“And Avoid Such Men As These”

Transcript

GRM 566
3/29/1998
"And Avoid Such Men As These"
2 Timothy 3:16
Gil Rugh

I want to take you back to 2 Timothy again this evening. Paul's second letter to Timothy which you are aware is Paul's last letter before he was martyred for his testimony for Christ. It's interesting as the last letter that the apostle Paul wrote that was included in inspired Scripture at any rate, if we were going to evaluate this letter in our day, we would say that Paul ought to rewrite it with more of a positive, upbeat kind of flavor. Now we don't mean that Paul ought to be upbeat because he's going to die, which he is, but the legacy he's leaving for Timothy seems to have a negative cast to it. Timothy you've got to “stir up the gift that's in you.” God hasn't given us a spirit of cowardness. “Join with me in suffering for the Gospel.” “Don't be ashamed.” And “there are people who have already turned away from the faith.” “All who are in Asia have abandoned me.” Hymenaeus and Philetus have apostatized, denying a literal, bodily resurrection. You get the idea that Paul was not a good motivator humanly speaking, that he's presented a rather somber and serious picture for Timothy. Yet we know that the apostle Paul was unshakably committed to the truth of the Gospel and the ultimate victory that would be accomplished by Christ in the world. Nonetheless the ministry of the Word of God takes place in a world that is hostile.


And as you come into chapter 3 of 2 Timothy, the chapter begins, "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come." In other words, Timothy, don't expect that it's going to get better. The difficulties that we are experiencing now as I write to you will only get worse. And we as believers need to have a proper perspective. I keep hearing from Christian leaders today as you do that we are going to experience a revival. I am sure that God is going to bring a revival to the world. One very wellknown Christian leader said that God has directly told him that a revival is coming. Now I would praise the Lord if He would bring a revival, but I find no indication in Scripture as we move toward the climax of this age that we would expect from what Scripture says that there would be any kind of worldwide revival. In fact, the message of Scripture is, "Realize this that in the last days difficult time will come." In fact, if you look down at verse 13, "Evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse." So, in the last days difficult times will come and those last days will be characterized by deterioration, not progress. Paul does not try to motivate Timothy and others, including us, by presenting an artificial and optimistic picture of the world in which we minister the Word of God. It ought to be encouraging to us because we have the truth to proclaim and we are to proclaim it faithfully, and not to be discouraged by the gloom and deterioration and worsening conditions around us. That does not mean that the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is not being effective in accomplishing God's purposes because it is not God's purpose to bring about the salvation of the world in our day.


In chapter 3 I want to just walk through the first part of the chapter with you. It's a chapter that's somewhat familiar because this is one of those portions of Scripture we come to often when we are studying other portions of Scripture. It's a portion that clearly sets forth the tenor of the times in which we live. It begins in verse one by speaking about "in the last days." The last days are a broad period of time. The expression covers a broad period because in Old Testament prophesies when they talked about the last days, they were talking about the days of the Messiah. As you are aware the Old Testament prophets saw the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ together. They did not understand that there was a period that has come to be almost 2000 years now that would separate the first coming of Christ and His death and resurrection and the second coming of Christ to conquer the world and take possession of the creation. So the last days encompass everything from the first coming to the second coming of Christ and the last days will be characterized as “difficult times.” “Difficult times,” times that are hard to bear, troublesome, dangers. That's the idea of the word "difficult," dangerous times. Where time ceases. And the idea would be that these will come and go. There will be serious and dangerous season. That doesn't mean that every day will partake of the same kind of character or there won't be periods of time that aren't so dangerous or difficult. But as we saw down in verse 13 things are going to go from bad to worse. There is a deteriorating progression if you will that characterizes the last days. There are going to be difficult and dangerous seasons and times. And these are going to be deteriorating as we move toward the climax of history with the return of the Lord. In fact, rather then moving toward worldwide revival, we are moving toward the time of the worst tribulation that the world has ever experienced. That period of time which is called the Tribulation, seven years that will culminate with the return of Christ to earth to establish His kingdom. I say this because we want to have a true perspective.

