To the casual or immature discerners who say “just eat the meat and spit out the bones”… I ask you this:
If you are a parent, even if you’re not, picture your sweet baby in his high chair. You are preparing food for him and place it in his plastic bowl in front of him with his little spoon. In the bowl is a hunk of meat along with its bones. You tell the toddler to eat the meat and just spit out the bones.
Is this a safe way for your baby to consume food?
It’s a hypothetical question. We all know it’s not safe to serve a baby meat with bones and just tell the child to spit out the bones. This illustration was designed to highlight one fatal flaw: PRIDE. We think we are smarter than we are.
How do I know this? Because we all are babies. We are little children, stumbling along like helpless sheep, trying to do our best to serve God. How many times in the Bible are WE called sheep (which are stupid animals), or babes? We are naïve and vulnerable to the world, to our sin, and to the devil. We need God’s strong word as a fortress, a haven, a sheepfold with Him as guide to get us safely through this life and across the Jordan to eternity.
We think we ‘can handle’ this or that. But we can’t. We are as ignorant and helpless as a baby in a high chair when served what the world has to offer and when served what the church has to offer. We must stay closely in the word of God, lest we be deceived. We are often not smart enough to be bone detectors.
Always test whatever lessons we receive with the word of God, and
Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. 6In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight. 7Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the LORD and turn away from evil. (Proverbs 3:5-7).
Has anyone else noticed that in spite of more people waking up to deception and warning others, deception continues to spread like a lit match in a haystack?
Amy Spreeman
Yes. I have noticed. Sometimes the deception in both the world and in Christianity, or the current version of it, seems like a wave I cannot withstand.
The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Note the people in the boats.
Sometimes it seems like deception is clawing the faithful in a great wave threatening to drown the truth. Of course, the truth will never be drowned. God is powerful to preserve and grow his church. It shall never be overcome. (Matthew 16:18).
It is still hard to stand at the shore and see people claiming to love Jesus but dragged away from Him in deception. I deal with discernment in this ministry (as well as encouragement, exhortation, and natural theology.) Researching and writing about Discernment can turn a person crabby and bitter, or lead them into despair. UNLESS the person, unless I, stay focused on Jesus.
I need to ask Jesus for some strength. I spoke to Jesus about this as I was making my bed and straightening up. It was an out loud prayer. (No, He did not answer back…not audibly anyway. Read to end.) I was saying that discernment takes a toll, but it is worth it when some, even one, comes to the truth without the pollution of deception. It is worth walking through the haze of anger and outrage for even one to be delivered from a false doctrine. Lord, I know it may not be your will to encourage me or show me, I said, but if possible, I could use some encouragement right now.
I thought of the starfish story. Yes, even one.
I’m sure you have heard the starfish story. Here it is from Joel Barker. The story has gone through several iterations since the 1969 Loren Eiseley original.
Once upon a time, there was a wise man, much like Eiseley himself, who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself to think of someone who would dance to the day. So he began to walk faster to catch up. As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man and the young man wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching down to the shore, picking up something and very gently throwing it into the ocean.
As he got closer, he called out, “Good morning! What are you doing?” The young man paused, looked up and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean.”
“I guess I should have asked, Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?”
“The sun is up and the tide is going out. And if I don’t throw them in they’ll die.”
“But young man, don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it. You can’t possibly make a difference!”
The young man listened politely. Then bent down, picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea, past the breaking waves. “It made a difference for that one!”
The next day, a woman messaged me. She said she was relieved and happy that someone was calling out Lori Alexander. She said that Lori’s ungodly advice had put a burden on her, and as a result she had increasingly felt defeated and hopeless. That Lori’s approach was definitely not one of caring or compassion. This lady was thankful for the essay I wrote that pushed her firmly toward confirming her earlier discernment of Lori’s legalism.
Well.
I want to help ALL the starfish. I can’t. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, I made a difference to THIS one. Thank you, Lord for answering my plea.
People accuse Christians of having “blind faith.” They charge Christians of being “dumb” or a “robot”.
