Transcript

Let’s go to 2 Timothy 3. I had this message pretty much studied out and prepared, then thought, “No, I don’t want to preach that on Mother’s Day.” I looked at other things then and, uh, perused through some things and just could not sense leadership to do anything else so I’m coming back to this text. We’ll actually refer back to verses 1 through 5 but the next text in our study through this book of the Bible and if you’re visiting with us, we go verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and we’ve come to this section of 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 6, or chapter 3 rather, beginning in verse 6. Paul writing to young Timothy who’s pastoring the church at Ephesus says,

6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.

I’ve entitled the unpacking of this text “There Are Many Wolves, But They Will Not Prevail.” There are many wolves, but they will not prevail.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:15, ” Beware of the false prophets.” Now false prophets, false teachers and wolves, especially in the New Testament, all mean the same thing. They’re referring to the same kind of person. Jesus said that there’ll be wolves in sheep’s clothing, Matthew 7:15. In other words, these wolves come to savage the church, to undermine the truth and to mislead God’s children, but they will come dressed like a sheep, an outer camouflage but they’re just false prophets, they’re wolves.

Then in Matthew 10:16 Jesus said, “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.” John 10:11 through 16, Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand,” or hireling, “and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a,” hireling or “a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.” But in contrast verse 14, “I,” Jesus, “am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.” So here our Lord himself says that he is the chief shepherd of the sheep, Christians, and, uh, he’s not like the false teachers of his day who claim to love the sheep, who claim to be serving God but they do not man up and fight nobly against the wolves who try to come in and divide and scatter the sheep. There’s got to be a manliness about proper shepherding to guard the sheep from the wolves, the false teachers, the false prophets.

And this church that Timothy is now pastoring, the church at Ephesus, here’s what the Apostle Paul said to them before he left them very close to when he appointed Timothy to come here and be the pastor. Here’s what he says to the elders of the church at Ephesus, Acts 20:29-30, “I know that after my departure,” here it is, “savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” Now there are many many other passages but I wanted you to see from the Bible text that are many wolves. The Lord warned about them. Uh, uh, Paul warned about them. It’s continually taught in the Old and New Testament, these false teachers, these false prophets, these wolves who want to damage the church and undermine and usurp the truth of God.

So three thoughts here and our conclusion. 1. There are lots of wolves. 2. They are very dangerous, that’s why there’s such a stern warning. 3. The word or faithful shepherding and the word of God will expose them and protect the sheep. The Bible says in Acts 20:32, “I commend to you,” or rather, “I commend you to God and the word of His grace,” and this is in the context of, of the wolves coming in. He said but it’s the word of God faithfully taught and stood upon that will guard the church and God’s sheep from the devastating effect of these wolves.

Now outlining the text before us and jumping back up into verses 1 through 5 a little bit there, I’ve given, I’m gonna give you this outline. 1. I. The common characteristic of wolves. What does Paul say here to Timothy that says this is, this is commonly what these guys are like, this is their, their character commonly speaking? Whether or not you call them wolves, false prophets, false teachers, same thing. I’ll use those interchangeably. But his point is here’s what they look like.

Number 1 or A, subpoint A: they are sin-embracers. They are not fighting against sin. They’re not repenting against sin. These guys embrace sin. Look what he says in verses 1 through 5 of chapter 3 there. “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.” Well, the last days is the days we’re in now. It’s a time for the beginning of the church until Christ returns. This is the last days, the last events on earth until Christ returns. What are they going to be like? Verse 3, or verse 2, “For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Nothing wrong with pleasure but these men only live for the pleasures of this world and they don’t live for the deeper richer pleasures that we only have in God. Then, “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.”

So these are sin-embracers. Now look, there’s only two types of people in the world. You hear me, only two types of people. There are the sin-embracers and the sin-repenters. When you became a Christian, you didn’t stop sinning but you became a sin-repenter, something in your heart is changed and you begin to read the word of God and you hear the word of God preached, and you begin to say, “O God, my mind and my heart and so often my actions are wrong and, God, I, I don’t want to be like that. I want to grow and be sanctified.” You’re a sin-repenter but these wolves, these false teachers, they act like they’re sin-repenters but they’re really not, in their heart of hearts they’re sin-embracers. Two different kinds of people and only two different types of people.

