SNATCH THEM FROM THE FLAMES – DISCERNMENT SEMINAR, Session 1, “False Teachers” by Andrew Rappaport

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Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rapoport, and on this episode, you're going to get a little bit of a taste of our

Snatch Them From the Flames discernment conference. This is from Beulah Baptist Church down there in Winter Garden, Florida in the

Orlando area. This first session that we had is one of my sessions.

We're going to play throughout the year. The other sessions, next week we plan to play Justin Peters' session, but the first session that I had is the one that we're going to play for you today.

This will cover a very important topic of discernment.

On this episode, we're going to deal with the Book of Job. We're actually going to go through the entire

Book of Job, yes, the entire book in one hour. We're going to give you 28 different ways in the

Book of Job to identify false teachers. That's what's coming your way right now on the

Wrap Report. Welcome to the Wrap Report with your host,

Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity in the

Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, good evening. So I'm up first because I'm supposed to make sure you guys are all awake, okay?

I can tell you right now, you're not going to fall asleep. We do have a lot of material to go over. I've given you a hint, though.

All of my notes are actually in your little handout. So I only have a 28 -point outline.

We're going to go through the entire Book of Jude. Now, it only took me four months in church to preach this.

Don't worry. You've got time. Okay. Maybe not. I'll go quick. I am born and raised in New Jersey.

We learned how to talk very fast up there. I hope that's okay with all you guys. If not, because,

I mean, this is Florida. You're all New York and New Jersey, you know, transplants, correct? All right.

No? Well, I did live in Florida for a short period of time, kind of.

My parents moved down to Sarasota area, if you guys know that area south of Tampa.

I technically had a driver's license from Florida. I just never really lived here. I was in college.

But we want to go over, what we're trying to do in this seminar is this is to give discernment. And so this is not typically the way we end up.

We've kind of changed some things around. We usually start with dealing with what

Justin is going to deal with next hour on sufficiency of scripture. We then deal with on how to interpret scripture.

And then we spend two sessions. One session I'm going to do tonight and then a session Justin will do tomorrow that's going to be on discerning false teachers.

That's tomorrow. Identifying false teachers is tonight. Tomorrow you're also going to get from Dr.

Silvestro. He's known as Anthony. But we call him Dr. Silvestro because for some reason some pastors,

I don't know why, can't figure out the difference between Andrew and Anthony. No one here,

I'm sure, has ever done that. So Dr.

Silvestro tomorrow is going to deal with a topic that's very important especially for the church.

It's a topic maybe some of you have started to hear of called social justice or maybe you've heard of critical racism theory.

They call it critical race theory but I call it properly. But what you'll end up seeing is that that's actually an issue for the church.

The rest of culture is just catching on to what the church has been dealing with for several years now.

So what we're going to deal with in this session really quickly is to go through the entire book of Jude.

The book of Jude gives us an overview. Actually I'm going to give you 28 different ways of identifying false teachers.

There's a lot of false teachers out there. The number continues to grow. This is just a small picture of just some of them.

Maybe there's some faces you see in there and you recognize. But some of them we're going to mention by name.

So what you end up seeing is that there is a growing number of false teachers. And the problem is not enough people in churches know how to identify false teachers.

The problem is that most people don't realize that false teachers are very likable people.

They wouldn't be followed if they're not. So they're very charismatic people.

They're people that people want to follow. They say things that are just like, man, that's great the way that person said it.

And yet the reality is that we have to realize that these people are teaching false doctrines at times.

But there are identifiers. And that's what Jude gives us. Jude is first, if we look, we're going to end up reading through the book of Jude.

If you have your Bibles open, we're going to end up reading through the entire book. Let me start with Jude chapter 1, and I'm going to read down to verse 3 here.

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the

Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

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.

See, he wanted to write to them about the common salvation that we share, those of us in Christ.

Maybe you've had this experience where you travel. I had the privilege of traveling the world, and it doesn't matter where I go, when

I meet another person that is a born -again believer in Jesus Christ who has been converted from darkness to light, and we get together, there is a kindred spirit that we can enjoy.

Have you experienced that? And that's what Jude wanted. Jude wanted to talk about that. That's so refreshing, isn't it?

We get to talk about that kindred spirit we have because of what Christ has done for us.

But he couldn't. Instead, he has to write to them and warn them to contend for the faith.

Because that is important. And it's something that, unfortunately, in our culture, in our day and age, when you have the nerve to do what we're going to do this weekend, people will, and maybe some of you will, want to say, well, that's not loving.

That's not nice. We shouldn't name people. We shouldn't say that someone's wrong. Well, God did it in the

Bible over and over again. Anyone think highly of Cain? Anyone name their kids

Cain? Why not? Because the Bible says something about Cain, and no one wants to remember that, right?

God had no problem naming names. The thing is, when we name names, it has to be based on God's Word.

There's this false teaching that says that thou shalt not judge, because no one ever keeps reading.

Actually, here's a little hint for you. In John 7, 24, it commands us to judge.

And that's Jesus speaking. That's the red letters. Actually, I think the whole Bible's red letter, but that's just me.

But Jesus commanded us to judge. The issue is not should we judge, it's that we should judge with a righteous judgment.

And that's the issue. And so, what we want to do is give what God's Word says about how we should judge.

How do we identify a false teacher? Well, here's some of the things. Let's look at the first thing that we have. One of the things that we see is they, it says in verse 4 here, that they creep into the church unnoticed.

They do it stealthily. You know, this may be something you never thought of, but did you ever realize that nobody wakes up in the morning and says,

I think I want to be a heretic today. I'm going to be a false teacher. Nobody does that.

False teachers come about that gradually. Now I think some of it, I'll be honest with you,

I think some of where we see it is in, I hope there's no one that works for Christian publishers.

