The Old Testament reading is Genesis chapter three verses 14 through 15, and this is the word of the Lord. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

And now let’s turn to Romans chapter 16 verses 17 through 20 for our New Testament reading. This is also our sermon passage. And in this passage, as you’ll hear, Paul, the Apostle Paul, he speaks to this promise that, we just heard from Genesis three fifteen. So this is Romans chapter 16 verses 17 through 20. I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. Avoid them. 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. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

If you’ve ever been hiking in the mountains where, there are bears, you were probably warned by a friend or your guidebook or a sign at the trailhead, to be careful. Watch out. This is bear country. Make a lot of noise as you hike. Wear bells on your shoes. Carry bear spray. Maybe even carry a really big gun. At the trailhead of one hike we took several several years ago, there was a sign that said, that told us what to do if we were attacked by a bear. If it is a brown bear, apparently, we were supposed to play dead. If it was a black bear, we were supposed to fight back. And neither one of those options sounded really good to me. I started to have second thoughts about the hike at that point, but everything went well. But because of the danger of hiking in Bear Country, you need warnings. You need, somebody or something to tell you caution. Look out.

And in our pilgrimage as Christians, we face all kinds of dangers, spiritual dangers. And to keep us safe, the Lord gives us warnings. He cautions us. In the word, there are many words of warning about the dangers that are out there that are opposed to us as believers in Christ. And one of the greatest threats to our well-being as Christians, a threat that even is a danger to our very soul, is the threat of false teaching or the danger of false teaching. And unlike a bear that you might meet in the woods, a bear, presents itself immediately without question as something extremely dangerous, something you want to flee from, for your life. False teaching does not present itself that way, but it comes to us as something that looks very innocuous, very attractive even. The false teacher looks nice. He is friendly. His speech is engaging. It is persuasive. But that false teacher is leading souls away from Christ and into the paths that lead only to ruin and destruction. And that is the danger that Paul warns the Christians about in this passage. And his warning, if we were to read through the book of Romans or even just read, you know, through chapter 16, this warning is very abrupt. It it seems to come out of the blue. Paul is winding up his letter to the Romans. As we saw last week, he he is greeting all of the people that he knows in Rome, and and then all of a sudden, he says, watch out. Beware. And there is this passage here with a warning about false teaching. It’s as though Paul wanted to grab the attention of his readers. In the midst of these greetings at the end of his letter, he wanted to maybe even, jolt them a little bit so that, he would impress upon their minds the importance of being on the lookout for these false teachers who may not have been in the church yet, but, they were sure to come. And of course, this warning is for us as well.

False teaching is still alive and well in the world today. It is just as deadly as it ever was, and so we need to take heed to all that is written in this passage. And as we hear, from God’s word today, from this passage of scripture, We’ll divide this passage into two parts. First, we have here the danger of false teachers and their teaching, and secondly, we have here the promise of the true gospel. So first, the danger of false teachers. So Paul says in verse 17, he says, I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them. Now we know that Paul is speaking specifically here about false teachers and their teaching because he qualifies this phrase, create obstacles. He qualifies that by saying that these obstacles or the creating of these obstacles is contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught. And so Paul is not talking about just any kind of people. He’s not talking about just any kind of person who may, for one reason or the other, create problems in the church. I suppose, that would include all of us in in some degree. But specifically in this warning, he has in mind those who teach false doctrine, teaching that is contrary to the truth that is revealed to us in the scripture.

And one way that false teaching damages the church, and it always damages the church, but one way that it does so is that it creates division and conflict within the body of Christ. Now to be sure, not all division in a church or among the people of God is the result of false teaching, but it’s probably safe to say that invariably, when false teaching is introduced into a church or into a fellowship of believers, invariably it will create conflict. It will be the source of division. And the reason for that is because our unity, what makes us one, what binds us together is a common hope and faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as our Savior and Lord. And so whenever there is teaching that contradicts the truth about Christ, whenever there is teaching that denies the truth of the gospel, then the ground of our unity is destroyed. And so those who remain faithful to the Gospel, who remain faithful to the Word of God, they will inevitably be at odds with those who are led astray by false teachers and begin to deny or reject the truths of the gospel. And so it will create division. And almost always, it is those who remain faithful, to the Word of God who are the ones who are blamed or accused for creating schism and division. But really, it is the false teaching and those who follow it that are the source of conflict in the church. And so Paul says, they cause divisions and create or they cause, divisions in the church.

