Please enjoy this excerpt from Manage Your Mission – Living wisely and abundantly for today and eternity. This book will help craft your life mission, establish its priorities, and succeed in each area: Faith – Family – Fitness – Field – Friends – Fun – Finances.
Even as a young pagan, I’d see the phony televangelists and wonder why God would let them get away with blatantly false teachings. I now shift between being irritated at the prosperity gospel preachers like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Bill Johnson, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Bill Johnson, Jesse Duplantis, etc. (basically anyone on TBN) and being irritated at the people who support them.
If someone claims to have special revelations from God, that’s a warning sign. Some people desperately want healing, and I hate seeing people exploit them. But sometimes, people gravitate to false teachers because they want what the wolves are selling. They don’t want sheep food; they want goat food. They don’t want to reconcile with the real God on his terms; they want to create a god in their own image. And that’s what they get: a false god who can’t save or do anything for them. They want a god who is their butler and must make them healthy and wealthy. But the only ones getting rich are those at the top of the Ponzi schemes.
A straightforward way to analyze a teacher or a church is to see if they preach what I call Jesus Plus or Jesus Minus instead of just Jesus. If they teach that to be saved, you need Jesus plus something else, such as circumcision, a particular spiritual gift such as speaking in tongues, good deeds, etc., then you should avoid them. It is heretical to say that what Jesus did on the cross for us isn’t adequate. The book of Galatians is an extended rebuke against those who added something to the gospel. Paul couldn’t have been more explicit.
Galatians 1:8–10 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
And remember that Paul was so keen on the real gospel reaching the world that he didn’t care if people preached the truth to harm him (Philippians 1:15–18).
Or if they say that you need anything less than Jesus, that Jesus is just one of many options, or that the Bible is wrong, you should run away. Jesus affirmed the Old Testament down to the smallest detail and quoted the most controversial parts without apology (Adam, Noah, Jonah, Sodom, etc.), and he authorized the writers of the New Testament. Just picture someone telling Jesus when he was He Heon the cross, “Thanks anyway, but I’m going to choose one of these other paths. You didn’t have to suffer and die like this.” Hopefully, the thought of that makes you recoil.
Just look at the track record of these “prophets”: None of them predicted the Covid pandemic. None. And many of them falsely predicted that it would end quickly. And many of them falsely predicted that Donald Trump would continue into a second term. And so on. They are shamelessly wrong over and over, yet people keep supporting them. The Bible says that a prophet has to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. It also says that the prophets put their lives on the line when they made prophecies.
Deuteronomy 18:20–22 “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”
But as bad as those people are, I think the more dangerous false teachers are the Progressive Christians, also known as the Christian Left. They are the worst sort of wolves — though many of them have gotten warm and taken off the sheep’s clothing. They aren’t even pretending anymore. They are in many mainstream churches and are experts at posing as Christians while teaching the opposite of the Bible. They deny Jesus’ deity and exclusivity for salvation, the authority of Scripture, miracles, the atonement (Jesus dying for our sins to satisfy the wrath of God), and more. Unsurprisingly, Progressive Christians have views that are indistinguishable from the world: radically pro-abortion (they insist that abortion is acceptable to the child’s first breath), pro-LGBTQ+, pro-coveting, and more. They constantly clamor to “give” to the poor, but they reach into your wallet as they do so. They lobby “Caesar” (the government) to take from you by force to redistribute to others in a highly inefficient and counterproductive way. Whatever that is, it isn’t charity on their part. They have reclassified coveting, sexual sins, pride, and unforgiveness from vices to virtues.
They are typically sneaky in how they try to transform churches. For example, they may say they believe in the inspiration of Scripture, but they pour a completely different meaning into the word inspiration than orthodox Christians do. It is the logical fallacy of equivocation, where they use the same word with a different sense with the intent to deceive.
There are many warnings throughout the Bible about false teachers, such as Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 7:15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Or consider Jude’s warning:
Jude 3–4 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
False prophets are nothing new. For example, in Jeremiah’s day, they told the people they would return from Babylon in two years, but it was seventy, as Jeremiah said.
Jeremiah 14:14 And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.”
So read your Bible often and pray for discernment so false teachers won’t take you in. It is only through biblical ignorance that these wolves can exist. If people knew Scripture better, they’d realize what a farce the prosperity gospel is and how absurd the claims of Progressive Christianity are.
While I’m sure every generation thought this passage applied to them, it certainly applies today. People want to create God in their own image.
2 Timothy 4:3–4 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
So, beware of having “itching ears” and finding a theology to suit your preferences. Instead, read the Bible as much as possible to know the truth.
Copyright 2022
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible
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