Let's turn our Bibles to Titus chapter 2, verse 11 to 14. Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 11, dealing with godly zeal versus fanaticism. Titus 2. Interesting, we just read it at lunchtime too. Most appropriate. Let's hear the word of God as found in Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 11. 4. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly in the present age, for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed, and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works." This is the Word of God. We are saved to serve and to be sanctified. Salvation, service, sanctification is meant to be all part of the package deal. We leave the old life to live the new life. Looking forward to the glorious return of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that should continually focus us, just like in any race, any competition, you have your eye fixed on the finish line, you have your eye fixed on the goal, you have your eye fixed on whether it's the goal, the nets, the cricket pitch, or whatever it is that you're aiming at, you've got to focus and aim for us. the author and finisher of our faith, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is both the means and He's the end, He's the goal, He's the standard. And so remembering that He will return, that He will conquer, that He will judge, that He will call everyone to account for every idle word we've ever spoken, for every deed we've done, for our very motives of our hearts. We should be looking forward and God's grace should lead to godliness. And we are saved to serve. Hope should lead to holiness. Salvation is by the grace of God alone. Christ alone is the head of the church. Salvation is by the sacrificial atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of this is specified right here. We can see it. It's in this passage. And he saved us. He has redeemed us. He has purified us. For what purpose? To be his peculiar people. for special people, zealous for good works. Now, our Lord deserves our very best. Nothing less than wholehearted enthusiasm is acceptable in the service of God. Whatever we do, we should do it with all of our heart, as working for the Lord and not for man. God deserves all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Nothing less than 100% is good enough for God. In Revelation 3, we read that lukewarm Christians make God sick. He even says he'd rather we be cold or hot, but not lukewarm. Who wants lukewarm tea or lukewarm coffee or lukewarm soup? And lukewarm worship is not acceptable to God. I mean, the word he uses is vomit. Now most Bibles say, spew you out of my mouth, because the word vomit just looked too vulgar to put in the script, but that's what it says in the Greek. I will vomit you out of my mouth. That's what the Lord's saying to the Latter-day Saint Christians, because you're neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm. OK, some people seem to like some lukewarm things, but that is rare. And the Lord certainly doesn't want lukewarm worship, or lukewarm service, or lukewarm love. And who on earth would be satisfied with that in, let's consider, a relationship of love, a marriage partnership? Who wants a kind of, well, you know, You've got to be one or the other. You can't be in the middle. God is not accepting that. So the Lord requires us to be zealous, enthusiastic, and wholehearted. Zeal for your house has consumed me, the Lord said. He walked into the temple, made a whip, chased out the moneylenders, overturned tables, he set the animals free, and he said, you have turned the house of God into a den of thieves. you've turned what should be a place of worship into a place of selling merchandise. They've lost the whole purpose. In fact, this is in the court of the Gentiles. So the holy place, which is for the priests, is one thing. The court of Israel is one thing, but this is now in the court of the Gentiles, where other nations are meant to come to pray. And it's the only place they have to pray. And that's just been turned to such a not just a place of merchandise being sold, marketplace, but a place of corruption and theft and dishonest scales of these money lenders who were refusing people's normal money they had to convert into temple shekels and the money changers, as always, made sure you always lost on the deal. And so the Lord responded with zeal. And his zeal was taking a whip and chasing these corrupt moneylenders out of the temple. You could just imagine what the Lord might do in many church conferences, many assemblies today. If he came in physically, in person, what would he do with so much that goes on in so many of these World Council of Churches and so on, places of corruption. But it's better to be divided by truth than united in error. We need to be zealous for good works. We should be zealous in generosity, in hospitality, in worship, in the grace of God. We should be zealous for the truth. We should be zealous for holiness. We should be zealous in our service for God and fulfilling the Great Commission. There's a need for zeal because many of our problems would be solved with more zeal. productivity, effectiveness, punctuality, consideration for others, attendance at prayer meetings, volunteers for outreachers. All of these problems would be solved if there's more zeal. If people were more zealous, you wouldn't have to worry about where's the money going to come from, where are the volunteers going to come from, how are we going to get this done. Zeal would solve most of the problems of almost any mission, ministry, or church. We need more zeal. However, this is not the only emphasis in this passage, because yes, we need zeal, but godly zeal is good, but fanaticism and misguided zeal is destructive. There can be a misguided zeal, there can be a fanaticism and an extremism that distorts the grace of God. If the devil can't keep us from being converted, he likes to get us diverted, if not derailed. as a lot of Christians have made a shipwreck of their faith by getting overzealous for things that weren't the main thing, not the most important, getting into trivialities. And if the devil can't stop you from being converted, he gets you diverted, he gets you distracted, and even defeated by divisive, destructive, dangerous distortions. Food should be cooked, but it shouldn't be cremated. You can't overdo a good