Dennis Tuuri

We’ll be dealing with all these verses from Matthew 18 that we read. However, we’ll be especially looking at verses 15 through 18 dealing with the discipline that God has charged his church to engage in. We have been going through a series of lessons relative to the covenant of Reformation Covenant Church. We interrupt that series of messages for today’s message. I would have several weeks ago chosen a different topic for this morning, but because of circumstances in our church that we have to deal with, we are obliged to look at this passage now and to teach from it.

And for that, we should thank God. For our visitors here today, I would normally have liked to spend Sunday close to the 4th of July discussing some of the ramifications of true biblical patriotism. But we won’t be able to address those subjects today. We’ll be dealing with Matthew 18. And the title of my talk will be “Test and Evaluation.” I suppose it has applications also for our country in the time of testing and evaluation that we’ll be going through.

But in any event, we’ll deal with testing and evaluation today from Matthew 18, specifically from verses 15-18. We have basically a three-point alliterated outline. The first things we’ll talk about: What are the conditions of the passage of scripture we’ll be discussing? Under those conditions, the three points will be one, we have children talked about. Two, there is sin in the context of the conditions of that passage of scripture. And thirdly, there are those who would put millstones around children’s necks, wolves as it were among the fold.

Second point will be the corrective measures that God requires of his church when such things occur. The three points that we’ll go through there is to tell, to establish, and then finally to bind. The third point of the outline will be the consequences of that action being blessings and cursings and evaluation of the test that has gone through.

That’s my outline. It’s important to recognize that the scriptures are a unit in Matthew 18 as a whole, that there’s context to the disciplinary procedures required of God’s church in the verses we’ll be talking about. It’s important therefore as we begin to discuss God’s test and evaluation being described herein and that it comes to our lives frequently. We understand the context of those procedures that are to be followed out.

I might mention here also that this talk may go a little longer than normal, but I think that the subject matter is extremely important both for this church and for the churches of our country today to bring them back to a biblical position in terms of the purity and the peace of God’s church.

So first of all, the conditions of the context of these verses. In verses 3-14 precedes, of course, verse 15, and I think gives the proper context of the understanding to what occurs in those sections of scripture that we’re more familiar with in terms of going to a person, then with two or three, and then going to the church. But first of all, in that context or conditions of the corrective measure we’ll be talking about, we have obviously children being talked about, and the response of Christ talking about children of course is to a query about who’s the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Christ reminds his disciples that they must be like his children. They must be humble, as it were, as children are humble.

And so we then have a passage of scripture where our Lord tells us various things about children. And understand here he’s not just talking about physically young children. He’s talking about believers. He’s talking about who is in the kingdom of heaven. Children. And in another portion of the scripture, the context that talks about the children as being sheep. The sheep who tend to go astray. So we’re talking about children and sheep being one element of the church, which is actually the conditions or context of the verses in verses 15-18 we’ll be talking about.

The context is the church, and in the church you have children or sheep. That’s one group of people within the church. Those sheep or children, as we said, are humble—number one—but they’re also prone to offenses—number two. Our Lord tells us in these verses here, from in the first few verses of Matthew 18, that woe upon those who have caused the children to be offended or to stumble. Now it’s important as you look at these verses and the frequent use of the term offend or offenses that you understand what that word means.

The Greek word is skandalon, which is of course transliterated into our verb scandalized—to make scandalous. And it doesn’t mean to be offended in the sense of, you know, not liking what somebody does. It means to be offended to the point that you trip, that you stumble, that you fall, that you sin is what’s going on here. You see, the children, some of the children in the church will trip and they’ll stumble, and there’ll be people who cause those children in the church to trip or stumble.

So the children or the sheep are prone to offenses. They’re prone to stray, as it were, as sheep are prone to do. I always think of that one hymn where one of the lines goes, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” And we all have, because of our fallen Adamic nature, although restored now in Jesus Christ to a dominical calling. We still have a tendency to sin in our lives. And 1 John tells us that people say they don’t sin—they’re lying, quite frankly.

So we do have a tendency to wander, to stray, and to be prone to offenses that would cause us to trip and to stumble. Verses 3-14 really, I think the main thing that’s being taught there is the weakness and vulnerability of members of the church. It may sound a little funny, but that is a good counterbalance to the other portions of scripture we know teaches us that all things work together for good to them that are called of God. We’ve stressed that in the last couple of talks on God’s sovereignty and salvation. But it’s important to recognize too that though that’s true and though we’re elected of God, we do have a tendency to go off beam and to fall into sin. And so God is giving us some corrective measures here to help prevent that.

