TITLE: Seed Pickers are Lost

TEXT: I Timothy 6:20-21

PROPOSITION: Christians who are seed pickers do not have a saving faith.

QUESTION: What?

KEY WORD: Definitions

READING: Same

INTRODUCTION:

1.     Bird watcher?

2.     Some eat insects on ground or in trees (robins, wookpecker).

3.     Some eat flying insects (purple martins eat mosquitoes).

4.     Some are seed pickers (crows, chickens).

5.     This lesson is the study of one word in our NT – babbler

I. Birds

          A. Some birds get seeds from trees, fruit, and pinecones

          B. Some look on the ground for fallen seeds

II. Scrap collectors

          A. Hang around streets and markets

          B. Pick up what falls from the carts and wagons

          C. Today - aluminum cans, hubcaps, dumpster divers

III. Parasite

          A. Hanger on, along for the ride, lazy

          B. Lives at the expense of others

          C. Today -  

IV. Plagiarist

          A. Uses the information of others

          B. UTSI scandal

V. Seed - Picker

          A. One who picks up scraps of information and retells them secondhand

          B. Does not check out the information, takes it for the truth

          C. Here is the real message of this verse:

                    Luscombe's Translation:

          Guard and protect what has been given to you to keep as private and confidential.  Turn away from:

* Things that walk on other people's reputations,

* Seed picking (gathering scraps of information and retelling them secondhand, without checking with the person involved)

* That which is not confirmed by knowledge

Some who proclaim and announce such information as factual have missed the target in reference to their faith.

          (NOTE: They desire a faith that will get them to heaven.  A faith that behaves in this way and treats others with such pain and contempt is not a saving faith.)

Conclusion:

          1. You have "erred from the faith" - Deny it!

          2. Some in the audience tonight are in that condition.