Recognizing False Teachers

INTRO:

Jude was written to us to urge us to earnestly contend for the faith, the doctrine once for all given to us by God in His word. Last time we looked at Jude, we say the reality of judgment. God judged his people, His angels, and people who h-ad never acknowledged Him. All must answer to God and will be measured by His one and only truth. IN 8-10, Jude describes the characteristics of false teachers.

False teachers are dangerous in the church.

Because they often come disguised as angels of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) or as wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15), false teachers are difficult to identify.

And, because of their own self-deception, they willingly (albeit unwittingly) embrace their own eternal ruin for the sake of their poisonous lies. In destroying souls, they themselves commit spiritual suicide.

It is of infinite more importance for Christians to fight spiritual infiltrators who come to destroy and deceive. False teachers disguised as genuine teachers can subvert God’s truth and entice people to believe damning lies.

Jude realized the immense danger that false teachers pose to divine truth. The challenge comes in recognizing and exposing them before they inflicted harm.

False teachers still exist and spread their lies and twisted Scripture today. I want us to learn to be able to spot false teachers by their characteristics.

Let’s read Jude 8-10:

Jude 8–10 ESV

Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

False teachers were so ungodly and spiritually dangerous that Jude used vivid language to describe them.

I. False Teachers Are Immoral (8a-b)

Jude said in verse 8a-b, “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh. . . .”

Jude’s letter is a call to Christians to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (v. 3).

He warned the Church that false teachers were invading the church (v. 4), and that judgment was real.

Now, continuing on with his theme, Jude said, “Yet, in like manner. . . .”

Just as surely as God judged unbelieving individuals, rebellious angels, and sinful communities, he will also judge false teachers, whom Jude refers to as “these people also.”

Jude said that false teachers rely on their dreams.

False teachers often claim that their dreams are of divine origin, and are therefore authoritative.

By claiming a dream or vision this way, they are claiming to write new Scripture!

Such a claim allows the false teachers to substitute their own counterfeit authority for God’s authority, which is of course the only true authority.

The false teachers’ hearers are often sucked in to believe what the false teachers are saying.

The dreams of the false teachers are often nothing more than their perverted imaginations

They dupe their hearers into doing that which profits the false teachers.

WhiIe I was scrolling the internet, I stopped at a Christian TV broadcast. The teacher was saying that God had revealed to him that 300 viewers were to give $1,000 each in 17 minutes to his ministry. I could hardly believe the bold shamelessness of this TV preacher.

I did not stay long enough to listen if he was able to dupe 300 people, but sadly, I suspect that he was able to do so.

In the Old Testament, the term “dreamer” was virtually synonymous with a false teacher, as in Moses’ warning in

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 ESV

“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 shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. 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. 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. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the 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 Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Jude described false teachers as immoral.

He said that they defile the flesh.

The word translated as defile (miaino) means “to stain with color as the staining of glass, to tinge, pollute, defile.”

When it is linked with the word for flesh (sarx), the reference is to moral or physical defilement, or sexual sin.

And so false teachers are inevitably immoral. Their immorality may not be known publicly, but it is there.

You may recall that 2003 in the United States, an Episcopal church became the first to ordain an openly gay person to the office of bishop. Since then whole denominations have embraced this practice and its related issue of falsely viewing gender as fluid rather than binary

Clearly, this is what Jude warned against. This is not just a slip into sin, which happens even to believers.

No, this is perverting the grace of our God and turning it into sensuality (v. 4).

It is an attempt by false teachers to say that what GOd has said in HIS word is wrong and that these are not only not sins, but worse, they are claiming that God approves of it now!

Their dreams and visions are cited as authoritative proof they can live in sin.

They are immoral an lead others into immorality

So, false teachers are immoral.

II. False Teachers Are Insubordinate (8c)

Jude said in verse 8c, “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, . . . reject authority. . . .”

False teachers reject authority.

The word reject (from the verb atheteo) means “to refuse to recognize the validity of something.”

And the word authority (from the noun kyriotes) is related to the more familiar term kyrios (“lord”).

thus, false teachers refuse to recognize the validity of Christ’s lordship over their lives.

They really are their own authority.

They reject the Holy Bible and claim to be adding new revelation to it

Jesus confronted false teachers throughout his ministry.

They were the scribes and the Pharisees.

(Matthew 23:27b-28).

Matthew 23:27b–28 ESV

So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

They were good at looking good!

Outwardly, they looked amazing!

But it was all a show

they didn’t obey GOD!

They were lawless hypocrites

They had written loopholes to avoid doing ANYTHING they wanted to avoid from God’s Law.

There is a proliferation of false teachers today who reject the authority of God’s word. In fact, they go so far as to claim THEY are the authority

2 quotes (out of several I could show)

Kenneth Copeland once preached on live TV:

“When I read in the Bible where He says, ‘I am”, I smile and say, ‘Yes! I am too!’”

Benny Hinn said, “I am a god-man”

Brothers and sisters, that is blasphemy and insubordinate to the extreme!

There is one and only one God and He will share His glory with no other!

And so, false teachers are insubordinate.

III. False Teachers Are Irreverent (8d-10)

Jude said in verse 8d-10, “Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, . . . blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.”

False teachers are not only immoral and insubordinate; they are also irreverent.

Jude said that they blaspheme the glorious ones. That is, they even blaspheme the angelic beings.

They assume authority (insubordinate) and presume to command angels like God

Jude highlighted the irreverence of the false teachers by comparing them with the archangel Michael.

As God’s most powerful angel, Michael did not demonstrate irreverence while contending with the devil and was disputing about the body of Moses.

Michael knew that God could give him victory over Satan. Yet he also knew that he was not to presume upon God and act beyond his authority.

Michael did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment as if he possessed ungranted power over Satan. He simply said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

He called upon GOD to judge, not attempted to be the judge himself

He knew all the power was God’s not his own

Interestingly, this is the only place where Scripture mentions this incident between Michael and Satan regarding the body of Moses. The Old Testament is silent on the matter.

We simply read in Deuteronomy 34:5-6, “

Deuteronomy 34:5–6 ESV

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.

Apparently, God did not want anyone somehow to preserve Moses’ body and venerate it.

So God gave Michael the responsibility of burying the body of Moses where no one—including Satan—could find it.

We can pray, WE CERTAINLY SHOULD and MUST PRAY

But GOD acts, not us

We have 0 power

To Him belong all the power and glory!

We are not to presume to know His will and desire in each situation. WE cannot boss God around and force Him to perform for us!

We must enter into HIS presence reverently!

We are entering the throne room of the King of Kings!

False teachers, however, exercise no such restraint but pretend to have personal power over Satan and angelic beings.

They go outside of the Bible and “discover” all sorts of beings to boss around

They are often irreverent and disrespectful in how they speak about God

Furthermore, they claim apostolic authority over other believers

Jude said that these people (the false teachers) blaspheme all that they do not understand.

Consequently, they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

And so, false teachers are irreverent.

Conclusion

Well, as we conclude this message, let me stress again that false teachers are immoral, insubordinate, and irreverent.

That is one way to recognize false teaching.

May God help us to know HIS word and easily recognize false teachers.