The Roots of Heresy

Thank you, Mr. Evans. I'm just old enough to think of a jab one as a car that you can't find parts for anymore. Anybody else? I remember one time thinking those were pretty sharp, but nobody else thinks that's amusing either.

Well, there was an afternoon this spring when I was pondering ideas for a sermon. It's interesting, three years ago, I didn't think much about coming up with idea after idea for sermon topics.

During the Holy Days, you pretty much know in general what you need to talk about. There's meat in due season. Coming up on Passover, you want to talk about repentance and forgiveness. You want to talk about putting sin out of your life. With Pentecost, you focus on the Holy Spirit, on the fruits of the Spirit. And then when that's passed, the field is wide open. Sometimes, when you're looking for ideas, they just flood in, and you can barely keep track of them all. But there's other times when you just, hmm, hmm, I do that.

Now, so this particular morning, I decided I'm going to do what I like to do on the rare times when I'm not studying or writing or visiting or nowadays working on camp business. I decided that I'd go out and do some yard work. And actually, this was a little more than general yard work. This year, Sue and I decided to risk putting in a little bit of a garden plot. And I say risk because many of you know where I live, and you know that they're deer in the area who have no compunction about helping themselves to anything growing. But I noticed last year they didn't come around so much during the summer. It was late summer that they started eating everything in sight. So if I put in some root crops, maybe some early lettuce, I can get away with it. So, as I said, not having any good sermon ideas, I went out and I'm digging, I'm turning over dirt, and Connor comes out with me, and he's helping.

You know, he's throwing the rocks that are supposed to be on the sidewalk out into the lawn and dumping dirt out of a flower pot. Connor just loves gardening.

And in the process, while I was doing this, I found a particular weed. I'm pretty sure it's a weed because I don't think it's good for anything. And I was stymied because I thought I'd pulled all of these out last fall. But it was back and it had spread. Now, I don't know for sure what it is. And I was speculating with some brethren in Athens this morning after they heard this because it looks kind of like a strawberry, the leaves, and it vines. But it doesn't produce strawberries once a year, so it'll produce these tiny-looking little berries. And I don't know what they are. I'm not sure if I want to know, although it looks like Mrs. Huffman knows. That's okay.

But what's interesting is I thought, well, I'll follow these vines and I'll find the central stem and pull it out and that'll take care of it. But no, this thing, it has every so often there's another stem and another set of roots. And then over here, it's a whole network. So it's not hard to get any of the roots out, any particular roots, but it's hard to get them all because they're all over the place.

As I said, any one of them, you could pull them out, but I think any bit of root left could survive quite well on its own independently. It's hard to get them all. Now, if you remember, I had in the back of my mind thinking, boy, I'd like to come up with a good sermon topic. So it might not surprise you that an analogy popped into my mind. Now, as I said last week on Pentecost, Jesus Christ liked to use a lot of agricultural analogies. I thought, well, agricultural analogy, you can't go bad there, and I thought of one. Weeds are a lot like heresy. Weeds are bad. Heresy is bad. Weeds take up space on the ground. They absorb nutrients from the soil that I want to go to good plants. And by doing that, they usually harm good plants. Heresy works kind of like that. It tends to distract people's energies and their focus away from learning and understanding the truth. And it can cause harm when it does that very much. We know that it's hard to kill off weeds. Heresy's hard to get rid of, too. It can be hard to get rid of, especially in a group of people. It can be sort of like that whatever it is that looks like strawberries. You pull it out here, but it's got roots down all over the place. It can also sometimes be very difficult to get out of individuals. So there is my thinking thus far. We've got two bad things that have some stuff in common. Usually I don't use these technical terms like stuff in my sermons, but I thought it was appropriate here. So I thought, let's see if I can follow this analogy further. Later, back in my office, I said, let's dig into this. Let's work on our terms. First of all, Frank, you think you know what heresy is, but do you? Now, I'm pretty sure I and all of us know what weeds are. Weeds are plants that are a nuisance. Usually they're obnoxious, they're destructive, or even if it's a plant that might otherwise be good, if it's in a place you don't want it, I think that qualifies as being a weed. Well, what is heresy? If I want to say that heresy is like weeds, well, its simplest definition is to say it's a false teaching.

But usually we go beyond that. Generally, we want to say it's a false teaching that's harmful, or can be harmful. Now, it's not uncommon for it to be used in non-religious fields. And I was struggling to think of some. I thought I could do the best by going to the field of teaching American history, because that's my background. So I thought, well, one heresy that's been common, if you want to call it that, is that to say that the American Founding Fathers had no interest in politics and that there was no compromise involved in setting up the country, no politicking.

Well, that's not true. And to follow that line of thinking could even cause harm. So you could say that's a heresy. Now, I'm not saying they were corrupt politicians, such as seem to be common today. But there was horse trading, so to speak, in some cases probably literal horse trading, and there was politicking and compromise going all the way back to the founding of the country.

And the medical field. Now, it's interesting, one of the things that popped into my mind is there's a strong disagreement over whether children should be vaccinated or not. And each side accuses the other of a heresy. You know, most doctors would say it's a heresy to think that it's not... They would say it's a heresy to say that it's safe to leave your kids unvaccinated. Whereas those who take the opposite view would say, well, the medical doctors are the ones professing a heresy, something harmful, saying you have to do that.

But I don't want to take too much time looking on the non-religious uses of the word, because actually studying into it, I discovered what I suspected all along. It's originally a religious word. So everyone else is borrowing from it. Heresy is used... it comes from the idea of religion. And that's its primary use. It actually comes from a Greek word that didn't always have the negative connotations we give to it.

Originally, it just was based on Greek that meant different, a different interpretation or a different understanding. In the time of Christ, the Pharisees and the Sadducees each believed their own heresy, meaning different set of teachings and beliefs. And then, when the truth came along, that was known as a heresy. I'm not going to turn there, but in Acts 24, when Paul was on trial with the Roman authorities, and he had a chance to answer for himself, he said, After the way that they call heresy, so worship I, the God of my Father.

But heresy has developed and taken on very much a negative tone. So that primary meaning of the word, and I'm probably spending way more time on this definition than I meant, but I wanted us to be clear. It's a wrong or false teaching, and generally it's one that's close enough to the truth to seem plausible. It's one that people think could be right, but it's still false, and that's what makes it so dangerous. Often, heresy masquerades as some important revelation, or as some special, deeper understanding that you should seek out and you should get into because it's going to make you a better Christian.

