Bad Men, Weak Women

we're going to read from the Bible in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 it's page 109 996 if you're following along in the Bible's that are around you 2 Timothy chapter 3 and we begin at the first verse but understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self lovers of money proud arrogant abusive disobedient to their parents ungrateful unholy heartless on appeasable slanderous without self-control brutal not loving good treacherous reckless swollen with conceit lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god having the appearance of godliness but denying its power avoid such people for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women burdened with sins and led astray by various passions always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth just as Janice and Jambres opposed Moses so these men also oppose the truth men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith but they will not give very far for their folly will be plain to all as was that of those two men you however have followed my teaching my conduct my aim in life my faith my patience my love my steadfastness my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Eiko Antioch at Iconium and at Lystra which persecutions I endured yet from them all the Lord rescued me indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived but as for you continue in what you've learned and have firmly believed knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with a sacred right things which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching for reproof for correction and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work and the verses to which I would like to draw your attention our vs. 6 to 9 begins for among them that is among these folks with a power that is absent in relationship to their testimony of godliness among them are those who act in this particular way a couple of our friends this week are apparently attending a masquerade ball I don't know if you've ever been to one I I never have I I'm not sure that I really like the idea I suppose I guess it can be playful and harmless but there's something just about the very name that seems bothersome to me and and a little bit unsettling it's probably just my problem but it partly has to do with just the word itself and masquerade as an adjective of course is used in front of party or ball or celebration but as a noun a masquerade is a pretended outward appearance it is a false outward show and when you use the word as a verb to masquerade it means to go about in disguise to assume a false appearance and I guess that's the thing that I just kind of don't like about if I go to a party I want to be able to see people I want to see their eyes and I think it's important that they see mine as well but to spend the evening realizing that underneath the mask you will be able to find hidden the real person is just a little disturbing to me and I begin there because that is exactly what Paul is dealing with here in the context of the family of God in F us-a Timothy has been warned about these individuals who are among them they are in Ephesus who have been concealing their true selves underneath a masquerade underneath the mask of presumed godliness in other words they've been presenting themselves in a certain way in order to achieve a certain objective but there is a falsity about them at their very core we're going to see that they won't get very far but nevertheless they do a devastating work so they're the religious activity because these individuals are religious they have a form of godliness it's thin disguise for them there ain't no way to quote Don Henley that they can hide their their lying eyes I know it's look use a little differently but nevertheless that's the facts they're not going to be able to do this now I think it's very important that we remind ourselves and you may do this by turning back with me for a moment Acts chapter 20 because in Acts chapter 20 Luke records for us as we know the departure of Paul from Ephesus and as he leaves Ephesus Acts chapter 20 he's able to say to them you know I've been very very faithful in telling you the story of Jesus and what the gospel is all about and so on and and now he says I want you to make sure worse 28 that you pay careful attention pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the Church of God this is the responsibility of eldership and leadership in the church to care for God's people and it is a very precious thought because these people have been obtained at the cost of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ so he says and the reason this is so important verse 29 is because I know that after my departure feels fierce wolves were come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them so they're just corner a marriage among you and they'll begin to deviate a little bit they'll begin to twist things just a little bit in the home Bible study groups they'll be saying well I'm not sure that's what it really means I don't think that that is this and so on so he says if you're going to be overseeing the flock of God here it is imperative that you pay careful attention first of all to yourselves and then of course to those who are under your care well here's a question we turn back to 2 Timothy 3 do you think these folks listen to what Paul said and if they did pay careful attention and tend the flock how do we account throughout first in 2nd 2nd Timothy for Paul's frequent references to the presence and the harmful influence of false teachers in the Ephesian context well ultimately the answer is that the devil shows tares amongst the wheat and that in the presence of righteousness and truth you will find unrighteousness and error and that is why in the same way as parents have to etch