thing. A hammer can be used to build, but a hammer can be used to break. You can use tools for good things, you can use tools for bad things. You can use a vehicle to take people to hospitals and so on, you can use the same vehicle to kill people. There's zeal, in a misdirected way can actually cause tremendous destruction. So Titus 3 verse 2 warns us to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men, for we ourselves were also once foolish, Disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. This is the immediate follow-up on speaking about the need for zealous for good works. But we need to remind people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one. to be peaceable, gentle, showing humility towards all men. This is the balance. And unfortunately, there is a need to warn church members and church leaders of foolishness and deception and malice and envy and hatred, even within the church. Look at verse 9. We're on Titus chapter 3 and verse 9. But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless. Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition or warning, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned. There are sadly many unreasonable, misguided people. If you haven't met them yet, you will. They're all around. Misguided, unreasonable, they generate foolish disputes and unprofitable, useless arguments. But we need to beware of being drawn to foolish and fractious arguments which are fruitless, unprofitable, fruitless. And they can be fatal. Bickering and backbiting is often incited by self-willed, self-centered, stubborn people. You get them all over the place. It's staggering how often, it doesn't matter what you could be dealing with, the most important issues on the planet, like God and his will, and his great commission, his law, how to be saved. And somebody comes up with the most unbelievably, what on earth does this have to do with us? And they will argue, and they will fight, and they will do it. Just take from the last week. I get somebody dealing with some issue on social media and this person comes up with Peter Hammond is a fraud because he spoke in R.C. Sproul's church. If R.C. Sproul invited anyone to speak in his church, he obviously isn't a real Christian. He's a complete fraud. He never preaches the gospel. He's never made a stand against Arminianism and so on and so forth. What is he talking about? I mean, R.C. Sproul's one of the finest reformed teachers in the planet. But there's some people who've made their entire life now built on attacking R.C. Sproul. Because something he said which I'm not even sure that I understand what they're talking about, but they reckon that that means that R.C. Sproul's not really reformed. And yet, I mean, this is a man who's probably done more for the Reformation faith and work of apologetics than anybody else in the 20th century, probably the greatest apologist of the 20th century, from a reformed perspective. And yet, somebody has this, now, he doesn't know me, he doesn't know anything about what you've done, So he puts in there, on the basis that I was a guest speaker at R.C. Sproul's church, Peter Hammond has never preached the Gospel, and he has never made a stand for the Reformed faith, and he's never defended the Reformed doctrines, and he's never made a stand against Arminianism. Now, how did he come up with that? Well, you can't if you know anything about where I stand. You can't if you know anything about R.C. Sproul. And yet, somehow, I've heard people damn me to hell because of my friendship with Kwasi Wan's mission, or because of my friendship with David Noble, or because of being a guest speaker at James Kendi's church, because they've got something against these leaders. They can talk for ages and you still don't actually understand what the issue is. But there are people... And then of course, there's others who jump up and... You quote it from a Bible, not the King James. The King James is the only Bible you can use, and so on. And if you're not using the right translations, you're obviously not a real Christian. And people can argue about other things, like, you know, you have the Mark of the Beast. I have the Mark of the Beast. Yes, you worship on Sunday. That's the Mark of the Beast. You've got to worship on Saturday. Dead serious, there are people who will fight on these issues, and this is sometimes the only issue that they will fight on, and they will on and on and on. I mean, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And it's all too easy to let side issues get in the way. There's a bickering spirit with some people, divisive people who try to divide. They'll come in when there's work being done. And, of course, there's no work being done on earth that's perfect. Everybody's got blind sides, weaknesses. None of us, this side of heaven, can claim to anything close to perfect. And so, honestly, to say there's something that you're doing wrong, well, fair enough. Let's see how we can improve. But no, it isn't constructive criticism on how we can be more biblical, how we can be more consistent, how we can be more effective. It's more condemnation. Now how can you tell the difference between constructive criticism and destructive criticism? Constructive criticism comes from a friend or family member, someone who's committed to you, someone who wants you to succeed. So, for example, a coach giving feedback, it's normally going to be constructive because they want you to succeed. It might sound harsh, but it's because they want you to win. They want you to succeed. A good teacher wants you to pass the exam and to excel. A parent should normally want their children to succeed, you would imagine. So, most criticisms that are constructive come from friends and supporters who have invested in your life and who really want you to succeed. And so even if it sounds harsh, if you can see it's coming from someone who's on your side, you've got to accept this is constructive. Destructive criticism comes from an enemy who wants to break you down and wants to see you fail. And so when a person comes up with I've been looking at the scripture, looking at this in your life, and I was wondering, would you consider, maybe you're not being consistent to this past prescription. The person's coming alongside you, they're wanting you to succeed. And even if they're wrong, even if they've