Introduction

Have you ever needed to detox?  There are all kinds of ways that people detox, but it’s become popular today for people to use, eat, drink, something that would detoxify their body from harmful toxins.  I looked up recently—popular ways to detox.  I found a wide assortment!  First one was fasting.  You can do a juice cleanse.  You can use a dietary supplement like a pill or powder—some sort of shake that you drink.  An easy one is to simply drink more water.  There are certain antioxidant foods you can eat.  I remember one time my wife and I did a tea cleanse—there was a tea you were supposed to drink to cleanse your system.  There are all kinds of ways you can do a detox to try to detoxify your body and get healthy.

One thing my wife does, though she hasn’t done it as much lately, is celery juice.  She recently got a juicer for this purpose, and sometimes before she eats she juices stalks of celery because it helps to detoxify the body.  Now I don’t know if you’ve ever tasted celery juice.  I like celery, but I cannot handle celery juice.  To me it just tastes nasty!  I don’t know if I could get a whole glass in me, it’s that bad!  But people do it, and they use it because it is supposed to be healthy for you and can help detoxify your body from harmful toxic substances. 

The church is very similar—in fact, Scripture describes the church as a body.  And just like we can get toxic substances in our body and every so often we just need to detox, sometimes there can be toxic things in the church.  Toxic people, toxic ideas, toxic behavior that we just need to detox from.  And as we come to our text for today, II Timothy 3:1-9, Paul talks about these types of things in the church, and he gives some stern warnings.  In the end of chapter 2, Paul talks about people who were vessels of dishonor in the church, and in this text, he continues his discussion and goes into more detail.  So let’s look at the words of life God has for us today, let us open His Word to II Timothy 3:1-9. 

1 But realize these things, that in last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy. 3 Unloving, irreconcilable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, haters of good. 4 Traitors, reckless, being conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. 5 Holding to a form of godliness, but its power have denied and these ones avoid. 6 For among them are the ones slipping into households and taking captive weak woman having been weighed down with sin, being led on by various desires. 7 Always learning and never being able to come to the knowledge of truth. 8 In the same way (just as) Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, thus also these ones oppose the truth, men having been depraved of mind, disqualified concerning the faith. 9 But they not will not make further progress, for their folly will be obvious to all, as also those ones [folly] became [obvious].

Here Paul warns us, and cautions us about the reality of toxic people with toxic influences in the church.  And from this text I think we come away with one big idea that I would like you to take home this morning: 

Big idea: sometimes we need a detox from toxic people

And as we unpack this text we ask the question:

Interrogative: how do I identify toxic people?

Paul helps us here, and he gives us

Four unmistakable identifiers of toxic people:

1. Toxic people approve carnal behavior (vs. 2-4)

Explanation: first, toxic people approve carnal behavior.  As we unpack our text, verses 2-4 are all about the carnality of people that are toxic in the church today.  But before Paul goes there, he gives kind of a blanket summary statement in verse 1—look at it with me: But realize these things, that in last days difficult times will come.  Paul gives Timothy a stern warning—if you didn’t realize it before, realize it now—difficult times will come in the last days. 

Argumentation: These last days we would call it the “church age”, the last days before Christ comes to rapture the church as His Bride and take her to be with Him, something Paul and Timothy were experiencing and we are experiencing today as well.  And he says “make no mistake Timothy, difficult times will come.” 

Let’s consider Paul’s description here.  Notice:    

●Paul calls them difficult or dangerous times

Application: And notice their certainty—they will come!  There is no doubt about it.  Don’t be surprised believer at what you see in our world today—the erosion of the moral imagination or Christian worldview in our secular culture at large and even in churches today—Paul talked about it 2,000 years ago! 

Explanation: but Paul goes on to talk about what this looks like in the church, and he teaches us that toxic people in the church use their selfish desires to approve carnal behavior.  Boys and girls, you can draw someone who acts in a carnal or sinful way.  And he gives us this list—18 different descriptors! 

Now we might look at our world today and think “oh yeah, I can see that.  This is happening all around us.”  But don’t forget, what Paul has in mind here is not the world around us, it is the church.  Paul is essentially telling Timothy to guard the church!  Why?  Because it is full of people who have self love.  And in the last days churches will be full of people who all they want to do is love themselves and get their own way—I didn’t say it, Paul did!      

