First Timothy

Okay, so we've been slugging our way through, I don't know if you've noticed, I inadvertently have sent out first Timothy lessons, and I spelled Timothy, T-O-M. So I tried to correct it this week. You know what came out? E-I-O-M. Anyway, we're in lesson eight, and we're down towards the end. And a couple of interesting things to talk about this morning. We had gotten to question eight, and we had begun to talk about Hymenaeus and Alexander who Paul says, whom I have handed over to Satan so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.

And it's a parallel kind of a verse with 1 Corinthians 5, for I on my part, though absent in the body, but present in spirit, have already judged him. And the him here is the man that was cohabitating with his stepmother. And I think based on the context of what Paul has done, he's a believer and she isn't, because he never mentions her at all. He talks about him. Who has so committed this as though I were present.

In the name of the Lord Jesus, you are, as you are assembled, I wish you in spirit, I'm with you in spirit and the power of the Lord Jesus. And I have decided such, to deliver such a one to Satan, for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." So my question is, it's kind of an interesting thing that goes on, at least we read about it in the epistles, in these two occasions. I remember when we were talking in 1 Corinthians, who has the power and the right to turn somebody over to Satan?

I think so. I think it's restricted to them. And we've learned in 1 Timothy and also when we were studying Titus, that if there's false doctrine amongst your group, there are things that you can do about that. One is that you don't associate with them, you shun them, and then you sit down with them and you tell them, you cannot teach what you're teaching. But there's no instruction that I can find where I as an elder can say to JD, I don't like what you're teething, so I'm turning you over to Satan.

I don't have that authority, and I don't think anybody, it seems like it's an apostolic authority. Well, it's interesting because in Corinthians what it looked like was that he was put out of the assembly, put out of the church, And by the time we get to 2 Corinthians, Paul is telling them that he has repented, changed his mind, come back, let him back in. You know? Do you think that was a belief? Yes, I do. Oh, I do. Absolutely, I do. So, yeah. Yeah, that's the $64 question. What does that mean?

In other words, the Apostle Paul takes, let's say it's me, and says, you're teaching false doctrine and you won't change your mind and you're stubborn about it, so I'm going to turn you over to Satan. Is that similar to Job? In that, you know, God let Satan... Although Job didn't do anything to make God mad.

No, but I mean, he allowed him to do that. Oh, yeah. And, you know, ultimately to show the character of Job and bring him in the end. Yeah. And so is that similar that I'm going to hand him over to Satan? He longs to have fellowship again. I think that's part of it, yeah. I also think that if you're a believer, you're in the body of Christ. If you're not a believer, who do you belong to? So there's nothing to turn you over to. You just stay where you are.

But in Corinthians, he says, I've decided to turn such a one over to Satan's purpose for the destruction of his flesh. Isn't that interesting that God is of such a character that he can take a believer and use the flesh and the sin nature to destroy that person's flesh? Does that make any sense? I think it does. You know, because if you... Yeah. Sure. Yeah. But I also think that...

Go ahead. When I think about being turned over to Satan, his language is lies. So, you continue... I'm allowing you to continue in the progression of your own... Yeah, that's a great point. I'm studying. The point that you just made about is it's turning it over to the flesh. Yeah. And I don't know if it's the same as the world. I think it's you. Yeah. Be controlled by your flesh. Yeah.

I want you to know what you're capable of. without the Lord, we lie. You know, I'm up next week on the main service, and one of my verses is how God dealt with Pharaoh. And it's interesting, Pharaoh, when Moses first goes to Pharaoh, his answer to Moses is, well, who is this God you're talking about? I don't know him.

And there's this hardening of heart that goes on. And the first six hardenings, Beryl does it to himself. In my mind, that's exactly what being turned over to the flesh is all about. I can't see. I'm hard about it. And all it does is destroy me. Yeah, he was. So he just stayed where he was. But take somebody who claims to be a believer, and I'm not sure these two guys are, because it doesn't say that they are, Aeminius and Alexander.

Aeminius is also probably the man mentioned in 2 Timothy 2.17. Somebody read that. The first 19 says that he's men rejected these, which means the faith and good conscience, and so have shipwrecked their faith. I can't tell if they are or not. Yeah, you know, there's a speculation that we're talking about the same people. I'm not sure that we are, but it's interesting how Talked about good conscience. What is a good conscience? What is that?

You have to be taught that. You have to be taught that. Your conscience needs to line up with God's word. So if you come into the fold and you're teaching blasphemy, I can't say it, blasphemous statement. The question that's circling around in my mind is this. If I come into an environment and I'm a reformer and I start teaching reform theology, am I a blasphemer? What do you think?