Juris exercise jurisdiction over their children to prevent them from succumbing to tempting influences that may appeal to them so the leaders in the Church of God have to exercise the same kind of care over the spiritual children entrusted to them and the staggering thought and an important thought is simply this that if it could happen in Ephesus and it did then it can happen in Cleveland if you've been reading through Mario McShane you will know that in the course of the readings in the Psalms at the moment you will have come as I have come and I used to read verses like this without giving it much thought at all but now I read them very differently it's a product of age Oh God from my youth you have taught me and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds so even to old age and gray hairs oh god do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation and your power to all those who come see what he's saying he's saying make sure that I stay the course and that those entrusted to my care are the beneficiaries of all that I've known of your grace and your favor and your faithfulness that's what Paul is doing as he says to Timothy at the time of for my departure has come I'm going away you're staying make sure Timothy make sure and in order that he is not a naive about things he identifies these characters let me say again to you that the real threat to the church in Ephesus and throughout all of history right up until today is not external political pressure from outside it's not economic issues no the real threat of the church is and always has been and always will be the internal threat of dissolution of moral and doctrinal declension on the part of leadership which then filters through into the very core of churches your sensible people you can figure it out towards the end of his life and I'll give you just one illustration of it from church history general booth the founder of the Salvation Army who died I think in 1912 was asked on the threshold of the 20 20th century what do you see general booth as the peculiar challenges that will face the church in the 20th century and he replied as follows the chief dangers he said will be religion without the holy spirit Christianity without Christ forgiveness without repentance salvation without regeneration politics without God and heaven without hell pretty remarkable isn't it and the story of the 20th century is largely a fulfillment not entirely but is largely a fulfillment of the dangers that booth saw across the horizon in other words there the presence in the existing Church of Jesus Christ of those Allah 2 Timothy 3:5 who have an appearance of godliness but denying its power now Paul is making sure that Timothy and his congregation don't fiddle around with this stuff it doesn't seem very politically correct the concluding sentence of verse 5 just three words in English avoid such people probably hits most of us a little strangely creates a little uncomfortableness in us or discomfort in as one should say because we've been taught now you're not supposed to avoid anybody but Paul says no you should avoid certain people and what I find fascinating is the fact that Paul is quite prepared to name names it didn't name all the names but he gives us illustrations and fight he does so in every chapter if you checked in chapter one dealing with a problem he says for example I'm talking about people like fie jealous and Hermogenes in chapter 2 he says hymenaeus and philetus in chapter 4 he says demas and alexander the metalworker who did me great harm and here in chapter 3 he pulls two figures from the history of the people of God Janice and Jan Burris who were around as con men in the time of Moses the Prophet he says I want to make sure that you avoid these people on account of their contaminating influence now he goes on to point out that these characters have a target audience and their target audience or is according to our text here in the ESV weak women weak women if you're using the NIV it is weak willed women if you're using the King James Version it is silly women the adjective is very important this is not a blanket statement that Paul is making regarding the nature and character of women that would be absurd after all you only need your Bible to make sure that you don't fall foul of that Oshin a notion that is perpetrated often when you hear people speak they say the Apostle Paul was a very unkind to women he didn't like women and so on these people have never paid attention to what the Bible says he's already given instruction to Timothy as the pastor to make sure that he is exemplary when it comes to the issue of how he cares for the women in his church because they are to be cared for this is what he says first amid a five treat the older women as mothers and the girls as your sisters thinking only pure thoughts about them why because it is imperative that if you're going to exercise pastoral oversight over them you have to make sure that you don't fall foul of the temptations that are part and parcel of the privilege or influence that you have inevitably in people's lives that's the danger of schoolteachers over children same-sex or opposite-sex is in people in of influence and authority and so Paul is very very concerned I mentioned this of course in the first service and the second service I met a number of mothers as I was walking around and I met a number of sisters I suppose although as I passed a group of young ladies I said to myself well these are my sisters and then as I went into my cave who closed the door I said no actually these are my daughters that's that's how old I am so so I got a new category as well see the older woman as mothers the sort of mid core as sisters and then once you go down an arts and they become your daughters but the point is in in in a concern for the welfare