These wolves love sin and they live for sin. Now while all, all do sin, the sin-embracer has never entered into the fight against sin and in parallel has never began the journey to know and love God. That’s the journey you’re on as a sheep, as a child of God. You’re beginning to repent of sin and you’re beginning to learn to embrace and love the things of God, and only the change of the Holy Spirit in your heart can give you that desire. But the point in this text is these wolves, these false teachers, these false prophets’ common characteristic is they’re sin-embracers.

Well, here’s the second thing, subpoint B: they are shells only. Shells only. Look what it says in verse 5, “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” So the, the word “form” here is a word that means “external outline or the outer shape, the outer shell,” if you will. It’s the outer covering that they wear that looks like Christianity but it lacks the inner substance. An outside cosmetic of Christianity but no inward heart possession of the truth. And when Paul wrote to Titus as he’s left Titus on the island of Crete, I hope to go there when Pam and I go to the Greek Isles if we ever get there, and we hope to go there and Paul put Titus on Crete and said, “Get the church in order there. They’re, they’re in a mess.” And he says this to them, “There are those there,” Titus, Titus 1:16, “they profess to know God but by their deeds they deny Him.” Again, they have the outward shell but that’s all they have and it’s hard to know what’s real sometimes when someone puts on a good outward shell.

One scholar said it this way and I, I want you to remember, remember this phrase for it is, it is so prominent in our day. He said they have a Christianized form of paganism. They have a Christianized form of paganism. In other words, they’re basically worldly pagans, ungodly, but they’ve learned how to put a Christianized shell on the outside of it, i.e. what Jesus said, they’re wolves but in sheep’s clothing. They have the outward appearance but not the inward possession.

Now Satan has been very active and has been quite successful at taking base paganism and covering the exterior with Christian sparkles to make it appear as something it’s not. And I’ve got grandchildren and do you know what I’ve learned about grandchildren? They like sprinkles. You know what sprinkles are? And sometimes you can get those donuts and the entire donut is covered with sprinkles. You don’t even know it’s a donut.

Well, at risk of being a l ittle crude but this is biblical, these false teachers are common dung covered completely with Christian sprinkles. It looks great but you don’t dare want to bite into it. The Apostle Paul said his whole life as a lost man was but dung, it’s a biblical principle.

So they, they’re shells only. They, they are embracers of sin and they are shells only and the last part of verse 5, Paul commands Timothy, it’s a, it’s a present imperative, it’s a command, “And Timothy, you ought gonna have to keep on doing this. Timothy, avoid such men, that means avoid them and keep on avoiding them.” Now let me give you some encouraging news that I’m confident is true. If a church has been pastored well and has matured decently, these kind of attacks get easy to handle. The men of your church, the ladies of your church are mature and they can repel the wolves about the time they hit the door. But in the early days like what Timothy’s doing, this is, these are the early days of the establishment of the church at Ephesus, and in the early days of planting a new church or revitalizing an existing church, when I say days I mean years, the pastor has to be one who continually girds up his loins, plays the man, and keeps these errors, these false teachings, these wolves from entering into the church.

Well, number 1, we talked about the common characteristics, they’re sin-embracers and they’re shells only. Secondly, let’s notice a common tactic, not the common tactic though, though I’m convinced it’s probably a primary or the primary common tactic that these wolves use. Subpoint A: they are sneaky manipulators. Sneaky manipulators. Look how he says it in verse 6, “For among them,” among those false teachers I’ve just been describing to you in verses 1 through 5, there’s a certain kind and this is their tactic, “they are those who enter into households.” The word “enter” is the idea of sneaking in. It’s the idea of worming their way in, clever and cunning, deceptive, manipulatively.

Calvin in his commentary on this verse says they use flattery to entrap the weak or silly women of the church. They, their, their, their sneakiness includes silly superstitions. Again, they throw some Christian sprinkles on it but basically they’re getting, uh, church members, especially the ladies here they’re focusing on, to get in their emotions and be drawn away into their enthralling charisma and insightful teachings as they hold themselves as elitists. They, they learn how to enthrall the shallow women within the church and they do all of this under the veil of claiming a deep superior spirituality.

