(307) 733-3706
HomeVisitAboutMinistriesEventsMessagesGive Sign in

Messages

Seared Consciences and Deceitful Spirits

May 20, 2018 · 1 Timothy

Scripture referenced 18 passages

The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.

  • 1 Timothy 1:15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom Paul calls himself the foremost

    15 The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

    World English Bible · Read it in another translation

    Keep this verse

1 Timothy 2:1-2

urging prayers and intercessions for all people, including kings, so Christians may lead peaceful and godly lives

1 I exhort therefore, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and givings of thanks, be made for all men:

2 for kings and all who are in high places; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and reverence.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

1 Timothy 2:3-4

God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth

3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior;

4 who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

1 Timothy 3:1

anyone who aspires to the office of overseer desires a noble task

1 This is a faithful saying: if a man seeks the office of an overseer, he desires a good work.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

1 Timothy 3:14-15

Paul writing so Timothy would know how to behave in the household of God, pillar and buttress of the truth

14 These things I write to you, hoping to come to you shortly;

15 but if I wait long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

1 Timothy 3:16

the mystery of godliness: manifested in flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory

16 Without controversy, the mystery of godliness is great: God was revealed in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, and received up in glory.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

1 Timothy 4:1-5

the main passage: the Spirit expressly says some will depart from the faith, devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from foods

1 But the Spirit says expressly that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,

2 through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron;

3 forbidding marriage and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving.

5 For it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Acts 20:28-30

Paul warning the Ephesian elders that fierce wolves would come in and men from among themselves would rise up speaking twisted things to draw disciples away

28 Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.

29 For I know that after my departure, vicious wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock.

30 Men will arise from among your own selves, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Matthew 24:9-14

Jesus foretelling tribulation, false prophets, lawlessness, love growing cold, and the gospel being preached to all nations before the end

9 Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.

10 Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.

11 Many false prophets will arise, and will lead many astray.

12 Because iniquity will be multiplied, the love of many will grow cold.

13 But he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.

14 This Good News of the Kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

2 Peter 3:3

scoffers will come in the last days following their own sinful desires

3 knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts,

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Jude 18

in the last time there will be scoffers following their ungodly passions

18 They said to you that “In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.”

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Ephesians 6:12

we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of darkness

12 For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

2 Timothy 2:18

false teachers claiming the resurrection has already occurred, turning some away from the faith

18 men who have erred concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past, and overthrowing the faith of some.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Romans 14:1-4

welcoming the weak without quarreling over opinions about eating, not passing judgment on God's servant

1 Now accept one who is weak in faith, but not for disputes over opinions.

2 One man has faith to eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.

3 Don’t let him who eats despise him who doesn’t eat. Don’t let him who doesn’t eat judge him who eats, for God has accepted him.

4 Who are you who judge another’s servant? To his own lord he stands or falls. Yes, he will be made to stand, for God has power to make him stand.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Romans 14:8-9

whether we live or die we are the Lord's, for Christ died and rose that he might be Lord of both dead and living

8 For if we live, we live to the Lord. Or if we die, we die to the Lord. If therefore we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

9 For to this end Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Romans 14:13-14

not putting a stumbling block before another, nothing unclean in itself but unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean

13 Therefore let’s not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother’s way, or an occasion for falling.

14 I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself; except that to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Romans 14:22-23

blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself; whatever does not proceed from faith is sin

22 Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who doesn’t judge himself in that which he approves.

23 But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because it isn’t of faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

John 17

Jesus praying for unity and asking the Father to sanctify believers by His truth, Your word is truth

1 Jesus said these things, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may also glorify you;

2 even as you gave him authority over all flesh, so he will give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

3 This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.

4 I glorified you on the earth. I have accomplished the work which you have given me to do.

5 Now, Father, glorify me with your own self with the glory which I had with you before the world existed.

6 I revealed your name to the people whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you have given them to me. They have kept your word.

7 Now they have known that all things whatever you have given me are from you,

8 for the words which you have given me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew for sure that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

9 I pray for them. I don’t pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

10 All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

11 I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them through your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are.

12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you have given me I have kept. None of them is lost, except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

13 But now I come to you, and I say these things in the world, that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

14 I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

15 I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one.

16 They are not of the world even as I am not of the world.

17 Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth.

