Speaking Out about False Teachers

Well, let me, invite you guys to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 6. First Timothy chapter 6 for a time of study in the word this morning, we are doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come this morning to 1 Timothy 6:3, and my goal today is to cover verses 3 through 5 and the title of the message is Speaking Out, Speaking out about false. Teachers, Paul in verses 3 through 5 is speaking out. And he's speaking out about, false teachers.

We're going to listen to him as he, as he speaks out in, this way. I do want to warn you guys, in advance that this is a politically incorrect sermon. And, and this is a politically incorrect passage. in fact, what Paul's going to do in these 3 verses here in 1 Timothy 6 would get him disinvited from a national day of prayer service.

In 2010 here in these United States, that's how politically incorrect this is. How many of you are aware of what's been happening with Franklin Graham? Raise your hand. OK, a few of you, the son of Billy Graham.

He, back in 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he, he made some statements about Islam that didn't go over real well. And he was roundly criticized for it. and, in fact, let me just read to you his comments about Islam. then he says, the God of Islam is not the same God.

He is not the Son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It is a different God. And I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion. He made that statement and he was supposed to be involved in a National Day of Prayer event on Thursday of this week, but some people voiced a complaint about his beliefs regarding Islam and his statements regarding Islam.

And in response to those complaints, he got disinvited. He said, You're not welcome to participate in this event in the role that we had formerly expected you to serve, all because of those statements that he made regarding Islam over the last two weeks. He's been interviewed on different television programs. And they've asked him, Do you stand by those statements?

Do you regret those statements? And he's like, No, I stand by those statements. but he's been careful to reiterate his love for the Muslim people. And among the many things he said, here's one of the things he says, I love the people of Islam, but their religion, I do not agree with their religion at all.

And saying what I've been saying, I speak out for people that live under Islam. that are enslaved by Islam. And I want them to know that they can be free through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone. Man, what a brother speaking the truth in this way.

But what, let's, let's ponder this for a minute. If Franklin Graham had just minded his own business, and stayed within his own circle of Christians, and walked around saying, well, according to my belief system, or according to my truth, here's what I believe regarding Jesus. If he would have just kept himself to that scope, I don't think anyone would have been bothered by him. But where the offense lies in the fact that he stepped beyond that and vocalized a value judgment about another belief system, we live in a culture today where it's like your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth, I'm OK, you're OK, though our beliefs may totally be diametrically opposed to one another, and I won't make a value judgment about your truth and you don't make a value judgment about mine, and we'll all get along that way.

that's the culture we live in today. And Franklin Graham made the mistake of being frank and rendered a value judgment and vocalized that, about another belief system. And it raises the question for all of us, and that is, is it appropriate as Christians to vocalize value judgments about other belief systems? Is that OK?

or should we just stick to positive truth affirmations about our own? theology. We actually get help in answering this question, for ourselves by just observing Paul in First Timothy alone. This is not the only book he does this in.

But in First Timothy, we find that this book is largely filled with Paul making positive Christian truth assertions and affirmations. He says things like Christ came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. He says like God desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. So much so there's one God, there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

There's those kinds of positive Christian truth affirmations that we find throughout the Book of First Timothy. However, in addition to that, there's also space that is given by Paul. To a negative denouncing and exposing of false doctrine, and even those who teach it. This is an inspired writer of Scripture being moved by the Holy Spirit, not just to say positive truth affirmations about Jesus, but also being moved by the Spirit to denounce and to expose other belief systems that are in contradiction to faith in Christ Jesus.

In fact, we'll try to run through this real quick. Go back to 1 Timothy chapter 1. After Paul gets his pleasantries done, like in verse 1 and 2. Hi, I'm Paul, you're Timothy, I'm writing to you.

as soon as he's done with that, verse 3, I urge you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus. so that you may instruct certain men not to teach different doctrines. And then he begins to talk about that or to pay attention to myths, endless genealogies, and so forth. Verse 7, speaking of these men, he says, they're wanting to be teachers of the law.