The third thing you want to that you should notice about these children or sheep in the context of the church is that they’re greatly cherished by God. Christ says that woe to that man who puts a millstone around one of these children’s neck, or rather, that causes one of these children to stumble. Woe to the person supposed that person would have a millstone tied around their neck. It’s a tremendous judgment against the person who would cause one of his little ones or his children to stumble.

Now remember, we have the biblical principle throughout the scripture in terms of justice of an eye for an eye. The lex talionis, the law of the talion, and what God requires in terms of restitution. If the penalty for the man who causes the child to stumble is a millstone tied around their neck, that means that God cherishes those ones he’s trying to protect greatly, because there’s a great judgment placed upon those who cause them to stumble.

Additionally, Christ says here that if you’ve got 100 sheep and 99 are there and one is strayed, you’ll leave those 99 to go after that one who’s strayed. He’s that important. After all, these children, these sheep who are prone to wander, the children who are weak, are the ones that Christ came to provide his work for. That’s why the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost, to have that corrective, restorative attitude toward those he called into his elect congregation.

So the children of sheep are greatly cherished by God. There’s a warning in the context of these teachings about children being prone to offense and sheep being prone to stumble in verse 10: “Take heed that you despise not one of these little ones.” It’s true that they’re weak. It’s true that we all tend to stumble, but we shouldn’t despise the church of God because of that. We shouldn’t look down. That’s what the word means—to look down or count them and to disesteem them. We shouldn’t do that because they’re cherished by God.

Now, the fourth thing that’s important in the context of all of this is to remember that the children are also responsible. They may be prone to wander. There may be others who pull them off the course, but they’re responsible for their actions. In Psalm 119:165, there’s another corrective of God for this sort of situation. That verse reads: “They that love God’s law have great peace and nothing shall offend them.” If we love God’s law and keep in it, we should be able to resist the temptations that will come upon us through those that would cause us to stumble.

The children are responsible. Now, still, it’s a grievous thing for them to fall and God counts a heavy thing against the one who would cause it. But the children are ultimately responsible for their own activity. To blame the environment, to blame other people for our willful acts of disobedience is sin, pure and simple, and should not be tolerated in the church of God.

So, one part of the context is the children. The second part of the context of the situation here is sin. And it’s obvious that what we’re talking about here is children stumbling or sinning. Those who would cause children to stumble, they’re sinning. So, there’s sin in the context of the church. And in any church situation, you’re going to have children and you’re going to have sin going on.

Notice here that there’s two kinds of sin, though. On the one hand, you have the sheep who are straying, right? And that’s a sin—them to stray from the straight and narrow. But you also have those who would go after the sheep and cause them offense, and they’re slaying. So, you’ve got straying and slaying going on here. Two kinds of sin. And it’s not always obvious when a person’s being dealt with, which sort of sin is being dealt with. Is the person falling short of the mark or is the person rejecting God’s law for himself?

So have sin. Thirdly, in the context, you have those who would trip the children. After all, we’re talking here in the context of people who would cause the little children to be offended or to fall. And so that’s important part of the context also.

In any church of Jesus Christ, you’re going to have sheep, you’re going to have lambs, you’re going to have sin, and you’re going to have wolves in sheep’s clothing. You’re going to have those people in the congregation who will attempt to cause the children to stumble or maybe will cause the children to stumble even though not intending to do so. Okay?

So the context also includes a group of people that are trippers, as it were. Notice with this particular group of people, first of all, the severity of God’s judgment upon them. Verse 6 says that man would have a millstone wrapped around his neck and thrown into the ocean. That’s a severe judgment and it should remind us of other portions of scripture where we read about millstones. Abimelech was killed by a millstone cast from the hand of a woman. And I think it’s not at all stretching the point to see a head being crushed by a work stone, a stone used to grind wheat, after all, and used in dominical tasks. That stone is used to crush his head.

