What are the characteristics of someone who is a false teacher? What do they look like, promote or say? How are we to know if someone is leading us in a right direction toward God or actually leading us to an apostate position? These are some of the questions with which our writer Jude is answering for us as he encourages us to “contend for the faith.” We have been learning that those who were false prophets and teachers in Jude's day were unbelieving, rebellious, and promiscuous. They were so arrogantly bold that they spoke against dignities, defiled the flesh and despised dominion. Today Jude adds more to their description in verse ten where he wrote:
But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
First Jude says, “these speak evil of those things which they know not”. This is probably one of the most easily recognized characteristics of someone who speaks falsely. They do not have experiential knowledge of the church or they have a few bad experiences with the church, and now they are experts. These false teachers can tell you how bad this part is or how wrong that part is but they never attend. They don't know the pastor. They don't know the teachings, and they certainly don't know the congregation, but they can give reason after reason why these people are “hypocrites” or some other name. They don't know the Bible, and what parts they do know of God are confused or only what they have heard from someone else. In other words, they speak evil of things they don't know anything about.
Next Jude says these with false doctrine even corrupt what they know naturally. Jude uses the phrase “as brute beasts”. These are laws of God that are written within every person who is born. As God promised to Israel through Jeremiah:
But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. Jeremiah 31:33
Even though these false teacher knew the law that was in their hearts, they went against it. It is much like the person who knows that the first time they do something wrong there is a great resistance within. Then after that first time, the resistance begins to break down. The next time is easier, and then the next time is easier than the one before, and on and on until a person is trapped by their submission and now the vice is ruling them. “In those things they corrupt themselves.”
So, here are two more traits within those who are false prophets and teachers within Jude's day. Speaking evil of things they don't know anything about, and corrupting themselves with things they know naturally within. The question becomes, “are these traits within us”? Do we speak evil of things we know nothing about? Are we corrupting ourselves with things we know to be wrong? Do we lead others to a closer walk with God, or do we lead them away from a relationship with God by our words? May God help us all as we use the illustration of these false teachers as presented by Jude to be a measuring stick with which we may examine ourselves.
Next time we will look at three examples from the past that will give us further insight into what these false teachers are like, so read ahead, and we shall join together then.
Until tomorrow...there is more...
Look for the new devotional book “Equipped for Battle – From Generation to Generation” in all major bookstore sites, www.amazon.com ; www.barnesandnobles.com ; download to e-books, and find it locally at www.mrzlc.com/bookstore
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