Sunday Sermon: Some Will Fall Away from the Faith (1 Timothy 4:1-5)

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Greetings, friends. This is Pastor Gabe. I apologize that I haven't been on the broadcast much this past week.

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I finished up Matthew 22 on Monday and then disappeared. I did mention in that episode that I had been ill and it was tough to hold on to my voice.

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So I decided I needed to give myself the rest of the week off, give myself the chance to heal and my voice to recuperate.

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So God willing, I'm going to be back on the program this coming Tuesday, picking up where I left off.

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So I'll be teaching from Matthew 23. I'll also resume the Bible readings again, which I've been doing on the

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YouTube channel. If you go to youtube .com slash w w u t t picking up with the book of Exodus.

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I thank you so much for listening and appreciate your prayers. I haven't been the only one who has been sick at home.

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Everybody has been ill to a certain degree, but we're just starting to get out of it. And I hope to get back into the swing of things next week.

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God willing, here is the sermon that I preached last week. I, I, I preached ill, but I managed to get through it.

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So this is that sermon out of first Timothy chapter four, verses one through five.

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Thank you and God bless first Timothy three, beginning in verse 14.

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This is the apostle Paul writing to his servant, Timothy, whom he has sent to pastor at the church in Ephesus.

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Hear the word of the Lord. I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you.

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So that if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

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God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness.

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He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

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Now the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to two 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.

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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 prayer.

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You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come back into this section this morning, and we are reminded of the mystery of godliness, we see by contrast here what happens when a church would stray or turn away from godliness.

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The asceticism and the matter of works that a person thinks that they can do by their own religion in order to gain the favor of God.

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But the spirit has warned against this to beware of those teachings and doctrines that take us away from the sound word of faith that has been delivered to us in the gospel that was proclaimed.

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And beware of those that try to take you in another direction, who try to say that if you do these things, then you gain the approval of God.

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The reality of our situation is that we could do nothing to gain God's approval. You showed mercy to us.

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It is by your grace you gave your son so that he dying on the cross for our sins and rising again from the grave has clothed us in his righteousness and we have been received and accepted into the family of God because of what he has done for us.

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So, I pray that as we consider that this morning, we consider those warnings of false doctrines that we rejoice once again in the good word that was delivered to us through that apostolic ministry and the gospel that was proclaimed.

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It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. In Mark chapter 7, the

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Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem and they saw that some of Jesus' disciples ate with hands that were defiled.

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That is, they were unwashed, just didn't wash their hands before they ate. Now I know that as parents, you're going to implement that on your kids, say, wash your hands before you come to the dinner table.

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We did that with our kids, I guess, just last night, wasn't it, right? Before you eat, go wash your hands.

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If they don't wash their hands, it's not like we're imposing upon them some religious practice that they haven't followed.

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They didn't obey mom and dad, that's really the situation if they don't wash their hands. Here in this particular situation, the

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Pharisees are seeing that Jesus' disciples are not washing their hands and they think that, or at least they claim by their teaching, that something spiritually defiling has taken place here by not washing their hands.

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For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.

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And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.

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Again, things that could be good, a smart thing to do, but it's not that a person, it's not as if a person is in sin if they don't do them.

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Verse 5, there in Mark chapter 7, the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but they eat with defiled hands?

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And Jesus said to them, Thank you, sir. Well did

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Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

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You leave the commandment of God and you hold to the tradition of men. And he said to them,

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You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. For Moses said,

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Honor your father and mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say,

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If a man tells his father or his mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban, that is to be given to God, then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and his mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many other such things you do.

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We call this in our religious vernacular, legalism, where the word of God is not followed but the word of man, the traditions and the teachings of men.

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It's not that you find a command in the word of God anywhere that says, Wash your hands.

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But these Pharisees have implemented that word and have said that this is a command of God.

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It is the command of God that you must do this, even though that's not found anywhere in the scriptures.

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And so we bind the conscience. We would implement upon somebody that they have to do this.

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And if they don't do this, then they are in sin. And so we have taken away from God's word and instead have added to it the traditions of men.

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And the Apostle Paul calls that here in 1 Timothy 4, the teachings of demons.

