I appreciate a little extra patience this morning. I had just a bit of a technical issue I couldn’t quite get over this morning with the screens and so I appreciate the time you allowed me to get going with that and so glad that you’re here and so glad that I’m back. It’s been two weeks that we were gone and it seemed it was a busy time for us. We did many things while we were gone. Worship with many different satans. I got to preach for the effort of church that I see once a quarter.

Um it was a a very good time but a very full time and we missed you all while we were gone. And we’re glad to be back and I’m glad to be able to talk to you today. Did you ever notice that some folks never quite get to the issue or or take a long time to get there and other folks can go right to the heart of the matter and start talking about things that are important? Did you ever notice that? I think you see it in social media. Somebody will post on Facebook, “Well, that sure was a problem.”

and and you’re like,”Well, what I mean, what are you talking about?” And and they just kind of want you to, you know, ask back and then we’ll start and maybe you’ll never even get to what it was that was their problem. Other folks, you know, I had a problem with my car today or something like that. They go right to the issue. It’s like that in music, too. I think there are certain songs where I listen to and I don’t really know what they’re talking about.

Steely Dan is like that, you know. Are they Are you with me, Doctor Who? I have no idea who Doctor Who is and why he would not be with me or whatever. But there’s an old song, I’m dating myself here. There’s an old song by Paty Klene written Oh, somebody knows already. [laughter] Written by Willie Nelson and the first word is crazy. And you know right where he’s now I know what you’re talking about. First word I know where you are. You know, okay, I like that.

I’m I’m with you now. And and it’s like that at spiritual things too that that people can bandandy around the bush and and be as it says as Paul said at one point always studying yet never coming to a knowledge of the truth. Did you ever hear that? Sometimes I talk about and I’ve mentioned this to a number of you. The person who would never say in two minutes what they could say in 10 minutes and the only way they could say less is to talk longer.

Okay? That’s just beating around the bush and never getting right to it. Paul, I think, was the opposite. He would get to it. And and I see him doing that in Acts chapter 26 as he stood before Fesus and the two royal visitors, King Herod Agrippa and his wife Bernice. And as he’s preparing to speak to these people about our Lord and Savior, he says to them in verse 8, this is Acts 26:8. Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

There’s the issue, the resurrection and their doubt of it that it is just too marvelous, too wonderful for them to even get their head around. Why would that be? If there is a God all powerful, all knowing, everywhere present, why would you think he would be unable to overcome death and to raise up one who had been killed violently? Why why don’t you see that God can do such a thing and would do such a thing? He asks that question to them there.

There’s another direct question that I think comes up from time to time and I I rarely ask people this question. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked anybody this question, but I’ve wanted to. Why do you think it incredible that your teacher, your Bible teacher, is a false teacher? That’s a really cutting thing to say. And it’s an unsettling thing to say to think that the one that you’ve been trusting to lead you in spiritual matters might be getting many things wrong.

But think about it, dear ones. You remember how many books are in the New Testament? 27. How many of those decry, denounce, warn against false teachers? 23. 23 out of 27 say false teachers are a problem. We’re going through the sermon on the mount on the first Sunday of each month as our theme for the year. As we get towards the end, as in the coming weeks when we get there, Jesus is going to warn about false teachers and false prophets. Watch out for false prophets.

If in our Lord’s most commonly preached, best sermon, longest recorded sermon, he mentions false prophets, false teachers, don’t you think that’s a problem? We’re going to consider what Jesus says as we go through that study. But I want to go somewhere else today with you to consider false teachers. And it’s 1 Timothy chapter 1. If you turn, we’re going to spend the rest of the morning there. Well, I Well, yeah. Well, anyway, a little bit of time.

1 Timothy chapter 1. And remember, in the bulletin, there’s a place to to keep notes and keep track of what we’re talking about. But it starts off in 1 Timothy chapter 1 and verse one, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. And it speaks immediately to how he became an apostle. And it wasn’t that he was as Isaiah, you know, initially here am I send me I, you know, he wasn’t looking to sign up for this. The Lord reached out and in a very unusual way, at a very unusual time, said Saul of Tarsus, I need you.

It was by the command of God our savior and of Christ Jesus, our hope, that he became an apostle of Christ. It was by command of our savior that he found himself doing the work that he did for the rest of his days. And he’s writing to Timothy. And although we were instructed to call no one father in the faith, he did not shrink back from calling Timothy his son in the faith because he was younger and he had brought him along and he was training him.

And so the same way a father would to a son educate and bring along, he was doing that. Paul was doing that with Timothy. And then he wishes that grace and mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord be his. And that’s a wonderful triumvirant there. Grace, mercy, and peace. We’ve talked about them before. I’ll not dwell on them much at this point. In verse three, he says, “As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than stewardship from God, that is by faith.