It excites us and is always encouraging to have somebody get up and talk about coming revival. That things are going to improve, and we are going to see people turning in mass to the Lord and this is all going to turn around and we are going to be part of it. You know, there's something in my heart that wants to believe that, but the fact is the Scripture says difficult times will come and they will proceed from bad to worse.

So Timothy ought not to think that he can just hold on and things will get better tomorrow. He can expect that he's going to minister the Word in dangerous, troublesome, hard to bear times. We might expect the same. And if it's anything less than that, we praise God for His grace and the envelope of time that we have before things progress to more serious conditions. He gives some specifics of what it's going to be like. We find out that we live in these kinds of times. He's going to set forth some of the characteristics of these difficult times.


“Men will be lovers of self.” As we read through this list, you get the idea he could have written it today just by watching the news, reading the newspaper, and getting some awareness of what's taking place not only in our country but in different parts of the world today. Men will be lovers of self. They are selfabsorbed. Number one is me. You have to look out for yourself. You have to take care of yourself. We live in a day where we have exalted the love of self to a virtue, a virtue that is above other virtues. But first you have to learn to love yourself. This is one of those areas that has infiltrated the Church and I scratch my head and say how does this happen. It's just the opposite of what Scripture says we have to do. We are to love God and love others. We already love ourselves. That's a given. That's a problem. We are selffocused. That is a truth but men will be lovers of self. The idea that becomes a growing thing. We've seen it the last 50 years there has been a major change has there not in our society where even our society viewed it as a virtue for a man to sacrifice for his family and to care for them and provide for them and maybe work at a job he did not enjoy and did not find pleasant. But that would be good for his wife and for his children in providing for them. It's at the point now if you don't enjoy it, quit. If your family's a burden, why should you go on in life unfulfilled and unsatisfied. Best thing to do for everybody is leave them. Now in some perverted way of thinking that makes sense to the people of our day today. Why? The worst thing you could do is live an unfulfilled, unsatisfying life in sticking it out with that family when maybe you could have jumped to another job and jumped to another woman and jumped to another place and your life could have been more satisfying to you.

So we see there has been a deterioration. Men have always been lovers of self but that focus becomes worse and worse until we have the opportunity to live in a day when you go to the bookstore and buy book after book on learning to love yourself. People go on television and write how wonderful it is they have learned to love themselves. Then selfesteem has been developed and the great problem with our children. Even the major Christian leader says the major problem with women today is low selfesteem. Sad state of affairs. “Men will be lovers of self.”


“Lovers of money.” We talk about living in a materialistic age and we do. And again, we can expect that this will go on and will get worse. It goes with being a lover of self. I mean I want to pamper self. I love money, the things that money does for me, and the security it gives and the freedom it gives. And I become absorbed with the materialism of this life.

Back up in 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 10, "for the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil." It doesn't say money in and of itself is but the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil. So we can expect with men becoming worse in this area in the love of money, that all other kinds of evil will go with that because the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It brings with it all other kinds of evil. "And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many a pang." We need to be careful that we as believers are not corrupted and influenced by this environment in which we are living. “Lovers of money.”

Back to 2 Timothy. “Lovers of self.” “Lovers of money.” “Boastful. “Now wouldn't that go together? I'm in love with me. I'm number one. I'm in love with the material things that make life enjoyable and satisfying. With it would go boastfulness. It just fits when a person could go on and unashamedly talk about all they've earned themselves. They go on and people sit wideeyed with their mouth hanging open as they talk about how much money they have and show their possessions. Isn't it a logical follow through that they become “boastful?”


The fourth characteristic here fits with that, "arrogant.” They see themselves as superior, above. You know, we have succeeded, haven't we, with our message of selfesteem to the young people and the studies that have been done and books probably start it now. Editorials, articles that our young people in this country have high selfesteem. They think of themselves as better, but they do worse on the test. They have full confidence that they know their math. The problem is when they take the math exam they do worse. But we won't want to nick their selfesteem. So we find a way to tell them that's not so important anyway. Who cares if you can add as long as you think well of yourself?

