WWUTT 626 Departing from the Faith?

Whenever we read in the scriptures about somebody who fell away from the faith, we're reading about someone who never actually had faith in the first place.

They were part of the visible church, but they were not part of the invisible church, when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We continue with our study of 1 Timothy up to chapter 4, and examining just the first five verses here, where the

Apostle Paul writes, Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 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.

For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and with prayer.

So at the start of this particular chapter, this is right after we've talked about the mystery of godliness, and Paul laying out these essential doctrinal truths in this wonderful creedal song that we had at the end of chapter 3, which is basically the end of the first half of this letter to Timothy, that Christ was manifested in the flesh, he was vindicated by the

Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.

So now we're going to be talking about those who deny that truth. That's the way we begin the next section.

So there are various places in this letter in which Paul directly confronts false teaching.

We started the letter that way, and we're also going to end the letter that way. And right in the middle,

Paul comes back to that again. So remember at the start of the letter, he told Timothy, don't let anyone teach any different doctrine, don't wander off into myths and speculations, which lead to divisions.

And so here he addresses the fact that there are false teachers that are causing such division with the things that they teach.

They are teaching from a deceitful spirit, stuff that comes from demons.

And we'll get into more of the specifics of that here in just a moment. But he says at the start of the second half of this letter now, the

Spirit expressly says, so the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, has said this to Paul, and he says that in later times, some will depart from the faith.

And by the way, later times is the time in which we're living now. It is the end -time tribulation, and things will only get worse leading up to when

Christ is ultimately going to return. And so that's the period in which we live.

Yeah, there were persecutions, there were false teachers, and things like that, even before the advent of Christ, even before Christ came to earth.

But things are getting worse now that we are in this end -time period. It is the final age between Christ's first advent and his second advent.

We're waiting for the return of Christ. And so in this time of the church, yes, the gospel is going out, yes, people are hearing, the body of Christ is growing, but persecutions are also growing.

In fact, in the book of Revelation, you'll notice that Satan is described as that ancient serpent, and he's also described as a dragon.

So the picture, the imagery there is the serpent that fooled

Adam and Eve in the garden, tempted Eve to eat the fruit. She gave it to Adam. They sinned and fell from grace.

That serpent in the garden has grown into a large dragon. That's sort of the imagery that we're meant to understand there in the book of Revelation.

This isn't a literal dragon that comes up out of the sea, but it is showing us how the influence and power of Satan has grown since that first temptation in the garden.

And this has certainly happened over the course of the age of the church, the false teachers that have gone out and led many astray.

As Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, God gives them a strong delusion to believe what they ought not to believe, exposing the condition of their heart, which was in rebellion against God anyway.

They were children of Satan. And because they are following those who teach the teachings of demons, it reveals who they are truly following, and that is the devil and not

God. So here Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit has expressly said to him, in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

Why is it that we have false teachers in the world anyway? Why does

God allow that to happen? Why is there a Joel Osteen or a Joyce Meyer or a

T .D. Jakes or Ken and Gloria Copeland, who just made the news last week with Gloria Copeland's statement that you can will the flu out of you.

You can just choose not to get the flu and put a video on Facebook about it. The things that you can say, what you can repeat to yourself.

Anybody who is a Christian who is in Christ should never get the flu, Gloria Copeland said, which is a lie.

So she's promising something that she can't actually deliver on, nor does the gospel make any guarantee on whatsoever.

So we have these false teachers, these liars in the world today. Why is it that these seem to be the most influential names in the name of the church?

And it's because the Bible says that there will be these false teachers. It says that there will be teachers who devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teach the teachings of demons, and that they're liars with seared consciences.

They'll say one thing and then say something completely different. They'll tell you to do something, and then they behave a completely different way.

Albert Moeller, when he was talking about prosperity theology on the briefing last week, one of the things that he said was that prosperity theology is always good for the teacher.

It is never good for the person listening to the teaching. It never comes out fair for the person who is absorbing all of this prosperity theology.

But yeah, the guy who's teaching it is always racking up the bucks. So that should be an immediate tell right there that you are not going to get what this person teaching you is getting from you.

But why is it that people continue to get sucked into prosperity theology? It's because they want that to be their reality.

When they see the person who's got the fleet of planes and the big sprawled out campus home and all of the attention and lavish gifts poured out upon him, which he claims is the blessing of God, everybody's following that guy because they want it to be them.