But in Christian publishing is where I think a lot of the false teaching is coming from because it sells.

False teaching sells. The truth doesn't. You want proof that false teaching sells? Just go and see how many people will go and watch or go to see, you know,

Joelstein. And then look in your solid churches and you go, what's going on here? Okay?

The reality is, is false teaching sells and a lot of the publishers, they just want to sell. And what you see is people that start to get a platform, what ends up happening?

You know, just curve a little off here, that's a little harder, too hard to say. I know this as an author, there's a reason

I self -publish because the publishers want to soften everything and change everything. And I want to say things the way that I want to say them.

And if it's hard for people, well, okay, maybe it's hard for people. The reality is that publishers always want to broaden it so it's acceptable to everybody.

And so you see people that they creep in unawares. They don't overcome, they don't start saying,

I'm looking to be a false teacher. What they end up doing is they want to, usually there are people who say they want to speak the truth.

But over time, either through relationships they have or through publishing or trying to build a platform, they start to just go a little off the edge here or off the edge there.

People that names you would know, Beth Moore, she used to be a conservative. Now she's hanging out with people that are word of faith.

Maybe you know Andy Stanley, who had a name that was known, his father's Charles Stanley, a well -known preacher, and yet now he denies the word of God.

Francis Chan, master's seminary graduate from John MacArthur Seminary, he now promotes unity with the

Roman Catholic Church. How do these people get there? And the reality is, is they do it stealthily and slowly.

And because people knew what they used to teach, we trust them and we don't look at what they're teaching today.

And that's the thing that ends up happening. But here's the thing to remember. None of these false teachers that you may think of, none of them caught

God by surprise. God knew that they would be a false teacher one day. These false teachers were those that Jude will say is long ago designated for condemnation.

It's a definite article in the Greek there. This is the designation for the condemnation.

They creep in unaware. A second thing that we see here is that they're ungodly.

This is, you'll see it in both verse four and verse 15. I'll read verse four. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for the condemnation.

Ungodly people, I'll stop there because we're going to get to the rest of that. These ungodly people, they do not seek the things of God.

They're selfish. They seek to please self. You can see this.

You see this not in the fact. You see some of these guys that drive the nice cars. That's okay to drive a nice car.

Justin Peters and I were in Philippines. There was a preacher, word of faith preacher out there, and there's this picture that he has with two

Lamborghinis. Now if you know anything about the Philippines, this is where people are not making anywhere near what we make.

The cost of living is far less. Here's a guy promoting it. He's got two Lamborghinis and he's saying that it's good to have money.

Is there anything wrong with owning a Lamborghini? Well, okay. I don't know. Maybe it was a gift.

Look, you can have people that, there are people who have expensive cars that could be for investments, but that wasn't what this guy's doing with it.

He's promoting, he likes his own, I'm going to give you a quote from him later, but he likes what money could give him.

He likes what can please himself. You see this with a lot of these guys. Many of these false teachers, what they do is because they're ungodly, they know that they don't want that to be out there.

What do they do? They keep an inside circle of people. You can't get to those people.

That's why it's always so funny when you criticize some of these people. They'll say, well, have you gone to them personally?

You can't. It was really funny because Justin and I kind of know how these things work.

So when we went to the Philippines, we knew we were going to be naming some Filipino pastors that are out there, if you can call them pastors.

And so what we did was we actually invited them all to get together before our event so that we can meet with them and tell them what we were about to say about them.

None of them wanted to meet with us. The irony is when their congregants said, well, have you gone to them personally? We said we tried.

They didn't want to meet. But what you end up seeing is that they do not generally work with or meet with or interact with the congregation as a whole.

They limit themselves to a few. Why? Because they're going to have an ungodly lifestyle.

Number three. Now, and I realize you're not going to remember all 28 points. That's why we gave it to you in your notes there, okay?

They pervert the grace of God into sensuality. Look at the rest of verse four there. They're ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality.

Now what you have here is the sensuality is an extreme form of immorality. That's what the idea of it in the

Greek. There's two major issues with false teachers that you end up seeing.

One is sensuality and one is authority. They love to control. The other thing that you'll often see is that you see sexual behavior, sexually deviant behavior with them.

I once had a couple that came to me and they were looking to get married. And in their dating, they asked this question, how far can we go before we go too far?

And I said, you already did in asking that question. You see, this is what false teachers want to do though.

They want to see how far can we get to the line? But once they become desensitized to one line, guess what?

They move the line, okay? And so they end up pushing the limits of sensuality.

Unfortunately, let me give you an example of one like this. If you're not aware, we could talk about this afterwards.

But one example of this that's come out recently is the name Ravi Zacharias. If you know anything about what has come out about him, this is a man who started off seemingly solid, but what's happened?

We end up seeing that he was perverted, perverted the grace of God, turning to women and saying, oh, let me talk about your spirituality and then use that to get you into his sexuality issues.

And so you end up seeing that they do that. Another one, number four. And I did tell you we were going to go through this quickly, and I told you

I speak quickly. So they deny Jesus Christ. You see this at the ending of verse four.

And deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. They deny God. Now you say, well, wait a minute.

But they're standing up there preaching God. They use God, they'll use even his word.

But the idea that you have here for deny is to disown or disregard, and that's what they do.

They have a disregard for God. You see this in their teachings and their practices, that they could teach something that's completely opposite to this very word, and they have no fear.

They give the Bible and God's word lip service. Even Joel Osteen starts every one of his services holding up the word of God.

That's about the only time the word of God's mentioned. But see, they give it lip service and then try to twist

God's word to deny the God they claim they speak for. Let me give you an example of this from Todd White.

Jesus was, and he said, no, he never, ever, ever, ever gave a license to his flesh to sin.