18 As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world.

19 For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

20 Not for these only do I pray, but for those also who will believe in me through their word,

21 that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.

22 The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one;

23 I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me.

24 Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 Righteous Father, the world hasn’t known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.

26 I made known to them your name, and will make it known; that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

World English Bible · Read it in another translation

Keep this verse

Recap

The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.

This message worked through 1 Timothy 4:1-5, set in the context of Paul's letter to Timothy in Ephesus. Pastor looked at what the Spirit says about people departing from the faith in the later times, who leads them away and how, and what keeps a believer grounded against that drift. The sermon drew on a run of New Testament passages to show that this is not a new problem and that the answer has always been the same one.

What was said

the preacher opened by backing up to the beginning of 1 Timothy to remind the congregation where the letter started. Paul's whole charge to Timothy was aimed at agape love issuing from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. That word sincere became a thread he kept pulling on, because insincerity, he argued, is exactly how false teaching gets its grip.

From there he traced Paul's warnings across the New Testament. Acts 20 has Paul telling the Ephesian elders face to face that after he leaves, fierce wolves will come in, and some of them will rise from within the congregation itself. Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 24, predicting a falling away, false prophets, and love growing cold. So when 1 Timothy 4 opens with "the Spirit expressly says," the preacher said Paul is not pulling something new out of the air. He is reading the pattern that was already there.

The passage says some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. The preacher explained this through a Venn diagram he described from the front: one circle for the physical realm and one for the spiritual, with an overlap in the middle. He called that middle zone the "neglected middle," a term he credited to a seminary professor. Prayer, he said, is one of the ways believers engage that overlap. The problem is that deceitful spirits work through the same space, and the people who deliver their teaching are described by Paul as liars whose consciences are seared.

To make that concrete, the preacher described the televangelist Peter Popov, who ran faith-healing rallies in the eighties using an earpiece to receive information from his wife and then called it out as supernatural knowledge. A skeptic named the Amazing Randy exposed the earpiece. Popov's ministry went bankrupt, and he is back on television doing the same things. The preacher said it made him uncomfortable even to describe it, but the congregation sees this kind of thing and deserves a straight answer about what it is.

The specific errors Paul names are forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from certain foods. Pastor tied the marriage question to what he called overrealized eschatology, a belief that the resurrection had already happened and that believers were already living in the age to come. Because Jesus said there is no marriage in heaven, some concluded that marriage should be abandoned now. The food rules carried the same logic. Pastor read from Romans 14 to show Paul's own corrective: if someone abstains from something out of genuine conviction before God, leave them alone. The problem is not personal conviction but imposing that conviction on others as a condition of true faith.

He closed the argument by returning to where the letter started. The safeguard against all of it is sincerity, sticking with the word, and coming back to Jesus over and over. He noted that after working through three quarters of the New Testament together, the congregation keeps landing in the same place: faith, hope, love, and sanctification as a process of yielding to God. He said he and Carl had talked the day before about getting tired of saying the same thing repeatedly, and his answer to that was that the same thing keeps being true.

Doing a Bible study?

Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.

  1. The pastor opened by connecting the aim of Paul's charge to Timothy, godly love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith, and said sincerity was especially important for this message. What does sincerity in faith look like in practice, and where do you find it hardest to be honest about what you actually believe?
  2. The pastor described what he called the neglected middle, the overlapping space between the physical and spiritual realms, and said even Baptists know it exists but feel uncomfortable with it. How much does that overlap show up in your everyday life, and what makes it uncomfortable to talk about?