misunderstood something, their intention is good. Whereas a person who comes along, you're a useless, worthless, no good, you've always been, you know, you're a false property, well, that person isn't trying to help you, they're not trying to build you up, they're just trying to break you down. And so, obviously, a person who's coming from a destructive point of perspective, you can discount that. But a person who's coming from a constructive perspective, even if they've got some things wrong, It's worth listening to. And if they're wrong, you can try and correct those points. But first of all, one wants to think, why are they saying this? What applies to me? What is relevant? What can I take from it? So we should always seek to be positive. We've got to beware of bondage. Instead of being a blessing, many become a burden. Some freeze in formalism, others fry in fanaticism. Fanaticism is bad, formalism is bad. The person just goes through the empty emotions, nothing in the heart and soul. Well, that's no good. But then there's nothing good in extreme noisy fanaticism either, because just increasing your speed doesn't help if you're going in the wrong direction. A way of bondage, a way of legalism and extremism, both are destructive. And so we commanded to be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable. Profitable. Fruitful. It's productive. It's doing something good. It's advancing the kingdom or building up this person. And we are to be careful to maintain good works. And that includes, Titus says, not to waste our time arguing about things that don't really matter ultimately. Like endless arguments about genealogies and so on. We need to focus on what is biblical, what is relevant, what is edifying, what is actually going to extend the Kingdom of God. Is this actually going to help fighting, arguing over this? We need to choose our battles. Inevitably, even the best pastor is going to say something that's not right or is off-center when it comes about. I mean, we all make mistakes for many different reasons. One can not understand this issue fully or in the best of intentions. And so you can't suddenly declare war on some poor pastor because he said one or two things that you can disagree with him. Really, there's got to be grace. Love covers over a multitude of sins. And we need to be able to look at it and be balanced and pick our battles. When we fight a battle, it better be for a good reason. And the classic example in the 20th century is how the West spent so much time fighting fellow Christians for absolutely no good reason whatsoever, and destroyed themselves. Killed millions of people, flattened and incinerated whole cities. For what? To be able to help the enemies of the Gospel advance ultimately. when you thought you were fighting for civilization, second world war, and end up saving the Soviet Union, you know, really, was that worth it? Was it worth hating one's brother and incinerating their cities and killing their mothers and sisters and daughters just because you somehow talked yourself into the fact that this is a good war? And at the end, everything gets worse and worse, and then you have to keep reminding yourself, But we were the good guys. Well, no, we weren't. We need to focus. What is really going to matter and help in the light of eternity? And what's actually going to extend the kingdom of God? What is the main thing that we need to focus on? Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do to others you want them to do unto you. Fulfill the Great Commission. These are the things that really matter. Making disciples of all nations, teaching obedience to all things the Lord has commanded. That's what really matters. We should focus on what is going to matter in the light of eternity. We need to be separated from sin. Now, there's a lot of our good friends who are separatists. They believe in being separated from that which is wrong. And separation is taught in the Bible, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, speaking about Babylon, the false church, the whole of Babylon. We want to be separate from that which is in rebellion to God. But separation is not the same as isolation. Separation should be separation from direct, formal affiliation with those things which are enemies of God, but not isolation to the extent that we can't minister. Our Lord Jesus, he was called a friend of sinners and tax collectors. He was out there in the streets and he was ministering to the people where they were, and he even interacted with the scribes, the Pharisees, the hypocrites, right in the temple, right up to the high priest. He didn't isolate himself. from those who were the enemies of him. He separated, made a clear division between what they taught and what he taught, and what they stood for and what he stood for. But he was not isolated. He could have been born in a monastery, could have been born in a palace, in a temple, he could have been completely separate from everyone, but he could have floated in a cloud and spoken. He chose to walk on the ground and interact with the people. And we need to not isolate ourselves from the people we call to minister to. So, we need to be aware of those fanatics who lose their direction and double their speed while they're losing direction. That's inevitable. In fact, you often find that people who've got a very weak point, they just scream louder. Increasing the volume doesn't improve the argument. False teachers are almost always hypocrites. They tend to condemn in others what they excuse in themselves. The devious and the divisive They have double standards, and you can see it in so many different levels. Don't censor anything they say. And then they want to censor your free speech or your gospel. They say they should be free to do what they think is right, and then they don't want you to have freedom of conscience. And so there's so much on this line. We know that there's all kinds of double standards. But we need to distinguish between the constructive criticism of the people who are trying to help us and build us up, and the destructive from enemies who want us to fall and fail. In the book of Titus, The wicked are described now, just summarized from the different descriptions, all through Titus there's descriptions of the wicked. These are words quoted from Titus. The wicked are defiled in mind, defiled in their