Naming Names

Moore's Corner Church

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Hello and thank you for listening to the testing the spirits podcast the title of this episode is naming names or Calling out false teachers by name our pastors allowed to do this

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Yeah, because people in the Bible did it Jesus did it He called out

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King Herod by name and he called him a fox and that wasn't a compliment The Apostle John called out diatrophies in the epistle of third

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John and basically said what he was doing Was evil the Old Testament prophets they?

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Confronted Kings sometimes to their face and we'll see in a moment the Apostle Paul He called out a whole bunch of people by name

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So then where did this idea come from that you can never name? Names.

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Well, it's basically a man -made doctrine. It's a tradition of men. Somebody came up with it

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I don't know who but I'm reminded of the statement of Jesus How the Pharisees would teach the commandments of men and they would hold to these man -made ideas these man -made doctrines

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Many of which contradicted the Word of God and I think that's what we have here Someone somewhere came up with this idea.

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I Like to call it the 11th commandment, you know, thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow

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Christian or a fellow minister. Well, I mean that would be fine if they are a faithful Christian if they're a faithful minister, but we can call out false teachers even the

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Apostle Paul Confronted Peter and Peter wasn't a false teacher, but he was in sin this idea that you can never

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Say anything you can never confront anyone. You can never name names. You can never do any of that.

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That's not polite. That's not nice This is just all of this. It's totally Unbiblical and yet I've heard this many times in person online people say this in the

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YouTube comment section and then if you disobey this fake 11th commandment and You do call out a false teacher like Benny Hinn or Catherine Crick Even when it's a clear false teacher like they are then you get accused.

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It's your fault of causing division No wrong. It's the opposite. It's the false teacher who is causing the division

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That's why they're called wolves and sheep's clothing. They pretend to be Christian ministers They creep in and then they devour the flock by teaching heresy or false doctrine the

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Apostle Paul said in Acts 20 29 and 30 For I know this that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock

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Also from among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves

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Then in Romans 16, this is to me This is the passage about you know marking and avoiding and in order to mark someone you have to identify them

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Romans 16 17 and 18 Paul says now I urge you brethren Note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them

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For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly

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That is their own desires and by smooth words and flattering speech They deceive the hearts of the simple so Paul says to note them or to mark them

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How do you mark someone? Well, you must specifically identify them and then you sound the alarm and you warn others

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So this is the clear teaching of Scripture and we have so many biblical examples to point to But if you don't want to take my word for it, let me show you this clip from apologist

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Frank Turek Listen, how many times have you heard this? We're not supposed to name anybody.

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That's a false teacher, right? That would be unkind Except Paul does it all the time right in the

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Bible in fact Look here. This is in 1st and 2nd

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Timothy some passages where Paul is warning The people reading his letter

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That these people are false teachers By rejecting this faith and a good conscience.

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Some have made a shipwreck of their faith among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander 1st

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Timothy 1 he mentions him then in 2nd Timothy 1 He says you are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me among them are

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Phi Julius and Hermogenes. So now he's named what four people already.

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He's not done Their talk was spread like gangrene among them are

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Hymenaeus. He must be really bad. He's getting he's getting a second mention and Philetus.

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All right 2nd Timothy 2 How about in 2nd Timothy for his last chapter Demas in love with this present world has deserted me

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So here Paul named six people one guy he names twice as being a false teacher

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So that was apologist Frank Turek and by the way I realized when I post clips of other teachers sometimes people assume that well

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You're just affirming everything this guy's ever said. I think he's from what I've seen. He's pretty dependable and We wouldn't agree on everything, but he's right

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He's right about this and then Frank Turek goes on to tell the story about a pastor who named names

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He called out some of the word -faith hypercharismatics like Kenneth Copeland and He did this in a sermon this other pastor.

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He's telling the story about him And he called out this pastor called out Kenneth Copeland Kenneth Hagan and then during the week

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He got complaints about his sermon and people in the congregation Emailed him and said don't name names

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Stop naming names. Just preach Jesus. Just preach the gospel and that's

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Funny, it struck me funny because I've actually been told that I was given the same advice, but then

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Frank Turek talks about how this pastor responded from the pulpit to these emails the following Sunday and He said to the congregation he said what if I told you that a staff member here at this church was exposing young people to drugs and Pornography, what would be your first question?

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You would want to know who who's the staff member? What is his name? But then what if I said, oh, no,

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I can't name names. I'm just gonna preach Jesus. Well You would be furious if I did that and for good reason

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Listen folks, even the secular world can figure this out when a criminal is on the loose someone breaks out of prison

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You know, they put out an announcement who he is what he's done what he looks like they put his picture on TV They warn people of the danger.

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So if even Lost people have the sense to do this somehow Christians and the church were were not allowed to do that We're supposed to allow

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Televangelists and false teachers to scam the poor the sick and the desperate We're just supposed to allow people to preach soul damning heresy

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Allowing wolves to devour the sheep, but hey, we just need to be polite and we're not allowed to say anything

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Really and then when a shepherd does try and protect his flock what happens?

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Well, then he gets accused of being the bad guy. So listen to this next clip now notice

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The phrase ology here. He says watch out for those who cause

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Divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned

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Now who is causing divisions? It's not the people who cause who call out false teachers

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It's the false teachers themselves, they're the ones causing divisions It's not the people adhering to the teachings of the

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Bible. It's the false teachers who are causing the divisions Those are the people that need to be called out

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So if you're calling out false teachers, it's not you Who is?

