Are Y’all Having a Good Time Out There Tonight
Joel May, Speaker
1 Timothy 4:1-5 | October 20, 2024 - Sunday Evening,
Father, we thank You that we have the privilege of coming to you and singing these gospel truths, reminding ourselves of things that You have told us in Your Word. We pray now that even tonight we may come in wanting to hear specific things. We may come in thinking that we know how You ought to work in us and yet we submit ourselves to Your will. We submit ourselves to the work of Your Spirit tonight through the Word. Would You do whatever You need in us. It’s in Your Son’s name we pray. Amen.
We’ll be in 1 Timothy chapter 4 tonight. If you would grab Bible, follow along. Here’s what it says.
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later 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, 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, for it is made holy by the Word of God and prayer.”
The grass withers and the flower fades but the Word of our Lord stands forever.
I was talking to my wife Maddie just a little earlier this afternoon/evening and she asked, she said, “What are you even preaching on?” and I said, “Well, I’m preaching on deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons.” Right after my earlier sermon in 1 Timothy 2 about the errors and deception of Alexander and Hymenaeus, so it seems like there’s a little bit of a theme somehow that I’m getting pigeon-holed into. It’s a little bit of a refrain.
And speaking of refrains, maybe you’ve had the experience of knowing a story so well that every time you read it you start to pick up on themes earlier and earlier and earlier. I’m going to try and not do any spoiler alerts here because I know a lot of you young fantasy readers probably don’t know the story of Lord of the Rings yet. Praise the Lord I wish I could go back and experience it for the first time. But for those of you who know, I’ll speak in semi-coded language.
In the story Lord of the Rings maybe the first time that you realize what has happened to Frodo is in that last, or close to the last scene, at Mount Doom. Maybe that’s when it all of a sudden made sense to you, oh, man, that’s a bad situation going on. Then maybe you re-read it. You had the privilege of re-reading or re-watching the movie, if you’re like that, and you say, huh, I’m starting to notice some themes a little earlier. Maybe it was when he dismissed Sam. Maybe it started even before that.
Then you read it again and you pick up and you say, okay, I’m starting to catch on. Now that I know the ending, now that I know what’s going to happen, wasn’t just here, wasn’t just here, it’s even farther back, maybe it was all the way back at the Prancing Pony. Maybe it was even at his doorstep in Hobbiton.
There are little things where all of a sudden you start to pick up trajectories and patterns earlier and earlier and earlier in stories that you’re really familiar with.
Well, sometimes in Scripture we see the same type of thing happening. We see and can recognize patterns and trajectories and we catch them earlier and earlier and earlier.
One of the things that we see in different passages of Scripture is the cycle, the trajectory, of false teaching, false belief, false doctrine, false behavior, and we start to notice, okay, there’s some things, there’s some through lines here that I can start to map out and pick up on earlier.
If you’ll even notice just the way that Paul talks to Timothy about the connection of belief and behavior, of doctrine and conduct, he talks over and over again about how these things go together, so you start to see that. Even in the passage right before this, he said, “If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God” and he proclaims the mystery of godliness. So he’s saying there’s going to be things that map onto each other and that intersect with one another.
One of those things that we see again is the cycle of false teaching and belief and behavior. Typically it goes something like this. God’s enemies become convinced that they know better than God. Then they start to grow callous and antagonistic towards God’s Word and God’s will. Then they start to assume control and grasp at their own lives and they insist on living according to their own will. Then they start to try and convince other people and lead other people astray with them.
Now this is certainly not an exhaustive list of things that can happen that make your doctrine and your behavior turn south. It is not an exhaustive list here but it is a representative list of two specific categories that I think most false doctrine, I think most errors, could probably come back to one or both of these two big categories.
Number one, creation order, and then number two, Christian liberty.
You could almost simplify it even more. Number one, creation; number two, redemption.
There are two errors that will oftentimes sneak into our life, sneak into our behavior, sneak into our doctrine. They oftentimes will revolve or center on creation and redemption.
Now what’s really interesting is that this passage itself gets to an even deeper reach. This passage clues us in that ultimately the big problem here, the root of this, is a denial of God’s goodness. Now a lot could be said about this passage and commentaries, some commentarists, who knows, people who write commentaries, a few of them said, Calvin said this ultimately is about true and false worship. Others said this is just a passage about apostasy. Others said this is just a passage about life and conduct not matching up, that sort of thing.