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We come back to the start of this chapter, 1 Timothy 4.

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

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Now you'll notice that this stands in contrast with what we looked at last week, which was an understanding of the gospel truth that had been proclaimed to the church from the very beginning.

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Paul had said in verse 16, Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness.

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He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world and taken up in glory.

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And we spent the majority of our time last week just considering the gospel truth that was contained within that short confession.

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So now we get to this next part in verses 1 through 5 of chapter 4, where we see the contrast now from the good doctrine that was confessed by the church, that sound doctrine, that which was the gospel of Jesus Christ, and now instead we see the teachings of demons.

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This warning that Paul gives to beware those that will malign the word, that will twist the scriptures, that will implement doctrines and commands that God never commanded.

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Now, this is right at the center of this letter. We're halfway through our study of 1

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Timothy, and you'll notice that there are three areas in 1 Timothy where a warning against false teaching is given.

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We saw it at first in the very beginning, where Paul said, don't let anyone teach any different doctrine or devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promotes speculations rather than the truth of God's word.

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We're going to see this again when we get to chapter 6, and at the very beginning of the chapter, Paul talks about, here's what happens when a person leaves sound doctrine and what it causes in the lives of those persons who are no longer teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ but have gone about in their own ways.

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So here at the middle of the letter, we have yet another warning about false teaching. The Spirit expressly says that there are people that are going to depart from the faith, devoting themselves to false doctrine.

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So coupled with what we looked at last week, we had the thesis statement of the letter, which was given in verses 14 to 15.

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If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

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God, a pillar and a buttress of the truth. And then we saw that the church is marked by the good confession of the gospel of Christ, which we considered in verse 16.

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So now today, still thematically in this line of the church of the living God, as this is still the title of the sermon, part two of what we were looking at last week, here we see what to avoid.

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We see what is contrary to the church of the living God. We see what is contrary to the confession of the mystery of godliness.

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These things, these man -made doctrines that people will devote themselves to will not produce godliness.

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It will not grow a person in Christ -likeness, but rather will take them further away from the truth and into damnable heresy.

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So as we consider this passage today, chapter 4, verses 1 through 5, we see, first of all, that statement that the spirit says in later times, some will depart from the faith.

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And then secondly, we see what those false teachers are teaching in verses 2 and 3.

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They are liars, their consciences are seared, and they forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving.

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And then lastly, we have in verses 4 and 5, the statement of everything is good that was created by God if it is received, if it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

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So those are the three parts to these five verses that we're looking at this morning. Let me come back to the beginning there of chapter 4.

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Now the spirit expressly says, so this is Paul telling

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Timothy, this comes from God. These false teachers are teaching things that are not from God.

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But what Paul says does come from God. And he says that the spirit expressly says that in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

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The spirit expressly says, meaning that this is clearly stated. There is no mystery about this.

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There is no confusion with regard to this kind of false teaching that will be prevalent even in the church in the later times.

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And notice that it says the spirit expressly says that in later times, these are the times that we are presently in.

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It is the last age that goes from the time that Christ descended into heaven until the time he will come back again.

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These are those later times that we are in now. And Paul says that in these later times, some will depart from the faith.

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And this will happen because they devote themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

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Now really that's somewhat redundant because deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons are rather the same.

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The deceitful spirits is not necessarily in reference to some sort of ethereal form that's out there that is teaching wrong things to people.

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But we have seen throughout the New Testament a reference to false teachers as being referred to as spirits.

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In 1 John 4 .1, it is said that you must be careful with who you listen to, testing all things because there are many spirits that have gone out into the world teaching false things.

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Now, those spirits that have gone out into the world are those in reference to false teachers. But the spirit that they teach by is not by the spirit of God, but the spirit of Satan.

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They've devoted themselves, it says, to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

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And notice that the teachers are referred to there as deceitful spirits and who are repeating demonic teachings, but some departing from the faith.

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That's not a reference to the teachers. That's a reference to the people who follow those teachers. This is a description of what we call apostasy, although there are different names for that that are used today.

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One such name is deconstruction. There are some that will say that they have deconstructed their faith, which is just another more modern term for apostasy.