Last week when Reverend Jones was here and talked on the book of Deborah, he talked about Sisera’s head being crushed by Jael, the tent peg, and I believe he made allusion there also to the corollaries and parallelisms you can draw between that and Satan’s head being crushed by Jesus Christ. James B. Jordan in his commentary on the book of Judges that Reverend Jones is using during these studies at his own church pulls out that significance, and I think it’s proper. The millstone is seen as a weapon of destruction against the enemies of God. And here it’s the same thing. His head isn’t crushed, but it’s wrapped around his head. He still has this fatal thing tied to his head and cast into the ocean.

It’s the same way that Jesus comes to crush the head of Satan. Now, we know that the pit that Satan is actually thrown into, and those who fall, is worse than this lake. Even simple drowning isn’t like it. It’s eternal torment. It’s not cooling or freezing. It’s hot. Babylon itself, by the way, is talked about in the book of Revelation. An angel throws a millstone into the ocean and talks about the fall of Babylon being synonymous with that casting of the millstone into the ocean.

So here again, we see the severity of God’s judgment upon those who would cause little ones to stumble. They are, as it were, likened to being of the kingdom of Satan and under his dominion and deserving his punishment. They’re plucked out of the body. I think it is important to understand this context so that you see, when you see talking about the body in these verses—and if your right hand offend thee, or if your eye offend thee, to pluck it out—it’s not talking about, it is talking about you individually of course, but it’s also talking about the body of Jesus Christ. And if there is an element of that body that is bringing damage to the rest of the body and is unrepentant and is demonstrating that it isn’t really of that body, it should be plucked out and thrown away, lest the whole body should stumble.

The severity of God’s judgment upon those who would cause little children to stumble or sheep to stray. Secondly, notice in relationship to those trippers: they’re responsible for their actions. Verse 7: “Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offenses cometh.” Offenses will come. It’s part of the eternal decree of God and his providence. But woe to that man by whom they come.

And this is what we talked about a couple of weeks ago in relationship to God’s sovereignty and his providence and his decree—that God works all these things out. We’re responsible for our actions. However, God has decreed that these offenses would come for good reasons. Some of the reasons we’re going to talk about a little later in terms of evaluation of the tests that come upon us. God decrees them, but man is responsible when he joins into that action.

Matthew 26:24 says, “The Son of Man goeth as it is written according to the decree of God, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would have been good for that man to not have been born.” The dual statements here of God’s sovereignty and God’s decree and man’s responsibility when he sins.

Acts 2:23, you pointed that out two weeks ago that Jesus Christ—talking about Jesus Christ him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Christ being delivered up by the decree of God. “Ye have taken, and by wicked hands have murdered and slain.” Their hands weren’t clean because it was part of God’s decree. They had wicked hands. They were responsible for their actions. And so it is for these people that would cause offenses to come. Offenses will come, but woe to that man by whom they cometh.

Third, notice about these trippers: their environment. These people that would trip up children, cause sheep to go astray, are found in the context of the church. It’s in the church that these people do their work. Throughout the scriptures, you have those sort of references. We’ve talked about that a little bit already, but it’s important to recognize here that in this context, the ones we must deal with are not outsiders. The discipline given to us in Matthew 18 is to be exercised within the context of the church, within the context of a so-called brother or one who we believe to be a brother, and yet doesn’t come to repentance.

Those are the people it’s talked about here are causing offense. So that’s the context. We have lambs, we have sin, and we have wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Secondly, the corrective. And this whole thing, the whole context, in other words, there’s two types of people in the church. There’s only two kinds of people in the world. Those who are called by God and those who aren’t. And in the church, there are those same two kinds of people. And we know that people aren’t neutral. That people are in movement. They’re either moving closely toward God or they’re moving further away from God. And some of these things we’re going to talk about help us to discern what direction that movement is in. It makes it clear. It reveals God’s standing in relationship to that person.

We have two kinds of people here. We have two kinds of sin. We have straying. We have slaying. How do we evaluate correctly those actions that go on in our church? How do we decide if the offense has been given? If there’s a sin, if it’s a falling short of the mark or if it’s an antinomianism, a rejection of God’s law. How do we evaluate these sort of things?

There’s this church is in the context of these verses on two different matters at the present time. Now, in one of those matters, it appears—I want to stress that it appears—that the method of evaluation is one of convenience for the church involved, to wash the hands of a person, get rid of them—the method of convenience. And so some of these steps we’re talking about weren’t followed. Okay? We don’t want to evaluate those sort of actions by appealing to our own sense of convenience.

