Do False Teachers Know They Are Wolves in Sheep's Clothing?

Do false teachers realize they are wolves in sheep's clothing? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, Merry Christmas. I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-HELP. 843-2673. Now, our phone lines will be open for the next 25 minutes or so, so now is the time to call.

You can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and you're always free to email us at questions-at-core-christianity.com. Now, Adriel, I can't recall. Have we had the conversation about the live versus fake Christmas tree issue? You know, Bill, well, it's not one. It's not a conversation. It's a heated debate. I mean, you're on one side or the other, and if you have a fake Christmas tree, we can't be friends.

That's where I'm at. Yeah, so, I mean, some people think Christmas trees are an abomination and that, you know, Christmases shouldn't be celebrated. I just think the fake Christmas trees are an abomination. So, I mean, if you have a real one, then you're good in my book. Yeah, and, you know, some of those fake ones now are looking more and more real. They even have the scented ones.

I don't know, are you thinking of maybe going the other direction? I've seen, don't they have a spray now that you can just like spray your fake tree with? That's right. I think Axe body spray has like a pine flavor or something like that. You just spray that on your tree, but you're not going to fool me, and so now, Bill, I know that you guys, where you live, you're able to go and cut down your own tree.

We do. We go to a Christmas tree farm every year, and my wife is very particular because we have 10-foot ceilings in our home, and she always wants one that's like nine feet 11 inches. So, I've got to find the perfect height tree, or I've got to cut the bottom just perfect so that the tree goes all the way up to the ceiling. There's not even room for the little angel on top. Well, that's an issue.

You guys do an angel, we do a star, so there's another debate right there, you know, what goes on top of the tree. True. Unfortunately, I don't have the option of going and cutting down a tree in San Diego because I think they would arrest me.

You're probably right. We could maybe try the palm tree thing, but it's not okay to cut down trees here where there are so few. I understand, I understand. Well, we have an email to start off today's program, and it actually deals with Christmas.

I think you'll enjoy this. One of our listeners wrote in and said, how do I respond to Christian family members who center their conversations at gatherings around diet and food more than the gospel? They believe that God created us to be vegan. When we eat together, every ingredient is nitpicked as either toxic for your body or clean. It's as if food is their savior. One couple is actually in church leadership and they encourage their congregation to eat clean and do sugar fasts and detoxes. I know this is an obsession that they're trying to back up biblically, but I never know how to respond.

What should I do? Oh boy. Let me just say, I got nothing against vegans personally, but I just feel like that would be a rough Christmas dinner. I don't know about you, but I'm just imagining. That's right.

Green bean casserole. I mean, that's good, but here's, it's interesting the way that was worded, right? You know, you got to eat clean, eating clean. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, you know, from a health perspective, but there is a problem, I think, when we get self-righteous about diet or exercise or really anything.

I mean, that's the tendency, right? It's for us to have our own formula for how we're going to live and then to treat others as if they're less holy because they don't homeschool their kids or eat clean or do their devotions in this way, the same way that I do. This is the best way to do it, and I just think there's such a tendency that we have as Christians towards self-righteousness, towards feeling like I'm doing really good at this, and then all of a sudden what begins to creep in is I'm better than others, and everyone needs to do it just like I do, and here it's with regard to food, and it's so interesting because oftentimes it is the case that when we begin to focus on that, when that becomes the thing that makes us quote-unquote righteous or what we sort of plant our flag in, then we do talk less and less about the gospel, I would say. The focus of conversation becomes, well, are you eating clean? In the ancient church or in the days of the apostles, this was a real issue actually, the whole thing of diet and in particular its relationship to the law, because if you remember in the Old Testament, the ceremonial law called for clean eating. You can't eat anything that's unclean. I know there it's talking about clean and unclean a little bit differently than what your family members are talking about, but Jesus is absolutely clear about the fact that it's not what goes into your mouth that defiles you.

