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Vomit and Gangrene
“Vomit” may be one of those words that make you sick at your stomach just to read it or hear it. It is one of those actions that can cause a chain-reaction. I feel sorry for young parents who have weak stomachs. “Gangrene” is hard to look at. It is death of the flesh. It is flesh that is rotting. Neither of these two subjects are topics for general conversation.
Yet, God used both of these concepts to illustrate how He feels about teaching that does not come out of His mouth.
In the heart of Isaiah the prophet, chapter 28, the messenger of God, communicating the will of God, portrays Israel’s prophets and priests as drunk. But, they are not drunk on literal wine. They are drunk on the wine of power, the wine of affluence, the wine of fashionablenss. In Isaiah’s words: “These also reel with wine and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed by wine, they stagger with strong drink, they reel in vision, they stumble in giving judgment” (28:7).
The problem with power, affluence, and fashionableness is that you often have to pour heavy doses of false teaching. Verse 8 reads: “For all tables are full of filthy vomit, with no space left.” That’s how God describes what is coming out of the mouth of these prophets and priests. False teaching is vomit. Have you ever seen a man on the ground or on the floor, passed out, in his own vomit? It is nauseating and despicable. The table of false teachers is full of filthy vomit. “Nevertheless, some people are so blind that they do not realize that the nutritional value of the ‘spiritual food’ they are fed is not much better than vomit” (Smith, 480).
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“But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:16-18).
You can’t have a weak stomach and look at gangrene. I’m sure it is even worse in person. But that’s how God views teaching that does not come out of His mouth – gangrene.
So, in the epistles Paul wrote Timothy and Titus, we have an emphasis on “sound teaching.” “Sound” translates the word “hygiene.” It means healthy. Healthy doctrine is book, chapter, verse teaching and preaching. That is teaching that comes out of God’s mouth.
Avoid vomit and gangrene by teaching and preaching the Word of God and worshiping with Christians who also demand healthy teaching.
–Paul Holland
