By Elizabeth Prata
Today and the next 4 weekdays I’ll publish something about discernment. So, Wolf Week! Lack of discernment is the cause of much trouble in the church and much confusion.
I’ve written before that when I was first saved, I was in New England. New England is not a hotbed of Christian activity. In fact, the lowest rates of church attendance among the 48 contiguous states are in all 6 the New England states. In addition, all 6 New England states self-identify as the most non-religious. Having been raised in Rhode Island and living in Maine for 30 years, I was not exposed to Bibles, church, Christianese language, religious radio or TV. Or Christians. But God …
… saved me.
The next thing was to attend church, which was not something I wanted to do. I am a loner and large gatherings are anathema to me. Coming into heights of popularity at the time was Joel Osteen. He seemed kind, gentle, and skilled at getting his point across. So I watched him on TV and thought I was doing well.
I wasn’t.
Someone gave me a Bible and it was only once or twice when having an open Bible in front of me while listening to Osteen I realized he was far from truth. I thank the Holy Spirit for giving me the gift of open eyes to see this.
I was moving to Georgia for a fresh start. My fresh start would include church-going, because I must obey what the Bible said, which was “gather”. I looked for a church after I got settled, and I found one. There are a lot of churches in the “Bible Belt”.
After the Osteen debacle, in my naiveté, thought that I’d made a misstep with Osteen was because I was not inside a church regularly. I was outside, where it was unsafe. I thought that once I was ensconced in a church body, THEN I’d be safe. I thought I’d made it to home plate and was declared safe. I thought that all churches were the same: safe.
I was wrong.
I was so wrong. The second false teacher I encountered was ALL OVER the church. She had infiltrated the church thoroughly. I had become a member of a local Baptist church, and at the time Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God and Beth Moore’s ‘Bible studies’ were saturating the body. I quickly became highly skeptical of Blackaby’s notion that God speaks directly to us. I mean, the book of Revelation said the canon was closed. So…
While I was on my path toward God in Maine, I had experimented with all sorts of different types of divination, including New Age, pagan religions, chakras, meditation, auras, Tarot, and hanging around others who claimed to have contact with ‘the other side’. Now safely on God’s side in the Light, I saw how dangerous divination was. And again, the Bible said no. Why didn’t that solve it? I looked at Blackaby and Moore with increasing concern.
My concern grew into disgust when I was encouraged to attend a Beth Moore Living Proof Live and I heard her ‘preach’. She twisted the most God-exalting, Christ-centric passage in Deuteronomy into a me-centered emotional swamp, and I hated her teaching from that moment. I literally was physically ill. Seeing a huge stadium filled with almost 20,000 women who were being deceived into thinking that the Bible was about THEM was heartbreaking, agonizing, and disgusting.
I was taken aback with this situation. Why? I had let my guard down. I was open and accommodating, finally thinking I’d arrived at where all people were safely on God’s side.
I’d thought that church was safe, but I soon learned that it is the most UNsafe place on earth. It is Hamburger Hill, warfare central of where the devil and his minions seek to pollute whatever is pure from the Lord. Satan cannot steal our salvation, but he can install false professors, false teachers, and unworthy shepherds to hinder our walk or to confuse us.
But false prophets also appeared among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their indecent behavior, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1-3)
The harm that false teachers do is incalculable. Yet it isn’t irreversible. Firstly, if someone repents they will be forgiven for having promoted or accepted deception in the name of Christ. Secondly, in the end Jesus will return and render goodness to those who did good and wrath to those who did ill. He will repay. His kingdom will finally have separated the tares, the wolves, and the deceivers, and only those who are pure from His blood will remain.
Don’t be hesitant to call out, mark, avoid, separate from a false teacher to whatever degree you feel called. You don’t have to walk up and down the streets ringing a bell like the Hear Ye Hear ye town crier back in the day if that’s not your personality or calling.
You can quietly have a word with a friend, or simply decide to go away from a false teacher by disposing of her books and materials and vowing not to listen to her podcast or TV program any more.
I am grateful to the Holy Spirit who showed me the level of unsafety we face in our churches and in the world. False teachers are prevalent. Notice how pervasive of a problem the false prophets were in the Old Testament and how numerous they were in the New Testament church. In fact, every New Testament book deals with them (except Philemon). Don’t believe that just because you’re in a cozy little church somewhere that it can’t happen. Having a false sense of security is dangerous. I let my guard down once. It won’t happen again. Jesus is too precious.
Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
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