2 Timothy 3:1-9 Does Counterfeit Christianity Kill the Mission?

Romans 1 says For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

I can’t think of a better description of 2021 American.

And if you had any doubt whether or not what we are witnessing in our nation is God’s judgment on America, this passage proves it.

But all that is ok. We know how to deal with that. It might be dark, but we have the light of the gospel, and its never been more obvious that our world needs it.

That’s not the problem.

The problem is that when the world needs the gospel most, the loudest gospel out there is no gospel at all.

False teaching and counterfeit Christianity are running rampant.

Now I’m not saying we are the only faithful church.

There are lots of churches that hold fast to the Word of God and faithfully preach the good news of Jesus Christ.

What I’m saying is that the dominant Christianity in the world today is no Christianity at all.

True Christianity is set apart to Christ and the Word of God.

But the loudest voices out there claiming to preach the gospel are more interested in itching the ears of the world than they are glorifying God and calling the world to repentance.

And if we were really honest, that can be discouraging.

For one thing, if you hold to faithful, biblical Christianity you will be labeled a fundamentalist or pharisee.

For another, the world rails against the church and Christ.

They call us hypocritical, unloving bigots.

But the sad thing is the Christ they rail against isn’t even the Christ of the Bible who died for sinners to give them eternal life.

And listen, we don’t mind being hated by the world, but we’d rather be hated for what the Bible actually says.

And to make matters worst, we know that all the counterfeit Christianity that’s out there is actually leading people further away from the gospel and making our job that much more difficult.

You try to share the gospel and you get, Oh, I’m already a Christian, or I’ve been there. Done that. It didn’t work. I’m not interested.

The Great Commission is already hard enough, why can’t all these false gospels just get out of the way.

What is God doing?

These are the kind of days that make you want to throw your hands up and say What’s the point?, and give up.

But I want to encourage you today, that these hard times do not equal defeat.

The Big Idea from 2 Timothy 3:1-9 is...

Counterfeit Christianity might make our mission more difficult, but Jesus promises that the true gospel will stand in the end.

Christ will finish the mission. The days may be hard. And false gospels might make it harder.

But Jesus will save sinners. God has a plan, and he’s carrying it out.

So, What does it look like to finish the mission during hard seasons when the world needs the gospel and counterfeit Christianity runs rampant?

Let’s start with point number 1, we need to...

I. Expect Counterfeit Christianity

2 Timothy 3:1-5 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

The first thing we need to do to understand what Paul is saying is remember the context of this passage.

Paul is in the middle of talking about false teachers who have swerved from the truth and the false Christians that follow them.

And Paul just told Timothy if you want to be useful to God in His mission to save sinners than you can’t be quarrelsome.

You need to be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting your opponents with gentleness.

And maybe, God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

And that brings us to chapter 3. But understand this.

But Timothy, there’s something you need to know, something you need to remember, as you take the torch of the gospel that I’m handing over to you to finish the mission.

In the last days there will come times of difficulty.

Now you might read the last days, and think it means the days immediately before Christ’s return.

And you might look outside your window and see all the things Paul talks about in the next few verses and think well we must be in the last days. This must be it.

I don’t want to burst your bubble, but that’s not true.

According to the NT, the last days started all the way back when Jesus accomplished salvation on our behalf.

The last days refers to the age of the Messiah, His reign and rule.

And they span the days from Christ’s first coming to His second coming.

The reason they are called the last days is because we are in the final days of redemption.

When Christ returns and we are given new resurrected bodies fit for eternity with Him, the history of this world will come to an end, hence the last days, and a new age, a new day, will dawn and that will be the eternal state. Heaven. The fullness of the new heavens and new earth.

In 1 Corinthians 15:22-26 Paul said this. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

So Christ returns, and all that believed in Him, are raised to new life. We are transformed in the twinkling of an eye and given new resurrected bodies fit for eternal life.

Paul continues.

Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Death is destroyed when Christ returns. That’s what the resurrection is all about. Where O Death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? (1 Cor 15:54-55).

But that happens after Jesus has destroyed every other enemy. Every rule and every authority and every power.

And Paul bases that off of the promise of Psalm 110:1 the most quoted verse in the NT. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

Those are the days we are in. Christ is reigning at the right hand of the Father. And he will reign there until every enemy is put under his feet.

Until all the nations flow to the mountain of the Lord and worship Christ, like Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 9 promised.

That’s what Christ is doing now. That is what the Great Commission is all about. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations.

So the last days began with the finished work of Christ in his ascension and continue today as Christ reigns until every enemy is put under his feet, then comes the end. The last days are the church age.

And if you don’t believe me, hear what Peter said in Acts 2. When the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, all the disciples proclaimed the gospel with tongues so that all in Jerusalem that day would hear the good news in their own language, Peter said this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:16-17).

Did you catch it? Joel prophesied the God would pour out the Holy Spirit on his people in the last days, and Peter says this is that.

Likewise the Author of Hebrews says in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son (Hebrews 1:2).

These last days.

Its clear. The NT teaches that the last days began with the work of Christ and will last until Christ returns in glory after putting every enemy under his feet through the gospel.

You can even see this if you just read 2 Timothy 3:1-9 closely.

The commands understand and avoid are present tense. The false teachers creeping in and capturing weak women is also present tense.

Paul is talking to Timothy as if he is in the last days, and instructing him in what he needs to do.

And you might ask, why does it say in the last days their will come times of difficulty? As if its something future for Timothy?

Paul uses the future tense to describe certainty. As in Timothy, you’re in the last days, and because of that, you need to understand that there will be times of difficulty.

And if you translated that literally, what Paul is saying is that in the last days there will come hard seasons.

Difficult times for the church. Some seasons between between the first and second coming of Christ will be very hard as the church carries out the Great Commission.

Now what specifically makes those seasons hard? Paul tells us...

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

This is similar to what Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:1-3: Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times [which is another way to describe the last days] some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

So what makes for difficult times, in 1 and 2 Timothy, is not primarily persecution or suffering for the gospel. Its counterfeit Christianity. False teaching. False teachers. False Christs. False churches, false Christians and false religion.

In the last days, the church will face hard times where apostasy and false teaching will run rampant.

That’s what this vice list is all about. When Paul says For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, so on and so on, he doesn’t mean people in general. He’s not saying in the last days unsaved pagan sinners will be like this. That’s par for the course.

Paul’s talking about people, and especially false teachers, who claim the name of Christ, but don’t know Him and don’t live for Him.

He’s saying what makes times difficult is counterfeit Christianity.

Here’s how you know that. In these verses Paul lists 19 vices.

At the end of those vices he summarizes the whole list by saying having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

Now you might ask, Why does that get singled out? Why is that not included in the list as a whole?

And its because in this list Paul uses a chiasm which is basically a list that has a parallel structure. So the first line goes with the last line. Second line goes with the second to last line, and so on.

And you’ll notice that the first 2 and last 2 vices in this list talk about love. So think of this list like a sandwich.

The inner part of the list, where Paul says people will be proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit all speak of someone’s life, how someone lives before God and with others.

And what Paul is saying is that these false Christians live a godless life. One characterized by and enslaved to their sin.

But I want to focus on the bookends of the list because they get at the root of the problem with false Christianity, and by understanding what drives and leads to this counterfeit faith we can guard ourselves from apostasy and stay faithful to God and His Word.

Lovers of money corresponds with lovers of pleasure.

Lovers of pleasure is literally a word that carries this idea of hedonism. These people live only for whatever their hearts desire.

And they are lovers of money.

This gets fleshed out in 1 Timothy 6:10 where Paul said For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Notice Paul doesn’t say money is the root of all evil, its the love of money.

They idea is because people love this world, they love money because money is their Messiah who will save them and give them everything their heart’s desire.

