Seven Characteristics of False Teachers by Thomas Brooks

'The prophets make my people to err.' Mic 3 v 5

In his book 'Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices' Thomas Brooks gives us so many helpful remedies to use in the Christian life as we battle against sin.  The Puritans were masterful surgeons of the soul and if you are new to the Puritans, please buy a Puritan paperback and try and read a page or two per day and you will see your Christian life being deepened and enriched.  

At the end of his book he has a short section on the seven characteristics of false teachers which seem so relevant today.  They need very little introduction or explanation.

1. False teachers are men pleasers.

'Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things; speak to us smooth things: prophesy deceits.' Isa 30 v 10.

'False teachers are hell's greatest enrichers.  Not bitter, but flattering words do all the mischief, said Valerian, the Roman emperor.  Such smooth teachers are sweet soul-poisoners.' Thomas Brooks

2. False teachers are notable in casting dirt, scorn and reproach upon the person, names and credits of Christ's most faithful ambassadors.  

• Think of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Num 16 v 3
• Ahab's false prophets turning on Micaiah (1 Kings 22 v 10-26)
• How the false teachers persecuted Paul (2 Cor 10 v 10)

'Oh! the dirt, the filth, the scorn that is thrown upon those of whom the world is not worthy.' Thomas Brooks

3. False teachers are venters of the devices and visions of their own heads and hearts.

'Then the Lord said unto me. The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceiit of their heart.' Jer14 v 14.

'Are there not multitudes in this nation whose visions are but golden delusions, lying vanities, brain sick fantasies?' Thomas Brooks

4. False teachers easily pass over the great and weighty things of both of law and gospel, and stand most upon those things that are the least moment and concernment to the souls of men.  

'The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.' 1 Timothy 1 v 5-7

'False teachers are nice in the lesser things of the law, and as negligent in the greater.'  Thomas Brooks

5. False teachers cover and colour their dangerous principles and soul impostures with very fair speeches and plausible pretenses, with high notions and golden expressions.

'Many in these days are bewitched and deceived by the magnificent words, lofty strains, and stately terms of deceivers, viz, illumination, revelation, deification, and fiery triplicity.' Thomas Brooks

6.  False teachers strive more to win over men to their opinions, than to better them in their conversations.

'But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.' Matt 23 v 13-15

'Their work is not to better men's hearts, and mend their lives; and in this they are very much like their father the devil, who will spare no pains to gain proselytes.' Thomas Brooks

7. False teachers make merchandise of their followers.

'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 Peter 2 v 1-3

'Now the best way to deliver poor souls from being deluded and destroyed by these messengers of Satan is, to discover them in their colours, that so, being known, poor souls may shun them, and fly from them as hell itself.' Thomas Brooks

The greatest remedy against false teachers is to keep our eyes on Christ.  It was when the Israelites despaired of Moses (their mediator) coming down from Mount Sinai that they turned to false teachers and idols.  Sin makes us stupid.  Imagine trading the transcendent, merciful Jehovah for a golden bull?  Just take a look at so many churches today.  We have thrown aside the true worship of God and we want men to tickle our ears and entertain us.  Men are no longer content with the simple gospel.  

We need to know and love Christ and his word if we are to see clearly through the false teachers in Scotland today.  How we desperately need to put Christ and his precious word back in the centre of our worship services.  For more on the priority of the word read this. 

'Thy work. sinner, is to be peremptory (urgent) in believing, and in returning to the Lord; thy work is to cast thyself upon Christ, lie at his feet, to wait on him in his ways; and to give him no rest till he shall say, Sinner I am thy portion, I am thy salvation, and nothing shall separate between me and thee.' Thomas Brooks  