This is not so. The Bible is evidential. Evidential is an adjective that means serving as evidence. From Vocabulary.com, we read, “Often used as a legal term, evidential is sometimes paired with the words “proof,” “burden,” or “hearing.””
The Bible has many external and internal proofs that the information contained in it is reliable. Believers know that it’s reliable because it’s from God, who is perfect. It’s the revealing of Himself to humanity, and everything He does is good, therefore the Bible is good.
However, unsaved people are blind to the glories of God. They cannot please God. Their mind is clouded with sin and their foolish hearts are darkened. So they do not believe the Bible as credible, true, or good.
Yet sometimes, a person gets curious about the Bible. They want to know, logically, why so many people find the Bible fascinating. They want to know if it is true, or the things in it are trustworthy. They investigate.
Pause that thought for a minute…
I am a writer, I always have been since I was able to write. I love language…words…phrases. How they sound, their origins, choosing words for my blog writing. It’s fun. I spend a lot of time with words.
When someone posts something on social media, I look at what they wrote, and I comment on it. Recently a woman took issue with something I replied to on a person’s large ministry page. She said I didn’t have the whole context, I didn’t know the story, I didn’t know the person’s heart, all that. Sure, I agree, more context is better than less context, but the point of social media is that someone writes something and publishes it for the world to see, and people in the world who read it, reply based on what they read.
What we respond to are the words the person chose in their published piece. What they put in, and what they leave out. The words they pick, the language the chose, gives insight into a person’s mind.
Here is a Cold Case Detective explaining his profession’s approach to forensic language. His name is J. Warner Wallace. He was unsaved but curious. He was interested in the Bible as an evidential document. It is a true cold case. I bought his book “Forensic Faith” and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Wallace said: “Detectives will have the perpetrator write down everything they did on the day of the murder from the time they woke up to the time they went to bed. I will analyze that looking for deception indicators, how they compress time, how they expand time, how they use pronouns, how they use tenses and verbs. I’m looking for adjectives and adverbs. These are really important. Optional words are really important.”
His story is that he examined the Bible using the same forensic methods he uses in his profession in solving cold cases. He found the Bible to be truly trustworthy. As a side note and a praise, he was saved shortly after that, and is now an apologist for Christ in the faith.
So while we can’t determine everything about a person from reading their words on a screen or on a paper, we can conclude some things. We might not be a cold case forensic detective, but we do have the mind of Christ and our mental faculties can detect word patterns.
Pay attention to the words they use and the words they don’t use. That second one is harder, I agree. Omissions are hard to spot. Oftentimes it takes a pattern of omission to detect something is off. Take Joel Osteen for example. He never uses the words ‘sin’, ‘repent’, or even ‘Jesus’. He will say broken, or messy, or God, but he doesn’t choose the Bible’s power words that convict a soul.
Beth Moore rarely uses the word repent in her speeches or her writing. Oh, she’ll speak or write a verse that has the word repent in it, but she rarely directly calls for repentance from sin. To my knowledge, and I checked this to the best of my ability a year or so ago, she has never taught either in person or a published Bible study, on 1 Timothy. Hmmm. That’s the Bible book that forbids women to teach men or hold authority over them.
Some people have occasionally made remarks on what I’ve written based on a conclusion they’ve come to, and after examining their statement, I’ve found them to be right. I didn’t even know I was revealing myself but they concluded something about me based on the words I use, the topics I write on.
So watch for a pattern of omission, while you are watching for the words they choose to use. Does the Bible teacher use important words like hell, death, wrath, repent, sin, Jesus. Do they overuse words like grace, mercy, forgiveness, without a balance of the other words?
And that is the point. When a person gives a sermon or writes something on social media or on paper, they are choosing words. Words and phrases are important. It is a glimpse of what is in their mind and heart. (Matthew 12:34; Luke 6:45).
False teachers creep into the church almost unnoticed. They hide their true faith, which is faith in themselves, propelled by satan and satanic desires. In other words, they oppose God in every way. They aren’t believers, but God knows this and has already marked them out for condemnation.