What we’re going to do tonight and sort of the trajectory that we’re going to go on tonight, we’re going to work towards, what I think this passage is saying for us here in this room right now is that understanding and trusting in God’s goodness is the key to living a faithful Christian life. That’s sort of the big idea, that’s maybe the endpoint that we want to eventually arrive at, but first we need to look at a few questions that we have and some observations in these five verses.
Now it’s often the case that on the first reading of a text I think to myself, man, I don’t have much to say here. I don’t even know what I could expound on. Then the more familiar I get with the passage, the more I pray through it, the more the Holy Spirit makes things clear to me, all of a sudden I realize I’m not going to have enough time to say things that I wish I could say. So we’re not going to be able to say everything, but a few questions and observations.
Three questions first. This is going to be a four-part sermon.
So number one. Good questions.
Number two. Good observations.
Number three. Good news.
Number four. Good warnings.
So good questions first. How is Paul using specific words? Now it is true that oftentimes we approach the text of Scripture assuming that the authors are laying out a full, robust, systematic theology or full, robust treatise or lecture on ethics. That is not the case. This is a letter to his protégé Timothy. So he’s not necessarily giving you an exhaustive list or a treatise on all ethics in the world, but rather he’s honing in on a couple big ideas.
So when he uses certain words, you can’t always dissect them and get into the minutiae and say, oh, well, this is specifically exclusively what he’s meaning in this context and for all time.
So the first good question is what does he mean by “depart the faith”? Verse 1. The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith.
Let’s start with the faith. You may already know this, especially if you’ve been around the Church for a while, but Scripture oftentimes uses the term “the faith” in pretty broad ways. It certainly can mean genuine regeneration as faith as the instrument of our justification. It can mean a true public confession of your faith in the Gospel. But it has a broad semantic range. It can mean just sound teaching. It can mean right behavior and conduct. It can mean the beliefs and practices of your covenant community. It can mean genuine belief and trust, that receiving and resting that the Westminster Standards eventually use the language of.
But here we have to notice that “the faith” is not necessarily a specific, precise term when he says “depart from the faith.” Yet we can’t say that it means nothing, so we’ll get to it, but first let’s look at what does he mean by “depart.”
Does he mean exclusively the final product of apostasy? Or does he mean they’re just kind of dabbling in some basic, low-level errors? They just haven’t been trained well. Again, here it’s a pretty broad semantic range. There can be levels of departure.
Think even about the way that you talk about people, yeah, they departed. Well, no one uses the word departed in the first place, but they left my house an hour ago. Right? Okay, well, are you saying that they walked out of your door an hour ago? Are you saying that they got home an hour?
There’s a lot of different ways that Scripture uses language in sort of a common sense way, and here Paul is doing the same thing. There’s sort of a level of departure from the faith and it could in theory be somewhere along that spectrum. I’ll tell you where I think he lands, but first think about this illustration.
For you Star Wars fans out there, using a lot of fantasy tonight, I don’t know what that’s about, but for you Star Wars fans out there, think about the Darth Vader theme song. Ba ba ba… Right? When Darth Vader is in all his glory and he’s in the Death Star, that song is robust and it’s loud and there’s no denying that’s the theme song, that’s Darth Vader, that’s the finished product right there. Ba ba ba… You’re welcome.
But when you go back and watch what I think some people call the prequels, you’ll start to pick up that like Anakin is a little young lad, it’ll show him being kind of angry, and then you’ve got to listen for it, but underneath will be ba ba ba… It’s real subtle. Right? Because what they’re trying to communicate is already at a very early stage, he was sort of on the trajectory that would eventually lead him to the robust Darth Vader-ness that he becomes. A silly example but in some ways we can think of departing from the faith along these terms.
It can be an intellectual forsaking of doctrines that you were taught by your parents or your pastors, or it could be full-blown, the final product of apostasy. That even you thought you were a true Christian and you publicly professed your faith in Christ, and you lived as if you were regenerate, eventually you ended up denying and rejecting the things that you once identified with. You deny Christ altogether.
Now there’s a good chance that what Paul is talking about here is sort of the end product, but at the same time we have to understand that the language of the text is not so focused on just one specific precise thing that we have to pigeonhole that and ignore every other implication. Trajectories and patterns are important. We see that over and over again.
One more good question. What does he mean by “everything”?
So look at verse 4. Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected.
All right. At this point you may be thinking to yourself, well, Paul, are you saying that TikTok is good? And TikTok can’t be rejected? Are you saying that the atomic bomb is good, Paul? Are you saying that cars are inherently good? Are you saying that all of these things out there, are you saying that drugs are good?
