Danger Ahead

You don't have to drive down the highway very much before you see some kind of warning sign of danger ahead. It may be a sign that warns you of construction that may be coming up on your highway or a lane closure or a detour or foggy or icy conditions or it may be like the sign on the screen. Just warning you that there's some road work ahead, things may change, you better be careful. There's danger ahead. Well, in chapter four of 1 Timothy, basically Paul is putting up a road sign for Timothy saying, danger ahead. He's warning him of some dangers that he will face in ministry. As we journey through this epistle of Paul to a young preacher named Timothy, we find ourselves coming face to face with a warning sign. Several of them, in fact, there are three categories of warnings in chapter four. Two of these warnings are clear dangers. A warning about false doctrine and a warning about neglect on Timothy's part. One of them is more of a strong challenge to Timothy about being a godly young man, but implied in that is a warning that he dare not take that lightly. So these are warning signs and these warnings are not only for pastors like Timothy. If you look down at verse six of chapter four, Timothy or Paul says to Timothy, if you point out these things to the brothers, if you preach this, in other words, teach this to the church, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus. And in verse 11, he reminds him, command and teach these things. These are warnings that the whole church needs to be aware of. These are warning signs of dangers on the highway of the Christian life that we all need to be aware of and be watching out for. So the first of those three areas of danger has to do with false doctrine. Today, we look at a strong warning about false doctrine or false teaching. The word doctrine simply means teaching. And so what we're talking about here with false doctrine is any teaching by anyone that is contradictory to what is taught in the word of God. Any teaching that is opposed to the word of God, no matter what source it comes from, any teaching opposed to the word of God is false teaching. It is false doctrine and Paul gives a strong warning about that that you may be thinking, wait a second, I've heard this before. And we have in chapter one of first Timothy, Paul spends basically the whole chapter of chapter one warning Timothy about false doctrine and that he should warn both himself and the church about that, but he comes back to it here in chapter four, which indicates how serious this is. We may be surprised, however, today to find the ways in which this false teaching takes shape. So let's jump into chapter four. I want to read it first, then we'll come back and unpack what it's saying to us. For simile four, verse one, the spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow the seeding spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. In this strong warning about false doctrine, Paul begins by establishing its certainty, the certainty of false teaching, the certainty of false doctrine is going to be there. This is not like some road warning signs that you see and you drive for twenty more miles wondering, where is that road work anyway? What is that sign out there for? That was nothing there. Well, this is going to come. It's already here. Notice how Paul starts. He says the spirit clearly says he begins right off the bat by showing this. This should be no surprise. The certainty of false teaching when Paul says the spirit clearly says that's equivalent to saying the scriptures clearly say. What he's talking about is prophecies made in the word of God by the inspiration of the spirit, the Holy Spirit speaking through the writers of Scripture, telling us, warning us, putting up their road signs, saying danger, false doctrine is coming. There are lots of these prophecies that took place prior to the book of 1 Timothy. Jesus had warned certainly clearly about false teaching. Look at these verses on the screen quickly Matthew 24 verse 11. Jesus said, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. He also said in Mark 13 verse 22, a very similar setting for false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the elect. And prior to writing 1 Timothy, Paul himself had warned about this danger of false teaching. So the spirit clearly is saying even through Paul in Acts chapter 20. Paul said to the Ephesian pastors, pastors from churches in the very town where Timothy is pastoring. He said this to them. He said, I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. He warned the Romans of the same thing in Romans chapter 16. I urge you brothers and sisters to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way. You may notice that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. He warned the Galatians churches about the same thing. Galatians 1, I am astonished, Paul told those churches, that you are so quickly discerning the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all. Currently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. And I could go right on through Ephesians and Philippians, right on through the rest of Paul's epistles, warning after warning after warning, the spirit clearly says this should be no surprise. We are abundantly clear warnings that there is false teaching, false doctrine on the horizon. But I want