Beware of False Teachers and Prophets
Beware of False Teachers and Prophets
by Guest Author, Deborah Som
God is saying to His children, “Beware of false teachers and prophets.”
“In the past there were false prophets among God’s people. It is the same now. You will have some false teachers in your group. They will teach things that are wrong — ideas that will cause people to be lost. And they will teach in a way that will be hard for you to see that they are wrong. They will even refuse to follow the Master who bought their freedom. And so they will quickly destroy themselves. Many people will follow them in the morally wrong things they do. And because of them, others will say bad things about the way of truth we follow. These false teachers only want your money. So they will use you by telling you things that are not true. But the judgment against these false teachers has been ready for a long time. And they will not escape God who will destroy them,” 2 Peter 2:1-3.
God desires that His faithful followers would, like newborn babies, crave for pure, spiritual milk, so that by it they may be nurtured and grow into the knowledge of the Son of God.
They must attain to the measure of Christ’s full stature, so that they will not be easily tossed back and forth, and carried about by every wind of shifting doctrine, by these false teachers and prophets.
Judgement and destruction await these false teachers, but it is not our place to know how or when it will happen; God will cleanse His church by Himself, for judgement will start from the house of God.
Our responsibility is to attain maturity in Christ.
God still speaks through His servants, however, He expects us to test the spirit behind every utterance, to know if it is really from Him, before believing any prophetic word or teaching. The Bible says,
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit [speaking through a self-proclaimed prophet]; instead test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets and teachers have gone out into the world,” 1 John 4:1.
I received this word after listening to a teaching by a renowned preacher, who shared that The Holy Spirit appeared to her in a vision and asked her to tell a lie about a certain situation, in order to save herself.
She supported her teaching with the story of Rahab in the Bible (Joshua 2), who was saved alongside her family, by lying to the local authorities to protect the two Israelite spies.
It is worthy of mention that Rahab did not know God at the time she did this, and God did not prompt her to tell a lie to be saved.
She gave the spies her reason for sparing them, which was because she and her people had,
“Heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and Og, whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for The LORD your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” Joshua 2:10-11.
Rahab was justified by her actions, although motivated by fear, and not by her faith in God. The Bible says,
“Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road,” James 2:25.
We must not confuse faith with works. God is too holy to behold iniquity. He wants us to be holy as He is, and will never ask us to sin in order to save ourselves.
If we are to save ourselves, then the death and resurrection of Christ is futile.
~ Deborah Som
Materials used by kind permission of the original author.
Amen