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.

Audio Transcript

Happy day after Mother’s Day to all the moms listening in. Thanks for listening to the podcast. We’re often asked parenting questions. You know that, Pastor John. And it is not uncommon to hear from moms who want advice on how to raise young boys into men. This applies to single moms and their special challenges in parenting, which we got into back in APJ 1075 in the archive. But share with us, Pastor John, just broad counsel that would apply to Christian mothers — whether they’re single moms, or moms married to non-Christian men, or moms married to Christian men. In these various situations, what’s a mom’s role in raising boys?

The first thing I would say to a mom is teach your son. Teach him especially the word of God, and how to see the world through that lens. If you’re married to a believer, you and your husband together teach the whole counsel of God to your son. “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8). Or, “My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 6:20).

Remember, there’s that wonderful story of Lois and Eunice in 2 Timothy, where Paul says to this young man, “Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it” (2 Timothy 3:14). And who’s that? That’s his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois (from 2 Timothy 1:5). We know that. And we know from Acts that his father was not a Christian. I think that should be encouraging to mothers — that Paul chose, for his missionary band, a young man who was largely formed in his faith by his mother and his grandmother.

Require Obedience

The next thing I would say is expect obedience from your son. “Children, obey your parents” — not just your father, but your parents. Mother, get your son to obey you. May he obey “in the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1). It’s dismaying to me to watch one-year-olds, two-, three-, four-year-old kids make their parents miserable because the parents have not required obedience at home. So in public, they have no control over them. They don’t get any kind of respect in public. The kids just do what they want to do; they wrap their parents around their finger.

Mom, you can require and receive obedience from your son. Teach this little one, from the earliest times, with words and with spankings if necessary, that you have God-given authority in his life. He does not decide what is acceptable behavior. You do, all the time. Reward him joyfully. Make him happy in the boundaries that you set for him. Do all the good possible for him, and punish him appropriately for the bad that he does. That’s so crucial, if you want to have a happy home and a happy public life with your children, and to be just plain obedient to the Scriptures.

Model Strong Womanhood

Then I would say, model strong womanhood. Peter says, speaking to the women in the church, “You are her children” — Sarah’s children — “if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (1 Peter 3:6). I just love that verse. The godly woman in the Bible is fearless because she hopes in God. That’s what it says. She puts her hope in God.

“Teach your little one, from the earliest times, that you have God-given authority in his life.”

Or Proverbs 31:25: “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.” Oh, how needed in our day is that, right? Everybody’s trembling and wringing their hands about the time to come, and the Proverbs 31 woman is laughing at the time to come. A son should look to his mother not as a weak woman who is always anxious about tomorrow, but as a stable oak of righteousness who laughs at the time to come because she trusts in a sovereign God.

Honor Your Husbands

Then I would say, honor the leadership and protective instincts of your husband. Let your son see this. “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:24). A son should see a strong woman joyfully deferring to the initiatives, leadership, protection, and provision of her husband — the spiritual leadership of a strong man. Of course, a Christian wife does not follow a husband into sin (that should be obvious). She makes clear, “There is one, supreme Lord in my life: Jesus Christ.” But under that lordship, she delights to honor her husband’s leadership.

One Strong Mom

And I can’t help but be a little bit autobiographical here because I think some of my thinking about competence in complementarianism was shaped by my home. I grew up in a home where my father was away two-thirds of the year: weeks gone, week at home, weeks gone, week at home. He was an evangelist. My mother, in his absence, did everything. She was, in my view, omnicompetent.

She taught me just about everything practical that I know to this day, and she made me a worker. She made me love diligence. She never once gave me the impression that she couldn’t do anything. She paid the bills. She ran the little laundromat. She tried her hand at Amway. She climbed a ladder and painted the eaves of the rotting house. She pushed a wheelbarrow — I watched the sweat drip off the end of her nose as we were digging our own basement. She pulled the Bermuda grass out and taught me how to get it by the roots so they wouldn’t grow back. She loved flower beds. She taught me how to cut the grass so that you overlap and you don’t get skippers when you do the grass cutting.