you to notice it is timing because Paul tells us when it will come. In verse 1 he says, now the spirit clearly says that in later times, some of you will have a translation that says in the last days. Now this concept of the last days or later times, quite often what most of us assume is that the last days are the days right before Jesus' second coming. But that is not really what the Bible means by that term, last days. Paul will go on to say, this is already happening. And so Paul warns Timothy to warn the church about false teaching which is already taking place. He does the same thing in second Timothy where he says in chapter 3, this is already taking place. It will grow worse and worse as we get closer to the second coming. But it's already taking place. So what are the last days? What are these last times? Other passages in Scripture make it clear that we are in the last days and have been since the first coming of Christ. Look at Hebrews chapter 1 on the screen again to say this little time in turning. Hebrews chapter 1, in the past, speaking of the Old Testament, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times in various ways. But in these last days, when the writer of Hebrews was writing before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, he's saying in these last days, God has spoken to us by his son, whom the appointed heir of all things and through whom also he made the universe. Peter says the same thing in first Peter 1, speaking of Christ, he says he was chosen before the creation of the world but was revealed in these last times. He was revealed through his coming to earth. He revealed who God was and he revealed the plan of salvation through the work on the cross. That was done in these last times. Peter says, and John says in first on chapter 2, dear children, this is the last hour. And as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming even now, many Antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. The last days started with the first coming of Christ and they have continued right on up until now and will continue until the second coming of Christ. You say, well, that's not a long time for the last days. Well, what it does is it just shows that the apostles believed that Jesus could return at any time. They believed from day one they were in the last days and they were because Christ is coming his imminent that could happen at any time. And yeah, it's been 2,000 years but remember, a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, a thousand years like a day. So we God measures times, we'll have been a couple of days. We have been in the last days since the first coming of Christ. So there has always been false doctrine and there always will be until the coming of Christ. It's going to get worse and worse according to 2 Timothy 3, but we are in the last days. And you don't need any prophetic signs to tell you that. All the prophetic signs of Scripture point to the second coming after the tribulation. They don't have anything to do with the rapture. So we're not looking for signs. What we're looking for is Jesus. We are already in the last days. We have been since the first century and the false teaching has been prominent ever since that time. But then, though, this Paul identifies the character of this false teaching in verse 1. Here it clearly says that in the last days or in later times, some will abandon the faith. It's a strong word there. The word abandon the faith is a word from which we get our word apostasy. Now apostasy based on this word means this. Apostasy is a willful turning away from the truths of the Christian faith. Those basic truths of the Bible that define what Christians believe. The truths about the Bible itself, the truths about Christ and His coming and His sinless life and His death, burial resurrection, His ascension back to heaven, the fact that faith in Christ is the only way we can be saved. Those are essential basic foundational truths that define what we believe. And apostasy or abandoning the faith is a willful turning away from that body of revealed truth. Now please understand, Paul is not describing here someone who is struggling to understand the faith. Someone who is investigating the faith. Someone who is seeking answers to questions. He's not talking about those people. So what he's talking about is people who have been clearly exposed to the truth of the gospel. And they have in some form ascended to that. They have professed to believe it. But at some point they purposely turned their back on Christ and reject Him and the truths of the Bible. And walk away from it. We're not talking about someone who just becomes unfaithful for a period of time. We're talking about someone who makes a willful commitment to abandon the faith. To turn their back on Christ and walk away from it. I believe there is sufficient evidence in the Bible. We had time, we would go to second Peter 2, first John 2, the book of Jude, for instance. Those and other passages give us sufficient information to help us see the Bible's perspective on these people is that they were never saved to start with. They may have grown up in a Christian family, they may have grown up in church. They were exposed to the truths of the faith. They kind of went along with it, maybe even gave some mental ascent to it, may have come forward in a church