An Unfaithful Departure

Verse 16 gives us some of these fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. We have the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the revelation of the will of God to the Gentiles, and their reception of this Gospel message, their conversion, and then the ascension of Christ.

This is just a few of the core tenets of the Christian faith. In this passage, we see a diversion. We see there is apostasy.

That is a word that I'll say a few times tonight. Apostasy is where someone has made a profession of faith in the church, but they have fallen away. They have drifted. They have strayed from the faith. Think about preaching through a book like this.

You don't get to avoid the tough passages. This is a tough message this evening, but if you have a willingness to hear it and a heart to receive it, I think it is a warning to us, but also a call to urgency to be faithful to the Gospel and to encourage others in their faithfulness. The word apostate is someone who has left the faith, and someone who is described in this passage is an ascetic. The word asceticism is to describe someone who is severely committed to self-discipline. Back in the time of the ancient church, many ascetics would throw out all their earthly possessions, and they would literally own nothing.

They would starve themselves, and their affections were somewhat mixed. It was not out of love for Christ, but it was out of honor that they would receive from men. It was sort of a form of Phariseeism. What we see in this passage is there is an apostasy toward asceticism. Despite these many who depart from the faith into this apostasy and into an ascetic lifestyle, God still gives us blessings and liberty that are found in Christ. So we want to look first at this pattern of apostasy within the church.

The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons. This has been a weird year and a half, and during the pandemic I got an email from Crossway that sent me an email, an article that was written, called, Ten Reasons to Come Back to the Church After COVID-19. It was very grievous to my heart that this is the state of the American church. I have to give you ten reasons why you should come back into the local church and fellowship with other believers. We need to convince people to come back to the local church and be in fellowship with us.

To give a few, we need to administer baptism, we need to administer communion together, the Lord's Supper. We need fellowship as fellow believers. We need to encourage each other. As Hebrews 10 tells us to stir one another up to love and good works, we should encourage each other. We are the bride of Christ. We are the local gathering of believers.

I have to get an article that says, let me persuade you to come back. This is where we are the pillar in support of truth. This is where the truth, the Gospel, is in town. If you want to go hear it, you come on a Sunday, you come on the Lord's Day, and you'll hear the Gospel preached. But sadly, because everyone has gone online, and I'm glad we have technology, we can send the Gospel message out.

Many people have stayed at home. They've watched good sermons on YouTube. We have sort of a blessing and cursing that we have great teaching online. But sadly, they are not coming back to church. It might reveal a few things. It might reveal their lack of faith.

It might reveal that we, the church, are not doing our part in faithfulness. Let's be honest with ourselves. Are we not welcoming in strangers, visitors?

Are we not being friendly to them that they don't feel the need to come back? It could be sports on Sunday. It could be football, Sunday night football.

It could be all sorts of things. The apostates here are unique. It's not that they leave and just fall into agnosticism or atheism. They don't leave the church and sort of get apathetic.

They find themselves deeply devoted to false teaching. They have been drawn out of the church by deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons. Paul is warning us here in this passage that there will be later times, and yes, we are in the later times or in the last days. Sometimes when I'm sharing the Gospel, people ask me, they'll kind of lean in and whisper, do you think we're in the last days? And yes, we've been in the last days since the first coming of Christ.

We know that very clearly. Read the Bible. Hebrews chapter 1, verse 2. In these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and whom he has created the world. We see the last days beginning with the coming of Christ.

We've been in them for 2,000 years. Peter in Acts chapter 2, in the last days it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my spirit, and he does so at Pentecost. And so we shouldn't be surprised as we are in these last days. There will be many challenges to the Christian faith.

There will be many of those who stand in opposition to the truth, but this opposition are made up of former members of the church that have left the faith, committed apostasy, and now they are devout in their beliefs, these deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. Paul warns about this in Acts chapter 20. Speaking to the Ephesian elders, he says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to the flock.

Why? I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will 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.

Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease day and night to admonish everyone in tears. Paul loves the church, and he does not want this dreadful drifting into apostasy for you. He does not want us to forfeit the deposit that we have been given to protect, to guard the truth of the Gospel. He wants us to hold on to this and not to fall away into false teaching. But it's approaching.

It already has for years. For 2,000 years we've had false teaching approaching the Gospel truth. But here it says that they will come in with deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. And the Greek word here is describing false teachers and a spirit of error. Every time it's used, it's always describing a heretical view that is challenging the church. In chapter 1, verses 3 to 6, there's a picture of Paul's opponents, people that are swaying from the truth, wandering into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what is being said or which they make confident assertions. Here it's revealed that the root of this Ephesian heresy that's going around is that Satan and the influence of these demonic teachings are leading people into heresy. And it is a teaching of wickedness and demonic instruction. Back in chapter 1, we see in verse 20 that Alexander and Hymenaeus were handed over to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme. Even there, Paul had to excommunicate these men.

