Take Heed to Your Doctrine
Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:16Devotional Series: The Good Shepherd
Teaching: The Good Shepherd pt. 2 (SUN_PM 2021-03-07) by Pastor Star R Scott
Now, we come to this particular hour, and there’s no new thing under the sun. During the Reformation, we saw the response to Romanism, the hierarchy; we saw Rome controlling the masses of people by keeping them ignorant of the Word of God. Those of you who are past Catholics, you probably wondered sometimes, “Why don’t they do this in English? Why is it Latin?” It was to keep the people ignorant. It was to become the sole authority, the church, and its representatives the priesthood. So, when people broke out from that totalitarian rule of the pope, they finally realized that it wasn’t through the church that they were saved, but by faith, faith alone in Jesus Christ. There arose what people refer to now as the priesthood of the believer, that we are all kings and priests, we’re all filled with the Holy Ghost, we all are able to commune with God directly, we don’t have to go through a human vessel. Aren’t you thankful for God that that’s the truth? But like everything, it swung to an extreme. And thinking somehow because I now have this communion with God as an individual, I can bypass the authority, or the community, of the church. No! You independently have a relationship with God, but you are placed by God corporately as it pleases Him, in a body, and there’s order that He has established in that body. Amen? And your freedom in Jesus does not eliminate the authority of the church in your life.
False prophets are deceiving and being deceived. Deception is the word of the hour. Now, as it pertains to our own hearts, we live in deception. Amen? No man knows his own heart. We think we know, better than anybody else, our hearts. We don’t know our hearts. Thank God for this perfect law of liberty, James says, that reveals our hearts to us, amen? We can become illuminated and know, at times, through the grace of God.
But the point that I want to refer to is the role of the shepherd in these last days, and to see that there’s a principle at hand. Who is restraining antichrist? The church. What is going to, then, be the target of Satan, and what is it that he wants to destroy at this hour? The church. Thank God the gates of hell will not prevail, amen? “I will build my church, (hallelujah!) and the gates of hell shall not prevail” if we stay in divine order. Because if we don’t, the consequences are going to be this: Satan has a great tactic. Jesus referred to it as it pertained to Himself: smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. Now, it doesn’t mean that we will all break up and run different directions. And smiting the shepherd comes in a number of ways. The shepherd is not just smitten when he’s killed. The shepherd is smitten when he gets into false doctrine. There is nothing that will bring death, destruction—what was it that’s said throughout the Scriptures many times, “And they were as a sheep without a shepherd.” They were wandering; there was no course that was set. Everybody was just wandering, and He depicts both Israel and the church in that state when there’s no shepherd over them. So, how does the shepherd, in this hour of deception, protect himself? Amen? “Take heed to yourself, and to your doctrine, that you might save both yourself and those that hear you.” (1 Timothy 4:16) It’s vital.
False prophets are deceiving and being deceived. Deception is the word of the hour. Now, as it pertains to our own hearts, we live in deception. Amen? No man knows his own heart. We think we know, better than anybody else, our hearts. We don’t know our hearts. Thank God for this perfect law of liberty, James says, that reveals our hearts to us, amen? We can become illuminated and know, at times, through the grace of God.
But the point that I want to refer to is the role of the shepherd in these last days, and to see that there’s a principle at hand. Who is restraining antichrist? The church. What is going to, then, be the target of Satan, and what is it that he wants to destroy at this hour? The church. Thank God the gates of hell will not prevail, amen? “I will build my church, (hallelujah!) and the gates of hell shall not prevail” if we stay in divine order. Because if we don’t, the consequences are going to be this: Satan has a great tactic. Jesus referred to it as it pertained to Himself: smite the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. Now, it doesn’t mean that we will all break up and run different directions. And smiting the shepherd comes in a number of ways. The shepherd is not just smitten when he’s killed. The shepherd is smitten when he gets into false doctrine. There is nothing that will bring death, destruction—what was it that’s said throughout the Scriptures many times, “And they were as a sheep without a shepherd.” They were wandering; there was no course that was set. Everybody was just wandering, and He depicts both Israel and the church in that state when there’s no shepherd over them. So, how does the shepherd, in this hour of deception, protect himself? Amen? “Take heed to yourself, and to your doctrine, that you might save both yourself and those that hear you.” (1 Timothy 4:16) It’s vital.