Galatians 1:8 But even if we or an angel from Heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse!
There is a massive amount of text in the Bible concerning false
teaching, false teachers, and false prophets, who are birds of a feather. From
the beginning, it has been a problem. "False teachers" show up in the
Bible four (4) times, all in the New Testament. The term "false prophets"
is located in the Bible seventeen (17) times, ten (10) times in the Old
Testament, and seven (7) times in the New Testament. As a result, the Bible
overflows with warnings against false teachers, false prophets, and their lies
and deceits.
To understand the
beginning of false teaching, we must go back to the beginning of time. Satan
tempted Eve by causing doubts in her mind as to what God had told her and Adam,
accompanied by a blatant lie about what God had said (Genesis 3:2-5). That
worked so well for Satan he still uses it today. He will cause doubt in
someone's mind about the Word of God and then use someone he is controlling to
spread lies about the Word of God.
The most outstanding
example of false prophets in the Old Testament would be Elijah and the Prophets
of Baal at Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). However, most of the OT Prophets of God
dealt with false prophets opposing them and killed many of them for preaching
the truth from God. Jesus spoke of this when so many Jewish people fought Him (Matthew
23:37; Luke 13:34). Of course, not many preachers get killed today for
preaching the truth of God's word; nonetheless, preaching the truth does not
bring great popularity.
Just for emphasis, the
following is a list of warnings against false teachings in the New Testament.
This list is wide-ranging but does not include all warnings of Our Lord and
Savior, recorded in the Gospels; that is another extensive list. (2
Thessalonians 2, Book of Galatians, James 3:15-16,1 Corinthians 15, 2
Corinthians 11:1-5, Roman 2:17-29,1 Timothy 1:3-11 & 6:3-10, 2 Timothy
2:14-26, Titus 1:10-16, 2 Peter 2, 1 John 4:1-6, Book of Jude).
Paul said that if we,
meaning him or anyone sent out by him or an angel of God, preached another
gospel other than what Paul preached, we should shun them. Paul added a
punishment he thought would be appropriate, "let them be under God's
curse." We can find God's Curse in Genesis 3:14-19. The curse came about
because of sin coming into the world, but in God's great Love, he sent us a
Savior, Christ Jesus, that would pay the price for that sin because we could
never pay it.
There is only one way if
you would like to spot these false teachers and their Satan-controlled message.
That way is total surrender to Christ Jesus, service to God and others, Bible
Study, personal and group study, sensitivity, submission to the leading,
guiding, and direction of the Holy Spirit, and a consecrated, sincere prayer
life.
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