Some Will Depart

 

A Warning from the Spirit: Some Will Fall Away

 

 

On September 21, 1938, on a day that started as a sunny September day, at 2:30pm a 40 foot wall of water slammed into east coast from LI to Rhode Island with such force that it registered on a seismograph in Alaska. The hurricane of 1938 was a devastating storm that destroyed thousands of homes and buildings and killed hundreds of people, but what made this hurricane uniquely deadly was that there was no warning. All but one meteorologist assumed that the hurricane racing northward along the US east coast would curve out to sea and never hit land, and so no hurricane warning was ever given.

 

One striking story from the devastating day is story of a man who purchased a barometer which arrived in mail on morning of September 21. To his annoyance the needle pointed below 29, where the dial read, 'Hurricanes and Tornadoes.'  He shook it and banged it against the wall; the needle wouldn't budge. Indignant, he repacked it, drove to the post office, and mailed it back. While he was gone, his house blew away."

 

If there had been warning, hundreds of lives might have been saved - they would have gone to higher ground. This morning as we pick up God's holy Word, we that the Spirit gives clear warning of coming danger, so that believers can recognize and avoid coming danger. This gives us warning and calls us to safe ground - the high ground of truth.

 

1 Timothy 4:1-6

 

One of the descriptions of the church Paul uses in chapter 3 is of the church being "the foundation and pillar of the truth". The church is to hold steady and to hold high the truth.

 

Prop: Hold the truth and love the truth!

 

With that in mind, in chapter 4 Paul warns that the truth will be under assault in the last times. Paul doesn't mean the last seven years of history. Last times were the days Paul lived in. The last times are the days we live in. Jesus' incarnation began the last times and His return will consummate the last times.

 

I.                    The Spirit expressly says...

 

There is no doubt about the warning the Spirit is giving. Like a barometer - it tells us that we are not in happy times. We don't know if Paul is thinking of Jesus' warnings that in the last times many will fall away, including his warning to disciples in sermon on mount that Aron brought to us last week to beware false prophets, or of Paul's own warning to the Ephesian elders a few years earlier that savage wolves would rip apart the flock and men would arise among them speaking twisted things to draw disciples after them, or if as Paul is writing this he is receiving a strong internal warning from the Holy Spirit, or (most likely), all of these together. When it comes to last times, the barometer of the Spirit is clearly pointing to danger ahead.

 

II.                  The Warning: Some will fall away

 

Some will fall away from the faith. The word is "apostasize" - depart from the true faith in Jesus Christ. Non-believers cannot fall away from faith - they never had it. Pagans cannot fall away. This is referring to people who, though not genuinely saved, once held to an orthodox profession of faith in Jesus Christ - but have been convinced to swerve, to depart, to fall away. Whole churches and the climate of churches will be moved from a true profession of faith in Jesus Christ to a false profession. I'm not talking about becoming atheists - but those who are religiously deceived.

 

Demonic deception

 

The warning goes on to identify who is doing the deceiving. Those who fall away will devote themselves (think they are deepening their religious devotion to God) to deceitful demons and teachings (doctrines) of demons.

 

The devil is not only a tempter - he is a deceiver. Jesus says he is a liar and the father of lies. In fact, he goes on to say that Satan has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him.

 

Let that sink in for a moment. There is no truth in him. That doesn't mean that true ideas have never passed his lips. When he sought to tempt Jesus in the wilderness he quoted scripture - to the point that he quoted, it was true. But when he speaks true (notice I'm not saying truth) things he does so to twist their true meaning and arrive at a lie. Truth has no hold in his character.

 

Hypocritical liars

 

The spirit warns that doctrines of demons will be carried through "the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared". It's not surprising that the father of lies and his minions would use as vessels those who have no love for truth. Double deception: hypocrisy is a deliberate pretense; a lie is a deliberate falsehood. These teachers are intentionally twisting and deceiving people - purposely moving them away from the truth. It doesn't bother them that they are doing this because their conscience is seared - cauterized as with hot iron. They feel no pangs of conscience.

