How to spot a false teacher? (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

The Goal of the Show and the Warning Against False Teachers

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. Mike Abendroth here, NoCo Radio, No Content Radio, Loco for NoCo, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. Number one on the charts, with a bullet, February 23rd, 2022, Israel, please write me if you like to go.

Buy Sexual Fidelity, get things to go bump in the church for free, that�s on the website. And what�s the pactum, Pat Abendroth, new podcast that you should be listening to. And lastly, we, No Compromise Radio, we�re on Spotify, Amazon, and we thank you for listening.

I get some emails from you these days, and I appreciate that. I guess nice emails are better than aggro emails, but we are here mainly to exalt the one who never compromised, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last show, I was talking a little bit about false teachers in 2 Peter and how warnings aren�t really any fun, but they serve a purpose, right? So if you hear a warning siren, I don�t think you probably like it, but it�s important.

You�d rather hear the siren than have a tornado come that you didn�t know about, right? So it�s important. There were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you.

They�ll smuggle in destructive divisions, putting you against each other, biting the hand of the one who gave them a chance to have their lives back. They put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can�t tell right from wrong.

They�re giving the way of truth a bad name. They�re only out for themselves. They�ll say anything�anything�that sounds good to exploit you. They won�t, of course, get by with it. They�ll come to a bad end, for God has never stood by and let that kind of thing go on.

I am talking about 2 Peter 2 today, verses 1 -3, recognizing false teachers, and I just know that if you�re a NoCo listener, you�ve recognized the message translation. I like the New American Standard the best.

I receive the Legacy Bible, Proverbs, New Testament, Marcion Canon, Psalms. I don�t really like the philosophy behind it, short amount of time, not a wide variety of different kind of theological backgrounds for scholars, etc.

But when I read the little section on 2 Peter 1, verses 1 -4, I thought they did a pretty good job. So anyway, I will say things when I think I�m right or wrong. That sounds like a NoCo show. I�m drinking the worst coffee in the world, I�m going to have another slug of it right now.

Here�s what I want to ask you. Have you ever said to yourself, �I�m going to drink some coffee, and I don�t care if it tastes awful, like garbage, but I need the caffeine. That is the worst. How to identify a false teacher, that�s really what I�m after.

How could I identify a bad cup of Joe? Oh, this April I�m going to be at Community Bible Church in Beloit, Ohio, with my friend John Tucker, sanctification. Where else am I going to go? I think I�m going to do a two-day seminar on preaching for my other friend, Steve Meister, in Sacramento, and then I�ll be in Omaha in October for a Christian celebrity mega-conference with details to follow, Omaha, Nebraska.

I think they�re going to list the billing alphabetically. How do I recognize a false teacher? Well, I know how I recognize them. How do you recognize them? Peter gives you six descriptors so that you aren�t duped.

False Teachers Sneak In Secretly

Who wants to be duped? Number one, false teachers are sneaky, so don�t be naive. They�re among the people of Israel, chapter 2, verse 1, �just as there will be false teachers among you who secretly bring in destructive heresies.

It�s covert, it�s secret. They�re not on the Trinity, the satanic television network. That was a Freudian slip. They�re among the people of Israel. Satan�s got his people all over, counterfeiting, infiltrating, hijacking, commandeering, terrorizing, and they�ve also got their little hiding places in modern evangelicalism.

I think I said last time that it�s important for you, as a church member, as an honorary member of the No Compromise Radio Society, that�s kind of like the Mensa Society, you have to have a certain theological IQ to get in.

That�s pretty good there. Do you see what I did there? You don�t just take what I say for face value. What if I�m a false teacher? What if the denomination you�re at is a false denomination? Just because people are in the church preaching, that doesn�t mean they�re right.

Now, what I don�t want to have is a mass exodus and a mass questioning of pastors and faithful elders in your local churches. I�m not for that. But I am for you to just say, do you know what? Just because something�s preached in a church doesn�t mean it�s right.

Let me give you an illustration. I watched recently, I try not to do it because I just get too bugged, but I watched some white privilege, systemic racism, critical race theory, all this kind of stuff.

People in churches talking about it, positively, as a tool at least for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It makes me want to hurl is what it makes me want to do. Like upchuck this bad coffee back into the styrofoam.

Maybe we could call them styrofoam prophets. You say, well, but they�re in a church and they�re dressed nicely. By the way, they�re talking about oppression with their clothes that are five times more expensive than mine.

How does that work? Peter said they�re going to secretly bring in destructive heresies. These are damning heresies. Six times in this letter, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damnable, destructive.

They�re going to get it. They�re trying to sneak in this little theological strychnine. They�re trying to bring in these heresies, which at its core are things that divide people. Of course, these would be bad things that divide.

I want you to make sure you continue to pay attention. When people get up in a church, they�re not to just be believed no matter what. Be discerning. Now, you have to kind of brace yourself in all this because there are people that just want unity at all costs, even at the cost of truth.

J .C. Ryle calls it a morbid fear of controversy. Now, do we have that at No Controversy Radio? No Compost Radio? The infatuation with unity these days is just off the charts. It is sky high. Ryle said, �Myriads of professing Christians seem nowadays utterly unable to distinguish things that differ.