and 3 more questions in the guide

Open the study guide

Read the full transcript 6,106 words
3:57 Anybody? Hey, here we are. Welcome. Here are some announcements. We've got a few things going on this week.
4:03 Monday nights at first B. Yep. Happens every Monday night at 06:00. Yep. We're on tomorrow and 06:00.
4:20 And youth group is on Tuesday night. You noticed that I skipped Awana. Awana ended last week as far as the Monday night gathering of Awana. It's not happening, but we've got an announcement about that a little further. Service, youth group is happening, 06:30.
4:35 Mike, you wanna tell us something? So this week, youth group, we've got
4:41 our third, our part three in our boundary series. So we're gonna be talking about spiritual boundaries. That's gonna be for middle school and high school, 06:30 to 08:00 on Tuesday. Also, this coming up weekend on Saturday, we're talking about meeting here at 03:00, and then taking a camping trip up to Shadow Mountain. And then we'll be back on Sunday by 09:00 for service.
5:03 So if you have kids and don't have kids that would be interested, middle school, high school, going on a camping trip, that is on forecast. Weather permitting, we're gonna try that.
6:24 Friday of Memorial Day weekend, but the Tuesday following is always a time that they've set aside for doing a benefit for Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. Tuesday the twenty ninth, the doors open at 05:30, and then dinner will be at seven adults are $25, 12 and under is $12, LAP Kids are free. But if you wanna go, that'll be a good show. You know it's gonna be a good show, but it'll support Turning Point Pregnancy Resource Center. And I will say this, they can use your help.
6:56 They always can use your help, but this year is particularly tight on the budget, and they're down on staffing. And so if you would, that'd be a great time to join that in on helping them. Rolling River Rampage. The Rolling River Rampage is our vacation Bible school. There is a volunteer meeting on May 29 at ten, so that's between services two.
7:16 June 25 through the twenty seventh is when we're doing this. 9AM to noon is a three day Rolling River Rampage. There's a sign up back there in
7:42 one thing that is ending for the year though is Awana. And after this after the second service, we're gonna transform this room into a Grand Prix race track and celebrate all of our awards and have a Grand Prix race with the cars. And so I thought it fitting to do a recap of the year because our Awana ministry is a major part of the fabric of this church. And what happens here on Monday night, a lot of you probably don't even know about. So the mission of Awana is reaching boys girls with the gospel of Christ and training them to serve him, and we're leveraging the age group where kids are most likely to accept the Lord.
8:19 Research says that over ninety percent of adult Christians accepted Christ when they were 18 years old. So we feel it's a really important ministry, and we had a blast this year. We do it through games and scripture memory and large group teaching time. And by the numbers, this year, we had 32 club nights over forty weeks, over fifty six hours of your kids' lives here on Monday nights. We had 74 kids reached from six different Valley churches, so it's not just First B, it's it's a Valley wide ministry.
8:51 And we had over 34 volunteers helping out. 2,500 verses were memorized over those 32 club nights. And so we love it, and we thank the church for your support of our ministry. And if you wanna get down on being a volunteer for next year, we are currently recruiting our team for next year. We're gonna try to put it in place now, and we start back up on September 10.
9:16 You can come talk to me after the service, and I'll give you more information. Or you can join us for the grand free and the awards here. Starting in noon, we have pizza in the Fellowship Hall. 01:00, the race is in here, and then we'll follow that with the awards. So there's just a one minute video.
9:29 You can see some of the faces that we that we had fun with this year.
11:22 Okay. Good morning. Good morning. So, yeah, Iwana is for k through five?
11:29 Correct? Four years old. Oh, fifth grade.
11:32 Four through fifth grade. Okay. So young life picks up that. We're sixth grade to twelfth grade. Anybody have any young life background experience, been to young life?
11:44 Anybody? Okay. Good. Few hands. So let me explain a little bit what Young Life is.
11:50 So you can probably remember what it was like to be a teenager. It's it's tough, and it hasn't really gotten any easier since you were a teenager. So Young Life focuses on friendship, fun, adventure, and a sense of significance. And most of the time, the folks that come to Young Life, they don't have a church background. They don't come to church.
12:19 Their family doesn't go to church. Most of them probably haven't even heard the gospel. So Young Life reaches those kids, tries to give them, you know, a place to kinda discover those questions and then get them plugged into a church body. That's kind of our ultimate goal. So part of that is we take a summer trip in the summer, and we go to a Young Life property.
12:47 This year, we're going to Oregon for middle school and Colorado for high school. And Young Life properties, if you can imagine, all inclusive five star resort, think of that. And then think of about 450 teenagers running around. That is Young Life Camp. It is incredible.
