In this sermon, the preacher focuses on 1 Timothy 4:1-4, which warns about the departure from faith in the latter times. He emphasizes that every creature of God is good, countering the false teachings that forbade marriage and certain foods. The preacher expands this idea to include every way of God being good, highlighting the importance of following God's way rather than man's way. He also discusses the searing of conscience, explaining how some individuals can engage in deceit and exploitation without feeling conviction due to their seared consciences.

So, First Timothy, chapter four is where we're picking up after our long, well, what has it been sort of a vacation, really, from First Timothy. But we pick up tonight where we left off in the fourth chapter, and so let me read to you verses one through four. Now, the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good and nothing is to be refused. We'll stop right there. The latter times. Paul says the Spirit expressly says the the Lord had been speaking to him and the other apostles, and of course, Jesus himself made it clear that there would be intense times that would come in the latter times or the last days or the last times and these these terms that are used some 20 times in Scripture, I think they're all pretty much synonymous, whether it's the last days of the latter times or the latter days. All of these expressions are referring to the period between the first and the second coming of Christ, particularly to the last part of that period. And so the Spirit is expressly speaking that. In this period of time, there were going to be those who would depart from the faith, those who had once been counted among the brethren, and in some cases, those who had once been counted as leaders even. And this has happened many, many times over in the long history of the church, men have led away disciples after themselves. They have embraced certain aberrant doctrines and teachings and then led scores of people to follow them in their folly. But it says that they would give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, deceiving spirits. The devil is alive and well on planet Earth and very, very active, working overtime in these days and seeking to deceive people. And so there are these. Seducing spirits or deceiving spirits, those are both ways to translate that word. And. They. Have. Doctrines. They have their own theology, if you will, and it's a theology that is contrary to the theology that we have laid out for us in the pages of Scripture. Now, what these demonic spirits do is they use hypocritical men to promote their folly, to provoke, to promote their false teaching. And so then he refers to those who are speaking lies and hypocrisy. And he says about them that they have their consciences seared with a hot iron. You know, sometimes you look at some of these men, whether it be studying movements in church history or even looking at some of the things that are going on currently. And you listen to the things they say and, you know, the fabrications and just their, you know, the deceit, the lies. And you think, how in the world could they stand up there and do that? How is it that they have absolutely no fear of God? How is it that they could be taking total financial advantage of God's people and and have no sense of conviction over it? Well, the answer is right here. They they have their consciences seared with a hot iron. They've gone to the point where there's no longer any sense of conviction. There's no longer any sense of the reality of God. It just it doesn't even enter their thinking process to have the conscience seared. The picture is that of a cauterizing a wound. And when they would cauterize a wound, of course, they would take a red hot iron and they would put it on the area of the wound. And what it would do is it would deaden the nerves around that area. It would seal up the vessels and deaden the nerves. So that area would basically become feelingless in the future. And so this is what's happened to the minds of false teachers. They're they're no longer even subject to conviction. They're no longer even able to, you know, sense in any way that there's a judgment coming. And you see that in the way they conduct themselves. You see that in the way they behave. It's it's frightening, really. But that's the state. That's the condition. And people like that, the devil takes advantage of that situation and utilizes them as his instruments. They become his tools. They become his mouthpiece, basically. And so Paul then describes. What it was that they were teaching. Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with Thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. Now, this to me is so interesting. Notice. Seducing spirits, doctrines of demons, speaking lies and hypocrisy. And what are they doing? They're forbidding to marry. Now, that's a bit strange to me. I mean, you would think that after having declared that, you know, there are seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, Paul would have said something like they forbid belief in the true God and they command idolatry. Or they command a rejection of Jesus Christ or, you know, something blatant, something extreme, something obviously satanic or demonic. But that's not the case. They forbid to marry. And command people to abstain from meat. Now, why does Paul. Refer to these two things, I'm sure there were other diabolical doctrines floating around at the time that he might have referred to, but he chooses to refer to these. Well, Paul referred to these because they were a symptom. Of a greater problem. They were a manifestation. Of another doctrine. That was indeed more obviously demonic. At Paul's time, there was this teaching that had arisen that declared that the body. The