Title: Anatomy of a False Teacher
Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:3-5
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
Well, before going to the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ warned the disciples about the reality of the coming future, which would be a reality filled with false Christs and false prophets who will arise and show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect. And yet, it was not the first time that the Lord Jesus had warned about the reality of false teachers and false prophets. Back in Matthew 7 in the Sermon on the Mount, we covered this quite a while ago, but Jesus told the disciples, He said in Matthew 7, Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, and the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, speaking of false teachers, you will know them by their fruits. A warning from Jesus about the reality of those who teach falsely.
We might ask the question, then, well, why is this so important? You know, these are not popular texts and popular sermons for us to want to listen to. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I feel like being encouraged today, I'm going to listen to a sermon on the condemnation of false teachers. But why is this so important, and is it so important? Well, remember that Jesus came to earth with a message of salvation based on truth.
We serve a God of truth. And not just a God of truth, truth claims, but the truth of reality of life and sin and salvation and eternity. I mean, these are big things.
There is nothing bigger than this. And ever since God has come in truth, Satan has always tried to destroy the work of God by launching counter-offensives, which consist of a message not of salvation, but of condemnation based not on truth, but on lies. Essentially, a false gospel from a false teacher is damning to those who would believe it.
And there are many in the world today who believe a false message. And so, the Bible in many places warns about the danger of false teaching. And so, the Apostle Paul is no less adamant in his warnings.
In fact, he warned every church that he visited about the reality of false teaching. To the saints in Ephesus, Paul offers several warnings in his first letter to Timothy. So, if you would please turn your copy of Scripture to 1 Timothy chapter 6, 1 Timothy chapter 6. Now, if you're tracking with us in 1 Timothy, we've been here for quite a few months now, but Paul is really beginning his descent.
He's coming to a conclusion. He's building for this landing he's about to make. This is a very full letter, and I think you've probably observed this with me.
There's a lot of ground in 1 Timothy. It isn't just about church ministry and leaders and elders and deacons. It's not just about that.
There's a lot of ground that Paul covers here in this letter, a lot that's helpful for us as a church to understand. And here he's taking one final aim at the error of false teachers before he's going to address the issues of godliness and greed and then generosity. Godliness, greed, and generosity.
And so, next week we're going to be getting into the great gain of godliness, which, well, the secret of it really is contentment. Godliness and contentment is great gain is what Paul is going to tell us here. But before he gets there, he's going to take a glance here in verses 3 through 5, and at first glance they seem a tad disjointed.
It seems like he's pulling these out of thin air because he was just talking about slaves and masters in the previous breath. But before we even get to the verses, I'm going to just keep in your mind here that Paul began the letter this way. This is the first thing he addressed.
Just listen to this. Again, the beginning of 1 Timothy, Paul says to the church, "...as I urged you upon my departure from Macedonia, remain on an Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines." Right out the gate, after saying, hello church, welcome, I'm so happy to have you here, grace and peace to you, watch out for false teachers. It's the first thing he says.
He says, don't pay attention, verse 4, to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than to the furthering of the administration of God, which is by faith. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussions, wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
Again, that's the beginning of the letter. That's the first thing on his mind. And frankly, it's been on his mind the entire time.
He addresses it again in chapter 4. And so now he's going to come in for a landing. He's going to cover it again here in chapter 6. And as we look at verses 3 through 5, again, it's important to remember where we're going. The goal of this is not to engage in false doctrine, but to encourage the saints to excel in godliness, to excel in contentment, to pursue righteousness, doctrinal clarity, and faithfulness to the ministry of the gospel.
But before we even get to that, Paul is going to warn about the dangers that threaten a life of ministry and faithfulness. So, 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 3, 4, and 5. The apostle Paul writes, 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, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. We'll stop right there.
Again, this does seem at first like a brief little blurb about false teachers, but a little digging into the verse, which is what we're going to do today, shows that this is actually something of a condensed character profile of those who seek to destroy the work of the Lord. He begins by saying, if anyone. Now, really, when he's saying if anyone, he really, what he intends to say is all those who do.
If anyone were to do these things, the reality is that there are many false teachers in the early church, and there are many false teachers today. Now, again, just a quick pause. This is Mother's Day.
You would have thought I would have chosen a more Mother's Day-like sermon to preach. Now, you know, if you've been here for a while, you know I don't cater to the Western calendar. I just keep on going.
But I want to just say to you the importance of this, especially for those who are caring for those in their charge. Nobody is more responsible to protect children from doctrinal error than mothers. Certainly fathers are responsible, but moms, don't you feel the tug? There are so many things that come into your home, so many things that want to rip your children's attention away, and I'll even say this, there's even things that try to rip your attention away.
You're at risk of being led astray as well. So are their dads. That's why we focus on discipling men in theology to make sure that they can lead the families, lead their children, lead their homes in sound doctrine.
But you, my dears, are a first line of defense to protect your children, to protect their minds, to protect and guard your own mind. And so there are so many times when false teachers, they don't go after men with the Bible, but they go after their wives. They go after women all the time.