As he’s getting to what Timothy is supposed to do, he says, “Here are three things that you don’t have people teach. You tell them not to teach these things in a spiritual setting. Not to preach a different doctrine, not to preach about myths, not to preach about endless genealogies. It’s just unprofitable to go off that way.” And so part of what we ought to ought to preach is knowing what not to preach, what not to teach. And he just denounces all of these things.

charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine nor to devote themselves to myths and any genealogies that which promotes speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. Instead of taking the message that God delivered, they kind of set that aside and teach other stuff that maybe people like more or maybe they personally find more interesting or maybe yeah, they’ll just get a better following. But he says what’s going to happen and what has happened in verse six.

But before that, in verse five, he talks about what is the aim of their charge. Here’s the goal. I He was just talking about what not to do. Here’s where we’re headed. Here’s what we want to foster in people. We want to foster love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. That’s a beautiful triple there. Beautiful. a pure heart, not being divided in our interest, not having God and Mammon in there, but having Jesus and our father, the spirit in a special place that is not to be moved.

Not nobody else gets ahead of that pure heart and a good conscience. Meaning, when I look at what the word says to do and what I’m doing, I don’t see any major discrepancies. James going to talk about looking into the perfect law of liberty and seeing how we match up. Hopefully, we match up well with it. Hopefully, we’ve taken our sin and put it in a, you know, it’s still in the baptistry and got our our foot on its throat. You know, stay down there.

I do not want to go back there. That’s what that’s what brings us a good conscience and then a sincere faith to actually trust God to actually believe his word and to operate accordingly. That’s what we’re looking for in verse five. That’s what we’re trying to do. certain persons in verse six by swerving from these from from what? From love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith. They’ve gone off to other things. So what would that be? An impure heart, a bad conscience, and an insincere faith.

Where does that lead us? Certain people who have swerved from these have wandered away into vain discussion. They’re they’ve got plenty to talk about, but it’s all vain. It is not going to lead you to the place that you want to be. It is not going to produce this kind of love that we talked about in verse 5. What exactly was the problem? There’s a shortcoming. They desired to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they’re saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

Do you see what that’s talking about, dear ones? They’ve got some sort of an agenda. They’ve got some topic that they’re speaking to, but they don’t understand it. Yet, they confidently say, “This is the way it’s going to be.” You know, sometimes we see people and they if they have confidence, we listen to them and we say, “Well, he sure seems to know what he’s talking about. He seems like he he really is an authority on the subject. That can absolutely be true that he seems to be an authority on the subject and he can be getting it wrong.

And I’ll put to you in the denominational world that happens a lot. And that’s a bold statement, but I’ll back it up with scripture. When you want to see the differences between what they’re teaching in churches, different places, and what the Bible says, they’re confidently asserting things they don’t understand and are not true. And and Paul was warning Timothy that that was going to happen 2,000 years ago, and it’s been happening ever since. Now, we know that the law is good. Verse eight, if one uses it lawfully, there are there’s an appropriate way to use the law.

And probably here the pro the the false teachers were Judaizing teachers and they were trying to make the Old Testament, the law of Moses say things that it didn’t actually say. That law was profitable if you use it right. But understand this in verse 9. The law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly sinners, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane. So, three different descriptions there of whom the law is laid down for, the lawless and disobedient, ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane.

And that’s those are two, you know, each couplet is a terrible couplet. You do not want to be in there. But that who that’s who the law is for. And and it kind of keeps people away from offenses. How do I describe this to you? The difference between being motivated by love and and by the law. You can maybe look to Galatians chapter 5 and get more on this. But the idea is if you’re living for love, the love that we talked about in verse 5, you’re going to be so minded of doing good and doing right that you’re not really concerned about all the laws about doing it wrong.

You’re you’re called to a higher standard. The law is for the folks that are bouncing off the bottom. What can I get away with? What can I steal? What can I you know what can I do wrong? That’s what the law is for more than uh you know these people that are listed in these groups. That’s who the law is for. Now he goes on to discuss who these people are and what specifically they do. And there seems to be a pattern here between certain of the ten commandments that are being broken by these false teachers.

And he goes through a list that I think is politically incorrect nowadays to say these things, but he said them about 2,000 years ago and it’s still in there and we still have to teach this. for those who strike their fathers and mothers disobedient to parents. Romans chapter one lists that as a terrible sin and the striking here in some uh by some folks interpretation is actually the killing of a parent. these people do this kind of things. Um, for murderers, for sexually immoral, and I’m reading from the English Standard, of course, for men who practice homosexuality.

Dear ones, there are a lot of folks today that tell you that’s all right. I only find a problem with it from cover to cover in the scriptures from Sodom in Revelation. I mean, sorry, in Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation where it says they will not be they’ll be in the lake of fire. Don’t let anybody tell you that homosexuality is fine. The scriptures put men who practice homosexuality in this category. lawless and disobedient, ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane, enslavers, people who would take people and put them in put others in slavery to serve their own purposes.

