So, First Timothy, chapter four is where we're
picking up after our long, well, what has
it been sort of a vacation, really, from
First Timothy.
But we pick up tonight where we left
off in the fourth chapter, and so let
me read to you verses one through four.
Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter
times, some will depart from the faith, giving
heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,
speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience
seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry
and commanding to abstain from foods which God
created to be received with thanksgiving by those
who believe and know the truth.
For every creature of God is good and
nothing is to be refused.
We'll stop right there.
The latter times.
Paul says the Spirit expressly says the the
Lord had been speaking to him and the
other apostles, and of course, Jesus himself made
it clear that there would be intense times
that would come in the latter times or
the last days or the last times and
these these terms that are used some 20
times in Scripture, I think they're all pretty
much synonymous, whether it's the last days of
the latter times or the latter days.
All of these expressions are referring to the
period between the first and the second coming
of Christ, particularly to the last part of
that period.
And so the Spirit is expressly speaking that.
In this period of time, there were going
to be those who would depart from the
faith, those who had once been counted among
the brethren, and in some cases, those who
had once been counted as leaders even.
And this has happened many, many times over
in the long history of the church, men
have led away disciples after themselves.
They have embraced certain aberrant doctrines and teachings
and then led scores of people to follow
them in their folly.
But it says that they would give heed
to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, deceiving
spirits.
The devil is alive and well on planet
Earth and very, very active, working overtime in
these days and seeking to deceive people.
And so there are these.
Seducing spirits or deceiving spirits, those are both
ways to translate that word.
And.
They.
Have.
Doctrines.
They have their own theology, if you will,
and it's a theology that is contrary to
the theology that we have laid out for
us in the pages of Scripture.
Now, what these demonic spirits do is they
use hypocritical men to promote their folly, to
provoke, to promote their false teaching.
And so then he refers to those who
are speaking lies and hypocrisy.
And he says about them that they have
their consciences seared with a hot iron.
You know, sometimes you look at some of
these men, whether it be studying movements in
church history or even looking at some of
the things that are going on currently.
And you listen to the things they say
and, you know, the fabrications and just their,
you know, the deceit, the lies.
And you think, how in the world could
they stand up there and do that?
How is it that they have absolutely no
fear of God?
How is it that they could be taking
total financial advantage of God's people and and
have no sense of conviction over it?
Well, the answer is right here.
They they have their consciences seared with a
hot iron.
They've gone to the point where there's no
longer any sense of conviction.
There's no longer any sense of the reality
of God.
It just it doesn't even enter their thinking
process to have the conscience seared.
The picture is that of a cauterizing a
wound.
And when they would cauterize a wound, of
course, they would take a red hot iron
and they would put it on the area
of the wound.
And what it would do is it would
deaden the nerves around that area.
It would seal up the vessels and deaden
the nerves.
So that area would basically become feelingless in
the future.
And so this is what's happened to the
minds of false teachers.
They're they're no longer even subject to conviction.
They're no longer even able to, you know,
sense in any way that there's a judgment
coming.
And you see that in the way they
conduct themselves.
You see that in the way they behave.
It's it's frightening, really.
But that's the state.
That's the condition.
And people like that, the devil takes advantage
of that situation and utilizes them as his
instruments.
They become his tools.
They become his mouthpiece, basically.
And so Paul then describes.
What it was that they were teaching.
Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from
foods which God created to be received with
Thanksgiving by those who believe and know the
truth.
Now, this to me is so interesting.
Notice.
Seducing spirits, doctrines of demons, speaking lies and
hypocrisy.
And what are they doing?
They're forbidding to marry.
Now, that's a bit strange to me.
I mean, you would think that after having
declared that, you know, there are seducing spirits
and doctrines of demons, Paul would have said
something like they forbid belief in the true
God and they command idolatry.
Or they command a rejection of Jesus Christ
or, you know, something blatant, something extreme, something
obviously satanic or demonic.
But that's not the case.
They forbid to marry.
And command people to abstain from meat.
Now, why does Paul.
