False Doctrine, False Teachers, and Their Effect on Christian Women

Thoroughly Equipped

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In the pastoral epistles, we see again Paul's functioning as a task theologian and we see his constant wrestling with the problems that are affecting the infant church.

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And one of the most egregious of those problems is the infecting of the congregations with false doctrine.

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The Apostle Paul warned and the New Testament warns of false doctrine, doctrines of demons, man -made philosophies, science falsely so -called, strange teachers, empty talkers, dogs, false prophets, false teachers, false apostles, false

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Christs, false signs and false miracles, deceivers and impostors. And I could triple that list without duplicating any of those references.

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Well, the devil is desperate. His kingdom has been raided by Christ and he is delighted whatever way he can derail us.

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He doesn't care how we run amok as long as we run amok. He doesn't care whether you're an atheist or whether you embrace some false religion.

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And so he's out there promoting falsehood all the time. That there are more wrongs than there are truths.

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There are more errors than there are truths. Because for every truth there's ten errors that the devil propagates and promulgates in order to deceive people.

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In fact, if we're going to give the devil his due then we have to admit that he is very creative with his errors. It doesn't matter what your background is, what your religious convictions might be, what your temperament is, your disposition, your demeanor, your personality, whatever your likes and dislikes are, there is an error that is custom designed for you.

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Whether it is blending of Eastern mysticism and Christianity or the syncretism of paganism in Christianity or New Age philosophy in Christianity or worldly wisdom and worldly philosophy and empty deceits in Christianity, no matter what it is, no matter what doctrine it is that would appeal to somebody, there is always one out there that will appeal to you.

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And so we all have to be on guard constantly because the devil is very clever, very skilled with taking things that appear to be true and promulgating them and promoting them and getting people to believe them because they look like truth.

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Now, I'm amazed in our day and age how little attention we want to give to matters of sound doctrine.

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We are perhaps the more relationally oriented or the most relationally oriented generation of Christians in the history of the church.

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What I mean by that is that we want to put so much emphasis on community and fellowship and relationships and we see the tendency of doctrine and doctrinal differences to provoke debate and quarrels and divisions that we've come to the place in many circles where we say, well, we shouldn't be engaged in the study of doctrine at all because all it does is end up in controversy and divisions and the like.

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But that idea would be utterly foreign to the thinking of the Apostle Paul because Paul always saw an unbreakable relationship between a true understanding of the

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Word of God and righteous relationships. The devil's error, false teachers don't always, sometimes and rarely they do this, but not always do they come into the church and just promote outright, blatant, obvious heresy.

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They don't come into a church like this and say, Jesus Christ is not God. They never say that. But instead, they take a doctrine that is the skin of the truth and they stuff it with a lie and it looks true, it looks alluring, but like the apple that Snow White ends up eating, it's just got poison inside of it.

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It looks fine on the outside. It's just a quarter of a turn off and give them a little bit more time and it's a quarter of a turn more. You're seeing this happen with leaders inside evangelicalism now who year after year adopt more and more of the philosophy of our age, the spirit of our age, and they are compromising doctrines to do so.

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Paul says in Romans chapter 16, Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned and turn away from them.

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These men are divisive. They are divisive not because God's people stand for the truth. Truth is not divisive. Error is divisive. Truth unites the people of God.

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Error comes in and divides the people of God. So Paul says when these people come in and teach things that are contrary to sound teaching, you need to mark them and you need to turn away from them.

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You need to mark them and avoid them and they must be put out. Silenced, as Paul says in Titus chapter 1, false teachers in wolves and sheep's clothing will not be satisfied until they have the blood of every last believer in the congregation.

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They are like wolves. Their God is their belly. Their God is their belly.

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But they look like sheep. Now how is that? How is it that they look like sheep?

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By their flattering, smooth speech that in an age of tolerance makes you think that they are the men most full of love.

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Paul says in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 17, their talk spreads like gangrene, like a flesh -eating disease, like a poison, like a rot.

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It just goes from one person to another, from one household to another, and from one church to another. And what they're seeking is the destruction of the flock, to scatter the sheep and to exploit them for their own end.

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And here is their motive to draw away, verse 30, to draw away disciples after them. False teachers want you, want us, to follow their teaching, not

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Scripture. And the devotion that the people of God give to the Word of God, the false teacher wants that for them. The allegiance that the people of God give to Christ, the false teacher wants that for them.

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They will never contradict. They will never create a scandal. They will never be offensive.

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They will never speak for things to anger men. But they have the smooth tongue of a serpent, and they flatter men, and they give carnal men exactly what they want.

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So in their teaching, it's very subtle, but in their teaching, they're always the hero of every story. They're always the best example of every truth.

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They're always the protagonist in every drama. And they do this in order to draw away the disciples after themselves.

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They don't want the Word of God in the center of the congregation, everybody fellowshipping and worshipping and loving one another and serving around that Word of God.

