Departure From the Truth To Lies

Transcript

GR1767
5/18/2014
Departure From the Truth to Lies
I Timothy 4:1-5
Gil Rugh

We are going to I Timothy chapter 4, I Timothy and the 4th chapter, a letter that is about the church as the focus, the center, the pillar and support of God’s truth, the revelation that God has given. This truth and the church which is to be the center of its proclamation, its defense is under attack, under attack from within. The greatest danger that comes to the church comes not from without but from within and that has happened at the church at Ephesus.
Back in chapter 1 again, verse 3 Paul says to Timothy: “As I urge you upon my departure from Macedonia remain on at Ephesus so you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines or to pay attention to myths, endless genealogies which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith.”

Down in verse 6: “For some men straying from these things have turned aside to fruitless discussion.” So this burden of Paul’s heart for the fact that certain men have come into positions of prominence and influence, teachers in the church at Ephesus but they are teaching a strange doctrine, an unhealthy doctrine, doctrine that is not in conformity to the revelation that God has given.

Down in verse 18 of chapter 1: “This command I entrust to you, Timothy.” And we noted that word “command” is the same word translated “instruct” back up in verse 3. It is a command. Fight the good fight, fight to the good gifts. In his second letter he will say to Timothy, “Endure hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” The Christian ministry is a difficult work. It is warfare. It is a battle. Timothy is to fight to the good fights and here he is in the church in Ephesus that Paul established, that he poured three years of his life into. He had been part of establishing the church and its elders as we see in Acts chapter 20 and now he tells Timothy he has to stand up and do battle within that body of believers.

When we come into chapter 4 this emphasis is continued when he says in verse 1: “But the Spirit explicitly says, ‘that in latter times some will fall away from the faith paying attention to deceitful spirits, doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars, seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.’” This is strong language. We are talking about what is going on in the church at Ephesus. We are talking about people abandoning the faith, apostatizing from the faith, being influenced by doctrines that have their source in the demonic world, the hypocrisy of liars, individuals who claim to be one thing but they are hypocrites, it is just a veneer. They are liars. Their conscience is seared, cauterized.

He is talking about the church. He is talking about what is going on at Ephesus, the church at Ephesus, the church that Paul writes the letter to the Ephesians to, the church that Jesus will address in Revelation chapter 2, the first of the letters to the churches of Asia Minor. I mean, striking. The Apostle Paul, still on the scene, still ministering and things deteriorate like this. The devil does his work very well and one of the prime ways he works is to infiltrate among believers with those who profess to be believers and he is an outstanding counterfeiter and it creates division and confusion in the church.

You note how he begins verse 1 of chapter 4: “But the Spirit explicitly says,” and this follows on. Remember there wouldn’t be a chapter break about what he says about the church is the pillar and support of the truth and the summary of the Gospel which is the foundation for everything, the heart of the truth that God has revealed. That’s not all there is to the truth as we will see in the verses we are dealing with but we must be clear on the foundation of things, the truth of the Gospel, “The Spirit explicitly says,” He has communicated with clarity, no uncertain terms is the way one person put it.

You know we talk about the inspiration of Scripture. God has spoken and He has spoken with clarity, spoken with the intention that it be understood. The point here, there is no excuse for confusion here. “The Spirit explicitly says.” We are dealing with the doctrine of inspiration. We say the Spirit says.

II Peter chapter 1, verse 21 – we won’t turn to some of these verses for time but there we are told that “Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” There is a practice that has infiltrated among the evangelical church as a way of undermining the Scripture and these are men who claim to be evangelicals. They say we must be aware of the dual authorship of Scripture. God has spoken but men have spoken and so we have to sort through these matters. God used men and He used their personalities. We see the differences and characteristics in different writings but in each of those it is God speaking, the Holy Spirit speaking. There is no dual authorship in that sense. Every word that has been recorded here is the Word of God. He selected the individual writers to use them and their personalities to communicate His Word as He intended it. We begin to divide Scripture like that and break it apart. Then pretty soon we find reason to set aside parts of it. Here it is the Spirit who speaks. The Old Testament was written by men who were moved by the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul will write in his second letter to Timothy in chapter 3, verse 16: “All Scripture is God breathed and profitable,” it goes on.