As bad as that is, there is something even more dangerous about false teaching and that is it can destroy the souls of those who profess faith in Christ, but then who are then turned away from the truth of Christ, and they embrace this false doctrine. Paul refers to the doctrine or the teachings that these false teachers present. He refers to them as obstacles. Literally, they are stumbling blocks. The idea is that they cause somebody to trip up, to fall down, and to to perish as a result. And so false teachers and their teaching, they are a problem not just because they happen to be unorthodox, not just because they disagree with the theology that we hold dear and cherish and all of that, but it is a problem because their teaching, their doctrine is deadly and is lethal. And there is nothing less at stake than the eternal life or the eternal death of the human soul who is exposed to this teaching.

In second Peter two one, Peter refers to false teaching as destructive heresies. Just as a carbon monoxide leak in a house can kill an entire family overnight, so if false teaching seeps into a church and is not stopped, it will kill souls for eternity, at least all those who breathe it in. And throughout all of history, whenever and wherever God has revealed his truth to his people for their salvation, whenever that has taken place, false teachers have appeared with a message and a teaching that contradicts that truth, and so leads people out of the way of the salvation that God has, provided for us.

We see that at the very, very beginning. We saw that in our Old Testament passage, or at least, the passage that we read is in the context of the appearance of a, false teacher, and that is the serpents. He is the first he is the original, false prophet or false teacher. He is the devil. He is Satan, and his message was a direct contradiction of the word of God. God told Adam and Eve, as plainly as could be said, that if they eat of the fruit of the tree of the naught of good and evil, you will surely perish. You will die in that day that you eat of it. But then the serpent came along and said to Eve, if you eat of that fruit, you will not surely die. And so here we have the first instance of a false teacher. And of course, it was none other than Satan himself in the guise of the serpent. And then from there, as we read on in the scripture throughout the history of Israel, even as the Lord sent his prophets to his people in order to declare to them the truth of God, his will, his word for his people, there were also false prophets who who he who emerged, who claimed to speak in the name of the Lord, but their message was a lie. And anytime the people of Israel would listen to the message, to the prophecies of the false prophets, they would experience judgment for that because they followed after a lie and did not believe and obey the truth. And we can go on from the very beginning of the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, from the very beginning of the preaching of the gospel, the gospel that is the power of God for salvation.

Even from that very start, there were false teachers who declared a false gospel. In Romans, this is really the only passage in which Paul directly addresses this whole issue of false teaching in the church. But when you read through the New Testament, it is everywhere. There is virtually, I believe there is maybe only one or two books of that in the New Testament that does not at some point address this problem, this danger of false teaching. And so God is very concerned about it. He gives us a lot in his word concerning that. And then if we go through on from there throughout the history of the church, there have been all kinds of heresies and false doctrines that have plagued the people of God. To study church history in a large degree is to study the history of false teaching and the church’s response to that. And if there is any benefit or if there’s been any good that has come as a result of these heresies and false doctrines that have emerged in the history of the church, it is this, that it has given occasion to those who adhere to the truth of God to more carefully, more precisely, more clearly, define and articulate what that truth means, what it means that we believe that Jesus is Lord, what it means that we believe that God is one God with in three persons, and on and on and on. So at least as a result of false teaching, we have a clearer grasp of the truth. Now, of course, it would be impossible, to especially in one sermon, it would be impossible to identify, to catalog every kind of false teaching that opposes the truth of God. But perhaps, using scripture as our guide, we can boil down most, if not all, false teaching to two types.

