A Warning About Wolves

The false teachers consider Christ dying on the cross as foolishness.

Why do you need to believe all that stuff about Calvary, you know, that atonement thing? Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1, for the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where's the wise man? Where's the scribe or the teacher, the college professor?

Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the work? On our previous broadcast, Stephen Davey taught from Acts 20 and we looked at church leaders. We examined who they are and what these godly shepherds are to do.

If you missed that message, you can go back and listen after this broadcast. But today, we examine a different group of people. In addition to shepherds who guard the flock of God, there are also wolves who seek to destroy the flock.

How do we spot them? How do we know if a Bible teacher is a wolf in sheep's clothing? This is wisdom for the heart.

Stay with us for this important message called a warning about wolves. I was sent a little email this past week. It was a little boy the story says that went to his pastor after the service. And he said to his pastor, pastor, when I grow up and get a job, I'm going to give you some money. The pastor smiled and he thought that's nice. But he said, son, why would you want to do that? And the kid responded, well, my dad, he says that you're about the poorest preacher he's ever heard.

I'm still wondering why I got that. What is the job and role of the pastor elder bishop? Well, Paul told the elders in Ephesus, he noticed verse 28, he emphatically states be on guard for yourselves. He tells the guardians of the flock to guard their own spiritual walk because that can sometimes take second place. When you're involved as a Sunday school teacher or a small group leader or involved in ministry, you often care.

So for the needs of others, the emotional needs, the physical needs are so engrossed in and where they are in their spiritual walk. And you're concerned about the sins of others that you often sort of shove your own life over here in the closet and say, just wait, I'll get to you when I can. So guard yourselves, he says, as you try to draw others to closeness with the savior. Now notice further in verse 28, he says, not only be on guard for yourselves, but for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, the shepherd, the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. That is how precious you are to God.

He died for you, the flock to redeem you. So be on guard for yourselves and be on guard for the flock. Why the urgency, Paul?

Why the warning to be on guard? The next verse tells us, verse 29, because I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. So Paul, you guess they're coming?

No, I know they're coming. Now, why did Paul know? We're not told why here, but we can only guess that Ephesus, with what we know, was the most effective church in Asia Minor at this point in time. And if you want to be involved in an effective church, if you want to have an effective testimony as an individual, you might as well send the clarion call to hell to come after you, because they will. You become a target. And so he says, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, which I've called you to guard.

The predators from without are seeking to get in. And he basically talks about two kinds, those from without and those from within. Jesus Christ had already warned his disciples of those who would come in or seek to.

They're wolves, he said, in sheep's clothing, which is an interesting image. Paul will warn the Corinthians of those who will lead them away from the purity of the devotion to Christ, pure devotion to Christ. In 2 Corinthians 11, 3, they would be preaching another Jesus, 2 Corinthians 11, 14. That is, they would be describing somebody that they would call Jesus. They'd be talking about the Lord, they'd talk about God.

But when you take the God that they are describing, the Jesus that they are describing, and you compare him to the words of God's revelation, you come up with two totally different people. He said that they would bring a different gospel in Galatians 1, 6. And Paul said in Galatians 1, 9 of these false teachers that I would wish they were accursed. Great passion in the life of this man to guard the church. And since the first century, ladies and gentlemen, the accursed false teachers have been knocking, banging away at the door of the church to gain entrance through various means. Some seduced the church with sweet sounding messages of prosperity and materialism. Others threatened to persecute the church. Others attempt to have the church compromise its stand on true doctrine. And other false teachers seek to completely pervert the church by means of false teaching. Now, what I want to do is move rather quickly through several characteristics of these wolves from without who seek to invade the church.

For the sake of time, I've written the texts into my notes, so I'll read them as I give you the characteristics. First of all, I want you to note the false teachers deny the deity of Jesus Christ. By the way, when anybody knocks on your door, they're seeking to sell you a magazine or they'll start by saying, I want to interest you in reading the Bible and on and on and on.

All you have to do is just ask them one question. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh? That's all. You don't have to spend a lot of money on seminary to learn that one.

I just gave it to you and it's free. Just ask that one question. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh? And that's where you divide. Everybody is a false teacher and those who know the truth. John wrote in 1 John 2 22, who is the liar, but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ that is the Messiah, God in the flesh. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the father and the son. That is the one who denies the equality of the father with the son, that they are somehow less than the other.

