Provoked: Exposing False Teachers - Kenneth Copeland

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00:00

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of Provoked. We're so glad you've tuned in to listen to us.

00:06

I am here and my buddy Jake Bull is here again to help us out. Really appreciate you being on the show and all the help you've assisted us with.

00:15

Yeah, Desi is not away, which the beautiful factor, unfortunately, I know is now lacking severely.

00:21

You've got a lot of testosterone in the room. No, but she has taken a little break for this week.

00:27

She'll be back in a couple weeks. And yeah, we're excited to be on today. If you've never ever been on the show, we kind of wanted to maybe reintroduce ourselves a little bit.

00:37

We are a show and the name is Provoked and it's not because we want to be like needlessly provocative.

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I think people can be just provocative to be provocative. You know, we want to be provocative in a wholesome, in a constructive way, because I think we could be provocative in a very destructive way or selfish way, you know, just to pick a fight because people like to be in fights.

00:58

I really don't like to fight unless it's like necessary, but there's good fights that we need to pick and big battles and battles that we should be a part of.

01:07

But in the scriptures, it says that Paul, when he saw all the idolatry and all the godlessness, he was provoked in his spirit and he confronted that with the gospel.

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He confronted it with God's word. So what was going on really, of course, idolatry is probably the most destructive thing that we can get engaged in as people.

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But when he saw that, he brought the word of God to bear upon it. He brought the Christian worldview to bear upon it.

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So we picked that name because in our provoking, we want to not only deal with all these ideologies that raise their self up against the knowledge of God that we have to, as God commanded, tear down, but also provoke our

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Christian brothers to love and good works, right? Just to do the work of the ministry, just to come alongside of the local church, come alongside of our brothers and sisters and give you some attaboys and some hopefully helpful instruction on how to biblically evangelize and go rescue babies and all that.

02:05

So that's what we're about. But what you could do and what we would ask you to do in response of really consuming from Apologia, Apologia is a one in a billion type of podcast.

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There's just no other podcast like it. It's a one -stop shop for just a lot of good stuff, when it comes to the uniqueness of our cultural involvement, the things that we do in regards to trying to rescue people out of the cults, of course, baby rescuing, baby saving, and on and on and on.

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So what we don't want to do as Christians is only consume and not really contribute to those ministries that are working hard to bring glory to God and expand the kingdoms.

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And that's what we're trying to do, simply. So what you could do is go to Apologia Studios, become an All Access member, and then in so doing your support will help us to keep this ship going and that's what we want to do.

02:54

So if you could do that at this moment, we would really, really appreciate that. So what are we doing today?

03:00

What's new with you? What's new with me? Not too much. We just have, we have a one and a half year old at home and he's running around.

03:11

He has like a 10 word vocabulary now, which is incredible. My wife is like really good at discerning what he says, you know, so he'll say like, you know, wah -wah is different than wah -bah.

03:22

It's like water versus water bottle and she's like, oh, that's what he wants. I'm like, how do you, how can you do that?

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You know, are you able to interpret that? You know, we're doing super well. What are we doing today?

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We're doing something that kind of seems like more in our modern day is in some ways looked down upon.

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However, we look at scripture, we see it all over the place. We're going to be addressing some false teaching, you know, talking about false teachers, you know who they are.

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We're going to talk about one specifically today, Kenneth Copeland and his teaching, what that is and how it stacks up in light of scripture.

04:00

Yeah, so we, that's going to be a new segment. We're going to attack or expose, we should say, because we don't have anything personally against these men, right?

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It's not a personal attack. Why would we do that? I think false teachers do a lot of destruction.

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And so what do we have to do? We have to expose them if we're going to be true to our calling and we'll get into more of that.

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But yeah, considering the culture and everything that we have to deal with as far as wokeness and ideologies.

04:32

I mean, I guess the first question that we have to ask is should we be calling out people, you know, because I think a lot of people would say this is counterproductive.

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This is not right. Why don't you just stay in your lane? Why don't you just do what you do? These people might be doing some good therefore they're untouchable.

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But is really, is that the biblical approach? Should we be doing this? What do you think?

04:57

We see a lot of different places in God's word where this specific topic is addressed. So one of them and perhaps one of the most prominent for believers in general comes at the end of Romans.

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It's in Romans chapter 16. It's in verse 17. Paul says this, I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught.

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And then he says avoid them. So first of all, there's this command here to watch out for them and watch out who's them, the people who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you've been taught, the doctrine that we see in the scriptures.

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When we see those people we are to, as he says, avoid them and we see another place, you know,

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Titus chapter 1 verse 9, elders specifically are called to hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that they can give instruction and sound doctrine, but also to rebuke those who contradict it.

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A few verses later, Paul's talking to Titus and he's talking about the Cretans and he says to rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

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So there's this positive aspect of we are to hold to sound teaching, sound doctrine. Sometimes when you get into the nitty gritty of that, you'll even get some disagreement, but that one, there's not as much opposition.

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But when you get into the negative aspect of what Christians are called to do, rebuke false teaching and specifically also rebuke false teachers.