Like people afflicted with colorblindness, they are incapable of discerning what is true and what is false, what is sound and what is unsound, potpourri and Protestantism, and atonement or no atonement, a personal Holy Ghost or no Holy Ghost, future punishment or no future punishment.

Nothing comes amiss to them. They can swallow it all if they cannot digest it. Carried away by a fancied liberality and charity, they seem to think that everybody is right and nobody is wrong. They live in a kind of mist or fog.

They see nothing clearly and they do not know what they believe. They have not made up their minds about any great point of the gospel and seem to be honorary members of all schools of thought. You know what he calls that?

It's a creed and it's the creed is called nothing Arianism. And this isn't real charity. This isn't real love. This isn't real anything. This is all fake for the sake of, somebody's trying to call me.

I don't want to answer that right now. For the sake of, I don't know, virtue signaling. Be careful, Raul goes on. But the charity of many says you have no right to think him wrong. From such charity may I ever be delivered.

Did you know, it's a command in scripture, by the beloved, lovable, lovely, and loved by God, apostle John, John the apostle, believe not every spirit, but test or try the spirits, whether they be of God.

First John 4 .1. You're supposed to do that. You are supposed to test and try and discern. And you say, yeah, but it's such a pity. There's so many different factions and fractures in modern evangelicalism.

It's such a pity that there's so much controversy. Well, back to Raul. It's also a pity that human nature should be so bad as it is, and that the devil should be loose in the world. It was a pity that Arius taught error about Christ's person, but it would have been a greater pity if Athanasius had not opposed him.

It was a pity Tetzel went about preaching up the Pope's indulgences. It would have been a far greater pity if Luther had not withstood him. Controversy, in fact, is one of the conditions under which truth in every age has to be defended and maintained and is nonsense to ignore it.

These false teachers are sneakers. They're sneaking in. And you have to be very, very careful that you're just not lax. And you're just like, well, my doctrine is love Jesus, and that's about it. No, you need to specially tune in to understand what's going on, what is being said positively and negatively.

These people are in the church. Be very, very careful. You say, well, maybe not in our church because we have good elders and shepherds. Okay, fine. But they're in evangelical circles, and you can just click on anything you want.

You can click on gospel coalition, get some good articles. You can click on gospel coalition and get some awful stuff. You have to be very, very careful. You're like, I click on nine marks, I get a good article.

You click on nine marks, you get a bad article. Overall, you need to be discerning. And then especially you need to watch out for people that are bringing in destructive heresies so you can spot them easily so you don't believe what they say.

This is a shepherd's heart. This is Peter's heart. He understood. You have to know what's true. You have to know what's false. And you've got to be able to discriminate. Discrimination in doctrine is important.

We don't discriminate. We don't have any prejudice. Well, I discriminate true from false doctrine, and I'm prejudiced against false doctrine. And I don't care if it's from a white person, a black person, a woman, a man, a boy, a girl.

I'm going to be discriminating when it comes to the scriptures. There are false teachers. There are false prophets. There were false prophets among Israel. And what did they do? They didn't speak for God.

I can tell you that. They kept running around telling everybody was going to be safe and everybody was going to be full of peace and there's going to be no wars and nobody's going to have judgment at the end.

Like Jude 4, people secretly slip in among you, among you. Certain people have crept in unnoticed who were long ago designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

So you have to be careful. And I know you listen to the show because this is kind of what you do and who you are, right? If we're going to be against something, false teachers, false Christ, well, we have to be for something.

The real Jesus of the Bible, the atoning work of the Lord Jesus, you know, at the top of the list with his life and his resurrection, etc. They sneak from the outside. That's what you have to be careful of.

If they were only outside the church, okay, fine. Let's huddle up even more. But this teaching comes in, it comes in secretly and then splits because there are naive people there are immature people, there are ungodly people, there are unbelievers who would be attracted to this doctrine, believers who in their carnality and walking in the flesh that would like it.

And so it starts to create division. And the good news is not everybody buys it, but we don't need divisions in the body of Christ for something like this. This is destructive. This is something that's going to send them to hell.

We're not talking about when the rapture is. A tertiary thing. We're not talking about is there a future for Israel or not as a national geographic nation. We're talking about things that really matter.

Your soul is on the line. We're not talking about preference issues. We're talking about real, real important things. And these pseudo prophets come and it's like that little saying, whenever God erects a house of prayer, the devil always builds a chapel there.

Satan is real. Satan is a counterfeiter and Satan doesn't need to go to liberal dead churches anymore. He has already owned those. So he has to go to living live churches. He wants to go play people among you.

If you go to a church and all of a sudden you get to preach after being there a few weeks, I'd be very careful of such a church. No, no, we don't do that. Did you know 1 Timothy 4 says, now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

It is the doctrines of demons espoused through the lips of liars. I don't want any part of that, do you? Warning, warning, warning, warning. Say, well, I don't like the warning sound. It's waking me up.