Anyone who denies that John says is a liar. And so we guard the flock from those who deny that truth and part of you may wonder why we have so many guards up around our children. A lot of it has been a progression that is emanated from our concern that those who teach believe the doctrinal truth that we hold dear. Some of it began several years ago when a couple came into the church and volunteered to work in a children's class. This is before we had all the hoops and guards and applications and badges and blood types and fingerprints and all that.

And we're going to do more of that, by the way. And I'd never met them. We didn't know anything about them, but they had evidently begun volunteering and then they had sort of been elevated because we were short on teachers. Well, you've been volunteering. Why don't you go and teach?

Sure, we'd be glad to teach. Not knowing they were a member of a cult whose agenda basically is to worm their way into the church as apostates do and make friends and eventually invite people over and start a little study and eventually lead or pervert them into the air of their way. And I wouldn't have known it except that very first Sunday when they were to teach, somebody came to me and said, people who live down the street from me are teaching in the class and I understand they're part of a cult. He told me the name of it.

My heart went to my shoes. And that afternoon, well, I made a few calls first and then I called their home, got her on the phone and I said, I've never met you. I don't know who you are, but you know who I am.

I gave her my name and she said, yes, I know you are. I said, I want to ask you one question because it's come to my attention that you may not believe what we believe. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God coming to flesh?

Well, we believe that he is the son of God. I said, that isn't what I asked you. I said, do you believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, come as redeemer, God equal with the father and the spirit? She said, well, you need to talk to my husband. I said, I do not.

I'll send somebody over and we'll get the curriculum from you. And then I said a few other things. We seek to guard the church from those who deny the deity of Jesus Christ, those who are pitiful, those who are needy, those who are captivated by the lie, those we seek to reach. Do we not? Well, secondly, the false teachers consider Christ dying on the cross as foolishness. Why do you need to believe all that stuff about Calvary? You know, that at that atonement thing, you know, why? Why do you have to have people dying?

I don't need anybody to die for me. Paul wrote in First Corinthians one for the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the cleverness of the clever.

I will set aside. Where's the wise man? Where's the scribe or the teacher, the college professor? Where's the debater of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Member of the flock hands me a stack of newspaper articles every other month or so. And I love it. In fact, if you want to join the research team, you read magazines and newspaper articles and all of that and and things out of the end, I know you get when you're having devotions or whatever, you just pull that stuff out and let me have it.

Okay, keep it coming. Here's one. It's called Sophia's Children. This was in the Wall Street Journal. Five years ago, the feminist reimagining movement burst on the American religious scene with a conference.

You've heard of this? Participants sang praises to the goddess Sophia rather than Christ. They addressed their deities as Mother God, Earth Mother or womb of creation. One speaker who happens to be this woman who happens to be a professor at Union Theological Seminary, which is not necessarily the center of conservatism. Her name is Dolores Williams announced quote, I don't think we need a theory of atonement. We call it a doctrine around here. She said a theory of atonement. I don't think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff. This poor woman did nothing more than fulfill the words of scripture that said that those who deny that Christ is God will also do what?

Believe that the cross is foolishness. Each speaker, by the way, at this conference was blessed in the name of Sophia. The conference ended with participants. There are more than a thousand people.

This is no fly by night, by the way. This is gaining momentum. More than a thousand people in this conference ended their conference by biting into large red apples to express their solidarity with Eve. They were commanded or encouraged to quote, rejoice in our resistance in our solidarity with all women who seek to be the word to bite the apple is to recommit ourselves to resisting all those forces who oppress us.

This is from the pit. Paul went on to say in first Corinthians one verse 23, but we preach Christ crucified to Jews, a stumbling block to the rest of the world foolishness, but to those of us who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Third, false teachers suppress the truth of creation and create their own speculations. Romans chapter one reveals how they deny the creative acts of God through Christ. Christ being the creative agent of creation, according to Colossians. And in order to firm up their faith in what they believe, they have not only denied his creation, but they have come up with their own speculations and every generation has its own. They knew about God from creation, Romans one says, but they did not honor him or give thanks to him.

