Prayer for the Church and the World

So the next part of Timothy does not specifically call for prayer. In fact it may seem at first glance that it is about as far from a call for prayer as you can get. The stage is set with a doom and gloom prediction that could be taken right from the church today. Instead it is a warning to a young pastor who is pastoring one of the first churches of the church age over 2000 years ago.

1 Timothy 4:1–5 NASB95

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer.

Some will fall away from the faith and will begin following the teachings of evil spirits, fallen angels, demons. There is a plan for spreading and teaching false doctrines that is being carried out by fallen angels today, there is a plan to teach these things to people who are already in the church. We are not talking about lost people or Satan worshipers or some group that is just way out there on the fringe of society. No these are people who will fall away from the church, in order to fall away from the church they have to first be in the church. These are things that are going to be taught in the church to church people. Hypocrisies and lies that are spread from within the church to corrupt and destroy it.

So what are these things, what is Satan spreading inside the walls of the church to tear it down and destroy it? Men who forbid marriage and who advocate abstaining from certain foods. Many have thought of the Catholic church when they read these words since their priests don’t marry and they practice lent where they abstain from meat on Friday but I think it goes deeper than that. These are not great spiritual doctrines or salvation doctrines, these are not things that seem to be among the most important ideas of the church. Instead these are things that may seem minor at first glance. Marriage is the beginning of the family and God himself established marriage and the family as the basic unit of Christian life. Fathers are to teach their children, husbands are to love their wives, God is the father, Jesus is the son. If you can destroy the family and make father’s a bad thing then by extension you tear down the reputation of God, if you can destroy the relationship between fathers and sons then you have no reference point for the relationship between Jesus and God. God uses the family unit to describe our relationship to him and to Jesus, if you can destroy the family you make it harder for humans to see and understand the relationship between us and God.

If you can start to add things to the bible such as food restrictions or other things that seem harmless. then we can make it acceptable to add to the bible and then soon it will be acceptable to take things away from the bible, next thing you know we can throw it out all together and just do what we want.

So Paul leaves this advice for Timothy

1 Timothy 4:6–16 NASB95

In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers. Prescribe and teach these things. Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe. Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.

Point these things out, in other words point to right doctrine, point out when the bible is added to or taken away from no matter how small it seems at the time. Don’t neglect your gifts, of course Timothy had the gift of preaching and teaching. Paul tells Timothy to take pains with these things and be absorbed in them, in other words sold out and committed. Pay close attention to your teaching and persevere.

Paul looked into the future and saw trouble ahead. Of course that is no great mystery, Paul had trouble then and wrote most of his letters to deal with one type of trouble or another. The church had trouble all of Paul’s life and has continued to have trouble ever since. Paul knew that the trouble would not stop, he knew that Timothy would have to deal with his share of it and that every leader in every church for the rest of the church age would have trouble to deal with.

Sometimes when trouble comes we act like it is a new thing. Trouble started in the garden of Eden and it has continued every day since. We will have trouble and struggles and doctrinal issues and disagreements, we always have and we won’t stop now. And that brings me to the point of the message. If you fail to pray for someone who is coming along behind you, someone you are training up to take your place, your Timothy. If you fail to pray for and train the next generation maybe what you do will go undone, then again maybe someone will take up the torch. If too many people fail to leave a legacy the whole thing falls apart. If you fail to pray for our government maybe we continue to get what we’ve got, maybe our country falls apart and maybe your life gets worse and worse, of course God has the power to see you through. If you fail to pray for our church leaders our church may fall apart, we might die off and blow away or maybe we just become totally ineffective and make no difference in the world. But there are other churches and other leaders who may take up the fight. If you fail to pray for your spouse your marriage may fall apart, your family may collapse. Your kids may turn out wrong and your marriage might be a life of misery and pain, of course that is your choice to make.

But what if we fail to pray for our church,not this local building or even our name or our organization but for the real church, the people, the group of people who make up our church and all of the others.