of their own spiritual growth because these fellows were at the game these charlatans had a completely different agenda so I'll leave it to you to follow this up but you read the letters of Paul and you will discover the number of women that were involved in ministry with him and the affection that he had for them and the respect that entails to them even for example if you only read Romans chapter 16 know the false teachers are targeting this particular kind of woman a weak willed woman a silly woman in other words they're going down the street corrupting Roy Orbison's lyrics singing to themselves silly woman walking down this tree silly woman kind I lied to me that's their a whole objective the daftar the better the crazier the better the more gullible the better the more distressed and disturb the better it's a target audience Paul says Timothy you need to understand this what are these women like well you'd see in the text they are burdened with sins and they're led astray by various passions now it doesn't articulate what this is but that's enough for us to know isn't it they were burdened and they were bewildered and yes they were bewitched as well bewitched burdened and bewildered these are the ones that they'll be going for he says now what is this well it's a sad picture isn't it it's a sad picture of women who are curious needy gullible susceptible and particularly susceptible to the approaches of these charlatans who were probably attractive and charismatic characters mean silly they may be and involved in various passions and burdened by guilt but there's no reason to think that they would find ogres and obviously malevolent characters as a source of comfort and inspiration for that now the ones we've got to watch are the ones we don't think we need to watch in my notes I found a comment that I can source but it was a good comment so I put them back in describing these these individuals they are women or pressed by feelings of guilt and eager to try any quack remedy which does not require them to abandon their sins they don't want to give up on their passions but somehow or another they want to get their guilt fixed if I could be a leave to my guilt but still at the same time continue doing what I'm doing well of course you're never going to get that answer in the gospel but you may get the answer in a pseudo gospel I notice what he says that burdened in this way and led by various passions they are verse 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth their curiosity fed by these nebulous notions eventually renders them incapable of arriving at a knowledge of the truth and that phrase there a knowledge of the truth is used again in the past rules and it simply is a statement concerning the gospel itself that this knowledge of the truth is the truth of all that God has done for as in Jesus that he has provided under toning sacrifice for our sins that he has been raised for our justification that he intercedes for us and so on and that in him there is forgiveness and there is cleansing there is hope and there is transformation somehow or another that never registers somehow or another they get the cross but they also get the crystals so you see them driving in the car and they have a cross hanging from the rearview mirror and they have crystals hanging alongside the cross I hope you don't or what are they doing presumably hedging their bets well maybe there's something in that old age of that Jesus of Nazareth maybe there's something in the new age and so on I don't really know remember I told you in the early part of the summer I came through Chagrin Falls and found a number of these ladies banging on drums in the Town Hall in chagrin there were one or two men but the vast majority were women it's not very nice of me to say I don't know their hearts but I guess they were curious probably gullible and definitely an easy target for religious hucksters you'll notice that these individuals operate very carefully they are those who creep they creep into household why because they're creeps it was pretty straightforward isn't creeps creep whether they creep in through the waves of the internet or the television or the driveway in the NIV it says that they were their way into the homes of weak will women become become worming their way their deceptive their infiltrators they have enough of the truth to con people but when you push to the very core of it they deny the things that lie the heart of the gospel essentially what Timothy is saying here to Timothy as a pastor in Ephesus is you need to be alert to the presence of these weak women because you have a responsibility to the women in your congregation and you need also to be aware of the strategy of these bad men so weak women and bad men they employ the tactics of religious propaganda actually there's nothing new about this tactical approach if you read the Bible from the very beginning you find that this is this is the devil's tactic isn't it straight into the garden of Garden of Eden and straight for Eve if I can get her I probably get Adam as well think of all the discord that then ensues within the initial family the jealousy and the bitterness and the murderous hatred that just engulfs them susceptible to lies did God really say that a little bit of the truth because he said that but not all of that and so confusion and infiltration and deception so here we are all these years later in Ephesus and these heretical teachers are still using the same methodology their approach is insidious it is be dialing and their approach he says is actually not dissimilar there say to Janice and Jen Burris who opposed Moses well you say well who in the world were they I never read about them in the Bible no they're not in the Bible except for here well aren't they back with Moses no they're never identified as Janice