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["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] ["Pomp and Circumstance"] Good morning. We're in 1 Timothy, chapter number 4. 1 Timothy, chapter 4 in the Bible reads, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith. Give me heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things, thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine, whereunto thou hast attained. But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation. For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the savior of all men, especially of those that believe. These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. Let's pray to the Lord God. We thank you again for this opportunity to assemble and hear the preaching of your word. Just ask that you would bless, pass from here with your Holy Spirit now. Please bless the preaching. To our edification, just help us to use it to help us to grow in grace and the knowledge of your son, Jesus Christ. And in his name we pray, amen. Amen. Okay, we're in 1 Timothy chapter 4 this morning, and the title of my sermon this morning is The Spirit Speaketh Expressly. The Spirit speaketh expressly. And what that means here is that the Spirit of God, referring to the Holy Spirit, obviously speaks in a way that can clearly be understood, right? And things that the Spirit is saying can't be convoluted, it can't be twisted by believers. It's essentially teaching us that what he says is what he means, and what he means is what he says. And in this particular context right here, it's referring to the fact that what's going to take place in the end times, or as it says in verse number 1, the latter times. It says in verse number 1, that the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Now, I want to make a point here of the fact that when he talks about the latter times, we can be talking about the end times, but we're also talking about today. And you say, well, how do you know that when he's talking about the latter times, it's referring to 2024? Well, because of the fact that some of the things that he's mentioning here are taking place today. And so we obviously see that the latter times is characterized by apostasy, it's characterized by false doctrines and seducing spirits, and it says there that some shall depart from the faith. Now, let me clarify what it means to depart from the faith, because you'll have churches and Christians and pastors that will often say that, well, what this means is that Christians can depart from the faith, that they'll stop believing in the true God stop believing in Jesus Christ, and they will apostatize and lose their salvation. Now, we know that to be false because of the fact that the Bible conclusively teaches that you cannot lose your salvation for any reason whatsoever. The Bible tells us that I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. The Bible talks about salvation being eternal and everlasting and it cannot be lost. What this is telling us here is one of two things, either it's referring to people who think that they're saved, that are not saved, who depart from the faith and end up apostatizing, okay? And this is very much a real thing in 2024 where you have individuals who call themselves Christians, they think that they're saved, they claim to believe in the right salvation, but then somewhere along the line they start believing and teaching false doctrine, damnable heresy. They start delving into a works-based salvation and then they get involved in all types of weird doctrines and teachings. That would be considered someone who has departed from the faith, you understand? But this also can happen to a certain extent with Christians. Now when it comes to salvation or things that are essential to salvation such as the deity of Jesus Christ, it could just be referring to false doctrines that can creep in to a church, deceive believers, babes in Christ, and they end up believing weird stuff, okay? You say, give me an example, like a flat earth or something, okay? You don't say people believe in that stuff, okay? You can think of, we probably could list a slew of different false doctrines that we would consider to be heresy, but they're not necessarily listening to this damnable heresy. Damnable heresy is a heresy that delves into the subject of salvation, the first principles of the doctrines of Christ. Once you've departed from that, you've apostatized, that's a different situation. But some can depart from the faith of just logic and truth of what the Bible teaches regarding secondary or third types of tier doctrines. That could be someone who is departing from the faith. So what this is telling us here is that we as Christians should obviously know what we believe, and we should listen to what the Spirit is saying unto the churches. He then hath an ear, let him hear. Why? Because the Spirit is speaking expressly. And the worst thing that we can do as Christians and as a church is think to ourselves, well this can never happen to us. You know, this can never happen to me, it can never happen to us. No, it says that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith. Now go back a chapter to chapter three, because what is the context of what the Spirit is saying here? Well in chapter three is where you have the qualifications for a pastor as well as deacons, and he finishes off in verse 15 by saying, But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, listen to this, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. So obviously the context of what we're looking at here is church. It's telling us that as Christians, we should be in church. And what we have today in 2024 is a de-emphasizing of being in church, right? Where, ah, you don't have to go to church to follow Jesus, I follow Jesus, I have my own church, I have, you know, mine church or house church, and we don't need to go there, there's so many hypocrites there. Well that's why you should go, because you're a hypocrite too, you know, you fit right in. You know, there's so many sinners there, yeah, you're a sinner too, that's why you should go. And it's funny how people always want to point out, oh, there's so many hypocrites and sinners and bad people in churches, that's why I don't go, oh then you should probably stop going to the grocery store, or you should probably stop going to work then, you should probably stop going to any institution that requires any type of just function of normal living, because hypocrites are everywhere. But all of a sudden when it comes to church though, it's like, oh, I don't want to go there because there's hypocrites. You know, it's nonsense. You know, God has commanded us to be in church, and one of the reasons why is because it is the pillar and ground of truth, it is the foundation of truth. Not to say that you can't learn the Bible on your own, because obviously the Bible teaches us that we can. However, the house of God reinforces what you're learning in your Bible, it should reinforce it. What you're reading should reinforce what's being preached behind the pulpit, and it can accelerate your learning of the Bible as well, right? But also, it can help you and prevent you from delving into false doctrine. Because when you are by yourself, in your room, with your YouTube channel, you know, teaching doctrine or whatever, or learning doctrine, you don't have anybody to correct you and tell you that's a stupid teaching. Because let me just say this, you know, there's a lot of stupid teachings out there that people can come up with, just really nonsensical stuff, but that