It should come as no surprise that spiritual deception is not anything that is brand new breaking news, as it has been around since Adam and Eve had the garden show and allowed Satan to be their guest. Today there are many false teachers, fake preachers, and phony pastors out there who are deceiving the flock with their damnable doctrines of everything from seeker friendly to blatant outright condemnation of
Jesus warned us about false prophets. A false prophet is someone who claims to teach God's Word, but who teaches something wrong or less than the whole truth. In Matt 7:15-23, Jesus said 15 "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (NIV)
Some people are like wolves that pretend to be sheep. They act and dress like the sheep, only to destroy the lambs once they are among them. Look at the Rev. Jim Jones of the People’s
Jesus told us how to distinguish the sheep from the wolves. He said we'll know, because even if a wolf is dressed like a sheep, it acts like a wolf. A wolf can't baaa like a sheep, it can't chew cud like a sheep, it can't eat grass, or even smell like a sheep. Jesus said that a wolf can try to look like a sheep, but you can tell it apart by its actions.
Jesus said our actions are to be looked at with a fine toothed comb. If a man lies, he is a liar, no matter how often he says he isn't. A man can say he is a Christian, but if he doesn't act like a Christian, then you know he is a fake Christian. For instance, be very careful when a church leader or preacher starts saying that something is OK or not OK because Jesus didn’t or did address it in the gospel. One preacher said homosexuality is not a sin because Jesus never addressed it. The word of God however, says ALL scripture is given by God. (2 Timothy 3:16) Therefore all scripture condemning the act of homosexuality comes straight from God. God’s position is that it is a sin. (Romans 1:20-29; Leviticus 18:22; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10) I have more if you need them.
Those who have been gifted with the office of pastor, evangelist, teacher, apostle or prophet are held to a greater accountability to preach the truth of God’s word. Their punishment will be greater if they don’t. Jesus said there would be people on judgment day that would claim that they had done great things for Jesus, and He would say: "I never knew you, depart from me, you who do evil." In other words, not only had they not done what Jesus wanted, they had done evil instead. These people may have thought they were pleasing God, but in fact they weren't. How do we find out what will please God? The answer is: by reading the Bible! If you do not read your bible you won’t be able to distinguish the wolves from the sheep. The problem is the wolves that are masquerading as church leaders are distorting God’s Word by putting their own left wing liberal interpretations behind the scriptures. They are keeping the sheeple dumb. If people do not know God’s Word they will end up in the wolves’ lairs. That is what happened to me when I was a kid. I was saved and baptized when I was 9 years old, but stopped reading the bible after my daddy died when I was 11 years old. I was sent away to go live with my sister in the ghettos of East L.A., California, where I didn’t have friends, was bullied, harassed, beaten, and even ridiculed from my teachers. I was a kid looking for acceptance when I met the Ku Klux Klan. They told me they were Christians and convinced me that God was on their side. The quoted a few scriptures and because I didn’t know the Word of God, I fell for their B.S., hook, line, and sinker. You must not only know the Word of God, but you must live by it in order to keep the wolves from tearing you apart.
False teachers and phony pastors try to control people and they also use people to their full advantage. They control their flock’s personal lives from the pulpit and through church policy that they have probably written themselves. Some tell single people who they can date and who they can’t date. I remember when I was dating my ex-girlfriend Barbara several years ago, we had dated a couple of years prior to breaking up and then we ran into each other and decided to start dating again, until she dropped the bombshell a couple of weeks later and informed me that her pastor was demanding to see me. He had told her that we needed his permission to date since she was in his flock and he was responsible for her ‘spiritual well being.” He further stated to her that if he gave his permission for our relationship to continue, then I must come to his church so I could be watched. It didn’t matter to him that I was already part of a large church in town and that I had a world wide ministry, as he was determined to step in and stop the relationship unless I left my church and came submitted to him to be my ‘covering.’ He also had sent a message with Barbara since she told him that I listened to and sang country music that I needed to repent, burn all of my secular CD’s and fall down on my knees and beg for forgiveness! At this point, I won’t tell you what my reply was to him, because I don’t want anyone to lose respect for me as a man of God, but let’s just say it wasn’t a nice one and leave it at that!
Some even tell people where they are allowed to work and where they are not allowed to work. Some break up homes by telling people they are not in a good environment and convince them to even break up marriages and families in order to get them to be under their wing so they can control them. Watch out also when it comes to finances. A person should give out of their heart and obedience to God, not obedience to the pastor. Each of you should give whatever you have decided. You shouldn't be sorry that you gave or feel forced to give, since God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7) Some pastors I know of have passed the plate around 3 or 4 times in a service, and put a guilt trip on people that didn’t have it to give. That is just wrong. I have even heard some of them say “If you want to be blessed of God tonight, then you need to give $40.00 or more in the offering.” What that is implying is that if someone does not have $40.00 then they won’t get blessed. Bullchips!
Be very careful if you are approached by members of the pastoral staff encouraging you to deed your home over to the church. If that is something you want to do for your church on your own free will thinking then fine, but you should never be asked to do so. That is what the White Supremacist movement used to do, was send people letters with a form attached that read something like, “Upon my death, I bequeath to David Duke or Tom Metzger all of my worldly possessions, bank accounts, life savings and property.” This was supposed to be to advance the cause by financing the KKK or the Nazis long after you were gone. They would remind you that the government or relatives that do not believe in the White Power movement will get all of your things once you are gone if you didn’t leave a will.