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It is trying to intellectually make an excuse or make some sort of apologetic for why that person is no longer a

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Christian. Well, I didn't just leave the faith. I did it the smart way. I deconstructed my faith.

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I realized that these things don't hold up to the truth of the world anymore when the reality is that they're probably devoting themselves to all kinds of sin and sexual immorality and they want to be able to do that without any sense of guilt.

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And so I'm just not a Christian anymore is really what it comes down to, though they'll try to, in a brainiac sort of way, say that this really came about through a scientific deconstructing of my faith.

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But it's apostasy. Apostasy is a description of those who formerly were of the faith but are no longer.

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And they have come into this place because they have devoted themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.

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It is stated in Scripture that God gives false teachers as a judgment.

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In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, where it is said that God gives them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false and have pleasure in unrighteousness and therefore come into judgment as a result of their unrighteousness.

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So people accumulate for themselves false teachers. This is something Paul is going to say in his next letter as well to Timothy and 2

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Timothy. He says that people accumulate for themselves false teachers to entertain their passions.

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A person's going to go after the teacher that's going to say to them the things that they want to hear to give me the permission to do the things that I want to do.

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Why is it that there are so many false teachers in the church today? Well, there are two reasons for that.

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Number one, because the Bible says there will be. If there were not false teachers in the church today, the

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Bible would be wrong. So again, the Spirit expressly saying that there's going to be deceitful spirits in the teachings of demons.

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So that's number one. Number two, a second reason why there is so much false teaching in the church today is because it's what the people want.

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And so the people will go after those teachers that will tell them the things that they want to hear. Smile and Joel, Osteen.

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Why is it that he has such a massive church that is filled with tens of thousands of people literally on a

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Sunday morning? It's because he tells them all the things that they want to hear. I've actually listened to quite a few

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Joel Osteen sermons. Don't judge me. Yeah, sorry. Right. It's actually not that difficult to get through.

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First of all, he preaches a lot shorter than I do. And then and secondly, he kind of recycles about 10 to 12 sermons.

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So once you've heard about a dozen of them, you've heard them all. And then he might just kind of, you know, kind of twist some things here and there to somewhat move it to a different topic or something like that.

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But they pretty much all sound the same. But a man like this has so many people that follow after him with the prosperity preaching that he teaches because that's what people want to hear.

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They want to hear that God will make me rich. They want to hear that God's not going to let me be sick.

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My friends, I'm preaching the gospel this morning ill. OK, so that's trying to hold on to my voice.

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This is what they want to hear. So I'm going to go after the teachers that are going to tell me the things that I want to hear.

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And God heaps up for them teachers that will be to their judgment, teachers to suit their own passions.

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So this is the statement as it begins this section here in chapter four. There are many that will depart from the faith.

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They'll go after deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. And then we have the descriptions of those teachers coming up in verses two and three.

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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.

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So you'll notice that the false teachers are described in two ways. And then there's two things they forbid.

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So first of all, in verse two, through the insincerity of liars. Now, insincerity, why would it be?

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Why is that insincere? Because what they're proclaiming is not true.

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So how sincere could it really be? Or that their motivations and their desires are for themselves, rather than caring for the people of God.

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And it doesn't matter how sincere you might think they are. They might come across as sincere in their teaching.

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But if it is not from Christ, if it is not the gospel of Christ, then how sincere could it really be?

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It is not with the good intention of the people that are receiving it. No matter how much they think they care about the people that they are preaching to, they are liars whose consciences are seared.

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Another way that this is translated literally from the Greek is that their consciences are seared with a hot iron.

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What does it mean to be seared, to have a conscience that is seared in this way? Means that they don't feel guilty about it.

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They're lying to you and they don't have a tinge of guilt about it.

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When you hear this culture say, love is love. This is one of the dumbest statements

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I think I've ever heard. Water is wet. What's your point?

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But you hear this culture say, love is love. And they think, you know, that's a great truth. How could that be offensive to anybody if all we're about is love?

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But when you hear them say, love is love, what they're pushing is their sexual immorality. And calling it love and instead persuading people to do things that God has promised that he will judge.