They think that if they adopt the right outer garments, speak the right things, adopt the right behavior and perform the right postures, they will blend in. Some do, for a while. But sin always reveals itself eventually. Either their false doctrine or their sinful lifestyle will expose them to the discerning believer. The inner becomes outer.
They think they blend in, but God has stationed discerning faithful at his watchtowers of His churches. We can spot them. This is what they look like to us. Their faces betray the twisted inner self of their nasty soul.
AI generated
Nathaniel Jolly has written an essay for G3 Ministries about the danger false teachers pose. I urge you to go to the link below and read the piece in its entirety. He goes through the book of Jude and explains the five metaphors Jude uses to illustrate the danger of false teachers. And they are dangerous.
These false teachers are hidden reefs, clouds without water, autumn trees without fruit, waves of sea foam, wandering stars.
Their aim is to corrupt your soul. If you are not a genuine believer yet, their goal is to draw you away. If you are a genuine believer, you cannot lose your salvation, but you can lose time in producing fruit for the glory of the Lord. You can be swayed from the center line of the doctrines, and minimized in your effectiveness for His church during the time you followed such and such false teacher.
Therefore, false teachers pose a very real danger to you and your local church. Many safety officers advise being situationally aware:
situation awareness conscious knowledge of the immediate environment and the events that are occurring in it. Situation awareness involves perception of the elements in the environment, comprehension of what they mean and how they relate to one another, and projection of their future states. In ergonomics, for example, it refers to the operator’s awareness of the current status and the anticipated future status of a system,” According to the American Psychological Association.
In all the definitions I read, the ultimate goal of good situational awareness is so that the person can make good decisions. You gather intel from all the situations around you on a constant basis, being aware of locations, events, atmospheres. After collecting those elements, make your decision. It’s sometimes not even a conscious process, but it always an ongoing one. Or should be. In the case of the Christian in church, first we test all things, (1 Thessalonians 5:21), so that we can make good decisions. We collect information on teachings, hymns, concepts, of whatever comes across our path in church or out that has the name of Jesus attached to it. Then we make our decisions whether to follow that teacher, sing that hymn, watch that show. We decide whether to raise an alarm with elders, share with the spouse, or protect the kids.
As always when I speak of discernment, be vigilant. Be sober. (1 Peter 5:8). And read Nathaniel’s article! 🙂
A couple of days ago, Allie Beth Stuckey spoke a good word summarizing her Episode 749 of podcast Relatable. She said the overt demonic visuals of the recent Grammy Awards dance (let the reader understand) is dangerous, but more dangerous is the soft teaching of women like Jen Hatmaker or Glennon Doyle. Listen to her teaser summary here or the whole episode here.
This week also, Amy Spreeman & Michelle Lesley at A Word Fitly Spoken in their recent February 8 segment called The Pew, warned against Jennie Allen and her organization called IF:Gathering.
This reminds me that I’ve done several essays about these women and what they teach. I always forget to unearth my previous blogs for your consideration. I should circulate them more. So with that in mind, I thought this might be a good time to unearth them and present them to you in conjunction with good reminders from Allie Beth, Amy, and Michelle.
Do listen to Allie Beth’s explanation of why teaching like Hatmaker’s or Doyle’s is so dangerous. Are we not warned in the very third chapter of the holy Word that satan is subtle? That he is crafty? In the 4th chapter of the Bible are we not warned that sin is crouching at the door waiting to have you?
Use all your mental faculties to read the word, understand the word, meditate on the word and apply the word. This is training in discernment and it is necessary to keep from stumbling. Hebrews 5:4 tells us this-
But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil.
Discernment doesn’t happen overnight, it takes training to develop it and constant application to hone it. We need to be careful who we follow and whose teachings we absorb. Our sinful flesh likes to heap up teachers whose sinful teachings match our own desires. A false teacher’s doctrine will be subtle and it does ensnare us, but only because we like what they’re selling within our own sinful desires.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, (2 Timothy 4:3).
I wrote about Glennon Doyle in 2014, warning about her, and concerned she had gained a massive following.