service at some time. But there is no genuine salvation. And so at some point they turned their back on the faith and willfully walk away from Christ. That is an apostate, that is someone who has abandoned the faith. Listen folks, this is serious. This is real serious. And this gets close to home. There are many of us in this room who have children or relatives who have done this. And we look at them and we wonder, was there any genuine faith to start with? Did they really ever know the Lord or did they just kind of adopt mommy and daddy's faith and go along because it was part of the family, part of the home, part of the upbringing? Jesus talks about people like that. In his wonderful parable of the sower and the seed and the soils, he talks about the seed of the gospel, landing on different kinds of soil, all of which are reflective of different kinds of heart responses. And one of those soils is what he calls the stony soil, the rocky soil, which basically is a thin layer of pop soil underneath it is a layer of stone which cannot be penetrated by the seed. And so the seed takes root just briefly, not really any depth at all. But it springs up quickly and then at the first sign of hardship, it withers and dies. Indicating there was no real solid root, nothing put down deeply in the soul, which was real, which was meaningful. He's talking about those who outwardly looked the part but have never really trusted Christ. Listen, this is so serious. There may be some here this morning who are like this. You've gone along, you've grown up in a Christian family, you came up through the Awana ministry and the youth ministry or whatever and you've kind of agreed with everything. But you've never really personally, from your heart, made a commitment of your life to Christ. There's nothing meaningful, solid, deep there. And so you are the endangering of some day just turning your back on it all and walking away because it never really meant anything for you to start with. This is so dangerous. Can't use in his commentary on 1 Timothy illustrates it this way and I cannot say it as well, so I'm just going to read what he says. He says, imagine yourself in a room with walls that are papered bright green. You walk to an adjoining room where the walls are green but the shade is imperceptibly bluer. You enter a third room, bluer than the second. Again the difference is too small to be noticeable. After passing through 50 rooms, each slightly bluer than the last. Someone hands you a sample of the wallpaper in the room where you started. You're astonished at how green it is. Suddenly you realize that the room you are now in is not green at all. It is blue. Something like this often happens when people move away from Christ. The sudden influences gradually edge one away from pure belief to that which is ultimately after 50 rooms. Ultimately not belief at all. This has happened to thousands who have succumbed to siren songs of false teaching. The tragedy is that their departure was so imperceptible that they did not know their belief had changed. I believe there are many who have walked away from the faith and still think they are okay because they grew up in church. They may have walked forward made some kind of profession but it is clear that there is nothing there of any substance. There is no heart for God, no regeneration, no change, no hunger and thirst for the things of God. I have to ask myself, are they apostates? Have they abandoned the faith? Have they turned their back on what they mentally agreed to at some point in their lives? Folks, this is dangerous stuff. The character of this departure from the faith may touch every family in this room today. The Paul goes on to describe its sources. Where does this come from? Look at it, verse 1. Some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Quite clearly the original source is demonic sources. That is where it all starts. I don't think we as believers give this enough credence. I don't think we treat this seriously enough. I don't think we take it seriously enough. The deceiving spirits, things taught by demons, Satan and his demons are very clever deceivers and that is the reason why intelligent, educated people swallow things like demons. They follow things like atheism and evolution and pagan religious ideas and views on moral issues that are far removed from God's truth and really far removed from common sense. Why does that happen? I don't think we put enough stock in the incredible deceptive power of Satan and his demons to purvert the mind, the thinking and eventually the heart of people. It is perceived, bewitched, even blinded are the kinds of words the Bible uses to describe this deception. It is satanic, demonic in its origin and that alone explains why intelligent people can fall prey to things that are clearly the opposite of truth. But there is another source through which these doctrines of demons appear and are articulated and presented that other source is human sources. Notice it, verse 2, such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose contences have been seared as with a hot iron. So the teaching that originates in a spiritual warfare on the mind and the heart teaching that originates with demons and with Satan actually is channeled through funneled through human teachers. They may occupy a university classroom. They may