They're wanting to teach believers, and they're wanting to teach the law. Even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions, Paul actually calls out two of these individuals by name in verse 20, speaking of those who have suffered shipwreck with regard to their faith. Verse 20 among these are Hymeneus and Alexander, whom I've handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme, and the idea is blaspheme.

the truth, the truth of the gospel of Christ.

Then go to chapter 4, verse 1, where we find some very, what some would consider to be very harsh, language. He says in verse 1, He says, but the spirit explicitly says that in later times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience, as with a branding iron. You see what he's saying there? He's saying there are human beings that want to be your teachers, and they open their mouth, and the content of what they are saying finds its source in demonic beings.

It is deceiving spirits inspiring this teaching. And the men who are speaking this are liars with seared consciences. This is Paul denouncing. False doctrine, and those who teach it and saying that its origins are demonic.

Wow. speaking, going back to Franklin Graham, there's been A lot of talk, not just by him, but even by others about what's happened with him and one such talk show, the Bill O'Reilly show, he, he couldn't get Franklin Graham on the show to talk directly with him, so he settled for Al Mohler, the president of Southern Seminary, and Al Mohler is one of the most eloquent spokesmen for the evangelical community in the world today. He's, he, I want that guy speaking for me in any situation.

And anyway, he asked Al Mohler, what do you think of these statements by Franklin Graham?

Because Bill O'Reilly himself is not a big fan of what Franklin Graham said. He thinks it hinders America in its war on terror. but he asked Al Mohler, what do you think? And Al Mohler said, well, I, I think he said exactly the right thing.

And I stand with him. And then as the conversation developed, Bill O'Reilly asked Al Mohler this question. So do you think Islam is a demonic religion? What do you think?

Is it a demonic religion? Listen to what Al Mohler says. He says, look, any belief system, any worldview, whether it's Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, or dialectical materialism, Marxism, for that matter, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith and our Lord Jesus Christ is, yes. A demonstration of satanic power, any belief system that keeps persons from coming to Christ, we would see as a manifestation of demonic power.

That's essentially what Paul would say, and does indicate in chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. Think about it. If God wants all to be saved, Christ gave himself as a ransom for all. And God loves the whole world, and there are belief systems that keep people away from Jesus.

Then we would have to say that the source of all other belief systems that point away from Jesus are demonic in their origin, and they are deceptions that lead people on the road to destructions. In cases like this, we just need to ask ourselves, are we Bible believing Christians? Do we really believe? Do we want to talk and think the way that an inspired writer of scripture like Paul in First Timothy alone, talks in this letter.

Well, we come to our passage today, 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 3 through 5, where Paul comes back to false teachers and talks about them again. But as he talks about them, I want you to understand that his motive is love. Parents, you love your children, right? I'm sure you don't just say positive things to your children about the world they live in.

I'm sure you've sat your children down and said, there are evil people out there who want to do evil to you. And so here's what to be warned about. And if someone's driving by, and they call you over to their vehicle, and they offer you candy or they want to ask you a question, here's what you need to do in those situations. And some might say, man, you seem negative.

And what you're saying about these people. And you would say, well, of course I am, but the reason I'm talking this way to my children is because I love them, and I want to protect them. And I want you to feel the love of God. As God is inspiring Paul to say what he says in verses 3 through 5, and the way we're going to break this passage down is Paul essentially provides us seven very helpful descriptions of false teachers so that we know who they are and the need to avoid them.

Let me read verses 3 through 5. If anyone advocates a different doctrine, and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing. But he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy. Strife, abusive language, and evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.

Let's start back up at the top of verse 3 and break this down. 7 descriptions of false teachers. By the way, some of your translations, King James New King James, I think, at the end of verse 5, say something like, from such men withdraw yourselves. some Greek manuscripts actually have those extra words in there.