Guys, are you hearing me? When it comes to the miraculous, if you don't understand this, then you can't pray for the sick.

Why? Because that was Jesus. I'm not Jesus. No, Jesus never healed the sick as God.

Jesus healed the sick as a man in perfect relationship with God.

Jesus was here. The Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus, rested upon him, and my heart is healed.

And when Jesus healed the sick, it was God through Jesus, Jesus said several times. He said, you know, if you don't believe me through the things that I say, at least believe me through the works that I do.

For it's the Father who dwells in me that does the works. See all that twisting he does.

It makes it sound really good, doesn't he? He said, what did he do? He said God did not do the healing. A man did.

And then what does he do? He uses that to say that, oh, men like him could do this too. Yeah, they could do a little trick that maybe

Justin will show you later. You know, I think tomorrow where he does a little trick with, oh, look,

I can extend your foot a little. Right? The reality is, is that what you have is he's denying the very, he says, oh, you'll see get people do this.

They say I'm denying God's, that Jesus is God. Then he goes on to do exactly that. Right?

One of the things you see with false teachers is they're going to say, I don't say this. And then they go on to say exactly what they say they don't say.

It's amazing. You know, it's, it's, it's really kind of funny. You do this with politicians, right? You know,

I won't cut taxes. What's the first thing they're going to do? You know, they're going to, or I won't raise taxes. What's the first thing you're going to do?

Raise taxes. Right? So, so what you see is that here you end up seeing that they deny

Christ as God. They deny God. They have a disregard for him.

What is his emphasis that you heard? It's on the man. What did he end up doing? Lifting up man and doing what?

Lowering God. Okay. Number five, they do not believe God is capable of doing what he promised.

Verse five. Now I want to remind you that although I once, that you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved a people at a land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who do not believe.

So what you have here is he, this is going back and some of you may not be so familiar with the Old Testament.

You know, it's that book that we kind of dust off once in a while, you know, but in the Old Testament, well, who is it that saved

Egypt? Help me out. Who is it? Well, according to this passage, it's Jesus, right? In the

Old Testament, who does it say? It's God, right? So when Israel was told who saved them, it was

God who saved them. But it's interesting. It's interesting. Jude says, we all knew it was Jesus. Common knowledge.

He says that Jesus did it. Those who don't believe, that didn't believe, were the ones that were destroyed, is what he's saying here in verse five.

These Jewish people that didn't believe this. What you end up seeing is that they do not believe

God's capable of doing what he promised to do. God said that, you know, he was going to come one day.

What did the Jewish leaders at the time when Jesus walked on the earth do? They killed him. They didn't believe

God would really bring a Messiah. Jesus said he's coming back again. Sometimes I wonder how many churches really believe that, because a lot of churches aren't living like he's coming back anytime soon, right?

But there's people, what you see with these false teachers is they actually believe they're the ones, and you heard this with what we just saw in that video clip with Todd White.

They're the ones that are needed to do something. God can't do it without us. This is the way false teachers end up speaking.

They seek their own position of authority in verse six. Now what you end up having here, it says, and the angels who did not stay in their own position of authority, but left the proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.

So these are angels that didn't stay in the position that they were supposed to have, and instead tried to get a position they shouldn't have.

It's interesting, historically, what many people think this is a reference to, and this may stir some fun controversy.

Well, I know it will between Dr. Silvestro and I, so at least we know that controversy will be there. But if you go back to Genesis chapter six and the

Nephilim, the many people, I would be one, that would hold to the position that somehow

God allowed angels, we'd call them demons, to come to earth and somehow have relations with women.

Can we understand that? No, but that's what I think this is speaking of. There's several reasons I'm not going to get into here why

I believe to that, but if that is the case, what it shows is that the angels didn't want to hold to the authority that they had.

They wanted to be in a realm of authority they did not have. That's the example that he uses.

Now, why would I hold to that? Well, because Jude is using this and saying that it's common knowledge, and that is the

Jewish tradition, okay, of what had happened. And so this was common knowledge among the

Jewish people, and so I think that what you have here is he's arguing for the fact that what false teachers do is they don't like the authority that they have.

They want authority that's not their own. What kind of authority? Well, one of the ways you see the most obvious authority that they want is control over other people's lives.

I have seen men who will sit there and say they as a saying that because they're a pastor or a prophet or whatever, apostle, whatever title they want to give themselves, and they say they have the right to say who can marry within a church.

Knew of one man who would claim he's the only one that could tell you which job to choose.

That's an authority he doesn't have. One man, what he would do is he would talk with the wives about the intimacy within their marriage and explain what the wives should do.

That's not his role. That's overstepping his authority. That's a sign of a false teacher.

False teachers like to be in an authority position that they don't have a right to. Usually ends up leading to number seven.

They indulge in sexual immorality. You're going to see this one come up a couple of times. You've already seen this now at least twice, right?

Seems to be a common thing. But in verse seven, you end up seeing it goes just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulge in sexual immorality and perverse unnatural desires serve as an example of undergoing punishment of hellfire.

So you see two things here. One is they indulge in sexual immorality. Now Sodom and Gomorrah are used as the example.

Sodom and Gomorrah is the classic example of basically a city given over to homosexuality.

And quite frankly, Sodom and Gomorrah was judged for that by God. I think America owes

Sodom and Gomorrah an apology. The reality is what you end up seeing with these false teachers is they give themselves over to their sexual immorality so much that they go into all kinds of different deviant behaviors such that it's compared to what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which is deserving of an eternal condemnation.

That's not me saying it. That's what Jude wrote. So don't blame me. The term that refers here, that's used for homosexuality, it's an idea of a sexual immorality but it speaks specifically of homosexuality.