It'll give you an advantage over others or over the self you were. And that makes sense if I think the comparison, once again, to the weeds. The weeds look a lot like a food plant, at least on initially. I mean, they don't look like a piece of rock or a piece of metal. They're a plant, and they grow and act like a food plant.

And they could be mistaken for such, but in the end, they're a weed, and they're damaging. Well, heretical beliefs and teachings are like that. They're bad. They're not good when you get into them. This is good. I went through a lot of water this morning for some reason. As I said in my study, I said I want to look a little bit more into heresy. If you study a lot of Christian references and Bible helps, they'll show you that theologians recognize the rise of heresy and Christianity going back to the early days of the Church, early enough to be recorded in the Bible.

So, heresy arose very early on, these false teachings that look like they could be true. And some of them have continued down to the present age. I want to describe three of them. Three main areas that, as I said, they're not my definition. They're the ones that you can find in many reference works. The first one is what's called Judahizing.

Judahizing. And by the way, I want to mention that these were in the early Church. Part of the way we know that is that early Christian writers, I mean, in the Bible, argued against them. And knowing what these were sometimes will help us to understand why some of the writings say what they do. There might be some things you read and you go, why in the world did he go out of his way to say that? But if you understand he was trying to combat a particular heresy, it makes more sense. Judahizing is one of those. This was a claim that Jesus Christ was a good teacher and perhaps a prophet, but not necessarily the Son of God. But he helped people understand a little bit more. So you could become Christian, but those who were what they called Judahizers said, in order to become a Christian and be saved, you had to first become a Jew. Or, if we want to expand, you could say an Israelite. Now, what do you have to do to become a Jew? Circumcision. Okay, so that was a common heresy in the early days of the Church. Some people were saying, you've got to become circumcised. You've got to become a Jew and keep all the ritual law before you can be a good Christian. Paul, the Apostle Paul, adamantly argued against that. And let's look at Acts 15. We'll see an example of it. Acts 15, this is one of the easiest ones to identify, but it's worth leading with this and realizing, as I said, that one of the reasons this has as much space as it does in the New Testament is because it was a serious problem. Acts 15 and verse 1, Certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, saying, Unless you're circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you can't be saved. That's what I just taught, saying you have to become Jewish, be circumcised in order to become a good Christian and be saved. Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders, about this question. And that led to what we call the Jerusalem Conference. Elders from all over got together and said, We've got to get to the bottom of this, because there were teachers saying something that wasn't true. If you'll turn to Galatians, I'll mention the epistle of Galatians deals with this heresy quite a bit, and in pretty strong terms, Galatians 2 and verse 11.

This is an example, not necessarily focusing just on circumcision, but the whole idea of, as I said, to be a good Christian, you've got to follow that ritual law. This is a case, of course, when Peter is visiting Paul. I'll start reading. In verse 11, When Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed.

Paul stood up to Peter in public and corrected him. Normally, you don't correct somebody in front of other people, but we'll see that Peter was doing something in front of all the other people that was leading them astray. For before, certain men came from James. Now, when he says James, he means the congregation of which James was the pastor. That's the Jerusalem congregation. So he's saying, before these people came from Jerusalem, Peter ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. That doesn't mean fearing people who were circumcised, but those who had that particular teaching. You've got to be circumcised and be Jewish to be Christian. Peter got caught up in that. He didn't want them to think bad things about him. And it says, And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him. So even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. When I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter, before them all, If you being a Jew live in the manner of the Gentiles and not as the Jews, meaning you'd put away those rituals that had been required, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as Jews? We who are Jews by nature and no sinner of the Gentiles. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ, not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. Now, put in that context, it's easier to understand. Paul's not talking about obeying the Ten Commandments. He's talking about a lot of this detailed ritual law and sacrifices and things like that. But there are people who look at our teaching and misunderstand what we teach and think that we believe that very same heresy. The Church of God in modern times has been accused of believing the heresy that you have to become physically Israelite and they teach that we believe in salvation by works. We don't. We don't believe in that at all. Now, first of all, we don't believe in any of the sacrificial ritual law. But we do believe, as you well know, that we should obey the eternal spiritual law that God gave. Summarized by love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbors yourself. And then, of course, the Ten Commandments expand on that. Even so, though we believe that we should obey those, we don't for a second believe that that earns us salvation. Of course not! We've all sinned. All of us have earned the penalty of sin, which is death. And only Christ's blood, His sacrifice, can pay for that penalty. So we don't believe that any amount of obedience saves us. So, just wanted to be clear, as I said, some of that heresy from the first century is still around, but we don't want to be accused of that affecting us.

Let's move on to the second big area of heresy from the first century. I said I was going to slow down.

That is what's commonly known as Gnosticism. Gnosticism, that's spelled with a G in the front for some reason, that silent G. It's based on the word gnosis, which means knowledge in Greek. And some who adhere to this heresy believe that if you could obtain epinosis, which means higher knowledge, special secret knowledge, that would help bring salvation. And there are a lot of weird beliefs that got folded into this. And so I'm not going to be able to cover them all, but I'll mention a couple. One that was common among Gnostics taught that Jesus Christ did not really come in the flesh. Instead, Gnosticism had this, what I think of as a weird idea, that God is some absolutely pure spirit. I don't disagree with that, but it said as being so pure, he couldn't deal with anything physical. But there were emanations from God that become each a little less pure, and that eventually you got to an emanation that was Jesus Christ. And it was impure enough to come down to earth and deal with people, but it still wasn't flesh and blood. And it didn't deal with saying he was the Son of God. Now, I hope for most of you that sounds kind of weird. That belief isn't commonplace today, but it was fairly common in the first century. And the Apostle John in his writings directly worked to contradict that. That's why we find what we do in the first chapter of John. The Gospel account of John, chapter 1, let's read.

Now, we like this because it helps us disprove the teaching of the Trinity and several other things, but it's good to remember he's combating this idea that Christ was just some emanation and apparition. He says, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. It wasn't some emanation that was less pure. He was in the beginning with God. And in Him was life. And life, the life was the light of men, and light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not comprehend it. I want to drop down to verse 14.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So we say, He became flesh. Not anything different. Let's turn back to chapter 19 of John.