But we shouldn't be surprised as believers that this kind of foolishness is going on because the Scripture tells us that we'd come to this. You remember Romans chapter 1 with fallen man when he turns away from God, he become empty in his thinking and loses his ability to think clearly even in these non, if you will, directly scriptural areas. Just when we think common sense. What is happening to our society as it unravels? Don't people just have good common sense? No. Because it's been corrupted by sin. And everything gets distorted.

Boastful, arrogant. The fifth characteristic in verse 2 “revilers” and that's the word blaspheme. So you can't be a lovers of self, a lover of money, boastful and arrogant and not be a blasphemer. These are people who are vile in their speech and opposed to God. They've rejected Him. They've rejected what He has to say. God says that our root problem is pride, the sin in our hearts that exalts ourselves against God. We say no it isn't. We have to learn to love ourselves even more. That's blasphemy. That's declaring God wrong and me right. I've exalted myself above God. I know better than He does. Blasphemers, revilers.

Disobedient to parents. Well, that fits the pattern. If I don't have to submit to God, if I've rejected His authority, I also reject all the authority that He has established. Isn't it interesting, using our own society as the focal point since this is where we live? As we have become more open and blatant in our rejection of God, the authority structure that holds our society together has also begun to crumble and with that comes the authority of the family. So the children become disobedient to parents and it becomes encouraged. You know it's a radical change. I was afraid to be disobedient, not only to my parents but to my friends' parents when I was a kid. Because if I talked back to my friends' parents, they'd get on the phone and call my parents. Then I headed to home and faced the "tribulation." Why? Because there was authority and that's the way it was. But we have become more open. We don't need God. There is no God. We have all our explanations without him. Besides the world revolves around me so disobedience to parents, a rejection of the authority order that God has established. We see this permeating our society. It will come up as we move through other areas.

“Ungrateful”, people who are not thankful, “ungrateful.” Ultimately, ungrateful to God for what He has done. Now God gets the blame for everything but no thanks for anything in our world. People don't mind blurting out when something overtakes them their angry with God over what's happened. That's about the only time He gets acknowledged. He's to blame. He's responsible if my life is not going well.


I was reading a theology book on where theology is going and noting in that book one of the characteristics is that we have reduced God to our Servant. He's responsible to make our life pleasant and happy and smooth and when He doesn't we are upset with Him. This is our right. And we as believers get infected by this thinking. Something goes wrong in my life or with my family, illness, whatever. I begin thinking, God, haven't I tried to serve You? Haven't I been faithful? It's like I'm bartering with God and now You owe me. Really it's the thinking of the world that I am entitled to a comfortable, enjoyable life without pain and hardship and heartache. My Christianity should just be an insurance policy that, that will happen because now God's on my side to see that it does. A distorted thinking. People who are “ungrateful,” unthankful.

“Unholy.” You would expect that would be in the list. “Unholy.” They have no desire to respect God in their life, in their behavior, in their conversation. Those characteristics are lacking. And it's fine. I mean, it's acceptable. We just have assumed what? Immorality and lying, this kind of lifestyle I mean, why is it even an issue? The people who make it an issue are the problem, not the people who are committing the immorality, not the people who are lying.


I stopped in the YMCA the other day, not to do any exercise but to watch my grandkids swim. And on the wall they've got certain characteristics, you know, that are desirable and one of them was honesty. I thought we ought to climb up and take that one down. I mean, it's almost a mockery. I want our kids to understand something about morality and I want you to tell me the truth. When they can turn on the news find out that the truth doesn't really matter. Who cares? It's not an issue, is it? It permeates our society to the point we're not hanging our head in shame over it. I mean, let's get on with it. People are immoral and you expect immoral people to lie, don't you? You want a person to get up and say yes I'm immoral, but their wife might kill him. So of course we expect immoral people to lie so what's the big deal here? Lying is just a fact of life like immorality is a fact of life.

