False Teachers

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
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False Teachers

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2011 · 16 January 2011

Let us go to the Word of God and look tonight at 2 Peter 2:1-3 as the text for the next revelation that God will give to us through His Word, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words, their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep."

Is there anything more infuriating to God than misrepresentation of His Word? Is there a worse hypocrisy than saying you speak for God to the salvation of souls when in reality you speak for Satan to the damnation of souls? Can there be a more heinous deception than being a false teacher in the church?

The answer is a strong "no" to all those questions. But such a deception is given to the church by Satan himself. In fact, such deception is one of his primary tactics to damn the souls of people to eternal hell. Satan has always tried to infiltrate God's people with those who say they speak for God but instead speak for him. Satan always tries to influence us with those who claim to speak the truth but who in fact speak error.

And God has warned us a lot how serious this is. If you read Deuteronomy 13: 1 -18 you would find that any prophet who comes along and suggests false worship or misrepresentation of God, or any misrepresentation of God's truth was to be killed instantly. Such a death penalty was even to be applied within a family.

In 2 Corinthians 11 :13-15, Paul is referring to some who have come into the Corinthian church, he calls them “false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, verse 14 says, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their deeds.”

Satan is very busy outside the community of God's people, creating all kinds of false religious systems, everything from the Muslim faith to Buddhism to cults, eastern religions and many forms of ritualistic religions. And Satan is in charge of all from the most primitive like animism to poly-demonism, from polytheism to very well known world religions.

And here we have the same concept that is that God's people will be infiltrated by satanic agents who come in the name of God, say the name of Christ but represent Satan. Now Satan operates in many ways as described above, but here we're talking about a very specific tactic within the church of God's people.

And as we learn from this particular passage in 2 Corinthians 11, sin never approaches us as sin, Satan never comes to us as Satan, sin always comes to us as pleasure and Satan always comes to us in the name of Christ, in the name of God. Error never comes to us as error, error always comes to us as truth, but it isn't.

The servants of Satan who promote sin and propagate error never come as the servants of Satan, they always come as the servants of God. They're always disguised as righteous and truthful servants of God. They are religious teachers who name the name of God and name the name of Christ but who pervert the truth, who are satanic emissaries teaching demon doctrine.

And in the Scripture they are never tolerated. They're never tolerated as sort of partially right and needing to be helped along to the fullness of the truth, no, they are totally denounced and condemned to eternal damnation. There is a power in a person behind these false teachers and that is Satan. He was, he is and he always will be working to destroy the plan of God until his final end.

I'm afraid the church today is quite lost on these matters. It has become very tolerant of error, and it literally absorbs the very deception that Paul and Peter warn about. The cry today is for everyone to agree with everyone, to tolerate everyone who names the name of Christ no matter what he teaches. This sort of tolerance has produced indifference to truth. Many churches are now witless, careless, foolish and blind.

Paul's approach was quite different, so is Peter's. Their approach was to identify the opponent, call him what he was, and fight him on the basis of a passion for the truth. D.A. Carson writes, "The Germans have a wise saying, the saying is this, "Tell me with whom you are fighting and I will tell you who you are." 90 years ago, Jay Gresham Machen used to tell his students that the most important issues are not those on which men agreed, but those over which they fight.

Why? Because Satan will always attack the most important issues and so they always become a battleground. Satan's tactic is to falsify God's truth from inside the church, through people who name the name of Christ, and thus to deceive and distort and ultimately to damn people to hell who think they have the truth when they don't.

That is exactly what is on the heart of Peter. This letter is a warning about false teachers and their teaching and here in this middle chapter of these three brief chapters he describes the false teachers. He wants us to know what they look like and what they act like. He wants us to know what they talk like and how they function and operate.

Now you will notice that as verse 1 begins, the language appears to be prophetic. "False prophets also arose among the people just as there will also be false teachers among you." It sounds future tense and it is. It indicates that false teachers will always come.

In verse 2, "Many will follow...the way of truth will be maligned...in their greed they will exploit you." There's no question that he is seeing this in the future. But it isn't long in this chapter before he begins to function in the present tense. Starting in verse 10 and flowing through the rest of the chapter he's talking in the present tense. And so the future is now.

Now he has a lot to say, it takes him twenty-two verses to get it all out. But he starts off with a simple sketch in verses 1 to 3. It's as if he takes some time with this portrait and first he sketches it and then he fills in all the color. The color starts to come in verse 4, but 1 to 3 gives us the sketch of the portrait of false teachers.

Notice how he introduces the subject, verse 1. "But," we have to stop there for a moment. It's an important transition. This should be verse 11 because it follows immediately on the prior verse. He says no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

He says God's word was written by eyewitnesses inspired by the Holy Spirit who penned the very Word of God so that Scripture is not the invention of men but the sure word of God. God has had His prophets and they wrote His Word with men from God.

But Satan has always had his men too, his false prophets and his false teachers. That word "but" is a very, very important transition. We need to be alert. Yes, God has given us a sure true word that came through true prophets, but Satan also has his own prophets just as God has His. The word also there in verse 1 is important because it too speaks of this contrast.

And so Peter says false prophets also arose. In addition to the men moved by the Spirit of God, holy men who spoke for God, there were also false prophets among the people. The phrase "among the people" is important. The phrase "The people" is used in the New Testament of Israel.