If we would go to the seven letters to the churches and we will go there. I was just going to tell you but I can’t resist. You have to come there. Better you see it in your Bible, Revelation chapter 2. Note in each of these letters to the churches that Christ is addressing what He says at the end of each of these addresses. And the first is the letter to the church at Ephesus. Then in verse 7, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” The Spirit is speaking. You come to verse 11, the end of the letter to the church at Smyrna. “He who has ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches; down in verse 17: “To the church of Pergamum,” the same thing. Down to verse 29, same thing, the church at Thyatira, Sardis, same thing in chapter 3, verse 6 and then verse 13 we move to the church at Philadelphia, same thing. It is the Spirit who is speaking. That’s why we believe in the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Every word as God gave it is His Word. It’s not the Apostle John’s word. It is the Word of the living God. This is the most precious treasure we could have. That’s why there could be no alteration or change.

While you are in the book of Revelation, come to the end of the book, chapter 22, verse 18: “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophesy of this book; if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book,” you will spend eternity in hell.

Peter writes in his second letter of men who twist the writings of Paul and other Scriptures to their own destruction and while he is immediately referring to the book of Revelation here this is the principle that governs the Word of God.

Come back to the book of Deuteronomy chapter 4. The first five books were communicated through Moses, the five books of the law, the books of Moses. Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 2, same way that the Bible ends is the way we find in these opening writings. Verse 2 of chapter 4 of Deuteronomy, “You shall add to the word which I am commanding you nor take away from it.” Your responsibility is to keep it, obey it.

So we come back to I Timothy chapter 4. The Spirit explicitly says with clarity in no uncertain terms. We just have come to a place as I have talked about with you before where men under the guise of claiming to be evangelicals and super scholars have so twisted and undermined the Scripture that people are not sure what they have. We have become a protestant form of Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholic, only the magisterium of the church can authoritatively interpret the Scripture. In the evangelical world it has come only the magisterium of the scholars can interpret the Scripture when it is written to normal, average people to be understood. I repeat this. This is the treasure that we have. Think about the blessing that is yours that these New Testament readers did not have. The Word of God was sent to them. They got to hear it but they didn’t get to put it under their arm and take it home with them. They didn’t get to have their own personal copy to read week after week. Understand what a treasure you can open this at home and read it and read the very words of God speaking to us. How easy it is to be casual and take it for granted. It is our greatest treasure. The Spirit explicitly says and here is what He is saying back in I Timothy 4: “In the latter times some will fall away from the faith.” The latter times carries to the time of the Messiah. As we have talked about in the Old Testament it talked about the coming of the Messiah. It talked about His first coming, it talked about His second coming but it didn’t reveal that there would be a space as we know it now of some 2000 years between the first coming and the second coming of Christ so the last days are the days of Messiah. They began with the first coming of Christ and continue down until the second coming; the days in which we are living. “In these days some will fall away from the faith.” And this word “fall away” we get the English word apostasy from it. We just transliterate the letters over basically from the Greek word and we have apostasy. It is a departure. It means to stand away or stand apart from something. Here it is a departure from the faith, the truth that God has revealed, His Word. It is happening in the church at Ephesus.
Some had departed from the faith, the truth that God had revealed. They were influencing the church with their error. This is not just the teachers but they are influencing people in the church to follow after them and we get confused because good teachers that communicate in an appealing way sometimes draw us in even when they are not teaching truth. I just like them and I think they are sincere and you know, some of what they say makes good sense and so we then begin to think maybe we ought to be broader than we are. This is why Paul led Timothy here; you have to command certain men not to teach this. You have to understand there is a reason why Christ says we are sheep and sheep need shepherds and we have shepherds that are not faithful then the sheep get confused. So the error spreads. They are departing from the faith.

They are revealing something about themselves. When they begin to teach things contrary to the Scripture contrary to what God has revealed and you will note: the people of God at Ephesus were expected and responsible before God to know what God had said and reject the false teaching. These apostates appear throughout the letters of the New Testament.