This is another bit that he includes in describing the crucifixion that the other Gospel accounts don't.

And we believe probably to combat this heresy. John 19 and verse 31.

Now, this is when, you know, remember Jesus was on the stake with thieves on either side. And of course, the first day of Unleavened Bread was drawing near at sunset, it would become holy time. So the Pharisees and the chief priests didn't want bodies up in crucifixion at that time. So it says, You don't hear that, but John's making a point. He wasn't some spirit. Blood and water come out. And then he says, He who has seen has testified. His testimony is true when he knows that he's telling the truth so that you might believe. In other words, John's saying, I was there. I saw that blood and water. He was a real flesh and blood human being. Do you see? Does that make more sense now when you realize what others were teaching? And of course, I say that now. Many of you might already be very familiar with this.

We'll look at one more example in 1 John. 1 John 1.

1 John 1, and beginning with verse 1, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. And we touched him. He was flesh and bones, and the life was manifested. And we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us, and that which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship was with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.

So, as I said, John was going out of his way to fight against this heresy that was fairly widespread.

There's one more aspect of Gnosticism I wanted to mention, and that's commonly known as Antinomianism. And that's a real religious-sounding word. Antinomianism, basically in Greek it means against the word or anti-law. It's tied in to, similar to the idea of predestination. Because predestination teaches that, well, it doesn't matter what you do or say, well, they don't like to say it that way, but they say that whether you're saved or not is already determined.

God planned it all in advance, and Antinomians take it to the extreme of saying, well, if it's already decided, why do we have to do what the Bible says? We can sin or not sin. It's already decided whether we're saved or not. What do we need to read the Bible for? What do we need ministers for? And that's come up, I remember it distinctly, it was a major factor in the founding of Rhode Island and the American colonies, because Anne Hutchison was an Antinomian, and believed in predestination and said, we don't have to listen to this minister. Now, the ministers had control of the colonies, so they didn't like that, and they kicked her out of Massachusetts and sent her down to Rhode Island. But another part of that, and one aspect of it is the Antinomians in the first century had this teaching to say, God loves to forgive people. We all sin, and God really enjoys showing us mercy. So if we want to make God happy, we should sin more, so He can forgive us more. Paul wrote against that in the book of Romans. Let's look at Romans chapter 3.

Talk about a heresy to fight against. Romans 3 and verse 8. And Paul had to make the point of saying, we true Christian ministers, that's not what we teach. There are people out there, but that's not us. And that's sort of what he's saying. In Romans chapter 8 he says, why not say, let us do evil that good may come? Meaning, let's sin so that the good of God's mercy comes, and God loves showing mercy.

And he says, as we are slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, their condemnation is just. Paul's saying, some people are saying we teach this, they should be condemned. We don't teach that. Let's look over to chapter 6. Romans 6 and verse 1. Once again, he addresses that very heresy. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Should we keep on sinning so God can show us all the more grace? Certainly not!

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Paul says, that's not right at all. But it was, as I said, it was a common heresy in his day, and some aspects of it continue into this current day. The idea that the law is nailed to the cross. That's descended from that very teaching. But let's turn to another one. The third one that was common in the first century was what we call syncretism. Syncretism, if you want to spell it, S-Y-N-C-R-E-T-E-I-S-M.

And don't worry about spelling. It means combining ideas, specifically from two different religions. Taking aspects of one religion, mixing it with another one, and coming up with something new. The word synthesis has the same base. Now, what I find interesting is the Bible reference works mention this and don't say much about it. They treat it as though, well, this were a brief fad, and then it must have disappeared. And I thought, well, I know why they don't talk about it anymore. Because it didn't disappear. Syncretism has actually provided most of what are the main doctrines of the Catholic and Protestant churches today.

They include things like the fact that God is a Trinity. That existed long before Christianity. Of course, the Greeks had that idea, and it came to them from the Egyptians. There was the long belief in the mother-child God, and the idea that the child grew up and impregnated the mother and had the child, and there's three all interrelated...it's kind of a freaky kind of thing that I don't like to think about too much.

But as I said, that had been around a long time. The idea that men have an immortal soul goes back to ancient Egypt, and of course it was a mainstay of Greek philosophy. So even though it's not really in the Bible, the Bible says, you know, man became a living soul, and the soul that sinned shall die, but the Greeks mixed that...their teaching of the immortal soul with the teachings of Jesus and came up with the idea that we have an immortal soul, and upon death it's either going to go to heaven or go to hell.

So that's the syncretism. And maybe a more recognizable example would be, you know, teachers are saying, oh, we want to get people to come into this new Christian church. Oh, you folks in this town have this big celebration around the winter solstice to celebrate the birthday of the son?

Well, I don't think we can have that in our church, but what if we just say that Jesus Christ's birthday was at that time, and you join our church and we can still have the big celebration, and yeah, you can decorate with evergreen stuff, and we'll just mix the two things together and come up with a new idea.

And as I said, that's one of the reasons why modern theologians don't talk a lot about syncretism, because it didn't go away. It became very firmly established. And of course, for those who don't grow up in the true church but were called out of other churches, one of the main things they have to do when they're called is work to unlearn those things or learn the truth about them. I'm going to take a pause here, because I want to shift gears. I've been dealing with 2,000 years ago.

You might wonder, what heresies do we deal with in the modern church today? There have been some, and there are certain ones that seem to pop up on a regular basis. And I'll make a note here. I'm going to mention a couple of the most common ones.

Although, my focus is still to talk about the process of heresy, not to disprove each particular one that I'll mention. So if you think I'm giving short shrift, please keep in mind, it wasn't my purpose to explain why they're wrong. But the two that do come up most often, and they take root in the true church of God and sometimes lead people astray. The first one is various, what I call, calendar beliefs. It comes up again and again. There's a claim that the traditional Jewish calendar that we use to tell us when the Holy Days are isn't reliable. We can't trust it, and we've got to find another system.

And there's a variety of other systems proposed, from going out at night and looking for the new moon, to discussing ancient medieval calendars as an alternative, and on and on it goes. When I studied into it, the interesting thing is I found that none that they were proposing could be proved to be any more reliable than the Hebrew calendar that they're going against.

