1. Issues, What To Do With Them The fact of the existence of sensitive doctrinal differences regarding which there is disagreement is repeatedly taught: 1. 2 Peter 2: 1, 2. 2. I John 4: 1. 3. Jude 3, 4. 4. I Corinthians 11: 19.

2. Issues, What To Do With Them There are a number of things done regarding issues: 1. Ignored. 2. Denied. 3. Determined by majority sentiment. 4. Decided by party affiliation. 5. Positioned by family circumstance.

3. Issues, What To Do With Them The question of importance is what do the scriptures teach regarding the treatment of issues (cp. John 8: 32, 2 John 9-11)?

4. Issues, What To Do With Them We are to possess authority for what we believe and practice. 1.Express command – Acts 2: 38. 2.Necessary inference – Matt. 22: 32. 3.Approved example – Phili. 4: 9.

5. Issues, What To Do With Them In this study, we shall consider approved examples to arrive at what we should do regarding issues: “9: Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you” (Phili. 4).

6. Issues, What To Do With Them One big issue of the First Century was the Law of Moses, the gospel, and salvation. Some wanted to bind the Law on all for the purpose of justification; while some insisted that Gentiles coming to Christ had to keep parts, at least, of the law (Acts 15). Paul courageously refuted such teaching and confronted those who promoted this doctrine. Justification by law excludes justification by grace and the two cannot concurrently be effectual.

7. Issues, What To Do With Them "1: Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. 2: Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. 3: For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law. 4: Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Gal. 5).

8. Issues, What To Do With Them The apostle John dedicated much of his writings to the new heresy of Gnosticism. John forcefully showed that Jesus Christ had "come in the flesh" and that Christ was not imaginary but actually dwelt in a material body, contrary to both Cerinthian and Docetic Gnosticism (I John 4: 2-3). Ponder the unequivocal teaching of John regarding Gnosticism that taught man could be save and not necessarily conform to God's commands (the old "once saved, always saved" doctrine):

9. Issues, What To Do With Them "3: And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. 4: He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5: But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. 6: He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked" (I John 2).

10. Issues, What To Do With Them James treated such subjects as materialism and worldliness in general and supplied remedies (Jas. 2; 4). These Spirit guided men were not ashamed to call sin, sin (cp. Jas. 2: 9, 10). Consider the cogent language of James as he writes to worldly minded brethren.

11. Issues, What To Do With Them "1: From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2: Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3: Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. 4: Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (Jas. 4).

12. Issues, What To Do With Them Due to the arrival of false teachers among God's people, Jude evidently changed his intended subject from the "common salvation" to matters of how some would corrupt God's grace, deny the Lord, and use monetary gain as their main impetus (Jude 3). Examine how Jude held back nothing in describing these ungodly professing Christians in the church:

13. Issues, What To Do With Them "4: For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ....8: Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities....10: But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. 11: Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. 12: These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds…” (Jude).

14. Issues, What To Do With Them There were evidently a number of scoffers in Peter's day who denied Jesus‘ second coming. Peter focuses attention on them and exposes their fallacious reasoning of uniformitarianism (all presently continues as it has in the past) and sinful character. Consider his manner in so marking them:

15. Issues, What To Do With Them "3: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4: And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5: For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8: But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (2 Pet. 3).

16. Issues, What To Do With Them Jesus collided with the elite Pharisees of his day, those who perverted God's law. Rather than avoid the issues, he attacked them with unequaled velocity. He called them out in the most direct way when he said:

17. Issues, What To Do With Them "20: For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5). "15: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves" (Matt. 23).

18. Issues, What To Do With Them Conclusion: We need more preachers of the soul saving gospel and not the, "Accent the positive and eliminate the negative" mentality type. The latter have increased numbers, but not souls; they have added impetus for larger buildings, but not holy churches; and they have popularized the hand shake, but not scriptural fellowship.

19. Issues, What To Do With Them We need men such as Paul, John, James, Jude, and Peter, men who love the truth and hate error. We need men who emulate Jesus and not the purveyors of false unity.