occupy a pulpit. The Bible calls them hypocritical liars. That's a pretty strong language. It is a double deception. First of all, the Bible indicates they are liars. They are deliberately spreading mistruths, attacks on the truth. Lies that originated with the evil one, the father of all lies. So they are deliberately spreading lies, but they are doing it under false pretenses. And that's the hypocrisy that he talks about. They are doing it under false pretenses of a Ph.D. someone who is well-learned, educated, who knows. Or they are doing it under the guise of religion because this person occupies a pulpit is the pastor of a church but spews out all kinds of things that are opposed to the clear teaching of the Bible. The Bible calls it coming from a religious figure who is well respected in the community, who is kind and understanding and affirming and gentle in his disposition. That's perceptive. That's hypocritical. It is lies being done under the pretence of education or religion. He says, how can people do that? Paul gives us the answer. He tells us what leads to that. He says, these teachings come through hypocritical liars. Here's the reason why whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. Here's how it works. You take a pastor and a pulpit who denies the basics of the word of God, the truths of the Christian faith, who preaches a do-good salvation by works and being a good person. You take that person or you take the university professor with a string of PhDs behind his name, who is spouting all kinds of misinformation and untruths lies to deceive young minds. Take them far enough back in their personal experience and you may find that somewhere in their past they were in a Sunday school class, they were in a church or maybe they were in a home of believing parents. And somewhere along the line they may have heard the truth, not in every case, but in many cases that is true. It was true with Karl Marx. It was true with Charles Darwin. Both of them grew up in Christian homes. True with so many people like this. So what happened? They began to argue with their conscience. Their conscience, which is that tool that the spirit of God uses to identify right and wrong. They began to argue with it based on other information they were getting that was contrary to the word of God. They began arguing with their conscience. Then they began to stifle their conscience, push down that voice of truth in their hearts and minds. And they would muffle the voice of conscience so that they couldn't hear it anymore until finally the Bible says their conscience was seared. It was cauterized. Like taking a branding iron to it, like cauterizing the end of a nerve or the end of a blood vessel that will not stop bleeding, like giving heat to that which deadens and insensitizes the tissue so that you no longer feel that's what can happen to the mind and the heart. The conscience and that's how people get from upbringing where they heard the truth to the point that they are lying in the pulpit, lying in the classroom, lying in the marketplace because their conscience has had for so long been stifled and muffled and argued against that they no longer hear them. They cauterized them. They're dead. No longer any feeling there. That's the source of this false teaching. But I want to quickly move on to its marks because this is where we're going to be surprised. What is the mark of false teaching that Paul at least warns about in this passage? I'm going to identify it with these two words that are on your both and outline and also on the screen, a legalistic asceticism. Those two words I think best kind of capture the whole concept, but it's a difficult concept to get a hold of. So let's unpack that a little bit. What do we mean by that? What is it? What is this that we're talking about? First of all, the word of seticism, which is not a word we throw around and use every day, the word of seticism means a denial of bodily appetites and desires, a denial of even legitimate physical appetites and desires. Now, couple that with illegalism that enforces a bunch of rules as a means of spirituality, you deny yourself this, that or the other as a means of spirituality or as in some cases, even people will go so far as to say as a means of salvation, as a means of becoming right with God. Notice how Paul identifies it there in verse three, they forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods. There's that element of forbidding and ordering that legalistic forcing of someone into a set of humanistic rules, humanly devised rules that are enforced to try to make you feel like this is the way to spirituality. Or this is the way you become right with God. Now, I want you to see the examples that Paul uses because this is going to surprise us, the examples in verse three are forbidding people to marry and ordering them to abstain from certain foods. I think this shows just how subtle Satan is in the whole area of false teaching. We would expect if Paul's going to give examples of false teaching, he would say, how give you some examples, these people deny the deity of Christ. These people deny that salvation is by grace through faith, these people deny the Trinity, but he doesn't. He gives us examples like they forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods. It's a puzzling. Why would he start there? All