And I got down to verse 5, and I
felt like I took too much time, so I didn't even deal with it.
I didn't deal with it, but Paul He had talked also, look over
in II Timothy chapter four, and look what he says over here,
about almost the same thing, that perilous times would come
in the last days. And we understood that the last
days are the days when Christ came, because it talks so many
times about in the prophecies, in the day of the Lord, in the
day of the Lord, and that the day of the Lord was when Christ
came. He said, now the Spirit speak expressly, That in the
latter times, some shall depart from the faith. That's the same
thing, perilous times shall come. Men are gonna be lovers of themselves
more than lovers of God. And not only will they depart
from the faith, but they'll give heed to seducing spirits. There'll
be spirits that come along and they're seducing spirits and
doctrines of devils. Speaking lies and hypocrisy.
Being hypocrites and saying things and telling lies and being hypocrites
in what they say. Having their conscience seared
with a hot iron. And here's some of the things
that they'll do. Forbidding to marry. Telling you to not eat
certain meats. And God created everything to
be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know
the truth. For every creature of God is good, nothing to be
refused if it received with thanksgiving. And that's why I said I want
you to know this too. He had talked about how that
Hymenaeus and Philetus had already erred concerning the truth. The
resurrection's passed already. I'll talk about people denying
the Lord Jesus Christ. Flee futile lust. Shun for vains
and vain babblings that just rather increase unto ungodliness. So these people are traitors,
heavy, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of
God. And after he described these
people, he said, this is the last thing I want to say about
them. Well, no it's not, because it'll go on and say some things.
But he said, I want you to, I'm gonna describe these people to
you and what they're like when it's all said and done, they're
like this. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof
from such turn away. Now this says here they have
a form of godliness. And of course, this is in the
religious realm, because we know the world don't have a form of
godliness. So it's in the religious realm.
This is talking about religious people. It's talking about what
Paul was talking about would happen in the last days, in Christ
coming. That they'd have a form of godliness.
And the apostles talking about the state of religion. That's
what he's talking about. In the last days, perilous times. And this word form, it means
morphous. It means morphous. Everybody
knows what a form is. You know, you build a form to
pour concrete. And you ladies have forms that
they put cupcakes in. And that form is nothing but
a form. And that's all it is. It's empty until something's
in it. These people have a form, and it's empty of what? Ungodliness. It's just a form. It's a shell.
It's a pretense, is what it is. It's an outline, it's an image,
an impress, just an outward assemblage of knowledge. And it says, you
know, of truth of godliness. And you know, they have a outward
form of this, truth of godliness. You know, Paul told the Romans,
and he talked about the Jews, he says, you know, you have a
form of a knowledge of the law. That's all it is. You just have
a form. You don't really know the law. You teach a fellow not
to steal, and you go and steal. You teach a fellow not to commit
adultery, and then you go and commit adultery. So what you
got is just a form. You have no reality to what you
believe, is what he's talking about. And I tell you, there's
marks of those who have this form, and we just dealt with
them. Lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, heady, high-minded. And I'll tell you the greatest
mark, after you listen to all these, is down here in verse
7, where it says, ever learning. Ever learning. There's people
that's ever learning. And I'll deal with that next
week. Ever learning. You know what some of the things
that they're ever learning? They always learn about history. Always
learning about prophecy. Always learning about the law. Always learning about holiness.
But they never, they're not interested in learning about how God can
be just and justify the ungodly. They're ever learning and never,
ever able to come to a knowledge of the truth. They got something
to, they're always learning something. There was a fella, He's an incredibly
intelligent man. And I could tell you his name,
but I won't. But anyway, he is smart. I mean, you know what, he talks
about ex-Jesus all the time. And I watched him preach, and
he'd be preaching around, and he'd be talking, and then all
of a sudden, he'd just rattle off three or four sentences in
Greek. He'd be reading the scriptures
and just rattle all that off in Greek. How'd he memorize?
Just Greek. And people that was watching,
whatever half a dozen was, I don't know of anybody that knows Greek. I've got a lexicon in there.
I don't even know how to use it. It tells me what the language
is in. Like Tim James said, I know a
little Greek. He runs a restaurant. But anyway, This fellow asked
Todd Nybert, dear Todd Nybert, my dear friend and fine, fine
preacher, asked him for his church to sponsor him in starting another
work, to sponsor him and have him as his own church. Well,
so they met for lunch and Todd started asking questions. About
this, and he said, well, and he told Todd, said, Jesus, this
one verse of scripture. And Todd started outlining that
verse of scripture. He said, you don't know nothing
about the Bible, he told Todd. He said, you know what you are?
