What's that smell ?

2 Timothy 4:1-8  “Preach the Word”

 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: ² preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, ⁴ and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. ⁵ But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

⁶ For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; ⁸ in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.

In today's reading we again see Paul writing about a condition that will be prevalent in the last days. Paul is exhorting Timothy, his protege, to preach the word of God with conviction and without compromise. Paul warns that there will be a tendency for people to seek after and follow, or as he says "accumulate for themselves" teachers who will turn aside from the truth. Yesterday we looked at  the fact that " All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;"(2 Timothy 3:16) Paul encourages the teaching and the exhortation of the truth of all scripture.

We can certainly see that we are again experiencing in our time and culture the condition that Paul warns about as he writes to Timothy. We need to understand then that this is not a new condition. It existed then and continues today. People have always and will always look for ways to justify and normalize their sinful behavior. I would say in the western culture the rate at which this is happening is growing exponentially. Today our children are being taught, as normal, things that would not even have been discussed behind closed doors a few generations ago.

Again it is not my desire to create a format for debate about issues that may divide the church concerning the interpretation of scripture. My desire is to share the truth of God's word and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work of revealing Jesus and the truths of the kingdom of God. I do, however take very seriously a call I believe God has placed on my life from Ezekiel 3 :

¹⁷ “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman to the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me. ¹⁸ When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹ Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself.

My intention then is to warn God's people about false teaching and to encourage them in the pursuit of truth. In our text, Paul talks about a turning from the truth toward "myths". What is critical for us as we seek the truth is to understand that many of these myths are based on misapplication and misinterpretation of the word of God. As we saw yesterday this can happen when we try to reduce scripture down to sound bites. Quoting and repeating verses of scripture is great for encouragment and exhortation, but we need to guard against forming doctrine in that way. Building doctrine around isolated, out of context verses of scripture is the stuff myths or false teaching is made from. It allows an individual or a group to place their values above the values of God which are seen through ALL scripture. 

We need to look no farther than in the Garden of Eden to see that the devils plan is not to write his own scripture but to twist the truth of God's words to make them say something different. He creates myths and false teachings by misquoting the truth of God's word. The devil tried again to employ the same strategy when he unsuccessfully tempted Jesus.(Matthew 4) This is the same strategy he uses today, leading people to create and follow teachings based on misquotes and misapplications of God's word.   

We can not all be biblical scholars, proficient in interpreting Greek and Hebrew, the original languages of the Bible. But here's some advice I think we can all use as we seek to find and understand the real truth of God's word. First when you hear a teaching or a word that your not sure of give it the sniff test. If it smells bad it probably is. In the same way if it smells just a little to sweet, if it seems too good to be true, it might be. God's promises are amazing, beyond what we can think or imagine but they never include compromise of truth. The second thing we have to guide us in truth is the Holy Spirit.Again we can not all be biblical scholars as I said. But I would rather trust in the teaching and counsel of the Holy Spirit than even the most educated of people. Education is good and the accumulation of knowledge is good as well, but true wisdom has a different source. As we see in 1 Corithians 2:

¹⁰ For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, ¹³ which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. ¹⁴ But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. ¹⁵ But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. ¹⁶ For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.

We have the mind of Christ to know and understand the "thoughts of God", the truth of His word, through the Holy Spirit. We need only to trust and yield to His leading and instruction.