Too Good To Be True?

2 Timothy 4:1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. 3For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

False teachers have the ability to turn believers away from the truth and convince people to believe fables or myths.  The teachers are guilty before God but they are not alone in their complicity.  The believers to whom they are teaching lies actually seek out and surround themselves with not one, but teachers, plural.  Why?  Because the lie of the myth sounds better than the Truth of God's word.  Will we actually see this in our lifetime?  We already are.  There has always been a measure of such teaching and following.  Yet today our society and churches seem primed for it.  Why?  Because we live in the "Me" generation.  Everything is about self awareness, self fulfillment and self expression.  When there is such a self centered culture, servanthood and self sacrifice become a thing of the past.  

Teaching that only emphasizes the loving, forgiving nature of God without the painful discipline of God is heresy.  Old and New Testament Scripture teaches us of the loving and grace filled aspect of God and his plan for our lives that include the discipline that leads to maturity and fruit.  Any ministry that is only teaching the side of God that does not use the circumstances of life to deal with our weaknesses is robbing the people of God and greatly misrepresenting God.  What causes such lies to be taught?  I can not say for certain in each case.  Most false prophets lead the people astray for money.  False teachers can do the same.  Many however are simply deceived by other false teachers themselves.  Some novice preacher/teachers are simply parroting what they have heard, seen and read.  They like what they hear.  It sounds like a good God and they start pointing at teaching of truth that includes forms of suffering or affliction as Paul mentions above, and label it as outdated religion and bondage.

Don't be deceived.  Let the Bible be your guide.  God in His grace is loving, forgiving, merciful and one who takes us from glory to glory.  And like any good father, disciplines us in areas of weakness  and iniquity that have the potential to destroy us.   Follow the Scripture and not men and remember, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is!