A Field Guide on False Teaching

When your neighbor says to you, I've noticed that you are a Christian, why are you a Christian? What is it that you believe? And you try to answer that question, and their next question to you is this, why do you believe that?

Are you ready to answer that question at any moment at the drop of that? To tell people not only what you believe, but why it is that you believe it. Hello, and welcome to Renewing Your Mind.

I'm Lee Webb. What we just heard Dr. R.C. Sproul say underscores why Ligonier Ministries exists to help you articulate what you believe, why you believe it, how to live it, and how to share it. It's important then to understand how biblical Christianity stands in stark contrast to false religions, cults, and even the false teaching we find within the church. And that's why we're excited to tell you about one of our newest resources, A Field Guide on False Teaching. It's not a lengthy book.

Its short chapters are designed to help you contend for what the Bible teaches. With me today is our president and CEO, Chris Larson, along with the senior pastor of St. Andrew's Chapel, Dr. Burke Parsons. And joining us remotely is the president of Reformation Bible College, Dr. Stephen Nichols. Chris, I'll begin by asking you, what was the impetus for this book?

When I first heard Dr. R.C. Sproul teach God's Word, I realized that there was a lot that this man knew that I did not know, and so immediately was drawn to his knowledge of the scriptures and his ability to communicate it in a way that was simple for me to understand as a college student. And when I came on staff here at Ligonier Ministries and working alongside of Dr. Sproul and the other teaching fellows, I think about how is it that Ligonier Ministries moves forward into the future and providing helpful resources to the church? This resource that we're introducing today, this field guide on false teaching, represents the quintessence of what Ligonier Ministries is all about. Because not only did Dr. Sproul know things about the scriptures, not only did he communicate, but he developed an apparatus, a way of doing things.

What makes Ligonier Ligonier is the way Dr. Sproul set up Ligonier Ministries to function. And so this project provides a consensus resource that gives Christians today great confidence in answering. You see, there's so many truth claims that are competing against the truth claim of Christianity, of Jesus Christ saying that he is the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him. Well, how do Christians respond when people challenge them today?

And we heard that at the beginning of this episode. How do you defend the truth? And this resource, I believe, can really help Christians today answer the alphabet soup of confusion that is out there in the marketplace of ideas and provide a crystal clear answer and a bold answer that testifies to what the Bible has to say against any range of false teaching. Well, this is a resource that we will be offering to you today. We hope you'll stay tuned.

At the end of the program, I'll let you know how you can access this. When you receive it, though, you'll find that there are three sections to this field guide on false teaching, one on false teaching within the church, the second on cults, the third on false religions and worldviews. But Burke, I like the way this field guide begins. It starts with a foundation.

Would you talk about that? Absolutely, Lee. And the foundation of this field guide is, of course, the truth. In helping people to understand what is the counterfeit, what is false, we first have to understand the truth. And so this book begins with Christian doctrine in a basic and simple way. So anyone who picks this up will understand not only what the gospel is, but will also understand what it is we believe as Christians.

You know, as you were talking there, Burke, you mentioned college students. We see this. I see it every day. You see it in your ministry.

We see it at the college. The way that we are just bombarded in this moment in time with false teaching. And we need to do two things.

We need to know the truth. If we want to talk about what is the field guide on true teaching, well, that's the Bible. And so we must know the Bible, but we also need to know false teaching. Let's first shore up what we believe and be sure we have those key doctrines in place. And now we can engage. And that's precisely what this little book does.

Steve, you're exactly right. We are being bombarded by false teaching. And not only are we being bombarded by that, but the entire world is being bombarded by this false teaching. And the reality of it is, as Dr. Sproul said at the outset, we as God's people are called to be ready to make a defense of the faith that we believe.

I would just want to plead with every parent who's listening. If you have a high school student, even a middle school student, if you have a college student, if you have a grandson or a granddaughter that you care about, you want to get this book into their hands so that they can be better prepared when they go off to school or wherever they go, because they will encounter these false teachers and their teaching. The apostle Paul warned his student, Timothy, about false teaching. Steve, as a church historian, I was wondering, you know, there's nothing new under the sun as we go back all the way to the early church. Is there a common thread in false teaching and false religion that we find that's worked its way over all these centuries?

Absolutely, Lee. In fact, you know, that's where the book starts. It starts with who is God?