It may not have been a part of the original epistle of Paul to Timothy. Whether those words are in there or not, that's the definite message anyone would get. after you're done listening to Paul's description and unpacking what he means by what he says, your natural instinct is to run away from these people. They're diseased.

We're going to see they're sick. And you don't want them to infect you with what they have. So that's Paul's goal to get us to withdraw from such people, to not allow these people to. Instruct us in doctrine and in practice.

Well, description number 1 is found at the beginning of verse 3 of these false teachers, and that is they teach doctrines that are different than what the scriptures teach. They teach doctrines that are different than what the scripture teaches. He says in verse 3. If anyone advocates, and that's the word teach, if anyone teaches a different doctrine, this is the Greek word heteros.

which speaks of something different, combined with the Greek word for teaching. So it's someone who is teaching something that is different from what you find in Apostolic revelation, which for our purposes today is this book right here. All right. Paul says this is how you would know who a false teacher is.

Listen to what he's teaching and then search this book and see if what that teacher is saying is actually in here. All right, it's someone who is teaching from some other source other than the written word of God, and often what he's saying contradicts. It is different in the sense of being contradictory to what the written word of God says. Paul would say, don't be impressed.

By other things about this teacher. He may be winsome, he may be educated. He may have a lot of degrees behind his name. He may be eloquent.

He may be highly intelligent. He may be the smartest person that you've ever met. He may have authored books that have sold millions and millions of copies. He may be pastoring a church, and has thousands, tens of thousands of followers.

He may have his own television program. Paul would say, don't be impressed, or seduced by any of that. Listen to what he says, and ask yourself, where does he get his stuff? It's that simple.

The stuff he's teaching, where does he get it? Where does he get it? Does he get it from the Bible? Does this square with the written Word of God?

And is it coming from the written Word of God? There are people out there today who want to be your teachers. They want to be your counselors, but they're not getting their material from this book. Instead, they're getting their material from their own imaginations, from their own minds.

They're getting their own material from the culture around them. They're just spewing. the common belief systems that are prevalent in our culture today, and some actually receive revelations from spirit beings and they write those revelations down and then they, they say, Well, yes, we believe this, but there's other revelation that God has added and then that's what they teach from. What you need to do, guys, is listen to what a teacher is saying and ask yourself, where is he getting this.

And Paul says a false teacher that you don't want to allow to instruct you in doctrine and in practice is a teacher who teaches things that are different than what the scripture teaches. There's a second description of false teachers. That helps us to identify who they are and why we need to Withdraw ourselves from them. And that is they disagree with the sound words of the Lord Jesus.

They disagree with the sound words of the Lord Jesus. Look at this in verse 3. If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the characteristics of a false teacher is he doesn't agree with the sound words.

About the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's break this down. First of all, the word that is translated agree is literally, it's the Greek word that means to come to or to approach. This is the word used in Hebrews 7:25, those who draw near to God through him, through Christ.

So it can mean to come to, to draw near to. And so the idea is you get this false teacher over here, and he's drawing from his own mind or the culture around him or other spirit revelations, and this is what he's teaching. And over here is the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. But this false teacher refuses to move from where he is.

He will not go from where he is and come over to the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. A lot of commentators suggest that it has the idea of disagreeing and that's a totally valid translation because we even speak this way that I've arrived at a conclusion. I've come to a decision. I've come to an opinion.

And so what this also means is that these false teachers disagree with. They won't embrace, they reject the sound words of Jesus. Now the word that is translated sound here is the Greek word we get our English word hygiene from, something I hope you're all familiar with. and it speaks of something that is, healthy in and of itself, something that is whole, and something that is healthful.

In other words, it is good for somebody who partakes of it. It nourishes them. It makes them healthy. In fact, this Greek word, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Hebrew word it most commonly is the translation for is the Hebrew word shalom.