We might start to kind of again nitpick almost and not let Scripture speak for itself. Yet we have to understand, I think even Calvin says the common sense way of understanding this suggests that he doesn’t mean every single thing in the whole world. Even pay attention to the language, everything created by God is good. The key here is as Bob Cara, Dr. Cara, if you’re watching, sorry, I called you Bob, Dr. Cara at RTS says, in many of his classes, he goes, “Everything doesn’t always mean everything. All doesn’t always mean all.”
Again, there’s a way of speaking that Scripture utilizes that is meant to clarify by almost giving you a broader category. So he says everything created by God is good, nothing is to be rejected, and we know what he means inherently when he says that. Just like you know what I mean inherently when we say, oh, man, we were up all night with our sick kid last week. You say, “Are you telling me that you did not sleep for one single second?” and I say, “Well, no, I slept for a second” and you go, “Liar! You were not up all night.”
No, there’s a common sense way of understanding these things. They’re good questions but we can’t get hung up on that in such a way that we actually start to ignore what the passage is saying in itself.
So those are good questions.
Now a couple good observations that might help us put some of these concepts together. Look back at verse 1. It says “the Spirit expressly says.”
This is interesting. Paul is saying here, if I were speaking for Paul, he would be saying, “I don’t just have a theory that this is going to happen. God Himself is divinely revealing and prophesying that this is going to happen.” So he equates even what he’s saying in that moment with the words of the Holy Spirit. He’s saying these are God’s words, not just mine. The Spirit expressly says this.
So it’s not just Paul’s theory, it’s God prophesy, and in the same way the implication is that the solution, the resolution, the answer to these errors is not just like a good suggestion by Paul, it’s actually a divine command from God, in some ways. So that’s an observation.
Number two, an observation. He says that some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to spirits and demons.
Now we might think, especially in this sort of strange, really like weirdly pro-death Halloween culture that is sort of ubiquitous this time of year, we might assume that devotion to spirits and teachings of demons is going to look like pentagrams, boiling cauldron, and flaming eyes. But in reality it’s going to be a lot more ordinary. The way that he talks about what it means, what it looks like, how it manifests to devote yourselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, he says, yeah, food and marriage. Food and marriage is the way that it’s popping up here.
So when you think about a devotion to demons and false teachings, you might want to look in more ordinary places. Those deceitful spirits and those false teachings might be popping up in editorial columns or in advice shows or in political platforms or in TikTok trends or in TV commercials, or in all manner of places. In other words, you might actually have a more robust devotional life than you think, but it also might be more diabolical than you realize.
Now Paul does go on to name two specific teachings and spirits that are affecting the Church at this time. Verse 2, sorry, verse 3 – forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving. Forbidding marriage and forsaking certain foods.
Now, again, ultimately these are going to be broader principles that show you that a lot of the root of false teaching can come back to creation order and Christian liberty. But in his time it is probably true that the particular issues that he was dealing with had some connection to what we would call now proto-Gnosticism, or dualistic heresies. So much has been written about all of these things and the vast majority of all of these works boils down to, yeah, we don’t know exactly what it was but here’s our best guess. Proto-Gnosticism and dualism, huge, huge concepts but in general terms, here’s sort of what was going on.
There were teachings out there at that time that wanted people to believe that the world was created not by a good, sovereign, loving Creator, but instead the physical world was created by a deceptive, wicked demi-god in order to enslave you to your own physical passions and impulses. Therefore if that were the case, then the sort of common sense solution will be, okay, well, if an evil God created this world and I’m enslaved to the physicality of this world, then I need to transcend and forsake the world specifically ends up being by gnosis, by knowledge.
So there’s a little bit of a dualistic thing here going on, there’s a little bit of a proto-Gnostic type flavor to this. And the way that it’s manifesting itself again here is in marriage and in food. They say marriage is bad, it should be restricted. And food and the physical body, the things you put into your physical body, is inherently impure and therefore you have to deny it. It shows up in asceticism, in rigorism.
Now how might you expect Paul to answer these claims? If we didn’t have this text, we might go all over the place. But look at the way that he actually responds to these errors.
Verse 4 – for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
He understands that the root issue here has to go back to creation order. He does this so many times. He does this in so many different ways. He does it with the qualifications for elders and deacons. He does it when it comes to household codes and how husbands ought to treat their wives and wives ought to respond to their husbands. He does this when he talks about all manner of things. He does it actually when talking about our redemption with Christ as the true and greater Adam. He does back to the creational principle and he says to us, “Guys, remember God created everything very good.”
It was all good and it was meant to help us to taste and see and experience and enjoy God’s goodness. God did not create anything that was intended for our detriment, only for our edification.