It's what comes out of your heart. You think of Mark chapter seven. Mark chapter seven, Jesus saying to the disciples, verse 17, he entered the house and left the people, and his disciples asked him about the parable, and he said to them, then are you without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled? Thus he declared all foods clean, and he said, what comes out of a person is what defiles him, for from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

Another text I think that we can look at is in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 9. The author of the Hebrews says, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. So we give this sort of religious devotion to our diet or to exercise or to anything apart from the true God, we begin to fall into problems. We begin to grow self-righteous and to look down upon others to despise them, and if they're not doing it just like us, I mean it's interesting, you mentioned, you know, some of these family members are leaders in churches, and they're saying, you know, you guys need to do clean eating, and if you're not doing a sugar fast, well then, you know, what's wrong with you? You're not taking care of the temple of your body, all these things. It's just, that's so unhealthy, and you're seeing something, I think, that troubles you as a Christian.

You're maybe seeing a devotion to something that's that's disordered, and so how do we approach this? I think, one, having a solid understanding of liberty of conscience, Christian liberty, the fact that, look, we can live, you know, we can choose to live in different ways as followers of Jesus Christ and be confident before the Lord in and of ourselves without needing to impose our particular feelings or perspective on matters of opinion onto others. Paul talks about this throughout his letters. This was a problem that the Corinthians had, this was a problem in Rome as well, and so that's one thing, is I think having just a biblical understanding of the doctrine of Christian liberty, but additionally being able to say, okay, are we losing sight of the main thing? Are we losing sight of the gospel of God's grace? Are we beginning to impose our own feelings and opinions on others and treat them as less than us or just avoid them? Frankly, all together, I've seen this, you know, it's like, well, they don't do things the way we do, so we can't really be around them. There's just such an insecurity there, there's such a, well, it's just not wise, and it's not biblical, and so I think graciously having conversations with family members, and you be the person around the dinner table who's gonna talk about the main thing, right, the goodness of God, the mercy of God, and receive all food with thanksgiving, say, you know, hey, that's okay that this is, I don't know, a steak or whatever it is, a glass of wine, whatever it is that you're enjoying, but enjoying it to the glory of God. That's how we set, you know, the positive example as Christians in giving thanks to God for all things, and so as we prepare in just a few days, many of us, to gather around the dinner table with family members and to give thanks to God for the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, let's talk about Jesus and his goodness and give thanks for the gospel.

Wow, really well said. I was just thinking about that poor listener, you know, if she had to go over to those people's home for Christmas dinner, Christmas dinner would probably be one of those big Beyond Meat turkeys made out of like a giant yam or something. That's just a stomach ache waiting to happen. That's, I've never heard of a Beyond Turkey, Bill. I've heard of the Beyond Burgers, but I can't imagine.

I can't imagine either. Lord help us. All right, let's move on. We'd love to hear from you if you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Our phone lines are open right now, and here's the number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Rodney who's calling in from Iowa. Rodney, what's your question for Adriel?

Hey, Adriel. Hey, I'm a faithful follower of your show, but you said something yesterday I have to beg to differ on. You was talking about the Abrahamic Covenant. That has not been fulfilled yet, Adriel, and Paul makes that clear in Romans 11, verses 25, 26, 27, and 28, and he makes that so clear. I don't know how you could misunderstand that and interpret it any other way than the way it's written, but you know, if you'd like to explain that, I'm all ears.

Hey, Rodney. Well, let me just say, Rodney, I always appreciate when people call in and want clarification or are willing to just call me out and say, hey, I don't think what you were saying there was biblical, and so if yesterday on the broadcast we were talking about specifically the way in which the Abrahamic Covenant is applied today, not whether or not it's, you know, been fulfilled or hasn't been fulfilled. Ultimately, my point was not that it's not being fulfilled. My point was that it's fulfilled ultimately in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this, I mean, I think that this is exactly what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter 3. Listen to what he says in verse 15. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.

It does not say and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ. You see what the Apostle Paul is saying there. The question is not, you know, is the Abrahamic Covenant applicable today. It's how do we apply these promises, God's word, at the present time? And Paul is saying, hey, when Abraham received those promises, the promises made to Abraham to him and to his offspring. He doesn't say to offsprings plural.

He's making an argument here. He's saying offspring, referring to one specifically, the heir of the Abrahamic promise, that heir, that offspring, Paul says, is Jesus. And in Jesus Christ, you and I have a share in those promises too, so that we, by faith, through our union with Jesus Christ, are the children of Abraham and heirs according to the promise.

