03/18/21 CHOOSE YOUR TEACHING AND YOUR TEACHERS CAREFULLY

03/18/21 CHOOSE YOUR TEACHING AND YOUR TEACHERS CAREFULLY

False doctrines (teaching) and false teachers abound, and ensnare multitudes daily, often because error is mixed with truth, at varying degrees.

It is never good to believe a false doctrine (a lie or an error). Some false doctrines are inherently damning while some other false doctrines are not initially damning, but they are potentially damning and lead to sin. There are some truths that must be believed in order to be saved, while there are other truths that believers come to accept (or reject) as they grow in knowledge.

False teachers come in two varieties. There are people who deliberately teach false doctrine (as well as deliberately teach AGAINST sound doctrine) in opposition to Biblical light they have received and there are people who have accepted false teaching, believing it to be Biblical truth, and through ignorance they continue to propagate error.

There is a thin line between these two, but it is a line of demarcation, a line that must not be crossed. The remedy for this problem is for the believer to pursue Biblical truth, accept Biblical truth and cling to Biblical truth. We must not be committed to a doctrine or a person to the degree that we will not accept Biblical correction.

Sometimes false doctrines are taught by honest, well meaning and possibly Christian preachers. Those preachers have been taught false doctrines and they have been bolstered in holding to those false doctrines by other well meaning believers. These Christians are building upon wood, straw and stubble and their false teaching leads to false hope.

1 Corinthians 3:9-15
9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.
10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Jude 1:3-5
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Remember, Psalm 1:1 gives us the three postures of rejection and resistance to God and His word.
1- Walking (living) in the counsel (advice, instruction, teaching) of the ungodly (those whose lives are not conformed to the image of Christ).
2- Standing (choosing the way) of sinners (those who deliberately reject Divine authority).
3- Sitting in (settling into) the seat of the scornful (the declared position of openly renouncing and denouncing God and His word).

Psalms 1:1-6
(The Blessed Man Rejects Error)
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

(The Blessed Man Delights In God's Rule)
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

(The Blessed Man Is Established And Fruitful)
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

(The Ungodly Are Destined For Destruction)
4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

(God Knows And Separates The Righteous From The Ungodly)
6 For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.