and Jambres when you read Exodus 7 but when you read Exodus 7 you will discover that there were magicians who duplicated what Aaron was doing Aaron had a rod and he exercised the authority of God by the directive of Moses the Prophet and the the con man came along so we can do that too you have this we have one of these as well you can do that we can do that and as Jewish tradition emerged the names of these characters were attached to the incidence back in Exodus and that's why Paul having been brought up under Gamaliel within the context of Jewish instruction would have been familiar with who the characters were these these magicians who opposed the work of God these charlatans who were around they're always around this is not a conspiracy theory this is the Word of God you have to go going around saying oh I think maybe perhaps no it just actually says it in the Bible Moses was a great prophet and he was opposed by these characters and Paul as the Apostle and he's opposed and Timothy you're going to be the pastor and you will be opposed as well now what makes it so difficult of course is the way in which the characters involved use terminology that is biblical but they distort its meaning they use biblical terminology but they distort is mean I've told you this many times before and you come up against this I have been in churches where the fellow has been affirming for me the resurrection of Jesus Christ and if I wasn't listening carefully I wouldn't have realized that what he was talking about was something very very different from what the New Testament says about the resurrection of Jesus the resurrection of Jesus says that he was died he was buried on the third day he rose again bodily physically identifiably was risen from the dead and the reality of his physical risen presence transform the disciples this character is in the pulpit telling everybody about the resurrection actually believed that the resurrection was a spiritual resurrection they didn't actually physically rise from the dead but he rose spiritually and he invaded the minds of his disciples and they had a spiritual kind of resurrection a sort of New Age resurrection all of their own and the people who are sitting listening they don't realize that their pastor does not believe in the Risen physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth but he uses the terminology that's why we have to read our Bibles that's why I always tell you you've got to read the Bible to find out if what myself and my colleagues are telling you is in this book it's serious not just for our own generation but for the generations who follow us my own nation was known historically as the as the nation of the book walk book the Bible where's the Bible now largely missing from the vast majority of pulpits how did that happen because men did not pay careful attention now notice that Paul is quite prepared to call it like it is these men he says or pause the truth they oppose the truth you don't need you don't really need much to I mean that doesn't need any exposition does it truth oppose the truth when you have time this afternoon you might want to read Acts chapter 13 an amazing story in there about Paul and Barnabas proclaiming the gospel the Word of God in the in the synagogues and there in pay-fors on Cyprus and Luke tells us that there came a certain magician a Jewish false prophet named bar Jesus he was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus a man of intelligence who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God so here you have this political fitter an intelligent man he realizes that Paul and Barnabas have something to say he wants to hear from them so he summons them they come to speak and along comes Elemis the magician and elements the magician who posed them why seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith that's what he was doing he didn't want he didn't want the surges Paulus had to trust this Jesus that Paul and Barnabas were proclaiming and so Paul said well it doesn't really matter there's all kinds of different ways you can go at this and Bart Jesus you're a nice man and you know I've always liked your name and and and I've heard about you and you've done some amazing tricks at some of the parties that have been around I mean you really are terrific and we can all get on well together we'll be fine it's not a problem I mean we we're explaining it one way and you're explaining it another way after all we all have our own truth don't we now you're looking to me but you're not looking in your Bible to see whether this is in the Bible you've already decided that can't possibly be what he said no but you're not ready for what he did say let me tell you what he said but Saul who was also called Paul filled with the Holy Spirit looked intently at him and said you son of the devil you enemy of all righteousness full of deceit and villainy will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord he put his finger on exactly what he was doing you just make him crooked what is absolutely straight you remember he said to Paul to Timothy Timothy I want you to make sure that you cut it straight the word that is used is for cutting a garment so that it lines up so that the shoulder sets in or whatever it might be make sure you cut it absolutely straight you can't be going weaving all over the place these characters were weaving all over the place Paul had faced it in pay foss he identified it as a potential in Ephesus and now he warns Timothy they oppose the truth they are corrupted in mind and they are disqualified regarding the faith you see this is part of the challenge of our time isn't it is people say well who's to say you're right who's to say you're wrong and you see as soon as you as soon as you dispense with the Bible you have nothing up to you you have no basis