Open—Ted Porter
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I'd like to speak a little on a moral evil that I.
Don't believe that I've ever read about.
Uh, any man making comments about it? Expounding it?
Maybe you have, I'm not that well read.
But, uh, when our brother began to speak about divisions.
Something that I'm sure all of us have given a good deal of thought to.
We'd like to try and.
Find out what the root of it is and I believe if you.
We're to know more details about all the divisions that have taken place. You would probably find out that it started.
A couple of Saints not getting along.
So there is this term turn to, uh, First Corinthians chapter 5.
First Corinthians, chapter 5.
And verse 8.
And look in the middle of the verse.
And you'll see this phrase.
The 11.
Of Maoist.
11 of malice.
We talk about moral evil and uh.
I think for many of us, we immediately think of things like fornication and.
Perhaps lying, theft, things of this nature.
But here, he says, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven.
And then the first thing he says is the leaven of malice.
And then wickedness.
Malice for those who may not know the term.
Malice is when.
You've got it. I don't know how to generalize it. You've got it in for somebody.
That's malice, and it can be very obvious. It can be obvious to you and it can be obvious to others that you just don't like that guy or or that sister.
But malice?
More often is very subtle and sometimes you yourself don't know. You're not really conscious of the fact that you have malice towards somebody.
We uh.
As our brother said, we're all human beings and umm.
We all know from the time that we're really small that there are just certain people that we just would rather not be around. And I see a lot of grins, but, uh.
This is way more serious, I think, than we realized.
Because if I have malice towards someone, and especially if it's that subtle kind of malice.
What begins to happen is.
Probably even subconsciously I start to order my life and my conversations with people in such a way.
As.
To facilitate.
The removal of that person from my life.
That's the leaven of malice, because now it's not just affecting me, but I'm affecting others too.
Maybe I just slipped a comment to a brother or sister about that person.
That's uh, like a snakes venom.
And that's the leaven of malice.
And as I said, many divisions start this way, you know.
Umm.
Someone mentioned during this, uh, conference the book of Philippians and they made the comment. It was a very touching, uh, epistle.
And if you we can turn there if you'd like, if you were to read this official carefully from the beginning, you can tell that Paul has a great deal of affection for this assembly.
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And, uh, believe he uses the term beloved and.
He says in verse nine, I pray that you love me abound more and more.
I don't have time to take up this epistle. Umm.
Spent a whole hour on it once, umm.
But what you'll find out is you get down to chapter 4 and I think as you're reading the epistle, you may find that just there's something, there's something there on Paul's heart about this assembly. And I may not be putting it right, but it seems like there's there's something that's worrying him.
About what's going on in Philippi.
Is very appreciative of them. They had fellowship with him in his work and he loves them very much and his very apparent in his writings. But kind of this this kind of undercurrent as you read through the epistle and it almost leaves one feeling like what's there's something bothering him. Well, you know what's inspired by God. So that means there's something bothering the Lord about what's going on in Philippi.
And I believe he gets to it in chapter 4.
And verse 2.
Where he says, I beseech Yodius, and I beseech Syndicate, that they be in the same mind in the Lord.
An iron tree fee. Also, Yoko helped those women which labored with me in the gospel, these two women.
Had helped Paul, they labored with him in the gospel, and obviously he's got a very great deal of affection for them. But you know what?
They are not getting along and that may not be something so outward.
But Paul is aware that.
They rub each other the wrong way, and he knows that. This may seem like a small minor thing, but this could turn into a major disaster for that assembly.
And so he appeals to the one he's writing to. It then says, I, I entreat you, as if writing to the whole church right here, He's getting personal with the person who's receiving this letter. He says, I beseech thee.
To help them.
Some have heard this. You may giggle a little bit, but I think it's appropriate.
Many, many years ago I heard a brother refer to Yodius and Synteke as odious and so touchy.
And, you know, you get sometimes kinds of people, they're just, they're odious.
Uh, the speaker is probably one of them. And then you get, and then you get those that are really touchy, you know, I mean, they just, they don't like anything disturbed and one little mistaken comment to them and they go off somewhere and cry. I'm being exaggerated, but you, you may be one or the other, but just imagine putting these two together.
As one is just so odious and the other one that's just very touchy and they're trying to help the apostle Paul.
And uh, the odious 1 bumps into the touchy one, and the touchy one is, you know, breaks down, falls apart.
So quite often.
The Lord puts us with those that naturally rub us the wrong way and, uh.
Brother Robert can wave me down if I'm starting to take too much time. Umm.
Yodi, Yodius and Synteke. Odious and so touchy.
This.
Has to do with what our brother just said about South denial.
Umm, we who?
