Thank you for selecting this message by Dr. James Hoffman. Dr. Hoffman preaches verse by verse through the entire book of the Bible. From all of us at Living Water of Lapine here in Central Oregon, we hope that it will encourage you and feed you spiritually. And if you would like to leave a message after the sermon, our contact information is found on the sermon page where you found this sermon. Now may God richly bless you as you listen. You know, if you've been in the church for any length of time, the chances are that you have heard the claim at least once that the United States Secret Service never shows bank tellers counterfeit money when teaching them to identify it. No, the agents who do the training show bank tellers only examples of genuine money so that when phony money appears before them, they will know it because of the difference from the real thing. Now, the application that is given to this is that Christians are better off studying truth instead of heresy. Over the years, I have heard this story countless numbers of times. There's only one problem. It may not be true. Theologian Roger Olson writes, On checking with the Treasury Department's Minneapolis Secret Service agent in charge of training bank tellers to identify counterfeit money, he laughed at the story and wondered aloud who would start it and who would believe it. At my request, he sent me a letter confirming that the Secret Service does show examples of counterfeit money to bank tellers. Now, I'm grateful for Roger Olson checking on this popular church story. You see, I believe that it is important and that it is valuable for Christians to be prepared by knowing not just theological correctness, but also to be familiar with the characteristics and some examples of heresy, because Satan perpetuates it in our churches. The Apostle Paul, in the passage of Scripture that we come to in our study today through 1 Timothy, seems to agree. Last week we saw that Paul wrote to Timothy saying that the Church is to be the pillar and support of truth. 1 Timothy 3.15. And right after that, in today's passage, he shows us how to recognize false teachers. How tragic it would be for us to hold up and support as true false theology. As we open 1 Timothy 4, Paul says, if we're gonna be the pillar of truth, We should not be surprised to see some fall away from the church, pursue rival systems of thought, and become enemies of what we hold forth. We need to know that we will be challenged. Falsehood will even come from unexpected sources. and we need to be able to recognize it. False teaching was rampant in the first century and it is rampant today. The world and the church are full of theology that is unbiblical. For example, prosperity theology the health and wealth gospel that says, if you trust Jesus enough, if your faith is strong enough, you will be healthy and wealthy. Cult theology. It typically says that Jesus was only a prophet, a man, not God in human flesh. And then there's what we might call popular theology, a theology consisting of ideas about how you can improve your life through positive thinking and obtain all that you desire simply by retraining your brain to be more positive. This teaching today comes from best-selling authors who pastor our nation's largest churches and are on TV. Be on guard against such errors. Do not support them. And in light of polls' warnings about false teachers, we should not be surprised by them. Don't let the kind of apostasy where fellow church members turn and leave throw your faith into a tailspin. God has told us ahead of time that it will happen. But our passage today isn't just about normal church members walking away. It is about church leaders, influential teachers, and pastors who depart and become false teachers. We shouldn't be shocked by the sudden change into false teachers from those we have known to be outstanding Christians. beyond their outward appearances, we need to be able to detect their error and not support them in it. So our passage today will make four things clear to us. Number one, the certainty or the predictability of apostates. Number two, the characteristics of apostates, false teachers. Number three, the content of their apostasy. And number four, the prevention and cure of apostasy. So let's get started. Open with me in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 4. We begin with the first two verses of 1 Timothy 4. Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared." Don't be fooled. False teaching is demonic, straight from hell. and it comes to life through deceptive teachers. These teachers are liars whose consciences are seared. They are men and women who have become numb to the truth and are spreading distractions from God's truth about how to get close to God, what God really likes. Now don't misunderstand. These are not individuals who rise up in the church and announce, my conscience is seared and I'm here to spread the lies about what God really desires. If only it were that simple. That's what makes false teaching deceptive. It often comes from people in the church who claim to be spreading the truth. The point is well made, the Church and the genuine believer have to be constantly on guard against false teaching. The terrible danger of false teaching always confronts the Church and every believer. And note, this is a revelation of the Spirit of God Himself, Paul says, the Spirit expressly says. It's the warning of God's Spirit. The Spirit has spoken expressly, retos, that is, in specific terms, in plain words. distinctly so that there can be no question that this is not a frivolous warning like those spam phone calls telling you that your car's warranty is about to expire. False teachers will arise inside the church during latter times. Now, every time the Bible refers to the latter times or the last days, it refers to the time period that began with Christ's resurrection and will continue until his return, when he will set up his kingdom and judge all of humanity. 