1 Timothy 4:1-2| Episode # 1202

May 26, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

1 Timothy 4:1-2

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes, where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus that God would open his word to you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today. Word of God, please speak to the hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus. Amen. Foreign. We are in First Timothy, chapter four. And let me. Let me start by just reading the first verse, because obviously that would be a great way to start, but. But it is a great way to kind of get us on track for what the rest of Timothy is. Is about. Because there's four ch. I mean, there's three chapters that we're going to cover over the next two weeks. And they are. They are. They are very, very practical. And they're not only very, very practical, they are very relevant. If you begin to really look at it the way. The way Timothy is going to have read it and understood it. Let me read this and let me make a few points about the Bible and about Scripture and about how many. In many ways. Because especially what we're going to deal with here. In many ways, the enemy tries to keep us in darkness, keep us not understanding, keep us. As Paul would say, I would that you not be ignorant. And what he's saying is ignorant is the lack of understanding, okay? The lack of knowledge doesn't. It's not the lack of capacity for it. It's the lack of the actual having knowledge and understanding, okay? And so he says. Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times. Now, now I'm gonna stop right there. Notice how he says this. He says. He says the Spirit pneuma, and he is talking about the Holy Spirit, okay? He says the pneuma expressly. And by the way, that word is only used in this passage, this word expressly, which means he makes it very clear. He clearly says he. He Expresses it through fully and with clarity, okay? That's what that word means. He expresses it fully and with clarity. Now, what is he talking about? Well, he's talking about not only what's already been expressed in writing in the Old Testament, but he is saying what the Holy Spirit is teaching and writing through him and Peter and John and James and Matthew, and we know. And John, Mark, we know that the Spirit is teaching us these things, okay? The Holy Spirit is teaching us those things. And not only is he teaching us these things, he's inspiring them being written down, okay? And that's how we view the. The word of God, is that we view it as the inspired word of God. Inspired by who? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit uses a human being. Now, I want you to listen to me. He does not use the human being as a robot. Like, he doesn't take possession of the human being and their eyes roll back in the head and they start writing. Like we see spiritual movies. Most people call them horror movies, but I call them spiritual movies you probably shouldn't watch, okay? He. It's not that the Holy Spirit takes control of their body, because when God works, there is a method by which he desires to do his work in his will and has been since the beginning. That way is it's going to be willed by the Father, then it's going to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Then it's going to be done in the flesh through a human personality. Now it's done best and perfectly through Jesus, who is God in the flesh and his personality. But when God wrote the word of God, when. When these books are being written, he is using the personality of the people who write them. So when you read John Mark, okay, And that's the book of Mark, that's Peter's Gospel. Because John, Mark is the young man who went off with Paul on the first missionary journey and then came back because things got tough. And then when he came back to Jerusalem, he came under the influence of Peter and he grew and was discipled and became a mature believer. And he writes Peter's Gospel. And one of the ways you know it's Peter's Gospel is because it's very redneck, okay? I mean, if you read Mark in the Hebrew, it's. And this happened, and this happened, and this happened, and this happened, okay? Which is really cool. And it's the first gospel. So it's kind of an outline. Then when you read John, he is very into imagery. So you got light and darkness and word made flesh and all these things that are just really, you can see John's character, his nature in those things. Then you read, when you read Luke, what you don't realize you're reading is the book of Luke and the book of Acts, volume one, volume two, okay? And that Greek is perfect. It's perfect Greek. Why is it perfect Greek? Because Luke's a doctor, okay? Luke's a well educated man, okay? And he writes those things perfectly. His Greek is as refined a Greek as you're going to find in any ancient language in any ancient text, okay? And Matthew, by the way, he's a Roman now. He's a Jew, but he's a Roman. And you can, and his writing is very Roman, very Latin, okay? And you can tell that when you read it. And then when you read Book of James, you read the intensity and the desire to get this across to you. Because James didn't believe in Jesus until after the resurrection. His brother walked the earth as the Son of God and he didn't believe in him until after he was resurrected and didn't have a whole lot of time to spend with him in full understanding of who he is. And so James is very. Well, he's hardcore. He's hardcore. And you can see that personality in those books. You can see David in the Psalms. When you