Among God's Giants - Puritan Wisdom in an Age of Superficiality

When my father retired in 2002 and moved to Glasgow, his library had to squeeze into a very small third bedroom.  Many of his books had to go.  Some went to a grateful son while others found a welcome home in many other places.  After his death in April 2020 and with my mothers recent move to Edinburgh, I had to sort through my fathers library.  Much of it went to the Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Newcastle but I was keen to hold on to at least some of his books.  When my father retired, he couldn't part with the books that were in many ways the three elements of his ministry: 1. Free Church (and particularly Highland) piety - the best of the Free Church fathers - John Kennedy, Moody Stuart, Rabbi Duncan, Prof John Murray and of course Andrew Bonar and Robert Murray McCheyne. 2. The Covenanters.  My father kept a vast range of the best of covenanting history.  He loved the stories of bravery in the midst of persecution and often spoke at conventicles. 3.The Puritans.  My father kept a wide range of Puritan works.  Many were 1-200 years old and were the fruit of his early days in the Banner of Truth in the 1960's.  These books are freely available now thanks to the Banner and many other reformed publishers.  He also had many books about Puritanism and I have been enjoying reading these over the last few months.

One of these books is J.I.Packer 'Among God's Giants'.  This is now published as 'A Quest for Godliness' by Crossway.  I read this many years ago (it first came out in 1991) but I was encouraged to pick it up again after reading 'J.I. Packer: An Evangelical Life' by Leland Ryken.  It is impossible to read a life of Packer without catching something of his passion for the Puritans.  Packer's biography coincided with a very welcome Christmas present of the new set of Puritan Paperbacks from the Banner of Truth which, if you are not familiar with the Puritans, is a great place to start.  I personally think Thomas Watson's 'All things for Good' and 'The Godly Man's Picture' are worth their weight in gold.  It is hard to believe these books can be anything but encouraging and helpful to any Christian that picks them up with a prayerful spirit.  There is more depth and profundity in a page of Watson than whole books of many modern authors.  

The Puritans have been rehabilitated over the last 60 years and J.I. Packer needs to take the credit for much of this work.  Rather than being seen as peevish, censorious, conceited, hypocritical and loveless the Puritans give us a coherent and God centred vision of the Christian life.  As Packer says:

There was for them no disjunction between sacred and secular; all creation, so far as they were concerned, was sacred, and all activities, of whatever kind, must be sanctified, that is done to the glory of God. So, in their heavenly-minded ardour, the Puritans became men and women of order, matter-of- fact and down-to-earth, prayerful, purposeful, practical.  Seeing life whole, they integrated contemplation with action. worship with work, labour with rest, love of God with love of neighbour and of self, personal with social identity, and the wide spectrum of relational responsibilities with each other, in a thoroughly conscientious and thought out way.  In this thoroughness they were extreme, that is to say far more thorough than we are, but in their blending of the whole wide range of Christian duties set forth in Scripture they are eminently balanced.

This quote struck me as we seem to live in a world that is increasingly unbalanced.  Nowhere is this more apparent than social media.  The recent storming of the Congress in America was certainly inspired by a narcissistic and unstable president, but it was in many ways the natural development of the echo chamber of social media that whips people up to a frenzy and perpetuates conspiracy theories that never need to meet with truth or reality.  If there was ever a time for wise and balanced theology it is now and we have so much we can learn from the Puritans.

In his first chapter in Among God's Giants, Packer outlines three groups of evangelicals who would be helped by the example of the Puritans and I think these groups have come in to sharp focus during lockdown:

1. The Restless Experimentalists.  Packer defines these Christians as shallow and rootless.  He says: 'their outlook is one of casual haphazardness and fretful impatience, or grasping after novelties, entertainments and 'highs', and of valuing strong feelings over deep thoughts.'  He continues: 'they conceive the Christian life as one of exciting extraordinary experiences rather that of resolute rational righteousness.' These Christians, argues Packer, have turned the Christian life into a 'thrill seeking ego-trip.'  