He had to push them out of the church. We do not preach false doctrine here. If you're going to teach that, you need to leave. We are absolutely intolerant of false doctrine within the church.

We are not going to have it. So if you're going to teach that, you need to go. Paul is clarifying to us, we will not let other sheep be ensnared by this wicked, vile teaching. And in the second letter, 2 Timothy, it's already happening.

It's in the present tense. There's an active push against the orthodox teaching within the church. And so it is a misguided but also a morbid heresy that they are committed to.

They're not victims of this. In one sense, this teaching and the alluring happened to them, but at the same time, now they've turned around and they've embraced this false teaching. And part of me wants to say, do we talk with them? Yes, of course. We want to encourage them to come back.

Are they led astray? Do we want to draw them back in? Yes.

Absolutely. We want to encourage people to repent of their false teaching. They might be just people asking sincere questions. They might be people that want to know the validity of our own history, of our own presbyterian tradition. They want to know why we're right and they're wrong.

They might be genuinely asking questions and wanting to know. Here in this passage, these apostates, these ascetics, they are not confused. They are not confused about what we teach. They have rejected it. They have rebelled against it. And now they are teaching a doctrine that Paul describes in 2 Timothy 2. The talk of such men will spread like gangrene.

Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus. So there it is. This is the same teaching that comes out of chapter 1, out of Hymenaeus and Alexander, and this is spreading like gangrene.

As we know about gangrene, it cannot be just simply treated. It must be cut off. It must be completely removed from the church. They will say it's a good teaching.

They'll say it will be very sincere. I think about Mormon missionaries. They often are very well dressed and they mean well, but then they preach a false gospel. We see Jehovah's Witnesses, some of the best dressed people I've seen among the cults, again bringing a false gospel to your doorstep. Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11 that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It's no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. While they have the appearance of godliness, they deny the power, and Paul makes it very clear to avoid such people.

And actually the grammar says it's continuing. It's to continue to avoid them always. We must stay away from them. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive them into your house. Do not give them any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. We are warned here. Verse 2 tells us that through the insincerity of liars, their consciences are seared.

They are at a point of a woeful state. This is a horrible place to be where the imagery that's being used here is a hot branding iron. We think of cattle. You brand an animal with a branding iron. As that hot metal comes into contact with the skin, it burns all the nerve endings. And so after the skin has cooled down, now the nerve endings don't feel. There's a lack of sensitivity in the skin. What's the metaphor here? That there's an insensitivity to correct teaching in God's Word. Their consciences are seared.

They're not receiving the Word of God well. So it serves as a warning to us that we must be sensitive to God's Word. Where God's law comes in and corrects us, we must be quick to repent. We must be quick to run to Christ and believe and trust in the mercy of Christ.

But we must sincerely repent. And then, as Paul tells us, to have a clear conscience. Be careful not to sear your own conscience, but have a clear conscience. The aim of our charge is love. It issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Deacons are to hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.

This is our goal. That we not get so comfortable with sin that we think nothing of it. Second, we see the practice of these apostates and these ascetics in verse 3. Who forbid marriage and require absence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Two wrong teachings that they are propagating here.

Forbidding marriage and abstaining from certain foods. Forbidding people to marry is just this false view of spirituality. That it's somewhat better to be celibate, to be single.

You're more committed to the Lord. I know priests and nuns kind of have this view that they're married to Jesus Christ. And so, in that sense, it's actually a higher calling than being a regular church member that's married with children. We think of Roman Catholic priests, they're celibate to this day. This is a wrong teaching without any scriptural warrant with only the traditions of men to back up their teaching.

Even going back into the ancient church, there was a teaching called continents. Where if a man was married and he had children, once he became a priest, he could not have any intimacy with his wife once he became a priest. So once again, this is just not grounded in scripture at all.

This is a wicked, awful doctrine. Paul does say that singleness is good. 1 Corinthians 7, he talks about the benefits of being single in the ministry.

I can attest to this. There was a time where I was single and I was freed up to do more ministerial work and I was very glad for that season of life. Now that I'm married, I'm very glad to be married. But there's a time to be single, there's a time to be married. Some men in history, J. Gresham Machen, John Stott, Richard Sibbes, all these men, preachers, ministers, they were all single in the church.

I'm sure it freed them up to do much more ministry work. But if you are called to be married, and that is you're currently married, it's good, it's right to be married. If you're single, it's good, it's right to be single. There's a time to be both single and married. If you desire to be married, it's not wrong to want to be married. Christians must marry in the faith. I think that's pretty clear from 1 Corinthians 7.

I have to say this, in 2021, we must marry someone of the opposite sex. And where two believers come together in marriage, in the covenant of marriage, let man not separate. This is a good thing.