Now by way of illustration let me ask you a question. Who according to the Scripture was the first wolf who came into a household as a sneaky manipulator? Who was the first one? Satan in the garden of Eden. He sneakily manipulated his way into the house of Adam and Eve and he gained the victory. You see, sneaky manipulation is the regular ploy of Satan from the beginning all the way up through Paul and Timothy’s day and all the way up to today. Their sneaky ploy always includes putting a spin or a twist on what the Bible really is saying. They’ll use the Bible but they’ve got their unique spin on it. If you challenge them on it, they’ll say, “Oh, but we, I have an insight you don’t have. You see, I, I’m an elitist,” they would say.

So here comes Satan with sneaky manipulation coming to Eve and the Bible says in Genesis 3:1 that Satan was more crafty than all the other beasts of the field, you could say more sneaky. And in Genesis 3:1, Satan says to Eve, now notice him twisting here, “Now Eve, has God said you can’t eat from any of the trees of the garden? Has God?” I mean, here’s what he’s saying, “Eve, you know what, God’s word is unreasonable. Eve, God’s instruction for you is not relevant to the world, real world. Eve, we’ve gotta live in the real world and so is, is God telling you you can’t eat from any and all the trees in the garden?” Of course God didn’t say that but see his twist. He wants to make God look unreasonable, too harsh, too oppressive.

Then he moves forward. He goes further in Genesis 3:4-5, and now, first of all, let’s, let me remind you what Eve told Satan when he said, “Did God say you can’t eat of any of the trees?” Eve responds back and says, “No, we can eat from the trees in Eden but the one tree in the center of the garden, we’re not to eat of it. If we eat of it,” Eve says to Satan, “we will die.” Now Satan more brazen says in verse 4, “Eve, you shall not die. You shall not die. God, you see, is a cosmic killjoy, Eve. He wants to rob you of yourself in fulfillment. He wants to rob you of having your best life now by restricting you. You’re not gonna die, Eve.” And then verse 5, Satan says, “Eve, God knows that in the day you eat of it you’ll be just like God.”

Now is there anything contemporary, contemporarily relevant about the lie you can be your own god? Do not we live in a culture where the, the cry of the predominant religion of America today is wokeism? Is not their main doctrine, “I have my own truth. I am my god. I decide what’s right and wrong. I decide what’s good and bad. I decide what’s truth for me.” Look, these folks are, these young people are, are marching in the streets and ranting and reviling and prevailing in the, in the, the public square and in, on the internet, in the, in social media, talking about they know what’s right for them and they have their truth as if this is some new, special, modern insight. It’s not some special, new, modern insight, it’s just old lies that started with Satan when he tells Eve, “You’ll be your own god if you’ll just decide to push God’s word away and do what,” and here’s the key word, “you feel is right and best for you.” That’s the emotional part of man. He’s playing on the emotions of Eve.

So Eve’s emotions kicked in and she got carried away and Genesis 3:6 says, “When the woman Eve saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes, the tree was desirable to make one wise.” Oh, I’m so enthralled with this possibility. “She took from its fruit and ate and she gave also to her,” weeny, “husband with her and he ate.” Emotionally driven women and weak weeny husbands are sure prey for the wolves’ attacks.

Well, did Satan’s sneaky manipulation work? Yes, it did. Eve eats and disobeys God. She gives it to Adam and Adam eats and disobeys God and then ruin, slavery and degradation enter their lives and the human race. That was the first of the sneaky manipulators who come in. Remember those two things. They get, they, they tell you that if you interpret the Bible this way, God’s not that unreasonable, God’s not that unrealistic. We need to be more relevant here, Satan would say, and then they’ll come right out once they get you going and say you don’t really have to obey the Bible, just get the main truth Jesus keeps you out of hell and the rest of Christianity is just what you feel it should be.