conscience. They're unbelieving, liars, lazy gluttons, giving heed to Jewish fables. They profess to know God, but in their works they deny him. They are abominable, disobedient, disqualified, pilfering, slanderers, greedy, living in sin, malicious, envious, hateful, divisive, and warped. That's how the book of Titus describes the wicked. And we've got to be very careful we're not on that list, and we've got to be able to recognize that in others. But the book of Titus also describes those who are disqualified for church leadership, those who are self-willed, quick-tempered, drunkards, violent, greedy, insubordinate, idle talkers, deceivers, subverters, lazy liars, and gluttons. So the book of Titus has got for us a very clear picture of what is negative out there and what is negative within ourselves that we need to fight against. Titus 3 verse 14, and let our people also learn to maintain good works, to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful. The big concern here of the Apostle Paul writing in the book of Titus, do not be unfruitful. We want to be productive, we want to be fruitful. What is the fruit we often want? Fruit of the Spirit is the first step. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. But I think they're also speaking in terms of fruit in the sense of harvest, in the sense of souls being saved, lives being changed, people being discipled, people being mentored. What is the fruit of one's ministry? What is the fruit of one's life? What are we producing? What are we leaving for future generations? What is the sum total of our work and our witness? So we must not be unfruitful, we must maintain good works. So we need to take initiative, we need to work hard, we need to be zealous and enthusiastic and productive. The Lord commands us to be zealous, he commands us to be fruitful, and then he warns us not to be foolish. not to be fractious or divisive, not to be fruitless, which fanatics inevitably are. Their ministries often are very fruitless. Now, we're not talking about the fact that they can't fill large stadiums with people wanting to listen to their false prophecies. Fruitless in the sense of eternal fruit. Change, transformed, redeemed, sanctified lives, and impact on community, you know, good things. But fanaticism can be fateful. can be fatal. There's a couple of examples in scripture of this kind of misguided fanaticism. Take Luke 9, Luke chapter 9 verse 51 to 56. We read of two of the Lord's disciples who responded to rejection in a Samaritan village. So this village rejected the Lord. And so they probably thought the Lord would be impressed with them saying this. They said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did? And she'll quote, pulling rank by quoting Elijah as an example, made them feel extra super spiritual. But the Lord turned and rebuked them and said, you do not know what men of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. Now, they really got the wrong end of the stick. They were zealous, they were enthusiastic in fact. I don't think we can question their loyalty to the Lord Jesus, but their zeal was harming the work of the Kingdom of God. God had another fire in mind for Samaria. In fact, a revival fire fell on Samaria in the Book of Acts, as Samaria turned to Christ and received the power of the Holy Spirit, and good things happened. But it was a refining fire of spiritual empowerment for evangelism, not a destructive fire. which, unfortunately, James and John were thinking about. And so, Luke 9 warns us that even two of the closest disciples, who later had lived very fruitful lives, but they had a misguided zeal at this point that needed to be rebuked, because they were thinking in a completely unproductive, in fact, destructive way. And then, in Luke 22 verse 47 on, we read of the Apostle Peter's misguided zeal in the garden of Gethsemane. I mean, the Lord had asked them to watch and pray. They were sleeping when they should have been watching and praying. And the spirit might be willing, but the flesh is weak often. And so when the apostle Peter woke up, and there's the Lord being betrayed by Judas with a kiss, and He's about to be arrested by the guards from the temple, and the first response of the Apostle Peter is to draw his sword, run out there, and start slashing. And his aim wasn't very good, because he gets the ear of some poor man, Malchus, who's a servant, shepherd of the high priest. He's not actually the enemy. I'm sure he's aiming at his head, not his ear. So he had misguided zeal in every way, but he's using the wrong weapon at the wrong time, with the wrong energy and the wrong attitude that's directed at the wrong target. I mean, he's not even going for Judas or the high priest's key person himself. No, he's going for Malchus. What kind of testimony would this be for the Lord? Imagine if Malchus' ear had not been healed by the Lord. How did you lose your ear? Oh, one of the disciples of Jesus chopped my ear off. What a testimony would that be? And here, there's no question that Apostle Peter was loyal to Jesus. He was zealous, he was enthusiastic, but it was in the wrong direction, misguided. And on this occasion, why did he react so badly? He'd been sleeping when he should have been awake. He had been sleeping when he should have been praying. He was talking when he should have been listening. When the Lord was explaining and warning him ahead of time at the Last Supper, he was talking and arguing with the Lord instead of listening to the warning that he has been given. So he is asleep when he should have been praying, he was talking when he should have been listening, and he directed the sword at the wrong person at the wrong time and actually interfered in the Lord's plan of salvation. The Lord wasn't a helpless victim. No one takes my life from me, he said. I lay it down at my own free will. The Lord with a word could have destroyed that entire group coming to Jerusalem. He could have destroyed Jerusalem with a word. He could have called on ten legions of angels to wipe out everybody on planet Earth. I mean, the Lord was not helpless. This was not out of his control. He didn't need Peter's puny sword and his weak arm and bad aim. He could have easily handled the situation. He was choosing to give himself up. No one was taking his life from him. This is misguided zeal. So if Peter, James, and