That’s why Jesus said you cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24). Its a violation of the 1st Commandment: You will have no other God’s before me (Exodus 20:3).

When you put these two together, what you get is a love for the world.

The highway to counterfeit Christianity, to apostasy, is love for this world. And God says If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).

The reason why counterfeit Christianity runs rampant today is because people love the world.

And they have bought into the lie that life is found in laying up treasure for yourself in this world, all the comfort, all the respect, all the love of the world, to satisfy our heart’s desires instead of believing that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).

And ultimately counterfeit Christianity happens because people are lovers of self more than lovers of God.

What I want you to see is that this list is really the embodiment of breaking the Great Commandment.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40).

That’s why Paul says, they have the appearance of godliness, but deny its power.

Godliness in the pastoral epistles, for Paul, is basically true religion. True, orthodox, biblical, faithful Christianity.

And when Paul says they have the appearance of godliness, what he is saying is that have the form of true Christianity, without actually having true Christianity.

All they have is a shadow. They look religious, they talk about Jesus, they claim to be Christians, but they don’t have the real thing.

They deny its power. Because if they really had the gospel, they wouldn’t still be enslaved to their sin. They wouldn’t still love themselves and the world more than God.

So to bring it all back, Paul uses this vice list to describe counterfeit Christianity.

And he says they claim to know Christ, they have the appearance of godliness, but they don’t love God and they don’t love others which is just another way to say they don’t obey God’s Law.

They don’t hold fast to God’s Word as the highest authority.

But I don’t want you to get lost in the weeds. Why is Paul saying this?

That For is key.

That for is telling Timothy what exactly makes times difficult in the last days as he works and labors to carry out the Great commission.

And Paul says times will be difficult because counterfeit Christianity will run rampant.

People will claim Christ. Have the appearance of godliness, claim to preach the one, true gospel, but deny its power. All they’ll preach and all they’ll believe is a gospel that can save absolutely no one.

That’s why Paul’s first command in this passage is understand this. Know this. Realize this.

Why? Remember Timothy. He feels weak, timid, and alone because his brother and friend is about to die and handing him a last will and testament to take the torch and finish the mission.

And as Timothy looks out at the world, he sees false teachers wreaking havoc in the church leading all kinds of people away from the gospel.

And Paul is saying, Timothy, I want you to know there will be hard seasons in the mission because I don’t want you to lose heart.

I don’t want you to believe the lie that all is lost. That you’re fighting a losing battle. I don’t want you to get so discouraged by the godlessness and apostasy that you give up.

I want you to endure and keep going knowing this is only a season.

This is an encouraging word for us.

We’re not fighting a losing battle. Sure we can look out there and get discouraged. But understand there will be times of difficulty for the church.

It will break our heart to see people walk away from Christ.

It will tear us up to see the name of Christ maligned and the Word of God trampled on.

And the cherry on top is now we have double agents out in the battlefield.

People who claim the name of Christ but are actively working against us and the gospel, perverting true Christianity and deceiving the world with a false Christ that calls no one to repentance and just tells the world whatever they want to hear.

Its hard not to lose heart. To believe all is lost. And just give up.

But remember what God told Elijah when he wanted to give up. I have 7,000 in Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal (1 Kings 19:18).

These hard times are not a surprise to God. God is still working. He’s still saving. Don’t lose heart. Stay faithful.

Trust him. He’s purifying his church. Burning of the dross so that the light of the gospel can shine brighter and brighter and bring more people to Christ like moths to a flame.

God wants us to know, and expect hard seasons, times of difficulty where counterfeit Christianity will run rampant and make the Great Commission all that much harder. And he wants us to know that so we don’t lose heart.

Number 2, to finish the mission in hard seasons of rampant false teaching, we also need to...

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II. Avoid Counterfeit Christianity

2 Timothy 3:5-7 Avoid such people.

Literally Paul says turn yourself away from them, the people who have the appearance of godliness, but deny its power.