human body and all the material world, for that matter, are intrinsically evil. Therefore, any enjoyment derived from the body. Would be sinful. That was a teaching in Paul's day now. Forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from certain foods was an outworking of that teaching. And so Paul is addressing the outworking of it, but of course, you would trace it back to its root. These kinds of ideas. Began to surface in Paul's day and continued and continue to resurface even in our day. Now, these ideas. This whole idea of abstinence because the body was evil and so forth, this really came to a head, although it didn't pass at the time, but it did, in a sense, come to a head in the fourth century among the monks and the hermits. The monks and the hermits, of course, they cut themselves off entirely from society and they went and lived alone out in the deserts. One never ate cooked food. And was famous for his fleshlessness. He became renowned for never eating meat. He was seen as. A great man of deep spirituality, another stood all night by a jetting crag so that it was impossible for him to sleep. Another was famous because he allowed his body to become so dirty and neglected that vermin dropped from him as he walked. Another deliberately ate salt in midsummer and then abstained from drinking water, and these men would gain a reputation of being spiritual men. Godly men, because of their radical deprivation of the flesh, because the idea was that the flesh was intrinsically evil and the more you could deprive it or punishment or punish it, the more spiritual you were. Now, as I said, these ideas. And you can you can find this kind of stuff today. As well, but these ideas have resurfaced over and over again throughout the long history of the church, the Roman Catholic Church has a history of embracing and enforcing various forms of heresy right down to the very things that Paul here says are derived from demons. When I read these two things, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from foods and the word food, there is is actually meat. That's the idea. But when I read those two things, I automatically think of Roman Catholicism. Because those two. Things are prevalent within the Roman Catholic system, the 10th article of the decree of the Council of Trent. In relation to marriage states this, whosoever shall say that the married state is to be preferred to a state of virginity or celibacy. And that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity or celibacy than to be joined in marriage, let him be accursed. That's a statement from the Council of Trent, the Council of Trent is still in effect today. Regarding abstinence from meats, the Catholic Encyclopedia states the law of abstinence. Is binding to all over 14 years of age, it forbids the eating of meats. And soups of meat stock, gravy and sauces of meat. This is current among Roman Catholics. Identical to what Paul warned about back in his own day. Now, here's the question. And I've already hinted at the answer, but the question is, why does Paul refer to such seemingly innocuous things like celibacy and abstinence as doctrines of demons? You see, Paul understands. That these are the outworkings of some deeper, more sinister beliefs. You see, these are these are just the the outward manifestations of a deeper, more serious problem. Paul behind the seemingly innocent attempts to please God, because, of course, that was the the supposed motive behind it. The motive was that I'm going to be more acceptable to God. This is going to please God if I deprive myself. But behind these seemingly innocent attempts to please God. There's a demonic doctrine that denies a vital aspect of biblical truth. You see, we have to be aware of the fact. That we might not always be able to look at something on the surface and see the danger of it. We've got to look a little more closely, and that is obviously demonstrated in. Let's just say, for example, Mormonism now, Mormonism is striving. And working hard to gain acceptance within the Christian community. They are endeavoring to be recognized as just another Christian denomination, and there are many that feel that they ought to be recognized as just another Christian denomination, because after all, if you talk to them, they'll tell you that they believe in Jesus Christ, they believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, they believe that you need to be saved. They believe in the family and the importance of that, they believe in apostolic authority, they believe in all kinds of things that sound like they ought to be welcomed in and recognized as just another segment of the Christian church. But if you go a little bit deeper, you will find that the Jesus that they believe in, the salvation that they believe in, the God that they believe in. The apostles that they believe in and the word of God that they believe in are all considerably different than what we believe as Christians. You see, among the Mormons, their God was formerly a man. A man who has been elevated to God, their Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer, their salvation is a salvation by works related to their organization, their apostles are living and based in Salt Lake City, Utah. And on and on and on you go, so. You see, it's important that we realize that sometimes something that appears to be harmless on the surface can be deadly just underneath the surface. And so, as we've mentioned in Paul's day, forbidding to marry and commanding to abstain from food really. Was a denial of God as the creator of a good creation in Paul's day, there began to develop what became known later as dualistic Gnosticism and dualistic Gnosticism taught that the material world was actually the creation of a lesser God. They taught that there