Another one that's fairly common is what I call the sacred names beliefs. This is the claim that we have to call God only by the original Hebrew name. And if we don't do so, He won't listen, and we're not going to be part of His family. As I said, I think that one's not that hard to deal with, and I spoke on it sometime. This probably might have been as long ago as last summer or fall.

Anyways, that's one that makes the rounds. There's another one that I'm not sure if I should call it a heresy, but it popped into my mind while I was working on the sermon, and I thought, if I had to give it a name, I'd call it Armstrongism. Now, I'm wary of this, because I hope all of you have heard me up on the line, and you have heard me up here speaking enough to know that I do... I honor the memory of Herbert W. Armstrong. I was going to say Revere, that sounds a little too strong, but I quote him often, I read his teachings, but I think there are some people that have taken honoring and learning from him to the extreme to where they say, if we don't do everything exactly the way he did, we're doing something wrong and in trouble.

And some of those people would say, if we have a TV program, our set had better look just like his set. We've got to have shelves of books and a desk. If we're going to build any buildings, we've got to make them look like the ones he commissioned in Pasadena. And if we want to have a government structure, it's got to be exactly... You see where I'm going with that? Personally, I think that can be a harmful teaching, because it leads people into trouble. But I said... let me say that more slowly. As I said, my goal isn't to disprove all of these. I want to look at the...

There was a word I wrote down here. The phenomenon itself. That's terrible when that happens. That in my mind, and it went right back out. What is heresy and why does it spread? Why does this happen? Especially among those who know the truth.

Before I address it in the church and use what I like to call my amazing and clever analogy of weeds on being somewhat sarcastic there. Although I think it was a pretty clever analogy. We do want to back up and remember what's going on in the world all around us. If you'll turn to 2 Corinthians 4. This is a memory scripture in some circles. But it's good for us to remember why do people believe false teaching? Largely because the world has been deceived and doesn't have a lot of choice.

I'll remind you, we believe that what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve chose to partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And God said, okay, you want to choose? You're going to decide what's good and evil. You're going to set up your own systems, your own moral codes, and I'll leave you to it. But just as the serpent was in the garden, Satan the devil is still in this earth and he's been influencing people as they make those decisions. As we see here in 2 Corinthians 4, verse 3. I'm in 1 Corinthians. Let me move on over to where I'm supposed to be. Even if our Gospel is veiled, it's veiled to those who are perishing. The Gospel, the truth, is veiled to some people, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the Glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. There is a God of this age, not the true God, but Satan has influence over all the people of the world. I was going to turn to Ephesians 2, too, but I'll make note of it because Mr. Shoemaker read it in his sermonette. It says, We once walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. That's again, Satan. He's got the power of the air. Again, as I said, I do honor Mr. Armstrong's memory, and he had a good analogy. He said Satan is like a broadcaster, only he's not sending out electromagnetic waves that can be turned into images or sounds, but he's broadcasting attitudes, usually bad attitudes, and blinding people to the truth. Remember, the only way someone can have those blinders removed is if the Father calls him. John 644, Christ said, No man can come to me except the Father draw him. Well, some people then are called. Most people are not at this time. We know the time is coming, and that's the great thing that we do understand, that everyone who's ever lived will have a real legitimate chance to accept and live by God's truth, and most of them aren't having that chance now. But, why do true Christians with God's spirit sometimes believe heresies? Not usually the ones they left when they came out of Protestantism or whatever, but some of these other heresies that come up. Well, I thought, well, why does it happen? Maybe by looking at the weeds I can get some understanding. What are some of the characteristics of weeds? Well, for one thing, many of them look pretty good at first. This is my impression before I became a homeowner, and I'm thinking in particular of those pretty yellow flowers that in the spring cover whole fields and whole yards. I drive down the street and say, doesn't that look nice? What are people so upset about the Andalines for? They're very pretty. That's nice if you don't live there all the time. Because you know what happens after a couple days, those yellow flowers close back up, and then they open up with those white puff balls, and then you get those ugly stems sticking up, and those prickly green leaves, you know, and they're not a pretty plant. And as they grow, they spread out, and they start killing your grass.

Well, it's destructive and it's nasty, but it looks good at first. And I thought some heresies are like that. Antinomianism can seem that way. If it says, you can sin all you want and God likes it, well, there are some sins that are appealing, at least at first, right? You know, hey, I'm going to falsify my tax return because then I can buy some new toys. Or, you know, there's various things. A lot of sins are pleasurable at first. It's later on that the punishment, the suffering begins. By then, it's too late.

And of course, as I said, the idea is there today. We live under grace. The law was nailed to the cross. So do what you want. Enjoy it. You want to go to a college football game on Saturday? That's fine. It looks good.

And I'll mention all that, and that's the extreme case. But for those in the church who aren't falling into that type of thing, sometimes hearing a heresy, some new twist, some deeper understanding, that can seem appealing, honestly, to our egos. Ooh, I can understand a little bit more. I was talking to some of the folks in Athens this morning after service, and they said, doesn't it sometimes come down to pride? I said, you know, that's a astute observation. A lot of times it is. Ooh, I can know a little bit more than other people. I'm going to dig into this. Ooh, it's exciting to have the inside track. So it seems good at first. Let's look at another characteristic of weeds. They spread themselves pretty effectively, and boy, do they put down roots. Now, there's a couple ways they do that. And let's look at the dandelions again. Some weeds like dandelions, they spread seeds far and wide, and they're going to take root anywhere they can get. As I said, those dandelions, when that puff ball opens back up, I don't know how many seeds are on each individual flower, probably dozens. And each one is equipped with its own little hang glider. So when a breeze comes by, they're off looking for a place to land. And there's thousands of them in my neighborhood alone. Maybe millions. Now, most of those don't get a chance to germinate, but boy, if they land any place with a little soil and moisture, they grow, and they grow and grow. And that's the thing, they're not shallow plants. They put down roots, don't they? Let's turn to Hebrews 12. I want to come to this in a moment, but I'll just mention, if you've ever tried to pull up a dandelion, anybody here not tried? You try to pull up, and what happens? You might get a little bit, but you break off the stem, and that root is down there. And I meant to check on this, because I believe what they put down roots, four or five feet, or some of them do, Hebrews 12 and verse 14, I'm taking this a little bit out of context, I'll acknowledge, but he says, "...Pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. Looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, and lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many can become defiled." Now, Paul is addressing a person being offended and becoming bitter. He's not necessarily talking about heresy, but I think there's some similar principles. If there's a root still there below the surface that's not dug out, it can come back to life. It can spring up again. Along those lines, I thought, let's imagine a scenario. This is completely made up from my own imagination, so I hope it doesn't sound familiar, like a familiar story, but let's imagine a fellow that we'll call Joe Christian. You know, perhaps he lives in southern Ohio or eastern Kentucky, but he's living and growing as a Christian. If we look back to that parable of the sower and the seed, he's the good ground. You know, the seed of the truth, in his case, it didn't get snatched up by the birds. It didn't fall on stony soil that then withered in the sun. It wasn't choked out by thorns, but it grew, and he's starting to bear fruit. But, into this good soil, one of those seeds comes floating in on its hang glider. Say he happens upon a magazine that's put out by one of the churches that teaches the sacred names doctrine, and he starts reading it. Hmm, this seems to make some sense. There's something to this, maybe. And by that, it's starting to put roots down into his consciousness. Now, that plant might get snapped off. Say he goes up to a friend and says, I've been reading about this, and maybe we should be saying, Yeshua, never say Jesus. And his friend says, that's ridiculous, we don't believe that.