they can believe is true and biblical, but if they don't have anybody correcting them on that doctrine, they're essentially going unfettered, believing false doctrine, ultimately leading to teaching false doctrine, and getting into heresy. So what people need is spiritual leaders, people who are more mature than them in the Lord, people who have been walking with God longer, read the Bible a lot longer, people who are around them to exhort them and tell them, just to let you know that's really stupid. You know, and it's not in the Bible, let me teach you what the Bible actually says, so it prevents us from delving into false doctrine, right? Why? Because it's the pillar and ground of truth. And in fact, you know, the Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 4, that he gave some apostles and some prophets and some pastors and teachers and evangelists for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, it says, for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry. And then he says this, so he says that he gives us church leaders to perfect us so we know how to work and maintain good works in the church, but then it also says that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the slight of men in cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. The Bible's clearly telling us that the church is there to teach you how to work, but also to teach you how to believe the right doctrine, to prevent you from the slight of men in cunning craftiness whereby false teachers on YouTube and on social media are kind of lying in wait to deceive you and teach you really stupid things, you know, teach you that aliens exist or whatever. And you know, we go to church so we know that's really dumb, right? It's like, that's stupid. But you know what? This weekend though, this weekend, there's like a major thing going on on social media where they're like, there's an alien invasion in Miami, Florida. And it had to be Florida, of course. So when I heard that I was like, that sounds, wait a minute, actually that sounds actually legit because it's Florida. I'm just kidding. But you know, they're like, there's an alien invasion in Miami, Florida, and the videos are just going viral about this. People are literally believing that E.T.'s over there, you got Predator over there or whatever, you know. And so, you know, the police department and people from Florida are trying to like calm the masses and say, there's no alien invasion here, we live here. And of course, the comment sections are like, yeah, you would say that, wouldn't you? You're part of the problem, you're not part of the solution. And it's all based off of the fact that some teenagers were landing off fireworks in some metropolitan area where there's like a lot of people, and they call the police, there's tons of police that were coming, and they're flashing their lights, and some dude from a condominium was filming everything that was going on, so he has like an aerial view of what's taking place. And so when they're shooting their lights to kind of like look for these people, one of the police officers is walking in front of the lights, and they cast a large shadow. And they're like, that's it, that's the alien. And we laugh because it's funny! Because it's stupid! But you know, there's grown people out there that actually believe that there's aliens there. That, you know, Predator Part 5 is about to come out or something. You know, that Independence Day was going to come out again. Why is that? Well because of the fact that the vast majority of people, first of all, they love to deceive and they love being deceived. But you know what, it's good, and obviously you don't have to be in church to have common sense, but church gives you common sense though. And if you come to church believing in aliens, over a couple weeks you're going to stop believing in them. Out of, you know, the fact that we have facts, but also just out of embarrassment. Right? You'll just be embarrassed and be like, I don't... You kind of don't want to mention anything, because you realize how stupid it actually sounds. And so, the context of 1 Timothy chapter 3 is the fact that, you know, he's given the qualifications of a pastor who is preaching in a local New Testament church, as well as the deacons there, and he's talking about the importance of how we ought to behave in the house of God, and he calls it the pillar and ground of truth. And then he goes into chapter 4, you know, there's no coincidence that when he goes into chapter 4, he talks about that the Spirit speaks expressly, that some shall depart from the faith. Why? Well, first and foremost, they're not in church. So it's easier for people to slip into false doctrine, slip into heresy, damnable heresy, stupid heresy, when they're not in church. So it doesn't matter if you, and here's the thing, it doesn't matter how much they know online, how much they've been watching online, or how much verses they got memorized. If you're not in church, you can be swayed to believe nonsensical things. Because you need a pastor, and not just a pastor, but you need grown men to kind of tell you, that's a stupid thing to believe, that's nonsensical, you should be embarrassed, you should be ashamed of yourself. You know, don't repeat this to anybody, because then you're not going to get a girlfriend. It needs to be shamed, and then they come to their senses, and they kind of grow out of that. You understand? But, it's saying here that some will still depart from the faith. Why? Because they're giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. So the solution to this is, number one, what we saw in 1 Timothy 3, is the house of God, which is the pillar and ground of truth, because that is where the word of God is manifested through preaching. That's what the Bible says in Titus 1, right? The word of God is manifested through preaching, but also, Christians have the responsibility to read the Bible, okay? They have the responsibility to read the Bible, and we can see that in the chapter itself. It says in verse number 13, look at verse 13, Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Now that's important, because of the fact that a Catholic will listen to what I just said, and say, see, there's no difference between what you do and what you teach and what I teach, because we believe that people need to go to the Catholic Church, so that they're not carried away with diverse doctrines and heresies, and that's why it's important to have the Pope and the priest and all these people teaching the Bible. But, here's the thing, is that the Bible doesn't only teach that you should be in church listening to the preaching of God's word, the Bible also teaches that you should give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. And also, let me say this, is that when it says give attendance to reading, it's not referring to books about the Bible. You understand what I'm saying? This is not, in the Greek, it's not like commentaries, Jewish encyclopedias, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, you know, books or whatever. When it says reading, it's talking about the Bible. Okay. And that's important because of the fact that today, one of the reasons, one of the main reasons why people delve into apostasy and heresy and all kinds of nonsense, is because they're always reading books about the Bible instead of reading the Bible. Some of the New Year's resolutions, like, I'm going to delve more into the word of God this year, and what they mean is they're going to read more books about the Bible. More commentaries and encyclopedias, and