Where does this teaching come from, verse 1: “Some will fall away (depart from the faith, apostasies from the faith) paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.” You know what Paul does. There are two sources. We have supernatural revelation. Some of it comes from God. Some of it comes from the devil. The error being promoted among believers in the church at Ephesus finds its source in the devil; that’s why it is good, not good in the sense of being pleasing to God, but it is effective. Never underestimate the devil. He’s been at his work for thousands of years. He knows how to deceive people. He knows how to counterfeit the truth of God. Isn’t it amazing? Here the church at Ephesus, it’s a great church. Read the letter to the Ephesians, the letter that Christ addresses to them in Revelation 2 but it is also facing great danger. Doctrines that have their source in the demonic world are having an influence among believers in the church. You know how it is. You listen to error, you listen to it, listen to it and pretty soon it begins to make some sense and its leading people astray. If this is not corrected and the false teaching is not stopped the whole church will become corrupted. We’ve seen multiplied examples of this down through church history to our present day. “The devil is a liar and the father of lies,” Jesus said in John 8 verse 44.

Come back to II Corinthians chapter 4. Paul says, “Therefore, since we have received this ministry (the ministry of God’s truth, the ministry of the new covenant) we do not lose heart but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame. Not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God.” He is talking not about some pagan Greek or Roman teaching from a pantheon of gods, he is talking about those who were adulterating the Word of God, corrupting the truth of God by mixing it with error; “But by the manifestation of truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.” Now note this – here comes the demonic world in. “In whose case the god of this world (the god of this age) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” He is constantly at work. He wants to keep the unbeliever in spiritual darkness. And when one is brought from darkness to light he doesn’t quit his work but he tries to infiltrate to bring confusion and corruption to the purity of God’s Word to nullify its effect.

Come back to I Timothy 4: “By means of the hypocrisy of liars,” the hypocrisy of liars. God’s truth was communicated from God through men. The devil communicates his teaching and doctrines through men also and the devil dresses his men often to look like believers. Now he has others in you know, religions of the world operating to carry out his purposes and lies but in dealing with the church to get in among believers he has to dress his servants up as believers and so they function as hypocrites. Hypocrisy, another word that basically is a Greek word we just carry over into English. They are putting on another face. You know, they are actors in disguise if you will. They pretend to be friends of the truth and this brings confusion but they are undermining the truth. They are corrupting the truth. They are destroying the truth and it becomes confusing to believers because we say, “Well, are they believers?”

You know, none of us can see the hearts of another person. What we have to deal with is what is being done through whether we are talking about morality as we did earlier in our studies today. We are talking about doctrine. Well, I think they are believers. Well believer or not, they are teaching error and if they are teaching error it has to be stopped otherwise we get in a muddle. Well, I think they are believers, I think they are sincere. We believe what? If they are teaching contrary to the Word of God…stop!

Timothy is not to go there and try to sort out if these men are believers and are they sincere and do they have good intentions? He is there to command them not to teach strange doctrines. When we fail to deal with it that way the corruption infiltrates and spreads. That’s the hypocrisy of liars. Don’t underestimate the devil.

We have to come back to II Corinthians again, chapter 11. I could have had you look at this when you were here but, II Corinthians chapter 11. Do you ever read the Old Testament and the accounts and wonder how Israel could be so dense? I mean God speaks so clearly and you read these things and you think, “What’s wrong with these people? Why didn’t they just do what God said?” And then here we are as God’s people with the fullness of God’s revelation and sometimes I think the angels are observing us and saying, “How can these people be so dense? Why don’t they just do what God said?” II Corinthians chapter 11, another church that the Apostle Paul was used by God to found; he poured much of his life in here. He starts out chapter 11, “I wish that you would bear with; me in a little foolishness; but indeed you are bearing with me.” In foolishness he is talking about he had to boast about how God was using him and he says that’s foolishness. I am not bragging about me but I have to boast that God is using me so you understand because what is happening here? “I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness but indeed you are bearing with me for I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. But I am afraid, s the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray form the simplicity and devotion to Christ.” How did this happen? “For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you received a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel with you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” I mean you are so understanding, so tolerant, so open to welcome these without any discernment. The devil does his work well.

