How to Treat False Teachers, Part 2
1 Timothy 1:3-11
Let's open our Bibles this morning to 1 Timothy chapter 1. We're looking again at verses 3 through 11. The opening charge that is given from the Apostle Paul to Timothy to carry out a work in the church and the region around the church in Ephesus.
Now as I mentioned last time, the primary objective that Paul has in mind with Timothy in the writing of this epistle is to encourage Timothy to bring the church to a place of sound doctrine and godly living. He is concerned about the impact of false teachers, not only what they say but what they model by way of a life style. And he is greatly concerned that Timothy reverse the impact of these false teachers. In so writing to Timothy he has left us a letter which all of us in the church of Jesus Christ today, or in any era, can benefit from because we all face the same potential encroachment of false teaching and unholy living.
To give you just an idea of the theme that surrounds not only 1 Timothy but 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus, I want to note the two key words in all three of these epistles are the words didaskalia and eusebeia. Didaskalia is the word most frequently translated "doctrine." It is used 21 times in the New Testament, 15 of those times in these three small epistles. That gives us a key to understanding what the theme of the epistles is. It is all about doctrine, the need for sound doctrine. The other word, eusebeia, is the word translated most often "godliness." That word appears 15 times in the New Testament and is used 10 of those 15 times in these three epistles. Both of those words are used eight times in 1 Timothy alone. And when you find in a brief epistle a word repeated eight times, you can understand that it is woven through that brief epistle in a thematic way. Just that alone tells us that Paul's concern in writing to Timothy is for true doctrine and godly living in the church. And that makes it essential for us even today.
Now to let you know how important these two features are of true doctrine and holy living, look at Titus. Titus being the second one of these three epistles Paul wrote, though it's third in order in the New Testament, and in the letter to Titus, Paul is dealing with much of the same kind of thing that he dealt with in writing 1 Timothy. And Titus, not unlike Timothy himself, is called upon to do a very similar task.
But you'll notice in Titus chapter 1 that as Paul outlines to Titus the kind of leaders, they're called elders in verse 5, they're called bishops in verse 7, just two different terms for the same pastor, the same leader in the church, but as he discusses them, he is concerned about their holy character and about their ability to deal with sound doctrine...those same two things. Their character is the issue in verses 6 through 8. "A man who is to be a leader or pastor in the church is to be blameless, he is to be a one‑woman man, to have children who believe, who are not accused of ungodly conduct, or being unruly, undisciplined." Again in verse 7, "He must be blameless as the steward of God, that is realizing that his life and ministry is a management responsibility for God who is the real owner and possessor. He's not to be self‑willed, not soon angry, that is not hot tempered. Not given to wine, not violent...literally means not to use his fists...he is not to be given to filthy lucre." In other words, he's not in it for the money. "He is to love hospitality, that is he is a lover of those things which benefit strangers. He is a lover of good, sober minded‑‑that is he has his priorities in right order. He is fair. He is holy and he is self‑controlled." Now that's the character of a godly man. That's godliness. And when Paul wrote to Titus, he had the same concern that he had when he wrote to Timothy. That in the church there would be leadership who were marked out by godliness.
The second thing and the second key word in these epistles was this matter of sound doctrine, of correct teaching. And so the second aspect of church leadership, beginning in verse 9, is the ability to communicate truth. This one who was an elder, or overseer, or pastor in the church is to be able to hold fast the faithful word as he has been taught. In other words, he never deviates from the truth so that he may be able by sound doctrine to exhort and to confute the opposers. For there are many unruly and empty talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision, that is Jews who wanted to impose salvation by Mosaic law on people. Whose mouths must be stopped because they subvert whole houses, they teach things which they ought not and they do it for filthy lucre sake, for money. "One of their own, even a prophet of their own people said, The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons and this testimony is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish myths and commandments of men that turn from the truth. Unto the pure all things are pure, unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine."
Now here again in the description of the qualifications for a pastor, it is essential to recognize that there are two broad categories. One has to do with godly living, and the other has to do with sound doctrine. Those are the two things that are to mark out the leadership of the church. And the encroachment of Satan into the church is always the encroachment of unsound doctrine and ungodly living. And against that must come the strength of godliness and truth.
Now go back with me to Matthew chapter 7 for a moment and to the words of our Lord who anticipated this particular problem that the church would face. Jesus has brought to a climax the Sermon on the Mount with an invitation in verse 13 and 14. The invitation is to enter into the narrow gate on to the narrow way which is the way of life everlasting, the way of salvation. And after giving the invitation, He also gives with it a warning to watch out for the broad road which leads to destruction. It is a religious road but it does not go to heaven. It says heaven but goes to hell. I'm calling you, Jesus says, to the true road, the true path, the true salvation, the true life of God.
