Identifying Heretics and Hypocrites

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. Would you please greet one another as they work and come back? There it is. First one. First one. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain. Jesus Christ is born. First one. Shephers kept their watching or silent flocks by night. Behold, throughout the heavens there shown a holy light. Go tell it on the mountain. Over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. The shephers feared and trembled. When low above the earth, rang out the angels forest that held our savior's birth.

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born. Verse three, down in a lonely manger, the humble Christ was born and brought us God's salvation. That blessed Christmas. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain [singing and music] that Jesus Christ is born. Join me in prayer. Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much for your boundless mercy, your grace, the blessings that you continue to bestow upon us. And Lord God, we just thank you so much for that holy light that shines upon all of us.

And Lord, as we spend this time in your house tonight, I just pray that our hearts would be right, our minds would be focused, we'd be attentive to the word, your word, and Lord, that we would be an example to others. And Lord, that your light would reflect off of us. and that Lord we be able to spread your message to this world and and we would be able to reach this world. Dear dear father, we just ask that you would strengthen us in all we do. We ask these things in Jesus holy name. Amen. Amen. As JJ said this morning, this is the last time this year that we'll sing Christmas songs. We'll sing it next year.

If you want to sing it your own time, you can. Otherwise, we just sing it out loud as we sing Joy to the World. Joy to the World, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room. [singing and music] And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and heaven and [singing and music] nature sing. Joy, joy to the earth. The Savior reigns. that men their songs employ while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plain repeat the sounding joy. Repeat the [singing and music] sounding joy. Repeat, repeat the sound. No more than sins and sorrows go, nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make his [singing and music] blessings blow. For as the curse is found, for as the curse [singing and music] is found, for as for as the curse is found. Our last song tonight is Silent Night. Silent Night. Would you sing it out on this last song? Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright. found your virgin mother and child. Holy so tender and mild. Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace. [singing and music] Silent night, holy [singing and music] night. Shephers quake at the side. Glory stream from heaven aar. Heavenly host single. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the [singing and music] Savior is born.

Silent night, holy night, wonderous [singing and music] star, let thy light with the angels [singing and music] let us sing. Hallelu to our king. Christ the Savior is born. Christ the Savior is [singing and music] born. Good singing. May be seated. All right, just a few announcements to make before we get to our message time. And that is first of all that this Saturday we will be having our men's prayer breakfast at 8:00. So want to encourage you men to join us for that. And that'll be our first prayer breakfast of the new year. So just kind of make it a habit of being part of that. And then at 10:00 am, and I think I said two different times, but 10:00 am on Saturday is the cleanup from all the Christmas stuff.

And the more hands the better, folks. Don't leave it to somebody else when you can come and help out with that. And so plan for that on Saturday morning uh to come and help put everything away, get it all all taken care of in that way. And then um we have coming up our missions week. And I want to we want you to put on your calendar there's actually three days in the week we'll be having that Sunday our mission will be speaking all services Sunday school Sunday night Sunday uh morning Sunday night and then on uh Wednesday night we will combine everybody so it'll be no individual Bible studies we'll have them all together on Wednesday night here at the church and then on Friday night uh the missionaries going to be speaking for us is is actually from Missionary Brazil and so we decided to do a Brazilian coffee night and again if you have one of those really fancy fancy coffee makers and you're willing to bring it down and makes and make some special coffees that night as well.

Talk to Pastor Instner uh because he's the addict on the church staff. And then um so that's going to be coming up. Get it on your calendars. Plan to be a part of it. And uh let's let's just really have a good week that week. And then he's going to be here for our Valentine's banquet. And so he'll be speaking there. He has uh he'll be bring his wife and two older daughters and they're gonna uh also lead out on our meal for the Valentine's banquet. We're going to do a Brazilian uh barbecue, you know, the Brazilian steakhouse type thing, you know, like when you go down to the mall to the Texas Brazilian steakhouse there.