The seminary I attended was taught the importance of the Word of God and standing for the Word of God and sifting teaching through the Word of God. Some years afterwards it was destroyed by a teacher who came in and began to corrupt the Word of God and masterfully influence even the faculty of that school and won them over. That is when the school was divided and ultimately destroyed as an effective training place. Don’t underestimate the devil. I could not believe it. These are men who taught me the Word of God that I looked up to, that I learned from. How could they fall for this? Not everyone did but those who didn’t ended up being driven out. How could that happen? The influence of one man not dealt with. How many churches are destroyed like this?

Come down to verse 13 of chapter 11 of II Corinthians. “Such men are false apostles.” Note this. These are not just outside pagan teachers. These are men dressed up by the devil claiming to be true apostles. Paul is the one who is narrow, bigoted, unloving. You know he writes great letters but there is not much to them and you know he doesn’t have that effective ministry when he is with you and, constantly undermining and they are deceitful workers. They are disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, what’s the big surprise? “Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness whose end will be according to their deeds.”

I mean this is serious business. I mean it is just like your family. If you have a child predator moving in among your family you say, you can’t just tolerate this. This is God’s church. This is where His truth is proclaimed and defended. Right, we are very narrow. We are open to nothing that does not conform to the truth of the Word of God and we are open to be examined in light of the Word of God. If our teaching is not conforming to the Word of God then we must deal with it. It must be dealt with. This idea that we can have this kind of latitude and now we can’t decide. We have men accepted in the evangelical church today who deny substitutionary atonement. Some people just can’t decide. Well, I think they still can be classified as evangelicals; their own declaration. They don’t believe that Christ died as a substitute. Any wonder that in the evangelical world evangelicals becomes a term that means almost nothing. Are we hard-hearted? No. Are we hard and fast on the truth? Absolutely! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. We have been told explicitly by God how the devil will work in our church. I don’t think he has gone away. He’s never done. He’s relentless along with his counterfeiting; his relentlessness tends to wear us down. We don’t want to have to face another battle. We don’t want to have to go through another. The devil doesn’t quit. That’s why Paul has to tell Timothy, “Fight the good fight. Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Stand against these men that are teaching error.” Paul can’t be every place. I left you at Ephesus so you could command these men. I hope to come and stand with you and deal with it there but you have to do it. This ministry is being passed on.

Remember, Paul told the Ephesians elders, “After my departure, from your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.” It happens. Somehow we get caught by surprise. That is why we have to stay in the truth. We have to constantly be evaluating everything by the truth.

Come back to I Timothy 4. These are those who are seared in their own conscience and for some reason our Bibles have added as with a branding iron. That’s not really in the text. Its one example of something being seared. Probably a better picture here is being cauterized like they might cauterize a wound, seared. Their conscience is no longer affected. You know your conscience works with the standard it is given. You know people, you talk to people and they are involved in the clearest and most evident sinful kind of behavior and they say, you know, no, my conscience is clear as though that resolved it. My conscience doesn’t bother me when I do that. All that means is your conscience has been cauterized. It is no longer working as it should. You have totally shut it down in that area. You know how it is. All of us do. You do the wrong thing once and your conscience really bothers you. You do it and your conscience still bothers you but just not quite as much. By the time you have done it 100 times your conscience isn’t saying anything. We think well, since my conscience doesn’t bother me it must be okay. My conscience isn’t my final standard but we want to maintain a good conscience. That’s how Paul started out I Timothy in chapter 1, verse 5: “The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience.” But the Word of God is the standard and I want to have a good conscience in the sense that I am conducting myself in accord with the Word of God so that my conscience doesn’t accuse me. But these teachers have their conscience cauterized. I don’t think they would do that if they were errors well Paul said this is hypocrisy of liars. Don’t underestimate the devil, don’t underestimate the servants of the devil. Do you think they really know they are teaching error? All I have to go by is the Word of God. The first thing I have to start out is error if it is not in conformity to the Word of God. I don’t care if their intentions are good or not. There is no real good intention that corrupts the Word of God. So they have a cauterized conscience. You have to be careful because they can say, I am sincere, and my conscience is clear on this matter. If they don’t have a good conscience Biblically, they have a seared conscience if they are teaching error.