There are other churches that believe it’s proper to deal with them such matters totally by discretion. I was told of another church in the area by one of the pastors of that church that when they had sin in their congregation, they simply got rid of the man—had a position, a staffing position at the church. In this particular case, a man was fooling around with women, grievous sexual sins, but there was no following Matthew 18 in terms of telling it to the church, in a public censure of that person. They were evaluating the actions on the basis of discretion and their personal convenience again. And so they just got rid of the man, said “Get out of here, go to another church.”

That man went to another church and served under another pastor, and him and that pastor for a year had relationships with the same girl. Had an affair with the same girl. That church that didn’t deal with him correctly, and according to Matthew 18 and according to the command hands of God throughout the scriptures through the process which we’re going to talk about here, the church that didn’t correct that is responsible for some of the actions of that man. The scriptures are clear. The case law. If we don’t tell forth the case that we evidence about a case that we know, if we don’t bring it to trial, if we don’t do what we can to correct the situation using God’s measures, we’re responsible for the actions of that person as well.

We don’t want to use discretion—that’s not the overall guiding pattern for what we want to do in terms of church action. We don’t want to use our convenience. We certainly can’t do it by appearances.

I don’t know if any of you watched what’s that—I think it’s called 1986, maybe a little magazine format show—last week, and they had a segment on Ted Bundy. There’s a perfect example of: you cannot judge a man. You can’t judge a book by its cover. You can’t always judge a man on the basis of external appearances. Ted Bundy, although a grievous murderer (he should have been executed long ago, another subject), but you know, he fooled people because they were judging not by righteous judgment, not by the law of God. They were judging by external appearances. He looks good, talks good, persuasive sort of man.

I was thinking that a good counterbalance to that would be the case of Jean-Claude Van Damme. For those of you who know who he is, an actor who is involved in athletics, he doesn’t look good at all. You know, he looks very mean and wicked. But we’re not to judge by external appearances.

We’re also not to judge, by the way, and we’ve talked in this church about God’s judgment upon people. And it’s good and proper to talk about God’s blessings and cursings. But we’re not supposed to look at external actions that people are in the context of and on the basis of those things determine whether there’s been violation of God’s law or not either. In other words, you see somebody going through some hard times—maybe they have a death in the family, maybe something happens to them—you cannot evaluate on the basis of just that evidence that man is in sin and he’s being judged by God.

Now, there may be reason to suspect that. And if anything happens like that to us, we’re going through a series of talks by Calvin on some of this stuff, and certainly we should evaluate our own actions when we have those sort of grievous things happen in our family. We want to go to God and seek out, make sure that we’re not in some obstinate sin before him, and maybe go to other people and counsel with them as well. But we’re not to look at those external actions as the final determiner of whether or not a sin has been committed by somebody. That’s not the biblical way.

No, God’s law as contained in these passages of scripture we’re going to deal with throughout the rest of the scriptures, of course, gives us the proper corrective to this problem with lambs and wolves in the fold of God and various sorts of sin going on. This corrective involves three steps. Well, might involve more. We’ll talk about the three steps basically. First of all, you are to tell it to your brother.

Now notice here, first of all, that it says to tell it to your brother. “If your brother trespasses against you.” Okay, if your brother—uses the term “brother.” There’s a presupposition: when any of these problems come up in the church, that the person involved is a brother. You’re to presuppose, if he’s in the fellowship, if he’s regularly in the fellowship and being invited to partake of communion, the sign of covenant continuance. You’re to presuppose that person is in the body of Christ. Okay? You’re to presuppose that he is simply weak, that there’s a weakness going on, that there’s a strain going on in his life. That’s the presupposition.

Verse 10 again reminds us: “Don’t despise the little ones. Don’t look down on them because as they fall, don’t count them as unbelievers because they sin.” Assume that they’re falling short of the mark. 1 Corinthians 13: “Love believes all things.” That’s talking about relationship to our actions toward the other people that God has called us into relationship to.

Now, I’m convinced, and I’ve told many of you this individually—I might have said it from up here occasionally—that God tests us. That’s what we’re talking about here. God tests us as a church and evaluates us. He tests us individually and evaluates us. And believe me, I’ve seen lots of occurrences over the last three or four years in this church where external appearances will lead people into sinful thoughts about people because they jump to conclusions. They presuppose that the person is involved in some kind of sin, some kind of grievous sin, and isn’t repentant.