That speaks of peace and an inward sense of overflowing well-being and prosperity. And so it's, it's the Shalom words. It is the sound, the healthy, wholesome, healthful words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Clearly, this is referring to the words of Jesus, in other words, the words that he spoke, but it also is speaking of the words or the message about Jesus, i.e.

the gospel. In fact, if you want a synonym for the expression, the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can give it the synonym, the gospel. And I'm not just making that up. look at what Paul says in First Timothy chapter one.

He speaks of in verse 10, sound teaching, that's the same word. And then he says, which is according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. And think about what we mean by gospel, literally, good news. and the reason we call it good news, and the Bible calls it good news is not simply because we hear it and say, I like that, that's good news.

But we also call it good news because it does good to us. It does tremendous good to us. In Proverbs 15:30, I believe, Solomon says, good news puts fat on the bones. it does something good for us.

The gospel is sound. It is wholesome. It is life giving, it is health giving. And it does tremendous good to us.

It is the gospel of the happy, blessed God that Paul preached, and the other apostles preached. So here we have this false teacher teaching his own stuff, getting it from his own head or wherever else, and here are the sound, health-giving, life giving words of the Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ that can do tremendous good, and this false teacher looks over at it and says, I disagree with that, and he won't come over to it and approach it and include it in his teaching.

And so guys, I would encourage you that if you're, you're trying to figure out, is this someone who should, whom I should allow to indoctrinate me, to instruct me in doctrine and practice, ask yourself, what does this person do with the gospel? What does he do with the gospel?

there are people nowadays who call themselves Christians who outright blatantly disagree with the gospel, as it's presented in Scripture. They call themselves pastors. They call themselves, they in fact are pastors of churches. They call themselves Christians and yet they see the Bible's presentation of the cross, for example, and it, it's offensive to them.

They write against it and express their disagreement of it. Meanwhile, they continue to call themselves pastors and church leaders and Christians. Virginia Moincott, who is, herself, someone who is a, a lesbian has rejected biblical ethics and morality for herself. she outright disagrees with the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ, though she calls herself a Christian.

At a gathering of Protestant theologians, she was speaking and she said this to those who were gathered, I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all. I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff like that. That someone who outright, without any shame, looks at the sound words of the Bible about Jesus and says, I disagree with that. I find that weird.

I find that offensive. Thomas Jefferson. wrote a letter to John Adams and expressed his contempt for the Bible's teaching regarding the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, which is a part of the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jefferson said this, the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme being as His Father, that's the virgin birth, and the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

The day will come, he said, when the doctrine of the virgin birth will take its place alongside of other Greek myths, rejected by society and viewed as something from the past. Does someone who wants to be your teacher. Do they disagree with the gospel? Let's go with the literal meaning of agree, meaning to come to, here's what happens more commonly, someone who wants to be your teacher and counselor, they won't outright criticize the gospel and express disagreement with it.

They just won't ever come over to it. It never shows up. It never gets mentioned. As they're teaching, they got a lot of stuff they want to say, they just never come over to the gospel and get around to actually including the gospel.

They neglect it, they ignore it. And so however good their teaching may be, they may be teaching on marriage, they may be teaching on child rearing and, and home life and whatever else, Jesus never gets mentioned. The gospel has no place. And however much good they may say in whatever they're trying to teach you, what they're basically trying to do is to say, here's how to have a good marriage without Jesus.

Here's how to have a good life without the gospel. That's what it is. And just by ignoring it, they speak volumes of their contempt for the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, there's a 3rd description.

of false teachers that we find in verse 3 at the end of the verse, and that is that they disagree with the only teaching that produces true godliness. people like this, they, they got a problem with godliness as it's defined in scripture. They don't like the godly lifestyle. They find it offensive.

It's not the lifestyle they want to live, and so therefore they reject words and doctrines that happen to conform to that particular godly lifestyle. Look what he says at the end of verse 3. let me just read the whole verse. If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness.

Real quick, let me explain what godliness is. This is the best. The definition I can think of. It's basically a godly person is someone who lives their life in a way that's fully orbited around God, in every imaginable way, all of their life is about God.

a godly person is someone who is living from God. They live through God. In other words, in dependence upon Him. They live according to God.

