Recognizing False Teachers Without Fear | Ep. 107

When a voice sounds certain but your spirit feels thirsty, that gap matters. In this episode, we unpack how to recognize false teachers without fear through Jude’s vivid warnings—hidden reefs, waterless clouds, fruitless trees. Learn to test teachings by their fruit, not their flair, and to tell the difference between mistakes and manipulation. With simple, Spirit-led tools, you’ll strengthen discernment, quiet anxiety, and refocus your confidence on Jesus as your steady compass in a noisy world.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Purpose of the Talk
• 1:01 Defining Error vs. False Teaching
• 2:26 Jude’s Red Flags Explained
• 5:20 Signs: Flattery, Fear, and No Fruit
• 8:35 Word and Spirit Must Agree
• 10:28 Training Discernment Through Practice
• 12:27 Opinion vs. Doctrine and Legalism

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

This is episode 107, and I'm your host, Atoya, and this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. It's time to recognize these false teachers. You don't want to miss this video. Thank you so much for coming, and thank you for returning, whichever that is. Thank you for supporting as well. Um, it does mean a lot to me, it does encourage me and allows me to move the mission forward. So, today I wanted to talk about recognizing false teachers without fear. Now, I want to go on record by saying that just because somebody is maybe not teaching the right way does not necessarily mean that they are a false teacher. They could be teaching in error because of what they've learned. We've all been there. Um, it's really the spirit behind it that I'm kind of focusing on today. Um, also, when you're looking at recognizing a false teacher um without fear, it's it's so that way you don't feel like obligated to listen to them because maybe you look up to them. I don't know. I don't know. But my goal is to help you to identify them so that way you can move forward. I also want to make note that there's a difference between a false teacher and someone who just maybe doesn't have the same opinion as you when it comes to certain things. I mean, certain things in the Bible are just black and white, and there are other things that you might have your interpretation, I might have my interpretation, and that is fine, and we can agree to disagree, you know, and so I'm more so talking about false teachers who are very malicious in their intent. I think it would be best to point you to, um, to start this conversation, point you to the book of Jude. There are a lot of other books, but the book of Jude is just an easy read. It's literally one chapter. Um, and if you want a breakdown, a more detailed study of the book of Jude, feel free to listen to episode 78 in this podcast because I go in in in depth with the book of Jude. I'm not going to do that here, but just want to encourage you, you can definitely go and check that out. But he highlights some red flags. Um for, you know, I I mean, he he's he's talking to um, he's not talking to us, but if we go and we can apply this book, there are definitely some red flags, some some areas in which we can take note of when we are using discernment. That's the key word is using discernment. One of the things that's mentioned, and this is um, let me see. You can let me get my Bible, y'all. Let me get my Bible because I have 50 million books around me. So um yeah, it's it's uh Jude 1, because it's only one chapter, starting in verse like 12. Yeah, 1213. And he's using a lot of imagery here, but he's saying, These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as a feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. Um in a nutshell, there's a lot of there's a lot of imagery here that is describing these teachers. Kind of want to break some stuff down. You're looking at dangerous reefs. Um reefs that that uh can be hidden and are dangerous to ships. You may not be able to see them. Waterless clouds. So they're they put on a big show to the spiritually parched, even though there's no substance behind what they say. There's a there's there are clouds with no water. Listen to the imagery. He says they're fruitless trees that produce nothing of spiritual value. They're fruitless trees, they produce nothing. He says they're wild waves that foam up shameful deeds, they're wandering stars that lead others astray, they're wanderers, they pull you away from Christ and focus on them. I've seen a lot of people like this. They end up turning into colts, by the way, most of them. But I've seen a lot of people like this. They when I'm looking at flattering words, you want to look at certain things. Are they is it an encouraging word they're giving you, or are they are they appealing to your ego? That's the key. But they'll point you to them, and I've also seen a lot of people when they're teaching, it's fearful. There's a difference between reverencing God and having that reverence of that fear of God, but it's a reverence, and you're being afraid, you're fearful. But they they want you to focus on them, they want they're really big into titles too, but they want you to focus on them and what they say. And