Like a skilful surgeon Packer brings the scalpel of Biblically infused Puritan wisdom to the restless experimentalists.  He suggests that they would do well to learn from the Puritans through their:

• God centeredness - this is central to the discipline of self denial.  As Lloyd Jones used to say 'we are on too good terms with ourselves.'  If the modern church was God centred we would be more humble and more prayerfully dependent on the Lord.
• The primacy of the mind - it is impossible to obey biblical truth unless we understand it.  Experience has replaced theological understanding with so many Christians.
• The demand for humility, patience and steadfastness at all times - the Holy Spirits ministry is not to give us thrills but to make us more like Christ.
• Not relying on our feelings - our feelings go up and down and God frequently tests us by taking us 'through the wastes of emotional flatness.'
• Worship as life's primary activity.
• Regular self examination
• The Puritans believed that 'sanctified suffering bulks large in God's plan for his children's growth in grace.'  The Puritans had a well developed theology of suffering largely lacking in the modern church.

Many relentless experimentalists have struggled through lockdown as they have been forced to find God through setbacks and disappointments. Time will tell if this will lead to a refocussing of Christianity in a largely experience-led western church.

The Puritans believed that 'sanctified suffering bulks large in God's plan for his children's growth in grace.'  The Puritans had a well developed theology of suffering largely lacking in the modern church.

2. The Entrenched Intellectuals.  Packer diagnosis this group well: 'Constantly they present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God's truth for whom Orthodoxy is all...There is little warmth about them; relationally they are remote; experiences do not mean much to them; winning the battle for mental correctness is their one great purpose.  They understand the priority of the intellect well; the trouble is that intellectualism, expressing itself in endless campaigns for their own brand of right thinking, is almost if not quite all that they can offer, for it is almost if not quite all that they have.'  We see the entrenched intellectuals on social media.  These keyboard warriors love exposing inferior Christians.  They lob grenade after grenade from their bunkers and accuse other Christians of cowardice, worldliness and compromise.  

The entrenched intellectuals is often how the Puritans are characterised but Packer helpfully show us that the Puritans lived and taught in a way that completely counters arid intellectualism in a variety of ways:

• True Christianity claims the affections as well as the mind
• Theological truth is for practice - William Perkins described theology as 'the science of living blessedly for ever.'  Some of us have attended churches where the preaching is solid and the people know and love the Lord but their brand of Christianity is not portable to the day and age we live in.  Children who grow up in these environments drift away to find a warmer and kinder Christianity or turn their back on the faith all together.
• Conceptual knowledge kills if one does not move on to the realities of which they refer.
• The gospel calls for faith and repentance issuing from a life of love and holiness, in other words gratitude expressed in goodwill and good works.
• The Spirit is given to lead us in to close companionship with others in Christ.  The Puritans fought for church reform and were eventually ejected from the Church of England.  The frosty separatism which is a badge of honour for so many entrenched evangelicals todays was alien to most of the Puritans. 
• The discipline of discursive meditation is meant to keep us in ardent and adoring in our love affair with God.
• It is ungodly and scandalous to become a firebrand and cause division in the church, and it is ordinarily nothing more reputable than spiritual pride in its intellectual form that leads men to create parties and splits. 

I'm afraid I have to confess that I can identify myself with many of the traits of the arid intellectuals.  I have gone through periods in my Christian life where I have relished reading theology rather than the Bible and my social media engagement has been more active than my prayer life.  My love for debate and controversy was greater than my love for other believers - 'winning the battle for mental correctness' as Packer says.  In his seminal book 'Knowing God' Packer teaches that while one church may have much of the truth, another church with less truth can make much better use of it and please God with their zeal for the gospel and love for Christ.  The Puritans contended for a confessionally faithful church and for Scriptural church order but this was never in isolation from spiritual renewal and revival.  Only the Holy Spirit fanning the flames of ardent love for Jesus can keep us from entrenched evangelicalism.

The Puritans contended for a concessionally faithful church and for Scriptural church order but this was never in isolation from spiritual renewal and revival.  Only the Holy Spirit fanning the flames of ardent love for Jesus can keep us from what Packer called 'entrenched evangelicalism'.