1 Timothy 4:1–2 NASB95

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,

In the last days there will be people who fall away, people who are in the church, part of the church who turn away and abandon the church because they have been convinced by false teachings and false ideas. Deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons. In other words Satan is real and he is actively trying to destroy the church body. He is trying every day and in every way and some day, in the last days he will begin to succeed.

Now there have been false teachings and heretics since the beginning, Paul deal with many false teaching and heretics in his day. These are not new, apparently it was not what Paul was talking about or he would have cited some examples of what he was dealing with. There have always been people who left the church. There have always been those who were hurt, or sad, or gave up. There have always been those who lived through the death of loved one and God angry with God, there have always been those within the church who have fallen away but Paul did not talk about those. Here he is talking about something different, something new. Something that happens in the last days that had no happened before, at least not on this scale or to this degree. Paul is warning Timothy, and us, of what is coming.

In the last days there will be something new that we have never seen before. Paul lets us know that it is a sign of the last days, it is unique, it is obvious, it is something that Paul pointed out to let us know that the end is near, it is a falling away of those in the church. Not a normal type of falling away but being led away by the schemes and plots of Satan himself. A destroying of the church from within by means of false teaching and false doctrine.

Do you know what I think this means. I think it means that not just a few people here and there will fall away, leave the church and go into the world but that whole churches and possibly whole denominations will turn their back on God and on God’s word and follow the false teachings of Satan and his servants. The pastors, the deacons, the Sunday School Teachers and everyone else will be confused, misled and lead away from God and toward the false teachings and false beliefs by the doctrines of Satan himself.

It will be hard to spot and hard fight. If will be almost impossible to prepare for. It will be something new, something we have never had to deal with before so we have no coping mechanisms in place. If the first time this great falling away happens is near the end then there will be no biblical example of it and no proven methods of dealing with it because it has never happened before. We will have to watch and be aware of what is going on to see it, we will need to act before it is too late, we will need to find a solution and come up with new ways of dealing with new problems because we will be dealing with something that no one has ever seen before.

The enemy is smart, he is prepared, this is his plan over 2000 years in the making and he will have prepared well. The master plan will have been laid down over centuries by a very angel of God, someone who knows things and can do things that we cannot even imagine. it will hit us out of the blue, we will be unprepared, outgunned, out-planned and outclassed. If we were left to our own devices we wouldn’t have a chance. But we have something the other side cannot match. We have the creator God of the universe on our side. He will not be caught unaware, he will not be outmatched or out-planned, He will definitely not be out gunned. In fact he has seen it all coming, he has made his plan and set everything in motion. He is prepared and he is at peace.

Now how are we to take advantage of our greatest asset? How can we get the benefit of his preparations and his power? How can we be a part of the only master plan in the universe that can defeat the plans of Satan. How can we stay in contact with God, we can pray.

We can seek God out and ask him to make us ready, we can obey him and prepare the way he tells us to prepare. We can ask him to open our eyes and let us see what we need to see or to open our ears so we can hear what we need to hear. We can ask him what he wants us to do to prepare and we can follow his commands and take advantage of all the groundwork he has laid.

Prayer is not about us getting God to go along with our plans, it is not about us convincing God to change based on what we think we know or what we think would be best. Prayer is about us getting in on God’s plan, it is about us being tuned in to the source of all wisdom and knowledge, prayer is about us making a connection with God, having a relationship with God, reading his word and following his commands so that we are ready, turning our thoughts and our dreams toward him so that we can hear when he speaks. Prayer is about us joining God on his mission in his way according to his plan. The most important thing we can pray for is that his plans come true, the most important thing we can do is whatever he tells us to do. We can walk into the throne room of God and say here I am send me, we can offer ourselves up as a living sacrifice to God and collectively we can offer our church and ourselves. If we fail to pray for the will of God we fail to pray for the winning team, we are off track and out of the loop, we can be left behind and lead astray. The most important pray we may ever pray may be, Father teach me to follow your word, teach me to think like you think and believe what you know to be true, Father remake me in your image, both me and my household, both my household and my church, both my church and my denomination, in fact every Christian on the planet, remake us in your image, that is what we should have been all along anyway.