But here’s the problem. You all know the story. Satan deceived Adam and Eve right off the bat. He says, “You know what? God isn’t actually good. He doesn’t want to give you good things. In fact, He’s withholding good things from you.” Now ultimately the lie that shows up in the garden is the same lie that shows up here in this text. The same lie that starts to work itself into the Church, even in the earliest times, one that is even present today in our own times.
The Fall did indeed make it so that humans can and do use these good things badly in two particular ways. Number one, they create bad things, and they create things for bad purposes.
So, yes, in some ways today it is right to nuance this statement, or maybe to bring a little bit of precision to this statement, or shall I say just clarity to this statement. Paul’s intent is to remind you of the goodness of God in the way that it works itself out in the original creation intent and also in the doctrine of our redemption.
Here’s the deal. The Fall did not negate the goodness of God. The Fall did not negate the goodness of the created order. The Fall did not negate the goodness of the gifts that God gives to His children. Even now in this life we know that that’s true. Again, that’s why he says almost in a loving but in a really clear way, in verse 3, the end of verse 3, he says this is to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. And here’s the truth – everything God created is good.
He wants to remind you, you who believe and know the truth that God is good, and it does work itself into his theology of redemption.
In Titus 3, another letter that he is going to write just shortly after this, he says this: When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared. Do you hear that? When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us and righteousness but because of His own glory and grace.
Creation, redemption. All of these things cannot be understood outside of the framework, outside of our proper understanding of God’s goodness.
So his answer here is actually kind of simple. He says God is good. He gives good things and He’s doing good things in this world. Let’s give Him thanks for that.
In a lot of ways it’s incredibly easy to understand but it can be incredibly hard to truly believe and practice.
That’s going to lead us to the fourth section here, that’s good warnings. In case you’re a note-taker, all of that that came before was part of the “good news” category.
Good warnings, section number four here.
In other words, how can you tell if you’re starting to depart? How can you tell if maybe you’re getting sucked into the trajectory of departure?
Well, number one. Look at the way that he brings up thanksgiving twice. That’s sort of the qualifier here. That’s sort of the thing that keeps us in check. He says no matter what, these things are to be received with thanksgiving.
So if you have a lack of thanksgiving in your life, there’s a good chance that you are not properly recognizing the goodness of God and the goodness of His gifts. If your life is more characterized by skepticism and denial than gratefulness, there’s a good chance that you don’t properly understand God’s goodness.
So that’s number one, the first warning.
The second one is what he says about those who have a seared conscience. Look at verse 2, the end of verse 2. The insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.
Now this word can be translated as cauterized, too. The Greek word actually sounds a lot like cauterize and I can’t say the Greek word super well, so if you want to know what that is, go ask Dr. Ross after this. It says our consciences were not surgically removed with a scalpel but instead those who were teaching these insincere lies, they’ve been cauterized, deadened, muted, burned.
I have like a 65-pound Goldendoodle in our house named Dooley. He is a little over 6 years old and he acts like he’s about 6 months old. Every time we get Dooley a new squeaky toy, I look at Maddie and I’m like, “Why are we even doing this? The squeaker’s going to be dead in a minute.” So every time we get him a new squeaky toy, no matter how indestructible this toy might seem, we throw it to him and he freaks out and he starts, he turns into a literal wild animal. Probably within two hours the thing that was a robust squeak when we bought it, the thing that was making so much noise every time you touched it, all of a sudden is making no noise at all. It’s completely busted. What’s happened is that that squeaker has gotten so abused and so beat up for such a long time now that it stops squeaking. It stops functioning completely.
But here’s the thing. You can still hear it rattling around in there. Every time he chomps on it, you can hear it. You say it’s supposed to be squeaking but it’s definitely not squeaking anymore. It’s still in there but it’s completely dead. It’s lifeless. It has no response.
In the same way, those whose consciences are seared, it doesn’t mean that their consciences have been surgically removed from their head or their heart, but instead their conscience is no longer making the noise that it’s meant to make. It’s no longer getting their attention. It’s no longer functioning the way that it ought to.
So here’s a diagnostic question: What are some sins that maybe used to bother you but have stopped having an effect on you recently? What are some things that make you think, mmm, maybe I’m not hearing what I’m supposed to hear anymore? Is it anger? You keep justifying your outbursts? Is it pride? You look around and you say to yourself, no, I really am better than these people. Is it gluttony? Where you’re saying to yourself I deserve a reward, I’m so disciplined in all the other areas. Let me indulge in this one thing. Is it lust?