Are rewards. Maybe that's not the best way to put it. Who are in Christ? Who are in dwell with the Holy Spirit?
Who possess eternal life, we have another nature.
And.
In order for that to be manifest.
Our natural life has to be contradicted, and the Lord will set those circumstances up where you're going to be.
Crossed your nature is going to be.
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Pretty much.
Frustrated trying to think of terms, but you know what I mean.
And it's usually gonna be another brother or sister who's gonna be used to do that. And you will either.
Practice self denial.
And love.
Or you're gonna start to develop the leaven of malice toward that person.
Which is it gonna be?
Most, I think many, if not most of you in here have been around long longer than I have.
Among the so-called gathered Saints and you've seen more divisions.
Let me put this before you. It says the body is builds itself up in love, right?
If there's no opportunity for love to be exercised, how is your gonna be building?
We can come to conferences. You know, I don't see you very often come to conferences. We're happy to see each other. It's all warm and fuzzy feelings mostly, but the ones that you're really getting built with are the ones that you have to grind with.
Week after week.
For the early believers, it was day after day because they were ostracized from their society and had to live communally, so they were had to be with each other all the time.
We have it easy, we just see each other perhaps a few times a week and we still have problems getting along.
Why?
Part of it is.
The lack of self denial.
And the number one commandment, love one another, well, it speaks, you know, love. Love is exercised in forgiveness.
And long-suffering.
Preparing with one another Love is exercised in asking for forgiveness.
In confessing your faults to one another.
Bodybuilders, you know, those guys and women now who just, you know, they build their bodies up, pump them up and they get big, huge muscles and they're rippling and everything. They know this secret, that muscle, the way to build muscle is through tearing and repairing.
Tearing and repairing.
They push themselves until they're actually their fabric is is tearing and then it repairs itself, and when it does, the repair is stronger than the original.
Must.
It's, it's just like welders, you know, welders, some piece of steel will crack or be broken and the welder will go in and he'll grind, grind down through the, the, uh, the tear and open it up. And then he'll lay a bead of steel in there. And that Weld becomes much stronger than the original if it's done properly.
Well, muscle is built this way, tearing and repairing so.
It's gonna be something you don't have to do. We all know that the fences trespasses against one another sins. These things will be there by default.
The question is, are you gonna see those as an opportunity for building?
Or are you gonna get political with each other and.
Grin and Barrett for the one hour you have to be around that brother or sister, and then find relief when you can leave the meeting and go home.
Brother told me once about.
When a brother did something, I don't remember what it was, whether he had, he committed some offense, I don't know if he took something from him or what it was, but he was, uh, he was fairly young at the time, at his early 20s or something, and.
And I remember him saying that he he felt spiritual and so he just kind of took it on the chin and wasn't gonna do anything about it.
He said.
You know, he thought he was doing the right thing, being spiritual, forbearing and so on, but he said.
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Years went by.
And their relationship was never the same.
In a negative way.
I think it's still that way to this day. Then about 30 years.
He realized he should have gone to the brother, which is humbling.
And tell him I was offended by what you did. It wasn't right.
Our brother mentioned pride, and you know pride, that is, that pride is the our enemy of love. It is totally incompatible.
And this, you know, if you've married in any kind of relationship, pride is the enemy of love. And pride will keep you from asking forgiveness. Pride will keep you from telling someone that you've been hurt. Pride will keep you from forgiving.
When my daughter got married, she asked for advice. I said I have a little piece of advice for you. Just very simple.
In marriage as in any relationship.
Selfish selfishness will get you in trouble.
Pride will keep you there.
Selfishness will get you in trouble, but pride will keep you there and this can be applied amongst us.
Little offense has come in and brethren don't like each other, but they know it's not right not to like each other. So they hide it, and they even hide it from themselves, and they lie to themselves.
But the leaven of malice.
You know what Levin does? It just, it kind of blossoms, if you will, and it comes out one way or another it comes out and it causes great harm.
Great harm.
To the assembly, so.
Just remember that term, don't overlook it. Think about it, the leaven of malice, and just judge yourself.
And remember that these all these divisions, you know.
I believe Paul was understood this very much and there in the book of Philippians he puts his finger on something that could end up destroying that assembly. Just a little problem. Two sisters having trouble getting along together.
And we have an individual responsibility when we see this in our assembly.
Not to turn away and think it's their problem, because after a while it's gonna be your problem and not just your problem. It's gonna be all of our problem.
Because we know these little divisions, they don't stop with just one assembly. Eventually they they're splitting up assemblies everywhere. You know this. But think about it. The root. What's the root? The brother said It's a flesh. Well, it is, but there's that subtle leaven of malice. Don't forget that.