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They're liars, their consciences are seared. And even though these sexually immoral practices that are being pushed in our culture today, even though these things we know are against nature,

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Romans 1 says so. And we know that they are against nature. But yet they have convinced themselves in their consciences that this is right.

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And so they have no guilt. They don't feel bad at all that they're lying to people and leading them to their own destruction.

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So you have these two qualities about a false teacher that are given. They're liars and their consciences are seared.

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They don't feel guilty at all about the things that they teach and how they're leading people astray. And then we have a description of two of the things that they teach.

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They forbid marriage and they require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving.

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Now that's a truly interesting statement that Paul would single out those two things.

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They forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. Is that the only thing that false teachers are teaching?

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No. But at this particular time, there was a Jewish sect of the

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Essenians that they taught abstaining from marriage was meritorious.

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Now eventually that Jewish sect died off. Because if you're forbidding marriage and you're not having kids, that's a good way to kill your movement.

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But it doesn't really stop there. There are so many different false... It was fascinating looking this up and finding how many different false teachings out there forbid these two things in particular.

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Eating of certain foods and marriage. In the second century, there was the

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Incretites who forbid marriage and the eating of meat. In the third century, there was the

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Manichaeans of which Augustine was actually a convert. So Augustine had previously been of the

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Manichaeans before he became a Christian and they likewise had forbidden marriage and the eating of certain kinds of food.

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In the third and fourth centuries, there were the Montanists who insisted upon long fasts and they discouraged marriage as though it was something unholy.

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In the 13th century, Gnosticism, you had a 13th century version of Gnosticism that was called the

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Catharists. And they likewise, believing that material things were inherently evil, said there were certain foods you could not eat because it was evil to eat those foods.

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And then they also discouraged marriage. And by the way, my friends, we see this in the Roman Catholic Church.

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The priests are told they can't marry and there are certain foods, certain times of the year that you're not supposed to eat, that you're not supposed to indulge in.

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These are common false teachings that seem to come about in the history of the church.

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Calvin, John Calvin said the following, men being by nature inclined to hypocrisy,

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Satan easily persuades them that God has worshipped a right by ceremonies and outward discipline.

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And indeed, without a teacher, almost all have this conviction deeply rooted in our hearts.

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It is ingrained within us in our sinful nature to believe that we can worship

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God or present ourselves as holy through asceticism or self -discipline and self -punishment.

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That if I do this to myself, if I deny myself these certain foods, or I deny myself the joy of marriage and all the pleasures that come from that,

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I deny myself those things. Then I can present myself as someone holier before God.

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But my friends, that's heresy. To think that we can do anything by our works that would make us holier and therefore more acceptable to God.

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I'm going to go ahead and take the burden off of you. You can't do anything to make yourself more worthy or more acceptable to God.

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Nothing. There's nothing you can do. It is only by Christ that we are made acceptable before God.

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He who died on the cross for our sins, who rose again from the grave, as said in Romans 4 .25,

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he rose again for our justification. We often think of his sacrifice on the cross as being for our justification.

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Even his resurrection from the dead was so we might be declared innocent before God.

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In 2 Corinthians 5 .21, we read that for our sake, he became sin who knew no sin.

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That we might become the righteousness of God in him. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ when we believe in and follow him.

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And you are made worthy before God by faith in Christ. Because of what he has done for us.

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Not because of what we do to or for ourselves. It is only because of Christ.

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Colossians 2 .16 -19, the apostle Paul says, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

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Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

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And that growth only happens when our doctrine is sound. If we are straying from the gospel into other doctrines, imposing as laws and commands, things that God never commanded, that's not going to get us any closer to God.

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It gets us further away from God. We get to God through Christ. Draw near to Christ and he will draw near to you.

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So we have this description once again of these false teachers who forbid marriage, they require abstinence from foods, that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

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And that leads us into these last two verses here. 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 prayer.

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My friends, God gave us good food that we can enjoy this good food to the glory of God.

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God gave us marriage that we can enjoy a good, lasting and healthy marriage to the glory of God.

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Now, there are certainly people out there who are unbelievers who can enjoy things like good food and a good marriage.

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But God created these things primarily for believers, right?

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A lot of people out there can enjoy those things without being Christians, but God made this primarily for Christians.