It could be many different things, but all of them can lead to a seared, cauterized conscience.
Number three. Third warning sign here is that nothing is neutral.
As the young folks might say, maybe they said this like four years ago, who knows, you have no chill. You have zero chill. Even in the Christian life.
So if in your mind nothing is neutral and every single issue is black and white, every single issue is life and death, and you give these broad, sweeping, blanket condemnations, and you’re overly restrictive, then maybe you actually have lost the ability to love the individuals in the body of Christ.
The way that that works itself out here is they are forbidding marriage and requiring abstinence. They say these things, no matter how good they actually are, they’re not just not good, they’re not even neutral. They’re bad. And here the ones whose consciences are seared have actually ended up creating a new system to bind other people’s consciences. They’re overly restrictive. They would rather see uniformity than unity in the midst of diversity. They might want to be a benevolent theocratic dictator.
So another diagnostic question: Are you convinced that other people have it all wrong and only you are the one who knows the right thing to do? Maybe, honestly, it’s just, it’s a way more tame, timid version of that. Maybe you’re just convinced that to be truly holy you have to be miserable. Maybe you’re convinced that having fun is a bad thing.
Ultimately the root of the problem here once again is that you don’t understand the goodness of God. Maybe you think to yourself, well, whatever the Christian life is, I know one thing, it sure isn’t a good time.
That’s the third warning sign.
The fourth warning sign, whereas the third sign is nothing neutral, the fourth warning sign would be that everything is neutral. A little fun back and forth there.
So the fourth warning sign, everything is neutral.
In other words, nothing is seen as consecrated. Nothing is seen as holy. Nothing is seen as set apart. Nothing is truly seen as being devoted unto the Lord.
Maybe you genuinely believe that Sunday mornings are no different than Friday nights. Maybe you genuinely believe that you could be singing a worship song or watching an R-rated movie and it’s not going to have any impact on your spiritual growth. Right? Because everything is neutral. God’s going to do what God’s going to do. Just chill out, let it happen.
Unfortunately that is the approach that many of us have, is a blanket acceptance of everything and ultimately it’s a struggle to recognize and define sin as sin and it’s an inability to recognize and define holiness as holiness.
That’s a warning sign there as well. If nothing is neutral, or if everything is neutral.
Let’s close with Paul. Again his response is so balanced, so encouraging.
Verse 5 says it is made holy by the Word of God and prayer.
Now I actually moved this specific verse and this specific point around all the different sections before I finally landed on it here. Good question – what does “it is made holy by the Word of God and prayer” mean?
What I believe this text is saying here, and what commentators have said, is that like the term “faith,” like the term “gospel,” like a lot of terms in Scripture, this word that we define here in this passage as “made holy” it’s the same word as “sanctified, set apart.” It’s translated a bunch of various ways in the ESV. It’s the same word that in John 17 Jesus says, “Father, would You sanctify them in the truth, Your Word is truth.” It says you have sanctified them in Your presence.
It’s the same word. So the concept here of something being made holy is it’s being sanctified, it’s set apart, it’s recognized as being devoted unto the Lord. It’s consecrated.
So this ultimately is Paul’s argument against a blanket statement of neutrality here. What he’s saying here, the way that something is made holy by the Word of God and prayer is that God’s Word to us objectively declares and proclaims that God’s good gifts to us are indeed edifying for us.
So it’s made holy by the Word of God in such a way that it is divinely declared that it is a good thing and it is edifying for your soul. Then it’s made holy by a prayer by the subjective. So there’s an objective Word of God and then a subjective in some ways prayer back to God by which we acknowledge them to be good and holy and edifying for us.
This means, friends, that if you are being lured by error, if you feel like the warning signs are showing up in your life, if you feel confused by temptations, there’s a pretty easy solution. Turn to God’s Word, learn of and rest in and meditate on His goodness. Lean into Him in prayer. Draw near to Him and He will draw near to you. Remember that you are not just created but you are justified and you are sanctified by a good God who loves to give you, His children, good gifts.
Let’s pray. Father, we said it already, but sometimes the substance is so easy to understand and yet so hard to truly believe and live out and live out of. Pray that You would help us to do that tonight. Moving forward this week, I pray that we would not get lost and blinded and deceived by those who under the influence of the same false teaching that showed up in the garden, through the mouth of Satan, says that You are not good and You do not want good things for us. Lord, would You protect us and guard us from that lie? Would You root us and establish us in the truth that You are good and You love to give us good things and You are doing a good work in us. It’s in Your Son’s name we pray. Amen.