First of all, there is false teaching that denies the truth of the person and work of Christ. And secondly, there is false teaching that denies the truth of how we are saved by Christ, how we enter into that state of salvation, that Christ has accomplished for us. The Apostle John had to fight against those who denied the truth concerning the person of Christ, who he was, what Jesus did as the Christ. In first John two twenty two, John says, who is the liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. First John four three. Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Second John seven. 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. What does it mean to confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? It means to believe and to confess the truth concerning the person of Jesus Christ that he is true God and he is true man. That as the Son of God, as God the Son, the one who was from all eternity equal in power and glory with the Father, the very Son of God who is God, who was God, that he became man, that he was incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary, conceived by the Spirit. And so he was in his conception, birth, and life, and even now, he was and is true God and true man, fully divine, fully human. And to confess that Jesus is the Christ is to believe that Jesus as the Christ, as the promised Messiah, the Savior of the people of God, that he suffered and died upon the cross to take away our sin and guilt. And that as the Christ, he was raised from the dead on the third day and has been exalted to the right hand of the Father in heaven, and he rules from there as the Lord of lords and King of kings, the the sovereign over all creation. That is the truth about Jesus. And the only way for you and me, as those who are conceived and born in sin, as those who have inherited from Adam that sinful nature so that there is nothing righteous in us, there is no good in us, but we are born in a condition of being under the righteous condemnation of God for our sin. The only hope and the only way for us to be saved from the judgment, the condemnation that is ours because of our sin, is to come to the person of Jesus Christ by faith. It is to come by faith to the living person of Christ and to entrust ourselves to him, to rely upon him, to rest ourselves in him. He is the one and only savior. There is no other name given among men under heaven by which we must be saved, and it is trust, it is faith in the person of Christ that saves us. But the only way that we can come to Jesus as our savior is if we believe and embrace the truth about him as he is revealed to us in the scripture. It is impossible for us to entrust ourselves to someone whom we do not know. We cannot put our faith in someone who is merely the figment of our own imagination. But if we are to know someone, if we are to put our trust in someone, we must know him and know him truly. And so we cannot know Jesus Christ, we cannot have him as our Savior, except as we come to him as he is revealed in the scripture. This is why false teaching is so deadly. This is why it is so dangerous. It denies the truth about Jesus that at least one form of false teaching, it denies the truth that he is fully human and fully divine. It denies the truth. Some false teaching denies the truth that Jesus as the God man, that he died for sinners, and every teaching that denies these truths cannot offer a savior. It does not offer a savior for sinners. It is a false hope. It is a false gospel because it is based on a false Christ. And again, knowing and confessing the truth about who Jesus is and what he has done is absolutely necessary for you and me to be saved from our sin. Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And just as there was in the days of the Apostle John, when he was writing his letters, there were those who denied the truth about Christ. He calls them the Antichrist. They denied that he came in the flesh. So there are today people who deny the true Christ. There are groups and sects today that claim the name of Christian. They go, under the umbrella of being a Christian church organization, and yet they proclaim a false gospel because they do not proclaim the truth about Jesus, that he is both God and man, and that as the God man, he atones for our sin.

And there could be many examples, but just to give two examples of major groups today that teach this false doctrine that can only lead to destruction and death, one would be, of course, the Mormon Church, who denies the full deity of Christ, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses who also deny the full deity of Christ. And so there is false teaching that denies the truth about the personal work of Christ. Secondly, there is false teaching that may uphold these truths that believes that Jesus, yes, he is he is God, he is man, he made atonement for the sin of humanity at the cross, and yet it is false teaching because it denies the truth about how we are saved by Christ, how we enter into the state of salvation. The only way that we can be saved by Christ is trusting in him as our savior and in his finished work, in his righteousness, obedience, suffering, and death at the cross for us. We can only be saved by Christ if we believe and trust in him as the sole basis in his work, his righteousness, as the sole basis is our of our being forgiven and being made right with God forever. In other words, the only way for us to be saved is by faith alone, by faith alone in Christ alone, and not by trusting at all, even in part, in our own obedience, our own works, or our own righteousness.

If the Apostle John fought against the heresy of denying the true divinity and humanity of Christ, the Apostle Paul, especially in his letter to the Galatians, he fought against this heresy of denying that we are justified or made right with God by faith alone apart from works. There were false teachers in Galatia. They were preaching a message that said, if you are to be truly saved by Jesus, if you are to be truly accepted of God, if you are to have the true hope of heaven, you must not only believe in Jesus, but you also must do the good works of the law beginning with circumcision, and that obedience, that doing the work of the law, which is part of the grounds or the basis upon which you are saved. That was the teaching of the false teachers in Galatia. And so they proclaimed a gospel of salvation by faith plus works. Faith and works. But the gospel of salvation that says it is by faith plus works is no gospel at all. It cannot lead to salvation because whoever is trusting in his works, even if it’s it is just in part, even if you are just trusting a little bit in the works that you do, the obedience that you render to God, you are not at that point truly trusting entirely upon Christ as your savior. You have not come to him as your savior. In other words, if you are to be saved from your sin and guilt from eternal condemnation, your sole reliance, your entire trust must be in the perfect, the finished work of Jesus Christ alone, and not at all in anything that you do. And so Christ is either a whole savior, he either saves us entirely based upon his work, his righteousness, or he has no savior for us at all. It is not faith plus works, but faith apart from works. Faith alone, trusting in Christ alone. Paul says that in Romans. Romans 3:28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. And therefore, any teaching that claims to be Christian and yet tells us that some part of our salvation depends upon some work that we do, that is a that is false teaching. That is a false gospel. It leads not to life, but to death.