Uh and really looking forward to that. What is it? Close. Yeah. Not not the same exact thing, but it's going to be that type of food. And uh they're really excited about it. They really want to put together something special for us. And and so we'll be giving you more information starting next week on that. And you get signed up for that as well. And then um we are looking for uh if you're available to help out on Tuesday or Wednesdays. Is that right? Tuesday and Wednesday. Uh is going to be moving and if you're available to help with doesn't have a lot of stuff but just some back some backs to help out that would be grateful.

You can see him and let him know you're available to help out there in doing that. And then um if you did not get a chance to look uh outside there uh in the welcome center there's some uh read through the Bible plans. There's different ways you can do that. And so some different chronological and just different ways to do it. You can take a look at those things and see um what you might be willing might be interested in doing this year. And then for our uh prayer requests, we want to be praying for the Kllin family with their baby having had just had the surgery. And then also for Frank Bagodo.

Uh some of you might he was here for a while um number of years ago. Oh, is he here tonight? There he is. Frank, good to see you. and um he's here with his two sons that are both in the hospital and and they're from uh Kusray and so it's a lot going on with them and so we want to be a blessing to them as well during their time and so make sure you take time to get to meet him let know you'll be praying for him and if you'd like to give a special offering for either of these families uh you can do that uh put it in the envelope put it in the boxes or uh do it online and mark it for that purpose as well and then praying for the Kates as they get ready to take off here for six months he'll be at school and so pray for them.

We'll miss them, but uh pray that God will just be with them as but they get to go as a family and that's one of the blessings of that. All right, I think that takes care of all the announcements and prayer requests. So, we're going to go ahead and turn our time over to to John and uh go ahead and pastor. I'm trying not to say anything, but I can't hold it in. I love the surfaces. Pastor's up here telling us how great the food's going to be. And then then Mr. Surface is like, "Dial it down, Wayne. Dial it down. coming down. It's not that big. Yeah, we love you guys. Um, would you stand and I'm going to read God's word for our passage tonight.

So, it's 1 Timothy chapter 3, uh, verses 1. First, I'm sorry, second. Thank you. Second Timothy. Thank you, pastor. Second Timothy 3:es 1-9. It says, "This know also that in the last days perilous time shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemeers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truth, truth breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heedy, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but bey but denying the power thereof.

from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women laden with sins led away by divers's lust. Ever learning and never able come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Janice and Jambers withtood Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith, but they shall proceed no farther for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was. Let's pray. Father Lord, um as we come to examine your word here, Lord, we pray that your spirit would be upon me as I speak. That witness truth may come out, but also upon us as a group, Lord, that we may grow in our knowledge of your word, that we may grow in our love for you and our love for one another.

Uh that we would hold high um the truth that you have given us and live it out in your heavenly name. Amen. You can be seated. It was about 10 years ago, I got a phone call from my brother-in-law. He um told me, "John, your company's on the news." And if you don't know, I run an engineering firm. And um I asked him, I said, "Oh." I said, "So, the local news?" He said, "No, the national news. You're on the national news." And I was shocked. How did my company, a little company in Kahalu, wind up on the national news? And uh what it was was there was or the national news was featuring a documentary on a cult.

And uh that that documentary is called Holy Hell. And and that cult used to meet behind my office. My office at the time I was in the same building I'm in now, but we were in a different location down at the far end. And behind our back door, the building kind of joged in and there's this al cove and that area uh opens up to the dialysis company behind us. But but that was where people would come and wait to go into the dialysis and where they would wait to get picked up afterwards and it's a larger area. And for a period of time, this group of people would come and congregate back there uh in the early evenings.

The dialysis center closes about 400 p.m. They'd show up around 6:00 6:30 and and I would see them back there and I would wonder who who are these people? And to be honest, for a while I thought they were a church. And some things kind of started sticking out as I would leave uh in the evenings and I would see them come walking in. And I would greet them and they would rarely greet me and they would would would usually just kind of scurry by and then I would see them congregating there and I noticed well hey they this this group never sings. I've never seen a church group gather and not sing and they never sing.

And they stood there solemnly listening to this one guy as he'd walk up on top of the stairs there and teach them. And what that was was a cult that was meeting back there. And the reason why they had made national headlines is because there was a a guy at the cult that had that had left it but was in charge of videotaping them and had videotaped them while they're meeting there. And so my office is getting all this attention because they're meeting right there behind the the my company sign. But really what that was was that was ult excuse me that was ultimately this man who had uh twisted the truth and and the reason why they were making national news is because that cult was producing a lot of wicked things.

um they had gone to the extent of even uh one of their me members murdering somebody and and so that is what led to that that teaching and ultimately what he was teaching was that he was a god and that his followers were also gods and it was a heresy that he was teaching and Paul as he's reaching out to Timothy in first Timothy and second Timothy Paul is encouraging Timothy to fight against or one of the things he's encouraging him him to do is to fight against to stand against false doctrine we've been hearing about that uh repeatedly since first Timothy as Paul calls on on Timothy to to preach uh and teach the truth, but yet also to avoid fables and and endless genealogies and profane and vain babblings, uh foolishness and unlearned questions.

All things of Paul's day that would have the sound of godliness, but yet uh really weren't truth and and instead they would produce a strife among believers and would even overthrow the faith of some within the church. 2 Timothy 2:1 18. But now as we get into chapter 3, Paul uh moves on and now he's not talking anymore about the doctrine per se as he starts to address those who are actually coming to this this false teaching. And he teaches Timothy on how to address them. And ultimately he's going to tell Timothy uh that that these that he's going to expose are ones that he is not to fight against but simply to avoid.

And so let's look at this as Timothy or as Paul uh writes to Timothy to uh help him understand or to be able to identify those who are the heretics and the hypocrites within the church. In verse one he starts out and he says this know also that in the last days perilous time should come. This is the time that we live in now. Ever since Christ has has come in the in the in the um layout of how God is has has his plan work out, this final stage is is this time that we live in right now. And in 1 Peter 1 20, it says regarding Christ, it says who um who verily was ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times.

And so it's in these last times that we live in because it's after Christ has come. It's in this time that that God tells us there's going to be perilous or difficult times. And yet the reasons for these difficult times are not due to war. They're not due to uncertainty with the economy. They're not due to political conflict. The the difficulty that God is speaking of during this time for us is is is the the issues that come from heretics. the issue that comes from those who believe they are godly and may even look godly at first glance but in reality are far from it. There are those who continue on in the sin but but yet they've infatilated not only society but also the church.

And so Paul through verses 2 through 4 paints a picture of who these people were. And I'm I'm going to go through this list and and define a few of them so we understand it but then explain why Paul has this list. And he starts off there and he says of these people that they are lovers of self and these are the ones who focus on their own desires. They are covetousness. They are covetous. Sorry, which means they love money. They are boasters. They brag about themselves. They're proud. They're they're blasphemers. This caught my attention when I was studying because I often think of blasphemy in in the verb form of of the action of of speaking in a disrespectful way to demean an idea.

But but this is used in the noun. And because it's used in the noun, it's describing a person who is abusive, a person who is demeaning. They're also those who are disobedient and unthankful and unholy. They they have a disregard for what is holy. They are without natural affection, literally meaning that they are unloving. They are truth truth breakers. They're inconcilable. They're those folks that that there's a division among people and they don't want to see that come together and they continue to thrive in that in that division that's there. They they relish in the in the in the breaking of the bonds.

They're irre irreconcilable. They're false accusers, meaning they're slanderers. They're incontent, means they lack self-disipline. They're [snorts] fierce, meaning they're savage. They're despisers of those that are good. They're traitors. They're they're heady or they're headstrong and they're high-minded or puffed up and conceited and they're lovers of pleasure. A horrible list here that Paul lays out in front of us. And Paul doesn't lay this list out to say these are the things that we are to avoid. What he's doing is he's laying out the things saying that that these are the things that are going to identify those who are the hypocrites, those who are the heretics, those who are not preaching the truth because it'll be evident within their lives.

Yet they will have a form of godliness, but in reality they are not godly. They are they are sinners so great that if an unbeliever was to sit down and to read this list, even an unbeliever would say, "Yes, Paul, you're correct. These are wicked people. They are not godly." And in our passage here, we see that that is how they present themselves. That's how they view themselves. And that idea of of godliness can also be translated as piety. And piety has this idea of that that devote or devout commitment to god. And while they have a devout commitment is not to the god it may be a god but not the god and it's to a god of their own making which is deviated from the truth.

It could be a pious commitment to some truth but it's not actually true truth. It's a truth that they've formulated that they uh believe is truth but is not. But yet within this this mindset of that I am in the right. They're pursuing after these wrong ideas creating those difficulties in our time that that Paul speaks of. And we see that so much in our society right now. You guys know as well as I do that that within our society uh things like sexual sin are are celebrated and it's and it's it's described as real love. And we know that if any believer is to stand for for sexual purity, to stand for real love, they're going to actually be blasted as being an unhateful person.

I'm sorry, as an unhateful person, but as a hateful person. And the ones who will be making this claim are are pious people uh that believe they are in the right, that believe they hold the high ground and they they look down on what is true. They practice unrepentant sin believing that they hold the high ground. But this same idea extends into the church. And while we see it in society and we cringe at what we see, Paul's concern isn't for the the society. Paul's concern is for within the church. And so this is actually an aspect that that works its way into the church. And that's Paul's concern.

What what what Paul wants Timothy to be aware of. There will be men and women within the church that preach false doctrine. There will be men and women within the church that that are promoting false ideas amongst the brethren. Ideas that may sound good and be spoken by a person that looks like they have their life together. But Paul says upon further look, if you examine their lives, you will not find holiness. Instead, as he notes, you will find all kinds of sin. The hypocrites within the church, the heretics are identified by the ones who are unwilling to repent. These are the ones who refuse to give up their sin.

These are the ones who who will keep the porn hidden on their computer and go to it later. These are the ones who lead that double life as their second person away from people within the church. And these are the ones that that that continue to divide brothers and sisters who don't want to bring reconciliation between brothers and sisters. They hold grudges and they are they're unloving. Their actions speak against what they teach, what they what they say. And Paul notes here that the reason for this is ultimately because they deny or they reject the power of godliness. Now what does Paul mean by this power of godliness?

Well, in chapter one of uh or verse 7 of chapter 1 of 2 Timothy, Paul uh speaks of it and he says there that for God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of sound mind. And within that that that sentence there, the word spirit could be understood in one of two ways. It could be understood as as the idea that when God has implanted a new heart within a a believer within that implanting of that new heart, there is also this attitude uh where it's not a fear but an attitude of power to live out the Christian life. But but what it could also be understood as is is as a reference to the Holy Spirit.

And and to be honest, I think that's probably what Paul's getting here when he mentions spirit is he's referencing the Holy Spirit because in Ephesians 1 verse [snorts] 17, he he has a similar statement and in the context there it's clear that he's speaking of the Holy Spirit even though he only says spirit. But either way, to be honest, it doesn't doesn't really matter for the sake of the discussion here. But but either way, the power of godliness is then that inward desire that enables a believer to seek to put off sin and to seek after holiness. That then becomes the definition for the believer.

That then defines the believer. Titus chapter 2:14 says this, "Who gave himself for us," speaking of Christ, "that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." Our Lord Jesus has redeemed us from iniquity for the purpose of purifying us now, so that now we are zealous for good works. The evidence of the salvation that we have is the purification, the desire to be pure and the desire for the good works. Hebrews 12:14, similar idea. It says, "Follow peace with all men and holiness without which without which no man shall see the Lord." The writer of Hebrews notes that no man will see the Lord without holiness.

For the believer, there's there's salvation. There's salvation in Christ. We don't want to get that wrong. That is always the pathway to salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. But within that comes a new heart. And that new heart has the desire to follow after the Lord their Lord and Savior. The one who doesn't follow after the Lord and Savior, there's questions about that faith. JC Riyle makes an interesting comment. I've been reading a book on his about holiness and and and and I won't quote him. I'll just paraphrase him, but JC Wild makes an interesting observation and he says, you know what? Is the Christian really prepared for heaven who is not pursuing holiness?

Because when you go to heaven, that's all there is. It's holy. It's pure. It's right. There's justice. There's righteousness. It's all there. And if that doesn't intrigue us now, and that's not a desire of our hearts now, have our hearts really been set to be able to be at home within heaven. You see, the believer is to live seeking righteously. It's and and that's an aspect that should come out of the salvation that he has within his heart. And then it becomes the testimony of their faith. And it's a testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit working within them. And Paul notes that this is lacking with the heretic.

With the heretic, he he says that the Lord Jesus is his Lord, but he refuses to bow to his will. And he continues in his unrepentant sin. Christ spoke about this in Matthew 7. Let me read you Matthew 7:es 21-23. It says, ' Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. And then I profess unto and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you.

Depart from me. And here's the reason why. you worker of iniquity. The heretic, the hypocrite will stand behind a pulpit and they will preach. They'll go into the mission field. They'll pass out tracks. But because they continue to work iniquity, they're not actually of the Lord's. And I'm not talking about sin that we fall into. We all fall into sin. And there's the aspect John talks about that in first John, how we fall out of the light into darkness, but then we're forgiven and we come back into the light. And that's that normal pattern pattern of sanctification for a believer. What I'm speaking of is the willful hanging on to sin, the refusal to follow the Lord.

And remember that the word Lord that's being translated to us out of the Greek, Lord is master. Lord is owner. And if we should look at our owner and say, "No, I'm not going to do as you told told me. Is he really our owner? Is he really our Lord?" Right? And so the heretic does not do this. He turns away from the Lord. Even though he may look like he's God, even though there may look like there's a form of godliness, the reality is because he's turned and he's not following after the Lord. He's not following the Lord's will. He's he's hanging on to sin when nobody's looking. He's showing himself or herself as a heretic, as a hypocrite.

And so, how does the church respond to this? How do we respond to this? How do we respond to those that that will will present themselves as godly, but yet in their life, there's that continued hanging on to unrepentant sin? Well, in the context here, I think Paul is already assuming that Timothy has gone to correct these men and these women. The reason I believe that is because he's called Timothy to do that in first Timothy. And then in the previous section before this, he's speaking of of how Timothy is is is to correct. And so I suspect that that this command that he's going to go to give to Timothy comes after that correction aspect because that aligns also what Christ taught in Matthew 18.

But what he tells him to do is he tells them to to to shun them, to move away from them. You know, and sometimes we might think this is a mean thing to do. We see somebody who's who's proclaiming a wrong idea and they're encouraging people in the church in the wrong direction. We see they got unrepentant sin in their life and we think, well, let's just keep loving on that person and maybe they'll come around. That's not what God tells us to do, though. And I believe there's a reason for that because I believe what what what happens is when we do that, we continue to give that person who's the heretic or the hypocrite within the church an audience.

We continue to allow them to have influence. And yet God's command in shunning them is the fact that we actually take away their influence by doing that. By pulling back it doesn't allow them to have an audience anymore. God wants to Paul and through Paul teaching to us as well. The desire that that God has for believers is that that we are to be teaching and preaching and proclaiming God's word and then living it out, modeling it uh to the world. And that is the most effective place that we can be. And if we if we move away from that to go and and put all our energy in in in trying to rescue a heretic or try to argue against a heretic who's already been corrected, we're pulling ourselves away from where we're most effective, proclaiming God's word and and and living it out through example.

I want to talk a little bit how we can apply this. Now, and the first thing I want to talk to is probably self-evident, and that is that is that we should not get into online battles with those who are spreading false doctrine. Like I said, there is that corrective aspect where we seek to correct, but do we continue in that hostile environment of fighting against them, typing away, doing battle online? Uh, no. That's not the command. Because what that does is that continues to give them an audience. often people will be even be drawn to that to watch to see what's going to come out of it and becomes an entertainment for others and basically it's taking the attention off of the truth.

That's not where where we are to be. We're to avoid that. But we also need to pay attention also to who we're listening to when it comes to preaching and teaching. And we need to pay attention to who are the authors that we read. And let me say this first before I I I get to my point that I want to say. I want to want to just note that I'm a huge advocate of finding uh good teaching and good preaching and good books. And when I say good books, I mean good books on doctrine and I mean good books on commentaries or good commentaries. And I know doctrines are hard to read. The the testimonies are so much easier to read.

The story outlines are so much easier to read. But but I'll tell you this. While those have a place definitely have a place to study the doctrines of our the truths of our Lord, if you're saved and you have the Holy Spirit in you, that will lift you up far more than listening or reading about somebody's testimony. Because a testimony will affect you and encourage you and enlighten or or build you up. But but knowing the truth about who your God is will just stick with you and it'll have it'll be something that you have with you to go through life with. That's a huge benefit to have. And and to be honest, same with commentaries.

To be honest, I never quite understood the the reason why some folks speak against those. Good commentaries are come from men that are smarter than we are and have the opportunity to spend more time in the passage than we have. And basically, it's like coming to to listening to good teaching and a good pastor, but but one who can spread it out through much deeper in a much longer period of time because it's in a book. And so, I want to encourage that. But but but what I also want to do is is put a warning out there because the ones that we go to, we need to examine them to make sure that that in their lives they are ones who are are are not heretics or hypocrites and are living righteously are pursuing after holiness.

And when it comes to the written media, that's that's easier to do. Uh but when it comes to online, not so much. And I want to talk about online a little bit. getting stuff from online because when it comes to getting stuff online, it's often difficult to know who exactly is righteous that we're listening to and who isn't. Because they can put on a fantastic presence and they can put on great backgrounds and they can sound fantastic and they can really draw us in through entertainment, but the reality is, are they living righteously? Are they pursuing after godliness or is this one who has gone astray?

And one way that you can you can help filter through your online um learning is to look for those who are connected to the church. I've been impressed as I continue to study God's word more and more about how God uh set up the church and how that is his body. Our Lord Jesus is head of the church and then everything flows out from under that. uh uh he sets up deacons and and and and other church leaders uh to to look over the church and those are his servants that that look over the church and and and then out of that comes everything else and and there's a great um checks and balance system that's within that because you have the Lord Jesus the the head which is the truth and then the the ministers the leaders that he has underneath there to to govern the church who are also interested in truth uh with a body of believers who are interested in truth.

So when a preacher should come up and should they start speaking uh heresy, should they start talking uh something that's wrong, other people are going to say something, other deacons are going to stand up and say, "Hey brother, I think you got that a little off." Other people in the church are going to stand up and say, "Hey, I think that's a little off." And they're going to bring it up. And it's a good thing. It's a checks and balances. And what happens even sometimes is somebody will say, "Oh, I think you got that wrong." And then you get to sit down and talk about it. and the one who who brought the the accusation in a sense uh comes to realize that oh I had the wrong view and it's this

wonderful checks and balance system that goes on but but when you take it out of the church and and and it's not um it doesn't have the accountability to the church anymore even if a person has good intentions online if they haven't had that connection with the church they don't have that safety system anymore and even with good intentions we error even with good intentions, we get messed up. And what happens online too many times is somebody will get get tripped up on something. And I don't have time to get into it, but we had somebody I don't know if you've been paying attention to some of this stuff a couple weeks ago.

There was an actor that did this recently. Um, can I go late? Kirk Cameron, I don't know if you guys recognize that name and heard what came on. He came and made some some statements about hell that were that were wrong. and he got an audience because he's Kirk Cameron, because he's a because he's an actor. Now, by the way, when Pearl and I first came to faith, the church that we started going to is the same church that he started going to when he came to faith. He's a solid brother. He messed up, but realize he's a solid brother. Okay? Um we can testify to that. But but yeah, but he got attention.

Why did he get attention? Simply because he's an actor, you know. you know, and so we want to we want to come to our our online learning uh listening to those that we know are qualified, those who that we know are accountable to the church. Personally, the way I handle that is I listen to uh only pastors or or those that are teachers within groups like seminaries and things like that. And the reality is, if that's the standard you want to follow as well too, there's a wealth of teaching online that you can listen to. And if you're into blogs, the same thing. There's plenty of pastors that operate blogs.

In fact, Pastor Enner operates a blog, too. And so, look for those who are connected to the church, those who are accountable to people within the church. And then the second thing I want to note out of this passage is that or this portion of this passage is is how Paul frames the sins because I think this will be helpful for us. Look at verse two, the first part of verse two as he starts his list. He says that that for men shall be lovers of their own selves. And then in um second part of verse four, he ends the list by saying that they'll be lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. You got love at the beginning, you got love at the end of the list.

And what Paul is doing is he's following a common uh literary technique that the ancients would use and it's a bracketing idea. And what he does is he he brackets that list with his main idea that he wants us to catch. The reason for these sins that these heretics and hypocrites were falling into ultimately come from the fact that that they have replaced a love of God with a love of themselves and a love of their own pleasures. Our Lord Jesus Christ when they asked him what was the greatest of the commands in Matthew 22:37 said this. He said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind."

the heretics and the hypocrites, they fail this and they they turn their love in onto themselves and in onto their own desires. And in this, I believe there's a warning for us because that statement that you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Can you honestly say that you follow that? I can't. Can you honestly say that every day in all events that is how your mind, your body and your soul operates? You can't. Can you realize this that none of us is immune from the temptation to fall into hypocris hypocrisy. None of us is immune from becoming a heretic.

All of us carry the same flaw. What protects us then is the power of godliness. What protects us is the Holy Spirit within us, convicting us of sin and then us not grieving the Holy Spirit and not responding to that, but instead responding to that and repenting of the sin and turning from it. And then not only turning from the sin, but also pursuing after godliness, pursuing after righteousness. This is what protects us within our weakness. Paul continues on to continue to describe the heretics in the rest of these verses, and I'll be be brief so we can finish up. But he describes them as in a dishonorable way, saying that that those who are this way, they creep into houses and they go after after silly women.

Literally, that what that means is little women. It's a old English translation. And I'm sure that's why we get the idea si. It actually means means weak weak women. But but the term they're being used is speaking of of women that are reason why they're they're weak is because they're laden down with sins and they're led away with diverous lust or varying kinds of lust, varying kind of desires or passions, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. these these weak women in this condition are learning, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And basically the picture that we're getting uh in Paul's day is a woman of wealth, a woman of opportunity because the average woman in Paul's day wouldn't even have been educated and she wouldn't have the opportunity to be educated.

Uh Paul actually tells Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 2 uh verse 11 to let the women learn. it wasn't part of their culture to to want to uh the Roman culture to want to educate women, but but but women to be educated. So, speaking of the women that can continue to seek after knowledge speaks of a of a wealthy woman who is educated and and when we see this in our English of a silly woman, often we think of this woman that has no, you know, she's got she has no sense and she's just easily swayed. But that's not the idea. This is a woman that has some some position within this culture and and has some understanding already because of her education and is seeking greater and greater knowledge.

Now, I mentioned the cult that used to me meet behind my office. One of the things that caught my attention with that cult early on was the women that came to the cult. There was quite a number of women there. I was trying to remember if it was more women than men. I think it probably was, but I can't say that for sure. But they caught my attention because if you guys know where my office is, we're Temple Valley, but basically we're the first retail center that you get to out of Kahalu. And we're kind of more Cahaloo and in style than Temple Valley. And and Kahalu, that's that's home for me. I love Kahalu.

We've been there a long time. Um but Kahalu is not known for professional women. It's not known for highly educated folks. We're people of the land over there. Um and and that's a good thing, but but that's what Cahaloo is. [snorts] And so what stuck out was when the women showed up. Because the women that showed up, they showed up in fine cars. They showed up well-dressed. They were clearly professional women, very likely educated, and yet pulled into this incredibly wicked cult. A cult so wicked that it winds up on the national news. You see, for some reason, well, I I think I understand, but there is a reason that that women are susceptible to this kind of issue.

And I think it comes from the fall when women when Adam and Eve fell in Genesis chapter 3, there's the curse that's put upon them from the Lord because of their sin. And to the woman, God says that her desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. The woman naturally in her fallenness wants to desire for the position of man. The position position that the man man has or has been given. And I think what happens is the heretics come in and they pick up on this weakness and they pray on it with women. And that's why women have a tendency to fall quicker than men in this area. Men men fall in other areas.

And we see this within the church today because within the church today, we have those that will come in and tell ladies, "Hey, you know what? You're a good preacher. you're teaching the women really good, you need to be the main preacher of the church. And they promote women preachers. And what you notice is every time you have a woman preacher, almost always when you look into their into their their church, what develops is other heresies often around sexual sin. And basically, it's one heresy that leads to another heresy. And it came because uh men would promote the idea that yes, she should be in that lead pastor position, but that's not where she needs to be.

And the result is that there is a failure. And so Paul calls for us to turn away from the heretics, to turn away from the hypocrites. Now turning away from them may may seem a little hard at first. I can imagine Timothy and reading this and hearing this for the first time thinking, "Holy smokes, Paul, I want to stop these people from turning or from attacking the women within my church and turning them away. I want to protect the women in my church." I could picture that being his heart. But Paul goes to goes on to show Timothy that that you know leave it to the Lord and just stay faithful to what you have because history has shown that they will not ultimately win.

And in verse 8 and N he says uh now as he gives the example in verses 8-9 he says now as Janus and Jambrias were Moses so did these also resist the truth men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith. Janice and Jamre. You're not going to find those names in your Bibles, but but over time those names came to came to represent the magicians that were in Pharaoh's court when Moses came uh to confront Pharaoh to get the people to leave Egypt. And if you guys are you guys remember the story, they Moses originally comes into the court of Pharaoh and he he does miracles and the magicians there, they copy what Moses is doing.

And in copying him, they're able to keep the people from leaving and they and they deceive Pharaoh. But Moses, for his part, he remains faithful. He continues to do as he's told, working out how God has called him to to work. And over time, it comes to be that those magicians can no longer copy what what Moses is doing. And not only can they no longer copy it, they start suffering from the same plagues as well. And so the command here is to trust what God has given us to do to live in the manner that we've been called to live even in the face of the heretics even in the face of the hypocrites. Because if there's no correction and they continue on ultimately they will be like Janice and Jimre who will who will suffer in the same way because ultimately they have no power.

The power belongs to those who have the who are following after the the the desire for gogden in us because it's the spirit that's working in us bringing about that power. Let me close in prayer. Father Lord we thank you for your word. We thank you for um the truth that is in here. Lord had to finish up quickly for sake of time. But just to reiterate as you know that if we will remain faithful even in the midst of opposition, Lord, you will work to build your church. You will rescue your people. You will redeem your people. You will grow your people. Father, may we be conscious of our own weakness.

and way may we seek after purity and may we seek after the true word of God and proclaim it. I pray this Father in your heavenly name. Amen. If you're new, which I don't think I see any new faces, but if there is, what we do afterwards is we break apart into discussion groups. And if I could ask the discussion groups to to stand so everybody could see where you're at. We have two. It's all Zeke. So, we got three. Pastor, could you leave one more? I think we're going to need a fourth one. So, pastor will be up in front. We got three other groups. Go ahead and break up on one of those guys. They have questions uh to kind of discuss this a little bit further. And we'll go till 7 o'clock and we'll break at 7 o'clock. If you have to leave, no problem. Go ahead and take off and we'll see you next week.