They live with God in the sense of in relationship with Him. They live for God. Everything they say and do is for him as an expression of love for him, and they live unto God. the heartbeat of everything they do is that everything comes back to God and is for His glory.

The heartbeat, the heart cry of a truly godly person is expressed very succinctly in Romans 11:36 from a godly man, the apostle Paul, who says, for from him and through him, and back to him are all things to Him be the glory forever. Amen. That's the heart cry of a godly person. Someone who's godly in a biblical sense of the term is someone who says, I want to live from God.

And the first way they think about that is, I need salvation, and I cannot generate salvation myself. I can't find it in anyone or anything else. It can only come from God. Salvation is from the Lord.

God sent His Son into the. to live a perfect life and die for my sins. And so salvation comes from God. I want to receive that from him, for me to be everything that I ought to be, I must receive from God.

And then as I live my life, look at this, a godly person lives through God, in a spirit of dependence. Not pride, not self sufficiency. According to God, a godly person is like, man, I want to live my life. How do I live my life?

I know I will consult with God. God, what do you say? And they open up the Bible, God, tell me what to believe, whatever you tell me to believe, that's what I will believe. Whatever you tell me to do, that's what I will do.

I will live my life according to you, in obedience. A godly person values their relationship with God. They love God, everything is for him, everything is unto him, and for his glory. That's godliness and a false teacher.

is someone who doesn't like godliness as the Bible essentially depicts it. And therefore they don't like teaching that conforms to that godliness. And they reject the teaching so they can live the way they want to live. Now they may say, Man, that teaching there, I've got an intellectual problem with that.

I've got a philosophical problem with that. When you talk to them, they'll they'll try to say, I've got a lot of like intellectual evidential problems with this teaching, and that's why I haven't accepted it. But at the root, Paul says in Romans 1, they're suppressing the truth so they can live in unrighteousness. They want to live the way they want to live, and they don't want to live under God's sovereignty, and so they reject teaching that conforms to such godliness.

Not everyone is candid enough to admit that. Aldous Huxley, who wrote Brave New World and other works, he was a philosopher, a thinker, an author who was a part of that lost generation that, that embraced the philosophy of meaninglessness. And it's interesting the way he describes how and why he arrived at that philosophy, and you can appreciate his His candor here. Listen to what he says.

He says, I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning. Consequently, I assumed it had none. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is concerned to prove that there is no valid reason he personally should not do as he wants to do. He goes on to say this for myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation.

The liberation we desired was liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom. So he wanted to live according to his own desires sexually. this moral code got in the way of that, a moral code that would definitely be in place if there were meaning stemming from a God who created all, including him.

So he rejected any meaning and said the world is meaningless, and he says that was an instrument of mine to liberation, sexual liberation. Now I can live however I want to live and have no one to answer to. Look at the lifestyle of someone who wants to be your teacher. Look at what he does with what the Bible teaches in the way of godliness and morality.

How does he handle those issues? Does he explain them away? Does he turn them on their head and make them mean exactly the opposite of what the plain meaning of the text indicates? Paul is being extremely helpful for us here and showing us how to identify a false teacher.

They teach doctrines different than what the scripture teaches. They do not agree with, they won't come to the sound words, the gospel words about the Lord Jesus Christ, and they won't agree with or come to or embrace any teaching from Scripture that conforms to genuine godliness. There's a 4th description that Paul provides us. And I'm just, and, and stating it the way that I do here.

I'm just trying to be accurate to the text, all right? At the beginning of verse 4, Paul gives a 4th description, and that is they are arrogant ignoramuses. They're arrogant ignoramuses. In fact, I had to look up ignoramus.

What's the plural? Is it ignorami? but it is as you see on the screen here. They're arrogant ignoramuses.

