Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week 🙂
A short follow-up series I am publishing beginning today contains 4 more essays in short form focusing on 4 influential ‘Bible’ teachers. I have written discernment essays on these four previously in years past, but those essays were longer. In articles like that, I include sources, explain the teacher’s errors thoroughly, and provide examples. All this make the essays longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false.
Having learned, hopefully, what was presented in the previous Wolf Week essays, these cut to the chase essays hopefully will edify you and give you skills to explore further, if you choose to.
“Beware of supposing that a teacher of religion is to be trusted, because although he holds some unsound views, he yet ‘teaches a great deal of truth.’ Such a teacher is precisely the man to do you harm: poison is always most dangerous when it is given in small doses and mixed with wholesome food”. JC Ryle
I’ve spent the last 5 days discussing from the Bible the fact of false teachers, their methods, their characteristics, and their traits. False teachers are destructive to the individual, to the local church body, and to the faith in general.
and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:30)
So that leaves one last important question. Why does God allow false teachers? Why does He allow them to destroy? Why does He use false teachers to pollute the faith, draw away the unwary, and make shipwrecks of whole churches? (Revelation 2:20[Thyatira], 3:1 [Sardis], 3:16 [Laodicea]). What good can a false teacher possibly do in God’s Economy?
For there also have to be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. (1 Corinthians 11:19).
That’s the reason. False teachers are a magnet for the sinner, the unsaved, the fleshly. If these people are drawn to a false teacher, and especially if they stay with a false teacher after evidence is presented, a schism forms between the redeemed and the person who prefers falsity.
God uses the false teacher as a magnet to show which side people are on. And don’t think we the forgiven sinner, is immune to following a false teacher. We have sin in us and are drawn just as the false professing believer is. In fact, we should be grateful for the false teacher’s existence if we follow one for a time, because we can then repent and ask God to help us. And then praise Him for his help, patience, and forgiveness. False teachers show us our blind spots of sin.
In Matthew 7:15 Jesus had warned the disciples that false teachers are like wolves that wear sheep’s clothing. In Matthew 10:16 Jesus said He was sending them as sheep out to where the wolves were. In Acts 20:20 Paul said he knew that after his departure savage wolves will come. Wolves are quite the theme in the New Testament. Wolfish false teachers cause division. And that is a good thing, noting the verse again,
For there also have to be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. (1 Corinthians 11:19).
He did send us a measuring tool to allow us to determine with evidence some who are professors and who actually possesses the Spirit, and that is the wolf. The wolf is a test.
In the verse above, we see the word factions. The word has been translated in different translations as divisions, differences, and even heresies. It is from the Greek word haireomai; properly, a choice, i.e. a party or disunion. It meansa self-chosen opinion, a personal (decisive) choice. The term stresses the personal aspect of choice. Sources- Strong’s Greek and NASB Lexicon.
If you ever wondered why a person would defend a false teacher even after having been given evidence of their falsity, this is why. They CHOOSE it. It is a strongly decisive choice according to the word use in the original language.
Now we read this verse,
Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to the person through whom the stumbling block comes! (Matthew 18:7).
The world has various and ingenious ways of tempting the Christian to stumble. One of the most direct ways is through a false teacher. How?
By doing like Jezebel, by teaching doctrine that isn’t biblical. I think you commit the most heinous of all crimes. That’s why the Bible speaks so forcefully against false teachers, because they lead God’s people into the worse kind of sin, and that is a misrepresentation of who God is. And that’s the severest of all, because if your God isn’t right, you can’t settle anything. And so false teachers are the ultimate who are guilty in this regard. John MacArthur, The Danger of Causing a Christian to Sin sermon on Matthew 18:5–9.
The false teacher is used by God as a magnet, a curse, and a crowbar to make a separation between the true believer and the false believer. For his part, the true believer/false believer goes along with it by his choice. It is a test.
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but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in trickery nor distorting the word of God, but by the open proclamation of the truth commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:2).
So ultimately the answer to the question, Why does God allow false teachers? As John Piper says, “The result is that we learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin by how we more easily embrace false teaching rather than biblical truth.” So the answer is, to test us.
Secondly, everything He does is for His glory, and our good. So while it is a trial for us to endure false teachers, it is for our good and His glory that they should exist. False teachers test our sinfulness, and they display Gods patience. What we do is pray to stay strong in the faith, trust God, and repent early and often. God is good, all the time.