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How do I say that? How do I draw that conclusion? Because we give glory to God through those things.

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Those who are unbelievers don't give glory to God through those things. So God made them primarily for us, that he would be glorified in these things that we enjoy.

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I think I've used this illustration with you before. I cannot remember now at this point. I've preached this in enough churches now that I can't remember if I've done it here or I've said this in another place.

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But you think about enjoying a good meal with friends and family. It rolls up into praise to God.

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You enjoy good food. You enjoy good fellowship. Some of the best memories I have ever had in my life were getting together with friends and family over a good meal.

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Amen? Surely some of you can think of the same. You know, we love the holidays because getting together with holidays, we get together with family, we eat good food, and we enjoy some good times.

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For us as Christians, enjoying that good food and that good fellowship rolls up into praise to God, and these things become small tastes of an eternal glory that is promised to us.

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We have the promise in Revelation 19 of the wedding feast of the Lamb.

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So we eat good food here, and that just gives us a small taste of, man, we're going to have this celebration that we're a part of in heaven, in glory, in which we're all seated at the table with Christ, enjoying a feast like we have never seen before.

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And we can eat for all eternity and not get full. That's one of the other great things about that.

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And furthermore, that fellowship that we enjoy with friends, that just becomes a small taste of the fellowship that we're going to enjoy forever when we're around the throne with Christ.

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So for the Christian, we enjoy these things unto God's glory, giving him praise because he did make good food for us to eat and enjoy that good food.

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He created marriage to be a picture of the way that Christ loves his church. Marriage can be good and incredibly rewarding, and especially done unto

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God's glory. But for the person who is not a believer, for the person who is not a

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Christian, the enjoyment terminates on the experience.

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Do you know what I mean by that? So if an unbeliever is sitting down for a good meal and good fellowship with friends, that's a fun time, and it's created a good memory.

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But then beyond that, after all of that is over, what do they have but the memory?

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It doesn't roll up into praise, and there's nothing, there's no expectation, there's no anticipation for something greater that is to come.

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There's just that and all it was. And maybe there'll be this desire to want to have that moment back again or something to that degree, but you'll never get back there, and it will never be fully satisfying.

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Whereas for us who are believers, for us who are Christians, these things are tastes of greater goods that are to come.

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Everything, Paul says in verse four, created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

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So especially as we're talking specifically here about those two things that the false teachers are forbidding, they forbid marriage, they require abstinence from foods, that God created to be received with thanksgiving.

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You know, by the way, I was mentioning Joel Osteen a moment ago. You very rarely hear

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Joel forbid anybody from doing anything. So if it's good for you, then you should do it.

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You know, if it's healthy, it's wise or whatever, then take part in it. There is one thing that I've actually heard him say.

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I have actually heard him forbid in his teaching. You wouldn't think Joel as ever being a legalist to this degree in which he would actually try to forbid somebody from doing something, but he has said you shouldn't eat bacon.

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It was the weirdest thing I had ever heard. I'm listening to Joel Osteen, and suddenly he says, bacon's unhealthy, it's bad for you, you shouldn't eat it.

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And I'm like, wow, man. So there is something that Joel Osteen would actually forbid you from doing.

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Rick Warren did the same in his Daniel diet. The book that he wrote several years ago, and then his church went through this whole

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Daniel diet plan at Saddleback Church. He did the same thing. He said that bacon's unhealthy, and you shouldn't eat bacon.

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Man, that's one of the great things that came about from Acts 10 is eating bacon. I love bacon.

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So I know that that's the teaching of demons. And somebody tells me I can't eat bacon. I get that right away.

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But everything created by God is good. You know, the laws, the food laws that were given in Leviticus chapter 11 were not implemented before Leviticus 11.

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After Noah's flood, after they disembarked the ark and Noah gave a sacrifice unto

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God, it says in Genesis 9 that God gave every living creature to Noah and mankind for food.

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And then it was during the time of the Mosaic law that there were certain foods that were forbidden for ceremonial purposes.

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But now those foods have since been handed back to God's people to be enjoyed.

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As in Acts chapter 10, the vision that Peter received, rise, Peter, kill and eat.