 

But we can't pin this great falling away on demons or evil teachers. It represents a climate where the truth is not valued. People who fall away have positioned themselves for falling away by not holding and loving the truth.

 

Paul describes the climate of the apostate church in 2 Timothy 4:3-4

 

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

 

This is the diagnosis: their own desires, rather than truth, will shape the teachings they listen to. Because it doesn't scratch their itching ears, they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander (swerve) into falsehoods.

 

The Stepford God

 

Now, what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won't! You'll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it.~ Tim Keller

 

The doctrine of demons

 

Paul describes a sample - representative not exhaustive. Probably at core of error they faced. If you remember, Paul begins this letter with charge to Timothy to confront and stop false teachers from teaching myths and endless genealogies, which promote controversies and speculations rather than God's work - which is by faith and results in love.

 

1. Man's effort to reach God by his own effort rather than through Christ

 

That is at the core of every false teaching - leads followers to self-effort as a means to attain God's acceptance. John MacArthur writes:

 

All false religions devise human means by which you become saved, either by things you do or don't do. They are all ultimately based on human achievement.

 

That lie is so effective because it scratches an itch that is common to man: the pride that wants to be able contribute to our salvation. It's a pride that twists relationship with God into a statement about ourselves, rather than God.

 

The particular teaching of denying marriage and certain foods was probably linked to a belief that the material world was evil and that self-denial was the path to God and spirituality. That thinking is still very much alive today.

 

I heard recently about Amar Bharti Baba, a Hindu man who has kept right arm raised for 27 years. It began in 1972 when he left his wife and three children, his job and all his possessions in quest for deeper spirituality. Feeling that his harsh existence still wasn't enough he made another decision: to raise his right arm up in the air and never let it down. His arm has petrified - can never let it down even when he dies. His finger nails are curving randomly in all directions.

 

Leaving family, leaving material possessions, giving up use of arm - when asked why he did all this, he smiles and says, unless you do it, you can never understand why. It's "spiritual". Makes him pleasing to God - and people pay him money to hear his wisdom. It is the path of human effort to God.

 

All religions except genuine Christianity have path of human effort as a means to salvation and God. But the warning of the Spirit is that it's not just a problem in pagan religions, it can worm its way into the church as well. Retain "gospel language" while teaching people that their list of "do's" and "don'ts" that are necessary to please God.

 

A smell in the church: the smell of don'ts and do's

 

Have you ever entered a house and noticed a distinct aroma in home? It might be pleasant. They say that when you are trying to sell a home, should bake an apple pie before the people come to see home - gives the house a warm and inviting aroma.

 

Might be unpleasant. Might be a foul odor in air, and people living there have gotten used to it. Churches have odors too - and sometimes that odor can be the smell of don'ts and do's. The odor of "here is the list of things you need to do to be a good Christian" odor.

 

Might not be forbidding marriage or abstaining from food - might be forbidding guys to have long hair, or women from wearing jeans, or anyone from listening to any rock music, or telling you you can't watch certain shows or read certain books or drink glass of wine or smoke cigarette or, well you get the idea.

 

When I was first learning about Sovereign Grace Ministries, someone who meant well said, "you better watch every movie ever wanted to watch, cause when you become a part of them, won't be allowed to watch movies anymore." Where'd he get that idea? Listen, I wouldn't be a part of any church group that made out lists and ordered you to abide by them - because that is not how grace operates and that is not how true godliness is formed in our lives.

 

When rules and lists get our focus, we lose sight of grace, and by losing sight of grace we lose sight of truth and become deceived: think we're becoming an uncompromising Christian but really we are self-righteous. Think we're becoming discerning, really critical. We see ourselves as prophets from God, really just angry at anything that disagrees with us. We congratulate ourselves at how God is pleased with our efforts (which put to shame the efforts of others around us) but God is weeping at our pride and self-righteousness. We are deceived.