Where does this stop? Where do we draw the line in what is immoral to what is wrong? Well, you know, what I like and accept is acceptable. “Unholy” is just a characteristic of the world in which we live and these people. That's what they are.


“Unloving.” “Unloving,” verse 3. And it's an interesting word here. It's a little different word than we think of like agape or phileo. This word means without natural affection. It's only used one other time in the New Testament. It's used in Romans 1:31 in that list of sins, “unloving.” It means without natural affection, family affection. Really it refers to the breakdown of the family here. “Unloving,” there is not the natural, normal family affections in these people.

Selfcenteredness reigns supreme. And we are raising our children in that. Not to be thoughtful to your parents, not to take them into consideration. You've got to look out for yourself, do what's enjoyable to you. Just be careful so you don't cause yourself pain. And yet parents have modeled that. When I was a kid my parents would talk about a neighbor couple or something. And we lived in government housing, and it was like a duplex with paper for walls. The neighbor couple I still remember their name. I won't mention it here. I don't know why. They are probably dead and gone. But they would fight, and they had kids in our general age. I mean, they would really fight. The dishes would hit the wall. I can still remember it. I said to my dad, why do they even live together? He said, well, they have responsibility. They are not living the way they should, but they have responsibility. Well, now we say, you know, it's better that they don't live together and on it goes. Without natural affection. The breakdown of the family.

We wring our hands. This is where I think sometimes we as Christians are denying the Word that we claim to be preaching. We are wringing our hands as though something almost unbelievable is happening in our world and we've got to step in to stop it. I think it is wretched and tragic and the Bible here is listing it as sinful but it ought not to be surprising. Sinful? Yes. Surprising? No. Why? Well, the Scripture tells me “in the last days difficult times will come.” One of the characteristics of these people is they will unloving. They won't have natural affection. The family relationships will be dissolving. You keep in mind we are moving toward to the Tribulation when children will turn in parents to governing authorities to be carted off to imprisonment and execution. It's not going to get better. This whole idea of hand wringing as though something totally out of the blue has caught us, the Church, off guard. The dissolution of the family and we would never expect that in our society. Well, if we were biblical we would because it's described here for us.


“Irreconcilable.” They are unforgiving. They are not open to reconciliation. I mean, let's face it, if you are selfcentered and you have two people who are totally in love with themselves, how can you reconcile them in conflict. There's only one alternative. You give in to me. But the other person has the same idea because we're both in love with ourselves. They're irreconcilable, unforgiving. And we find this goes on.

We see in places in the world conflicts go on and on and on. We are still apologizing for slavery that happened 100 or 200 or whatever years ago. Somehow this can't be forgiven. We can't get on with life and then I hold this grudge over this and everybody else holds this over that and it goes on and on. And we have a world that everybody has planted themselves. So we have reason to be unforgiving and cannot go on with life.

“Malicious gossips.” It's one of the words for the Devil. The diabolos is the word here. Diabolos, slanderer. They accuse falsely. They are of their father the Devil. Remember John 8. “You are of your father the Devil, so you always want to do what he does. He was a liar from the beginning” so you lie. Same here. He is a slanderer. He is called the slanderer, one of his names. We ought not be surprised that we have a world without honor, that they will lie, look you right in the eye as serious and as honestly you would think and tell you a blatant lie. Well, they are slanderers. They bring false accusations.


“Without selfcontrol.” You know we've come to the day selfcontrol is not good. What else can you say? We don't want to tell our children, even younger children like junior high, that they have to exercise selfcontrol with their passions. They just have to be careful, use proper protection. There are no moral issues here. We are only concerned about disease. Our sad state of affairs.

