SIGHT & SOUND OF FALSE TEACHERS (PART V)
By Akin Ojumu
Time and truth go hand in hand. In the fullness of time, the truth will prevail. No matter how cunning false teachers are at hiding their true nature and regardless of how crafty they are at concealing their real identity, in God’s own time, the mask will be yanked off, and the shysters will be revealed for who they really are.
But until such a time when the charlatans and con artists in the Church are unmasked, it’s imperative that those who know the truth continue to blow the trumpet. While we wait for God to uncover the deceivers who have burrowed themselves deep within the Body of Christ, those to whom God has granted the grace to be able to tell truth from error must never cease to sound the alarm.
In his second epistle to the Believers who were exiles in the Asia Minor province of the Roman Empire, Apostle Peter did just that. He blew the trumpet and sounded the alarm on false teachers who had infiltrated the congregation of Believers and were deceiving the people and leading them away from the truth into error.
With vivid imagery and blistering rebuke, Peter laid bare the true nature of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Making sure there’s no confusion in the minds of the people as to their true identity, Peter painted a distinctive portrait of the impostors. He showed the people the giveaway signs of false teachers and he told them the telltale signals of false teachings.
In today’s installment of this commentary series, we’ll examine two additional red flags of false teachers.
9) Promise of Freedom
2 Peter 2:19
“They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption...”
Charlatans succeed in taking advantage of exploitable people in their weakest and most desperate moments by promising them freedom from all their troubles. They make vulnerable people, who are merely trying to escape the vicissitudes of life, believe that they, the false teachers, have the freedom that they seek.
Like their father, the Devil, false teachers always promise heaven but, in the end, they deliver hell. Disappointment and disillusionment are always the end results of charlatans’ assurances because they are incapable of delivering on the freedom they promise. And the reason they can’t deliver the promised freedom is because they themselves are enslaved to the very corruption from which those who seek their help are trying to escape.
10) Slaves to Whatever has Mastered Them
2 Peter 2:19
“…For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.”
In his book titled, “On the Bondage of the Will,” Martin Luther writes, “For if a man, when he has lost his liberty, is compelled to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion concerning him can be more justly drawn, than that he can do nothing but sin, and will sin?” (Section 50, On the Bondage of the Will).
False teachers are slaves to their basal nature and are held captive by the things in which they gratify themselves. They believe it is an exercise of freedom to indulge their passions and they think it is liberating to satiate their concupiscence. In reality, though, they are slaves to those same desires, since they cannot stop themselves from pursuing their basal urges even when they want to.
This is one of the most poorly understood, but powerful truths about sin. What Satan tells you is an expression of freedom is actually the very thing which enslaves you. True freedom is the ability to say no to ourselves, to leave the path of destruction, and to say yes to Christ and find true joy, meaning, and abundant life (BeliefRef).
To be continued.
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