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That's something we see all over the pages of scripture and it really comes down to getting into the gospel and what the gospel is.

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If you have teachers who are perverting the gospel, they're teaching another way to be saved. They're even drawing people away from how to actually be saved.

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Paul, there's no one who's stronger on that than Paul and he pronounces an anathema or a curse on the people who preach a different kind of gospel and that's what we'll get into.

06:48

Yeah. Yeah, because unfortunately, I think what we experience is, especially in the American Evangelical Church, is the value of tolerance that our culture has, right?

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So, you have to tolerate everybody and if you don't tolerate anybody and everybody, regardless of what they're doing, then you're canceled.

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You're doing the wrong thing. So, and I think the scriptures really warn the people of God with intermingling with pagans, right?

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Intermingling with the godless because then we begin to adopt their anti -Christ, anti -God type ideologies.

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That's why I think a lot of people will look at this and say, oh, look at these guys, you know, why do they have to be calling out these men?

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Because they value that unbiblical kind of issue of tolerance that is completely antithetical to what the scriptures teach, right?

07:40

Yeah, and it leads people astray. You know, Paul warns Timothy at the end of his, it's his last letter

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Paul ever writes, Second Timothy. He warns him that there's a time coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but they'll have itching ears.

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They'll acquire teachers to accumulate, you know, they'll accumulate teachers for themselves and they'll turn away from listening to the truth and they'll wander off into myths, right?

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Well, if that's happening for the masses, these teachers are leading people into that direction and there have to be believers who stand faithfully upon God's word and who say, no, no, here's the way, here's what the gospel is.

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Here's what God's word says. We need to hold firm to this and I mean, Jesus promises over and over again how much opposition, trial, tribulation you'll face when you do that, you know, so it's not that you go out looking for the persecution, but if you're faithful to God's word, you're going to be hated, you know, that's just part of it.

08:37

Absolutely. And I guess you could say it's a negative aspect. People would put rebuking, correction, admonishing in the negative category, but it's very positive, right?

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Because you're actually helping people by doing those things. It's just something that I think is very foreign to,

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I know the American and Christian because they do sit in churches and I've talked to many pastors where discipline is not even a reality.

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I mean, sin is allowed. It's not like they're really dealing with sin at all.

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And for them to think a pastor is commanded to be somebody who rebukes and corrects is completely foreign and you automatically become the bad guy, but the scriptures teach a lot when it,

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I mean, they sound off when it comes to false teachers and false prophets. Deuteronomy 18, 20, but a prophet who presumes to speak in my name, anything

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I've not commanded or a prophet who speaks in the name of the other guys is to be put to death. I mean, you're talking about a false prophet here, not always synonymous with false teacher, but very closely related, right?

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Ezekiel 13, nine, Jeremiah 14, four, Jeremiah 23, 16. And then

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I think the strongest evidence in the scriptures is Jesus models calling out false teachers, right? So we have this in Matthew 16, 11 through 12.

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How is it you don't understand that? I was not talking to you about bread, but be on your guard against the yeast of the

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Pharisees and Sadducees. Then they understood he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the

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Pharisees and Sadducees. So Jesus is the good shepherd, right? And he is pointing these guys out and saying, beware, don't go near.

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Exactly. And you think about, you know, you talked about tolerance earlier. Some people try to say, well, we don't need to be combative.

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We don't need to call people out like this because it's not loving, you know, it's not loving to do that.

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Well, the question, the response to that as well. Okay. Are you, are you more loving than Jesus? Because Jesus called these people out, you know, he says down here,

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Matthew 23, he's rebuking the Pharisees. You brood of vipers. How are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

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You know, and that's, that's out of the mouth of our Lord of the, as you said, the good shepherd, right?

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He's talking this way. That means there's a time and a place to address teachers who lead people astray, who lead people away from the truth.

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There's a time to stand up against that and rebuke it. Yeah. That's what you see the Lord do.

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But in Acts 28, 28 through 30, I mean, well, going back to Matthew 23,

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I mean, when you're saying woe unto you, how many times in Matthew 23 did Jesus say woe unto you false teachers?

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I mean, they are absolutely doomed. Could you imagine a false teacher standing before God when he speaks to them in these type of, with these type of strong words, strong rebukes?

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I mean, condemnation doom is coming your way. So like you had written here, I think one of the loving, the most loving thing we can do to a false teacher is to expose him, to warn him, to actually bring these things to him saying, brother, you are headed for a very, very scary reality, a very, very fearful destination falling into the hands of the living

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God. If you don't turn from these things. And then we've got just a direct command by God to shepherds and elders, right?

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Acts 20, 28 through 30, keep watch over yourselves and all of the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, be shepherds of the church, which he brought with his own blood.

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I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will rise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples unto themselves.

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So he says to these, to us elders, keep watch over the flock.

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And then one of the first things he says is watch out for savage wolves, right? You have to be able to spot them and you have to be able to point them out and keep them away from the flock.

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And the wolves, you know, Matthew chapter seven as well, Jesus elaborates on this idea, the wolves look like sheep.