Yes. Maybe. I might be. Maybe. You got me going on this last week when you talked about Tucker Carlson and those guys saying that John Darby is responsible for millions of people dying because of his theology. in the environment that we live in today, Reformed theology is the predominant form of theology.

I think most of the guys that I've ever listened to or studied or whatever, they're ignorant. They just don't know. Like on Wednesday nights, we've been going through Pauline dispensationalists and we're talking about socialism and we're talking about Daryl Bach. and blazing, and those guys, I don't think those guys understood grace. They certainly didn't understand identification, because they wouldn't have modified dispensational truth to fit their paradigm. But they did. That's what they did. And they think they're right. And they got Dallas Seminary to put their imprimatur on what they were writing.

So is that blasphemous in the sense that it negates the grace of God? Yeah, because it puts you back into a believer, back into an environment where I have to somehow perform in order to get blessed. So... What's the definition of blasphemy? Just any false teaching? Good idea. That's a really good question. I should ask that question. Yeah, what is blasphemy? Blasphemy is a direct... I'll give you an example. How about the opening ceremony? I don't even have to tell you any more than that. The opening ceremony to the Olympics and what the drag queens did with the Lord's Supper, or the Last Supper.

Is that blasphemy? Oh, boy. I mean, it's blatant, but false doctrine can be blasphemy or may not be. Maybe they just haven't grown enough to understand. I don't have to learn to be blasphemous. What's that? I don't have to learn to speak lies. I don't have to learn that.

That's my negative tone. Yeah, that you're born with that. You're born with that guy. Well, and especially if you grew up in whatever denomination you grew up, I grew up in Catholicism. I had no idea that what their doctrine was and what they taught was blasphemy. These guys got shipwrecked. Yeah. They had to do a 180 on their face. Yeah, they did. That's what this is saying. I think it's a 180 on grace. Absolutely. Grace really is. So let me read something to you.

Some indeed in the apostles' day had put away a good conscience and so fallen into air that made shipwreck of the faith. They had listened to Satan and made blasphemous statements. By apostolic power, they had been delivered to Satan. So, it's one thing to to be a seeker of the truth and maybe just be ignorant about things. But you want to know the truth. It's another thing to actually be proactive about destroying somebody else's faith, you know, through whatever your arguments are or whatever your theology is. I think guys like these two men here probably were exposed to the truth, even assented to it at some point, but then changed.

Is Daryl Bach a blasphemer? I think he is, because he should know better, unless he skipped a lot of classes at Dallas. What does that word mean? It means to hurt reputation or smite with reports or words, speak evil of slander or rail. doesn't really say specifically about God. It's whatever you're speaking evil of or hurt the reputation of. So put it back in the context of what we're studying. This is all about false teachers and ones who we're not even supposed to give the time of day to. So are they people who just are speaking contrary to God's Word. It may not be, I guess what I'm saying, it's not specifically blaspheming God, but here it's hurting the Word of God.

Yeah, so, I think if you're in a body of believers, who's in charge? Spirit of God's in charge of the church, right? That's his job. So if you come in and you start to blaspheme, he's the one you're after. He's the one that you're against. So what was the remedy here?

The remedy was, we'll just put it this way, the Lord has just taken the protection of the believer from Satan away. and you're fair game. We all know that our life, our rest, our peace, all is because the Spirit of God protects us. He absolutely controls what goes on in our life. Even the trials and tribulations we have are designed for us to grow spiritually, not to be defeated.

Well, imagine if that protection is taken away. that everything that comes along down the pike, you're gonna lose, and you're gonna lose big, and you have no resource, because the spirit of God is withdrawn from you. That would be a scary situation. Well, if he turns you over, if he turns you over, He's going to sit in the sidelines and watch what happens. He's not going to protect you, that's for sure.

I think it's interesting that all this has to do with language. What's that? Language. You start speaking a different language. You do, that's right. And your value system changes, your conscience, it all changes. It goes back to what it was before you were saved. Having been saved later in life, I'm scared to go back there. I don't want any part of that, because I'm going to lose. OK.