Again. This is not talking about pagan sinners. Jesus was a friend to sinners.

And Paul himself said in 1 Corinthians 5, Don’t associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. Don’t associate with anyone who bears the name of brother (1 Cor 5:9-13).

So what Paul is saying. Don’t fellowship with people who claim Christ but don’t actually follow Him. Don’t obey His word.

Now that doesn’t mean Paul is saying Avoid Christians who are repentantly struggling with their sin.

What church are you going to go to where people don’t still struggle against sin and the flesh this side of the resurrection?

He’s saying don’t fellowship with people that pretend they are Christians but have abandoned the Word of God.

That are hard hearted in their sin and rebellion.

Who actively and willfully reject, sound doctrine, and twist the gospel into a salvation of works or something that itches the ears of the world.

Now this doesn’t mean you don’t still try to share the gospel with them and call them to repentance. Paul just told Timothy to be Kind to everyone and correct his opponents with gentleness.

This avoiding is something specific. Its fellowshipping with. Pretending like they are a Christian, and you are brothers and sisters in Christ but just have a different understanding of theology. Acting like nothing’s wrong. That we are all on the same team.

Paul say’s don’t do that. Avoid them. Don’t associate, don’t fellowship with them like that.

Now that sounds harsh. Unloving. So judgmental. But remember Christ’s goal for the church.

He loved her, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Eph 5:26–27).

What fellowship has light with darkness? (2 Cor 6:14).

Christ wants a holy church. And fellowship with counterfeit Christianity threatens that holiness for us, false Christians, and for the world.

Leaven

Paul said, Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? (1 Co 5:6).

He’s talking about church discipline where you stop fellowshipping with someone who refuses to repent of their sin.

Because here’s Paul’s concern. If you minimize, and justify their sin, what makes you think you’re not going to minimize or justify your own.

There’s this idea that if we continually fellowship with counterfeit Christianity, and pretend like nothing’s wrong, even though God’s Word says there clearly is something wrong, the leaven of their sin, might start leavening us.

If you justify any kind of sin or false doctrine, its only a matter of time until you start to justify your own.

Them

Second, continuing to fellowship with false Christians who refuse to repent and obey God’s Word is not good or loving for them.

If we fellowship with them instead of calling them to repentance, all we are doing is saying to them, you are right with God, you’re right with Christ, there’s no to repent. There’s no need to put your sin to death and follow Christ.

And by doing that, by thinking we are being kind and loving, we are actually allowing false Christians to remain deceived about their salvation.

To remain spiritually blind, and cut off from forgiveness and eternal life in Christ.

It’s one of the reasons carrying out the Great Commission is so difficult in the Bible belt.

People think they are Christians and you’re not just going to come up to someone that professes faith in Christ and say, Yea I don’t think that’s true.

Its one of the blessings of God shaking everything. He’s drawing clear lines between those that believe in Christ and hold fast to his Word and those that dont.

False Teachers

And finally, fellowshipping with counterfeit Christianity threatens the holiness of Christ’s church because it gives credibility to whatever false gospel they are promoting and says to the world, Yea they are basically just like us. We are all the same.

You can believe prosperity gospel. LGBTQ+ Christianity. Critical Race Theory and social justice. There’s no difference, its all the same gospel.

And this opens the door for the world to listen to false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing crying, out Come this way. The gate is wide and the way is easy. We’re all going to get to heaven.

There needs to be a distinction between the true gospel, and false gospels. True Christianity and counterfeit Christianity.

We don’t fellowship with Mormons. Jehovah’s Witness. Muslims or Buddhists. We don’t say any of them have the gospel of eternal life. What makes false Christians and false teachers any different?

And these false teachers were a primary concern for Paul. That’s why he singles them out in verse 6.

For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

For. Paul says avoid them, For, because from them come false teachers who will lead more and more people astray.

He says they creep into households. Literally they worm their way in.