And so it's not out of character to use it that way in this text. And with the connection of Sodom and Gomorrah, it's fitting.

You end up seeing that there is, unfortunately, when you find out some of, when these things are revealed, if they are, and I think there's going to be a lot more we're going to hear about on Judgment Day with some of these false teachers that we're going to see a lot more deviant behavior than we ever knew of, but when we see some of the things, if you've read the report that came out with Ravi Zacharias, it's just devastating to read what he did to people.

And the reality is that didn't come in overnight, but it was the fact that, you know, and the way someone like that is allowed to do that is because he's got no accountability, okay?

Because they overstepped their authority, they don't have accountability. The other one that he mentions here is they pursue an unnatural desire.

This is, again, tied to the issue of homosexuality. Let me give you a well -known, if you can say preacher, on discussing this issue of homosexuality,

T .J. Jakes. A question coming in from a black person who found out about this whole community.

He said, do you think, also, the LGBT community and the black church can coexist? Absolutely. Let me push that question to him.

That's sort of the obvious answer. The church ain't turning away. How should the black church and the LGBT community coexist?

I think it's going to be diverse from church to church. Every church has a different opinion on it. Every gay person is different, and I think that to speak the church, the black church or any kind of church you want to call it, are all the same.

It's totally, totally not true. And all gay people are not the same. The types of relationships that are afforded are based on the types of people in each individual case.

LGBT teams are like some sorts of how to find a household worship that reflects what your views are and what you believe like anybody else.

And the church should have the right to have its own convictions and values. If you don't like those convictions and values and you totally disagree with it, don't try to change my house.

Move into your own. And establish that sort of thing. And find somebody who gets what you get about faith.

And trust me, I've talked to a lot of LGBT. They are not all the same. Oh, for sure. They're all different. They're all different.

But how do we imagine an evolutionist? Evolved and evolving.

Evolved and evolving. So he's evolved and he's evolving. How's he evolving? He's saying that the people that practice homosexuality, don't change your behavior.

Find a church that fits what you already believe. How about we correct that?

I mean, would you say that? Seriously, think about this. Would you say this with a murderer? Go find a church where everyone murders.

Where murdering is okay. How about adultery? Just go to a church where everyone commits adultery.

No, we would say we need to correct those and we'd call those people to repent. What does he do? Oh, go find a church that agrees with you.

Just don't try to change my house. We see another thing and Justin's going to speak on this next hour.

So, fortunately, I don't have to take a whole lot of time on this. But I'll give you some. They rely on their dreams.

What they end up doing is they put their dreams as a higher authority than this God's very word.

They look at their dreams and what you end up seeing is they all have a dream. It's amazing. Everybody has dreams and visions from God and none of them seem to agree.

It's an amazing thing. We have 66 books, over 1 ,500 years of writing, over 40 authors, all different walks of life, no contradictions.

Two people can't have the same dream and a vision. They can't even agree. In fact, we have some people that can't even agree with their own dream and vision.

Let's look at one example. Oh, I did it. Beth Moore. I'm in trouble. All right. Beth Moore, she had a dream of Curtis Chapman's daughter.

Curtis Chapman's daughter died. Mary died. So this is

Beth Moore talking about a dream. First off, she loves

Jesus Christ for what? For the dream. That's what she loves Jesus Christ for. Okay, I had to stop it here for a reason.

I just can't help myself. So you may not be aware of what's called microexpressions.

There's things we do when we lie. We don't even know we do it. You may be able to pick up on microexpressions.

You don't know why someone's lying, but you can tell they're lying. Here's a little thing for you. You guys are all going to now do this.

When someone's recalling a story and an actual event that happened, they have a tendency to look up and to the right.

Sorry, up and to the left. Sorry. They look up and to the left to recall a story. When you're making up a story, you have a tendency to look up and to the right.

Anyone want to take a guess which way she's looking? Yeah, okay. So right off the bat, I know she's making up a story.

It didn't actually happen. All right, let's listen to what she says. If there is a manifestation of God or the

Spirit, I'm still going to ask for it. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I will. I will. And most of the time, because you know what?

Some people are sacred, but the world's a page. And so, here's what I'll tell you. I'll tell you what we're going to do with you.

We're not going to do this with three of you. Let that sink in for a bit.

Some of you are just okay with God's word. That's not enough for her.

No, she wants a dream. What is it? She's wanting a dream. Notice how she belittles people who want to just hold to God's word.

This is a false teacher. They're going to focus more on a dream, and the dream is going to then do what?

They're going to use a dream to interpret this book. What becomes a higher authority when you do that? Yourself, your dream.

Notice how she makes more preeminent her dream over God's word.

But she goes on. Oop. All right, it didn't play.

Let's see if I can make it play. In my dream, I see

Mary Beth and Maria walk up in the dream as clear as can be. I can take exactly what

Maria had on in the dream, and boom, I awaken. And I mean, in that moment, my eyes popped open like this.

I'm holding the covers like this, and I thought, whoa. I knew it meant something.

I knew that it did. I thought that I even maybe knew what it was. I knew that Maria was in heaven.

I knew that the symbol of her in the dream was that in telling that story, and in telling the redemption and healing

God brought, that there would be healing to her soul. And so I was like, whoa, what do

I do with this? What am I supposed to do with that? But I texted her.

I said, happy birthday, my friend. And I said, listen. And I was really nervous even when

I texted her. I said, I had a dream, and I don't have dreams. And I just want to ask you if it has any significance to you.

And it's not a confirmation, because I don't think God works that way. I don't think he just tells it to somebody else. I think it comes as a confirmation.

I said, this confirmation is great. If it's not, dump it. Don't trust it. Okay, here, let me tell you this.