right, let's dig a little deeper. Ready to go beneath the surface of this verse. The teaching is this, the teaching Paul is warning against this, this, the teaching is focused on two gifts that come from God, marriage and food. And they are two of the most basic, if not the most basic, physical and human appetites, sexual fulfillment and hunger. And granted, both of those can easily degenerate into sin. The God-given desire for sexual fulfillment can degenerate into sin. The Bible makes it very clear that can degenerate into lust and immorality. Likewise, the legitimate physical desire and hunger for food can degenerate into gluttony. So it's obvious these two can lead to sin, but there's a deeper problem here that Paul is warning against. It's this. The teaching that those appetites themselves are sinful. That's what Paul's warning against. The teaching that the appetite to fulfill a bodily desire, a human, natural God-given desire for sexual fulfillment, that desire itself is sinful. And the desire for food is sinful. That's the problem that Paul's warning against here. And that started 400 years before Paul wrote this book. It started with Greek philosophy. Plato, the Greek philosopher, was the one who instilled this philosophy in the mind of the world of his day. Anything physical is sinful. And only what is spiritual is holy and right. So anything that has to do with your body, any bodily desire, any human desire that has to do with the body, Plato thought was wrong, sinful. That affected the early church and did down through the centuries and still does today. With the teaching that in order to be spiritual, you have to deny yourself any physical appetites, any physical desires. That has plagued the church for centuries and still does today. I'm going to show you how in just a moment. The first of all, one issue of warning. We've got to be careful here. There is a proper sexual restraint. The Bible teaches very clearly that sexual activity before marriage is sinful. And once you marry any sexual activity outside your marriage covenant is sinful. The Bible is clear on that. There are also some who are called by God to remain single and never marry. And thus they are called to a celibate lifestyle without sexual fulfillment. So that much is clear in the Bible. So we have to be careful that not all sexual restraint is sinful. Some of it is very good, even demanded in the scriptures. In the same way, fasting from fulfilling the desire for hunger, fasting can have certain physical and spiritual benefits. And face it, there are some people that must refrain from certain kinds of food because of food allergies. So this gets tricky. But Paul's not talking about those kinds of things. Paul is talking about the teaching that forbids you and orders you as a means of becoming spiritual or maybe as a means of becoming right with God, getting saved, to abstain from certain things or to be forbidden certain things that are legitimate in God's eyes. Again, Kent Hughes helps us to remember how this took hold in church history. He says, quoting Leland Reichen, who wrote a book on these things. He says, the dominant attitude of the church throughout the Middle Ages was that sexual love itself was evil. And did not cease to be evil, even if its object was one spouse. That was the primary teaching of the church for centuries. Early church fathers, he quotes, Tertolian, who wrote in the late 100s and early 200s, an Ambrose, who was a church leader in the early 200s, both believed, listen to this, they both believed and taught that the extinction of the human race was to be preferred to the sexual relationship within marriage. Really? Ambrose wrote that married people ought to blush at the state in which they are living. Married people. Augustine, you'll recognize his name possibly, the father of Roman Catholic theology, but also in many ways the father of Protestant theology. Augustine argued that the sexual relationship was innocent in marriage, but if there was any passion that accompanied it, that's sinful. So he counseled most married couples to abstain from sexual relations altogether. Albertus and Thomas Aquinas, later on in church history, objected to marital intimacy because they said it subordinates the reason to the passions. No wonder there was a reformation. Seriously, that was not the reason for the reformation, but it was part of what Martin Luther objected to, the whole issue of being a monk and coistering yourself away from any kind of fulfillment of any kind of sexual or human appetites. Martin Luther said, that's craziness and he himself left the monastery and got married and had a family. This has affected church history down through the years, so I want to give you some other examples of this tendency today that plagues us because I know most of what I've said to you so far about this legalistic asceticism sounds pretty far out and probably none of you in this room would subscribe to that. But the same foundational principles apply in many other areas. There is and has always been and has always plagued the Christian faith a subtle legalism that equates spirituality with a set of do's and don'ts that mean you basically refrain from any involvement in any kind of physical fulfillment or joy or appetite that may please you or that you may not have. Let me just tell you some ways that that has taken