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So you'll never have a wolf who enters into the flock and says, Hey everyone, I'm a wolf, you know, that's always clothed in some sort of false kindness, false benevolence.

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And yet that's why you have to pay so close attention. And that's why specifically, you know, elders really are held to a high standard of having to know the word, the trustworthy word, holding firm to it and being able to see who among the flock, maybe talking like a sheep, acting like a sheep, among the sheep.

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But you can see over time that they're giving evidence or they're giving fruit. That's not, they're showing they're not really a sheep.

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Exactly. You know, and not to take a huge bunny trail. I think we may have shared it with you.

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I know you're an elder in training here. I think one of the most costly things that you can do as an elder is, is air too much on the side of grace.

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I mean, we want to, we kind of want to air on the side of grace, right? We want to love people and love believes all things and you're innocent until proven guilty.

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Right. But when a guy within the flock looks like a sheep, but then there's these red flags going off, right?

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Right. It's good to explore that and not just immediately say, Oh, he's probably fine.

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Right. Now I would say you have to move based upon evidence. It shouldn't be something that you just intuitively kind of feel, but the

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Holy Spirit, I think does guide us. And so if we, as elders don't really attend to what he's communicating to us through discernment, right, then you'll allow a wolf in and he'll do a lot of damage.

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And we've just experienced that here at apology of people coming from inwardly looking like, wow, this is the next best thing.

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This guy's amazing. And then things shift and we've, you know, he's really gained ground the longer that he's been in the church, you know, to do the most amount of damage.

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But I like what, um, one of my pastors says, he said, if you don't get the wolves away from the sheep, then you won't have any more sheep.

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Exactly. Cause, cause the, yeah, the wolves don't play nice with the sheep. Yeah. They kill the sheep.

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Yeah. That's their purpose. Exactly. They want to consume, they want to destroy all the sheep that, that they can.

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So loving confrontation, balanced biblical confrontation is, uh, the way to go.

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Um, you know, sadly, I think that what we see in the form of, of, uh, these really high profile kind of celebrity false teachers, like Kenneth Copeland is very well -known false teacher,

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Joel Osteen, Steven Furtick. We're going to try to work as we, um, continue down the road and really, um, develop the segment on the false teachers that are not so widely known.

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Cause I think that'll do the most good because if they're not so widely known, that just means their sheep costume is really well outfit outfitted.

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They're doing really well at disguising themselves. Right. And so we want to be able to pull that, you know, pull the wolf out from under his sheep costume.

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So it doesn't hurt more sheep. But I think what you see is a lot of these false teachers, they just don't listen to the corrections and the rebukes they don't.

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And I think it's because they got it really good and they really, it's not very costly to them, you know?

15:55

No, there was a, we don't have a clip of it here, but there's the, I don't know if you've seen it or not, but there's the interview

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Kenneth Copeland had, he was like getting into one of his cars about to go on a flight and it was one of his private jets.

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And this reporter caught him and talked with him for like 15 minutes. And I honestly, if you've never seen the video, it's actually incredibly, it's just, it's bizarre.

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It's entertaining to, it's engaging to watch. The reporter does an excellent job kind of just deterring all of his attacks and his like attempts at manipulating her or trying to like win her over or anything.

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She just stays right on the questions. She does a good job, but he begins to brag about how wealthy he is and all of these things.

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And you think about the qualifications of an elder, you know, being above reproach, disciplined, sober -minded, you know, respectable, those types of things.

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And you're hearing a guy talk like this and you're like, something doesn't seem right, you know? And that's where I think, you know, we can all, as believers, we need to remind ourselves that it's okay to say that.

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It's okay to line that up with scripture and say, no, this isn't right. He is a false teacher.

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You know, for these reasons, you know, you talk about evidence, we need the evidence, but he is a false teacher.

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This isn't biblical. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You see these guys and all the pomp and, you know, the, the brag, they're just bragging about their, their money.

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I mean, you really have to examine the man too, just look him front and, you know, full in the face.

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Does this really square with what a man of God should be? And what are the most important sermons?

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And I probably listened to it. And I think I've told you about this maybe 10 times a year, but it's the first law of humility by John MacArthur.

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Have you ever listened to that? No, I haven't. Oh, it's so important to listen to. But he goes into, and he really cares, you know, compares it with Roman Catholic Popes and stuff like that.

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And all the, you know, accoutrements and all of their adornments. And you look at these guys and you're like, is this really what the scriptures define as a genuine man of God?

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And he contrasts that with John the Baptist saying, this guy's not, you know, the scriptures say he was the greatest prophet, right?

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John the Baptist. And then you look at him. I mean, he wore camel's hair and he ate honey and locusts.

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I mean, you would look at, he had, he was all about humility and humility is that first law of ministry that if we are not humble and we have this right understanding of God and ourselves, and we're not here to serve and lay ourselves down for the sheep and not go after sorted gain and not brag about our money.

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And that's all fleshly, right? I mean, we have to boast in nobody but the Lord. And so if you're seeing a man do it, do this.

