Fighting Error and Apostasy

Well, as I said, we are in 2nd, 1st Timothy today. But before we go to 1st Timothy, I want to open our time with a bit of a reflection on a different passage, particularly in Ephesians chapter six and verse 10.

In Ephesians chapter six and verse 10, we find at least the beginning of one of the most famous passages in all of scripture. It's a passage that, at least in its condensed form, has been widely distributed.

You can find it painted in some form on Sunday school walls. You can get, no doubt, if you were to go on Amazon today, you can find t-shirts with aspects of this text embroidered on it. It has been printed on bumper stickers and key chains and Bible covers.

Some men have even gone to lengths to have it tattooed on their bodies. It is the passage, of course, where the Lord himself commands all Christians to take up the whole armor of God. And if you're like me, if you try to picture in your mind for a moment the way that this text has been portrayed in modern Christian culture, it probably looks something like this.

I tend to go back to the Sunday school rooms that have the armor of God pasted on the wall, and it looks something like a cartoon character. Maybe it's a young man, but just as often it is a young boy with big round eyes wide as saucers standing in oversized Roman armor.

He has, if you look really closely at the image, a little belt with the truth labeled on it, a breast plate with righteousness sketched across the front. He has not shoes, but probably Roman sandals, the sandals of the gospel, you might say.

He has a cross emblazoned shield of faith, a Roman legion helmet, I think that's what they're called, with the red tuft, sometimes the gold sideburn covers, as I think of them, labeled salvation, and then a sword stamped with these words, the spirit.

There are no doubt countless murals in Sunday school rooms with something along the lines of that image. I Googled it this week, and it's remarkable how many times that the armor of God is depicted in that way.

And in fact, I think that because the armor of God has been depicted in this way, it would lead many of us to believe that the passage was put simply in our Bibles to either amuse us or to make us feel like warriors when we want to feel like warriors.

But brothers and sisters, I want to ask you, have you ever actually considered that we are in a very real battle with a very real opponent engaged in a conflict that comes with whether we win or lose very real consequences?

If we're honest with ourselves, probably most of us would have to admit, I know that when I do some self-reflection, I know that I would have to admit this as well, that it is very easy to forget that we live in the midst of a war.

That is where Paul is going with Ephesians 6, in verse 10 and following, that we are in a war. That is why Christians need armor. Soldiers go into battle with armor because they are in a war. And yet, this is what happens to us.

We get up every morning, or if you work night shift, every evening, you brush your teeth, you drive through traffic, you go to work or you go to school, we go about our days, and the daily grind has a numbing effect on us.

It just kind of wears away our sensibilities, our sensitivities as it relates to these things. Everything becomes routine. And then we lose sight of this fact. The fact that we not only contend with our own thoughts and ideas and attitudes, which if you know yourself well, is often enough, it's often challenging enough to deal with ourselves.

And we not only deal with our interactions with others who come with their own thoughts and feelings and attitudes which further complicate things, but there is, even in our midst, a raging battle. And that every Christian, whether you realize it or not, when you wake up in the morning, you are waking up to an enemy that is already awake, that has already been preparing for the day and for the battles ahead, and that you are contending against the very powers of hell that have been armed against you, against us.

This is why, in Ephesians chapter six, when Paul was offering this counsel, this command about the armor of God, to put on the whole armor of God, he added this in Ephesians six and verse 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places that the Ephesians, Paul is seeking to convey that they are in a real war, and that we, by extension, are in a real war.

And I don't know if you've noticed this, but it seems to me that the apostle Paul went to great lengths, perhaps especially great lengths to convey this to the Ephesians church of all the churches. It was this church that he wrote these warnings to, in Ephesians six.

It was for the benefit of this church that the apostle Paul stood with the elders of the church. We read about it in Acts chapter 20 and verse 29. And he said to them, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men, speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.

But not only that, it was still this church that the apostle Paul then sent Timothy and had him remain there to deal with the very things that Paul had warned against, that were beginning to take root in their midst, apparently because these warnings were not taken to heart.