You're obtuse. And Todd had to go home and look
in the dictionary and find out what obtuse meant. And he said,
it means slow, slow, and stupid. This fellow goes to Todd's church
to recognize him. So that's what I'm talking about.
They're ever learning, ever learning, but never able to come to a knowledge
of the truth. Tell somebody like Todd Nybert,
whom God has used greatly for many, many, many years, and still using him greatly to
tell him he's obtuse. And I would have had to go look
too, you know. We can talk both the same boat
about that. Did you all know what obtuse
was when I mentioned the word? But that's what they say. Every
learning is coming to the knowledge of the truth. And that's what
they do. And that's what they always do. And look over here
in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. And I'll get into this. But look
down here in verse 10. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and
verse 10. This is talking about The man, Satan coming with power
and lying wonders. That's what happened down in
Egypt. They came with signs and lying wonders. When Moses was
standing there doing these mighty works, these fellas, these other
fellas, they was doing the same thing. Performing lying wonders
and signs. But anyway, with all deceivableness
of unrighteousness in them that perish. Now listen to this. Because
they received not the love of the truth. that they might be
saved. They have truth, but they don't
love it. They don't love it. And for this
cause, because they receive not the love of the truth, for this
cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe
a lie and be damned. Huh? That's pretty strong language,
ain't it? That's pretty strong language.
And that's what Paul said about these people here. They have
a form, just a form. And I'll tell you, let me give
you some illustrations from scriptures. I'll tell you the first man in
the Bible that had a form of religion, but denied the power
thereof. Cain was the first man in the
Bible. He had a form of religion. His
brother believed that he was a sinner, and he brought a blood
sacrifice. He brought a lamb. But Cain,
he said, I don't believe in that. I don't believe in the blood.
I don't believe I'm a sinner. I don't believe that God requires
sacrifice. I don't believe that God requires
me to be holy. I don't believe that God requires
me to believe that I need Him or anything in the world. I'll
be able to make it on my own. And to prove it, I'll raise me
a garden and I'll bring the best that I've got and the works of
my hands to God. And you know what God did? God
cursed him and he went away from there and God said, don't nobody
touch him. I want him trembling all the days of his life. That's
the first man had a form of religion. I'm going to do it my way. I
don't care about God's way. I'm going to do it my way. I'm
going to do my works. I'm going to bring my efforts.
And then there's the second one you find in the scriptures. Of
course, as Pharaoh, Pharaoh said, who is the Lord that I should
obey him? He had religion, he had musicians,
he had soothsayers, he had people that gathered around, told him
everything to do. And yet God said, I've raised
you up for one reason, to destroy you. And then the third person
you find in the Old Testament, that had his own form of religion,
had a form of godliness, but denied the power thereof, was
Balaam. You know Balaam, you know what the sin of Balaam was? Barak paid him, gave him money,
said I want you to go over here and I want you to curse Israel.
And so he took the money, put it in his pocket and went over
there and cursed Israel. And God said he wasn't gonna
curse them. He went back and told old Barak, said God won't
let me curse them. He said, here, I'll give you
more money. So he pocketed some more money. He went down there
and done it again. Come back, he'd already told
God, said, listen, I'm not gonna curse this one. He went back
and he said, listen, I've got all kinds of clothes and silver
and gold, and I'm gonna give you some more money. Go down
there and curse him again. So he was getting paid for everything
he did, knowing that it wasn't gonna work. So his problem was
that he ran, that the way of greediness, He's like that fellow
who was covetous. He had a form of religion, and
his form of religion was his pockets. Fill my pockets up,
and he got paid every single time he went down there. That's
the Arab Balaam. That's the Arab Balaam. And I
tell you, that's one thing that most preachers do. Whenever they
get called to a church, everybody wants to go there bigger and
bigger and bigger and bigger. First thing they want to know
is, how much you paying? How much you paying? And there's
Balaam, and then there's Judas. Judas. Everybody knows about
Judas. You know, they did not know that
he was a son of perdition. They did not know that he didn't
know Christ. They did not know that he was
going to sell the Lord Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. He didn't
know it until he did it. So he stayed with Christ for
three years. And he had a form of godliness.
He had a pretense. He pretended one time when they
said, listen, this woman brought a Sputner box of ointment, cost
300 pence, very expensive. And she opened that box and took
it all out and poured it out on Christ. And old Judah said,
oh my, I said, we could have used all that money to feed the
poor. Not that he cared about feeding
the poor, but the scripture said he carried the bag. He was the
treasurer. And so I tell you, Judas had
a form of godliness. And I tell you what, and you
know what, it didn't cost much to get him to give up his form
of godliness. And after he found out what he
had done between the innocent blood, he went and hung himself.