And so in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he has some very strong words about such a quote unquote gospel. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached, let him be accursed. As we have said before, now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Again, Paul is not some ivory tower theologian who is just concerned that all the i’s are dotted, all the t’s are crossed, that the theology that he teaches is maintained because he just wants it to be perfect. He is concerned for the for the eternity of human souls. And a false gospel that deviates from the true gospel leads to destruction, and therefore he says, if anyone preaches that gospel, he is accursed. In this heresy of denying the work of Christ alone as our hope for salvation, this also is alive and well in our day. Every teaching that claims the name of Christian and that explicitly, or at least implicitly says that we that if we are to be forgiven, if we are to be made right with God, in some part at least, we must do good works or we must be good people. Any teaching that says that is false teaching.

And the great example, of course, of that kind of teaching, that message, is that of the Roman Catholic church. And insofar as the Roman Catholic church either explicitly denies justification by faith alone, which it does, or in its message, it communicates or suggests in its teaching that somehow our salvation depends, at least in part, on the works that we do, even if those works are the result of the grace of God. Insofar as that is the teaching of the Catholic church, that is a false gospel. That is false teaching. Now I don’t want you to misunderstand. This doesn’t mean that it is impossible for a person to be in the Catholic Church and be saved. It doesn’t mean that it is impossible that there are genuine believers in the Catholic church. It certainly doesn’t mean that we cannot be friendly to those who happen to be Catholic. But what it means is this, that the official teaching of the Catholic Church of how we are saved by Christ, insofar as they base that salvation partly on works in addition to faith, that teaching denies the truth of the gospel as it is given to us in scripture, and therefore, it is a false gospel. Now I try not in my preaching and teaching ministry to, be mainly negative in tone. My my burden as a pastor, as a preacher of the gospel, as one whom God has called to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, my burden is to declare the glorious truths, the positive truths of that gospel, that what Jesus Christ has done for us, that our salvation is by grace alone, by faith alone, to the glory of God alone. And yet, there is a place where and there is a need, to point out that there are false versions of this gospel. And that’s exactly what Paul is doing here. He’s warning the Roman Christians, there will be false teachers. Beware. And there are false teachers, false gospels today that was that we must be aware of. And it’s so important because the salvation of our souls depends upon a true knowledge of Christ, which in turn depends upon a true understanding, a true knowledge of the gospel.

Now Paul goes on to talk about the character of these false teachers. He talks about the way in which they, deceive and entrap the unwary, the un-watching, the unaware. He says in verse 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. Because Paul refers to their appetites, which literally in Greek it is their their belly, because he refers to this, some people maintain that the false teachers were preaching a kind of anything goes Christianity, that their their quote unquote gospel consisted of a license to indulge in whatever passion or lust that you have, a kind of pleasure seeking gospel. But probably, the word appetite here refers to something more general than just physical or sensual desires, but rather what it refers to most likely is what the Bible calls the flesh or sinful nature. And of course, this is, spiritual. Our sinful nature includes our innate inherent pride and self righteousness. And so that being the case, these false teachers may have been, Judaizers like those in Galatia, that is, those who were Jewish Christians, at least they professed to be Christians, but they were insisting that circumcision and the works of the law were necessary in addition to faith in order to be saved by Christ. And so Paul may have been, or he may have had in mind, that kind of false teaching here as well, or at least, instead of a kind of, anything goes false gospel. But in any case, at the end of the day, we just we can’t know for sure exactly what these false teachers were teaching. All we can say is that they were denying the truth of the gospel. As Paul says, they were not serving the Lord Jesus Christ. That really, kind of brings things to the heart of the matter. They were not serving Christ. They were not proclaiming the truth about Christ. They were not seeking the salvation of others for the sake of Christ, but they were serving their own pride, their own self interest, and their false teaching. And of course, that is true of all false teaching. It is self oriented, self centered, self interested. But they presented themselves very well. Paul speaks of their smooth talk and flattery. False teachers so often appear to be very likable, appealing. They can be charming, eloquent, well spoken. One commentator put it this way, the opponents are urbane, witty, sophisticated. They will not be unattractive bores. And of course, that’s because false teaching is inherently deceptive. As Paul says in second Corinthians eleven fourteen, even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. The false teacher does not appear with the horns coming out of his head and a pitchfork in hand saying, I have a gospel from Satan to proclaim to you, but he appears as an angel of light. Jesus said, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

