BELIEVER BEWARE! FALSE PROPHETS!

Last year, I preached a verse-by-verse series through the epistles of Peter. In my study of 2^nd Peter, I was surprised that an entire third of the book—a whole chapter—is devoted to identifying the tactics of false teachers. In fact, if you do a survey of that chapter, you’ll find that Peter lists 22 attributes of these wolves-in-sheep’s clothing. It’s as if he is holding up a Most Wanted Poster saying, “This is what these guys look like, so watch out for them!”

The other day I was scrolling through my news feed when I saw a headline about one of these nefarious characters that Peter warned us about. The headline read, “Louisiana Televangelist Seeks Donations for $54M Private Jet.” Here is what the article reported:

“Jesse Duplantis, 68, a Christian minister based in Destrehan, about 25 miles east of New Orleans, says his ministry has paid cash for three private jets. “You know I’ve owned three different jets in my life and used them and used them and just burning them up for the Lord,” Duplantis says in a video posted to his ministries’ website. Duplantis is now reportedly seeking the funds for a Dassault Falcon 7X, worth $54 million. “I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey,” Duplantis says in the video, “He’d be in an airplane preaching the gospel all over the world.” Duplantis’ video comes after another televangelist, Kenneth Copeland in Texas, purchased the Gulfstream V jet for $36 million. Both televangelists defended their use of private jets during a joint appearance on Copeland’s program, saying that commercial airlines are filled with “a bunch of demons” that get in the way of their busy schedules.”[i]

I was simply at a loss for words. But, soon after reading this garbage my mind went back to what Peter said about the greedy desires of false teachers. In 2 Peter 2:3 he wrote, “3 And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.” He added a little later in 2:14-16, “They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15 Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16 but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.”

Look into the eyes of a false teacher and you will see dollar signs. To sharpen his point, Peter draws an example from the OT “Hall of Shame”—Balaam. We meet Balaam in Numbers 22-24 where he is commissioned by one of Israel’s ancient enemies, Balak the Moabite king, to curse God’s people as they wandered in the wilderness. Balaam had made a reputation for himself as a prophet for hire and Balak thought for the right price he could pay Balaam to cast a spell on Israel. Balaam took the king’s money, but God prevented him from cursing Israel by speaking through his donkey and rebuking the prophet.

While Balaam couldn’t curse Israel, what he did instead was tell Balak how to corrupt the Israelites by getting the Moabite women to seduce and intermarry with the Hebrews. This tactic worked for the Moabites because along with their seductions their women introduced their false gods, idolatry and pagan practices to the Israelites. In the end, God judged Israel for their sin and Balaam was struck down by the sword when Israel defeated the Midianites.           

Sadly, the spirit of Balaam is still alive today in many of the modern false prophets whose ministries are nothing more than elaborate facades for their money-making machines. 

The prosperity Gospel is a sickening virus that has reached pandemic levels in the church. It’s has infected the body of Christ and mutated the Gospel into a monstrosity. It has turned God the Father into a cosmic Santa Claus, Jesus into a genie who died to make our dreams come true and the Holy Spirit into the Jedi’s force. It is the greatest scourge of the modern church and those who give their money to these snake-oil salesmen have less sense than Balaam’s donkey.

Friends, this is why we need discernment, so we can sniff out these false prophets. We also need the courage to stand up for the truth of God’s Word and call out those who exist only to damage the Gospel and prey on the body of Christ. -DM       

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[i] Bradford Betz, “Louisiana Televangelist Seeks Donations for $54M Private Jet,” Fox News, 29 May 2018 <http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/05/29/louisiana-televangelist-seeks-donations-for-54m-private-jet-report.html>

Redemptive Analogies

In his book, The Name, Franklin Graham tells an intriguing story which was told to him by a missionary, Aileen Coleman, who worked for years among the Bedouins. Two boys, Abdul and Mohammed, were climbing the rocky terrain one day and wound up in a heated argument. A scuffle ensued and one of the boys, Mohammad, was pushed off a cliff and died—a victim of second degree murder.

In Bedouin society the principle of “an eye for an eye” still prevails. Knowing the punishment would be severe, Abdul ran into the tent of a tribal chief. The youth grabbed hold of a tent peg and screamed for mercy. The young man began to confess his crime and asked for protection. It is a Bedouin custom that if a fugitive grabs hold of a tent peg and pleads for protection from the owner of the tent, if the owner grants protection, he must lay down his life for the one on the run.

