Daily Archive

Peter goes on and says of false teachers that they are working at, “Enticing unstable souls.” Literally, they are seducing the unstable, and the word for enticing or seducing is the word to lure or to bait or to set a trap so that you can catch prey. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter, talking about Paul’s writings, “As also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” There was a question. I really wish I knew the question that was asked of Peter about Paul’s writing. “Hey, Peter, do you remember when Paul wrote this? What do you think of that?” And Peter says, “As great as Paul is, there are still people who are unstable and untaught, and they are going to twist even what Paul said.”

They are going to do that with the rest of the Scriptures also. They are going take Scripture and not understand what it means. They are ignorant. Their minds are going to be futile and darkened, and they are going to say something that sounds right on the surface, but their application is going to be wrong. They are going to abuse and twist the scripture.

They are going to seduce the unstable. James 1:5-8 says, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith, doubting nothing, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

We approach a complex problem, and we tell the Holy Spirit, “I can figure this out. Give me a minute. I’ve got this.” The first thing we ought to do is  come to the word of God and ask God to give us wisdom. “Open my mind to truth by the power of the Spirit so that I can see it and understand it and know it.” If this reveals a lack of wisdom (the skill to rightly apply the Word of God to daily circumstances), ask and God will give it liberally.

But he says, “But he must ask in faith, doubting nothing, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.” This is the instability. Those who are not quite sure what to believe or where to go are targeted by these false teachers who come in and they use these words that sound so good and they tell you what you want to hear and they tell you they are going make it better and they are going help you and your life’s going improve and everything’s going work like it’s supposed to work and like you want it to work. If you’ll just come and participate and give, that’s usually the key, come and participate and give and all that. Just exhibit your faith with money and everything will be okay.

Do you understand? We are commanded to give willingly and thankfully, to give sacrificially, to give first by giving ourselves to the Lord and one another. But we are never told give so as to demonstrate our faith. We’re told give according to the faith that we have, toward the measure of the faith that we have. Give in obedience to the Word of God. Give not by compulsion but because you want to. But here, this so-called “seed faith offering,” give me something that’s impossible for you to give and God will bless that and give you whatever you want. We’re still selling indulgences, aren’t we? Pay for this and God will give you whatever you want.

By these teachings, the false teachers seduce the unstable. They lure them. They bait them. This is the danger. Are you preaching a Christ that offers the forgiveness of sin? Are you offering a Christ that gives you financial freedom? Are you preaching a Christ that frees you from those chains? From that death sentence that requires reconciling you to the Father? Are you preaching Christ that can make your marriage better and your kids behave? What are you preaching? There’s a lot of preaching today that if you really were to picture what was happening, give the preacher a fishing pole. He’s throwing bait out there to get you to say that there’s something you want, and he’s going to tell you if you come to Jesus, Jesus is there to give you what you want. Jesus is not there to give us what we want.

Jesus is there so that what we find as we obey Him, as we submit to Him, you understand that our first act of obedience to Him is an act of rebellion against everything we are without Him. It is to repent and to reject everything we are without Christ because we want Him. You look at the parable of the pearl of great price and the hidden treasure, and you understand that what we want and what we desire and what we feel, those things are irrelevant until we want Jesus above everything else.

Do you want Him? People are preaching all these things that you can get when you come to Jesus. Here’s what you get when you come to Jesus. You get the opportunity to die to yourself and to live to the glory of God. You see, we don’t add Jesus to our life. We don’t add Him just as another element, another ingredient to make things better and to redeem what’s there. We understand that without Him we are dead and lost.

We need to be raised to new life and we need to repent and believe. We need to reject all that we are without Him. But there are those who are unstable, those who are easily lured and false teachers know that. They know that. They have a demographic. That’s why they play their programs in the hours that they do on the television. They know who’s up and desperate and lonely and has no one to turn to. They know who’s suffering and struggling and guilt ridden and full of doubt and fear. And they cast out that bait to make them feel better and it’s all a lie. Unstable souls are seduced.

What do we long for? To be firmly established in the truth. To know the truth. Here’s the other key. You do not have to know every false doctrine that’s floating around out there. Now there’s nothing new under the sun and it’s been around for a long time if they are touting it. But you don’t have to know every false doctrine. Have you ever noticed that when you try to engage somebody who’s following a false teacher? “Well, what did they say that was wrong? Give me specifics.” You don’t have to know all the specifics. What you have to know is the truth of God’s Word. To be conditioned to hear the truth. To hear His voice and to recognize it and to know it and to follow it.

Know the truth. Be firmly established in the truth. There are those who are unstable, who are easily seduced. How do you bring somebody to be established? You build them up with the Word of God. You teach them the Word of God. Understand what’s interesting in the parable of the soils, the first soil, the seed that falls by the wayside, it’s the hardened ground outside of the field and what happens to that seed, the birds come and eat it and take it away and it’s gone. There’s no ground to penetrate, there’s no place to grow. Jesus says that seed that falls on the wayside is the seed that is sown in the soil and the life and the mind of a person who doesn’t understand the seed. And it says the devil is represented by the birds to come and snatch it away, to take it away so that it’s gone, so that it’s no longer there. There is a need for understanding.

Where do we get understanding? We’ve got to go to the word of God. It’s the only thing that makes sense to go to the word and to be led by the Spirit, to be taught even then understanding all along that unless the Spirit illumines our mind, we will not be able to in our flesh understand any of it. But as He works, He conforms us through that truth that is preached, and He uses that to grow and to bring forth fruit.