Well, not only are they sneaky manipulators, that’s part of their tactic, secondly, they target weak, sinful, waffling women. I’m not saying women are in general weak, sinful and waffling. I’m saying that men and women as fallen sinners are all naturally weak, sinful and waffling but there’s an advantage Satan has with women, and that is because God has made women greatly superior to men in their emotional capacity and in their emotional depth. Women feel more deeply than men do. Women hurt more deeply than men do. Women are superior caregivers to men. Go in the hospital, why are 80-90% of the nurses women? Because they care deeply and we men would be tragically lost without their superiority in the area of deep passion and emotion and care and mercy ministries and things of that nature. But at the same time, just like a man’s weakness can be, strengths can be his weakness, a woman’s strength that God’s given her can be her weakness and that’s what Paul is speaking of here.

Paul says they, they, they sneak into these households and they captivate, the New American Standard is, weak women. The word “weak” is a word that scholars say could really be translated several different ways. It can be translated a silly woman. It’s sort of having depth and substance, she’s just sort of flighty and silly. It can be translated a little woman. The point is these ladies esteem themselves as knowledgeable and rocks in the church, pillars of the church, and Paul says, in effect, they, they’re not very much, they’re just little.

These particular type women are also idle women, one scholar says. Quite a few church historians and scholars tell us, like Fretheim does in his commentary, these are wealthy ladies but they lack spiritual depth. Early church father Irenaeus lived in the second century not long after Paul wrote this and he says these are the well-bred, elegantly- attained and very wealthy women. I don’t know why they’re saying that actually but evidently in their context that’s what they noticed, that the women of little spiritual substance and depth who were flighty and, and flighty and emotionally based tended to be the more wealthy women in the church, society ladies they would call them. Now at this point I’m not giving you my viewpoint, I’m giving you the viewpoint of some godly forebears but the idea here of weak women is they’re emotionally based and not truth based.

Now Paul goes on, not only did these guys sneak in manipulatively and captivate weak women, he said they’re weak women, verse 6 again, “weighed down with sins.” Weighed down with sins, it means sin, they’ve heaped up sin in their life. They haven’t been active, humble repenters of sin, they’ve kind of collected sin. So what, what does that mean? That means they have a bad conscience and bound up by bad conscience they were easy prey for the wolves, the false teachers. Maybe they weren’t particularly religious ladies, though they paraded to be, but they spent their time in pleasure and in frolic and from time to time they needed a religious salve for their troubled conscience and these false teachers gave them just enough twisted false religion to make them feel better about their guilt and their sin.

They, they, they’re masters at charm. They’re masters at deceitfulness. You know, when you deal with false teaching creeping into the church, one thing you will always deal with is they minimize the sinfulness of sin. Did you hear me? They minimize the sinfulness of sin. You see, the Bible has strong, robust, redundant teaching on the sinfulness of sin but equally so on the mighty power of Christ to cleanse us of all sin. Amen? It’s both. But see, the false teacher doesn’t want you to look to Christ so he’s got to give you another way to deal with your sin and guilt so he twists the teaching to tell you, “Well, I’m okay and you’re okay.” A lie from hell. You’re not okay and I’m certainly not okay but Jesus is a-okay and I need to be in him. Amen? And then we’re better than okay, we bear his righteousness before the Father.

Well, he continues in verse 6, they creep in, they’re sneaky manipulators who captivate these silly, weak, idle women, and they’re weighed down with sin so their conscience is burdened and they, they like this new teaching, it makes them feel better about themselves. Then he continues on in verse 6, and they are “led on by various impulses.” Verse 6, they’re led on by various impulses. The phrase there likely does not mean evil desires so much as it means foolish things. They just, they’re just chasing one unsound, worldly, foolish thing after another, one gimmick after another. That’s what they’re prone to. These women, Paul is saying, do not genuinely desire to seek God but do desire to be seen as holy and pious in the church. They have not a godly quest for truth but a carnal lust for novelty, “Give me the latest fad. Give me the latest happening thing in the church.” I used to go to meetings for pastors of large churches and one of the last meetings I went to because I didn’t go back, was the pastors began to discuss, “Well, there are some new things out there we need to learn how to do.” I thought, I’m still trying to learn how to do the 2,000 year old stuff. You do this stuff and it’ll keep you busy, so busy you don’t have time to chase the latest fad, the latest novelty.

