WHO HATH BELIEVED OUR REPORT (PART 4)
If He did, Salvation would be nothing more than being moved from one house built on sand and placed into another house built on sand. There would be no rhyme or reason for this. Any doctrine which the apostles did not teach, or any doctrine that is in error concerning what they taught, cannot be said to be part of the Church’s foundation or have any part in the Church’s life. They certainly play a big part in the life of the counterfeit church, but not in Christ’s Church. And so we see that anyone whose faith is wholly or partly based on false doctrines, or on an incomplete gospel, cannot be among those of the Church of God, because they are built upon the foundation of the whole Gospel truth. Therefore, is it then a fantastic thing to say that no one is saved who does not abide in those doctrines, the doctrine of Christ, the WHOLE doctrine of Christ, especially in light of such Scriptures as 2 John 9 which says, "Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, HE hath both the Father and the Son" (2 Jn. 9 cf. Jn. 12:44). Christ says that any house built on a foundation of sand will fall (see Matt. 7). Such is the foundation of error and such is the fate of the house which is built upon it. The Church of God, which are the believers who make up the Body of Christ, should not ‘be’ the pillar of truth, IT IS THE PILLAR OF TRUTH!! "...the house of God, which IS the Church of the living God, THE pillar and the ground of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). The Church of God is not striving towards, nor is it aiming to be, the pillar and the ground of the truth, it IS the pillar and ground of the Truth ALREADY!! WHAT IT PREACHES IS THE GOSPEL OF GOD AND WHAT IT BELIEVES IS THE GOSPEL OF GOD AND NO OTHER! Therefore, how could anyone who believes in a false gospel possibly be within the Church of God? There is no room in such a Church for any who believe false gospels. The entrance way is too narrow for them to pass through. The Church is not split, the Body of Christ is not divided, it is unified, it is as one, for it believes ONE Gospel. How could Christians be the "...ambassadors for Christ..." (2 Cor. 5:20) if they did not all believe the Gospel of Christ? If the Church of God, the people of God, are already the pillar and ground of God’s truth, how can they teach and believe anything which differs from God’s Gospel? The Church of God, made up of the people He has chosen by grace, IS the pillar and ground of the truth, collectively and as individuals, because they have all been blessed with the faith of God to believe it. They all believe the same Gospel, for they have all been given the same faith. They are "...with one mind striving together for the faith of the Gospel" (Phil. 1:27 cf. 2 Cor. 13:11; 1 Cor. 1:10; 2:16; Rom. 15:5,6). If they believed different gospels with the same faith, how would they differ from those unregenerate souls who believe different gospels with the faith that is common to man. The Church of God is not some gargantuan organization with massive Gothic cathedrals adorned with grotesque looking gargoyles and phallic-like steeples reaching up towards the sky. It is the assembly of called out ones, the ones who have been called by the Gospel out of error and into God’s marvellous truth "...to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thess. 2:14).
If, out of all the various ‘christian’ denominations, there was only one that did not preach the Gospel, would it be my fault? Could my Gospel, and the consequences of not believing it, be rightly attacked if there was only one mainstream religious denomination that did not believe it? Would it be the Gospel's fault that this organization did not teach it? Of course not. Would there be something wrong in the Gospel I teach, or in the plain and obvious ramifications of it, if just two of these long established groups failed to teach it? Of course not. What if there were only three that did not believe it? Would this be the evidence that would prove my Gospel to be wrong? If not, how many groups would it take, who did not believe this Gospel, before it could rightly be said that this Gospel is not God’s Gospel?? Would five prove us wrong? No? How about ten, or twenty? When could we draw the line between what is truth and what is error? How many denominations would it take, who believed the same thing, to prove wrong what one group taught that differed from the majority? What absolutely ludicrous thinking! So are we to believe that simply because there are many organizations which disagree with our Gospel, that this logically proves that what we are saying is wrong? Of course not. No rational person would be a party to such thinking. Does it mean there is something wrong with the Gospel if ten organizations claiming to be Christian do not preach it? Of course not. Nor does it prove a single thing about this Gospel if NO professing christian organization preaches it or ever has preached it! To say that it does would be to presume that all these organizations had the truth. You would be surprised just how many people believe something to be the truth simply because there are ten or so organizations which believe the same thing