Some Will Depart

1 Timothy 4:1-5

Immanuel – 10/26/25

          After considering God’s purpose for the church – to be his own household, and the pillar and buttress of the truth – Paul erupts in worship. He soars to the highest pinnacle of Christological exaltation in 1 Timothy: “The Christ Song.” He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

          And from those glorious heights, how chilling the plummet in the very next verse: some will depart from the faith.

If you read Paul’s original letter to Timothy, it would look like a handwritten letter. Imagine that in your Bible, just a continuous flow of words: no chapter breaks, no section titles, no verses. Without any indication that something’s about to change, Paul moves from the joyous glory of what God has done in Jesus for his church and through his church, to the woeful reality that demons have slithered into the church seeking to deceive. As a first reader, you might get a sense of whiplash.

          But I think that’s exactly the effect Paul is going for – like an abrupt splash of cold water on the face. Though the church is the household of God, the pillar and buttress of the truth, the church is neither above danger nor free from it. Again, demons have slithered into the church seeking to deceive. “Timothy, they are already in Ephesus!”

Brothers and sisters, they are in our midst too. Don’t ever think you are not susceptible to demonic deceptions. Adam and Eve, as perfect as God created them, fell to a satanic lie. You know it in your bones: You are far from perfect. I am far from perfect. How much more susceptible are we?

          Read vs 1

          Remember back in 1:18, Paul charged Timothy to wage the good warfare.

          Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith.                         -1 Timothy 1:18-19

          Spirits

          As I said when we studied that passage, Paul is not talking about a war with flesh and blood. We do not fight against people. We are caught up in a spiritual war. Our passage is a strong reminder of this. It opens with the Holy Spirit, who speaks truth. Contrast this with the deceitful spirits, or demons, seeking to lead people astray. And Paul is not talking about demonic influences in the world. He is saying deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons are in the church!

There are two opposing spiritual forces at work within the church: deceitful spirits and the Holy Spirit.  First we are going to consider the work of the Holy Spirit, and then we will look at the work of deceitful spirits, according to this passage.

The Holy Spirit expressly says there’s an implication that Timothy has heard the Spirit too. The Holy Spirit has said this clearly through the Scriptures. Paul had the Old Testament Scriptures. He had the teachings of Jesus – he references them often. In his teachings, Jesus repeatedly talked of how false-teachers and false-christs would come in his name and lead people astray.

          The Spirit speaks to Paul and Timothy and us today through scripture. If demons lead people astray, the Holy Spirit leads people to godliness.

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.                                              -1 Timothy 6:3-4

The Spirit expressly says; refers to the Holy Spirit speaking through gospel doctrines, the words of Jesus Christ, and teachings that accord with godliness. Do you want to hear the Holy Spirit in your life? Open your Bible, plead for the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom, read, and by faith listen and obey.

          If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.                                       -James 1:5

          If we ask, the Holy Spirit will speak through his word. With this kind of Spirit given wisdom, Paul reminds Timothy, the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith. The later times were the times Paul and Timothy were living in. There are three reasons we know this.

1.      Paul is writing about things happening in their time, which he equates to the later times.

2.      Because the prophesied Christ had come, manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.

3.      The prophets spoke of the later times when God would pour out the Holy Spirit.

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”

                                                                                       -Joel 2:28

          Paul and Timothy were living in the later times when God poured out his Spirit. Let me be exceedingly precise here: the later times was a period of time where the old covenant age was coming to a violent conclusion, while the new covenant age emerged in Christ and was growing to fill the whole earth.

          As the writer of Hebrews says,

          Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.     -Hebrews 1:1-2

          What wonder that 2,000 years later God still speaks to us – through his Son and through his Spirit. As Jesus himself said,

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

                                                                                      -John 14:26

          Even the least in the kingdom of God is greater than the greatest Old Testament prophet (Matthew 11:11). For we are the household of God, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. We are the pillar and buttress of the truth, blessed to know the truth of God as revealed in the face of Jesus Christ!

          But despite these God-given wonders, terrible whiplash, some will depart from the faith. Some will depart from the faith, devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons. In other words, they will follow demons and believe in their teachings.

          Let’s dig deeper to see what this really means.

          Read vs 1b-3a

          Did you hear that? Demons use liars. In verse 1 Paul calls them deceitful spirits and in verse 2 the deceitful spirits work through liars. The word for “liars” comes from a Greek word describing actors so skilled in pretend that the pretend seems real.

Think of a movie or a show where two characters overcome great difficulty before they can express their love to one another – the whole time you’re rooting for them – and then they live happily ever after.

