So 3rd John is what you might call a postcard-sized letter from John to the beloved Gaius. We're going to take for our text verses 9 through 11. looking at deatrophies. The title of my sermon will be The Condemnation Regarding Violating Christian Hospitality, but we'll go ahead and, since it's such a short epistle, for review's sake, and so that we'll be able to look forward to the next The next lesson, I thought it'd be a good idea to just go ahead and read the entire letter. So we'll start with verse one, as he writes, the elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth. Beloved, I pray that in all respects, you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I rejoiced greatly when brothers came and bore witness to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are walking in the truth. Beloved, you are acting faithfully in whatever work you do for the brothers, and are doing this though they are strangers. They bore witness to your love before the church, you will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out for the sake of the name, receiving nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore, we ought to support such men so that we may be fellow workers with the truth. I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to be first among them, does not welcome what we say. For this reason, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his deeds, which he does, unjustly disparaging us with wicked words. Not satisfied with this, he himself does not welcome the brothers either. He forbids those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, what is good. The one who does good is of God. The one who does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has received a good witness from everyone and from the truth itself. And we add our witness and you know that our witness is true. I had many things to write to you, but I'm not willing to write them to you with pen and ink, but I hope to see you shortly. We'll speak face to face. Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends by name. This is the word of God, the letter that John the apostle wrote to the beloved Gaius. Let's go ahead and go to the Lord in prayer once again. Our Father in heaven, we are thankful for your word. We're thankful for the truthfulness of it. Lord, I pray that you will be with us today. Lord, bless your word as it's preached and proclaimed. And Lord, may it find a lodging place in our hearts and our minds. Lord, that it may be used for the furtherance of the gospel. and the encouragement of the saints, Lord, that we may grow and learn as a result of this portion of your word. Lord, speak to us through your word and forgive us of our sins. For it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. And so, deatrophies, the kind of man that we maybe have heard about, He lives on in infamy as a result of this letter. As I said before, this was the type of letter that maybe was not originally designed, at least from the human side, to be read and shared among other churches. This was a private letter in its original form, a private letter between John and Gaius. And in this letter, we read about deatrophies and all of that, even though it was originally intended to be private, between these men of John and Gaius, it is God's word. And so now it has been read, it's been read here, it's been read not only here and now, it's been read at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church many times before me. 2,000 years of church history, it has been read time and time again at many other churches, churches that you and I don't even know about, and certainly churches that Gaius and John never knew about. And so, Deiotrophes, he loved to be first among the saints. Where he was, he loved to be known, but he certainly would not have wanted his name out there the way that John put it. He would not have wanted his name out there the way the Holy Spirit has put it out there. And what's interesting is we might assume that Deiotrephes was a pastor, but the Bible doesn't tell us that. He may have been a pastor, He may have been one of those tyrannical pastors that sometimes happen in places, but he might have also been an out-of-place deacon. He might have been just a power-hungry church member. Certainly, as I've been a member of, well, I was saved at the age of 10 or 11 years old, I've been a church member since that time. I've witnessed a lot of things in churches, and I'm sure you have too. And in those years, I've seen all of those things. I've seen tyrannical pastors, I've seen out of place deacons, and I've seen power hungry church members, bullies in different places within churches that try to run the church. Deotrophies could have been any of those things, and in fact, the spirit of deotrophies exists even in our day, and it's not even limited to any one title or position. The spirit of deotrophies can exist among men, it can exist among women, Church bullies come in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Now John, the aged apostle, wrote to the church, wrote specifically to Gaius, but Deiotrophes Well, in this letter, he wrote to Gaius, but what he's telling him is that in verse nine, he says, I wrote something to the church. So John had originally, this is what got this whole thing started. John had written to the church. So imagine, he writes this letter to the church. We know that there were letters written to the church. We read of them. Paul, to the church at Corinth. Paul to the church at Ephesus, and so on and so forth. So we know that in the first century, there were letters being written to churches. Of course, not all of them are preserved and safe for us, because not all of them were God-breathed holy scriptures, but there were letters being written. John the Apostle, he wrote something to the church, but theatrophies, who love to be the first among them, did not want anything to do with him. We don't know the contents of the letter, and Even though in our day, we do not have apostles. We're not getting letters from apostles in our day. I mean, well, we get letters sometimes from people claiming to be apostles. They come in my Facebook page and stuff like that, usually from Africa and other places, fellows