Now, I don't think that the apostle Paul, as he is dealing with the Ephesians, is having to repeat this to them because they are especially dense in this respect. I do not think that he gives them a warning in his letter, and then a warning to the elders in person, and then a messenger to continue the warnings because this church is unique.

But I think that he is doing this because this church is constituted like every other church and every other individual in human history, and that is this, that we are engaged in a battle and we often forget it.

We lose sight of this. The reality is we live in a world that is at war, and somehow, and in some way, most of the time, when the battle really begins to heat up, we don't even remember that we are at war anymore.

We think it's just us and our circumstances. And this is precisely why then, in 1 Timothy chapter four and verse one, and I'll have you turn there with me, we find the Apostle Paul again addressing this theme.

The Great Danger of False Teaching

And this is what the Apostle Paul is after as we come to our text again in 1 Timothy four and verse one. The Apostle Paul would have us, all Christians, the Ephesian Christians, everyone who names the name of Christ to be on guard, to be ready for the battle that is at hand, and to understand this, and this is where Paul is going, that one of the principle ways that the enemy seeks to assault Christians, it's not in the way that we would expect.

Think about it for a moment. How is it? What is the principle way among Christians that the enemy seeks to disrupt us, to disturb us, to put us out of the race? It is not through physical attacks, principally.

It is not through demon possession, as if that were possible in the case of a Christian, but it is through false teaching and false teachers. It is through the proliferation of false ideas that corrupt the mind, and then the heart, and then condemn the soul to hell.

So we're gonna look today at 1 Timothy chapter four. I'm gonna look at it under three headings. We're gonna look today at the great danger of false teaching. We're going to look at the diabolical character of false teachers.

We need to know who they are and what they're made of, and then we will look at the firm defense against both of these, the false teaching and the false teachers. And so the first thing that we'll look at today is in verse one, and that is the great danger of false teaching.

In verse one, this is what we read. And the Spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching and teachings of demons.

Now, it's been a few weeks since we have been here in 1 Timothy, and some of you are visiting us, and so I'll catch you up so that we're all on the same page together. You will recall that Paul left Timothy in Ephesus.

He was passing through on his way to Macedonia, and he left Timothy in the church in Ephesus to deal with a growing list of concerns that he had or that were beginning to emerge in the church. In chapter one, if we look there together, we gained insight into some of the issues that Paul was dealing with.

These false teachers who had swerved from the truth, as he uses that language, and who were teaching different doctrines. Now, again, how disturbing that would be to establish a church, to see it get a healthy start, to leave, and then to find that they are teaching different doctrines in the church, and so they were.

And these included things like Jewish myths and endless genealogies and speculations and misapplications of the law. Then in chapter two, we saw that Paul went from the negative aspects to positive instruction, and he gave the church instruction on how they were to conduct themselves in the worship of the church.

You'll remember that we said that the church is called to pray all kinds of prayers for all kinds of people, and were to pray to the end that all people, or as many people as the Lord would will, would be saved.

Then at the end of chapter two, Paul dealt with the emerging issue, perhaps of the role of women in the church, and what the women were to do, to function, and to thrive in the local church. In chapter three, he dealt with the qualifications of the elders and the deacons.

And then at the end of chapter three, the purpose of the church, you might say the mandate of the church as the pillar and buttress of the truth. And as we get here now to first Timothy four and verse one, after this extended section of positive instruction, Paul returns back to his sober warnings.

But this time now it's a bit different. It's not only a warning about false teachers, but it's a warning about false teaching, and the damning effects of that teaching on the soul of Christians. He writes this, that this spirit expressly says that in later times, this will happen.

Now, as Paul is interacting with the Ephesians on this point, he tells them the spirit has warned him about what is to come. Now, our charismatic brothers and sisters, who I believe are brothers and sisters, they're Christians, they're all these things, but oftentimes what we see is that their understanding is that this is something that is normative, something that should be happening all the time, that the spirit by direct revelation speaks to his people, and there is personal prophecy, and there are all of these kinds of things.

