Romans 16:18 - Signs of the False Teacher

Romans 16:18 - For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.

Message: Signs of the False Teacher

Time: Written in AD 57 from Greece, to the Christians, both Gentile and Jewish in Rome.

What the Lord is Saying: 

Background
After Paul gives greetings to various people in the first 16 verses of Chapter 16, he now turns his attention to a warning for the congregation in Rome. He asks them to take notice, continually, of false teachers. Where there is truth, there is also falsehood. And so, as a believer in Christ, I need to be careful about the people that are claiming to be members of the family of God, for their motives may not always be pure.

Serving our Lord Jesus Christ
Paul states that the real motive or intent of those individuals is not to server our Lord Christ. Therefore, that is my chief desire. It is to serve the Lord Christ in all I do. It is the reason for everything I do. I am doing it throughout my life. And I admit that sometimes I can't handle the stress, but I want to look to God for help. I pray that my persona and attitude would not be downward. It has been downward lately. It has not been up. My serving has become a burden at times. I have become anxious, instead of waiting for God to take care of the outcome. I have, instead, predetermined a poor outcome. Forgive me Lord.

Serve their own appetites
Paul states that the motive people have is to please themselves. It is to nourish themselves. Instead of "Give this day our daily bread" and being thankful for what God has provided and realizing that it is God who provides, these people instead are interested in serving their own appetites. I am always reminded of that verse in Proverbs 3:5 that says, "Do not lean on your understanding." The problem with this false teachers is they lean on their own understanding.

I see this with a friend who is an Atheist and talks to me. He is leaning on his own understanding and being defined by it. It is easy to do and while it amazes me, I should not ever be-little him for those thoughts. This world I live in trains us with messages of "Have it your way" or "Just do it." We are trained often in the idea that our appetites and serving there are what is most important.

Smooth talk and flattery
The false teachers presentation is smooth. The false teacher knows how to use the write words to coerce people. This is the other hard part of all of this. People get duped. People get swayed easily. People don't think, they just go along. These teachers have smooth talk and flattery. They know what to say and how to say in order to get their appetite served.

The false teacher is often very charismatic, showing a lot of emotion. They move away from the true doctrine in very subtle manners, often hanging on to key doctrinal points. And if they are attacked, they spit back the Bible with words of "Do not judge" or "how is this showing unity."

Deception
This is the scary part in all of this. This is not just momentary swaying of people in a certain direction. But this is deception. Deception is seeing a lie as truth. And once something gets defined as truth in a persons life, it is difficult to be swayed in another direction. Both of sides of the truth, deception and not, stand at either end amazed that the person on the other side can believe what they believe. That is the scary part of deception. It is holding onto what you think is the best way, with the hope it is the best way. And it reminds me that people will only be drawn to truth when God draws them (John 6:44). The believer in Christ, therefore, has a duty -- to pray for God's drawing of people or persons.

The hearts of the naive
People are naive. Or people can be naive. It is the naive that we must be most sensitive to in the preaching of the gospel. I must be careful that I am not more focused on the intellectual person rather than being focused on the naive. It is hard to change the heart of a hardened person, but the naive can be swayed easily. And the problem is, once they are swayed they become deceived and it will be hard to get them back.

Promise: Let us seek to speak the truth. And have the wisdom to run from those that, we feel, are walking away from it.