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I mean, it's absolutely indicative that humility just doesn't, doesn't, he doesn't, you didn't have it.

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And so if you don't have humility, you haven't even started in being a genuine man of God, serving God in the way that he should be served.

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Right. But why, why don't we just keep to ourselves? Just let

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God deal with it. What do you think? Well, again, you know, we're, we're having, we're, we are to let and allow and submit to God's word and the authority of God's word in our lives.

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You know, God has in his grace left us to wander in the darkness. He's given us the revelation of who he is.

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He's given us the revelation of how a sinner can be made right with him. And he also gives his people commands on how they are to live.

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So if the scriptures were telling us, commanding us, do not address these false teachers, those types of things, maybe that'd be a different story, but that's not what they say.

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It's so clear, it's clear as day, crystal clear. We need to address these false teachers.

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We need to address these, these people, call them out, rebuke them out of love. It's kind of the same thing as, you know, if you talk about evangelism, you know, it's kind of like saying, well, we shouldn't really share the gospel with people.

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Well, yeah, we should. I mean, God's the one who saves people, but he does it through, you know, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word.

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He does it through the preaching of his word. So God is the one who preserves his church, who preserves his saints.

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But he uses his people to do that. It's one of the means that he uses. So pastors, Christians, you know, guarding the word, guarding the gospel and rebuking those who teach falsehood.

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That's just part of the means God uses. So absolutely we should, we should step into this. Yeah. And I think if a shepherd keeps to himself, when he sees the wolves coming, he doesn't love the sheep.

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A shepherd has to protect the sheep. So you have to ask yourself, you know, even if you're a pastor listening to this, if you don't want to get into this hard work and it's not the most comfortable work of warning your flock of wolves, what are you doing it for?

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You know, what's the motive there? Is it really to lay your life down for these people to ensure their protection, spiritual, physical, or are you doing it for some other reason?

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Because if you're unwilling to lay your life down, then are you just using this position in the sheep for your own selfish gain?

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Could be. But yeah, we can't say we love the sheep and just, you know, allow this duty of exposing wolves to be undone, you know, unaccomplished.

21:20

All right. So let's just get into Kenneth. Who is he? Kenneth Copeland. He is, we talked about this too a little bit earlier, but, you know, some people will be hearing this and they think, wow, you guys are talking about Kenneth Copeland.

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Like why is he even worth an episode? You know, cause he's just, we see some of his videos, he's almost like cartoonish in how he talks.

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And of course he's a false teacher. Well, there are droves and droves of people. If you watch his videos, what astounds me the most about some of his videos is not what he says, it's all the people sitting there listening to him.

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I always think about those people and I think, how on earth could they be sitting there taking notes thinking this is sound theology, you know?

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And maybe they don't think it's sound theology, but they're there sitting listening to it. So for as much as maybe some folks who regularly listen to Provoked think, well, we don't need to waste our time on Kenneth Copeland.

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There are droves and droves of people, maybe even someone who's, you know, you know, someone close to you who is influenced by his teaching.

22:19

So I do think he deserves, you know, a loving rebuke and he needs to be addressed, his teaching needs to be addressed.

22:27

So Kenneth Copeland, yeah, founder of KCM, Kenneth Copeland Ministries lives in Texas and he's been doing ministry since, this blew me away, since 1967.

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So he's 86 years old, which is crazy to me and he's still going. Yeah. You know?

22:43

He's in really good shape for an 86 year old man. I mean, you can tell like, hey, this guy's older, but when you watch him, it's like, okay,

22:49

I wouldn't have guessed 86, you know? He's been doing it for a really long time. He, and this is one of the clips we'll show, but he was influenced pretty heavily by Oral Roberts, who's one of the kind of early proponents of the prosperity gospel and that whole movement, and we've seen the fruit of that to this day.

23:07

But he's a teacher and we'll get into some of these different kind of different specific ways in which he's a false teacher.

23:15

But one of the big, big movements that he's a part of is the Word of Faith movement.

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So some people may have heard it more commonly expressed as the like, name it and claim it philosophy of religion.

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I hate to even attribute it to Christianity, but it's this Word of Faith, name it and claim it. If I speak,

23:37

I can then attain whatever it is that I'm speaking or declaring, you know, upon my life.

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So this movement came out of 20th century Pentecostalism and it views faith and we'll see

23:49

Kenneth talk about this a little bit, but it views faith as this almost like a tangible force.

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Like it's this, it's almost like this resource that you can use and develop and strengthen at your disposal to then, you can use it to then earn or get or receive whatever thing that it is that you're pursuing.

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So if I'm sick, you know, all I need to do is harness my faith and use my faith and then use my words, speak my faith out loud, and then

24:18

I can declare healing and then I'll receive healing. So that's when you see all these big services of, you know,

24:24

Benny Hinn's another famous one who does this. You get all the, you know, the sick people, some of them aren't really sick, but you get them all to come up to the front and then you're, you know,

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Kenneth's up there declaring all these things over the person and all of a sudden the person's, you know, miraculously healed or whatever.