Application: our desire for self-love has indeed taken over the church today!  We have these movements for self-love, and self-esteem, and self-fulfillment.  I wish I had more time to go into detail about this today.   

Application: But what do you get when this type of self-love happens in the church?  Well I think Paul illustrates this very clearly for us—utter chaos.  Destruction of Christ’s body the church! 

Explanation: it all starts with self-love.  But let’s quickly walk through the list Paul gives. 

•     lovers of money—if you love yourself you’re going to love money.  Just one word in the Greek—silver lovers.  And scripture tells us the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.   

•     boastful—this is a bragging, self-exalting, self-absorbed person. 

•     arrogant—showing feelings of unwarranted importance—maybe in the church, you make yourself about your ministry and your contribution and your service and think “well, the ministry couldn’t survive without my contribution!”  Arrogant! 

•     revilers—the Greek word here is blasphemos—talks of someone who is irreverent to what is held sacred.  This person can play church with the best of them, but inside there is contempt, even hatred for what is going on here. 

•     disobedient to parents—I’ve heard it said that this is the downfall of a society, when children rise up to go against their parents and we have the destruction of the home, it’s not a good thing! 

•     ungrateful—unable to express gratitude.  Can’t even say thank you—just expect more and more and more.

•     unholy—could be translated as profane—refers to shameful behavior.  Can be thought of as the absence of common decency. 

•     unloving—this isn’t talking about someone who acts in a loving way as much as it is a hardhearted person who can’t feel—the word means hard-hearted.  It is a lack of affection for others and heartlessness at the type of situations where they ought to feel love.        

•     irreconcilable—this is a person who doesn’t respond to an appeal for peace.  They just refuse to be reconciled.  Often times this is what happens with people who have a history of leaving churches and going to another—they get their feelings hurt because someone did something they didn’t like and so they play the victim card and refuse to be reconciled and so they just move on to another church where nobody knows them where they are free to do it again—that’s why when we get church transfers I always call up the pastor of the church where someone came from. 

•     slanderous—the Greek word here is diabolos.  It’s the Greek word for devil.  These people are devils in the church, accusing the brethren. 

•     without self-control—someone who is unrestrained—have no inhibitions—nothing there to stop them.  They just fly off the handle with nothing to stop them. 

•     brutal—just wild and untamed, like a wild beast. 

•     haters of good—They just have no desire for good things.

•     traitors—this is a betrayer.  You can’t trust them.  They fake friendship and will one day turn on you.  I’ve had these people in ministry—they can be devastating!   

•     reckless—aggressive, headstrong people who plow forward without taking time to think about the consequences.

•     being conceited—translated puffed up.  The root for the word is smoke.  This is the type of person who is high on what is coming out of their own mouth—they are so full of smoke that they are unable to see reality.

•     lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—Paul gives this conclusion statement.  Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.  He ends where he begins—these type of people, toxic people, don’t really love God. 

Application: There are toxic people in churches today—people who will derail a ministry, and Paul describes them for us.  Paul tells us to avoid them—actually the command in this text is in the end of verse 5—avoid them.  This is the imperative in the text and from this is where I get our big idea:  

Big Idea: sometimes we need a detox from toxic people

Toxic people approve carnal behavior! 

2. Toxic people mask inward character (vs. 5)

Explanation: but as we come to the next verse in our text, we see that toxic people mask inward character; they use their outward appearances to mask inward character.  Look at verse 5 with me: Holding to a form of godliness, but its power have denied and these ones avoid.  Paul further describes these people—they have a form of godliness but have denied it’s power.  But notice that word—form; they have the form of godliness.  It’s the appearance or embodiment.  Things look great on the outside—they can sure put on a show and look all spiritual with the best of them, but they have a toxic inside, and one day that will come out, as we’ll see later in our text.  They have ritual without a relationship. 

There has been no internal heart change and these people are in the church!  They are spiritual fakes!  They come in with the appearance of Christianity but what they really want is to deceive and to lull people into following them.  I like how John MacArthur put it:

The enemy of the church is not the man standing on the outside speaking against religion. The enemy that threatens the life of the church is the man on the inside who says he’s religious and lies.                 

-John MacArthur

Application: we need to be careful of these people.  They’ve never been changed by Christ and they are just putting on a good performance, and some of them are really good.  But these types of people are toxic in the church.  