read, when you read the first five books of the Bible, you learn a lot about Moses, about who he was, he wrote those books, okay? And so I'm saying that because the Holy Spirit does that with us when we're doing things in the world. We do it by the will of the Father, by the leadership and the power of the Holy Spirit, through your human personality, through who you are, okay? Now that's very important because when that happens, Satan comes in. And by the way, he doesn't have any new tricks, okay? He didn't come up with any new things because he's not creative. He was not created to be creative. He does not have that nature that God has, okay? And so when we're studying the Bible, you come across, you come across what, what Satan says when he, when he deceived Eve. Remember, that's what it says in Timothy, last Bible study. When he deceived Eve, how did he deceive her? She, he asked her, what about eating the fruit of this tree? And she, what did she do? She quoted what God said. She said, of all the trees in the garden we may eat, but of this tree we may not eat. Okay, all right, so she quoted God, what did Satan say? Satan said, did God really say that? Yeah, Did God really say that? Now notice the starting principle of the enemy's deception is, is to get you to question God's revealed will. Not his will that you don't know this. The will that he absolutely has told you is his will, okay? That's how Satan leads you astray, is he attacks the revealed will of God. Okay? And you can see that even going on today because. And I'm making that transition, okay? You could see that happening today. All right? He says male and female, did he make them? Okay, he made them male and female. Male and female, did he make them. That's what it says. Notice it says it two different ways so you can't get it wrong. Okay? All right? What would the world tell you? He didn't make us that way. Okay? He didn't make us that way. That's not the way he made us. All right? The world would say. The world has said historically that he did not make the heavens and the earth. Scripture says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. All right? Notice there is a statement of God's revealed will. And then there is the world telling you that is not how that happened, okay? The enemy telling you that's not how that works. All right? Now if you wanted me go through a list of those things, I've got about 10 or 12 of them that he expressly said in the book of Genesis. And then the enemy nowadays is telling us that that's not true. That's not how that works. All right? Now when we get to this, he says to Timothy, he's going to go into some real issues that Timothy's going to face. Now, I want you to notice as we're studying through these issues that he knows Timothy's going to face. I want you to notice how the issues parallel issues that we have today. They're so relevant to the moment. They're so wildly relevant to the moment that. That it is. It is crazy how. How it works for us today. It teaches us in the moment we live in. He says, now the Spirit expressly says, in latter times, when are the times? Ladder. Okay? In Alabama we say later. But it says in the new King James ladder, okay, I am. That's very sophisticated way of saying later on or after this. That's how we would say it, right? But he says, now the spirit expressly says, in latter times, some. How many. Now listen to me. Lots of churches get all caught up and they the only ones who know, okay? You know, because it seems like the world is crashing in on you, right? Seems like everybody's going astray. Seems like everything's messed up. Parts of the world are just absent any presence of God. Not true. Not true. It's not true. Don't let the enemy tell you that. Enemy says you're all alone. You're by yourself. God's not with you. Nobody's with you. You just need to go crawl up in the corner and die. Right? You're on your own. It's not true. Not true. Okay, what he's going to talk about is some. Not all, not most, some. Okay? This is a warning. It's a warning for us. It's not a license to go on a witch hunt, okay? It's not something we got to go out there and start identifying. Are you with me? Not necessary. Just something he's wanting him to know so that he can handle it. Some will depart from the faith. All right, now, he uses that word as a noun here. The word faith. Okay, normally we use it as a verb, right? It's an action. The faith is the trust in the way God has worked out his plan in our lives. What I mean by that? Well, he reveals himself. We hear that revelation, we believe that revelation, we act upon it. Okay? The process is the faith. Okay? How does he reveal his will? By His Word. He reveals his will by His Word. Now, I want you to listen to me. That's why we go verse by verse. That's why we study the Bible the way we study the Bible. We study the Bible the way we study the Bible because we fundamentally believe. We fundamentally believe that the Bible is the full, complete revelation of God. That's what we believe. Well, that's what your pastor believes. Okay? That's what I believe. And I say it enough. If you don't believe it that you'll leave. Okay? That's what I mean. If you're not going to believe that, you're going to get aggravated eventually because I'm going to ***** you with that all the time. Well, why? Because we believe. Now, listen, does that mean that the way you interpret all of Scripture is going to be exactly the same way as I interpret all of Scripture? No, no. We're going to have. We're going to have different levels of insight. We're going to have different