But, He says, there is another road, a road of religion on which many walk who do not really know salvation at all. And in regard to these two paths, no sooner does He offer the invitation to come to the right path, than in verse 15 He says, "Beware of false prophets." Because for every true prophet calling people to the narrow gate and the narrow way there will no doubt be a multiplicity of false prophets calling people to the broad gate and the broad way that leads to destruction. Beware of them. They will come to you, He says, in sheep's clothing. Now what is sheep's clothing? That's easy enough, it's wool. That's what you get from a sheep, it's wool and wool is the garment of a prophet. A prophet wore a woolen robe. And what you have here is not someone dressed up like a sheep but someone dressed up like a prophet who comes claiming to articulate the Word of God but inwardly is nothing but a wolf wanting to tear and shred the sheep. And so we are aware of the fact that our Lord instructs us that no sooner will we offer the invitation to the true gospel and the true salvation than we will see also those calling for a decision that leads only to damnation...misleading false teachers and false preachers who only show the way to hell though they don't announce it as such.
And, frankly, as I said last week, this is not new. If you want to read Deuteronomy 13:1 to 5, write it down, you'll see that even back in the book of Moses in the law of Moses there was the presence of false teaching. You read the thirtieth chapter of Isaiah and you see it there. We are reminded by...in the New Testament...by the Apostle John in that little epistle, 2 John, in verse 7, "Many deceivers are entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ comes in the flesh, this is a deceiver and an antichrist."
We are reminded as Paul brings the book of Romans to a conclusion in chapter 16 verses 17 and 18, "I beseech you, brethren, mark them who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own body, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the innocent."
Peter in 2 Peter 2:1 says there are false prophets among the people, just as there were false prophets. There will always be false prophets is his point, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies. And verse 2 says, "Many will follow their pernicious ways." And verse 3 says, "They will make merchandise of those people for their own gain."
In 1 John 4:1, John says, "Tests the spirits to see whether they are of God for there are many deceivers gone out into the world."
Now they are dangerous because they claim to be from God and they claim to speak God's Word. And we've gone over that. Jeremiah reminds us in chapter 5 verses 30 and 31 that the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule with their own authority and my people love it that way. In Jeremiah 14:14 he said, "The prophets are prophesying falsehood in my name, I have neither sent them nor commanded them, nor spoken to them. They are prophesying deception."
Now they are dangerous because their deception is a damning deception. And it comes from that most damning deceiver of all, Satan, who disguises himself as an angel of light, says 2 Corinthians 13:11 to 15, and all of his messengers are disguised as angels of light and out they go to deceive. Some are heretics. And I suppose we could sort of generally define a heretic as a person who openly rejects the Word of God and teaches contrary. That's one kind of false teacher.
Others we could call apostates. Apostates who are those who once followed the faith but have now turned away. And then there are just the general deceivers who come alongside and not like heretics do they deny the faith and not like apostates do they say they once believed it but now they've turned from it, but they pretend to still believe it. And they want to look like orthodox fundamental evangelical Christians, and the truth is‑‑ they lie...they lie. Jesus said in Matthew 7 in the passage to which we have looked, "That you will know them by their...what?...by their fruit." Not necessarily what they say but you look a little closer to their life and you'll see.
Invariably the false teacher cannot produce good fruit because evil cannot produce good. Jesus says you cannot have good coming out of an evil source. A tree cannot produce both good and evil fruit. And so they will produce evil fruit but they will cloak it. They hide their bad fruit inevitably under Ecclesiastical garb, or they had their bad fruit under the isolation of unaccountability. They exist without any accountability to anyone and the people can't get near enough to them to see the reality of what's under that cloak.
Some of them hide their evil fruit under a holy vocabulary. Or association with good fruitful Christians. Some of them cover their evil fruit with belonging to a Christian association or with biblical knowledge. But usually they can't hide it from everyone all the time. And as you look close at a false teacher, you will see the fruit. Their character is faulty. Peter calls them in 2 Peter 2 "filth spots and scabs, disease, polluted, wells without water, clouds without rain, dogs that lick their own vomit." All kinds of horrible titles because their character is vile. They do what they do for money. They make merchandise of people. These are the false teachers.
And as we go back to 1 Timothy, let me just briefly remind you that they had appeared in that place as well, in Ephesus, where Timothy was given this ministry. They had arisen in the church at Ephesus, and no doubt in surrounding areas. And Timothy is there to straighten the situation out. And it is not an easy task. He's there to teach sound doctrine and he's there to deal with unsound teachers. He's there to be an example of godly living. He is to teach sound doctrine and set an example in his own life, and then to put out the false teachers.
Now, we need to learn from this. This opening charge from verses 3 through 11 really sets the scene for the rest of the epistle. And in it the Apostle Paul gives Timothy to understand four things that will convince him of the necessity of moving against false teachers. First, to understand their error. Secondly, to understand their goal. Thirdly, to understand their motive. And finally, to understand their effect. Now when we understand these four things, we will therefore grasp the urgency with which we must deal with such people.