Big Idea: sometimes we need a detox from toxic people

Now, I would remind you, that this book is written to a pastor.  This passage is most directly applied to pastors.  Well what does that mean?  I think it means that there are some people so toxic in the church that pastors just need to avoid.  They’re never going to change, they’re never going to grow, apart from a work of the Holy Spirit, that’s why Paul tells Timothy elsewhere in II Timothy he is to invest in faithful men who can teach others.  Don’t waste your time with toxic people Timothy!  Pastors ought not to waste time with toxic people.

 Why?  Because these type of people will ruin the ministry of a pastor.  They will suck the life out of him. 

I’m saddened to say that I’ve seen this time and time again.  I first wrote this sermon 2 1/2 years ago, and at that time I knew of a man in ministry who went through this.  Now two and a half years later, I know of several more.  Good godly men, who’ve had the life sucked out of them by toxic people in the church. Some of them may never be in ministry again because they’ve been burned, and they bear the scars of toxic people who have went up against them.

Application: and I say to all of you here who may be toxic people—you don’t want that weight on your shoulders.  You don’t want to be the person that a pastor has to avoid because you wouldn’t accept His ministry.  You don’t want to be the reason your pastor leaves and quits ministry, because you opposed him so severely he can’t go on any more.  These are the type of people Paul is talking about here in our text. 

I say to the rest of you, those who love Jesus, those who are trying to do right and serve Jesus, you want to learn and grow.  I say to you, watch out for toxic people in the church!  The early church was full of them!  And so are churches today.  Watch out. 

Big Idea: sometimes we do need a detox from toxic people

3. Toxic people ruin vulnerable people (vs. 6-7)

Explanation: there’s a third unmistakable identifier of toxic people in our text.  Not only do they approve carnal behavior and mask inward character, toxic people ruin vulnerable people.  Boys and girls, you can draw someone who ruined the life of another because of their sin.  Look at what Paul writes: For among them are the ones slipping into households and taking captive weak woman having been weighed down with sin, being led on by various desires. 7 Always learning and never being able to come to the knowledge of truth.  Now follow what Paul is saying here.  He just finished describing these toxic people in the church whom we are to avoid.  He lists 18 descriptions of their character, and now he takes it further.  So some of them, maybe not all of them, use their deception to ruin vulnerable people.  Now we need to talk about this and unpack what he says here. 

•     Slipping into households—this is significant.  If they can’t get you at church, they’ll get you at home.  Often times ministry happens in the church; disunity happens in the home, or other places outside the church building.  That’s what we have here—these people have moved outside church walls and into the homes.  These type of people sneak around outside of the sight of church leadership and they prey upon vulnerable people in the church, and many times they use the home as their chief battleground for their deception.  They slip into households and lead them astray. 

•     Taking captive weak women—I don’t think this is a judgment on all women, he’s not saying all women are vulnerable to the ploys of toxic people, but I think this is what was going on in Ephesus at the time.  We’re familiar with this in our world today—we see this.  There are cults that play on weak women.

This apparently was happening in Paul’s day.  Toxic people use their deceptive lifestyle to  ruin vulnerable people—and I don’t think this is limited to woman.  There are a lot of vulnerable men out there too.  One commentator wrote this:  

The Pastoral Epistles for Pastors (Chapter 3)

Beware of those who prey upon other’s vulnerabilities—they have hidden intentions

But look at Paul’s description of the women—taking captive weak woman having been weighed down with sin, being led on by various desires.  This is what makes them so vulnerable—they are weighed down by sin.

Weighed down—literally piled on or heaped up.

Application: there’s a good life principle here—when we live in sin we are spiritually vulnerable. 

Explanation: Paul continues his description of these women in verse 7: Always learning and never being able to come to the knowledge of truth.  Sure there is plenty of knowledge—these vulnerable women know a lot of things.  They’ve perhaps sat in church for years, or perhaps even they were Sunday school teachers or Bible study leaders—they have all this knowledge.  But knowledge doesn’t do you much good if you don’t use it.  These individuals have their head full of knowledge—all kinds of knowledge, but they’ve never learned to put it into practice.  That’s why Paul says they are never able to come to knowledge of the truth.  You can have all the learning in the world and still be spiritually foolish.  You can know all sorts of information but never achieve wisdom. 

Application: This is the difference between what I call an informational culture and a transformational culture.  I talk about this a lot, and this is often a struggle with conservative churches.  We equate learning with spirituality, so we give ourselves to learning and going to this Bible study and that church service and we know so much doctrine, so much theology, so much Scripture.  But we’re never transformed by it.  In my experience, some of the churches with the most faithful, and Biblically literate and knowledgeable people have the most struggles and are the most carnal, Corinthian-hearted churches! 

