To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 2:5 “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness”

How do you know if your pastor or the Christian teachers you listen to are legitimate?  In other words, how do you know if you are being influenced by a false teacher?  There are thousands of teachers out there, but the Bible warns us that many of them, unwittingly or not, do not have your best interests in mind. They are deceivers. Jesus called them “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15).  That’s why they are so deceptive. We don’t think of a sheep as a dangerous animal. Who ever heard of someone being afraid of a sheep?  Words like “gentle,” “harmless,” or even “soft” come to mind when one thinks of a sheep.  In human terms, a teacher in “sheep’s clothing” will appear to be just that. Their teaching may be gentle, kind, even uplifting. They may make you feel good by what they say.  They will be unlikely to say anything that upsets you, convicts you, or causes you to examine your own heart.  The Bible says that they will use flattery.   They will be experts at telling you how wonderful you are and how much more wonderful you can be.  That will be part and parcel of their message. 

People like to be told such things, and they will “flock” to such churches.  The Bible warns us that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Itching ears: what an interesting term.  It indicates a desire to have the ears be “scratched” or the desire to hear things that make one feel good.  This kind of teaching will focus on promotion of how good you are, how successful you can be, how wonderful everything is, and how much more wonderful you and your life can be if you will follow that teacher’s advice.  People will pay good money to hear such things – and you don’t have to be a believer. Just watch how people who have no religious inclinations at all will flock to self-help coaches and pay top dollar to listen to their counsel. 

Godly teachers aren’t like this, however.  Their focus will be on speaking the Truth, and the Truth often hurts. They will speak about what sin is and how prevalent it is in the human heart. They will preach a message that won’t make us feel good, but will encourage us to be transformed by the grace of God so that we might live a righteous life, in spite of the hardship that often accompanies those who actually hunger and thirst for such a life.  The truth convicts. The Word of God, when faithfully preached and taught, “is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).  Listen to the words used: “sharp, piercing, dividing, discerning.”  These are words that describe examination, inspection, scrutiny of the “thoughts and the intentions of the heart.” Often that scrutiny can be painful, because the heart “is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Listen to how the great Apostle Paul describes himself under the scrutiny of the Word of God: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15), and “I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Corinthians 15:9).  Rather than tell people how wonderful they were, Paul said this: “I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment” (Romans 12:3-4). 

You see, Paul didn’t flatter. He knew the truth about the sin that lurked in his own heart and the truth about the sin that threatened to destroy the people to whom he preached.  He didn’t itch their ears with platitudes about how wonderful they were. He told them the truth, and the truth hurts sometimes as it exposes who we really are as well as what God wants us to be. 

So, is that the kind of preaching you have been listening to? Does what you read and listen to convict you, or rather, does it puff you up. Are you listening to that which challenges you to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14), to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2), and are you being “cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) by the Truth of God’s Word?  Or are you in the practice of having your ears itched, hearing wonderful things about yourself by nice teachers telling you nice things, but things that leave you the same way you were before you heard them, or even feeling a little better about yourself than you first did. 

May God help us to desire to hear the truth rather than the flattering words of false teachers, “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” who do nothing but exploit us to our own detriment while seeking their own worldly gain.