These may be worth your while to read as well. I wrote them before I was doing a podcast, so it doesn’t have a ‘listen button’, but I will try to record them over this weekend and add one.
I do many types of essays, from natural history to encouragement to doctrinal to discernment. There are two things that get me riled up in discernment. One is how ‘Christian’ celebrity moms have presented a feminist lifestyle under sinful cover of ‘doing ministry’ and have distorted true biblical motherhood (see above essays). The other that upsets me is ‘Christian’ Bible teachers who claim to have had direct revelation. See this essay:
Well I hope any of these essays help you. As always, if you have questions, comments, or concerns, make a comment below or shoot me a message or email. Thanks for reading and listening!
Thank you to the newcomers to the blog! A new year brings lists, and if I’m on a list then people come over here and check the blog out. For that, I thank you for taking the time. Here is some information about The End Time and its Administrator and sole author: Elizabeth Prata (me!)
The end of the year often comes with reflection, and lists, and resolutions. It’s human nature to ponder. We like stark demarcations like borders, end of year reflections, anniversaries, things that help us say ‘this is this and that is that’.
Growing up, I never had much exposure to church. We were Methodist for a while, then Unitarian. Then nothing. Church education and attendance was spotty at best. My parents shall we say, did not practice godly living. (It was the 60s and 70s after all).
I was saved later in life at about age 43. I don’t have an exact date but a time frame, sometime in December 2003/January 2004.
Being a loner and having no understanding of what the Church is all about, for 18 months or so, I resisted attending church (even though deep down I knew I should).
I thought that watching Joel Osteen on TV every week was good enough.
Now that I was in Christendom, I thought that I was finally ‘safe’ and nothing bad would ever happen again. I was wrong! Christianity is full of strife and trouble, (but so worth it!)
When I finally got a Bible and compared Osteen’s words to it, by the Spirit’s grace, I knew that this kind of worship wasn’t proper.
I felt gypped, lied, to and upset at the notion that a pastor could be false and waste my spiritual time by hindering my walk, but I soon learned this is more frequent in Christendom than people think. But the Romans 8:28 ‘good’ that came out was that the feeling of loss and worthless worship at experiencing a false teacher now propels me into discernment. It is my desire that this does not happen to anyone else.
My first series I listened to under John MacArthur, whom I found as another graceful doing of the Spirit, was “Battle for the Beginning“. I love beginnings and endings, that’s why Genesis and Revelation are my favorite books of the Bible.
I am a faithful member of a Reformed church led by 4 elders who preach verse-by-verse with occasional topical short series.
I enjoy taking classes through The Masters’ Seminary Institute for Church Leadership (ICL), and through Ligonier Connect. ICL offers classes to individuals. You do not need to apply through the seminary, but the courses are offered by the same men. They are not expensive, and several times a year they offer one for free or half price. They also offer certificate tracks. At ICL, I’ve especially enjoyed Brad Klassen’s course on Prayer so much, and at Ligonier, Derek Thomas’ course on Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.
I’ve kept this blog for 14 years (as of this January 9), with a blog published every day, sometimes two blogs in a day. I’ve written over 6,000 blogs with few repeats (thanks to the sustaining of the Holy Spirit).
My early years on the blog was full of breathless newspaper eisegesis, but I make no apology, because finally I was beginning to have answers to questions that plagued me so! With a sudden change in worldview, now, everything made sense! I’ll never forget that euphoria at having the big questions settled. Why are people so evil? Why is Israel always hated? Why are there earthquakes and other disasters? My worldview had shifted rapidly and I blogged in order to sort it all out. Shifting from a secular world view to a biblical one gave me answers and I was thrilled! Thankfully that focus died down and I began writing about doctrine more.
I was raised in the north and was unfamiliar with Southern Gospel music but once I heard it I loved it! I especially love Southern Gospel quartets.
My heart is for discernment, that women would think critically and biblically about their savior and their walk. It’s also for missions, and being a good student of the word, and encouraging women to live a lifestyle that exalts Jesus, no matter what stage of life they are in.