One way to spot a false teacher is how they respond (or don’t respond) to biblical correction. Denny Burke wrote:
Those who refuse to respond to biblical correction eventually prove themselves to be devoid of the Spirit and taking orders from another master (Jude 1:19). Recalcitrance in the face of correction is dangerous, and it is why the apostles would often apply some of the most bone-chilling descriptors to unrepentant false teachers. ~Denny Burk, How to Deal with False Teachers
The same might be applied to a bystander who enjoys the false teacher and refuses to be corrected away from that false teacher with the scriptures. Worse is their insistence that BECAUSE the teacher ‘helped them,’ the teacher surely can’t be false. But that is the false teacher’s job, to be helpful.
Christian Lady 1: So-and-So is a false teacher. Christian Lady 2: No way! But she’s helped me in my walk! And she says true things sometimes! Christian Lady 1: The demon possessed slave girl was ‘helping’ Paul, so why was Paul ‘greatly annoyed’? Because her statement was only partly true, AND it was spiritually ambiguous. Paul exorcised her.
Ladies, we don’t need to allow a false teacher to help along our God. He doesn’t need just any truth. Truth that’s proclaimed must be clearly explained and specifically credited to HIM. Here is what the slave girl was saying-
“These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17)
The slave girl said, ‘Most High God’. This matters because though Jews would have recognized the phrase, pagans were used to many people saying there was a ‘most high god’, notably, Zeus. And, “a” way of salvation? It is THE way of salvation. See the subtlety with the slave girl’s statement being off the center of truth?
False god Oceanus, central statue at the Trevi Fountain in Rome. EPrata photo
The way of evil is darkness and crooked paths (cf Proverbs 2:13-15).
The final arbiter of whether a teacher is true or false isn’t how much or little he or she has ‘helped’ you. In fact, many times the truth won’t feel like it’s helping at first. Truth hurts, it convicts, it pricks the conscience… and the opposite of that is the problem of false teachers knowing how to tickle ears. Tickling is pleasant. So is he or she REALLY helping you if you always feel tickled and helped, and never feel provoked by the lessons?
Don’t go by your internal feelings, which lie. Go by the sterling truth of God’s word. Compare what the teacher is saying to the Bible. Then do it again, because they are subtle, sneaky, and destructive, and we are less than intelligent sheep after all.
False teachers are dangerous, and part of what makes them so dangerous is that they will affirm so much that is good and true. They will not deny all of the doctrines upon which the Christian faith stands or falls, but only select parts of it. They draw in the unsuspecting with all they affirm and only later destroy them with all they deny. ~Tim Challies, Lessons I’ve learned from False Teachers
Would you buy a pair of new pants that only partly fit? Would you eat a brownie that was only partly filled with cockroaches? Would you drive tires that were only partly covered in rubber? Of course not. We expect the full, working edition of whatever we consume. Since that is true for mundane things, it is even MORE important to ensure that God’s truth we knowingly consume is fully truth, sterling, sparkling, and whole.
You don’t need to listen to someone who speaks some truth, sometimes, from a mouth of lies that oppose Christ. The truth is how we are sanctified- John 17:17. That false teacher is not helping you if you’re absorbing only partial truth, then you get only partial sanctification. What you get from the false teacher’s mouth of lies is polluted truth, and that doesn’t help anyone.
When we read directions telling us to quiet ourselves, to ‘be still’ so we can hear God because too many distractions dampen our ability to hear Him – it says something important about God:
1. It says that God can’t cut through ambient noise to make Himself heard. 2. It says that He created the creation, but can’t control it enough to get His message to the ears of the person to whom He intends to speak.
For years I have written discernment articles about discerning certain movements, trends, and this or that particular false teacher. One of my earliest was a series on Beth Moore, who became one of my ‘starter false teachers’ thirteen years ago. (Joel Osteen was the other). I wrote about that the other day.
2 Timothy 4:3 says, For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires,
Thus, one way the symbolism of the wolf differs from the actual false teacher, is that the animal wolf preys on mammals who are minding their own business. The false teacher wolf has a partnership with its prey. The ‘victims’ of the false teacher deliberately prop up the teacher. ‘They accumulate for themselves’ teachers who teach something that satisfies an unrepented-of lust in their flesh. It may be sensuality, greed, health, or whatever. But people who cling to false teachers even after being shown how dangerous she is, have culpability for perpetuating the problem.