She said, “Johnny, cut the potatoes like this and wait until the oil is boiling, because if you put the potatoes in before the oil is boiling, they’ll get soggy, and you won’t get good fries. And when you make pancakes, wait until the bubbles around the edge are forming, because if you try to flip them too early, they’ll flop all over the place.”

Not About Competence

She taught me everything there was to know, practically, in our home growing up. Which taught me this lesson: the biblical roles of a wife’s submission and a husband’s headship in marriage are not based on competence — like, “You do this because you’re good at it.” That’s not the point. They are based on the deeper realities of how God designed male and female, and how we flourish in those kinds of relationships.

But when my dad came home from being away for weeks, my mother beamed with joy that now he could lead. He’d lead in the discipline of the children. He’d lead in giving counsel. He’d lead in prayer. He would lead by saying, “Let’s go to church. Let’s get there on time.” He’d lead by saying, “Let’s go out to eat.” He could model the small courtesies that a man offers a woman and that a boy needs to learn in the dynamic between a mother and a father: pulling out her chair, opening the car door, checking out strange noises in the house, and on and on and on.

“A son should look to his mother as a stable oak of righteousness who laughs at the time to come.”

A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. And a boy watches this; he absorbs it. So, as a boy, I watched that dance, that choreography, and I marveled at my mother. In his absence, she could do everything; in his presence, she loved it, she flourished when he took that kind of manly initiative. That’s what we need to show our sons, that they are not belittling or demeaning when they take initiative to protect, to provide, to lead a woman.

Give Him Examples

I would also say, point your son to strong manhood in Scripture, in history, in fiction, in media, and in your husband. I don’t mean, necessarily, when I say “strong manhood,” physical brawn. What I mean is true, masculine, responsible, mature, sacrificial, protective initiative with courage and strength. You don’t have to be a football player to be that kind of man. If there’s no husband to be the model, if you’re a single mom, find ways to point your son to the kind of men who embody mature manhood. I think my mother was very jealous that that happened in my father’s absence.

Expect Strong Manhood

One last thing. Expect strong manhood from your son. Give the boy responsibility early on. Require as much as you can, as he grows older, of his manly behavior. Insist on politeness toward his sister or toward you, other women, other girls. My mother taught me, “Don’t you go through a girl’s purse — ever.” Walk on the street side when you’re walking beside a young lady, in case there’s a splash or some danger. Offer to open the door. Pay for the date. Use respectful language. Take responsibility. Be willing to sacrifice. You build into your son, as a woman, what the appropriate dynamics are between a man and a woman, to be biblical in your understanding of headship and submission.

Now, I know there’s so much more that we could say, oh my goodness. So, seek God’s wisdom in creating a healthy, Christ-exalting home. Seek his wisdom. He’ll help you. If Dad is there, that’s just great. He is crucial in raising daughters, just as you are crucial in raising sons. And if he’s not, if he’s not there, and you’re a single mom, trust God to make up the difference. He’s done that for thousands. God is faithful, and he works for moms who wait for him.

The early months and years of marriage are a time of significant change. Marriage involves at least one or both people moving to join as husband and wife under one roof. A young wife changes her name to show she now belongs to her husband as the two form a new family. Both the new husband and new wife are stepping into new callings they have never had before! With all the change and transition, it shouldn’t surprise us when conflicts, disagreements, or misunderstandings arise.

If you’re a young woman preparing for marriage, you need not fret that marital conflict will spoil the first years, nor should you assume that you and your husband won’t deal with any bumps or tense times. Rather, you can prepare to be the kind of wife who handles conflicts with maturity, charity, and inner peace. Which is to say, you can prepare to be a Christian wife.

He’s Not You

The profound mystery of marriage is that two become one — a man and a woman, distinct and different, joined together in a one-flesh union. Yet in that bodily joining, the two minds do not meld into one. You will think about things much the way you’ve always thought about them; so will your new husband.

