Title: The Demonic Deception of False Piety
Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:1-5
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
But we understand that when a person becomes a Christian, they're not doing so by living a good life or going to church. These things come by way of believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ, by believing the gospel. The Bible teaches that all of humanity is condemned because of our sinful transgression against God's law.
But the way of salvation does not come by law keeping, by trying to go and keep the law that we have broken. Rather, it comes through Christ satisfying the righteous requirement of the law on our behalf, effectively paying for our sins and then Christ earning forgiveness for us, whereby God declares us to be righteous in Christ. That's what justified means, declared righteous in God's sight.
And so we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of the law. Furthermore, Galatians chapter three tells us that not only are we not justified and saved by works, we're also not sanctified by works of the law either. In fact, Galatians 3.3, Paul argues, he says to the Galatians who were trying to do so, he says, Are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? The answer is no.
He continues in verse five. Does he then who provides you with the spirit and works miracles among you, does he do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? And the answer to that is by faith. So the big idea is that once saved, Christians are meant to grow and endure to the end.
We grow by the power of the spirit, renewing our minds through the ministry of the word of God and prayer. And yet we know that it's possible for those who profess to be believers. It's possible for those individuals to even hijack their own spiritual growth by means of a false piety, a false sanctification.
But this kind of false piety, it can derail a person to the point where they no longer endure to the end and inevitably fall away. So because of this danger, Scripture warns us to keep ourselves in the right place by believing the right things, by engaging in the right behaviors, by focusing on the things that we're supposed to be focusing on. Otherwise, we run the risk of being led away through demonic deception.
And this was an earnest concern for the Apostle Paul, as we're going to see in First Timothy, chapter four. And so if you haven't already turned there to this morning's text, I would invite you to join me in First Timothy, chapter four. At the beginning of this first letter to Timothy, Paul warns the church of Ephesus as well as her pastor.
He warns about the dangers of certain men teaching strange doctrines. That's chapter one, verse three. He warns against the church being caught up in myths and genealogies and speculations and even superstition.
Instead, he adds, he says, the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. And then he warns, he says, for some men straying from these things have turned aside to fruitless discussion. They want to be teachers of the law, even though they don't understand either what they're saying or the matters by which they make confident assertion.
There's a lot of chatter, he says, but nothing of truthfulness, nothing of substance, nothing that's real. Chapter one, verse 18, he calls on the Christian soldier, he says, to fight the good fight of faith, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Again, Paul's great concern is that the church remains steadfast in the faith, steadfast in love and steadfast in conscience.
And not to wander away from the Lord. And then after two solid chapters of exhortations to the church, he returns then in chapter four to these pressing concerns over apostasy. And so we're seeing here that it's more of a maybe a parenthesis, these two meaty chapters about church life and church worship and then leadership and truth and all these different things.
But he goes right back to the original concern here about issues of doctrine and issues of falling away and being led away into error. And he says at the beginning of chapter four here, 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 the branding iron men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude, for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.
And so on the heels of testifying to the truth of the greatness of Christ, which Paul calls the mystery of godliness, Paul makes reference here to the spirit's ministry, his prophetic ministry, and he notes here at the beginning of verse one, he says, but the spirit explicitly says that in later times, some will fall away from the faith. Of course, we know that it is the spirit who inspires the word of God and spoke through the prophets and the apostles. But here he's speaking about a future apostasy.
In fact, this is perhaps the key phrase of the entire paragraph here. It's Paul's main argument that there is a problem here that some professing believers now we want to make a very clear delineation. If you are genuine as a believer, if your heart has been regenerated, if you really truly in Christ, you will not fall away.
But we're always encouraged and told and warned to examine our faith. To make sure that we belong in Christ, that we belong to him, that we really do love him. And so there's always a warning against those who profess faith.
But maybe there is no genuine faith. But he says here that professing believers, some people will fall away. There's a Greek word that's used here, a fist, you might, which refers to a departing, a leaving or a withdrawing, even abandoning or revolting.
Again, not that they have somehow just slipped between the cracks or just fell away accidentally, but they willfully and deliberately turned away from the truth. This is a deliberate falling away. Hebrews 3.12 warns about this, warns individuals.
He says, take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart in falling away from the living God. Elsewhere in Luke 8.13, Jesus speaks about the parable of the soils, whereby he notes that those who are on rocky soil, when they hear the word, they receive it with great joy. But then he says these have no firm root.