Yes, I know. Warning. And so like a good shepherd, hey, there's a wolf. There's a wolf. Watch out, there's a wolf. Many false prophets have gone out into the world. That's 1 John 4, 2 Peter. There are many false prophets, not only in Israel, but also in evangelicalism.

Be careful. It's stealth. They're underhanded. They're after simpletons. They're after people that don't know their theological left hand from their right hand. They're people that couldn't defend the Trinity if they had to, and they just buy into it.

Sad but true. Sneaky. Blatantly believing heresy, but sneaking it in covertly. You should be able to ask your elders any question you want about doctrine. You should be able to ask your pastor after he preaches or maybe an email that week, did you, what did you mean by that?

Or, you know, our statement of faith says such and such, and you say something else. Speaking of which, statements of faith, if you have a weak statement of faith, if your church has 10 bullet points to say, this is what we generally believe, but you can get the 25 pages of the other stuff, fine.

But if it's just 10 bullet points, there's something wrong there. Now, there's probably an exception or two because there's a pastor who wants to have a more thought-out statement of faith, a confession like the 1689 or Westminster Confession of Faith, something like that, Savoy Confession for the Congregationalists.

And they say, well, you know what, I'm just trying to reform the church from the inside, and therefore we're essentially, I believe in the confession, but our website still says such and such because I've got to get this voted on at the elder board meeting, blah, blah, blah.

Okay, fine. But just in general, if the elder board says, we're happy with 10 general points, Jesus is God, Jesus is coming back, there's a future judgment, there's a heaven, there's a hell, sin is bad, Jesus didn't sin, the end.

All those things are true, but that's a pretty awful statement of faith in the sense of what's missing. What's there is fine, but it's not enough because false teachers nuance, and therefore that's how we have worked on the Nicene Creed, and that's why we think, okay, this is why Athanasius was against Arian theology, and therefore we've already solved this problem, and we need specific statements of faith.

There are people among us, and one of the guardrails is going to be a well-worn statement of faith. 1689 for Baptists, and Westminster Confession of Faith, or the three forms of unity if you're going to be united, reformed, etc.

In addition, dear listeners, you can do this to me, you can tune me off, tune me out, turn me off, you can do this to me, but specifically I'm thinking about your pastor. Your pastor's not the Pope. Mike Ebendroth is not El Papa, the Pope.

I'm not even a bishop, although I'd like to be. I would love to be the bishop of New England. I guess there's probably too many responsibilities to come along with that, but if I had some power behind the title, I might be not too bad.

One writer said, your minister may be a man of God indeed, and worthy of all honor for his preaching and practice, but do not make a Pope of him. Do not place his word side by side with the word of God.

Do not spoil him by flattery. Do not let him suppose he can make no mistakes. Do not lean your whole weight on his opinion, or you may find to your cost that he can err. It was written of Joash, king of Judah, that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.

Jehoiada died, and then died the religion of Joash. So, your minister may die, and then your religion may die too. May change, and your religion may change. May go away, and your religion may go. Oh, be not satisfied with the religion built upon man.

Be not content with saying, I have hope because my own minister has told me such and such. Seek to be able to say, I have hope because I find it thus and thus written in the word of God. If your peace is to be solid, you must go yourself to the foundation of all truth.

If your comforts are to be lasting, you must visit the well of life yourself and draw fresh water for your own soul. Ministers may depart from the faith. The visible church may be broken up. But he who has the word of God written in his heart has a foundation beneath his feet which will never fail him.

Honor your minister as a faithful ambassador of Christ. Esteem him highly in the love for his work's sake. But never forget that the infallibility is not to be found in godly ministers, but in the Bible.

Don't make a pope of my Gabendroth. I think I'd make a great pope. What do I mean by that? Because I would then preach the gospel to everybody. And I'd go around the world preaching that one message, St. Peter, 60 ,000.

This is what the Bible says. All the traditions that are wrong are trash in that sense. But somehow making my word equal with God's word, I'm going to interpret it for you, ex cathedra, all that, I'd make an awful pope.

So don't make me a pope. Don't say, Gabendroth says. Say, well, this is what the Bible says. I've learned it from a sinful man, a fallible man named Mike Gabendroth. I've learned law and gospel from him.

But it's in the Bible. That's why. Because I'm going to be gone one day. I'm 60, almost one. Is that actually a number? 60, 60, almost one. And then 61. That's old, bro. So what are you going to do when I'm dead and gone?

Well, Mike Gabendroth believes that. By the way, if you have a confession and a creed, then when your pastor dies, you hire somebody that believes the confession and creed that you have. Instead of the latest celebrity, instead of Mike's a dominant personality, let's get a weakling.

Mike's an awful administrator. Let's get a good administrator. No, you need to be a preacher who preaches Christ Jesus verse by verse through the books of the Bible that believes the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

There are people who are sneaking around. So I say, no compromise radio listeners, make sure in a world with false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostle of Christ because Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

Make sure you know your Bibles. You should be reading your Bibles. You should be sitting under Bible teaching. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, Paul said, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things. To draw away disciples after them.

Therefore, be alert. Remembering that for three years, I, Paul, did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. False teachers are sneaky, so don't be naive. You need to make sure you recognize them.

More later on NOCO.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.