So through the whole dream, every detail of it, and dead silence.

I said, well, now, I don't know if it's true what it means, but I thought maybe it meant. And I mean, just dead silence.

Whew, I mean, the frustration is blending out in my heart. She saw it.

Saw it. And when she starts sawing, I mean, I start crying. And I'm going, whoa, whoa, what?

And she said, and Stephen is sitting right next to her, because I called him before I talked to her. And she said, Debbie, you're not going to believe what

I'm about to tell you. She said, a few nights ago, you'll have to stay with me here. A few nights ago, they were with a pastor friend of theirs.

And she said she just was having a bad day. You know, Stephen, you feel something going on? And she said she had talked to Stephen Curry.

And she told him, I just want to dream about her. I just want to see her in a dream and go down with her again.

And so Stephen said to their minister friend, there was the three of them together. He said, listen, could you just praise us about this?

Because God can say no, but could we ask God, would you just give Mary Beth a dream of Maria so that she could just see her for a few split seconds?

Y 'all need to know something. God did not give it to her. He gave it to me for her.

But all that it is in her right hand was, she had a dream. God did hear my prayer.

He did hear my prayer. He did give the dream. He just gave it to my friend instead of me.

He gave her the dream? No. She's saying he gave Beth Moore the dream, not

Mary Beth. She can't even keep her own dream straight. Now here's one you just can't, you can't help because this was something we've all kind of lived through now.

This is March of last year. March of last year. Okay. This is 2020.

This is when COVID just was starting. You guys have all heard about COVID, right? Okay. Just checking. I figured maybe some of you didn't know about this thing called

COVID. But because we really shouldn't know anything about it because here was a dream from Kenneth Copeland.

He's got the exact time. Word of the Lord came to him.

So I jumped up and got my notepad and wrote it down. 9 -24.

This disease called CODV -19 will be over much sooner than you think.

Christian people all over this country praying have overwhelmed it.

Give me all the glory said the spirit of grace. And many, many people will come to know me through it.

I'm still Lord over this nation. I'm on the throne and faith in me changes things.

Glory to God. Any of you still wondering what that COVID thing is? I mean, this is when it just started.

Right? How's that for a dream? And he even wrote it down. That should be scripture. Right? This is what you see with false teachers.

They have dreams. They also defile the flesh in verse 8. They seek to satisfy fleshly desires.

Usually the language that we have here in the Greek, it refers to sexual sins.

It's the third time this has come up. It's something that you see over and over again with false teachers.

You also see number 11. They reject authority. They reject God's word ultimately as an authority.

They use God's word to defile God's word. They look at scripture. They don't actually like the scripture because it judges what they do.

So what do they do? They look for scripture to try to make it say something it doesn't say. Something they want it to say but it doesn't say.

That's the reason they look to their dreams rather than the word of God. Because the dreams that they make up can always fit what they want to be said.

And then they just find ways of saying, well, let me take a word over here. And I'll flip over there. Oh, there's another word. And here's another word.

And let me just jump all over the Bible and try to make it say something it doesn't.

We're not going to have time this weekend to do basically our one -hour hermeneutics, how to interpret the

Bible. But if we're ever back down this way, we have our Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar teaching people how to interpret

God's word because it is so important. You don't interpret by jumping all over the Bible. You know how you interpret what we're doing right now, going verse by verse by verse by verse.

This may shock some of you. But your chapter breaks and verse numbers are not inspired. They didn't come for about 700, 800 years.

Okay? It wasn't meant to be read one verse at a time. It was meant to be read an entire book at a time.

All right? But what you end up seeing is these people, they reject authority. They don't like anybody telling them what to do.

It's one of the things you're always going to see with a false teacher. I mean, you'll see they'll snap at somebody, and we're going to give you an example in a little bit.

They will snap at somebody that corrects them. They will go from nice and peaceful, all smiles, to vicious in split seconds.

It's amazing. But false teachers do not like when people correct them. It's always funny because they have no problem calling people that correct them out publicly, but they always say that what the people did was not come to them privately.

I always find that amazing. Whenever I get asked the question, well, have you gone to so -and -so privately before you said something publicly?

And I always go, well, if I had the ability to try, I always try. But I'm always amazed going, that's funny because they didn't have a problem naming me.

How come you don't criticize them now? Just asking. False teachers are always allowed to name names, but those of us who actually are discerning are not allowed to for some reason.

Let me give you one that I mentioned earlier, Francis Chan. Here's Francis Chan explaining his love with the

Roman Catholic Church. And I won't make a strong statement.

I won't make a statement about this. It was at that same time that for the first time, someone put a pulpit in the front of the gathering.

Because before that, it was always the Body and Blood of Christ that was central to the

Church. For 1 ,500 years, it was never one guy and his pulpit being the center of the

Church. It was the Body and Blood of Christ. And even the leaders just saw themselves as partakers.

And oh man, we're not worthy, we're not worthy, we're not worthy. I say that because the

Church is more divided than any time in history. What does this book tell us clearly?

That he does not want any division in his Church. And for 1 ,000 years, there was just one

Church. Do you know that? We're so used to growing up in a time like, literally there are over 30 ,000

Christian denominations right now. But for the first 1 ,000 years, there was just one.

He was speaking about promoting Roman Catholicism. Now, I know he actually went to a good seminary where they actually teach

Church history. He may have been sleeping through that, that he said he never knew this. That there was always a group of people that were against the one

Roman Catholic Church. There were always those that were separated. They just were being killed off. I guess he skipped that class that day.

I don't know. But one of the other things you're going to see is that they blaspheme. This is verses 8 to 10. They blaspheme what they do not understand.

They make blasphemous statements about things that they do not understand. They don't understand things of God.