In Luke 2:32, for example, it talks about Thy people, Israel. In Acts 26: 17, it talks about delivering you from the people, meaning the Jewish people, and from the Gentiles. Then in verse 23, that He was to be the Messiah was a light to the people and to the Gentiles.

So, Peter says, "False prophets also arose among Israelites, among the Jews." There's a certain danger on false prophets outside, but the greater danger is when they get inside and they claim to belong to God, the true God. The Old Testament makes it clear that all through the history of Israel they were busy and they were effective.

That's the way it always was. And he sees not only into that Old Testament history, but he was thinking there as well of the time of our Lord Jesus, even the time in which Peter was living when false prophet dominated Judaism.

They're not only wrong, they are deadly. They are ravenous wolves, ferocious. They'll not only deceive you, they'll destroy you. The shepherd wore wool garments, it was the garment of the shepherd and the garment of the prophet. And those who come in sheep's clothing are coming in wool garments as if they are true shepherds and true prophets, but underneath the garment is a wolf.

They disguise themselves as shepherds. They disguise themselves as prophets. They appear orthodox. They speak favorably about God. They associate with the people of God. But they are children of the devil. Jesus said of those Pharisees and scribes, false leaders, they are on the outside whitewashed, but on the inside they stink with the stench of dead men's bones.

And our Lord said it would be so, so we need not be surprised. Just need go back to Matthew 24: 4-5, "See to it that no one misleads you, many will come in my name saying I am Christ and mislead many." It's pretty typical. False teachers, false prophets will arise. He's looking ahead to the end times, which is right now.

In Romans 16: 17-18 Paul says, "Brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, turn away from them. 18 They are slaves not of our Lord Jesus but of their own appetites and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting."

Now let me give you a few points that you find in this little portrait tonight. Number one; where this happens. This is happening in the church that names the name of Christ, in your fellowship, in your denominations, in your seminaries, in your pulpits, in your Sunday school classes and in your church leadership.

These are prominent people in Christianity that Peter is talking about, not outsiders. Turn to 2 Timothy 4:3 - 4 to get real insight into Satan's strategy. In verse 2 Paul tells Timothy, "Preach the Word all the time, in season, out of season, when it seems fitting, when it doesn't seem fitting, all the time preach the Word...reprove, rebuke, exhort.”

It doesn't say coddle, cajole or make them feel good. It says hammer them, reprove, rebuke, exhort, be patient but preach the Word. Why? 2 Timothy 4:3-4 says, “Because the time is coming when they will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and 4 they will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

Many church people do not want strong preaching. They do not want reproof, rebuke and exhortation. The word "endure" means "hold to, or receive" The time comes when they don't hold to sound doctrine. Sound doctrine means healthy doctrine, healthy teaching, the teaching that brings health, wholeness and vitality, life, strength and maturity to the church.

What do they want? Well, verse 3 says they want teachers who tickle their ears. They don't want any negatives. They want to hear things that make them feel good about themselves, that give a pleasing feeling to their ears. Well, that really means that they want to hear only teachers that agree with their own lusts, their own desires and their sins.

Don't tell us the truth, feed our self-centered needs, feed our desires and tell us pleasant things even if they are not true. They want teachers that will say what they want to hear, who will please them, who will give them what they want. And that's the new cry today.

People are often saying: you want to know how to preach? Find out what your people want to hear, find out what your community wants to hear, you say what they want to hear and that's how you win them. False teachers follow the people’s desire, their self-centered desire and their selfishness.

They aren't concerned about God. They aren't concerned about worship. They aren't concerned about doctrine. They aren't concerned about being confronted regarding sin. They aren't even concerned about truth. They're only concerned about personal satisfaction and having their needs met.

The result, verse 4, "They will turn away their ears from the truth." We have a lot of popular preachers like that today, entertaining people, giving them messages of self-esteem and ego building that make them feel good about themselves.

And they can go to church and never be confronted in a negative way, and this is true in some of the largest churches in America. The sad reality of it is they're playing right into the hands of Satan because what will happen is those people that will not hear about their sin nature and the dangers of their sins will accumulate teachers who will turn their ears away from the truth.

That word "turn" there means to turn away from. And once they have turned away from the truth, they're wide open to Satan's influence. They want good feelings. And that is what Satan does in the church. That's right where he wants to operate. The truth doesn't tickle your ears, it pounds them and it burns their conscience. But that is what they need to hear.

Secondly, the subtlety of his operation. 2 Peter 2:1 says, “These false teacher who will secretly introduce destructive heresies." Secretly, it isn't going to be open, it's going to be subtle. Jude 4 says, "They creep in unawares, they sneak in under cover."

That's why it's so tragic when a church makes a virtue out of tolerance to the point where it's so tolerant that it has forgotten real truth. And in come the sneaky deceivers with their destructive heresies, or heresies of destruction, or heresies that damn. And even the critics in Acts who wanted to discount Christianity called it a sect.

And these self-invented opinions lead to factions in the church, they lead to dissent and then they lead to division. They come into a church with their own humanly devised stuff and they fracture and divide and split the church. How many churches do you know that have split up?

Peter calls these destructive heresies, which basically means damnation. It's used five times in this letter and it always means final, eternal damnation. Well, next Sunday we’ll study more to prepare us for these dangerous false teacher. Let's pray.



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