it's out there. Pastors do it, Christians do it. They like to read their daily devotional where it's, you know, they have one verse, and then like an inspirational two-paragraph page about that one verse that has nothing to do about the verse. But when it says give attendance to reading, it's referring to the fact that we should be reading the word of God. Okay. And, you know, sometimes Christians who are newer to the faith, their babes in Christ, they can get discouraged when they read the Bible and don't understand the Bible. But we've all been there, though. Okay. And, you know, don't have this unrealistic expectation that just because you started reading the Bible or you've read it through once that you should automatically understand every jot and every tittle. Because it's not going to happen. You know, let me just let you in on a little secret. This may disappoint you, but you're not even going to understand it after reading it for a couple of years. You're like, then why even read it, you know? Well, I didn't say you're not going to understand all of it, because you will understand certain aspects of it, but it requires years of digesting the word of God, of consuming the Bible, and building from a physical standpoint those neurological nerves in your brain to make those connections, to remember the Bible, and to also have just a storehouse of the Bible in your mind that the Holy Spirit can work with and then teach you about. Because there's certain times, you know, throughout the years as a Christian, as a new Christian, when I'd read the Bible and it's just like I'd read the same chapter over and over again, every year, and it's just like, I don't, I just don't get it. But you know, I just wasn't mature enough to get it, though. And sometimes you're just not mature enough to understand the Bible. Now, there's two things you can do with that. Number one, keep reading the Bible. And don't faint. Just keep reading the word of God. Keep, you know, just digesting the Bible and intaking the word of God. But two, get into church to accelerate your understanding of the Scriptures. Because the great thing about church is you're going to learn things in church that you've been reading in your Bible, but you haven't really had perfect understanding of. So you come to church and you hear something and you're like, oh, okay, now I know what that means. And the great thing about the Bible is that it's inexhaustible, so therefore we're never going to reach an end where we completely understand everything. And the thing is about us is that when we read the Bible, even when we do understand something, we're going to forget it like in three months. You know, we kind of have like spiritual Alzheimer's. Where we read something and it's like, wow, that's great. And then a year later you're just like, you hear it again and you're like, wow, that's great, you know. And then again you're like, wow, that's really good, you know, because you just forget. You understand what I'm saying? But the point is, is that in order for you to prevent yourself from entering into false doctrine, being seduced by spirits and doctrines of devils, you have to be in church because it's the pillar and ground of truth. But number two, you've got to read the Bible. It says give attendance to reading, give attendance to exhortation. So here's the three point outline for you guys, for myself as well, to understand the Bible and not delve into heresy, is you've got to read the Bible and then you've got to exhort people with the Bible. See, it's one thing to consume the Bible, it's another thing to actually give out what you just took in. It's always good for you as a Christian to teach what you've just learned. In fact, one of the best ways to memorize the Bible, one of the best ways to become fluent in doctrine is to teach it. Think about languages, right? The best way to learn a language is by what? Speaking it. And obviously sometimes people speak it funny, but that's the best way to learn. So you give attendance to reading, that means daily reading the Bible. Exhortation, you're exhorting people with the Bible. And then it says to doctrine, you're also learning the Bible from someone else. So reading is on your own, exhortation is what you do to someone else, doctrine is what you're getting from the pulpit. And luckily in the day and age in which we live, you don't just get doctrine from the pulpit, you're listening to YouTube, hopefully you're listening to the right preachers on YouTube. The right type of preaching, you're getting doctrine from all corners, and so this is a good way for you to avoid false doctrine. You say, well can we do all this and not be in church though? What if I just do these three things and not go to the house of God, which is the pillar and ground of truth? Well here's the thing, the Bible that you're reading is going to tell you to go to church, unless you're just going to skip Hebrews 10. Like I'll just go ahead and skip this chapter here. Unless you're going to skip 1 Timothy 3, exhortation requires for you to be in church, so you can teach someone else. And doctrine requires for you, if you have the right doctrine, you're going to learn from the pastor or whoever you're listening to online to be in church. Unless of course you're listening to some heretic, at which point you've got different issues. And so to avoid heresy, be in church, to avoid falling into the pitfalls of stupidity and false doctrine, you've got to give attendance to reading, reading the word of God, teaching it to other people, and receiving doctrine from the pulpit as well. Now in verse 1 when it talks about people giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, this isn't referring to like apparitions or anything like that, you know? Like oh I'm getting like some, some spirit is channeling through me or something. This is referring to false prophets, okay? False teachers and false prophets who are teaching false doctrine. And here's the thing is that, you know, false teachers, according to 2 Timothy chapter 2, they somewhat have a silver tongue, okay? They speak great swelling words of vanity, and they use that to seduce people. So often it's hard for younger Christians to identify false teaching, not necessarily because of the content that's coming out of the mouth of the teacher, but because of how it's being delivered from the teacher. That's why so many people like John MacArthur. And a lot of these Calvinists, it's because of the fact of how they teach the Bible. And look, they're safe people who still like John MacArthur. They will listen to him, they'll listen to his preaching, and they're actually even willing to excuse some of his damnable heresy because they want to give credit to, well, you know, he does teach this right though, and he's right in this area. But folks, if you're wrong on salvation, you're just wrong all across the board. And even if you say something right here, if you're wrong on salvation, what good is it if he's going to split hell wide open because he's not even saved? And how embarrassing should it be for a Christian who has the Spirit of God dwelling within them listening to a person who doesn't have the Spirit of God dwelling within them? You're learning the Bible from some unregenerated individual. That's a shame, amen? That means that you have the potential to learn more Bible than him. Yeah, but he's been teaching for a long time, but the guy's not saved. So he's just parroting whatever his commentaries tell him. And so that's what it's referring to is the fact that being seduced by spirits, doctrines of devils. So