And so that's the way we understand it. Part of maybe where some of the confusion was too is yesterday on the broadcast, we were talking about the promise of land and how that promise gets parsed out throughout redemptive history and in particular in the New Testament. And I was making the point that the land in the Old Testament was really a type of a greater reality.

It wasn't just the end all. You know, you go to the book of Hebrews and that's where I went yesterday, Hebrews chapter 11, and the author of the Hebrews says they're looking for a heavenly country, a new creation. That's the land of promise. Already in Psalm chapter 2, for example, the Davidic king, the messianic king, is said to rule over the whole earth.

So the focus isn't just on a little piece of property. It's the fact that God's reign, God's kingdom, God's new creation is going to cover everything in and through Jesus and we, by faith in Christ, have a relationship to that. We are, I mean, it's such a wonderful thing to meditate upon. We are the children of Abraham by faith. When we read those Old Testament stories, when we read the book of Genesis and we're reading about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs, they're in our family tree by faith in Jesus Christ because we, and you mentioned Romans chapter 11, we have been grafted in by faith to that tree, that vine, if you will, Jesus, the true vine. So again, appreciate, one, just appreciate you listening to the broadcast, and two, want to be biblical, want to be thoroughly biblical. That's, brothers and sisters, what we aim to do on this show is not just to give human traditions or ideas, but to approach your questions, the difficult questions you might have about life in the Christian faith, with the word of God, to let God speak to us and let the Lord guide us according to scripture. And so, appreciate, again, your question. Feel free to give us a call back if you want to follow up, and Merry Christmas.

You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We are still taking your calls about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology, the Heidelberg Confession. Whatever you'd like to discuss, you can call us right now. Here's the number. It's 1-833-843-2673.

That's 833-THE-CORE. And we'll be taking calls for the next 10 minutes or so. And then, we're going to be recording a second episode of Core Christianity once the live program ends here in just a bit.

So, feel free to call in for the next 30, 40 minutes or so. Let's go to Viola in St. Louis, Missouri. Viola, what's your question? I'm sorry, it's Viola. I always mispronounce your name.

Viola, what question do you have for Adriel? And that's okay. My question is about Cornell Christians. I'll say it like that. And it seems like some are living in this facade in church. And my question is about cornucators.

I have, you know, know of some people that are living together. And, you know, like one is a deacon, and then one is a Sunday school teacher, and I asked one of them, I said, so, don't you know, what does the Bible say about this, you know? And the deacon said, well, is any sin worse than another?

And I was like, is that your answer? So, my reference scripture is 1 Corinthians 1-3 about Cornell Christians. And also, what is it, 1 Corinthians 6, 9-11, where it says, cornucators, cornucators, and a lot of other ones, will not inherit the kingdom of heaven?

Viola, thank you so much for that question. And, you know, I think you're in the right book in 1 Corinthians there, thinking about this one specifically. The text that I was going to go to in between the two passages that you mentioned is 1 Corinthians chapter 5, because listen to what the Apostle Paul says there in verse 1. He says, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife, and you are arrogant.

Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. And then he goes on to say, for though absent in body, I am present in spirit, and if, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus, and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened, for Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Well, there it is right there. He's saying, look, if there's someone in the church, and I mean this is all the more serious when you have an individual who is a leader in the church, let's say a deacon, you know, or an elder, someone in the church who's living in sin, they're cohabitating, they're in a sexual relationship with another person that's not their spouse, living in sin, and everybody's just sort of turning a blind eye.

No one's doing anything. He says, you guys are boasting in it, actually, you're just pretending like everything is fine, when in reality, don't you know that a little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump? Sin spreads like leaven throughout the whole body, and if you don't deal with it, if you don't exercise church discipline, what ends up happening is it takes over the church, so that you have an example that's set for others within the body of Christ, and they begin to think, oh, I guess it's okay to have sex outside of marriage, or whatever the sin is, to engage in debauchery of one sort or another, and so what needs to happen is the church, rather than saying, hey, we're all sinners, and so let's just overlook one another's sin. No, what we do is we confront sin in love, and this is a part of what faithful churches do, violinists. Faithful churches speak out against sin and confront it. This is why Jesus gave us the protocol for church discipline in Matthew chapter 18. If you have somebody who's sinning and they're not repentant, then you do what Paul talks about there in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. You exercise church discipline, excommunication.

