http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14950985/should-saints-be-warned-about-wrath
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The Path from Orthodoxy to Demon Theology
Audio Transcript
On this Monday, we jump right into the deep end to talk about the pathway from orthodoxy to demon theology. It’s a heavy topic, one inspired by a text we find in Paul’s first epistle to Timothy.
Here’s the question, from a podcast listener named Leland: “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for taking heavy questions on the podcast. I have one of my own.” Indeed, he does. “In 1 Timothy 4:1, Paul writes that some professing Christians ‘will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.’ This seems like a very stark transition for once-professing believers. What does this look like? Can it really mean Christ-worshipers become blatant demon-worshipers? Or is this move far more subtle? Can you explain to me what’s happening in this text?”
This is a good question for giving us an opportunity to clarify two things. First, can a true, born-again worshiper of Jesus be led astray into the kind of demonic deception that Paul has in mind? Second, how does this happen? What’s going on here? Does the departure from the church into involvement with demonic teaching happen suddenly or gradually?
Now, the reason I raised that first question is because Leland’s question for me has an ambiguity in it. On the one hand, he refers to “professing Christians departing from the faith to demons.” On the other hand, he asked the question about Christ-worshipers departing into demon worship. It wasn’t clear to me whether he was asking about genuine Christ-worshipers or whether he was asking about professing Christians who are not genuine Christ-worshipers deep down in their hearts.
I think Romans 8:30 teaches that those who are predestined are called, and those who are called are justified, and those who are justified are glorified, so that no genuinely called and justified Christian ever falls away into demon worship — not permanently, anyway. So then, the question becomes (and I think this is what he’s asking), What is happening when people in the church, who have been in the church for years and are outwardly identifying as Christian and yet are not truly born again, are swept away into the teaching of demons?
Lured by Lies
Let me read the text that he’s referring to.
Now, the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to [or paying attention to] deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Timothy 4:1–3)
What’s going on here? Well, first, Paul says, “There are deceitful spirits.” They would be manifesting themselves through people who claim to speak in the name of some supernatural being — in some charismatic way, perhaps, with a spirit of prophecy. This is the kind of thing John was referring to when he said, “Do not believe every spirit” — that’s what Paul is talking about here, deceitful spirits — “but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). So Paul is concerned that professing Christians will pay too much attention to deceitful spirits and not test them with biblical truth and be carried away into the teaching of demons.
Then he says that, through these spirits, there arise cult-like practices that contradict biblical teaching but look religious. In this case, he’s talking about forbidding marriage and forbidding certain foods. Then he says that these cultic practices have advocates whose consciences are seared and who lie about what the Bible teaches and deceive people away from teaching the truth and away from living by faith in Christ. When that happens, he says, “You can see that these are teachings of demons because that’s what the goal of demons is: to lure people away from Christ.”
Increasing Deception
Paul points out that this kind of departure from the faith will be intensified in the later times (1 Timothy 4:1). The danger of seduction by deceitful spirits and teachings of demons is always present throughout this fallen age, from the time of Jesus until Jesus comes back. They’re always there. But there will be a greater temptation as the end of the age approaches and the Lord draws near.
“The danger of seduction by deceitful spirits and teachings of demons is always present throughout this fallen age.”
Paul describes this in 2 Thessalonians 2. The people are worried that the day of the Lord may have come, and Paul says, “No, it hasn’t come, because first there has to be this great apostasy, this falling away, this rebellion, this deception.” A great deception comes first. “Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the [apostasy] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Then he says in 2 Thessalonians 2:7, “The mystery of lawlessness is already at work.” In other words, even though there will be a great deception of lawlessness at the very end of the age, the spirit of deception is always at work in some measure in this fallen age.
He describes it like this: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception” — that’s what Paul is talking about in 1 Timothy — “for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:9–12).
Jesus said in Matthew 24:12–13, “Because lawlessness” — the same lawlessness Paul’s talking about in 2 Thessalonians — “will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
Slow or Sudden Turn
In other words, the mystery of lawlessness will have a huge impact on nominal Christians, whose love for Christ is shallow and unreal. They will grow cold. Their resistance to the deception of demons will give way. They will not endure to the end.
This may happen gradually, as the church falls away from preaching the truth, and the people’s love for Christ becomes more and more perfunctory. You see this in churches. It’s tragic to watch. It just becomes perfunctory. They’re just going through the motions. All the former seeming passion and biblical faithfulness for Jesus is gone. Then come the deceitful spirits, and these folks are vulnerable to being swept away into a great deception and the teaching of demons.