He's pulling the plant, and it snaps off. But if that's all he does, oh, okay, I won't say that anymore. He hasn't dug out the root. Maybe he stopped saying those words and looking down his nose at people that don't pronounce them quite the same way. But if he didn't prove the truth to himself, in time, that heresy, the root, might spring right back up again. Because, as I said, he just broke it off at the surface.

And just as a dandelion is a broadleaf weed, it doesn't just stick up an ugly stem, those leaves spread out. And I've seen them in my yard, boy, they start crowding out the grass. They shade, and the grass all around them starts dying off. So, our friend who gets caught up in one of these heresies, it could be this or another one, often they start focusing on that one thing. I'm going to study this and study this, to the exclusion of other important matters. They become like the Pharisees that Christ criticized in Matthew 23, 23, where he said, Woe do you hypocrites, you tithes of mint anise and cum, and he talked about getting your tweezers out and doing every little seed. They spent all that time when they could have just put it on a scale and said, okay, you know, 10%. You know, they were doing every seed to make sure they didn't give God one seed more than they had to. But they were missing the big points. Justice, mercy, and faith, the weightier matters.

And that's what happens sometimes a Christian who gets caught up in one of these modern Pharisees, it chokes off his spiritual growth. Things like love, joy, peace, gentleness, meekness, goodness, temperance, and faith. Did I get all of them? I know I recited them all enough last time. Let's leave that, though, and let's look at another way that weeds spread. And so does heresy. And that's, remember that weed in my flower bed? That network. They put out vines and then put down more roots. And so that getting any one stem out isn't all that hard, but once it spreads its network, it's hard to get all of it.

And let's imagine a scenario in that scene. We'll say another fellow, we'll call him John Doe Christian. It was hard to come up with real generic names. But say he's a member of a pretty large congregation. 100, 200 people. And he's been attending for a couple years. Once again, he's good ground.

The seed of the truth is sprouted. He's starting to bear fruit. He comes to services early, like he often does, and he goes to the fellowship hall to get a cup of coffee and mix with people. He sees a group of people sitting around a table, and they're having an intense discussion. Well, I like to talk about spiritual things. He sits down, and the focus is on a couple of them who have come to this new understanding about the calendar.

And they use really religious-sounding terms like molehats and postponements and things like that. And they talk about Rabbi Hillel from the Middle Ages, and pretty soon everyone's nodding in agreement. Now, we can't trust the calendar we're doing now. They reveal that there is a group that meets in a town 40 miles or so away that they're going to keep the Holy Days on the right days.

A number of people decide they're going to go join them there. And so, as I said, the roots are spreading out. What's interesting is they don't stop attending the United Church of God because they say, but I love the people! I want to be around them! I don't want to go just join this other group. I want to be there with the people I love and explain to them why they don't understand the truth and spread...

They want to spread their teaching. What happens always in that kind of situation, the pastor eventually learns, and then he's got to go to work weeding. He might give some sermons to the whole congregation to try to explain and detail the truth. He starts meeting individually with people. And usually it's not that hard, as I said, to get an individual stem and root out. It's just that network that spreads so wide, it can drive you crazy.

Now, as I said, I don't want to go into the details of either of these doctrines. They can be done, and to be honest, for someone to be convinced, they've got to study it on their own. I could give sermons all year, and hopefully it would help convince you, but you need to look into it. The church has study papers, and the Bible Correspondence Course, and a lot of things that address that pretty well. My point was to show the different ways heresy spreads.

It's a pastor's nightmare when there's something like that happening and people want to attend in the congregation. Well, let me back up. If someone doesn't believe what the church teaches, but they still want to attend and spread their belief.

Because, to be honest, our policy is anybody that will meet peacefully is welcome to do so. But we don't want them to come and start teaching things that we don't believe. That's the kind of thing that inspires what Paul wrote in Titus chapter 1. Titus 1, and let's read it in verse 10. I've got an important note to say, but let's read this scripture first. Titus 1 and verse 10.

Because this is exactly what Paul was dealing with, that sort of thing. It says, there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers. People deceiving, especially those of the circumcision. When he says those of the circumcision, he's talking about that common heresy. There are people that are coming in and teaching this truth. They don't believe what we believe, but they're coming in trying to convince people. And he says, whose mouths must be stopped? Who subvert whole households? And teaching things which they ought not.

For the sake of dishonest gain. I had a note here, and I could have put it in earlier, but I wanted to stop and say plainly that, even though this sounds like a real strong message, I hope it is in a way, I'm not giving this to address a problem here. I honestly came up with this idea while I was pulling weeds in my garden.

And I said, this is the kind of thing that happens on an ongoing basis. It comes and it goes. I'm not aware of a problem with either of these heresies or with anyone in this congregation or in Preston's Burg or Athens. So if any of you think I'm secretly trying to stick it to someone sitting out there, that's not the case. And I wanted to put a disclaimer and let you know I'm not nailing on anyone.