1 John 2.18 supports this fact when it says, children, it is the last hour. And the writer of Hebrews wrote, in these last days, he has spoken to us through his son. So we see from the way scripture itself uses this concept that the latter days is our present era, from Jesus's resurrection to the time of his second coming. It is certain that our day will contend with apostates. Jesus and the Apostles forewarned us, false teachers will abound, loving money and attention, distorting the truth, dividing believers, and causing many to go astray as they follow lying spirits and teachings that come from demons. Let me just give you four. As an example, Matthew 24, 5, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray. Romans 16, verse 18, for such persons do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own appetites and smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. 2 Peter 2, 1. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." And Jude 1, 18 and 19, they said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions, It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit. Already in the first century, those ideological, moral, and spiritual tendencies were appearing. And a passage that we studied a few weeks ago, 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 1 through 12, taught that it is going to reach a climax with the great rejection of Christianity at the revelation of the Antichrist. So it's gonna reach this feverish pitch. From the first century forward, there will be church participants who turn away from the faith, even though they appear to be faithful believers. They pretend to be religious, but their conscience is dead. We can recognize false teachers by the description Paul gave in these first two verses. You see, false teachers commit four tragic errors. Number one, False teachers depart from the faith. This passage is not dealing with the philosophies and the false teachings taught by believers out in the world, like at our universities. It's talking about false teachers from within the church. Depart is ahistemi in the Greek, and it means to stand away from. A departure suggests not only that you have a point to which you are going, but also a point from which you have come. The word simply means an intentional removal from one place to another. they leave intentionally turning their back on the truth. One cannot accidentally become an apostate. It's a choice. Neither can one become guilty of apostasy over non-essential doctrines. Let's be real. Let's be honest about this. One cannot become an apostate over non-essential doctrines or issues that scripture does not definitively address. For example, I happen to disagree with fellow believers who believe Christ will rapture the church after the tribulation. But I don't consider them apostate. That's a non-essential doctrine. Those who apostatize are ones who have professed at one time to hold to the faith the essential teachings from the Apostles, but now they have departed from it. But their departure does not mean that they were saved and now they've lost their salvation. An apostate is an unsaved person who eventually reveals his true spiritual identity by his voluntary denial of redemptive truth. How do I know this? Well, because John specifically, when he was talking about apostates, wrote this, 1 John 2, 19. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. So apostates are non-believers. And they show that they're non-believers because they leave. Number one, false teachers depart from the faith. Number two, false teachers follow deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons. What has caused them to depart? Is it because they became better educated? More intellectual? Is it because scientific developments and increased knowledge has revealed that the faith they held is no longer valid? No. Paul says, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits. Spiritual error is seldom due to innocent mistakes. It is more often due to the conscience strategies of demonic forces, and they are very deceitful. Apostasy often masquerades as being something that's very holy. Righteous living within a caring community. The apostate appears, I care for you. I am a loving person, only seeking your best. Rest assured, apostasy will not bear the obvious imprint of demons. False teaching will never enter your church with the name Doctrine of Satan printed all over it. Deceitful spirits cleverly drape their doctrines in the respectable, even pious, robes of religion. The teaching appeals to the flesh and is presented with charm and charisma. Apostates are clever people who know how to win others over. Bill had been the highest authority in a former church that I pastored for over 30 years when I came there. He was well-loved in the community and in the church. He had chaired the church's leadership board for most, if not all, of those 30 years. And nothing was ever done in the church unless it had Bill's approval. Now, Bill relied on a very interesting persuasive technique whenever someone needed to see things his way. It was a use of a warm, folksy persona as he would tell stories to make his points. He told his stories with extreme charm as a simple down-home country boy. And like I said, Bill was warm and folksy. He would throw in several head nods. But here's the funny thing. Rarely would he ever state the point of his story. He would simply ask, do you see what I'm saying? And if you would volunteer a conclusion, he wouldn't say much else, and that would lead you to believe that it was his point. If the conclusion that Bill seemingly wanted you to make did not in some way work out, he was off the hook. Because he would simply say, I never suggested that. You misunderstood. It's very clever. Now, Bill had done a lot of favors for people in the church and around town. He was an excellent mechanic and a wood craftsman, and he freely used those talents in helping people. He had many loyal friends who felt very beholding to him because Bill had done many favors for them. A lot of people thought that he could do no wrong and readily accepted. I never suggested that. You misunderstood. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, I must have. The former pastor of that church before I came suddenly retired before he was prepared to, because Bill got in front of the church one Sunday morning during announcements and announced the pastor's retirement party, and this was news to the pastor. No prior mention of his retiring was ever made by Pastor Brad or Bill before this announcement of his retirement party was made to the entire congregation. Bill had no conscience about treating Pastor Brad so inhumanely as this. One day Bill came into my office to tell me one of his stories. Only this time, He gave the conclusion. He told me about a reoccurring dream of his. His daughter-in-law, who had difficulty carrying children full term through several pregnancies, was standing on a grassy hill. She was smiling and she was waving her arms and motioning for others to join her. Suddenly, the children that she had miscarried came running up. They were telling her and Bill, it's all right, Mom. And then Bill gave me his shocking conclusion. He said, this is why I do not believe abortion is wrong. Bill knew that I sat on the board of directors for our local crisis pregnancy center. And he had come to tell me that abortion is not wrong." What? I asked incredulously, what about Psalm 139 verses 13 through 16 and a few other passages in God's Word that I cited that clearly indicate abortion is murder and therefore wrong? He simply said, nope, no, abortion is not wrong. I know this because of the dream that God gave me. Over the next several years, Bill shared with me other dreams and directives that he held firm over the clear teaching of Scripture. Listen to me, an apostate will distort or dismiss what Scripture teaches. You know, even though we have such a clear warning in Scripture, it is nevertheless very surprising that apostates who follow the doctrines of demons surface in our fine evangelical churches as accepted leaders. We need to be watchful. Number one, false teachers depart from the faith. Number two, false teachers follow deceiving spirits and teachings of demons. Number three, false teachers are hypocritical liars. Look at verse two again with me. It says, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared. This passage literally reads, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons in hypocrisy of liars. They are hypocrites, number one, because they teach something different from what the scripture says and they know it. They know they are not teaching what scripture says. Number two, they're hypocrites because the apostate will pretend to be very pious and very religious and very caring for your best. I've come to be suspicious of the super-duper saint who comes with all the flowery Christianese and claims to have something very special. My friend, if you do have the truth, it's gonna make you humble. Because the first thing you're gonna find out is how little you really know. I realize I have much more to learn about the Bible. But an apostate in most cases will know very little about the word of God and yet speak as if they are an authority. Speaking lies and hypocrisy, they pretend to be something they are not. They're hypocrites, number three, because they claim to be a minister or a teacher of Christ in the gospel, but they are an instrument or a tool of the seducive and deceiving spirits who teach doctrines that contradict or dismiss the Bible. Number one, false teachers depart from the faith. Number two, false teachers follow deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons. Number three, false teachers are hypocritical liars. Number four, false teachers have their consciences seared with guilt that is cauterized, hardened, and made insensitive. It doesn't bother most false teachers to teach contrary truth, contrary to scripture. My dream is true. They can ignore or deny the scripture and present their own ideas, and it doesn't bother them at all. They feel no guilt or remorse as they spread falsehoods that keep people from being rightly related to God, and yet sending them to hell. No conscious about that. The word seared clearly suggests that there once was a time that their conscience was active. It did work at one time. But now it's like scar tissue burned senseless until it ceases to function. False teachers minimize their own sin and they fail to take in their own guiltiness. They fail to take that seriously. You misunderstood. I didn't say that. They might put on a good show if caught, but they use cleverness to quickly rebound to resume their positions of power and influence. Furthermore, their response to the sin of others depends entirely upon convenience. They'll brutally punish the sin of those they don't favor while they minimize and rationalize their own sin and the sin of their cronies. Yes, they inspire great loyalty from others. We've seen in our passage the certainty that false teachers will arise within the Church. And then we looked at four common characteristics so we might identify them, we might recognize them. And now it's time for us to consider their content, what the apostates try to get true believers to believe and to do. And verses 3 and 4, Paul identified what they were attempting to do in Ephesus, and from their unique circumstance there, we can extrapolate common element that we see them do in our churches today. Look at verses 3 and 4 now with me. 1 Timothy 4, verses 3 and 4. Who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods. that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. So let's look at the root of what they were attempting to do with their false teaching. There are three things that are at the root of what we see here in these verses. Number one, they wanted to create confusion about the goodness of God. Number two, they wanted to create a system of self-effort in order to get close to God. And number three, they wanted any who would follow them to be distracted from the word of God by minimizing it. Now in Ephesus, they were trying to accomplish this with two issues in particular, food and marriage. They were teaching a well-disciplined spiritual life of self-denial. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. What's so bad about self-denial? Even abstaining from good things. An emphasis on a little self-control in our age, which seems to have very little, should be seen as a good thing, should it not? After all, we live in an age that insists on being denied nothing. What's wrong with denying yourself certain foods that might harm your body? Can we tell a diabetic not to avoid sugar? An overweight person to avoid carbohydrates? or anyone who wants to take care of their body as the temple of God to avoid certain foods that science tells us will eventually harm it? Would it be wrong for us to say no to any of that? And what implications does this have for fasting? Isn't that biblical? Concerning marriage, didn't Paul write in 1 Corinthians 7 that he wished all men would remain even as he is? And by that, he was referring to his status of being single, unmarried. Then how is what these teachers were teaching in Ephesus so wrong? Because unlike Paul, these teachers taught that by doing these things, you can obtain special closeness to God. You will have greater access to God. Your relationship with God is primarily about your effort in earning it. you will deserve it. No. Go ahead and restrict your intake of certain foods for whatever practical reasons you have, but not to gain greater closeness to God. And if you're a single and you sense that God is using you and wants you to remain that way, then do so. But don't insist that others must. The problem with centering on what one does or does not do as a rule for spirituality is that it directs attention away from God as creator and provider and from the true nature and practice of spirituality. Romans 14 17 says for the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking But of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit You see an apostate wants to number one create confusion about the goodness of God You do realize don't you that confusion about the goodness of God is behind every sin that you and I commit. I cannot think of one sin that is not directly connected to a confusion about the goodness of God. That's why we sin, because we get confused. God, you've been holding out on me I'm not getting all that I deserve, God, so I'm going to take it myself. Or not being thankful for the ordinary common things in life. Every sin we commit is related to getting confused over God and His goodness. Realizing this is a key to preventing our falling prey to apostates. That's just a forewarning here. Number two, an apostate wants to create a system of self-effort in order that we might get close to God. And number three, an apostate wants us to be distracted from the word of God by minimizing it. So now we're ready for the prevention and the cure of apostasy. Look at verse five now with me. First Timothy 4.5 says this, For it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. Huh? Made holy? The word of God and prayer make these things holy? What in the world does that mean? Let's start this way. To make holy, or sanctify. If you make something holy or if you sanctify something, it means that you put something to its proper use. We put things like marriage and food to their proper use by the word of God and prayer. Bible alone must remain the basis of faith and practice. It informs us the true way for us to use food to the glory of God. It informs us the true way to use our marriage to the glory of God. The opinions of religious cultists and legalists who want us to believe that there is a special way to honor God by our external behaviors should never be superimposed upon the Word of God. Second, in prayer, the believer must thank God for his provision. The appeal of the apostate is to our desires, remember. You want a closeness to God that you've never been granted before? You want more of your prayers to have power in them? to be answered more regularly? God has not been giving you what you deserve, has he? Well, the prevention and the cure for the apostate's lure is knowing the word of God and by cultivating a habit of thanksgiving. We must see all of our provisions just as the Word of God teaches, that they are gifts that we have no right to, but are only ours by the grace and mercy of God. Thanksgiving is a recognition that you do not possess anything in and of yourself. You did not earn it. but it is a gift from our loving Lord. Treat your food. Treat your marriage this way. And you know what you're gonna do? You're gonna sanctify your food. You're gonna sanctify your marriage. you are going to put it in its proper place for its proper use when you start cultivating thankfulness for them. Listen, we are not engaged in a perpetual Sunday school party, folks, this day that we're living in. We are in a deep abiding war that is being fought by spiritual weapons. We are up against spiritual principalities and powers, and they are rulers of the darkness of this world. So be on guard. Be watchful of apostates, and protect yourself with prayer that has a particular emphasis on thanksgiving and God's word. Amen. Let's pray now.