13:08 It gets served every meal. It's it's amazing, but it's also very expensive. So we have we're trying to come up with some fun activities for kids to raise money. One of that activity is going to be a patriotic color run. We're gonna do it the Saturday before July 4, so it's June 30.
13:35 Please come. Please come and run, and it'll be a new fun experience. It's gonna be at the high school stadium, and we'll do kind of a five k up and back. And, yeah, it'll be a great way to to help kids start inviting folks to raise money through that. So please come, mark your calendar, and come talk to me.
14:02 If you have a young life background, come talk to me. I'd love to hear your young life story. It's always fun to connect and hear different young life stories from around the country or wherever you experience in life. And just as a side note, First Bee is a huge supporter of young life and wants you to know that your church supports and believes in the unchurched young life or the unchurched teenagers in the valley. So thank you.
14:31 Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It means a lot.
21:09 Let's pray together. God, as we sing these songs, we sing songs of hope, of encouragement, of comfort. That is who you are. That is what you do. And our hope truly is found in you, and you truly do give us a peace that passes understanding.
21:26 And I pray that as things get harder, that we wouldn't run, but that we would press into you, that we would wait on you. Things don't always happen in our timing. But, God, we do trust that your timing really is perfect. Even though it may not seem like a task, your timing really is the right timing all the time, and you show mercy through it. Thank you, God, for your kindness and your mercy toward us in the way as we press that you offer.
26:27 Again, would you help us, God, to
26:31 see
26:31 that storing up just right here, just now, that it's a whole lot better to store up and help. When stuff wears out, it's only stuff to live life with an open and grateful heart and experience
30:57 way, for those of you who are keeping track. About three quarters of the way through the New Testament. So first Timothy four one through five is where we're going. But before we get to that, I wanna go back to the first chapter. So we're up to the fourth chapter, and there was just a break back to the personal.
31:14 Paul is writing this letter to Timothy. He's left Timothy kinda in charge at Ephesus. In Ephesians church, Paul spent three years in Ephesus before this, and he's leaving his buddy, Timothy, there, who is his true son in the faith. And right off the bat, this is where he starts off. He says, the aim of our charge, Timothy, and I'm saying this to you.
31:36 If you are a church person, if you are a Christian, the aim of our charge, Christians, is agape love. Godly love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. And the sincerity there is really important today in this message. The sincerity is very, very important. It is being able to be honest about what it is, that you believe, what you feel, what you think, pure heart, good conscience, sincere faith.
32:02 I'm gonna just give you a real quick synopsis. Alright. One fifteen. He said, now this saying is trustworthy, and it's deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is not just behavior modification.
32:17 He's saying all of us are sinners. Absolutely, all of us. In fact, the very next part of the verse, he says, of whom sinners. Of whom, I am the foremost. He saw himself in that light because he knows that he had rebelled against God.
32:30 So get it right. Salvation is important to God. It's not just about how you act. It's about who you are. So save is trustworthy and proven in full acceptance.
32:41 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. First of all then, I urge that supplications and prayers and intercessions and thanksgiving to be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we, Christians, may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. All those alls there, he's pointing out that it's for everybody. He's trying to spread the gospel and not just keep it as a little plug. Do you understand For the elite, the academic elite, or the aesthetic the people who are willing to mistreat themselves for the sake of looking holy.
33:20 This is good, he said. Next says, this is good, and it's pleasing in the sight of God our savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's what he wants, and he is trying to use his church to do that. Three one, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.
33:38 It's a noble task because you're taking care of the bloc of God. Carl and I yesterday read through Ezekiel 34 about bad shepherds, Old Testament stuff. We're supposed to nurture the sheep. We're supposed to help the sheep. We're not supposed to lure over them.
33:56 We're certainly not supposed to fleece them. Does that make sense? Then last week, we got to what? Mount, who is a kinda preeminent Greek scholar, says, this is the heart of the corpus. It's the absolute heart of this book, is these three verses that I shared last week.
34:14 I hope it comes to you soon. It's very personal. Timothy, true son of the faith. I know I'm leaving you in a difficult spot because there's a lot of ugliness going on right now. But I hope to come to you soon.
34:26 But if I'm delayed, I'm writing these things to you so that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God. The household of God, which is the church, the called out ones, called out from every tribe, tongue, and nation, every people group into one church, capital c, church. Word of God is his truth, and the pillar and buttress for that truth is the way we, as believers, live our lives. Do y'all get that? Are you with me so far?