So what do they do? They blaspheme. They don't understand how Jesus could be fully, truly God and truly, fully man.

So what do they do? They start making divisions there. As you've heard with Todd White, they start saying, well, he did this as a man and I could do this as a man.

They'll get into things that Justin will probably touch on tomorrow where they'll talk about this little God theology.

Well, Jesus was God. We're little gods. We could do what he did. That's called blasphemy.

And they blaspheme what they don't understand. Because they don't understand and take the time to understand theology and understand who

God is, what do they end up doing? They end up blaspheming his name. And then they blame others when they don't understand things.

It's one of the things you'll see with falsity. They never take responsibility for themselves. If you bring them scripture and say, but look, you got this wrong, you're to blame.

Never them, especially if they get big enough. The example that Jude gives in verse 9 is, but when the archangel

Michael contended with the devil disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said the

Lord rebukes you. So Michael, the archangel, wasn't willing to commit blasphemy.

But yet these false teachers do this all the time. You'll see that with them.

In 13, you'll end up seeing that they walk the way of Cain. And what is the way of Cain? Wanting God to accept them on their own terms.

Many of you may not remember the story of Cain. Cain was basically known for wicked works.

This is Genesis chapter 4, verses 1 to 15. If you ever hear any of Dr.

Silvestro's teachings, you're always going to hear a reference to Genesis. So I always have to put it in because Genesis is like his favorite book.

Is that correct? Yeah? Okay. There's 65 other books he doesn't really know about exist in the Bible. It's just everything goes back to Genesis.

And he'll tell you, and he's right, that no matter what theological, whatever doctrine we have, it always is founded in Genesis.

So he's right there. But this is an account that you see in Genesis chapter 4. It's always good when we can go back to Genesis.

But when you think about the way of Cain, Cain comes and he gives an offering. He didn't give an offering the way

God wanted an offering. He gave an offering of his fruits. What he wanted. This is what you see with false teachers.

They want God to bow down to them, not them reach up to God. They want

God to accept them on their terms. Kind of what you heard with T .J. Jakes there, right? Well, you just go and find a church that accepts you, not change you.

Any one of us here? Don't raise hands. Any one of us here come from a background of sin before you came to Christ?

Okay. Are you glad that God changed you from that? That's what the gospel is, folks.

A gospel that says, no, no, no. God will accept you as you are, isn't a gospel. And false teachers will always tell you a gospel that you want to hear.

Oh, it makes me feel good. Yeah, the devil wants you to feel good too. The reality is the way of Cain is that he wanted

God to accept his fruit rather than him following God's way. And this is what you see with false teachers.

They're going to come up with a thing where God is going to have to submit to them ultimately. They get to make the rules.

This is not unusual. You want to see, I got lots of books at home if you want to read the Talmud. It's filled with the rabbis doing that very thing.

It's not new with these false teachers. They end up having their own agenda, not God's agenda.

They actually want God to submit to their agenda rather than them submitting to God's agenda. That's what you see with false teachers.

The other thing you see is that they abandon themselves for the sake of gain. This is Balaam's error.

Many of you may not know of Balaam. Many people know of Balaam only for one thing. He had a talking donkey.

Now you're going, oh yeah, I remember him. What's he in there for? Just to talk to a donkey? No, that's a minor part of the account.

Notice I didn't say story. It's an account. It's a historical account, not a story. So what happened with Balaam is

Balaam, Balak, this king, comes over and says, hey, I'm going to give you some money. All you got to do is go to curse this people

Israel. Okay, I want the money. Let me pray to ask God what I should do.

God says, don't go. He says, oh, can't go. Okay, Balak says, I'll give you even more money. Ooh, ooh,

I like this. I want this. Okay, can I go now, God? This is one of the things, by the way, if you keep asking

God for something he's already said no to, there are times he will give that to you to show you why you shouldn't have had it.

Okay? Maybe none of you have done this. Maybe it's just me. I may be the only one in the room that's thickheaded and does things that I know

God doesn't want me to do, and then he kind of says, you want to see? Okay, here you go. I'll give you over to it. You satisfied? No, yeah, okay, you wanted to repent of that, huh?

Well, that's Balaam. He just wanted that money. But he wanted to seem spiritual, so when he goes, they set up a thing.

Okay, go curse Israel. Here you can overlook them. Curse Israel. He doesn't do it. He blesses them. He says, well,

I can only say what God told me to say. He does that three times. Now, if you read just Numbers 22, 23, and 24 and stop there, you're gonna think

Balaam is a pretty good guy until you read the rest of the Bible and realize that chapter 25 is attributed to Balaam.

What happens there? Balaam gave counsel. He turned to Balak and said, look, I can't curse them. God won't let me, but I'll tell you what you could do.

You could do something to get God to curse them. Go get your women to go down and marry their men and intermarry, and then

God will do the work, and you won't have to worry, and I can get your money. See, he had greed.

You say there is no one that would say that money is good, that greed is good. Well, okay, let's listen. See if that's true.

People call prosperity some kind of twisted doctor. God wants you to be in good health, and He wants you to prosper.

He wants your soul to prosper. He wants the prosperous soul to eat so much.

See, because if you have a prosperous soul, money doesn't matter to you. The more you have, the more you give.

I promise you. The more God gives you, the more you fund when you just become a giver, and you give, and you give, and you give, and you give.

Why? Because God so loved the world that He gave. So that's what we as Christians do.

We give. We give. We give. You're like, well, you're just after money. No, God's not after you.

He's after you and being had by money. Money doesn't make the world go around.

Jesus does. That sounds good. Do you know when you become a radical giver, and you become just a radical tiger, and a radical offerer, and a person that just blesses people, you actually step into the

Arabic blessing. The devil doesn't ever want you to get a revelation of finances ever, because if he does, he loses control of you.