Who am I? What is my great need for salvation? And when you look at these false teachings, you look at the cults like Mormonism and Christian science or Jehovah's Witnesses, or you look at the false religions of the world, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. All of those are counterfeits on all three of those key doctrines. They all present a false teaching of who God is. They all present a false teaching of who we are. And because of that, of course, they're going to get salvation wrong and Christ wrong. And so this little catalog of these false teachings, cults, world religions, even worldviews, those sort of amorphous religious commitments that people have, as the book talks about the so-called nones, not N-U-N, but N-O-N-E-S, this ever-growing segment of not just the American population, but the global population.

As we look into these groups of people, what do we see? And as we look into these teachings, we see a false teaching on who God is, who I am, and what is my true need? And that's right there in the first century. That's back in the centuries B.C. of the pages of the Old Testament, as you had the one true faith of the one true God contending against the false gods and the false religions. So yeah, there's nothing new under the sun in terms of the basics, but those trappings, they've changed over the centuries.

And those trappings are different right now in the 21st century. So we need to learn a little bit about Bertrand Russell or Deepak Chopra, and you'll read about both of them in this book. And so that's where I think this book is such a helpful guide.

And really, I find none like it. I'm so thankful for this conversation and to join with you, our dear listeners, because as you've tracked along with Renewing Your Mind over the years, you know that we've been about trying to help you to become better students of the Word of God. And I think we all share this concern that there is an appalling lack of knowledge of the scriptures, certainly in the culture. But I think what's even more shocking is that there's an appalling biblical illiteracy in the church. People do not know what the Bible teaches. Our state of theology survey for 2020 shows this problem is rampant, even in the church among people who identify as evangelicals.

And so we've got a two-front war here. We have a problem in the church as well as a problem in the culture. And I think this resource can really provide the ammunition that you, our listeners, will need to provide something for the next generation.

And that's the other thing I would just say to you, our listeners. Pray for us at Ligonier because we are firmly focused on moving this ministry forward for the sake of the next generation. We are developing resources even now to address things for high school students and younger, recognizing that we must pass along the faith to the next generation, training them up in the knowledge of the Lord, because this is the next generation of the leaders of the church. Chris, you know, 25 years ago, if I would have spoken with most Christians in most good churches, and I would have said, you know, are Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses part of the true church? Are they true Christians? Most Christians—Lee, you're shaking your head.

Chris, this is true, right? Most Christians would have said, of course not. No, they're Christian cults. They're not Christians at all. They're actually deceiving people by making themselves look like they're Christians. Today, many Christians don't know the difference. And because their Mormon neighbors are nice and do good things, they just assume they're Christians. After all, they have Jesus Christ on the name of their churches. And what we have to do is we have to help begin to turn the tide and help God's people understand that there is a line in the sand between true Christianity and false. You know, Burke, in this book, in these short chapters, those false teachings are just presented so clearly.

And I think that's the beauty of this. You know, you don't need a PhD in apologetics or a graduate degree in philosophy to be an apologist, but you do need some content. What are the tenets of these religions?

What is the history of their founders? And the more you find out, the more you can see through that. Steve, I think you're exactly right. And I think one of the great things about this field guide on false teaching is because of the size of it, it's going to be very easy for readers to go through it quickly, to mark it up, use a highlighter, highlight some favorite phrases and quotes and truths that they find within it. And it's the sort of thing they can have right by their front door. They can have in their cars with them. They can have when they travel because it is such a helpful resource.

And it really is that a field guide. They can take it along with them. They don't have to remember all these things.

They don't have to commit everything to memory, but they have a resource that's not some huge volume that they have to sift through over the course of many months. They can sit down with us, read it in a sitting or two, highlight what they need and take it along with them. You know, one of the things I find helpful about this too, and my copies already, I'm probably gonna need to get another one because mine's already marked up and pages are folded over, but I find it's helpful not to just have analysis. You know, here's the details.

Here are some facts you need to know. But the book also gives synthesis. It takes, for instance, not just religions, also deals at the end with two major worldviews and they're opposing. One's new age spirituality, and the other is secularism and atheism. And they're on opposite ends of the spectrum, but they're powerful worldviews.

