1Timothy 4:1  "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.".

This would be better translated "but." 

This would set in sharp contrast the early doctrinal creed given in the final verse of the preceding chapter.

1 Timothy 3:16   "And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."

Apostle Paul teaches us about the apostasy within the church.

"That in the latter times."

This expression refers to the last days of the church on the earth, 

When Paul was in Ephesus he warned them that there would come wolves in sheep’s clothing who would deceive the believers.

Apostle John said, 

"Already there are many antichrists"  -  

already error was in the church. 

The first great church was the Coptic church in Africa; it was way ahead of the others. 

North Africa produced some of the greatest saints in the early church, including Augustine, Tertullian, and Athanasius, but that church went off into heresy and departed from the faith.

Apostle Paul says here,

"in the latter times,"

he does not have the second coming of Christ in view at all. 

However,  he says in

 2 Timothy 3:1   "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come."

Paul uses a technical expression that refers to the last days of the church on the earth before our Lord Jesus takes it out. 

The "latter times" mentioned here refers to our times today  -  

Here Paul was speaking of what lay ahead for the church in his day.

"Some shall depart from the faith."

Paul was warning that there will be heretical teachers who will mislead a great company of people. 

There will be a departure from 

the faith. 

Paul wrote also in 

2 Thessalonians 2  of the apostasy. 

Actually this matter of apostasy has been in the church a long time. It is certainly not new today.

It has grown steadily and will continue to grow.

When the true church of Christ is raptured, left behind will be a  

totally apostate organized church.

"Depart"  -  means  "to stand away from." 

A departure suggests not only that you have a point to which you are going, but also a point from which you have come. 

Those who apostatize are ones who have professed at one time to hold to the faith, but now they have departed from it. There cannot be an apostasy in paganism because they have never professed the faith. 

They never professed to trust Christ as Savior. They have never heard about Him, and there can be no apostasy among them. 

The apostasy comes within the organized church among those who profess to the faith then depart from it.

"Giving heed to seducing spirits." 

Who is responsible for them departing the faith?

What caused them to depart? 

Is it because they have become better educated, more intellectual? 

Is it because of scientific developments and increased knowledge which reveals that the faith can no longer be held? 

No,

Apostle Paul says, 

"Some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits."

"Seducing" actually means wandering, roving, and it comes from the word vagabond or deceiver or seducer. 

Satan is all of those things. 

They give heed to satanic spirits.

Satan is the father of lies.

He is the big deceiver.

These are people who give way to

"Doctrines of devils [demons]." 

It is alarming today how many people, even in our very materialistic age have returned to the things of the spirit world and there is at present a great emphasis placed upon it.

Christians are told to 

"… try the spirits whether they are of God …," 

because there have gone out into the world these seducing spirits (1 John 4:1). 

The test that we should apply is the creed that was given in 

1 Timothy 3:16    "… God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit …." 

The only way of salvation is through the death of Christ, 

and it is by this truth we can test the doctrines of demons today.

There are those who claim to be believers who are placing a great emphasis on demonism. They are very interested in this subject and are reading everything they can find about it. We are seeing a real manifestation of the spirit world today, but the best thing we can actually do regarding the Devil is to show him a clean pair of heels. 

We should not get ourselves involved in it.

Apostle  Paul warns us against being seduced by the doctrines of demons. 

We should stay clear of them,

testing each spirit by its acknowledgment of the deity of Christ and by its acknowledgment that God was manifest in the flesh and that we are justified through the redemption 

Christ Jesus wrought for us on the cross.

1 Timothy 4:2   "Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron."

The apostate will pretend to be very pious and very religious.

Dear reader when we have the truth it makes us humble, because the first thing we realize is just how little we know. 

I personally get so bothered because I run out of time continually,  studying the Word of God. I run around starting another page and another page trying to get more understanding of the very situation I am in at the time of writing.  I love to fit all the pieces together because I find the Bible so very, very exciting. I love the Word of God with a great passion because it has opened my eyes to what it means to sit at Jesus feet. No man can ever take that from us and in His Presence there is fullness of joy. Oh I long to be continually filled with that joy and that is why I run to the Word continually because it fills me to overflowing,  with God's love and mercy.

God is full of mercy and truth! 

The more I study, the more He cleanses me. I know He wants each one of His dear children to be filled with truth.  Everything in our lives must be the truth because there is no lie in Him.  

He is the truth. 

Every lie is of the devil because he is the father of every lie.