upon which to adjudicate on anything why do we believe what we believe about the nature of marriage because of what God's Word says why do we believe what we believe about the person and work of Jesus because of what God's Word says why then would we identify something as being opposed to the truth which truth is this truth that these men's minds would be depraved diverted corrupted who says me know not be my mind may one day become depraved and corrupted and disqualified doesn't see there as far as faith is concerned they're disqualified no there's a definite article as far as the faith is concerned they are disqualified what is the faith the faith once delivered to the Saints for which Jude says I was going to write to you a bunch of different stuff but I determined that I would have to write to you to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints why because if you don't contend for the faith as a body of absolutely understandable doctrine then there will be those among you who say you don't need to pay attention to that you don't need to be as defined as that you don't need to be as clear as that there are a number of ways you can go out this there are various views on the gospel after all your are hard not and so on and the real question is right here it's no surprise that Timothy is going to get going to get verse 16 at the end of chapter 3 all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for reproof and for training of righteousness principle Paul is leading to but here let's finish on a positive note because Paul finishes on a positive note he says you've got the weak women you've got the bad men but you've got a Sovereign Lord you have a sovereign Lord he says they may have another day in the Sun you can look at verse 13 but eventually their folly will become apparent to everyone eventually the day will come when it will be apparent that the house that they tried to build they were trying to build with cardboard and the City of God will remain the Charlatans will eventually be exposed and church history reveals that to be a case doesn't it didn't go in a secondhand bookstore especially a theological bookstore and find all these little books about about heresies from the past you can buy them for like 25 cents because they're finished or they may be arriving in another disguise but but it's over and that you don't think about living living here this last while we've had we've had some young moon at the Moonies remember we've had the Branch Davidian we were Jim Jones and the lemonade we've read Harry Krishna not to mention the Celtic activities which continue in our own Valley right around us the quasi Gospels the pseudo Gospels of Jehovah's Witnesses of Unitarianism of Christian science of Mormonism and of an external moribund religiosity represented in so many different places but Timothy just remember this God is not remotely upset or concerned or threatened by counterfeits if we can picture garden for my sisal reverently the idea that God somehow is looking down and going oh I can't believe this is happening Wow no from our perspective from the perspective of first century Ephesus Christianity was trembling on the brink of annihilation was it going to make it from the Apostolic Church to the post Apostolic Church would Timothy hold the line would Ian two faithful men would the next generation grow up to love and follow God that was the question from a human perspective you couldn't say from God's perspective it was never in doubt the same is true of us today that's why Paul is concerned that Timothy will just keep his head that he will live in your heart said that he will do the work of an evangelist that he will discharge all the duties of his ministry because Jesus has said I will build my church I will build my church says Jesus and the gates of Hell will not actually be able to prevail against it and that you see helps us at the end of the day to say how do we handle the strategy of these bad men how do we care for these weak-willed women and the answer is in the sovereign proviso of God himself if we had time I could get take you to John 4 which I don't you'll be relieved to know and we could engage in the encounter between Jesus and a weak-willed woman who was apparently always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth she was swayed by all kinds of passions she'd had five husbands and she had a live-in lover if ever there was somebody in need to live in water it was the lady of the well and what happened to her she found it found it where in a philosophy know in a person just in any person no in one person the only one the only one who can deal with our swayed hearts and with our burdened lives so whether you are a silly man or a silly woman I commend you to the wisdom that is found in Jesus father thank you that when we bow beneath the authority of your word things actually begin to make sense every day were buffeted by all kinds of notions and ideas and we're so thankful that your word shines like a light on our path we come to as lord I pray come to some of us who may be burdened by sins and and led astray by passions and we've been looking for all kinds of answers but we somehow or another have never bowed our knee to Jesus grant that today we may do so and and remind those of us who are tempted to get completely discombobulated by all this stuff that Jesus Christ is a sovereign and a reigning Lord and King that nothing is actually out of control nor will it get out of control hear our prayer for Jesus sake amen

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 103,692

Rating: 4.8522983 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Begg, Sovereignty of God, False Teaching, Church Leadership, 2 Timothy

Id: 3geawMkednY

Length: 36min 11sec (2171 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 22 2014