how do we save ourselves? Well, look at verse 15, it says, Meditate upon these things, give thyself holy to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine, continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. Now the saving of yourself has zero to do with justification of the soul. It's not saying like if you do these things, you're going to persevere until the end and you're going to be saved at the very end. This is referring to you'll be saved from seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. You'll spare yourself from that delusion, understand? That's what he's referring to there. And so from what it sounds like in verse 16, this is like an ongoing thing that we have to do. Now this may seem repetitive to preach on something like this, but you'd be surprised how many Christians out there will listen to a sermon like this and still not do it and believe false doctrine and be deceived. It's because they're not applying these particular things right here, giving heed, continuing in, saving themselves and them that hear thee. You say, well, what is he referring to when he says thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee? He's referring to the fact that if you put into practice these particular things, you'll save yourself from false doctrine, but if you're exhorting other people too, you're going to save them as well. Now specifically, obviously, he's talking to Timothy because he's the one preaching at the church at Ephesus. And so Timothy is going to, you know, he's going to avoid getting involved in dumb heresies if he follows this pattern, but he's also going to prevent the church at Ephesus from going into false doctrine as well. Now if you were to compare that to Revelation chapter 2, it would seem as though Timothy did a great job. Because in Revelation chapter 2, when the letter is written to the church at Ephesus, one thing that they majored on was doctrine. Right? They were able to point out the false apostles and, you know, all the false doctrine. That was a very doctrinally sound church, and it could be accredited to Timothy following what the Apostle Paul is saying right here. Very interesting. Look at verse 2, referring to the seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. He says, So now the Apostle Paul is actually talking about specific things that these false prophets will teach. And one of the things that they'll teach is that they should not marry. Okay? They'll forbid to marry. Now, this is something that was very much real in the first century AD, but it's definitely real today, too. And it's promoted by the Roman Catholic Church. Okay? Because their priests are not allowed to marry. And what's funny is that, you know, with the age of the internet and social media, people are waking up to how just damnable the Catholic Church is. And so the Catholic Church has to keep putting out videos and content, making excuses for why they believe the things that they believe. And in this particular instance, they'll say, Well, we're not forbidding people. They could get married if they want to. The priests can get married, they just choose not to. They take the, you know, the covenant of celibacy, you know. If the pope wanted to, he could, but he doesn't because he's abstaining from that. So you're going to tell me that all these dudes just are refusing to get married. It sounds a little fishy. Now let me say this, is that we need to pay attention to what it says in verse 2 when he says, speaking lies in hypocrisy. Because what's the lie? The lie is that you can't marry. Because it's not good for a man to be alone, so you should marry. You know, and in order to avoid fornication, let every man have his wife, amen. So the Bible says, the Bible talks highly about marriage. It's an institution that God has instituted and given to mankind for procreation, for enjoyment, for companionship. It's something that is godly. It's something that is ordained of the Lord. It's appropriate. God is for it. He doesn't forbid anybody to marry under particular circumstances, obviously. There's circumstances outside of the regular, just a woman and a man getting married for the first time. There's obviously things after that. But, in general, marriage is a good thing. So when these false prophets are saying, you can't marry, and it's saying that they're speaking lies in hypocrisy, they're telling this lie that you can't marry, but they're being hypocritical about it because they're probably doing something worse. You understand what I'm saying? So when it says, you know, oh, you guys aren't allowed to marry, just mark it down, they're teaching you a lie, but they're also being hypocrites about it as well. Now the teachers that should just commit sacrilege does not commit adultery. So they're often guilty of some of the most heinous crimes. And you know what? The priests are guilty of some of the worst crimes known to man, called pedophilia, where they molest children. So all the while they're teaching, they're forbidden to marry, and priests aren't allowed to marry, they're over here just a bunch of reprobates molesting children and violating the innocent. Their speaking lies in hypocrisy. And it says there that they have their conscience seared with a hot iron. This is referring to the fact that they have no quarrels with teaching false doctrine because their conscience is seared, meaning the aspect of their being that teaches them right from wrong, it's gone. When something is seared, you think of something being numb. When the conscience is seared, the aspect of our being that discerns between good and evil, if that is seared, that means the false prophet can teach whatever they want and not think anything about it. So it says they speak lies in hypocrisy, one of the first lies that they teach, forbidding to marry, here's another one, and commanding to abstain from meats. Now meats in the Bible can often be referring to just food in general. So you can think of like bread as being meats, but in this context it is referring to flesh, the flesh of animals. And here's another lie that they propagate, and here's another lie that the Roman Catholic Church propagates as well. You know, Good Friday, you got abstained from eating meats or whatever, you can only eat fish or something like that. But I guarantee you, people who do this are slipping a quarter pound of cheese behind the scenes. Now why does God call this a doctrine of devils? Why does he refer to the forbidding to marry and the commandment to abstain from meats as a doctrine of devils? Well it's because of the fact that it is a perversion of, their commandment is a perversion of what God said was good. So marriage is a good thing, they're saying no it's a bad thing, you can't do it. Right? God says you can eat anything, they say no you can't, you know you got abstained from meats. So it's essentially a demonizing of what God said is good. So anytime the world, anytime pastors, churches begin to demonize what God has already said is good, that is a doctrine of devils. Cause they're calling good evil and evil good. You understand what I'm saying? So that's why it's a doctrine of devils, that's why they're seducing spirits because they are making that which is good an evil thing in the sight of the public. Okay? They're speaking ill and evil of that which God has said is okay to do. Now here's another reason why I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan. Because of the fact that, look what it says, forbidding to marry, commandment to abstain from meats, verse 3, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth for every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving. So this tells me that the creatures that God has created, He's created with the intent to consume, to eat, as long as you're giving God the thanks. So you have these vegans who try to use the Bible, these vegetarians who try to use the Bible to justify their veganism or vegetarianism. You know if that's what you want to do for a lifestyle because you feel like it's a healthier lifestyle, I don't agree with you. I don't think it's correct. I think you're going to be very weak and we can see in the Bible according to Romans chapter 14 that you will be weak because the Bible says he that eateth herbs is weak and you can interpret that mentally, emotionally, yea even physically. But to use the Bible and say well the Bible promotes vegetarianism and veganism, that's wrong. And that can be proven wrong two ways from Sunday. Because it's throughout the Bible that teaches, I mean for you to say that to eat meat is sinful, well you're saying that Jesus committed sin because Jesus ate meat. And because he was under the Old Testament law, he ate it like every day. And in fact, God was the first one responsible for killing an animal. And a lot of these people who try to forbid people to eat meats, they're often under the umbrella of animal rights. You know, these Hitlers of this world. Because Hitler was a vegetarian. I just want to remind everyone about that. Hitler was a vegetarian, not for health reasons. He was a vegetarian because he thought it so inhumane to do something to an animal. Yea, that's your hero, a vegetarian. Because he loved animals so much. My hero is Jesus, amen. And my hero saved the world and ate meat while doing it, amen. Every creature of God is good. Now, what does this mean? It means that really it's open season on any animal. But I obviously understand that we will not eat every animal, okay. It's important to note that. It doesn't mean that we're going to eat every animal, although it is open season on all animals if God says it's okay. Alligators, amen. Yea, alligator on Christmas. That was a good creature for me. I received that with Thanksgiving. Now the underlying meaning here is, in my opinion, because the Apostle Paul just hated Pharisees and Judaism, is that he was kind of taking a shot at the Pharisees. Because of the fact that they were the ones who were forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from certain meats, because of the fact that the Old Testament laws, you know, forbade people to eat specific meats because they were a shadow of things to come, right. They were foreshadowing something else. They were under that law of meats, drinks, and diverse washings, and so even after the New Testament was instituted, they continued to command people to abstain from meats. And the reason I believe the Apostle Paul is making this point, the underlying tone to this, is the fact that he's saying like, hey, we can eat every creature, we can eat every animal. Acts chapter 10, the Apostle Peter can eat everything that was on that sheet there, meaning we should preach the Gospel to every person. Because in the eyes of the Pharisees, the unclean animals were like synonymous with unsaved people, the Gentiles, who were not part of Israel, okay. But the eating of the so-called unclean animals is like God commanded us to go to the unsaved and give them the Gospel, which is why God gave that vision to the Apostle Peter to participate, rise, kill, and eat, of those so-called unclean animals because what God has cleansed, that called not thou common or unclean. In other words, don't be afraid to go and preach the Gospel to the Mexican. Don't be afraid to go preach the Gospel to the Asian. Just because they're not part of Israel, everyone deserves to hear the Gospel, for God so loved the world. Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it were received with thanksgiving. Verse 5 says, for it is sanctified by the word of God in prayer. Now in its most literal sense, like the meals that we eat are sanctified by the word of God in prayer. So I say, Lord bless this meal. And if it has any bad properties in it, you know, remove them or whatever. But in a spiritual sense, unsaved people are sanctified by the word of God in prayer. If they get saved, amen. Then at that point they are no longer an unclean person, they are sanctified through Jesus Christ. And so you can see here that what he's talking about, obviously is in its most literal sense, is the meals and the forbidding to marry. It's referring to the fact that, you know, these people are teaching these things, but the Apostle Paul saying, don't give heed to that, don't listen to that, that's wrong. God created the institution of marriage, that union is a godly union. People should desire to get married. And by the way, there's another crowd out there that forbids to marry, and that's the MGTOWs. MGTOW is just like code for I can't get a girl. That's basically what it is. MGTOW is like for dudes who just got dumped by some high school girlfriend or whatever, and now they're devastated and heartbroken, and therefore they paint all women with a broad brush and say that they're all bad. And the reason they think that is because they want this unicorn wife where it's just like they look like an Instagram thot, but they are just like fundamental Baptists though. And then because they can't find that, they're like, oh then all women are just bad. But it's a stupid movement that forbids to marry for that reason. You understand? But what they need to do is get in church, amen? And start changing their appetite as far as what kind of girl they're looking for. And stop listening to Andrew Tate or whatever, who likes to joke around about being a tranny sometimes. But that's Sherman for another day. And so what the Apostle Paul is telling Timothy here is that these are some of the challenges that he's going to face, these are some of the things that he's going to run into, and he tells them in verse 6, put the brethren in remembrance of these things. Now what does that mean when he says put the brethren in remembrance of these things? It means he's got to tell it to them again and again and again. To put things in remembrance means that you're going to hear it over and over again. So don't come to church always expecting a new truth. Sometimes you just need the same truth reiterated to you again. I mean, I'm not going to say who. But you know, I preach Shermans in times past, and we were like, wow, I've never heard that before, that's great. And then, you know, a couple years later I preached that, and that same person was like, wow, that was great, I've never heard that, that was great. You know, it's just like, they just need to be reminded of those things. But you know what, I'm guilty of that too though. Because I'll preach something, and then, you know, if I'm listening to like an old sermon of mine, just to see what I was saying about a particular point, oh, here's what I'm like, wow, that was good, I just learned something, you know. That's pretty cool, I didn't know that. But the thing is, I did know that. At one point I knew it, I just forgot about it. And that happens quite often. And I'm not the only one, my pastor friends are the same way. We all, to a certain extent, just forget what we, because we teach and preach all the time, so many doctrines are coming out of our mouths, weekly and yearly, we just forget. So that's why he's saying to put these things in remembrance, he says, So a good diet for the church is things old and things new. Is new things to help you to learn the Word of