And so they elevated the creature to the position of creator and they worshiped the creature rather than him. Fourth, false teachers twist the grace of God into licentiousness or lasciviousness. In fact, why don't you take your Bibles and turn to Jude four?

Because we're going to camp out here for the rest of our time. L-A-S-C-I-V-I-O-U-S-N-E-S-S. It's another thing they taught me in seminary for free, I just gave it to you. Okay, there you have it.

You have to spend any money on that. Jude four is right next to Revelation. For certain persons, verse four, have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness.

Here's could render it lasciviousness. Basically, what that means is the false teachers that Jude will go on in a moment to describe further. He begins by telling us that these teachers turn the grace of God around so that you can use it as an excuse to sin. Grace now becomes the justification for error. William Barclay provoked my thinking as he wrote decades ago, these men, these false teachers, Jude references believed that since the grace of God is wide enough to cover any sin, a man can sin as he likes.

He will be forgiven anyway. The more he sins, the greater grace. Therefore, why worry about sin? Grace will look after that. So grace has been perverted into a justification for sin. In other words, what that means men and women is you can live any way you want. You kind of clock into church and you get cleansed and then you go back and live any way you want. The more we sin, the more grace, the more grace we need, the more the grace of God is applied to our lives. So why not sin more? Remember Paul and Romans said, God forbid that you live like that.

Now I want to bring this down to where we live. I'm going to get really practical. I consider the threat of licentiousness to have long replaced the threat of legalism in the church. A generation ago, our forefathers struggled with legalism, that is a list of dos and don'ts, and they attached that list to spirituality, which is legalism. And if you didn't do these things or if you did do these things, you are a mature Christian. Today, and they missed the mark, we have in our efforts not to be legalistic have swung over in reacting to, I believe, lasciviousness where we no longer have any dos or don'ts.

We do anything we want to do. And in fact, the mark of a mature Christian is no longer what you do or what you don't do, but the fact that you can do anything. And if anybody should ever raise a question about what you do or what you don't do, they are relegated immediately to the role of what?

Weaker brother. And who wants to be that? So the church has been silenced as it has overreacted from legalism into lasciviousness so that it does what it wants to do and it doesn't do what it doesn't want to do. We have now characterized legalist as anybody who has any standard at all. Haven't we? Well, the church I think is hanging around lasciviousness more than legalism and has conveniently silenced those who question. But I thought we could just have a little fun this morning.

Let's just pick a topic, shall we? I wonder how many fathers are asleep at the wheel or totally clued out about the way their wives dress and their daughters dress. In our efforts to be freed from legalism that, you know, measured the hem of a skirt and the length of shorts and on and on and on, to be freed from that, now to be over here where how can you ever question what anybody wears?

Aren't you mature? I'll never forget Chuck Swindoll several years ago kind of hollering out in his sermon as he was addressing this kind of subject. He said, husbands, wake up to the way your wives are dressing. Fathers, wake up to the way your daughters dress. That isn't legalism, that's shepherding.

Now, my oldest daughter is 10, so that tells you that most of my battle is in front of me, not behind me. She came in last week after cutting the grass down by the road, trying to earn a little more money. She was cutting the grass down by the road and she came in all excited. She said, she said, Daddy, I was out there cutting the grass and some boys in a car came by and they rolled their window down and they whistled at me. I said, did you get their license plate? She enjoyed it so.

A couple nights later, she was already tucked in. I went in and I said, honey, I want to tell you something. Whenever any boys drive by and roll down their window and whistle at you, spit in their window.

Not necessarily biblical advice, but I hope it works. I think we've gone too far, ladies and gentlemen, and it's time for somebody to stand up and say, let's bring standards of dress and conduct back into the church. Fifth, false teachers are unaccountable to others. Jude 7, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they, in the same way as these, indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same manner, these men, that is these false teachers, also by dreaming, that is, they've kind of created this up, all this up. They've said, we've heard the voice of God, or we had a vision, or we had a dream. They defile the flesh, and notice, they reject authority.

One of the marks of a false teacher, men and women, is that they are not involved in a local assembly. They've created their own religion. They've created their own following. They are the church. They have their own worship. And they propagate their religion through television or radio or various other means to draw after them an audience. They're unaccountable men.