So you have to be wealthy, because then you'll give more. Justin, you've heard about how much money

Benny Hinn's given away, right? Benny Hinn's given away tons of money, right? Yeah, Copeland, he's almost a billionaire, right?

Copeland, he's given away so much, no, he bought a brand new jet. Yeah, the reality is they love their money.

The 15, we see that they perish in Korah's rebellion, seeking to overthrow the purpose for the power, to gain power for self.

Korah, who maybe you may not remember, he was Moses' cousin. He wanted to basically, he wanted to lead.

He was jealous of the authority that Moses had, and he tried to say he should be the one leading. That's what you end up seeing, that they want power for themselves.

Let's get another view of Kenneth Copeland. You know, this was great in March. Copeland just gave us so much material.

Because we have the name of Jesus standing in the office of the prophet of God.

I execute judgment on you, Copeland. I execute judgment on you,

Satan. You destroyer, you killer, you get out. You would break your power.

You get off this nation. I demand judgment on you. I demand, I demand,

I demand a vaccination to come in here. I call you dark.

I call you doggone. You come down from your place of authority, destroyer.

You come down and you crawl on your back like God commanded you when he put his foot on your head in the garden of Eden.

You were destroyed through COVID -19. The Lord, the

Lord, the Lord is finished.

It is over. And the

United States of America is healed and will again stand.

The coming spirit of peace who is also the prince of war.

The Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to go through the rest of these kind of quicker though.

So first, they do not fear, number 16. They don't fear God. I mean, if you just watch that clip, the one thing you say to yourself is, that's a man that does not fear

God. He does not fear judgment. They use God's name to deceive people to take advantage of them for themselves.

A man like Todd Bentley who used to stand up on stage drunk, kicking people in the stomach.

He doesn't fear God. What they end up doing is what it says in verse 12.

They feed themselves. They call themselves shepherds, but instead of feeding the flock, they devour the flock to feed themselves.

They live very well on other people's money. This is what the Filipino, if you want to say pastor, who says this, quote, and I'm going to just tell you, he misquotes the

Bible in this. Maybe you'll pick it up. Quote, others say in the Bible, the love of money is the root of all evil.

This is different. The lack of money is the root of all evil. Seriously, ask your wives.

Try to live without money and you'll see the devil come out in the flesh in your wife. Unquote.

First off, he misquotes the scripture, but then totally twists that. This is the guy that had the two

Lamborghinis. By the way, it's the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

He left that word out. But you end up seeing number 18 in verse 12.

They are spiritually useless. Let's read verse 12. It says there, these are hidden reefs at your love feasts, and they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along with winds, fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead, uprooted.

Waterless clouds. What's the purpose of a cloud without water? Well, actually, it's a great video to get, and Justin unfortunately doesn't have any here.

But this is where Justin gets the title for his

DVD series, Clouds Without Water. It means that the fact is that they're spiritually useless.

What do they have to offer people? Nothing. Because a false teacher is all about self.

He has nothing to offer other people, because he's not there for other people. So Jude ends up saying that this kind of shepherd, who's feeding themselves on their own flock is useless.

They're not going to ever be a shepherd. It doesn't matter how wonderful, how charismatic of a speaker they are behind a pulpit.

It doesn't matter if they happen to say the right thing once in a while. A broken clock is right twice a day.

You don't want to trust it for time, right? They might get the truth once in a while, but they have to, because a false teacher has to have just enough truth to get people to believe them.

But for spiritual value, they have nothing to offer. They're useless. They're grumblers.

The word here is to complain, and this is what they do. They complain if they don't get their own way.

They're malcontents, in verse 16. They complain about their lot in life. They're never happy.

They're always wanting more. They have their own private jets, but that's just not enough. They need bigger ones.

Copeland's up to what? Is he up to four jets now? Four? He's got four private jets, because each one had to be bigger.

All right? They follow their own sinful desires, it says in verse 16.

They don't follow the Bible. The Bible's not their authority for faith and practice. They are. They follow themselves and their own sinful desires.

And then, in verse 16, it also says, they're loudmouth boasters. You say, come on.

They wouldn't be that way. No, this is the idea that they boast loudly of their own works.

They don't boast of what God did in their life, as we see Paul did. No, they boast about what they do.

Let me give you an example. I just can't help myself. It's Kenneth Copeland. What's your response to that?

Very simple. It takes a lot of money to do what we do. We have brought over 100.

Let's see. The latest figure just came out. 122 million people to the

Lord Jesus Christ. Let me give you another example. Last night,

I was scheduled for Lakers, Virginia.

That's a long, long way. I had a week off, and I was scheduled for Peru.

And I prayed about it, and I thought, I'm not missing that dedication in Jerusalem.

We flew in 21 days, 70 hours, 40 ,000 miles, touched five continents, and preached face -to -face, personally, with 125 ,000 people.

You heard all the great things God did, didn't you? No. You heard all the things Kenneth Copeland claims he did.

Right? That's boasting. They show favoritism to gain advantage.

You'll see them in this. Often, the favoritism they show deals with people that have position or money. But you'll see with false teachers, they always surround themselves with someone that has money or position, something that has someone to their advantage.

They don't seek to help people. Instead, they seek to use people for their own advantage.

They're scoffers. You'll always see that false teachers, they're actually mockers of God. You saw it with Beth Moore in that clip.

Belittles people that would hold to God's word. That's just, oh, that's you. That just have God's words enough on the page.

They scoff, number 25. They follow their own ungodly passions.

We've spoken about this now three other times. This is the fourth time that this has come up. This is the one that's mentioned more than any of the others.

