I am tragically aware that there are some who dare to do that. Doesn’t…make me happy. It makes me sad. I know of men and women that I have lived and worked among, that I have loved and still love, for whom I would gladly do anything that is right to bring them back to the way they once served God. But they’re not willing to do that. They’ve stepped BEYOND the doctrine of Jesus Christ, AND they have sacrificed their relationship with God. Oh, I know they don’t think that. I’m quite well aware of that. But I maintain that this passage TELLS what the Truth is. And we are to bring our minds under the guidance of the Word of the living God.

Well, here’s one who comes, and does not bring that doctrine. How do we know that? We check what he teaches. Does he teach what Jesus has caused to be written in the Word of God—about how to become a child of God; about how to worship God; how to live?

Years ago, the late Brother N. B. Hardeman was preparing to ride a train from Jackson, Tennessee, to Nashville. As he was getting on the train, he noticed a man going to each of the wheels of the engine, and he’d hit it with a small hammer. And he watched him for awhile, and he said, “Sir, why do you do that?”

“Well,” he said, “you see, a sound wheel has a certain ring when you hit it. And I hit the wheel and it has the right sound to it. But,” he said, “if there is even a hairline crack in a wheel when you hit it, you will know something is wrong.”

“Well,” Hardeman said, “I’m glad to know that. I believe that’s a great thought for me to consider.”

And here’s what Hardeman said about it. He said, “When I listen to a man preach, there’s going to be a certain RING to it if he’s preaching the Truth. But if he’s not preaching the Truth…won’t have that ring to it. And when I don’t hear the right kind of a ring to the preaching, I know something’s wrong. May not know what it is; may take a while to find out; but it’s supposed to sound like the Truth of God, and when I hear that, I know that the Truth of God is being taught. But when I don’t hear that, I know that something is missing here.”

Well, John continues. This one who comes and does not bring this doctrine; doesn’t teach it; doesn’t uphold it; tries to reduce its demands; tries to fix it so that it will be more appealing to people who don’t want to follow the Bible. Welllll…what am I to do? John said, “…receive him not into your house…” Don’t welcome that person. You are running a risk. The risk is that when…you…bring…him…into…your…house, you may…become…the victim of what he’s trying to teach.

Years ago, to show you how unwise I can be—I know you don’t believe this, that I could ever be unwise. But my wife could tell you numerous occasions… Well, this is one of the better ones:

I had a fella come by my office one day. He was down on his luck. O, he was having a hard time. Well, I just overflowed with sadness for him. He didn’t have a job, and he needed to work, and he needed this and needed that. Why, I talked with this fella, and I said, “I know a man here that hires people, and maybe we can call him and he’ll get you a job.” I called the fella. He said, “Indeed, I need a man, and if he will meet me in the morning at eight o’clock at such and so [place], I’ll have a job for him.”

“Oh,” that man said, “that’s wonderful!”

Well, I, uh, said, “Why don’t you come on home and eat supper with us?” Well, he did. There my wife and two little ole children were, and we had a good meal together, and if felt so good. O, I’d done a good thing!

Wellll, he needed a place to stay. Sooo, I called and arranged for him to have a motel room. I even told him, if he got to Memphis there was a friend of mine over there that would help him. This friend of mine and I both had taken a course in which a man by the name of Norman Snaith had written a text book. And I said, “You go tell him that you talked to me, and I said, ‘Snaith [like a code word to tell his friend that it was all right to help the man].’”

And he said, “What?”

I said, “Just tell him that. He’ll know.”