“Without selfcontrol.” No attempt to restrain lust and passions. I mean, we are supposed to accept it no matter what the perversion is. Well, you know, that's what I really am. You ought to respect me and I ought to be free to pursue that. If you say it's wrong, you are guilty of a hate crime. Where's this going to end. You know, with a number of people adversely opposing these kinds of relationships with children. We have a man who has a degree from Harvard, a psychiatrist, saying why can't be expect this. This is just the way I am. We are carrying on such conduct with children. I say what's an arbitrary line we've drawn. Saying now we protect our children but that line is already begun to crumble. “Without selfcontrol.” Because the idea I have this passion and desire and I ought to be free to carry it out except if I want to smoke a cigarette and that somehow is the number one crime of the day. And I'm not for smoking cigarettes but it's amazing to me what this has become. Kids are going to commit immortality and be sexually loose, that's alright, but forbid that they would smoke a cigarette. Put condoms in the school but get the cigarettes out. Come on. This is really serious. They try to tell me we are not really twisted and distorted in our thinking.


“Brutal.” You would expect this word to be here, wouldn't you? “Brutal.” It's a word that carries the idea of savage or force. We see our society becoming more brutal. I mean, child abuse, crime, terroristic kind of actions, even children manifesting this. We shake our heads and say what is happening? Well, we've removed all restraint. We don't want to tell them anything about morality and there is no God in the picture. The most important thing is that they learn that they are free to do as they please and express their passions as they desire. Oh, we didn't mean to go that far.

Brutal society. It's not going to get better. It only gets worse. The years leading up to the return of Christ will be such that Jesus said if He didn't return there wouldn't be anybody left alive on the face of the earth. So, we think it’s bad now in certain places even in our country to go out at night or to walk the streets. It's going to get far worse. It's going to get so bad with the brutality of it all and all the other going on with the brutality and the disasters and everything if Jesus didn't intervene to cut it short after seven years, there wouldn't be a person breathing on the face of the earth when it's done. “Brutal.”

“Haters of good.” “Haters of good.” These people just don't do wrong. They hate good. But note the tide that's . . . the way it's turned now. If you promote morality, if you promote the standards of a God who has revealed Himself, you are the bad guy. You have some kind of phobia. They hate what is good. They don't want to be free just to practice what is sinful and evil. They don't want anybody promoting anything else.


I was watching an interview. I think it was on the public access channel. Not an interview but it's a program produced by homosexuals. They had two homosexuals on there. Two lawyers who are in a relationship as they would call it, together. I was amazed because one of these attorneys, they were two ladies, said I am appalled that these people are even allowed to voice their feelings on this subject. Is this what it's come to? That anybody who would speak against such behavior. These people now are saying I can't believe they are even allowed to voice that opinion in our society. Is this a person who is trained as a lawyer? Is this what it's come to? This is how strongly they hate what is good. They cannot even tolerate someone expressing the opinion that opposes their sin.

“Treacherous.” They are totally untrustworthy. Reckless, rash and thoughtless. They stop at nothing to acquire and gain their ends is the idea. Reckless people. “Conceited.” Isn't it amazing that this word comes in. Conceited. You get this list you'd think they'd be ashamed. But they are conceited. They are not embarrassed. They are blatant. That's one of the things that almost takes us aback because they are so aggressive and so confident. They are conceited. They see nothing wrong in what they are doing. They acknowledge no wrong. They are conceited. They have a high opinion of themselves.


They are “lovers of pleasure.” And if you were making a list of this, I numbered them. This is number 18 in this list. “Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” So, you see the love of God is not a part of this life. They love pleasure. Because when you love self, then you are involved in doing what gives selfpleasure. Now we are dealing with a fallen being and that's a dangerous thing because there is a vileness about what pleases fallen beings. So, lovers of pleasure. That's why we see people selfdestruct with drugs. Why? It gives them pleasure. They feel good. Now it's all sin. It ends up destroying them, but it doesn't keep the people from indulging, does it? AIDS and the tragedy of AIDS. We'll spend billions of dollars trying to find a cure for AIDS but the last statistics I saw 92 percent of the cases of AIDS were caused either by illicit sex or the needles of illicit drug use. That is an epidemic that could be corrected by stopping immorality and stopping the illicit use of drugs. Oh no we ought to spend billions of dollars to find a cure because you can't expect people to stop illicit sex, can you? I mean, this is a tragedy. This is something that affects us all. If you speak up like I don't think we ought to be putting billions in AIDS. I think that there are diseases that are afflicting people that couldn't be stopped by a change of behavior. I would like to see more money going toward them you'd be told you’re hardhearted, you’re uncaring.