“If we remain in the grace of God and treasure Christ above all, we will be kept.”
Or it may happen suddenly. A satanic miracle worker comes to town with a ministry of signs and wonders, like Simon in Acts 8. He takes people by storm because their roots are so shallow. They’re more dazzled by the deceitful miracles than by the beauties of Christ and his salvation and his teaching. Oh, the need for depth and rootedness in the truth in our churches. This is a word for pastors. This is why Paul urges us in Ephesians 6 to “put on the whole armor of God, that [we] may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” and “keep alert with all perseverance,” praying earnestly to be spared this kind of deception (Ephesians 6:11, 18).
If we remain in the grace of God and treasure Christ above all, we will be kept. That’s 1 Peter 1:5. It’s so precious. I love this promise. I put it on my mother’s gravestone (with my father’s permission), in fact. “Kept by the power of God.” But here’s what the text says: “By God’s power [we] are being guarded [being kept] through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” That’s our hope. Those whom the Lord calls, the Lord keeps.
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Is Work a Blessing or a Curse?
Audio Transcript
Two weeks back, two Mondays ago, we looked at how to glorify God in our business successes. That was APJ 1915. Now two weeks later, we are talking about business again more broadly. It’s a question from a listener named Travis. “Pastor John, hello to you. Can you tell me whether our work today is a blessing or a curse? Much of our work seems to be cursed, based on Genesis 3. But a lot of our work also seems to be a God-given blessing, according to Ecclesiastes. According to the Bible, is my nine-to-five job a blessing, or is it a curse?”
Let’s start with the first work mentioned in the Bible — namely, God’s work. Genesis 2:2–3:
On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
You can’t miss the point. God worked, God worked, God worked. Now, work was not a curse for God. God is not cursed; he’s not burdened; he’s not frustrated; he’s not coerced to do what he does not wish to do. He worked in creation because it was a sign of his greatness and his fullness that he should overflow in creating a world that declares his glory and a human image of himself that can enjoy and worship that glory. That’s no sign of weakness or burdensomeness or frustration; that’s glory. Work was glory for God.
Satisfying Work
From the beginning, work was not a curse. It was a God-like gift, a blessing. The essence of work, as God designed it before the fall into sin, was creativity: creative, productive doing, arranging, making. When God did his primal work, he created the world. Now, that’s the essence of work. Then he created us in his image to put us in a world that he had made, and he said,
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. . . . [Let them] fill the earth and subdue it. (Genesis 1:26, 28)
Then in Genesis 2:15, it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” Literally, the word is serve. “Serve it,” almost like a serving in the work of the Lord — to serve it, to work it and keep it.
Now, I presume this working and keeping of the garden before the fall was a partial fulfillment of having dominion over the earth and subduing it. Now, what does that imply then? It does not mean that the garden was imperfect as God made it. It wasn’t imperfect. It didn’t need correction, as if God had made a mistake. “Oops! I didn’t fix the garden right; it needs help.” It means God made the garden for man, and part of its perfection was in providing for the man the raw material for being creative like God. Man would flourish in working the garden; the garden would flourish in being worked. It would be beautifully satisfying — not frustrating, not burdensome, not futile. That’s work before the fall: thrilling, satisfying, creative.
Cursed Work?
Now, what the fall did, what sin did when it came into the world (Genesis 3), was to make this glorious reality of satisfying work become futile, burdensome, frustrating. Genesis 3:17–19:
In pain [Adam] you shall eat of [the earth] all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. . . . By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.
“The futility and burdensomeness of work is part of the curse of creation, and it won’t always be this way.”
It’s not accurate to say that work is a curse. What’s accurate is to say that the futility and frustration and burdensomeness and painfulness of work is a curse. Paul said in Romans 8:20–21, “The creation was subjected to futility.” When sin came into the world, God subjected creation to futility, “not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to [futility].” The futility and burdensomeness of work, therefore, is part of the curse of creation, and it won’t always be this way. He said, “There’s a hope coming,” and God put the world under this curse temporarily to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin.
God’s Workmanship
But Christ has come to redeem the world from the curse, and that happens in stages, not all at once. This is true for work as well. It is really significant, when you think about it, that the gospel — the good news of Jesus’s salvation — does not stipulate that work is how you earn it. You can’t earn it; it’s free. Work is not assigned that impossible, hopeless, burdensome role in salvation. This is really good news.
