PETER’S POLEMIC AGAINST FALSE PROPHETS is vehement in its clarion call and ardent warning to the church—the church of his time, the church of any time, the church of our time. His warning is passionate because he feels his time is short, and more than anything, he desires to impart the most important lessons of Christ; one of the most stringent is that against false prophets. Peter was with Jesus when he taught and warned of end time events; all three of the synoptic gospels record the very first thing Jesus warned of, “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many.” (Mark 13:5-6; Matt. 24:4-5; Luke 21:8) This still burns in Peter’s memory. “So I will always remind you of these things as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside.” (2 Pet. 1:12-14)
The early church already had its share of false prophets, as many others warned. Paul says, “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.” (Acts 20:28-29) John adds, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)
The damage done by false prophets is great. Their teaching can destroy a believer’s walk, and even cost a person salvation by teaching heresy in a believable way. “They will secretly introduce destructive heresies. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up.” (2 Pet. 2:1, 3) Jesus says of them, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” ( Matt. 18:6) But this does not absolve personal responsibility; Paul warns, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (1 Tim. 4:3-4)
False teachers have always been a blight upon the church of Jesus Christ. In this twenty-first century A.D., the story is not just the same, it is exponentially worse. An ancient prophecy of a vast increase in knowledge (cf. Dan. 12:4) has come to pass in our time, not just with the invention of the internet, but because of its thorough penetration of and permeation into all the cultures on the earth by 2022. And whether false teachers speak into people’s homes, devices, and lives by either the internet or the ever-pervasive medium of television, such teachers are myriad in numbers and prey like a pack of hyenas on the helpless.
Why helpless? Because the entire system of secular education exists to teach people how to make a living rather than how to live, and because the church has fallen into that same pattern by emphasizing scripture as applications to solve life problems, rather than as a way of life. The model that formed and shaped them does not have a spiritual basis. Paul speaks of this, saying, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14)
Those who truly seek relationship with God do not do so of their own initiative, but through God’s grace by the prompting of his Holy Spirit. As soon as they turn from their former worldview, they become a target of the enemy of their souls. Once a person believes, and receives the gift of a new Spirit, they also begin to acquire the strengths that are of the Spirit, which enable them to overcome the assaults by the enemy of their souls. James tells us, “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (Jam. 4:7-8) Jesus promises, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13) Paul encourages, “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” (1 Cor. 2:12)
Paul also mentions something else very important for us to grasp, and that is our own responsibility in our relationship with God. He speaks of a people in a church hungry for God’s word, and says of them, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11-12)
We have the responsibility for developing the mind of Christ within us, and a critical aspect of that spiritual growth and health is to see false teaching for what it is—a lie of the enemy, poisonous to our souls. We bear that accountability individually, and we bear that responsibility communally as the body of Christ. John reminds us, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.” (1 John 2:24-27)
Peter concludes our theme with these words of encouragement. “Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” (2 Pet. 3:17-18)
May we daily grow.
Q. Do I ‘rightly divide’ the Word of Truth? (2 Tim. 2:15)
Leave a Reply