EPISODE 194 1 TIMOTHY CHAPTER 4 "Doctrine's of Demons"

Welcome to Share the Word. Four words: spiritual warfare is real. In 1 Timothy chapter 4, the apostle Paul gives words of guidance and warning to Timothy and cautions him to be diligent to not become like one of those false teachers. How? Well, listen closely, because this applies to each of us as well. 1 Timothy chapter 4: Doctrines of demons.

I've been working on replacing all the screens on a screen-porched at my house a little at a time because it's scorching hot here lately. High winds have blown out some of the upper sections, and my cats, who think screens are obviously for scratching, have destroyed most of the lower sections. And replacing these is not a one-person job, so I have to enlist one of my grown kids to help me for a bit every time one of them is around. Why can't I do it alone? Because the most important step is to carefully measure and cut everything. Measure the screens just right to fit each opening, cut them straight, and measure each trim piece to fit just right and cut and nail them up accurately.

Some of them are up to 16 feet long, and they want to cover all the staples and make the work look neat and finished. So the most important tool for this project has been a rule, you know, a tape measure. In chapter 4, Paul is giving very important personal instructions and encouragements to Timothy regarding his role as a spiritual overseer. We're listening in on a first-generation Christian leader, an apostle of Jesus Christ, speaking from his heart to a second-generation leader he has prepared and is now counting on to continue to expand and protect the Christian movement. In this chapter, he urges Timothy in two areas. One is to stay focused on his own personal godliness.

Train yourself to be godly. Physical training is good, he tells him, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come. That line always makes me think how many of us spend more time at and are more disciplined about hitting the gym or whatever your form of exercise is than we are in spending time at and being disciplined about learning God's Word or spending time in prayer or being engaged in a specific ministry to help other people. Not that exercising is not valuable, but spiritual disciplines have far more lasting value, is what Paul is saying. He wants Timothy to be authentically a godly man, an example to all the believers in his language, in the way he lives, in his love for people, in his personal faith, and in his moral purity. Take pains with these things, he urged him.

When I teach Christian leadership development, I stress this passage. The goal for someone who aspires to lead others spiritually is not just to become a Bible scholar, but to get to the place where God's ideas are informing and shaping every area of their life so they can be an example. Paul stresses to Timothy at verse 16, Pay close attention both to yourself and to your teaching. Be authentically godly in your personal life, Timothy, and also make sure your teaching is biblically sound. How many times have we seen Paul call out and warn against false teachers, as he does again in this chapter? All the apostles, really.

But his time is passing, their time is passing, and Paul is soon going to have to pass the torch off, the torch of leadership, and he can't do that without reiterating and reiterating to Timothy about the dangers of false teachers. He begins chapter 4 like this: The Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. In later times, Paul just means going forward, Timothy, as the church age plays out. Some people are going to fall away from the faith. Literally, apostatize is the word. To apostatize is to willfully turn away from something, or to even turn against something, in this case the Christian faith.

It's important to be clear in our minds that by the faith Paul meant, and Timothy understood, that there is a distinct body of Christian doctrine and practice that must not change. The Christian faith is an objective belief system which claims to be timeless, absolute spiritual truth. As Jesus' brother Jude wrote, We must earnestly contend for the faith, which was once for all handed down to God's holy people. And as Paul wrote in just our last chapter concerning church leaders, they must keep hold of the deep truths of the Christian faith with a clear conscience. Christianity is not a belief system that people have developed or a church has created. It is God's truth revealed through Christ and his apostles.

Truths that were then written down by men, aided by the Holy Spirit, including Paul himself. This is the New Testament Scripture. Those truths explain who we are, what sin is, what God has done about it, who Jesus was, what his death and resurrection mean, how we can be reconciled to God through him. How Christians should then live, what the church is, what its objectives are, what's going to happen to people when they die, how this age we are living in now is going to end, and what happens after that. The answer to all these important questions found in the Bible is the faith, the corpus of Christian beliefs. I say all this to be sure we understand Paul when he writes, going forward, Timothy, some are going to fall away from the faith.

Spiritual defectors, unfortunately, have been an integral part of the story of Christianity. There are spiritual defectors in Paul's ministry, and it sounds like in Timothy's, and they will be in our lives and our churches as well. We shouldn't be surprised when this happens, although I admit I sometimes am. I've had personal friends who at one time I was certain were committed to biblical Christianity, as committed as I was, who over time have fallen away from the faith. But this was happening from the beginning, and Paul is saying it would continue. And elsewhere he wrote that such defections will become massive by the end of the church age, just before Jesus returns.

A great apostasia, a great falling away will happen then, Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Are we there yet? as my little kids would ask from the back seat. I don't know, but it seems like we might be getting close. Why does this happen, and why does it continue to happen? Paul told Timothy the falling away he was seeing in Ephesus was the result of deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.

I wonder if that line was one of the things that inspired C. S. Lewis to write his famous novel, The Screwtape Letters. If you're unfamiliar, in that book, Lewis imagines a senior demon giving instructions to a subordinate about how to undermine a Christian's faith and lead them away from God. It's all about clever deceptions people unwittingly accept that are, in reality, doctrines of demons. I don't know about you, but that phrase, doctrines of demons, hits hard for me.