This is Paul’s description of these vulnerable women in the church at Ephesus, but don’t think it is limited to women and don’t think it was limited to Paul’s day.  We all need to be careful that we don’t allow ourselves to become corrupted and let astray by our sin, and that we don’t become so consumed with piling up vast amounts of Biblical knowledge that we fail to be transformed by all of our spiritual learning.               

Big idea: sometimes we need a detox from toxic people

4. Toxic people hinder personal growth (vs. 8-9)

Explanation: coming back to our text we find one final unmistakable description of toxic people in the church: toxic people hinder personal growth.  Paul gives us the end result of the lifestyle of toxic people in verses 8-9—In the same way (just as) Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, thus also these ones oppose the truth, men having been depraved of mind, disqualified concerning the faith. 9 But they not will not make further progress, for their folly will be obvious to all, as also those ones [folly] became [obvious].  

Paul makes this comparison to the way toxic people oppose the work of the Lord with these two individuals—Jannes and Jambres opposing Moses.  Who were they?  Well they are never mentioned in Scripture.  But tradition says that they were magicians who opposed Moses when he stood before Pharoah.  Remember this?  He threw his staff down and it turned into a snake and then he picked it up again and it turned back into a staff.  He struck the water in the Nile river with his staff and it turned to blood, and then he did it again and it turned back.  Pharaoh’s magicians recreated these miracles in opposition to Moses. 

Application: and Paul makes this connection for these toxic people in the church.  Just like these two men opposed Moses, so toxic people are opposed to the work of God.  They may not think they are; in fact often times they think they are doing God’s will and standing up for truth, but they are in opposition to leadership.  This type of person cannot follow leadership and so when they can’t make any headway inside the church because the shepherds are shepherding the flock the way God wants them to, they move to the home. 

But notice the point of the illustration here—Jannes and Jambres performed the exact same miracles and signs that Moses performed—they did the same things!  But their power was not of God.  There are people in churches who are like this.  They look like their lives have been transformed by the very same power that most of us have been, but it’s a farce; a facade.  They, as Paul said earlier, have the appearance of godliness but deny the power thereof.  Paul says they oppose truth.  They might think they are choosing truth, but it’s just their truth.  It’s just their way.  They are going solo and becoming a lone ranger with what they want—it’s their truth but it’s not the truth.

Illustration: that’s kind of a big movement in our world today—the idea of “your truth.”  Oprah Winfrey popularized the concept for use of “speaking your truth.”  The problem is there is no such thing!  There’s really only two categories—God’s truth and Satan’s lies; there’s nothing in between.  These people that Paul describes choose Satan’s lies and mask it as God’s truth!  

Explanation: that’s what Paul tells us in this text: thus also these ones oppose the truth, men having been depraved of mind, disqualified concerning the faith. These people are so far gone in their spiritual lives that if something doesn’t change now their spiritual lives will be ruined!  They are spoiled in their minds and there really was no spiritual relationship there.

Illustration: In Bible college, I had a theology professor who enjoyed making his exams probably more difficult than they should have been.  He wanted to emphasize the importance of getting theology right, so he would have these multiple choice questions and if you answered right you would have given an orthodox answer, but if you answered wrong you were a heretic.  And he made these tests incredibly hard, and then when a large percentage of the class would fail, he would grade on a curve. 

Application: Paul teaches us here that God doesn’t grade on a curve.  You can’t fail his test and somehow still be one of his.  You can’t have everything right on the outside and have no heart, and still be one of His.  You either past or fail his test!  I wonder, if you were given this test, what would your grade be, pass or fail?  If God examined your heart and saw the things that only He could see, the things in your heart that only you knew about, would you get a pass or fail?  Jesus reminds us in:

Matthew 7:21 NASB95

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

Explanation: These people, toxic people, use their opposition to hinder personal growth.
 But Paul gives us a promise in our text—they will not make further progress.  One day, God in His sovereign rule is going to stop their influence!  Oooh, watch out if you’re one of these people; one day God will stop you!  Paul says their folly will be obvious to all, just as was the folly of Janis and Jambres. 