We had one—I suppose it was somewhat humorous incident in our church. It had an element of grief to it as well, frankly, from my perspective. But there was a family who moved away and there was a joke played about a particular portion of furniture, and it was implied that this family had taken a particular part of furniture belonging to the church with them when they left. It was kind of a good-natured thing, and there’s nothing wrong with good-natured joking, but it was a test, I think, that God had given some of us to evaluate our actions.

And some of us fell. We believed that at first without investigating, without going to the person involved, without looking past that. We began to believe that this person had indeed taken part of the possessions of Reformation Covenant Church with them when they left. We jumped to a presupposition of guilt instead of presupposing that it’s a brother we’re talking about who, if anything, is falling short of the mark. We’re to give each other the benefit of the doubt in these matters.

There was another incident that occurred. Lots of them. I don’t know. I could talk probably all day just on the instances that occur like this. Probably you can think in your own life, and I’ll bet you if you watch over the next week, you’ll see opportunities for you to fall in this area. But those opportunities are also opportunities to apply these verses to presuppose the correctness of the person’s action. Don’t jump to the conclusion that he’s sinning.

Another occurrence was, I was dealing with the person privately and individually. That’s after all what we’re going to be saying here in a minute—that’s how we begin with such things. And this person was sitting next to me when we had communion. And somebody else came up and said, “Uh, oh, I don’t want to give him the cup, do I?” Joking around. The person who said that had no idea that there was anything going on in terms of the conversation between me and this other fella away from church. But there was the possibility then for the person I was talking to to jump to the wrong conclusion.

See, God put these tests before us, and he’ll evaluate whether we’re going to be faithful to this particular portion of scripture that tells us to believe and presuppose that brother is innocent. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Second of all, the word here used for sin: the brother trespass against you. And the word there—and there are basically two words used for sin in the New Testament. One is the word for falling short of the mark. The other word is anomia, or a complete rejection of God’s law. But the presupposition here again is that it’s a brother and that he’s falling short of the mark.

How do we define transgressions? We tried to point out a little bit ago that it’s not whether or not your feelings get hurt about something. That doesn’t indicate that any transgression might have occurred at all. Our feelings get hurt about a lot of things that aren’t sinful. 1 John 3:4 says, “Sin is the transgression of the law.” Okay, real simple. Sins are to be determined by the law of God. They’re not to be determined by our gland or activity in relationship to what somebody has done and how it might upset us. Got nothing to do with the declaration of sin. Sin is determined by the law of God, which means you got to know this word to be able to apply it in your situation.

Sin isn’t determined by our personal feelings. Sin isn’t determined by the culturalization process that we go through. You don’t look at the society around us and see what it doesn’t like and say that’s sin or that’s a brother offending me. That’s not what it’s talking about here. It’s talking about the violation of God’s law. And so when you go to a brother, you better have something more substantial than “it bothers me what you did.” You better be able to point to the scriptures to convince him from the word of God that what he did was wrong, was a violation of scripture. And that’s what we’re supposed to do.

Then if a brother has transgressed, if a brother has sinned, if a supposed brother, believing that he’s a brother, has fallen short of the mark, we’re to go to that brother.

Now, there’s a real simple commandment from God that is violated continually in the churches of Jesus Christ in our land today. It doesn’t say here that if a brother sins, if a brother falls short, that you go and tell the elder of the church. Doesn’t say that. Doesn’t say that you go and tell your friends in the church what this guy did or what he might have done to you or what other public sin he might be involved with. Doesn’t say that. It also doesn’t say to forget about it. It doesn’t say, “Well, if a brother sins against you, don’t worry about it. Just overlook it.” Doesn’t say that. There’s a lot of that goes on in our churches.

Couple of things to say on that though. First of all, that usually produces a root of bitterness—a Gothic term in our hearts toward that man. And the scriptures tell us in clear language not to hold offense against your brother in your heart. But second of all, it’s not loving toward that brother to overlook the sin that he’s involved with. These are corrective measures. These are not retributive measures originally. They’re corrective. It’s God’s way of taking care of problems.

We may in our own mind say, “Well, gosh, you know, if I go to him, it might offend him. He might get upset. He might not understand what I’m saying. I should probably just let it slide and let God deal with him.” Oh, that’s terrible. God says here how to deal with it. If we have knowledge of an action like that, we should go to the brother, not with, you know, wanting to hit him and club him, but to tell him. That means to approve, to demonstrate to him, to convict him, to point him to the word of God and how he’s in violation of it.