shape as I have heard it through my almost 44 years of ministry now. None of you have said any of this to me, but from other places in other times with other folks I've heard all of these. That if you love sports, you certainly are not very spiritual. If you play or watch or engage in sports on Sunday, you are really a pagan. I've heard certain music styles being called ungodly. Really certain music styles ungodly think that went through and usually the people who say that basically the only godly music style is the style that the hymns were written to. Well study a little bit of church history and music history and you'll find a lot of problems there too. Every style of music has been used to promote ungodliness. Every style including the style that hymns were written to. And by the way we all know that bluegrass is the most godly kind of music anyway right? I guess it's obvious. Is jazz unsteeratual not in and of itself? Is pop contemporary music unsteerat not in and of itself? Is bluegrass? No? Is the blues? No? Classical? No? It's not the style. It's what is communicated through any style of music. That's the problem. But I continue to hear over and over again there are certain styles of music that are godly and certain that are ungodly. I hear the same thing about leisure or entertainment choices. Some people like to make it clear they don't take time to have any leisure. They're more spiritual than that. They're always busy doing something for god. It's a form of self-righteousness. Some people believe that having certain possessions marks you out as less spiritual. Now be honest here. Have any of you ever looked at someone who drove a certain kind of car or lived in a certain style of house or had a certain level of things they had in life and thought of certain that they can't be walking with god? That's legalism friends. That's making the basis of spirituality something that the Bible doesn't. Now we'll talk later in first Timothy about people who depend on their riches and become greedy. That's a different story. I've heard it said that people who take a vacation are unspiritual. You ought to be working all the time, no time down. I've heard it said that certain service schedule, you know a certain number of services per week at a certain time. If you do all of that then you're more godly than churches who don't do it quite the same way. That's legalism friends. That's just plain legalism. I'm hearing it now about retirement. Seriously. From other pastors who say, retire and you can hear the self-righteousness building up. I retire, it's not the Mavo-Cabularia. I had one tell me a couple of weeks ago. Retirement is not a Mavo-Cabularia. God called me, the ministry, and I'll continue till I die. You'll take your church to be grave with you too, brother. I didn't say that but I wanted to. Yeah, none of us should ever stop serving in ministry as long as we have breath. If God does call us at different stages of our lives to do different things that were more equipped and able to do and not hurt those that we serve. But there are those who feel like, no, the old, I'd rather burn out than rust out, kind of deal. You'll never catch me retiring. Self-righteous, legalism. You're more spiritual than me. You know what that leads to? It leads to all of that that I've talked about. The kinds of legalism that we hear in our days, which basically is also a set of sys, you withdraw from anything that would bring you joy or pleasure in life, any kind of leisure, rest, vacation time, whatever. So in any of that, all of that leads to a fair, sackel, self-righteousness. And even the feeling that my way is right, then my group is right. My church is right. And that's slowly but gradually, just like Hughes gave the example, room by room of imperceptible changes, leads us away from the gospel and away from grace. To a form of self-righteous performance based, I do this and I don't do that thus, I am spiritual. That's exactly what Paul's warning against in this passage is that kind of legalistic asceticism, a feeling that if I withdraw from all of the pleasures of life, I'm more spiritual than you are. So I forbid you to do it and I order you to refrain from that's exactly what Paul's talking about here. And the reason this is so subtle is it doesn't sound like you're denying the deed of Christ, it doesn't sound like you're dying inspiration of Scripture or the blood of home that doesn't sound like that. But it's that first room away from green. It's that first step in a series of steps that are leading you away from the grace of God and the gospel and leading you toward a fair, sackel, self-righteousness, a works kind of religion. That's why it's so dangerous, it doesn't sound bad, it's caught by preachers, it doesn't sound bad, but it leads you to a very bad place. And I'm convinced this legalistic asceticism is one of the biggest reasons why multitudes of young people and young adults leave the church, they see right through it. If spirituality is no deeper than my list of booze and don'ts, it's not worth it. So in addition to never having maybe had a personal relationship with Christ, as we talked about earlier, some have been led away because of the emphasis on the list of booze and don'ts. If spirituality is legalistic asceticism, I don't want anything to do with it. So what is the antidote to this? What does