there’s a hypnotic poison about them that could drag us in/ and drag us down.

ILLUS: At the last church I served, there were a couple of families in the church that had gotten into the habit of listening to a TV preacher that came on in the wee hours of the morning. They shared a video tape of his teachings with me, and (aside from the cowboy hat and the big cigar in his mouth) his doctrines didn’t sound that far off… that is until you began reading his literature.
It seems he was teaching that Cain was the offspring of Eve and Satan! And that Cain was a black man. Thus all black people were offspring of Satan himself and were to be shunned and treated as inferior. It was a new twist on the old racial bigotry interpretation of Genesis.
Of course, this was all heresy (not to mention fairly inane), and I tried to tell these families that. But they wouldn’t listen. They’d already been pulled in by the preacher’s slick spiel.

Jesus warned us about these kinds of teachings:
"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Matthew 7:15

“False Christs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive the elect— if that were possible.” Mark 13:22

Peter warned us:
“… there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them— bringing swift destruction on themselves.” 2 Peter 2:1

And Paul warned the Elders at Ephesus:
“I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” Acts 20:29-31

So, we need to come to grips with the fact that there are people - who will teach false doctrine
There are preachers, priests and rabbis that can – and do – preach things we shouldn’t believe.

Now, why would they do that?
Did they suddenly wake up one morning and say… “Gee, I want to preach heresy today?”

No… of course not.
Most of these folks are totally committed to the things they teach.
They believe that they’re right… and you’re wrong.

How did they get that way?
Well, they fell captive to Satan’s deceptions.
Now, Satan has a lot of deceptions… but the most common are found in Matthew 4. That’s the story about how the devil tried to tempt Jesus. And he used 3 basic approaches:

1. 1st Satan appealed to pride
In Matthew 4:3 we’re told that the devil told Jesus "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
Come on Jesus PROVE you are the Son of God!

2. And then Satan appealed to the desire for power
"All this I will give you,"
You don’t have to work for it, you don’t have to suffer, you don’t have to struggle. I’ll give you all the power and influence you could possibly ever want…
“IF you will bow down and worship me." Matthew 4:9
I’ll give you power… all you have to do is just fudge a little on doctrine.

3. And perhaps the most difficult temptation for a preacher to overcome is the temptation to indulge in speculation… and build doctrines on theories.
In Matthew 4:6 Satan quotes Scripture for the only