But we all need to be aware of the way these things can happen. Because there are people, as I said, there are people who want to make themselves teachers. Now, along that line, I should say, if all I did was explain a potential problem, I wouldn't be teaching very well. Along with it saying that there's a problem, I should address what can we do about it. Is there anything? Now, how can we fight against heresy? Not only in the church, but especially within our own minds, our own selves. And that's where I've got another sort of disclaimer.

I don't think any of us should proclaim ourselves to be a policeman to check out what other people are thinking or believing. If they have any slight disagreement or difference of opinion on a doctrinal matter, if they're keeping it to themselves, someone comes and asks you a question, feel free to help explain the truth. But we're not out to go interrogate each other. No Spanish Inquisition here. And I'll add another thing that I wanted to say, and start off early in this section of the sermon.

I do not advocate stifling discussion of different religious ideas. It's perfectly fine to discuss what different people believe, and I'll add that I don't think it's profitable and it wouldn't be enforceable for me to tell you, you cannot read materials or listen to sermons by other groups. I could tell you that. How much could I make it happen? Probably not at all. And we don't burn books here. We don't police people's thoughts. We do focus on learning the truth and sharing it. But if I try to tell you, you can't read anything from another group, in some ways it would be hypocritical.

And I say that thinking back about 19, 20 years, when we were attending a church that started teaching, what turned out to be heresy. Those of you who are younger don't remember it. Well, some of you weren't even born yet, and that's making me feel old.

But when the leadership of the church we attended started teaching things, I said, that sounds like they're teaching the Trinity. Or they're saying you should go play golf on the Sabbath and such. I did what probably many of you did. I started looking for guidance even from outside of that church. And I read written materials, and I listened to sermons from as diverse a people as Garnert, Ted Armstrong, Rod Meredith, David Pack, Fred Coulter. And about the same time, people gave me booklets and magazines from the different groups. Some of them, I got a lot of stuff about the Hebrew calendar. And I studied it in depth, and I got stuff about sacred names, and the Hebrew and the Greek, and what you can and can't say. And I'm only mentioning that to say that I looked at it, and I studied it. So when I mention those, it's not that all I saw it in passing, and I don't really know what I'm talking about. I studied the MoLads and the postponements. At one point, I could have written a book on it. But I was convinced, I said, okay, I know what I believe and why, and I don't keep all that in my head up to date right now. The one thing I do want to add or say is, I heard in a sermon, the tape that I was listening to back then, it was tapes, by Ron Dart. And I guess he's still around. I've heard that he's not in the best health. But in a sermon, I heard Mr. Dart say, the truth will always bear inspection. And I thought, that's profound. The truth will always bear up under scrutiny. It's still going to be true, no matter how deep you study into it. It doesn't stop being true if you examine it. But, falsehood, if you examine deeply, it'll eventually turn out that it is false. Now, I'm saying that, and I want to back up and say, I'm not encouraging anyone here to go out and read materials produced by other church groups, and especially those who teach things that we say are wrong. There's no need. You don't have to go do that. But I'm just saying, the truth will still be the truth. And if I speak truth here in services, I shouldn't have to worry if you get a recording of it and listen again. And if you check up on me to make sure what I'm teaching is right. And that happens sometimes. I've had people come to me and say, you know, you said this. I don't think that's quite right. You know, I've been corrected, usually on small matters, and I'm very thankful for that. I think one of the biggest things came up once, an elder from Columbus pointed out something to me, and was like, ooh! Now, my main point was right, but I was using some historical data that wasn't exactly right. Boy, I felt this big. But it was better for me to learn and change, you know, so I did it right the next time. Any minister in the church should welcome the attitude of the Bereans, which we find in Acts 17. Acts 17, verse 11. As, of course, the Apostle Paul was traveling and preaching, and in, was it Thessalonica? I'm looking here. Yeah, Thessalonica, he'd been stoned and run out of town. He comes into the next town. And in verse 10 it says, Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Now, it's interesting. They didn't search any other reference. They searched the Scriptures. That's the standard of truth we hold to. You know, if it's in the Bible, it's true. If it's not, it may not be.

So I encourage all Christians to study that word. And you don't have to worry that you'll suddenly get a crop of spiritual dandelions, you know, growing up in your mind if you're studying God's word. Studying other things could possibly do that. Let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 3.

1 Peter 3 and verse 15.

That's interesting. This morning I was worried about the sermon being too short, and it seemed like it went a little long. So I thought, oh, this afternoon maybe I'll have to worry about it being long, and now it looks like it might go short. Maybe there's a sort of time wormhole up here somewhere. Either way, 1 Peter 3.15. Oh, and I'm looking at the wrong book again.

This is a memory Scripture going way back. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense. That's the New King James says defense. The original says to give an answer. Or some translations might say apology. That's the old Greek word, but it means an explanation. Be ready to explain the reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. We like to cite this as an opportunity to preach the gospel. Isn't it great when our neighbors come over and say, how come you're dressed up in your suit on Saturday morning and going out with a briefcase? Well, this happens to be the Seventh-Day Sabbath that God told us to keep. It's a little chance to preach the gospel. But this... Sounds like there's a tornado coming. I'm hoping that's a test. For the same opportunity that this scripture could say, we need to be ready to explain the truth. If someone comes and says, no, no, you need to use this particular word when you talk about something, what's in the Bible? Let's know what we believe and be able to explain it from the Bible, not necessarily from other sources.

Let's go to 2 Peter chapter 3. 2 Peter 3 and verse 15. Oh, let me see if I should say 2 Peter 3.15, since we were just in 3.15.

2 Peter 3.15.

I find this interesting. I consider that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation, as also our beloved brother Paul, according to his wisdom given to him, is written to you. Remember, this is the same Paul that corrected Peter in public. Peter, now probably years later, is saying he's our beloved brother. He didn't have sore feelings or whatever because he'd been corrected. He's saying Paul is our beloved brother, and he's written things that are wise, as also in all his apostles.

Speaking in them, however we could say, things in which are some things hard to understand. Some of what Paul writes is hard to understand if you don't understand the context or his references to the Old Testament, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. So he's saying there are some people that are untaught and unstable that are twisting the Scriptures, and it's leading to their destruction.

It's interesting. We can benefit from having teachers, and we should. Remember the eunuch, when he was on his chariot reading the scroll of Isaiah, and Philip comes up and says, do you understand what you're reading? He says, well, how can I unless someone guides me? And so Philip came and guided him, but he guided him from the Scripture.