Refer to these two things, I'm sure there
were other diabolical doctrines floating around at the
time that he might have referred to, but
he chooses to refer to these.
Well, Paul referred to these because they were
a symptom.
Of a greater problem.
They were a manifestation.
Of another doctrine.
That was indeed more obviously demonic.
At Paul's time, there was this teaching that
had arisen that declared that the body.
The human body and all the material world,
for that matter, are intrinsically evil.
Therefore, any enjoyment derived from the body.
Would be sinful.
That was a teaching in Paul's day now.
Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from
certain foods was an outworking of that teaching.
And so Paul is addressing the outworking of
it, but of course, you would trace it
back to its root.
These kinds of ideas.
Began to surface in Paul's day and continued
and continue to resurface even in our day.
Now, these ideas.
This whole idea of abstinence because the body
was evil and so forth, this really came
to a head, although it didn't pass at
the time, but it did, in a sense,
come to a head in the fourth century
among the monks and the hermits.
The monks and the hermits, of course, they
cut themselves off entirely from society and they
went and lived alone out in the deserts.
One never ate cooked food.
And was famous for his fleshlessness.
He became renowned for never eating meat.
He was seen as.
A great man of deep spirituality, another stood
all night by a jetting crag so that
it was impossible for him to sleep.
Another was famous because he allowed his body
to become so dirty and neglected that vermin
dropped from him as he walked.
Another deliberately ate salt in midsummer and then
abstained from drinking water, and these men would
gain a reputation of being spiritual men.
Godly men, because of their radical deprivation of
the flesh, because the idea was that the
flesh was intrinsically evil and the more you
could deprive it or punishment or punish it,
the more spiritual you were.
Now, as I said, these ideas.
And you can you can find this kind
of stuff today.
As well, but these ideas have resurfaced over
and over again throughout the long history of
the church, the Roman Catholic Church has a
history of embracing and enforcing various forms of
heresy right down to the very things that
Paul here says are derived from demons.
When I read these two things, forbidding to
marry and commanding to abstain from foods and
the word food, there is is actually meat.
That's the idea.
But when I read those two things, I
automatically think of Roman Catholicism.
Because those two.
Things are prevalent within the Roman Catholic system,
the 10th article of the decree of the
Council of Trent.
In relation to marriage states this, whosoever shall
say that the married state is to be
preferred to a state of virginity or celibacy.
And that it is not better and more
blessed to remain in virginity or celibacy than
to be joined in marriage, let him be
accursed.
That's a statement from the Council of Trent,
the Council of Trent is still in effect
today.
Regarding abstinence from meats, the Catholic Encyclopedia states
the law of abstinence.
Is binding to all over 14 years of
age, it forbids the eating of meats.
And soups of meat stock, gravy and sauces
of meat.
This is current among Roman Catholics.
Identical to what Paul warned about back in
his own day.
Now, here's the question.
And I've already hinted at the answer, but
the question is, why does Paul refer to
such seemingly innocuous things like celibacy and abstinence
as doctrines of demons?
You see, Paul understands.
That these are the outworkings of some deeper,
more sinister beliefs.
You see, these are these are just the
the outward manifestations of a deeper, more serious
problem.
Paul behind the seemingly innocent attempts to please
God, because, of course, that was the the
supposed motive behind it.
The motive was that I'm going to be
more acceptable to God.
This is going to please God if I
deprive myself.
But behind these seemingly innocent attempts to please
God.
There's a demonic doctrine that denies a vital
aspect of biblical truth.
You see, we have to be aware of
the fact.
That we might not always be able to
look at something on the surface and see
the danger of it.
We've got to look a little more closely,
and that is obviously demonstrated in.
Let's just say, for example, Mormonism now, Mormonism
is striving.
And working hard to gain acceptance within the
Christian community.
They are endeavoring to be recognized as just
another Christian denomination, and there are many that
feel that they ought to be recognized as
just another Christian denomination, because after all, if
you talk to them, they'll tell you that
they believe in Jesus Christ, they believe in
the gospel of Jesus Christ, they believe that
you need to be saved.