Speaking of lifestyle, I was divorced prior to salvation and have been single ever since. My idols prior to salvation were marriage and husband, but being unsaved I didn’t enter into it for the right reasons or manage it properly, since, of course, it was an idol and not part of Godly living. After conversion the Lord gave me a contentment in singleness, and I use the time and space He affords me to continue this writing ministry. (1 Corinthians 7:34).
I recently had a birthday, turning 62- officially entering a retirement age/stage of life. Let me tell you, life IS a vapor! More on that in another blog essay.
I am grateful for every reader who comes to The End Time blog. Why ‘the end time’? Because we are IN the end of time, the time between Jesus’ ascension and return. Time is short. You are never closer to your eternal destination than you are each day that passes. Make the most of the time He has given us.
Knowledge that all this will come to an end suddenly and unexpectedly should give us a fervor for right living, for proclaiming His gospel, and for speaking His excellencies wherever and whenever we can. This is my goal, and Lord willing, I’ll keep doing it in 2023.
A clip of former pastor of Saddleback Church Rick Warren made the rounds on Twitter the other day. It was Warren on camera explaining to an off-camera person Warren’s philosophy of ministry. He led the cameraman through his massive library to what he called his “Bucket of Ministry” containing tools and implements. Warren said when people ask him ‘What does a minister do?’ he refers them to his bucket. The staff represents he is a shepherd, the fruit picker reminds him that people grow fruit in their lives, the pitchfork stands for a minister’s cultivation of people, the sword stands for battle; and so on. He lifted the shovel last and said:
EPrata transcription of Warren’s statement, applied to screen shot of video
Despite having in his Bucket of Ministry a staff, a pitchfork, a sickle, a fruit picker, a fishing rod, a sword, and a tennis racket representing all the different aspects of a pastor’s work, Warren focused on the shovel as the tool representing 90% of his work. And saying straight to the camera without any sense of embarrassment, that the shovel represents his own people’s issues and concerns as excrement.
I thought this was a devastating moment, revealing the heart of this man who is in fact a wolf. Many times, people don’t accept that this man or that woman is a wolf, because they envision the wolf as an ugly, snarling, drooling, feral animal, which it is. But the wolf doesn’t appear as that, he appears as a nice, helpful, kind, soft spoken sheep. The two don’t jibe with the person’s view so they discount the wolf aspect because all they see is smiles and seeming helpfulness. But the mouth reveals all things, which pour from the heart. (Luke 6:45). We must listen, and look deeper when assessing a person claiming to be Christian, especially one who teaches.
I think not enough people understand this is an urgent verse:
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16).
As for Pastor Rick as he is known, it would do him well in my opinion, to heed this verse:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21).
A true, godly, Spirit-raised shepherd is supposed to care for his flock, because the shepherd knows the Lord purchased his people with His own blood. His people are only temporarily given to the shepherd, they are in truth the Great High Priest’s people. Jesus as THE Great Shepherd did not consider his people’s concerns to be excrement. He healed the blind with compassion, He touched lepers, He counseled Martha in kindness, He gently spoke to Nicodemus, addressing his concerns and questions with love. Jesus did not put on one public face to His people, then retire to Capernaum for the night and complain about having to shovel their poop.
Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. (Acts 20:28).
If you have a good pastor, who crafts his own sermons, who shepherds his monies for the betterment of the kingdom and not to accumulate and boast, who loves you with a Gospel love, you have a good pastor. Pray for him.
HOWEVER, I trust little online these days. I always want to verify. Maybe the clip went on with him saying, ‘Just kidding!’ but it was cut off so as to manipulate our view of him. Maybe it wasn’t all it seemed, and his words were cut and edited somehow.
It looked like the same one. Warren was in his massive library leading an off-camera person through it, pausing to stop and explain certain objects.
I slid the slider back and forth looking for that part about the Bucket of Ministry and did not see it. Hmmm. Maybe it was edited out. I went back and asked the original tweeter where she got it from, but received no answer after
I decided to search further on my own. Here is what I discovered. Ultimately, I still did not discover the original video containing the context around he aforementioned clip, but I found a blog article about it from people I know to be resourceful. And here’s what else I found.