But there are some teachers who are untaught, and they're often self-appointed and self-educated and often motivated by vanity or by greed or trying to get a following after themselves. I refer to, well, usually that doesn't come up, but sometimes I've used the term pseudo-intellectuals. And to be honest, I jotted that term more talking to people about history, because, you know, I've read like a, well, I was going to say a zillion books.

I study history, not math. I'm not sure if a zillion is a real number, but... You see, sometimes a similar thing happens in religion as in history. I'll meet someone who says, I read this book on the Civil War, and now I know the cause of it. And I'm thinking, okay, you read a book. Now, a book might say one thing or it might say another.

That's one of the reasons, you know, when you're working on in-depth study, you read shelves full of books. So you can put them all together and get that depth, that broad view. And I don't want to mean to hold myself up, because one of the things I learned when I went to grad school and studied history is how much I didn't know.

And I'm still aware of how much, you know, I'm partly aware. I'm aware that I don't know a lot. I'm going to talk myself in circles here. But there's a similar thing in studying the Bible and the truth. We're better off if we realize that we don't know a lot and don't hold ourselves up as this great teacher. Be willing to be taught. And actually, I want to go to 2 Timothy, and we'll see a good formula for how to make sure we can keep a lid on heresy.

2 Timothy 2. Here the Apostle Paul is writing to Timothy, who was a young minister that Paul had personally trained. Oh, there we go. 2 Timothy 2. You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

You see that change? He said, I taught you, you teach others so that they can then teach others. There should be a constant passing on of the truth. If we look back in history, Jesus Christ taught many men personally. And from what the Apostle Paul says, Jesus taught Paul personally out in the desert. And then those men taught others and trained them so they could teach others.

And so the truth can be preserved generation after generation. It's a good formula, as I said, for keeping out heresy and teaching the truth. Now, unfortunately, the system's not foolproof. Some heresies have come from Ambassador College graduates. And I want to confess that since I are one. That doesn't fit unless you're making a joke about education. But most often, the problem with Ambassador graduates, usually they're focusing on who's in charge and who gets to exercise power and decide how to spend money.

We're famous for having that problem. And I hope, keep an eye on me, because, you know, I said, it's something endemic to those who went there, and, you know, you just don't want to let it get out of hand. They're usually better at having the true doctrines, at least. But ideally, no matter whether it's Ambassador College or training through the ministry over the years, ideally you'll get good teaching and guidance from qualified ministers of Jesus Christ.

That's the goal. That's the way God intended it. But you still have the ultimate responsibility for yourself. That's where I say, you are the gardener of the soil of your own mind. You are the first and the last defense against heresy, against those weeds. Let's turn to Galatians 1. As Paul wrote, remember Galatians and Ephesians both dealt with heresy a lot. And Paul said this, Galatians 1 and verse 6, I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you to the grace of Christ.

When he says Him, Paul doesn't mean himself. Remember Jesus Christ said, None can come to me except the Father draw him. They were turning away from God the Father to a different gospel. Which is not another. It's not another gospel. It's another teaching. There are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any gospel to you other than what we have preached, let him be accursed. And as I said before, I'll say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you've received, let him be accursed.

That's pretty strong stuff. But Paul's saying the truth is the truth. The truth is the truth. Someone comes and brings you something else, you should be able to look in this book and say, No, that's not right. I know the truth. Even if it's, as I said, it's me or any other minister, anyone.

How do you prevent heresy? How do you root it out if it's gotten started? It goes back, and I'm sorry, I meant to tell you to keep a finger in 2 Timothy. I want to go back to 2 Timothy. I've got a note here that says, keep your finger in 2 Timothy, but I skipped right over that. 2 Timothy 2.15. How are you going to guard yourself against heresy in your own mind? This is a memory scripture. 2 Timothy 2.15. Be diligent to present yourself approved to God a worker, who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. That word of truth dividing it. That's as it says in Isaiah, putting line upon line, precept upon precept, hear a little there a little. Become skilled in dealing with the word of God so that you will not be deceived.

Also, 1 Thessalonians 5.21 says, test all things. Hold fast to what's good. Test it. If it's good, hold on to it. Turns out it's not good, cast it aside. We'll also read Romans 12. I will turn there. Romans 12 in verse 2.

Do not be conformed to this world. The world is under the influence of the prince of the power of the air. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. But he says it there to the people directly. You may prove. Don't say, well, my parents proved it so it's okay with me, or my brother-in-law proved it. You've got to prove it. You're each responsible, and I'm responsible. And I say that to our young people. I hope that you've been studying into this, and you're proving it, because your parents aren't going to make the decisions what you do with your life for all of your life. We each have to prove it to ourselves. And I say that having been a young person in the church, I had to prove it to myself. You know, same way as you'll have to. Going back to that analogy of the dandelions. As I said, if you don't prove something, it's like telling somebody, hey, I heard this teaching about this, and they say, oh, that's dumb. That's like pulling on it, and it breaks off at the stem. But if there's still those lingering doubts, if that root is there, it can come back. So the only way you can do it... Well, there's a couple ways to kill dandelions. I had a note here. I like to get the spray out. But if you're like me, if you've ever just got the spray at the store and go out, and then you discover you've got those nice round brown spots all over your yard, a lot of those sprays will not only kill the dandelions, but all the grass, too. And I mentioned that I know that there are sprays designed to kill one and not the other. But there are ways to get heresy out of people's minds. A lot of times, a mental or emotional trauma will make them stop believing the heresy, but it makes them stop believing the truth, too. And a lot of our former brethren went through that in the 1990s. They're not believing the heresy that was taught them, but they don't believe the truth anymore, either. It was like a spray can coming and killing everything. We don't want to do that. Now, I've got a note. I think God will revive those people. It might not be until the Second Resurrection, but I don't count them as lost. But the solution for us, we want to get rid of those dandelions. Don't get the spray. Get out the spade. Dig. Dig to get all the root out. When it comes to false teaching, that means dig into the Bible. Study and know the truth. Prove it to yourself. And the Church provides helps to do that. We've got booklets and magazines. The study guides can be very useful, but one of the important things is they just tell you which scriptures to go to and help explain them. But you've got to have the Bible. Never read just a study guide. Use the scripture.

