy 1, 13, follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me in faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you. So good deposit, pattern of sound words, standard of teaching, and here's one more, Acts 2027. I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. So body of teaching, standard pattern, counsel, there is a body of teaching in the Bible that if we leave it, if we start to stray from it, Christian should avoid us. And we wouldn't want that to happen so we should not want to go there at all. Now here's the hard part. Every opinion about every verse in the Bible shouldn't go into that because if you insist, if we insist that everybody in this room, not to mention the several thousand folks who come to this church who are devoted followers of Jesus must agree on every verse and its interpretation, or agree on all the less than essential doctrines, we will all wind up in a little corner with me, myself, and I as my church and will work. So you can see the difficulty. In fact, I'll just remind you that when the elders brought that baptism proposal, without earlier this year or end of last year, one of the things driving that baptism proposal is to figure out what this is. That's what was behind it. What is it? What is it? As a body of doctrine which when somebody moves away from it, you move away from them. And we need to define that in some way. So that's clarification number two. Pray for the elders. We're still working on that. Number three. The command avoid them at the end of verse 17. We need to be sure that when we read that, we don't over interpret it, meaning that we think there's no connection you can have with these people. No contact. We need to leave room for Romans 12. Bless those who curse you. Well, if you won't talk to them, you can't do that. Bless those who curse you. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live it peaceably with all. If your enemy is hungry, give him food. If he's thirsty, give him drink. All the commands of how to love the enemy, how to love the adversary have to balance this, avoid them, avoid them. What kind of avoiding is mid. You remember when Peter started to walk outside the gospel pattern in Galatians 2? Paul's first response to Peter's departure from the gospel way was not avoid him. It was confront him for the hope of winning him back. And he did. So don't take avoid them to be the only thing you do or that it's all kinds of avoidance. Here's what I think it means in general, just kind of judging from the way that Paul talks about this kind of avoidance elsewhere. If you're willing to move away and you've dealt with him and confronted him and pleaded with him and he keeps on moving away from the apostolic center, then you stop hanging out with him as though life can go on as usual. There can be contacts of all kinds, business contacts or witnessing contacts or persuading and arguing contacts, but as far as just kind of let's go bowling together. And act as though nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong here, that avoid them means something like that, I think. Now, verse 18, these are two reasons for why the two commands to watch out for the doctrinally departing dividers and avoid them. Avoid them are so important. Let's read verse 18. For such persons, that is the persons that are departing from the doctrine, such persons do not serve our Lord Christ. They certainly say they do, so be careful. Such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, literally their own belly. And by smooth talk and flattery, the word flattery there is simply the word blessing, very positive words, not a negative word, flattery is a negative word, I'm not altogether happy with that translation. Blessing, they deceive the hearts of the naive. Let's take them in reverse order. The second reason for why it's so important to watch out and to withdraw is that by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. So flattery there means they come across as blessing. They're bringing a blessing with this new teaching. It's blessing. It's not presented as a problem. It's presented as a blessing. And the word smooth talk doesn't have to imply manifestly slippery. You can read that out a mile away. This guy is slippery. It doesn't have to mean that. It can just mean pleasant, plausible, kind speech. So you've got a speech that is totally winsome espousing falsehood. This we need to be aware of. False teachers in the church do not get a following by being mean spirited and harsh. They get a following by being nice, kind, gentlemanly, fair-minded, humble. That's what this is saying. So if you have your antenna up for bad guys or the bad guys mean and ugly and harsh and you're not going to spot them. We'll give you two examples from history. History is safer than present day. Arias died 336 A.D. and Sosinus died 1604. I'll just read you descriptions of these guys from men who've written extensively about them. Here's a quote from Parker Williamson on Arias. He was a bright energetic, you don't know these guys, they both denied the deity of Christ. They're both acknowledged by all Christians to be heretics, virtually all Christians. So it's not like I'm picking out some small little error here. These guys are major, major deniers of the deity of Christ and all Christian history has put them in the category of heretics. So here was a bright, energetic, attractive fellow, the kind of citizen whom any rotary club would welcome. Singing sea shanties in doxide pubs and teaching Bible stories to the Wednesday night faithful, this was an immensely popular man. His story reminds us that heresy does not bludgeon us into belief we are seduced. Then a word about Sosinus. He was a gentleman. His morals were above reproach and he distinguished himself by his unfailing courtesy. Unfailing courtesy was remarkable in an age when even the great Protestant leaders Luther and Calvin would use vile street language when arguing with their opponents. So this guy was ahead of Luther and Calvin in the gentlemanliness of his language. The implication of this is that it is seldom almost never a popular cause to resist a false teacher because they're always nice. And you look like an ogre at the denominational meeting or at the elder meeting or wherever you go. You are an ogre. Can't you see this as a very nice man? Watch out for them and avoid them, Paul says. Though they are smooth and winsome and are delivering their teaching as a blessing. Finally, the first reason in the first part of the verse 18. Such persons, this is a reason why to watch for them and avoid them, such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, their own belly. Oh my, would I love to linger on this for a bit but I will not, I will close with just a comment or two. The glory of Christ is at stake and submission to him and the alternative to submitting to Christ is that we're in bondage to our belly. She doesn't look that way for arias and so sinus. She doesn't look that way. The issue here and in almost every false teaching is not a simple intellectual mistake. Behind plausible speech and smooth gentlemanly demeanor is idolatry. See that here? It's idolatry. And the idol is me. My sex drives and my food drives and my love of human approval. This is very profound. Oh, how we need to feel the force of this, that so many historic figures and in our own day look as though they're being driven totally by the intellectual credibility of their arguments. When in fact they are driven by their belly and it only comes out later to the church's great heartache. So a closing word of exhortation, Bethlehem. Watch out for smooth talkers who pastor large churches and write many books and lead big ministries and do not magnify or prize manifestly above their earthly good, the whole council of God. I'll say it again. Watch out for smooth talking pastors who pastor large churches like this one, write lots of books, lead ministries and who do not manifestly prize above their earthly good, the whole council of God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I pray now for all of these brothers and sisters that they would know how to navigate the waters that we are floating in in the 21st century. There are people who are the unity boys and the purity boys in and outside the church and we want to get this right. We want to be rightly devoted to the purity of the right doctrines so that we can defend and work toward the right kind of unity. We don't love this unity but we want so much to obey the apostle here and to watch out and to avoid those who are leaving the apostolic teaching which will one day divide the church worse than this little division. So I pray for your help for all of us in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. I invite you to visit desiring God online at www.desiringGod.org. There you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources. You can also stay up to date on what's new at desiring God. Again, our website is www.desiringGod.org or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is desiring God 20601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Watch out for smooth-talking pastors, no matter how popular, if they do not manifestly prize the whole counsel of God.