levels of revelation. You might see something in a way I've never seen it before. Not say that doesn't mean that we're not going to have that. We're not going to have different ideas about what the word of God says, but we don't have different Ideas about what the word of God is. All right? We may differ in how we look at it, but we're not going to differ in how it's how it says. We were discussing that right before we said last week we were talking about the qualifications for all these offices. Right. And the qualifications are present tense. Qualification in every way. The. The nouns, the verbs, the adjectives. All of them are present tense. Okay. Why. Why are the qualifications present tense? Because the qualifications are pretty detailed. And if you're. If you're. If the. If the qualifications have anything to do with the past, well, then everybody's disqualified. Does that make sense? We're all disqualified. Why? Because if you go, well, how are you disqualified? Well, in college, I. From about Christmas of my freshman year till spring of my late spring of my sophomore year, I was a bouncer in the eating clubs at the parties all around campus. And I was intentionally a bouncer so that I could just whoop some tail. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, I did it. I took the job, so that's what I could do. So that would be a what? That would be pugnacious or a brawler. Right. So could you say to me that I am pugnacious? That I would have the quality of being pugnacious and a brawler in the past tense? Absolutely. Now, if the qualifications are not present tense, if they carry on from my past, then I would be what? Disqualified. All right. I would be disqualified. I would definitely be. Just listen to me. If you knew me. They called me Big Bama for a reason, okay? I was. I would be disqualified. All right? So they have to be present tense. Now, some denominations, they're not present tense, okay? Some. Some denominations, they pick out different. Some more. Some more. Some of. Some of the qualifications are past tense and some aren't. And you go, which ones? Different ones. For different ones. I mean, different ones. Different ones. So. So. So now, is that a hill to die on? Is that something I'm gonna. I'm gonna disfellowship myself from them for? No, no, no, no. It's not a hill down. We did have a hill to die poem that was there that hit all the precepts of the faith. Y' all remember that? That's hill to die on, all right? Qualifications, not hill to die on. That's why we have church polity. That's why churches are. Most churches in. Especially in America, tend to be very congregational in nature, meaning the hierarchy above them doesn't control all that they believe. Does that make sense? And Especially many of them believe in the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local church. Okay, Those are very. If you were to ask me in what ways do I carry on my Baptist heritage, I would say that the two primary things that the Baptist church were not the theology it was built on, but the way they were created and the way they functioned was they believed in the priesthood of the believer and they believed in the autonomy of the local church. And by the way, I believed in both of those things. So historically, from my heritage, I would definitely be Baptist that way because I do believe each church has its own autonomy, and I believe each believer has. Receives their own revelation from God. Okay? But there are going to be times when that doesn't take place. There are going to be times when that doesn't take place, and people are going to give heed. Two deceiving spirits. Now what? You listen to me. Just like I said, with Lucifer in the garden, the way now, very, very wily. Very, very sneaky, very personally. Satan is Will. Will. Will get you on the wrong path really easily. But not uniquely. Not uniquely. Using the same ploys as in the past. Just applying them to you where you're at. Same ploys, just different for you. Because he's doing it. All right? I'm going to tell you, nothing new under the sun. Nothing new. Nothing new. But those deceiving spirits are doing the same things today that they've been doing for 2000 years since Christ and then 1500 years back to the beginning of what we would call the Mosaic period, where Moses is coming on the scene and writing scripture and he's going all the way back to Abraham. He's going farther than that, but going back to God's plan for the Jews. Okay? Same, same over and over and over again. Same stuff, all right? Comes at you. You don't know it. You've not been around, by the way. He been around. He's been around, all right? Y' all are. Y' all are sitting ducks. Without God, you ain't got a chance. Okay? But with God, you do have a chance. He says giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. What are doctrines? Teachings? Do you mean, Pastor, that demons have teachings? Yes, they do. Absolutely they do. And he's. And he's intentionally using the word demon there because he uses two different. To two different. Two different entities. He calls them people. Go. Well, they're the same thing. No, no, no, no, they're not. Okay. He says deceiving spirits, those are the fallen angels. Word pneuma. Angels are principally. Principally spiritual beings. Okay? All right. Pneuma. Deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. All right, what, what are the doctrines of demons? Well, I believe demons are disembodied humans that died in the flood, okay? I believe that the demonic host are disembodied human beings that died in the flood, okay? And