Don’t you dare let them manipulate you either. There is a single pastor out in
People need to be people, not sheeple! They do not need to blindly follow a pastor because he has somehow convinced them that God speaks through him and not the Word. A good rule of thumb I have is if it does not line up with God’s Word, then it is not of God. Just because you can’t find something in the Word that does not mean it is permissible. The bible does not spell out specifically that going to certain internet sites are wrong, because the internet was not invented yet when the Word of God was written. However it does say not to put anything wicked before your eyes. (Psalm 101:3) Godly character is doing the right thing even when no one else is watching.
False teachers would rather you spend your time listening to them preach instead of spending a lot of time studying the Word of God. They make all kinds of claims and promises and if the sheeple have their focus on the false prophet instead of on the Word of God, then when the false prophecies and teachings do not come to pass, people start feeling empty and defeated and start to believe that their faith has failed them. (1 Timothy 1:4)
Look how many people were deceived by the false prophet Todd “Bam Bam” Bentley? I mean he had a huge series of revival meetings going on and people all over the world were flocking to it thinking it was the next Brownsville Revival; that is, most people except me! I identified him right away as a false prophet, because his actions did not line up with God’s Word, such as kicking old ladies in the face with his biker boot; body slamming 90 lb Japanese men knocking their teeth out; and hitting people with his fist and then laughing about it. I was appalled at this behavior! I said, “What’s next? Is he going to fart in people’s face and say that is the mighty wind of the Holy Ghost?” I saw so many people deceived by him that it wasn’t funny. Even a good friend of mine who pastors a church had met him and told me that Bam Bam had laid hands on him and passed on his ‘anointing’ to him, and then he offered to lay hands on me so I would receive that same anointing Bam Bam had given to him! I politely said, “No Thanks!” That pastor stopped speaking to me and accused me of “bagging out the prophet of God” even after Todd “Bam Bam” Bentley was exposed as a fraud and con man, who divorced his wife to marry a sweet young thing he met at his revival and then his ministry came to an end!
A good rule to follow in order to avoid being taken advantage of by the wolves is to grab hold to God’s Word as your faithful guide in life.(Titus 1:9) This will help you to withstand opposition and not compromise God’s Word. Don't let anything—magazines, television, sports, or even time with your family—come between you and scripture. If you don’t make time for the Bible, you will gradually lose hope, assurance, and your spiritual foundation. Even a new car needs maintenance and fuel such as gas, oil, and water to keep going. Without those things the car will come to a full stop and with no oil the engine burns out. You need God’s word as your fuel to keep on going so you don’t burn out too!
Believe the whole Word of God; each and everything that is written in the Word of God; and let your life line up with what is written in the Word of God! Compare all doctrines of false prophets with the Word of God. All that we believe, teach, preach and do must be based squarely on the scriptures. Don’t be a sheeple; be of God’s people! Hold those who you have chosen to teach you accountable to God’s Word.
When they preach nothing but the ‘love’ of God and do not want to mention Hell, justice or repentance, then they are false teachers. So many of them now say they are “seeker friendly” and they do not want to make the ‘unchurched’ feel uncomfortable with preaching about sin. They say making someone feel uncomfortable about their life is not the Jesus way. They use the excuse of “People already know they are doing wrong and they need God’s love and do not need to have it pointed out to them that they are in error in the way that they are living. They just need to learn about how to seek God so they can do right eventually.” Oh really? I beg to differ but no, people do not already know they are doing wrong or they wouldn’t be doing what they are doing in the first place! What about what it says in Ezekiel 3: 18 “Suppose I tell you that wicked people will surely die, but you don't warn them or speak out so that they can change their wicked ways in order to save their lives. Then these wicked people will die because of their sin, but I will hold you responsible for their deaths.” Jesus made a lot of folks uncomfortable and He talked about Hell a lot more then He did Heaven, because He wanted to keep people out of that place! Yet phony pastors are telling people that they don’t preach on Hell because the church has driven too many people away by making them feel uncomfortable so they will just preach “Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows Everywhere” in order to get them to come stay in church.
This is just a lame excuse to get numbers in and build a huge mega church. After all, the more people they can get to join their church the more powerful they will become in the Christian world as well as their community and nation. These false teachers say you shouldn’t be controversial and avoid rocking the boat. Well Jesus and John the Baptist was certainly controversial and rocked plenty of boats in their day! They didn’t care what the status quo said or what the leaders thought either, as they were concerned about winning souls into heaven and getting them off of that Hellbound train more than anything else. If modern day church leaders were truly concerned about souls, they would preach the truth of God’s Word and call sin for what it is, SIN, and they would not be concerned more about how large can I grow my church over how many people can I rescue from Hell today?
As my friend Tracey Lord Smith from
Amen!
“Ah yes, truth. Funny how everyone is always asking for it but when they get it they don’t believe it because it’s not the truth they want to hear.” ~Helena Cassadine
©Johnny Lee Clary International
