1 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 1

• I love this statement by Paul because this ascribes personal character to the Person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a force. He’s not that little voice in your heart that we call our “conscience.” The Holy Spirit is God. He is the third Person of the Trinity, Three in One, and we know that because throughout scripture He expresses personality traits only possible when you have a person.

• For example, here He speaks. Never in scripture is the Holy Spirit referred to as, “it” but rather time and time again He is referred to as a “He,” a person. He can be grieved and He works (Ephesians 4:30). He can be sinned against (Isaiah 63:10). He can be lied to (Acts 5:3). And He can be obeyed (Acts 10:19-21).
• He works. He empowers. He guides. He comforts. He convicts. He teaches. He restrains sin. He gives commands. These are all found throughout scripture and all of these things requires the active participation of a Person, not a force. The scriptures are clear that the Holy Spirit is indeed a Person, a “He” not an “it” and Paul gives us a clue to that face here in verse 1…

1 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 2

• Three things the Holy Spirit told Paul would happen in “latter times,” or the final season. A great apostasy or widespread departure from faith. A great deception upon the world and the proliferation of false teaching. All as the folks all do what is right in their own eyes. Justifying how they are living and what they are doing with self-centered mentality.
• Is there any doubt that we are indeed in the final season? This great apostasy or departure from the faith is not folks losing their salvation in troves, that would contradict other very clear portions of scripture but rather this is the salt losing its flavor as a whole…if you recall Jesus’ teaching at the Sermon on the Mount.
• This is faith becoming synonymous with religion where people are taught to revere the works of man rather than the Word of God…this is the slow fade of opinion-filled personal-perspective packed sermons and spiritual leaders that lead sheep to the edge of the cliff and encourage them to jump to their own demise…using words found in the Bible, and stories found in the scriptures but not to cause faith-filled love-fueled obedience to God’s Word but rather to entertain and scratch itchy ears…
• This is the prosperity movement. The hyper-Calvanism movement. The word-faith movement. The seeker-friendly movement. The Queen James Bible movement. The Emergent Church movement. The Unitarian movement. And the list continues. Think of this, Mormonism was established in 1830. JW’s began in the year 1872. Seventh Day Adventistism was officially founded in 1863. The major cult movements, using the same words, established just in the last couple hundred years…
• They call it faith, they claim Jesus, but in the end they are not producing disciples of Jesus…this is a darkness, a decrepit manifestation of evil of the highest order and of all the atrocities we are seeing in the last days, the Holy Spirit sees fit to mention this one first…
• Then He speaks of a great deception caused by deceiving spirits will wash over the earth like a wave, swallowing and drowning the wisdom of men and women. Boy are we seeing that today inside and outside of the church. As the church makes deals with the devil to deny the Word of God in favor of cultural preferences. But also even in society…the well-being of mankind and the equality of and preciousness of human life and the pursuit of peace is no longer the driving force behind the machine we call civilization anymore…it’s the dollar.
• And so we see decisions being made at the most wide-scale level possible with single-person personal interest being the motivating factor and the result may be very little today but 20 years from today, even 5 years from today…well we are living in a reality now which consists of the decisions made 5, 10, 20 years ago! Millions of babies murdered lawfully…the sanctity and covenant of marriage changed into a political parade of pride and most recently privacy and decency destroyed as a man can lawfully follow my little girl into a public restroom.
• All the while our next generation is being weaned on consumerism and time-out discipline. Xbox, Youtube, snapchat and Instagram worship coupled with subservient parenting…we are creating the mess that we will one day complain about…and it’s been that way for several generations now…we are lulled into a sleep in these last days folks and few are awake…

• And finally, doctrines of demons…enter Koranical Islam. You may call it radical Islam. It’s not…it’s Koranical. Just like we use the word “Biblical.” Enter Socialism, Communism, Marxism, Nazi-ism…all systems of thought, curricula of teachings that at the very core are ultra-demonic…There are many more to that list but we forge forward in our study. Is it any question that we are in the latter days?

1 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 3

• This is an interesting thought because the original doctrine of demons, all the way back in Genesis 3 was that we, man, should be gods. And so the original demon deceived the original creation that she knew better than God. There are folks that put religious trips on themselves and others in order to somehow show themselves spiritual or acceptable to God. Forbidding to marry and abstaining from certain foods...which neither does God desire. 1 Samuel 15:22 God says, “Put your sacrifice away and obey Me, that’s what I want…”

1 Timothy Chapter 4 Verses 4 - 5

• Now careful here because there are some that will twist the Word of God to meet their own fleshly, selfish desires. Paul is not talking about weed here. I mean, just to be frank. Some may point to this and say, “There it is! See, its good and I need to stop being so judgmental and just be thankful.” But not so…because the twisting of God’s Word occurs when one verse is interpreted in such a way as to contradict another…
• 1 Corinthians 6:12 Paul proclaims that we have the liberty to do anything because Jesus has erased our sin BUT not all things are profitable and we are not to come under the power of anything but the Holy Spirit. Paul here in 1 Timothy is speaking about foods. How do we know that? He says, “foods.” HA! But there are groups out there that don’t eat pork, they don’t eat this or that and they claim it pleases God…but Paul said those things are of no real value (Colossians 2:23).

• God states His desire in terms of service towards Him clearly throughout scripture…a broken and a contrite heart…a heart filled with humility and obedience (and therefore wisdom)…that is what He has asked of us…a reasonable request in light of what He has done.

1 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 6

• I love this word Paul uses for instruct. It means to “lay it out.” Make it clear. Make it simple. And be consistent. If you’ll do that Timothy then no matter the result from them or from men or in the church or in the moment or in the whatever…if you will install the Word of God into your own heart first…live dependent upon God and His Word…nothing goes out, nothing gets approved for breath and energy unless the Father is in it and His Word aligns to it…no matter what happens…you have His approval…a good minister.

• And I love this…you Timothy will be nourished…not them…you lay out the spread, their eating it and assimilating it is a matter of wisdom or foolishness for them…if you will simply trust God and his Word over anything else and stick to it, it’s you Timothy, you’ll be nourished in the words of faith and good doctrine! I just love that!