Why? Because you don't want that to spread within the body of Christ. So it grieves me to hear that as you've talked to people about this, the response has been so, you know, to minimize it, or to say, well, we're all sinners. No, that's not an excuse, and that's not okay, and if the leadership in the church is unwilling to address sin and confront it with the Word of God, if instead of confronting it they're living in sin, then there's a real problem.

There's a real problem, and I mean, at some point you have to consider, okay, is this where I want to be? Can I worship in a place where sin is allowed free reign and where we just sort of overlook it? And if the excuse is, well, we want to be gracious towards sinners, yeah, that's fine, but being gracious towards sinners is not allowing sin to continue and not calling them to repentance.

That's not gracious. You're just saying, yeah, go ahead and do that which is killing you, that which is destroying you, and I'm not going to help. I think of what wisdom says in Proverbs chapter 27 verse 6, Biola, faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Right there, what we're getting, faithful are the wounds of a friend, is someone who really loves you, a true friend. When they see that you're living in sin, when they see that you're doing things that are wrong, that aren't in line with charity, love, obedience to God's love, when they see that, they'll wound you in love.

And what does that wound look like? It looks like confronting the sin and calling you to repentance. That could be hard, you know. Anytime I've had close friends come to me and say, hey, Adriah, we want you to check this out in your life here. At first, you know, you can take offense, and Adriah, you know, you can take offense, but you offense, and it can be hard for a minute, but you realize, man, this person really loves me. They care about my soul.

They're helping me to see something that maybe I'm blind to. We want to be those kinds of friends within the body of Christ, and we need pastors and church leaders who are going to confront sin and not let it have free reign within the church, because we've been redeemed from this present evil age, not so that we would continue in our sins, but so that we might put them to death and walk in a manner that's pleasing to the Lord. God bless you, Biola. Merry Christmas.

So well said. Thanks for that, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. I want to tell you about a new Bible study we have that really unpacks the core doctrines of the Christian faith. Yeah, the study is called We Believe, and it's a 10-lesson study on the Nicene Creed, really unpacking the core doctrines of the Christian faith.

Get a hold of it this Christmas season for a gift of $25 or more. You can find out more about that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Well, we do receive voicemails here at the Core.

You can call us 24 hours a day and leave your question at 833-THE-CORE. Here's one that came in from one of our listeners named Jean. My question is, do false teachers know they're false, or are they themselves deceived? In some scriptures like Matthew 7 15, it seems like they're intentionally deceiving people, like the wolf knows it's a wolf. But then I read Matthew 7 21-23, which seems to include false teachers because of the types of works they describe performing, like prophesying, casting out demons, performing miracles, and those people seem genuinely shocked to find out that they weren't following the Lord, like they were deceived. Thank you for answering my question.

Hey, thank you for that question, and I don't know that it has to be one or the other. I think there are some instances where there are people who are deceived, whether by others or just self-deceived, and I think in particular for false teachers it is a real self-deception. And they're blind to how far away they are from the Lord, and they're continuing to engage in ungodly behavior and lead others astray, given to sensuality. Peter talks about this in 2 Peter as well. And they stand before God on the day of judgment, as you go on to read there in Matthew 7, and they say, didn't we do all of these things, these wonderful things, Lord God, in your name? And Jesus responds and says, I never knew you.

Never knew you. And it does seem like there's a real disconnect there, that these people, they're just confused. Same thing with the separation between the sheep and the goats. When didn't we do these things for you? And so I think there are some instances where individuals are truly self-deceived, and they don't know that they're false teachers. And there are other instances where I think people know, I don't believe this, and I'm just using this to prey on other people. So I think you have both, and God deliver us from both and help us to be faithful to Christ, to love him and keep us from false teaching as his people. God bless. Explore the truth of God's word together.