They believe in the family and the importance
of that, they believe in apostolic authority, they
believe in all kinds of things that sound
like they ought to be welcomed in and
recognized as just another segment of the Christian
church.
But if you go a little bit deeper,
you will find that the Jesus that they
believe in, the salvation that they believe in,
the God that they believe in.
The apostles that they believe in and the
word of God that they believe in are
all considerably different than what we believe as
Christians.
You see, among the Mormons, their God was
formerly a man.
A man who has been elevated to God,
their Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer,
their salvation is a salvation by works related
to their organization, their apostles are living and
based in Salt Lake City, Utah.
And on and on and on you go,
so.
You see, it's important that we realize that
sometimes something that appears to be harmless on
the surface can be deadly just underneath the
surface.
And so, as we've mentioned in Paul's day,
forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from
food really.
Was a denial of God as the creator
of a good creation in Paul's day, there
began to develop what became known later as
dualistic Gnosticism and dualistic Gnosticism taught that the
material world was actually the creation of a
lesser God.
They taught that there was a true God
somewhere.
Way, way, way, way, way far away, and
that throughout time, various emanations had come out
from that God.
And then at a certain point in time
from those emanations, other emanations came forth that
were so far removed from that God that
they were no longer like him.
And it was an emanation that came from
another emanation that created the present world, and
that's why the present material world is evil.
And so they ended up in a denial
of monotheism.
They denied that there was one true God.
They ended up being very polytheistic, believing in
many gods.
And then, of course, subsequently they would deny
the absolute deity of Christ.
So you see, on the surface, it seemed
like, hey, you know, forbidding to marry and
suggesting that people abstain from certain foods for
the sake of a deeper spirituality.
Well, that sounds so right.
That sounds so noble.
That sounds so godly.
But Paul says, no.
There's something deeper that.
Shows that it's a doctrine of demons, and
then, of course, in Roman Catholicism, there is
a denial of salvation by grace alone through
faith alone, the celibacy and abstinence are a
means of meriting God's favor and contributing to
your own salvation.
So you see, these things aren't as innocent
as they might seem.
Now, Paul, in writing to the Colossians, he
dealt very specifically with this this Gnostic idea
that was developing.
And he warned them about these rules and
regulations.
Touch not, taste not, handle not.
You see, that all goes back to everything
material is evil.
So don't touch this.
Don't taste that.
Don't handle this thing here.
He says they're going to perish with the
using, and he says they have an appearance.
Of godliness.
But basically, in reality, said this is not
godliness.
It's a false spirituality now.
Now, in our day, there are also things
that may seem innocuous, but are actually denials
of vital aspects of sound doctrine and ultimately
demonic in nature.
And this is the thing that I really
want to stress tonight to you because it
has immediate relevancy.
You see, there are things that are swirling
around out in the church world.
That on the surface, if you don't look
a little bit deeper, it doesn't seem like
it's that big of a problem.
And a lot of people wonder sometimes why
you would suggest that that is not a
good thing or or why you would be
critical of those people or that teaching or
a particular movement.
And after all, you know, it sounds like
you're criticizing the body of Christ and you
know, it seems like you're maybe even causing
division because you're speaking out and you're you're
saying things against other brothers and so forth.
And, you know, you hear that sometimes and
it's the same kind of a thing.
You see, because today there are ideas floating
around that on the surface don't seem like
that big of a deal, but the deeper
you go, you find that there's a huge
issue at stake here.
For example, there has been a tremendous influence
upon the Bible, particularly the first few chapters
of the Bible.
By evolutionary thinkers and those who have in
some way, shape or form embraced.
Some aspect of evolution.
Have come up with different theories about the
origin of the universe, the origin of life,
creation and so forth.
And they have brought these into the church.
You know, in many circles today, the bane
of evangelical movement are those who believe in
a literal six day creation.
There are many in the evangelical church today
that just see those kind of people as
hugely problematic.
