House Rule #18 Teach and Live Healthy Doctrine (1 Timothy 6:2c-10) | Adult Sunday School

Kootenai Church

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I have an extra one, actually they're my son's, no are you kidding

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I wish, it's the same figurine.

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How about now, yep, there we go, good morning everyone, good to see you all, we're glad that you're here, for those of you that are brand new to North Idaho and you're wondering about springtime, that was last week, just letting you know, and U -Haul has a whole bunch of trailers stacked up out there, no never mind, we are going to continue our study this morning in 1st

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Timothy, back into chapter 6 this morning, and let's begin our time by committing our study to our

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Lord and ask his blessing on it this morning. Our Father, we know that we are here by your grace, and we are here to worship and praise our great

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ, and we thank you for the grace that was given to us through him, that we might know you and worship you, and as we study your word

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Father this morning, we know that we are dependent on your spirit to guide us and teach us, we pray you would do that this morning, that you would accomplish every divine purpose that you have for us, and we will always praise you in Jesus' name,

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Amen. Well this morning we're going to look at 1st Timothy chapter 2 this morning and we're going to start where we left off last time with that little statement that ends verse 2.

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In our study this morning we're calling house rule number 18, teach and live healthy doctrine.

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Teach and live, both of those things are really important as we have seen all the way through our study, every time

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Paul mentions confronting false teachers or accomplishing something there in Ephesus, he seems to just stop and say in Timothy, you need to take care of your own life as well, so that's there for a purpose, both those things, teach and live healthy doctrine.

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And we're calling it healthy doctrine as we're going to see because Paul is very concerned about Timothy and the churches at Ephesus being taught healthy or sound doctrine.

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Most of the expositors for centuries probably, when they come to this passage, deal with it in some sense having to do with health or medicine or something like that because of the word that we're going to be looking at in our study this morning.

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And I thought, well, I'm not going to try to be any different, especially since we have at least a two plus year background in public health.

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So there's a very, very fertile garden out there of terms and terminology and so we're not going to try to mask the truth here this morning.

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We are going to be, we will. And so, boy, it'd be silly not to take advantage of this knowledge base that's here in our study this morning.

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So we're going to call it teach and live healthy doctrine this morning. In this section of his letter,

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Paul is bringing the letter to Timothy to a close and he's also once again expressing his concern for the churches at Ephesus, that they have sound teaching in those churches.

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And we saw multiple times already through our study, one of the big issues there is the presence of false teachers in those congregations.

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And Paul had, it's no surprise to Paul or Timothy because Paul had prophesied that back in Acts chapter 20 when he met with the elders of Ephesus.

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So he just comes back to it again and again and again. And in this passage this morning, we're going to be looking at chapter 6 verse 2, the very end there through verse 10, he does the very same thing, warning and describing false teachers so that Timothy can correct that issue in the church at Ephesus.

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And it's his final statement concerning false teachers and they're teaching what

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Paul calls different doctrine. And he makes a summary statement in that passage back that we looked at and began with this very thing back in chapter 1 where he says,

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I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.

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And so this is a big portion of what Timothy has to do as far as his ministry in Ephesus.

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He's going to keep coming back to this in fact. And later on in chapter 4 verse 1 and 2 as we saw, he sort of does a spiritual

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MRI to tell you what's going on behind the scenes with these false teachers.

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And they're the demonic activity that is going on under the, behind the scenes so to speak.

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These people are motivated by demons who are teaching false doctrine, deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.

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And it's done through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

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So it's a very serious issue in Ephesus and Paul is urging Timothy to deal with that.

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And he ends verse 2 by saying, teach and urge these things.

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Again, we talked about it last time. Some would say, well that applies to what came before and some would say, well no, this starts this section, but it really doesn't matter.

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He wants him to teach and urge everything in the letter. So we're just going to start at this time. Teach and urge these things.

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There's two command force verbs there. He wants them to teach these things. And he uses that very familiar word to urge.

