Why Does God Allow False Teachers? (Part 1)

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode, I'm going to be talking about why God allows false teachers and false prophets to exist. Have you ever wondered this?

God’s Glory and the Good of His People

I know people have wondered why God allows the devil to exist, and really, the simple answer to both of these questions is that in some way, somehow, they serve a purpose. Everything that God does, ultimately, it is for his glory and for our good.

And when I say our good, I mean those of us who have truly believed in the gospel of Christ. Romans 8 .28 says that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him and to those who are the called according to his purpose.

And then 1 Corinthians 10 .31 says, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So everything is to and for the glory of God, and it works out for the good of God's people. Even Satan himself is under the sovereign power of God.

Anyone who has ever read the book of Job can see that. And even when Satan, say, for example, entered into Judas Iscariot, it led him to fulfill scripture, and it caused Jesus to go to the cross, which signaled the devil's defeat.

So what the enemy uses for evil, and certainly false prophets and false teachers are doing evil, but what the enemy uses for evil, God takes and uses it for good. Isn't that what we saw with Joseph? Remember that statement in Genesis?

You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. So long story short, everything that Satan does, eventually it backfires. And in the end, it only serves the eternal purpose of God Almighty. But back to the original question, why does God allow false teachers to exist?

False Teachers as a Test of Covenant Faithfulness

The simple answer is it's a test. It's a test. False teachers exist in the church just like they existed in Israel. It's a test to prove whether or not, to show whether or not someone truly loves the Lord or is it all an act?

Is it all, hey, I'll trust in God as long as he does all this for me. I'll trust in God as long as everything is going good for me. So it's a test. Let me prove that by reading this passage from Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 13, one through three says, if there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and if that sign or the wonder, if it comes to pass, of which he spoke to you saying, let us go after other gods, which you have not known and let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams for the Lord, your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul. So basically if a false prophet came along and said, hey, I'm going to perform this miracle, I'm going to give this prophecy, even if it comes true, or it seems that he was able to work a wonder.

And then he uses that as a way to legitimize himself. And he says, okay, now I showed you that I'm speaking the truth. Now let's go and worship this other God. Don't listen to them. False prophets are there to test the people of God.

They were there to test the Israelites, whether or not they truly loved the Lord. And it's the same in the New Testament. False teachers exist in the church, just like false prophets existed in Israel.

It's all the test to see who truly believes the gospel and loves Christ. So, God uses false prophets and false teachers to test his covenant people. Because let's face it, back in Old Testament times, we'll start there, it was easy for an Israelite to say, oh, I trust in the Lord.

When everyone around you is saying the same thing and things are going well, it's easy to go with the flow. But you don't really know the character of a person until they're tested. So when Baal worship came to the nation, all of a sudden, now people had a choice.

They had two options, worship the Lord or worship Baal. Or when things were not going well, and they asked, why God? Why is this happening? Well, are they really loyal to the Lord? If they're loyal, they'll continue to trust the Lord even during difficult times.

So it's all a test. Let me give this illustration. Companies have what? Quality control departments, right? And they test their products because something can look good, it may be sitting there, and it looks like it functions well, and it might even function well at first.

But you don't really know whether or not it's going to endure until you test it under pressure. And that's how you know whether or not it's going to hold up. The same thing with a person's faith. So if the, going to the church now, if someone is a New Testament Christian, they're professing faith in Christ, yeah, as long as everything's going fine and times are easy, it's easy to go with the flow.

I believe in Jesus, but what happens when the test comes? False prophets, false teachers, that's a test. There's other ways people's faith is put to the test. If someone gets sick, if there's a divorce, when something else happens, there's trial and trials and tribulations, tragedy strikes, all of a sudden people are faced with temptation and difficulty and pressure.

And that's really where the rubber meets the road. But as far as what we're talking about in this podcast with false teachers and false prophets, the Lord allows them to exist within the church as sort of a way of separating, if you will, the wheat from the tares.

Are you going to believe in the true gospel? Or are you going to exchange that for the prosperity gospel? Why do you think the prosperity gospel exists? It's to see who really believes the truth. Or let's say there's now all these teachers within evangelicalism that are trying to make space for LGBT, you know, are you going to stick to, it was easy to stick to one man, one woman for life a hundred years ago, but now there's all this pressure.

So are you going to stick with the Bible's teachings and stick with the biblical ethic? Are you going to cave into the culture? So these false teachers who are making space for LGBT, like guys like Andy Stanley, Andy Stanley exists within evangelicalism as a way to test the people of God, or at least those who say they're people of God.

False Gospels, Redefined Terms, and Local Outbreaks of Heresy

So when another test comes like in Galatians one, where the apostle Paul said, nothing can be added to the gospel. If you just add one thing in that case, circumcision, that's a different gospel. You cannot add to the gospel.