One translation says that such a man is a conceited idiot, a pompous ignoramus. That's the language that Paul is, is using here. A false teacher who reads this would not feel flattered at all. by the way, the word conceited or arrogant.

It, it's the word for pride, but there's two words for pride in the New Testament. One is a pride that is founded in reality, and one is a pride that is not rooted in reality. Just a dumb illustration if I can. let's say that I can bench press 200 pounds.

And I'm proud of that. In fact, everyone's hand who I shake after the service, I say it's good to see you. Did that I could bench press 200 pounds? Just thought I'd mention that.

and, I'm trying to make everyone know that everyone knows, man, look how proud Milton is of the fact that he has achieved this particular lift. I'm being proud, but I'm being proud of something that I actually did and could do. That is pride. There is a word for that.

That's not the word that Paul uses here. Imagine that I can only bench press 200 pounds, but I'm strutting around this campus as if I can bench press 500 pounds. That's the word that Paul uses here. You find that funny, don't you, Chris?

OK. It's somebody who thinks there's something that they're not. It's someone who acts as if they are something that they are not capable of something that in fact they are not. Paul says they are conceited and by way of describing the conceit, because the issue is if they're conceited, what They conceited about that they think they have, but in fact, they don't have.

Well, he answers that they understand nothing. See, they think they know something, and they're proud of what they know. It's like Paul says in Romans one, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. He describes people who not only think they're becoming wise, but they profess themselves to be wise.

They tell people, I am wise. Listen to me, but in fact they're fools. That's the conceit. They think they're smart, but Paul says they know nothing.

In terms of what someone really needs to know, to live the way that God wants them to live, to experience spiritual health and well-being in this life and for all eternity, people like this know absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter how many degrees they have behind their name, how eloquent, how intelligent they are on many other levels, how many books they've written, how many people follow them and, and hang on every word that they speak. Paul looks at them and says, Man, they're rejecting the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They won't come to that.

They're rejecting biblical words that conform to godliness. What they're teaching is not found anywhere on the pages of this book. Paul says that person is a conceited ignoramus. They don't know anything that I need to know to live the way that God wants me to live.

He's utterly unimpressed. They're conceited And they're ignorant There's a 5th description that he gives. This is an interesting one. Let's word it this way.

A false teacher like this that Paul is describing is this, they are morbidly drawn to teaching. That creates controversy and doubts. They're morbidly drawn to teaching that creates controversy. And doubts.

Look what he says. He's conceited and understands nothing, but has a morbid, that word morbid, it's the word for sick, diseased, all right, which makes sense. If they won't come to the sound, health-giving words of Jesus, in what state does that leave them? It leaves them sick and diseased.

He says literally they have a sick interest in controversial questions or investigations and disputes or word battles. And basically the idea here is this that when someone like this who is an apostate, they once believed the truth to one degree or another, they have since moved away from that and apostasized from the faith. The thing about you that bugs a person like that the most is your certainty. They can't stand your certainty in Christ.

Voltaire, a great enemy of the Christian faith says doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one. He just hated the fact that there were people that felt certain. About their beliefs. Friedrich Nietzsche said something like, certainty is a greater enemy of truth than lies are.

Certainty was the real evil. He himself was a theology student for a semester before he completely abandoned the Christian faith altogether, and he spent the rest of his life assaulting the certainty that God's people had in their hearts. And so here's the agenda of a false teacher. they see the certainty inside of you, the certainty you have in Christ, and in the gospel.

And what they want to do is they want to replace that certainty with controversy and with doubt. You don't even have to believe what they believe. They just want you to doubt what they doubt. They want you to disbelieve what they disbelieve.

And if they can succeed in inserting, inserting controversy and doubt in the place right now in your heart where there is certainty in Christ, then they have achieved their goal. Again, not all of them are willing to admit this, but the truth is that the doubters that are out there, they're very evangelistic. They proselytize people to their lifestyle of doubt. They're not content to doubt alone and say, well, that's just my belief.