34:57 Did that bring you up to speed? Okay. This song is what we went into last week. Great indeed, we confesses the mystery of godliness. I mean, for Paul to say, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I'm the foremost.
35:11 He's admitting in humility that he is an that he was a sinner, that Christ Jesus reached out to him in absolute grace, unmerited favor. And what it brings it back to, the heart of this purpose is that it's about Jesus. It's about how he has the power to transform lives. Great indeed, we confess as a mystery of godliness. I don't know why he would wanna save me, but he said that he did and he wants all people to be saved, and he did exactly what he said, and he's been since then transforming my life.
35:41 He was manifested in the flesh. He was vindicated by the spirit. He was seen by angels, and he was proclaimed among the nations. He was believed on in the world, and he's been taken up in glory. And we can look at that and see this really high picture of Christ, but also we can say, we can manifest what he is doing in our lives, in the flesh.
35:59 We can do something good for people around us. Whether people believe us or not, we are vindicated by the spirit. It is a spiritual thing. Do you get that? Seen by angels.
36:14 God is always watching. Proclaimed among the nations. Preach Christ. Preach the word. What we came back to as Paul and I were meeting yesterday.
36:22 Think you threw this thing that means to shepherd the flock of God is preach the word. Preach what's there. So today, I'm gonna be all over the New Testament. Okay? Brace yourselves.
36:35 Listen fast. Put on a seat belt. This is the way it goes. He's believed on in the world. He's taken up the glory, and we look forward to that incorruptible hope with him.
36:43 So here we go. Before we get to first Timothy four one through five, remember this. In '20, Paul is stopping by to visit with the Ephesian elders. He does it outside of town in the little beach of Miletus. And when he does, he gets there, and he tells the elders at the church at Ephesus this, pay careful attention to yourself and to all of the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, the household of God.
37:11 Right? Pillar and buttress of the truth, care for them, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, when I leave from here, fierce wolves are gonna come in among you, and they're not gonna be sparing the flock. They're gonna be tried to profit from it. They're going to mislead a man from among your own selves will arise men speaking after twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.
37:39 Therefore, Beeler, remembering that for three years, I didn't see his night or day to admonish everyone with tears. He was holding up the the truth of scripture up against lies, and he was admonishing them. You get that? That's what Paul says that he did while he was talking to the Ephesians. And all of Pauline theology is grounded in our Lord's tradition.
38:00 Jesus says this in Matthew 24, then they're gonna deliver you up to tribulation. They're gonna kill you. You'll be hated by all the nations, but for my name's sake. And then many will be offended and will betray one another, and they'll hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
38:18 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold, but he endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. So that's Jesus pointing forward, and he's saying, there will be a walking away. There will be an apostasy. There will be this time where people will just kinda not pay attention.
38:42 So here we are. First Timothy four one through five. It's about heresy, really, and its source. Now the spirit expressly says you might think, where does the spirit expressly say that? Well, he's the spirit.
38:57 He might have said it directly to Paul at this time, or Paul might have been looking back and seeing Jesus's words and saying, you know, Jesus said that this is the way that this was gonna go. The Old Testament forecast the time where there will be people that walk away, but the spirit expressly says that in later times later times, some will depart from the faith. The faith is the actual faith. Believing in Jesus, the message of the cross, it's foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the absolute power of God to those who are being saved. Later times, some will depart from the truth of the faith.
39:41 Faith second Peter, he says the same thing. Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following after their own sinful desires. Jude says it in verse 18. They said to you, in the last time, there will be scholars following after their ungodly passions. The last days or the latter days, like here, around here, the latter days is a subject around here that's very, very important.
40:12 It's also very difficult to preach. It's also very difficult for you to live alongside of so many who have gone after a different gospel. Paul is combating a heretical version of the gospel, which is no gospel at all, Paul is saying. So now the spirit expresses that the later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits. There's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it's the way of destruction.
