How do you protect yourself against false teachings? How do you know if it's the Holy Spirit revealing truth to you or if it's your own heart, mind, or a deceptive spirit speaking these things to you? Can you know for sure?
Early in my walk with Jesus I fell prey to deceptive spirits, or thoughts. I believed in Jesus and would confess him as Lord and Savior, but I didn't have much knowledge or understanding of the scripture and spent very little time familiarizing myself with them. This makes a believer extremely vulnerable. I soon started to believe whatever I heard about God that made sense to how I perceived His character to be. I started to rationalize in my mind about God, things like a loving God would never send good people to hell just for not believing in Jesus, or it's okay to lie to protect someone's feelings because God wouldn't want me to hurt people, or its okay to not change my ways after accepting Jesus because I'm saved now and He loves me just as I am. These among others were all really comfortable thoughts, but not truth.
Repeatedly we warned by Jesus and his apostles to beware false teachers and prophets who claim revelation that is contradictory to the gospel, to the word of God, but how do you know, how do you recognize? First, you must be reading His word for yourself, you have to know the word to know when someone isn't telling you the truth of what's in it or if they are abusing and misquoting it. Second, realize that God is unchanging (Numbers 23:19; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8) if He said it, it is truth, and it is an unchanging truth from an unchanging God. This means that when God says things like He did in Jeremiah 29:11; or in John 14:23-24 He means those things.
I paired those two verses together because of this, Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that God has plans and it's for our good not evil; that is easy enough to accept and very comforting especially when you going through a struggle! But here's the trickier part, believing in the truth of the gospel means believing in the whole thing and not just the easy, comforting parts. John 14:23-24 reads 'Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.' I bolded parts of this verse because I want you to really read and understand the verse and not just skim over it. Jesus is saying we must keep his word, that means we must be obedient to it, we must be obedient to God who sent the word among us. That means we have to do what the word says, which means we have to know what it says.
So, to summarize so far, we can protect ourselves from false teachings by reading the Bible, understanding it and accepting it as truth, even the uncomfortable parts. This way when our hearts, minds, or someone else tells us something that is contradictory to it we know. We are also told to test the spirits to know if they are of God, and to look at the fruits of the teachers (1 John 4:1; Matthew 7:15-20). Now, when the Bible tells us to look at a teacher's fruit it isn't talking about how blessed the person is financially, or how gifted a speaker they are, but He wants us to look at how well they are representing Christ, do they genuinely display the fruits of the spirit, found in Galatians 5:22-23; and as for those pesky deceiving spirits they may know Jesus is the son of God, but they won't accept him as the Savior, as the only way to heaven because of their rebellion.
I could honestly write on this topic all day, giving you tons of scriptures and examples from my life, and other people I know, but I am going to stop here. I hope this has helped anyone who may be questioning what to believe because of things they are hearing or reading. I hope this helps anyone who had been questioning things in their own hearts too. Always check things against the word, and take your questions to God, through the teacher He left with us, the Holy Spirit(John 14:26), your answers will be revealed. Shalom!
Jeremiah 5:30-31
An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?
2 Peter 2:1-3
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
2 John 1:7-11
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
Galatians 1:8
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
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