Have you ever thought about the fact that the ideas people believe that lead them to turn away from or turn against the Christian faith are, in reality, doctrines of demons, ideas dreamed up by evil spirits? If you remember, Paul told the Galatians, If we or an angel from heaven preached to you a different gospel than what we've already preached, let them be accursed. Paul couldn't state that in any stronger language. It's hyperbole, essentially saying, If I lose my mind and come back to Galatia preaching something different about salvation than I preached when I was there, I myself should be damned. Even if a being you believe is an angel sent straight from heaven appears to you teaching something different about Jesus, let that apostle be forever damned. Man, why was he so dogmatic?

Because the Christian faith cannot change. It's unalterable. It was delivered to us by Christ and his apostles under the influence of the Holy Spirit once for all time, and it's not open to additions or alterations. The deceiving spirits trying to convince people to the contrary are sometimes obvious. Joseph Smith claimed that when he was 17, he was visited in his bedroom by an angel from heaven named Moroni, who began revealing to him very different things from the truths underlying Christianity. In fact, he claimed this spirit being led him to some hidden golden plates on a mountainside in western New York, plates which contained another whole record about Jesus appearing in North America.

Of course, those claims led to the Book of Mormon and to millions of people being deceived into believing in a very different Jesus and a very different gospel, a doctrine of demons. Earlier in history, an Arab man named Muhammad claimed that when he was 40 years old, he was in a cave near Mecca, Saudi Arabia, when the angel Gabriel appeared to him with new spiritual revelations, which led to the writing of the Quran, the Islamic scripture. Again, a very different story about God and Jesus and salvation that hundreds of millions of people have now bought into. Closer to our time, David Koresh, who was regarded as the Christ by the Branch Davidian sect, claims that seven angels appeared to him in Jerusalem in 1985 and revealed to him the secrets of the seven seals mentioned in the Book of Revelation.

He built a religious cult-like following around his persona and his claims about this special revelation. Koresh and many of his followers burned to death in a confrontation with law enforcement in 1993 after a 53-day standoff. Spirit beings convinced David Koresh that Jesus was not God, but only one of a number of prophetic voices God has sent into the world, of which he, David Koresh, was the final one God was counting on to deliver a final message to mankind. It was a doctrine of demons. Deceiving spirits appear to these men with well-thought-out stories, deceptive lies that have led and are still leading many, many people away from the truths revealed to us in God's Word. But deceiving spirits are not always that obvious.

A lot of what I see happening in our time is just the creating of doubts from here and there, and once relatively small compromises and concessions are made, it's not really that important that we hold on to this or that narrow biblical idea anymore. Then further and more significant breaks from faithfulness to God's Word are coming. It's a slippery slope which ends with the only doctrine left being, it's not so important what you believe, but that you believe it sincerely. You know what? That's the gospel according to the 20th century theologian Charles Schulz. Charles Schulz, the guy who for like 50 years wrote the Peanuts comic strip.

Yes, and what a seemingly such an innocent source has spread an effective doctrine of demons. It's not whose version of truth you believe, he wrote in his comic strip. Linus actually had this line, but it's your personal sincerity that matters. But wait a minute. If the Bible is true, what you really believe is important. I mean, how can it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you are sincere mesh with, For God loved the world so much He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him will be condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. The particular false teachers in Ephesus that Paul is writing to Timothy about were apparently teaching that by engaging in certain ascetic practices, people could make themselves holy in God's eyes. If their angle was legalism, or perhaps it was maybe more like they could make themselves more attuned to the spiritual world if they deprived themselves of certain things, if their bent was toward mysticism. We aren't given their whole pitch here, but it was some form of, we must try and save ourselves through our religious acts, a well-worn doctrine of demons. Nothing we can do on the outside can change anything on the inside. We've seen this over and over in the New Testament.

We must be born again, Jesus put it that way. We have to be changed on the inside by only something God can do, and it happens when we believe into Christ. But as Paul is talking about here, these false teachers Timothy is contending with, he says, they forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Requiring people to be celibate, to make themselves somehow closer to God, or on a higher spiritual plane than other people, Paul says that's a doctrine of demons. It's unnatural for 99.9% of people. Requiring that, forbidding people from marrying is wrong.

It's just one example of the false teaching that was popping up at Ephesus and amazingly continues to be required in some religions today. The overarching point, though, is that deceiving spirits are very active in our world, spreading ideas that contradict God's truth. Confusing people about who Jesus is, convincing people that salvation or enlightenment or however they want to call it is achievable by some other way than through the Savior God provided. Demons don't care what they can get people to believe, as long as it's not in Jesus as their Savior and Lord, and in God's Word as the final authority for truth. To Timothy, Paul continues in his chapter in pointing out these things to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.

