I Tim. 4:1-2 - Bible Lessons from Jeff Gulleson

HOW FALSE TEACHING ENTERS THE CHURCH

(I Tim. 4:1-2)

OVERVIEW OF I TIMOTHY 1:1 to 3:16

1:1-2 – Overview of Christian Faith based on names for God and the blessings He bestows on His people.

1:3-4a False teaching in Ephesus and how humanistic philosophy effects us today.

1:4b-6 – The goal of the command is love. (Loving God, fellow Christians, the non-Christian world)

1:7-8 – The law is good if used properly. (The law’s deterrent, punitive and educative purposes)

1:8-11 – “Whatever else …” The Gospel Ethic. (Law-Philia University)

1:11 – Our Relationship with “The Blessed God.” (Causing God pain or joy)

1:12-16 Why Paul considered himself the worst of sinners.

1:12-16 Conversion of the apostle Paul.

1:12-16 Paul’s call to ministry.

1:17 Paul’s doxology of praise for his conversion.

1:18-20 How to avoid shipwrecking our faith.

2:1-3 The Christian is to pray for all men.

2:4,6 Comparison of Calvinism & Armenianism.

2:5-6 The man, Christ Jesus, the only mediator.

2:1-7 The vision, the message, the means.

2:8-15 Treatment of women in the ancient world, the early church and the Bible.

2:8-15 Three key hermeneutic principles to follow when studying the Bible.

2:8 Praying Men with Peaceful Hearts

2:9-10 A First-Century Christian Woman’s Dress and Deeds

2:11-12 Does Submission Demand Silence?

2:13-15 Paul’s Logic for Requiring Women to Be Silent in The Ephesian House Churches.

3:1 Why Aspiring to Church Leadership Can Be a Good Thing.

3:2 Spiritual Gifting Required of an Ephesian Elder – Teaching

3:2 Spiritual Gifting Required of an Ephesian Elder – Hospitality

3:4-5 Spiritual Gifting Required of an Ephesian Elder –Leadership

3:2-7 Ethical Demands of the NT and the Ethics Tests for Elders

3:2-7 Ethical Qualities Required of an Ephesian Elder

3:8-13 The Ever Present Danger of Ethical Disconnect in a Christian’s Life

3:8-13 The Ministry of Deacons in the Early Church

3:9 Keeping Hold of the Deep Truths of the Faith

3:11 An Official Deaconesses in the NT Church?

3:14 Results That are Better Than Answered Prayer

3:15 God’s New Community – The Church of the Living God

3:15 God’s New Community – God’s Household

3:15 God’s New Community – The Pillar & Foundation of the Truth

3:16a Introduction to the Hymn in I Tim. 3:15 – The Mystery of Godliness

3:16a The Mystery of Godliness – A Life Focused on Christ

3:16b The Incarnation – He Appeared in a Body

4:1-2 How False Teaching Enters the Church

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron (I Tim. 4:1-2).

INTRODUCTION:

1. Remember that there is no chapter break between 3:16 and 4:1. The conjunction “de” is not translated in the NIV and a good translation would be “however. Thus the transition should be: ‘The church is the pillar and foundation of truth however the Spirit has warned of error.’

2. The other way to look at it: The key to godliness is found in Christ however the Spirit has warned of error that will cause us to take our focus off of Christ and put it on rules. I prefer this because Paul shortly comes back to godliness.

3. ‘Later times’ began with the coming of God’s Son (Heb. 1:2) or the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2). Thus ‘Later Times’ denotes the Christian era.

4. Stott says, “…the local church is the main arena in which the unremitting struggle between truth and error is fought out. So local leaders need help both in detecting error and in commending truth. However uncongenial theological debate may be, especially as an increasing number of people summarily dismiss the very concept of object truth, it cannot be avoided.’ (Stott, 109)

5. Let’s keep in mind the four persons referred to in the text. Who are they? Spirit, some, deceiving spirits / demons, hypocritical liars.

I. SATAN PROMOTES FALSE TEACHING

QUESTION: What examples / verses / stories do we have in the Bible that refer to Satan’s deceitful activities in human affairs?