I feel terrible for children, people that get AIDS through blood transfusions and that, but you realize we could put a stop to that to in how the blood supply gets affected and back we go. Lovers of pleasure. You can't be a restriction on my pleasure. You must find a way for me to continue to pursue my pleasure and keep me from being harmed by it or you're not doing you're responsibility as a society. So even our leaders stand up and it's as though they are doing something for the country because we are going to pour more money into AIDS research. Really what we are doing is trying to defend and promote and remove the consequences of an ungodly lifestyle.

They are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. I take it the contrast is put here clearly so we understand the situation. They love someone and something other than God. They love pleasure and their own selfish desires.


But the amazing thing, the last thing here, “holding to a form of godliness.” Now that almost takes me back. I read through this list. I would have probably stopped with the 18th in the list. But the 19th in the list is these people hold to a “form of godliness.” These people at heart are religious creatures. We are talking about those who profess to have a relationship with God. You can turn on the television. In our public access, at least it was in the last few months when I picked it up once or twice, a homosexual church from Texas that someone in our community sponsors to put on the public access. There you have the men with the men holding arms as they sing hymns and putting their arms around each other and the ladies. They have a “form of godliness.” The people in their depravity have not abandoned godliness.

In our own government, and I'm just using an illustration, not to get on the issue, but as an example. We have the issue of those involved in immorality and lying and deceit, but what? They'll take a picture of them coming out of church on Sunday carrying a Bible. Why bother going? Well, there's something. I need to keep the religious veneer and there's something in me that wants to be religious and wants God's approval but I will tell Him what He approves of. He's not going to tell me. I've decided this is what God is like and this is the God I worship and it's a God of my own creation. Romans 1 all over. They worship the creature rather than the Creator. Not just bowing down before a stature or something but our own making. We create a god in our own image.


You read the letters to the editors in the paper over debates and discussions on moral issues and what do they say? You don't have any right to judge people. God won't not accept everyone. I was reading one this week. Vehement against people who would imply God doesn't accept everyone as they are and that's the only kind of god I could serve and worship. We create god in our own mind and then we bow down to worship him but we're really worshipping ourselves because we don't like the God who's revealed Himself. We don't like the God who is. I want to be in charge here. I will make my god.

"Holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power;" verse 5. The power is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember Paul said in Romans 1:16, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." What are they denying? They deny the Gospel which is what? We are sinners. Oops. Stop. I don't like that concept right away. That there is a penalty for sin, and it is death which includes an eternal hell. Now I really don't like that. And that there is only one solution to your sin problem and that is the provision that God has made in the person of His Son Jesus Christ who died on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead and you must believe in Him to be saved. Now how does that fit our pluralistic thinking? How narrow and rigid you can be. You know, I'm impressed as I've been thinking on this and reading and watching some of the interview programs how many times people mention the Fundamentalists, the Bible thumpers. They are the ones that get on everybody's nerves. Why? Everybody else we can get along with. We agree. But these want to have a form of godliness, but they deny its power. What a tragedy. They deny the power of the Gospel for salvation. So, they have a “form of godliness” but they have no salvation. What a tragic, empty situation. This is their condition, and this is their situation.


There's a real difference here. This fits with what we were talking about. Those who profess and those who possess. Those who claim to be believers, claim to be members of the church and those who indeed belong to the living God. Now it begins to sound arrogant to people. Oh, you think you're the only one right. You think your church is the only church. No, I think the Bible is the only truth. I think God's way is the only way and that is true for all of us. We must submit to the God who has revealed Himself.