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They want to displace that with themselves and become the center of that so that they have the disciples, so that people give them their allegiance and them their trust and follow after their teaching so that nobody ever questions dear leader.

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Let me tell you something about false teachers. You think so many times that people fall prey to false teachers.

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And that, in a sense, can be true at times. But I think the dominant theme in Scripture is just the opposite.

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False teachers are God's judgment on people who don't want God, but in the name of religion plan on getting everything their carnal heart desires.

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That's why a Joel Osteen is raised up. Those people who sit under him are not victims of him. He is the judgment of God upon them because they want exactly what he wants and it's not

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God. This is the allegiance that they seek. And they pursue novelties and fresh truths and do whatever they can to get people to love them and adore them, because the love and adoration that God's people give to Christ, that is the love and adoration that they resent.

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They want it for themselves. These are not believers. They're not misguided Christians.

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They're not well -intentioned but untaught believers. We must not tolerate them in our pulpits, in our seminaries, in our churches.

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Their error must be confronted and reproved. And if they will not repent, then they must be removed from the congregation and put out.

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Welcome to the Thoroughly Equipped podcast, where we compare the teachings from popular women's ministry books, conferences,

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Bible studies, etc. to Scripture. Our focus is 2 Timothy 3, 16 -17, that all

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Scripture is God -breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

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I'm your host, Melba Toast. May this episode bless you and bring glory to God.

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Ladies, welcome to Thoroughly Equipped. I am back. Took a week.

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Well, it wasn't a break. It was a lot of work, which construction usually is, but my bedroom is finished and we're ones who do a lot of work ourselves.

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Construction always goes longer than you anticipate, but anyway, so that is done and now it's getting to eventually hopefully taking all this, my whole office, then upstairs.

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So that will be a project in the future, too. But I'm back to get back to the subject of false teaching, looking at doctrine in general in our series so that we can take a really deep dive to understand why doctrine is important and why then, therefore, discernment is important.

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So today's episode, I want to talk to you guys about false doctrine, false teaching, and then look at some of the characteristics and the lies and deceptions that false teachers can teach.

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And hopefully within that, I can also present to you guys a couple examples of how false teaching, these deceptions, and these lies within these teachings, the effects it has on women and women in ministry and our walk with Christ and what we believe.

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So that's what we're going to do today. Let's dive in. Okay, so here's the question

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I want us to all wrestle with as we go about this. Are we, women and women's ministry all in general, and the evangelical sphere in general, are we consuming false doctrine?

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So as women, we have a lot that we can become concerned about, such things as our looks, our health, what we put in our bodies.

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As mothers, we are even concerned with what our children consume, their health, what they eat, their well -being.

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We long to bring nourishment. It's just, it's part of being a woman.

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We long to be nourished and to, I think part of womanhood is to bring beauty and nourishment to others and then especially to our family.

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Yet for most of us Christian women, week after week, we sit under preaching and teaching of the typical evangelical

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American church. So how do we know if we and our family are receiving spiritual nourishment?

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Is our pastor feeding the sheep healthy food or are they feeding us rubbish? And it's not just on Sunday, but what we consume spiritually when doing devotions,

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Christian books, looking at our social feeds, memes, podcasts, such as thoroughly equipped videos and even real life conversations and experiences.

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I'm not talking about, you know, worldly philosophy or worldly entertainment, as we as Christians can identify most of the falsehood and spiritual rubbish that are given in these teachings and given out in the world.

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But I'm talking about social spheres that claim to be Christian and claim to help us grow in faith, maturity, and trust in God.

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This is where we must make right judgments, ones that are backed up by God's word.

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So in the last episode, we kind of laid the foundation for what doctrine is and we learned that doctrine is a set of beliefs.

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Now these beliefs can be true or false. And we also learned that doctrine comes either from God or man.

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Therefore false doctrine in the church is any set of beliefs that originate from man and not

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God. Right doctrine and right teaching is truth. Man's doctrine and man's teaching comes from the futility of their mind, which is darkened in their understanding, making them excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

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What they do not know about God or what they suppress about God produces a futile mind that lacks understanding.

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All of this is because of the hardened hearts of their hardened hearts as they reject

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God and that we find in Ephesians 4, 17 -25. Even some acknowledge

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God, but harden against the God of Scripture because they chase or create a

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God of their own imaginations, committing adultery, Exodus 20, 4 -5. They use their darkened understanding and futile minds to make a

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God that is like themselves. They take the Lord's name in vain, making his name worthless when they do this.

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The prophets are prophesying lies in my name, replied the Lord. I did not send them or appoint them or speak to them.

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They are prophesying to you a false vision, a worthless divination. The futility and delusion of their own minds,

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Jeremiah 14, 14. So now that is what we understand false doctrine to be, false teaching and lies, man -made teachings and ideas and philosophies and so forth and so forth.

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What does the Bible say about false doctrine? Well, one, that false doctrine is dangerous as it leads people to rebel against God.

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If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them, you should not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.