3.  The Disaffected Deviationists - I know many people in this group and I like the way that Packer deals with them in 'Among God's Giants'.  He doesn't pretend that evangelicalism doesn't have some culpability in many people turning their back on evangelical orthodoxy.  As he says: 'Modern evangelicalism has much to answer for in the number of casualties of this sort it has caused in recent years by its naivety of mind and unrealism of expectation.'  

So who are the disaffected deviationists?  Packer explains: 'They are people once saw themselves as evangelicals, either from being evangelically nurtured or from coming to profess conversion within the evangelical sphere of influence, but who have become disillusioned about the evangelical point of view and have turned their back on it, feeling that it let them down.'  Many leave for intellectual reasons, others feel betrayed having been promised a prosperity gospel that lets them down.  Packer continues: 'Hurt and angry, feeling themselves victims of a confidence trick, they now accuse the evangelicalism they knew of having failed and fooled them, and resentfully give it up; it is a mercy if they do not therewith similarly accuse and abandon God himself.'  

Again Packer points us back to an older, profounder, wiser evangelicalism of the Puritan era to help with the 'casualties of modern evangelical goofiness':

• The mystery of God - the modern evangelical God is too small.  The God of the Bible is transcendent and inscrutable.  We can never understand God's ways.  Bafflement and disappointment must be accepted as recurring themes in the life of a believer.
• The love of God - a love that redeems, converts, sanctifies and ultimately glorifies sinners.  God's love was unambiguously and gloriously displayed at the cross and nothing will ever be able to separate us from God's love.  While this comforts God's children, no situation in this world 'will ever be free from the fly in the ointment and the thorns in the bed.'
• The salvation of God - the Puritans have much to teach us how Christ has put away our sins and is now leading us through this world to a glory that is even now being prepared for us.  Christ is instilling within us a desire for and capacity to enjoy eternity.  I love Packer language here: '...holiness here, in the form of consecrated service and loving obedience through thick and thin, is the high road to happiness hereafter.'
• The reality of spiritual conflict - the life is a battle against the world, the flesh and the devil and anyone who promises a life of health, wealth and happiness is a charlatan.  
• The Puritans emphasised the protection of God - they believed that God could overrule and sanctify our sufferings. 
• The glory of God - it becomes our privilege as Christ's disciples to further his glory by celebrating his grace, by our proving of his power under perplexity and pressure, by totally resigning ourselves to his good pleasure, and by making him our joy and delight and all times.

The Puritans show us that the 17th century had its fair share of  spiritual casualties.  Then, as now, there are Christians who think simplistically and 'hoped unrealistically' and they became disappointed, disaffected, despondent and despairing.  The Puritans ministry was to seek to raise up and encourage these wounded spirits rather than driving them further away.  The way to win these disaffected prodigals is to return to the Biblical Christianity of the Puritan era with all its depth and richness.  The goofiness of modern evangelicalism may look and sound slicker but if we want to build God's kingdom we need to build it on the right foundations.  Skin tight jeans and stylised worship will only hold people until the next 'brand' comes along.  

Why do we need the Puritans?  In an age of superficiality and gimmicks the Puritans give us a an example of mature holiness and seasoned fortitude  As Packer says they 'shine before us as a kind of beacon light, overtopping the stature of Christians in most era's and certainly so in this age of crushing urban collectivism, when Western Christians sometimes feel and often look like ants in an anthill and puppets on a sting.'  Surely lockdown is a wake up call to the church that the over stylised, gimmick driven Christianity does not meet the deepest needs of our hearts and is far from the God centred, Christ exalting  Biblical gospel.  The Puritans, with all their faults and failings have much to say to us today.  They have things to say through their writings that we badly need to hear.  The 17th century Puritans was a movement for church reform and spiritual revival.  If there was ever a time when we needed a similar movement it was today.

John J Murray: An Enduring Legacy

At the service to mark my fathers 40 years in the ministry (see blog article here) I said that I thought my father had left me six enduring legacies.  These are personal reflections and much more could be written.  I will leave that to others but these are my own reflections.  

