words and not satisfied with this. He himself does not receive the brethren either and he

forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church.

These verses, the apostle John writes to a man named Gaius, he's mentioned in verse one, about another man who is probably

in the same church, his name is diatrophies. And diatrophies is a very divisive man in the church.

It's amazing how much harm one man can do in a church.

He's a troublemaker. And we learn from this that just one fly in the ointment can ruin the whole ointment.

That just a little leaven in a loaf

can ruin the whole loaf. Just one man in sin can cause great harm to the whole

church. It was for one man aiken that the whole nation of Israel when they entered in the

promised land suffered an ignominious defeat because of one man. It was because of one man Adam that sin has entered into the whole

world and death through sin. So just the sin of one man can create enormous damage in a church. This may seem impractical to you but I have lived this for 40 years.

I've been the pastor of four churches. Three is the lead pastor, the senior pastor, and one is the college

pastor and in every situation the reason I moved from one church to another church can be boiled down to one man.

One man, like deotrophies, seeking to be first and pit himself against me and to pit himself against others.

And so this is a very real to life passage that we're looking at. It may seem remote.

But wherever it is that you go to church, the greatest danger in your church is not from the outside, it's always

from the inside.

I was in New York City yesterday and actually had to go to the airport before it came but there was going to be a huge

protest from the lesbian and homosexual community outside the church where I was preaching and the need for police protection.

Hey that's nothing.

In many ways, it's water on a duck's back.

What really threatens the life of any church is the spiritual condition on the inside.

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