He is blessed by God. It is not less than singleness. But this is the teaching that's being taught. And I think that it's pointing to a future view of heaven. Again, they're trying to ramp it up and kind of look at, ascend this idea of a common marriage. Look at heaven.

What is it like in heaven? Jesus tells us for the resurrection they neither marry nor given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. That might be the source of where they're getting this teaching that in heaven we're not married.

Why would we marry now when there's a future reality that we will not be married? At the same time, that's a full denial of the creation mandate, which is to be fruitful and to multiply. It is a denial of Proverbs when it says, He that finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.

Secondly, we see these abstinence from food. It would make sense that Paul is arguing for Christian liberty in view of the Jewish dietary laws. He's training to be a Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin. Paul is steeped in a Jewish tradition. So it absolutely makes sense that he is fighting for freedom to eat freely.

This is a big hurdle for a lot of Jewish men that are being converted to Christ. But we do have a passage that makes it very clear. Peter saw in Acts chapter 10 that the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. There were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds in the air and it came a voice saying, Rise Peter, kill and eat. This is the Lord telling Peter directly, Go ahead, kill, eat. Of course, Peter decides he wants to argue with the Lord. By no means, Lord, I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.

The voice came to him again a second time. What God has made clean, do not call common. So what is Christ's point here in this passage is that now we have declared that there are no more dietary laws. There are no more limits, restrictions on eating pork or any sort of other dietary restriction mentioned in the Old Testament. Christ has freed us from this.

I get this often times when I'm talking to people. They'll say, part of your Bible says you can't eat pork or shellfish. I'll say, yes, this part of the Bible, the Old Testament, is fulfilled right here in the New Testament.

Within itself, it resolves the issue. We now have freedom to eat as we feel led to here. If someone were to come to us and say, you're in sin eating pork, by the way, that's against the dietary laws, the appropriate response is, actually, you're in sin for telling me that that is a sin. We have freedom. Christ has provided for us freedom to eat as we are led. But there, again, is a push these days. There's a Hebrew roots movement.

They meet on Saturday. They observe the dietary laws, but they still claim Jesus or they claim Yeshua. They see the secularism of the world, and they say, let's get back to the law, and they start getting right back into the Galatian heresy, which is by faith and by Torah observance, and I'll earn my way to salvation. It is, again, a false gospel. We are not saved by our works.

We are saved by faith and faith alone in Christ alone. If someone were to come into the church and encourage this sort of dietary law, we would have to tell them that we do not tolerate this. You can think it's healthy to abstain from pork. You can think it's healthy to abstain from processed foods or alcohol or tobacco.

That's completely fine. But for you to say that they are sinning against the Lord, that teaching will not be tolerated. It is a false teaching coming out of a false gospel. You are sinfully binding the conscience of other believers about a freedom that they have in Christ. Again, there's a lot of things where we think it's wise to do this, unwise to do that, but we draw a line where Scripture draws a line. We can encourage each other in all sorts of lifestyles. I think about homeschooling is big.

I hear about essential oils. I still don't exactly know what that is. But again, pork and processed foods. There's all sorts of things that we debate as just a local group of people.

We're going to debate these things. But as a congregation, we must be defined by the text. We have to go back to God's Word. What about fasting? Recently we did a fast as a congregation.

Might we be violating this as it says in abstaining from foods? Is it wrong to fast? The Lord tells us when you fast. Matthew 6, 16 tells us when you fast being there's a designated time that we are too fast. Fasting reminds us that we are dependent upon God as our provider. We realize our dependence, that God is the one that gives us the rain that grows the crops, that fills the groceries, and that we can go and eat.

God is the one who provides for us. Jesus called these Pharisees out, hypocrites disfiguring their faces, their fasting that may be seen by others. Their goal was that you would see how holy they are. They want you to see that they're fasting and that they're really hungry and they're desperate for food because they've just been fasting for so long because they're so holy.

This again is self-serving. And Jesus knew this and He said they'll receive their reward. They'll receive the respect and honor of other men and they'll feel self-righteous and they'll be satisfied in that. They want to earn points. That's part of this ascetic living as well.

They want to earn points with the Lord and they want to earn favor with the Lord. But this is wrong. This ascetic living, this starving oneself, this denial of good and right foods is wrong. Fasting for a time in prayer, again, reminds us of our need for the Lord.

But this ascetic lifestyle is completely off the deep end, starving oneself, throwing out all possessions, and having nothing. I think, if anything, we need to look at the opposite. As Americans, we might be guilty of gluttony, overindulgence.

That might be what we need to hear. But again, gluttony is wrong, asceticism is wrong, we need to be good stewards of our body, and both extremes are wrong. What we have is a command from Christ.

When you fast, there's a time to fast, but to limit it. Again, God is not forbidden foods, we are to enjoy food. Paul is pointing everyone, Jew and Gentile, to delight in the providence of God through food. Verses 4-5 we see this answer of asceticism.