So it's the number one thing to look for in a false teacher. You're going to see that they will, even if they start off with good policies, oh, we never meet alone with a woman as a man.

You know, Bill Hybels had that policy. I know someone, I work with someone in ministry who actually knew

Bill Hybels when they started out and said he couldn't believe Bill Hybels would fall on adultery because he was so strict with that.

Give a false teacher enough time and enough opportunity, and you're going to see that come through.

Number 26, they cause divisions. They seek to divide biblical churches, and they blame others for the divisions that they cause.

Beth Moore, you know, is an example of this. If you ever want to get yourself in trouble online, all you've got to do is criticize

Beth Moore. I've done it. Man, her followers, you know, they come out after you with a vengeance.

You know, and she just sits back and supports like, yeah, yeah, okay. They will be happy to cause divisions in churches.

They're also worldly people. They want everything the world has to offer, and when do they want it? They want it now.

I've given this example enough, but here's, I mean, how much better can you get than Kenneth Copeland? He's going to explain his need for all his private jets.

Why have you said that you won't fly commercial? You said that it's like getting into a tube with a bunch of demons.

Why do you think that? No, that's for me to say, not the people. The main reason is because of the need.

If I flew commercial, I'd have to stop 65 % of what I'm doing. That's a good thing.

Isn't it true that you want to fly commercial so that you can fly in luxury? How much money did you pay for Tyler Perry's Gulfstream jet, for example?

Well, for example, that's really none of your business, but... I'll ask you a more general question. A lot of people think it's unbecoming for a preacher to live a life of luxury and to fly around in private jets.

What's your response to that? Very simple. It takes a lot of money to do what we do.

Without the airplane that we have, that I bought from Tyler Perry, and I didn't pay anywhere near Tyler Perry.

He thinks that everybody's so cheap for me, I can't even afford to buy it.

Have you ever used your private jets to go visit your vacation homes, for example? Yes, I have.

Okay. You have how many planes? We have the Gulfstream, and we still have our subjects, you know.

And then we have a little smaller plane. We use them all the time.

The main reason was, I could no longer do what

I call to do and be on the airplanes. Besides that,

I need my clothes when I get there. And you have some fancy clothes. I mean, for a pastor, you are living a life of luxury.

You've got great homes, you've got great planes, you drive in limos. You're very welcoming.

To those critics that say that a preacher should not be living a life of luxury, what is your response to that?

They're wrong. They're wrong. Justin, how many continents have you been on?

Everyone except Antarctica. You fly a commercial, don't you? Yeah, it doesn't seem to stop him.

He flies all over the world. And he's gone like all the time. Doesn't seem to stop

Justin. No, they want that worldly living. They like that world of luxury. The other thing that you end up seeing is the void of the spirit.

Now, this one is one where I'll tell you. Justin will agree to this because he's the one that told me this.

He believes that Kenneth Copeland is demon -possessed. If you doubt that, here's the example. False teachers are the void of the spirit.

What you end up seeing here is you'll see how quickly someone could turn from all smiles to this.

You said that you don't like to fly commercial because you don't want to get into a tube with a bunch of demons. Do you really believe that human beings are demons?

No, I do not. And don't you ever say I did. We mess them up.

The flesh can learn. The prince of competition powers. Yeah, that's the void of the spirit right there.

You see how quick that could change? So here's the thing in closing. What should we do?

Here's what we do. The first thing we have to do is we've got to be able to identify false teachers. We need to be able to identify false teachers to their followers.

You guys got a false teacher not too far from here, right? How far is Paula White? A few miles.

You probably are in contact with people that go to her church. You need to be able to identify what a false teacher is to people that attend there.

You need to be able to avoid false teachers. And to avoid them, you first have to be able to identify them. But you also have to encourage others that follow them to avoid them.

And I can tell you right then, if you have friendships and they're following a false teacher and you start identifying that person as a false teacher, you'll see how quickly someone's going to give up a friendship for the false teacher.

Because here's one of the things you're going to find out. People idolize false teachers. They actually love their false teachers more than they love

God. They'll separate with someone, with even family, for a false teacher.

This last one, though. May Shaki pray for false teachers. Do you do that? Pray for them and pray for their followers.

You got to remember that some of these false teachers, they're deceived. And they're deceiving. 2 Timothy 3 .13

Why do we do that? We do that because as it says in Jude, we want to snatch them from the flames.

For many think they walk with Christ and they're heading to an eternal damnation.

Let's look at the benediction that Jude gives to us. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only

God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen. That's how he ends this book. We have to be able to identify, avoid, and pray for false teachers.

We can't avoid them if we aren't able to identify them. So that's why we gave you the list of 28 things so you can look through it.

Go through the book of Jude. Study this and know. So you can identify who is a false teacher. Because if you...

One thing we have to realize is false teachers are very convincing. The false teachers that are not convincing don't have a following.

You don't know their names. They're convincing. And that's why we have to be able to identify them for our own sake and the sake of ones we love and know.

Let me pray and then I'm going to give you some... I'm just going to close in prayer and then give you some ways to keep in touch with us and some things that we have in the back table.

Let's pray. Lord, we're grateful for the fact that you give us the book of Jude. We have a way of identifying different false teachers.

Help those of us who know people, who are trapped in different doctrines and following after different teachers that we would be able to identify from your word what's wrong with these people and help people to snatch them out of the flames that they are caught in when they follow false teaching.

We ask, Lord, you give us the boldness to do so. Give us the wisdom, but most importantly, that we would have your spirit who indwells us, that we have your word, that we would, by the personal

Holy Spirit, illuminating our minds to your word, that we would be able to communicate what your word says to people, for it's not our words that matter, but yours.

We thank you for this, and we ask that you enable us to strive to make today an eternal day for your glory. Amen. Fall.

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