Repent early and often so the wolf does not smell out your sin and nurse it for you.
So, discernment is more than pointing out this or that false teacher. False teachers also exhibit certain characteristics. As is written at The Masters University, false teachers exhibit a “pathology.” We need to be “spiritual pathologists” to detect them.
To that end, below are some excellent articles outlining the characteristics of false teachers describing the types of things they do to deceive. If you are reading an author’s Christian book or listening to a podcast or sermon, and you begin to wonder if the person is solid or if he or she is a wolf, these are good articles to start ‘testing the fruit’ of their teaching or behavior.
“It takes careful discernment to see that the light is really darkness. Paul taught Timothy how to diagnose satanic darkness masquerading as divine light. Here’s how he described the key symptoms that identify those infected with the spiritual disease of false teaching:”
The article then goes on to describe each symptom of the false teacher disease.
10 Characteristics of False Teachers
Here is Noah Adams, lead pastor of City Park Church in CO, with a list of 10 Characteristics of False Teachers. It’s at Linkedin but you don’t have to sign in to read it, just press the X and the pop-up goes away. He matched each type of false teacher with scripture, then explains.
1.They creep in unnoticed (Jude 1:4) 2. They operate in secret (2 Peter 2:1-3) 3. They have many followers (2 Peter 2:1-3) 4. They create division and obstacles (Romans 16:17) 5. No matter what it seems like, they do not have God (2 John 1:7-11) 6. Some began in sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1-5) 7. Their words seem intelligent (1 Timothy 6:20-21, Colossians 2:8) 8. They look like legitimate apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13-15, Matthew 7:15) 9. They target the spiritually naive (Romans 16:17-18) 10. They twist Scripture (1 Timothy 6:3-5, 2 Timothy 4:3-4)
7 Traits of False Teachers
Here is Colin Smith with “7 Traits of False Teachers” from The Gospel Coalition (in 2013, back when they were pretty OK). This is a different article from the similarly named article below. Smith explains why these false teachers are different, with a short answer from the Bible for each question.
1.Different Source—Where does the message come from? 2. Different Message—What is the substance of the message? 3. Different Position—In what position will the message leave you? 4. Different Character—What kind of people does the message produce? 5. Different Appeal—Why should you listen to the message? 6. Different Fruit—What result does the message have in people’s lives? 7. Different End—Where does the message ultimately lead you?
7 Traits of False Teachers
Here is Tim Challies with 7 Traits of False Teachers, which include The Heretic, The Charlatan, The Prophet, The Abuser, The Divider, The Tickler, The Speculator.
If you are thinking of a particular false teacher right now, go to Challies’ article and see if you can match your false teacher with one of his certain 7 traits.
False Teachings and How to Battle Them
Kim Sorgius Jones at Not Consumed has an essay outlining several steps to guarding your kids from false teaching. I am not familiar with this blog or this author, but I liked her approach in this one essay. She identifies 7 false teaching messages that kids are likely to fall prey to in our culture today, including:
Follow your heart, Godly living brings prosperity, Right choices will get you the perfect life, God will never give you more than you can handle, If you try harder, you can be right with God, I deserve better, I need ME time. More at “7 False Teaching Messages & How to Battle Them“.
Further Reading
Tim Challies “The Spiritual Gift of Discernment” book. Far too often the gift of discernment is said to be little more than a gift for making good decisions–for knowing God’s will when we need to turn to the left or the right. Yet the Bible tells us that it is more.
Sinclair Ferguson, “What is Discernment?” article. True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.
This week I’m taking a look at false teachers, whom the Bible calls wolves. I look at their characteristics, traits, and methods according to the Bible.
Poetry is by Kay Cude. Used with permission. Kay Cude is a Texas poet.
The Sheepfold, Moonlight. 1856-1860
BY KAY CUDE
Through shadows long the dusk drew near to spread its cloak ov’r all; and watched I there the setting sun, its glory long displayed. And as the eve flowed like the sea, there saw its breaking tide; wash ov’r that shore, submerge that line that marks the night from day.
And as the twilight covered me, upon the path I trode, heard I a howling–not afar–yea, wolves therein at bay. What then that sound, that too-near cry, that breaks upon my ears? T’was Satan’s voice through men–his words–deception’s planned foray.