I'm going to leave everyone else alone. What do they do? No, they're attacking everyone else's certainty. They want you to doubt.

They want you to lose your certainty just as they have. In fact, I was reading this week an article by a guy named Mark Lea, who is a professor at the University of Chicago, and he, when he was a teenager, he says in this article, he had made a profession of faith and got born again, he says, and, and then, eventually, he wandered away from that and ended up, he's not a Christian at all, any, anymore. He's rejected all of that and now his life is one that he would describe as a life of skepticism and doubt.

But he was writing this article and sometime before he wrote the article, he had decided to attend a Billy Graham evangelistic crusade just for the anthropological experience of it all.

All right. He's not seeking the Lord or wanting truth, he's just doing a little bit of anthropology and, and studying human beings and And so he goes to the Billy Graham crusade and, and admits that he felt his heart being tugged at points by things that Billy Graham was preaching on, but ultimately was unmoved and left the crusade and said, well, that was a good, a good study of, of human nature being at this crusade. But in the article he talks about how he was riding in a subway away from the crusade, he got to talking to two young university students.

And one of the university students was a student from Wharton Business School, a very bright young man, and he asked this young man, what did you think of the crusade?

And this young man says, I loved it. In fact, I went forward in the invitation and I gave my life to Jesus Christ. And Mark Lee inquired about that, and the guy said, yeah, I've given my life to Christ and I'm looking forward to the changes that this is going to mean for me. And he started talking about what that was going to mean for his future.

And in the article, Mark Lea has a section where he describes what he, Mark, felt looking at this brand new believer, so certain in his faith in Christ, and listen to what he confesses. He says, as I stood there and listened to this young student, I wanted to cast doubt on the step he was about to take to help him see that there are other ways to live, other ways to seek knowledge, even self-transformation. I wanted to convince him his dignity depended on maintaining a free, skeptical attitude toward doctrine.

I wanted to save him.

Now he's being honest here. He wanted to do some proselytizing himself in the life of this young man to try to win him to win his soul from certainty to doubt. Look what he says. Doubt, like faith, has to be learned.

It is a skill. But the curious thing about skepticism is that its adherents, ancient and modern, have so often been proselytizers. In reading them, I've often wanted to ask, why do you care? Think about that.

The people that doubt and that are skeptical of all things that we hold to be certain, why do they spend so much energy writing the stuff they write and doing the research and investigations that they do? Why do they care whether we are certain or not? He says their skepticism offers no good answer to that question. And I don't have one myself.

He's what he's saying in all honesty is, I don't know why I felt the way I felt, but as I stood there, I wanted to convert this young person. To doubt. I wanted to take away. Their certainty And that is what drives so many that have abandoned any pretense of faith in Jesus Christ.

They work hard. To work in the hearts of God's people and replace their certainty with controversy and with doubt. James Cameron, why did you work so hard, James, to do this documentary on, he said, I found the tomb of Jesus and there's, there's bones in there and it's probably the bones of Jesus, meaning the physical resurrection didn't happen. Why would he do that and spend his money to make that case to the world?

He's trying to replace certainty in the hearts of people. With skepticism, with doubt, and with controversy. Guys like Dan Brown, who wrote The Da Vinci Code, that's his agenda. You don't even have to believe what he believes.

If he can just get you to doubt what he doubts. Then his agenda has been achieved, and Paul says this is sick. It's a, it's a morbid diseased, sick fascination with, with anything that stirs up controversy and battles and doubts in the hearts of people. They proselytize others to their own doubts in the truth of the gospel.

And in the way of godliness, we need to rush on. There's a 6th description that Paul gives of false teachers, and that is that their teaching produces ungodliness in themselves and in others. Look at the lifestyle of those who are teaching you and look at the lifestyles, look at the impact of their teaching on those that follow them. Look what he says, he is conceited and understands nothing but has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words out of which arise.