The only place for me to be is in His Presence continually because there I am safe from all alarm. I know first hand today and oh how I praise God for His unspeakable goodness and mercy to us in giving us His written Word and all the teachers He has provided for us.  We can by His Word examine ourselves and all those we come in contact with.  He has given us all we need to discern the false teachers.  It is totally indescribable to express how God in His Word fills every space in our hearts and lives. He makes everything come alive, real, and so exciting and He causes us to triumph when we give out His Word. I know that first hand today and I so long to have known that when I was young. I have wasted so much time in my life and long to begin again in the New Jerusalem,  one day soon I hope, where all these things that I know in part will be revealed in full and we will be able to study the Bible without any interruptions due to our weakness and our frailness.  Dear reader God is full of mercy and kindness. He is everything you could ever dream of and He fulfills every desire of our hearts when we delight ourselves in Him.   He is alive and active in every circumstance in my life. Even at the very present moment that I write this page but I realize that there is just no way possible for me to keep up.  I long to be able to study more and understand more. It is a burning in my heart but I just fall further behind as each day I realize just how much more ground there is to cover.  Oh how I want to see Jesus lifted high a banner across the sky.

There are many today who are  

"Speaking lies in hypocrisy,     they are pretending to be something they are not.

"Having their conscience seared with a hot iron." 

1 Timothy 1:5   "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."

Apostle Paul never forgot from whence he came. 

These are the things which should characterize the visible church.

They are faith, love, and a good conscience. 

We are to be tenderhearted.

We are to be prayerfully concerned   -  pray without ceasing   -  for our brothers and sisters who are  living in lies and deceit.

They are being deceived and they do not know it.

They are being deceived by their own conscience.

Their conscience has been seared with a hot iron.

They have gotten away from the Word of God. 

Oh it is important in the plan and purpose of God that His church have a tender conscience and not stoop to such low levels that are abroad today.

1 Timothy 4:3   "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."

Even in Christ’s day

there were people who left Judaism and went into  cults and "isms." This is not something new in our day; it has been going on for a long time.

In Christ’s day there was a group down by the Dead Sea known as the Essenes. It was from among them that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.

"Forbidding to marry"

When Christianity came along, many probably joined the Palestinian church and helped to produce most of its characteristic heresies, including the regulation of not marrying.

"Commanding to abstain from meats." 

There are to this day those who make certain rules and regulations about diet that are not in the Word of God. 

They go off on this as if food could commend them to God.

It is true that if we eat certain kinds of food we can possibly get a tum1 my ache, but that has nothing to do with our spiritual life.

Timothy 4:4-5   "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 and prayer."

The Word of God does not condemn food; it commends it. 

If you can return thanks for the food you eat, that sanctifies it for your body. 

"If it be received with thanksgiving"  -  there are some foods I cannot be thankful for. There are certain foods that would really put me down physically if I ate them, and I cannot honestly be thankful for them.  

What Can We Do in Times of Apostasy?

1 Timothy4:6   "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."

"If thou put the brethren in remembrance of these things."

Apostle Paul had warned Timothy of the apostasy and false teachings that were to come into the church. 

There will be men who profess to the faith and then they deny deny it by their lives

In turn Timothy is to warn the believers about these things.

They are to keep their eyes open to these things.

They are to be alert, wide awake to the things going on around them. 

The days are very evil,

the times are waxing late;

Be sober and keep vigil—

the Judge is at the gate.

The Judge who comes in mercy

the Judge who comes with might,

To terminate the evil

    Bernard of Cluny wrote this poem.            

"Thou shalt be a good minister of Jesus Christ."

Every believer is a minister.

Here Paul has in mind, Timothy,  as a teacher of the Word of God. 

Teaching is a gift that some have. 

But all believers are ministers.

We are all ministers of the truth.

Christ Jesus is the truth.

"Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine"  -  

this is how a believer is to grow in the Word of God. 

We are not to go off on tangents about diet or some other visual program as if it would commend us to God. Instead our diet is to be 

"nourished up in the Words of faith and of good doctrine."

Apostle Paul said that Timothy had attained unto the things he had mentioned and he commended him for it.

Apostle Paul had warned Timothy about apostasy and false teachings, but he will yet mention more things that Timothy should avoid:

1 Timothy 4:7   "But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness."

"But refuse profane and old wives’ fables." 

As a young child I remember there were a lot of old sayings that the older people would tell us about. All kinds of fables, actually superstitions. dont walk under a ladder, put salt behind a chair of a person you did not want in your house and they would not visit you again. Ridiculous!  Simply  Ridiculous! And there are many more.

"And exercise thyself rather unto godliness"  -  Timothy was to practice godliness in his life.