Okay, let’s look at the area under attack here that Paul is trying to correct. These are men who forbid marriage, who advocate abstaining from food so you see it’s not just the Gospel. We’ve got this thing going around that says, “As long as we agree on the basic facts of the Gospel the other things we can disagree on.” No, we can’t. Whoever came up with the idea that from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 the only thing that matters in here are the four or five facts of the Gospel? As long as we agree on that everything else is open. Why did God bother giving us His Word? You understand every word in here is the Word of the living God.

Now he is going to talk about what they teach about marriage. What they teach about foods. That’s corruption. They forbid marriage. They say, you know, people have an admiration of an ascetic kind of lifestyle. Look at the sacrifice they make. They have given up the joys of a married life. Now these teachers come in and say, “You would be more pure, more holy if you refrain from marriage, devoted yourself totally to the Lord without the distractions of married life,” and there is an element truth in that.

These are men that would take the truth and then distort it. You don’t look and see if there is any truth in what they are saying. You look to see if there is any error in what they are saying. Then we get confused and say, “Well there is a lot of truth in what they teach.” I don’t doubt that. What did the devil do when he tempted Christ in the temptation, Matthew 4? He quoted Scripture. He’s good at that. I bet the devil could stand here and quote the Bible from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 without having to peek. He is brilliant. I mean we don’t look and see if there is any truth in it, we look and see if there is any error in it. Well, you are always looking for something wrong, exactly! I don’t want to go to the doctor and he says, “Well you know what, you are 98.5% healthy, too bad about the cancer and where it is. We can’t do anything about it.” That changes everything.

What is wrong? They forbid marriage. We’ve got evangelicals going around and saying, “Well, we can get together with Roman Catholics.” What paganism. What do they advocate for their priests and nuns? Abstain from marriage. Where did they get that - from the devil. I didn’t say that. God said it. We are talking about doctrine of demons. What is an error of the teaching that is characterized by the doctrine of demons? Those who say you can have a more godly life, a more spiritual life, a more holy life if you abstain from marriage. That is the doctrine of demons. Well, I think there are still a lot of things we agree on, the virgin birth. What’s that got to do with anything? Would the church be confused if they didn’t have some of the Biblical truth mixed in? There are plenty of what we call pagan religions outside the realm of Christendom broadly speaking that the devil uses but when he is going to infiltrate among believers and confuse believers he has to mix the truth in. So those who forbid marriage. Marriage is God’s plan. There’s a place for celibacy. We talked about this early today in I Corinthians 7. Paul says there is advantage to it but only if you are specially gifted by God. We see something of the moral depravity that pervades that system that tried to pretend you are more holy by doing certain things like withholding yourself from marriage. Holiness is never connected to that activity or abstaining from foods and you get into the corruption of the law and the misuse of the law that we talked about back in chapter 1 of I Timothy. The law is good if you use it properly. We have the Seven Day Adventist who wants to take you back to the Old Testament and put you under the Mosaic Law and those kinds of food restrictions. What silliness. Well you will be healthier if you eat according to that.

There was a book written many years ago and I read it. I don’t know how many years ago as old as I am now, I can’t keep track – None of these diseases, and you know you can avoid diseases and all of that if you just ate like God instructed His people Israel to eat. What does that say about the character of God when he told Peter in Acts chapter 10 here’s a sheet coming down from heaven, “Peter, you start eating all of this kind of food because I don’t care if you get cancer, I don’t care if you have heart disease.” Is that what God is saying? You know this kind of thing. Well if you abstain from this.

This is a constant battle in the New Testament. In Romans 14 Paul had to deal with it. I Corinthians chapter 8 to 10 Paul had to deal with the idea of food and things offered to idols and all of that. He had to deal with it at the church at Colossae which was a neighboring church to the church at Ephesus about those who had infiltrated the church there in teaching to abstain from foods.