if you don't, if you don't listen, then you're then you're condemned, you're you're cursed, whatever the case may be. They have these flattering words, but they have no substance. You can look at their fruit, use your judgment too. Use your judgment. Always remember, and I teach this. Always remember the word and the spirit should always agree. Even if you're a babe in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit in you. It's gonna be something in you that just ain't feeling right. You ever get that? What I want you to do, and I I tell people this a lot, if you are like, well, I don't know if it's God or not, go back and think at a time. Think think back when you thought you heard the Holy Spirit and you were right. Write that down. If there are multiple times, write those down. Every time you thought you heard the Holy Spirit, you weren't sure, you thought you heard the Holy Spirit, and then all of a sudden you found out you were you were right. That was the Holy Spirit. That was he, you know, that that did happen. He told me this, and and I and he was right. I'm glad I made a left turn and then make a right turn because there was a traffic jam. Whatever that is, it could be real small. It could be you're in the grocery store and he told you to get these oranges instead of these apples, and you you're glad you got them because there was a recall on the apples, you know, something like that. It could be very small. Write those moments down. What was going on then? What were you thinking about? How did that feel? That's a great way to get that muscle memory going and hearing him. Also remember that the word and the word always agree too. Or I'm sorry, um, scripture interprets scripture. Scripture interprets scripture. If if somebody plucks out a passage of scripture, they should be able to find it somewhere else, multiple places. This is why it's so important to me. For me, this is my passion for teaching people how to study the Bible for yourself, not to Bible thump, not to nitpick, not to do any of that, but just so that you can know the Bible for yourself. This is the time more than ever. Like, seriously. Um, I want to go to why it's important to sharpen our discernment. If you go to Hebrew, Hebrews 5. I'm gonna go to 13. So Hebrews 5, 13, 14, it says, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food or a babe in Christ, more so this is what this is meaning. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. This is the ESV version. So it takes practice, and that's why I said it, you know, if ever you've heard from the Holy Spirit and you thought it was you thought it was um him and it came to pass, write it down. Because it'll allow you to train yourself and to use discernment. You always also have to remember, I put down, it's okay to have an opinion about something, but it shouldn't be held as doctrine. Somebody, you know, has an opinion. I have opinions about certain things that you don't want it to be doctrine, like you have to do this. That goes back to legalism, right? We talked about that. But it's important to train yourself. There was a mentor um that said this to me or to the group. She said, no, she said to me, because I actually asked the question. And so she answered it and it was really good. She said, If you obey if you obeyed or if you did something that you thought was the Lord out of obedience, he's not gonna beat you up if you got it wrong. It it's important to understand that just like a child, we have to learn through error, right? Um, you don't learn until you fail. And so there's also times when you thought you heard the Lord and you were like, oh, that was I was that was me all day. Write those things down too. And what you can do is you can compare the two. Compare them. That will definitely help you, it will propel you forward when it comes to discernment, at least. Are you gonna get it right all the time? No, but at least you'll have discernment be able to be able to recognize false teachers and don't have any fear because there's a fear attached to it. There's a fear that make you feel like you're cursed if you don't agree, they make you feel like you're kicked out of a club if you don't agree, they make you feel really bad. And you shouldn't have to feel like that if just because you don't agree with something. You know what I mean? Like, I don't agree with that. Okay, cool. That's that freedom that you want to have moving forward. I pray that for you. That is my goal, is to just pray that whoever's listening to this can study the Bible with confidence, learn, and apply it and grow, and hopefully be a part of a community if you want to join us. We also have a telegram group, you know, just because I'm not on Facebook like that. I am, but I'm not. But anywho, enough of that. Listen, I want to give you a challenge. Pray for discernment, ask the Lord to give you wisdom. Remember, we talked about that? It's okay to ask him. Listen, thank you for listening to the Equip the Next podcast. If you're ready to take the next step, grab my freebie five Bible study guardrails for confidence at equipthenext.com forward slash freebie. And remember, grow in God's word and lead boldly.