Over lots of time and with lots of effort, you will begin to think together — to think alongside your husband, to let him know how your thoughts are developing, and also to understand and appreciate that he will always think differently than you do, no matter how well you both may communicate. This is one grand blessing of marriage: he’s not you!

Quick to Hear, Slow to Speak

Because of these natural and good differences of frame and mindset, a new wife can prepare for moments of disagreement by cultivating patience when her husband’s opinion or decision doesn’t make immediate sense to her. Remember, he’s not you. He may have many good reasons for how he thinks, talks, acts, and leads. Perhaps he sees an angle you don’t see; perhaps he has a priority you haven’t considered.

James says, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). If I could give you one very important piece of premarital advice, it would be this: slow down and listen before you answer or react.

I would guess that the sin for which I’ve most regularly needed to ask forgiveness in marriage is making a snap judgment over some innocuous (or even good) way that my husband was thinking or leading. I would mistake and challenge his choice or initiative because I thought my way of thinking was right and normal, and his way was abnormal and therefore wrong. I was routinely caught off guard by just how different we are.

Now, after 21 years of God’s helping me to slow down and listen, I can say that I am more thankful than ever that my husband’s frame and mindset are different from mine. It is a gift from God to be married to a godly man, who is not me. Don’t try to make your husband be like you or like your closest girlfriends. Praise God for the differences, and practice patience as you grow in appreciation for him.

Whispers Singe Marriage

Proverbs 26:20 says, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.” This bit of God-breathed wisdom pictures quarrels as a fire. And what is the fuel for the quarrel-fire? A whisperer — that is, one who shares information or secrets or private matters with someone who shouldn’t know them.

A young wife must realize, from the get-go, that her marriage is a sacred trust. The Golden Rule can go a long way in helping us grasp what we ought, and ought not, to share with others: Would I want my husband to share [blank] about me? As Proverbs 31:11–12 tells us, a husband’s heart trusts his godly wife. As he confides in her, she does not harm him but does him good all his days.

In the early years of our marriage, I realized that some women wanted to turn conversations into complaining about their husbands. In the process, they almost relished the misery of others alongside their own. Others simply grasped to know more than they ought to know about the intimate details of another’s married life.

What might not be obvious to you yet is that joining in this sort of indiscrete “whispering” can cause conflict in your marriage. When you complain about your husband to friends or overshare the intimate details of your life together, you can expect that your regard for and treatment of your husband will begin to lack honor and respect. And don’t be surprised when the things you “whispered” about him make their way to his ears.

Decide now not to engage in that sort of talk. Be the kind of wife whom your husband can trust in every way. If there is some private matter with which you and your husband need outside help, go to a trusted pastor or godly couple for guidance. But don’t denigrate the sacred bond of trust that you have with your husband through indiscretion or gossip.

Disagreeing with Submission

Even when we avoid hasty speech and practice discretion, and even when our husband is loving us as Christ loved the church, legitimate disagreements will still, at times, arise. When they do, the overarching posture of the wife will often determine whether her input is a welcome counterpoint for consideration or a difficult hurdle to get past.

When a trustworthy wife pursues godliness, seeks good for her husband, and submits to him, a Christian husband will not balk or be threatened by her sincere (and respectfully offered) disagreement. You may even be surprised at how eager he is to gather your input and how seriously he takes it, even though he isn’t bound by it (nor would you want him to be!). You want him to be a man who fears God and acts as one who will give an account for the way he led his wife and family.

When a young wife looks to “the holy women who hoped in God,” such as Sarah — who submitted to Abraham, even “calling him lord” — she can have inner peace through marital disagreements (1 Peter 3:5–6). Why? Because, as Peter tells us, her hope is in God, not in her desired outcome or in her husband’s ability to make the perfect decision. When a young wife’s hope is in God, she can trust his work in the heart of her husband and in herself.