They have millions literally caught up in their diabolical grasp. But what these two chapters do at the end is just give a brilliant synthesis of these wide-ranging movements and latch onto some phrases and really give some insights. I really benefited from reading this book and understanding my neighborhood and understanding the people I see walking their dogs in front of my home. And so I think it's not just analysis, it's also that synthesis and that being able to get to the heart of the matter and get to the heart of these versions of unbelief.

This book is just immensely helpful. And to emphasize why a resource like this is so important, take Islam, for example. One research group estimates that the Muslim population in the US increased from 2.4 million in 2007 to almost three and a half million in 2017.

Since 2007, the Hindu population has more than doubled to 2.2 million people. So in essence, the mission field has come to us. It really has, Lee. The mission field is on our front doorsteps. And while we still need to go and we still need to send and we still need to support the work that is being done internationally, both here at Ligonier and in our local churches, it is true that the world has come to our doorsteps, especially in large metropolitan areas throughout our United States. Steve, you mentioned about the way this book helps to synthesize. And I think it's a really important point because some of the questions that it asks us in the book really help Christians to not just read sort of the information about the different cults and other world religions. It helps us to understand what we believe as Christians over and against what the false religions claim.

So for instance, I'm just looking at one page here in the chapter on New Age spirituality and ask the question, how does this religion hold up against biblical Christianity? And it begins by going through our view of divine sovereignty, divine power, divine purpose. And it helps Christians to understand what it is we believe in contradistinction.

And that's a very important point. We as Christians are called not only to believe something, we're called to affirm what we believe and also be able to deny what we do not believe. And that is what has been lost in the church today. We need to know what we affirm, and we need to be able to defend what we affirm. And we also need to be able to understand what it is we deny. You know, one of the things that I think can help us do that, and I couldn't agree more with you, Burke, is to understand what flows into these worldviews and beliefs that we see today. And I think that's another piece to this puzzle that is helpful from this book. You know, it's one thing to talk about secularism and atheism, but to go back and trace its roots in deism, to see the influence of people like Charles Darwin in the middle of the 19th century, to see the influence of a Bertrand Russell and of some of the philosophers like Nietzsche at the turn of the 20th century, to see the postmodernist philosophers, to see all of those streams coming into fruition today of this rampant secularism. And this book will help folks do that.

I can't tell you how many aha moments I've had as I was looking through pages of this book. And I think what that does is that that gives us the ability to talk to people, to know what they believe. And with gentleness, I can't agree with you more to be in gentle respect to speak the truth in love, but to speak the truth. And as we understand and sort of get into the mind, as it were, of the non-Christian, we can understand what they're thinking. And we are armed, so to speak, for that conversation to make that persuasive, compelling defense for the gospel.

And I think a lot of Christians, Steve, really want to give an answer. They understand that the Lord has called them to provide a defense, and they just don't necessarily feel equipped or have the confidence. Ligonier's here to come alongside of you and to serve the local church in providing helpful discipleship resources like this, just to that end, to give you confidence to be able to stand for the truth. And here's what I love, is that once you're standing for the truth, the truth speaks for itself.

You're not standing on your own two feet. The Holy Spirit is there with you to come alongside of you to provide a testimony about the truth as it is in Jesus. And the Spirit will do His work, and the Spirit will testify to that which is true.

R.C. would talk about the consequences of ideas, and it can be confusing to parse one from another. And I would just want to encourage you, our listeners, that you can take God at His word, that you can trust Him, and He will help you. And He will give you opportunities to speak the name of Jesus Christ and provide a testimony to the truth. And so if this resource can be some small help to you and to your church and your family, we certainly want to come alongside of you. And I just want to mention, the other part of a project like this is not just the good that it can do here in the United States, but we've already started translating this into other languages. And so we want to help believers in other countries and other regions of the world to be able to provide an answer for the hope that lies within them as well. So when you give to support Leader Ministries, you're not just giving to get a helpful resource for you.

You're really powering a movement to provide biblical, trusted answers to Christians around the world. And with that in mind, for your gift of any amount today, we will say thank you by sending you two copies of A Field Guide on False Teaching. There are a couple of ways you can reach us. One is by phone at 800-435-4343. You can also make your request and give your gift online at renewingyourmind.org. Burke, speaking as a pastor, how would you recommend this be used in the local church setting?

Thank you, Lee. That's a great question. You know, I think that a lot of our listeners who get this book, when they get it, they're going to want more. And they're going to want to get as many as they can to distribute to friends and family. I think also a lot of our listeners who are pastors or elders in their churches, they're going to want to see this in their church bookstores or wherever they can put books, because they're going to want to get this to as many of their fellow congregants as possible. I hope that many of our members at St. Andrew's will pick this up.