John, three of the closest of the disciples, if they could have been guilty of misguided zeal, how easy is it for us to be guilty of misguided zeal? Sometimes we can have all of our energy and all of our enthusiasm directed in the wrong direction and doing more harm to the Kingdom of God than actually good. And we know there are people out there who, instead of fighting the enemies of God, they're busy fighting fellow Christians. Instead of using their energy to spread the gospel, they spread gossip. Instead of preaching the gospel, they attack what type of Bible translations people are using. Instead of worshipping the Lord, they're quibbling with people because they think they're worshipping on the wrong day of the week. Honestly, is this really the kind of direction that Christians should be involved in? Enthusiasm is good. Extremism is bad. Extremism hurts the very cause it seeks to serve. How often is there a person who, in being more zealous than their followers, the followers can be more zealous than the leaders, have brought disgrace on the cause. I mean, I just think of many people who, I could say, caused a lot of damage. I remember just some EE fanatics that I've dealt with who, James Kendi would have been horrified to know what they were doing in the name of him. There are people out there trying to use way of the master techniques who would horrify Ray Comfort if he knew how they were abusing. There are people who have been frontline who have humiliated and embarrassed me when I've discovered what they've done in the name of trying to advance what they think Frontline should stand for. There are people from Costa Banta Mission who have been so judgmental and harsh which I know the leaders would never accept. I know Uncle Erla would never have accepted things that I've heard people say in his name and in the name of their mission. It's very bad. Extremism can hurt the cause of Christ even more than enemies of the gospel can. A communist cannot cause as much damage to the church as a misguided Christian can. with extreme zeal and fanaticism misdirected in the wrong direction. So we need to choose our battles wisely. We need to choose our weapons carefully. We need to examine our attitudes in the light of Scripture. Godly zeal advances the cause of Christ, and it works for the fulfillment of the Great Commission, to the glory of God. But fanaticism is foolish, and it's fractious, and it's fruitless, and it's often even fatal. Zeal builds up. Fanaticism breaks down, and that's the difference. Self-denial can be taken to an extreme. I mean, the Lord gives us virtually all things to enjoy. There's a time and there's a need for sacrifice, but we have to be joyful, always praying continually and giving thanks in all circumstances. There's a time for every season under heaven. We need to be biblical, balanced, and bold. It's important to study the Bible. In fact, we all should do it a lot more. But you can't only read the Bible. When somebody asked Charles Spurgeon, what's more important, to read the Bible or to pray? He said, which is more important for you, to breathe in or to breathe out? You need both. How on earth can you live without breathing? If you only breathed in, you'd die. If you only breathed out, you'd die. You need to breathe in, and you need to breathe out. You need to hear from God, and you need to pray to God. We need to listen to what God's saying in the scripture, and we need to pray to God. Breathing in, breathing out, you can't choose which is more important. Charles Bird's was quite right. They're both equally important. It's insane for a person to elevate one to the detriment of the other. And we've got to have this balance. It's like, which is more important, my right leg or my left leg? Well, actually, you need two legs to make progress. If you're just going to hop around on one leg, or for Bird, it's only to have one wing. Is that really very helpful? I mean, it can't go very far if they've only got one wing. And some Christians have got one thing. They're a single-stringed person. They've just one particular cause or issue, and they will just beat that to death and irritate and frustrate everyone around them to the detriment. Sadly, those people have got this gift of criticism. and a ministry of discouragement, and they do a lot of damage. And if only you could take that energy and that enthusiasm and direct it towards the enemy and let them go, I mean, they could do some good. But unfortunately, they're normally doing the damage amongst servants of God, often trying to do something good. It was well said to me by one missionary in the field, he said, when God gives you something important to do, the devil has people to come and waste your time. And that's true as well. So self-denial is important, but we can't be fasting the whole time. You can't be self-denying the whole time. You can't be in your closet praying the whole time. Sometimes it's a sin to pray. Like when Joshua's lying on his face before the Lord in the tabernacle, what more holy thing can he do in a more holy place? And God comes and says, what are you doing, lying down on your face? Get up. It was more important for him to go and deal with sin in the camp than to pray in the tabernacle at that moment. There are times that we think that we're being super spiritual. Meanwhile, we're avoiding what God really wants done. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is play with the grandchildren. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take out the garbage, fix the gutters, fix the leak. There's a whole lot of things that are important things to do. We can't be so super spiritual that we miss the important things we've got to do in the course of a balanced duty. Being balanced and biblical is important. And so we want to be bold. But we must first be sure we're being biblical, and biblical is a balance, and that includes that we are raising our children in love and fear of the Lord, that we are investing our lives in what really matters, that we're not leaving things to others. Sometimes you get people who are so super spiritual, everyone around them curses them because they don't do the practical things they're meant to be doing. And they sometimes will use that as an excuse. So it's important that we are zealous, not fanatical. And there's a time for every season under heaven. So here we've got in Titus 2 verse 13 to 14, the key verse, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of a great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people or peculiar people, zealous for good works. God has called us to do a whole lot of good works. Now, the work is important, the worship is important, the Bible study is important, the prayer is important. It's all important. We can't say, well, I'm going to choose this and ignore all the rest. God's got a whole lot of duties for us to do on any given day, and we cannot do violence to our duties on our family, on our congregation, or in our home, or to our relatives, in our community, in our workplace. All of these are important. We've got commitments and duties, and God's will is that we fulfill those duties. It's spelled out even in what we were reading now in Titus 2 at lunchtime, the specific instructions being given to everybody in each category of study. Now to the older men I say to this, to the younger men I say this now, to the older women I say this now, to the younger women I say that, to the servants I say this now, to the masters I say that. And there's duties and responsibilities in all these areas, and that's part of being biblical and being balanced. And we need to make sure that we are building up with godly zeal, not breaking down with fanatical misguided enthusiasm. So, Comments? Observations? I'm sure you've all got some examples that have come to mind while I've been talking. I haven't seen it yet, no. How can you, how would you say you can strengthen your zeal through the form of some personalities who are given zeal, like new believers or visionary? Obviously, praying the psalms will definitely kickstart almost any kind of devotional life and help one to be balanced because in the psalms, we've got 150 psalms which are covering the full spectrum of anybody's life. It's everything from battle, family, suffering, sickness, grieving, rejoicing. It's all there in the psalms. So I think praying the psalms will ensure a good, healthy balance, working our way through all the psalms, a healthy balance in our devotional life and in our prayers. And it really does kick-start one's devotional life and one's prayers and give one a perspective, including a lot of it is jarring to us because some of it is so harsh when we think, What's that doing in the Bible? But it's just showing there is a time and a place for scriptures. There's a time for love. There's a time for hate. There's a time to kill. There's a time to heal. There's a time to build up. There's a time to break down. There's a time to dance. There's a time to refrain from dancing. And everything is there balanced in Ecclesiastes 3. So I think in Psalms, you are being challenged to a full-orbed perspective on work and worship and witness, which That's probably one of the most significant things. The other thing is putting feet to our faith and getting out into the streets. There's nothing that improves your spiritual life, I think, more than getting out in regular witness to people. Because in your witness, you will reach people who will give you a challenge that you don't know how to answer. And that often stimulates more studyism. Let me do some more research. I'll get back to you next week." And you go back and now you're highly motivated because you know the person or the people this is connected with. And if you're just in your closet the whole time praying, you're not going to get much stimulation for how to pray or how to study or how to hone your skills. That's why it's the interaction on the street. And again, Jesus could have just He was born in a temple and issued forth instructions from there, but he was walking the streets of Galilee. He was out there with the people, even the Samaritans and the Romans, everyone interacting with him. And that is our example. Our example is that we need to be getting out into the world and making an impact. And I think many people have misinterpreted the Great Commission now that, go into all the world, open up churches, and invite the sinners to come. Now, there's a place for churches. Churches are vital, but it's there to prepare and equip the people of God for the work of service in the community. It's not an alternative to people going into the community and evangelism. It's the place where we train Christians and disciple new converts, but it's not the primary place for evangelism. The primary place for evangelism is actually in the daily work where the church members are interacting with people, whether it's in school or the workplace or strangers in the shop. So again and again, we've just got to see there's a tendency in human nature to want to retreat. And that's why I think one of the ongoing themes of George Fevers, get out of your comfort zone. When God pushes us out of our comfort zone, that's why we often experience revival in the field, because we're put in dangerous situations. When your life's at stake and when a vehicle's broken down and the bridge is blown up or washed away in a flood and you've got no more provisions and there's all kinds of problems coming in and the antennas are overhead, well, that can revive your prayer life, whereas if you're in a comfort zone, you can just drift off into backsliding and apathy. And that's the danger. So putting ourselves out in a situation where we need to trust in the Lord will definitely, I think, help our zeal. I think also that made me think of what David Levinson said. I beg to direct your attention to Africa, will you carry out the work which I have begun? And then when Mary Smith read that, she was like, So she did not ignore it, she looked into it and then she went. And I think when we look at examples, like Hebrews and other kind of examples of faith, but also examples we have now of people who go to places where there is need. I think God revealed to different people different needs. And like, for example, to Hunter, like revealing there's a whole work-off that needs to be done. reach that we see maybe someone on the street that we can keep a track to or so on. When God revealed to you a need, that you need to act on that, and that actually is also like growing your zeal. And also to not do godly things that is not God's will for you to do, because we can easily get so busy with so many things, as you said as well, and then it's actually not the thing that