A DIVISIVE DEMEANOR AND DOCTRINAL DEPARTURE

Hatefulness and heresy are partners in crime. The one who deviates from the faith will also potentially divide the flock. Both are deadly viruses that can infect a church until it becomes sick, or even dies! 

These make mountains out of molehills while failing to embrace the fundamentals of the faith. Instead, they take a text out of context and use it as a pretext for some theological novelty they want others to embrace. Such preach that they have received some new insight—often in a “dream,” or “vision.”  What they do is package error as enlightenment. 

Paul brands such arguments as unprofitable and useless and tells us to avoid these erroneous teachings and the evil teachers themselves —unless they repent when confronted. 

To platform such and have prolonged discussions is to elevate the doctrinal deviant to the same status as the true teachers. Immersing your mind in the study of heresy is to contaminate your own thinking. You cannot walk through a coal mine without inhaling some black dust. Do you want to drink just an ounce of chicken manure stirred in your coffee?  

For a period of time, I had a section of books in my library as examples of false teaching, but I have since thrown them away. I never read them, but what if someone saw them, and it piqued their curiosity?  Or after I died, what if someone got hold of them and wondered if I subscribed to those errors as those books were found in my library?  They went where such teaching belongs—in the trash!

At best, the study of false teaching and striving with false teachers is a waste of precious time better spent immersing oneself in the study and of Scripture and proclamation of it. A bank teller can detect counterfeit money, but not because they spend hour after hour studying counterfeiters and their craft. Rather, they handle real currency continually and thus when a forgery comes their way, they spot it right away.

Study the Scriptures. Listen to and learn from faithful men. “New” truth is likely ancient error repackaged.  Don’t waste time sorting through garbage. Toss it and turn to the Truth.

THE SUBTLETY OF THE WAYWARD

 

The devil is a roaring lion seeking to strike fear into his prey, but is also a sneaky snake that crawls in and waits in the darkness before injecting its fangs of false doctrine into the victim. This is how the serpent attacked Eve—first to doubt the accuracy of the Word of God with a question, “Did God really say?” and then to deny the authority of the Word of God with a contradiction, “No!  You will not die...” (Gen.3:1,4). 

In the prior letter, Paul set the order for the church—that men were responsible to be elders and teach doctrine in the church (1 Tim.2:11-15). The culture is increasingly feminized—masculinity is under attack—and this spirit is growing in the church in the name of equality. 

Of course, there is equality of dignity among men and women.  Neither sex is to be valued above the other. Yet, while there is no difference in dignity and worth, there is a difference in duty and work. We have different roles. The elders of the church are to be men who are the gatekeepers of sound doctrine while the women are to be the homemakers of young disciples. Women have a different role in the church and men have a different role in the home—neither less essential, but not identical.  

The warning here is to beware counterfeits like Jannes and Jambres who opposed Moses with their fake miracles (Ex.7:10-13).  Such frauds exist in Christendom today—offering the promise of miracles—bait that is wrapped around the poison of heresy.  We ignore this uncomfortable teaching to our own peril.

DECEPTIVE AND DESTRUCTIVE

But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.  (2 Peter 2:1)

False teaching is a cancer to the church.  It must be excised—every malignant cell removed.  Otherwise, it will kill the body.  What makes false teaching so pernicious is how closely it mimics the truth.  Often, in our physical state, cancer cells begin to multiply undetected, until they are well advanced.  So, heresy, has a way of invading the spiritual life and spreading without notice until it reaches a deadly level.  This is the subject dealt with in 2 Peter 2.  The old Apostle is calling for radical surgery of false doctrine and its teachers.

He begins by telling us that this is not a new problem—it is one of the chief ways Satan operates (v.1).  We are told that Satan is, “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44); “transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor.11:14); and that he “deceives the whole world” (Rev.12:9).  The serpent began his assault on truth in Eden with Eve by first questioning the truth, “Has God indeed said…” (Gen.3:1) and from there moved to denying the truth, “You will not surely die.”  (Gen.3:3) 

Satan has many minions who spread his lies.  The pages of the Old Testament find these tumors of false teaching springing up periodically.  One prominent example that Peter references is Balaam (v.15-16).  You can read the full story in Numbers 22-25 and 31:8.  We are astonished in reading how much truth Balaam’s prophecies contained, yet that only masked the evil intent.  The error in belief led to evil in behavior, for a man’s theology is ever linked to his morality.  His deceptive influence on the people of God would bring destruction—judgment on the Jews who followed his ways and ultimately Balaam himself would perish.  Do not think that the spirit of Balaam has been extinguished, however.  There are many who have taken up his methodology today—and Peter tells us it is as deceptive and destructive as ever (v.2).  It is heresy (v.1) and blasphemy (v.2).  Heresy is distorting God’s truth in a deceiving work and blasphemy is desecrating God’s name in a degrading way.

The motivation and appeal of the false teacher is exposed in v.3.  It is “covetousness” which exploits the gullible.  Is this not clearly on parade in much of what we see and hear on television today in the prosperity gospel preaching?  Whether it be a Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, and the like—their number is legion—great masses of people are swayed by the message they proclaim that faith in Christ is a ticket to health and wealth.  It certainly has worked for them.  Their message sounds so true—and much of it is.  It masks the malignancy of heresy, however.  When closely examined by a Biblical biopsy it is seen for the destructive deception it is.

Let them enjoy their “Best Life Now,” for there will only be doom hereafter (v.3ff) unless they repent.  Two illustrations of judgment are presented—the flood that fell on the world in Gen.6 and the fire that fell on Sodom in Gen.19.  God had his righteous remnant that He spared—those who clung to the truth—namely Noah and Lot (v.5-9).  In a time when the church world seems swept away by the tide of false teaching, let us be steadfast in standing on the Word!