Google suppresses results.
The Chrome browser using Google to search for +”rick warren” +poop” results are zero. See screenshot below.
It yielded nothing. The interview was just 11 months ago, and I saw the clip of Warren saying it, so why are there NO results? I tried various search terms, but still nothing. Hmmm, let me search on Dissenter browser, which uses DuckDuckGo for its searches, not Google.
Immediately there was a result! It is an article on Disntr, It’s not affiliated with the browser named Dissenter, it’s simply a blog that used to be called Reformation Charlotte renamed Disntr.
So isn’t that interesting, NO results at all on Google but immediately a top result came up using DuckDuckGo.
I decided to google that. I asked Google “Does Google suppress results?” and I received lots of high-minded explanations from Google explaining sincerely that if there are too many results, they limit the number, or if there is potential for identity theft, they limit results. Sounds helpful, eh? Well not so much.
If you ask the same question on DuckDuckGo using Dissenter browser, you get an article at the top of the results from Business Insider, “Google reportedly manipulates search results to hide controversial subjects and favor big business.” With what we now know for certain about Twitter thanks to Elon Musk, its new CEO unveiling the dirty acts of the Twitter execs, then, yes, of course it stands to reason Google does the same.
Even searching using that exact title on google failed to lead me to the article. It was referenced here and there, but not the blog itself. Below is that article, and a reminder to my dear readers that Google is not the be-all or end-all of searching. As time progresses and the world hates Christianity more and more, hates anything even smacking of conservatism, this kind of thing will occur as a matter of course, until the day when even posting a simple Bible verse will be suppressed.
I named this blog The End Time because we are IN the time of the end. This means the prophecies about Jesus’ return could be fulfilled at any moment, His appearing during this long era has always been imminent. So with that truth in the forefront of our minds, we as believers should be about His business sharing the Gospel and glorifying Him daily and with fervor. Right now it’s easy and free to share edifying content. It may not always be so.
We know that Acts 17:11 tells us to compare what a teacher is teaching to the Bible. Paul was not offended when the Bereans did just that. Instead, he called them noble! The main way you can tell if a person is teaching rightly, is by comparing what they teach and how they behave, with the Word.
Ladies, here is another way to begin detecting if the person you follow as a Bible teacher is false or true-
I see many Beth Moore defenders defend Moore’s teaching with emotional words and familar nicknames, such as ‘Auntie Beth’, saying they “grow closer to Jesus” through her lessons, and state other warm fuzzy type defenses of her teaching. But HOW do we grow closer to Jesus? There is only one way.
Any Bible teacher, if teaching rightly, will extract from the Bible its truths, including truth about sin and our need for repentance – not just upon salvation, but every day. He or she will then teach those truths. You will know you are “growing closer to Jesus” if said teaching-
reveals unknown sin in your heart, or if you are convicted of your sins, or if you drive yourself back to the Bible to seek Jesus, or if your affections change from carnal to holy, or if you learn more about Jesus, or if you desire to pursue holiness, or if you want to treat others above yourself, or all of the above!
Those are a few ways you can tell if you are ACTUALLY growing closer to Him.
This will happen because the true Bible teacher will be extracting truth from the Bible, which is living and active. Its writ thus delivered to you will knit conviction of sin, self-denial, and love for Jesus for who He is (not how He makes you feel or what you can get from Him).
If a teacher is false,
you will feel good and warm and have fuzzies during and after the lessons. But you know full well that emotions are fickle. They evaporate. or when the buzz of the teaching dissipates, you still feel the same, or if your knowledge of Jesus is less but your knowledge of that teacher is more, or if your prayer life isn’t energized, or your conscience isn’t pricked toward repentance, or if your affections haven’t changed, or if you still pursue carnal things at the expense of your conscience, or if you’re in a rut and decide to grab ANOTHER ‘study’ from that teacher because you need to feel good again, and not because you want to know more of Jesus, or all of the above!
then that teacher is false.