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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.

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You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

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But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has taught rebellion against the

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Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery to make you leave the way in which the

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Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

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That was Deuteronomy 13, 1 -5. Now false doctrine comes from men who claim to know

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God and speak for him. But in actuality, instead of giving God's commandments and precepts, they teach and instruct their own words, their dreams, their philosophies, and their precepts.

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Matthew 15, 9 and Mark 7, 7. False teaching is given by shepherds who scatter the sheep, which they're not, hirelings is how they're described.

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While true teaching is given by shepherds who care for God's people, drawing them to the righteous branch,

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Christ. Jeremiah 23, 1 -7 and John 15, 5. Over and over in scripture, we are told that false teachings are empty words, they're commandments and precepts, myths, speculations, worldly wisdom, philosophies, knowledge, and can be science falsely so -called.

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They're decrees or doctrines of men. Isaiah 29, 13, Ephesians 5, 6,

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Colossians 2, 20 -23, 1 Timothy 1, 3 -7, 6, 20, and Colossians 2, 8.

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Another thing that we learn about false teaching in scripture, false doctrine in scripture, is that false teaching and false teachers need to be marked and rebuked.

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Because right and true doctrine must be taught to bring about salvation and sanctification, all for our future glorification, all false doctrine must be rejected and rebuked, and all false teachers should be silenced and rebuked.

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Second Peter, along with the pastoral epistles, the letters of 1 John, 2

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John, and Jude all warn of false teachers. Second Peter is one of the most comprehensive epistles on the subject.

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In Second Peter, Peter explains that scriptures, the teaching, or set of beliefs that were spoken and given by God.

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Peter ranks scripture more than any experience as he informs us that it is not man's word and not even man's interpretation of God's word, but that scripture came about by the

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Holy Spirit moving the writers to write down God's very words.

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It was not done by the writers well, but by the will of God as he caused them to write his words.

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Second Peter 1, 19 -21. Peter writing this epistle before his imminent death, knowing that false teachers will arise out of the church, instructs

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God's chosen to pay attention to scripture. Why does Peter warn them of false teachers? What do they do that is so bad?

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Well, they secretly teach destructive heresies. These heresies are hidden, not easily revealed or seen, that they are not from God.

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The false teacher looks like a Christian, talks like a Christian, and seems to even walk like a

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Christian. They are men, and yes, women, who call themselves pastors, teachers, speakers, and believers.

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They identify as Christians who want to minister to other Christians. Because they are secret, though, they are dangerous.

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Ladies, even question what I say. Every episode. Every book review.

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Every time I dive into scripture, don't just automatically trust me. Look to the scriptures and see if I handled them correctly.

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Look up those verses that I include. Read them in context and just, you know, make sure and don't be afraid to question what

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I say or even question the way I'm handling scripture. Because the Holy Spirit, I believe, will guide you into understanding and interpreting it correctly if you've learned how to do it.

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And your desire is to know the truth from it. What is the next thing that scripture says about false teachers?

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Well, it says that what they teach are destructive, damnable teachings. Teachings that, if we trust and believe them, lead us to God's wrath, not salvation.

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And this is the most dangerous thing in all the world, as we should not fear men who can kill the body, but God who destroys both body and spirit.

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Matthew 10, 28. We and our sinful, unregenerate nature are born to believe damnable doctrine.

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Unregenerate man denies God and is without understanding. Psalm 14, 1,

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Proverbs 19, 3, Romans 1, 31 and 8, 7. In the same way, false teachers may claim to know

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God, but actually deny the master who bought them. And we'll look at more of this in detail.

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Humans are created to worship. Even in man's denial of God, humans worship.

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They worship false gods made to be like themselves. These false teachers worship and teach a false god and a false

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Christ, denying in some way either his deity, his humanity, his work on the cross, the blessings from it, and or withholding the receiving of these blessings.

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Another thing is these lies that these teachers give lead to division and factions of the church, lies that promote a different God attacking the persons of the

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Trinity and the gospel, the way and work of salvation and the return of Christ.

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These things divide so we can rightly say that doctrine divides. Good doctrine brings fellowship among the believers, but it is false doctrine that divides.

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Romans 16, 17, Paul appeals to the Romans to watch out for false doctrine.

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I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.

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Avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.

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For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

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Notice what is good and innocent to what is evil is directly related to doctrine.

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Another thing I want to mention here is smooth talk and flattery that comes from these false teachers.

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As a woman, side note, we flatter a lot.

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That has become the main type of encouragement is this idea of flattery.

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In fact, you can't find encouragement without flattery anymore, I think, and I'd like to do a full episode looking at the difference between good encouragement, encouragement into Christ, and flattery and helping you be able to discern what is the good that is found in pointing you to good doctrine versus the flattery that comes from a lot of false teaching that we see in women's ministry.

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But that was a side note, and Lord willing, that'll be an episode for the future.

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Hopefully the coming future. The soon -to -be future. Anyway, let's dive into what motivates false teachers.