was a true God somewhere. Way, way, way, way, way far away, and that throughout time, various emanations had come out from that God. And then at a certain point in time from those emanations, other emanations came forth that were so far removed from that God that they were no longer like him. And it was an emanation that came from another emanation that created the present world, and that's why the present material world is evil. And so they ended up in a denial of monotheism. They denied that there was one true God. They ended up being very polytheistic, believing in many gods. And then, of course, subsequently they would deny the absolute deity of Christ. So you see, on the surface, it seemed like, hey, you know, forbidding to marry and suggesting that people abstain from certain foods for the sake of a deeper spirituality. Well, that sounds so right. That sounds so noble. That sounds so godly. But Paul says, no. There's something deeper that. Shows that it's a doctrine of demons, and then, of course, in Roman Catholicism, there is a denial of salvation by grace alone through faith alone, the celibacy and abstinence are a means of meriting God's favor and contributing to your own salvation. So you see, these things aren't as innocent as they might seem. Now, Paul, in writing to the Colossians, he dealt very specifically with this this Gnostic idea that was developing. And he warned them about these rules and regulations. Touch not, taste not, handle not. You see, that all goes back to everything material is evil. So don't touch this. Don't taste that. Don't handle this thing here. He says they're going to perish with the using, and he says they have an appearance. Of godliness. But basically, in reality, said this is not godliness. It's a false spirituality now. Now, in our day, there are also things that may seem innocuous, but are actually denials of vital aspects of sound doctrine and ultimately demonic in nature. And this is the thing that I really want to stress tonight to you because it has immediate relevancy. You see, there are things that are swirling around out in the church world. That on the surface, if you don't look a little bit deeper, it doesn't seem like it's that big of a problem. And a lot of people wonder sometimes why you would suggest that that is not a good thing or or why you would be critical of those people or that teaching or a particular movement. And after all, you know, it sounds like you're criticizing the body of Christ and you know, it seems like you're maybe even causing division because you're speaking out and you're you're saying things against other brothers and so forth. And, you know, you hear that sometimes and it's the same kind of a thing. You see, because today there are ideas floating around that on the surface don't seem like that big of a deal, but the deeper you go, you find that there's a huge issue at stake here. For example, there has been a tremendous influence upon the Bible, particularly the first few chapters of the Bible. By evolutionary thinkers and those who have in some way, shape or form embraced. Some aspect of evolution. Have come up with different theories about the origin of the universe, the origin of life, creation and so forth. And they have brought these into the church. You know, in many circles today, the bane of evangelical movement are those who believe in a literal six day creation. There are many in the evangelical church today that just see those kind of people as hugely problematic. They're dogmatic, they're unscientific, they're giving a bad reputation to us Christians. We need to censor them. We need to silence them. And these men, these people. They have come up with their own theories about Genesis and about creation. There is what is known as theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is basically stating that there is a creator, God, but he created through the evolutionary process. And there are many in the church that have embraced theistic evolution. There are others who don't go that far. They're uncomfortable with that. But they just cannot, for the life of them, believe that. The creation of the universe could have happened in a literal six days, so they opt for, say, the the progressive creation theory. Progressive creationism means that God created in long, long periods of time. There was a progression that took place. The six days are just sort of allegorical, poetic, maybe. But again, we can't take them literally because we know, we know for a scientific fact that the universe is billions of years old. And then there are those who it's very similar to progressive creationism, but it's it's called the age theory. And they believe that God created in six days, but each day was perhaps millions of years long. And of course, they do this to accommodate evolutionary thinking. And those who emphasize that, those who promote that, they would look upon those who are literal six day creationists as troublemakers in the church. As divisive people who are just splitting hairs, who are making a big deal out of nothing, I mean, after all, what does it matter? You know, whether God literally created it or whether, you know, it was, you know, six days of long periods of time or or for that matter, even if God used evolution. I mean, you know, why? Why get all upset about this? Let's just not. Let's just not worry about that. That's not the important thing, they say. But you see, there's a bigger issue at stake. And that's what people fail to realize. You see, if God did not create the world in six literal days, how come he said he did? If he didn't create the world in six literal days and he said he did, then we've got a problem. How can we trust anything that God said if he didn't really mean what he said? And see, the Bible says clearly that