WWUTT 477 Wild Waves and Wandering Stars?

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The Bible gives us instructions on how to identify false teaching and confront it, but whenever we take our eyes off the target and start targeting each other, we're doing something satanic and still have a big problem when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. Find videos and more at our website, www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the book of Jude.

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Today we will finish up the series of metaphors that Jude uses to describe false teachers and the kind of damage that they can do to the church if the congregation is not warned of them and they are not removed from their midst, lest they cause anybody to go astray.

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So Jude, beginning in verse 12, he writes, these, the false teachers, are hidden reefs at your love feasts as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

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So on Wednesday last week, we looked at the first two metaphors. These are hidden reefs and shepherds feeding themselves.

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In both cases, they are hidden among you. They are not instantly recognizable for they look like the rest of the flock, just the way

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Jesus described them in Matthew 7. They are wolves in sheep's clothing.

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On the outside, they look like sheep. They look like they belong to the flock of God, but inside they are ravenous wolves waiting to devour someone.

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In this case, they're shepherds feeding themselves, so they look like teachers. They look like the teachers who are sharing the truth for the sake of the faith of God's elect, but they are doing this to feed themselves and may even use the right lingo.

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Or as we talked about yesterday, they may even have the appearance of godliness, but they deny its power.

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They are hidden reefs, so it's like a reef under the surface of the water that causes a shipwreck.

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And to use the analogy that Paul used with Timothy, they cause a shipwreck of their faith.

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And so they feast with you, they sit at the same table with you, but they have no fear of God and they're really just shepherds who are feeding themselves.

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So these first two illustrations are how they are hidden among us and not instantly recognizable, but requires discernment to identify them.

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And this is 99 % of false teachers. They're not going to come sit among us and say, hey,

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I'm a servant of Satan. Listen to what it is that I have to say. Now there are teachers that are that bold and there are people that follow them.

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Sadly enough, there was a there was a pastor in Florida whose name was

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Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, and he claimed to be the reincarnation of Christ.

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He had the number 666 tattooed on his arm and told members of his congregation to do that.

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And they did. This was a national news story. I remember first hearing about it on I think it was somebody like CNN or Fox News or somebody like that did a story on him.

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And then he was also featured in the documentary Religious or Religious, however you pronounce that ridiculous title that was done by Bill Maher, because he interviewed the guy and made fun of the fact that he thought of himself as Jesus Christ.

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But he instituted 666 as a number that members of his congregation needed to tattoo on themselves.

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And they did it. So there are some false teachers out there that are that blatantly false, and yet people will follow them anyway.

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But most of them are going to look like the rest of us, that they are supposed to be of the people of God or even among the shepherds of God.

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And again, it takes discernment to realize that they're not really of us. Now one of the things that I mentioned about this,

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I think I talked about this last week is that we we should not be immediately cynical of everybody.

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Lest we be studying these things and it and it may and it turns our sensitivity on high alert and then we just become cynical of everyone.

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Well, that guy's not a good teacher because it must be this or or whatever. And we'll find any little off thing to therefore declare of that person that they are not sound and therefore not a good teacher.

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They have made shipwreck of their faith or a heretic. So get them out. We should not say that of everybody that we immediately disagree with or we suspect something fishy of, because remember what

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Jude said at the start of the letter when he said, Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation,

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I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

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So Jude is reluctantly approaching this topic. He does not take great joy in having to warn about the false teachers that are among them.

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He wanted to write about happy things. He wanted to rejoice in their common salvation.

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And that should be our desire not to be heresy hunters, not to go out and find those who are teaching falsely so that we might make spectacle of them.

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I know that's what's popular. It'll get you a lot of clicks on your blog, a lot of retweets and likes on Twitter, a lot of comments on Facebook.

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Yeah, it's popular to do the heresy hunting thing or the discernment blog thing.

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But is it edifying? Are we actually doing this to build up the body of Christ or is it just to draw attention to ourselves?

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That's something that every discernment blogger out there needs to be asking. There can come a

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I have a hard time believing that the discernment blogger truly has the people of God in mind when they start getting really nitpicky over little stuff that happens to be tertiary and is not fundamental concerning the essentials of the

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Christian faith. There are those that we must absolutely call out as heretics, and we've done that on this program and even through what videos

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I've called out Bethel Church to show how their heretics, because they are fooling a great number of many people, even those who we would otherwise call sound in the faith.