you are meant to be doing, even though it is God. So that's why it's important to pray, to do the things that God wants you to do, that he puts in front of you. And to pray for it, to reveal the need that he wants you to minister to. Yes, I was just thinking again how therapeutic it is to respond to commands in the scripture with obedience. It's very therapeutic. I really was so blessed that the first time I heard the Gospel, I went forward and surrendered my life to Christ. And the first time I heard of baptism being command of Scripture, I went and joined a baptismal class. And the first missionary who came past church, I went and joined his mission. It was just so easy. You respond to them, and that just opened up whole new challenges and blessings in life. Volunteer, get involved. And yet, the average person, just think how stifling theological college can be. If you're hearing great, wonderful, tremendous, inspiring truths, but you just suppress it. I'll get around to applying that in a few years' time. That's deadly. It's so much better when, as you hear it, you get out and you apply it. That's the best. Because to get into a habit of responding to God's word with inactivity is just deadly. Responding to God's word with action, that's energising, that's really powerful. And to try and teach that to new converts to, you know, whatever the Lord tells you to do, do it. Mary said to the people at Capernaum, whatever he tells you to do, do it. I mean, that's the most therapeutic thing you can do. It's really exciting to have a new convert who just takes everything in the Bible seriously and wants to do what God's telling him to do. Because most in the church have gotten into a habit of hearing great truths without doing anything about it. And that's just shocking. It's like water off a duck's back sort of thing. Yes, I think the report was that an ounce of practice outweighs a ton of theory, something like that. Yeah. There's also the danger, just the example of theological college. There's also a danger of having, I mean, you're supposed to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and soul. There's a danger of just loving the Lord with all your strength, but not having any theology to back it up. That's the other extreme. Yeah, just there are more dangers because they're impacting a lot of other people. So sometimes the OK thing to do is spend Yes, well, but as long as the theological college is going to be putting the people out in the streets regularly. So for example, Bill Baffin said at BJU, the theological students, they would have them every weekend out preaching, ministering. And that's what the Bible mission used to do, that every weekend they were in the churches, in the prison, in the hospitals doing it. Now that's healthy. It's very unhealthy to just get training and wear your mask, don't dare go out because you might catch some virus or something. That's deadly. That's living in fear, that's not the way God works. So yes, Todd Phil emphasized the importance that, he says a lot of the heretics, the biggest names in theology, biggest names in televangelism have no theological training, have never even God and Bible scholars have no understanding of what they're talking about. In fact, just the most basic first-year student could be pointing out to him, you're way off track, that scripture doesn't say anything whatsoever about what you're claiming it says and so on. So, unfortunately, the greatest heretics out there are self-taught people who haven't bothered to sit under the teaching of anyone, they haven't learned either from the books of the past or from the teachers who've studied it. Now, When you think of someone like Charles Spurgeon, he's one of the only successful preachers I can think of who had no formal theological training. But he read libraries of books. He had read all the Puritans. He said he read Pilgrim's Proverbs 100 times in his lifetime. And so this man was so well read that that made up for the fact he didn't have the formal instruction. So fair enough, but he's the exception. But the rule is that we all need to sit at the feet of someone. Well, he sat voluntarily at the feet of the authors that he was reading. I was astounded how much there was to learn at college. I was very negative about going to college because of my pre-mill, pre-trip, dispensational, end times fanaticism at the time. I mean, here's an example. misguided zeal. I was super zealous in the wrong direction because my understanding of the end times was There wasn't time for discipleship, there wasn't time for family, there wasn't time for college or study, because the Lord's coming soon, so I just had to go out like an evangel maniac and do hit-and-run evangelism as fast as possible. This Lord is coming maybe before the end of the month, Paul, aren't you? Certainly before the end of the year. So that meant there was no long-term goal. It was just very short-term. That's not healthy either. And that's the kind of misguided zeal we need to guard against. It would have really helped to have had some good teaching right at the beginning. I spent about five years on this distraction. My first mission to Mozambique, I took only New Testaments because I didn't want to confuse them with the Old Testaments. I didn't take whole Bibles, for example. That mentality of, I would have called myself a New Testament Christian. There's no such thing in the Bible as a New Testament Christian. You can only be a Bible Christian. 