Went and hung himself. And I tell you, another fella
had a form of godliness. And Paul said it over in 1st,
I believe it was in 1st, yeah, it's right here in 2nd, right
here in chapter 4, 1st chapter of 2nd Timothy. Demas, look what
it says there in verse 10. Demas hath forsaken me, having
loved this present world. Departed, departed. Do you know that Demas, He always evidently loved the
world. He always loved the world. If
He hadn't have loved the world, He never went back to the world. But He had this form. He had this emptiness. He had
this form. And everybody thought that this
fellow was alright. Everybody looked at Him and said,
Oh, He's okay. But Paul said, Oh, no, no, no.
He's forsaken me. He's forsaken all the saints
of God. And I tell you, you know what
his problem is? He loved the world. He loved
it. It's like those people that receive
not the love of the truth. You know, the Scriptures tells
us, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
For thus in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of
the eyes, and the pride of life. You know what the lust of the
eyes is? It's not what our eyes look at
and try to see. The lust of our eyes is, is how
we want to present our, how people want people to view us. That's
the lust of the eyes. We want your eyes to consider
us, and how you look at us. And we want to present ourselves
to you. And that's why it's called hypocrisy,
because you know you can put on an act. It's not your eyes
looking at it, watch who would like to have that, and I sure
would like to have this, I would like that. No, no, that's not
what it's talking about. It's talking about wanting people's
eyes to look at us. Look at us. And then, oh, I tell
you, the worst, the worst people that had a form of godliness
was the Pharisees. was the Pharisees. You know,
our Lord Himself described them. He said, you know what you fellows
are? He said, you're like a graveyard. Mowed, good green gas over it,
over your tomb. Oh, it's just a pretty, you got
a pretty stone up there. But he said, you know what you
are? Inside you're nothing but old dead men's bones and rottenness. That's what he said. He said,
you know what you appear like under a whited sepulcher, a sepulcher,
a gravestone. That's what he's talking about.
And he said also, they love to, they love to pray standing in
the marketplaces. And that one, just to give you
an illustration, that one Pharisee that prayed thus with himself,
and I thank you that I'm not like other men. I thank you that
I'm not like them at all. And you know, and let me tell
you something about these people denying the power, and the scriptures
is full of them. I can name more, I can name more,
but the scriptures are full of them. full of them, that deny
the power. They have, it says here, having
a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now what do
they deny? What do they, it says they deny
the power thereof. The power of God, the power of,
you know, they deny the absolute sovereignty of God. They don't
mind God being sovereign in heaven. They don't mind God handing out
blessings to people. But when he becomes sovereign
over everything, over you, over your home, over your will, over
your mind, over everything about you and everything else in this
world, you're carrying it too far. And so they deny the absolute
sovereignty of God. And they'll say, well, you know,
God's sovereign to a certain extent. Well, what extent would
He be sovereign? He's extent over everything but
a man's will. He's sovereign over everything
but this thing that happened over here. Most people really
think that God put the wheels in motion, set this world in
motion, and then walked off and left it. But no, no. How could He be God and let this
world... You know, it's not governing
itself. He's governing this world. And I tell you, here's another
thing they deny. They deny the absolute sovereignty
of the Spirit. Now, what does that mean? Well,
most people think that the Holy Spirit is just an influence.
He's just an influence. But the Spirit is sovereign.
Our Lord says, a man must be born again of water and the Spirit. And this is what He said about
it. He said, It's like the wind, it bloweth wherever it wants
to. It goes wherever it wants to
go. It works on whoever it wants to work on. This has happened
countless times, countless times, countless times. A husband and
wife be sitting together. God will pass by the husband
and get the wife. Or else He'll pass by the wife
and get the husband. He'll pass by all the children
and get the mama. Or he'll pass by mom and daddy
and get the children. I mean, he saves whom he will. He goes where God sends him.
And he's more than influenced. Well, it's absolutely necessary
that the Spirit of God has, you know, you and I don't even know
anything unless the Spirit of God comes to us. We can't learn
anything. We can't know the scriptures.
We can't understand the scriptures. We can't understand our calling.
That's another thing. They deny effectual calling. Do you know that effectual calling? If God doesn't call a man effectually,
he's not coming. I've said this before and I'll
say it again. As Peter drew out his sword, the Lord Jesus says,
no man can come to me except the Father which sent me drawing.