that they are unclean spirits in the Old Testament. They're called demons in the New Testament. And because they used to be human beings, they have their own belief system, okay? They have their own belief system and they have teachings that they carry on and they deceive you with those things, okay? Now you're sitting there going, what are you talking about? Well, we'd have to go in such a deep dive that I'm not going to do that tonight. But they are deceiving spirits. What do they do? Speak lies in hypocrisy. So they tell us lies that, by the way, they didn't live by. They tell us lies that they didn't live by. Notice he says they speak lies in a pro. In hypocrisy. And he's telling Timothy that because he doesn't want Timothy to go back to the legalism that he told him not to be a part of at the very start. I want you to notice he is hammering Timothy with, don't be legalistic. Don't go back to the law. Why? Because if I go back to the law, I by definition make myself a teacher of hypocrisy. And you go, well, is the law hypocrisy? No, but my living in it is going to definitely be hypocritical. Okay? If I teach you to live by the law, then I don't teach you to live by law. One of the first ministries I had, I led a group of people that I felt. I felt strongly because of my heritage that I needed to teach them not to drink and not to dance, okay? Because I'd been taught that, okay? And by the way, because of that, I can't even dance today. All right? I'm not a good dancer at all today. All right? Now, I did have some. Some brothers in the. In that who. Who could dance. And I always wondered about them. Did they grow up right? I didn't. I didn't know whether they grew up right. All right? But. But I became very, very dissatisfied with. With that when I figured out that I was being told to teach, that I was being cajoled to teach that by a group of men who were in a position to be the Leaders of the church, 40 or 50 of them and half of them and did exactly what they were telling me to teach, not to do, okay? That is speaking lies in hypocrisy, okay? And by the way, causes problems. Yeah, it causes problems. It's a religious jail that you put people in, okay? And by the way, when they're looking out of the jail cell at you and, and you, and you're not living by what got them in the jail, they get upset and what does it do? It undermines their faith. It undermines their faith. If I tell a 16 year old don't drink alcohol, he goes on and home and his deacon's daddy's got a case of Bud Light in the fridge. That's a problem. It's a problem. Now if I teach him that, number one, the laws of the state of Alabama say you can't have alcohol. That's good. I'm not teaching legalism, I'm teaching the laws of men. And then I say to him, once you're old enough, you need to learn how to partake of everything in moderation, which is exactly what the Bible teaches. Okay, then I don't put them in a jail cell. I teach them the principle in the heart of God that all things are good. And by the way, we're going to deal with that in this passage. All things are good, but nothing is bad. Nothing is good without moderation. You with me? Nothing is good without moderation. If you do, if you do something way past moderation, it's going to end up being bad. It's going to be bad, it's going to be negative. But I didn't know, I didn't understand. And I, I ha. I allowed myself to be deceived into teaching legalism. Are you following me? But I learned my lesson. And one thing I like to do is learn my lesson, okay? I try my best to learn my lesson, okay? I try to first learn my. Learn your lesson. If you've got a lesson, I try to learn your lesson. But if I can't learn your lesson, then when it's my lesson, I try not to go back to whatever it was. It's, it's just growth. That's called salvation. Okay? He says, speaking lies of hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. What does that mean if you teach it with hypocrisy? Your conscience, by the way, that's the expression of your soul, which is the expression of your, of your emotions and your intellect. Very important. The consciousness of human beings is an aspect of humanity that science has no answer for. Y' all hear what I said? It's an aspect of what God created us with that there is no answer for. And even if we could make something that was absolutely just like us, we could not place in them a conscience, okay? Because consciousness is unexplainable. And what is consciousness? Consciousness is an expression of your heart, which is your emotion, and your intellect, which is your understanding. All right? If you live like that, what happens? If you live in. In these teachings of hypocrisy, your conscience, your mind and your emotions, get branded with them. Now, this is a very important illusion. This is not an illusion, but it's illustration, okay? Because what are we sealed with? With the Holy Spirit. That is the seal of understanding. But if you allow yourself to be led astray into these things, you begin to be seared with that. And what happens? You can't get away from it. You can't get away from it. What does that mean, Pastor? Well, we've seen believers who get seared with this, and they become very legalistic. And there's not a lot of grace and there's not a lot of faith involved in it. Okay? Not a lot of grace, not a lot of faith. All right? He's given him a warning. Don't go down this road. Don't do that. Why? Because it'll sear you. It'll. That, that, that. That. That thing will burn you into place. As you go. Today I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.