The sheik looked at the frantic young man and vowed, “I give you my protection, now go inside the tent." A few hours later some eyewitnesses showed up at the sheik’s tent, pleading for him to turn the boy over, “He’s a killer we saw the whole thing!” The old Bedouin stood his ground and said, “I cannot give the boy over. I have vowed my protection to him.”

“You don’t understand,” the pursuers said, “This fugitive killed your son.” They produced the body of the sheik’s son. The old man flinched as if a knife had pierced his heart. His eyes filled with tears. There was a long silence. The old man’s knees weakened. On the floor, Abdul closed his eyes and buried his face, awaiting the inevitable retaliation. Surely this was the end.

After several tense moments the sheik arose and said, “I am an old man. No amount of vengeance can bring back my son to life.” He pointed to Abdul cowering in fear and said, “Because this boy came to me in the right way, I will take him as my own son and raise him. He will live in my tent and will be my heir. All that I have will be his. He will bear my name.”

Franklin Graham wrote, “When I heard this story, chills rushed through me. This is a picture of what God has done for mankind through the death of One who bears the Name. Just as Abdul, eternal life or death for each of us depends on our finding protection, refuge and redemption through the shed blood of Jesus. As the Bible says, ‘Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”[1]  

That story was used by missionary Aileen Coleman to help the Bedouins better understand the ideas of mercy and justice as they relate to the Gospel. A story like that is an example of what missionary Don Richardson called “a redemptive analogy”—the idea that cultures have some story, ritual, or tradition that can be used to illustrate and apply the Gospel message.

The challenge of the missionary is to “connect-the-dots” for the people they are trying to reach with the Gospel by taking the story or custom they are familiar with and showing its link to Christ. These redemptive analogies hold the key to unlocking the Gospel for tribes and cultures who have never had any exposure to the stories of the Bible or the salvation message of Christ.

There are a couple of vivid examples of this same thing happening in the New Testament. When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 he turned this woman’s daily task of drawing water into a redemptive analogy. Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).

In Acts 17 when Paul ventured into the city of Athens he found that it was littered with idols. One of the monuments in the city was an idol to “an unknown God.” Sitting among the philosophers and intellectuals, Paul turned this into a transition to introduce Christ, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-23).     

As our culture grows more and more secular and the Gospel becomes more foreign to the unchurched, I feel that we are going to have to take a page from the missionary playbook in our evangelism. Modern America is not far from ancient Athens morally and spiritually. We need to keep our minds working and ask God for wisdom to see “the redemptive analogies” that lay imbedded in our culture. We must creatively communicate the Gospel to the lost in a way that will resonate with their heart so that they will see the heart of the Savior who died for them.

-DM

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[1] Franklin Graham, The Name (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2002), 9-11.

God Speaks Through Silence

           

            Recently, while researching bluebird houses on the internet I came across a peculiar article published in The Washington Post about how scientists in New Mexico have been studying the effects of noise pollution on birds. The article began by telling the story of one of these bluebirds in the study which had built her nest 75 yards from a natural gas compressor. As the weeks passed scientists noted that her stress hormone levels became skewed and her health deteriorated. In fact, her body broke down and her hatchlings couldn’t survive. When scientists later sampled her blood, they found the same physiological symptoms as humans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The article went on to describe the debilitating effects of noise pollution on nature and humans saying, “Noise causes all creatures to be in a state of constant arousal and hyper-vigilance. The result is a state of chronic fatigue and anxiety. No organism is capable of essentially running on turbo all the time.”[1]

            That bluebird story could be the “canary in the coal mine” warning us of a more serious problem in our hustle-and-bustle world. If noise pollution can be hazardous to our bodies, imagine what it does to our souls. We’re deluged daily with noise, distractions, technology and the clamor of our culture. In cities the sounds of jackhammers, car horns, and sirens are unending. At home our televisions, laptops, tablets and smartphones are constantly playing, chirping, beeping, blaring and pinging. Our world is blanketed by so much noise—loud, harsh and unsettling—that our souls are chronically distressed.