40:47 Does that make sense to me? A deceitful spirit and to the teachings of demons. So much of the church's history has been either as the plumb line swings. Right? It's either been moral laxity or expectation of absolute perfection.
41:06 Does that make sense in the church? And so there's always this constant swinging. And when moral laxity is taken over, and we're not keeping the main thing the main thing, staying in the center, balanced on the gospel of Jesus that, yes, we are sinners. But he saved us. When we're not concentrating efforts on that, and our moral laxity begins to actually, this is the way I usually do it.
41:26 That moral laxity usually goes that way. If that's the case, then almost always, there'll be some balancing influence that'll come up and it'll swing way over here. And I've seen that personally in my life and a lot of other people's lives, but I've also seen it throughout the history. There was a time of very low Christology and a very low time in the history of the church when Islam took root because the church was not doing what the church should have been doing. Does that make sense?
41:58 There's more life in the six, seven hundreds. It was bad, dark ages kind of stuff. And then Islam, with its rigidity and its emphasis on the holiness of God and on absolutely doing things absolutely perfectly, perfectly. It's a deceitful spirit. It's the teaching of Jesus, and that comes forward we've seen throughout many, many different cults.
42:20 Ephesians six twelve, though, says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers and against authorities and against cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. It is spiritual, and it is difficult. I I have one slide. I wish I had added. Okay.
42:43 Imagine a Venn diagram. There's one big circle right here. This covers the physical realm right here. Physical. All that is physical.
42:50 All that we can see, feel, touch, biceps, just cover that. And then over here, there's a spiritual. Alright? And the spiritual is right here. And that is all the stuff, angels, demons, stuff we can't see.
43:02 It's a different realm. Paul is saying that these are overlapping spheres. Why do we pray? To be in communication with God. Thank you, Sunday school answer.
43:13 Why do we pray? Because prayer changes things that we want for something that is spiritual, a devotion to God, to make a difference in our life. Does that make sense? In humility, even, that's why we do it because the spiritual and the physical overlap. And this area in the middle is the my I had a professor in seminary called the neglected middle.
43:35 We neglect that. We know that it exists, but we feel uncomfortable with it. And I say that as good old Baptist. Alright? I grew up Baptist.
43:44 I didn't expect any applause for that. But debating themselves in deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. So there's power in the blood of Jesus to save. There's power in the Holy Spirit to walk in uprightness when you yield yourself to the spirit of God that he transforms and sanctifies you and changes you, brings you into alignment with his will. You sin less.
44:14 You bless others more. You have more peace. You're more comfortable, I think. But it's not always the case. Sometimes it's through the difficulty that people see how you handle it.
44:27 By devoting himself to deceitful spirits, how do you know the difference? Which one is a deceitful spirit and which one? Is a demon rather than a messenger of God? Well, Paul's argument is stick with what's here in the word. If y'all noticed, I used to do a lot of pictures and stuff.
44:46 I still do some pictures from time to time, but a lot of what I try to put up there on the screen, I have less and less confidence in my own abilities and more and more confidence in what it says. So I spent a lot of the work in the week tracking down where it says what it says to just present undiluted truth because I feel like and I think that our world is lacking undiluted truth. There are dilutions all over the place. So by devoting ourselves to deceitful spirits and teaching the demons, this is difficult because we wrestle not against flesh and blood. But he says that those demons and those deceitful spirits have their influence through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.
45:32 That's tough. I wanna think the best of everybody. I don't ever wanna bash anybody. I don't ever wanna bash denominations. I don't ever wanna bash people in general.
45:44 But Paul flatly says that people will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to these deceitful spirits, and they're exposed to these deceitful spirits by liars, charlatans, hypocrites, people who don't really practice what it is that they're saying, and their consciences are completely seared. So before I get to what his day was, I'm actually gonna take a little detour. It's just a quick detour. We're not gonna spend long on it. But do y'all know this guy, Peter Popov?
46:14 No one? Yes. Yes. He's one of the televangelist type people from the eighties. And I don't know if you remember the Amazing Randy.
46:25 Amazing Randy was like a Houdini type guy, but he was he was constantly getting out of locks and getting out of circumstances, you know, ropes and all that sort of stuff. And somebody contacted him and said, I don't understand how Peter Popov is doing what he's doing. He was having big rallies. He would call someone out from the audience, and he'd say, you have, you know, thyroid condition or a heart condition or you're deaf. Come forward.
46:51 Come forward. Come down. And well, the people going in build up heart. He had a earpiece where he was listening to his wife's voice, and she was saying, hey. Red dress.