And they capture weak women.

Now. This is not saying only women, are susceptible to false teaching.

Women are the weaker vessel, and we men are called to be gentle with our wives and live with them in an understanding way.

But what Paul is talking about is a particular situation in Ephesus.

Apparently these false teachers were making serious inroads with women there.

They captured weak women just like Satan had captured them to do his will and blind people from the truth.

Now what made these particular women weak? Susceptible to the false teachers? Paul tells us.

They were burdened with sins and led astray by various passions.

This starts to make sense when you know what the false teachers in Ephesus were teaching.

One of the main talking points of their false teaching was a form of Jewish legalism.

Paul said they were of the circumcision party.

They quarreled about the law. And they even went so far to forbid marriage and eating certain foods because if you wanted to be really holy, you needed to do all these extra things to prove you were really spiritual.

And that made these women susceptible, weak, because they were burdened with sins.

They were overwhelmed, drowning in their sins.

And now these false teachers were coming along saying I can show you how to get rid of that burden, you just need to follow x, y, z rules and you can make yourself holy.

But that didn’t mean these women were repentant. They might have felt overwhelmed by their sin, but they were still led astray by various passions.

That’s the same word from earlier when Paul told Timothy to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness.

So these women were heavy laden with their guilt and enslaved to their sin. And that made them easy prey for false teachers.

So what made them weak was that they were not strong in the gospel.

They didn’t know Christ’s forgiveness, and they had no interest in repenting of their sin.

What this tells us is that we need to make every effort and strive to have our identity in Christ and nothing else.

He is our righteousness, joy, life and peace.

But what made these false teachers so dangerous is that they would capture the people that needed the gospel most, and lead them astray with a false gospel that couldn’t lift their burden or free them from their sin.

Paul said these captured women are always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

The truth is the Word of God. The gospel. Sound Doctrine. The Faith handed down once for all to all the saints.

That’s why we need to avoid counterfeit Christianity.

We don’t want to give any credibility to false teachers who will capture people most in need of forgiveness.

People that long to hear Jesus say Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Mt 11:28–30).

The world needs Christ. There is salvation in no other name.

And fellowshipping with false teachers and false Christianity muddies the waters and blurs the line between the true gospel and all the false gospels that leave people burdened and enslaved to their sin.

That’s why Paul commands us to avoid such people.

And just to belabor the point. That doesn’t look like being a jerk, judgmental, or some self-righteous pharisee.

Remember Paul said the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness.

And here’s why. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

Paul’s aim for all this is not for us to clutch our pearls and fear being stained by the World.

Its to see all people come to repentance. That’s why we are called to avoid counterfeit Christianity.

So that we can guard the good deposit entrusted to us and make disciples of all nations.

What does it look like to finish the mission during hard seasons where counterfeit Christianity runs rampant?

First, we need to expect it so that we don’t lose heart.

Second we need to avoid fellowshipping with any form of false Christianity so that we can guard the purity of the gospel.

And finally, we need to...

III. Trust God’s Purpose for Counterfeit Christianity

2 Timothy 3:8-9 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

Jannes and Jambres, according to Jewish tradition, were the names of the two magicians in Pharaohs court who would take one to the plagues God unleashed on the land and replicate it.

The very first time Moses came to Pharaoh and told him God said to let Israel go, Pharaoh said prove it.

So Aaron, Moses’ brother, threw down his staff and it became a serpent (Ex 7:11).

Pharoah called his magicians, Jannes and Jambres, and they threw down their staffs which also turned into snakes.

Aarons serpent swallowed theirs alive, but Pharoah hardened his heart.

Then Moses turned the Nile into blood. But again, Jannes and Jambres counterfeited the miracle. So Pharoah hardened his heart again (Ex 7:22).

They did the same with the frogs (Ex 8:18).

But when God sent a plague of gnats on the land of Egypt, the magicians tried, but this time they couldn’t. And so they told Pharaoh, this is the finger of God (Ex 8:19).