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And that's another thing. Just because somebody might be duped by a church like Bethel, that doesn't necessarily mean that they themselves are heretics, just because you might happen to find a

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Jesus culture CD in their CD player does not mean that they have eschewed essential

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Christian doctrines. We just have to lovingly direct them toward. Are you aware of some of the things that are coming out of Bethel Church?

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What what they're preaching? But somebody who would find an attraction to a certain message that was preached by Bill Johnson or Chris Volatin or any of the guys over there, just because they might quote somebody on their

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Twitter page does not immediately make us go, should not immediately make us go. Well, that person's not a Christian anymore.

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That's taking it to the extreme. That's when we have gotten overly cynical and are looking for every little bitty thing to disqualify a person from the faith.

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And ultimately what they're probably doing is boasting in their own maturity rather than following the instruction that Paul gave in Romans chapter 15, that we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

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Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up.

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And as he goes on to say that together, you may with one voice glorify the

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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.

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Remember, there was a time when you were ignorant and somebody led you in the truth.

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And so we must also be patient with one another. And even when we attempt one time to lead a person away from something that that we have come to understand as false and they don't immediately receive our instruction, we still need to exercise patience, being careful not to immediately dismiss somebody who has been convinced that something is godly when you are convinced that it's not.

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There are a number of controversies going on right now. I mean, there are some that come to mind and I just don't want to use them as examples because I feel like I'd have to give the whole backstory in order to make the example work.

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But there are just so many controversies that are going on right now that under the surface, when it comes down to it, if you were to break the whole controversy down, you would see that it's it's really a disagreement over something tertiary and raising it to a fundamental level.

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And that's that's really what fundamentalism is. It's taking a third tier issue and making it of primary importance.

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Now, I mentioned to you that I've had some examples popping into my head, but don't know that I could use those examples without giving the whole long backstory.

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However, I think I can come up with something a little more general. Let's take six day creation.

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For example, a straight reading of Genesis one and two would lead us to believe that God created the earth and all things in the universe in six literal days.

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But there are others who read Genesis one and they they see it as being something a little bit more poetic a day, as it is described here, actually represents a larger period of time.

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After all, in the Psalms and the Apostle Peter, we read that a day to the

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Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. So we take that principle, apply it to the

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Genesis story, and we really have God creating all things over a larger period of time.

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Therefore, when scientists draw the conclusion that the earth is millions and millions of years old, well, science doesn't disagree with the

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Bible. We can actually make the science work with what it is that we read in Genesis one.

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However, those who would take the Genesis account literally see some deeper theological problems with that.

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For how do you account for the truth that is given in Romans 5, 12? Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin.

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So death did not come into the picture until Adam and Eve sinned. So how could all of the animals that God created through some sort of theistic evolutionary process have continued to be evolving and some of them dying if death had not even come into the picture until the

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Garden of Eden? So there's theological inconsistencies with theistic evolution, but those who believe in a literal six day creation have a consistent theology from Genesis to Revelation.

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So there are those who believe in six day creation who will look at those who believe in theistic evolution and call them heretics because they do not believe in the literal

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Genesis account. I don't think it's that essential an issue. I have friends who are theistic evolutionists or day age creationists, and I think they're wrong, but I'm not going to say of them that they deny the essentials of the

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Christian faith and are therefore heretics and are not saved just because we have a difference of opinion on the creation story.

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I would even say that a pastor who is a day age creationist has disqualified himself from preaching in my pulpit.

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Now, I'm not going to invite him to come preach about creation, but he's still perfectly capable of preaching a fabulous sermon on justification by grace through faith or the atonement of the cross or double imputation.

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This is a tertiary matter, our disagreement over creation and how

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God brought all things to be. It is not an essential doctrine.

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I just had an issue that happened to me a few weeks ago in which a pastor who found out that I am not a dispensationalist and again,

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I'm not going to go into the whole explanation of what dispensationalism is, for those of you who don't know. But this pastor who found out that I was not a dispensationalist insinuated that I deny sola scriptura or the infallibility and full authority of the scriptures simply because I don't believe in the same end times theology that he believes in.

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That's absolutely absurd. And there simply was no negotiating with the man over this matter.

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There's another church here in town, here in Junction City, where I preach, who has labeled me a heretic because I'm not a dispensationalist.

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Again, this is taking a tertiary matter and raising it to a fundamental level of importance.

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And many of the squabbles that I see going on right now in even some of the reformed camp in the

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Christian community has been because a tertiary level issue or a matter of disagreement over method has been raised to like a fundamental level of of of essential doctrines.

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And it's causing extreme rifts and fights and squabbles in the in the body of faith.

