Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, April 7th. The strength of your faith depends on the foundation it's built upon, which is why sound teaching is crucial. Deepen your trust in God by learning how to recognize and deal with false teachers. Do you feel adequate to identify false teaching when you hear it?
What about your children? Do you think they are able to distinguish between what is true and what is erroneous? There are lots of people around who are propagating ideas that are absolutely untrue. It's deception. And the rise of this kind of group is increasing all around us. And I think oftentimes things sort of creep up on us. But erroneous doctrine is increasing everywhere. If you don't believe that it is, you might just look around at the construction that's going on and recognize that people are building places of worship that you know they absolutely do not believe what we believe as followers of Jesus Christ. And so naturally, they're going to propagate their ideas as erroneous and as unbiblical as they are.
That's what they're going to do. Are you equipped to defend yourself? Do you know what you believe in? Can you look in the Word of God and say, here's what God says and this is what I believe? Or do you find yourself at the mercy of somebody who wants to argue with you? God's people need to know what we believe, why we believe it, and to be able to defend it.
And oftentimes we take it for granted until all of a sudden we're confronted with it. Now when Paul wrote to the Colossian church, he wrote to combat a heresy that was going on. And while it had many tenets in the heresy, one of the things that they were having to deal with is the fact that they were being told that Jesus Christ was not deity, he was not God.
That he was not the redeemer of mankind, he was not the ruler of the world, and that just knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Savior was not sufficient. So he wrote the Colossian Epistle in order to defend the truth of the gospel. And I want you to turn, if you will, to the second chapter because this is one of many verses of Scripture in the Bible that deal with the whole issue of dealing with false teachers. And today we must do that. There are many people, for example, who go to church and listen and never question what they hear, or they turn on the television or the radio, never question what they hear.
Is this true or is it not true? And so I want us to look at this second chapter of Colossians, and let's read a few verses here beginning in this second chapter, verse one. So Paul writes, for I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face.
He had not been to Colossae. That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and attaining to all the wealth that comes from a full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself. So he wanted to be sure they understood exactly who Christ was. In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this so that no one will delude you, deceive you, lead you astray with persuasive arguments.
He says, that's the reason I'm writing this. For even though I'm absent in body, nevertheless I'm with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. That is, because you've trusted Him as your Savior, follow Him now. Having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed and overflown with gratitude. He said, live it out. You've learned the truth.
You know the truth. Now watch this, see to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He's the head over all rule and authority. And on he goes. Now, what does that bring us to?
Simply this. And that is his whole issue of false teachers, because they're out there. And when you think about the presence of false teachers, I think about what Paul said in 2 Corinthians, for example, and as he was also challenging them to be aware of what was going on.
Think about this for a moment. What would be the primary approach of a false teacher? One thing, defeat by deception. False teachers, listen, false teachers are deceivers, and to be deceived means to be led astray.
It means to be led into error. That is, if someone deceives you, they have lied to you. And so let's think about it, because it's all around us.
And you think about people, for example, who may be your friends, and maybe there's something going on between you. And if a person deceives you, they intend for you to believe something that is not true or to do something that is not right. And when they tell you it's all right and it's okay, and I think about how many people have been hooked on drugs because they've been deceived by someone who was selling them or sharing them.
And so people are deceiving people all the time. And deception is a sin. And in 2 Corinthians when Paul was speaking to the Corinthian church, here's what he said. He said, I wish that you would bear with me, and a little foolishness, but indeed you are bearing with me, for I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you into one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. He's talking about his love and devotion to him. Then here's what he says, but I'm afraid that as the serpent, that is Satan, deceived Eve by his craftiness, and he's talking about his love and devotion to him. He's talking about his love and devotion to him. He's talking about his love and devotion to him.
He's talking about his love and devotion to him. He says, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and the purity of devotion to Christ. He could see that they were being deceived, that they were being led astray by people who deliberately were in the process of deceiving them and leading them astray. And I want you to go back, if you will, and I want to take you through some verses because this was a very, very important passage. And I want you to go back to II Peter, and we could go through many verses, but look in II Peter for a moment, and I want you to notice here the warning that is given. Look at this passage. He says in the third chapter and the seventeenth verse, because the same thing was going on. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard, so that you are not carried away by the error and fall from your own steadfastness, but rather grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory forever and ever and for all eternity. Listen to this. He says, be careful that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men. Now, what's an unprincipled man? An unprincipled man is one who does not live by principle. You say, well, that's simple enough.
Well, what do you mean by that? Well, you live by two things. You either live your life by principle or by preference. If I live by principle, I am guided in every circumstance of life of what I will and will not do. Because the principles of my life are based on the Word of God, they will guide me in every single decision.
I'm going to be honest, going to be truthful, what's best and so forth, right attitude. Unprincipled men operate on the basis of what do I want now, what do I need now, what pleases me now, what satisfies me now. And many people operate on the basis of preference. It is not the way for godly people to operate.
And so, there's all kind of deception that goes on. And so, what He's doing here, He's warning us throughout the Scripture. Then turn all over to First John, which is almost at the end of your Bible if you're not too familiar with that. Look in First John and look, if you will, in the fourth chapter because the same situation was going on. Listen to what he says.
He's in verse one of chapter four of First John. Now watch. Beloved, do not believe every spirit. Don't believe everything you hear, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world, but this you know, the Spirit of God, that is the Holy Spirit, every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God.
Now watch this. When you hear a message, some proclamation, and they deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, they deny that He is deity, then you are listening to false information. You are listening to something that is deceptive.
You are listening to a lie. Someone is in the process of misleading you about your attitude about who Jesus is. And so, he says, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the Spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that it's coming and now already is in the world.
It always has been. He says, for example, they are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. That is the unbeliever. We are from God. He who knows God listens to us.
He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of error. So, all through the Scriptures and there are many other verses in Galatians, for example, in Romans and all the rest, that Paul warns against false teachers and warns against false doctrine. And so, I ask you in the very beginning, do you feel like that you are equipped to be able to identify in your life when you hear error and when you hear truth? And are you in the process of equipping your children to be able to discern truth from error? They sit in classrooms and listen to teachers from all kinds of backgrounds and all kinds of religions. And you see, oftentimes people are very deceptive about the way they teach, whatever they may be, and whoever they may be representing. Your children and mine and our grandchildren and the children of people all across our nation need to understand this is a day in which discernment of truth, being able to recognize truth from error is very, very important.
Because not to do so will lead to some very, very painful circumstances and situations in a person's life. Now, what about the presence of these false teachers around us? Well, let me just say, first of all, that false teachers build cults. A cult is a group of people that have assembled themselves together for the purpose of observing certain rituals or certain rules and regulations. And usually, they are there having been persuaded by the abilities and talents and very skillful way in which some charismatic leader has led them. And so there are people out there, notice this, for example, when you find a cult, you find a leader whose ultimate goal is control. He or she wants to control people for whatever reason it may be.