They're dogmatic, they're unscientific, they're giving a bad
reputation to us Christians.
We need to censor them.
We need to silence them.
And these men, these people.
They have come up with their own theories
about Genesis and about creation.
There is what is known as theistic evolution.
Theistic evolution is basically stating that there is
a creator, God, but he created through the
evolutionary process.
And there are many in the church that
have embraced theistic evolution.
There are others who don't go that far.
They're uncomfortable with that.
But they just cannot, for the life of
them, believe that.
The creation of the universe could have happened
in a literal six days, so they opt
for, say, the the progressive creation theory.
Progressive creationism means that God created in long,
long periods of time.
There was a progression that took place.
The six days are just sort of allegorical,
poetic, maybe.
But again, we can't take them literally because
we know, we know for a scientific fact
that the universe is billions of years old.
And then there are those who it's very
similar to progressive creationism, but it's it's called
the age theory.
And they believe that God created in six
days, but each day was perhaps millions of
years long.
And of course, they do this to accommodate
evolutionary thinking.
And those who emphasize that, those who promote
that, they would look upon those who are
literal six day creationists as troublemakers in the
church.
As divisive people who are just splitting hairs,
who are making a big deal out of
nothing, I mean, after all, what does it
matter?
You know, whether God literally created it or
whether, you know, it was, you know, six
days of long periods of time or or
for that matter, even if God used evolution.
I mean, you know, why?
Why get all upset about this?
Let's just not.
Let's just not worry about that.
That's not the important thing, they say.
But you see, there's a bigger issue at
stake.
And that's what people fail to realize.
You see, if God did not create the
world in six literal days, how come he
said he did?
If he didn't create the world in six
literal days and he said he did, then
we've got a problem.
How can we trust anything that God said
if he didn't really mean what he said?
And see, the Bible says clearly that he
created the world in six literal days.
Even those who rejected agree that the Bible
says that.
That is indeed what the scriptures say.
But you see, to reject that is no
small matter, because what you end up saying
finally, ultimately, is that the scriptures are not
inerrant.
Inerrant means without error.
There's an error because God says he created
the world in a particular way, but he
really created it in a totally different way
through an evolutionary process.
Well, that's a huge error right there.
And so if there's error right there, then
who's to say that there's not error a
bit further on?
In the book of Exodus, for example, in
the story of the children of Israel being
delivered from Egypt, who's to say that that
really historically happened?
Maybe that's just a myth.
And we can't really take it literally.
We can't really take literally the prophecies of
Isaiah.
We can't really take literally the virgin birth
of Jesus Christ.
Or his atoning death on the cross or
his resurrection.
Because if God didn't mean what he said
back here, how can we be certain that
he meant what he said in any other
place in the Bible either?
So you see, it seems like a small
thing.
And I personally have had people tell me,
you know, you shouldn't be so hard on
that issue.
You should kind of let that go, you
know, let it slide.
Don't be don't be causing division.
They don't see the bigger picture.
They don't see what's at stake.
What's at stake is the authority of the
Bible.
And that's, of course, what the devil's always
trying to undermine.
Then there is the other issue of the
integration of psychology and Christianity.
Huge issue.
Psychology has invaded the church.
And there have been major attempts and quite
a bit of success at integrating psychology with
Christianity.
Some people think this is the most wonderful
thing that ever happened.
They see psychology as as a fulfillment.
Of what was lacking.
In what God had originally given us.
And they would go so far as to
say that the church was in an insufficient
state until the advent of psychology.
And now that psychology has been brought in
and and integrated into the church, now we
have a complete system by which we can
really help people.
Not only make sure they're going to get
to heaven, but we can help them know
how to live life here on Earth through
our psychological theories.
Now, again, if you speak against that, you're
branded as some radical, some person that's causing
division.
But you see, again, there's a bigger issue
at stake.
You see what this ends up denying.
It denies the sufficiency of the scriptures and
the Holy Spirit for life and godliness.
And it creates a huge problem just on
a practical level, because in essence, what it
says is that for eighteen hundred years, Christians
were deprived.