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We must stop this. We must not be so nitpicky toward one another because this is satanic.

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It's satanic to be so critical of each other. The name Hasatan, from which we get the name

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Satan, means the accuser or the adversary. It is a devilish work to be cynical of everyone's shortcomings, because brothers and sisters, if you want to find another person's shortcomings, you will find them.

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We are all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God and are needing his grace in order to raise us up from that pit that we are in, constantly falling into because of our sin and raising us up into his righteousness.

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And so we must be constantly showing that same grace toward one another.

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It is it is gracious for the people of God to exercise grace with one another and to guide one another in patience, not constantly flipping a lid when somebody disagrees with something, especially on a tertiary matter from what it is that we believe in.

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So anyway, we've only I've only been recapping the first two metaphors here that Jude uses in Jude 12.

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These are hidden reefs. They're shepherds feeding themselves. Yesterday, we looked at waterless clouds, the paradoxes that they are because you can't actually have a waterless cloud, nor can they give what it is that they promise refreshing in the

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Holy Spirit. They don't have the Holy Spirit, so they can't give the Holy Spirit. They're waterless clouds swept along by winds.

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They are fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. Again, we have another metaphor related to spiritlessness and they and a paradox.

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How can they be a tree if they are twice dead and uprooted? Yep, they've become firewood.

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That's really what they are. And then the last two metaphors that we're looking at today in Jude, verse 13, they are wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

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These are navigational metaphors. So how is it that you can pilot a ship against the wild waves of the sea?

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It's impossible. You have to go with the waves. You can't navigate a ship against any wild waves when the storms come in and the waves are huge and massive.

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You're going to go where the waves push you to go. And so these false teachers can push the entire church toward false teaching.

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If something is not done about them and God will even allow false teachers to lead a wayward church astray.

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We read in 2 Thessalonians, chapter two, that God will send them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

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So could that be said of this church, that they had pleasure in unrighteousness rather than rejoicing in the truth?

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If that is so, then God would allow them to be led astray by a strong delusion.

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So Jude is warning them. And basically, if you if you contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, you must warn the saints about these false teachers.

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You must expel them from your midst, lest they be those wild waves that would push the entire church away from the truth and into false teaching.

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Sorry, my Bible got turned to second Peter somehow, I'm back, had to turn my pages back. So here we are.

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So they are wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame.

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And this this also may be an allusion to their sexual immorality, that these false teachers would direct people toward sensuality rather than the truth, a feeling in the flesh rather than an adherence to the soundness of the faith.

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They are wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

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Again, this is a navigational metaphor. So if one is guiding their ship, according to the stars, they're guiding the ship according to fixed points in the sky.

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This is the way that ancient sailors would navigate their ships. The stars that I'm looking at tonight are in the same position as they were in last night.

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They're going to be in that same place tomorrow night. When I came by this way last time,

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I was navigating by the stars. So I know where I am, according to the journey that that I had taken the first time, you know, so sailors traveling along according to the stars, fixed points in the sky.

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But if these false teachers are wandering stars, you cannot guide yourself by them. They're not fixed.

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They're not fixed truth. They have not been grounded upon the foundational teaching of the apostles with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone, as Paul talks about in Ephesians one and two.

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So these wandering stars are not are not to be navigated by.

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Rather, they are those for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

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And that is the judgment that will come upon them, just as we were talking about yesterday about fruitless trees who are twice dead and uprooted have become firewood.

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And they're going to be burned up at the coming of the judgment of God. So those who are wandering stars likewise will be cast into the gloom of utter darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, as Jesus talked about in Matthew twenty four and twenty five.

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So let us be aware that there is there are serious consequences to false teaching.

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And those who teach falsely in terms of heretics, those who would actually teach doctrine that would lead a person away from saving faith, not a person who would teach doctrine that would lead a person away from a sound understanding of the creation story, but somebody who is leading someone away from the saving truth of the cross of Christ, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension into heaven, his promise of coming again.

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If they are not teaching the essential truths, then they are leading a person into hell.

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Not through the gates of heaven. And we must make the saints aware of those false teachers so no one would be led astray.

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Let us use discernment, but let us always be loving and patient. The instruction, again, that Paul gave to Timothy in Second Timothy, chapter two, verse twenty three, is that the

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Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone able to teach patiently enduring evil.

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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

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Remember, the instruction given to us in Ephesians six is that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces in the dark realm that we cannot see with our eyes, but we can discern according to the scriptures.

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Amen. This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And let your friends know about our ministry. Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's Word when we understand the text.