And here was Paul’s point. These false teachers and their false Christianity are like that.

They are going to have success for a little while, but they will not get very far. Their folly, their corruption is going to be plain to all just like it was for Jannes and Jambres.

And this ties back to why Paul wanted Timothy to understand that he was in one of the hard seasons of the Great Commission.

That he was trying to finish the mission in a time where false Christianity ran rampant.

It was so he would not lose heart but keep going.

When Paul said, but they will not get very far, he was trying to encourage Timothy, This isn’t going to last forever. God has a plan. Its all going to work out.

Stay faithful. Do what you’re supposed to do. And trust God knows what he’s doing.

No matter how bad and how bleak it might look, we know the gospel wins in the end.

That one day at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:10-11).

And that is exactly what we need to remember in the hard season we are in.

We don’t need to be discouraged. We know God has a plan for all this. He is keeping us by his grace. He is saving his elect. We just need to be faithful.

If we are going to finish the mission when it looks like all is lost, we need to do so from faith trusting God has a plan and God’s plan is sovereign even over Counterfeit Christianity.

Let me peel back the curtain and tell you why God allows false teachers in his church.

Have you ever wondered that? Why does God let false teachers wreak havoc like they do? Why doesn’t he just stop them. They pervert the name of Christ and lead people astray.

I’m not going to pretend to know all the mind of God. But I can tell you two reasons why it is God’s grace to his true church to allow false teachers and counterfeit Christianity to march on towards their own destruction as opposed to just snuffing them out right when they pop their heads up.

Worship

The first is worship.

You might not have ever thought of it this way, but all good heresy leads to true worship. What do I mean?

Heresy and false teaching forces the church to study God’s Word and articulate what it says.

The faith was once for all delivered to the saints. We’ve always had the Trinity and we’ve always had the incarnation.

Those doctrines are as old as Christianity itself.

But heresies that attacked those doctrines forced the church to give a robust theology of what we believe.

And all good theology leads to worship.

The more we know God, how unfathomable he is as One God in three Persons, or how gracious he is to take on human flesh in Christ to die in our place for our sins, theology like that makes us look at God and say, “Wow!”

So God even uses false teachers for the good of His church because through them, he helps his people worship him more fully.

Purity

Second, God uses false teachers and counterfeit Christianity to purify his church.

In 1st Corinthians 11:19 Paul says There must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.

The word faction is the Greek word High-rasies, where we get the Word heresy.

And Paul says they must exist so that those who are truly the people of God, those who truly hold fast to his Word and love God and love others more than they love themselves or their sin, might be recognized. Obvious.

It’s the same thing we were saying earlier. God uses false teachers to prune, and purify his church so the true light of the gospel shines brighter and brighter.

And this is where we see the glory of Christ in this passage.

Christ/Conclusion

You’ll remember when we said earlier that Christ’s goal for his church is to make her holy.

Ephesians 5:25-27 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

All of this is Christ’s work.

He’s the One that died for us.

He’s the One cleansing us with the water of the Word.

He’s the One working to present us to himself in splendor, holy and without blemish.

Even in these hard times, Christ is being faithful to His promise to build his church.

To save sinners.

Bring his sheep home.

And he promises not to lose a single one of us that the Father has given into his hand.

All of this is going according to plan.

The world is not falling apart. He is shaking everything that can be shaken, so that what cannot be shaken, the Kingdom of God, will remain.

Don’t lose heart. Yes the mission is difficult right now.

It’s hard when we are warring against principalities and powers and you throw a bunch of counterfeit gospels into the mix.

But they will not get very far.

And in the end, the gospel will stand. Christ is King. And according to Psalm 22:27-28 because he is King and he rules over the nations...

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before [Him].

That is what Jesus is doing right now in these last days.

Counterfeit Christianity might make our mission more difficult, but Jesus promises that the true gospel will stand in the end.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Jude 17-23 “But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”

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