Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2
through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3
who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5
for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. 6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7
Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; 8
for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
Some people don’t believe in Satan. But, let us be clear about this: You cannot dismiss the bible’s teaching about the devil, about his malice toward believers in Christ,
about his influence over human beings, about the strength he adds to the force of evil in this world, without stepping off biblical ground entirely.
The Bible teaches the reality of evil spirits and weaves that teaching into the fabric of reality. It was Satan who was instrumental in engineering the fall of man into
sin and death, however culpable and inexcusable were Adam and Eve themselves.
It was Satan who bent all his powers to trip up the Son of God when he came into the world to save his people from their sins. It is Satan who, as Jesus taught,
snatches away the seed of the word of God when it is preached so that they do not believe. It is Satan who blinds the eyes of men and women so that they cannot and will not see the truth when they are staring it in the face. Hell itself is a place prepared
for the devil and his angels.
All of this the Bible teaches and much more.
Like it or not, Satan is an important piece of the view of reality taught in Holy Scripture. But, there is more than that. What we read in the Bible is what we see in
the world around us and, even more, in the world within us.
The power of evil, the horrible ugliness and violence and destructiveness of evil in this world, the blindness of even the most highly educated people to the truth,
the willingness of people to swallow what C.S. Lewis called “the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone” of our own day. And then, the failure of man, for all his achievements, to gain any mastery of his own evil heart…Belief
in the devil as it is taught in Holy Scripture is not only entirely rational, it is even necessary to explain the world we live in?
Why is it that the most sophisticated century of human life in this world, the 20th, was the most inhumane century of all and that the greatest inhumanity was perpetrated
by those who were most convinced of their virtue? How are we to explain the astonishing reality of human foolishness, empty pride, cruelty, weakness, and selfishness all masked behind a façade of virtue?
How do we explain the sheer insanity of a culture that says there are not 2 genders, but over 30…That men competing in women’s sports is a point for equality? Why is
this absurdity everywhere and always the punishing reality of life among human beings? Man is in the grip of a dark power. He knows better, but he does evil. But when we face the fact of human sin and blindness, how are we to explain it? What is an adequate
explanation for what we actually see and hear and read every day?
In the opening verses of chapter 4, Paul becomes more explicit in his condemnation of the false teachers who were troubling the church in Ephesus, ruining its reputation,
and threatening its foundations. And it is not enough for Paul to identify the particular errors that were being taught, which of course he did. He thought it important and necessary to shine the light on the spiritual issues that lay beneath this false teaching…that.
is…where it comes from.
Notice that Paul says, these false teachers are doing the Devil’s work. They have “devoted themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons.” This doesn’t
mean that they would say, “Hey, I am doing the devil’s work.” But that doesn’t change the fact that they rush headlong into exactly that.
Some doctor who thinks he is doing good by cutting off the breasts of a 13-year old girl so she can quote: “be a boy”…or the perversity of a growing group of people in our culture
arguing for the legality of pedophilia…those thoughts and practices have their genesis in the pit of hell itself.
Paul tells us quite plainly in Ephesians 6:12, “…We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this
present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
That being the case, it in no way excuses those men and women, who are doing the bidding of evil. Paul says that “in later times some
will depart from the faith,” but he quickly abandons the future tense and slips into the present tense, indicating that these later times had already started. He does the very same thing in 2 Tim. 3:1, where he writes of what will happen in the last
days and then describes what is happening at that moment. This is quite normal in the pages of the NT when it uses this idea of later times or last days.
The same term is used throughout the prophetic books of the Old Testament. These later days have commenced and the consequences or results of those later days will continue until
Jesus comes back.
What exact prophecy Paul might have been talking about in our text is unclear, he doesn’t say. But Jesus spoke about such a falling away as did Paul when he spoke earlier to the
elders in Ephesus in Acts 20:29-30 Israel, throughout the OT, was falling into apostasy, being unfaithful to the Lord and departing from the faith. There is nothing new under the sun.
To be continued…
Prayer: Father, I know that you have given me each and every day as a gift and that you direct all things that make up my life. Forgive me for doubting that you are
good. Help me not only to embrace the life of “decreasing” but to never be offended at Your gracious work in my life, but rather to know that You are working all things for me and for my salvation, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: God Moves in a Mysterious Way