I mean, this is why we do what we do. As Chris said, we're trying to serve the church and to provide the church with helpful resources, the church not only of one age group or one demographic, but every age and for the future. And so I hope that Christians and churches will get dozens, if not hundreds of these, not for the sake of Ligonier Ministries.

We don't care about that. We care about the kingdom of God. And this book, like everything we strive to do, is for the kingdom of God, the glory of God, and as you said, the mission of God. To make you aware of the contents of this book, it begins with the introduction that we talked about earlier, a foundation for biblical truth. Section one deals with false teaching, the prosperity gospel, the word of faith movement, deism, legalism, and antinomianism. The second section deals with cults such as Mormonism, Christian science, Jehovah's Witnesses. And the third section is on false religions and worldviews, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, New Age spirituality, atheism, and secularism. Dr. Nichols, you mentioned some aha moments that you had in reading this book.

Can you give us an example of maybe one or two? You know, I'd be glad to, Lee. As you mentioned that table of contents, the two chapters I found really interesting as we get towards the end, that bringing together of New Age spirituality. And there's a pullout quote here from one of the one of the gurus of our world that has led so many astray, Deepak Chopra. But the quote just says this, the most creative act you will ever undertake is the act of creating yourself. Now, I'm thankful that I didn't have to go through and read Deepak Chopra to get to that quote.

And I'm thankful that someone else did it for me. But that that quote, as I think about it, I could see how so many people would just be duped by that quote and take it as a religious commitment. That will become their John 3 16. And we need to recognize this and we need to see it. And so a book like this just sifts through so much and puts it for us. You know, I mentioned the other worldview that's talked about in terms of atheism and this growing secularism. And when it comes to it, what the book very helpfully does is just cuts right through everything, gets right to the heart of the matter of secularism and declare secularism to teach no authority, but human reason. The chief principle of secularism is the belief in the autonomy of human reason. And not just the autonomy of human reason, the autonomy of man. And that so gets right to the core of the matter that secularists and atheists, they don't want a God because they don't want to be accountable to God. They want the very false notion that they are their own God over their own lives and over their own destinies. Now we know that life is going to throw a lot of curve balls at that false worldview, and it's going to crumble under even the slightest pressure.

But nevertheless, it's where a lot of people are. And so I just find sentences like that and quotes like that throughout this book. And I find them so helpful to teach me and to teach Renewing Your Mind listeners of what our neighbors are thinking and what is motivating them and what is driving them.

I think you'll find tremendous help here in the pages of this book. These days in which we live drives home the truth of what one pundit many years ago observed that when people depart from Christianity, it isn't that they believe nothing. It's that they begin believing anything. And that really is what we see happening throughout the world today.

And you can even see the restlessness and violence in our streets as symptomatic of the confusion that predominates in our culture. And so a resource like this, we believe, can be something to allow Christians to share the gospel with confidence and clearly, which is the true answer that the world needs. You know, Chris, back in the opening pages of the book, it just says the Bible teaches that there is a final day of judgment. And that's really the ultimate truth that we're talking about here. There is a final day of judgment. And we know that the only way to be ready for that final day is to be clothed in the righteous robe of Jesus Christ. We know that. We will not stand otherwise. And our hope, our prayer at Ligonier Ministries is to equip you, the saints, so that you can share this gospel with others.

Because your neighbors, no matter how buttoned up they look and how together they seem to have it, or maybe how falling apart they are in the in the current moment, the reality is there is a judgment day, a final judgment coming. And we need to tell people about Christ, about their only hope. Dr. Nichols, thank you for that.

And Chris Larson, along with Dr. Burke Parsons, thank you for being with us as well. And again, if you'd like to receive two copies of A Field Guide on False Teaching, we invite you to call us with your gift of any amount at 800-435-4343. You can also reach us online at redoingyourmind.org. Well, have you ever wondered why God appeared to Moses in a burning bush? Why not in a more powerful and majestic way? Next week, we'll feature messages from Dr. Sproul's series on Moses, and we will learn how Jesus is foreshadowed in the meeting between God and Moses on holy ground. I hope you'll join us beginning Monday here on Renewing Your Mind.