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Peter talks about this still in 1 Peter. He mentions that false teachers are motivated by two things, sensuality and the self.

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So they're motivated by their sensuality. They follow their own desires. They create teachings that support their desire to satisfy their flesh.

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They can be teaching that revolves around money, tithing, teaching for power, teaching for fame, teaching for purpose, even intellect or noriety, or to be known as godly or righteous.

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And this is the second one. It is motivated by their self, for their own self glory. These women want to receive glory.

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They want to be known, popular, seen as the ones to go to for knowledge, advice, and instruction on godly living.

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Imagining that godliness is a means of gain, 1 Timothy 6, 3 to 5.

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Underneath the stories, lectures, and sermons is the underlying teaching that they are the example.

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They have arrived. They overcame the trials and problems in this life, and now they can teach you.

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Their talks, advice, and lectures expose who they point to as lord of their lives.

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It exposes whose authority they teach. If they talk about themselves and their life stories, motivate you through the flattery and emotionality.

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Through the you can do it type of speeches, they reveal that they desire autonomy.

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They desire to be their own authority, to glorify their own authority.

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But if she speaks of Christ, calls out sin in your life, urges repentance, points to the gospel as the continual cure for these sins, and teaches and exposits the scripture to equip you for every good work, then she exposes whose authority she is under.

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For these teachings point away from herself and point to the lordship of Christ in all of life.

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Peter continues to say that false teachers, in their greed, exploit us with false words, 2

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Peter 2, 2 to 3. They indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despising authority.

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Bold and willful, they are daring, brazen, audacious, coming off in a very appealing, charismatic way.

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Driven by their own self -will, despising the authority of Christ, yet claiming to be obedient to him, they teach without fear.

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They do not respect the powers and authority that God has instituted. They revile angelic majesties, 2

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Peter 2, 10. These women or men believe they are higher or of more importance than the angels, be they servants of God or servants of Satan.

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They decree and declare ordering the servants of God about every which way. They rebuke and bring a reviling judgment against the servants of Satan and even

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Satan himself. Peter explains that not even the holy angels speak insults or rebuke any authority of their own accord.

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He gives an example of Michael the archangel respecting and recognizing the power and status of Satan, refusing to speak evil against him, and instead relies on the

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Lord to make right judgment, Jude 8, 9 and Zechariah 3, 2.

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How do false teachers deceive? Having a heart trained in greed, being accursed children, they entice unstable souls, forsaking the right way, 2

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Peter 2, 14 -15. How do they entice? They speak out of arrogant words of vanity, enticing our fleshly desires by sensuality, verse 18.

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These false teachers speak with confidence, believing God has chosen them to speak for him, yet ignoring his word.

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They speak their own words. Their words of insight, their stories, their advice, their knowledge is vain and useless, yet in their arrogance they believe themselves to be wise.

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They know that we in our flesh make decisions and are driven by our desires and experiences, so they draw us, attracting us to themselves and their teachings by appealing to our senses, 2

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Peter 2, 2. They use music, entertainment, false miracles, signs and wonders, verbose and philosophical speeches, all to entice the eyes, the ears, and the emotions.

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Logical and critical thinking is discouraged, and being a Berean makes you typically an outcast.

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They prey on people, especially those in desperate times and in desperate need, those that are going through trials and tribulations, looking to make their life better or to escape sins.

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Yet these teachers are springs without water, 2 Peter 2, 17.

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They deceive by claiming to hear from God and teach his ways, but never actually giving and teaching

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Christ and his word, thereby never satisfying people's thirst.

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They promise freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For what a man is overcome by, this he is enslaved, 2

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Peter 2, 19. False teachers are enslaved or overcome by their own sin, never really coming to or remaining in Christ, never preaching or teaching him as the one who sets us free.

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So because they remain enslaved to sin, they preach and teach the law instead of Christ, believing they can fulfill it instead of Christ already fulfilling it for us.

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In 1 John 2, 18 and 19, John contrasts those who walk in the light and those who walk in darkness.

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Those who walk in light keep or guard Christ's word. They guard it, watch over it.

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They hold on to it and they obey it. When Christians keep Christ's word, they love the brothers.

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And that is the first way to tell whether one is in the light or in the dark, that they love the brothers.

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They love because their sins have been forgiven. They know the father. They have overcome the evil one and because the word of God abides in them.

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Now, false teachers, one, do not walk in the light. So they never truly love the brethren.

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They say they walk in the light, but to truly love, one must abide in God's word.

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And this is what they depart from, the word. In essence, they depart from the gospel, the word given to them from the beginning, 1

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John 2, 24 and 25. There are many, many false teachers that do this. They long to be teachers of the law.

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So they want to teach you how to love your neighbor. They want to teach you how to love your brother, how to be more loving and ways that that plays out in your life.

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And in doing this, they long to be known as wise, to sit among those of importance, to be called teacher, 1

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Timothy 1, 7. And so in doing this, though, they depart from the gospel, not by outright rejection, but by neglect.