First, let's be reminded about understanding their error. Verse 3, Paul says, "I want you to stay there, Timothy, in order that you might command certain individuals to teach no other doctrine." Not doctrine that gives attention to myths, Judaistic myths, no doubt, as we learn from a general look at what was going on. Endless genealogies which do nothing but produce speculation rather than the plan of God which is by faith, that is the saving plan of God. So what you have here is a substitute for the saving gospel. Their error was they invented a new means of salvation...salvation through fables and endless genealogies and speculations rather than the beautiful marvelous saving plan of God which is by faith. Like all false teachers, there was no narrow gate, there was no repentance, there was no confession, there was no admission in meekness and humiliation that you could not attain under the divine standard but rather they had come up with a system of works righteousness that was a parallel to the apostate Jewish system of their day. Their religion of human achievement, works salvation, the popular gospel that "you're okay like you are, just keep a few laws and everything is going to be fine." But they needed to be stopped because their error was an error that was absolutely the most vital issue of all.
You see, if you...if you believe wrongly about the gospel, everything else is a moot point, right? If you believe wrongly about the saving gospel, you're damned to hell forever. You have to get that right. There are some places for variation, that's not one of them. So we need then, Paul says to Timothy, to understand their error. And their error is that they have diverted from the saving plan of God. So a false teacher then in the technical sense is one who teaches other than the saving gospel.
Someone asked me this week about people who might have a different view on this Bible verse, or they might have a different view on a certain doctrine of Scripture, are they false prophets? Well, they may be teaching error, they may be teaching falsehood, advertently or inadvertently, but a false teacher is primarily one that is teaching a wrong gospel. The others would be teachers of a true gospel who are in error about some other things. But a false teacher or false prophet teaches other than the true gospel and thus damns men.
Their goal...what is their goal? Well it tells us what it isn't in verse 5, the goal of the commandment. The objective not only of God's commandment, but also of Paul's commandment to Timothy to do this work is to produce love. God wants to produce love. That's why the Bible says that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like unto it, to love your neighbor as yourself. What God wants to produce in us through salvation is that we should love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love everyone else as we love ourselves. The goal of the commandment of God as well as the goal of Paul's command to Timothy within the church is to create a fellowship of people who supremely love God and each other. And he says that that love rises and gives us three tremendous insights out of a pure heart, a good conscience and faith unfeigned. A pure heart is a heart that's been cleansed by God...a heart that's been washed by the blood of Christ. It's the heart that David cried for in Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew within me a right spirit."
In Psalm 24, the psalmist says, "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and pure heart." The only people who come into the presence of God are those whose hearts have been cleansed. And we said last time that the heart is just another word for the center of personhood. It's another word for the core of life. It's where your personality is and your character and your mind and your thinking and your believing. It's equal in the Bible to your mind. And that has to be cleaned and cleansed.
And so, the goal of ministry is pure hearts, isn't it? But that wasn't the goal of these men. These men were defiled. In fact I think when verse...when in verse 9 and 10 he talks about all these sins, he probably has them in mind because it's for sure that if you have the wrong gospel, if you have the wrong means of salvation, you're not doing anything for your defiled heart. A pure heart is the first goal. And that can only come through the pure gospel purifying the heart. And where you have a pure heart then, you will have also a good conscience potential. If the heart has been cleansed, then the conscience which basically is your self‑judging faculty, that's a definition of conscience. It is your self‑judging faculty. It's what either excuses you and affirms you or condemns you and accuses you. It either says you've done wrong or that was good. It's that little part of you when you do something right that gives you satisfaction, pleasure, peace and joy. When you do something wrong, it condemns you. And if your heart is pure, then your conscience can be good because what would be there to condemn you has been covered in the blood of Jesus Christ. A good conscience produces pleasure, satisfaction, a state of well being, freedom of the feelings of guilt, joy, peace.
And the conscience...listen carefully...can only respond to the mind. That's why in Titus 1:15 he says of the unbelievers, "They are defiled, even their mind and conscience is defiled," they go together. If the mind is defiled, the conscience will respond by recognizing the defilement. If the mind is pure, if the heart is pure, the conscience will stop accusing and bring peace and joy. And the result of that will be faith unfeigned. That is faith without hypocrisy. You don't need to pretend to be something if you've got nothing to pretend. People who pretend their faith, people who want to wear a mask of religiosity, people who are phony are phony because the truth is so bad. They're playing a game that isn't genuine. But if you're genuine, you don't need to play the game. You faith can be without hypocrisy if your conscience isn't accusing you because your heart is pure.
I think we've overlooked that verse too much in evangelical teaching. That's an incredible thing. If you want to know what the heart and soul of Christian growth and development and ministry is all about, it is all about bringing people to the place where through Jesus Christ their hearts are purged so that they have a good conscience, the conscience stops accusing them. Their faith being genuine then can be paraded as the genuine faith that it is, not some hypocrisy. And out of that pure heart, good conscience, genuine faith will come the love that is the goal and the end product of all that God desires to do in and through us.
And we could spend much time developing those themes, but you understand what he's saying. The goal of sound teaching is love. Love for God. Love of choice, as I said. Love of will. Love of self‑sacrificing giving to God and to others. And that only comes from