Come back to Mark chapter 7. You know we have churches that get to be big and influential, the purpose driven movement and they go from one thing to another. Their church is going to deal with the AIDS problem. Then it is going to deal with now since the pastor’s son committed suicide they are going to deal with the issue of mental illness and of course they are going to deal with diet so they wrote a book on Daniel’s diet. We will learn how to eat and that will take care of… I mean these are all external things. They have nothing to do with being godly.

Look at Mark chapter 7 and verse 14, Jesus here: “After He called the crowd to Him again He began teaching them. Listen to me, all of you and understand.” When God speaks He speaks so that it will be understood. “There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him but the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.”

The disciples don’t understand. Jesus said, “Listen to Me and understand.” And His own disciples come, verse 17: “When He had left the crowd the entered the house His disciples questioned Him. He said to him, “Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him? It does not go into his heart. It goes into his stomach and through the intestines and out the body.” That’s what He says, it is eliminated. It goes out into the latrine as you have it in your margin. Thus He declared all food is clean. “That which proceeds out of the man is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed (all kinds of sinful actions.)” So this idea, well you know if you abstain from this food, and we hear your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit we need to learn to take better care of it. That has nothing to do with being godly. Being 50 pounds underweight or 50 pounds overweight has nothing to do with being godly. I am not saying there may be health issues but God is not concerned that everybody has the kind of physique that I have. That is not a measure of godliness. The measure of godliness is the condition of the heart. We get constantly sucked into this. How many diet books for Christians have been written misusing Scripture? I am saying if you want to lose weight, lose weight just don’t tie it to being more godly because you quit eating certain foods. I only eat the high carbohydrate diet. God didn’t intend us to eat meat. I even have a diet book written by a religious person who said look at your teeth. They weren’t made to masticate meat. They were made for chewing grains. I don’t know. I have lost a lot of my teeth so I can’t tell for sure what they are for. They work. Now there are people think the protein diet is better. I don’t know. Eat what you like. I don’t care.

We can bring this in and the church gets all caught up in this, the next thing, the next thing. Pretty soon we are doing the very thing Scripture says. That is not an issue. Oh wouldn’t God be more pleased if I took better care of His temple and it was in better shape? You better take care of your heart. That is what God is looking at. That’s where the measure of your godly character is seen not in how many pounds you are underweight or overweight or anything else.

Again, you say well don’t you think there are certain things about health? I am sure there are certain things about health. I’m certain there are good things about brushing your teeth but I don’t preach about brushing your teeth. You know we begin to confuse the Word of God and then they become spiritual things.

Come back to I Timothy 4. Aren’t you glad you came tonight? You can go out and have dessert afterwards. These things, marriage and food God has created to be greatly shared in by those who believe and know the truth. Now this doesn’t mean that the unbeliever can’t get married or eat foods. The point he is talking about for God’s people – we are the ones that enjoy what God has created and we give Him thanks. We gratefully share in these things with thanks. That’s why you know we make a pattern before our meals, what? We bow and say grace which is basically the word we have here to give thanks. We give thanks. We acknowledge. God thank You for all the good things You give us, every good gift, every perfect act of giving comes down from the Father of lights with whom is no variation or shadow caused by churning, James tells us. So you sit down and have that banana split, you can pause and say “Thank You Lord for all the good things you have given us,” and you decide well I will just have a cup of tea and a piece of dry bread and you say, “Thank You Lord for the good things you have given us and I would really like a banana split.” You know, it is not a spiritual issue. We acknowledge all these things. Now I want to use wisdom then. That is a different area. Then there are decisions we all make with our lives but for being a godly spiritual person don’t bring these in.

When I was a teenager smoking was the big thing. I remember my Sunday School teacher saying, “You don’t want to defile your body with that smoke. Do you think that would please God?” I don’t think He was in there inhaling. That’s not the way it is. He dwells in me but the foods and the things. I am not saying smoking is a good idea. I chose never to smoke. I didn’t think it would be a good thing for me, physically. Alright, we are thankful.