and had preached it for a considerable number of years. You would not believe a man’s message as true simply because he has been preaching it for 30 years or more, would you? Then why automatically and unquestioningly believe a denomination’s teachings because it has promoted them for the past five hundred years! Since when did the truth of God begin to be rightly discerned by how many people believe it or how long a thing had been taught, and where in the Scriptures for that matter does it say such a thing? Where is this imaginary line drawn that instantaneously and automatically proves something as true because a certain number of people believe it? Is something true if one thousand people believe it? How about a few thousand? Or what about one hundred thousand? How about five hundred thousand? Surely it would be safe to believe something is of God if one million people believed it. If so, let us then join the Mormons for they number well over one million. But then how could we be sure they had the truth when the followers of the Roman Catholic Church number over one billion? If one million people believed something to be true, would it cease to be truth if only nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine believed it? I believe by now the reader can see for himself how silly such thinking is. Are the Mormons right in what they believe because they number around 5 million people. Does it mean that what they believe is wrong merely because the Roman Catholic Church has over one billion adherents? Of course not. Then why judge my Gospel by this rule? Would a truth cease to be truth, or cease to be considered as truth by God, if no one believed it? Of course not. Then where does anyone get the temerity to say that because only a few people believe a thing to be true and the majority does not, it couldn’t possibly be the truth! What absolute and utter arrogance! What bullyish thinking. The fact that a few people believe something can never be used as proof that what these people believe is the truth. Nor is this the type of evidence that could be used to discount the possibility that what they believe is the truth. The Gospel is the Gospel whether there be one person who believes it, or ten thousand, or no one else in this universe. I, for one, will, by the grace of God, never be moved from His Gospel for it is the truth and there is no other. Just as the apostle Peter said to His Lord, "...to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (Jn. 6:68), I will not be shaken from the truth that there is no salvation but only damnation for those who believe any other gospel, which contain words of eternal damnation. This is the attitude Paul the apostle had in the first century and this is the attitude I have in the twenty-first century. The fact that the majority of religious people in the world believe false gospels just goes to show the deceitfulness and wickedness of the heart of man (see Jer. 17:11), how influential false gospels are and how attractive they are to those of a carnal mind, who have not the mind of Christ, nor the love of His truth. The well of false christianity is deep and there has never been a shortage of those willing to drink from it. That the majority does not believe the Gospel is no license for anyone to go about treating those who do believe it as people who have something wrong with them. Democracy certainly gives a voice to the people and always allows the majority to triumph, but this can never guarantee that what the majority sees as right is right. It certainly gets its way but its way is not always right. That the majority does not believe the true Gospel, let alone the fact it pays no attention to the consequences of not believing it, proves one thing: none of these groups who deny the Gospel outright, or who deny it by rejecting its ramifications, were ever Christian to begin with. If they were, how could they, and why would they possibly entertain the notion, let alone promote the idea, that those who do not believe the Gospel—who do not believe what God has said about how He saves—but who come ‘close enough’ to believing it, will be as saved as those who do. To properly understand and believe what the Gospel is all about is to recognize its doctrines as the power of God to save, and to know enough of what its doctrines teach to reject everything else that presents itself as the Gospel; to know that there can be no salvation for anyone whose faith is in any gospel other than God’s Gospel!!! Belief in a false god will not save anyone; belief in a false christ will not save anyone; belief in a false spirit will not save anyone. So how can anyone believe, and what could they possibly base their belief on, that one can be saved believing a false gospel, something which God has not declared to be His, and still be saved? Especially in light of the fact that false christs, false spirits and false gospels are all connected with the beguiling Serpent, and that none of these have anything to do with the truth (see 2 Cor. 11:3,4). This would present us with the following scenario: God saves by His Gospel and He also saves by the gospels Satan promotes to deceive people and keep them from believing the true Gospel!