It is an offense and a sin against that brother who is sinning if we don’t go to him. It’s like there’s a lamb out there. He strayed away, and we’re saying, for whatever reason, we don’t want to go out there after him because he might get mad when we try to pull him back, or because it’s not convenient for me—long way to go after that lamb who strayed away, a long far way away. Well, you know, if you move on those things quickly, he won’t be straying too far. But even if you don’t notice it at first and he strayed quite a long way, you better go after that lamb if you know about the activity.

Calvin, writing on this, said that if a thousand people know about that transgression, that person should receive a thousand admonitions in the original stages of this hearing process that we’re going through here. Each one of those people are responsible to admonish that fella to get him back into line with the scriptures and the word of God, to make him aware of his sinful activity.

By the way, for those of you who like to see the relationship of the scripture as a whole, in Proverbs 25:8-10, we have the same basic statement made: that you should go to your neighbor in secret, that you shouldn’t have it blurted out to everybody else first. “Go and contend with your neighbor, debate your case in secret.” Jesus Christ is the wisdom of God. He wrote the book of wisdom, and now he’s applying that wisdom to a situation in the church in Matthew 18.

It really is selfishness not to go to the person involved. I want to really stress that. It’s hard work to do that though, isn’t it? None of us like conflict. None of us like going to somebody else and saying from the word of God, “What you’re doing is incorrect.” It’s hard work. What we said—the hard work should be done. You should go after that sheep.

In Galatians 4:19, Paul goes after the Galatians in the book of Galatians. He’s trying to bring them back. Trying to bring those strange sheep back to the fold. And he talks—he addresses them as “my children with whom I am again in labor.” Labor pains are hard. Paul, what Paul was going through in relation to dealing with the Galatians, was hard work. That shouldn’t hold us back from the task. That task should be an encouragement to us to follow through with it because there’s great reward at the end of labor. You have a new birth, a tremendous blessing from God. And there’s great reward if we go that extra mile. If we go after that straying lamb, and if we go through that hard work of a second labor, as it were, there’s great blessings.

James 5:19-20 says, “If you do that, if you turn a brother back from his sin and you convert his soul and turn him back, you’ve saved his soul from death.” Great reward for that for him and hopefully for you as you’ve been using as an instrument of God’s righteousness in securing that person’s repentance.

God works through means. And here he tells us that the primary means we work through at the beginning of one of these processes is individual confrontation. An individual going to the person and telling him a sin.

By the way, one of the implications there too is that you’re telling him alone and in private. And it’s important that we all not fall into the sin of knowing that something might be wrong with somebody and not knowing if anything’s being done. What I’m saying is that when the church is working with somebody individually, you won’t know about it. That’s the whole point—is that if you bring the person back to repentance, there won’t be a public scandal. Okay? So, because you don’t see anything public going on with an individual, there may well be something private going on. Of course, if you know there’s something that should be going on at all, you should be going to that person yourself, right?

The situation we’re dealing with this morning has been going on for the better part of six months now in terms of lack of attendance. There’s no reason why any of us should not know what was going on there. There’s every reason why most of us should have made some contact. We’ll talk more about that in a little bit.

As I said, the word “tell” there means to prove or to convict. And that assumes, by the way, that there’s going to be evasion on the part of the person you’re going to. When you go to a brother who’s sinning, he usually is not going to say, “Yeah, I’m sinning. So what?” That will normally not be the attitude at first, because we’re talking about the context of a church. We’re talking about the context of somebody—well, some of us may say that—but we’re talking in the context of a church in which we’re hopefully all trying to go for the same mark. But there will be an evasion of responsibility, and that’s why the word here I think used to “tell your brother” is to prove, to convict him, to bring it to bear on him, to reason back through the scriptures to what he’s done wrong. That’s what it’s talking about doing. Okay?

So the process begins with going to your brother and telling him it, and if he doesn’t hear you, okay, then the second part of the process—point B under this section of the correctives—is to establish what’s happened. You go back with two or three.

Okay. Sin, as we said, is defined by transgression of the law. To understand sin, you’ve got to understand the law. The corrective measures also are determined by the law of God. And so, in the gospels here, we read a specific citation of Old Testament biblical case law in terms of two or three and the confirmation of all things. Basic continuity here. Again, Jesus wasn’t establishing some sort of new procedure for working these things out. He was saying, “Here’s what I told you to do.