So then my step at quickened pace, determined to avoid, the rushing onslaught of those fiends, proficient with their lies. From mouths perverse I heard their yelps–distortion, rank deceit!! Through mouths profane, egregious words, revealed demonic ties.
Then on that path near where I stood, upon a group they came; engaged them there to turn aside and listen to their words,– to capture those within that flock, with clever speech persuade; they narcigeted God’s Sure Word, made theirs the “truth” preferred.
And I distressed in shadows stayed, perchance their faces see; for in that pack, before me clear, saw faces I knew well! And greatly shaken to my core, with trembling heart I watched; and there was grieved that “who they seemed,” their idiom dispelled.
And as the eve became the night, that veil that sets our rest; I watched as they revealed themselves as hunters for a prey. Though garbed these men in cleric’s robes, through doctrines of Sheol, perverted they God’s Holy Word; blasphemed Salvation’s way.
With souls suborned spoke they the words borne through the Devil’s lips, neath shepherd’s cloaks, dressed they like those of Christ’s beloved redeemed; supplanted they the Word of God with flagrant disregard; contrived their will, incited doubt, their dogma there esteemed!
And soon saw I the faltering steps of some turn slight their heads; to hearken to deception’s swill, therein perceived as truth! Beheld bewitchment glaze their eyes, confound their reasoning; watched them beguiled, near trance-like state, no longer resolute.
Like pigs at feast midst slop and filth, some joined to sup their fill, there wallowed in idolatry; renounced Christ’s finished work. Bedazzled by the lure of wealth, of health and “easy” grace, defiled they soon Christ’s sacrifice; atonement there besmirched.
And as they trode upon the grace of God’s redemptive plan, they as the wild ass roams the plains, as harlots sin pursued! There turned from Light they said was theirs, yet proved themselves as fools; enraptured with self-righteousness, their love for Christ withdrew.
How then? I queried of myself, can evil overtake, so quickly those who name the Lord their sovereign Christ I AM? –Through words or script that hold not fast to God’s delivered Word; –preferring tales that tickle ears, make Christ mere mortal man.
As tears and anger filled my breast, I shouted out a plea! “turn now from myths, forsake these wolves whose writ consumes the soul!” Reject this feast they offer you–’tis vomit you’ll consume, belched forth from depths of Satan’s bile–THIS hatred’s not its whole.
–It never rests, nor does it sleep, it never sates his need; therein is set his subterfuge to render you bemused. –Then she deception casts her net, delusion her end yield; and round your soul draw tight the ropes, reel in the dragnet’s due.
Like greedy dogs still they pursued this gospel borne of Hell; like mindless men devoid of sense, joined to that wicked throng! And they like Judas took that sop and dipped it in the bowl, there seared their minds incapable of judging right from wrong.
And as the shadows of the night grew deeper in the dark, saw I deception master them; delusion unconstrained. And they who “seemed” like branches true, engrafted into Christ, bewitched by lies, removed themselves preferring sin’s domain.
And then I fell upon my knees neath failure’s crushing weight, there realized the choice they made, my pleas would not deter! And suddenly a fear arose that gripped my very heart! Now I a hindrance for the wolves, their vengeance might incur!
And in that shock of sudden fear, my face prone to the earth, cried to the Lord to wash me clean, this sin to set aside! Then quick within my spirit rose the reason not to fear– the battles we engage with wolves, o’er each the Lord presides!
Remember, those who leave the flock, those never to return, were never Christ’s but of the world; pretenders from the start. But there amongst that depraved throng, perchance are God’s elect– know ’tis Christ’s will to seek them out, redeem their errant heart.
The brands we seek to pluck from Hell IS NOT a work of ours; for ’tis Christ’s Spirit that prevails, our part is faithfulness. And when think we that we have failed to reach those ones deceived: THE DRAW IS GOD’S FOR HIS ELECT; SALVATION TO POSSESS.
Description of Millett’s painting, The Sheepfold, Moonlight: In this nocturnal scene, the waning moon throws a mysterious light across the plain extending between the villages of Barbizon and Chailly. Millet was recorded as saying of the solitary shepherd: Oh, how I wish I could make those who see my work feel the splendors and terrors of the night! One ought to be able to make people hear the songs, the silences, and murmurings of the air. They should feel the infinite.
Today and the next 5 weekdays I’ll publish something about discernment. So, Wolf Week! Lack of discernment is the cause of much trouble in the church and much confusion.
This inaugural entry to the week of discernment essays is called “We DO know the heart!”