To say no 'christian' organization out there preaches the Gospel sounds like something a cult would say, doesn’t it? 'Only what WE believe is true' etc. Well, when put like that it certainly does sound like something a cult would say. But in order to discover the credibility of such a claim, one would need to take the practical tack and go through each organization which claims to preach the truth one by one and see whether or not they preach the Gospel. In doing so, one would soon discover that they all preach something different to the Gospel God has authored. I have written extensively on this in my booklet, ‘Who Are The Lost?’ so I will not be going into this area in this booklet. The prime aim of this booklet is to provide biblically-based answers to the enemies of the Gospel who oppose the ramifications of the Gospel, and therefore the Gospel itself, who say that one is not lost if one does not know and believe it. It is also to help those true believers who, like myself, have sometimes wondered why there are so few true believers, but so many who claim to believe the truth, yet when told that neither they nor anyone else was saved before believing it, have not eyes to see and flee, it would seem, for their very lives. Every professing christian should be aware of what the apostle Paul said about different gospels and the preachers of them: "...if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1:9). Notice Paul did not say, ‘Let the brother be corrected’, but stated clearly and in no uncertain terms that such a one who preached, and therefore believed, a gospel which differed in any way from Paul’s Gospel, was himself to be considered accursed!
Not wrong and saved, but wrong and DAMNED! A person who believed in a different gospel to Paul’s was to be viewed as flat out LOST! Why? Because their belief of a false gospel proved that the Lord of truth had not revealed Himself to them. If He had, they would no doubt have believed the true Gospel and no other for they would have been given the faith of God that believed the true Gospel and no other. No if’s, but’s or maybe’s about it. So, did this qualify Paul as a fanatical leader of some crazy cult because he warned Christians that if anyone preached a gospel which differed to his, which he had received by revelation from God, it was an unequivocal sign that they were accursed? If not, why not? The majority of people in Paul’s day thought this, saying he was part of a sect (see Acts 24:5), and some thought Paul’s great learning had driven him mad (see Acts 26:24). And later on there were groups that sprang up claiming to be Christian but who taught a different gospel to Paul’s, yet maintaining it to be the very Gospel of God. They preached it in His name and even included some truths about Christ in their gospels. Paul also warned of the days when "...of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them" (Acts 20:30). Did this make Paul some crazy lunatic fringe extremist? Of course not. According to what Paul said, it was the ones who believed a different gospel to his, and not those who believed it, that had the problem.
Did you know that a man so revered and respected by millions as Martin Luther never actually renounced or gave up his Roman Catholic worship of Mary, but in fact prayed to Mary to his dying day!! Luther, whom so many Protestants idolise and upon whose name a whole denomination was built, who began the Reformation with his 95 theses showing that salvation was by faith and not works, never stopped praying to Mary! Luther did not want to abolish the Roman Catholic Harlot, he just wanted to re-form it. Christians are not here to re-form anything but to COME OUT of the doctrinal darkness of Babylon and INTO God’s kingdom of Light. Christians are not reformers. They are not here to reorganize themselves on the deck of false religion’s version of the Titanic, but have completely abandoned the ship of false doctrines and been placed aboard the unsinkable good ship GOSPEL! The only ‘ship’, I might add, of which God is the Captain. Were you also aware that though Charles Haddon Spurgeon called Arminianism another gospel, he obstinately refused to call those who believed it lost!! Now, is the fact that millions in the world follow these two men, proof that the gospel they preached was right and that their popularity is some sort of confirmation from God that they were His men? Of course not. This is high risk reasoning and not at all like the rational thought processes that the Word of God promotes. To try and settle the issue of what the truth is by the popularity, or lack thereof, of those who say they possess it is just plain silly. There is no biblical precedent for it. The cult of personality carries no weight with God. Nor does the fact a million people believe a thing to be true make it true in the eyes of God. Heaven is not run by a democracy.