claiming to be apostles. And you know where those letters go, they go bye-bye and those people get blocked, but I'll tell you why. And that is because in our day, we have no apostles. Uh, not, not in the same sense as what, as what, uh, we read about in the scripture. So there are no apostles in our day, but there are, there are preachers, missionaries, other pastors. And so, the modern day deiotrophies will do what this deiotrophies in 3rd John did to John, did to that apostle. The modern day deiotrophies will do to, in similar fashion, to preachers. pastors, missionaries, what deatrophies did to John, even when, even when the majority of the church votes to receive them. So for instance, I'll give you two examples here, lay them out. Sometimes you have to speak clearly on things just to make sure that people understand what could happen in a church setting. A church votes to have men for a meeting. They say, oh, we're going to have a meeting. Let's bring it up for a vote. Who are we going to have? And the church votes for it. We'll have these individuals, and the church votes. It's in the minutes, it's in the, everyone's there to witness it. Those who weren't there, they find out about it, whatever. They weren't there, so be it. The majority has spoken, even if they weren't there, it wouldn't have made a difference. But one with the spirit of deotrophies will not go along with the majority of the church. And not only that, but they'll, go on a witch hunt to discredit the preacher, undermine the authority of the church, and undermine the meeting in order to stop the meeting from going on, to stop the preacher from coming. That's one example. Another example is, and in that example, that could happen whether the person with the spirit of deotrophies is in the pew or in the pulpit. You understand what I'm saying? That could be whether the person with such a spirit is the pastor, the deacon, or some random church member. The spirit of theatrophies, you see. Church authority has to mean something or it's nothing. Another example is a church votes to have a pastor. Again, the vote is taking place. Majority calls that pastor. Perhaps one either doesn't vote at all, isn't present or whatever the case may be, and that person will then work to discourage, discredit, slander, undermine, whatever to get him out. Or maybe, maybe in the beginning that person votes for that pastor, but in their heart didn't really mean it, just voted to go along with the crowd, but in their heart decided for whatever reason. The spirit of deatrophies at work, loving to be the first among them. It's the same song and dance, no matter the scenario. In our circles, They give lip service to church authority, but only, only so long as the church goes along with what they want, and that's it. The minute the church goes something different, then they're opposed to it, then they're opposed to it. It is, what we read here is rule by minority, rule by minority. Such a person is the type of person that gets into a church and always causes so much trouble that the rest of the church knows that unless they do what Deiotrophes wants, there's going to be trouble. I know that there are some things that a church, sometimes with good intentions, wants to have 100% vote of the church in order to get things done for the unity of the church. And sometimes that is a good thing. And most usually that is a good thing. However, however, there are times when discernment is necessary. And that is, if you've got a deiotrophies in your midst, there will be never anything that gets done unless it passes his or her approval. And what happens is everything gets funneled through that one individual. And then it becomes not 100% vote, but it becomes rule by a minority and the ruling individual it's not congregational anymore. There's no longer pastoral authority. The Bible does tell us, submit yourselves to those who have authority over you. Who's he talking about there? He's talking about the pastor, but in its context, of course, in its context, it's talking about as he preaches and teaches the word of God, not some sort of dictatorship, not some sort of, Deotrophies type abusive rule, but what happens in this type that we read about here is an abuse of that and everything gets funneled where before anything gets passed, before anything gets done, before anything moves forward, it's let's make sure that so and so doesn't get her feelings hurt, so and so doesn't get his feelings hurt, so and so, is going to vote this way on it at the business meeting, so that way we can move forward. If we're gonna have this preacher, oh, well, we better make sure it'll be all right. And it's an unhealthy kind of a thing. What happens? if the church votes to have five preachers at a fellowship meeting or a conference. And then, let's think about it, one of them cancels at the last minute, and now you've got four preachers. What do you do to fill that spot? Well, do you ask one of the other preachers that are in attendance, or do you have one of the other preachers Fill in twice, what do you do? Well, we've got these choices to make, but if you find yourself saying, well, we better run it past so-and-so to make sure that they don't get their feelings hurt, or we gotta make sure that this person doesn't get upset in the church, then you've got an unhealthy thing going on. you've got a Deatrophis running things, you see. And indeed, even when John, the aged apostle, who everybody should have known, loved, and respected, wrote to the church, Deutrophes loved to be the first among them, does not welcome what we say. Over in 2 Timothy chapter four. 2 Timothy chapter four, verses one through four. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead by his appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, will turn away their ears from the truth, will turn aside to miss. " Paul warned Timothy. He said, he said, you've got to preach the word. He said, there's coming a time when people will not endure sound doctrine. but they'll want to have their ears tickled and they'll accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. And sometimes we read this and we think that Paul was warning of some far off time that somehow he was talking about the time that we're living. But beloved, I believe he was talking about that there would be times even in his lifetime that there would be people who would rather heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, that there were people who would not listen to what the apostles were teaching. That in every church and in every ministry, there'll be those who don't want to hear the truth, but they would rather heap to themselves their own ideas. And we see that going on even in the New Testament. We see it going on in our day. We see it going on in every generation for 2,000 years of church history. Every passing generation, they say they want hard preaching. They say, give it to me hard. The preaching has to be hard. Preach like the old preachers did. But what they mean is preach about the people outside. Don't preach about the sins that are going on in the church. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't preach about slandering or lying Don't preach, don't preach about just plain old loving folk who are, who are different than you. Don't do those things. Hate to themselves. heap to themselves, accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from their truth and will turn aside to miss. Why do you think in every little town there's so many different Baptist churches? So many churches actually. because a lot of times, a lot of times it's just cause. Somebody gets their nose bent out of joint over something, they run off and start their own church so that they can accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires. In our circles, it's, easy to say, well, God's not going to recognize the reformers, and God's not going to recognize the Protestants, and God's not going to recognize the Catholics. That's, in a lot of ways, a lot of truth to those things. Let me tell you, he ain't going to recognize every single Baptist church that pops up. It started over some squabble when somebody gets upset over this and that. Over in verse 10 of our text in 3rd John. In verse 10, he says, for this reason, remember this reason being he wrote to He wrote to the church, but Deotrophes, who loves to be first among them, does not welcome what we say. Who is to be first among the church? Jesus. Jesus is to be first, but Deotrophes had taken the place of Jesus. He says, for this reason, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his deeds. which he does, unjustly disparaging us with wicked words and not satisfied with this, he himself does not welcome the brothers either. And he forbids those who want to do so and puts them out of the church. Diotrephes thought he had some authority. He shut people out. set himself as Lord over the church, but John said, wait a minute, when I come, when I come, well, actually he says, he says, if I come, I guess is the way he words it. He says, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his deeds, which he does. You know, I'm not gonna let him forget it. If I come, I'm gonna bring it up. John had some authority as an apostle. As such, theatrophies had to answer to him. This Diotrephes was slandering them. He says so here. He says, I'm gonna bring to remembrance his deeds, which he does unjustly disparaging us with wicked words and not satisfied with this, he himself does not welcome the brothers either. He was slandering them. His charges were not only false, they were evil. He defied other believers, refusing to accept them. And as if this was not bad enough, he had the habit of excluding people or putting them out. You can depend on it. what you think about who Deiotrophes was. He may have been a tyrannical pastor who had taken the authority of church discipline upon himself and was putting people out of the church discipline and making himself the Lord over the church and just excluding people. Maybe that's what this means. Maybe this means that he was just meeting them at the door of where they were having services and say, you're not welcome here. Maybe he was keeping them out by blunt force. I don't know, but whatever it was, if he wasn't excluding them, he was definitely keeping them out one way or another. One thing's for sure, John was not afraid of ruffling feathers or even of naming names, and that's one thing we get out of this. John did not have to name the name Diotrephes in this letter. Gaius knew who he was. You and I, we wouldn't have any idea, but as he wrote this little letter to Gaius, no doubt Gaius knew exactly who he was talking about, but he named names, and sometimes that is necessary. We live in a society that is Well, we're a mixed bag in our society. Sometimes we're either too quick to name names or other times we're too slow. And sometimes, often what happens is there's no real follow-up with it. John says, not only am I going to name names, but there's going to be confrontation. It's not going to be for no account. Listen, I hate confrontation just as much as the next person, but there has to be one sometimes. The enemies of Christ and his church need to be confronted. John Calvin, I know sometimes people cringe when you bring up Calvin in a Baptist church, but I'm gonna bring him up. John Calvin said that every pastor needs to have two voices. First time I heard this quote, I wrote it down. I thought, man, this is good. Every pastor needs to have two voices, one for the sheep and another for the wolves. I like that. We can't have the same voice. We can't use the same voice for everybody. We don't find that in the scriptures. In fact, over in the book of Acts chapter 20, Acts chapter 20, as Paul met with the Ephesian elders, in fact, all this is tied together. John is dealing with, John, John, John is at Ephesus we find Paulist Bidding his farewell to the Ephesian elders look at look at what he says here in in Acts chapter 20 and verse verses 27 through 29 He says for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God being God for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock." He says, and from among you, verse 30, from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. So he's warning them, and I believe this is a twofold thing. He says, after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. But then he says, and from among yourselves, men will arise. So there's savage wolves