And again, going back to it, when I first see this about handing over to Satan, and I do go back to the Corinthians one, he's handed over to Satan, but when we get into 2 Corinthians, about the one who was put out or handed over, It basically, but if any cause or recourse or not to me, but in some degree in order to say much to all of you sufficient for such one is punishment, which was inflicted by the majority. That was the handing over to say, you know, but the end is where I. uh... so that the country's rather forgiven company and otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow or prior to the reform reaffirm your love for him for the to this and also wrote so that i might put you to the test whether you're obedient all things the one whom you forgive anything i have to forgive also for indeed what i've forgiven i've forgiven anything i did for the sake of the presence of christ key is, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, were we not ignorant of his schemes. Again, I go back to the Job aspect, that Job didn't do anything wrong, but same thing, Satan was able to sift him.

And I think this is, Paul is giving him out, you know, you're going to suffer the consequences, but ultimately, we want to reaffirm your love in Christ. for that individual. And so Satan doesn't continually, for the rest of his life maybe, torment him or whatever. But once he's realized he's lost the fellowship, he's lost fellowship with the believers, and he's repented or changed of his ways, then reaffirm your love for him. So Satan wouldn't have an advantage.

I read a line that said that being turned over means that you have the opportunity to learn what the flesh truly is. You're going to get the full shot of it. And God will use that for a believer to turn them around. It's not like you read punishment. I don't think it's punishment. The goal of doing this is to save their spirit.

Well, that's the thing, also realizing, too, that if it's a true believer, he has the spirit indwelling him, too, through all this. So during this punishment, the spirit is working on him, too, not only handed over to Satan, but the Holy Spirit is working within him to bring him back to fellowship. So he's not totally abandoned. He still has the spirit, which is the inside working on him, as well as handed over to Satan, or the flesh, basically.

No, I'm okay with that. All right, last question. What purpose were the men delivered to Satan? Some observations. One, that it implies excommunication from the church. That wouldn't make me happy. I'd be nervous about that. do, that it implies something more, the nature of which is not clearly known.

See what I'm saying? What's being turned over to Satan is, I can't stand up and talk intelligently about what that's like. I came out of control of Satan into Christ, and I haven't left that position that I'm in. Not that we haven't had struggles with the flesh, we have, but I haven't been turned over to it.

Okay? Interesting to me about that is that Satan is not omnipresent. Right. So to be turned over to Satan is kind of an interesting term that he uses there. Wow. I didn't think of that. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Well, let's just mention Romans 1 gave them over. an unbeliever, we know that, yet the same allowing one to play out. Play out, yeah, sure.

Wow, that reminded me of Charm Sherman, you know, he came in that day and, Charm, how's it going? Oh, Satan's picking on me. And I said, Satan doesn't know your name or your address. He doesn't know where you live. Oh yeah, I said, he's not omnipresent. Well, he's got lieutenants. I said, even with his lieutenants, they don't know who you are. You're no threat to him at all. The apostle Paul says, Sean, I'm turning you over to Satan. Now he's paying attention.

He mentions a verse in 2 Timothy. where it talks about Hymenaeus and another gentleman, and it says they strayed concerning the truth. So that would make me think that they, I would assume they're believers, they strayed concerning the truth. It says to stay away from them on their teachings of cancer. But as you continue down through that Second Timothy passage, down in 24 and 25, it says, certainly the Lord must not quarrel.

Be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility, correcting those who are in opposition, those who are blaspheming, those who are turned over to Satan. You know, we still want to have a part of their life. If God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, they stray from it, they don't want to come back to it, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil they've been taken captive by. That's really good. whatever that means, turning them over to Satan, it's not for their destruction. It's for destruction of some things in their life. But God's not willing that any will perish. Paul's not willing that any will perish. He wants them to turn around and see the truth, come to their senses, they've strayed from the truth.

And I mean, that's grace, right? You know, sometimes we get kicked off at somebody, or we have a misunderstanding, and, you know, I hope something happens. But that's my quest at that point. We want God to be glorified. We want the life of Christ to show through us and show through them.

Anyway, I do it. Oh, that's great. And I look and I start reading the context and it's like, oh yeah, we need to keep that in focus. Yeah. Yeah, we break fellowship or we put them out of the fellowship, but that doesn't mean we weren't unconcerned about them. We try to take opportunity to talk about the things of the Lord with them. And we hope that they come around, come back. Yeah. Enjoy all they have in Christ.

Yeah and you know what I have found is that the majority of issues that you talk about with people that are, I don't want to use the word at odds with, usually are minor things. And usually they're based on the fact that there isn't enough education or study on their part to get it clear. I think our job is to come beside them in the Word and talk about, here's what the Word says, just like you just did.