The truth is not what the majority believes it to be but what God has proclaimed it is! Christianity is not a democracy where what the majority believes suddenly becomes truth, and the larger the body of people who believe a thing the greater the chance that they are the true Church of Christ. Heaven is ruled by a Theocracy and what God says is truth, what He says His Gospel is, is what all of true Christianity teaches and believes. It matters not to God who you trusted in, who you thought was preaching the truth or how much you believed they were teaching the truth. What matters is: what is the truth and did you believe IT. You are not going to impress God by saying you believed Billy Graham, or Kenneth Copeland or the Pope because you thought they were preaching the truth! You are not going to impress God or sway Him into favoring you by declaring your loyal and faithful allegiance to false preachers. Your statements will condemn you rather than impress Him. All God is interested in is did you believe the record God has given of His only Son in His only Gospel or did you believe something else. If you believed anything different, then you could not have believed God’s Testimony. There are a multitude of people who follow the teachings of Luther and Spurgeon. In fact, it can rightly be said that they veritably follow the men themselves, with portraits of them hanging in many a ‘pastor’s office, and sermons lifted from their writings. They even named a denomination after one—the Lutheran Church is its name. And, though there is no ‘church’ organization known by Spurgeon’s name, there are plenty of Spurgeonites who religiously follow and adhere to his brand of Calvinism, a brand of Calvinism that claims to defend the doctrines of grace and yet denies the fact that they are the only doctrines one can believe in that will evidence a saved state. A brand of Calvinism which says a person becomes a Christian and then goes down one of two paths: either the Arminian path or the Calvinist path. Believing error holds no fear for those who believe such a thing, for even if one believes in another gospel they will be saved anyway! Now just tell me who the mad one is! The one who says that only after belief of God’s Gospel and the rejection of all others is a man saved (what is this but to repent and believe), or the one who says God only has one Gospel, that there is only one power of God unto salvation, yet even if you believe something which differs to it God will save you anyway! ‘Believe or be damned, believe or be damned, believe or be damned’ is their cry, but when one comes along who says, ‘I don’t quite believe it as you do,’ they say, ‘oh, that’s O.K.’ When is error to be seen as damnable error? When it is error regarding the Gospel doctrines for the doctrines of the Gospel of grace are the very issues of salvation!
A further question, and objection made, by those who believe they are part of real Christianity because their particular group has existed for several hundred years, will be looked at in two parts:
‘Are you saying that simply because a few doctrinal errors are held to that a person is counted lost by God and that the truth that a man does believe, though including some error, counts for nothing?’
It matters not what we say and it does not matter what those who oppose us say. What matters is what God says and we can all find out where God stands, what God has decreed, on this issue of doctrinal error and whether or not it means the man who holds to error concerning the Gospel is lost or that he is saved nonetheless. Most of what follows, in my response to the first part of the above question, has been excerpted from my booklet, ‘God Loves Doctrine’, which contains portions of Scripture that will make clear to everyone who reads them that a person who believes in erroneous doctrine when it comes to the Gospel, is in fact L-O-S-T! "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge" (Prov.19:27). There is doctrine that causes strife and confusion. False doctrines are the teachings that come from man’s imagination and not from God’s Word. False doctrines are nothing but fables designed to deceive, delude and to lead men astray and away from the truth of God. The only way a man can be free of false doctrines is to be full of good doctrine—the doctrine which comes from God. And the way to do this is to flee from the erroneous teachings of false preachers and go to those who uncompromisingly preach the Gospel of God. The Christian is told to "eschew evil, and do good..." (1 Pet. 3:11)—this includes the doctrinal evil that perverts the Gospel of Christ. "The Lord is against them that do evil..." (1 Pet. 3:12), and He is against them that believe evil. "Then understood they how that He bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (Matt. 16:12). Christ warned His disciples of the erroneous doctrines of the religious leaders of their day and this warning is just as pertinent in our day. The Christian will not sit under the teachings of false preachers for he knows that their gospels do not honor God but dishonor Him. The Bible shows that God’s children abide in His doctrine, for they love Him and His teachings: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostle’s DOCTRINE and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42). One cannot have union and fellowship, two cannot walk together the Bible says, unless they be agreed (Amos 3:3). And two cannot have true Christian union and fellowship unless they are agreed as to the doctrine of Christ: Who He is and what He has done. Acts 2:42 shows that the believers sat together and fellowshipped in harmony, for they all believed in the same doctrine, the apostle’s doctrine. They were of one mind, for they all had the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). But for those who differed from what the Christians believed, there is the following statement made by the apostle: "And with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because THEY RECEIVED NOT THE LOVE OF THE TRUTH, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who BELIEVED NOT THE TRUTH, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (2 Thess. 