Well, that’s the way these women were. Now look, he’s not saying all the women of the church, he’s saying, “Timothy, be careful,” especially in the earlier years of maturing a church, one of the great ways Satan will get into it with these false teachers, these wolves, is by manipulating the shallow women’s emotions and they’ll start pulling their husband’s string. He might be the mouthpiece but she’s the power behind the throne. Then he says in verse 6, they, he, they captivate these women. It’s the idea of capturing and carrying them away and, of course, this was not the first captivity these ladies had encountered, they’re already captive by their sin and their foolish lust. John R. Stark, Stott, rather in his commentary said these women are morally weak, spiritually weak, and intellectually weak so they’re vulnerable.

And by the way, can I say something to us guys? Guys, your job is to protect your wife. God made women of a different kind of fabric the Bible says. They need the loving, sacrificial, compassionate headship and protection of godly husbands. A wife needs a man from time to time to say, “Baby, I understand you feel strongly about that but we can’t do that. This is where we’re gonna stand.” And she’ll love you for that. No wonder in our present age as Satan works in our culture, the first thing he worked to destroy was godly manliness and true masculinity because if he can defeat the men, the women become easier prey because the men will not be there to protect and lead.

Well, intellectually these ladies had a problem. Look at verse 7, they’re ” always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” That’s the waffling element there. They’re, they’re weak, they’re, they’re sinful but they, they waffle all over the place. They’re always learning. In other words, what’s the latest fad and doctrine and in practice for the church. He says they’re always waffling around and they’re never able to come to the knowledge. The word “knowledge” there doesn’t mean just facts in your mind, it means to embrace the truth of what Christianity is, the true or full knowledge of who God is, who his Son is, what salvation is, and what constitutes his true church. They’re able, they’re never able to get that because they’re chasing other silly things.

Never able the text says. It, it means having unconfessed sin and a lust for foolish frivolous things. They do not receive imparted truth for God does not impart truth to those who embrace sin. That’s why all of us sinners must be repenters when we come in the church door on Sunday or we will not receive the imparted truth. God won’t give it to us. So having nothing solid in themselves, these ladies are tossed about by every wind of doctrine, and while they boast of being exceptionally wise, they actually can’t reach a lasting conclusion about anything. Here, there, here, there. Somebody writes a new book and that’s the next fantastic thing. Some speaker does a show, oh, that’s the next wonderful thing and they’re easy ploy for false teachers. A. T. Robertson, the eminent Baptist Greek scholar said these ladies are hypnotized and pride themselves in belonging to the intelligentsia elite. 1 Timothy 5:6 says, “But she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead even while she lives.” What he’s saying is they may act like they’re spiritual but in their hearts they’ve given themselves to the worldly pleasures around them, not to godly pursuits and they’re spiritually dead.

Well, how is this for a Mother’s Day message so far? It’s just the text. Just the text. I say this a lot because it’s the truth: I’m blessed to have an army of ladies who are not weak women, who are not silly women, who are not little women, but godly biblically- principled women. He’s not talking about you. He’s saying, “Timothy, you haven’t been at this church long and you, you haven’t seen folks grow much so you’ve got a lot of vulnerable ladies.” So ladies, not only should we men protect, you older ladies, you protect. Next time you run across some 27 year old know-it-all in the church, say, “Sweetheart, sit down, we need to talk a minute. You don’t need to chase this and chase that. Let’s look to our pastor and elders, they’ve got 40+ years of reputation. Let’s don’t chase everything else that comes down the pike and looks exciting and thrilling.”

3. Oh, I like number 3: the common end of these wolves. He says, “Timothy, I want to remind you of something, there’s a common end. Matter of fact, there’s a timeless pattern. Satan hasn’t really come up with anything new, Timothy. This has been going on from the beginning.” And he gives an example here in verse 8, he says, “Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.” He said, “There’s no difference between these guys and those two magicians who showed up in Pharaoh’s court trying to prove that their gods were more mighty than Moses’ God.”