Now, the last thing I want to look at here, though, is a different way to deal with weeds that applies to dealing with heresy. Not digging them out, and not poisoning them, but preventing them in the first place. And that's the ideal. It's a lot easier to prevent dandelions from ever getting started. Well, theoretically, it's easier. Looking in my yard today, it's still not that easy. But I have a good friend who once ran a landscaping business. It wasn't very profitable. That's why he works in IT now. I don't know how you can go from landscaping to computers, but it's a wonderful country we live in. But once I asked him, what do I do about all these dandelions in my yard? He told me, surprise me, he said, you want to not have dandelions, seed and fertilize your grass. Don't worry about poisoning the dandelions. You build healthy grass. The dandelion won't be able to get a start. And it's true. I found out where I've got the thickest, healthiest grass, I never have to worry about dandelions. And that's the way it works in our minds. If we liken thick, healthy grass in our lawn to a full and deep understanding of God's truth in our minds, we'll see that just in the same way weeds don't get a good start and a healthy grass, so heresy won't make any headway in a mind that's filled with the concepts of God's true religion. Boy, that was a long sentence. But I think you instinctively see that. If we've got our minds in the right place, if we're studying God's Word, if we're filled with that, we don't have to worry about some heresy. It won't make any headway. Now, I spoke last week about the fact that the fruit of the Spirit takes time to grow and mature. It does, but that's okay. That fruit is, as we said, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, temperance. Or, and that's Galatians 5, 22. Ephesians 5, 9 says, The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. I like that truth. Jesus said in John 17, 17, Thy Word is truth. God's Word is truth. If we're focusing on studying God's Word, and I mean all of it, that'll keep us safe from heresy. One of the reasons I wanted to say all of it, that's some of the problems people get into. They focus on one narrow thing. There are people that love to study prophecy. And I'm going to study it so I know exactly what order things will happen before the time of Christ's return, and who's going to get resurrected first, and who's next, and all that. That might be okay to know, but if it prevents you from the weightier matters of the law, if you become blinded to justice, mercy, and faith, well, you're leaving room for weeds. Heresy could sprout up. Deuteronomy 6, 25. Let's read that, if you will. Deuteronomy 6, in verse 25. I have some scriptures I'll just read to you, but a couple I'd like to turn to.

Deuteronomy 6, 25. Then it will be righteousness. Remember, the fruits of the Spirit are all goodness, truth, and righteousness. It will be righteousness if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the eternal Lord God that He's commanded us. Observe those commandments. He says observe, He doesn't mean keep a watch on them. I'm watching those commandments. He means go do them. Live by them. That's where I'll cite also. Psalm 119, 172 says, all your commandments are righteousness. And likewise, Psalm 111, verse 10 says, a great understanding have all those who do His commandments. Know God's commandments and do them, and it gives you understanding. And as I thought about it, I thought, you know, great understanding seems like it's over here, and heresy would be way over there. They're not mutually compatible. Great understanding is about the opposite of heresy. So that's what we want. The understanding, not the heresy. Let's look at Proverbs, chapter 11. Proverbs 11, we'll begin in verse 18.

This sort of sticks with my analogy and helps bring both elements together. At least I thought when I was putting my notes together. Proverbs 11, verse 18, the wicked man does deceptive work, but he who sows righteousness, and I said, you're planting the seeds of righteousness, not any heresy, will have a sure reward as righteousness leads to life, so he pursues evil, pursues it to his own death. So that's what we want to be focusing on studying, knowing, and doing what God's word teaches.

And I could probably turn to Scriptures all day, which would get really old, of the various things that we need to do. So I thought it would be good to summarize. And I'll just mention this in James 1, 27, well-known Scripture, it says, pure and undefiled religion that could be undefiled by heresy, is to visit the orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself spotted from the world. That's interesting. That's not some deep philosophical thing. It's not some deep, some new truth, or greater looking into Greek and Hebrew words.

I had an instructor at Ambassador College who once said, instead of all that stuff, go mow a widow's lawn. So they need your help, go do that, and you'll be getting closer to God than if you're delving into too much study. And that's kind of weird when a professor is saying, don't do too much study, but I think there's something to that.

I thought of that, and it reminded me of something that happened. It's been probably, well, a little less than two and a half years ago now. But you know, there was problems in the United Church of God. And there were accusations against many of the ministers, and people were circulating documents and saying, this guy did that, and he did that. And with all that going on, a friend of mine one evening called me on the phone. I didn't talk to him all that often. And he said, you know what you've heard about this?

What do you think about what's going on? And I told him, well, you know what? Sue and I just had a baby, and I'm focusing on taking care of my family. I couldn't care less who says what minister did this, or, you know, I'm not going to dig into dirt on people. I've got more important things to do. Now, that's sort of an analogy, because taking care of your own family is not the same as visiting the orphans and the widows.

But it's still sort of focusing on something that's more important in taking action, and I didn't get, you know, I think that sort of helped me not getting drawn down into the dirt. Now, later I did have to pay some attention, as all of us did to some degree.

But, as I said, instead of getting sidetracked by things that don't matter, it's good for us to focus on doing God's work, living by His law and serving our fellow Christians. Well, it says, now I'm trying to remember it's Ephesians, and I'm trying to remember it's not good unto all men, especially to the household of faith, but to all men, anywhere we can do good.

That's going to keep our minds free of weeds. I've got to watch out. I take this analogy too far. I'm going to get in trouble. You know, since that morning that Connor and I spent digging weeds out of our flower beds, I've had to revisit that project a number of times. You know, I didn't get them all that morning, and I've gone back a number of times.

There are some places, like gardens and flower beds, that weeds just like to sprout and grow. And similarly, in God's true church, heresy wants to sprout up, and it's gone back as far as the first century. Most people who call themselves Christian nowadays, out in the world, believe and practice what are actually ancient heresies. But that doesn't have to be us. It's not us. We have God's word, and we have God's spirit to guide us in understanding it and living by it.

And God's spirit, in His word, to help us prevent heresies from sprouting in our minds in the first place. So with that, I encourage us. Study God's word. Ask Him to guide us by our spirit. And then use that to take action. And the thing I'll add, if after all that you have some free time on your hands, I invite you to come and help me pull weeds out of my garden.