Titus: Part Three - Doctrines and Such "My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." James 3:1 I recently attended a conference where I had lunch with the speaker, a young revivalist, and his parents. His mother looked at me earnestly and asked: "So what do you think about talking to the 'cloud of witnesses?'" she asked. "Doing what?" "Talking to the cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews," she explained. "You haven't heard of it? Its a major teaching going around right now: that you can talk to these witnesses and they will answer." "That's ridiculous," I said. She sighed. "Oh, I am so glad to hear you say that," she said. Last year I attended this same conference. One of the main speakers was a very popular prophet with an international ministry. During his Saturday morning session he lambasted the Lord of the Rings movies as being evil straight from the pit of hell and worked the crowd into an emotional frenzy. Debra and I left right after that. When I came home I went to my office to recover and slipped a tape into my player from another conference. The speaker was another highly-known and respected teacher. "The Lord of the Rings are the most prophetic movies I have ever seen," I heard him say. Two well-known ministries and two totally different messages. It's no secret that I agree with the second one, but that's not my point. The second speaker made it clear that he was expressing his opinion. The first speaker was being dogmatic.What does it mean to be dogmatic? In this sense it means: "to assert opinions in an authoritative and arrogant manner so as to lay down or establish doctrine." We are entering dangerous ground when we no longer can discern between sound Biblical doctrine and personal opinion. A couple of years ago while doing research on an article for a national Christian magazine I realized one teacher speaking nationally regarding the article's subject was teaching heresy. I know one of his overseers and I asked about this. "We know his teaching is a little off-the-wall," he told me. "But we're hoping he will come back in line." The teaching of this heresy continued for months and may be continuing today for all I know. My point was not to have the teacher judged and condemned, but to have his teaching challenged. I will honestly tell you that several times I have talked to men in national ministry about some of the things their fellow conference-traveling friends are teaching and been told: "Well, I don't agree with him, but he feels real strongly about it and he's not going to change. Besides, he's a good friend of mine." I am not a witch-hunter. I quote James 3:1 above and take it seriously, but I also understand James 3:2 - "For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body." I am not a perfect man. (The word "perfect" means "complete.") Early in my Christian walk I read too much Hal Lindsey. Then Debra and I were involved in the Faith Movement. Then we encountered and embraced The Manifested Sons of God teachings. There was some truth in all three of those stages, but also a lot of error. My desire is to continually allow the Lord to bring me to His threshing floor to separate the wheat from the chaff. Paul sent Titus to Crete to do some major threshing. Read verse 1:13 in the Amplified Bible and it sounds like he sent him their to kick their spiritual butts. He was to warn them "not to give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men..." He wanted Titus to bring people back to the basics of doctrine. What is "doctrine"? Simply put, doctrine is "a particular principle, or the teaching and instructing in basic principles." Think of a river and its banks. The river is the flow of the Spirit and the banks are what keeps the flow going under control and in the proper direction. Charismatics - and I count myself as one -- like to wade into the river and splash and play like children, often paying no attention as to whether or not they have the strength to get back to the shore if they get in over their head or are pulled by too strong of a current. "Bereans" stick a toe in the river then rush to their libraries to spend hours studying hydrology. They might return later to watch others wade and swim, but they are cautious about actually entering the river because they heard a story once where someone was swept away and drowned. "Legalists" - called Judaizers by Paul - post signs on the banks saying it is illegal to enter the river unless you have met 101 conditions. They keep people from entering in by blocking their path. And they photograph people in bathing suits and pin them to trees like Wanted Posters. Again, doctrines are principles. The principles of Jesus are simple. They are defined in the fruit of the Spirit, the Sermon on the Mount, the letters in red in the Gospels, and 1 Corinthians Chapter 13. There are others, but that's enough to think about for now. There are "milk" doctrines and there are "meat" doctrines. Sound doctrine produces the gentle hands of His guidance. If you look up all the words for doctrine in your Strongs you will find that most of them simply mean "instruction." There are a couple interesting of exceptions. One takes us back to Jeremiah. In his discourse against idol worship in Jeremiah 10, the prophet's use of the word in verse 10:8 means "to suck out." Think about that the next time you think about idols. In Hebrews 6:1 the word is translated elementary principles and is the word "logos." We have our foundations laid in "logos" but we must be on to "rhema." What doctrine must not be is personal opinion nor should it be concentrated and focused only only one plank of the structural program. Focusing on one plank has produced the many denominations and sects that have divided the Body. Allowing personal opinion to become doctrine produces heresy. Many years ago when Debra and I were lay leaders in a Charismatic church we encountered a very strange couple. When I first shook hands with the husband the Lord whispered to me "lawlessness." When I tried to shake hands with the wife she would not look at me and refused to offer me her hand. The Lord whispered to me "witchcraft." In the following months this couple tried in many ways to disrupt services -- especially when I was teaching -- and to steal sheep for their own purposes. The man would openly dispute me by interrupting while I was teaching from the podium. The woman sent waves of curses at me that were actually tangible and tried to bind my tongue. When I tried discussing this with the pastor he dismissed my concerns and said their only problem was immaturity. Finally the young man began disagreeing and disputing with the pastor. Now, of course, it was a different story. The Pastor began searching the Word and it lead him -- to all places! -- the book of Titus. He read Titus 3:10: "Reject a man after the first and second admonition." He was amazed. "I've never read that before," he told me. Later, the young man forced a meeting with me and the pastor in the pastor's office. Well, the rest is not a pretty story, but the young man and his wife left the church. Months later a similar couple entered