47:10 Fifth row. Blaney has a deaf ear. Call it out. He would call it out. It hurts me.
47:19 It makes me feel dirty just to stand up here and say that. But this guy did that in the eighties. And Amazing Randy, who was the beginning type guy who debunked all kinds of mystics and everything else, took it upon himself to go to one of these rallies and then caught him doing a little transmitter, caught him do it. So, of course, his ministry went from millions and millions and millions of dollars coming in because it's all about getting the dollars coming in. It went from that to being bankrupt.
47:56 He's back. You'll see it. If you watch TV, you'll see this guy. And now he has recorded images of the same things that he did back in the eighties. Again, you know, people have probably forgotten.
48:10 I went to a ranch yesterday, and I saw a horse with SHR, Spider Horse Ranch. I saw it branded into the flesh, and I thought, man, that hurts me just to look at that. But you know what? It doesn't hurt that horse. Right?
48:23 That's what they tell me. It doesn't hurt the horse. It hurt the horse one time, and that one time, yeah, it burned, but it doesn't ever hurt again, and it's branded for life. His conscience is completely seared. He's actually fleecing people.
48:39 Right now, he is sending out, if you will write in, if you call that number, please don't call that number. He will send you an eraser. It's an actual eraser. It has a Bible verse on it, and it's called a debt eraser. My.
49:22 My. Exactly. I wanna use one current example. We're gonna go back to what he's talking about, but he's talking about it because it exists, and it it has existed in every age. There are shortfalls.
49:33 I don't wanna shy away from it up here because y'all see it out there. And, you know, it's an uncomfortable reality, but it's not based on the truth. Do you understand that? They mix and dilute. So here we go.
49:44 Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. Lord God, please don't allow my conscience to be seared against anything. I want to be sensitive every single day. Don't allow my conscience conscience ever ever to to be be seared. Seared.
50:00 Want In this day, this is what they were doing. They were forbidding marriage. This is this incinerity of liars and conferences, they're seared to forbid marriage, and they require abstinence from foods. Now part of the Ephesian heresy, and we get to see this throughout this book and second Timothy, is overrealized eschatology. Overrealized that's a big term.
50:25 Eschatology just study at the end times, but overrealized eschatology. They know that we're moving forward to a place in heaven with our savior. Considering what Paul says that they said, they have left the path of truth. These are the opponents, the false teachers there in Ephesus. They have left the path of truth, claiming that the resurrection of the dead has already occurred.
50:52 Does that sound like any current philosophy, religion, or theology? It does. Claiming that Jesus has already returned. They have left the path of truth. They're claiming that the resurrection of the dead has already occurred.
51:08 In this way, they have turned some people away from the faith. They've turned people away from the true faith because they have chased after a deceitful spirit by an insincere liar whose conscience is sealed.
51:22 In my in my abnormal life,
51:24 what I think of as the most common heresy in our day is the prosperity gospel. And every time I mention prosperity gospel, what I say prosperity gospel is hotwashed. It's not true. It's not good. It's taken some biblical principles and amplified them to be absolutes, and they're not absolutes.
51:43 Surrender to Jesus to surrender to his will for your life, be that riches or be that poverty. He does not say that he will absolutely bless you monetarily or withheld. He doesn't say that. But there are plenty of insincere people whose consciences are seared, who will say it, and then they will gain financially by you giving an in text event to the chorus of the poor. That's a lot of words.
52:15 The Sadducees came along. They were trying to ask Jesus about marriage because the Sadducees, it says in the first line, did not believe in the resurrection. The Sadducees, as a party, were we'd probably call them leftists. They do not believe in the resurrection, so they ask him a question saying, teacher, if a man has dies having no children, his brother was married, blah blah blah, he's been married or she's been married several times. And then they said, in the resurrection, therefore, out of the seven, whose wife will she be?
52:43 And Jesus says, you are wrong because you neither know the scriptures nor the power of God. He said, it's all based in truth, and you don't understand the truth because you've decided on your political stance. You've decided on your stance, and you don't believe in the resurrection, and you do not get what's going on. For the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they're like angels in heaven. So that is a little uncomfortable, but it's Jesus' teaching.
53:11 He said what he said. So them forbidding marriage could have been a very honest thing at first. Well, Jesus says that we don't have marriage in heaven, and they thought they were already there. Overrealized eschatology. When you are saved, are you immediately perfected?
