Title:Warning About False Teachers

Text: 1 Timothy 4:1-5

Title:Warning About False Teachers

Truth:We need to be on guard against false teaching and its promoters.

Date/Location: Sunday July 22, 2012 at FBC

Review of 3:14-16

Verse 16 tells us that there can be no legitimate debate – the revealed truth of the faith is great. That revelation leads to godly behavior. The text then gives a six-line summary of Christology from the incarnation through the ascension, with the work of the Holy Spirit, angels, Christian preachers, and believers. This is basic to the objective body of truth, what we call “the faith.” It is also known as apostolic doctrine. It is what Jesus and the Spirit taught the apostles to teach the people.

That truth is what the church professes, proclaims, practices, protects, and promotes as it carries out its function of a pillar upholding the truth to the world, and maintaining the truth within itself. (A task, by the way, that is increasingly evident to me is not very easy, since so many churches are failing in it).

The church not only promotes the truth, but it is the house of the one true and living God. Therefore, because of what the church is and what it does, it is important that it conducts itself properly. This connection cannot be missed. Once you make the connection between GOD and God’s revelation and His church, then you will have no question about how the church is supposed to be conducting itself. Church behavior starts with and revolves around the God who owns and dwells in the church. Its conduct must be holy. Namely, it must have deacons that are fully qualified; it must have elders who are holy and able to teach and lead the church; it must have godly women and men; it must be given to prayer.Finally, all the way back in chapter 1 we learned that the church and especially its pastor must be given to the task of opposing false teaching.

Introduction

It is to the very subject of false teaching that Paul now returns.Under the divine superintendence of God’s Spirit, he warns Pastor Timothy again about false teachers and the danger they pose to the church.

Briefly stated, the danger is that false teaching spreads like cancer (2 Timothy 2:17) and alters people’s lives; false teaching sends people to Hell; false teaching can make people ineffective in their Christian life.Cancer is a fitting illustration because if you catch it early, you can amputate the offending part relatively easily and continue to live successfully. But when false teaching goes metastaticthroughout the churchthere is big trouble. The situation may be beyond recovery. The church might not even recognize it until it is too late.

False teaching is not only“salvation by works” or something else that is obvious. It can be things like this:

• “our doctrine is that doctrine isn’t important” or
• “our doctrine is that we don’t take a stand on things like that” or
• “our doctrine is that doctrine divides” or
• “our doctrine is that it is fine to believe many different teachings on a variety of theological questions” or
• “our doctrine is love and unity”or
• “our doctrine is that science and human reason are greater authorities than the Bible.”

Those are doctrines, even though they would probably not be expressed in those terms by false teachers. But those are dangerous heresies. If those things were true, why would God tell us to give close attention to sound teaching (1 Timothy 1:10; 2 Timothy 4:3; Titus 1:9, 2:1)?

In attacking the church’s Christian doctrine, false teaching attacks the core of what the church is – the pillar and ground of the truth. It damages the church’s ability to conduct itself in a holy manner.

False teaching is a major threat to the godliness of the church and its status as a pillar of truth and dwelling place of God. It is not just a curiosity, or a humorous thing, or something you should study in great depth. We must be exceedingly careful of putting ourselves into situations where we can be influenced by false teaching. The threat is real, so Paul warns Timothy about it in the first 5 verses of the chapter, then takes the remainder of the chapter to detail Timothy’s response to it in the church.

I. The Threat of False Teachers, v. 1-3a

A. TheHoly Spirit’s Clear Warning

1. The Spirit expressly says. This means that the Spirit of God is being very clear in His warning. Paul may be referring to other Scriptures such as Matthew 24:10-11 or Acts 20:29-30 or 2 Peter 3:3. I believe it is even stronger than that—Paul is under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit to produce the inspired Scripture. He knows when the Spirit speaks. The Spirit is making it abundantly obvious to Paul as he writes, and throughout his ministry, that this issue of false teachers and their followers is very urgent.

We could almost put quotation marks around verses 1-3 or 1-5.

2. Latter times. These words refer to the period between the first and second comings of Christ (2 Timothy 3:1, Heb. 1:2; 1 John 2:18). Since 1900 years have passed, we can safely say that we are in those times. This means right now!

B. Characteristics of False Teachers

1. Depart from the faith. They will leave “the faith” which is the body of truth of the Christian belief system. They become apostates.

2. Give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. When the false teacher departs from the faith, he follows another system of thought. That is what giving heed means. We could say that everyone is following something—either the Christian faith or…

…demonically sponsored beliefs.Deceiving spirits are demons, that is, fallen angels who are enemies of God and ministers of the devil. They are deceivers.That is, they lie and direct people away from the truth. These deceivers use human pawns (the false teachers) to propagate their deceit.

