Friday, September 14, 2012

Disjointed or Besieged: The Effect of False Teaching

Glenn Chatfield has posted a quote from Kenneth Wuest on how following false teaching is like being incapacitated from a dislocated joint.  This reminded of a podcast I heard with another good illustration of how false teachers and teaching affect us.

Imagine ancient warfare where there were walled cities and the enemy would come and surround the city, lay up siege works, and wait letting no one in or out.  The attacker's intention was to starve the residents to the point of submission before running out of their own stores.  During an effective siege, conditions inside the walls would become dire.  People sought anything to fill their stomachs.  Scripture relates how during a siege of Jerusalem, Rabshakeh shouts to the inhabitants that they were doomed to consume their own waste (2 Ki 18:27)—this from experience in siege warfare.  Another scriptural instance is Ben-Hadad's siege of Samaria during which one mother swindled another into eating the latter's son as a shared meal (2 Ki 6:28-29).

Satan attempts the same in us with false teachers.  Their instruction cuts us off from the pure milk of the Word with the intent to starve out what is true.  We become spiritually emaciated and become willing to take in whatever appears nourishing, though it may have no nutritional value at all.

The remedy is to be strong in the Lord in the full armor of God (Eph 6:10-20).  The battle is ever before us, so we must remain vigilant, and holding fast to the truth.