2:10-12). Now what truth is this? What truth is this passage of Scripture referring to? Verse 14 of 2 Thessalonians 2 tells us it is the Gospel of God by which every elect child of God is called. This is the truth of which the Word of God speaks when it promises damnation to those who do not believe it. This is the truth, which if a man has no love for, he cannot be saved. This does not bode well for the ones who believe not the truth, who have any objections to what the Gospel is and to what the consequences of believing it and not believing it are. I certainly would not be ‘packing my bags for heaven’ if I did not love and believe the Gospel of God. Those who do not love the truth cannot believe the truth as revealed in the doctrines of the Gospel and will all perish. Notice that the above passage of Scripture firmly establishes the connection between loving the truth and salvation, and the damnation of those who believed not the truth. Doctrine is so essential, so vital, so central, and so predominant, in the Christian life that Paul warns in these next verses that any who come preaching any other doctrine apart from that doctrine which they had received from him, were to be avoided: "Now I beseech you, brethren, MARK THEM WHICH CAUSE DIVISIONS AND OFFENCES CONTRARY TO THE DOCTRINE WHICH YE HAVE LEARNED; and AVOID THEM. For THEY THAT ARE SUCH SERVE NOT OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, but their own belly; and BY GOOD WORDS AND FAIR SPEECHES DECEIVE the hearts of the simple" (Rom. 16: 17,18). Is this not a fitting description of denominationalism? For what else is denominationalism other than that which has caused divisions and offences contrary to the Gospel as taught by the apostles? Notice here that it was not Paul the apostle or any other who brought sound doctrine that were causing division, but those who came with UNSOUND teachings. These were the ones who caused the division and offences! Good doctrine is not the enemy of the Church; it is bad doctrine, false doctrine, which is Her enemy! It is not good doctrine which deceives, but false doctrine. If one speaks and teaches the sound doctrine of God then one is obeying the Lord and doing His work (1 Tim. 4:6). Those who come opposing God’s doctrine in any way are called enemies of the cross (Phil. 3:18,19) and should be avoided, for they speak not according to wisdom but according to their own deceitful hearts. Notice also that the thing which Paul sees as absolute proof that a man is not serving the true Jesus Christ is that he teaches things contrary to the doctrine Paul had taught his hearers. They are deceivers who serve only themselves, troublemakers who are opposed to the sound words of good doctrine.
The Christian is taught to beware of false doctrine many times in Scripture. It is the only form of doctrine that the believer is to have nothing to do with. "That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. 4:14). The Devil and his ministers are so very subtle. They deceive the hearts of the simple with many and varied doctrines, by good words and fair speeches that take away from the finished work of Christ or add to what He has done. Those who do not know the Truth are blown about with the many false doctrines which abound in our day and which often come under the guise of ‘salvation by grace’. The reason they are blown about by various doctrines is that their faith, which is common to every man by nature, has failed to anchor them to the unchangeable Gospel of God. Those who are fixed in God’s Word, who are grounded in God’s Truth and who abide in the doctrine of Christ, cannot and will not be moved from His glorious Truth (Jn. 6:68). They all see that there can be no salvation by believing in any other gospel but God’s Gospel and that those who claim to be saved, but who do not abide in the doctrine of Christ, who do not believe the Gospel as God meant it to be believed, exhibit no love of the truth of God but rather an aversion, a hostility, towards it. Paul continues his warnings against false doctrine in this next Scripture and emphasizes that it is only Christ’s doctrine that His people teach and believe: "As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine" (1 Tim. 1:3). Paul instructed Timothy in this next passage that the law was not made for a righteous man but for sinful men, which includes, "...whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to SOUND DOCTRINE." What is the sound doctrine that is here spoken of? The very next verse tells us: "According to the glorious GOSPEL of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust" (1 Tim. 1:10,11). The Christian is to avoid, he is to have