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They neglect the proclamation of the gospel to God's people and instead will mainly focus on law.

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The gospel was how you got in the door. And now the focus is how to be a good

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Christian, how to be righteous, but not true righteousness, mind you. First, they do not present sin to you fully, and then they do not present

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Christ to you fully. See, if they were to do this, they would lose their notoriety because we humans love to hear about our good.

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The notoriety forms from giving self -centered encouragement, flattery, and practical good advice, teaching that revolves around being good or how to be good.

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Even more now you see this talk about how to be well or how to deal with some form of mental illness, how to surrender, how to fight loneliness, how to live out your purpose, how to love your neighbor, etc.

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All this within women's ministry. And the advice is good because the law is good, but for one who believes that walking in this good advice makes them right with God or that God is well -pleased with them, they are living out the false teaching of a works -based salvation.

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If they truly believed that you and I could not gain our own righteousness, or that we do not please

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God in our effort to surrender, or that our living with and in our purpose doesn't please

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God, or that we do not earn God's favor by our service to our neighbor, etc.

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The teaching, then, would be focused on drawing our faith towards Christ and his work.

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Why would that be the focal point of their teaching? Because they would rightly understand and rightly teach that it is faith in Christ that produces the fruit that comes from God's regenerate work of the law written on his children's hearts.

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This doesn't mean we don't teach the law, it just means we give the law fully, completely drawing out the guilt and condemnation that it will produce, only to then give the gospel.

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So teachers should teach the law so that we might bless women with the gift of Christ.

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And the more they get Christ, the more they walk in the spirit and produce his fruits.

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This is probably my biggest problem with women's ministry in a whole today.

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All of these books, all of these conferences, all of these teachers with their entertaining stories, their words of encouragement and flattery make light of sin and teach an ease of right standing before God apart from Christ.

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All their teachings prettied up with platitudes full of emotion to motivate you to love yourselves through God.

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They tell you you are enough, God loves you unconditionally, belittling

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Christ's perfect life and ultimate sacrifice in the process. And this, in essence, is the second deception of false teachers.

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They deny the Father and the Son, 1 John 2, 22. How do they do this?

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They deny the Father's holiness and wrath against all sinners. They deny the necessity of the

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Son's perfect life accredited to us and our sins being credited to him.

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In their teachings, they proclaim a God that loves you just the way you are, sins and all.

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Is Christ just a prop in the background while you or her are the subject of her teachings?

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Who is she confessing? In her lecture, conference, or book, who's getting the most attention?

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Is she proclaiming herself, telling you her life story, her testimony? Is she proclaiming you, your greatness, how much

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God loves you, how important you are, and how much God needs you to accomplish his purpose? Or is she proclaiming

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Christ and him crucified for your sins? That he is Lord, his word is what we are to abide in.

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Does she teach the scriptures, drawing from the prophets and the apostles' teachings, that Christ and his commands for the law, the prophets, and the apostles were from God, led by the

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Holy Spirit, to write about him? 2 Chronicles 24 19, Matthew 11 13, 1

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John 4 6, Luke 24 27, John 5 39 False teachers also deceive by denying the master who bought them.

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1 Peter 2 1 These denials can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

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But for one of the simplest ways to determine if Christ is her master is to assess if she obeys his clear instruction to not preach or teach over men in the church gathering.

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False teachers speak a lot about God and talk up their desire to surrender to him, but they deny him when they go against his word.

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Another deception of a false teacher is they promote and exegete or draw teaching out of their experiences.

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This is them following their own sensuality. 1 Peter 2 1 But scripture is clear that no experience will guarantee our salvation.

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No experience will urge one to turn to Christ. Jesus gives an example in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, explaining through the father of Israel, Abraham, that even if one should have an experience with a dead man, that experience would not be enough to convince people of hell, let alone instruct them on how to avoid eternal damnation.

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Paul proclaims that the word is more sure than even seeing Christ in all his glory.

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What an experience that must have been. See, the word is a lamp shining in a dark place that we should pay attention to it.

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Luke 16 19 to 31 And 2 Peter 1 16 to 19 Is Christ the focus of her teachings or her life experiences?

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Even if they are experiences she attributes to God, are they the tool she uses to convince you to walk as she walks?

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Teachings that mostly focus on their experiences train women to look to their own life experiences to see whether they are right with God or walking in the power of the

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Holy Spirit. It becomes a way of determining assurance. Instead of looking to Christ and trusting in Christ for assurance, to know that we are right with God because we are forgiven of our sins by his blood, and we rest in the clothing that have been given to us by Christ himself, his righteousness.

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Another deception of the false teachers, they do not confess Jesus Christ as God in flesh. John 1 1

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They may give lip service to this, but is this a common theme? Does she teach that God came in flesh to obey the law perfectly and take our sins upon himself?