When I publish a discernment essay, I am often treated to an old chestnut of a comment that is becoming practically standard for those without discernment to use as a reply:
He alone is sovereign and fully knows all hearts!
God is sovereign. God knows the heart. But we do too.
If a teacher’s doctrine has been proven false by comparing it with the Bible, then we DO know their heart! The Bible tells us this. Only God knows the hearts of the people, but if their teaching is not of the Lord, then the God who sees hearts has exposed those hearts to us by the verses of His word!
Of false teachers, the Bible says-
Their hearts are full of deceit. Colossians 2:8 Their hearts are filled with their own appetites. Romans 16:17-18 Their hearts are disguised with light. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 Their hearts are full of greed. 2 Peter 2:3 Their hearts are ravenous. Matthew 7:15. Their hearts are inwardly full of sensuality. Jude 1:4 Their hearts are full of secrets, such as destructive heresies. 2 Peter 2:1 Their hearts are full of intent to exploit. 2 Peter 2:3 Their hearts are full of fleshly passions. 2 Timothy 4:3 Their hearts are puffed up with conceit. 1 Timothy 6:4 His heart understands nothing. 1 Timothy 6:4 Their hearts are cunning and crafty. Ephesians 4:14 Their hearts serve the creature. Romans 1:25 Their hearts are slaves of corruption. 2 Peter 2:19. Their hearts deny the Master who bought them. 2 Peter 2:1 Their hearts prophesy lies. Jeremiah 23:26
So whenever I expose a testimony as false or a teaching as false, or a teacher as false, using biblical proof, STOP saying that this is a bad activity because “only God knows the heart”. He does, that’s true, but He has shown us the heart of the false teacher in His word. He taught us this in His word for the purpose of being mature, discerning, and so we can learn for ourselves and also teach the younger to be edified and strong.
to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God (Acts 26:18).
Did you see the parralellism there? Dark v. Light, Satan v. God. Also the darkness is representative of satan, and the light is representative of God.
Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; the one who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12).
Light vs. dark again, and implied is that SINCE the light is life, THEN darkness is death.
For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,(Colossians 1:13).
The word transfer here is important. We dwell in a world of darkness. It’s the unredeemed, sinful world. It’s dark. It’s represented by darkness. We cannot transfer ourselves to the world of Light, which is the world of God in heaven of which we are citizens of but not yet residents. It’s not like we can stop off at the airline agent’s desk at the airport and ask for a transfer from our intended destination to a new one. The airline agent will help us do that. But our transfer from the domain of darkness to the one of Light is handled by Jesus only. There is a great gulf fixed, between which no man or women may travel.
In the end, hell will be thrown into outer darkness in the end of the end. (Matthew 8:12, Matthew 22:13
Sinners love the dark. Because they love the dark and because their worldview is only dark (though they don’t know it), and because sin only worsens as succeeding generations emerge, everything IN the world darkens too.
Romans 1:18-32 shows the progression of darkening due to sin. We can apply that section either to individuals, or to whole societies, but either way, each generation gets worse. The spiritual darkness increases.
The things we see in this darkening world are also darkening. Art, architecture, language, conversation, movies, television, print media, literary plots- darkening. Thigs are way darker now in 2024 than they were in 1970.
People frequently ask ‘Why is architecture so ugly now? Why aren’t we building beautiful buildings anymore?’
Pirelli Tire Building, New Haven, USA. 1966
Ahsan Manzil palace, now a museum, 1859, Dhaka, Bangladesh
I hear people wondering ‘Why is art so ugly now?’ A particular street art installation in Athens GA raised a ruckus because it was nearly uniformly deemed ugly. The Martin Luther King statue recently erected in Boston Massachusetts was likened to a large fecal log. We used to have this:
Trevi Fountain, Rome, Italy. 1762. James Dalgliesh photo
Now we have this:
Hank Willis Thomas, The Embrace, Boston, 2023
I wrote a piece 12 years ago about the Vatican sculpture “The Resurrection”. It is supposed to depict Christ rising from the tomb alive, while the earth is shaken by a great storm. Its sculptor was Pericle Fazzini and it was installed in 1977. The piece looks more demonic to me, of a devil rising among crows. Ugly.