24:39

So it views, it views faith as this thing you can utilize for your own gain, you know, and that's, that's a huge, a huge red flag when you see people start talking that way.

24:49

Oh, sure. Yeah. But they would say, oh no, life and death, power of the tongue, right? That's what the scriptures say.

24:54

Yeah. Yeah. You, there is power in the things that you say, but I think they're just twisting scripture for their own end, right?

25:01

It's all, and that's one of the most wicked things about this ministry is because people are in critical places in life, right?

25:09

Physical health, cancer. If only you would give, right? If only you would express your faith in a monetary donation of any amount, $1 ,000 would be better.

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Then God is going to see that and he's going to attend to your need. And so you have these people desperate for, for need and these men, these hucksters, these con men are just taking them for everything they have.

25:32

So do you want to look at that clip now or? Yeah. So, so this clip specifically, this is from his, this is one of the

25:39

YouTube or his YouTube channel, one of the teachings that he gave. And he's talking specifically about Oral Roberts.

25:44

So he's talking about his former mentor and kind of the ways that he looked up to Oral Roberts. And what's so interesting about this clip here is he's talking on, you know, air quotes, preaching on Mark 11, 22 and 23.

25:58

Jesus is talking about having faith and being able to, you know, hyperbolic statement, move mountains with the faith that you have in God.

26:04

So that's, you know, ostensibly what Kenneth Copeland is preaching on here. And he specifically talked about Oral Roberts.

26:11

So just like, listen for that, that faith as a force, you know, something I can use for my own gain here in this clip.

26:18

But the first thing I noticed was he used his faith on purpose as a tool, like a mechanic who goes to his toolbox and gets a specific tool for a specific job.

26:36

And he uses it. And I thought, Whoa, I didn't even know you could do that.

26:44

But, but, and then later now, what we're finding out is that you, you believe in your heart, but then that faith is released primarily in words.

27:00

And then it is sustained by corresponding action to those words.

27:08

That's the way faith is released and attacks the mountain. Amen. I heard just so much stuff there.

27:17

He's talking about, he's talking about Oral Roberts and he says he used his faith as a tool.

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And he literally used the analogy of taking a toolbox, opening it up, picking the tool you need for the specific job and then using it, you know?

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And, and he says, Wow, I didn't even know you could do that. And I always want to pause right at that moment and just say, kind of, you can't do that.

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It's not how it works. It's not like faith is right next to this other tool here I can use for this purpose and this purpose.

27:47

But that's the first thing is we can't just, we can't just use faith, whatever it is. And again, it's like objectifying faith.

27:54

It's making faith as like this outward tangible thing we can harness and use for our own gain if we want.

27:59

Right, it's like cultish. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, so it's again, and we've talked about this in previous episodes, but this idea of taking the focus away from God and putting it onto us.

28:10

If you're listening to someone teaching and they're just over and over and over again talking about how you can get what you want and then they're using

28:18

Bible verses to back up that point of how you can get what you want, that's a problem.

28:23

Exactly. Yeah. And I think at the heart of false teaching is the adulteration of God's word, right?

28:29

Oh yeah. The corrupting of it. And it's, it's a bringing God kind of off his throne, right?

28:35

To where, you know, like even said, you can use faith. So you become the focus, what you want.

28:42

And really God becomes a genie in the bottle that you are just using to fulfill your every wish, which is completely antithetical to the

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Christian position. We are slaves to a master. We are subservient to God.

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We live to serve him, not just to use our faith so that God could serve our every need.

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So it just flips everything on upon its head and it becomes as bad as it is.

29:09

And I think what you see here, not to get off too far, but you see a man who chose horrible influences, right?

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So Oral Roberts, he was his personal pilot chauffeur and then Kenneth Hagan.

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So you've got these two huge, horrible influences. And then this is the by -product of being under that man's type of toolage.

29:31

So what do we have to do? We really have to be careful who we use, who we look to as mentors, who we look to as spiritual advisors.

29:40

You know, I don't know his motives and intentions. I mean, we're not supposed to impugn those things.

29:46

I mean, the guy's worth $800 million. So we know that he has used his position for money. Unbelievably wealthy.

29:52

Can you imagine that $800 million? No, I can't. If you spent, I looked this up, if you spent $100 million, if you spent $1 ,000 per day, it would take you 300 years to spend $100 million.

30:07

This guy's got $800 million. Unbelievable. But it's wicked. I appreciate that point there, who he allowed to influence him.

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Because again, in his mind, he probably gets done with that video and thinks, wow, that was great. I was being really faithful there.

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And that's why it matters to keeping, Paul says this to Timothy, 1 Timothy 4, 16, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching, keeping a close watch.

30:32

And what you were talking about with influences, Proverbs 13, he who walks with the wise becomes wise, but then the companion of fools will suffer harm.

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And Kenneth, with those kinds of influences, he's made himself a companion of fools.

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And not only now is he himself spiritually suffering harm, but how many thousands, probably hundreds of thousands, even millions of people are suffering harm now because of what he's propagating, things like that.