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Causing divisions. It's not you that's destroying unity according to Paul It's the false teachers who are causing divisions

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Okay. So again, that's apologist Frank Turek And the reason why I wanted to show you the clips of him saying it is just so that you hear it from someone else

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Because here's the problem and this isn't much of a problem online or on YouTube Because there's a lot of people sounding the alarm online, but this is a problem

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Locally in a local church setting in a local setting it is very rare To find pastors who are willing to name names and to call out false teachers

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Even just Christians in general if you are the only one doing this It's easy for other people to try to paint you as the bad guy

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This is why we need more people speaking up. That's the point Now I will say this

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If you're going to speak up if you're going to call out false teachers and if you're gonna name names

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You need to know what you're talking about So I would caution people if you're a new believer and you've only been saved for like two weeks

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Okay, you probably shouldn't be doing this. So we need to know what we're talking about. This is a

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Responsibility because one of the common complaints about discernment and naming names

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People will say You know people who do that they'll say they're just sowing seeds of discord. Well, I did a whole podcast about that.

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So Check that out. But the other accusation is that people Will say okay if you're calling out false teachers if you're naming names

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You know people who do that are just guilty of gossip and slander. I'm sure

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You've heard this well in order for it to be slander It actually has to be false has to be not true

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That's why I don't say anything unless I hear the false teacher Teaching this in his or her own words.

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I've never on my podcast just repeated things That other people have told me things i've heard through the grapevine.

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I Wouldn't do that. That would be reckless and irresponsible So slander is a problem

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But slander in order for it to be slander. It has to be false Now as for gossip, this is the definition of gossip casual or unconstrained

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Conversation or reports about other people typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true

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So yeah, if someone is just gossiping about others that would be

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Divisive, but clearly that's not what the apostle paul is doing paul was not gossiping about hymenaeus and philetus

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He was not slandering Alexander the coppersmith these were people Who were doing wrong?

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and some of them were teaching heresy and paul is trying to Protect the flock while marking and avoiding

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These corrupt men so what paul was doing Was totally legitimate

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There were people on the other hand slandering the apostle paul So ironically if a pastor

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Gives a legitimate warning about a false teacher and people accuse him of slander

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That accusation is actually what's false and ironically, they're the ones doing the slandering but you know

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That's how the devil operates. He just flips everything upside down So in starting to wrap this up you know

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I could spend half the day talking about all of the passages in the bible all of the verses that tell us to You know test the spirits test all things mark and avoid, you know avoid those who cause division

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Jude the half -brother of jesus said this He said I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith

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Which was once for all delivered to the saints for certain men have crept in unnoticed

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So we can just ask ourselves. Am I am I earnestly contending for the faith?

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Am I willing to fight for the faith? That's what jude is saying I mean at the very least the shepherds need to be doing this in john chapter.

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I think it's john chapter 10 jesus talks about the pastor the shepherd

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He's the good shepherd. He's going to lay down his life for the sheep But the hireling when he sees the wolves he runs he flees because he doesn't love the sheep

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So a pastor who's not willing to fight off the wolves. He's not a real shepherd He's a hireling so in this

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Ecumenical age of lukewarmness people just don't have the stomach for this anymore They don't want to put themselves at risk.

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They don't want to You know They don't want to run the risk of oh if I say this if I name names

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I might offend someone then someone might get mad at me Then I might catch grief and I just don't want to deal with that.

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I just want to preach peace and love and Build people up and we do need to build people up But we also need to do the other things like test the spirits and protect the flock.

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So one last thing Someone might say hey, you're a local church pastor

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Just focus on your church and don't worry about all this other stuff going on out there

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One guy actually said this Just you know, i'm just going to focus on my local church and i'm just going to ignore

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Everything else. Well, you know what if we were living in 1825 instead of 2025

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Yeah, I might take that advice But we're not uh, we have these things called tv radio internet

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So the people in our churches they are being exposed to All this other stuff they're being exposed to people like john pavlovich and preston sprinkle and the lgbt

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Agenda, there's a new trend of christian ministers who went through deconstruction and yet they're in the pulpit men

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Like gavin ortlund and andy stanley and then you have the woke crowd from tgc

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Gospel coalition, of course, all these people are woke but you have gospel coalition authors men like paul trip

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Who said that and I know sound churches what would be considered sound churches and yet they're promoting these people

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Paul trip who said he didn't have the full gospel Until he understood the need for social justice

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And now he's putting out videos where he's saying he wants more lgbt people in the church my friends

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Evangelicals were not talking like this Just 25 years ago. So what happened?

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Well, it's like jude says certain men have crept in unnoticed

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And the logical question should be What men like if a pastor's preaching from jude?

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And he brings up this verse the application at the end people should be asking. Okay, certain men have crept in on notice

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Who are they? Who are these men? What men are you talking about? So in conclusion? Whether you like it or not

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The modern church is in a state of crisis and the only way we're going to fix it Is if we do

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What the bible says first john chapter 4 verse 1 tells us to what? test

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The spirits why because many false prophets have gone out Into the world so we need to test the spirits and yes, we need to name