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It's sometimes translated parakaleo, to call alongside.

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Remember we studied that word a little bit. We saw that it means to call somebody alongside to speak to them to accomplish something.

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And it could take a variety of, just depends on the purpose, how it's translated.

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And we saw in verse 3, again, Paul says, I urged you when

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I was going to Macedonia. That's chapter 1 verse 3. Chapter 1 verse 18, this charge

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I entrust to you, Timothy my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare.

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Chapter 3 verse 14, really the theme verse of the letter, I am writing these things, he said.

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And 4 .15, practice these things, immerse yourself in them. Chapter 5 verse 7, command these things as well.

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Chapter 5 verse 21, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels,

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I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging. And in our verse here, teach and urge these things.

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Later on in 6 .13, I charge you in the presence of God, keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach.

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And later on in that same chapter, chapter 17, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty.

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So Paul is really interested in Timothy's style of teaching, right?

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He charges him so he can charge other people. This is not an option. These are commands that Timothy must obey.

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And have you noticed Paul's style? Paul is not interested in negotiating the truth, but preaching and teaching it.

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Paul is not about sitting down with false teachers so that we can find some kind of a consensus.

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He's not interested in consensus. He's about teaching and urging. He does not want

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Timothy to have a conversation to find consensus with false teachers.

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He wants confrontation and correction. This is the cure for what ails the church in Ephesus and for the church today.

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False teachers are dangerous to the spiritual health of the church, and Paul is exhorting

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Timothy to confront the false teachers of Ephesus and stop the spread of their spiritual disease.

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When the spiritual lives of the sheep are in danger, the shepherd has to confront the danger and correct it.

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So that brings us to Roman Numeral 1 on your outline there. False teachers communicate spiritual disease, okay?

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So you may want to put on your white lab coat and your, well you can put on some latex gloves if you want to.

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I'm not going to wear any, but this is all going to be about medicine, about communicable diseases, about public health, okay?

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And I know that you're well schooled in all of this, both the clinical aspects and also the epidemiology, the spread of diseases.

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And false teachers communicate spiritual disease. In verse 3, Paul says, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, now stop right there.

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This is an extended conditional sentence, starts with if, conditional sentence, you know it has if and then a then, a condition and then a fulfillment of that.

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Well this is a kind of conditional sentence that you can tell by the way it's put together that the author believes that it's true, okay?

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So Paul is not questioning whether or not there are false teachers in Ephesus and neither is Timothy. They know that and you can tell that by the way this is structured here.

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In other words, Paul is not wondering whether or not Timothy needs to go and find some there.

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They're there, they're teaching false doctrine, he knows that and he wants Timothy to deal with them.

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And it doesn't matter who they are, male, female, whoever, anyone, you know, certain persons, doesn't really matter who they are.

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So the first thing we see, A, their teaching is unorthodox or heterodox, basically that is the word.

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It's different, it's different doctrine. In other words, it's not true, it's not in line with historic apostolic teaching and you might think of it as it's contaminated, okay, it's defiled teaching.

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Oftentimes, of course, false teachers are going to use biblical terms, right? You hear them all the time.

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They use biblical words, biblical terms and they give all the appearance of being orthodox teachers but they don't use biblical definitions.

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And if you don't define terms and words the way God defines them, you're going to wind up with a different doctrine, a different teaching.

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So their teaching is unorthodox, heterodox is the word and B, their teaching is unhealthy, it is unsound, does not agree with the sound words of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness. This word here, with the sound words of our

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Lord Jesus Christ is a word we're going to focus in on because that's the word that is used repeatedly to talk about sound teaching, sound doctrine in Scripture.

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It's the word hygieno, okay, hygieno. And it's easier for me to say the

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English transliteration of it, when we transliterate words and just bring them across into another language, pretty much unchanged and that is the word hygiene in our language.

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It's the word hygiene. And Paul is concerned that the teaching be sound or healthy.