So how are these Roman Christians to prepare themselves for the day when these false teachers will show up of all their charm and eloquence and begin, if they can, to lead people away from Christ? He says in verse 19, he says, for your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good, and innocent as to what is evil. And so they were to be wise as to what is good. That is, they were to strive to comprehend more and more all of the ins and outs of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They were to seek to understand the truth that God has revealed in his word better and better because all of that is good. And so they were to become more acquainted with the truth of God. And not only that, but they were to know the fruits of that gospel, the fruits of the truth of God, which are also good. And so they were to be so familiar and knowledgeable about what was genuine and true and faithful to Christ, both in doctrine and life, that they would not be deceived by the charm, the eloquence of the false teachers and led astray by them. And Paul also says that they were to be innocent as to what is evil. That is, they were to guard their innocence in Christ, their integrity, their purity as believers in Christ. They were to guard that against the evil teaching and the evil influences that that teaching would have if they received it. And what this means for you and me is this, is that we are to be grounded in the truth of God. We this is part of our calling as Christians. This is God’s will for us, is that we grow in understanding, that we come to have a better grasp of the truth that God has given to us in the scripture concerning himself as God, concerning his son Jesus Christ as our savior.

It is so crucial for us that we are immersed in the truth of Christ and his word in the entire revelation that God has given to us in the Bible. The more that’s true of us, the more we’ll immediately recognize and reject falsehood and deception when we see it. I’m sure you’ve heard this before that if you really want to be able to detect a fake $100 bill, the best way to do that is to study very carefully what a genuine $100 bill looks like. Of course, there’s all kinds of, tools that people use now, that merchants use to make sure that that, currency is count or is, authentic, but it still is true. If you knew all the ins and outs, if you knew a hundred dollar bill like the back of your hand and you knew exactly what was printed and where, and then you were given a fake $100 bill, you would more easily be able to, recognize that as a counterfeit. And in the same way, the more that you are grounded in all the wonderful truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the more quickly, the more e clearly that you’ll see right through any false gospel. And so first in our passage, Paul warns the Roman Christians of the danger of false teachers.

And secondly, and this will be brief, but secondly, Paul reminds them of the promise of the true gospel. He says in verse 20, he says, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And notice how Paul, ties everything that he said about false teachers. He ties that now to what he says in verse 20 in referencing the devil, Satan. And he doesn’t say it in so many words, but clearly, Paul is identifying here, the true source of all false teaching, the true master of all false teachers, and that is Satan, the evil one, the devil. Again, ever since Satan first appeared in the garden in the form of a serpent, he is he has been the original false teacher. He’s been deceiving and destroying God’s image bearers by his deception, his lies, and his false teaching. The gospel is a message of good news that comes from heaven above. It leads to life, eternal life, and in the very same way a false gospel, false teaching comes to us from hell below, and it leads to death and destruction. But the good news of what Paul says here is this in verse 20, he says, soon God will crush Satan under our feet. The Lord’s Supper this morning reminds us that in part at least, this has already taken place. That when Jesus as our savior, when he took upon himself in our place the condemnation, the death, the judgments that was ours because of our sin and guilt, when he took that upon us so that we can be forgiven, we can be free from that condemnation, there, Satan was defeated. He no longer has sway over those who belong to Christ.

But the final fulfillment of this prophecy still awaits. And one day when Christ returns, our victory in him will be brought to consummation. When he comes again, he will banish Satan. He will banish all those who follow him from his creation forever. And in the new heavens and new earth, there will be no more presence of evil. There will be no more evil one, but he will be finally defeated forever. And that is our hope as believers in Christ. And if your faith is in Jesus today, if he is your savior from sin and death, if you have come to him as he comes to us in the gospel, if you have come to him in faith, already you have peace with God. You are already at peace with the God who was called here the God of peace, and that peace comes from your faith in Christ, from trusting in him. And by the grace of God, he will keep you in that, grace in Christ. And by God’s grace, not even Satan, not all the false teachers in the world can ever take that from you. Let’s pray.

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