Another piece of art is making news these days, and it’s the first official portrait of King Charles III. The description is:
The portrait, which stands over 6 feet tall, features a striking red background and shows Charles wearing the uniform of the Welsh Guards, of which he was made Regimental Colonel in 1975, according to the palace. According to a new description of the portrait shared on [artist Jonathan] Yeo’s website, the artist chose the “vivid” red background, in part, to bring a “contemporary jolt” to the painting.
The ‘jolt’ that people got was thinking that the King looks like he’s in hell. A professor at the Rhode Island School of Design said all he could think of was blood. “The instant I saw it, having no idea what to expect, I literally heard the word ‘blood’ in my head. It was a bit of a shock — all that red, dripped here and there and scrubbed on and scrubbed off,” Brinkerhoff says.“
Ugly…brutal… art and architecture. Now let’s talk movie posters and TV covers. Same thing. They are literally dark. The colors depicted in the digital and print advertising for film and television are dark colors, scary scenes, and blood. It’s dicey for me to view an array of movies or TV shows because of the scenes depicted. They are not pictures I want to stay in my head. The plots are darker nowadays. Crime shows show everything, medical shows show everything, so much gore.
So when the Bible says that the world is dark, it means it metaphorically, spiritually, AND literally. As sin increases, so does the darkness. Foul language, brutal behavior, media constantly presenting to us with dark colors and scary depictions of brutal acts… and it will only get worse.
We are the LIGHT. Though the darkness may affect us spiritually as we wrestle against the ‘the cosmic powers over this present darkness’, we need to maintain a light shining from us. We are the beacons, we are the lighthouses, shining in the darkness (which has not been overcome) showing the darkened sinner where true glory is. Keep praying. Keep reading the Bible. Keep going to church. Keep listening to podcasts. Keep good hymns on rotation in your streaming service. Keep allowing His light to pour into you so that it can shine out of you. The people dwelling in darkness need it. Other Christians need it too!
The unchangeability of God. In biblical theology God is described as unchanging in His nature and in His character. This includes God’s being (essence), purposes, and promises.
Psalm 102:25–27 contrasts God’s unchanging nature with that of the created order. Numbers 23:19 and 1 Sam. 15:29 indicate that God changes neither His plans nor His actions, for these rest on His unchanging nature. James finds assurance of God’s future blessings in that there is in God “no variation or shadow cast by turning” (James 1:17 HCSB). After referring to His constant patience, long-suffering, and mercy, God concludes with a general statement of His immutability: “For I, the LORD, do not change” (Mal. 3:6 NASB).
Source: Johnson, W. (2003). Immutability of God. In Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary
I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” (Malachi 3:6)
Since God never changes, we like to think more about His unchanging nature as expressed in endless patience, constant mercy, persistent protection, etc. We love to ponder the ‘good’ outflows from His immutability. In his Sermon #1 delivered at New Park Street Chapel in 1855, Charles Spurgeon chose to preach on the immutability of God. After an introduction of extolling what immutability means in terms of the outflow of His other ‘positive’ attributes, Spurgeon said, “But now comes one jarring note to spoil the theme.”
To some of you God is unchanging in his threatenings. If every promise stands fast, and every oath of the covenant is fulfilled, hark thee, sinner!—mark the word—hear the death-knell of thy carnal hopes; see the funeral of thy fleshly trustings. Every threatening of God, as well as every promise shall be fulfilled. Talk of decrees! I will tell you of a decree: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” That is a decree, and a statute that can never change. Be as good as you please, be as moral as you can, be as honest as you will, walk as uprightly as you may,—there stands the unchangeable threatening: “He that believeth not shall be damned.” What sayest thou to that, moralist? Oh, thou wishest thou couldst alter it, and say, “He that does not live a holy life shall be damned.” That will be true; but it does not say so. It says, “He that believeth not.”
Here is the stone of stumbling, and the rock of offence; but you cannot alter it. You must believe or be damned, saith the Bible; and mark, that threat of God is an unchangeable as God himself. And when a thousand years of hell’s torments shall have passed away, you shall look on high, and see written in burning letters of fire, “He that believeth not shall be damned.” “But, Lord, I am damned.”
Nevertheless it says “shall be” still. And when a million ages have rolled away, and you are exhausted by your pains and agonies, you shall turn up your eye and still read “SHALL BE DAMNED,” unchanged, unaltered. And when you shall have thought that eternity must have spun out its last thread—that every particle of that which we call eternity, must have run out, you shall still see it written up there, “SHALL BE DAMNED.”
the-end-time.org 