WHY ARE PEOPLE ATTRACTED TO FALSE TEACHERS?

I have to be honest whenever I hear about a new convert come to faith in Christ I often feel a dichotomy of mixed emotions. On one hand, I feel a sense of joy over that person becoming born-again & granted a new life in Jesus Christ. But on the other hand, I feel a sense of sadness over how that person will be met with opposition on receiving sound biblical teaching from the word of God to grow as a mature Christian in the faith. When a person becomes a Christian he/she has to go through a spiritual process called sanctification. If you’ve never heard of that word, Sanctification is a process whereby God guides a Christian into maturity & sets them apart for progressive holiness. The tool by which God use to do this is His word (John 17:17 see for reference). After we repent of our sin and accept Christ we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit. However, it takes time to shed the residue of our past sinful desires & crave the holy things of God. For example overcoming the desire for selfish worldly ambitions, the insatiable appetite for money, power & respect, etc. Are just a few temptations a new Christian will have to grow past in his or her daily walk with Christ. The good news is when a Christian is fed & feeding on a healthy diet of God's word little by little those selfish worldly desires began to shed away & the inner man becomes stronger & renewed in Christ. God desires for our minds to be like Christ. Philippians 2:5 states “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”. The problem is when a new convert is let loose in the world they are immediately bombarded with a brigade of false teachers, waiting to ambush them with bad biblical theology before they’ve had a chance to feed off the sincere milk of God's word consistently. The new convert generally hasn’t had enough time to grow in Christ to properly discern the cunning ways & heretical doctrines taught by false teachers, and therefore they can be easily deceived. The Lord wants Christians to be mature in the faith to avoid this happening. Ephesians 4:11-14 states 

 11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

One of many cunning strategies a false teacher will target towards a new Christian is to get him/her to focus mainly on their temporary felt needs. The reason this type of strategy works well is that our sinful fallen nature is already consumed with attaining worldly comfort. Now, I want to be clear I’m not against having comfort in your life, but rather the level of priority that is placed on it. Before a person comes to Christ they have no desire for the eternal things of God, They're only consumed by worldly affairs. Earlier in this blog, I mentioned how a new Christian will need time to grow in the word of God to mature as a new believer in Christ. And thus it will take time to shed off old sinful ways. Well, false teachers know this, so they will present God in the form of a personal genie to a new Christian. They will package God as someone willing & readily available to grant them all of their worldly desires if they only learn how to rub Him the right way. There is generally no resistance to this kind of offer because our fallen nature already desires it. False teachers commonly twist scriptures to support the narrative they want to tell. The main strategy by which they do this is ripping a scripture from its original context. For example, the bible will have a full chapter that is dedicated to laying out the story of a particular event. And the only way to understand what’s happening a person would need to dissect the full chapter to understand the intent behind why the author wrote it. But not false teachers. Instead, they often extract one verse from the entire chapter, and without the supporting context of the other verses, they are easily able to turn that scripture into whatever it is they want it to say.

This type of treatment with scripture gives a false teacher free rein to use the word of God in a manipulative way because the context/meaning of whatever passage he decides to teach from can take on any narrative he chooses. And The hook that finally draws the person in is the charismatic personality of the false teacher. False teachers have mastered the skill of using cunning words & their personality to deceive Christians who are ignorant of the word of God. 2 peter 2:12-15 gives us insight on the ways of false teachers it states:

12 But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish. 13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed —an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness.

Another tell-tale sign of false teachers is they rarely if at all preach against sin. They carefully craft their sermons with the intent of never offending anyone. The reason why they add this strategy to their toolbox is that our natural instinct is to push back on the bible’s rebuke of our sinful nature. The word of God shines a light on who we are by exposing those secret sins of the heart. Hebrews 4:12 states:

For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

False teachers know that most people are not flocking to a church that is boldly preaching against sin & living a life of holiness unto God. Churches that follow that type of blueprint often grow at a slower pace. And this is antithetical to the agenda of false teachers. They want large crowds as fast as possible, so they give the crowd what they want to hear. They know without a doubt that sermons about success, wealth, health, overcoming personal struggles, fulfilling unrealized potential, etc. will draw crowds in the thousands. However, this kind of church growth should not be a shock to any discerning Christian because the bible warned us this would happen. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 states:

3 For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will reject the truth and chase after myths.

False teacher's sermons are void of working towards eternal rewards. They are generally focused on the here and now. Heaven & Hell are controversial subjects they’d rather stay away from. Again the goal is to draw in the crowd. For them, Everyone is welcomed into the church, whether they are a Christian or not. Their evangelistic methods of gathering people into the church are solely based on numbers. They are generally not interested in whether a sinner has repented of their sins first, thus becoming a new believer in Christ before inviting them to come to worship the Lord. False teachers love money & they know the faster the church grows the more money they will receive from the people in attendance. To them, people are merely seen as potential customers that will buy the product their offering. To be clear I’m not against items being sold at the church. So I’m not implying that this makes someone a false teacher. However, it can be a cautionary red flag to pay attention to what type of items are being sold. Because many false teachers take selling items at the church to the next level, to where the inside of the church looks & feels like a major retail trade show in las vegas. I say this because false teachers' goal is to use the people to get rich. 2 peter 2:3 states:

3 In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed. (NLT)

False teachers provide no value to the many Christians around the world being persecuted for proclaiming the name of Christ. Why? Well, it’s because wealth, health, fulfilling all your dreams, etc. messages don’t translate or sell well to Christians who are under this type of persecution. Which is another way to discern false teaching. The word of God will always apply to any & every circumstance no matter what situation a Christian may find themselves in. However, false teachers tend to preach localized messages. Meaning, their sermons are carefully crafted towards the people who can benefit them financially. Christians that are being persecuted for standing up for the faith are not interested in superficial messages about obtaining worldly success. They are more interested in staying faithful to Christ and securing eternal rewards.

Lastly, I believe mature Christians should feel the burden to make sure our brothers & sisters in Christ are being fed the truth of God's word. So that they are not easily deceived by false teachers. The beauty is God's elect will always be protected by him and thus brought safely into his kingdom. (2 Timothy 4:18 see for reference). In the meantime, the Bible commands us to defend the faith because the Christian gospel is under attack from false teachers who are spreading heresies. Jude 1:3 states:

3 Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people.