Those poor Christians back then, all they had
was the Bible and the Holy Spirit.
But they didn't have this wonderful blessing of
psychology, which, by the way, originated in the
minds of atheists and agnostics who were intentionally
developing a system opposed to Christianity because they
rejected Christianity.
That's what psychology is.
It's a philosophy rooted in atheistic humanism.
But people say, but wait a second, I'm
not talking about that.
I'm talking about Christian psychology.
There's no such thing.
Psychology is psychology.
Now, a Christian might practice psychology, but it
doesn't change what it is.
It is what it is, and it originated
from where it originated, and it originated with
men who were hostile to the church, the
Bible, Jesus Christ and all the things that
we hold dear.
So when when this is is integrated, when
it's merged together or the attempt is made
to do so, it becomes a denial of
the sufficiency of the scriptures in the Holy
Spirit.
The Bible teaches, Peter told us in second
Peter, chapter one, that all things that pertain
to life and godliness are given to us
through the knowledge of him who called us
by glory and virtue.
Notice that notice the distinction there, all things
that pertain to life, number one, godliness, number
two.
You see, what they try to do is
is make a distinction between godliness and life.
Christianity is great for godliness.
You can learn how to be a godly
person and make sure you get to heaven.
But for life, you need psychology.
Had a phone call the other day from
a guy who was attending meetings and he
stood up and said his higher power was
Jesus Christ.
And.
He got rebuked for it by a couple
of Christians, supposedly, and I asked him, I
said, now, let me just ask you a
question.
Why?
Why are you going there?
And he said, well.
I somebody told me that I needed to
go there for my, you know, I get
my spiritual strength from the church, but for
my problem with alcohol and everything, I need
to go to AA.
And I said, well, what do you think?
He said, I don't really feel like I
need to go there.
And you see what he was told is
what a lot of people in church leadership
believe today.
That there's this dichotomy, there's the, you know,
there's there's life, there's, you know, family and
work and, you know, just the way you
feel about yourself and all of that.
And.
You grow in that area and develop in
that area through psychology.
And then there's there's church and Christianity, and
basically that has to do with heaven stuff.
So in essence, what it is is, you
know, coming here will help you get to
heaven, but we don't have much that we
can do for you while you're here on
Earth.
So, you know, just come on out and
we'll encourage you that one day you'll get
to heaven.
But if you if you have any problems,
if you have marital problems, if you have
problems with your kids, if you have, you
know, if you're struggling with depression or whatever,
we'll send you off to the psychologist because
that's their realm.
There are Christian leaders who teach that, believe
that, promote that.
And in doing so, they deny the sufficiency
of the scriptures.
And the Holy Spirit, they deny what Peter
said was a fact that all things that
pertain to life, marriage, family, work.
How you think about yourself, view yourself, your
fellow man, whatever you want to put in
that category.
All things that pertain to life and godliness
are given to us through the knowledge of
him who called us by glory and virtue.
So you see, it is a big deal.
It's a huge deal.
It's a massive deal.
And I would venture to say that there
are so many problems in the church today
when it comes to just behavior and living
and things like that, because people are looking
to the wrong sources for help.
And they're being told to do so by
their leaders, unfortunately, many times.
There's one more issue that I want to
bring up that is relevant.
And it's more to do with a movement
within the church today.
It's known as the seeker movement.
And it's a movement that is swept through
thousands and thousands of churches and the sort
of the emphasis within the seeker movement is
cultural relevance.
We want to be relevant to our culture.
Now, being relevant to your culture is an
important thing.
But it's the way they go about it
that I think is a problem now, whenever
we again, whenever we speak about this or
bring the subject up or somebody asks a
question on it and we answer, a lot
of times people are upset.
Oh, you shouldn't say that about that church
or that book or that movement.
But again, you see, it's because so often
people are looking just on the surface.
The seeker movement is the personalized version of
what was known back in the early 20th
century as a social gospel.
The social gospel was an interesting.
Experiment.
And here's what happened.
Christian leaders.