Everything created by God is good. Nothing is to be rejected if we receive with gratitude. Now again that doesn’t mean there aren’t decisions. I don’t go out and eat dirt. You know, obviously common sense is involved in what he is saying here but all these things are available to us. Trying to abstain and live an ascetic life is not a path to godliness.

You know something that is happening in the evangelical world? They say we want to go back to the ancient ways. You know where they want to go back to? These are people claiming to be evangelical. We want to go back to the monks, the ascetic life, characterized, that period of time, you know, the 4th century, the 5th century, back in that period; so much to learn from these who deprived themselves. We could learn things about godliness from them. We can’t learn anything because godliness is not a matter of those kinds of external things, trying to deprive yourself. How is that different from the holy men of Hinduism that go through all kinds of things demonstrating how they deprive their body? None of that makes us pleasing to God. God has created these things for us to enjoy and I make decisions on which of those I think I would enjoy but I recognize the decision is not between being godly or ungodly to determine whether I have this to eat or this eat. God has created it. Now I can’t eat everything. Sometimes you try. I have snacks I like. I eat what I like. Now I am also conditioned, well there are certain things well that probably wouldn’t be for as good for me, for my health so maybe I don’t eat that. But that has nothing to do with being godly.

“It’s sanctified” verse 5 “by means of the Word of God and prayer.” So nothing is rejected if it is received with gratitude; the point being what? It is the attitude of our heart. I partake of it thanking God for His provision. This is the condition of my heart being revealed. It’s sanctified. The word we get holy from, sane, set apart by God by means of the Word of God and prayer. What makes it a spiritual issue is the attitude of my heart when I partake of it.

Many years ago. Spurgeon, became well known for getting up after someone had preached against smoking and said, “Well, I hope to smoke a cigar to the glory of God after the service.” I think he could. Now whether that was the best decision for him physically, he died at 57 I think. It may not have been the best decision but he did it with thankfulness. He said, “I thank God that I can relax and enjoy this.” That’s between him and God.

G. Campbell Morgan, a great Bible teacher liked to get off and have his cigar. I never tried it, maybe it works but you know I have to be able to do it with gratitude. The point is in these things so people will hear this and say, “Gil Rugh out there, he is promoting smoking.” That’s not the spiritual issue. Whatever we partake of and he is talking about foods here and marriage, thank You God for Your grace. Isn’t it nice you can go home tonight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or whatever you like to have and say, “Thank You Lord that You have blessed us and that I can partake of this and enjoy it. It is from Your hand that I have all these good thing.” That’s it. It comes out of my heart. All these ways, they seem little ways. You say with all the things that Paul has to battle, does he even want to get into this? Can it be bad that people deprive themselves to say I want to live an ascetic life and I am going to restrict what I eat to be more spiritual? Is that so bad? It is because it is corrupting the truth of God and that little corruption spreads so we want to be faithful to the purity of God’s Word and these are things for us to enjoy as we are faithful to the truth. It is so simple. You know. I have the simplest job if I just remind myself of that. What? Be faithful to the truth. What are we as the church to be, faithful to the truth. Well, that’s not so complicated. It is not easy though. What does Timothy have to do to do that? Fight the good fight. Be strong. Don’t hold back, don’t be timid. “God doesn’t give us a spirit of timidity” he will write in the second letter. We want to be firm for the truth; loving but unmovable. Yes, we love the lost, yes we love those enslaved in their sin. We would love to see them come to know the Savior. We are not open to any contrary teaching. Anyone is welcome to come here. Not anyone is welcome to promote what they believe here; only the teaching of the truth. Why? Because this is God’s family. He maintains authority so we can be filled with gratitude. We have such a loving God and He has entrusted us with the most precious treasure, His truth.

Let’s pray together, thank You Lord for the riches of Your Word, hard for us to appreciate it at times. What a rich treasure we have as our possession the very words of the living God and You have spoken not in ways that we can’t understand but with the intention we will understand so that we will obey. How blessed we are to have You as our heavenly Father, to be cared for, provided for, loved by You as we walk day by day as Your children. May we be faithful to You in our lives personally, in our life as a church so that You might be honored and that our testimony might be pure we pray in Christ’s name, amen.