But if we look really carefully at scripture, what we find is that this is simply not the case, that it is not all that often that the writers of scripture or the narrators of, for instance, the book of Acts, tell us that the Holy Spirit speaks directly to people.

Usually what happens is that the spirit speaks to someone, and that is recorded in cases that are fairly significant, extraordinary cases. Oftentimes we see this when the ministry of an apostle is validated or they are somehow expanded in their ministry.

Sometimes we see it when the gospel spreads beyond what would be the bounds of what the people would consider normal in their minds. For instance, the spread of the gospel among the Gentiles or to forewarn about coming trials.

It's interesting in the Lord's providence, you know, we're just reading through the book of Acts. We see an example of that today that we'll get to. In Acts chapter 10 and verse 19, we see an example where the spirit expressly spoke to the apostle Peter.

He was in Joppa on the rooftop, and you'll remember that he was having engaged in a vision. He was in a trance and had a vision. In Acts 10, 19, it says, while Peter was pondering this vision, the spirit said to him, behold, three men are looking for you.

Rise and go and accompany them without hesitation for I have sent them. So what we see here is the spirit is speaking to Peter because the gospel is not going to go simply to the Jews, but to the Gentiles as well.

In Acts chapter 11, we see this. And then again, in chapter 21, where the prophet Agabus foretells the famine that is to strike Jerusalem. And then in chapter 21, the arrest of Paul as it's coming up in Jerusalem.

Or as we read just a moment ago in Acts 13, where we say or we read that the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work for which I have called them. So what we see then is not just an ordinary day in the life of the apostle Paul, but something that is extraordinary.

That the spirit has expressly said something, we should pay attention to it. And that word expressly meaning explicitly. It's something that is coming with surety and with force. And this is what's coming.

That in later times, some will depart from the faith. Now, if anyone here is prepared to take comfort in the fact that this is to take place in the later times, as if to say that this is not going to happen in my lifetime, this is happening right before Christ comes back.

There's gonna be a few years right then, that's when it's gonna happen. But what we see is that the authors of scripture did not treat that phrase, the later times, the end times, the last times, in the same way that maybe modern day prophecy watchers are inclined to look at it as.

For the writers of scripture, what we see is that the last times, the later times, they consist of everything from the first coming of Christ to the second coming of Christ. So as Paul is writing, as he says later times, he might be looking into the future, but he is not looking far.

He is looking maybe but a stone's throw ahead. And we see this. Firstly, as Paul writes this, he's writing it to the Ephesians. And we should expect that there is immediate application in that context in Ephesus.

That he didn't write this for some future generation and that for 2000 plus years, people will not have any reason to apply this. But it is coming, it is coming in the life of Ephesus, but it's coming today as well.

Secondly, in God's redemptive historical timeline, we see that we are in the last days. Hebrews one and verse one, long ago and at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

And then thirdly, as Paul writes this, everything after he says in the later times, some will depart from the faith, he immediately transitions into the present tense to say that this is applicable. And what he is foretelling is the departure of some from the faith.

Now, this is interesting. If we look at the Greek word behind that phrase, depart from the faith, it is the Greek word apostasontai, apostasontai. That is the word from which we get our English word, apostasy.

And what does it mean to apostatize? It speaks of abandoning a former relationship, of knowing that something is true, of tasting and seeing it and experiencing it, and then departing from it. So departure from a relationship, it is a departure from an association.

And oftentimes when we see this word used in the Old Testament, what we find is that it is a word often used to describe, this is in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, that Israel's abandoning of God.

That as often as Israel, that the Lord would feed them, he would fill their stomachs, and then they would forget God, they would apostatize from him. It is to know a truth and then to turn your back on the truth.

I want you to see brothers and sisters, what a damning error this is. That the thrice holy God, the God of very gods, would make us, would make us with minds capable to understand and respond to the gospel.

That we would see Christ, that we would hear of him, that we would hear of his suffering, of his life, of his death, of his burial, of his triumphant resurrection, to be here in the midst of all of his people, week after week after week, hearing the word of God preached, to have fellowship with brothers and sisters, hearts knit together to know one another, to love one another, to have fellowship with one another, to know something of what it means to belong to the Lord, and then to depart from it.

