And like I said, these people who
have this form of godliness but deny the power thereof, and all
of these lovers of sales, proud, boasters, covetous, traitors,
all these type of people that he described in these perilous
days, he said, for this sort, verse six, for this sort, this
kind of people, this kind of person, this kind of men, These
deniers of God, denying His power, just got just a form of godliness,
empty, no reality to it. For of this sort are they which
creep into houses and lead captive, silly women laid with sins, led
away with diver's lust. Now when the apostle was writing
these things, these false teachers, These false teachers described
in the verses from verse one all the way down, you know, they
do after the men are their father, the devil. They are of their
father, the devil. You know, Satan, when he first
appeared to the human race, he in his subtlety, he deceived
Eve. And that's why he talks about
women here, silly women here. You know, The tempter, he beguiled
Eve. He just mesmerized her and beguiled
her. And not Adam, he didn't do that
to Adam. And so these people, these kind
of people are istrumets in the hands of the devil himself. And
I tell you what, and they work after the affection of the weaker
vessel. And the scriptures teaches us
clearly that the women are the weaker vessel. You know, that's
why he came to Eve and he didn't come to Adam. I believe Adam
would have said, now God said, don't do this. But Satan didn't
do that. And so that's the way it was. And I, you know, look over here
in 1 Timothy 2.14 with me, just a minute. Just look what it says
over here. It says in verse 13, for Adam
was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but
the woman being deceived was in the transgression. So that's
why they creep into these houses of silly women. That's what he's
talking about. He's talking about women. These men are used to
Satan, their father, the devil. and they're of every sort, and
they come in, and I know this, I know this, I've said this time
and time again, most cults, Christian Science Monitor, Seventh Day
Adventists, Christian Science, Unitarianism, most of these were
started by women, by women. And you know when you take, you
look at every cult, almost every sect, And you know when you look
at it, any Armenian free will churches, you go to any of them,
Church of God, go to any of them. And what they are, they're dominated
by women. They're really dominated by women.
I've said time and again, if you took women out of these Pentecostal
churches, out of these free will Baptist churches, out of all
these cults and all these sects, you take the women out of them,
and they would phone up. because they do all the teaching
and the men like to have it so. They're so effeminate and won't
take their position as a man. They won't take their position
as somebody who's supposed to, man's supposed to do it. The
scriptures tells us plainly that a woman is to keep silence in
the church and not to usurp their authority over a man. But yet
you got women preaching, you got women teaching all the Sunday
school classes in these Armenian churches. And I'll tell you,
and you take them out of that, and it will just absolutely go
to nothing. Just absolutely go to nothing. But these women,
you know, these women, they like to, and that's why these fellas
come in, and they commend them for their religion. Oh, you're
so religious, you know. You're holy and you're righteous.
But here's the thing about them. It says here they're laden, laden
with sins, laden with sins. And here's the thing that they
do, they reject the gospel of God's free grace. They reject
the gospel of the free grace and mercy of God in Christ. And
I'll tell you, you know, in my first religious experience, it
was over a Pentecostal woman. And when I learned the scriptures,
When I learned the scriptures, got down here and got away from
all of that hula and hoopla and all that rigamarole, I told her
flat-footed that she's got no business being in the ministry,
preaching, or anything else. But she was, they thought everybody
talked about she was the most holy woman that ever was around.
And so that's what they would do. But these women and these
men who teach these women, they reject the gospel of the free
grace of God. They reject the mercy of God
to sinners in Christ. And then it says, laden with
sins, they're full of sins. That's what it's talking about,
being full of sins. What do you reckon the greatest
sin that they're full of? What would be the greatest sin
that a person would be guilty of that would dishonor God more
than any other way? I believe self-righteousness.
I don't need the righteousness of Christ. I'm righteous enough,
I'm holy enough, I'm religious enough, I know enough, I can
do enough, and I tell you what, they're led forth, look what
it says, led away with divers lust. Now what does that mean? You know what they're lusting
after? New teachers, new teachers, new doctrines, new heights of
personal glory. Oh my. You know, they're interested
in something new. And that's why these fellows
can come in and bring in something for them. You know, nobody ever
asks the question, is that scriptural? Is that Bible? Is that the truth? What does it say about somebody
like this? No, they don't do that. And then
you take when the Catholic Church, you know, they exalt Mary. They
put Mary up here so high, so high. And then along comes somebody
like this, what was her name? Over in India, you know, that
everybody thought, man, this is the greatest thing since the
electric light. She died and she stayed over there and took
care of the poor in India. Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa. And they exalt these people.