1.  The Legacy of a Big God.  When I came back from university in 1995 and launched out into the choppy seas of social work I was so thankful to be under my Dad's preaching.  As I saw the horror of abuse, trauma, violence and brokenness in my career, Dad directed me towards a God who was sovereign, in control and who had a purpose.  He preached God in all his fullness, majesty and glory.  It was impossible to sit under Dad's ministry and not hear the Westminster Confession and Catechisms coming through in his preaching.  His theology was God centred.  He cared little for fads and trends in Christian theology.

I have recently been reading 'Lloyd Jones - Messenger of Grace'  by Iain H Murray.  Under a section 'Christianity is God-centred Religion' he quotes Lloyd Jones as saying:

The Bible is the record of the activity of God. God is the actor.  God is the centre.  Everything is of God and comes from God, and turns to God.  It is God who speaks.  It is God who acts.  It is God who intervenes.  It is God who originates, who plans everything everywhere.

This has been my Dad's emphasis.  The gospel brings us back to God.  If God is who He says He is then He must be at the centre of our worship, our preaching our family life and our nation.  

2.  The Legacy of an Attractive Saviour.  It is only as I have been reading and re-reading Sinclair Ferguson's book 'The Whole Christ' that I have come to realise some of the issues that my Dad has been contending with over the last 40 (and particularly the last 18) years.  Dad is a 'Marrow man' to the core (the Marrow of Modern Divinity).  He has strongly resisted the emphasis that has come in over the last few years (sometimes unconsciously) that teaches a conditional grace like the Pharisees taught.  This tincture has infected some ministries and has resulted in a harshness in pastoral care and a strong emphasis on non essentials.  Being seen to do the right thing is often more important than doing the right thing.  Unfortunately I hear all too often from the victims of these ministries.

Christ must never be separated from his benefits and must always be offered fully and freely to every sinner as 'deed of gift and grant, or authentic gospel offer' (Fisher, Marrow of Modern Divinity).  I don't doubt that God is dealing in judgement with our nation but the Free Church I grew up in has been guilty of often preaching a very unattractive gospel and unappealing Saviour.  So many of my contemporaries have been driven from church by a rigidity and coldness that is not Christ-like.  Wherever grace is preached there should be warmth, love and hope.  Too many ministries have lacked these characteristics and instead preached a cold orthodoxy.  Perfect love casts out fear and wherever there is fear there is painfulness (I John 4 v 18 - Geneva Bible).

I am thankful my father preached free grace.  He loves Thomas Boston and the Erskine brothers and their emphasis on the 'free offer.'  Grace originates from the heart of God the father in an eternity past therefore our salvation is secure.  The father does not love us reluctantly and is persuaded to save us by Christ.  God's love for sinners flows from this eternal will and when this pervades a ministry it makes all the difference.  As John Owen says:

How few of the saints are experimentally acquainted with this privilege of holding immediate communion with the Father in love!  With what anxious, doubtful thoughts do they look upon Him!  What fears, what questionings are there of His good will and kindness!  At the best, many think that there is no sweetness at all in God towards us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus.  It is true, that that alone is the way of communication: but the free fountain and spring of all is in the bosom of the father (1 John 1 v 2).

The gospel is not only true but in Jesus it must also be beautiful.  Grace makes a person kind, loving, patient and beautiful.  Too often Christians we can be harsh, twisted and 'sanctified be vinegar.'  I am thankful that my father always presented a beautiful Jesus through his preaching and example.  This lead him to love everyone who loved the same Saviour.  My Dad is largely free of a partisan and sectarian spirit and was grieved at younger men who in their zeal for the truth seemed to confuse what were primary and secondary issues.

3.  A Legacy of Love for the Truth - My Dad has always highly esteemed the word of God.  I don't think I've ever heard my Dad preach without being well prepared.  The Bible is important to him both for his life and for his preaching. The Authorised (King James) version has become one of the great points of orthodoxy over the last 20 years yet we were brought up on the NIV which my Dad enthusiastically read at family worship to help us understand the scriptures.  I have a deep love for the King James version (and an even greater love for the Geneva Bible) but this has never been a defining issue for my Dad.  How many of my own generation were brought up with the Scriptures being read and preached who had little or no understanding?  I am so thankful that Dad taught me the Bible with understanding and love. 