And what Paul is saying is that this false teaching that is coming, that it is a great danger. It is a damning danger. It is something that utterly undoes the one who comes to it. And brothers, I want to ask you, sisters, I want to ask you, have you ever considered the fact that if you were not careful, and if the Lord did not preserve you, you too might fall away?

Or to say it this way, have you ever considered that if you do not faithfully persevere by the grace and power of God, and if the Lord does not preserve you, you will fall away? This is what Paul is warning against.

And the question becomes, how does someone hear the gospel, experience the joys that many do when they come near to Christians, and then fall away?

Well, for one,.

We know that it is because they are not regenerate. We know that the believer is safe in the Lord, that the evil one cannot touch him, so those who do fall away demonstrate, John says that they went out from among us because they were not of us, they did not belong.

But also, Paul gives us this hint. He says that the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith, why or how? By devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

Now, isn't that interesting? If you're at least reading out of the ESV, that word by devoting themselves to. Now, Sam and I were reflecting on this passage earlier this week, it's often our practice when we get together with elder or for elders meetings to discuss whatever text is coming up next, we looked at that word, devoting.

And I must say that as we looked at that, we thought that is a strong word that they devote themselves to deceitful spirits, almost as if they are dedicated to this, that they are committed to the teaching of demons.

But I think that at least if you have the ESV, we need to be careful because that word devoted does not quite convey it. It doesn't convey all the nuance of it. I think we see that in other translations where it speaks about paying attention to or paying careful attention to it.

And that's really what that word means. It's not that one dives headlong into false teaching, but they are paying too much, too careful attention to that false teaching. It's not a full on devotion, but it's being somewhat invested in something.

And I want to ask you, what in your life, brothers and sisters, is there anything in your life that you know, perhaps you should not be spending great time looking at, listening to, digging into, diving into, but you are, you're not fully devoted to it.

You're not committed to it yet, but you're entertaining it. That is what the apostle Paul is speaking about here. It's paying careful attention to something, perhaps a little bit too much attention. It's not about being well-informed.

It's that I am beginning to be persuaded by this and I am okay with it. This is what Paul has in mind. And brothers and sisters, we have seen this in the lives of men and women around us. We see someone who at first they hear something and they are interested.

It's a bit of a tangential interest, but it's an interest. And then it evolves from hearing it for the first time then to a bit more of a careful interest in it where it begins to appear more and more in the conversations that we have with those people.

And then from a casual interest to a careful interest to an obsessive interest where when we go and see them, when we are with them, it is all that they talk about. I think of something that's very applicable in the life of our church.

I have seen this very thing in real time. To go from casual to careful to obsessed and then to reject what is true for something that is counterfeit. Now here, what we see is that this truth, it does not arise for this truth.

This falsehood does not arise out of nowhere, but where does it come from? From deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. This is not teaching about demons as one commentator observes, but it is false teaching that originates from demons.

And it is the error that damns. I'm reminded of a story that, or at least a scene that appears in the Pilgrim's Progress. We read that story, perhaps some of you, if you've never read that book, I encourage you, make that one of your New Year's resolutions.

Even if you don't make resolutions, go and read the Pilgrim's Progress this year. You'll be greatly edified by it. In the Pilgrim's Progress, there are two characters. They form the main characters for at least part of the story.

And it's Christian and hopeful. And Christian and hopeful are walking from the city of destruction to the celestial city. And as they make their way to the celestial city, they find themselves in a place known as the Delectable Mountains.

Doesn't that sound nice? The Delectable Mountains. And there they are met by a group of shepherds that guide them through. And as they're walking and making their way up, ascending the Delectable Mountains, they look to either side and John Bunyan records that he said he was pleasant in every direction that they looked.

And the shepherd said, would you like to see some sights? And Christian and hopeful being agreeable to this said, yes, let's see some sights. And so they went up and the shepherds took them up to a place called the Hill Called Error.

