HOW TO KNOW THEM AND HOW TO TREAT THEM
By William S. Plumer
[Below are some excerpts from an article I discovered at Grace Gems. I've abbreviated the list, but Plumer gives far more detail and Scripture along the way. I just wanted to get to the parts that stood out to me and I thought would be helpful to others. Please read the whole article. I'll post the link at the end, since I've had problems putting it into the text at the beginning here. I'm sorry for any inconvenience. ~Denise]
The amount of zeal displayed by false teachers is sometimes prodigious. They compass sea and land to make one proselyte. They often put to shame the lukewarmness of some who hold the truth. Their devoutness sometimes seems astonishing. In them Satan seems transformed into an angel of light. I have never seen more seeming warmth in religious worship than among some who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit. They are both sanctimonious and fanatical. They have fire, but it is wild fire. Let us follow no teacher merely because he is moral, zealous and apparently devout.
It is God's plan that "there must be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor. 11:19). The Scriptures make it no less clear that our duty requires us to "test the spirits, to see whether they are of God" (1 John 5:1).
Let us then learn the marks of false teachers. What does history say of them? In all ages they are much alike.
I. False teachers exercise much craftiness and deceitfulness in spreading their false doctrines.
II. False teachers commonly promise much more than they perform.
III. False teachers are commonly boastful.
IV. The very same people at times display fierceness and bitterness.
V. False teachers love to make dupes of unstable, ill-informed females and young people.
VI. Notwithstanding their boastings, many false teachers are commonly cowards.
VII. False teachers are sometimes very successful for a season.
VIII. Sooner or later the folly of false teachers shall be manifest.
The character of a polished propagator of false doctrine may be thus sketched. He is cunning, artful and smooth. He is believable and ready to flatter, but he has no real benevolence. At times, he has a show of modesty, but no real humility. He is never sincere, open, and true. He talks very much according to the company he is in. In his heart, he hates scriptural holiness and some of the truths that lead to it; yet at times, he may have an air of sanctimoniousness.
When he dares, he can scoff, and scowl, and show malice like any other wicked man. His artifices better suit the naive, than the judicious, and so he chiefly addresses the unlearned and the unstable. At times, he probably blusters a good deal, but he has none of the true courage of the Apostles. He is not ready to suffer the loss of all things for the truth.
It is easy for providence to lead such men away to secular pursuits. Our country has seen four men, preachers of false doctrine in one city, led away to other pursuits more congenial to their carnal tastes. Law, medicine, trade, politics, literary pursuits are more congenial to such than preaching and praying.
Often false teachers have an unhonored old age. After death, none rise up to call them blessed. They never saved a soul from the error of its ways. Sometimes the death of such is attended with many painful circumstances. They never bear any testimony for God. Their dying chamber is never on the verge of heaven.
Sometimes they hug their delusions to the last, and never awake to a just view of their own case until the stamp of eternity and the seal of immutability are placed upon their character, until they stand before the judgement of God, and begin the doleful and endless wail of lamentation over a life misspent and opportunities of salvation lost forever.
Here arises a great practical question: How shall we treat false teachers when they arise? The answer to this question needs not to be long.
To be continued on the next post.
Link to the full article at Grace Gems here.
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