God, new content of the Bible, but also old things as well, to be reinforced into your dietary supplements of the Word of God. You understand? He says, And look, this is why it's important to talk about salvation and preach about salvation, and the doctrine of salvation, because churches that stop doing that, apostatize. There are churches out there that refuse to talk about it other than giving the gospel at the end of a service, but they won't talk about the doctrine of salvation, they won't talk about the doctrine of justification, the doctrine of imputation. You know what happens is, people just become kind of like whatever about salvation, they don't really know what the Bible says, and therefore they can get deceived by a Ray Comfort, a John MacArthur, a John Piper type, because it's not being reinforced, it's not being taught to them. You understand? He says in verse 7, But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. So he's saying there, look, you're going to hear some profane things, unholy things, old wives' fables, weird interpretations, weird statements, weird teachings, weird sermons. He says refuse that profane and old wives' fables. That's what he calls them, old wives' fables. And it's better to just exercise yourself rather unto godliness. Verse number 8, this is every old IFB's pastor favorite verse here. For bodily exercise profiteth little. But godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life which now is, excuse me, having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. So let's explain a couple things here, what this is referring to. Now, first I want to mention here, when he says bodily exercise profiteth little, it says bodily exercise profiteth little. Meaning, it doesn't say bodily exercise does not profit at all. Because that's what they want to read into that. Like, that's why I don't go to the gym, brother. It's all about just reading the Bible, you know, forget the gym, bodily exercise profiteth little. You need that little though. And some of these pastors, they need a lot more than just the little. So I'm glad that the Apostle Paul wrote profiteth little. And look, I'd be ashamed to be that pastor because on social media, there's a lot of videos out there of these like effeminate looking dudes, just queer looking sissies, who condemn going to the gym. I mean, they like demonize it. And they're like, men should be submissive. They're like, we're not impressed with this. And, you know, when you do this, we're not impressed with that. Now, you know, not a single one of them looks like a man. They're either queers or they're effeminate dudes. But that's constantly being promoted though. And there's even a famous podcaster who's like, you know, he's saying, you know, I can't think of why people would even go to the gym. You can do so many better things with your times than going to the gym. And, you know, is it any surprise that all these dudes are just overweight? They look extremely unhealthy. Their estrogen levels are through the roof, obviously. Their testosterone is way low. It's because they don't exercise, right? But then, you know, the fundamental Baptists agree with those guys. Because they're like, you know, probably exercise profit a little. But the thing is, it's like I have a hard time believing that they're even exercising themselves into godliness though. This is not condemning exercise. Physical exercise. As many would like to say that it is. Because they're trying to say like, oh, you know, there's this false prophet out there. And he was saying, you know, exercise is really wicked because, you know, it comes from the Greek word, hymnos. And it refers to Greeks of the ancient world who exercise naked. And therefore, exercising is really bad. Well, here's the thing though, like, that's not true, first and foremost. Yeah, they did do that back in the day. But I exercise with clothes on, so. That was easy. I was like, how do we solve this problem? Just put clothes on. Okay? But, you know, there's a reason why the guy is like victim weight and he's just, he's condemning everyone else because of the fact that that's not something he wants to participate in, he wants to condemn, and claim that it's biblical to condemn going to the gym. Now obviously, there's people who take it to an ungodly extent where they're vain, they're prideful, they're arrogant. The gym, they start exercising to the point where it just kind of takes the place of their exercise of godliness. Reading the Bible, going to church, things of that nature. At that point, you know, you surpass the boundary of what God has set forth. Okay? Everything needs to be in balance. But the literal interpretation of this verse is actually not even referring to the exercising of the body the way we would think of it as going to the gym, running, deadlifts, pull-ups, whatever it may be. This is referring to, it's a callback to the abstaining from the meats. Because abstaining from certain meats is the equivalent to exercising your body to refuse certain things. You understand what I'm saying? But it can be applied to the bodily exercise as far as going to the gym because you and I would both agree that it does profit. And in fact, I wish, and look, some of these old IFP pastors, they're already in heaven. I know some old IFP pastors who are in heaven today because they didn't profit very little from that exercise. Because they didn't exercise at all. And so that's very common. They don't exercise themselves, their physical body at all, and they're paying the price for it. The verse is actually just comparing the two and it's saying bodily exercise profits little but godliness is profitable for things in this life and in the life to come. Whereas exercising your body only profits this life. But you know what? We'll take it. We'll take the little profit that it gives us in this side of eternity because it makes us better servants for God, that's why. So you're not lethargic, you're not weak, you're not unmotivated and sluggish and just kind of not wanting to do anything with no energy, no power, no testosterone, none of that. You know, it's important to do some exercise. You know, whether it's running, I guess, or powerlifting, lifting heavy weights, or just dumbbell workouts and lifting and just being strong and gaining muscle, that's important. And let me say this, it's important for the women to do as well. And you know, some women are just like, yeah, but I don't want to get jacked though, you know. You will never be jacked. It's not going to happen. I don't know who told you that. Unless you're taking SARMs and steroids and all that stuff, it's not going to happen. You know, because there's women who are out there like that and you know, they're like, I don't take steroids, you know. I'm completely against that stuff. But it is important for women to get a little muscle. It's good for your body. You know, and we need to promote that again. For both men and women, and I'm not saying you're going to be competing, I'm saying just to have a healthy body so that you can serve the Lord better, be in a better mood, you understand what I'm saying? Be in a better mood, have better mental health, just kind of be, just enjoy life. Now it's not initially enjoyable to exercise. Because you wake up sore and you're hurting and all that, I get that. But I'm just telling you right now, after two weeks, you're good to go. And then it becomes a part of your life and then you start realizing like, where have you been all my life? Start doing it, it feels great, your mood gets better, your emotions aren't swinging like a pendulum