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And on the second page there of your outline, on page 27, there's just a brief word study,

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I thought we'd spend a minute or two and go through this. Often times these words that we look at occur hundreds of times in the

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New Testament or Old Testament and sometimes thousands of times, you know, and they don't lend themselves really well to doing a classroom word study and so I kind of debated about this one, but it only occurs 12 times.

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And as I looked at it, I thought well it would be easier for me and maybe better to just sort of show you what's going on here with this word, rather than just talk about it.

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But on page 27, and we'll just do a little brief word study here. There's the word at the top, hygieno, and from one

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Greek dictionary, it says to be sound in good health, okay, so it's used to speak of physical health of people, and then metaphorically, of one whose

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Christian opinions are free from an admixture of error, they are true, incorrupt, or incorrupt doctrine.

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And then even the English translation of the word hygiene, the definition from the Cambridge English Dictionary, the practice or principles of keeping yourself and your environment clean in order to maintain health and prevent disease, of course.

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So you can see that the meaning of the word, particularly with the issue of personal physical health, is just moved right over into our language.

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It occurs 12 times in the New Testament, and it's very interesting here, eight of those are found in Paul's pastoral letters.

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So, if we just do a real brief survey, starting in Luke chapter 5 verse 31, and it's real interesting there, three times in Luke's Gospel he uses this word.

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Well, Paul told us in Colossians 4 .14 that Luke is the beloved physician, so it shouldn't surprise us at all that this physician focuses in on these health or medical type issues.

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In fact, Luke is the only Gospel writer who records Jesus' statements about physicians, okay?

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In Luke 4 .23, he quotes Jesus' words, physician, heal yourself, okay?

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Luke does that. And then in Luke 5 .31, here's this word that occurs, and these are all from the

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Legacy Standard Bible, and Jesus answered it and said to them, it is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick, okay?

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And then Luke 7 .10, when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

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Remember that's the story about the Roman soldier, he had a slave, he loved the slave, but it says the slave was sick and at the point of death, and he sent people to ask

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Jesus to heal him, say you don't even need to come to our house, just please heal him, and he did. And so, for the second time here, we see this word used as a state of physical wellness as opposed to being sick or ill.

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They found the slave in good health. Luke 15 .27, the familiar parable of the prodigal son, you remember the brother was upset that the father was throwing a big party and a barbecue for his son who had wasted the father's money and almost wasted his own life, and he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed a fatted calf because he has received him back safe and sound.

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And so all three of those occurrences there are that same word and it's translated well, good health, and sound because it has to do with physical health, personal health.

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And then down at the bottom there, another usage of it in 3 John, that little letter,

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John says, and this is the salutation in that letter, the elder to the beloved

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Gaius, whom I love in truth, beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.

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Now that one states it in a way that you know he's not talking about spiritual health because he mentions that last.

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So he's talking about his physical well -being there. So of the dozen times it occurs in the

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New Testament, four times it's used to speak of physical health. But now look how Paul uses it in the pastoral letters.

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These are the other eight times it occurs. In 1 Timothy 1 .10 we saw that, contrary to sound teaching.

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And our verse here, does not agree with sound words. 2 Timothy, standard of sound words, 2

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Timothy 4 .3, endures sound doctrine. Again, Titus, sound doctrine, sound in the faith, and then there's two occurrences in those first two verses in chapter 2, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, sound in faith.

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So eight times Paul is using this metaphorically to speak of teaching or doctrine or even a person who needs to be sound or healthy in their faith.

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So as we're going to see, this is how Paul uses it through this letter as he talks about and exhorts

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Timothy to make sure that in these churches there is no different doctrine, that it is sound doctrine, and that it is, the false teachers who aren't teaching sound doctrine are confronted.

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So, their teaching, unorthodox, heterodox, their teaching is unhealthy or unsound, and their teaching, see, is ungodly.

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What's really, really critical about this little statement here, it's easy to just kind of run over it, does not agree with the sound words of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Can't tell you how important that is for Paul's understanding of the nature of Scripture and the nature of what he is communicating to Timothy.

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We saw this back up in 518, for the Scripture says, and he quotes both an

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Old Testament statement that's recorded in Scripture, but he also quotes

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Jesus' own words and he calls it Scripture. It's very important to understanding the doctrine of the nature of the

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Word of God and also the nature of what Jesus said. But he says, does not agree with the sound words of our

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Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness.

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So, very important here, false teachers communicate spiritual disease. It is unorthodox, it's different than what apostolic teaching was.

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It is unhealthy, it is unsound, and it is ungodly. It's not from Christ.

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It's not from God. Jesus Christ is not the source of their teaching, even though they often will credit

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Him, they'll talk about Him, they'll use His name, they'll use the name of the Holy Spirit, and so on. But you have to look carefully at how they're defining it and compare that with what is revealed in Scripture.

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How does Paul define sound doctrine? The words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness.

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And what he's doing here, he's telling you what they look like and what they sound like on the outside.

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Kind of like what physicians call signs. There's symptoms and then there's signs.

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There's symptoms that the patient tells them about and then there's the signs that the doctor can look at and determine.

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What he's just told you here is something that you can see from the outside. And what we're going to see next here in Roman Numeral 2, we might think of this as an

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MRI. A spiritual MRI. Because false teachers have a spiritual heart condition.

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You can't really see what's going on unless you use some kind of a technique to see. Well, the

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Scriptures reveals what's going on. So in the first part of verse 4, it says, these people, he gives a diagnosis.

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He is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words.

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False teachers communicate their spiritual disease. And Roman Numeral 2, false teachers have a spiritual heart condition.

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He's showing you what's going on on the inside here. Where does this come from? First thing, A, they are puffed up with conceit.

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Puffed up with conceit. Puffed up with conceit. You might call that spiritual edema.

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We keep our medical terminology here. They're puffed up with conceit. They propagate false teaching, false doctrines and maybe they get a following.

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They get a crowd because what do they do? They appeal to the flesh when they teach and preach. And that's very attractive.

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People like to hear stuff that appeals to their flesh. Did you know that God wants you to be wealthy?

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And the guy sitting out there, he's going, wow, praise Eluia, because that's what

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I want. And they get a big following like that. Well, sure. And then that just puffs them up.

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They might get a big ministry and there's a lot of money involved. Pretty soon they're just seen all over the world.

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Well, they're puffed up with pride. That's where that comes from. And not only that, they understand nothing,

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Paul says. What an amazing combination of terminology here. They're puffed up because they think they're doing something really great, but actually they understand nothing.

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So many false teachers they come across as knowledgeable. They might have advanced degrees. They publish papers.

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They write books. They write books that sell well. You can list some books that sold by the millions.

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Some of them, some of them are the best -selling books of all time. And when you compare them to Scripture, they're nothing but spiritual roadkill.

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But they're really popular. And the fact of the matter is, though, the people that wrote them understand nothing, nothing spiritually helpful.

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They do have a following. They get a big following. And they're treated like celebrities. Sometimes they're the go -to people for certain issues.

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But the fact is, they know nothing. But here's a real, real critical part of this issue.

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They're not only puffed up with conceit. They don't know anything helpful spiritually. They are addicted to conflict.

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They are addicted to conflict. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words.

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They are addicted to conflict. This is kind of a fascinating statement here by Paul.

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Even PSV, an unhealthy craving. Other translations, if you have a

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New American Standard, a sick craving for controversial questions and disputes.

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Christian Standard Bible, unhealthy interest in disputes and arguments. New King James, obsessed with disputes and arguments.

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Legacy Bible, a morbid interest. You get the picture? It's like an addiction.

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They have to have arguments about words. And very often, if they can engage a

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Christian in arguments, they somehow feel like they have been somehow confirmed, certified, you know, like they've done a really good spiritual deed.

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But really, what they've done, they've just simply given the Christian a look into their spiritual lives and what they're really like.

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They're swollen with conceit. They understand nothing. They are addicted to conflict. And they do infect others with their false teaching.

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They always infect others. They just can't go away and keep it to themselves. False teachers cause spiritual toxicity in others.

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This is Roman Numeral 3. They cause spiritual toxicity in others. So the rest of verse 4 and the first part of 5a.

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What does it produce? Which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction.

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Okay? You might consider this the lab report. Okay? The lab report comes back and, oh, what do we have here?

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Well, we have envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction. Okay. Envy.

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This is a word that's always used in a negative sense in Scripture. Jealousy of another's success.

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And it always has to do with the depreciation of another person's worth. Envy of his excellence.

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And what's interesting, it's often associated with murder. Often associated with murder. Cain murdered

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Abel because God accepted Abel's sacrifice and not Cain's. Right? In Romans chapter 1 verse 29, which is the outworking of Paul's understanding of what happens when people reject

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God. And right after he mentions the reprobate mind, after that descent down into apostasy, it says, these people are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, dissension.

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And there's envy and murder right next to each other. And of course, you remember from the Gospels, an unbelieving, godless pagan

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Roman emperor, Roman governor named Pontius Pilate, right? Interrogated Jesus because the

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Jews wanted him dead. And this is coming from the mouth of a man who is spiritually blind, spiritually deaf, spiritually dead as a post, right?

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He says this, it says that he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

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Okay? He had more spiritual insight as to what was going on in the entire Jewish community who wanted

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Jesus dead. But he knew that they only want him dead because they're envious of him. So envy is often associated with murder.

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And then dissension, arguing, wrangling, strife, and then slander.

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We looked at this word I think a week or so ago, the word blasphemy, to speak falsely about God or people, to defame another person's character, okay?

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And then evil suspicions, evil surmising sometimes it's called, very literally evil underthinking.

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They want to undermine people with evil thinking. And then constant friction, okay?

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Some of you ladies are saying, yeah my husband had that last summer, we were working out in the garden too much. Not what we're talking about here.

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That's constant friction, but this is something different, okay? Useless disputing, constant wranglings, people who always have to be in conflict, always want to argue about things.

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And the problem is, they're not arguing to find out what the Bible says, it's clear, it's right in front of them.

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They want to argue it away, right? They want to get rid of the scriptures, so they're trying to argue out of what the

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Bible actually says. So this is the lab report, the people that teach false doctrine produce these things in other people, in people who listen to them.

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This is what's commonly called a vice list in scripture. We've talked about how when the

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Bible talks about someone who is righteous, then it gives you something so that you can objectively determine that, you can verify that, right?

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It does the same thing with unregenerate people as well. It talks about somebody who is unsaved, unregenerate, a false teacher, a false prophet, and then it tells you what that looks like.

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How does that work its way out on the outside? Paul does this in Galatians chapter 5 verses 19 through 21, and he's describing the works of the flesh, the works of the flesh, and of course in that passage he's comparing that with the fruit of the spirit, okay?

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Here, listen to this vice list. Now the works of the flesh are evident, okay? You can see them.

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Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

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I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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And this is typical of how Paul teaches. He uses these vice lists. This week as I was thinking about this,

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I thought, well this is kind of what he does in Romans, you know, at the end of that section on the descent into apostasy by these people.

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That's a vice list, and I thought, well I'm going to jot it down. I made a big mistake. I got too small a piece of paper out, and I had to write really fine.

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Now, these are not my words. These are not some denominational statement, you know.

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It's not like a doctrinal statement to attack a certain group of people. These are God's own words just taken right out of Scripture.

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This is the way Scripture describes people who have descended down into homosexuality.

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This is from Romans 1 .18 and following. Unrighteous, without excuse, dishonoring to God, ungrateful to God, futile in thought, dark, foolish hearts, fools, idolatrous, believing lies, abandoned by God, unnatural in behavior, dishonorable, shameless acts, judge for error, doing wrong, abandoned by God.

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And then he focuses down and mentions that they have a reprobate mind, okay? And then he just takes you through what that looks like.

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He says they are filled with unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife.

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There's envy and murder right next to each other. Deceit, maliciousness, gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, invent evil, disobedient, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.

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Okay? That's just all from Romans 1. A vice list of what it means when

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God has abandoned you to your sin. And false teachers cause this kind of thing as they spread their lies and other people are led into the same kinds of sins that they are involved in.

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This is obvious. This is the thing that Paul says here in Galatians. They are, these works of the flesh are evident.

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It's the evident outworking of false teachers. And you can see this all around you.

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You can see this is characteristic of the world we live in right now, right? I mean, you could watch ten minutes of your average news program and make a list like that, right?

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Well, that brings us to Roman Numeral 4. False teachers and their victims have no spiritual immunity.

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No spiritual immunity. And this is verse 5. They cause these things.

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They produce these things. And it says, among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth.

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Imagining that godliness is a means of gain. These are people who are not saved.

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They do not have new life in Christ. The Holy Spirit is not with them.

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They have no power to resist these temptations. They are vulnerable to a myriad of spiritual infectious diseases.

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Like a case of AIDS which destroys the immune system or some kinds of poisons will do that or radiation sickness will do that.

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If your immune system is destroyed, the person is left vulnerable to a wide range of infectious agents.

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And so Paul says this is their problem. They are depraved in mind. That's A there.

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That means, this word depraved, to destroy, to corrupt, rot, decay, spoil.

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And again, from Romans 128, reprobate mind is what he's talking about here.

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This is a person who's, because of their rejection of God, God has abandoned them to their sin.

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Also translated as a debased mind. There is no renewing of their mind like in Romans chapter 12.

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Romans 12, Paul implements the, he's talked 11 chapters about being saved.

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And when he gets to Romans 12, he begins to apply that and to encourage Christians to live out their salvation.

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And he talks about by the renewing of your mind. That's only possible by the work of the Holy Spirit.

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And if there's no regeneration, it's absolutely impossible. All they can do is fake being

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Christians, being believers. That's where cults come from. That's where false teaching comes from. Because they are depraved in mind.

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The mind is so critical as we all know in scripture, but also in every other area of life.

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And B, they are deprived of the truth. Depraved and deprived. What a combination.

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Salvation is by the work of the Holy Spirit. Through the instrument of the gospel. Word and spirit always working together.

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Paul said in Romans 1 .16 that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.

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Right? And even Jesus speaks about the combination of spirit and truth.

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In John 4 .23, in his conversation with the woman at the well, she tried to make an issue out of location.

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Well you Jews, your worship isn't really legitimate. You worship in Jerusalem. We worship on Mount Gerizim.

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Right? Because the Samaritans thought that was the true place of worship. And Jesus brought her back to reality by saying location is not the issue.

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Okay? The issue is those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth.

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And there you have the Holy Spirit and truth, the word of God, are right next to each other. So without the spirit of God, there is no they don't have the truth.

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Right? There's no way. So they are depraved in mind, they are deprived of the truth, and they imagine that godliness will make them money.

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Right? This is where this comes from. You see this all the time. They are susceptible to what in scripture is called the lust of the eye.

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And it's just a carnal response to wanting to make money off of what should just simply be their ministry.

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But they don't do that. They think that being godly, and I think Paul is using godly here in a sarcastic sense.

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He knows they're not really godly. But they think this godliness that they have is going to make them money.

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And it just comes from their imagination. It comes from their own fleshly carnal response.

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Jude describes apostates as people who cause divisions. He says they're worldly people, devoid of the spirit.

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They're divisive, like we've seen, dissensions and divisions and all that. And they're devoid of the spirit.

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Same thing that Paul is talking about. They have no spiritual immunity from sin and all of its outworkings because they don't have the

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Spirit of God. The Spirit of God ministers through the Word to produce sanctification in the believer, as we know.

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This goes back to the upper room and Jesus' great words in his prayer to his Father. He said, sanctify them in the truth.

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Your Word is truth. And we know that sanctification is done by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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Spirit and Word always working together. And this whole issue of thinking that godliness will make them money,

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Paul just expands on it in this next section. Roman Numeral 5 there in your notes, false teachers and their followers are destroyed by their disease.

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This is where it always ends. Sin is self -destructive. And this pursuit of money for the sake of pretending to be godly and using that to make money is on display here.

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Paul says, verse 6, now there is great gain in godliness with contentment.

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So you understand how Paul understands godliness, it is with contentment. This other kind of godliness where they're just trying to make money off of it and cheat people and use them for their own purposes is not true godliness.

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And he tells us why in verse 7, for we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world.

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But if we have food and clothing, with this we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

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In verse 10, maybe one of the top 10 most mistranslated verses or misquoted verses in scripture, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.

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It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

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Verse 10 is really just an explanatory statement of verse 9. And notice the word desire to be rich, harmful desires.

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And then in verse 10, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.

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These people are not really godly people, that's A. They're not godly because they don't have godly contentment.

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Basically Paul here, he's teaching on the absolute sovereignty of God. Why? Because where do we get what we have?

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Where do we get what we eat? All of our material things are gifts from God. And if people aren't content with that, in a sense they're denying

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God's sovereignty and lordship over their lives, and it's not godly. And B, they don't have contentment.

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True godliness has contentment. It's an emphasis, again, on the sovereignty of God. What do they have?

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They have desire, they have lust, they have a love of money, craving these things.

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And it's not the money that's the problem, okay? Money's just a tool, as we know. It's the lust for it.

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So we could say the locus of infection is not money. It's not dollars. It's right where it always is, in the heart of that individual.

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And the ultimate end is self -destruction. Self -destruction. They suffer spiritual death, okay?

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This is always how it ends up with unregenerate people. It can only end up that way.

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And so what we have here is a diagnosis of the false teachers, what's going on behind the scenes, what's going on internally, how that works its way out in their lives, and how it impacts other people.

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False teachers communicate their spiritual disease, okay? And the ones that have very popular ministries, you know, that are worldwide,

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I guess maybe we could call them super -spreaders, right? I had to get that in there someplace.

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False teachers have a spiritual heart condition. It's not their environment, it's not their upbringing, it's right here, where God puts the locus of infection.

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It's the sinful, unregenerate heart that produces these things. And they also cause spiritual toxicity in others, and none of them, the false teachers or their victims, have any spiritual immunity.

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Why? They're devoid of the spirit. And they do not have the Word of God, the truth in their lives.

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And the ultimate end of it is their spiritual death, okay? Pretty sad, pretty sad picture.

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Do you have any thoughts or questions about what we've seen in this passage? Yes? Sure, yeah.

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Look at the background of the Ephesian churches. The Apostle Paul had planted them, he had been there for month after month after month after month.

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He had written them the letter to the Ephesians, what I think is probably the greatest doctrinal treatise ever written, including his letter to Romans, but I think

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Ephesians is arguably, I mean, look what they had, look at the revelation that they had. And he was barely down the road and it began to get corrupted.

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And that's what's gone on all through history too as well. Well, I don't know that they would agree with you and say they know they're false teachers.

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They don't have any spiritual insight, how can they? They don't have the spirit. Why doesn't

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Satan give up on his quest to destroy the church? He's spiritually blind. And so, yes, and I've wondered the same thing.

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I mean, I have read statements by people and it reads like a really sound doctrinal statement.

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They would say the Bible teaches this, this, this, this, and you're just going down a checklist like a systematic theology.

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And they're absolutely correct and they state it and word it very, very well. Come down to the bottom, he says, and I don't believe one bit of it.

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They're spiritually blind. Like Paul said, they're devoid of the spirit and they're deprived of the truth.

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Without the spirit, you don't have the truth. You can have a long list of things that you teach and believe.

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This is classic liberalism historically, right? I mean, they know, these are smart people, really smart, many of them, they're just brilliant.

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And yet, something's missing there and what's missing is the work of the spirit, the sanctifying work of the spirit who will sanctify them in the truth, just like Jesus said.

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It has to be together. You can have truth and no spirit and you wind up with what you've just described.

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But it always works together. Other than that, I don't know how to explain it.

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I kind of agree. How in the world can you have this revelation and yet basically deny it and deny its power, the power to save you and the power to sanctify you?

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It's beyond me as well. Any other thoughts you might have? Yeah, Steve? Personally, I think it always comes back to the gospel.

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It comes back to the gospel and you always have to be, kind of have that question in your mind.

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Paul said, I know no man according to the flesh. He didn't recognize whether they were Jews or Gentiles. He wanted to know about their spiritual life.

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And I think that's where it is. These examples here, we all can think of someone who's not only said, this is what

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I believe, they've taught it, maybe taught it for decades, maybe a tenured professor for years.

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And then all of a sudden they go, bye -bye, I'm out of here. And they apostatize. The only thing you can, you have to bring that back to, they never believed the gospel.

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That's all, the only explanation I think there is. You can't say, well it was your education, it was this, or somebody was mean to you, or you didn't find a nice church where they were, that's got nothing to do with it.

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It comes down to whether they're saved or lost, in my opinion.

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I think that's, I mean, you have to come back down to it every time. And this is why the gospel is so important in churches. Angelica?

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It's a good point, yeah. It comes from you, us. It's in there. So yeah, and really it does come back down every time.

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It's a good lesson for all of us, right, to continuously say while we're exhorted in scripture, test yourselves.

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Whenever we have communion, we stop and say, okay, what's my spiritual state right now?

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If I'm a believer, what's my spiritual condition? But also, are you saved here today?

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Are you a believer? And we know that the way things have gone for the last 40, 50 years, and of course it's been in the whole history of the church, but there's a lot of people out there that have been misled in so many different ways that, you know, if you believe scripture is the word of God, if you believe the things it says, you are in a very small minority right now.

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It's probably always been true, but we always say, you know, it's always worse than it used to be, but, you know, that's kind of the way it is.

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And I just think we just need to keep coming back to the gospel every time. Okay, anything else that you might have?

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Any questions or comments? Well, speaking of that, what's the cure? What is the cure for this spiritual disease?

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And it, of course, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. So if in our study this morning, if it's been an accurate diagnosis of your spiritual condition, the only hope for healing you have is in Jesus Christ.

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He's called the Great Physician, and you need to trust in Him today. You need to acknowledge your sin before God, make a rational decision to turn from it, because it'll lead to your spiritual death eternally.

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Put your faith in Jesus Christ, trust Him as your Lord and Savior, and look forward to the eternal life that He will give to you, and along the way, to the spiritual growth that the

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Spirit of God and the Word of God will work in your life. Trust Him today.

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Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay? Amen? Let's pray.

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Our Father, we thank You for Your Word this morning. We know that these sometimes are difficult passages to look at.

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It's difficult, it's heartbreaking to see. But we also know, Father, that the grace

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You gave to us through Jesus Christ, You make available to others as well.

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And so we just thank You for that grace, and we encourage any who might sense their need for salvation to trust

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Christ as their Lord and Savior today, and then look forward to the eternal life that He will give, the forgiveness and cleansing of sin.

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We just thank You for our time in Your Word this morning. In Jesus' mighty name, amen. Oh, thank you very much.

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I was told to remind you all, and of course I forgot, no Sunday school next

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Sunday. Okay? So if I show up here, somebody remind me and wheel me out the door, okay?