Now the Bible doesn’t give us their name, their names come from Jewish oral tradition and that’s the names Paul uses, but you remember the story, the magicians come in, Paul or rather Moses has been the instrument through which God performed mighty powerful signs, wonders and miracles in Egypt to prove to the Egyptians that their gods were false but Moses’ God was the one true God. So Pharaoh summoned his wise men and magicians and they had a square-off with Moses and Pharaoh’s magicians did these magic acts and then Moses responded with the true power of God. Even Pharaoh’s magicians later said to Pharaoh, “That’s the real deal out there. That’s the real prophet and that’s a real God they serve.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, the Bible says, and he wouldn’t listen. But what Paul’s saying here is, “Timothy, this pattern has been going on forever and expect it always to be trying to creep in and undermine the truth of God, these, these wolves, these false teachers, these false prophets.”

He says here in verse 8 they’re “men of depraved mind and rejected in regard to the faith.” The idea here is their mind has no solid spiritual good in it. It’s only base and worldly. It’s depraved. And they’ve been tested and found a counterfeit. “These men have been weighed in God’s balance, Timothy. We haven’t seen it yet but they came up lacking in weight. Timothy, that, that’s the timeless pattern we’ve seen.”

Now B, subpoint B, not only the timeless pattern but notice it’s an encouraging pattern. Look at verse 9, “But they will not make further progress.” Now that’s contingent upon Timothy not quitting his job, of being a faithful manly shepherd to protect the sheep and guard the church from these wolves. So just as Jannes and Jambres were exposed and made to be frauds and impotent toward, before Moses and Moses’ God, the true God of Scripture, Paul is saying to Timothy, “Timothy, we’re gonna have the same kind of stuff in our day and it’s gonna evolve down even all the way through to our day today and all the way through into the coming… Matter of fact, the Bible says impostors will increase and become worse the closer we get to the return of Christ but their power fizzles toward the finish just as happened in those who opposed Moses.”

He says in verse 9, “their folly will be obvious to all.” Well, I’m telling you what, are you listening to me? If we had to fight the same fights we fought together those first 20-25 years, I’d be in the grave. I’m just telling you I wouldn’t have made it. But thank God time exposes and removes the wolves who try to undermine God’s preacher, God’s truth and God’s church. Time will clearly reveal the true from the false. Time will clearly reveal the substantial from the shallow or the shell. Time will clearly reveal the wise from the silly. Time will clearly reveal the godly from the hypocrite.

Now he says they’ll be exposed, they’ll be revealed but the world will not see it, only the sheep see it. The Bible says if you’re saved you’ve given eyes to see and ears to hear. So the true church, the true sheep will see it. “So, Timothy,” Paul is writing, “take courage, victory is assured. Stand against them. They will trouble you but given enough time they will hang themselves. They may make a first big impression, a first big splash, but give it some time they will fizzle out and the true elect of God will see it and get it.” They, they, they’re those that go up like a rocket but come down like a rock. Aren’t you glad, folks, that for 41 years with our weaknesses, faulting failures and a pastor that had to grow up a lot, me, nevertheless we kept striving to do it by the book and now 41 years later we’re a long way from fizzling out, amen? I mean, I mean, this things’ new every day. Just do it right and it has no expiration date.

Now something real quick I want to show you and about done. 1 Timothy 4:15. In 1 Timothy 4:15 we have the opposite for Timothy of what’s going to happen to the false teachers, the wolves. He says, “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them,” that is, the true biblical shepherding I’ve taught you to do, “so that your progress will be evident to all.” He says, “Timothy, keep on keeping on. Timothy, keep on going. Stand on the truth. Preach the word. Trust the power of the Spirit. Bible message only. Don’t use gimmicks and fads. Timothy, keep on and soon, the word is, your progress will be evident to all. In other words, Timothy, the longer you’re at it, the more the sheep will love you, the more elect, the elect will believe in you, the more it will be proven you’re the real deal and you’re preaching the truth.” The con, the, the, the, the opposite of that is that the false teacher, the more time goes by the more the people of God see that they’re not genuine and they’re exposed.

All right, three quick CPA’s, not certified public accountants, we only have two of those as far as I know, we don’t have three but conclusions for practical application. We could do many things here but because we live in a world today that is plunging into the abyss of following emotions and feelings and sentimentality, and that’s what’s wrong with these ladies, they’re emotionally undisciplined and immature and they’re easy prey for false teaching.