Liars, perjurers, and then this whatever else this phrase, whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. That’s what these people are doing and that’s what they’re teaching and that’s what they’re confidently asserting is okay for you to do and you just can’t go there. He talks about whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine in verse 10 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I’ve been entrusted. I’m using the Bible as the standard here and anything else you need to dismiss.

In verse 12, he says, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, according me to his service, though I formerly was a blasphemer, a persecutor, an insolent opponent, but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost.

I put an article in the bulletin the front page about trustworthy sayings five times in the book in the in the pastoral epistles if you will that’s mentioned. Here’s the first one and he says two things are trustworthy. First, Jesus came to save sinners. Paul says, “Second, I’m the worst. I’m the worst sinner there ever was.” Why? Because he persecuted the church. You’ve got to admire his humility in that. But why in the world then would you take someone who’s doing all these things against the church and say, “You’re the one that I need.”

And why would Jesus reach down and tap him? And why would he even be able to be forgiven for all the things that he’s done? In verse 16, but I receive mercy, Paul says, for this reason, that in me as the foremost Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. If anyone is ever tempted to say, you know what, I have sinned so profusely, so often, so terribly that I could never be forgiven.

We point to the Apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus, and we say, “Look at him. He was forgiven, and he shows that you can be forgiven, too.” Paul was saved because he did it in ignorance and because he can then be an example to everyone else that will follow after. And if they think they’re terrible, this is he is the example. And you just have to be amazed. The next slide, please. Um I don’t guess I didn’t want that one. Is it one more? Sorry. There’s there’s one that says to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible.

This is it. He stops in the middle of the chapter and he just says this is great. This salvation I I know I was talking about something, but I got distracted with this. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever and amen. immortal, invisible, God only wise. We sing sometimes in our song and it’s just amazing. And he has to stop and we should stop too as we’re talking about false teachers and true doctrine and all of that.

The salvation that we have in Jesus Christ is just amazing and wonderful. And so, yeah. What charge did let’s see where are we yeah what charge did Paul earnestly entrust with what charge did Paul earnestly entrust Timothy there’s a fight there’s a fight going on there’s a fight for truth there’s a fight for the true faith and And there are a lot of folks teaching the wrong thing. And he said, I want you to fight the good fight. I this charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you.

We know you’re a good guy and you’re going to do well. We think you are. But that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith. And so, and he’s pointed out, here’s what false teachers teach and here’s where that leads and and here are some of the things that they do. There is true teaching and you’re supposed to embrace that. be a good steward of that. And now you’re in this fight.

And it’s on you, Timothy, to decide which side you’re going to be on. I charge you to be a soldier for our Lord and Savior, to be on the right side, to wage the good warfare. And that’s an amazing charge that he gives him. And if you think that I’ve already been a little too direct this morning, I want to remind you that the Apostle Paul named names. By the way, since we’re talking about false teachers and folks who have gotten off track and made a shipwreck of the faith, let me tell you about him and Alexander.

What? Right here in the open, you’re going to name names. Yes. Sometimes you have to be that direct and say, “This guy got it wrong and this guy got it wrong.” And there’s a place for that. There’s a place for denouncing error and false teachers. And he says of them, “I’ve handed them over to Satan that they may learn not to blasphe.” Satan, do what you will with them. They need to learn that they’re doing this wrong. Maybe they’ll come back. Like it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.

You’ve listened well, dear ones, and I appreciate you going through this chapter with me. It’s a pretty bold chapter, a denunciation of false teachings. He set Paul set before Timothy error and truth and said, “You’ve got to put the error away. You’ve got to embrace the truth and you’ve got to be fighting for it. And so I give you the same charge this morning, dear ones. There’s error before us. There’s truth before us. And we have got to put the error away, embrace the truth, and wage the good warfare to try to advance the cause of Christ in the world.

And it may involve us getting pretty direct. And it may involve us naming names at some point. But I need you to discern and hold on to sound doctrine. I need you to show love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. And I want you to remember when you’re talking to folks that God showed mercy even to the worst sinner that there was. At least according to Paul’s evaluation, that was him. We’re going to have a time just right now.

We’re going to turn to song number 9008 or it’s going to be up on the screen for you. I’m going to turn to it. There’s a stranger at the door and our advice is let him in. He has been there off before. Let him in he is gone. Let him in. The holy one, Jesus Christ, the father’s son. Let him in. We’re going to make this invitation a number of times in this song. This is the time if you’re subject to the call to come and uh take up this good fight to to become a soldier in this good war if you haven’t already.

Confessing Christ, being immersed for the remission of your sins, rising to walk in newness of life, and going forth into the fray. And this is the time for that. And if you’re subject to the call, won’t you come while we stand and while we sing?