31:00

Yeah. And that's what we need to do. Because what I think he does is they lock themselves in their own subculture, their own echo chamber.

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You'll see it in this next clip of people just say, yeah, yeah. Like sycophantic adoration to where they begin to worship these type of men.

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And it's just, yes, men, nobody challenging them. Nobody being Bereans, maybe within their culture.

31:23

I don't know a good Berean saying, hey, this just doesn't square with the word of God, but that's the people that we really want to reach.

31:30

You know, I hope this man repents, but I'm more concerned about the people in the pews, like you had said, that are just taking this hook, line, and sinker to the destruction of their own souls.

31:40

You know, this is antithetic, this is an antithetical to who a man of God should be overseeing the flock.

31:47

He's destroying them through this teaching. So you want to go on to the next clip? Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's just a little taste.

31:54

And again, we're giving like this kind of high level, quick survey overview of, of some of the big areas where Kenneth Copeland shines or doesn't shine, however you want to, as a false teacher.

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This word of faith, you can find example after example of this. That's one really big area where he is leading so many astray.

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The next one is called, what's called little God's theology. So we'll see this in this clip here coming up, and he's not the only one who propagates this.

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There's a lot of folks in circles he runs in and others as well, we can get into in future segments who teach this as well.

32:32

So this idea, a little God's theology, it talks about how God created humans.

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Okay. So, so far so good, but God created humans in his literal physical image as little

32:45

God. So we see Genesis 1 27, God created a man and woman in his image, but this little

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God's theology takes it one step further. And again, it's subtle. You know, that's why you got to keep a close watch on these things.

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It takes it one step further and says, no, God created human beings in his literal image.

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And then there's a quote from, you mentioned Kenneth Hagin earlier, another one of his mentors, and really the father of this word faith movement.

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Kenneth said, this is a direct quote from him. He said, man was created on terms of equality with God, and he could stand in God's presence without any consciousness of inferiority.

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That just like makes me shudder to read that. You think about Isaiah before the throne, you think about John in revelation, seeing

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Jesus and falling over like a dead man. You know, you talk about the Hebrews fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

33:39

God. And here's this guy who, who Kenneth Copeland loves, father of the word faith movement saying, yeah, we can stand toe to toe with God without any consciousness of inferiority.

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Unbelievable. Like we're the same as God. Well, why was Satan cast out of heaven? Yeah. That, that, that pride of wanting to usurp that authority, wanting to ascend to God, wanting to be equal with God.

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What did, what did Satan say to Jesus in the wilderness? Just bow down and worship me. Right. I mean, this is the work of the enemy here to say that we can have some, any type of equality with God, but we'll listen to this real quick.

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I know you're, you guys are going to lose your lunch. Sorry about that, but we got to listen. It's not taking anything away from God to be equal with our father, to be equal with our

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Lord Jesus. He's the one that caused it to happen.

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And our good God said, oh yeah, they're my children.

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Of course they're equal to me. I gave birth to them. Oh man. And then you have the, yes.

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Yeah. That you can hear it. You can hear it. You can hear the yes. Oh yes. Amen. Thank you, Jesus.

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You know, and it's like, what are we doing? We're saying no. I mean, people should be standing up when they hear that blasphemy, that utter sewage saying, no, this is, this is, this is bad.

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This is a mouth piece, not of God, but of Satan. Right. What did Satan say in the garden?

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You shall be like God. That was the big temptation because in our sinfulness, we want to take the place of God.

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We don't want to be accountable to anybody but ourselves. We want to rule and run our lives and say, Hey, this is the way it goes.

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And I don't need anybody telling me what to do. I don't need any, I want to be the master. So yeah, the people within there, they need to be saying, bro, step down.

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If we were in there, we'd be like, Hey, everybody, get out. This is scary.

35:47

And what's, what's even worse here is he's, you know, Peter talks about this too, of this idea of twisting scripture for their own ends.

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We talked about his insane wealth. And again, we can't attribute motives, anything like that, but he does twist the scriptures.

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So this clip here, and if you watch this whole thing, this is the Southwest Believers Convention. This is just two years ago.

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Cause there's a really, really, really famous quote from him back in the eighties, where he said, he was talking about Moses and God revealing himself to Moses in Exodus.

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And God says, you know, I am, he gives the divine name and Kenneth Copeland, there's a famous quote where he said, yeah, when

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God says to Moses, I am, I just smile and say, I am too. You know? And, and so there, there you go.

36:32

There's, there's Kenneth Copeland thinking he's on equal terms with God. And you could say, Oh, that was way back in the eighties.

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Well, this is him two years ago saying this and he's preaching. The text he's preaching is Philippians two verse five, where it says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

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And then we get this, really this hymn from Paul talking about Christ and about his humiliation, his condescension about how he humbled himself.

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So, so the entire passage of scripture is about Jesus. And it's about us seeking to have that same kind of mind.

37:06

It is not about us being on the same exact level of God as God or being

37:11

God ourselves. So you just think about that twisting of scripture and people hear that and they think, well, he's good at speaking.