2 Timothy 3, 16, 17, all scriptures in spite of God. Well, Thessalonians is one of the, or Timothy and Thessalonians is some of the first books in the Bible written. And the scripture they're talking about is the Old Testament. What is a New Testament Christian? There isn't a New Testament Christian in the New Testament. There are Bible Christians. And for me to have deliberately written off two-thirds of the scriptures because I'm a New Testament Christian, that's just another example of a misguided zeal. And can people think of other examples of how we get awfully misguided? I mean, the Sabbath is one. The Saturday Sabbath. Eschatology. Eschatology, definitely. That's part of it. Yep. That's one of the big, big, big deals. End times and the Sabbath. They reckon Saturday Sabbath is it. And anyone who worships on Sunday has got the mark of the beast. I think even now with COVID, our churches are being divided and so on. That's also, I think, getting distracted. Very sad. Because people are not willing to they don't kind of get pride. It's this is my way of feeling about it, this is your way of feeling about it. So we can't be brothers and sisters because we disagree on this point. I don't think that's constructive. Even for issues like Arminianism versus Calvinism, you often get people not wanting to work together or damning each other to help because you're not Calvinist, you're not Arminian. So focus on the fact that they're condemning each other. Yes, just thinking on that, you've got someone as strongly Calvinist as Whitefield. And George Whitefield and John Wesley had a lot of arguments about Arminianism versus the reform position. And yet they were friends, and Whitefield said that he wanted John Wesley to preach at his funeral, which he did. and that they could still have a graciousness even while they disagreed heavily. You take someone like Charles Spurgeon, who was a super serious Puritan Calvinist, but he had D. L. Moody, an Armenian, preaching from his pulpit in the tabernacle, too, because he recognized, D. L. Moody's a great evangelist. I mean, he's a brother in Christ. He may not agree on a lot of important theological issues, but this is also part of it. The persecuted church needs to serve the persecuted church. I was horrified to get a letter just this last week when we sent out the reminder about the murder of all the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Orthodox Christians by the Turks back 1915 to 1923. And April is, normally April 24th is the year, dating the year when they remember this, because that's when it started. I got the most wicked response from somebody saying, who cares what these idolatrous, false Christians suffered? They just got what they deserved. I don't care about any Armenian Orthodox and so on. I'd like to write back to this person and say, these are people who are willing to suffer for Christ, who've died for Christ, who have stood for generations in the Muslim Middle East, standing up for Christ, when it would be all too easy to just convert to Islam, and not only save their lives, but make their lives so much more comfortable and easy, and yet you've got these comfortable Christians in the West, who think that they're spiritually superior to people who've got the marks of persecution on their bodies. Richard Wilmbrough, who's a Lutheran, he wrote one of his books on, if this was Christ, would you give him your blanket? It was about an orthodox priest in his prison cell. Now, of course, he's Lutheran, that's just orthodox. I mean, there's serious disagreements there. And yet, when they ended up in the same prison cell, He said, you know, whatever you've done to one of these, he's my brethren, you've done unto me. And he believed that Jesus would have him give his blanket to this Orthodox priest. In that cell, does it matter what denominational background you've got? That person's suffering for us, I'm suffering for us. As a mission to the Persky Church, it's changed our way of thinking. Because when I was first converted, I thought all the best Christians are Baptists. It's not that I thought the only Christians were Baptists, I recognised there were others. There were Christians, but we were the best. And this kind of attitude, like remember this arrogant attitude that you heard in a Baptist college was, The Methodists carry the hymn book to church. The Anglicans carry the prayer book to church. We Baptists, we carry the Bible to church. And there was something vaguely true about it at the time, but honestly, I don't think anyone's carrying anything to church these days. The average one isn't even carrying a prayer book, hymn book, because they're normally there or it's on the screen. So even that's out of date. That was a 1970s comment. The idea that somehow our denomination was better than the rest, it didn't take me much traveling to find some extraordinarily great Christians in so many other denominations. It was humbling. For example, I would have looked down upon Orthodox and Coptic, but when you see how much these people have been willing to suffer for Christ in Egypt and in the mountains of Sudan, how can you not recognize them as brothers in Christ? So I just am horrified that there's people out there who could literally say, who cares about the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Orthodox Christians who were wiped out by the millions, by the Turks in 1915 to 1920? Who cares? They got what they deserved. You know, now that's the kind of thing that I think the Lord's speaking about in that verse that's been the most misquoted and probably the best-known verse in the modern culture, judge not that you be not judged. Because that's a judging in a condemning way as opposed to a discerning way. And to condemn others, you know, condemn not, for you'll be Condemned by the same measure that you've condemned others. Now if somebody sitting in California is reckoning, these are Syrian and Orthodox Christians who suffered in the Middle East. They're getting what they deserved. Watch out. If God was to judge you Californian Christians, for example, or Capetonian Christians by the standards Do we not reap what we sow? What should God say to a society that has not only tolerated homosexual perversion, child abuse, abortion, all these evils? If we are to condemn other people far away when we don't even understand most of what's going on in their life, what, by that standard, should God do with us and the people we love around us? So it's a frightful thing when people get to that kind of condemning mentality. So we need high standards, but I think one of the things I like is something I heard at the AAB at a holiness convention by Roger Voge. He said, others may, you may not. Always have a higher stand for yourself than you have for others. Hypocrites have a higher stand for others than they have for themselves. We need to be very critical of ourselves, but we need to be a lot more gracious for those around us. And that is safe. because unfortunately human nature is... I can excuse my sins because my motives are good. Totally damning to somebody else who's doing the same thing or even less. And that's typical human nature, but real Christianity should be far more critical of ourselves and far more gracious to others.