that are gonna come in to the church. Understand something, elder and pastor, these are gender-specific and character-specific roles. You can go in your Bible and you can read about what it means to be a pastor, what the qualifications are. You can know that a pastor is to be a man, and you know all of these things. You can go to Titus 3, 1 Timothy. You can read all these things, but Wolf is not. It's not gender-specific or character-specific. We must be on guard for this very reason. That's why I say at the beginning, deatrophies, and someone with the spirit of deatrophies could be anybody within the church. But notice what Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven. So we have Paul warning the Ephesian elders about this, but earlier in Matthew chapter seven, Matthew chapter seven and verses 15 through 20, he says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, so then you will know them by their fruits." He says, you will know them by their fruits. You and I, we are to understand what's going on in this world, and a wolf in sheep's clothing is very deceptive, obviously. We oftentimes can't tell the difference, but he says you'll know them by their fruit. How would we know what an apple tree is supposed to look like unless we've seen a real apple? How would we know what an orange tree looks like except we've seen a real live orange. How do we know what fruit we're supposed to look out for, except we have a standard, is what I'm trying to say here, and we have that standard right here in the Word of God, and just to give you an example here, if you go over into the Book of Galatians, Galatians chapter 5 I'm beginning verse 16, but I say walk by the Spirit and This is Galatians 5 verse 16, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you do not the things that you want. If you're led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing in things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But, he says, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also walk in step with the spirit. Let us not become those with vainglory, challenging one another, envying one another. And so we see here the the fruit of the spirit and in the deeds of the flesh. We see that there's a great division that's given here. And as we go along through life, just like you're able to tell if you've got an apple tree in the backyard and an orange tree, you're able to tell the difference. Now, I'm not trying to say that every deatrophies in life is a reprobate or even a lost man. It may be that maybe somebody is just causing a ruckus in a church. Maybe there's some misunderstanding or things like that that can be sorted out. Maybe it's just a bad season and all that, but After a while, you begin to see and understand that there's something going on in a person's life. Certainly, we can look and see if a man or woman claims to love the church, love the Lord, and then they operate outside of the church. of the word of God. They are not walking in the spirit like they should. Only the day of judgment will tell whether or not they are truly one of his. But we can look with great suspicion upon those who are working in the ways of deatrophies. And if a man or woman has a lifetime of the ways of deatrophies, we know they are not led by God, no matter what they say. And certainly, certainly such a man or a woman ought to be not in a place of leadership, but ought to be in a place of church discipline, that is for sure. Well, what does John say about this whole situation? Well, if we go back here in 3 John, in verse 11, as he writes to Gaius, the beloved there, he says in verse 11, he says, imitate He says, verse 11, beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God. The one who does evil has not seen God. So again, we're going back to this, what's being taught in the scriptures and Matthew and Galatians and so on and so forth. Understanding fruit very, very clearly. He doesn't mean that a child of God is going to always do that which is right and perfect. He's not talking about sinless perfection is what I'm saying. But what he is talking about is that How you're known, what is your life like? What is the pattern in your life? What is your fruit like? The one, as he puts it, and apparently this Diotrephes was known by quite a lot. He says, do not imitate what's evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God, the one who does evil. has not seen God. How are you known? How do people look at you? If people say, oh, well, that person, that person is a great help to the church, that person is a great good to the church, that good person is, or is it, watch out for that person, troublemaker, you know, and so on and so forth. There are examples in the Bible. Remember, Paul and Barnabas, they had a squabble. What was it over? It was over John Mark. But later in life, Paul wrote, and he said, bring Mark with you. He's profitable to me in the ministry. And so, as Mark grew and all those sort of things, Paul saw in Mark something that he didn't see before. He said, you know what, he's a good guy. I appreciate that. I don't know if Deuterophe's ever repented. I don't know anything about that, but I do know this, I do know this, that if someone is, has the spirit of deatrophies, causing trouble in the church, all that sort of thing, they ought to repent now rather than to keep on before it's too late. And certainly, we are to imitate what is good and not what is evil. As we look at this letter, we find that John wrote to Gaius. Gaius, we looked at last week, he was commended for Christian hospitality. That's a good example. And next week, we'll see a good example of Demetrius. Demetrius is a good example. within any church, there's gonna be good examples. And there's, I mean, we always hope for no bad examples, but sometimes there are bad examples. He says, don't follow the bad examples. Don't follow them, follow the good ones. And I thank God. for those who are good, those who pattern themselves after the good examples that we find in the scriptures. And so, there is something to be said about the bad examples in the Bible. Everyone, everyone is an example. You're either a good one or a bad one. Let's not be the bad examples. May God add the blessing to the preaching.