1 Timothy 4:1 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Timothy 4:1

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The apostle now turns to the subject of the last days and the way in which the enemy of souls will attack the truth and the people of God. Paul is an apostle and he speaks by inspiration of the Spirit of God. He does so in fulfilment of the promise of Christ given to the disciples before Calvary: that the Holy Spirit would come and lead them into all the truth. All the truth that was to be revealed in Scripture would be revealed in the apostolic age, and Paul was an apostle, the one, the only one, born out of due time; not with the other apostles, but subsequently, called by Christ personally to be an apostle. There are the eleven and Matthias, and then there is Paul, the only one born out of due time, but he speaks by inspiration. No doubt the Spirit spoke the same message to some of the New Testament prophets, who lived at that time but who passed away with the completion of the Scripture. Today the Spirit speaks to us through the word. ‘The Spirit speaketh expressly.’ What an interesting translation. ‘Expressly’ is wonderful. The Greek literally says something like, ‘Now the Spirit speaketh [outspokenly]’, which means very definitely, emphatically, particularly, about this. Here is something that stands out, that must be emphasized. The Spirit in a sense always speaks explicitly and definitely, and yet this relates not to the manner of the speaking of the Spirit, but it relates to the matter spoken.‘The latter times’ is the age between the two comings of Christ, between his first coming into the world and suffering and dying as Saviour and rising from the dead; from them until his second coming at the end of the world. ‘Times’ is in the plural, ‘in the latter times’, so even in this last age, the gospel age, there will be a number of seasons, and different tactics may be emphasized in each season of the last age, but there will be a common aim to them all. Twelve years before, Paul had given the same warning to the elders of Ephesus, and said this would happen immediately after his departure. Throughout the gospel age there will be a tendency for people who have had great advantages and instruction in the word of God, to apostasize. In 2 Timothy the apostle goes into greater detail on this, and tells us that over these times things will get worse. ‘Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse’ (2 Timothy 3:13). It will be very severe in the 1^st century AD; but in the 21st century AD it will be even more subtle, even more vicious and hostile. There is no apostasy like today's apostasy. You put the clock back a hundred years, the whole world was infinitely more religious than it is today. In the Western nations everybody was something of a believer, even if they weren't saved and didn't trust in Christ. At that time pretty well everybody believed in God; it was considered madness not to. ‘Of course there is a God, and of course we have to respect these things, and of course there may be some sort of judgment, and we have to conform to moral values.’ All that has gone. ‘Worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.’ The evidence is played out before us, especially in modern history. In the latter times each season will be followed by a worse one, and that's how we know we are drawing to the very end of time. ‘Some shall depart from the faith.’ Our translation is perhaps a trifle too elegant. It means that people who once held the faith will abandon it, repudiate it. Individuals who appeared to be believers and had a lot to say for themselves will do a complete about-turn and will abandon faith in Christ. Or, people at large – what you might call a Christian society – will become an atheistic society, as we have done. We have left the faith, collectively. It happens to individuals; it happens to a whole society. ‘Giving heed to seducing spirits.’ Of course, this is going to be the main method of attack of the enemy of souls during the church age, the gospel age. Biblical doctrine will be the target of his attack, so the Spirit has emphasized and spoken most particularly about the devil’s method. ‘Giving heed to’, becoming gripped by, seized by them. This happens in a small way all the time quite apart from spiritual things. In the world of children and teenagers, somebody will suddenly be fascinated by a new interest, a new hobby, and with the enthusiasm of the young, it will seize and grip their minds as though it's the most important thing in the world. Sometimes, just as children are coming up to the time of life when they're immersed in exams, parents have the great frustration of seeing their child absorbed by something irrelevant, completely seized and taken in by it. Yes, but it happens to adults and it happens in the realm of faith. The word ‘seducing’ translates a word meaning wandering. What is in mind is the old-time peddler who went around the villages, selling things. You don't know where he got them from. You don't know where they were made. He talks them up. He says, ‘This is just what you need. It's the perfect broom. It's the perfect this, the perfect that.’ It may fall to bits within hours, but he makes his living by telling lies on the doorstep. The apostle is getting across how worthless this person is. This is a false teacher and he makes up and embellishes it and invents doctrine of his own. He's a phony. You can't trust him.

Application

Often, unfortunately, but that's what society does. Seducing spirits out to catch you with teaching that doesn't come from the word of God. It doesn't come from revelation. All we know about faith, about spiritual things, must be taught to us by God. If it comes from anywhere else, that person is just a cheap peddler. But people are fascinated by this sort of thing.

Giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Demons write doctrines. One of the big deceptions today is the Charismatic Movement. The Charismatic Movement is dangerous because a lot of good people have been beguiled by it. You meet a lot of Charismatic friends who are themselves genuine Christians, and some of them very lovely Christians and witnessing Christians, and that gives credit to the movement. ‘Oh, I know this person and that person, and they are Charismatics, and they are nice people, and good and earnest people.’ The Charismatic teaching and the movement gets credit where it doesn't deserve credit, because it has beguiled some good people. So we have to be very careful when we speak in general terms about Charismatics, because many are true brethren and sisters in the Lord. But their teachers are peddlers who have got so much of their teaching, not from the word of God, but from their imagination.

There was a man named John Wimber in the 1980s, and he gained great fame and notice by his theories. One of his lines of approach was that all Christians should be working miracles, because the Lord never taught anything without, at the same time, working a miracle. This was his idea. So, if even the Lord depended upon a power act (as he called it) to corroborate his miracle, then so should we. Whenever there is teaching or preaching, there must be healings and miracles performed by Christians. A study of the Gospels will show occasions when Christ taught with no accompanying miracle. In other places there were miracles and healings with no teaching. This man’s teaching was completely false. He is long dead, and cannot defend himself, but the man was a peddler. He was untrustworthy. Many people, and eminent people, interacted with him and opened their Bibles and said, ‘Look, you are wrong.’ He went on teaching it anyway. That is exactly what the Apostle Paul is saying will happen.

The charismatic movements have spent many years distracting people. ‘What do devils do?’ says the charismatic movement, ‘they make you ill.’ No, according to the Scripture, no demon has the power to give you an illness. In the case of Job, Satan had to be given permission by God to inflict the poor man. Demons don't have that power. But while the Charismatic Movement has got people thinking that the devil's activity is to give you illnesses, nobody is watching for the devil's real activity. ‘Doctrines of demons.’ It's the demons who are suggesting into the ear of dishonest teachers, ‘Teach them this; teach them that’ – things contrary to the Scripture, things that aren't in the Bible. So while people are looking the other way, the devil is able to act freely, unmolested. The demons are planting false teaching, and that is what the apostle draws attention to. From the fourth century on the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have been ignoring the Scripture and inventing doctrines of their own. With the passing of time you get millions and millions of Catholics and poor, beguiled people think, ‘Well, they must be right: there are so many of them.’

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1 Timothy 4:1 Commentary and Bible Study