            That is exactly why the Scriptures place a premium on meeting God in silence. Psalm 62:5 says, “My soul waits silently for God alone, for my expectation is from him.” Habakkuk 2:20 says, “The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him.” In 1 Kings 19 the prophet Elijah was exhausted from fighting Queen Jezebel and the prophets of Baal. He sought refuge in the wilderness where he disconnected from the frontlines to learn what God had to say to him. The Bible says, “And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper” (verses 11-12). Elijah learned firsthand what Psalm 46:10 describes, “Be still and know that I am God.”

            In order to hear the voice of God, we must turn down the volume of the world. We cannot be in service for God, if we don’t slow down and in silence let God speak to us. Vance Havner wrote, “There is no work more likely to crowd out the quiet hour than the very work that draws its strength from the quiet hour.”[2] Remember, Jesus often retreated from sound and fury of ministry to pray and hear from His Father (Mark 1:35). If the Son of God needed that, then how much more do we? In the stillness of the night under a starry sky, in a hushed sanctuary, on a front porch rocking chair or by a babbling brook, with Bible in hand we can meet the living God and hear Him speak in the silence. -DM

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[1] Sarah Kaplan, Some Birds Are So Stressed by Noise Pollution It Looks Like They Have PTSD,” The Washington Post 9 January 2018 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/01/09/some-birds-are-so-stressed-by-noise-pollution-it-looks-like-they-have-ptsd/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.33266370eb5e>

[2] Dennis J. Hester, The Vance Havner Quote Book (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1986). 181.

The Reluctant Evangelist

Clayton King, the pastor of New Spring Church in SC, tells the story in one of his books about how he had been preaching at youth camp one week and at the end of the trip he became sick with the flu. He could not wait to get home because he felt so rotten. But as he was waiting in the airport terminal to board the plane he saw a young man in a blue sweatshirt and at that moment the Spirit spoke to Clayton, “I want you to talk to that man about Christ.”

Clayton resisted saying, “I made every excuse for why I could not witness to him. After all I was sick and didn’t want him to catch the flu.” Clayton said he got on the plane, took his seat, pulled his hat down over his head so he wouldn’t be bothered. But the Spirit wouldn’t stop badgering him. He said, “I made a bargain with God, ‘Alright Lord, I will witness to him if his seat is beside me on the plane.”

A few minutes passed, and Clayton said, “I felt someone plop down in the seat beside me. I opened one eye and peered out from under my baseball cap, only to see, you guessed it, the man in the blue sweatshirt. OK, God wins! I give up.”

                                                        Clayton King

Clayton said he struck up a conversation with the man and he asked, “So what do you do for a living?” “I’m a preacher,” Clayton replied. The man asked, “Wow! This is amazing. I’ve been looking for someone who understands the Bible and can tell me if there really is a heaven and hell and how I can be saved.”

Clayton explained the Gospel and asked the man if he wanted to receive Christ. To which he replied, “Heck yeah! This plane might crash and I might die. It would be a tragedy to come this close and then not get saved.” After they prayed, Clayton said, “We both started crying. He was crying because He’d just met Jesus and I was crying because I had been such an unwilling, ungrateful disciple that I didn’t deserve the privilege I had just enjoyed.”[1]   

Clayton’s story is so relatable because many of us at times are reluctant evangelists. We hem and haw around with God making excuses for why we can’t share Christ. Evangelism like so many other disciplines in the Christian life boils down to simple obedience.

The truth is that if we are keeping silent about Christ then we are being disobedient to the Great Commission. I often hear the excuse, “Evangelism isn’t my spiritual gift.” That sounds spiritual, but it’s a poor copout because evangelism isn’t a gift. It’s obedience. Here's how Paul explained it to Timothy, "As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." (2 Tim. 4:5).  

The Gospel is simply glorious and gloriously simple. You don’t need a seminary degree to explain the Good News. If you have trouble memorizing Scripture then you can never go wrong just telling them about what Jesus did for you. Tell them who you were before Christ, how you met Him, who you are now after Christ and how they can make the same decision by believing and receiving Christ. Think of it this way—if you’re a Christian, it’s because somebody told you how to be one. -DM

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[1] Clayton King, Journals of a Mad Man (Boiling Springs, NC: CJ King Designs, 2006), 42-46.