They believe for a while, but in times of temptation, they fall away. So this is a repeated theme. Again, a turning away from God and from his truth.
Of course, when this happens, even though we're prepared and warned about it ahead of time, but when it happens, it's always startling. When a person is running well and then turns away, and they deny the truth that they once professed. It happens, unfortunately, all the time.
It's even happened in our midst before as well. People who were here with us, and then at a certain point they went out from us, as John would say, because they were not of us. Now, we don't know in the grand scheme of the course of history if God will restore them back, if they have simply fallen off the path, if you will, and they will be restored.
We certainly always pray for people who have fallen away to be restored. But the reality is that there are those who will fall away and never be restored, because they were not actually in the faith to begin with. Jesus warns about this in Matthew 7, when he says, many in the last days will say to me, Lord, Lord, and you'll say, depart from me, I never knew you.
This is a sad reality. But Paul says here that the Spirit explicitly says that this will happen. Why does he say it this way? Why does the apostle Paul tell us that the Spirit is telling us this? Because we're not to be surprised.
Don't be surprised when it happens. Understand that it happens. But also, he's telling us this because he wants us to guard against it, to be careful.
And then we ask the question, well, when does this happen? Well, in truth, it's always been happening. It's been happening all along. Even in terms of Jesus' own ministry, Judas was walking with the disciples, and then he fell away because he was not truly of them.
We think about Demas, a man who was in life of the apostle Paul. Demas fell away. The disciples in John 6, verse 66, fell away.
Here, Paul is referencing a time in the future. He says, in the later times when this will happen. When we read that kind of a phrase, latter times or later times, we tend to think that the last days are somehow, they're this future apocalyptic event.
We say, oh, in the last days, as though it's like the stuff of those apocalyptic movies where everything's falling apart and everything's happening. But in reality, we've actually been living in the last days, the later days, ever since Christ ascended back into heaven. This period of time in the course of world history, these are the last days.
How do we know? Well, we know this because the next prophetic event in the timeline of the course of history is the return of Christ at the end. That's the next thing we're waiting for, is for him to come back, bring judgment, and reconcile all things to himself. So, beloved, we are in the last days.
2 Timothy 3, verse 1 says, Realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. That includes apostasy, heightened apostasy, that does include falling away. But then we ask the question of the text here, when and how did the Spirit explicitly say this? We don't know, actually, if Paul is referencing the Holy Spirit's present influence in his own thinking as he's writing and speaking about this event, because we understand the Spirit was working through the writers of Scripture to inspire their words and bring about the authoritative word of God.
But we do know that there's Old Testament prophecies and predictions about future apostasy. If you're taking notes, Daniel 7.25 is one example. Daniel 8.23 is another example, just Old Testament examples of a future falling away.
But Jesus himself warned about apostasy in the last days, Matthew 24.10. He said, at that time, he's talking about those final days, at that time, he says, Many will fall away. Many will fall away and deliver up one another and hate one another. And yet, many scholars believe that it's possible that Paul is referencing his own Spirit-inspired prophetic warning to the Ephesian church several years before, when he departed from them.
Now, he's writing this letter to the same church many, many years later, but there was a time when he was there for three years ministering. As he's about ready to leave, he's exhorting the elders of the Ephesian church and he tells them in Acts 20.29, he says, I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in, he says, and not spare the flock, and from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things and draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be on the alert, remembering that day and night for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.
Paul says, I've been warning you for three years this is gonna happen, and so when it happens, don't be surprised. And frankly, every church should make that kind of a warning as well. It's gonna happen even here.
There will be times when certain people will rise up and try to pull other believers away with them. That's how church splits happen, and divisions, and false movements, and even cultish movements. People who rise up from within their midst, nobody comes in the front door and says, hi, I'm a false teacher, I wanna hurt you today.
They never do it. They always sit down, make their self comfortable, and then as they're in, they begin to sort of get some wiggle room, and then they rise up, and they begin to speak perverse things, teach perverse things, tell their friends perverse things, and try to lead them into their errors. I suspect it even happens on some level perhaps now.
I don't know exactly all of what's said all the time with every single conversation, but the scriptures warn about this very thing. There's always a warning for us. We have to be careful.
Again, it's not a matter of if people fall away, it's a matter of when. But the next question we have to consider is, well, how do they fall away? What makes a person do such a thing? Well, the second half of 1 Timothy 4.1, Paul tells us that it happens by way of those people who fall away. They pay attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.
Ever since the beginning, Satan, when he tempted Eve into sinning, we've seen him for what he is. He's a liar, he's a deceiver. Even from the very beginning.
Of course, he doesn't present himself that way. 2 Corinthians 11.14 notes that even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, Paul continues in the same verse, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
Again, they're gonna look like believers. They're gonna look very pious. They're gonna look very spiritual.
And that's what Paul's referring to in chapter four, verse one here. They're servants of Satan, specifically demonic spirits. Demons is what we're talking about here.
He calls them deceitful spirits. The Greek word he's using here is planos, which refers to a wandering body. It's where we get the word planet from, which is considered, if you think about space, a wandering body out in space somewhere, a planet.
But that's the idea, a wandering body. A spirit who causes someone to wander. Some translations even render this phrase seducing spirits.
Seducing spirits, these are deceitful, seducing spiritual demons who have their own body of lies. What is this body of lies called? Well, Paul calls it the doctrine of demons. Doctrine or teaching that is anti-God, anti-truth, pro-sin, pro-death.
That's the sum of it, really. It's everything against the word of God, against his truth, against his people, and always leaning toward lies and sin and ultimately death. And these demons do exactly what their elder brother Satan has always done.
They lie in wait to deceive and destroy believers. I don't wanna make you paranoid here, but we have demonic forces constantly waging war against us, trying to lead us away from the Lord. If you don't feel that tug, wake up.
I feel it all the time, all the time, and it comes in many different channels and many different forms. Paul says that professing believers, those who, again, profess to be Christians, they will fall away when they begin to literally pay attention to demonic lies. Another word for this translation of paying attention to or being led away to is follow or devote themselves, but not just to demons.
It's not just demonic spirits. Paul also notes in verse two that this apostasy also comes by means of the hypocrisy of liars. Liars, some render this hypocritical liars, human teachers and influencers, people whose consciences have become seared as with a branding iron, who imbibe the truth, the doctrine of demons, not truth, doctrine of demons, and disseminate it to unsuspecting people.
And Jesus refers to people like this in the last days. He talks about in Matthew 24, 24, false Christs and false prophets who intend to mislead, if possible, even the elect. Again, individuals who will rise up, not just demons and spiritual beings, but humans, people who will rise up and try to lead people astray.
Paul says they're hypocritical liars. They say one thing, which is also not true. They say the one thing, but then they live something else.
They wanna saddle the church with unbearable commands that they don't hold to themselves. That was what the Pharisees did, by the way. And they're able to do so because they have seared their own conscience.
They've seared their own conscience. Paul uses a word in the Greek here that's frankly too long for me to pronounce in the moment here, but the root of that long word is kateridzo, which is cauterize. That's where we get the word cauterize.
It's literally when you take a hot branding iron and you sear the flesh until it burns and kills the nerves. That's what cauterization is. But in doing so, it deadens all sensitivity.
It creates a callous. And Paul says that that's what they do to their conscience to the point where they can't even discern right from wrong anymore. See, when you continue to lie to yourself and sin against your own conscience, it eventually stops working.
That's the danger. And I tell you, it happens with believers too because we talk so much about the gospel. We say, oh, there's forgiveness for sin.
There's grace, there's grace, there's grace. And there is grace. You cannot out-sin the grace of God, but the danger comes is when you actually try to do that.
And you sin in such a way and you say, well, I can always ask for forgiveness later. There's always grace and mercy for me. And you deliberately sin against your own conscience and you lie to yourself and you become fleshly in your thinking and in your behavior to the point where you know what happens? Your sensitivity to the things of the spirit begins to weaken and deaden.
And now you don't even think about it anymore. You're just thinking and doing these things and saying these things and your conscience is becoming seared and you don't even realize it. And when that happens, that's how you're able to do wicked things without batting an eye.
When you hear the news stories about people who do atrocious things and you think to yourself, who could do such a thing? Egregious, terrible things, what kind of person does that? A person who's been searing their own conscience for years. It starts off small and it grows to the point where it's like the frog in boiling water to a certain point, you have no conscience left and you can do whatever you want, doesn't even bother you anymore. That's the danger.
That's why Paul warned the Ephesians repeatedly to keep good conscience, chapter one, verse five. To keep a clear conscience, 1 Timothy 3, nine. There's so much about conscience, believers.
To make sure you're nurturing and keeping sensitive your conscience. What are these hypocritical liars deceiving people into doing? How are they getting people to be led astray? Well, it's out of these doctrines of demons that exist. Paul actually cites only two.
Now, these aren't the only two things that are demonic out there. There's a lot of teaching, a lot of doctrine that demons possess and teach and try to lead us into. But Paul cites only two examples here.
And these are examples that were most likely prevalent or maybe they were being talked about a lot in the Ephesian church or even just in Ephesus as a culture. But he singles out two things here that are doctrines of demons. And he says, these men, these hypocritical liars who were being dissuaded and led away by demons, these men were forbidding marriage and advocating the abstaining from foods, verse three.
Now, this needs a little bit of qualification here. What are we talking about? When we talk about marriage here, Paul is not setting up a dichotomy, sort of these polar opposite here. He's not saying that marriage is good and singleness is evil.
That's not what he's saying at all. I wanna be very clear about that. Paul himself was single.
Jesus was single. Lots of believers don't get married. In fact, Paul lays out the benefits of singleness in 1 Corinthians chapter seven.
Specifically, he notes the ability to be completely undistracted for the purpose of ministry. Again, this is not a requirement for believers. It's only a preference.
You're not required to get married. If you want to be single and serve the Lord, you're allowed to do that. But this is the specific case, an issue of telling people, telling believers that they are forbidden to marry.
They have a desire for marriage, but then someone comes along and tells them they are not to do that. You are not to be married. Well, who would do such a thing? Well, there's lots of questions about who would have been teaching these things, and there are several historical movements that have taught something like this.
Some have looked in history and pointed to early Gnostic cults in the first and second century that viewed the body as evil and the spirit as good, which led them to very extreme measures and harsh treatment of their bodies. However, this trend usually leaded them more towards sexual promiscuity than restraint, and that's something that's really more embraced today. We live in a very promiscuous culture.
That's a Gnostic belief. That's a demonic belief, that I can just do whatever I want with my body. It doesn't matter.
But there's another idea about maybe what this is talking about. There was an early movement of the Jewish Essenes. The Essenes were a very devoted group within the nation of Israel.
The Essenes were more of a monastic group. They were kind of like monks, and they practiced celibacy, and they considered that to be a spiritual benefit or a boon. They thought that keeping yourself celibate and pure and never engaging in anything that God has pronounced for pleasure, that that was a spiritual bonus, that was a good thing.
They saw such extreme self-denial as a mark of piety and devotion toward God. Incidentally, the Roman Catholic Church followed this trend by viewing celibacy as piety and then insisting that all their priests are forbidden to marry. It's actually a cruel thing to do when a person has a desire to engage in marital relations, and you have a desire in your body that you want to express those things to tell a person you can't do that ever.
That's harmful to them. It's wrong. The Bible teaches that God created marriage for the purpose of companionship, for procreation, and for pleasure.
God is not stingy toward us. God desires that we would be engaging in these kinds of things in the right way. There's a right way to do this.
God blessed marriage in Genesis 1.28. He ordained it as a unique one-flesh union, Genesis 2.24. He even sees it as a beautiful picture of the mysterious union between Christ and the church, Ephesians 5. So marriage is wonderful. Hebrews 13.4 says that marriage ought to be held in honor among all. Held in honor among all.
There's a reason why we value marriage. There's a reason why when culture rails against it and tries to change the definition and try to pervert marriage that we say something. Because the Bible commands us to hold marriage in a high regard and hold it in an honorable way.
We love marriage. But to tell a person they can't get married, or to tell them that singleness is more holy or more pious, and to derail them in such a way, the Bible says that's actually demonic. It's demonic to do that.
What about food? That's marriage. What about this prohibition against food? Again, to clarify, he's not talking about abstaining from food in terms of fasting. Fasting is a spiritual practice.
It's a discipline. Fasting exists for the purpose of self-denial. In order to discipline the body, in order to learn to trust in God.
When you fast, and again, there's ways, I think, to do it that are responsible, but when you engage in fasting, you start to get hungry and you begin to sense your need for the mercy and grace of God. You feel those hunger pains and you realize, wow, without food, I can't survive. Without God, I can't survive even spiritually or even anything in my life.
So there's a spiritual benefit of fasting. Jesus actually regulates this in Matthew 6, 16 through 18. He gives warnings about not fasting for the sake of piety outwardly.
Don't fast and have everybody, don't walk around and say, oh, I'm so hungry because I'm fasting this week. Don't do that. Jesus says that's the wrong motive.
Of course, God never advocates for abusing our body or bragging about your spiritual disciplines. Again, all of this must be done responsibly unto the Lord. But Paul's not addressing that right now.
That's not his concern. Rather, Paul is addressing a very different issue, namely the required adherence to Old Testament food laws. That's what he's talking about.
Now, just to back up here, in Leviticus 11, so we're talking about the law, the Old Testament law, the Mosaic law. In Leviticus 11, God enacted purification laws regarding food, namely that there were some animals that were considered to be clean and others that were regarded to be unclean, and the ones that were unclean ritualistically, spiritually, were not to be eaten. Just to give some examples, camels, rodents, rabbits, pigs, shellfish, eagles, ravens, a whole wide variety of insects.
There were lots of animals that they were forbidden from eating because they were deemed to be unclean spiritually. Now, to be very clear about that, it is not because those creatures were inherently evil, but rather God was teaching them about this principle of holiness, of separating yourself, and he was doing so through various different other means as well. Separating from false religion, separating from unbelievers who would lead you away from God, separating from certain practices, separating from foods and other kinds of things, even garments.
The whole law was designed to teach them about the holiness of God and the practice of keeping separation to be consecrated to the Lord. Again, not because they were inherently evil, because God was trying to teach them about uncleanness and profaneness. But then you fast forward to the time of Jesus.
Jesus in Mark 7, the Pharisees, they asked Jesus why he didn't follow the tradition of the elders, why he didn't observe the purification rituals for eating food, and Jesus told them in Mark 7, 15, there is nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him. This is super important. But the things which proceed out of the man are what defile him.
It's not what you eat or what you touch that defiles you spiritually. That's a principle even for today. Nothing you eat, nothing you touch, nobody that you're around will inherently defile you.
And then he says in verse 18, are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him? Why? Because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated. The issue is not the thing. And then Mark adds a comment to that in verse 19 of Mark 7. He adds a textual comment, a theological comment, and he says, thus he, Jesus, thus he declared all foods clean.
Jesus is saying in that very moment, everything you can eat or touch is clean. It's clean. It was the end of Old Testament food law observance.
Why? Well, because Christ had come to fulfill the law. Everything would be fulfilled in him. This is further illustrated, if you were to fast forward in your mind and your Bible, to Acts chapter 10, when Peter beholds the vision of a sheep coming down from heaven, and then resting on that sheep is a whole bunch of animals, clean and unclean.
It was like a topography of the top of Noah's Ark. It was all these animals coming down on the sheep, and he hears this voice bellowing from heaven, arise, Peter, kill and eat. Kill and eat.
And then Peter reacts sort of in his typical Jewish way. He says, oh, no, Lord. He says, I've never eaten anything unholy or unclean.
To which the Lord replies to him in Acts 10, 15, what God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy. Peter, nothing is unholy in terms of food, nothing. Of course, we know that the key function of this vision was to motivate Peter to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, because the food, remember, it was symbolizing, it was teaching them about separation and holiness and purity.
They were separated not just from food and things, but also people. But now the walls are coming down, and God is telling Peter, go to the Gentiles. We're not considering them to be unclean.
Their behaviors are unclean. Yes, they're sinful, but I want you to go to them and minister the gospel to them. That's where he goes.
But along with that, he's also teaching them about the blessings of the new covenant. You're not under the law anymore. This is affirmed again in Acts 15, when the Jerusalem council is called to give an answer to the new Gentile converts that are coming into the faith.
What does it mean for them to obey? Do we make them live and act like Jews who have been converted? Like, what do we do? And the apostles give a short list of things, but they do not include subjecting them to Old Testament food laws. They do say to them, don't eat meat that's been sacrificed to idols, but that was for the sake of conscience. Because, but you used to do that all the time, and it would wreck you.
Don't do that anymore. But we're not gonna make you stop eating all kinds of food and make you try to become Jews. There was no point in that, and that's even the issue in Galatians.
When the Jews in Antioch were trying to force the Gentiles to uphold this clean and unclean distinction of the Old Testament law to the point where Paul actually opposes Peter. He stands up to Peter because Peter was going along with this whole notion. He was violating the gospel.
He tells Peter, do you expect, okay, you're a Jew. You no longer have to live like a Jew. You're free in the law.
You're gonna go make the Gentiles try to act like Jews? That violates the gospel. That's the whole thing against the gospel. And he condemns him for it.
He rebukes him for it, and Peter repents. We see the same teaching in Romans 14, the same teaching in 1 Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 10. Here's the thing, though.
By the time you get to Colossians, Paul escalates the teaching. Listen to this, Colossians 2.20. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with use in accordance with the commandments and the teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. He says, insisting on these kinds of prohibitions, food laws, purification rights, self-denial, asceticism, abusive treatment of the body, he says that's no longer required.
More than that, that's actually worldly and fleshly and self-made religion, to abuse yourself for the purpose of piety. It's not loving, it's legalistic. It's not godly, it's grotesque.
And so by the time we get to 1 Timothy chapter four, Paul, he's saying that the forced abstinence of food for the purpose of religious observance isn't just no longer required, he says it's actually demonic. It's demonic, why? Why is forcing people to abstain from certain kinds of foods, why is that demonic? Two things, there's probably more, but two that I found. Number one, it artificially binds the conscience.
You set up an arbitrary law and you say, you have to keep that law, even though it's not from God. God doesn't bind us in that same way. You're setting up an artificial law and binding the conscience, and it also creates a false sense of spirituality.
I can set up this whole network of all these laws and rituals and man-made customs and I start to obey my own laws and I say, look how pious I am, and I look down my nose, I look down my nose at other people who don't do that. And then when they don't adhere to that, I judge them for it. Even though they're not being convicted by the Lord, they're just simply convicted because of pressure from me.
That's wrong, that's wrong. But Paul goes a step further than that. It doesn't just artificially bind the conscience or create a false sense of spirituality, but Paul says, in the very next phrase he says, that it denies that which God created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
There's more there. There's more going on. Again, talking about marriage.
Marriage is to be a blessing, to be honored and enjoyed. Doesn't mean that all of us have to get married. Not every single person is required.
You don't have to get married, but don't you dare forbid someone from getting married if they desire to do so. In the same way, God created food to be eaten and enjoyed, and he adds, shared in. We're meant to be together and share meals.
Look at verse four. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude. This verse is a reference to Paul's comments about food specifically, but it hearkens back to Genesis 1, where we see that God has created everything, all things, and many, many times in Genesis 1, he declares all these things to be good.
In fact, in Genesis 1 31, there's a summary verse at the very end of creation that says, and God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. That's essentially what Paul says in verse four. It's a summary, even of that summary.
For everything created by God is good. It's an axiom, self-evident truth of all of Christianity, that God created everything and called it good. But pertaining to food specifically, we even read in God's exhortations to Noah in Genesis 9 3 after the flood, he says to Noah, every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you.
I give all to you as I gave the green plant. Again, this reminds us that God creates everything not as evil, but as good. Then Paul adds, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude.
Again, the Old Testament food laws, they served a purpose. They did serve a purpose to teach Israel about consecration, about holiness, but they were never meant to deem God's creation to be evil. Of course, you might ask the question, yeah, but what about the things that we associate with being bad? What about things like wine or beer or cigarettes or marijuana? I mean, what do we do with those kinds of things? That's a big question in the church today.
Well, Scripture is very clear about even those things. None of those items, none of those things in and of themselves defile you. A beer is just a beer.
Nicotine or tobacco is just tobacco. Those items are not in selves wicked. However, you can consume and use those things in a way that damages your body, ruins your mind, and dishonors God.
It's the engagement with those things. Now, wisdom tells us for a lot of those things, don't touch them. Not because they're evil, but because my heart is sinful.
And I know if I engage in those things, I'm gonna wreck myself and damage my witness. We think about things like self-abuse. When you abuse your body with drugs or substances, the self-abuse is wrong.
Whether you're abusing yourself or abusing other people, it's wrong. Drunkenness is sinful. Gluttony, overeating is sinful.
Again, food itself is fine. It's what we do with it. But remember, it is not the thing itself.
It is the manner in which we engage. Are we engaging in godly ways? Ways of self-control and self-discipline? That's what he talks about in verse eight. We're gonna get to that next time.
The issue of self-control, self-discipline. Or are we engaging in ways that are sinful and fleshly? It's all about the heart. Remember, Jesus says it's out of the heart that we defile ourselves.
It's not what we put in, it's what comes out. But these things which God created to be good, they are to be received with Eucharistia, gratitude, thankfulness. There's a reason, by the way, that we pray over our meals.
Why do we pray over our meals? Is that just tradition? No, there's a purpose. There's a theological reason we pray over a meal. It's to remind ourselves to be thankful to God.
Just in our house, we try not to have the exact same prayer every single meal if we can help it. We try to vary the prayer slightly just so that we don't get in, thank you, Lord, for this food, amen. We try to stop and actually think, even when our kids, even Matthew, my five-year-old, will pray and he tries to get creative and we're still working on his theology, but hey, we're getting there.
But why do we pray before a meal? It's just a small way we can say, Lord, thank you. This was given, this food before us was prepared for us to be thankfully and gratefully enjoyed in and shared in. This is a small little touch of your grace to us to keep us going.
And so food is wonderful. Meals together are wonderful. Fellowship, communion with one another.
Again, we engage with these things with gratitude, with thankfulness, because we are people, verse three, who believe and know the truth that it is not superstitions, it's not rituals, it's not man-made laws, self-made religion that render us to be holy. Rather, it's to rightly understanding God's word, keeping a good conscience, loving other people, expressing loving and thoughtful prayer and thanksgiving to enjoy God's blessings in me. We understand the purpose of God giving us these things.
And then Paul adds one more comment in verse five. Again, God created all things to be good. Regarding food, we are permitted to eat what he has provided as long as we do so with a clear conscience.
The Old Testament law has been fulfilled in Christ, but the question might persist. Well, how do I know that these things are acceptable or allowable for me? Because I'll tell you, sometimes it happens. You might be going to do something, especially if you're a new believer, and someone comes along and says, oh, you can't do that.
And you don't know why. And you read the Bible and you can't find a verse and you're trying to understand, oh, that's wrong, you don't do that. And maybe it's arbitrary.
Maybe someone tells you, you can't eat that. And you're like, really? And you're looking and you're trying to understand God's word. And well, how do we know? How do we know what's allowable, what's acceptable? Again, you must still abide by conscience.
You must have conscience here. But Paul notes that things like marriage, but in the context here, especially food, he says are sanctified by the means of the word of God and prayer. What does he mean by this? Well, the Greek word used for sanctified here is hagiatsatai, which refers to a consecrating or a making holy.
So literally, when you're becoming sanctified, God is consecrating you, setting you aside for his purposes. He's making you holy, he's setting you apart. In the Old Testament, you could only sanctify or consecrate something through sacrifice.
Leviticus describes how that works. But here's the thing. Christ puts an end to all sacrifice through his one sufficient sacrifice on the cross.
You can't go take a piece of food and then offer a sacrifice in order to eat it. That doesn't work like that. You can't offer any kind of sacrifice at all in terms of earthly.
Actually, Romans says that the sacrifice we make is ourselves, our lives, in a renewed mind, right? Romans 12, one and two. But we're not gonna go and do something on earth to sanctify or consecrate or make holy something. But Christ has made the sacrifice.
He is the one who's redeemed it. He has redeemed not only the sinners, you and I for himself, but also the days, all religious observance, the Sabbath, the law, the covenants, everything. All things find their ultimate meaning and fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
And so how is food sanctified? Well, first Paul says it is sanctified by means of the word of God. In other words, God's word tells us what to think and what to do with food. He's very clear about what it is in the new covenant.
We're not bound by Old Testament law with regard to food. We're just not. It's been opened up for us.
And so for just an example, an Orthodox Jew who maybe has spent their whole life avoiding something like pork will have it sanctified and redeemed because God's word tells him he's allowed to eat it. Now, he might struggle. A Jew coming out of that tradition, out of Judaism, might really struggle.
He comes to church for the first time. Maybe he goes to someone's house for lunch or for dinner and he's offered pork and he's a little nervous about it. He's gotta deal with his conscience.
But the word of God tells him he's allowed to eat it. But that's, again, an issue of conscience. But that's the word of God telling us.
His conscience is clean because of the explicit teaching of God's word. What about prayer? This is no doubt a reference to a prayer of thanksgiving. A prayer of thanksgiving.
When we pray to God with thankfulness and a clear conscience, it becomes sanctified. And yet there are movements and there are ministries out there that will try to place Christians back under Old Testament law. They exist everywhere today.
They're actually increasing their popularity in a way that they weren't there maybe 40, 50 years ago. That you find them everywhere. They're online, on YouTube.
They're ministries that exist that insist that Christians are bound to Sabbath-keeping, food laws, religious festival observance, rituals, traditions. They insist that we are bound by Old Testament law. But Paul told the church in Galatians 5.1, it was for freedom that Christ set us free.
Therefore, keep standing firm and do not subject yourself again to a yoke of slavery. And he's talking about Old Testament law because the very next thing he talks about in verse two is the right of circumcision. And he expands beyond that.
Brothers and sisters, we are free in Christ. And not only are we free in Christ, the Bible tells us we are to stand firm in that freedom. We are not allowed or not, we should not let other people try to infringe on that and damage our conscience and wound us with those kinds of restrictions.
Paul does the exact same thing. He talks about the time when the Judaizers came and says, you have to circumcise Titus. He says, no, I do not.
He says, they came in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ. He said, but we did not yield to them in subjection for even an hour, that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. He held firm.
I do not have to follow that command. We're not saved by law-keeping, brothers and sisters. We're not sanctified by law-keeping.
There's nothing more than false piety, legalism, self-made religion. Paul says, doctrines of demons, because it sets up a false standard of godliness and righteousness that operates through pride and through fear. But as Christians, we have been redeemed.
We've been set free. We have freedom in Christ. Again, not to go and live according to the flesh.
In fact, freedom in Christ by the power of the Spirit actually constrains us and presses us in to produce greater godliness. Not just law-keeping. We actually do things out of a spirit of love and conscience and obedience to his greatest command.
Christians are those who are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And Paul tells Timothy in verse six, in pointing out these things to the brethren, the things we're talking about, in pointing these things out, he says, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine, not the doctrine of demons, but the sound doctrine that we've been following. It's good to be taught and trained on the freedoms that we have.
What really is godliness? What really is obedience to God? It doesn't come through law. It comes through grace. It comes through love.
It comes through worshiping and giving glory to God for what he's given to us. And what has he given to us? He's given us freedom and forgiveness in Christ, that Christ gave up his life as the sacrifice, as the lamb of God, the only sufficient sacrifice for sins, the only sacrifice to cleanse all things, including our sins and defilement and transgressions. And yet all of us have sinned against God, and we need the sacrifice of Christ.
But for those who have recognized their need for Christ, their sinfulness, they believe on him, they turn away from sins, and they accept his sacrifice on their behalf. And in Christ, we have forgiveness, we have new life, we have freedom to obey him, and we have life everlasting. Do you know Jesus Christ? Have you been freed from your flesh? Have you been freed from the guilt and shame of sin? Have you been freed from man-made laws and self-made religion? Have you been freed to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? We have that in Christ.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for declaring to us the freedoms that we have, oh Lord.
And yet we are also exhorted in your word to not use our liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. And Lord, elsewhere we're also told that we are never to use that to put a stumbling block in front of a brother or a sister's way, that we're never to abuse our liberty to hurt somebody else, oh Lord. And so Father, we have to be sensitive.
Help us to be humble toward others, to be sensitive toward them, to consider their conscience and their needs, and even their history, oh Lord, to consider their weaknesses as we live our lives in obedience to you. But Lord, this is such a risk because we know that if we're caught up in these kinds of doctrines of demons, Lord, deception, that there's a great risk that many could fall away. But I pray that you would keep us close to you, keep us obeying you through love, through liberty, through worship and serving you and serving others, oh Lord, by believing in you, the promises that you give to us, to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Lord, help us to grow, help our consciences to become even more sensitive to the spiritual things and even to the needs of other people around us, Lord. Help us not to become callous, help us not to become prideful, help us not to be fearful, but help us to love and serve one another. We love you, oh Lord.
You are so good to us, to give us all things to be gratefully enjoyed, Lord. You've given us all good things and the preeminent, greatest thing you've given to us is Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God, the bread of life. For you tell us if we partake, if we eat of the holy and spiritual bread of life, we will never hunger.
And as the water of life, we will never thirst. You satisfy and sustain us now and forevermore. Help us to love you, oh Lord.
In Jesus' name, amen.