But in real life, people get upset because those two people are not together, forgetting the characters are pretend and the actors do not actually love each other. In some sad cases, the actors also get caught up in their world of pretend love, leaving their spouses and families for the fantasy. Those always seems to end in disastrous disappointment.

          This is what the demonic looks to do: using deception of false teachers to spin a pretend world, a fantasy, a lie. It looks so good, seems so real, that it must be true. Demonic lies are so subtle and polished and sophisticated that people throw themselves into it, and their consciences become seared.

          As I said a few weeks ago, the conscience is a tool of the heart, helping you discern what is right and what is wrong. But a conscience does more than help you understand this intellectually; you discern it in your heart. When you do something wrong, or see something wrong, your conscience disturbs your heart. You can feel it at your core: That was wrong! And if you’ve done something good, or witnesses a good thing, your conscience causes you also to feel it, and your heart sings.  

          Demonic fantasies spun by false teachers confuse the truth. And once the truth gets twisted in our hearts, our conscience gets all twisted up; or, as Paul says, the conscience gets seared. If you have ever touched your skin to something extremely hot, your skin gets seared and damaged. The skin that has been seared is no longer able to feel.

          Allowing your heart to listen to lies, to insincerity, to deception, sears your conscience – as if it’s just been licked by a flame from hell. A seared conscience has had its senses dulled. What was once so clearly right begins to seem ugly. What was wrong subtly starts to look more appealing. When the conscience is seared, the heart begins to embrace falsehoods and your behavior quickly follows.

          This is the epitome of the demonic.

          Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!                        -Isaiah 5:20-21    

          Once the conscience is seared, it sees good in evil and evil in good. And it all starts with a clever lie, a demonic whisper allowed to take root in the heart. In our day and age, demonic lies have roots in churches everywhere. But more on that later.

          Timothy had recently arrived to pastor the troubled Ephesian church. Paul highlights two lies already growing in Ephesus: the forbidding of marriage and the abstinence of certain foods.

          Notice how these are not issues of salvation – at least not obviously. The nature of the Trinity was not under attack. No one seems to be arguing against Jesus being fully God and fully man. There is no conflict over Jesus rising from the grave. Demonic deceptions were woven into marriage and food.

          All we can do is speculate why the false teachers were forbidding believers from getting married and teaching the church to abstain from certain foods.

          Likely they were twisting scripture, perhaps Old Testament food laws. Or even when Paul talks about the spiritual benefits in fasting from food and sex. He talks about how singleness is a good thing. But that is not what the false teachers in Ephesus were promoting. They were forbidding marriage and teaching the church that certain foods were bad.

Everywhere the New Testament upholds marriages as good and honorable (Hebrews 13:4). And Jesus makes it clear that it is not what goes into the body that defiles a person. Rather, sinful things coming out of the heart defile a person (Matthew 7:18-23).

          And though marriage and food are not directly issues of salvation, Paul’s polemic reveals how damaging these lies were. Such teachings undermine the goodness of God.

          Read vs 4-5

          Everything created by God is good. Paul is explicitly referencing the Genesis account.

          And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

                                                                                      -Genesis 1:31

          Everything God creates is good; and not just the natural things, like bodies and fruit trees, but also spiritual things like desires. God created the desire for companionship, desires for sexual intimacy, hunger and thirst, and all other desires.

Desires are good, and he gave us good means of meeting our desires. Hunger is satisfied with food. Companionship and sex are satisfied in the intimacy of marriage. These are good and holy gifts from God.

          Claiming these good things are bad is demonic. If you really did believe marriage and food, in themselves, were bad, then the conclusion you must draw is that God created some bad things. Here is the root of the demonic thought: If God created bad things, then God cannot be holy.

          How subtly a lie slithers in through a backdoor! If it is allowed to take root, all of faith becomes infected. Once faith is infected, people will depart from the faith.

          (Parenthesis)

          Let me briefly say, when Paul talks about someone departing from the faith, he is not talking about someone losing their salvation. No one can lose their salvation, because God promises that when he begins a good work in us, he will complete that work (Philippians 1:6)!

          Rather, someone who departs from the faith at one time enjoyed church life, sat under biblical teaching, and had every appearance of being a Christian. But the fact that they depart from the faith proves they were never really saved. As the Apostle John writes,

Therefore we know that is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.                       -1 John 2:18-19

          Those who depart from the faith were never truly of the faith – as John says. Or like Jesus’ parables, the tares will always grow up with the wheat, bad fish will be mixed in with the good (Matthew 13:24-30, 47-40).

          (Close Parenthesis)

          Those who depart from the faith, in our passage, are those who allow demonic lies to take root in their heart, searing their consciences, begin to call good things evil and evil things good, and finally refuse to hallow the name of God. Like Hymenaeus and Alexander, the false teachers from chapter 1, they make shipwreck of their faith.

