Identifying False Teachers | Rapp Report Weekly Wrap-up 0024 | Striving for Eternity

Welcome to The Wrap Up, Daily Edition, where we provide a quick biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of striving for eternity.

Jude’s Call to Contend for the Faith and Identify False Teachers

Well, what we wanted to do this wrap up is to provide really a look at the book of Jude, verses 5 to 16, to give an overview. So we can be able to spot and identify when we see false teachers in our midst.

Jude provides a good example and provides some information for us to be able to identify them, to give a warning to them specifically, and ones that we should give to them is that they are going to be under judgment.

He's going to give lots of examples. And so we take Jude as a chapter, and you can look at many different books of the Bible to see warnings of false teachers. Another parallel to this would be 1 Peter.

Much of the same content is there as well. Maybe even dealing with the same type of false teachers. But what you see in Jude is very concisely telling us we have to contend for the faith. The faith of Christianity is constantly under attack.

It is always going to be under attack because the world does not want the truth to be known. And that's why it comes under attack in so many subtle ways. And this is why we must contend for the faith.

We must look to be accurate in an understanding of God's Word. And that is actually the key. As we're going to see, many of these people want to look to their own Word rather than God's Word. And that's the importance.

We must turn to God's Word and have God's Word alone as the authority. That's where we can say, thus says the Lord. We shouldn't say thus says the Lord if it's my dream or my thinking. No, thus says the Lord when His Word says so.

So I hope this helps you to identify, mark, and be warned against false teachers. We have to deal with the issue very often of false teachers. This is nothing new. In fact, we see the book of 1 Peter and also the book of Jude deals with this specifically.

But we see it throughout the New Testament. Even in the Old Testament, there was always an issue with false teachers. We want to look at the book of Jude and see what it says to us that we can learn about false teachers.

How to spot them. How to avoid them. Right off the bat, in verse 3 and 4, he says that he writes these things for our common salvation. And it was necessary why these believers would contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

So this is the motivation that we have that we have to think about. When we are going out to contend against false teaching, it is not to promote ourselves. It is about the gospel message. So the first thing that we end up seeing that Jude instructs us is that it isn't that we should be out there looking for heresy everywhere we can find it.

No, but there are going to be false teachers. And we do need to warn people because of the fact that as we look at false teachers, we end up seeing that there are those who would pray on the church. And that's why Jude, Peter, Paul, John, those are just New Testament writers, but you can go in the Old Testament and all the prophets, and you can see how often false teaching was condemned and addressed as an issue.

And so as we look at this, I want you to think about false teachers. Don't be looking under every rock for them. There's plenty of them to find, but we want to figure out how can we identify who's a false teacher.

Judgment on Unbelief, Angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah

Now Jude, after contending with us, encouraging us to contend for the faith because it's important to keep the faith pure against false teaching, he's now going to start providing some examples of both people and other beings that were teaching falsely and under judgment.

And so the first day he brings us in verse 5. And he starts off by saying, he wants to remind everybody that this was known, fully known to them. And the first group of people he talks about is the people who were basically not believers and destroyed in Egypt.

That they who did not believe, and afterwards they were destroyed. And it starts off by saying there is a judgment that comes to those false teachers. Now we see in verse 6, that's not just for people, but also for angels.

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their dwelling, he has kept in eternal change under gloomy darkness until the day of judgment of the great day. So even the angels that violate God's law, now these clearly aren't all angels, these are angels that are chained up even today.

What did they do? There's discussion on what that is. But the point that Jude is making that would be clear, is that not just human beings, also angels suffer judgment. In this case, some of these angels were so wicked in what they did, they're being chained up now waiting for the day of judgment.

So not only will humans be judged on that day, but so will the angels. Now Jude ends up moving on to saying that only men and angels are going to be judged in the book of Jude for being false teachers.

But he gets on to specific examples of practice that people do. He brings up in verse 7, Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and persuaded unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

So what you end up seeing here is that it's not just the teaching of false things, but there will be a judgment for the things that people do. In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, there is a judgment coming.