Set them up higher than God. And they tell you, you can pray
to them. You can pray to them. And I tell
you what, and I tell you they, Catholicism is so influenced
men and women that they think they're upside down and backwards. Look with me in Romans chapter
three. Let's look together in Romans chapter three. This is
the way things are, you know, it's just these false teachers,
they go in and they deal with these people and it says silly
women. Silly women, look what it says
here in verse 10. And I tell you, these folks can
be as self-righteous as they want to. They can live as holy
as they want to. They can be as dedicated as they
want to. And they can preach all they want to. And I tell
you one thing, I'm not going to sit and listen to a woman
preacher. I ain't going to do that. I'm not going to do that. But
anyway, as it is written, there's none righteous, no not one. There's
none that understandeth. Listen to this, there's none
that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the
way. What way? Out of the way of Christ,
out of the way of grace, out of the way of mercy. They are
together become unprofitable. They're certainly not profitable
to God. They're not even profitable to
anybody else much. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. And here's what comes out of
their mouth now. The throat is an open sepulcher.
What comes out of there is deadness, lifelessness. It's like out of
a grave. And that's what he's talking
about. The throat is an open sector. Dead stuff comes out
of it. Filthy stuff comes out of it. Rotten stuff, corrupt
stuff comes out of their mouth. And with their tongues, they've
used deceit. And I tell you, you think they
won't hurt you, they'll poison the vast under their lips. What
their doctrine will poison you, destroy you, and poison your
mind, poison your heart, poison your understanding. And look
what he says, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood. Oh my. Destruction and misery are in
their ways. And oh my, the way of peace they've
not known. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. Now that's what we just described
over there in 2 Timothy chapter three. These kind of people we
just described. That's what we described, those
kind of people. And so let's go back over here again and go
down to verse 7. Verse 7. You know when it says, let me
just give you this as an aside. It said, if a woman were to learn
anything, let her ask her husband at home. Now, we men meet back
here on Sunday night. And we come up with things, we
make decisions, we spend money, we tell things that's wrong with
people. And so if you want to know if anything important was
said, if any money was spent, or anybody's sick and they need
prayer, you ask your husband that was in that meeting and
they'll tell you. That's the way it's supposed to work. That's
the way it's supposed to work. Don't look at me like that. Now look what it says here. Now
here's what happens to these people, these women, and these
people that's teaching them. He says, ever learning and never
able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Both the teachers,
and those that they leave captive of their humanistic religions. You know, humanism is the doctrine
and the salvation of the ages. humanism. Man is so exalted. His knowledge is so exalted.
His scientific knowledge is so exalted. His abilities are so
exalted. You know, man is Well, this guy's
an expert on that, and that guy's an expert on this, and that guy's,
and I seen this up there the other day, that they run across
a bunch of dinosaur footsteps that was 160-something million
years old. Now, who told them it was 113
or 16 million years old? Who told them that? That's what
I mean, but they got these folks that they say these things, and
people buy it, and they make man to be everything. Hey big
man, to be in humanism is man, you got the girl, you got the
power, you got the mind, you got the intelligence, you go
to school, get you a PhD, get you a good education, and I tell
you what, the world is your oyster, all you got to do is open it.
And that's what they do, they have their humanistic religion,
and this is what it says, they're always learning. Always learning. What makes them always wanting
to learn but never learn anything? Well, they got curious minds,
restless minds, and they're never ever able to come, and look what
it says, never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. They
come to a lot of knowledge. Oh, they know a lot of knowledge,
got a head full of knowledge. Luther told me the other day,
he said, he's like me, he's got a head full of useless knowledge.
If you want to throw something that absolutely ain't worth knowing,
just make up a subject and then Luther will tell you something
about it. But oh my, but here, what they do is they learn about
missions. Oh, they learn about missions.
And all you gotta do in the missions. I got a letter today, I don't
know who sent it, but it was this church out in Texas and
this fella apologized, wrote a big apology in the newspaper
apologizing for their lack of commitment and lack of faith
and lack of love towards their fellow man and then they started
talking about how much money they spent and where all the
places they went and all the things that they did to All they talked about was what
they'd accomplished. They never mentioned Christ whatsoever
in their letter. We failed our neighbor. We didn't
fail Christ, we failed our neighbor. We never failed God, we failed
our neighbor. So what we're going to do, we're
going to get our neighbor some water, we're going to get our
neighbor some houses, we're going to get our neighbor some money,
we're going to get our neighbor some, all kinds of stuff, but
they never mention Christ in the letter. And that's what he's
talking about here. I apologize for what we've done. Our lack of love. And then he
goes, you know, they learn about missions. They learn about prophecy. Oh my, you start teaching prophecy?