They looked around and they thought, you know,
we have the answers, we have the solution.
We know how people ought to live.
And we've got to get this message of
Jesus Christ and his teaching to people, but
the stumbling block to people is all of
this stuff about miracles.
And so what they basically said is that.
We can Christianize the world.
If we can get the ethics of Jesus
to society.
You know, love one another, turn the other
cheek, blessed are the poor, all of those
kinds of things, man, if we can just
get people to lay hold of these truths,
we can see an alteration in society.
But the stumbling block, the thing that's holding
everything back is the miraculous element of the
Bible that stumbles people.
And so this is what they did.
They decided that they would reject the miraculous
element of the Bible and just promote the
ethical aspect of it, and they embraced liberal
theology, higher criticism that had come out of
schools in Germany and England.
They embraced all of that throughout the miraculous.
This completely did away with the virgin birth
and the vicarious suffering of Christ, the bodily
resurrection, all of his miracles and all of
that.
No, that's not important.
That stuff, of course, that's just part of
the mythology.
The real important thing is what you read
in like the Sermon on the Mount, the
ethics of Jesus.
And so they were attempting to help people
help society by giving them the ethical teaching
of Jesus, but making sure they weren't stumbled
by the miraculous element in the Bible.
The seeker movement is very, very similar.
It's just a personalized version of it.
Is he back then those guys looked at
they looked at all society, said we're going
to we're going to change society.
By bringing them the ethics of Jesus in
the secret movement, they're not so bold as
to, you know, be shooting for all of
society, they're happy to work on it one
person at a time.
And so that's why I say it's a
personalized version of that, because this is what
they do.
Seeker sensitive churches quite often downplay important biblical
truths like sin, judgment, the atonement and things
of that nature.
They downplay those things and they emphasize things
like a healthy self-image, personal success, the
champion within and things of that nature.
You see, but in a sense, they're doing
the very same thing.
Now, on the surface, again, it doesn't seem
like it's that big of a deal.
Oh, why are you being critical of them?
Well, they're doing a good thing.
People are getting saved.
And I believe in the sovereignty of God
and I believe that people get saved in
all kinds of peculiar ways.
But you don't promote those things.
God makes exceptions to the rule, but you
don't promote the exception.
And quite honestly, we hear about people getting
saved.
And how do we know that?
Because the churches are filling up.
These are some of the largest churches in
the country.
But are people really getting saved or are
they just getting involved in a social environment
that's enjoyable?
Has certain benefits to it with just a
little sprinkling of religion on top of it.
I mean, after all, it's kind of hard
to get saved if you've never heard about
sin.
It's pretty difficult to get saved.
If you don't realize there's a judgment.
And how in the world do you get
saved if nobody wants to talk about the
cross of Jesus Christ or the blood that
he shed, the atonement that he made?
You know, that makes it highly improbable.
There's going to be any serious salvation happening.
Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by
the word of God, you've got to hear
the truth.
To get saved.
So you see, we have to be wise
in these days.
And realize that there are in these days
both doctrines of demons and diversions of demons.
And we need to be really careful.
About what we embrace, especially, but even about
what we sort of just, you know, let
go by as, oh, well, you know, let's
live and let live.
And we don't want to say anything negative
and we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings
or appear to be critical of anything.
We have to be careful because there's a
ton of.
Error.
Floating around today, just as there was in
Paul's day, so we want to avoid avoid.
Avoid.
Both the doctrines of demons and the diversions
of demons, how do we do that?
We'll look at verse four for that particular
situation, Paul reminds them for every creature of
God is good.
You see, you remember underneath the commandment to
abstain from food and the forbidding of marriage,
there was the idea that God's creation somehow
wasn't good, was evil.
It was bad, so you shouldn't be involved
in any of that.
Paul says, no, the fact of the matter
is every creature of God is good, but
I want to expand that a little bit,
and I think there's justification in doing it.
I want to expand it to.
Every way of God is good, you see,
and this is what people are failing to
realize today.
There is a right way to do things
and there's a wrong way.