And there as they went up the Hill Called Error, they ascended the steep slopes and they found that there was a cliff on one side and a cliff on the other side. And scaling to the top of the Hill Called Error, the shepherds asked them, encouraged them to look down at what was at the bottom.

And when Christian and hopeful looked at what was at the bottom, they got more than they bargained for. As they looked down, they saw that several men were down at the bottom of the hill in the rocks dashed to pieces.

And the shepherd said, Christian asked, what does this mean? And the shepherds answered, these are those, those you see who lie dashed in pieces at the bottom of this mountain. They are those who have gone astray and they continue this day to be unburied as an example to others.

When we interact with false teaching, we're not playing games. We're interacting with the very thing that threatens to undo us. As William Gurnall, one Puritan said, none sink so far into hell as those who come nearest to heaven because they fall from the greatest height.

The Diabolical Character of False Teachers

Now, we see the character of this false teaching. Let's look next at the diabolical character of false teachers. We read in verse two, through the insincerity of liars, whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Verses two and three, what we learn then are how people come to receive this false teaching. This false teaching is dangerous, but where does it come from? Verse two, Paul tells us that this teaching comes to people through, and it's interesting, he doesn't identify false teachers, but he says through the insincerity of liars.

Through those who are insincere, who lie and whose consciences are sealed. These are the vehicle through which deceitful spirits and demons peddle their falsehoods. We read in 2 Corinthians 11 and verse 13, for such men are false prophets, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds.

The very ones, when we begin to entertain a false idea, a false doctrine, some kind of error, the very ones that come with that error are those who come as ambassadors of demons, as it were. That it is, their identity is truly diabolical.

It is truly devilish. It is truly demonic. And the question becomes, how will we recognize these men when they are in our midst? How do you right now, I'm sure all of you have a cell phone with a wifi connection or with a data plan.

How are you, when you are on YouTube or social media or on a website that purports to be a Christian website, how are you assessing those who are teaching that content, that material? Well, here, what Paul gives us are some character qualifications.

He's somewhat working with the principle that the Lord Jesus gave us in Matthew 16, 7, 16, when he said, "'You will recognize them by their fruits.'". He says that these false teachers are characterized by insincerity, that they are liars, that their consciences are seared.

And we will see that they distort the truth of God's word. Now, what does it mean when it says that they are insincere? I'm not trying to make you Greek scholars today, but there are just so many Greek words that translate into our English language that I think it's worth looking at.

That word insincere, the insincerity of liars is the Greek word, literally, hypocrisis, hypocrisis, that they are hypocritical. And what does it mean that they are hypocritical? That they are like those who the Lord condemned who are whitewashed tombs, that they are clean on the outside, and yet inside they are filled with dead men's bones.

It means that they act in one way before men and an altogether different way when men are not looking, when there is no audience. Brothers and sisters, how do you discern an insincere liar or a hypocrite in the church?

How do you discern that on the internet? I would caution you brothers and sisters, you might remember it was, I believe it was this summer that it was Jason Hagan from Fellowship Baptist Church who talked about how people will come to him with videos and they will just send him endless amounts of videos.

He doesn't have enough time to watch all the videos that people send him. But one of the encouragements that he had, if I'm remembering him correctly, is that you should not make people on the internet.

Your pastors.

You should not make people online the people who are your greatest influences in the world. And the reason for that is because your soul is far too precious for that. And because error is far too prevalent for that.

I praise God that while I have benefited from people online, the people who have made the greatest impact on my life are people that I know in person, I have seen them. I have seen their lives. I've met their wives and their children.

It's not just their words that have formed me, but it is their lives that have formed me. And brothers and sisters, we should, you should, you must, if you're going to defend against false teaching, against the words and the teachings of demons, you must be very careful that every person that you are ready to receive something from, you know something of that person.

I was thinking about it on the way here, even as I was praying ahead of the sermon, that Lord, I do not want to be like these men. I do not want to be a talking head. I don't want to be, and you should not want anyone who is teaching you the word of God to be a talking head, who preaches but one hour a week, but someone who preaches seven days a week and the sermon of their lives is as loud, if not louder, than the sermon of their words on a Sunday.

