Beware of False Doctrine

“...preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.”
2 Tim. 4:2-4

The question is - how do false teachers deny the doctrine of God’s wrath? Basically three ways.

1. Soul sleep. The first denial comes in the form of a doctrine that teaches that when you die, if you are condemned, you just go into an eternal sleep and never suffer anything. Mark 9:42-48; Luke 16:19-31

2. Universal salvation. The second denial is the doctrine that teaches that everyone will be saved.

3. The third way is just to deny the Scripture, but you need to be cautious -

▸ Beware of the powerful, natural appeal of universalism and soul sleep - they ignore the reality of eternal torment.

▸ Beware of the pervasive influence of theological liberalism - it distorts the character of Christ.

▸ Beware that such doctrines are cultic - they are not in agreement with the Bible.

▸ Beware of the denial of the existence of hell - it will result in the loss of zeal for winning souls because the motivation for speaking God’s truth will be drastically crippled.

R.A. Torrey provides for us the causes of, and solutions to, such erroneous views: “Shallow views of sin and of God’s holiness, and of the glory of Jesus Christ and His claims upon us, lie at the bottom of weak theories of the doom of the impenitent. When we see sin in all its hideousness and enormity, the holiness of God in all its perfection, and the glory of Jesus Christ in all its infinity, nothing but a doctrine that those who persist in the choice of sin, who love darkness rather than light, and who persist in the rejection of the Son of God, shall endure everlasting anguish, will satisfy the demands of our own moral intuitions. The more closely men walk with God and the more devoted they become to His service, the more likely they are to believe this doctrine.”