he created the world in six literal days. Even those who rejected agree that the Bible says that. That is indeed what the scriptures say. But you see, to reject that is no small matter, because what you end up saying finally, ultimately, is that the scriptures are not inerrant. Inerrant means without error. There's an error because God says he created the world in a particular way, but he really created it in a totally different way through an evolutionary process. Well, that's a huge error right there. And so if there's error right there, then who's to say that there's not error a bit further on? In the book of Exodus, for example, in the story of the children of Israel being delivered from Egypt, who's to say that that really historically happened? Maybe that's just a myth. And we can't really take it literally. We can't really take literally the prophecies of Isaiah. We can't really take literally the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Or his atoning death on the cross or his resurrection. Because if God didn't mean what he said back here, how can we be certain that he meant what he said in any other place in the Bible either? So you see, it seems like a small thing. And I personally have had people tell me, you know, you shouldn't be so hard on that issue. You should kind of let that go, you know, let it slide. Don't be don't be causing division. They don't see the bigger picture. They don't see what's at stake. What's at stake is the authority of the Bible. And that's, of course, what the devil's always trying to undermine. Then there is the other issue of the integration of psychology and Christianity. Huge issue. Psychology has invaded the church. And there have been major attempts and quite a bit of success at integrating psychology with Christianity. Some people think this is the most wonderful thing that ever happened. They see psychology as as a fulfillment. Of what was lacking. In what God had originally given us. And they would go so far as to say that the church was in an insufficient state until the advent of psychology. And now that psychology has been brought in and and integrated into the church, now we have a complete system by which we can really help people. Not only make sure they're going to get to heaven, but we can help them know how to live life here on Earth through our psychological theories. Now, again, if you speak against that, you're branded as some radical, some person that's causing division. But you see, again, there's a bigger issue at stake. You see what this ends up denying. It denies the sufficiency of the scriptures and the Holy Spirit for life and godliness. And it creates a huge problem just on a practical level, because in essence, what it says is that for eighteen hundred years, Christians were deprived. Those poor Christians back then, all they had was the Bible and the Holy Spirit. But they didn't have this wonderful blessing of psychology, which, by the way, originated in the minds of atheists and agnostics who were intentionally developing a system opposed to Christianity because they rejected Christianity. That's what psychology is. It's a philosophy rooted in atheistic humanism. But people say, but wait a second, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Christian psychology. There's no such thing. Psychology is psychology. Now, a Christian might practice psychology, but it doesn't change what it is. It is what it is, and it originated from where it originated, and it originated with men who were hostile to the church, the Bible, Jesus Christ and all the things that we hold dear. So when when this is is integrated, when it's merged together or the attempt is made to do so, it becomes a denial of the sufficiency of the scriptures in the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches, Peter told us in second Peter, chapter one, that all things that pertain to life and godliness are given to us through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. Notice that notice the distinction there, all things that pertain to life, number one, godliness, number two. You see, what they try to do is is make a distinction between godliness and life. Christianity is great for godliness. You can learn how to be a godly person and make sure you get to heaven. But for life, you need psychology. Had a phone call the other day from a guy who was attending meetings and he stood up and said his higher power was Jesus Christ. And. He got rebuked for it by a couple of Christians, supposedly, and I asked him, I said, now, let me just ask you a question. Why? Why are you going there? And he said, well. I somebody told me that I needed to go there for my, you know, I get my spiritual strength from the church, but for my problem with alcohol and everything, I need to go to AA. And I said, well, what do you think? He said, I don't really feel like I need to go there. And you see what he was told is what a lot of people in church leadership believe today. That there's this dichotomy, there's the, you know, there's there's life, there's, you know, family and work and, you know, just the way you feel about yourself and all of that. And. You grow in that area and develop in that area through psychology. And then there's there's church and Christianity, and basically that has to do with heaven stuff. So in essence, what it is is, you know, coming here will help you get to heaven, but we don't have much that we can do for you while you're here on Earth. So, you know, just come on out and we'll encourage you that one day you'll get to heaven. But if you if you have any problems, if you have marital problems, if you have problems with your kids, if you have, you know, if you're struggling with depression or whatever, we'll send you off to the psychologist because that's their