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False teachers within liberal Christianity, purpose -driven Christianity, word of faith, and hyper -charismatic

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NAR Christianity have a tendency to lower or misrepresent

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Christ's nature. Unless you've listened to a false teacher for a while or done some deep dive study.

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The example here is a very popular female preacher, Joyce Meyer, who teaches that Christ was a person who was a manifestation of God.

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She teaches that God is one being who manifests in three persons.

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We know that we serve one God, but he manifests in three different persons, God the Father, God the

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Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In the very beginning of the Bible, God said, let us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make man in our image.

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And all throughout the Bible, you see that we serve one God, manifested in three different persons, our personalities.

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Who is the Holy Spirit? You know, some people would say, you know, what is the Holy Spirit? So, Joyce, can you give us a little primer?

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Well, obviously, we have one God, but he manifests in three persons. Now, this is a really minute twisting, and even the slightest little twisting, the slightest little bit of leaven affects the whole lump.

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So, let's just think of just this word manifestation, right? The use of it to relay the

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Trinity or to teach the Trinity, to teach the concept of one

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God and three persons. It's a very confusing, mysterious doctrine, but highly, highly important.

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It's very essential to the gospel. There is a stark difference between a manifestation and to actually be.

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This teaching, which is the heretical view of the Trinity called modalism, is very, very popular, has direct implications on the gospel.

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If Christ is simply a manifestation of God, can a manifestation of God be the perfect, eternal sacrifice needed to bear

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God's wrath? Is a manifestation of righteousness the same as actual perfect righteousness?

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Are we clothed with Jesus's manifestation of righteousness, or we actually clothed with Christ's actual righteousness?

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What usually comes with this type of false teaching are other false teachings that prop up sinners to an equal level with Christ.

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So, the logic kind of goes that if Christ manifests God, why can't we?

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That then becomes a goal. So, in liberal Christianity, it pushes people to manifest

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God in themselves through acts of social justice. In purpose -driven theology, it urges people to manifest

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God in themselves through accomplishing their purpose. In a word of faith theology, one manifests

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God in declarations and the supposed creative power of our words.

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In NAR doctrine, it is manifesting God through miraculous works of the

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Holy Spirit through us, through experiences. And then even really, really hyper charismatic is demon slaying, you know.

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So, one word makes all the difference because one word teaches an idea.

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And so, this is how the idea of Christ being a manifestation of God affects other teachings that produce a practice and a lifestyle and the way we walk.

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So, there's some just things to kind of chew on. Perhaps maybe I'll really address

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Joyce Meyer, her teaching regarding this and look at it a little more in -depth to help you guys understand the difference between modalistic or oneness

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Pentecostal doctrine about the nature of God versus the

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Reformed view and the biblical view of the Trinity.

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So, Lord willing, that might be something I work on in the future. Because it's something to which we, once we are able to identify this and I get it that the

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Trinity is very hard to articulate. And so, a lot of teachers will try to use wordings that don't match up.

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This is why creeds and confessions can be very useful and very helpful because they limit speech.

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They help hone speech. They really, really help us keep speech within the guidelines that come with the confessions and keeping it biblical.

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I don't want to use a word like being or the nature of God or personhood of God and then twist it or change it to try and help women understand by lowering it to manifestation or modes or things like this just to help them understand the

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Trinity better. We need to keep our language correct.

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And I can fill in this too. And I easily will take corrections in regard to this because this is just something we all do.

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To misrepresent God, even in a lack of correct verbiage, is to take the

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Lord's name in vain. It is to commit to transgress the third commandment.

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And a little sidetrack. I have been doing a deep, deep study into third commandment wanting to really understand what that commandment is trying to teach us.

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And I'm fully convinced now that I transgress that commandment all the time.

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That we transgress it by our actions, our deeds, and our words. And that is how deep our sinful nature goes.

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And to be honest, it has done what the law always does to me. Dragged me through desperation and a crawling literally on my belly spiritually to the foot of the cross and in desperation and need reminding myself of the great gift of Christ's righteousness so that I can stand before God free to please

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God. Who Christ never, ever took the

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Lord's name in vain. Never misrepresented God because he was

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God in flesh. And I thank the Lord. And that's another example of how important it is that Christ is

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God. And not just a manifestation. Anyway, totally went off script there.

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All right. So what though? Now the crutch of it, we've understood what false teaching is.

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What false doctrine is. What are the... Why it needs to be rebuked and false teachers need to be rebuked.

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And then we've looked at the characteristics, some of the characteristics of false teachers.

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And now I want to look at what does scripture say false teaching, false doctrine produces in people who, who believe in it.

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One, it produces ungodliness. Paul writing to Timothy states, remind them of these things while that he had written in chapter one and charged them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers.

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Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth, but avoid irreverent battle for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene.

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Second Timothy 2, 14 to 17. It is the Holy Spirit that is the author of scripture.

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Second Peter 121. He teaches and enlightens us by it. So as we study it, the

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Holy Spirit works in us to produce his fruit, making us more like Christ, more godly.

