Friday, April 25, 2025

PT-1 "Charlatans of Religion" (2 Tim. 3:5)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/25/2025 8:10 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  PT-1 “Charlatans of Religion”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                     Reference:  2 Timothy 3:5

 

            Message of the verse:  “holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these.”

 

            I have made the decision to go back to where I had intended to look at this section from John MacArthur’s commentary which would have been on the 15th of April, but then I looked at what Dr. Warren Wiersbe had to say on the remaining verses in the 3rd chapter of 2 Timothy.  Yesterday I finished his comments on the entire 3rd chapter of 2 Timothy, and so I want to now go back and finish up what MacArthur writes on these verses in 2 Timothy 3.

 

            On my other blog this morning I began to look at what I wrote in January of 2012 on the 21st Psalm and while looking at that SD this morning I find that it has some things that are common with what I am looking at this morning from 2 Timothy 3:5, but I have to say that as I look at the title of this SD “Charlatans of Religion” the opposite is true, as this section speaks of leaders in the church who foster false systems of belief and corrupt standards of living, and the 23rd Psalm speaks of shepherds who care properly for their flocks.  I suppose since I believe that the church age is now in the Laodicean age, found in the 3rd chapter of Revelation, that it is not hard to see why leaders in the church are not holding to the standards of what the New Testament has to say about godly leadership in the church.  I think the bottom line here is that because we are in that last period of the church that that means that it is close to the time where the Great Shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ will return for his flock from the New Testament Church age in what the Bible calls the Rapture of the Church found in 1 Thessalonian chapter four and 1 Corinthian 15.

 

            MacArthur writes on this verse “Form comes from morphsis, which refers to outward shape appearance, such as that of a silhouette, which is an undetailed outline or shadow of something. Like the unbelieving scribes and Pharisees, lovers of self are concerned only about the outward form, about ‘the outside of the cup and of the dish,’ while ‘inside they are full of robbery and self0indulgence’ (Matt. 23:25).  They are religious fakes, phony religionists who masquerade as Christians leaders.  They claim to be servants of God and teachers of His Word, but they are really servants of Satan and purveyors of his lies.  Again like the scribes and Pharisees who opposed Jesus, they ‘are of [their] father the devil, and [they] want to do the desire of [their] father.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies’ (John 8:44).

 

            “The false teachers hold to a form of godliness, that is, an outline of Christianity without  substance, makes them all the more dangerous, because immature members in the church will accept their paganized Christianity as the true faith. Like most of the other vile traits Paul has just mentioned, this one was not new among God’s people but was regularly recurrent in ancient Israel.  Ezekiel warned against such impostors, who ‘do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and [whose] heart goes after their gain’ (Ezek. 33:31). Paul warned Titus that such men ‘profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed’ (Titus 1:16).”

 

            I will now conclude this SD by quoting one more paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary in which he talks about Satan, and clears up something that I have wondered about for a while.  “Satan is deceptive and subtle.  He never tells the truth about anything, although he frequently tries to use a partial truth or a truth out of context to his advantage, and when he quoted Scripture to Jesus during the wilderness temptations (Matt. 4:6).  And Satan’s most dangerous attacks against God’s people come from within the church by means of false preachers and teachers who pretend to speak for God.”

 

            Spiritual Meaning for my Life Today:  It is my desire to continue studying the Word of God in order to know more about God so that I am not deceived by false teachers.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to continue to trust the Lord as He guides my wife and I to seek the best treatment for her cancer situation she is in.  I desire for my faith to be increased as I read and study the Word of God so that I will not let Satan get any kind of foothold in my life.

 

4/25/2025 8:44 AM

 

           

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