53:35 These folks thought that you are. And if you weren't perfect, then probably weren't saved. That's a heresy that comes up from time to time in our day too. They require abstinence from certain foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Now Paul's argument here is is interesting.
53:58 This is all one sentence, by the way. All five of these verses is one sentence in the Greek. He's saying, God created it to be enjoyed with thanks received by thanksgiving with those who believe and know the truth. Romans 14. Romans 14 quickly read this.
54:23 As for the one who is weak among you, welcome him, but don't quarrel over opinions, please. Stick to the truth. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak only believes he can eat eat vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats because God has welcomed him, both of them, all of them. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?
54:47 If he's God's servant, he believes sincerely that that is what God is leading him to do, then let him do it. Does that make sense? See, if it's not sin, it's not sin. Just let him do it. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another Christians.
55:44 So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the lords. For to this end, Christ died, live again, that he might be lord both for the dead and the living. Every knee is gonna bow. I heard a couple of things this week that I thought, oh my goodness. Facing the judgment, having said that, every knee is gonna bow.
56:04 No matter what kind of mocking you've done or scoffing you've done here in these latter days, every knee is gonna bow. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore, let's not pass judgment on one another and love it rather than sigh. Never put a stumbling block or a hindrance. God, I know and I'm persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it's unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.
56:30 If God has impressed it upon you, do not eat, x y z, whatever it is, then don't eat it. But you trying to enlist other people in your cult and say, you must believe me. I got this direct from the Lord. You are all supposed to do Everything to is indeed clean, but it's wrong for anyone to make another stumble about what he eats, bringing words on. The blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves.
57:10 Does that make sense? Are you with me? You worry about yourself? Constantly, constantly, constantly, God brings us back to this. Listen.
57:19 Is he gonna use every single one of us the way that he used Paul? No. Is he gonna use me exactly the way he uses Gloria? No. But whatever does not proceed from faith, what you believe by Jesus, that's sin.
57:37 And if you have sinned, you have a savior that can take care of that sin and transform your life. Everything created by God is good. When I read it down in this day, in this age, and I thought everything, He also, in the same chapter or in the last chapter, mentioned not to be controlled by intoxicating and addictive substances. So that everything is permissible, but not all things are profitable comes to mind too. And Romans 13 also comes to mind, obeying the law of the land.
58:22 Well, what if you're in Colorado? Come on, people. Are you looking for an exception? Jesus. Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving.
58:35 If you can receive it with thanksgiving, for it's made holy by the word of God and prayer. And there are a lot of Rastafaris who believe that smoking the dough gets you to that place of spiritual openness. The problem is when you get to a place of spiritual openness, you'll believe that Haile Selassie, the king of Ethiopia, is Jesus. Does that make sense? So don't open yourself up to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons if you can help it.
59:03 Paul's saying you can't help it. The way that you can help it is stick to the truth. Stick to Jesus. Study about Jesus. Come back to that over and over and over.
59:13 And I think about this. When Jesus is praying in the garden usually, I say when Jesus is praying in the garden, I say he's praying for unity. And he is. He's praying for unity. He says, I want for them to be one just like we are one.
59:26 And he says, the way that they're gonna do that is, Lord, if you will sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. Stick with that. Stick with the truth. The other thing Carl and I talked about yesterday is sometimes you get tired of saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again.
59:46 And we've been through three quarters of the New Testament, and it comes back down to faith and hope and love and peace, sanctification being a process where you have to yield yielding to the spirit of God, yielding to the teachings of the word of God, yielding to God is the way we are transformed. So can I pray for you? Would you stand up? We're gonna bring the band up and sing a word of forgiveness that we would not hold offenses. But, Lord, we would mercifully and graciously live life, and that you would bring many into your kingdom, into your household, Lord.
1:00:40 Would you allow us, Lord, the grace of being able to come back heresy whencele. In Jesus' name.
1:00:48 Let's sing one more song. Take my life and let it be.

Share this message

Every word on these came out of the message. Download one and post it anywhere.

Scripture

Written up from the message given at First B Jackson. If something here reads oddly, the recording is the record.

Come find us

90 West Kelly Ave, Jackson, WY 83001 · Sundays at 9:00 and 11:00 am

Sign in to save messages and keep notes

Written up by Recap Sunday