Why is she called “Auntie Beth” by so many? She makes people feel good. They enjoy her funny and charming personal anecdotes that makes them feel close to her in some way, a connection. She makes them feel cared for- but a false teacher’s love is a false love and a carnal love. It’s a carnal love because its origin is fleshly, which includes overlooking sin, love of self, and pursuit of a different Jesus than the one the Bible presents.
As for the cutesy nickname the flat screen admirers give Beth Moore, just think on this. We don’t call a Charles Spurgeon ‘Uncle Charlie’ or John MacArthur “Daddy John” or Paul Washer “Paulie dear”. Why not? Not that nicknames and familiar terms for people we admire are necessarily bad. But these men have a dignity in teaching that comes from their devotion to and teaching of the holy Word of God. Likewise older women are supposed to have a dignity as well, (Titus 2:5) exhibiting deep knowledge of doctrine and living a lifestyle that results in inhibiting such over-familiarity and pet nicknames from people.
Amy Carmichael’s sickroom was called The Room of Peace. China Missionary Gladys Aylward was called The Virtuous One. Spurgeon was called The Prince of Preachers. They received respectful nicknames and not cutesy ones because these teachers were unashamed of the Gospel. Remember, most people who call Beth Moore “Auntie Beth” don’t even know her personally, but know only the persona Beth chooses to present through a screen.
These concepts I’ve outlined in this brief blog stand for any teacher, but especially celebrity teachers such as Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Christine Caine, etc. Technology’s constant presence and our ability to stream material at-will 24/7 means that we tend to think that our favorite celebrity teachers and preachers are closer to us than they really are. True Bible teachers have students who learn and grow in holiness.
“[T]he true prophet must preach what he believes to be the truth, uninfluenced by any considerations of what will please others or profit himself, and must accept no man’s conscience as a substitute for his own, and must be ready to go on a diet of bread and water for a testimony to his sincerity-above and beyond all these, he must have laid hold of the eternal principles of divine government, and whole truths, not half-truths, must be the basis of his preaching.“
Source of above quote: True and False Prophets in 1 Kings, Chap. 22, Author(s): Dean A. Walker, Source: The Biblical World, Oct., 1902, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 272-277
Peoples’ responses to calling out a false teacher often (depressingly often) involves a statement such as this:
“You don’t know their heart!”
God is sovereign. God knows the heart. But there are specific times that we do too.
If a teacher’s doctrine has been proven false by comparing it with the Bible, then we DO know their heart! The Bible tells us this. Only God knows the hearts of the people, but if their teaching is not of the Lord, then the God who sees hearts has exposed those hearts to us by the verses of His word!
Their hearts are full of deceit. Colossians 2:8 Their hearts are filled with their own appetites. Romans 16:17-18 For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Matthew 12:34 Their hearts are disguised with light. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 Their hearts are full of greed. 2 Peter 2:3 Their hearts are ravenous. Matthew 7:15. Their hearts are inwardly full of sensuality. Jude 1:4 Their hearts are full of secrets, such as destructive heresies. 2 Peter 2:1 Their hearts are full of intent to exploit. 2 Peter 2:3 Their hearts are full of fleshly passions. 2 Timothy 4:3 Their hearts are puffed up with conceit. 1 Timothy 6:4 Their heart understands nothing. 1 Timothy 6:4 Their hearts are cunning and crafty. Ephesians 4:14 Their hearts serve the creature. Romans 1:25 Their hearts are slaves of corruption. 2 Peter 2:19. Their hearts deny the Master who bought them. 2 Peter 2:1 Their hearts prophesy lies. Jeremiah 23:26
People undiscerningly reject discernment and accept false teachings, even after confirmation by Bible verse, by thinking that a person can utter blasphemies but still have “a good heart”. No. Do we think that a person can utter falsities or even blasphemies from a pure heart? No, of course not. Out of the heart the mouth speaks.
God does know the heart, that’s true, but He has shown us the heart of the false teacher in His word. He taught us this in His word for the purpose of being mature, discerning, and so we can learn for ourselves in truth and also teach the younger to be edified and strong.
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