Be Alert

The topic of false teachers is all over the New Testament. Jesus was the first. He famously described them as wolves in sheep's clothing (Matt 7:15) and told us you could tell them from the true teachers by their fruit (Matt 7:16-20). That was just the start. He said they would appear and "perform great signs and wonders" (Matt 24:24). Paul warned the Ephesians that "savage wolves will come in among you" (Acts 20:28-30). John wrote about "antichrists" (plural) who "went out from us, but they were not really of us" (1 John 2:18-19). So false teachers existed then and exist now. A repeated theme in these warnings is that they come from within, not from without. They are among us and they look a lot like we do.

This is a problem. It is a problem today. If they "look like us", how do we figure out who they are? That would be kind of important. Well, Jesus told us to inspect their fruit. "You will recognize them by their fruits," He said (Matt 7:20). So what does that look like? One fruit is what John indicated. Are they going "out from us"? Are they deviating? Are they living lives that contradict Scripture? A popular version of "false teacher" today is the health-and-wealth teacher. These live obvious lives of greed which Scripture refers to as "idolatry" (Col 3:5). Deviation. One preacher preached against sexual immorality, it seemed, in every sermon, but was caught with a prostitute. Deviation. Then there is the question of doctrine. Look, if Jesus was right and the Holy Spirit has led His people into truth (John 16:13) and if Jude was right and there is, indeed, a faith "once for all handed down to the saints" (Jude 1:3), then we shouldn't be seeing much that is new. Adjusted? Maybe. More fully understood? Perhaps. But not new. So when, for instance, the Church for 2,000 years held that marriage was between a man and a woman because that's what the Bible teaches and someone comes in with a brand new understanding that directly contradicts that understanding, you're likely looking at a false teacher. Just an easy example. If believers from the beginning understood Scripture to teach that homosexual behavior was a sin and someone waltzes in to explain that, "no, everyone for the last 2,000 years has misunderstood that and it actually doesn't teach that at all," you're looking at a deviation. If Scripture clearly teaches that Christ saved us by His blood and you have teachers telling you "It ain't so," you're looking at a false teacher. John wrote, "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error" (1 John 4:6). One other test is the gospel. Scripture is clear about the gospel -- saved by grace through faith through the death and resurrection of Jesus and apart from works. If an angel from heaven preaches a gospel contrary to that, Paul says, "let him be accursed" (Gal 1:8-9).

False teachers have always been around. We have been, in fact, warned by our Savior Himself that they're going to be around. We need to be vigilant. We need to watch how they behave. We need to see if they are teaching true doctrine (as opposed to, say, the pastor that assured us that there was no such thing as hell). We need to see if they submit themselves to Scripture or simply overlay their own somewhat contrary version. And we need to see if they agree with the biblical version of the gospel. It needs to be a constant watch. We need to be in constant prayer. The consequences of failure to detect them can be dire (2 Peter 2:2), even the risk of misleading the elect (Matt 24:24). Be alert. We need more lerts. (Sorry; bad joke there at the end.)