So number 1: we do not trust our emotions, we train our emotions. We do not trust our emotions, we train our emotions. You know why? Because we trust the word of God. Every man of God and every women of God opens this book and reads God’s truth and God’s truth contradicts them, and they have to say, “God, get my emotions out of it. I’m gonna stand on the truth and let my emotions catch up with the truth.” I’m not to preach to you and lead you as a pastor about what makes you more, most excited and enthralled and interesting. I’m to give you the truth until the Spirit of God gives you deep emotions for the truth but you have to do that yourselves. We don’t trust our emotions, we train them to follow truth. Would you pray that way with your pastor? “God, help me to have a deep joy about what’s true.”

Truth doesn’t start with you. Truth didn’t begin with you, it began with God. Now we have the privilege of catching up with God and standing on the truth. Don’t let your emotions get in the way. Train your emotions to respond to truth. You know, there’s only one being in the universe that can follow his emotions and be true and be right and that’s God. The Bible says God does whatever he pleases but you’re not God. You can’t do what you feel. You do what his book says and that’s been my experience as your pastor for 41 years, and that is I’ve learned to find joy and emotional excitement in what’s true versus what I felt ought to be true. And then when you get to heaven you’re not gonna be shocked. Then when you get to heaven you’re not gonna be contradicted, you’ll be on the right course, you’ll just take another step into the truth.

So our emotions be informed by truth and our emotions must follow truth but our emotions can never be the foundation of truth. 2. Older women must train the younger women to devote themselves to honor their husbands, keep their homes, and to raise children. I’m not saying you can’t do anything else. The Bible doesn’t give me enough there to say that but I am saying this, you’ve got to get this right. I don’t know what that means but you’ve got to get this right. Honor your husbands. Keep your homes. And raise your children.

Titus 2:4-5 speaking to the older, principled, biblical ladies of the church, they are to “encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” In other words, so that God’s word and the infinite wisdom it contains will be shown to be the wise truth of God that it really is. Ladies, staying devoted in these areas is a bulwark of protection against the enemy. It’s the idle, the novelty-seekers, the frivolous and the shallow that become easy prey for the enemy.

3. Pray for pastors to protect us from false teaching. I do it every week, many hours usually every week counseling, encouraging, mentoring, admonishing, loving on pastors to stand on the truth and protect the church. And can I commend all of you, Grace Life Church family, I couldn’t do that if you didn’t support me in this work already. This is our ministry, not just my ministry. You have to embody it, if, if I’m able to teach it with any effectiveness.

Paul again writing to Titus on the island of Crete says, “Holding fast the faithful word,” this is in, in, in relation to those who are pastors or elders, they’ve got to hold fast to the faithful word, “which is in accordance with the teaching so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and refute the wolves,” or those that are have, those who are beginning to act wolfy. Sometimes sheep can get a little wolfy and sometimes sheep didn’t, didn’t, didn’t Jesus look at Peter when Peter said, “You’re not gonna go to the cross. We’re not gonna, God forbid it Lord, You’re not going to the cross.” But what did Jesus say to Peter? “Get behind Me, Satan.” He didn’t mean Peter was Satan, he said, “Right now you’re acting the way Satan wants you to act.” Well, sometimes sheep begin to act like a wolf and you’re not a wolf but you don’t need to act like a wolf, so sometimes you have to teach sound doctrine and correct those who get into wolf theology and go astray.

So the wolves are many but they will not prevail. Church, stay true to God, true to Christ, true to Bible methods, and you’ll never grow old, you’ll never be outdated, you’ll, it’ll never stop working but the wolves holding to false doctrine, they will fizzle. Just give them enough time, give them enough rope and they hang themselves. Amen and Amen. Don’t you love, who could have come up with that but God? Don’t you love the word of God? Do, do you think it’s a coincidence that on Mother’s Day this was my next text? So it gives me a chance, ladies, to highly commend you, most of you, some of you are still a little too silly, some of you are still a little too shallow, you’re a little too frivolous and without substance, and so many of you, you’re on that track and I love you as your pastor and thank God for you. I mean, you know how rare it is to be where I am and go talk to other pastors and say, “I’ve got the strongest men in the world,” and I do, “but if I just had my leading ladies, I’d have a strong church.” That’s special. That makes you unusual. Stay the course for the glory of God.