Number one, go to your brother. I told you that in the book of Proverbs. Go to him in secret. Win him. If not, number two, you go together with two or three, that all things be confirmed. I told you that in Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 19:15. Nothing new going on here. He’s urging us though to apply it to our situation today, to the New Testament church. There’s continuity of action, and that corrective action—as the sin must be defined by the law of God and not by our personal feelings and not by the thing that might seem right in our own eyes. We know the ends of that are the ways of death. We go to God’s word for the corrective action.

So we go back to two or three in accordance with the biblical case law. And again, he said, “If he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.” And if you neglect to hear them, so on. So you go back, you try to establish all things, but you also go back with the idea that two or three people may be more persuasive to the individual to bring him back to repentance. Again, here, even though he’s rejected you the first time, you presuppose that he is straying, he’s falling short of the mark, and he’s be brought back through the mechanism that God gives us.

To jump from individually telling him into direct open public action is a violation of these commandments. And these commandments are God’s corrective—they’re the things that’ll work if it can be done.

Now it’s important as we look at these correctives—by the way, and I should have said this at the beginning of this section—that God’s correctives are not always efficacious in terms of bringing that person to repentance. We’re not talking here about vehicles by which we can win people into the kingdom of God or force them in. We’re talking about a process that will do one of two things. It’ll correct the person involved and demonstrate that our presupposition is well thought out in terms of his inclusion in the elect, or it will make known the judgment of God upon that person, and he has been cut off from the church.

Either one of those things, though, is determined by the electedness of God and not by the efficaciousness of our actions. We don’t persuasively win people to Jesus Christ by argumentation in terms of human reasoning. We do it by the preaching of the word of God. And we know, as we talked about two weeks ago, that God has determined the number of people that he chooses to bring to himself. He uses the means of his word, but he, through the power of the word, brings those people. And other people he closes their ears and sends them to damnation. That’s God’s will. And it’s the same way at this process.

We don’t want to look at this process as being ultimately concerned with the good of the church or the good of man. The ultimate concern of this corrective is the glory of God. And we know that if all things work together to God’s glory, that includes the reprobate being demonstrated that he is reprobate. Okay? It’s important to remember the context of all this.

But still, you go back. You establish. You have witnesses. Then with two or three, for if there’s a court of law, which would follow next on the heels of this action, you have two or three to try to again tell him his sin, to demonstrate or prove it to him.

Thirdly, if he rejects the council of two or three, and again, does not, fails to hear them, then we go to the binding or the publicization of that—of that last step. Probably a bad term. Basically, you go with one. You go back to two or three, and then if he doesn’t hear them, you tell it to the church. Okay?

This is the last step. Still there’s involved a presupposition of his repentance. Okay? Now you do this when he responds: “My neglecting to hear.” Verse 17: “If he shall neglect to hear them, tell it to the church. And if he neglects to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen, as a publican.”

“Neglect to hear” is an interesting word. I think these two uses of it are the only use in the scriptures—at least in the Textus Receptus, the only two uses of this Greek word. It means the word is parakoe or something to that effect. It means “besides to hear,” okay, to hear besides. What it means, though, is that it has implied in it a willful disobedience to hear what God is telling through the scriptures.

Now, to see this more clearly in the use of the noun form of this word—for instance, in Romans 5, where it says, “By one man’s disobedience, the many, you know, were fallen.” The disobedience there is the noun form of this verb, “neglect to hear.” So there’s a willful neglecting to hear or turning away from. There’s a willful stopping in one’s ears, as it were, in Hebrews 2:2, where it says that every disobedience will receive its just recompense and reward. That disobedience is the same word, the noun form of that word, that we hear here, “neglect to hear.”

So first of all, we’ve got the person neglecting to hear the two or three. What do you do? You tell it to the church. Now, there are many portions of scripture, particularly 1 Corinthians 6, where we know that churches are to have church courts. When it says you’re to tell it to the church, that’s what it means—to go to the eldership of the church, to get the elder of the church involved in that action, and to hold church court. Okay?

When the situation we’re dealing with this morning, when he refused to hear two or three people, that’s what we did. We went to it. We waited a couple of months, we prayed, we tried to establish informal contacts, but the next step was church court.