And that judgment is to act as a warning to us. Remember, Jude said in the beginning, in verse 5, that everyone fully understands these things. He's going to make that point again later, but what you end up seeing when it comes to false teachers, is that they're not just false in their teaching, often you'll see that it works out in their behavior.

You will see that people will do things to satisfy their own flesh. Jude's going to get to that in a few verses. But this is something to notice with false teachers. They are looking to satisfy their own flesh.

This is a judgment that happened with Sodom and Gomorrah, will happen with plenty of others when they stand before God. So what to look for to spot a false teacher, you'll often see like Sodom and Gomorrah, they're looking to satisfy their flesh and pervert things that God has ordained for proper use to be improper.

Dreams, Rejection of Authority, and Blaspheming Glory

As we continue to look at how do we spot false teachers and what to do with them, the book of Jude provides that example. And we just got done looking in verse 7, where we see that Sodom and Gomorrah, their practice was something that was going to be judged and acted as a judgment.

We said that false teachers, you'll end up spotting them because they want to satisfy their flesh. Well, Jude makes that even clearer in verse 8, where he says,. Yet in like manner, these people also relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones, or actually the glories.

So what you end up seeing with false teachers is a way of spotting them is that they are going to be people who do these things. They rely on dreams. Boy, do we see that nowadays with some of the NAR folks, New Apostolic Reformation, and others who always have a dream, and therefore you can never question them.

And they rely on a dream rather than Scripture. Why? Because a dream, well, that's subjective, and now we can make it say anything. They defile the flesh. You almost always see them doing things that satisfy their fleshly desires.

They reject authority. Well, clearly, false teachers want to reject authority. The ultimate authority is Scripture. They use Scripture to defile Scripture. They twist it. They don't like authority. They don't like someone telling them what to do.

And in the end, what they do is blaspheme glory. The word glorious ones is doxa. It's the word we get doxology. It means glory. They blaspheme glory. That's what a false teacher does. Another way to spot or identify a false teacher is provided in Jude, and this is dealing with the angel Michael.

We see this in verse 9. Now, what exactly was the issue of contention that Michael and the devil had over the body of Moses? We're not exactly sure. I don't know what it is that he was a judgment he wanted to give, but it says that he didn't want to be blasphemous in his judgment.

This is one of the things you end up seeing with false teachers. They have no fear to blaspheme God. They have no fear to condemn others in the name of God when they don't have Scripture on their side.

You will often see false teachers blaming others, attacking others, going after others, and saying you can't question them because they do what they do in the name of God, and yet they can't provide Scripture to support what they say.

That becomes a key because what you have to see is that our role is to look at Scripture as the ultimate authority. Remember, these are people we said they rely on their dreams. They rely on themselves, things like that.

They are not going to accept authority, specifically the authority of God's Word. So one of the things you see with a false teacher is they have no problem blaspheming God and calling down judgments, and they'll even say they're doing it in the name of God when a Christian, a genuine believer, has a fear of saying something that would be offensive to God.

Blaspheming What They Do Not Understand

As we continue our study into identifying the marks of a false teacher, being able to spot them, being able to identify who they are, and be able to be warned of them, we're going through the book of Jude and looking at this, and we saw that even Michael wouldn't want to make blasphemous judgments against the devil.

And you see people who are false teachers will condemn others, usually people who are correcting them, and instead of receiving the correction, what do they do? They claim to speak for God and call down judgments on other people.

This is what we end up seeing in Jude verse 10. He says, but these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

So what you end up seeing here is this, is that what he says is that these people, these false teachers, they don't even understand the things that they're blaspheming. They don't even understand the things that they're going to be judged under in the sense that they know them naturally, that's what it's saying.

In other words, they all understand what they're doing is wrong, but though they don't understand the specifics when they are blaspheming, they don't understand who God is. They will call down on things, usually of theology and things like that, that they haven't taken the time to understand, and they criticize it.

People who will deny the Trinity because they don't understand it, and yet they don't take the time to understand, instead they criticize it. That's what false teachers do. They bring judgment because they don't understand.

The Way of Cain, Balaam’s Error, and Shepherds Feeding Themselves

As we look in the book of Jude, we end up seeing now a warning that he provides for us when it comes to false teachers. In verse 11, he says, Woe to them, speaking of the false teachers, Woe to them, cursed on them, for they walk in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error, who perished in Korah's rebellion.