Well, back in 2020, there was all this pressure to add social justice to the gospel. And you had groups like TGC, the gospel coalition, some of their writers were saying, if you don't add social justice, or they didn't put it that way, but if you don't have social justice as part of the gospel, you don't have the full gospel.

So different temptations, different tests have risen up, but there's always a false teacher who's trying to push this. Back in Galatians, they're pushing circumcision. That was a test. Back in 2020, social justice, that was a test.

Today, LGBT, people teaching that, that's a test. False teachers are there as a way to test God's covenant people. So when a false teacher rises up in your midst, will you tolerate him? Will you affirm him?

Because as we've been talking about on this channel and on this podcast, the scripture is very clear that not only does this stuff happen, the Bible is very clear and how we should handle it, right? Those verses that I've kind of tried to hammer away at again and again, just so people remember.

It.

Titus 3 .10, Romans 16, 17 and 18, right? False prophets are to be marked and avoided, Paul says in Romans 16. Titus 3 .10, if someone's a heretic, you admonish them once and then a second time. After that, if they don't listen, you are to have nothing to do with them.

They are to be avoided. That's what the Bible teaches. So when false prophets, false teachers come into the church, they're there to test the.

People.

Here's another test. Are you going to do the right thing? Are you going to mark and avoid them? Are you going to have nothing to do with them? Because listen, it's easy to read the Bible and say, yeah, I believe that.

It's easy to affirm that you need to have nothing to do with heretics in theory, right? It's easy to have a correct view on paper, but when it actually happens and it's happening right in front of you, now for the first time, maybe in your life, all of these biblical situations are taking place right in your areas.

Like you're living in Bible times and you have to face the things that you've been reading about all these years. So when it happens locally, when it happens in your local church, how are you going to respond?

My friends, it's all a test. So if you've been following this podcast, you know, because hey, let's apply it. Let's make it real. You know, if you've been following along how there has been an outbreak of heresy in our, my local area, I say our, because most of the people who listen are probably from this area, but maybe not, but there's been an outbreak of heresy and now pressure is being applied, especially to the local pastors.

And then, you know, in the future, I anticipate in the next year, next couple of years, the pressure will be felt more by people in the pews. But right now the pressure is being applied to pastors. So pastors who maybe five years ago, we all thought dwelt together in unity.

All of a sudden now cracks are starting to form in the foundation. So there has been an outbreak of heresy and specifically there's been an outbreak of universalism, the denial of hell and people in order to, because nobody's going to, if somebody comes in an evangelical church and hey, I believe in universalism, people aren't going to buy.

Into that.

How False Teachers Redefine Hell, Salvation, and Faith

So they redefine terms because no false teacher ever comes out and admits he's a false teacher. No false teacher ever says, hey, I deny the word of God, right? In Deuteronomy 13, those false prophets didn't say, hey, let's go worship the devil, everybody.

They don't do that. They use fancy language in order to try and fool people. They will start out by saying, they don't deny the word of God at first. They say, you know, we're just looking for perspective.

You know, we're just looking to have a conversation or in Deuteronomy 13, let me perform this miracle for you, you know, and it's step by step trying to get people to buy in. And then when you feel like you have them, then it's like, okay, let's go and worship other gods, Deuteronomy 13, one through three, or today.

Okay.

Now that the false teachers have their hooks in people, now they'll come out and tell you what they really think. But they're crafty, right? They will say, they'll redefine terms. So instead of saying, hey, we reject hell.

Well, the average Christian isn't going to buy into that because that's like saying I reject the Bible. You're not going to fool people that way. So what they'll do is they don't know. I believe in hell.

But when you investigate, you find out that their version of hell is more akin to purgatory or they won't say we believe in universalism because that Unitarian Universalist church down the street is obviously not Christian.

So they don't say we believe in universalism. Instead, they say, we believe in universal reconciliation or, you know, we just believe that in the end, love wins. Well, you believe that love wins. You don't believe that love wins, really?

And that's the type of thing they'll do to try to trick people. Or they'll say, I believe in salvation through faith. But their version of salvation doesn't mean salvation from death and hell. It means salvation from, you know, a life with a lot of problems or, you know, salvation from bad relationships or whatever.

So they're redefining terms or faith. You know, it's, yeah, we believe in faith, but if you really dig into it, they believe that someone can have faith in Buddha or some other deity and all roads lead to heaven.

So you need to understand that false teachers lie and they don't come right out and tell you what they really think, at least not at first. So this is the game that people play. But to the person who's never encountered this, to the person who's never faced this, especially if you're a new convert to Christ, I mean, this can all be very confusing.

And that's partially why I started this podcast, to help people understand. So a lot of people, they've never seen anything like this. They've never been in this situation. Sometimes people will use biblical language or they say they love Jesus and, you know, to the person that doesn't know any better, it's easy to sort of have the wool pulled over your eyes.

Thanks for listening. This concludes part one, stay tuned for part two. And until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.