Your Journey Blog

Spiritual Warfare: False Teachers

This week we continue to answer the following question: How does God’s enemy come after His people and His leaders for the sole purpose of distracting, disrupting and derailing them from being involved in God's great mission?

As we survey Pauline literature we will discover fourteen tactical strategies that the enemy will use to come after God's people along with specific antidotes in addressing that problem.  See the introduction to this series to receive an overview of this subject.

13. False Teachers

“No man is exempted from the subtle deception of doctrinal drift – the man of God expects this temptation.” – Gary Rohrmayer

Text: 1Timothy 4:1-2 – “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.”

Problem: “Satan uses demons to influence teachers to give false doctrines that appeal to people. They are actually described as seducing spirits, hypocritical liars with no conscience.”  J. Robert Clinton

Antidote: “A Bible centered leader like Timothy should teach the truth about these evil doctrines countering these heresies.” J. Robert Clinton

Reflective Questions:

• Where could the enemy attack your personal theological convictions?
• Where could the enemy subtly influence your churches theological framework?
• What is Paul’s strategy in protecting the church from false teachers?  See I Timothy 4:4-16
• What is Paul’s strategy in combating personal doctrinal drift?  See I Timothy 4:4-16
• How does theology drift potentially affect missional drift?

Prayer:  Holy Father, Beautiful Savior, God of all truth, we seek your light and your love to protect our lives from the delusions of the enemy.  Help us to cherish and nourish the deep truths of the faith.  Fill our lives with good teaching that ignites passion for God and missional hunger.   May we be leaders who watch our lives and doctrine closely; who live what we teach and set examples in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.   Teach us how to preserve the truth for ourselves, for our hearers and for the Glory of God.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Next Post: Blinding People

View the entire series of posts on Spiritual Warfare

Free Evangelism Webinar - Sowing Seeds of Awareness in Your Community

Has your church plateaued in it’s evangelistic effectiveness?

Perhaps, your church has stalled out in its evangelistic passion.  People are not coming to faith and your members are not really engaging people into finding faith in Christ.    The life-saving station has become the club of comfort.

Yet, other churches continue to grow year after year.

How do they maintain their evangelistic passion and zeal to reach their community and be a transformative agent for the kingdom of God?

Their leaders have developed a sowing mentality.

They have learned to apply the law of sowing and reaping in their evangelistic efforts.

How do you develop a sowing mentality?

In this 60 minute webinar, where you don’t have to travel or spend any money (though a donation is helpful) Gary Rohrmayer will join Chris Walker of EvangelismCoach.org and you will

• Discover how the principle of sowing and reaping works in evangelism
• Learn how to develop a sow mentality
• Receive ideas for incarnational outreach in your community
• Learn how to develop an effective promotion strategy

You can expect to learn how

• to earn the right to be heard in your community
• to do the “work of an evangelism” in your ministry
• not to waste money on bad marketing attempts

Register for the Sowing Seeds Webinar 

Tuesday, November 23, 2010 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CST

Quiet Thoughts on Prayer for Driven Leaders

Prayer! That word to a driven leader evokes feelings of frustration and guilt. Frustration with our ability to slow down and commune with God, without one hundred ideas, to do's and leadership issues racing through our minds. Guilt from the sheer lack of prayer in our lives. Every driven leader says, "I know I ought to pray more" and yet struggles with making it a priority. Today, let Fenelon's thoughts on prayer refresh your prayer life and move you from being a driven leader to a drawn leader.

Fenelon's Thoughts on Prayer:

"What a blessing it is to speak to him in trust, to open our hearts to him, and by means of prayer to be united with him as much as it is possible to be in this life!"

"The treasures of God's grace are the only true riches-yet they are the only riches we balk at asking for and expecting. However, we must never stop knocking! The promises of Jesus Christ are always faithful-it is we who are unfaithful in asking for them."

Jesus' Words on Prayer:

"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." "Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:9-13 NIV

Excerpt from Quiet Thoughts for Driven Leaders: 50 Thoughts from the Spiritual Letters of François Fenelon by Gary Rohrma  yer hit the link for a free copy