Now, those courts are well established in scripture. And if a person fails to even show up at church court when summoned, that is a grievous against the authority that God has placed over that individual. And that’s what happened in this case. The technical term for that is contumacy. Okay? What it means is contempt of court, specifically contempt of ecclesiastical court. If the person just doesn’t show up and say, “I’m not going to go to that court. What do I care?” That’s contumacy. It’s contempt.

In the scriptures, in the Old Testament, a man who was contumacious, who refused to hear the judges or even to come before him and present his case, was stoned. A serious offense against the law of God to reject the authority that God has placed over the church. And if the man at this point fails to hear the church by being contumacious, by not coming to church court or not listening to the eldership of the church, what’s going on here is that now we’re fighting out that the presupposition was incorrect. It was right to have it, but it was incorrect as it worked out.

God is making manifest that this person rejects authority. That’s what he’s done throughout these proceedings. He’s rejected the authority of the individual preaching the word of God. He’s rejected the two or three witnesses who affirm that the law of God says this and you should repent. And now he’s rejecting the very form of authority that God has placed in the church—church courts, eldership. He’s rejected that authority.

And so what we see here emerging is autonomous man rejecting the will of God as demonstrated in his life through the scriptures and through the church, the means that God uses to spread forth the message of his kingdom and his commanding word.

I think it is proper once a person has been found guilty in church court that then the entire church be notified. And in this church, that’s what happened for the last two Sundays. The church we took these messages to tell it to the church first is indicating to the eldership in church court. Secondly, it’s indicating to the entire congregation of Reformation Covenant Church—the covenanted members—and they were admonished that this person was in repentance, or was not in repentance rather, was in sin, and they were admonished to admonish that person and bring him, if at all possible, back to repentance.

Now it’s important there that we recognize that the congregation, if we believe in the former government we have here by eldership, the congregation’s action in that whole matter is not one of investigation. They’re not looking into the matter trying to figure out if somebody’s guilty. That’s the place of church court. What the congregation is to do at that person, at that place, is to admonish the person.

Now, that’s the corrective that God gives us. It may seem better in our eyes to do something else, but this is the vehicle. And if we trust God, then we’ll use his law if we’re going to be in obedience. And if the person is a member of the elect, does come to repentance, this corrective will affect that repentance. And if that person is autonomous and rejects the authority of God over his life, this corrective will reveal that. It is a test, as it were, and provides evaluation of the people involved. Okay?

Last point: What are the consequences of the corrective that God has given us?

We’ve seen the context. We’ve seen the corrective. What are the consequences? We’ve said all along here: we got two kinds of people in the church. We have children and those people who should wear millstones. We have lambs. We have wolves in sheep’s clothing, ravening the flock. We have weakness, and God has made provision for that weakness in our actions with other people in the church. But we also have wickedness. We’re to put up with weakness. We’re to correct it if at all possible. If it falls into sin, we are not to put up with wickedness. We’re to discipline it or to censure it.

The consequences then are consistent with this. Now, remember, the corrective is never—let’s see. The corrective is for the purpose of demonstrating which group the person is presumptively in. We start the presupposition of him being a lamb. If he fails to listen to the church, what does Jesus tell us?

Count him as a heathen, unbeliever. But more than that, count him as a publican. How are publicans looked upon? We’re trying to figure out a modern equivalent. Maybe count him as an IRS agent today. Okay? Not just an unbeliever, an IRS agent. Maybe as a Gestapo agent in Nazi Germany would have been better. I’m not sure I want to condemn all IRS agents, but in any event, the publicans were looked upon with a great deal of distrust. They were really counted in the other camp, if you will.

And that’s what Jesus tells us to regard one who has been excommunicated from the church as a heathen and as a publican. You’re not to have fellowship with such a one. You’re to shun him. You’re to still pray for his repentance, and we—remember, we’re talking about presumptive activities here. We don’t know if God may in his providence cause that person to repent. That’s hopefully what we’re doing too. Even this last measure, excommunication, has a corrective function to it. It is not as the Catholic Church would call anathema. That is a different degree of punishment. Anathema says that person can never repent. They’re cast into eternal fire forever.

Excommunication says that person is cast out of the body of Christ and the privileges of the body of Christ, but—and hopefully delivered over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his soul may be saved. Okay? But he’s transferred, out of the kingdom of darkness again—presumptively and visibly—back in. Can’t transfer out of the kingdom of light back into the kingdom of darkness, so that he would be brought to repentance for his activity.