A. Scripture indicates that Satan is behind false teaching.

1. Paul warns of Satan using ‘counterfeit miracle’ in II Thes. 2:9.

2. Satan deludes people e.g. false prophet in Rev. 19:20.

3. Paul writes that Satan masquerades as an ‘angel of light’ (I Cor. 11:14).

4. Our text refers to ‘things taught by demons’ or ‘doctrines of demons’ or ‘teachings of demons.’

5. In Ephesians 6:12 Paul says that our struggle is against “…the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

B. Did the activity of evil spirits stop with the apostolic age?

QUESTION: Can you think of any major efforts of Satan to distort the truth, to intertwine false teaching with the truth since the days of the apostles?

1. Islam …. Muhammad claims to have received his revelation via the angel Gabriel. Could it have been the Prince of Arabia.

2. Mormonism …” In 1820 a 15 year old boy named Joseph Smith said that the angel Moroni (other versions say God or three angels) appeared to him and told him all churches were wrong, their professors were corrupt, and all their creeds were an abomination. So in 1830 he Founded The Mormon cult.

C. QUESTION: Are demons still teaching today?

“We tend not to take this fact sufficiently seriously. Scripture portrays the devil not only as the tempter, enticing people into sin, but also as the deceiver, seducing people into error. Often he does both together, as when in the Garden of Eden he prevailed upon our first parents to doubt and then to disobey God’s word. No wonder Jesus called him ‘a liar and the father of lies.’ And the apostles regularly attributed human error to devilish deceit. Is this not why intelligent and educated people can swallow the fantastic speculations of the cults and the New Age paganism, some of the far-fetched doctrines of the ethnic religions, and the barrenness of atheistic philosophies? It is because there is not only a Spirit of truth but also a spirit of falsehood, who is able to delude, drug, bewitch and even blind people” (Stott, pg. 111).

II. SATAN USES PEOPLE TO SPREAD FALSE DOCTRINE

* I feel odd using some of the titles Paul used for false teachers.

* In Acts 20 Paul calls them “savage wolves” and also ‘men from your own number’ who distort the truth.

A. They had a ‘seared conscience’

1. Hymenaeus and Alexander had rejected a “good conscience” and shipwrecked their faith (I Tim. 2:19).

2. Kauteriazo (seared) was used by the Greek medical writer Hippocrates to speak of cauterization. The consciences of the false teachers had been destroyed. The conscience makes us sensitive to right and wrong.

We must be very careful not to silence / disobey our conscience because the next time it is easier to sin. ‘By constantly arguing with conscience, stifling its warnings and muffling its bell’ its voice is smothered and eventually silenced. … and we become morally insensible, anaesthetized, deadened. A deadened, insensitive conscience is a good receptacle for demonic teaching.

B. They were hypocrites

QUESTION: What is a hypocrite?

QUESTION: What are some examples of Biblical hypocrites?

* Jacob impersonating Esau, pretending to be someone he was not.

C. They were liars

“hypocrite” automatically means “liar” because a person is saying something about himself that is not true.

What were they lying about? Visions, experiences?

Sincerity does not excuse us from perpetrating a lie. No matter how sincere I am, I am still lying if I say that arsenic won’t kill a person. Often we are influenced by sincere people and who hasn’t heard someone say, “But he/she is so sincere”?

Note the ‘lying spirit’ in the story of Micaiah, son of Imlah in I Kings 22:19-23).

D. The life story of a false teacher.

“The grim sequence of events in the career of the false teachers has now been revealed. First, they turned a deaf ear to their conscience, until it became cauterized. Next, they felt no scruple in becoming hypocritical liars. Thirdly, they thus exposed themselves to the influence of deceiving spirits. Finally, they led their listeners to abandon the faith. …. It all begins when we tamper with our conscience” (Stott, 112).