Paul say? What does the Bible say? Is the antidote to this quickly? I'm going to give you three shots. This is the antidote. Here's the three shots. Shot number one, a recognition of the goodness of God's creation. Look at it in verse three. They forbid people to marry orders and co-abstained from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good. Everything God created is good, including sexual fulfillment within marriage, including food, including all of the good gifts that we've talked about that God gives. Now be careful here. Notice that Paul makes it clear. All everything God created is good. We have to be careful in our distinction here because creation was followed quickly by the fall and the fall introduced perversion and sin and twistedness to that which God had made good. I love what John R. W. Scott says that great expositor and preacher of a generation ago. He said on this very point, we therefore need discernment to know in our human experience. What is attributable to the creation and what to the fall? He goes on to give an example that is very appropriate today. A flagrant current misuse of the creation argument is the claim that the practices of heterosexual and homosexual people are equally good because equally created. Homosexual Christians regularly say, I'm gay because God made me that way and so I intend to celebrate my homosexuality. But no, Scott says, what God created was male and female with heterosexual marriage as the intended consequence has made clear in Genesis 2. It is no more appropriate to celebrate homosexuality than other disordered human tendencies which are due to the fall like our irrationality, cobbled to covetousness or pride. So we must be careful not to confuse creation and fall, order and disorder but rather to ensure that we celebrate only what God created and thankfully receive only what He gives. So yes, everything that God created is good. Be careful you don't mix creation with fall. Now having said that which is I think very important for us to maintain in this day and age having said that also want to say because we live in a culture that is force feeding us a homosexual agenda and that that is rooted in creation because we live in a culture that's force feeding us that we have a lot of folks that are confused about that and genuinely confused. And there are a lot of people who are confused about their gender that they are confused about that because they've been force fed this philosophy. So as a church we welcome anyone who has questions about these things or who struggles with homosexuality. Just like John our religious thoughts says nothing it's nothing different from struggling with pride or covetousness. We welcome anyone who's struggling with any form of disorder created by the fall and the hopes that you will find a warm welcome here, loving, gracious, kind welcome and it will give you the safe place to explore what the Bible does teach and to come to a more bitter place. We want that kind of atmosphere we are not homophones here at Johnson Chapel. We are open and welcome to all people to be here to be under the sound of the word of God and we want to love and minister God's grace to every sinner including all of us who have the respectable sins like pride and covetousness and greed and gluttony. And those kind of respectable sins we're all sinners folks and we all need the grace of God. So this is not a forbidding place but it is also a very clear place about what the Bible teaches. A recognition of the goodness of God's creation here's the second shot in your antidote takes a series of three shots now. Second one is a reception of the gifts of God's blessing notice again verse three which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth for everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. So there must not only be a recognition of the goodness of God's creation and all that he's blessed us with has created order but there must be a reception of those good gifts. A celebration of them a rejoicing in them. I love again what John Scott says he says it's so beautifully he says we should determine then to recognize and acknowledge and appreciate and celebrate all the gifts of the creation. And then he goes to show how broad this is think of this the glory of the heavens and of the earth of mountain river and sea of forest and flowers of birds beasts and butterflies Dr. Sanders those are included and of the intricate balance of the natural environment celebrate all that and then he goes on to say celebrate the unique privileges of our humanness rational. Moral social and spiritual as we were as we were created in God's image and appointed his stewards celebrate the joys of gender married sex children parenthood and family life and to our extended family and friends celebrate the rhythm of work and rest of daily work as a means to cooperate with God and serve the common good and at those times when God calls us away to rest. He says on the Lord's day when we exchange work for worship celebrate the blessings of peace freedom justice and good government celebrate food and drink clothing and shelter celebrate our human creativity expressed in music literature painting sculpture and drama and in the skills and strengths displayed in sport. All of those are good gifts of God to be celebrated and embraced and enjoyed for his glory.