Give attention then to public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and doctrine. Pay close attention to yourself and to the doctrine. Persevere in these things. He's concerned that his son in the faith, Timothy, who is now a spiritual leader in his own right, keeps his focus on what God says in Scripture, keeps anchored to sound doctrine, and stays true to the Christian faith as it's been taught him. Again, when Paul uses these definite articles, the faith, the doctrine, he's referring to the established core tenets of Christianity, the things taught by Jesus and his apostles. Paul is concerned that although others were listening to contrary ideas and were drifting away from the faith, Timothy hold fast to the truth and stand firm in the faith.

Does that all sound familiar? It should. It's a constant refrain in the New Testament. Yet something so essential, it needs to be continually underscored. Why? Because the enemy and his demons are always creating deceptions and selling those deceptions, ideas that will lead people away from the timeless truths of Christianity found in the Bible.

One very effective deception has been to convince people that the beliefs of Christianity found in the New Testament are incomplete and so open to additions. We've talked about this previously as an error the Roman Catholic Church fell into. Their official position is that their church leaders, they call it the Magisterium, that is, their church's bishops and popes, have been empowered through apostolic succession to decide what should be Christian doctrine and practice today. Based on that false idea, they have added many things to what the New Testament teaches, things which are in fact contrary to what the New Testament teaches. The notion that any subsequent human organization has been given the authority to decide what is ultimate truth, that's a grave fallacy that I am certain the Apostle Paul would classify as a doctrine of demons.

Different from that, but just as deceptive and dangerous, liberal Protestants who have been deceived into such a low view of Scripture that they imagine their wise men are qualified to decide which parts of the Bible to believe and practice, which parts are no longer appropriate for modern times. They've already reached the bottom of the slippery slope, really, that began in America maybe a hundred years ago by questioning the inspiration and authority of the Bible. That the Bible was not uniquely inspired by God and is so open to modern criticism is certainly another doctrine of demons. And now it's apparent, sadly, some evangelicals in our generation are teetering at least at the top of that same slippery slope, imagining they can reinterpret New Testament Scripture that they find uncomfortable to practice or defend in the 21st century.

We just talked about an unfortunate example of that by a currently influential Baptist pastor a couple podcasts ago, and I'm aware of other such cases, sadly. Yes, Paul warned that defections are going to keep happening and, in fact, increase, but I can't help but be surprised sometimes where and with whom we see it happening. Why did I start off this podcast telling you about my screen porch, for heaven's sakes? Any idea? Here's a clue. The last thing I said about it was that the most important tool we needed was a rule, a measuring tape.

Imagine that when my daughter Nat helped me last Saturday, she brought along a measuring tape from Europe, where she lives most of the year, one marked off in centimeters. And then my son, Sam, comes along and he brings one marked off in inches and feet. And then my youngest daughter, Lydia, shows up thinking she can help us, but she doesn't even have any kind of measuring device at all. She's just going to guesstimate lengths. Being the foreman of this job, I'd say, Wait, wait, wait. We all have to use the same measuring tool, or this is never going to work out.

I'm not a master carpenter, but even I know that we all have to use the same standard of measurements in order for such a project to come out right. Can you imagine that God, on the most important matters affecting our world and our lives, would not have given us a universal standard by which we can all know what is true, something that we can all trust, something against which we can measure any conflicting spiritual claims? Of course He would, and He has. He has given us His Word to be that rule. The Bible is the benchmark against which all other claims of spiritual truth should be measured. Paul told Timothy later, and we'll see this shortly in a podcast coming up, it's the Scripture that is God-breathed, created by God.

The Scripture which is to be used for doctrine, for reproving, for correcting, and instructing people in what is right. In another place he wrote to Timothy, Be diligent to present yourself to God as a workman who will not need to be ashamed, who can accurately handle the word of truth. That's the Scripture. And again he wrote to Timothy, Preach the word. That's the Scripture. Be prepared in season and out of season to correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

For the time will come, listen to this, when people will not put up with such sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will turn away their ears from the truth and gather around them teachers who will say what their itching ears want to hear. These instructions are all very similar, aren't they? People will turn away from the Christian faith as it was delivered to us by Jesus and his apostles. They will listen to and be deceived by false teachers whose ideas are in actuality doctrines of demons. But you, Timothy, keep yourself rooted in the unchanging word of God.

Keep cutting it straight when you preach and teach, because inspired Scripture is the only and unchanging standard of what is right and what is true. It's the benchmark against which all other spiritual claims must be measured. This is Paul. Thanks for listening to Share the Word. Thanks, Paul. You know, we hold in our hands a tool that, although it can be used for good, I believe the doctrines of demons use it to sway us from God.

And that tool is our phones, leading us an inch at a time away from the standard and the truth that is the inspired Word of God. I came across so many new translations of the Bible, and I was shocked, but not surprised. Have you fallen into the almost right situation? If you have any questions about something you've heard or someone you're just not sure of, please investigate and ask questions about them. All of us at Share the Word would be happy to help in any way to make sure that you receive the truth. Even with us, we encourage you to investigate.

The more you know, the less the doctrines of demons can sway you from God. Please email us at info at sharetheword.org if you have any questions.