They want to be the one, and they want to believe that they can be just like Ken Copeland or Jesse Duplantis or Joel Osteen or any of these guys.

And there's probably some sense of envy that we have that also leads us to believe that if we were chums with those guys, they would give us part of this blessing that they have received.

They would actually give us some of their money. Ain't no way any of these prosperity preachers are going to part from their money like that unless it's going to benefit them, unless it looks like good press for them.

But these are the false teachers that seem to have the loudest voices, seem to attract the biggest crowds.

And it's because the Bible says there's going to be such people. It reveals the hearts of the fallen, those who are not following the good shepherd, but are following their own appetites.

Paul talked about that with the Philippians in Philippians chapter three. Their God is their belly and their end is destruction for the glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things.

By the way, that's Philippians 319. So this is what the Bible assures us is going to happen.

Whenever we see false teachers, it's just proof that the Bible is true. What it says was going to happen is exactly what is happening.

And it seems like they just become more and more plentiful and their influence becomes farther and more widespread.

And so here Paul is saying to Timothy, the spirit expressly says, in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

Now, again, because false teachers are given to reveal the hearts of those who glory in their flesh, those who fall away from the faith, who depart from the faith, which we're talking about here in 1

Timothy 4 .1, this is only an external falling away. It's not an internal falling away because the reality is that they were never in the faith to begin with.

So from the outside, it looked to us like they were Christians. It looked to us like they knew the confessions, that they were part of the church, that they called themselves followers of Christ or brothers and sisters with the people of God.

But then over a period of time, they started falling into false teaching and therefore fell away from the truth.

That's what it looks like on the outside. But according to what we know from the scriptures, on the inside, they were never part of the church in the first place.

This is the difference between what we call the visible church and the invisible church.

Have you heard those terms, those expressions used before? I actually just talked about this in church yesterday.

It's the sermon that you'll hear added to the podcast this coming weekend. But I had talked to my congregation about being a visible church, that if you are a part of the church invisible, you will also demonstrate that by being part of the church visible.

So what's the difference between the visible and the invisible church? Well, the visible church is the membership of the church.

That's the church you go to, the congregation of believers that you fellowship with.

They're the visible church. And they're the ones that hold to the true confessions of the faith, like what we read at the end of 1

Timothy 3, the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. That's what it is that they believe and cling to.

I mean, you got churches in your town that don't adhere to essential doctrines. Well, they're not even part of the visible church, because you can point to the fact that they don't even believe the truth of this.

You know, the cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons, for example, or a church that denies the trinity of God.

These would be examples of churches that call themselves churches, but they're not even part of the visible church.

So the visible church we can observe. The visible church is who we go to church with. These people that we're singing songs with on Sunday, we're sitting together and listening to the word of God being preached.

This is the visible church. The invisible church is God's elect, whom he knows, whom he chose before the foundation of the world, who are regenerated in the

Holy Spirit of God, whom Jesus referred to in John 10, 16, when he said,

I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

So there will be one flock, one shepherd, and who he's referring to there is the invisible church.

C .I. Williamson writes the following, It is invisible to us because it has extension in both time and space.

It reaches from one end of the earth to the other, and from the beginning to the end of the age, but it is invisible only to us.

It is not invisible to God. He who infallibly discerns the hearts of men knows them that are his.

The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his.

Second Timothy 2, 19. Jesus prayed for the invisible church, the elect present and not yet born in John 17.

Christ is speaking of a special company which had been given to him. The reference then is to the sovereign election of God, whereby he chose a definite number to be his peculiar people, his in a peculiar or special way.

These are eternally his, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1, 4.

And by the immutability of his purpose of grace, Romans 11, 29, they are always his.

So there's your definition of the invisible church. So whenever we talk about in the scriptures, whenever we're talking about somebody who fell away from the faith, we're not talking about somebody who fell away from the invisible church because nobody can fall away from the invisible church.

Only God knows who are his in the invisible church. Whenever we talk about somebody losing the faith or becoming apostate or falling away, we're talking about it from the vantage point of the visible church.

And that's all we are privy to. As far as the knowledge of those who are his are concerned, we only know those who are confessors in the faith and demonstrate the fruit of righteousness in their lives.

But even then, there are liars out there, those who can show a sincerity in the faith but may not actually be.

The only person you can be absolutely sure of is saved is yourself, which is why you need to test yourself, examine yourself to see that you are in the faith.

