“The question boils down to motivation. What motivates a false teacher? A wayward sincerity that can be corrected? Or a deeply warped, conscious pursuit of evil?”
(Elizabeth Prata – The End Time) A reader asked this question the other day, “Do you think, they believe they are doing what God is calling them to do?” In other words, do they know they’re false or do they sincerely believe that they are in the right?
The answer is yes, no, and we can’t know. Let me explain.
I look to the Bible for examples of false teachers and whether the Bible answers the question. In the New Testament, we have one answer of ‘Yes’, the false ones know they are false. Nicodemus was in the Sanhedrin, which was the Supreme Court of Israel. He was a Pharisee. When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, John chapter 3, he said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” (John 3:2b). “We” means the fellow Pharisees and teachers. They knew He was from God. As John MacArthur said, out of the 6,000 Pharisees, only one came to investigate the man ‘they knew was from God.’ Instead they and the Sadducees became angry and jealous. (Acts 5:17). As RC Sproul said, “[N]othing reveals a counterfeit like the presence of the genuine.
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