These demons have doctrines, which are the content of their teaching. There is no need or profit in exhaustively listing or even categorizing the demonic doctrines, although Paul will list some examples to help us understand.It is much better to present the truth and everything else will appear error in comparison to that truth. Suffice it to say that these doctrines are anything, subtle or not, that opposes what God has revealed in His word.

3. They are hypocritical liars. Liars teach what they claim to be true but actually they are deceiving away from the truth. Hypocrites appear one way but are actually another. They might say one thing and do the opposite; or they might present themselves as having one motivation when they actually have another. They do not have to be self-aware of this. They can be so deceived by the demonic influence that they have a level of sincerity in what they think.

4. They have a seared conscience. The reason the false teachers can be full of lies and hypocrisy, and maybe not even know it, is that they have a seared conscience. This is a scar-tissue like formation on the organ of the conscience that does not allow it to function properly.

When everything is well with a person (they are saved and in their right mind), the conscience tells them if what they are doing is good or bad.

After a person repeatedly violates their conscience and the true teaching of the Bible, this scars the conscience and makes it function improperly. There can be a point of no return at which they are fully apostates, embracing false doctrine with no opportunity of return (Hebrews 6:4-6, for example). God knows that point—I don’t.

What I do know is that if you expose yourself to the false teaching and begin to be convinced, that you may well fully accept it, and have your own conscience seared. BEWARE!!!!

5. They forbid marriage, for example. Paul now gives two examples of false teaching. The first is the forbidding of marriage. They forbid it in a misguided attempt to suppress lust, or because they believe the body and bodily pleasures are bad.

God does not forbid marriage—He created marriage! The usual state for men and women is to be married.

See 1 Corinthians 7 for the Biblical position on marriage.

A man or a woman may decide for themselves whether to be married so as to best pursue service for God. But no one is allowed to command them to not be married.

6. They demanding abstinence from certain foods. Another prominent and exemplary teaching of false teachers was that they did not allow the eating of foods on the restricted list in the Old Testament. See Acts 10:12-14 and Col. 2:16, 21. Similar to above, someone can decide to abstain from meat or certain other foods if they wish; but no blanket prohibition is found in Scripture.

The two examples given above are variants of legalism that attempt to achieve spiritual superiority and to reign in sinful lusts by means of harsh practices. Such an approach to sanctification is doomed to fail (Col. 2:23, Galatians 3:1-3).

II.A Brief Rebuttal of One of Their False Teachings, v. 3b-5

Paul offers a brief statement against the false teaching about foods. What he says also has implications for the false teaching on marriage.

A. God created. Marriage and food are not bad things to be avoided, for one, because God created them. He did not create bad things!

B. Food should be received (eaten) with thanksgiving.

C. Food can be enjoyed by Christians—that is, those who believe and know the truth.

Christians can be thankful for the provision of God because they understand the true source of their blessings. Others may enjoy, but they cannot fully enjoy things the way believers do.

Note: you should know the truth, and you should believe it for yourself. You should understand what you believe and why you believe it. There is an important intellectual component to the faith.

The Bible now offers further explanation as to why false teachers are wrong.

D. God’s creation is good. See Genesis 1:31. Of course, the fall degraded things tremendously from their ‘very good’ status at the close of the creation week. But God’s creation is still good and inherently of great value, if used according to its divinely intended purpose.

E. Nothing must be rejected, as the false teachers do, if received with thanks. Verse 5 explains this. No food can be refused because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Sanctified means that it is set apart for the use God intended. In this case, the divinely-intended use is to eat it! Of course, it is not God’s intention that we be gluttonous, or drunk, or addicted to anything. Those are not ‘sanctified’ uses of foods.

Being set apart for eating is indicated in the word of God in Acts 10:15; Matthew 15:11, Mark 7:19, and Luke 11:41.

Prayer is the means by which thanksgiving is made. This happens before a meal (or after, or during). More importantly, it is from the heart.

In summary, the fact that God created it makes it good; the fact that God’s word permits us to partake makes it so that we cannot refuse it out of hand, and thanksgiving puts the final cap on the whole deal, because by praying in thanks for what God has given, we give assent to these truths and give indication that we are using God’s gifts the way God intended.

Conclusion

There is a very clear danger to the church today. False teachers, dominated by deceptive demonic doctrines, are trying to infiltrate and influence the church. They want a following. But they are gravely injured in their beliefs and consciences, not recognizing that what they teach is in direct opposition to God. We have been warned. We will learn next time more about how to combat false teaching in the church. Let us be on guard.

MAP

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