We will know them by their fruit. And brothers and sisters, let me encourage you. When you find someone online who you really appreciate, do some research that you might know something of their fruit.

I see men online today that are, I want to be careful, I don't want to overstate things, but who are online and they minister principally to other men online. It's Twitter church or it's podcast church or whatever it is.

And the problem, the great problem I see is this, that you don't have to look very hard in these men's ex-feeds or their podcast feeds, the words that they use, the things that they do to realize that these are not men that I want to be shaped by, not just because of their words, but because of their lives.

We must be very, very careful. Pray, pray for the elders of this church that we would not be insincere hypocrites and do not follow after them. It says that they are liars. We know what it means to be a liar.

John 8, 44, we read, the Lord said to the Pharisees, you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do that your father's desire. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies, that those who follow after the father of liars, they will do what is in accord with their character.

They will be liars. Says that they have seared consciences. This is another hapax legomena in scripture. It's a one-time only word that we find in reference to seared consciences. It's my last Greek word of the day.

It is the Greek word katerizo. It is to be cauterized, so that their consciences are burned and seared shut. I think of, the only thing I can think of when I think of this is the fact that my wife works in healthcare and she loves watching surgery videos.

And she will sometimes, I will find her watching a laparoscopic surgery.

On the couch.

I don't know why people do that for entertainment, but she does. And she'll say, oh, watch this. And they're sauterizing organs inside a person. And I see that and how grotesque it is. It stops the bleeding, it stops infection, but it also stops feeling.

It reduces the pain so that the scar tissue there, the nerves at the end of that scar are dead and they are unfeeling. And what becomes of false teachers is they cauterize their consciences. They're seared, they're branded.

And the way this works is this. Scripture tells us, Hebrews 3 and 13, but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. That unrepented of sin, that sin that you allow to exist and live in your life.

It's like a truck on a gravel road. It goes over it once, twice, three times. And the more it goes, the harder it gets packed until there is no feeling left. Ephesians 4 .19, we read of false teachers.

They have become callous and given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. They have become callous in this sin. Brothers and sisters, I've said it to you before. I know that there are times when our consciences accuse us when they ought not to.

And we must calibrate them from Scripture when that occurs. But there are times when our consciences do not convict us when they must. And we must calibrate these consciences by Scripture. It is by persisting in sin.

And we should be very careful every time we sin against our consciences. Because it is by persisting in that very sin that will eventually kill the nerve endings in that part of our conscience so that we are unfeeling and blind to the sin in that given area.

And such are the men who are used by demons to feed the flock that which is false. Sam and I were talking about it this week. Have you ever looked at, and it's very easy in some circles, maybe to look at a prosperity preacher, for instance, who preaches the so-called prosperity gospel, and you go, surely they must know what they're doing.

They must know that what they're doing is wrong, don't they? And I think it's both. That there is a sense in which that they have devoted themselves to, they have paid careful attention to the teaching of demons so that they were treading in a direction that they knew that they ought not to be treading.

But then at some point, that conscience becomes so seared that they actually believe what it is that they are preaching. And the people that follow them actually believe what it is that they are preaching.

We must watch out for people who are hypocrites, who are liars, and who have no problem whatsoever sinning against their conscience, who are unbothered by it. And we must watch out against those. We read in verse three.

He writes, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. We must watch out for those who knowingly distort God's word.

Here we see the subject matter. It's gonna be different, I think, in every day and time. In this case, it was those who forbid marriage and who required abstinence from certain foods. What's interesting is that while this might be, might have been especially pronounced in Paul's day, it's still something that the false teachers do.

That you will go to the cults and to, whether small or big, and they require, for instance, the priests to abstain from marriage so that they would be set apart, or the women to abstain from marriage in given situations, or you cannot eat that food.

No, no, no, you cannot please the Lord. You cannot be right with him and eat that for supper. What's interesting is there's always a grain of truth. So that what we see in, for instance, food and marriage, these are some of the most natural appetites that we have, not as Christians, but as people, that we all hunger, and it's not good for man to be alone.