And as Peter drew out that sword, that's the same drawing. And
so hands was laid on that sword. And I'm telling you, if a man
comes to God in Christ, God's gonna come and get him and get
a hold of him and he's gonna bring him. God has to get a hold of a man.
And I, you know, I've said it this, and the fellas, I said,
I said, he'll come and get you by the nap of the neck, or get
you by your collar. But I'll tell you one thing,
you're coming. And a fella come up to me after I said that, and
he said, oh Lord, get a hold of my collar. Don't bother me. Dang, dang, dang, I don't care. And that's the truth. He has
to come and come to where we are. We can't go where he is.
He's got to come with the power to us. We've got no power to
go to Him. And then I'll tell you, this
is another thing. They deny that Christ is being the absolute
Savior. Oh my. They, oh Christ. Listen, He can't save unless
I want it to happen. that He's the absolute Savior.
There's no other name given among heaven whereby men must be saved. We must be saved. And God gave
Him a name that's above every name that every knee should bow,
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father. And I tell you what, and when
they deny the blood of Christ, You know, His blood, the scripture
says His blood cleanses us from all sin. They say, well, it cleanses
us from sin. Then we got to keep ourselves
from sin. We got to repent of our sin. We got to quit our sinning. Well,
if Christ put away all our sin, well, how in the world are we
going to quit sinning if we don't have any sin? We don't have any sin. Christ
put our sin away. They want you to believe that
you have to quit sinning. You have to change your way of
living. I don't know how many people I've heard say that. I
made a change. I made a change. I joined the
church. I made a change. Oh my. I tell you they deny the
power of God when they cry out man's power. When they cry out,
you know that man's got the ability to come by his own will. He's
got the ability to believe by his own power. He's got the ability
to do the works that God would be satisfied with. He's got the
merit and the worth that God said, oh, listen, I've just got
to bless that fella. He is really something. He's
worth something to me. Fella said one time, said, you
know why God saved Paul? Called him to be an apostle?
Because he knowed he'd obey. That's getting the cart before
the horse. But oh my, and this is seen clearly, clearly in the
invitation system. Oh my, the invitation system.
You know, here's the thing. There was a time when I was involved
in every bit of this. I was involved in religion. I
had a form of it. I was dedicated. I was committed. I was committed to working. I
was committed to giving. I was committed to preaching.
And yet I was committing in my best ability to live a holy,
clean life by my own power. And I believe that if I could
preach in such a way that I could work on a man's emotions, that
I could get somebody to come forward for Jesus. So I've been
in this place. I know what I'm talking about.
And they deny the effectual work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever
you start crying out man's will and man's power and man's ability,
you're denying the work of Christ himself. You deny the life of
Christ, who's the only one who ever had a life without sin.
There's only been one person that worked their way to heaven,
and that was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. There's only one person
God accepted for His worth, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ.
Only one person did God accept because He was worthy of being
accepted of God, that was His Son. And if God ever accepts
me, you, or anybody else, it's gonna have to be because He accepted
His Son, and we trust His Son. I'm going to say something right
here, and I hope you understand it. People say, I trust the finished
work of Christ. There are going to be a lot of
people that's going to go to hell that said, I believe in the finished
work of Christ. It's not the finished work of
Christ that saves a man. It's Christ who finished the
work that saves a man. You see the difference? I'm trusting
Christ. He's the one that did the work. And now, you know, I'm not trusting
his finished work, I'm trusting him who did the work. There's
been a lot of fine men in this world, been a lot of the Apostle
Paul, what an effectual man that God used mightily. But oh my,
he would tell you right quick, he said, for me to live is Christ. For me to die is gain. It's Christ
who loved me and gave himself for me. And it's the life that I now
live in the flesh. I don't live by my flesh, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. Oh my, then they deny his death. Oh my, his death. Oh bless his
holy name. His death was so powerful, so
glorious, so effectual. that when he died, death died. When he died, sin died. When
he died, flesh died. When he died, we died. And then
I tell you what, and then when he was raised, raised from the
dead, we was raised right up with him. You know, Let me give
you two things that's prevalent. Prevalent started back in the
early, back in the mid 17th century, in the 1800s. Two things started
happening then. First was what you call baptismal
regeneration. They use Acts 2.38. He that believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. That's their whole doctrine.
You believe, and I baptize you. When I baptize you, and you get
baptized in our church, then you're a saved person. You're
saved. You're not saved forever. No,
no. You gotta live a good life. You
got to work. You got to obey the girl in the
room. You got to do as unto others
as you'd have them do unto you. And you know what that's called?
