DM 620351

All right, so in 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 3, Paul writes to Timothy, If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. he has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth imagining that godliness is a means of gain so what I want you to notice there is that when Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is describing people who teach something that is different than the doctrine of Jesus Christ that we're taught, that is different in that it does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't agree with what we've been taught as godliness. What we sometimes have a tendency to do, and what may indeed seem like a kind thing to do at times, because we're told love believes all things and bears all things and hopes all things and love desires boys to sit in their chairs while we're talking about the Word of God.

So if boys could get in their chairs and sit still while we're opening the Word of God, that'd be great. So when you're in your house and somebody in your house maybe does something you don't like, you're supposed to assume the best about them. You're supposed to assume that they maybe had a good intention, particularly if they're of the household of the faith you want to assume good things about them and that actually encourages people to good works often times I'm most shamed and pushed to repentance when somebody who loves me thinks more highly of me than they ought when I'm doing something I shouldn't and that's something that God does in our hearts sometimes But when Paul is describing the way we should think about false teachers, people who basically lie about the truth of Jesus Christ and the sound teaching that he's given us, Paul says that person is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.

There is no, well, we should give this person the benefit of the doubt. There's no, well, maybe this person means well, or they're probably a very loving, humble person. They just don't understand something yet. That just isn't the way the Bible deals with falsehood. And so since we know that the sins that come out of our mouth come from our heart, we know that when we teach falsely about God, that comes from a heart that's not believing God.

So this isn't to be harsh with people necessarily. And it doesn't mean every time somebody says something that's a little bit off were to pounce on them like they're puffed up with conceit and understanding nothing at the time but this is talking about I think strong statements that really contradict the truth of God's word in ways that are are very damaging so for example if somebody would say that Jesus Christ is not the only mediator between God and man that would be something that would be in in this category. If somebody said that Jesus Christ never actually took on flesh, or if somebody said Jesus Christ was not God himself those would be types of statements where we would look at the person that said that and instead of thinking bless your heart you a well Christian we're actually supposed to not assume but deduce from their words that they're puffed up with conceit and they understand nothing.

And so thus they're certainly unqualified to teach and in many situations they're actually probably not born again. And so when we look at these people, they do a few things, and it says they have an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words. But in the context, Paul's talking about the people that teach falsely. So this does not mean that somebody who appears to enjoy controversy or conflict or even debate is a bad person.

It means that people who happen to teach falsely happen to have this quality. So just because a good Christian person may be a debater, may be a fiery orator who likes to argue for the word of God, and maybe they, I won't say they quibble about words, but maybe they oftentimes look in great detail at the words that are used, particularly the words of Scripture, so we can understand them. Although false teachers do those kinds of things, that's not in and of itself a bad thing.

But Paul's point here is that these people who are puffed up with conceit and understand nothing, they have an unhealthy craving for these things because they aren't satisfied with Jesus Christ. They're not content with the gospel of Jesus Christ. They need to stir up controversy, dissension, and division in order to feel like they're doing something. for them it's like riding a roller coaster for a normal person that's where they get their thrill, that's where they get their excitement but the one thing I wanted to make sure we addressed here was that their unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrels about words produce a few things it produces envy, dissension, slander and then it says evil suspicions And I thought the phrase evil suspicions was very interesting.

Because one of the things that happens when false teachers say false things about Jesus, about what's holy, is it causes us to suspect things about others that aren't true, because we're being given a standard to apply that is not a good one. So for example, if somebody's teaching falsely in 2020, they're teaching falsely that to be white is to be racist. And so I don't know if everybody in here has heard of that theory.

I don't know if Jude has a problem sitting in his chair. I don't know what the situation is. But there's a teaching out there now that if you are white, you are inherently racist. Well, that means if somebody's teaching that, there's a few things that happen. When somebody looks at me and they see that I'm white, they may wonder, well, is he racist, like they say?

So even if I'm not doing anything racist, even if I'm not racist, because somebody's teaching these false things that do not accord with godliness, that do not accord with the sound teaching of Jesus Christ, people are caused to wonder things about me. if a person is dark skinned we may and I'm speaking mostly to white people and I think all white people I say in this room we may see a dark skinned person and we may wonder well does that person think that I racist Because that the prevailing teaching of our day and we may wonder something about them that we have no reason to wonder. We're only wondering it because they're black. And because there's this teaching out there, it's like this dark cloud over our communities and over our society right now that is always ready to just rain down like cold, icy rain on you.