And so if I could say this tongue-in-cheek, my gift to you, is to encourage you and to get your attention focused on protecting your homes, and I know that you do. And so let this be an encouragement. Let this be a corrective on some things, but let this be an edifying message to you that you can embody and take for yourself.
Because here, again, in Paul, in verse 3 here, he's going to identify for us three markers of false teachers. We're going to begin in verse 3 with just these three markers here, because it's important to note, first of all, what they advocate. What do they advocate? How do you know a false teacher? How do you know if a message coming into your home, onto your phone, into your view screen, how do you know that it's false? Well, you can know by what they advocate.
This is the second time in the letter that he points to the reality of those who advocate a different doctrine. It's a long, compounded word in the Greek, hetero. We understand the word hetero means other.
Hetero didaskalia, teaching. Literally, other teaching. Strange doctrines.
Chapter 1, verse 3, translates to strange doctrines. It's doctrine that is not in alignment. It's different.
It's other. It's strange. Now, it's very clear.
He's not talking merely about things that are unique interpretations, debatable topics, maybe points of interest, speculative, because there's a lot in the Bible that we look at it, we read the commentaries, the scholars, we look at history, we kind of weigh the different verses, and there are some things that we can have varying interpretations because they're very minor. Again, the magnitude of the truth, we're just not certain about some small things. That's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about core, cardinal doctrines of the faith. He's talking about things that are heterodox, not in alignment with essential Christianity, because that's the marker of a false teacher, is that they advocate for false teaching. Now, I do think it's helpful to evaluate this, because I do think people get confused about this all the time, because you can go into two different ditches here.
One ditch is if you say, well, as long as they don't deny that Jesus died on the cross, they're not a false teacher. Well, that's a lot more than just Jesus dying on the cross. But you can go on the other side, you can say, well, they have a very strange view of this minor doctrine, therefore they're a false teacher, they're a heretic.
You have to be careful of that ditch as well, because there are otherwise faithful teachers, faithful ministers who hold to minor divergent views that we might be considering is not correct, but we shouldn't call them a false teacher. The doctrine itself doesn't characterize their ministry. Let me give you an example here of someone who is not a false teacher, but yet would hold to a view that I would ascribe to be one that is divergent, I don't think it's correct.
Wayne Grudem, many of you know the name Wayne Grudem, did his PhD thesis in fallible prophecy, fallible prophecy. And he's arguing from places like Acts 11 that it's possible, this is not practice, but it's possible because of Agabus, the story of Agabus, it's possible for a prophet of God to make a mistake in prophesying, to misunderstand and to misprophesy. He likens this more to like divine impressions.
He has a little bit of a looser view of prophecy than I might have, divine impressions that could be mistaken and thus therefore non-authoritative. Now again, personally, I think that view is incorrect. I don't think that's how we are to understand prophecy.
But here's the thing, Wayne Grudem has shown himself to be a faithful Bible teacher, a faithful theologian for decades, decades. I went to a conference with Wayne Grudem, it was a small gathering of pastors, and he was probably one of the most gracious teachers I've ever heard. He had Bible in hand, Greek New Testament in hand, and he was engaging with us, and we asked him a lot of hard questions, and he was trying to work through it faithfully as much as possible.
I've learned a great deal from Wayne Grudem, wonderful teacher, but on that one point, I don't think he's correct. That does not qualify him as a false teacher, even though I do believe that view specifically is not correct. On the other hand, someone like T.D. Jakes denies the doctrine of the Trinity, denies the personhood of Christ, he's a modalist, he believes the Father is the Son who is the Spirit, denies the full deity and humanity of Christ, and espouses prosperity theology.
On every possible front, he is a false teacher. It's because of the severity of the error. I mean, this is heretical doctrine.
Again, he is a powerful preacher. He has a wonderful voice. He's got great presence.
He says some things that sound good, but on the core issues, I mean, he's terribly wrong, horribly wrong. But why is this such a big deal? When it comes to essential truth, here's why this is a big deal, because people's lives are at stake. Their eternal future is at stake.
These are big deals. This is why Paul says in Galatians 1, this is Paul writing to the Galatian church, he says to them, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Then he says this, listen, but even if we, he's talking about the apostles, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we've preached to you, he is accursed.
As we've said before, so I say now again, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is accursed. False teachers, they deviate from the faith. They advocate for a strange heterodox, strange doctrines, different doctrines that do not agree with sound words.
And for this, Paul says in Galatians 1, 8, they are accursed, they are condemned. And so, false teachers, they advocate for error. But there's a second aspect here too.
Secondly, Paul addresses another distinctive. It's not just what they actually espouse and what they actually teach, it's also what they deny. It's also what they deny.
Not only do they advocate a different doctrine, but they also do not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ. They maintain an active disagreement. Now again, it's one thing to read something Jesus says and scratch your head and question and want to wrestle with that and understand.
That's a very different thing. Lord, help me understand. But when you hold them at odds and you say, I don't think he's right about this, or I'm not so sure with an adversarial heart here.
When you disagree, when you reject sound words. Now again, what are these sound words? This word in the Greek for sound is hygieno. It's the word healthy.
It's where we get our English word hygiene. Sound, healthy words. Paul's talking about doctrine that is biblically correct and spiritually healthy.
This is the constant concern for believers, which is why Paul insists in 2 Timothy 1.13 to retain the standard of sound words. Why is doctrine so important? We have to guard doctrine. It's one thing to hold up a Bible, but then once you begin to open it and teach it and make the connections and interpret, you're building doctrine derived from the Scripture.
Everybody claims to be biblical. That's the thing. A false teacher will say, oh, this is from the Bible.
But they're wrenching verses out of context. They're misapplying. They misunderstand truth.
They're spinning it a certain way. Anybody can quote a Bible verse. Anybody can build a fake doctrine and find a verse that will twist it around.
Satan does this all the time. Satan did it to Jesus in the wilderness as well. He quotes half a verse and misapplies it, and Jesus has to correct him.
And so Paul says, retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. So here Paul even identifies the ultimate source of all healthy doctrine. Again, 1 Timothy 6.3, sound words are those of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are two ways to understand this phrase. Number one, sound words, which are those of our Lord Jesus Christ, that could be, if you could translate it one way, sound words about the Lord Jesus, or some commentators have seen it as sound words from the Lord Jesus. I don't personally know Paul's original intention here, but here's the thing.
Both are certainly true. Sound doctrine means correct words about Jesus, but also correct words from Jesus. Both are true realities.
We have to believe what is true about Jesus. We can't have a false view of Christ. We have to affirm, people ask me all the time, what is essential doctrine? And there's a lot of discussions and debates about what is absolutely essential, but you can't go any more minimalistic than this.
The virgin birth, the full deity of Christ, the true humanity of Christ, which is the hypostatic union, the two perfect natures in one, the sinlessness of Christ, His divine attributes, His sacrificial death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension, His future return. These are all essential doctrines about Christ. There's more doctrines that are essential, justification by faith, the authority and errancy of Scripture.
I mean, these are all sound things, but about Christ Himself, we have to hold on to what is true, what is right about who He is. These are sound words about Jesus, but we also have to believe what is true from the mouth of Jesus. Every single syllable He ever uttered, the word of Christ which dwells richly within us, Colossians 3.16. That's what we want.
I want the words of Christ to marinate in my mind and heart and soul. I want to meditate deeply. I want to know.
I want to think His thoughts after Him. I want to imbibe His truth. I mean, read the Psalms.
Read Psalm 19. Read Psalm 119. The Word of the Lord is pure, altogether right, and lovely, and it purifies the eyes.
It gives wisdom. It gives understanding. I mean, David says, oh Lord, I love Your law.
It is my meditation all the day. I mean, you just can't get away from it. I want the words of Christ in my mind and in my heart, but that also includes the teaching delivered to the apostles.
It's not just the words in red, by the way, all of the Bible, but the apostolic teaching which is embodied in the New Testament. I want all of that. That's all from Christ.
He gave that to His disciples to then give to us, but that's from Him. That's His teaching. But false teachers do not agree with sound words.
They poke holes all the time. They deny essential Christian doctrine. Again, one way to spot a false teacher is not only what he or she teaches in terms of strained doctrine, but also what they deny.
They deny orthodoxy. They do not agree with accepted, biblical-inspired Christian teaching. But there's a third category here as well, a third characteristic of what marks out a false teacher from verse 3, not just what they advocate for, advocating a different doctrine, but also denying sound doctrine, but then number three, it's what their teaching produces.
Jesus calls this in Matthew 7 there, fruit, the fruit of the teaching, because doctrine isn't just stale. It's not just like useless and just kind of hovers and floats there and doesn't have any arms and legs. It touches everything in our lives.
He says they also do not agree with the doctrine conforming to godliness. That's really important. The doctrine that's conforming to godliness.
Here's a general maxim for you, a general truth, okay? True Christian doctrine always leads to godliness. It always leads to godliness. Not that having right theology means you'll never do something wrong or sin.
That's not true. We've seen even in the last couple of years, sound teachers who have not followed that to its logical conclusion to bear it out in their lives. In that situation, it's not the doctrine's fault.
It's their own sinful hearts. But sound doctrine, if followed, does not lead a person into sinfulness. It leads them toward godliness.
It conforms to godliness, but error, false teaching, heresy, they will ultimately indefinitely, they will lead a person either into sin or error. It always happens. There's an old saying, time and truth go hand in hand.
It's just a matter of time. And history is littered with teachers who have espoused error only to have their false doctrine draw them into a sinful lifestyle. I remember hearing, this is just an example, I remember hearing the story, some of you might be familiar with, there was an early 20th century theologian named Carl Barth.
He was kind of the father of neo-orthodoxy, which is a lot of strange doctrines there. And a lot of the liberal scholars sort of said, well, this is our bridge to the conservatives. You know, he's got a lot of really good teaching.
He's Reformed in his theology and all these wonderful things. And I'll tell you, his theology was hugely problematic, especially his view of the Scriptures. He did not hold to inerrancy, inspiration, authority the way that we do.
His view is essentially that the Word of God becomes authoritative when we begin to read it and bring it into our lives. It's not objectively authoritative by itself. That's a huge problem.
Well, a lot of people kind of poked holes at Carl Barth's theology only to find out after his death many, many years later that he had been living a lie. He had been living with a mistress in his house with his wife. Abhorrent behavior, absolutely detestable.
And it just goes to show bad doctrine away from the authority of Scripture, away from the authority of God will lead you into error. That's just one example. This happens all the time.
And so it is no surprise then when we see the absolute worst sexual scandals, financial corruption, festering in false movements. I mean, even today the prosperity gospel movement is one of the most rife with wickedness and sin out of anything else. It's detestable.
And it's worse overseas. We have a few people in our congregation who've been overseas, who even serve overseas, and they can tell you what they have observed in other countries with the prosperity gospel. Because at its core, this doctrine, false doctrine, it does not conform to godliness.
It conforms itself to selfishness. It conforms itself to greed and sinful desires. Again, not to what is godly.
However, sound doctrine will always be that which conforms to godliness and godly character. Why do false teachers propagate such error? And why can't there be heretics that just are really great, wonderful, wholesome people? Why does this always go hand in hand? Why is it so rampant? Well, it has everything to do with what's going on inside the heart and mind. And Paul addresses this in verse 4. Remember verse 3 says that the reason is because they deny essential doctrine, they hold to what is false, they don't conform to godliness, but he says the reason is first that he is conceited.
Conceitedness. To foo, or as the Greek, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, literally it's puffed up in smoke. Puffed up in smoke.
ESV renders this puffed up with conceit. In other words, they're prideful and arrogant. That's the reason for it.
That was Simon Magus's attitude in Acts 8-9, claimed to be somebody great in his ministry. False teachers are always tooting their own horn and touting their own reputation. Or as 2 Peter 2-18 says, speaking arrogant words in vanity or of vanity.
And yet, despite their pridefulness, Paul adds another marker here that they understand nothing. Some have rendered this prideful idiots. That's essentially what Paul is saying, the words here.
They're both arrogant and ignorant. This terrible combination is coming together in their ministries and that's what it produces. It produces a life rife with error and sinfulness, but it's because of arrogance and ignorance put together.
They're the epitome of fools. Why do I say that? Well, it reminds me of Proverbs 18-2. A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own mind.
Ever met somebody who does that? Don't name names now. Hopefully it's not the guy preaching. But they don't know what they're talking about, but they just talk anyway.
And it's like they just open their mouth and whatever their stream of consciousness is, as insane as it is, it just all comes out. And you're like, just do us a favor and close the trap, man. Just stop talking.
But that's what false teachers do. They don't understand. They don't want to understand.
They don't understand spiritual things. They don't understand sound doctrine, but they're conceited enough to teach anyway. They just assume that what they have to say is worth something.
That's Paul's charge earlier. Remember verse 7 in chapter 1? They want to be teachers of the law. They want the prestige.
Oh, I want to be a teacher. I want to be a preacher. I'll tell you, the temptation is strong and I can attest to that.
I remember being a younger man watching people on a stage at a pulpit preaching and it stirs something in you. Oh, I want to do that. Boy, oh boy.
It's a serious responsibility. I didn't realize when I was younger the weight of it, that you're getting up in front of the people of God and saying, thus saith the Lord. It is terrifying.
Now, it's a good ministry. I want to encourage young men to get up and preach if the Lord has given that ministry to them. But I'll tell you, they want to be teachers of the law even though, Paul says, they don't understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.
They're so confident. They're so bold in their error. Almost as if they could just, you know, if I can just be bold enough and confident enough, people would just believe it.
But if they don't understand what they're talking about, why in the world are they teaching? Paul continues, verse 4, false teachers have a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words. It's an interesting contrast here in these verses. The word for morbid is noseo.
It literally means sick or unhealthy. I don't know if there's a direct linguistic connection with noseo and nauseous, but the sickness, the unhealthiness of it, morbidity of it, that's the sense of the word. Instead of focusing on what is healthy and sound, verse 3, they're focused on sick and unhealthy doctrine of folly in verse 4. There's a huge contrast here.
And Paul gives their sick obsession here. He gives two examples of what they're obsessed over. Number one, they're obsessed with controversial questions.
They have an unhealthy infatuation with controversial questions. Rather than focus on teaching what's true and essential and core and biblical, I'll just tell you, I wrestle with these things sometimes myself because there are sort of theological miscellany topics. There are minor doctrines, minor things.
I'm like, oh, it'd be fun to do a sermon on that. But it's so nuanced. It's so kind of curious and mysterious, and I just, I get a little nervous.
Not that I don't have a position on some of these things, but I want to focus on what's absolutely true. I want to focus on gospel. I want to focus on essential doctrine.
I want to focus on what the Bible focuses on. And if you notice through expository preaching, you do get to some of those rabbit trails. You do get to some interesting things, but that's not the focus of the ministry.
There's a reason I don't major on eschatology here. Some churches do. Every week it's all about eschatology, end times.
There's a reason, but there's a lot of debate on the end times. Now, of course, I think my view is correct, but it's debatable. There's a lot of godly people who are wiser than I am who have different views on it.
I want to focus on what's true. I want to emphasize what is essential. But instead of doing that, false teachers will focus on controversy.
They major in the minors. And again, jumping back to what was said in chapter one, they focus on myths, endless genealogies, speculations, fruitless discussions, debates over Old Testament law, make application to today, conspiracy theories, strange interpretations, novel interpretations of Scripture. They just follow every possible fad that comes in.
Anything that comes to their YouTube feed, some Bible fad, they chase it. When a teacher hyper-focuses on a theological novel idea, when they focus on miscellany and on controversy, that's a red flag. A red flag.
Watch out. If you can't find a place in history where their teaching has been affirmed faithfully, it's probably new. The word new is not a friendly word in Christianity.
There are very rare, rare times in church history when some group of people, scholars or a pastor or a theologian, will get some new interpretation on a minor point of doctrine. They have clarity. It's a new concept.
I remember just reading about this in history. John Calvin was one of the first, at least that we can trace, who was able to identify and really give voice to the three offices of Christ as prophet, priest, and king. It wasn't that that doctrine didn't exist, but he gave voice to it.
All of a sudden, now that's orthodoxy. He didn't invent it, but he found it. He saw it for what it was, and he published that.
Again, that's super rare. So, when someone says, I have a new interpretation of this verse, I'm super skeptical. In fact, I tend not to believe it.
Show me the proof. Show me the history. Show me how this is what the plain teaching of Scripture is.
Not controversial, not novel, not new, but that's what false teachers do. Number two, they also hyper-focus on, in an unhealthy way, disputes about words. Logomachia in the Greek, literally word battles.
They fight over words. Their discussion always devolves into semantics. And I'll tell you, some people are very good at that.
My hat goes off to learned Bible scholars who can take a verse and sort of wrestle and write. I mean, I've read journal articles and whole books on one little verse, one little word. I mean, it's remarkable that they can actually do that.
I can't do that. That's not where I'm gifted. When I start to, after two or three, four pages about one little tiny word, I just, I get lost.
But I'll tell you, that's where the weeds, people get into the weeds. R.C. Sproul used to call this a studied ambiguity, where a false teacher will take one word that sounds doctrinal, and they'll spin it and redefine it so it sounds like we're saying the same thing, but we're actually meaning something totally different. It happens all the time.
And so, that's what false teachers do. They will wrangle about words. But 2 Timothy 2.14, Paul says, I solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which he says is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.
He's not saying don't study, do word studies and understand what the original language is. Word studies in Scripture are helpful. Don't get me wrong about that.
But fighting over nuance, wrangling about words and twisting them around and trying to do these logistical gymnastics in the Bible and the words, Paul says is useless and it only ruins people. It doesn't help anything. But false teachers will hyper-focus on some trivial matter and they'll blow it way out of proportion.
And what is the effect of this? Look at verse 4, the end of verse 4. There's a result here, out of which, okay, all of those things, disputing about words, focusing on controversy, all of that, out of all of that arise envy, strife, abuse of language, evil suspicions. And then verse 5, he says, constant friction, five results of all of this. Just very quickly here, these five effects of a ministry of false teachers, number one is envy.
It produces envy. Flanos in the Greek is also translated in some cases as jealousy. Remember, these people are conceited, right? They have a pride problem.
And so in their pride, they're envious of other people. They see great teachers, great scholars, great leaders, great whoever, and they want what they have. And they're always jealous of other people.
They want the acclaim. They want the attention. They want the notoriety.
They want the wealth. They want everything. They're envious.
But it doesn't stop there. In their envy, they also stir up number two, strife. Eris in the Greek is discord, contention, or wrangling.
They create infighting in factions. They bust up churches all the time, wrangling and creating strife. Why do they do this? Number three, or I should say, how do they do this? Number three, through abusive speech.
The word is blasphemia, literally blaspheme, but in the context here, it also refers to slander. They slander people. They tell lies about people.
They tear them down. They engage in gossip. And all this is exacerbated by number four, evil suspicions.
They become paranoid. They assume the worst of people. And all this leads to a life of number five, constant friction, constant friction.
No matter where they go or what they do, they're always at odds with people around them. Ever met a person like that? It doesn't matter where they go, they're always fighting with somebody about something. And at a certain point, it's like, don't you get tired of that? Don't you get tired of fighting with people all the time? But this is a characteristic of false teachers.
Everywhere they go, they're at odds with somebody. They're always stirring up problems. They don't submit to unity.
They don't embrace love. They don't embrace truth. It's not pure.
It's not clean. It's constant friction. Proverbs 16 actually describes this kind of person.
The Bible says they're a worthless person, a worthless man. Just listen to Proverbs 16. A worthless man digs up evil.
While his words are like scorching fire, a perverse man spreads strife and a slanderer separates intimate friends. A man of violence entices his neighbor and leads him in a way that is not good. He who winks his eye and does so to devise perverse things, he who compresses his lips to bring evil to pass.
False teachers do this. Divisive people in the church do this. Constant friction.
These are the kinds of people who infiltrate churches and they try to become teachers. They always do. And I've seen it.
I'll never forget. I had a person come in and they were here for about two weeks and instantly they wanted to join the church, which is fine, but two weeks in they wanted to join the church and in their membership interview, we did grant it to them. We waited a couple weeks, but we granted an interview.
In the interview, they were talking about how much they wanted to teach at our church and they were pitching me teaching ideas in the membership interview. And so we said, well, maybe we should put the brakes on. We didn't assume the worst of them.
Maybe they're just really zealous. We said, why don't you just hold off and wait? And they said, oh, that's a wonderful idea. I never saw them again.
Now, I'm not saying that person was a false teacher, but I've seen the attitudes. I've seen the behaviors. It happens all the time.
Someone comes in, they make a home, they decide that they deserve to be followed and listened to, and so they begin to teach other people. They focus on strange doctrines. They systematically stir up strife.
They turn people against one another and against leadership, and then once they've turned people against leadership, they then divide and they go and they start their own faction, and that's how they get their following. They steal sheep from a healthy church and go build their own ministry from the strife. Happens all the time.
That's how cults begin. And you might say, well, that's sick. What kind of person would do that? I couldn't fathom doing that.
Well, Paul answers, what kind of person does that? These are, verse 5, men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth. That's what kind of person. The heart of the matter is that their mind is depraved.
Diephthero in the Greek literally means utterly destroyed or corrupted. Their mind stops working correctly. And I don't have to make too many illustrations here.
You've seen the spirit of the age, which is working right now. You've seen movements, even in our own nation, where people, their reason, their thinking, their ability to argue and make sound arguments has gone. The mind is corrupted.
It doesn't work anymore. They don't know the difference between male and female. I mean, it's insane.
And I don't say that flippantly. It's literally insane. And that's what happens.
The mind stops working. And when the mind and the heart stop working correctly, all kinds of things come out of that. Depravity of mind, deprivation of the truth.
Now, again, on a basic human level, without Christ, all of us are born in sin. All of us are born with minds that are not bent toward God until He regenerates us. We start not from a clean slate.
We start from depravity. We start from sinful minds and hearts. I've always said, you don't have to teach children how to sin against you.
They know how to do it from the womb, don't they? It takes a while to come out, but you didn't teach your children to lie to you, right? But they do it anyway. You didn't teach them to rebel against you and stomp their feet. You didn't give them lessons on stomping feet.
And yet they do it. Why? Because their hearts are desperately wicked at the core. And so, yes, all of us, without Christ, in a very real sense, Romans 8, 7, have a mind that is set on the flesh.
We only think about ourselves. We only think about our own desires, our own personal wants. But here's the thing.
Once we're saved, once we belong to Christ by grace through faith, once we believe the gospel and He begins to change us, He regenerates us, we then, according to 1 Corinthians 2, 16, we now have the mind of Christ. It's not a perfect mind, but we begin to think biblical thoughts. We begin to have a sensitive conscience toward the Lord.
We begin to understand His Word. We desire spiritual things. Our consciences become tuned.
We don't think depraved thoughts all the time. I mean, our hearts, our minds are being pushed and directed toward the Lord. And in this, we receive the exhortation, like in Romans 12, 2, do not be conformed to this world, in other words, the thinking of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
How do you do that? You meditate on God's Word. You go to God in prayer. You confess your sins so that there's nothing blocking you and God, that you're not stiff-arming Him through your sinfulness and your rebellion.
No, you open the channel. You say, Lord, forgive me. You confess your sins.
You find forgiveness in Christ because He has forgiven you. He has paid for you already if you're a Christian. And so you begin to walk in that.
Your conscience becomes sensitive. You fill up with the Word of God. You meditate on His Word day and night.
I mean, you begin to let your life be revolving and transforming in your mind and heart. Your mind, your conscience, your conscience is at work. It's a wonderful thing.
It's a gift of God to us that we can even think clearly about anything. But what happens when you sin against your conscience? What happens when you believe lies and become prideful and live in rebellion to the Lord? And I'll tell you, brothers and sisters, I have seen it. I know you have too.
You start by attacking the Word of God. I don't know if I think the Bible actually says that. And you're doing it because you have a desire inside your heart that is in conflict, and you want the desire more than the Word.
And you begin to attack that, and you spin the arguments to justify your behavior. And next thing you know, your sinful heart takes over, and now you can't even live at all anymore. Now your mind, your thinking, your life, your behavior, everything is twisted.
Your mind warps. Your sense of reason and judgment, your morals collapse. You become, for lack of a better word, depraved.
In fact, Romans 1.28 says that's actually a judgment of God. It's a judgment of God for rebellion. Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.
Because their mind is twisted and corrupt, they engage in doctrinal evil, and in their depravity, they also are deprived of the truth. Now again, the Bible is right in front of them. False teachers own a Bible.
They all do. And they even read it. They get verses out of it to use in their messages and in their books.
So it's not that they don't own a Bible, but they don't understand the truth contained. They don't understand spiritual things. That was the Pharisees' problem.
They knew the Word. My goodness, they knew the Word. They could spit out chapter and verse.
They knew all of it. They memorized the whole Bible, and yet they couldn't understand the most basic truths about the Christian life. I mean, Jesus to Nicodemus, are you the teacher of Israel and can't understand these things? You can't understand regeneration? Oh, that's a big word.
It was from Ezekiel and Jeremiah's time. That should have been number one, that God was going to give us a new heart. Nicodemus, you don't understand these things? That was a huge rebuke.
But that's what happens. And why does this happen? Because in their sin, they are given over to the God of this world, 2 Corinthians 4.4, who has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see. They might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.
Just pause for a second. Beloved, if you can see and understand the gospel, if you can see and behold even some small modicum of the glory of Christ, you've been blessed by God because He's turned the lights on. He has opened your mind, opened your heart, opened your understanding to receive this.
There are people, and I know many of you, you can attest that before regeneration, before Christ, you were totally blind. You'd read verses and it made no sense, didn't understand any of that. Christ comes in, changes your mind, changes your heart, saves you, and now you read the Bible and it's like it's all brand new.
It's like you're drinking from a fire hose of divine truth. It's wonderful. You're not blinded anymore.
But false teachers, again, they use spiritual words. They even act pious. They dress really well.
They look good, but their minds are depraved and they're deprived of the truth, or as 2 Timothy 3, 7 says, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. But it's not even about truth for them. It's certainly not about Christ.
They use His name, and if they use His name without giving Him reverence and honor and worship, that's actual blasphemy, by the way. They use His name, but they don't want Him. They don't love Him.
It's all about them. But then Paul here exposes their ultimate motive at the end of verse 5. The ultimate motive here is that they are supposing that godliness is a means of gain. Here again, Paul's using this word godliness.
We've seen this word many, many times in this letter already. The word is eusebia. It means, in many cases, it means devotion to God, piety, faithfulness to God.
It's how you live out your Christian life in godly character. That's eusebia, in essence. But these false teachers, they don't actually have any godliness.
They don't have it, and yet it's clear that they're equating their perception of godliness. So, Paul's not saying their godliness, their actual godliness is a means to gain. They act as though they're godly, and they think that if they do that, that they embody what is perceivable as Christian doctrine and perceivable as Christian character, that they'll gain from it, that they'll profit.
That was Judas Iscariot's problem, wasn't it? I mean, you see all throughout the whole story here, he ultimately wanted money. He didn't want Jesus, and the Gospels actually tell us that Judas would frequently steal from the money bag. The money bag that the disciples in the ministry was using to get them from point A to point B, Judas would take money from it.
And when the gravy train ended, because he knew that Christ was going to go to the cross, and he realized the ministry is coming to an end, oh no, no more money. What did he do? He made one last cash grab, and he sold out Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. But Paul warns Titus of this very thing in his letter.
He says in Titus 1.11 that false teachers are teaching things they should not teach, strange doctrines, for the sake of sordid gain, filthy lucre, dirty money. False teachers in Corinth were peddling the Word of God for money. They were Bible peddlers.
I'll give you a sermon for a paycheck. That's what they were doing. And so we see even today the motivation of so many.
They get into ministry not because they love the church, not because they long to serve Christ, but ultimately their motivation, their goal is to gain. Now, the immediate context here is financial gain. We know that from many other parallel verses here.
Ultimately, they want money, but you could even apply more things to that. You could add to that gain the praise of man. They want to be famous.
They want to be well thought of. You could add popularity or influence. Everybody today wants a platform, right? And this is, I'm not denigrating this new generation, but when you look at the surveys back when we were younger, what did people want to be when they were a little kid? Policeman, fireman, lawyer, doctor, whatever.
Now, the number one job that younger generation, what kids want, they want to be a YouTube star. You can make a lot of money on YouTube. Now, again, I'm not decrying.
There's a place for that. It's, you know, you're influencing. Maybe you're selling a product.
Maybe you're teaching something that's fine. But the desire, again, here for ministry, if their desire is that influence, that's the wrong desire. Maybe they want website clicks because they've monetized their website.
Maybe they want book deals. They're greedy for the book deal. I can tell you, I love publishing, but it's not all that.
You don't get wealthy from publishing Christian books. They want speaking engagements. They want notoriety.
And I've seen the temptation younger men coming up and they see their heroes and they want to be on the same stage as their heroes to validate their own ministries. It is a terrible trap. It's a terrible trap.
Again, the idea, the motive for false ministry is greed. They want for themselves. They don't care about the church.
They don't care about God. And it's interesting when you think about it this way, when Paul's opponents couldn't hang him on bad doctrine or bad character, you know what they went after for him? They accused him of being greedy. Well, his theology is good and he carries himself well, but ultimately his motive is greed.
He's into it for the money. But Paul insisted in his departing words in Acts 20, 33 to the Ephesian elders, he says, I've coveted no one's silver or good or clothes. No silver, no gold, no clothes.
I've never wanted anybody's anything. And here's the thing, nobody who knew Paul could even fathom such a notion. He wasn't greedy.
In many churches, he refused the honorarium. He ministered in many churches in the Roman empire and took nothing from them. They offered gifts and said, here, you know, pastor, here you go.
Nope, I don't want it. This church will give me money. That's fine.
They'll support me. You guys don't need to do that. And he didn't, he turned it down.
It's not because he didn't need the money, but because he wanted to make sure that there was no credible accusation that he was in it for the money. He didn't want to be greedy. He wasn't greedy.
He was there for Christ and Christ alone. He taught sound doctrine that proved itself in godliness. Right theology will ultimately lead to right living.
He was humble and he was wise. He wasn't puffed up and conceited like the false teachers. He sought unity to build the church up.
I love at the beginning of Romans chapter one, when he's writing to the church in Rome and he says, I'm writing to you that I might receive some spiritual gift from you that you and I might be established. He says, I'm going to give to you, but I want you to give to me. I've always, that's always blown my mind.
I'm thinking, what are you going to give Paul? You're not going to give Paul anything. Like Paul's the apostle. He's there to bring you the word of God, but he says, no, I'm actually excited about you blessing me and encouraging me in the faith.
The humility of that is wonderful. That it's a mutual engagement here. I want to give to you.
I want you to give to me. We're going to share this life together. Paul didn't get up on his high horse.
He was there for unity. He was there to edify the church, to build the church up. He loved the church.
He had the mind of Christ. He understood the mysteries of the faith with a clear conscience and he was generous and he was content with what he had. I was going to keep it a secret, but we're going to go to Philippians next.
That's where we're going. All right. Happy Mother's Day.
I mean, but that's a huge theme in Philippians, not just joy. I mean, it's all about joy, but contentment, being grateful for what you have, the blessings that God has given. That's huge.
And Paul says, I've learned to be content. What a gift. That's where we're going next, by the way, in the next verse.
Verse six is all about contentment, godliness and contentment being the gain. But Paul had learned to be content. He was generous with what he had.
And that's ultimately what the truth produces. The truth produces spiritual health. It produces godliness.
It produces godly character. And so, we are all charged here. Yes, we're looking at a passage about false teachers, and it's easy to stiff arm and put them over there and say, I don't want to be that.
Amen. Neither do I. But look at the inverse. What does it teach us? It teaches us what we should be focusing on, what we should be prizing, that you, that I, would be focused on sound doctrine, healthy doctrine, upholding the foundations of the faith, contending earnestly for the faith, and making sure that in our sound doctrine, it's really good to be...we have good theology, but is your theology bearing itself out in godliness? I'll tell you, I've always believed that those who hold to the doctrines of grace should be the most gracious people in the world, that our doctrine should inform godly living.
Let that be our challenge, our charge today, as we consider ultimately what is the greatest doctrine that we hold to. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Why do we keep on talking about this gospel? Because it is the only gospel that saves.
It's the only message of truth. And by hearing and believing the gospel, a person can be transferred from eternal darkness and death and suffering into life, eternal joy, relationship with God forever, salvation. The Bible says that He has seated us with Him in Christ in the heavenly places.
This wonderful message that Jesus Christ has come, perfect God and perfect man, united in one. He's come to this earth to live for us, to give up His perfect life and die to pay for our sins. And on the cross, the punishment of God was exhausted on Him.
Not a sin was left untouched on the cross, that the satisfaction of God's wrath was completed. In Christ, He was buried, and He rose again victorious, and He ascended back into the heavens. And all who are in Christ, who believe that message, who've turned away from sins, confess their depravity, confess their sins, acknowledge God's sovereignty over their lives, all who believe and trust in Him were seated with Him already.
Our bodies, we're living here, but my friends, your eternity, you are seated in the heavenly places in Christ. It's just a matter of the date. You're already there.
And I'll tell you, and I've heard this said, and I love this sentiment, that this is heaven on earth for us. Yes, we're fraught with problems. Many of you are sick and hurting.
There's contention. There's challenges. Yes.
But there is unity here. There's love. There's encouragement.
There's prayer. There's truth. And we have Christ.
We have Christ in common. And what a wonderful gift, isn't it? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider really such a challenging text for us, Lord, these are not, by our experience, Lord, fun verses to walk through.
They don't make us happy, O Lord. They make us nervous. They make us scared for these people who do these things.
They make us a tad bit paranoid, Lord, that we don't want to fall into these kinds of errors. And yet, we also have cause for rejoicing, O Lord, that you have preserved your people, that you have sustained us by your grace. You've given us the mind of Christ.
You've given us your truth. You've given us your word. You've given us your spirit.
And you have caused us, through regeneration, through being born again, you've caused us to walk in your ways. O Lord, when we find ourselves walking in obedience to you, we can't claim anything for spiritual pride. It's not me.
You are working in our hearts to draw us to you, Lord. And even when we're down, even when we're destroyed, when we're wrecked, and we find ourselves walking again, it's because you are walking with us in the valley of the shadow of death, that you lift us up and you carry us forward, O Lord. You are so wonderful to us.
You are so gracious to us. And Lord, even in the context of our day today, Father, I want to ask for a special blessing for the women here who are mothers, who have born children, who are raising children. Lord, that you would uphold them and sustain them.
Lord, especially there are certain seasons and certain years when it just feels like it's never going to end. It's difficult, Lord. You understand what it's like to have challenging children.
We are all your challenging children. But Lord, would you bless these women? And even for the women who will be future mothers, Lord, would you bless them and help them to steady their minds and hearts and focus their hearts, their attention, their devotion to you, not to worry about left and right, not to devolve into fear and anxiety, Lord, but to focus on you, that you would be their sustaining grace. Lord, keep them on their narrow path.
Give grace to us all, O Lord, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.