III. THE FIRST VICTIMS OF FALSE TEACHING – CHRISTIANS

A. The “some” are members of “God’s Household” in 3:14.

B. “abandon the faith” is a stronger term in the Greek than the word “wandered away” in 1:6 or “shipwrecked” in 1:19. It refers to a purposeful, deliberate departure from a former position. Here it refers to someone who willfully abandons the Christian faith.

“The faith” here refers to the content of divine revelation what constitutes what Christians believe (Jude 3).

B. Paul warned this would happen: I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them (Acts 20:29-30).

IV. THE DIFFICULT QUESTION RE: DEMONIC TEACHING

QUESTION: How do you separate a ‘demonic doctrine’ from a viable ‘doctrinal difference of opinion?’ or, in other words, when is something a different point of view and when is it a ‘doctrine of demons?’

We don’t have trouble is spotting a real imposter like Mohammad or Joseph Smith. But the Protestant Church has had a major problem in separating ‘Demonic Doctrines” from “differing opinions.”

QUESTION: What have been some of the major theological conflicts of history that we don’t argue about any more?

But we have had major theological clashes and name calling over the five points of Calvinism, speaking in tongues, women pastors, child baptism, baptism by immersion / sprinkling, lay ministry, the Lord’s Supper / communion, types of church government, tithing, eternal security, original sin, sovereignty of God etc. and free will etc.

A. Are they Evangelicals?

1. Protestant Orthodoxy …. Bible Believing

a. Add to the inspired Word of God?

b. Accept Jesus as the divine Son of God?

c. Believe we are saved by grace alone?

2. Personal commitment to Christ … Pietistic

3. Evangelism – Spreading the apostolic message across cultural boundaries.

B. Does what they are teaching match the BCC Statement of Faith? If not would it be a “Doctrine of Demons.”

Bethany Community Church Covenant Of Faith

I. We affirm our beliefs in the divine inspiration, truthfulness and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety. They are the only written word of God without error in all they affirm, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

II. We affirm our belief in the one eternal God, Creator and Lord of the universe, always existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each possessing divine perfection.

A. God, the Father is perfect in holiness, infinite in wisdom and measureless in power. He concerns Himself mercifully in the affairs of men, hears and answers prayer, and saves all who come to Him by faith through Jesus Christ.

B. God, the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is God’s only begotten Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and is true God and man, and sinless in His life. We believe in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal visible return to the world according to His promise.

C. God, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity who came from God to convince the world of sin, righteousness and judgment and to regenerate all who believe in Jesus Christ. He indwells the believer and by His present ministry, enables the Christian to live a godly life, different from the world.

III. We affirm our belief that all men by nature and by choice are perishing because of sin. God offers His life to all men, not wishing, that any should perish but that all should repent. Those who reject Christ repudiate the joy of salvation and condemn themselves to eternal separation from God. Believers are called upon to proclaim Jesus as the only Savior and to invite all men to respond to Him as Savior and Lord in a wholehearted personal commitment of repentance and faith. Those who believe and confess Christ as Lord and Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and will rejoice forever in God’s presence.

IV. We affirm our belief in the spiritual unity of the body of Christ universal, of which all regenerated people are members. A visible local church is a company of believers in Jesus Christ who have experienced a new birth affected through the truth by the agency of the Holy Spirit. Upon a credible confession of faith, these believers will be baptized and will associate themselves for worship, service, mission and fellowship. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are commanded by our Lord as perpetual ordinances for believers.

V. We affirm our belief that the mission of the Church, for which she is uniquely equipped by the Holy Spirit, is to spread the good news of salvation to all men everywhere, and to testify of the reality and power of the Gospel by the holy life of its members, their genuine love for one another, their service to mankind everywhere, and their patient endurance of suffering.

SO WHAT????????:

1. If Satan is still alive and well then he continues to send deceiving spirits into the world to channel doctrines of demons through human teachers.

2. We must be aware that our first battle is not with the messenger of false doctrine but with the originator, Satan himself.

3. We can not assume that Satan will not try to infiltrate false doctrine into our church.

4. If we fail to cultivate our conscience and in fact disobey it, our conscience can be seared and we too can be used as a channel for demonic doctrine.