And so, because we love them, just because the Apostle Paul put them out of the assembly doesn't mean that we don't love them. We still do, you know. I said that they're supposed to be taught not to blaspheme. So the result of having been handed over to Satan is that you are taught something. And that in this particular case is not to continue to blaspheme. So if they can receive that teaching, having been handed over, it was assumed that there is, to your point, There's a growth opportunity there. It's like that little star, you know, without me, that's what that's not a good example.

I think you might just like just touching on to the last question. I've been in a position a couple times where I had to talk to somebody about their doctrine. And the whole focus is, it's a safe place for me, is to go to God's Word and say, well here's what God's Word says, and He says it. You know, it's like talking to somebody about telling them you can't teach what you're teaching and here's why.

Read these verses and let's talk about them. And I was studying for next Sunday. It's interesting, the Apostle Paul says in Romans 9 that the Scripture says to Pharaoh. I'm thinking, what Scripture? The Scripture is the same, when God tells Moses to go talk to Pharaoh, that's Scripture.

Because here's what I want you to tell him. Come in right from me through you to him. So the Bible says, the scripture said it to him. Boy, that principle is so important when you're dealing in this kind of a realm. What does God's word say? And if there's lack of understanding on your part or both of your parts, you're willing to be taught and grow and learn through the circumstance.

And we agree that correction is the aim. Let's say that again. Correction is the aim. That's right. For fellowship, so that we all believe the same thing. And it isn't, you know, we all have to be good Presbyterians. That's not what it means. It means that we believe in the same God and the same principles that he has brought into under grace that we're to live under.

Really critical, I think. And, you know, I think it comes down to Are you grace-based or law-based? We sure do have a great savior. And you have to admit that grace is really difficult to understand. Because when you come out of the world, the world knows nothing about grace. You have to be taught every single basic principle about what grace is and how it works. If you're not taught that, you don't know. Like in your computer, there's a default position. Guess what it is? It's law. It's always, what am I supposed to do?

So that's why the teaching of grace is so critical within the body of Christ. Because if you begin to understand grace, you understand the intensity with which God loves you. all of the things that he went through just to have you so you could be with him for all eternity. That's all grace.

And he never looked at you and said, well, you got to do a couple of things. All I have to do is believe, and I get it all. And I get the most important part of all is the fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. There's nothing more precious than that. OK. JD, I'll put him on the spot. You want to teach the next lesson? Yeah. Absolutely. Let's go. Go ahead. If, I mean, it's the same in 1 Timothy 11. Yeah.

You know, he is paired with Alexander in the first one, and perhaps Alexander learned the lesson. But Hymenus then got a new cohort in Philetus, and so it kind of makes it look like it's a progressive thing. Alexander was restored, but now Hymenus wasn't, and he's getting more people, you know, taking more people out with this false teaching.

You know, that's a great point because God's Word teaches us that people who sin want as many cohorts to sin with them as they can possibly find. Well, I'm finding in this book that Hell graciously returned. that that's what those guys did. They went around and they tried to get people to sign up for what they believed in, including the Dallas faculty. In their mind, it gave them credibility. The problem is that what they were teaching doesn't line up with God's word.

There's only one guy whose opinion counts, only one, the Lord himself. Well, that goes back to individual verses. Remember, this all started, this is all about God's word, and the fact that you don't give ear to somebody who is not doctrinally correct. You know, and you don't even start to do it, because if you do, the warning is that you begin to deviate. And we've seen that with all these different reform and all the different things that go on, but it started somewhere.

And it began to grow and fester, and I think the, what the Corinthians would want to say, yeah, it's cancerous. It just grows. And that's why the warnings in the beginning of 1 Timothy here is don't even start listening to them. Turn them away. But it's to protect us. We tend to want to get started. It's kind of like Elmer's progression in James about sin. You look away. And that concedes and assures it this fall.

It's the same thing, I think, if you start deviating from God's Word and you then start this precipitous fall to all sorts of different truths that are not in the Bible. Yeah, I agree. And God's Word. And that, which points to, under grace, the most important thing other than is to learn what God's Word says. It should be under grace, it should be something we do every single day.

You think about how much time you spend in the world, and the world is always shooting its poison at you. God's Word is designed to teach you who He is, well, for the believer, it's who the believer is, where he is, and what he has. And that the person of the Lord Jesus is number one in your heart and your mind, and no matter what comes up, I want to go in God's Word and see what He has to say about it.

My opinion doesn't count, you know. We got to close. You guys got to go practice singing. So let's pray. Dear Father, how we thank You for this opportunity to talk about Your Word, talk about the truth, talk about how careful you are that the truth be taught and adhered to and cherished. We thank you again and we pray in your son's name. Amen.