every single day, you have energy, it's a great feeling. And you know what, you say, well that sounds like a lot. Yeah, it is a lot that it can do for you because exercising can do a lot for you in this life. But when compared to the godly exercise, it's actually very little. And the reason that's important to say is because some people, that is their life. Going to the gym is their life. I mean there's people in the gym right now. They're there right now. And people will even say like, they'll go to the gym, they'll exercise, and then they'll go home and just like, I got nothing else to do. I just gotta wait until the next time I go to the gym. That's a real thing. Like the gym is their life. And that's a miserable life. See gym, exercising for us is an accessory to life. Something that we do on the side to help us as Christians to be better servants for the Lord. Because we don't want to be a bunch of weakling Christians. We want to be strong Christians. We want to be strong on both ends. Strong physically and strong in the Lord and the power of his might. But to some people, that's all they want to do. That's all they want to do is participate in exercises and that is their life. This is why they eat so strictly and they don't miss anything. And it's just like, that's all they want to do. But you know what? In comparison to eternity, it profits very little. Very little compared to the godly exercise that you should be participating in. Now, if you have to choose one or the other, choose the godliness. If you're like, a lot of people are like, great. Yeah, hey man, hey man, hey man. That's right, that's right, that's right. If you have to choose, but luckily you can choose both though. So you don't have to, you know what I mean? You can just do both. In fact, our church is structured in such a way that you can be exercised to godliness right now and then once you're done, you can physically go exercise yourself in the gym. We have one right here. You can do three sets of deadlifts if you want, some squats and we'll spot you. We got the, what's that called? We got the chalk, we got the salt if you need some salt. We got the sour patches, you know, to give you that quick little pump if you need. We got it! You can do both! But, you know, if you want to just choose godliness, I'm for that. Because I prefer someone who just chooses godliness to a person that just chooses bodily exercise. But I prefer both. So it's good for you to do both. So I'm trying to exhort you here. Amen? New year. And so this is what the Apostle Paul is saying, is that in comparison, the godly exercise is way better because of the fact that you not only benefit from godly exercise in this life, you actually benefit the short term, right, from godly exercise. God gives you rewards in the short term, but you know what God is so good we get rewards in the long term too. You get paid up front and you get paid at the very end. That's how profitable exercising yourself unto godliness is. He goes on to say in verse number 9, This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. He's saying this is a consistent saying. When he says faithful, it means that you can consistently compare this to the Bible, to the rest of scripture. No one's going to disagree with this. It's a faithful saying. And it's worthy of acceptation. What does that mean? That when I preach this you should be like, yeah, amen. That's acceptable. Because it is. For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of those that believe. Now the Calvinists hate that verse. Because to them he's only the savior of the saved. But here it says he's the savior of all men, but especially of those that believe. Why? Because they believed on Jesus Christ. So he's the savior of all world, meaning he came to save the entire world but those who only get saved are those who choose to believe on Jesus Christ. Now verse 12 leads us to believe that Timothy is potentially a young man. We don't know how old he is at this time, but it says, Let no man despise thy youth. And again this could be referring to the fact that he might be a teenager, he's a young adult. We don't know, but obviously he has youth on his side. And because he's taking on a leadership position at the church, the Apostle Paul has to admonish him and remind him, Don't let anybody despise your youth in the sense of, don't be a despicable person. Now why would he say that? Well because sometimes it's easy to just despise the youth. Because they make themselves despicable sometimes. You understand what I'm saying? I'm just being honest. I know we got young people here, that's why I'm saying it. I'm saying young people can be very proud and arrogant. They can be very crass or just, you know, they're just young. We were all young at one time. You remember how you were when you were a youth. And so the Apostle Paul is telling this person, you know, is telling Timothy, don't make yourself an individual that's just not likeable. Don't let anybody despise your youth. Now in other portions when he talks to Titus, he says these things exhort and teach and let no man despise that youth, meaning don't let people walk all over you either. But he's talking to church leaders though. And so when he's talking to Titus about that, obviously he's telling him as a church leader, don't let people walk all over you and just despise you. You have the leadership role here. Timothy has the leadership role here. And so he's telling him, hey, make sure that you are a likeable individual. You say, well how do you know he's saying that? Because he says there, but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. So he said, this is how you're supposed to conduct yourself. This is what you should be, you know, putting forth and displaying here, being an example to the believers. But don't just be some arrogant little guy who's just, he goes on a power trip or something like that. Because at that point you're showing yourself to be a novice, and according to 1 Timothy chapter 3, you're going to fall into the condemnation of the devil because of it. So you young people, be humble. God is using you in a big way, and you're getting people saved, and you're rubbing shoulders with older people in the Lord, and you are permitted to be amongst their crowds and in their groups, and participate in adult things. Be thankful for that. Don't be proud. Don't have this attitude of, I deserve to be here, or that you have the same level of maturity as everyone else. You know, let no man despise that youth. Do not make yourself an individual in our church that people just don't want to be around, because you're just not very pleasant to be around as a youthful person. And look, it's not very hard to see that some youths are very much despicable. Not in our church, but how about in the world? Our world is filled with a lot of despicable teenagers and young adults. It's like, whoa. And so like, if you ever get frustrated with someone in our church who's a youth, just compare them to those in the world. These young guys in our church, we've got great young guys in our church. Especially when you compare them to those in the high schools right now, those who are on TikTok right now. That's despicable right there. How disrespectful they are to their parents, to the elderly. You know, they just, it's not very pleasant to be around. Either that or I'm just getting old, I don't know. These young people today! That's probably it, but it's true though, okay? I don't like to be around, no I'm just kidding. And so he tells them, don't let anybody despise your youth, because it's easy for an older