Sixth, they magnify personal importance or authority. The next phrase in verse 8 of Jude, they reject authority and revile angelic majesties. That is, they claim to be bigger than, greater than the voice of authority over angelic majesties. Now, this sounds exciting, it sounds courageous, but these false teachers actually lack a proper respect for the terror of the enemy of the church.

Movements today are flourishing, as I've mentioned in previous sessions, and eventually I'm going to have to do a study on it with you, who are bossing Satan around and bossing the demons around as if they have some inerrant power. Notice what Jude writes in verse 9, but the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, that is where the body of Moses was buried, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment. That is, you have the highest created angelic confirmed holy being, and you have the highest created confirmed unholy being. And he had so much respect for this one that he dared not even accuse him or revile him or tell him where to go. He simply said, the Lord revile you, and he hid behind that. But these men, verse 10, revile the things which they do not understand.

They are poor theologians. I imagine that one of the first modern day preachers at least in our century to do this kind of thing, bossing Satan around, was a man named Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday was a poor theologian, but an exciting speaker who came out of the professional baseball world to begin preaching, and he would draw thousands of people to come and hear him. And what he would do that was so shocked and ignite his audience is that he would invite the devil to come up on the stage, and he would have these rather lively debates with the devil. And he would even put on mock boxing matches with the devil.

And he would eventually, of course, TKO the devil, and he would always win. Trouble was, Billy Sunday didn't always win. By the end of his ministry, people had stopped coming to him, even while he was still in his prime of health, partly because of the disaster of all of his children becoming alcoholics, partly because of the accusations that seemed confirmed of the way he mishandled more than a million dollars that came through his ministry.

And in Depression-era years, a million dollars was an incredible amount of money. Now, I'm not saying Billy Sunday was a false teacher. Far from it. I don't believe he was. But he sort of opened the door of what is now developed in this current day fascination with verbal bullying and the speaking of authority over demonic majesties.

Be careful. One more characteristic here. False teachers find fault with the church and create their own following. In Jude 16, these are grumblers finding fault following after their own lusts. They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining advantage. Ultimately, what false teachers want are for the people to follow them. And so they discredit the church. They discredit the undershepherds. They find fault. And Jude wrote why?

For the sake of gaining an advantage. Paul wrote to the Colossians. He said, What they want to do is abduct you. They want to kidnap you.

You could render it that way and take you from the land of truth to the foreign land of error. And he said to them, Be careful. See to it that no one kidnaps you through philosophy and empty deception. Colossians 28. Put your things away.

Let me say a couple of closing comments. Maybe you're thinking, Wow, Stephen, after hearing that the church doesn't seem to have a whole lot of chance. And there seem to be so many enemies, so many deceivers. There's so much against the church.

What are we to do? Well, first of all, remember that God bought his church. God ultimately builds his church. God has gifted men to lead the church. God indwells the church. God purchased the church with his own blood, and he promised the church that the Holy Spirit would indwell it.

He promised them that even though the gates of hell would mount an incredible offensive and it has been going on now for nearly 20 centuries, that even still the church would not be overcome. According to an ancient legend or story, Leonides, the Spartan general who was defending Greece against the Persians when the Persians were outnumbering the Greeks 10 to 1. They were involved in battle, and one of the lieutenants came up to General Leonides and he said, General, the Persians so outnumber us that when they shoot their arrows into the sky, it darkens the sky.

What are we to do? And General Leonides responded, we will fight in the shade, and so we will. As an oasis surrounded by the waiting, encroaching, dangerous desert of error, we will continue to look to the Chief Shepherd to study the word to be cautious and critical and careful in our thinking, and ultimately as a body of believers and as individuals as this oasis holds the water of life, offer this water of the gospel of life to thirsty people who seek to be free from the desert of sin. Thanks for being with us today here on Wisdom for the Heart.

Stephen's message today is called A Warning About Wolves. It's part of our Vintage Wisdom Archive. Stephen first preached this message back in 1998, but the truth is just as relevant and the application is just as practical. If you haven't already, I encourage you to install our app to your phone. When you do, you'll be able to quickly and easily access all of our Bible-based resources. That app contains the audio and the transcript of each of these daily Bible messages. We also make available the archive of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry. Each of those full-length sermons is arranged by Book of the Bible. The Wisdom International app will work with your smartphone, your tablet, or a smart TV.

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