 

III.                The high ground of truth (vs. 3a-4)

 

Why is this warning here? Why does Spirit warn so expressly about the dangers of many falling away? Paul is writing to a solid Christian man and leader. He expects a solid church of believers to look over Timothy's shoulder and read this letter too. Spirit anticipated us reading it as well. Why?

 

This takes us to high ground above the destructive winds and waves of false doctrine that will sweep away everything that is built on lower ground of sand. Build our lives, our families, our church, on the solid ground - the rock - of truth. Which is God's Word.

 

Paul guts their spiritual error of pursuing godliness by forbidding marriage and certain foods of any legitimacy by going back to scripture: marriage and food is to be received with thanksgiving because God created both things and said they were good.

 

• In Genesis 1 God gives every plant yielding seed as food, and ends by saying, And God saw everything that He had made and behold, it was very good. (1:31)
• God created Eve as Adam's wife because He said, it is not good that the man should be alone." and instructs that a man shall leave father and mother and cleave to wife and they shall become one flesh.
• After the flood in chapter 9, God once again commands Noah and sons to be fruitful and multiply and says that He has given every moving thing that lives as food for them (vs 1, 3)

 

So in other words, what they are calling bad, God called good. God knows better! We are created to be enjoyed with thanksgiving. In fact, Paul mentions thanksgiving twice in two verses, and really three times if we understand his reference to prayer as prayer of thanksgiving (or what we call grace). Christian does not look for merit in what we do or what we don't do. Merit is Christ - that frees us up to live thankful lives.

 

God has not called Christians to a sour spirituality, but a thankful one! Legalism points to our effort. Thankfulness points to God. Enjoy life! Live large and thank God for every day.

 

Paul will call us to godliness in the following verses (and we'll get to that next week) - so its not that we are to indulge sinfully, not that there aren't things that are biblically wrong and sinful to do and we should call one another to avoid. And someone might decide it is God's will for them not to get married - not only is that not sinful, it might be an expression of obedience and spirituality for them. Not because marriage is unspiritual but because represents obedience to God's specific will for them. Someone might abstain from certain foods for personal convictions and that is fine and nothing wrong. Problem isn't that anyone would abstain or not get married, it's making a religious merit out of it.

 

Don't be one of those Christians who are bound by a spirituality that makes it a sin to laugh. They feel that it's a sin to enjoy anything other than a Bible study. They feel guilty about blessings in their lives rather than see it as the amazing generosity of a God who loves them so much! Be thankful, but not ashamed.

 

The other day Matthew was struggling with having a thankful heart and at one point I heard Janice ask him, "what's something you are thankful for?" Matthew answered (in a tone that didn't sound very thankful) "I'm thankful for the whole world."

 

Everything created by God is good...

 

Watch a sunset and see glimpse of God's creative beauty. Watch children laughing and playing and hear the music of heaven. Eat a pizza and never mind the calories!!

 

What God created is good. Yes, it's a fallen world, yes we are sinners. Jesus entered this sinful world in the flesh to save sinful man, and while he walked this earth he ate and laughed and enjoyed sunsets as His Father's work. Didn't sit on a mountain with right arm raised waiting for people to seek him out for spiritual wisdom. He entered dirty streets and lived and ate and walked among them.

 

Those streets led our Savior to the cross - as the only way we can be forgiven and spiritually alive to God. His work, not ours. Can't earn God's acceptance by raising our right arm for 27 years or not getting married or not eating ice cream sundaes or anything else we could do. Jesus did it all. We receive it by faith, and live by faith and hearts are thankful.

 

Take our right arms and our left arms and use them for God's glory. Which we can do cause He saved us!

 

Conclusion:

 

Truth isn't just about what we say we believe. We can quote the Bible in a way that twists its meaning. For us to grasp truth, it needs to penetrate our hearts and produce fruit in keeping with the truth. Give yourself a heart check:

 

• Do I love the truth of God's Word even when it runs counter to what I want?
• Am I trusting Jesus for my righteousness or am I adding subtle lists of what I must do or not do to be approved of God?
• Am I thankful? Amazed at God's goodness to me? Do I take for granted or feel guilty for God's good gifts to me?