Dad and I have often discussed the essence of preaching.  Dad would often say to me that preaching is very different from lecturing.  With the former you are aiming primarily at the will, with the latter you are primarily aiming at the head.  He often spoke about preaching being like a hammer striking a nail into the heart.  You strike it again and again throughout a sermon to drive it in to the heart as you seek (by the Spirit) to move the will.  A great love for truth means that it must be preached with passion and understanding.

4.  A Legacy of Family Religion - Only now as a father of 5 boys do I understand how difficult parenting is.  During these last few months my Dad has spoken of regrets that he didn't spend more time with us growing up.  Life in the manse was busy, Dad was always needed somewhere.  But Dad always prioritised family worship.  It was a time to catch up as a family.  The Bible and prayer were at the centre of our family life and it is something I have continued with my own family.  Watching my father get down on his knees to pray every night has left an enduring legacy of the need for daily prayer.  Our home was also a place of hospitality and many generations of students remember our manse with great fondness as a second home.

It is easy to be critical of our parents but when you become a parent you realise how complex parenting is.  As a father, work demands our time, church can demand endless responsibilities, we must balance the books and we must spend time with our wife.  To maintain this over 40, 50 or 60 or years is a huge challenge.  My Dad would be the first to admit his regrets but he is an example of patient consistency both as a husband and a father. I wish my father had invested in a hobby, embraced music and wider culture.  Like so many of his generation her found theatre, the cinema and public sporting events to be places incompatible with a consistent Christian walk.  He may have a point but how we have wished as a family in this last year that our father had a hobby or interest to distract him during a time of great stress.  

Perhaps the greatest compliment is that the faith my Dad has preached so faithfully has now been handed on to his grandchildren which is perhaps the greatest legacy any father and grandfather can have.

5.  A Legacy of Good Books - Growing up in Oban I used to go in to my Dad's study and look at all his books and feel so sorry for him.  I used to hate books and wondered who Dad would give them all to when he was older.  All this changed when I was around 19 and Dad gave me the Memoirs and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne before I went to university.  Over the next few years I came to love many of the books my Dad has been so involved in republishing since the 1960's.  I came to see that the doctrines of grace were in fact Biblical Christianity. Books (and particularly old books) are now a huge part of my life.  I don't have any empirical evidence but I suspect I have the largest selection of Dr Thomas Guthrie first edition books in the country!  This is down to my Dad's legacy and love for for books.

6.  A Legacy of Endurance and Consistency - Dad believes the same truths at the end of his ministry as he did when he set out all those decades ago.  He has resisted the ebb and flow of different theological fads, contemporary man centred worship, evangelistic gimmicks and the slide towards ecumenical compromise.  He embodies 2 Timothy 4 v 7 - he has finished his course, he has run the race and kept the faith.  Dad is his own harshest critic.  He would be the first to recount his weaknesses and inconsistencies. Dad has tried to point people to a glorious God, to invite people to a wonderful Saviour and to call a church back to the truths that once made it great.

Knightswood FCC were incredibly generous to my mother and father and we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed.  For all the greetings that were sent to Dad we want to say how hugely grateful we are as a family.  This last year has been difficult for us and we value your prayers.  We give thanks for my Dad's rich legacy to us as a family and to the wider church.  Dad is acutely aware that we are all unprofitable servants but we serve a God who is able to use earthen vessels to draw sinners to Himself and bring glory to His name.  

When I visited my Dad just prior to coming to receive his presentation I asked if he wanted me to share a verse.  He asked me to share Psalm 16 v 8 'I have set the Lord always before me: for he is at my right hand therefore I shall not slide' (Geneva Bible).  My father can testify to the goodness of God upholding and blessing his ministry and keeping him from slipping.  For those of us who follow him we hope we can be worthy of his legacy which he handed down to us.