The Path from Orthodoxy to Demon Theology
00:00:00.000 | On this Monday morning, we jump right into the deep end to talk about the pathway from
00:00:09.480 | orthodoxy to demon theology.
00:00:13.720 | Heavy topic, one inspired by a text we find in Paul's first epistle to Timothy.
00:00:19.120 | Here's the question from a podcast listener named Leland.
00:00:22.080 | "Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for taking heavy questions on the podcast.
00:00:26.120 | I have one of them."
00:00:27.280 | Indeed he does.
00:00:28.280 | In 1 Timothy 4.1, Paul writes that some professing Christians "will depart from the faith
00:00:35.360 | by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons."
00:00:44.360 | This seems like a very stark transition for once-professing believers.
00:00:49.160 | What does this look like?
00:00:51.200 | Can it really mean that Christ-worshippers become blatant demon-worshippers?
00:00:56.720 | Or is this move far more subtle?
00:00:59.300 | Can you explain to me what's happening in this text?
00:01:03.480 | This is a good question for giving us an opportunity to clarify two things.
00:01:09.480 | First, can a true born-again worshipper of Jesus be led astray into the kind of demonic
00:01:16.400 | deception that Paul has in mind?
00:01:18.600 | That's one.
00:01:20.080 | And second, how does this happen?
00:01:22.960 | Or what's going on here?
00:01:24.780 | Or does the departure from the church into involvement with demonic teaching happen suddenly
00:01:30.780 | or gradually?
00:01:32.520 | Now, the reason I raised that first question is because Leland's question, for me, has
00:01:39.760 | an ambiguity in it.
00:01:41.580 | On the one hand, he refers to "professing Christians departing from the faith to demons,"
00:01:50.520 | but on the other hand, he asked the question about Christ-worshippers departing into demon
00:01:57.200 | worship.
00:01:58.200 | So, it wasn't clear to me whether he was asking about genuine Christ-worshippers or whether
00:02:06.840 | he was asking about professing Christians who are not genuine Christ-worshippers deep
00:02:13.320 | down in their hearts.
00:02:15.700 | I think Romans 8, verse 30, teaches that those who are predestined are called, and those
00:02:24.960 | who are called are justified, and those who are justified are glorified, so that no genuinely
00:02:32.240 | called and justified Christian ever falls away into demon worship, not permanently anyway.
00:02:44.000 | So then the question becomes, and I think this is what he's asking, what is happening
00:02:50.020 | when people in the church who've been in the church for years and are outwardly identifying
00:02:57.060 | as Christian and yet are not truly born again, what's happening when they are swept away
00:03:04.760 | into the teaching of demons?
00:03:07.780 | So let me read the text that he's referring to.
00:03:10.620 | "Now the Spirit expressly says that in the later times some will depart from the faith
00:03:18.300 | by devoting themselves to or paying attention to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons
00:03:29.100 | through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require
00:03:37.060 | abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who
00:03:42.900 | believe and know the truth."
00:03:46.220 | So what's going on here?
00:03:47.540 | Well, first Paul says there are deceitful spirits.
00:03:53.060 | They would be manifesting themselves through people who claim to speak in the name of some
00:03:57.820 | supernatural being in some charismatic way, perhaps with a spirit of prophecy, the kind
00:04:04.040 | of thing that John referred to when he said in 1 John, "Do not believe every spirit."
00:04:11.540 | Do not believe every spirit.
00:04:13.260 | So Paul's talking about spirits of demons here, deceitful spirits.
00:04:18.300 | This is the kind of thing John was referring to in 1 John 4, 1, where he said, "Do not
00:04:23.780 | believe every spirit."
00:04:26.460 | That's what Paul's talking about here, deceitful spirits.
00:04:29.360 | Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
00:04:36.320 | for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
00:04:41.180 | So Paul is concerned that professing Christians will pay too much attention to deceitful spirits
00:04:49.100 | and not test them with biblical truth and be carried away into the teaching of demons.
00:04:55.940 | And then he says that through these spirits there arise cult-like practices which contradict
00:05:04.440 | biblical teaching that look religious.
00:05:08.560 | In this case, he's talking about forbidding marriage and forbidding certain foods.
00:05:13.940 | And then he says that these cultic practices have advocates whose consciences are seared
00:05:20.000 | and who lie about what the Bible teaches and deceive people away from teaching the truth
00:05:28.140 | and away from living by faith in Christ.
00:05:32.060 | And when that happens, he says, you can see that these are teachings of demons, because
00:05:37.680 | that's what the goal of demons is, to lure people away from Christ.
00:05:44.420 | And Paul points out that this kind of departure from the faith will be intensified in the
00:05:53.220 | later times.
00:05:55.060 | That's verse 1, 1 Timothy 4.
00:05:57.660 | The danger of seduction by deceitful spirits and teachings of demons is always present
00:06:05.940 | throughout this fallen age, from the time of Jesus till Jesus comes back.
00:06:11.340 | They're always there.