no fellowship with, those who believe or teach or do anything that is contrary to sound doctrine, which is the Gospel of Christ, the Word of Truth (Eph.1:13). "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14). Perhaps at no time did the apostle Paul speak clearer, when dealing with true doctrine and those who taught otherwise, than in this next passage. Hear, and hear well, the words which Almighty God inspired Paul the apostle to write: "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the DOCTRINE which is according to godliness; he is proud, KNOWING NOTHING, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and DESTITUTE OF THE TRUTH, supposing that gain is godliness: FROM SUCH WITHDRAW THYSELF" (1 Tim. 6:3-5). Here we see clearly that those men who set themselves up as Christian ministers and pastors yet who come teaching doctrines which are contrary to what the apostle Paul taught and are not conformed to wholesome words, the doctrine of Christ which is according to godliness, are proud men who know nothing and who, by their doctrinally perverse disputations, cause trouble and strife. These false teachers are, the Bible says, destitute of the truth. Their opposition to the Gospel of God is referred to as evil surmisings and perverse disputings and that such talk comes from men of corrupt minds and not from the renewed minds of saved men. Isaiah 8:20 says of these men: "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because THERE IS NO LIGHT IN THEM." The Bible does not teach that there is some light in these men, it clearly says that there is NO light in them for they are destitute of God’s Truth, even though they come in His name and proclaim that Jesus is Lord! It is men such as these who are the ones that are guilty of perverse disputings due to their corrupt minds, and not those who bring the true Gospel with them seeking to bless those who hear it. These men are the ones every true believer should withdraw himself from and have nothing further to do with. The Christian has no business whatsoever attending a church service where a false gospel is taught by men who have no light, evidenced by their not knowing and not abiding in the doctrine of Christ. The Bible says that such people have not God (2 Jn. 9) and those who meet and fellowship with them are "partakers of their evil deeds" (2 Jn. 11). The Lord Jesus Christ literally hates false doctrines and He calls those who believe them accursed people. Hate implies passion. Christ is not neutral when it comes to false doctrines—He HATES them!! False doctrines are repulsive to a Holy God as they are to all His people. No true Christian would ever bow his knee to the lie that a man who believes in false gospel doctrine is saved. To slander a man is a very serious crime. How much more serious an offence is it when man slanders the God of the Universe by preaching false doctrine in His name that promotes lies about the True Character of God and what He has done, and claims that a man can be saved believing it. The people of God hear only the Good Shepherd’s voice and not that of a stranger (Jn. 10:4,5). See here what the Lord Jesus Himself says about false doctrine: "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, WHICH THING I HATE" ( Rev. 2:15). The Lord Jesus Christ HATES false doctrines, He abhors false gospels. So how can anyone, in light of this, believe that He would ever save anyone whose ‘salvation’ was grounded in that which Christ hates! How can anyone in their right mind imagine the Lord Jesus Christ saying to one who believes a false gospel, ‘Because you have believed in a false gospel, and not in the Gospel which My Father has authored, I shall reward you by saving you.’ How could Christ save anyone who did not believe He did what He did, but believes in that which He did not do? Isn’t this a perfect definition of what unbelief is—to not believe that Christ did what He did but to believe that He did what He in fact did not do! If Christ saved anyone who believed in a false gospel, He would be going against His own Word, His own promise, that those who do not believe HIS Gospel will all perish. False gospel doctrine, which does not speak of God’s only Gospel, which alone presents God’s only Jesus, is a hated thing by God Himself. There is no salvation to be found in false doctrine. All a false gospel can do is accompany a condemned man to his death rather than lead him into life. It is right and proper for the Christian to hate all false doctrines, for they speak lies about God’s Gospel and distort the truth about the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus commended the Christians at Ephesus who tested those who claimed to be apostles and were not, and found them to be liars, false preachers of false doctrines (Rev. 2:2). Jesus Christ often warned of those who taught lies, presenting them as the very doctrines of God: "But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Matt. 15:9 cf . Mk. 7:7). He described false teachers as wolves in sheeps clothing (Matt. 7:15). False teachers often come with many true doctrines, but they are always mixed with false doctrines, teaching them as the very doctrine of Christ. They speak lies, and the only way to know that they speak lies is if one knows the truth. There is so much more that can be added, but this issue has been dealt with in my other writings in great detail and you are encouraged to read them.