realm. There are Christian leaders who teach that, believe that, promote that. And in doing so, they deny the sufficiency of the scriptures. And the Holy Spirit, they deny what Peter said was a fact that all things that pertain to life, marriage, family, work. How you think about yourself, view yourself, your fellow man, whatever you want to put in that category. All things that pertain to life and godliness are given to us through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. So you see, it is a big deal. It's a huge deal. It's a massive deal. And I would venture to say that there are so many problems in the church today when it comes to just behavior and living and things like that, because people are looking to the wrong sources for help. And they're being told to do so by their leaders, unfortunately, many times. There's one more issue that I want to bring up that is relevant. And it's more to do with a movement within the church today. It's known as the seeker movement. And it's a movement that is swept through thousands and thousands of churches and the sort of the emphasis within the seeker movement is cultural relevance. We want to be relevant to our culture. Now, being relevant to your culture is an important thing. But it's the way they go about it that I think is a problem now, whenever we again, whenever we speak about this or bring the subject up or somebody asks a question on it and we answer, a lot of times people are upset. Oh, you shouldn't say that about that church or that book or that movement. But again, you see, it's because so often people are looking just on the surface. The seeker movement is the personalized version of what was known back in the early 20th century as a social gospel. The social gospel was an interesting. Experiment. And here's what happened. Christian leaders. They looked around and they thought, you know, we have the answers, we have the solution. We know how people ought to live. And we've got to get this message of Jesus Christ and his teaching to people, but the stumbling block to people is all of this stuff about miracles. And so what they basically said is that. We can Christianize the world. If we can get the ethics of Jesus to society. You know, love one another, turn the other cheek, blessed are the poor, all of those kinds of things, man, if we can just get people to lay hold of these truths, we can see an alteration in society. But the stumbling block, the thing that's holding everything back is the miraculous element of the Bible that stumbles people. And so this is what they did. They decided that they would reject the miraculous element of the Bible and just promote the ethical aspect of it, and they embraced liberal theology, higher criticism that had come out of schools in Germany and England. They embraced all of that throughout the miraculous. This completely did away with the virgin birth and the vicarious suffering of Christ, the bodily resurrection, all of his miracles and all of that. No, that's not important. That stuff, of course, that's just part of the mythology. The real important thing is what you read in like the Sermon on the Mount, the ethics of Jesus. And so they were attempting to help people help society by giving them the ethical teaching of Jesus, but making sure they weren't stumbled by the miraculous element in the Bible. The seeker movement is very, very similar. It's just a personalized version of it. Is he back then those guys looked at they looked at all society, said we're going to we're going to change society. By bringing them the ethics of Jesus in the secret movement, they're not so bold as to, you know, be shooting for all of society, they're happy to work on it one person at a time. And so that's why I say it's a personalized version of that, because this is what they do. Seeker sensitive churches quite often downplay important biblical truths like sin, judgment, the atonement and things of that nature. They downplay those things and they emphasize things like a healthy self-image, personal success, the champion within and things of that nature. You see, but in a sense, they're doing the very same thing. Now, on the surface, again, it doesn't seem like it's that big of a deal. Oh, why are you being critical of them? Well, they're doing a good thing. People are getting saved. And I believe in the sovereignty of God and I believe that people get saved in all kinds of peculiar ways. But you don't promote those things. God makes exceptions to the rule, but you don't promote the exception. And quite honestly, we hear about people getting saved. And how do we know that? Because the churches are filling up. These are some of the largest churches in the country. But are people really getting saved or are they just getting involved in a social environment that's enjoyable? Has certain benefits to it with just a little sprinkling of religion on top of it. I mean, after all, it's kind of hard to get saved if you've never heard about sin. It's pretty difficult to get saved. If you don't realize there's a judgment. And how in the world do you get saved if nobody wants to talk about the cross of Jesus Christ or the blood that he shed, the atonement that he made? You know, that makes it highly improbable. There's going to be any serious salvation happening. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, you've got to hear the truth. To get saved. So you see, we have to be wise in these days. And realize that there are in these days both doctrines of demons and diversions of demons. And we need to be really careful. About what we embrace, especially, but even about what we sort of just, you know, let go by as, oh, well, you know, let's live and let live. And we don't want to say anything negative and we don't want to hurt anybody's feelings or appear to be critical of anything. We have to be careful because there's a ton of. Error. Floating around today, just as there was in Paul's day, so we want to avoid avoid. Avoid. Both the doctrines of demons and the diversions of demons, how do we do that? We'll look at verse four for that particular situation, Paul reminds them for every creature of God is good. You see, you remember underneath the commandment to abstain from food and the forbidding of marriage, there was the idea that God's creation somehow wasn't good, was evil. It was bad, so you shouldn't be involved in any of that. Paul says, no, the fact of the matter is every creature of God is good, but I want to expand that a little bit, and I think there's justification in doing it. I want to expand it to. Every way of God is good, you see, and this is what people are failing to realize today. There is a right way to do things and there's a wrong way. There's God's way and there's man's way, and whenever we leave God's way, although it might look so innocent initially, although it might not appear that there could be anything really the matter with this whatsoever. Believe me. In a matter of time, it'll show itself for what it really is. You see, when they embraced the social gospel back in the early days of the 20th century. They their motives, in a sense, were pure. We want more people to believe we want more people to believe, so we've got to make it easier for them to believe we've got to get rid of this miraculous stuff. This is a stumbling block. And they did that. Little did they know that it would be the end of the church. Little did they know that it wouldn't work. Little did they know that society would get worse instead of getting better because you can't simply take the ethics of Jesus. You can't disconnect the ethics of Jesus from the life of God that he imparts to you to live according to his teaching. And you see, you can't dabble with these other things either without. Creating a huge problem down the road, the creation evolution issue, we need to stand fast on what the Bible says. Because when you start compromising with Genesis, you're on your way to compromising with John and with Romans and with Revelation. When you start compromising the integrity of the word of God, it never stops. And one day you might find yourself not believing anything that you originally believed. But it all started with just a little dabbling in one area. And so it's true with psychology, you just bring a little bit of that in. Remember what Paul said, a little leaven leavens the whole lump eventually. You start bringing that stuff in and the end. Will be much different than the beginning. You see, every way of God is good and God has the right way. He has the right way for us and he's given it to us in his word. And that's true of us as a church as well. God has a right way of doing things. Now, of course, God doesn't necessarily tell us the exact kind of format of our services. He doesn't tell us, you know, what our meeting places are to look like or how exactly we are to utilize communication abilities and things of that nature. In other words, it's not the external stuff that's so much the issue, it's more the substance of what's going on. And we need to be careful not to confuse that. You know, some people do things differently. We stand behind this pulpit and teach the Bible. Some people don't necessarily stand behind a pulpit. They might sit or they might use even a computer with a PowerPoint or something like that. And sometimes, you know, somebody will see that, say, oh, my, that's horrible. They had a computer up there. And where was his Bible? Well, you know, most computers, they can get a Bible program on them. But so, you know, so those aren't really the things that we're talking about. That's the that's the form we're talking about, the substance. The question is, what are they saying? What do they believe? What are they promoting? Are they holding fast to God's way through his word? Teaching the whole counsel of God. Laying the truth of God before people and letting the chips fall where they fall, those are the things that are important right there. And so every way of God is good and it is not to be refused. We're to do things God's way. And in closing, I would just say, be careful, be on your guard, because Peter tells us the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And I think that for me personally, it would probably have to be through the intrusion of psychology into the church that I have seen the most damage. I have seen people's lives destroyed. Not improved because the Bible and the church leadership were telling people one thing and the well-meaning, misled so-called Christian psychologist was telling them something else. And I've seen many people opt for the psychological option. And lose out hugely in the end. Lose their marriage, their family. And so many other things, but above all, lose their relationship with the Lord. We don't want to dabble. With the philosophies of men. Especially. Men who are openly opposed to God and his word and seek advice or counsel from them, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you've given us the word, Lord, as. Our protection. To guard us against the doctrines of demons. And so, Lord, may we be alert, may we be wise, Lord, may we stand fast upon your word and we thank you for it. That you have given us entrusted to us your truth and Lord, we look around us and we see that some have. Been led astray. By things that seem to be innocent. But they're really doctrines of demons. We pray that you would expose them for what they are. And that you would deliver. Those who are yours. Lord, we thank you that. Your way is the best way. And we embrace that tonight. Guide us and lead us in Jesus name, amen.