And so you're just always kind of on edge about it. Instead of just walking up and down the street, greeting your neighbor, smiling at them, and treating each person impartially and treating them with the love that Christ would want you to treat them with. And so these false teachings, they may not sound like a big deal at first because it's like, well, everybody makes mistakes. we all lie sometimes because we're sinners and so we're all going to do it once in a while but these are very serious consequences to these false teachings not every lie has the same consequences if I lied to you about the color of the carpet right now it probably wouldn't affect much at all then you wouldn't think highly of me but lying about God has huge consequences because if someone believes you and then they do what they naturally ought to do because of what you've taught them about God, they'll be doing wrong things.

And so that's why it's just so important that we tell the truth about God. But in this situation, we have people who tell lies about God and we are told that we are to not assume necessarily, but deduce by their actions and the word of God's logic that they are puffed up with conceit and understand nothing. These are evildoers. They are not Christians.

They aren't people who deserve all this great patience and kindness and things like that. These are people who the Bible calls wolves. And we're actually to protect innocent people from them so they won't hurt them. And so because we love people who are weaker, who are more immature, who don't have the knowledge we have and the discernment we have, who haven't trained the powers of their discernment with constant practice yet, But because of that, we protect people from these wolves.

And sometimes that means we have to, we'll say, be rough. Sometimes we have to say harsh things. We have to be rough about it. We have to assume what the Bible tells us to assume about their hearts. Why would anyone do this? It seems a little silly.

Why would somebody teach falsely about God? Why don't they just go and do their own thing? We have a whole world where they can go sin all they want, and they can have fun. They can do all the bad things that bad people like to do and just ignore God. But for some reason, they decide they want to hang out in church and they want to try to do something like teach falsely.

And honestly, it makes no sense to me because before I was a Christian, I wanted nothing to do with church. I had no interest. It was like, just keep it away from me. You guys do your thing. So this was not my bag. But one, Satan is the great deceiver and he hates the church.

And so Satan is going to try to put people in the church to try to ruin the church from within. So that's his strategy. But secondly, what we just read in verse 5 of chapter 6, these people imagine that godliness is a means of gain. And so one of the hallmarks of these false teachers, one of the things we know about them is that they actually see being in a church situation and maybe even doing some of the churchy things Maybe teaching a class Maybe even teaching well sometimes Maybe saying a lot of really good things feeding poor people doing all the good works that the Bible might tell Christians to do They see those things as means to their own gain.

So rather than see those things as ways to show your gratitude to a Savior who died on the cross and gave his life for you, rather than see those things as the works that God has commanded you to do And as his willing slave at this point, you want to obey your master. Rather than see all these good works that we hopefully want to do from pure hearts, they see them as means to an end. So they see, oh, well, if I do all these things in church, I'll have, unfortunately, there's people, they'll have young girls that will come be with them and do things with them that young girls shouldn't do with anyone but their husband.

They'll have people who give them money because ministers need money to live. It's part of the church to pay ministers and to pay people who do the work of God. And so they'll make money, and then they'll maybe make more and more money if they get enough people who listen. And for some people, it's just the joy of having power and control over others.

And they get in a situation where at least they're the leader guy and they enjoy it. Some of them, I think, are just useful idiots for somebody else who's pulling the strings behind the scenes. I don't always know. Sometimes I look at Joel Osteen and I have this sense that there's somebody else pulling all the strings and he's just the actor on the stage.

I don't know. I will warn you this. When you look at a false teacher, when you look at these guys that have these large ministries and they're deceiving thousands of people, Joel Osteen needed to buy an NBA stadium to have church. This is not small potatoes. like this is the biggest, this is a huge business for these guys. Do not ever deceive yourself into saying, oh, they're stupid.

They may say things that sound very foolish to us because they're unbiblical. But do not think they're stupid. They are extremely intelligent people, and they're being led by an extremely intelligent being in the devil. And so do not underestimate their intelligence because of their foolishness. So that's your warning. And it's also it's almost, I'll say, it's a pre-warning apologetic that as as the pastor of this church and and maybe long term or even a member long term of this church, there will be times that you will see me defend the gospel and defend Jesus Christ to someone who I have determined is an evildoer. and you may not see it yet.

You may not quite get why I'm being so harsh with someone or why I'm doing battle about this particular issue or something like that. And so I just want to throw it out there that there are people who will try to deceive and there are people in the church by the Lord's grace who have discernment and the courage to go and fight those kinds of battles even before other people know they have to happen. I'm thankful to have a United States military that has probably mitigated many threats that I never knew actually would have come on my soil.

So I sleep at night because there's somebody else making those decisions about the bad guys that I don't need to know about. And that's one of my goals as a watchman on the wall in the church, to try to be helpful and use my gifts in that way. Plus, Jesus is worth defending in every circumstance, in my opinion. So that's a little bit from 1 Timothy chapter 6.

Does anybody have any questions or comments?