          But anyone who believes, who looks to Jesus for forgiveness and life, has been saved by grace, and God has poured the Holy Spirit upon you. You are the household of God! God will never leave you nor forsake you. He will complete the work he began in you! Though you might be tempted, or even be touched by doubt, God will never take his Spirit from you – and where the Holy Spirit dwells, no deceiving spirit will be allowed to move in.

          So we who have been given the Holy Spirit, how are we to enjoy the good things God has made while resisting demonic deceptions and temptations?

Verse 3: receive them with thanksgiving. Verse 4: receive them with thanksgiving. With everything you receive, in every circumstance, be thankful!

          Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.                                                                   -James 1:17

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.    -Colossians 3:17

          Give thanks in all circumstances.                      -1 Thessalonians 5:18

Be filled with the Spirit…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.               -Ephesians 5:18,20

          Those who are filled with demonic deceptions are ungrateful, looking suspiciously upon God’s good gifts. They shipwreck their faith. Those who are filled with the Holy Spirit are thankful for every gift that comes down from the Father. And the Spirit holds us secure in faith, for our everlasting salvation!

Verse 5 says, God’s good gifts are made holy by the word of God and prayer.

          We pray before we eat, thanking God for the food and asking him to bless us with it. With everything we are given, we lift up thanksgiving, and pray God will use it for our good and his glory. Indeed, he has created all things for our flourishing and for his glory. When we receive from God with thanksgiving, he is glorified.

          For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.                                                                                       -Romans 11:36

          All this we know because God’s word has told us. We open the Bible and the Holy Spirit speaks, teaching us what is good and pleasing in the sight of God. The Spirit sharpens our consciences, helping us rightly discern what is right and wrong, good and evil – within our own hearts and in the world that surrounds us. How desperately we need to open our Bibles and listen for the voice of the Spirit, for he promises to purify our consciences.

          Deceiving spirits and false teachers abound within the church. Let me briefly point out a few demonic teachings proliferating in our day and age. First the sophistication of the lie, then exposing the demonic.  

          Individuals have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. A woman may choose whether she wants to be pregnant. Perhaps she is not ready, perhaps she doesn’t want her body to change, perhaps she wants to pursue a career rather than a family, perhaps she does not want to remember the trauma by which she became pregnant. Therefore, countless churches affirm abortion as a good thing.

          Yes, individuals do have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. But the demonic lie is that the baby growing inside the womb is not a life, or is not a life worth keeping. Like when the Israelites sacrificed their children to the demon god Molech, pro-choice churches serve demons, by killing the most vulnerable class of humanity: the unborn.

The demonic says, “Because I want to have a good life, you will die.” Jesus says, “Because I want you to have life and life abundantly, I will die.”

          It is Christlike to be welcoming, accepting, and to tolerate differences in one another. Let us therefore be welcoming to the LGBTQ+ world. So far, I completely agree with all of this.

          At best, the demonic deception would have churches stop there, never calling homosexuality a sin, never confronting the perversion. At worst, deceiving spirit would have the church affirm LGBTQ+ relationships as legitimate forms of intimacy. After all, “love is love.”

          Where the false teachers in Ephesus were forbidding marriage, LGBTQ+ affirming churches destroy marriage. More and more they look suspiciously at God; they undermine his nature, undermine his character, and undermine his Word. Their consciences are seared and they have departed from the faith.

          So also do churches that promote the prosperity gospel. Demonic teachings have infiltrated any church claiming faith needs to be supplemented by works in order for someone to be saved. Churches that would have you pledge allegiance to a modern pastor, prophet, apostle, or pope is demonic. We pledge ourselves only to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.

          Hardly do I have time to go through all the demonic teachings currently active in the North American church: modalism, neo-Gnosticism, universalism, follow your heart theology, Christian mysticism, little gods theology, the word of faith movement, the new apostolic reformation, and sadly so much more.

          There is no possible way to stay on top of all this. So let me say this: vs 5 applies to us too. You shall be made holy through the word of God and prayer. The Holy Spirit will sharpen your conscience, and you will be able to discern what is good and pleasing to God, and what is demonic.

What should we know? There are two opposing spiritual forces at work within the church: deceitful spirits and the Holy Spirit.

What should we believe? Despise any teaching that would twist God’s word. Desire for the Holy Spirit to open God’s word to you.

What should we do? Devote yourself to the word of God and prayer, and the Spirit will sharpen your conscience. Give thanks in all circumstance.

          Our demonic adversaries are actively at work today, ravenous to devour the spiritually sick, whose prayers have grown silent, who wandering from the fellowship of the church and the teaching of Scripture.

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.                                                                       -1 Peter 5:8