Get you some charts? Get you some charts and set them
up? This is going to happen at this time, that's going to happen
at that time, this is going to happen up here, and it's going to just
pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. They go around
and just collect the dots. And they don't even know what
the dots mean or represent. But oh, they learn about missions
and prophecy? Oh, they learn about heaven and
the streets of gold? Oh, my. Steve told me about a
fellow the other day. The lady died. He said the fellow that she didn't
want to preach her funeral said, I'll tell you what, they're running
up the streets of gold shouting right now, and if we knew that,
we'd want to just leave here and don't be with them. Running
the streets of gold and shouting. Oh, my. But I'll tell you, they
learn all about heaven. All about the streets of gold.
All about the streets of pearl. And all those things represent
Christ. And they learn about their standards.
Oh, we got standards. I remember when we all had standards,
you know. You had standards. Everybody
had standards. We had standards. Standards of morality. Standards
of this and standards of that. We had, you know, we had our
standards. We wasn't going to do this. We wasn't going to do
that. We had our standards, you know. And then they're interested,
they always want to learn about the gifts of the Spirit. Oh,
I want to learn how to speak in tongues. I want the spirit
of wisdom. I want the spirit of prophecy.
But they don't want to talk about charity is the greatest of all
these. Charity. And oh, but I tell you,
here's something they never learn. Never learn. They never come
to the knowledge of the truth of how God can be just and justify
ungodly sinners like us. They don't ask that. They don't
ask that. They learn everything else but
that. But never, never how God can be just and justify the ungodly. They reform their lives but you
never hear them repenting and saying, I'm sorry. They pray,
but you never ever hear them say, oh God, have mercy on me.
They'll testify, get up and brag on what all they've done for
the Lord, but they'll never ever turn to the Lord Jesus Christ.
They'll boast, I don't know how many times I've heard people
do this, boast of their faithfulness. faithfulness to their church,
faithfulness to their religion, but they never ever bow to the
Lordship of Christ and come under the rule of Christ Almighty. And I tell you, that's why wherever
you find women running things and these false teachers running
things, they're learning everything under the sun, but they never
learn anything about Christ. Never, never, never, never. All
right, then look in verse eight. They're able to come to everything
by the knowledge of the truth. And you know, here's the thing
about it. Had not God in His sovereign mercy broke in on us,
and I mean broke in on us, He broke in on us. He had to break
in on me. Had He not broke in on me, I
would have been one of these fellows right here. I would have
been a legalist. I would have been a fundamentalist. I would have been a self-righteous
Pharisee. self-righteous Pharisee. And
then look what he says there in verse 8 now. Now as Janes and Jambres withstood
Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds
reprobate concerning the faith. You know it has no reason for
us to be surprised when adversaries rise up against our Lord to oppose
his gospel of grace. I mean, this shouldn't surprise
us at all, that they oppose God's gospel of grace. You know, Moses,
when he, God sent him down to Egypt, and he went in and talked
to Pharaoh, told him God had sent him. Immediately, Pharaoh
called some magicians in. That's what they were called,
musicians, magicians. Moses had that rod, and he throwed
it down, and it became a serpent. Well, those fellas, they had
serpents down there. They had serpents down there.
They throwed them down. And I tell you, they had these,
when he went to deliver Jairus and Jambres were the magicians
that Pharaoh brought out, and they done the first two things
that Moses did. So God said, I'm gonna do something
they can't do. Because you know, magicians can
do a lot of things. You'll just stand back and say,
how did he do that? But they did that, and then God
said, I'm going to do something they can't do. He said, I'll
turn the water into blood. They can't do that. I'll send
flies. They can't do that. I'll send
lice. They can't do that. I'll send
brains upon them. They can't do that. I'll even
cause their cattle to have brains on them. And last of all, I'll
kill their firstborn. They're not gonna stand with
their fist in my face and get by with it. Not gonna do that. And I tell you, they come to
forward Moses brought him forth, and here's something about it.