"They have form of godliness but they deny its power. Avoid such men as these." We are back. We saw in our study this morning in chapter 2 verse 21 that we are to cleanse ourselves from these false teachers. As you read this list, you wouldn't think that believers have to be told to avoid such men as these, would you? Tell Timothy to avoid such men as these. Tell Timothy to pass this on to others, avoid such men as these. You think well of course you would want to avoid. No, the church wants to find a way to get along with them. So, we have bought the thinking of love yourself into the church because what? We have given it a Christian twist. Somehow you can come to the church and hear about learning to love yourself in a Christian context. So we don't oppose the world. We really understand loving yourself. You ought to come to our church because you do need to love yourself and you really need to learn to love yourself in our church. Oh, so we don't have to oppose what the world is teaching. We just tell the world we've got something even better. Being a lover of pleasure is not wrong. That's not in contrast with loving God because God wants you to enjoy yourself. You come to our church and you'll learn to really enjoy yourself and have pleasure. I'm not saying there's not a line of truth in the joy and satisfaction and all that God gives you but what is wrong is we have given it a twist that makes it fit with what the world is saying. Then we have corrupted the truth of God. We act like the lover of pleasure is not in contrast with being a lover of God. We are the ones who can really enjoy life and on and on we go. We need to avoid such men as these.

I shared in previous studies. I would have never thought that the teaching of a man like Robert Schuller would become the teaching that using to promote church growth across the country in evangelical churches. A man who is clearly a heretic and apostate. We've walked through his teachings. I have a booklet on it. But now that's infiltrated the church and it's a positive. We've learned to adopt a positive thinking and positive preaching that brings people in. On and on we go. And he was right. Of course, he was right. Positive preaching attracts people. It tells them how wonderful they are and on and on we go.

“Avoid such men as these.” Don't tolerate them in the church and don't you be part of their ministry with their churches. How do they work? We can't go on and talk about that because it's 7:30. We are done. So the other pages will wait another day, another time.


I trust we have a true picture of the world. I don't say this to depress us. I say it to encourage us. I don't think Paul died a gloomy man. I don't think he was trying to discourage Timothy. He was trying to encourage Timothy to put the ministry of God's truth in its proper context. He's going on to say that this false teaching takes hold in households and in women's lies. Now I will say just a word since we're not doing verse 6, we need to be very careful about listening to Christian radio. Be careful you're listening to truth. There's one thing that happens is men are at work and wives are often listening to teaching that is not good and it infiltrates into the home. Now I say I don't know if I like that. Well, that's what verse 6 says where these false teachers get a hold. He says in Titus 1 this false teaching has gotten into households. So we need to be very careful. The intention may be good, but we get corrupted. The leading Christian radio program has an audience by their own statistics of about 90 percent women. I'm very concerned and have addressed it on repeated occasions with you that it integrates and combines the thinking of the world with the Scripture in a corrupt mixture. So, we need to be very, very careful what we are submitting ourselves to.


Now don't go out of here and say, you know what Gil said? He said you should never listen to Christian radio. I didn't say that. But we need to be very careful. I prefer in my own home that my wife does not listen to teachers on the radio because I cannot be there carrying out my responsibility. My wife ought to be getting enough teaching in this church. If she's not getting enough teaching, the men are not getting enough teaching. We need to provide more teaching opportunities and my wife doesn't need more teaching than me because she's probably better at grabbing on to it than I am. So, I think we need to be very careful because this kind of teaching begins to subtly infiltrate into our home is where Paul goes in verse 6. I said we won't get there but we're there. We had good intentions, but the result is just as disastrous. So we need to be careful that we follow God's pattern, God's way. Let's pray together.

Thank you, Lord, for the richness of Your Word. Thank you for the clarity of Your truth. Thank you for the Spirit who opens our understanding and enables us to grasp it, to take it into our lives. Lord, may we live under the authority of Your truth. Lord, may we honor You with our lives in these days and appreciate the importance of having lives conformed to the Word of speaking forth the Gospel which is the power that accomplishes salvation in the lives of those who here and believe all for Your honor and glory. We pray in Christ's name, amen.