False Teachings
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2011 · 29 May 2011
We have been talking about the warning that Peter gives us about false teachers and how to recognize them as false teachers. And how to defend yourself from false teaching and tonight I want to talk about how deceivers look at life and how God wants us to look at life differently.
We all are continually moving into different directions, we have new circumstances that we have to deal with in life, some of that deal with different work environments or being moved to a different location or being surrounded by different people and we all are challenged in our faith in different ways.
And so it seems that we should focus also on the message that these false teachers are teaching and compare that to what God is teaching us through what Paul says in Colossians. 2:6-10,
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
There is an all out assault on what we believe on a daily basis. And at every new point in our lives there will be new challenges and new things to confront as parents, as brothers and sisters in Christ and there is always a new set of voices that try to lure us away from the truth.
And often times we are faced with a choice of telling our friends or our children what we believe and creating a rift between us or not telling the truth to maintain a relationship with those that we love. So the question remains, what is more important, the future of our relationship with our family or the integrity of the gospel?
God says in Colossians 2 that what ever we do in life we need to walk in Christ, our interactions with everyone must be based on what Christ teaches, and Paul gets specific here identifying four steps.
The first step that he mentions is in the beginning of verse 7 which is embracing Christ as Lord in our life. Rooted is in a tense in the language of the Old Testament that means that the action is completed but the effects continue in the present time.
Do you know what Paul is talking about? The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the word “rooted” is spiritual growth. But that is not what Paul is talking about. He is talking about the moment when you accepted Christ.
He is talking about the point you believed in Christ, because at that point that was a completed action, God chose you before the beginning of the world and you responded, but the effects continue from that point on, you are being changed from that moment on.
Verse 7 continues by saying that you are “built up in Him,” which means that you are being changed to become more like Him. Everything that happens to you is created by God to change you to become more loving, more caring and more like Christ. And this verse says that this is an ongoing process that continues till you die.
And because this is work started and done and will be completed by God and not by men, this means you cannot lose your salvation. Philippians 1:6 says, “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” So the phrase “Once saved, always saved,” is true if you are truly saved.
But this does not mean that that’s all there is to it, that now you do not have to do anything anymore, that now you do not have to grow to maturity, that now you do not have to be an example of a Christian, that now you do not have to tell others about the gospel.
And brothers and sisters, this is a life long process. If you think that you are mature enough, if you think that you are good enough, if you think that you love others enough and if you think that you now can stop growing, brothers and sisters, you are wrong.
Step three is that “established you in the faith” as it says in verse 7. This is an ongoing action too but here it is an action that someone else does to you. God is causing all this to happen to you and in you. God is taking those roots and making them grow deeper and deeper so that you can withstand more and more trials through faith that is growing stronger and stronger.
All through this life there will be coming different people with different voices that will try to change your mind and change what you believe and shake your faith. Our adversary the devil will use whatever means to undermine your spiritual foundations. Sometimes it is trough false teachers but sometimes it is through your own family.
Whatever we are professionally: a businessperson, an engineer or a home care worker, whatever we do needs to rooted in Christ, whatever decision we make has to be rooted in Christ, whatever we say has to be rooted in Christ.
And Paul has one more step in verse 7 which is that we need to respond with a life style of worship. He says, “as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.” Receive Christ Jesus in such a way where you are thankful for whatever happens. Even “bad” things have a divine purpose of growing your faith.
Often times we cannot see God’s purpose while we are going trough trials and hardship; only afterwards can we see God’s loving hands guiding us through those times of stress and pain and understand the benefits that these trials have brought us.
Thanksgiving is the result of a life style that is rooted in Christ where we look at everything that happens as a blessing from God even if at first it looks like a punishment or suffering that comes from the devil.
What Paul teaches us next is: let the doctrine of salvation shape your worldview. What Paul teaches here is what the foundation of how you look at life is. He in verse 8 says, “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Here Paul is teaching us what we as Christians need to do; this is part of our responsibility. God is the divine initiator but we have to work hard to do our part of the deal. Paul says “Beware,” or watch out for false teachers that will cheat you. Listen brothers, this is all spiritual warfare.
And guess what, they are not playing fair, they are using every sneaky method in the book to make you fall. And the devil knows every weak point in your fleshly desires. Empty deceit means lies and falsehoods, every false religion claims to have the truth, every sect claims to have all the answers.
But the word that is really dangerous is what comes before this which is the word philosophy, which really means wisdom. The love of wisdom means theories about God, about the world, theories about life and you know what that is called nowadays? It is called your worldview!
And Paul says make sure that your worldview is a biblical worldview and not the worldview of people around you. And a worldview is not just what you believe but also how you interact in this world. You are going to do what your mind believes in.