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He looks good. He seems to talk with authority. He must be right. And that's when you get all those yes and amens.

37:24

And it's so easy just scripturally to refute stuff like this. I mean, you see just one, just one example here at first Samuel chapter two, verse two, this is

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Hannah's prayer. She says, there is none holy like the Lord for there is none besides you.

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There is no rock like our God. There's a verse we use with our LDS friends,

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Isaiah 43, 10, before me, no God was formed, neither shall there be any after me. 44, six,

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I'm the first and the last besides me, there is no God. There is one God and no one is like him.

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No one's like him in holiness. No one's like him in essence. It is God and God alone. And to even intimate, to imply at any level that I'm the same as God, it's blasphemous.

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And there's people, you read the old Testament, they get drug out and stoned to death for stuff like that. Like this is deadly serious, you know?

38:20

Yeah. It reminds me of somebody asking MacArthur, I think at a Ligonier conference, what's the biggest sickness within the

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Christian church? And he said, discernment, the lack of discernment that people who are claiming to be

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Christians and followers of Christ, loving the word of God, wanting to glorify God can sit in that church and listen to that and not run out, not only run out, but he should be publicly rebuked on the spot and say, you have to step down forever for saying something like that.

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You're disqualified forever. It just goes to show you there's no discernment, meaning there's no really intake of the true word of God into these people's lives.

38:58

So, okay, final clip. Final clip, this one. So we've covered the word of faith, covered the little

39:05

God's theology. Again, these are just fly by examples of these, but we want to be able to give evidence to what we're claiming.

39:11

We say Kenneth Copeland's a false teacher. We want to have evidence for that. This last one is false prophecy. So there's probably a lot of people who have seen this clip.

39:20

This is the clip where he pronounces judgment upon COVID -19. And honestly, if he wasn't leading so many people astray, this would be hard and it still even is hard not to just laugh at this clip.

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And if you go and you can tell he's proud of it still, if you still go on his YouTube channel today, there's a two minute 44 or whatever second clip of him pronouncing judgment upon COVID -19 and declaring that it's over, declaring that the

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U .S. is healed. And we'll hear this in a second. But really what he's doing is he's, in his mind, he's making a prophecy.

39:56

He's saying this is going to happen. And then he pronounces that it has happened. And amongst the, and this whole clip is just ridiculous.

40:06

His son -in -law, George Pearsons is in this clip too. And he's like, you can tell he's so uncomfortable because Kenneth starts like really going on and on about, it's almost like it wasn't even planned.

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And he's just started yelling and screaming. And you can hear George like, yes, oh yes. He's like trying to follow along with whatever

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Kenneth's doing. So we'll take a look at this clip, this false prophecy clip. It is finished.

40:34

It is over. And the

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United States of America is healed and well again.

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Sayeth the mighty spirit of peace, who is also the

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Prince of War, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's just, it's so cringey.

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He would even say it is finished like that. I mean, speaking to the work of redemption accomplished on the cross and applying that to this, it's just, it's bad stuff.

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And then you got his, that's his brother -in -law or son -in -law? It's his son -in -law. So yeah. Yeah. And he's been with KCM for a while now too.

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And the whole clip is just, it's only like two and a half minutes, but man, it is hard to get through.

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The first part is kind of funny because he just starts going off and yelling and then George like doesn't really know what's going on.

41:39

So he just tries to kind of fall in line. But as he's talking, you begin to see this, he really believes that what he's saying has come to pass.

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So if you kind of get past the comedy of it and really look at what he's doing, he's making a prophecy.

41:57

He's saying COVID -19 will end. COVID -19 has ended. It's finished. It's done. And you referenced

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Deuteronomy 18 earlier, because it's one thing to identify the false teaching, but then it's helpful to be able to refute it and say, here's why that's wrong.

42:13

And it's as simple as going to scripture, Deuteronomy chapter 18, the test of a prophet.

42:19

Okay. All we have to ask is, did COVID -19 end? Because when this video came out, this was on March 30th of 2020.

42:27

So this is like right when things started shutting down. Right. So we have to ask the question, did COVID -19 end on March 30th of 2020?

42:35

No. No, it didn't. It continued on and on. Okay. So then what he said did not come to pass.

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And if we look at Deuteronomy 18, we can see that if a prophet presumes to speak in the name of the

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Lord, and he says something and it doesn't come to pass, that's not a word that's from God.

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And then it says, don't listen to that prophet. You need not be afraid of him. And even in that passage there too, that Deuteronomy 18, larger passage about false prophets, calls for the prophets to be put to death.

43:04

Again, this is a serious thing. You know, like this is a, we can't just go around being like, willy nilly flimsy with making statements like this.

43:14

You know, he's standing up there supposedly as a minister of the gospel saying, COVID -19 is over, it's finished.

43:22

You know, thinking that he can use whatever office he has to make a statement like that. It's like, no, this is serious.

43:29

There's truly how I see it. It's like Romans three. It's like, there's no fear of God before his eyes here, you know?