Listen to the three things said about work in our salvation, according to Ephesians 2:8–10:
By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [1] not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his [2] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus [3] for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
“We are recreated in Christ for good work.”
This is glorious. First, work does not bear the weight of having to save us. Christ saves us; he does it by faith. Second, God steps in and does the work. He makes us new, and he does everything required to make us new creatures in Christ. We are his workmanship. Third, now that we are loved and forgiven and accepted and adopted, we are created for good works. We were created the first time — that is, brought into being as human people — for good work, way back in the beginning. That was our original intent as human beings, and we are recreated in Christ for good work.
Light Yokes for God’s Glory
This work in Christ is not burdensome. If we find it burdensome, if you find obedience to Jesus and work for Christ to be burdensome, then you’re not thinking clearly, or you’re not trusting Christ the way you should. Listen to Matthew 11:28–30. This is the paradox of the work that Christ calls us to do. On the one hand, we are like hardworking, yoked oxen — and on the other hand, our work is lighter than a feather. Here’s what he says: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke” — oh, wait a minute, you just said rest. What’s with the yoke? A yoke is what you put on oxen to pull a plow, and it’s hard. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Yes, there is meaningful work to do as we follow Christ. That’s the meaning of yoke. We have a yoke to wear. We’re not thrown out to be doers of nothing. How boring would that be? But in that work, that yoke, there is a restfulness of spirit that is free from the curse. The key in all our work that turns it from curse to blessing, and the key that glorifies Christ in it, is described in 1 Peter 4:11: “[Let the one who] serves” — just say, “Let the one who works” — “[work] by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” The one who gives the strength gets the glory. We get the help, he gets the glory, and work is delivered from its burdensome cursedness.
Or here it is again in 1 Corinthians 15:10: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them” — any of the other apostles — “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” That’s the glory of hard work in the Christian life, just like it was before the fall. I don’t doubt that Adam gloried in a long day’s work in the garden, making it perfectly suitable to his needs, flourishing in all his efforts. “Not I, but the grace of God with me” — that takes away the misery of burdensomeness and futility.
Whatever You Do
When Paul calls us to do lots of work as Christians, he’s not calling us to a burdened, frustrated, cursed life. He’s calling us to our glory and our joy. First Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” — I think that means doing lots of it — “knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” It’s not futile. I think that applies to any work done in the name of Jesus, for the glory of Jesus, in reliance upon the power of Jesus — not just church work, all work.
In fact, Paul says in Colossians 3:23–24, “Whatever [that’s an important word] you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” So that elevates all of our work — not just church work, but all of our work — to the level of worship. If we do it in the name of the Lord, in reliance on the Lord, for the glory of the Lord, it’s not mere human work; it’s divine work. It honors Christ.
I’ll say it again. From the beginning, we were made for work — shaping, creating, subduing the world according to the wisdom and goodness and beauty of God. This was not — it is not — a curse; it is a blessing. And I think it will last happily forever.
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Admire Before You Imitate: Resting in the Attributes of God
Becky lived with a nagging sense that there was a rule book to life, but she didn’t get her copy. Insecurity and a pervasive sense of uncertainty loomed over her like a perpetually blinking warning light on the dashboard of her car.
Eric tried to live with deep reverence for God, but it meant life always felt heavy. When conversations turned light, humorous, or casual, he felt like he wasn’t being a good Christian. How could he honor the holy God in such moments?
People who are interested in studying the attributes of God frequently feel like Becky and Eric. If we’re not careful, theology can become exclusively cognitive and lose its relational qualities. But we study the attributes of God to deepen our relationship with God. That’s why, in this article, I will write with highly relational images and metaphors.
Even when we try to think relationally about God’s attributes, we can still get emotionally conflicted. When we reflect on God being patient, for example, we can think, If God is patient, I should be patient. How can I be as patient as possible as quickly as possible?
“If we’re not careful, theology can become exclusively cognitive and lose its relational qualities.”
Do you catch the irony? We try to be patient for God as if God were impatient with our progress. We ask questions of emulation before we ask questions of rest. We try to imitate an attribute of God before we find security in it. When we do this, each quality of God becomes an intimidating standard rather than a source of refuge.