There's God's way and there's man's way, and
whenever we leave God's way, although it might
look so innocent initially, although it might not
appear that there could be anything really the
matter with this whatsoever.
Believe me.
In a matter of time, it'll show itself
for what it really is.
You see, when they embraced the social gospel
back in the early days of the 20th
century.
They their motives, in a sense, were pure.
We want more people to believe we want
more people to believe, so we've got to
make it easier for them to believe we've
got to get rid of this miraculous stuff.
This is a stumbling block.
And they did that.
Little did they know that it would be
the end of the church.
Little did they know that it wouldn't work.
Little did they know that society would get
worse instead of getting better because you can't
simply take the ethics of Jesus.
You can't disconnect the ethics of Jesus from
the life of God that he imparts to
you to live according to his teaching.
And you see, you can't dabble with these
other things either without.
Creating a huge problem down the road, the
creation evolution issue, we need to stand fast
on what the Bible says.
Because when you start compromising with Genesis, you're
on your way to compromising with John and
with Romans and with Revelation.
When you start compromising the integrity of the
word of God, it never stops.
And one day you might find yourself not
believing anything that you originally believed.
But it all started with just a little
dabbling in one area.
And so it's true with psychology, you just
bring a little bit of that in.
Remember what Paul said, a little leaven leavens
the whole lump eventually.
You start bringing that stuff in and the
end.
Will be much different than the beginning.
You see, every way of God is good
and God has the right way.
He has the right way for us and
he's given it to us in his word.
And that's true of us as a church
as well.
God has a right way of doing things.
Now, of course, God doesn't necessarily tell us
the exact kind of format of our services.
He doesn't tell us, you know, what our
meeting places are to look like or how
exactly we are to utilize communication abilities and
things of that nature.
In other words, it's not the external stuff
that's so much the issue, it's more the
substance of what's going on.
And we need to be careful not to
confuse that.
You know, some people do things differently.
We stand behind this pulpit and teach the
Bible.
Some people don't necessarily stand behind a pulpit.
They might sit or they might use even
a computer with a PowerPoint or something like
that.
And sometimes, you know, somebody will see that,
say, oh, my, that's horrible.
They had a computer up there.
And where was his Bible?
Well, you know, most computers, they can get
a Bible program on them.
But so, you know, so those aren't really
the things that we're talking about.
That's the that's the form we're talking about,
the substance.
The question is, what are they saying?
What do they believe?
What are they promoting?
Are they holding fast to God's way through
his word?
Teaching the whole counsel of God.
Laying the truth of God before people and
letting the chips fall where they fall, those
are the things that are important right there.
And so every way of God is good
and it is not to be refused.
We're to do things God's way.
And in closing, I would just say, be
careful, be on your guard, because Peter
tells us the devil goes about as a
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
And I think that for me personally, it
would probably have to be through the intrusion
of psychology into the church that I have
seen the most damage.
I have seen people's lives destroyed.
Not improved because the Bible and the church
leadership were telling people one thing and the
well-meaning, misled so-called Christian psychologist was
telling them something else.
And I've seen many people opt for the
psychological option.
And lose out hugely in the end.
Lose their marriage, their family.
And so many other things, but above all,
lose their relationship with the Lord.
We don't want to dabble.
With the philosophies of men.
Especially.
Men who are openly opposed to God and
his word and seek advice or counsel from
them, blessed is the man who does not
walk in the counsel of the ungodly.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you that you've given us
the word, Lord, as.
Our protection.
To guard us against the doctrines of demons.
And so, Lord, may we be alert, may
we be wise, Lord, may we stand fast
upon your word and we thank you for
it.
That you have given us entrusted to us
your truth and Lord, we look around us
and we see that some have.
Been led astray.
By things that seem to be innocent.
But they're really doctrines of demons.
We pray that you would expose them for
what they are.
And that you would deliver.
Those who are yours.
Lord, we thank you that.
Your way is the best way.
And we embrace that tonight.
Guide us and lead us in Jesus name,
amen.