So what you see is, let me give you some background, the way of Cain, the way of Cain means the way of doing things your own way, not God's preserved way, not the way that God instructs us to do it, but doing it on our own.

That is what the idea of the way of Cain. He abandons God's word for his own. And what is the Balaam's error? Balaam, you can look in Numbers 22 to 25 and see about him. He was someone that wanted to try to walk the path of gaining money and serving God.

He was paid to curse the nation of Israel. He wanted the money. He took the money. He just wouldn't curse Israel because he knew it was wrong. And what you see in the example of Balaam is people who want to, in the service of God, make money.

There are plenty of charlatans like Balaam today who look to make their livelihood, make money off of, quote-unquote, serving God, when really they're in the way of Cain. They serve themselves. There are people who are trying to make a living this way.

This is a mark of a false teacher. Men who are more interested in the money they can earn from claiming to serve God, like Balaam, and they will punish. As we continue to look at the way to identify false teachers, we saw in the previous verses with Jude with this account of Balaam.

Now, is Balaam someone that is looking for money for serving God? Is it wrong to get paid in the service of God? No. Actually, this plain scripture talks about that. But what is it that they're doing?

They're not actually looking to serve God. This is the difference with a false teacher. They are looking to serve self. That was the way of Cain. You have to look at both. You end up seeing in verse 12, he refers to these as waterless clouds.

They are shepherds feeding themselves. What is a shepherd's job? To care for the flock. But these people who are looking to make money off of the gospel, off of serving God, these are people who are seeking to serve self.

They should be feeding the people, the sheep, but instead they look to feed themselves. They're more concerned with feeding their pockets than they are others. You'll see this with many of these false teachers who are lining their pockets with the money from people who could barely scratch two pennies together.

They don't care about the people. They care about their own self-interest. That is one of the marks of a false teacher. When you see somebody who is looking to make a retirement plan off of the ministry, that is a problem.

When you see people that are trying to say, I need to build a big ministry because God is going to bless me if I have lots of numbers and that way I can feel better about basically deceiving people. No.

They should be in ministry about feeding the flock, not themselves. When we spot these false teachers, whether it be in the Old Testament, the New Testament, or even our day and age, we end up seeing that they can be spotted and identified by their characteristics.

There are warnings of that. In fact, Jude in verse 14 tells us that Enoch the seventh of Adam even prophesied saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way.

And of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. So it has been prophesied and recorded in God's word that there is judgments coming on false teachers. Many of the false teachers think they're going to escape that judgment.

Maybe they think there isn't really a judgment. But yet what Jude had previously said is it is natural to all to understand that a judgment is coming. They all know that. And though they come and teach these things to line their own pockets with other people's money, with other people's goods and resources, they take care of themselves while ignoring the fact that there was prophesied that a judgment would come on them.

We should be praying for false teachers while at the same time warning against them. We should not be trying to listen and heed a false teacher. But we do have to be aware that many of them are deceived and deceiving in need our prayers too.

Arrogance, Favoritism, and Selfishness

Now as we look at false teachers, identifying them, spotting them, the warnings that scripture gives for them, Jude makes it pretty nice in verse 16. He provides for us a way of really in one verse describing what many false teachers can be described and how to spot them.

He says in verse 16,. That right there is a description of a false teacher. When you see people that act this way, they're going to be loud. They're going to be sitting there and boasting about what they've done.

They're going to put down other people. They're going to give favoritism where it gives them advantage. You're going to see them show preference for people because it's all about them gaining an advantage over everything.

You see that really what it comes down to it is their selfishness. Many of them are seeking their own selfish desires. Now sometimes those selfish desires are sexual. That is true. But it also a lot of times has more to do with a selfish desire for money.

They want to gain from other people's labor. They want to serve themselves and they want everyone else to serve them too. We can spot false teachers, but we must be warned about them because they are under a judgment.

Even if that judgment doesn't come today, there is a judgment coming. We must warn them, not placate them, and definitely not let others listen to them.

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