God Is Happy
Let’s flip the script with God’s happiness and simplicity. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” The reality that God is joyful steadied Nehemiah’s life. Life is hard. It requires endurance. Nehemiah drew resilience for the demands of life from the awareness that God smiled.
As children, we experienced this. If our parents were happy, we had the emotional freedom to play and explore the world. If we sensed our parents were displeased, we tried to determine what we did wrong or identify the stressor that troubled them.
In Ephesians 5:1, Paul draws on this parent-child imagery to illustrate how God’s character motivates change in our lives: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” In other words, let God’s delight in you fuel your efforts to be more like him. When we study each of God’s attributes, we are to be like children who put on our father’s oversized work clothes, smile, and say, “Look at me! I’m just like you,” because we find joy and security in the relationship.
“Let God’s delight in you in Christ fuel your efforts to be more like him.”
That works when we’re having a good day and the major decisions of life seem clear. But what about when we’re confused — when we are unsure what God expects from us? These are times when its hard to feel like the playful child trying on our parent’s attire.
God Is Simple
In moments of confusion, God doesn’t seem simple (plain, clear, noncontradictory). Our instinct, often, is to pit one attribute of God against another. We think, “Because God is loving, he would want me to do A, but because he is just, he would want me to do B. But I can’t do both A and B.” We feel torn because we think God is complicated.
God’s simplicity means that all of God’s attributes live in harmony with one another. As fallen people in a finite world, we’re not like that. We want the attributes of pleasure (eating whatever we want) and fitness (being thin). We want the attributes of spontaneity (purchasing something on a whim) and responsibility (saving for the future). Even when we’re not being sinful, we are not simple.
God is simple. God does not live with internal tensions. Therefore, God doesn’t have expectations of us that are in tension with one another. But life doesn’t always feel as simple as the character of God. We rightly get frustrated with people who conclude that because God is simple, life is too. They make life seem easier than it is.
Because we live in a broken world, with fallen people and as fallen people, life can feel complicated. How do we reconcile the reality that God is simple, but our lived experienced is complex? Let’s return to the image of a parent and child.
Admiration Leads to Emulation
Imagine a child who feels torn because he has chores to complete, homework to do, and its Grandma’s birthday. Let’s assume, for this illustration, that the child has not been negligent with his work. He is stressed because he wants to please his parents but doesn’t know what to do. The child thinks,
“My parents are smart and want me to do well in school, so I should do my homework.”
“My parents are neat and want me to be orderly, so I should clean my room.”
“My parents are loving and want me to value family, so I should go to Grandma’s birthday party.”
“My parents are going to be mad at me because I can’t do all three.”The child begins to fear his parents, dreads seeing them, and starts to cry. How do good parents respond to this child? They smile, pull him close, affirm his strong desire to honor them, and help him think through the situation. Since we are using this illustration as a metaphor, God’s happiness is revealed in the parents’ smile. Even though the situation is legitimately hard (paralleling the brokenness of the world), we see God’s simplicity in the response that values character more than immediate outcome.
Let’s continue to use our sanctified imaginations as we peer through the lens of Ephesians 5:1. How does the child feel about his parents after this interaction? Safe, trusting, and loved. Where does he want to go when life gets hard again? To his parents. This admiration (rest) leads to emulation (refined character and maturity).1 The emulation will always be imperfect — because of the limitations of the child and the conflicting responsibilities of a broken world — but resting in the parents’ character allows his progressive growth to not feel futile.
Exhale. We can be honest — life is challenging and complex, and God is simple. We can be perpetually in process and God can still be happy. This removes the sense of desperate striving that exhausts so many of us as we live with a felt sense that we’re not good enough. God doesn’t feel compelled to rush the process (after all, progressive sanctification was his idea). He delights in each marker of our growth as parents delight in their child’s first step.
Under the Happy, Simple God
How might we respond to this reflection on God’s simplicity and happiness?
When we pray about the parts of life that are hard and confusing, we can visualize God smiling like parents who admire the hard work and tenacity of their child. When we feel the conflictedness of our own hearts, we can reflect on Ecclesiastes 12:13 to regain a sense of simplicity: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” We can wear this verse like a child wears his father’s shoes and tie, knowing God delights in imperfect, incremental emulation.
Savor the simple moments of joy and pleasure in your day and realize that, no matter how trivial, God’s joy echoes your joy in those moments like parents watching their child play with Christmas presents.