but they were more subtle. The witchcraft on this woman was far stronger than the witchcraft on the first. In time, she beguiled the pastor and his wife. The woman's actions were reprehensible, but also slightly below the radar. Finally, I got called in on the carpet. "John," the pastor said. "You are wrong about this woman. She is not evil. This is a church. A church is a holy place. Evil cannot enter a holy place." He pointed at the church doors. "Evil cannot even enter through those doors," he said. His statement that evil cannot enter a church was a personal opinion -- and a wrong one -- that he made into a doctrine. Sadly, it became his undoing. We need to keep our doctrines simple but not simplistic. Mine are found on my website. Let me add one more thing before moving on. Doctrines are not formulas. God does move in peculiar ways. Certain parts of the Body move differently. Right now, I can command my left leg to shake. It would be a mistake for my right leg to look at it and say: "Wow. That looks like fun. I want to shake, too!" The Toronto Blessing was and is a move of God. IHOP is a move of God. The Healing Rooms are a move of God. If the Lord commands part of His Body to participate in those moves then a blessing will be the result. But, if a church decides that something is the "in thing" and tries to do it alone it not only is doomed to fail but will hurt many people in the process. Even something as small and as insignificant as our Thursday Night Group has tempted people to copy what we do. It hasn't worked. The Lord wants His leaders to seek Him for the blueprint. Apostles are architects, right? Apostles build from His plans, not by laying their works on another man's foundation. That is not to say that there are not to many IHOPs and Healing Rooms. Of course there are, but they must be expressions of His will and not franchises of religious ambition. Doctrine should not be complicated. Often I will hear someone complain about a teacher by saying: "He is too intellectual." No. I doubt that any teachers in the Body are too intellectual. They might be too mental. They are often unanointed, but they are seldom too intellectual. C.S. Lewis was an intellectual. So was Francis Shaefer. Today I would say Chuck Colson, Ravi Zacharias, and John Sandford often carry that torch. A true intellectual has the ability to reduce the complex to simple terms. A true Christian intellectual has his head connected to his heart. A Christian mentalist is one who wants to see with his eyes, not through his eyes. He builds a labyrinth in his mind and makes simple things complex. A Christian mentalist uses his head as a fortress to protect his heart. This gives his head power over his heart and makes the anointing very difficult, and almost impossible. He is married to the philosophy of rationalism. Let's wrap up Titus Chapter One with verse 15: "To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure..." Okay, let's look at what this is and what it is not. It is another arrow aimed at the Judaizers. This, as elsewhere in the Word, is about whether you could eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. It is not about buying a lottery ticket because if you win the Powerball your "pure" heart is going to tithe to the Lord. Remember Paul on Mars Hill? He used a quote from Epimenides that was actually a song of devotion to Zeus. In our time that quote became a popular song chorus. Many of us sang it. Were we defiled? No. Because in our hearts we were worshipping Jesus. I also mentioned that Epimenides was the original "land exorcist" and that we had to be careful about certain tactics in supernatural warfare. Debra and I, with the help of many others, have done a lot of land cleansing. We believe in it. But, it is not for everyone and certainly not for everyone at any given time. Let me give you an example. We located a place on the ranch that certainly was defiled. It even had two guardian spirits encased in the forms of rattlesnakes. I killed the first snake the day of the first cleansing and returned about 10 days later and killed the second. Some of you on this List have been there and have prayed there with us. One day, early in this warfare, Deb asked if I thought it was okay if she and one of her best friends, a powerful prophetic intercessor, went up their alone. I saw no harm in it. Nothing good or bad seemed to happen in them going. Later, I was in that area by myself when the Lord gave me an open vision. In the distance I could see Deb sitting on one high hill and her friend sitting on another. They were both bare-breasted. Now, let me explain, the Lord "showed" me that they were such without showing detail, okay? He then whispered to me: "There is some warfare that I have not called my women to." I was very surprised. I'd never heard this before. (Warning. This was my experience. Don't build a doctrine out of it.) Shortly thereafter we invited a team from Canada that specializes in land cleansings. While I was with them the Lord gave me another open vision. He showed me walking the area -- and it was a huge and rough area that required many hours of arduous hiking -- with my face painted two colors and carrying a single-bladed hatchet. Now, think back to Part 2 of this study. Remember the cults on early Crete. The priestesses were snake-handlers and performed their rites bare-breasted. Their symbol was a "labyr," or double-bladed ax. If a principality related to the one on Crete inhabited that area it was not be pulled down by women. Not in this case, anyway. It needed to be a man carrying a single-bladed ax. I believe the paint colors were red and yellow, but I'm not sure. It got so hot that day the paint had all but disappeared by the time I got back to my truck. Now, did Debbie and her friend do anything defiling by going their and praying when they did? No. They did so with good intentions and my blessing. Had they resisted what the Lord told me and gone back alone, then that would have been different. When we make any form of spiritual warfare a formula for success in life or success in ministry we are on dangerous ground. The Blood is sufficient. His Presence is sufficient. The Holy Spirit is sufficient. Tactics must never replace His finished work. One last thought about spiritual warfare. I occasionally watch Bill O'Reilly on Fox. One night, though, Mr. O'Reilly made a misstatement. The subject was gun control, and Bill certainly is not for gun control, but he said, in answering a question, that people feel empowered when they have a gun. No. Weak people feel empowered when they have a gun. Boys feel empowered holding a gun. A soldier feels equipped. He has been matured and seasoned through rigorous training. He relies on his training, not his weapon. A Christian who feels empowered through acts of spiritual warfare is still immature. A Christian should feel equipped by Him to complete a work that is already finished in Him. (Another paradox?) Our heart is where our treasures are. If you find your identity in warring and not simply in Him, you are walking the wrong course. John L. Moore sundaycreek@midrivers.com http://www.johnlmoore.com