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False doctrine does not produce the fruits of the spirit because the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity teaches us through the scriptures, all things.

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John 14, 26. Second Peter 1, 3. His teaching is truth. John 17, 17.

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And produces certain specific fruit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

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Galatians 5, 22 to 23. This is the fruit of God's doctrine. And the more you dive into the gospel, the more you will begin to see a good pastor will draw out from the gospel itself, from the work and life of Christ, how they produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

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And this is just something that I have found over the time of learning good doctrine that it really does.

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It really does produce a love for people and then a special love for your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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It produces a joy. It produces peace. You know, we are then, because God has been so patient with us and is patient with his children who are little hellions at times.

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You know, he's such a patient father. We learn therefore to be patient with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

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We learn to love the weaker brother and we learn not to judge the stronger brother.

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It produces kindness to us, to those who are our enemies, love to those who are our enemies, goodness to each other, faithfulness to God and Christ, gentleness and self -control.

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I mean, if we could just, you can spend a lifetime just drawing out the fruit from the gospel over and over and over again.

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And a good pastor will do that. Two, ultimately, false teaching leads to idolatry, putting a faith and trust in a false

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God, a false Christ and a false spirit. We women have our idols. We worship and look to these to save or satisfy our flesh.

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We can make idols of our husbands, raising the hand there because that was me, trusting in them to give us love and comfort.

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We trust in our parenting to save our children or to nurture and bring up our children.

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Things such as healthy eating to save them physically or education, Christian or not, thinking that by even just Christian education, we'll make them wise and successful in this life.

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We trust in relationships to give us love and affection. We trust in our jobs to provide for us.

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We trust in our, or maybe even trust in our government to take care of us. We trust in our comfort, health and wealth to tell us whether we are in God's favor and many, many, many more idols.

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They're all over the place, surrounding us at all times. False doctrine, again, makes

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God to be like us, making us believe he wants for us what we in our flesh desire.

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Right doctrine, God's doctrine, will reveal to us our idols, expose our sinful desires, call us to repentance, and then preach

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Christ crucified for those sins. God's teaching instructs us into the righteousness of Christ and good works because it is by our faith that we grow in knowledge and discernment, knowing then what is good and true, therefore directing us into all the good works

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God has for us to do as we walk by faith. You shall walk after the

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Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.

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Deuteronomy 13, four. How can we walk up to the Lord, fear him and obey him if we are learning or having learned falsely about him?

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Three, it leads women to stray or depart from the faith as people devote themselves to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

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First Timothy four, one. Christ warns that false anointed ones, Christ meaning the anointed one, false

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Christ and false prophets, men who speak for God will arise, show false signs and wonders and will deceive if possible, even the elect,

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Matthew 24, 24. Also, false teaching can shipwreck faith for a woman.

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Scripture explains that faith is the substance of things hoped for. Our hope is in God who has made specific promises to us.

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Our faith is our trust in him and these promises. It is when we trust, believe and have faith in the gospel, in all of God's promises that we live a certain way and in them have peace and joy.

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When one is taught and trusts in false doctrine, it misplaces our faith, causing it to become shipwrecked and to go nowhere.

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Scripture is very clear that because false doctrine is dangerous and can shipwreck a person's faith, pastors and overseers are to point out and rebuke false doctrine.

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First Timothy one, 18 and 19. Scripture urges the overseers in the church to not only correct and point out false doctrine but rebuke false teachers as well.

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In Titus one, nine, Paul instructs Titus to hold fast the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching so that the overseer will be able to both exhort and sound doctrine and refute those who contradict it.

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In first Timothy one, three, Paul's instruction to Timothy was to instruct certain men not to teach strange or different doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths, stories or endless genealogies because they would give rise to distractions, mere speculations that do not further the administration of God, which is by faith.

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The goal of Paul and all the apostles instructions directions is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and a sincere or true faith.

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Some men turning away from the goal of love and a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith teach the law instead.

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They teach moralistic therapeutic deism and women do this too. But I think that's the most popular teaching among women's ministry by the women pastors and teachers themselves.

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They proclaim a God who through therapeutic and philosophical teachings can be appeased in good works or by our good works, living a moral life through obedience to the law.

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But Paul says the law is for the lawless. Sound teaching from right doctrine produces love, the fulfillment of the whole law.

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It brings one to know and love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbors as ourselves, albeit imperfectly on this side of glory.

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But as John says, we do not need someone to teach us as we have the Holy Spirit and are taught by God through his word.

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First John 2 27. This sound teaching comes from Christ in whom are found faith and love and his salvation of sinners, the gospel, to which we should fully accept and believe.

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First Timothy 1 14. So we have fulfilled the whole law because we are in Christ.

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And from that fulfillment, we now walk to continue the love and the service to our neighbor that God calls us to.

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So as you can see in what I have laid out here for what the damage of false teaching does on a woman, it affects our sanctification.