Application: watch out toxic people in the church!  Watch out those who want to wrangle and fight!  Watch out those who want to creep into homes and get a following!  Watch out those who can’t follow leadership and want to take control yourself!  Watch out those who are always learning but never come to the knowledge of the truth!  One day, God is going to reveal to all that you are a fool. 

If this is you, one day your heart will come out.  You can’t hide forever.  One day everyone will be able to see the truth about toxic people—Paul says your folly will be obvious to all!  Toxic people approve carnal behavior, they mask inward character, they ruin vulnerable people, and they hinder personal growth.  That’s how you spot toxic people!                  

Big idea: sometimes we need a detox from toxic people

CONCLUSION

In our home, we’ve had a problem; for two consecutive summers now—we didn’t have it this past summer.  When I went to take our trash tote to the curb to be picked up by the trash company, as I looked inside, it was full of maggots.  I don’t know why this is; we do have young boys who like to put all sorts of things in our inside trash can, so I don’t know.  Now, it didn’t matter that we used the nice scented trash bags—you know what I’m talking about?  You open them up and they smell like lavender?  We use those for our inside trash can.  But that didn’t seem to help, because when we tied up the bags and took them outside to put in our large tote, they still got maggots, and let me tell you, it didn’t smell like lavender any longer!  It’s a simple concept— it didn’t matter what we put the trash in on the outside, if the inside was rotten eventually that was going to affect the whole can.  I wouldn’t expect to pop open the lid and the whole thing smelled flowery and fresh and simply wonderful.  Why?  Because what was on the inside came out and ruined the entire load of trash. 

It’s the same way in our spiritual lives and in the church.  You can’t expect to have a corrupt inside and everything will stay nice and fresh on the outside.  One day what is inside will eventually come out.  If you have a corrupt inside—a depraved or spoiled mind as Paul talks about, it will come out.  It will destroy those around you, and it will ruin your own spiritual life! 

Next Steps

So what do we do?  What can we do about this?  What are some practical take-aways today for dealing with toxic people?  Let me give you some thoughts, these come from an article that was sent to me by author Gary Thomas:  

1) Don’t view it your mission as to stop toxic people from sinning

•     Don’t try to control a controller.  Work around them as you are required to, but don’t let their ups and downs become your ups and downs.  Keep a healthy level of distance between the two of you.

•     Keep first things first. Our job isn’t to stop people from sinning.  Focus on investing in reliable people—II Timothy 2:2 mentality.

•     Set up a specific prayer time this week to ask God to give you grace as you deal with sinning people, recognizing that God gives His grace to you 

2) Don’t let their toxicity become yours

•     Guard against letting someone else’s toxicity tempt you to respond in a similarly toxic fashion.  We can’t control what toxic people do and say, but we can control what we do and say.

•     Don’t allow someone who is ruining their life to ruin yours as well.  Leave work at work (or family drama at family gatherings).

•     Spend some specific time in prayer this week asking God to protect you from the influence of these people and to search you for how you may have become toxic; read through some of the proverbs that talk about the difference between wise people and foolish people, and let that guide you in your attempts to not be a toxic person yourself; and stay strong and faithful in your personal relationship with God and take care of your own sin!  

3) Speak truth to toxic people

•     We live by the truth.  We don’t have to pretend toxic people aren’t toxic; we just have to learn a nontoxic way of interacting with them.

•     Pray for them

•     Give them snippets of truth and wait for God to work

•     As you leave today, ask God for wisdom in how to have hard conversations; look at some Biblical examples of how Jesus did it

4) Remember to love them as Jesus did

•     It can be so easy for us to just pass them off as toxic people—“Ooh I need to stay away from them” and yet we never love them.  We never pray for them.  We don’t treat them with the love of Christ.  But remember, Jesus ministered to a toxic person named Judas for 3 years before his toxic influence was revealed.  Sometimes he did leave them and walk away from them, but other times he let them experience his ministry.  We still need to love them like Jesus and desire their repentance.  This is where the Gospel fits into this situation. 

•     As you leave today, ask God to give you His heart for broken people, and read through one of the Gospels this week to look how Jesus did that 

Well, I hope that these are some practical ways that you can put this text into practice this week.  Paul warns Timothy—“there are toxic people in the church!  We need to guard ourselves against them so that their toxic influence doesn’t corrupt us as well. 

Big idea: sometimes we just need a detox from toxic people

Imagine what your church would be like if everyone here today detoxed from the toxic people who may even be in your church right now?  Think about that, and do it this week!