00:06:12.540 | But there will be a greater temptation as the end of the age approaches and the Lord
00:06:18.460 | draws near.
00:06:19.980 | And Paul describes this in 2 Thessalonians 2.
00:06:24.700 | The people are worried that the day of the Lord may have come, and Paul says, no, no,
00:06:29.340 | it hasn't come, because first there has to be this great apostasy, this falling away,
00:06:36.460 | this rebellion, this deception.
00:06:39.660 | A great deception comes first.
00:06:42.260 | Let no one deceive you.
00:06:43.540 | This is verse 3 of 2 Thessalonians 2.
00:06:47.620 | Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the apostasy comes
00:06:54.180 | first and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction.
00:07:01.140 | Then he says in verse 7, the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.
00:07:08.620 | In other words, even though there will be a great deception of lawlessness at the very
00:07:14.860 | end of the age, nevertheless, the spirit of deception is always at work in some measure
00:07:22.460 | in this fallen age.
00:07:24.420 | And he describes it like this.
00:07:25.740 | Now, this is verses 9 to 12.
00:07:28.660 | The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and
00:07:36.100 | wonders and with all wicked deception.
00:07:39.180 | That's what Paul's talking about in 1 Timothy.
00:07:42.420 | Deception for those who are perishing because they refuse to love the truth and be saved.
00:07:48.900 | Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in
00:07:55.260 | order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
00:08:02.940 | And Jesus said in Matthew 24, 12, "Because lawlessness," same lawlessness Paul's talking
00:08:09.100 | about in 2 Thessalonians, "because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow
00:08:15.780 | cold, but the one who endures to the end will be saved."
00:08:19.820 | In other words, the mystery of lawlessness will have a huge impact on nominal Christians
00:08:27.820 | whose love for Christ is shallow and unreal.
00:08:32.720 | They will grow cold, their resistance to the deception of demons will give way, and they
00:08:38.140 | will not endure to the end.
00:08:41.780 | This may happen gradually as a church falls away from preaching the truth and the people's
00:08:48.780 | love for Christ becomes more and more perfunctory.
00:08:52.700 | You see this in churches.
00:08:54.020 | It's tragic to watch.
00:08:55.900 | Just becomes perfunctory.
00:08:56.900 | They're just going through the motions, and all the former seeming passion and biblical
00:09:03.480 | faithfulness for Jesus is gone, and then come the deceitful spirits, and these folks are
00:09:09.420 | vulnerable to being swept away into a great deception and the teaching of demons.
00:09:16.620 | Or it may happen suddenly.
00:09:19.420 | A satanic miracle worker comes to town with a ministry of signs and wonders like Simon
00:09:25.380 | in Acts chapter 8.
00:09:28.060 | He takes people by storm because their roots are so shallow.
00:09:33.660 | They're more dazzled by the deceitful miracles than by the beauties of Christ and his salvation
00:09:41.600 | and his teaching.
00:09:42.600 | Oh, the need, oh, the need for depth and rootedness in the truth in our churches.
00:09:50.340 | This is a word for pastors.
00:09:52.880 | So this is why Paul urges us in Ephesians 6 to put on the whole armor of God that we
00:09:59.400 | might stand against the wiles of the devil and keep alert with all perseverance, praying
00:10:05.820 | earnestly to be spared this kind of deception.
00:10:09.740 | If we remain in the grace of God and treasure Christ above all, we will be kept.
00:10:16.460 | That's 1 Peter 1.5.
00:10:18.340 | It's so precious.
00:10:19.820 | I love this promise.
00:10:20.820 | I put it on my mother's gravestone with my father's permission, in fact, kept by the
00:10:26.260 | power of God.
00:10:27.260 | But here's what the text says.
00:10:29.540 | By God's power, we are being guarded, being kept through faith for a salvation ready to
00:10:36.700 | be revealed in the last time.
00:10:38.660 | So that's our hope.
00:10:40.300 | Those whom the Lord calls, the Lord keeps.
00:10:45.580 | So precious.
00:10:46.780 | You mentioning 1 Peter 1.5 in the context of your mom, Ruth, and the testimony you take
00:10:54.060 | from her life, it reminds me of a previous episode where you talked about this a little
00:10:58.140 | bit more and the circumstances in which she passed into glory back in ABJ 1577.
00:11:05.060 | Even more details in ABJ 1433.
00:11:09.220 | If you haven't heard that story, I commend those episodes to you.
00:11:12.300 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for joining us today.
00:11:14.900 | You can find the ABJs 1433 and 1577 at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:11:22.780 | Speaking of parents, parenting teens is up next.
00:11:25.880 | Parenting teens can be very challenging.
00:11:28.420 | And Wednesday, we're going to look at what Pastor John calls the hardest thing to do
00:11:33.860 | in parenting teens.
00:11:35.420 | The hardest thing to do in parenting teens.
00:11:40.540 | But it must be done.
00:11:41.540 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:43.380 | We will see you back here on Wednesday.
00:11:45.740 | [END]
00:11:52.740 | you