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And that he could eat whatever it was that he wanted. In Mark 7, which I had read to you this morning, it's in verse 17 of Mark 7, where it says that Christ declared all foods clean.

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So there was a purpose for the food laws. There was a purpose for the dietary laws in the time in which they were given.

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But now those things have since been, those foods have been given back to God's people that we may enjoy them.

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Everything, everything created by God is good. Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

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For it is made holy. It is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

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I was listening to R .C. Sproul this morning as I was getting ready for church.

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And he made the comment about how God's power.

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Sorry, I'm not gonna say it as well as Sproul did. But God and his power, how he works through his word.

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And it seems to be the one thing that we don't wanna listen to. And we don't wanna follow.

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We wanna see God's power manifested in other ways. God, may I see miracles.

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May I be able to speak in tongues. May I be able to witness some miraculous healing or something to that degree.

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We want to see God's power manifested in other ways, but God's power exists in his word.

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It is by the power of God's word that we are brought from death to life. Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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And so even by the very word of God, those things that God has made for us to enjoy are made holy.

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They are sanctified. They're consecrated. That we can enjoy those things to a degree that it rolls up into praise to God.

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We are not defiled in any way when we partake in them, but rather we give glory unto the

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Lord for he's the one who gave them to us. Johann Sebastian Bach, with every piece of music that he wrote, had three letters at the end of every piece of music or up around the title or down at the bottom of the page.

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You know what those three letters were? S -D -G. And that stood for Soli Deo Gloria.

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So that Bach would be reminded every time he directed this piece of music or someone else did that this was to be played and enjoyed to the glory of God.

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And not just to God's glory because that would be just DG, Deo Gloria, but Soli Deo Gloria.

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To God alone belongs the glory. And he alone is worthy of our praise.

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And so my friends, as we look back over what we have considered here in 1 Timothy 3, 14 to chapter four, verse five, we have seen what the directive is given to the church on how we are to behave in the household of God.

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And as I said to you last week, there are things that Paul has already taught regarding this leading up to this passage, and we've got more to go.

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We've still got the rest of chapter four, chapters five and six to go. So there's gonna be more teaching with regard to how one ought to behave in the household of God.

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Secondly, we considered the great confession of the mystery of godliness.

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And that confession, the hymn that we looked at last week going line by line through that particular confession.

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And then today we saw the contrast with regards to false teachers who try to lead people astray.

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They lead people away from the good doctrine of God into false doctrines.

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They lead people away from thinking that it is God who makes right, it is

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God who makes you worthy. They lead you away from that into thinking that I've gotta do something into making myself worthy before God.

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But God has given us all things to be enjoyed for his glory. And it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

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And this is yet another one of those instructions that we read that we may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.

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We enjoy these things to his praise and to his glory. This would be a great message going right into a potluck right after.

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I'm sorry we don't have that today. But we are coming to the

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Lord's table. And as we partake of these elements and we eat of the bread and we drink of the cup, we remember about the best things that God had given to us through his son,

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Jesus Christ, and the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life that we have in Jesus, our

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Lord. ♪ Come, ye sinners, poor and needy ♪ ♪

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Weak and wounded, sick and sore ♪ ♪ Jesus ready stands to save you ♪ ♪

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Full of pity, love, and power ♪ ♪ I will rise and go to Jesus ♪ ♪

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He will embrace me in his arms ♪ ♪ In the arms of my dear

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Savior ♪ ♪ Hold their arms and charms ♪ ♪

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Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome ♪ ♪ God's remounting glorified ♪ ♪

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True belief and true repentance ♪ ♪

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I will rise and go to Jesus ♪ ♪

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He will embrace me in his arms ♪ ♪

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In the arms of my dear Savior ♪ ♪

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No conscience make you linger ♪ ♪

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Nor of fitness only dream ♪ ♪

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All the fitness he required ♪ ♪

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Is to feel your need of him ♪ ♪

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I will rise and go to Jesus ♪ ♪

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He will embrace me in his arms ♪ ♪

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In the arms of my dear Savior ♪ ♪

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Hold their arms and thousands charms ♪

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This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

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But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, Gospel -teaching,

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Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.