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by Charlie Wolcott

Over the last seven weeks, I have shared different characteristics of false teachings and tactics that false teachers use to promote their doctrines of demons. Let me quickly summarize these.

A false teaching has these characteristics:
1. It is a counterfeit of the true teachings of Biblical Christianity. It will look very similar but will not be a match.
2. It never points toward nor glorifies God as the primary. It will always point towards man’s education, man’s discoveries, the “revelation” given to man, etc. God may be given credit, but only as an afterthought, hardly a footnote.
3. It will promote some immoral act as being okay, acceptable, or good. The promotion of self is the major drawing card, using carnal means to feed carnal people.
4. It will deny the deity of Christ, the person of Christ, the work of the cross, or replace Christ with something or someone else. It will appear spiritual, but it will be without Christ and if all Christian references were to be stripped away, the teaching would hardly change.
5. It will appeal to the flesh and have some mix of pagan or worldly ideologies. Many take the pagan, worldly ideology and merely decorate it in Christianese.

A false teacher will tend to practice the following tactics:
1. They will quickly identify themselves as Christian to insert themselves into Christian circles.
2. They will demand tolerance for their ideas but will not allow for their own ideas to be challenged.
3. They may sneak in through secondary doctrinal issues to keep under the radar but all the while infiltrating the climate and changing it.
4. They may not be in church leadership but could be among the laymen and the congregation, promoting the teachings through a small group or committee.
5. They will twist Scripture to fit their agenda, ignoring the actual context in which it is used.
6. They will seek the approval and praise of man, even from those they know hold the truth, to validate their teachings, rather than be concerned with preaching the truth regardless of how people receive it.

This is nowhere near comprehensive, but it’s a valuable starting point in practicing discernment. So now comes the question: “Okay, I know how to identify true from false teachings, what should I do with it now?” There is a right to get angry that such teachings have gotten into the church, but the response must still be Godly. If you go through the book of Ezekiel, you’ll find that God gets ticked at false teachers who stole away the hearts of His people. That part hasn’t changed. But God hates with a perfect hatred, which means He deals with it the correct way. We must too.

God took false teachers so seriously that in Deuteronomy 13 He gave these instructions on how to deal with a false prophet. They are not to be listened to, not consoled, not housed, not pitied, not given mercy, not hidden nor protected. They were to be put to death. Makes you glad we live in New Testament times, right? But a caution – God is the same God. Jesus said it would be better for a false teacher to throw himself into the depth of the sea with a giant millstone tied to his neck then to lead a little one astray.

Another of the major false teachings in the American Church today is regarding the nature of God. Most people describe God as loving, soft, cuddly, but ultimately impotent. He’s only there to save them from their troubles, but not sovereign to take judgment over their sin. I did a whole series on “Another Jesus” earlier this year, and each one of these “other Jesus” models are false teachings that God will not take lightly.

But when we deal with these teachings, we must keep these things in mind:

1. Our battle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and principles, authorities of this world, and spiritual forces of darkness. Our battle is not against the men promoting these teachings, and that is NOT an easy thing to separate: the teaching from the teacher.

2. These people presenting these teachings have been deceived. They are being puppeted by the enemy to promote these things. We should seek to free them from the false teachings. Every time I talk with an ex-Evolutionist, an ex-Catholic, or an ex-Muslim, they don’t talk about getting educated or getting smarter to get out. They talk in terms of deliverance. So, I am preaching to myself, an intellectual type, to battle the spiritual forces blinding these people promoting false teachings, not the false teachers themselves. Because if they get saved, just like Paul did, they’ll turn around and preach Jesus and the truth.

3. While they are promoting false teachings, they must be treated as cohorts with the enemy. They cannot be trusted as friends. That doesn’t mean we hate them; it means we don’t trust them and we don’t let them into our circles. We witness to them. We share the truth with them. But we do not treat them as one of us, even if they claim to be Christian. Paul commands us to avoid them and have nothing to do with them. John told a widow to not show hospitality, something a Christian was commanded to do, to a false teacher because by embracing him, she effectively gave approval to the false teachings and thus would be partaking in his sin.

We will battle false teachings until Jesus returns and until the Deceiver finally meets his doom. We must stay vigilant and alert. Jesus warned that the false teachings would become more powerful and more deceptive as the end times approached. Some would be able to perform miraculous signs and do wonders (seen any TV preachers these days?). And if God did not shorten the days by intervening, the deception would be so powerful that even the elect, the truly saved, could be tripped up by them.

Apart from the grace of Jesus Christ, any of us could fall for these false teachings, so those of us who have some level of discernment must not get cocky. Romans 1 describes those being handed over to delusion for rejecting the truth. When any of God’s people interpreted a dream (Joseph, Daniel, etc.), they were quick to acknowledge that only God had the knowledge to interpret them. Likewise, only God has the full picture and knows the full truth. Therefore, only He can properly discern any true and false teaching. We MUST rely on Him daily, hourly, and even every second to protect us. This is life and death not just for you, but for all those around you. I pray through this series you learned the importance of knowing the truth, standing for it, and what happens when it is ignored. The Truth will never fail you, but a false teaching can send you to hell. Don’t be duped.

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