You know the fellows come up with that? Call them Camelites. One of them's
name's Will, and I can't think of the other one's name, but
they started in 1845. Started preaching baptismal regeneration.
And they're still doing it. Still preaching the same thing.
If they can't get you in their baptistry at home, and you get
ready to go into a turd, they'll come to the hospital, fill up
a bathtub, and put you in a bathtub up there. And they'll put you
in the road. You know, you're talking about
denying the power thereof, the ungodliness. Jim Byrd told me
one time, said when he was born, said he was on what they call
the cradle roll. The cradle roll. When you're
first born, you know, if you're in a certain church, a big church,
they take you, when you're first born, they take your little booties
and put them up on a board and say, he's in the cradle roll.
They got him enrolled in the church. And you know, and you come and
you memorize certain scriptures, and they'll put up a star for
every scripture you memorize for that Sunday. Have the kids
come up, what verse did you memorize? Give him three stars. Now you
imagine, it's hard for us to grasp that, ain't it? But that's
what goes on, that's what goes on. Let me tell you another thing
that happened just in our generation, showing you denying the power
of God, having a form. It's called decisionism. Billy
Graham started that. Billy Graham and his evangelistic,
his hour of decision was what his message was on radio and
television, the hour of decision. Make your decision. And that's
what turned out to be easy believism. And now it's so easy to get people
to believe. All you've got to do is make
a decision for Christ. Make a decision for Christ. Now how easy is that to do? Now do you reckon that's denying
the power of God? Having a form of godliness? Oh my, and then look what it
says here in verse 5 again. It says here, having a form of
godliness but denying the power thereof. He said, listen to this,
tell me that I want you to turn away from them people. Every
one of these people that's dressed like, I want you to turn away
from them. Turn away from them. Don't pay attention to them.
Don't get involved with them. Stay away from them. Don't have
nothing to do with them. then let me show you some things,
you know. And how in the world can we turn away from them? Well,
I'll tell you this, look down verse 16, verse 14. How are we gonna turn away from
them? By continuing in the scriptures, in the truth. But continue thou
in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured
of, knowing of whom thou hast learned. And that from a child
that has known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ. And all Scripture is given by
inspiration of God. And it's profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, instruction in righteousness.
He said, you want to turn, and this is how you turn away. You
stay in the Scriptures. Believe what God said. Look at
the scriptures, they're the only thing in the world can make you
wise under salvation. And you let me just comment on
six and seven, and I'll deal with it next week. For this sort,
he said, people like this, this having a form of God is denied
the power thereof. For this sort, this kind of people,
which creep into houses. Now what does it mean creep in?
I mean, they just, they slip in. They slip in. You know, they
don't come in with a big lie right off the bat, creep into
houses, and we'll deal with this, leave captains, silly women,
laden with sins, led away with diver's lust. And these women,
and that's what he's talking about here, these women in this
sort are ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of
the truth. Now I tell you, the only way in the world to turn
away from that is of course, stay with the scriptures. You
know, stay with the scriptures. You know you learned. Who learned
you the scriptures? The Holy Spirit did. The Holy
Spirit did. Our Father, thank you for meeting
with us tonight. Thank you for your word. Lord,
we We don't want to be described in this group of people, these
17 things that were mentioned. We don't want to be described
in, we don't want to be in either one of those things. We don't
want to be described that way. We want to be described as Timothy
was. That we learned the scriptures,
the Holy Spirit and God taught us the scriptures. For them alone
are able to make us wise. make us understand the salvation
that's in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh God, because you gave the
scriptures, you breathe the scriptures, they're your word, and so Lord,
let us never turn away from your word. And no, shun, shun, shun
anything that dishonors you and doesn't bring glory to you in
the gospel. Bless your holy name. In Christ's
name, amen. Amen. Let's turn to 303 in the
hymn book. 303. Stand together. 303. I think that's it. I've been
singing this all day. Yes. Jesus, Savior, pilot me over
last temperature sea, unknown waves before me roll. Hiding rocks and treacherous
shoals, charred and compassed, come from thee. Jesus, Savior,
pilot me. As a mother steals her child,
thou canst toss the ocean wild. Boisterous waves, so great. When thou sayest to them, Be
still, wondrous Sovereign of the sea, me when at last I near the shore
and the fearful breakers Twixt me and the peaceful rest,
Then while leaning on Thy breast, May I hear Thee say to me, Tonight
I will pilot thee.