For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is to be received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He said, let there be light, and it was good.

Every day of creation, it was good, it was good, it was good, every time. And then finally, Adam is alone. He is by himself, and it is not good that man would be alone.

And so he makes a helper fit for him. He makes Eve. And in response, Adam cries out, this at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she is taken out of man. Tim Keller noted this is like a benediction. This is a declaration, this is a celebration of Adam now being partnered with Eve.

It is a good and right thing. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife that shall become one flesh and the man and his wife were both naked and were unashamed. As we see as sin creeps into the world, it is the influence of Satan where Eve was lured in by deceitful spirits and this demonic teaching. In Genesis chapter 3, it was Satan that challenged the goodness of God. He called her to indulge and Satan lures Eve into sin.

And Adam consents to this. He doesn't guard her, he doesn't protect her as he should, but instead he consents to this and he says, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I command you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. You shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground.

Satan's influence started back at the beginning in Genesis and still continues to today. We are not to be deceived, but we are to receive these things with thanksgiving. We are to receive marriage and we are to receive food for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. We don't really struggle with Jewish dietary laws. We're not former Jews that have been converted into Christianity. You must remember that this was a massive stumbling block for any Jewish man. Recognizing their Gentile Christians have had this freedom. They've never been limited in what they can eat.

But now this new Jewish Christian sect can now eat and enjoy the same foods, these formerly common foods that the Gentiles have enjoyed. As I think about abstaining from foods, what comes to mind is J. Gresham Machen. Probably one of the best examples I've heard of of liberty in Christ.

Machen was a professor at Princeton Seminary. He was free to marry, he never did. He was free to drink, he never did.

He was free to smoke, and he never did. He talks about the freedom that his colleagues at Princeton Seminary had when they would have cigars together. He said the following, The fellows are in my room now on the last night, last Sunday night, smoking the cigars and eating the oranges, which has been the greatest delight I have ever had to provide whenever possible.

My idea of delight is a Princeton room full of fellows smoking. When I think of what aid tobacco is to friendship and to Christian patience, I have sometimes regretted that I never began to smoke. He just enjoyed his friends having a good time and exercising their liberty that they had in Christ.

And John Piper commented on this. He said, when I read that, it took my Baptist fundamentalist breath away. He had grown up as a son of a pastor and evangelist. He had grown up fundamentalist Baptist in Greenville, South Carolina, and he just could not imagine that Christians would smoke and drink. But again, he's biblical and grounded in truth and defined by the text, and so he acknowledges that this is their freedom in Christ. I'm not encouraging anyone to smoke. I suggest not biblically mandate that it's unhealthy.

If your addiction is wrong, drunkenness is wrong, let me be clear here. But to say either is a sin, that is, alcohol or tobacco or processed foods or anything else that someone might come in and try to bind your conscience, they are attacking the freedom and liberty that you have in Christ. So finally, Paul gives us another reason to praise God. He tells us that when we receive a meal, we're receiving these good things, not abstaining from foods, but receiving them in thankfulness, thanksgiving.

It is made holy by the Word of God and prayer. We're not defiled by what goes into the body but what comes out. What ought to come out is a thankfulness to God for what he has provided for us. That is freedom in Christ. That's why we say blessings before meals. Because before we receive this food, we ought to go to God and we ought to be thankful for what he has provided for us.

We are acknowledging that our many blessings come from God and to enjoy good food because God has blessed us with good food. In conclusion, be aware of these false teachings. Whether it's Hebrew roots movement and their dietary laws, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, whatever it may be, defend the faith, bear witness to the truth, point them to the liberty that you have in Christ, but at a certain point, it is pearls before swine and we must let them go.

Where that line is, we must seek out discernment and decide for ourselves, but we have to be a witness and then simply let our witness stand. Be aware of asceticism that seeks to earn the right standing of God. Be aware of self-righteousness and Pharisaism. Be aware of these sinful, deceitful teachings and doctrines of demons.

Avoid them. To teach that abstaining from marriage or certain foods is some sort of high road to the Lord is blasphemous. It is a demonic teaching.

Both marriage and singleness can be good in their proper times and they are well within the liberty of Christ to embrace both. Be a good steward of our bodies. We avoid asceticism and gluttony, but let us rejoice in what God has blessed us with.

God created the world. He gives us food. He gives us marriage. He gives us things that are good and right.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are a great and gracious God. Most gracious is it that you sent your Son, that through him we might be justified by faith. We have peace with you through our Lord Jesus Christ. Beyond that, you give us all the many blessings in the Christian life that we take for granted. Let us embrace our freedom that we have in Christ. Let us be perfectly careful between law and liberty to keep your law always while also embracing the liberty that we have in Christ. Thank you for your Son who is our Lord, our Shepherd, our Friend, our Redeemer. All these things we ask in his name. Amen.