This is what we are to do.

We are to exercise godliness.

1 Timothy 4:8  "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."

We are to exercise truth daily.

I remember my mom teaching me when I was little  "tell the truth and you shame the devil."

"For bodily exercise profiteth little."

There are many who believe that Paul is downgrading physical exercise.

Today we know that no matter how fit we are we still get sick. We still get cancer and we still have heart attacks.

Today man has reached a fanatical point of fitness and the Word of God is as always right up to date with everything pertaining to man.

Paul did spend about three years in Ephesus where there was a great coliseum in which the Olympic Games were held at times. The coliseum seated 100,000 people, and foot races were often held there.

Paul I think was a keen sports person at one time as he uses the figure of the race and makes a correspondence to the Christian life and walk.

1 Corinthians 9:24–27   "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things.

Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.'

I believe Paul knew something about exercise.

He had  walked many miles preaching the gospel of Christ.

He did not ride a horse or even a donkey.

Apostle  Paul walked throughout the Roman Empire. He may not have done much jogging, but he sure did a great deal of walking.

His emphasis on godliness because the Ephesians were a people given over to games and athletics.

We in our day place far too much emphasis on games and athletics and today it is all about money. Many of our cities have coliseums where great spectacles are conducted, and many believers put more emphasis on athletics than they do on the things of God.

There are many believers, who spend more time at a football game  or on the golf course than they spend studying the Word of God.

Bodily exercise is not wrong, but it does not profit us very much.

Apostle Paul says,

"Let’s hold things in correct perspective."

"But godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."

Bodily exercise will help you in this life, only. Because when we receive  a new body it will not make any difference whether we exercise or not.

"But godliness is profitable unto all things."

Those who love to argue the fact that a believer can fall into sin and can always come back to God on easy terms, are right.

But oh dear reader a godly life pays off not only down here, it will pay off in eternity.

The Prodigal Son lost a great deal by going to the far country, and any believer who lives a careless life, living in lies and deceit because they will not face the truth and be healed and cleansed and rather live a godly life will find that even in eternity they will pay for it.

Are you as anxious about godliness as you are about physical exercise, about athletic events?

The physical ends at the end of this life,

but godliness is for all eternity.

1 Timothy 4:9   "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation."

Paul is emphasizing the point he has just made.

In other words, he says,

"Here’s something you can count on."

You could count on it in the first century in Ephesus, and you can count on it in our countries this day.

1 Timothy 4:10   "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe."

"For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach."

If we stand for Christ Jesus today it will cost us something.

There is no question about that.

"Who is the Saviour of all men."

 We hear a great deal of discussion about what color of eyes Christ had. Was He blond or brunette? How tall was He? I talked to one man who was disturbed to see a picture of Christ painted as a black man. "Why not," I said, "He’s the Savior of all men." The color of His skin or of His hair is not the important thing. Scripture never gives us that kind of information about Him.

What Scripture does say is that He is the Savior of all men.

Whoever you are, He is your Savior and He is the only Savior.

"Specially of those that believe."

He is the Savior of all men,

but you can turn Him down if you want to.

It is available to everybody,

but not everybody will take it.

Christ is the Savior of all men,

but only those who believe will be saved.

John 3:16   "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

1 John 2:2  "And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

Christ is the mercy seat,  - 

the meeting place between God and man.

However, here in 1 John propitiation means

"an atonement or an expiation."

It means that sins have been paid for by the suffering of Another.

Christ is my Advocate, interceding for me, and He Himself is the propitiation.

Is Christ Jesus your Saviour from sin today?

Have you been to Him and told Him all about yourself, all the things you are not sure about?

If not then why not go to Him now and tell him all that is in your heart, tell him about the things you are not sure about and ask Him to plant evidence in your heart so that you can know the truth.

From ev'ry stormy wind that blows,
From ev'ry swelling tide of woes,
There is a calm, a sure retreat:
'Tis found beneath the mercy seat.

There is a place where Jesus sheds
The oil of gladness on our heads,
A place than all besides more sweet:
It is the bloodstained mercy seat.

There is a scene where spirits blend,
Where friend holds fellowship with friend;
Though sundered far, by faith they meet
Around one common mercy seat.

Ah, whither could we flee for aid,
When tempted, desolate, dismayed:
Or how the hosts of hell defeat,
Had suffering saints no mercy seat?

Ah, there on eagle wings we soar,
And sin and sense molest no more:
And heav'n comes down our souls to greet,
While glory crowns the mercy seat.

Amen!

THIS PAGE UPDATED:  30-5-2008.