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That's the process of, you know, becoming more like Christ when we believe false teachings about the father, son,

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Holy Spirit and his word and what he has taught us and what he wants from us. And especially, you know, the effects of the gospel on our sanctification.

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We don't walk then as God. Well, we don't walk fully as God wants and intends us to.

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We are still saved by Christ. We are still righteous and pleasing to God because of Christ.

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But you get into false teaching and certain heretical teachings and at the worst, false teaching and false doctrine does not save.

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When you start messing with the gospel and the work of Christ, it leads to a different anointed one, false

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Christ, a different spirit and a different gospel. So there is no other gospel. And because of that, believing in a different gospel means that a person who is in that, who believes that, will not be saved.

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Second Corinthians 11, 3 to 4 and Galatians 1, 6 to 9 talk about this. Christ is the way, the truth and the life.

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No one comes to the father except through him. John 14, 6. Ultimately, our lives are a reflection of what we believe and our emotions are an expression of what we believe.

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We start as disciples consuming God's word as milk. Sound doctrine over time chains us up to become more mature.

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The more we study God's word, the more it becomes solid food, strengthening us in knowledge and discernment, causing our love to abound more and more.

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Philippians 1, 8 to 9. And this is where we see the practicality of sound doctrine.

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False teaching affects our homes. It doesn't produce faith in the gospel. It is faith that pleases

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God. Hebrews 11, 6. And living faith produce good works.

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James 2, 14 to 26. So therefore our households are not full of the good works of repentance, love, forgiveness and all the fruits that come with the spirit.

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This is why female discipleship must, must include discernment.

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It's a mark of a maturity in a teacher. When a female teacher exercises discernment and calls those she serves to do the same, she is helping them understand that good doctrine sanctifies them, helps them in their sanctification to be more like Christ and that false doctrine detracts them from that.

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Well, this is going to be the focal point of the next episode. We're going to talk about what is discernment.

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And surprisingly, in my study and my research, the popular teachings centered around discernment are false.

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They're actually false doctrine. So just be ready to listen to that one.

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I think it's a very highly, highly important one to tackle. Maybe it will surprise some of you guys.

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Some of the teaching that we probably are inculcated in in the evangelical sphere, teaching of what discernment is, what discernment is about, what do we discern or who do we discern?

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And you find that it's false teaching. Who knew you could teach falsely about discernment?

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I mean, teach falsely about discernment. And will Christ's disciples learn how to discern?

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No. Anyway, so it's going to be an important topic.

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Tune in for that one. I think it'll bless you as you, as I help you learn to understand what is discernment, what we are to discern, what is involved in all of that, et cetera, et cetera.

01:00:05

We're all going to pull it out from scripture. All right. Now, ladies, for conclusion, let's think about this.

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We have seen from scripture what the Holy Spirit explains about false teachers through the apostle Peter. So I ask you and I ask myself, do we want to be like the false teachers?

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Do we want to be enslaved to our sins and guided by our senses, being tossed to and fro by every teaching and wind of doctrine?

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Ephesians 4, 14 to 16. Because this is what false teaching produces.

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It produces false believers and other false teachers. For those of us women who have children or teach children or have friends and minister to them in our local church and our societal spheres, we in one sense or another are teaching.

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So we must pay attention to what we are learning. For a pupil is not about his teacher, but everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher.

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Luke 6, 40. Yes, if we believe falsely, we will likely teach falsely either by word or I did.

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So dear sister, who is teaching you do you put yourself under teachers, especially female teachers who teach that which is good.

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So you are encouraged to love husbands and children, be pure and self -controlled to work at home, be kind and submissive to husbands.

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Do you come up under teachers who teach what is good, holding God's word up in honor?

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Do they understand that to draw you away from God's word and proclaim themselves and their teachings would be to revile

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God's word? Or do you put yourselves under teachers who talk about you and your worth and your greatness or themselves, their ideas, their dreams and their revelations?

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Who do you want to be more like, them or Christ? Whoever they proclaim and teach you will become like.

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The blind will lead the blind, but let us find men and women to teach and proclaim

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Christ and his word so we may be led by him and become more and more like him. So next time,

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I want to talk about where we women go from here. Now that we have seen how imperative sound doctrine is and how dangerous false doctrine is, how we discern truth from error will be the next thing we'll talk about discernment.

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But until next time, ladies, I pray you are searching out men and women who will proclaim Christ, always reminding you of the good news that he came in flesh to live and die for sinners and that by faith in this gospel, we are counted righteous, declared justified by God who adopts us as his children.

01:02:59

I pray you compare every teaching, even what is taught in this podcast, to scripture.

01:03:04

I pray you are in his word. Ladies, thanks for listening or watching this episode of Thoroughly Equipped.

01:03:14

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01:03:36

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01:03:45

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God of all grace grants you more and more knowledge and understanding of Jesus Christ as the

01:04:05

Holy Spirit thoroughly equips you through his written word for every good work.