Your worldview is not just what one sees but what one sees with. Most people wear either glasses or contact lenses and they are called corrective lenses, which correct what it is that you see clearly.
A worldview is similar to that, it also corrects and changes what you see with your spiritual eyes. And a non biblical worldview distorts the truth and interprets what you see in the wrong way. It tries to explain everything from the viewpoint that there is no God.
There is a worldview that says that basically all religions are the same and they all end up in the same place. And this is what false teachers are teaching. And that cannot be further from the truth! There is a radical difference between what the bible says and how they view God, Christ, sin, life and salvation.
The challenge is not just navigating all those different worldviews; it is also to be able to respond with knowledge and confidence to all those basic questions in life that are thrown at you from all different directions.
Maybe those questions are questions like this: Where do I come from? How should I live? Why am I here? What happens after death? Is there real truth? And you have to be convinced in your mind that you have the right answer to all these questions.
Now there are several main worldviews and then there are many that are derivatives of them. I just want to call your attention to these major ones so that you are prepared for them. The first major one is Theism, which believes that there is a single divine entity that created the universe and everything in it.
Pantheism says that God and the universe are one and the same. Agnosticism says that you cannot know the truth and that God is not knowable. Atheism says that no God exists at all and that everything can be explained by physics. And all the other worldviews grow out of one of these major ones.
And out of these grow philosophies that people believe in, and let me show you which are prevalent right now. The first one is relativism which simply says that you have your truth and I have mine, they might contradict each other, but all truth is relative to where you came from and what you believe in.
Universalism says that everyone is going to go to heaven. All paths lead up to the mountain top to God, no matter how you do it and what you believe in; just make sure you have one. Humanism believes that humanity does not need any outside source for happiness and fulfillment. And Individualism says that everything is all about me, the world exists for me and revolves around me and life is there just for me.
So how do false teachers want us to look at our life? Verse 8 answers that question, “they want us to look at it “according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”
Tradition of men are human traditions, elemental principles of this world all deny Christ, but here God says that everything has to be measured by Christ. Do you know that under Theism there are three religions that believe in one God: Islam, Judaism and Christianity, but only Christianity believes in Christ!
And because of that all other religions are false religions. You can be a theist and not believe that Christ is the measuring-stick by which God measures everything. This is what separates Christianity from every other worldview and every other world religion. All of them are an affront on the deity and work of Jesus Christ.
What false teachers and deceivers want you to do is to take Christ out of the picture. And when you do that they are pretty much OK with theism as long as you take the doctrine of Christ and the doctrine of salvation away.
Look at what is happening right now in the USA. What even smells of Christianity is forbidden in schools and public platforms while other religious customs are encouraged and played up. Public prayer is outlawed and the national Day of Prayer has been attacked openly. But if you believe in any other religion that is OK.
There are so many groups in this society that want you to hang together, to unite with other beliefs and other worldviews and the proper phrase nowadays is “to be tolerant toward every other worldview and world religion.”
But here God through Paul says that unless Christ is acknowledged this cannot be. Unless Christ is at the center it is all false. And the devil also knows this and so he is working overtime to get people away from Christ as much as possible.
So how does God want us to behave? God wants you to look at life through the lens that is shaped by who you are in Christ. I want you to notice how many times in these key verses tonight the phrase “in Him” is used. Paul says that is how I want you to look at life, “in Him”.
Do not ever forget in all that you do in your daily life what and who you are in Christ, and what His person has done for you and in you. And so you might say what does that life form look like for you and me.
That life will be a victory over the reign of evil! If you look at every other worldview or world religion you will find in it something satanic, something evil and overall falsehood. There is always some mysticism that is related to evil.
That is the opposite of what Christianity teaches and what Christ is the example of. There is real and objective truth and that truth only comes from God in the person of Christ and the Bible. Christ knows the end from the beginning and there is victory only in Him.
Paul says in verse 9, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” The very essence of all His attributes and qualities are all in Him. Verse 10 says, “And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”
Everything that you will ever need in your life is complete in Him, there is nothing else that you will ever need. He is the source for everything and He has been placed in your life and my life for complete fulfillment!
No matter what other worldviews may belittle you, it can never replicate the peace that is in your heart when you go to bed at night or when you know that you are going to die and are called home. This peace only comes from knowing that you are a child of God and that all your sins are forgiven forever. There is no condemnation! Amen?
How about you? Are you convinced that you are a child of God and that Jesus Christ is your Savior? Are you able to stand firm against all the accusations and trials that the devil throws at you? Will you still be strong even though you go through hardship and tribulation? If you are not sure please come and talk to me.