43:36

Petey Absolutely. And you know, I came from charismatic circles earlier on in life, and I've actually had talks with charismatics and brought prophecy to them and talked about prophecy, how we don't believe that that's an operational gift today.

43:52

And then I've talked to a lot of people about other different false prophecies. You know, Hinn has had false prophecies of Jesus.

44:01

He said Jesus was going to appear to him on the stage, never happened. But they would say, oh, you know, false prophets in the

44:09

New Testament are different than the prophets, or sorry, prophets in the New Testament are different than the prophets in the

44:15

Old Testament. They can make mistakes, prophets in the New Testament. So my question would be, if that's the case, then what is the criteria by which you can determine what a false prophet is?

44:28

If we can't look to Deuteronomy 13, Deuteronomy 18, and what it outlines, that's the metric by which we gauge what a false prophet is, then how can we determine which is one and which isn't?

44:43

You know? Jared And if that's true, that New Testament prophets can be wrong, that they can be false, then

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Jesus was wrong when he said in John 17, your word,

44:54

God's word is truth. You know, it's what God speaks is true always.

45:00

He's unchanging. Pete So maybe to bring the plane to a landing.

45:05

Jared Close it out. Pete Why? I mean, you and I can sit here and listening to that is like pouring acid on our ears.

45:12

I mean, it's really disgusting. It's horrible. So my question to you, again, just to wrap this up is, why are people so beguiled?

45:22

Why do they give the millions and millions and make this man a rich man? I mean, what is it about him that entices and just seduces so many people into this type of situation?

45:35

What do you think? We start with the heart of man. Jeremiah is clear about that.

45:42

The heart is deceitful above all things. It's desperately sick. Who can understand it? The unregenerate heart of a person is going to hate the light, going to love darkness, and going to love the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

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And that's going to cause them to want to gain the things of the world more and more.

46:05

So it's, and it's that second Timothy verse I shared earlier as well. People who have itching ears, who have hearts that desire things of the world, who have hearts that love sin more than they love

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God. They're going to want to acquire for themselves teachers to suit those kinds of passions.

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And then that will turn them away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. And that's one of my hopes for this podcast is to encourage any pastors who are listening in, who are standing faithfully on God's word, and they have a small, numerically only a small flock and are discouraged by that.

46:38

How come Kenneth Copeland has, you know, a million people or whatever, millions of people on YouTube following them.

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And I have 22 people in my church, you know, I must be doing something wrong that could not be further from the truth.

46:51

You know, we are told the gate is wide, the way is easy. That leads to destruction. These people, teachers like this, there are going to be so many who sadly, you know, it breaks my heart, are straying from the truth of God's word, straying from that narrow way and acquiring for themselves teachers like Kenneth.

47:09

And that's why they have such big followings because people love that kind of stuff. It's easy to love the sin.

47:15

It's easy to want the things of the world. The way of Jesus, it's hard. It's a hard, and there are few,

47:21

Jesus says, who will find it. Right. Yeah, that's good, man. Yeah. So, maybe just to speak to Kenneth Copeland for a second.

47:30

We don't know if he'll hear this, but I think, sir, you should know that we don't hate you.

47:35

And we demonstrated that in the purpose of this podcast. If we really hated you, hated you, and just wanted to come after you or didn't care about you, we would just simply let you do what you're doing, right?

47:49

Because you're walking down the broad road that leads to destruction, and you're bringing so many people in your train.

47:57

And so, we lovingly would call you to repent. It's turning from this. You need to step down.

48:03

You need to publicly take responsibility for your false prophets, for the false teaching. You need to lead the flock of God.

48:12

People who would profess to be Christians, you need to lead them away from you and lead them to Christ.

48:18

And that's the need of the moment, because you're 86 years old, and it's just a picture of God's patience and long -suffering and mercy towards you that he would give you 86 years, given the fact that you're not ready to meet him based upon the evidence of your own actions.

48:33

So, the need for the moment is for you to repent, step down, turn from these sins, turn from this life that you've been living so long as a false teacher, not overseeing or caring for the flock of God, but leading these people into the same destruction that you're going towards.

48:51

And I would say to the people who are supporting KCM, the people who are sitting there in his teachings, in his conferences with all of your approvals and yeses, you need to be the true people of God, and you need to confront him.

49:07

And as you confront him with the truth, if he doesn't change, you have to get out of there. I mean, I would say at this point, you have to get away from this man, get away from his teachings, get away with any type of interaction with him, because then you're just opening up yourself and your family to further levels of destruction for your soul.

49:25

So, please do the right thing and get away from this false teacher. He's a wolf. And so, we have to direct the sheep away from the wolf, or he's just going to consume you and destroy you.

49:36

Amen. Yeah, the gospel is the power of God and the salvation. Yeah. Paul That is it. Come to Christ, turn to him and live.

49:43

Paul Amen. Well, we love you guys. This is just the start of our exposition of false teachers, and it's going to be something that needs to happen.

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If we as God's men and God's people really care for the church, this is just the stuff that we got to do.