person to undermine a Christian who's a young person because of their age, and he's telling them, make sure you exemplify what it is to be a Christian. He says in word, meaning be appropriate with how you speak to others. And this is my preference with my kids, but I teach my kids that when they address adults, it's always yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, no ma'am. And if they address them by their name, they don't just call them Robinson, it's Brother Robinson. You understand? Now that's just my preference though. Because I want my children to respect their elders, and I do believe that putting that brother there is in respect to them, regardless of how much older they are than them. Obviously I'm not talking about them talking to their buddies, their kid friends or something like that. I'm talking about adults. Even if they're older teenagers, it's Brother Gio. It's Brother John. So in word, you should be an example to the believers in how you speak and be appropriate and be respectful in how you talk. And then it says in conversation. Now the way we use conversation today is the way we dialogue. When the Bible is using conversation here, it's referring to what? It's referring to conduct. So your conduct should be exemplary in the church. Not being involved in drama, not having fights and tiffs with other people in the church. Being a person who is above reproach is what it's referring to here. Conversation, your conduct in charity. So you should be an example of how to love, amen? How to love in spirit. Meaning the most energetic people in our church should be the young people. It's always good that when young people are walking with a purpose, and not sluggish, some of you older people need to walk a little faster too. Some of you guys in your 20s need to walk a little faster. You guys take a little too much time to walk out of the auditorium. Put some pep in that step. You're 20 years old. In spirit. So referring to the fact that they're excited, they're passionate, they are excited about the things of God, in faith, and of course, the last one there is impurity as well. So remain a virgin until the altar, amen? The wedding altar. So be pure in spirit, in body, in mind. And then of course we already covered verse 13. Verse 14 says, neglect not the gift that is in thee. So that kind of goes along with the fact that he says, let no man despise that youth. Then he says there, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given by the prophecy with the laying of the hands of the presbyterian. What is he saying? Don't forget that you're the leader there. That's what he's telling Timothy. Now if Timothy couldn't handle it, then he probably shouldn't have been the pastor there, but obviously we would assume that he was able to handle it. But he's saying there, and here's not the best way to say it, but he's basically telling them, make sure you push your weight when it needs to be pushed. Because you're still a leader there, you're the evangelist, you're the leader, so don't let people walk all over you. Remember or neglect not the gift that is in thee that was given to thee by prophecy, by the laying of the hands of the presbyterian. You're still an ordained minister of the church. People should not forget that. Now that was important for me when we first started the church because I did not start off as the pastor of this church. I was the evangelist. And it was a challenge sometimes with certain people where, you know, they kind of undermine that position. And they try to walk all over you or they try to take shots at you because you're not the pastor or whatever it may be. And so I kind of have to remember, I'm not going to neglect a gift that is in thee, that is in me. Pastor Anderson laid hands on me to oversee this work here and so I kind of have to push my weight around sometimes as an evangelist just to make sure that everyone understands that we still follow leadership here. There's still an authority structure here. Now luckily, Pastor Anderson ended up telling me, you got to discipline people, discipline people, I'll just leave it up to you. But I think that's a real thing. And I think church leaders need to take that into account because sometimes church leaders are afraid to speak out or they're afraid to exercise discipline or afraid to speak on certain things because of the fact that they forget that they have a gift within them which is the laying on of the hands. Okay. And he says in verse 15, meditate upon these things, give thyself holy to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. And of course he finishes off right there. So what is the point of chapter 4? The point of chapter 4 is to kind of give Timothy instructions and kind of help him to understand like, you have this church but people will eventually apostatize from this church though. And of course he tells him later on in 2 Timothy chapter 4 to preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. And then he says what? For the time will come, they will not endure sound doctrine. So he's saying be consistent in your preaching because there's going to be people that can't handle your preaching and they're going to seek out people having itching ears, they're going to turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables, you know, and so you've got to make sure that you're consistently preaching these things to keep the church doctrinally sound. And that's basically what he's saying here, which is interesting because 1 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy 4, they're almost addressing the same things. And so he's reiterating that to him. So what's the lesson for this morning? Well the lesson is simply this, is that we need to make sure, you need to make sure, that you're not just dependent on me. To save you from false doctrine. You better save yourself too. And even though this is given to Timothy, Timothy is obviously taking people into account at the church at Ephesus, but he also has to take himself into account as well. Because he says take heed unto thyself unto thy doctrine, for in doing so thou shalt both save thyself. Save yourself first, and then them that hear thee. And so yes you're in a fundamental Baptist church, yes you're in a new IFB church, but you better make sure you're understanding these things on your own as well. And not take the preaching and teaching for granted. You better make sure you save yourself from false doctrine, and when you go home and you turn on whoever, whoever you used to listen to from your old church or whatever, or from your old denomination, he's got a couple good things to say here. You better save yourself from that. Because you can get carried away. And you can become deceived and hardened towards the truth. And so that's it. Let's pray. Father we thank you so much for your word. Thank you for the fact that the Spirit speaks expressly to us Lord through the word of God. Help us as your people to continue to exercise ourselves unto godliness, and to give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. To make sure that we're consistent in the house of God, the pillar and ground of truth. And Lord may you help us as your people to continue to have this attitude of recognizing that there are seducing spirits and doctrines of devils out there, and we need to take heed lest we fall. And so help us to save ourselves and those that hear us as we continue in the things which we have heard, Lord. And may you bless us as we go on our way. Our evening service, Lord, we love you. We thank you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.