I want to clarify something:
Someone knocks on your door. They are not Christians, but are instead cult members. They are "evangelistic" cult members, missionaries for their faith preaching a false gospel (Gal 1:6-9). They are therefore false teachers seeking to lead people to hell!
I am not saying not to love them. I am not saying not to share the gospel with them. And I am not saying that we cannot have friends and family members in our houses when they remain unsaved.
Let's not overreact and miss the point. 2 John is clear that if someone comes teaching another gospel that we are not to greet them or let them in the house at all. This is not a brother in 2 John. It is an "antichrist"!! To ask a Mormon missionary or a JW evangelist into your home is a direct violation of 2 John 9-10.
What else does Scripture tell us about dealing with false teachers in or out of the Church?
[b:7521b1aabd]Galatians 1[/b:7521b1aabd]
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9As we have said before, so now I say again,[u:7521b1aabd] if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.[/u:7521b1aabd]
[b:7521b1aabd]2 John[/b:7521b1aabd]
7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. [u:7521b1aabd]This is a deceiver and an antichrist[/u:7521b1aabd]. 8Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward. 9Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son. [u:7521b1aabd]10If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house[/u:7521b1aabd] nor greet him; 11for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.
[b:7521b1aabd]Matthew 23[/b:7521b1aabd]
13"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation. 15"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. 16"Woe to you, blind guides, who say, "Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obliged to perform it.' 17Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18And, "Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it.' 19Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21He who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it. 23"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 24Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! 25"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 29"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, 30and say, "If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' 31"Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers' guilt. 33Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?
[b:7521b1aabd]1 Timothy 6[/b:7521b1aabd]
3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, 4he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, 5useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. [u:7521b1aabd]From such withdraw yourself[/u:7521b1aabd].
[b:7521b1aabd]2 Timothy 2 and 3[/b:7521b1aabd]
16But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness. 17And their message will spread like cancer.
23But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. 24And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, 25[u:7521b1aabd]in humility correcting those who are in opposition[/u:7521b1aabd], if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, 26and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
3:1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. [u:7521b1aabd]And from such people turn away[/u:7521b1aabd]! 6For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was.
[b:7521b1aabd]Titus 1[/b:7521b1aabd]
10 For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, [u:7521b1aabd]11whose mouths must be stopped[/u:7521b1aabd], who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. 13[u:7521b1aabd]Therefore rebuke them sharply[/u:7521b1aabd], that they may be sound in the faith, 14not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. 16They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
[b:7521b1aabd]Titus 3[/b:7521b1aabd]
9 But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. [u:7521b1aabd]10Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition[/u:7521b1aabd], 11knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.
[b:7521b1aabd]2 Peter 2[/b:7521b1aabd]
12 But these [false teachers], like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, 13and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, 14having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. 15They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man's voice restrained the madness of the prophet.
17These are wells without water, cloudscarried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. 18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped[4] from those who live in error. 19While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 20For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: "A dog returns to his own vomit," and, "a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire."
Seems pretty clear that false teachers will be accursed if they do not repent. We do not win them by allowing them to explain and teach their damning doctrine of demons. We do not reason with them one on one with the hopes that we will persuade them to change their mind. We contend for the faith earnestly. We oppose and rebuke them with truth, at the door and in the church.
That does not mean that we treat every lost person this way, but then again, not every lost person is trying to evangelize us and convert us to another gospel, are they? Those that do should be stopped!
Especially if as this thread suggests, someone disrupts a worship service to proclaim error and engage in unbiblical activity in the name of Christ. We as pastors especially must guard the church as a shepherd would his flock from a wolf or lion.
Part of the Scriptural assignment to pastors is that they:
[quote:7521b1aabd][b:7521b1aabd]Rebuke[/b:7521b1aabd] - 1 Tim.5:20; Titus 1:10-13
a. Sinners in the presence of all
b. By stopping the mouths of insubordinate, idle talkers
c. Sharply those not sound in the faith
[b:7521b1aabd]Speak[/b:7521b1aabd] - Titus 2:1, 11-14, 15
a. Things proper for sound doctrine
b. These things
c. Exhortations, rebuking with all authority
[b:7521b1aabd]Withdraw, avoid, flee, and turn away from[/b:7521b1aabd] - 1 Tim. 6:3-5, 11, 20; 2 Tim. 2:22-23; 3:5, 9
a. False Teachers
b. Greed and evil
c. Profane and idle babblings, contradictions
d. Youthful lusts
e. Foolish and ignorant disputes
f. Evil-doers (according to 2 Tim. 3:1-5)
g. Foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, strivings about the Law (with false teachers)
[b:7521b1aabd]Prove yourself a good worker[/b:7521b1aabd] - 1 Tim. 1:18; 6:12, 20; 2 Tim. 2:3, 15; 4:5
a. Wage a good warfare
b. Fight a good fight
c. Guard what is committed to your trust
d. Endure hardship and affliction
e. Be diligent
f. Rightly handle the Word of God
http://users3.ev1.net/~maranathachurch/rdpastor.html [/quote:7521b1aabd]
Phillip
at disruptive parishioners! [/quote:db59312b9e]
. Well, one of the guys had memorized a Psalm (sorry, can't remember which one) in Hebrew and went forward to shared his 'revelation' with the crowd. You guessed it, an interpreter stood up and interpreted it. Hehe, the guy told him that he was way off and that he'd just spoken a Psalm in Hebrew. 
Well, that was the end of their visit. They actually had ushers (can you say "bouncers"
escort him out post haste. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin: I don't think I'd have the guts for something like that, but it is funny.
uzzled:
