Rev. David Holwick I 1 Timothy - Clean Up the Church, #9
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
March 7, 2010
1 Timothy 4:1-8
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I. Spiritual Warriors?
A. A New Age debacle.
It was billed as a "Spiritual Warriors" training program.
The ads promised both spiritual and financial health.
Fifty people paid $9,000 each to be motivated and challenged
in the Arizona desert for 5 days.
It was the fifth day when things went horribly wrong.
The final ceremony was held in a sweat lodge.
After two hours of meditation and exhortation, some began
to vomit and pass out on the floor.
Those who wanted to leave were told they were stronger than
their bodies and weakness could be overcome.
In the end, three had heart attacks, two died, and 18 were
hospitalized.
The leader of the retreat quickly put together a bereavement
session by telephone that one person recorded.
Some of the participants had unusual attitudes.
One named Brent said, "I think that the people that left [died],
I do believe they made their own choices, whether on this
level or the next, but I do feel really for the families."
A family member said the comments solidified his belief that
the leader is controlling the people involved.
#36160
B. Paul faced a similar situation.
1) Renegade leaders with weird theology were destroying the
churches Paul had established.
2) The false teachers appeared to be spiritual and presented
a demanding religion, but Paul saw through it.
3) Would you be able to? Do you know enough about your faith
to identify what is phony and what is genuine?
II. Some will abandon the faith.
A. Christians have known this for centuries.
1) God has warned us through the Holy Spirit.
a) It is probably something said by a Christian prophet.
b) (Paul never uses "the Spirit says" to refer to the O.T.)
2) Jesus told of a great tribulation where the faith of many
believers would grow cold, and many would be deceived.
3) When are the "later times"?
a) It could be the future tribulation.
b) It could also be any time since Jesus came, since early
Christians believed he ushered in the final period
of God's history.
1> We are already in the "later times."
B. There have been many waves of apostasy in the church era.
1) The Age of Enlightenment. (1700s)
a) It gave us the American Revolution.
b) Also the French Revolution with its anti-God agenda.
1> Science began to be used as an enemy of religion.
2) Flurry of spiritual movements in the 1800s.
a) Mormonism, created by a man who used magical stones
to find buried treasure and had visions of three
separate beings he identified as gods.
b) Jehovah Witnesses, who condemned all other faiths and
predicted the coming of Jesus - wrongly, it turned out.
c) Modernist controversy.
1> The clash of liberalism and conservatives.
2> It is reflected in Roxbury itself.
A sign Bob Stark saw outside a local church this
week:
"God is too big to be in one religion"
3> Survey in 2009 of mainline Protestant pastors.
Mainline churches are the traditional Protestant
groups - Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.
Almost half identify themselves as liberal.
Two-thirds think the Bible has mistakes in it.
65% support same-sex marriage.
Only one mainline group bucks this trend -
American Baptists. (that's us)
But I've met some I'm not too sure of.... #36155
3) We are in the midst of a great falling away right now.
a) Difference now is how world is interconnected.
b) Anyone can get a following, no matter how weird
their ideas are.
III. Paul's harsh description of the false teachers.
A. They are liars, plain and simple. 4:2
1) But remember that other Christians had allowed these false
teachers to become leaders in the house churches.
a) They probably did not appear to be monsters.
2) Could they really be this evil, or is Paul exaggerating?
a) His language certainly "demonizes" them.
b) They may have appeared spiritual on the surface.
c) But the reality of their teaching, and its impact,
would have worthy of the language.
B. Deceiving spirits. 4:1
1) Old Testament background, especially prophet Micaiah.
2) Their teachings come from the devil, but there is something
about it that enticed people.
C. Hypocrisy and seared consciences. 4:2
1) Paul is saying they really don't believe what they teach.
a) They preach a hard message, which is always appealing.
b) Then the teachers go out and live a loose life.
2) They no longer feel guilt.
a) Apparently they once did.
b) Repeated rebellion dulled the edge until they didn't
feel it anymore.
A little girl in London held up her broken wrist and
said, "Look, Mommy, my hand is bent the wrong way!"
There were no tears in her eyes.
She felt no pain whatever.
That was when she was four years old.
When she was six, her parents noticed that she was
walking with a limp.
A doctor discovered that the girl had a fractured thigh.
Still she felt no pain.
The girl is now 14 years old.
She is careful now, but occasionally looks at blisters
and burns on her hands and wonders, "How did this
happen?"
She is insensitive to pain!
Medical specialists are baffled by the case.
It is called ganglineuropathy.
There is another insensitiveness which is deadlier and
more dangerous - insensitiveness to sin!
The false teachers had this disease. Do you?
#23355
IV. He-Man spirituality.
A. The false teachers presented a demanding religion. 4:3
1) Today, we call this asceticism.
2) Ascetics practice a religion that is hard on their bodies
and requires intense discipline and time.
B. Strictness is not what we would expect from the false teachers.
1) Elsewhere, Paul says they were messing around a lot.
a) What they demanded of others, they didn't bother to
do themselves.
b) But it fits in with the emphasis on Jewish law they take.
2) Asceticism has a place in Christianity.
a) Jesus and 40-day fast in wilderness.
b) Jesus praying all night in the hills.
c) The Bible teaches fasting and self-denial.
d) But these people saw it as an end in itself.
C. The asceticism in Paul's churches.
1) Forbidding people to marry.
a) This fits in with the idea that the body is evil.
b) It does not fit in with the Bible idea that God created
our bodies, and sex too.
2) Ordering abstention from certain foods.
a) This reflects the Jewish idea of certain foods being
unclean.
b) But Jesus declared all food to be clean.
1> He made it clear that your spirituality is affected
by what is inside you, not the stuff on the
outside like food.
2> All food can be received with thanksgiving as being
from God.
3> Everything God created is good and we can use it
as long as it enhances our spirituality.
A> (Consecrated by Word and prayer.)
D. Do we see any of this today?
1) These are some of the issues Baptists have with Catholics.
a) At the Sillence wedding reception last night I sat at
a table with two Catholics.
I asked them if they thought the Catholic church would
ever accept married priests.
They said it wouldn't happen in their lifetime, or even
their grandchildren's.
b) Celibacy can be a positive choice for Christians.
But when it is required of you, it leads to moral
failure, as the Catholics have seen.
2) Many Protestant groups also lean toward asceticism.
a) They may not require celibacy, but they have other
demands that can be almost cult-like.
b) This week I heard of a local group that demanded members
confess their sins regularly to a supervisor, and
they had to hand over their 1040 tax forms to the
pastor so he could see if they were tithing.
c) Our church will never force you to confess to anyone.
As for handing over your tax and finance records,
the trustees will look into that....
V. Why asceticism is dangerous.
A. It leads to false pride.
1) Colossians 2:23 --
"Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom,
with their self-imposed worship, their false humility
and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack
any value in restraining sensual indulgence."
2) It is easy for this to become a competition.
B. We can make it into a way of earning salvation.
Ray Stedman says self-denial is an attempt to earn favor apart
from faith in the gift of righteousness from God.
Our own effort matters more than what Jesus has done for us.
Any religious thing you do - giving money, building houses,
serving meals at a homeless shelter - has nothing to do
with earning your way into heaven.
Our good deeds can only show our gratitude for what he has
done for us. Our motivation is everything.
C. It misconstrues something that God made for our good.
1) Abstaining for a time, or within God's limits (rejecting
premarital sex, for example) is valid.
2) But don't fall into the trap of thinking these things are
evil.
a) Everything in this world is a gift from God and can
be used for our good.
b) He wants us to enjoy them.
VI. We have an alternative.
A. Seek out the truth and solid teaching.
1) Avoid godless myths and old wives' tales.
2) Get a firm foundation in Christian doctrine.
B. Train yourself to be godly.
1) Physical training has some value.
a) Notice how hard the Olympic athletes train.
2) Godliness is better because it is present and eternal.
a) Not self-centered discipline, but God-centered.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#23355 "Insensitivity to Sin," Fredericksburg Bible Illustrator
Supplements, 9/2001.201; Gerald Rodgers Illustration Collection.
#36155 "Mainline Clergy Are Pretty Liberal," by Audrey Barrick,
<http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090309/survey-offers-in~
-depth-look-at-mainline-protestant-clergy/index.html>
March 9, 2009.
#36160 "Meditation To The Death," by David Holwick, adapted from an
article at <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,567240,00.html>
and other internet sources; March 6, 2010.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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