Doesn't mean that you should be suspicious of your brothers and sisters in the Lord because that is an absolutely miserable way to do church, but that you examine yourself.

1 John 5, I have written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life.

So you can test yourself according to the scriptures and know that you have salvation in Christ.

God wants us to be sure of those things and has given us his word so that we would be sure of those things.

But as we also read in 1 John, and this being in 1 John 2, 19, they went out from us so that it would become plain to us that they were never of us in the first place.

And as John talks about that there, that's the visible church.

They were, as far as the invisible church is concerned, they were never actually part of the church to begin with.

Though they may have been part of the visible church, their hearts were not regenerated. They never truly belong to Christ.

And so they left the church, they left the visible church because they were never actually part of the invisible church.

John the Baptist talked about this in Matthew 3, where he says in verse 12,

Matthew 3, 12, his winnowing fork is in his hand, referring to Christ, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

So there are some, even within the church, who aren't regenerated, who aren't saved. They're part of the visible church, but they're not part of the invisible church.

And it's not for us to decide who is part and who's not. We can only measure what we see on the outside.

And Christ ultimately is the final judge in those things. He knows those who are his, as he talked about also in John, that the sheep hear his voice.

They know the voice of the good shepherd, and we follow the shepherd. We will not follow the hired hand.

We will not follow the voice of anyone else, for those voices are strangers to us.

We follow the voice of Christ. And that's what Paul's talking about here in 1

Timothy 4, is the difference between those who are listening to demonic spirits and those who are listening to the true spirit of God.

John warned, 1 John 4, 1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess

Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

And here's what we're talking about in 1 Timothy 4 as well. These are the types of antichrists that we are to look out for, the kinds of false teachers that are there, teaching demonic things, attempting to lead astray, if possible, even the elect, as Jesus warned about in Matthew 24.

So again, Paul says, The spirit expressly says that in later times. Now, Paul means to contrast here that he's listening to the true spirit of God.

Those who are listening to false teachers are listening to the false spirits. So there's the contrast that we have there.

Paul, who is full of the Holy Spirit, says what the spirit has said to him as an apostle of Christ.

In later times, some will depart from the faith. They will appear to have been part of the visible church for a time, but then it will be revealed to us that they were never part of the invisible church.

They will devote themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

Why is it that they are so easily following after the teachings of demons and liars?

Because they were always following the devil to begin with. The period of time in which it appeared as though they were confessors in the faith, for them, it was merely a passing opinion, but it was never genuine faith.

They never actually had a relationship with Christ, which is why Jesus says of them in Matthew 7, that on that day, many will come to me saying,

Lord, Lord, didn't we do all these mighty works in your name? And I will say to them, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

I never knew you. It'll be those whom we thought were part of the visible church that Jesus rejects because they were never part of the invisible church.

They were never regenerated in the spirit. They never truly loved the Lord. They confessed him with their mouths, but their hearts were far from God.

These will be those who will be rejected at the end, at the final judgment. They profess Christ in life, but the heart was never truly transformed.

And that, once again, the difference between the visible church and the invisible church. So we'll continue to talk a little bit more about this tomorrow.

What these deceitful spirits are teaching and leading people astray in, the false knowledge, which they call knowledge, but would lead a person to destruction, anyone who would follow this false teaching that is being presented.

Let us pray. Our Lord God, I pray that we would be a discerning people, that you would teach us how to test the spirits.

We don't believe every spirit, but we test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for there are indeed many false teachers in the world.

And we see some of those false teachers even making secular headlines when they say something as ridiculous as Gloria Copeland said last week.

I pray that you would put it on these teachers' hearts to be convicted over the lies that they have spread and that they would repent of this before they stand before you in judgment and hear you say, depart from me, you worker of lawlessness.

I never knew you. I pray, Lord God, that you would also give us a heart that examines the genuineness of what it is that we believe, the sincerity of our own hearts, that we not become too comfortable or complacent in our faith, but we're convicted when we hear the word of God.

We're still convicted of our sin and desiring to flee from sin, run away from it, and run fast into the arms of our

Lord God, who keeps us safe from any false spirit and will deliver us safely into your eternal kingdom.

Continue this work of the Spirit in our hearts, that we may endure to the end in the name of Christ, and give us words of wisdom to share with our neighbors, lest they be led astray by any of these false spirits.

May we be able to speak truth to our neighbors and do so in love, that they may also know the gospel of Christ and be saved.

We pray these things in the name of Christ. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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