Satan will use any vessel. He even used Simon Peter one
time. You know, Satan will use any vessel, he'll use any trick,
any method to discredit the gospel. to discredit the gospel. And
then he says these folks have a corrupt mind. These false teachers
have corrupt minds. And I tell you what, I don't
know what a corrupt mind, their mind is corrupted. Corrupted
by false doctrine, corrupted by pride, corrupted by self-righteousness,
corrupted by falseness. And false teachers have corrupt
minds. And the glory of God is not in
their vocabulary. The sovereignty of God is not
in their vocabulary. And the good of men is not in
their vocabulary. All they want is their own praise,
their counterfeits. And they have no understanding
of the doctrine of saving faith. Look what he said, reprobate
concerning the faith. You know what a reprobate is?
That means somebody has no judgment. No judgment. They just have no
ability to judge between right and wrong. And when it comes
to the truth of no judgment. They have no judgment. No ability
to judge. what the true faith is. No ability
to reprobate, and God has so corrupted their minds that they
can be confronted with something, and when we say that's light,
they say, no, that's dark. I say, that's sweet, they say,
no, that's bitter. I say, that's up, and they say,
no, no, this is the way to go. And that's the way it is. Their
goal, their counterfeits, And I tell you, they don't have no
understanding of saving faith whatsoever, none whatsoever.
And then look what it says there in verse 9. And they shall proceed no further,
as Janice and Jim Braze of corrupt minds, they shall proceed no
further, for their folly shall be made manifest unto all, as
theirs was also, as Janice and Jim Braze was also. These false
teachers, these false prophets, these false men deny the power
of God, ungodly. You know, they get worse and
worse and worse and worse in their error. And this is what's
so surprising. I know folks that I've known
for years, years, and you get surprised at how quick they can
come up with something new. I can name two or three people
in different grace churches that's a great burden to their pastors
right now because they decided that there's certain parts of
the gospel they didn't believe and certain parts of the gospel
that they think ought to be changed. And it's a very, you know, it's
like when Bruce Crabtree's up here preaching, the fellow hollered
out, you're lying, Bruce, you're lying. What kind of man would
holler out and tell Bruce Crabtree while he's preaching, you're
lying. That's what I'm talking about.
They get worse and worse and worse and worse in their error.
And they may proceed only in their ungodliness and denying
the power they are of, and they may deceive multitudes. But I
tell you what, you know what God said? They shall not deceive
God's elect. He promised us that. They shall
deceive. They shall deceive me, but they shall not, cannot deceive
God's elect. God will not let his people be
deceived, you know. It's like Janice and Jim Braves.
They did lion wonders down there in Egypt. They deceived the Egyptians. Caused failure to harden his
heart. But you know what happened anyway? God saved Israel. In spite of Pharaoh, in spite
of them fellows with no lying wonders, He brought Israel out
of Egypt. He brought them out of there.
He delivered them. And the foolishness of all these false religions.
And look what it says here. They shall be manifest to all
men. Someday it's going to be this
false religion, it's going to be obvious to everybody. Everybody's going to know it.
as it was of those magicians down there in Egypt. And I tell
you, you know, they were destroyed at the Red Sea and glorified
God's salvation, but also revealed how foolish it is to oppose Him.
And that's what He says. He said, God alone let you go
so far. He let Pharaoh go so far. He let the magicians go
so far. He lets false religion go so
far. And when they go as far as He lets them go, He don't
let them go any further. And I, you know, these guys, you watch most preachers
and they're so effeminate. They're so effeminate. They don't
even act like men. They don't even talk like men.
They just got such a soft spoken, you know, and, and they, but I tell you what, that's it. You know, they come after the
Lord's people. God said, just as far as you're
gonna come. You ain't coming no farther. You ain't gonna have
no more lion wonders. And I tell you what, there's
lots of lion wonders in this world today. Lots and lots of
lion wonders. They really, really are. And
then look what he said here in verse 10. Now Paul is gonna say,
and I'm gonna show you just exactly what a preacher's supposed to
be like. what he's supposed to be like.
We talked about how bad these folks are, how unresponsive they
are, and how resistant they are to the truth of God. And he says,
but now Timothy said, you've fully known my doctrine. You've
fully known my doctrine. This is opposed to what these
other people are like. And what he's saying is, this
is the opposite of what these men believe. preaching and practice
those principles of the false teachers. And he says, you're
not ignorant. You're not ignorant of my doctrine. And in the margin, look what
it says. But thou hast fully known, or yeah, been a diligent
follower of me. But he says, you have known,
fully known my doctrine. Fully known it. You've been a
diligent follower of my doctrine. When he told Timothy the first
thing, the fourth verse, I think of chapter one, maybe the fifth
verse, warned them that they teach no other doctrine. And
I tell you what, he says, you know my doctrine concerning Christ. You know my doctrine concerning
the scriptures. You know my doctrine concerning
the person of Christ and the glory of Christ and the salvation
of Christ. And he says, you know my doctrine.
