False Teaching: The Response, The Result, and The Remedy

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"... Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”      (2 Timothy 2:14-19 ESV)  
The reason that Paul reminds Timothy of the importance of the proclaimed Word (gospel message) is because it is so easy to depart from it... Without guarding the message against false teaching the church sets itself up as contrary to the Word and the Man on which the Church is founded, Jesus Christ... Paul urges Timothy to preach, know, and practice the Word of God... Paul's concern is that as false teaching is not only tolerated, it is celebrated.. Much like the culture we live in in our present day,  the Church is to be protected now as it was to be then... Paul lays out the plan of how to guard against and respond to false teaching and false teachers with the following: 
1)  The response to false teaching and teachers - Avoid them (v. 16) 
       - Why? Because of the results.
2)  The result of false teaching and teachers - It / They disease and disturb God's people, thus
      rendering them ineffective in the work of the gospel (v. 17) 
3)  The remedy for false teaching and teachers - God's firm foundation (v. 19)
       - The foundation is none other than Jesus Christ and the good news that God saves 
      sinners... This foundation is marked with a seal (statement of proclamation from God)
     "The Lord knows those who are His..."  
What a blessing it is to be "known by God!" (Galatians 4:9) ...  All who trust wholeheartedly in the finished work of Christ on the cross are "known by God."  False teaching about God shrinks God down... It makes Him become a god we can manage and manipulate... This is not the God of the Bible...   False teachers need not apply. 

True Faith = God Or Total Collapse

"Pseudo-faith always arranges a way out to serve in case God fails it. Real faith knows only one way and gladly allows itself to be stripped of any second way or makeshift substitutes. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse. And not since Adam stood up on the earth has God failed a single man or woman who trusted him." 
  - A.W. Tozer, "The Root of Righteousness" . Harrisburg: Christian Publications 1955 pg 50 

God Makes Nothing Into Something

"God created the world out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something of us."  - Martin Luther

The Further We Go the Deeper We Get ...

"The lessons of the cross are ones we never outgrow, for the further we go the

 deeper we get." 

- Rebecca Pippert, "Hope Has It's Reasons", (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), pg.159

True Worship: Humble and Glad

"Worship is humble and glad; worship forgets itself in remembering God; worship celebrates the truth as God's truth, not its own. True worship doesn't put on a show or make a fuss; true worship isn't forced, isn't half-hearted, doesn't keep looking at its watch, doesn't worry what the person in the next pew may be doing. True worship is open to God, adoring God, waiting for God, trusting God even in the dark." 

- N.T. Wright, "For All God's Worth: True Worship and the Calling of the Church", (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997), pg. 9

A Mighty Church of Dirty People

"Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, the same God who made man from the dirt will make a mighty church out of dirty people."  - Jared C. Wilson, via twitter 

Do You Believe This?

"Jesus said to her, [ Martha ] 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
 Do you believe this?'"          ( John 11: 25 - 26)     . . . Well? . . . do you?