Here's the product of their teaching, as it manifests itself in their life and in the lives of those they teach, envy, which is, what envy is? It's not coveting. It's, it's being mad at somebody, because they have something you want. It's holding a grudge against a person, because they have something that you want.

So it's selfishness and then strife speaks of of arguments and fights and then abusive language. This is the Greek word we get our English word blasphemy from. And it's not so much speaking of blaspheming God, although it can include that blaspheming the gospel, blaspheming Christ, but it speaks of blaspheming other people, the way that they talk about other people, evil suspicion. speaks of assuming the worst.

It's a paranoia about other people and assuming the worst. About others and their motives. Number 5, or verse 5, and constant friction, speaking of rubbing together, literally is the idea. Constant friction between men of depraved mind.

That word depraved takes the medical metaphor to its highest point. Speaking of someone with a corrupted, a rotting mind, deprived of the truth, what that means? That word deprived indicates that at one point they and their followers possessed some measure of truth, and they're now bereft of the truth they once possessed. To be bereft of something in this sense means you had to have possessed it at one point.

So little by little in small unnoticeable increments. The truth was stolen away from them. They were suffering truth loss, day by day and had no idea that that was happening. And so you take people with rotting, decayed minds who have suffered truth loss, and you put them together.

And social relationship, and there's constant friction. And evil suspicions, abusive language, strife, and envy. it's an ugly list. This is the byproduct of their teaching.

Do you guys, any of you see this photo two weeks ago, the, the ash that was coming out of the volcano in Iceland? How many of you have seen that? It took my breath away, the beauty of, of that. But when I saw the, the plumes coming from the volcano and all the lightnings, I wondered what causes the lightning and heard somebody explaining that right after I was asking myself that question that The ash and the particulates are coming out of the volcano at over 100 miles an hour, and those particulates are rubbing against one another.

The atoms are rubbing against one another so fiercely that it creates static electricity the way we can do if we're rubbing our feet on the carpet. And so these plumes of ash and particulates become so intense with this static electricity that that the lightning is seen like what you see on the picture behind me. but what, I look at that picture, it's like I don't want to be in there. I, I prefer to look at that from a distance, but there's, there's a lot of friction that's going on.

And there it's not a place that you want to be. And it's almost like Paul is saying, being taught by these false teachers and believing what it is that they're saying, and living amongst those that are buying into what they're saying and following them and being indoctrinated by them, being with them is like being right there in the middle of those plumes, constant rubbing, friction, envy, paranoia, abusive language. And strife, that's the product of their teaching. So look at the product if you're trying to determine if someone is a sound teacher or not.

And then lastly, and I'm just going to say this and we'll close, but the last description of a false teacher is that whatever apparent godliness they display is merely a tool for gain, and we'll look at that more when we pick up here the next time they may appear to be godly. But whatever pretense of godliness they have, it's merely a vehicle through which they can gain an audience with you who prize godliness. Through which they get financial gain and even power and influence over others.

God is loving us all, guys, and telling us clearly describing for us who the false teachers are so that we are aware of who they are, so that we know who it is that we should not allow to teach and indoctrinate us.

Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning. We're going to take up an offering we would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to. To give And you can fill out the comment cards and, put those in the offering bags as they go by this morning. But let's, let's just pray together and ask for God's protection upon us.

Lord, I see your love in a passage like this. You want to protect us from falsehood, from false doctrine, from false teaching. There, there is evil out there in the world, and you want to protect us from that. Ideas can kill.

Ideas can destroy. They can ruin and wreck lives. We see that even in the terrorism that plagues our world now, it's, it comes from ideas. Ideas kill and destroy, but ideas can also give life and that's sound doctrine.

Lord, help us to be sharp in understanding who it is that is a sound teacher and those who are not, and that we are careful about those that we allow to have a place of influence in our lives to instruct us in doctrine and in practice. Teach us more, Lord, as we continue through passages like this. We thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you, receive our offerings. At the same time, Lord, we give our hearts to you, and we do so in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said,