You know my doctrine. Then he says, you know my manner
of life. What did he mean, you know my manner of life? Paul
spent his whole life, after God saved him, laboring in the gospel.
He labored with his own hands, and if you followed him around,
his conduct would be above reproach. He was fully, absolutely separated
to the gospel of Christ. And then he says, Timothy, you
also know my purpose. Paul said, I've got a purpose.
What was his purpose? To honor Christ, glorify Christ. I'm determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And his purpose,
what he had, was to honor Christ, to preach Christ, Christ to be
magnified in his life, in his death, and in his body. That's
why he says, you know, He said, I could wish myself a curse from
my brethren, according to the flesh, if they could know Christ. He said, I bear record that they
have a zeal of God. But he wanted people to be converted. He wanted people to know. And
then he talked about how, you know my faith. That's two things
here I think he's talking about when he says, you know my faith. The faith that he preached, the
faith that, what he believed, what he believed. When we talk
about faith or our faith, we're talking about what do you believe
or doctrine. And then he says, but also his
belief, his belief in Christ. I know whom I have believed. He said, Paul, Timothy, you know
my faith. You know my faith. You know how
I trust God. You know how I trust the Lord. And I tell you what,
he knew how he's faithful in the ministry, faithful to God,
faithful to Christ. And then look what else he said.
You know how long-suffering I was, how long-suffering I am. You
know, he was, as nobody, probably more mistreated than the Apostle
Paul in his old life. You go through his life, go through
the book of Acts when he's first mentioned. and first starts preaching,
in Acts chapter 9, he gets in such trouble, right off the bat,
that they wanted to kill him immediately, they had to let
him down in a basket outside the gate, outside over the wall. And that happened to him about
everywhere he went. But look what he said, and now he was
long-suffering. He is long-suffering with the
churches. He is long-suffering with people. He is long-suffering
with the Jews. Long-suffering with his enemies.
Long-suffering with his persecutors. And especially long-suffering
towards the weak brethren. And then he says, Noel, you know
my charity. You know my love. You know my
love. You know the love that I have
to you. You know the love that I have to God Almighty. You know
the love that I have to the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the love
that I have toward men. And then he says, and oh my,
you know my patience. You know my patience. Paul bore
all kinds of indignities, reproaches and persecutions for the sake
of Christ and his gospel. But he persevered, encouraged. He got down, and we'll see that
here in just a little while. When it got time for him to die,
got time that they was going to take him out and chop off
his head. You know what he said? Time my
departures at hand. That's all he said. It don't
matter how they went, I'm fixing to leave here. Time of my departure is at hand. I had to take him out of
jail to do that. I had to take him out of jail.
I had to take him out of prison. And then look what he said in
verse 11. And you know my persecutions and afflictions which came unto
me at Antioch, at Iconium, and Lystra. Now you can go and you
can look in the margin and go and see where all of these places
took place. You can go and see where Paul
was at Antioch, what they did in Iconium and Lystra, what persecutions
I endured. You can go and find out all the
things that happened there. And you can go in your margin
there and go back over to Acts and read where all those different
things happened. But I tell you, everywhere he
went, he endured afflictions, persecutions for preaching the
gospel. But they, you know, and Timothy
knew these things because he was with Paul a lot of times.
And he says, you know what persecutions I endured. You heard about them,
you've seen them, you had witnesses tell you about it, but listen
to what he says now. But out of them, out of them
all, Out of every persecution, out of every affliction, out
of them all the Lord delivered me. Look what he said over here in
chapter 4, verse 17. And then I'll be done. I'll be done. He said over here in chapter
4 and verse 17, notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened
me that by me the preaching might be fully known that all the Gentiles
might hear, and listen to this, and I was delivered out of the
mouth of the lion. And I think that was a literal
deliverance out of the mouth of the lion. And listen to this
now. And the Lord shall deliver me from ever evil work and will
preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom to whom be glory forever
and ever. Amen. Amen. Our Father, thank you for meeting
with us tonight. Thank you for your word. Lord,
there's so much to say, but I pray that we were taught
and learned a few things here tonight, and that what we learned,
we learned how utterly and absolutely we're dependent upon you, and
how, oh Lord God, it's in our heart and in our soul and in
our minds and our very being for you to get all the glory,
all the glory, all the glory. And God, preserve us, as you
said, Paul, unto your heavenly kingdom. Preserve us. And do
it for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me thy great sound.