How is false teaching like clouds without water?
False teaching resembles clouds without water by raising hope of rain yet delivering nothing. It appears on the horizon, then vanishes, so adherents discover it is empty. Carried about by wind and fruitless, it is an adulterated, half-truth product that corrupts the Word of God rather than giving promised rain.
Les explains that false teaching is like clouds without water because it can bring a cloud on the horizon of hope, but then it suddenly disappears and the adherents realize it is nothing. He recalls a hot summer day during the Depression and drought in Iowa, when a little puff of cloud raised hopes for a drop of rain, but it just vanished. That, he says, is exactly what false teaching does. It is carried about with wind, like trees whose fruit withereth, and is an adulterated product. By contrast, Paul did not come corrupting the Word of God, like a raging wave foaming out shame or a wandering star reserved for blackness, and he did not come with half-truth. The world is falling for this line of false teaching.
These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;