WWUTT 715 Q&A Following False Teachers, Mark's Appendix, and NAR's Statement of Faith?

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Why will those led astray by false teachers be held accountable for listening to those teachers?

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What are we to make of Mark 16 verses 9 -20? And is there an NAR statement of faith?

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The answers to these questions when we understand the text. Many of the

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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today.

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We had a very exhausting Thursday. It was our son's seventh birthday. Happy birthday, buddy.

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And you know, as it is with kids and birthday parties, it just turns into a long, exhausting day. I took

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Zeej to a movie last night, and by the time we got home, Becky was wiped and had already gone to bed.

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I understand, and I hope you do as well. So if you follow her on Twitter, wish her your best, and God willing, she'll be back on the podcast with me next week.

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On the Friday edition of the podcast, we take questions from the listeners, and you can submit a question to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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The three questions I have today all come from North America, but none of them from the

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United States. This first one, we're going to Mexico. This is from Celia, who says, Hello, Gabe and Becky.

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I'll pass on your hello in the podcast today, and this would have been a few days ago. You mentioned that people who are deceived by false teachers are held accountable also.

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What about in specific cases like the families who were killed in Jonestown by Jim Jones? I'm not trying to debate here on this.

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I'm simply looking for an honest answer, and I don't understand why all people, adults and kids are held accountable or how it could be their fault if they are being led astray.

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Please help me if I am wrong on this. Thank you. Well, let's go to the text that I was reading from when

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I made that particular statement. This is in Second Timothy, chapter four, verses three and four.

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The Apostle Paul writes, For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

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And one of the things that I mentioned on Wednesday is that false teachers are a judgment against those who have hearts that are rebellious against God and instead want to entertain the passions that they have in their flesh.

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So since that's what they want, they don't want to please God. They want what is pleasing to themselves as a judgment.

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God sends false teachers and they accumulate those false teachers who will tell them the thing that they want to hear.

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They scratch their itching ears and notice that Paul says here they accumulate for themselves these teachers.

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So it's never just one guy or one woman as the case may be. They're following somebody like Joyce Meyer, but they have multiple teachers that they're listening to, giving them permission to entertain these passions in their flesh.

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Maybe they still have some kind of religion or some kind of Christianity. They claim they love

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Jesus and want to worship God, but they don't actually want to do what is pleasing to God.

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And so they want the teacher who's going to tell them, Jesus says, it's okay for you to do this.

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It's okay for you to go out and get drunk. It's okay for you to have sex before marriage as long as you love that person.

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After all, Jesus hung out with prostitutes. You know, somebody might say something like that, and they give that person a permission to have the thing that their heart desires, which is the stuff of their flesh, not pleasing unto

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God. And like I said a couple of days ago, the most common kind of teaching that you'll get in North America is that prosperity light.

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It's the sort of a thing where, you know, Joshua fought the battle at Jericho and you have high walls in your life that are preventing you from getting the thing that you want.

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But if you believe in God and you have faith, well, those walls will come tumbling down and you'll be able to have that thing that you desire.

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It might be something like that. It might be ambiguous teaching of that kind, which doesn't actually come back to the gospel.

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It's not rooted in gospel teaching. It's appeasing the flesh. That kind of teaching is exactly appealing to the person who just wants the softer messages.

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They don't like the conviction that they feel in their heart when they hear the gospel or when they hear the pastor talk about sin, naming sins and saying, repent of these sins.

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You must follow Christ. You're no longer a slave to sin, but you're a slave to righteousness. They don't like that kind of message.

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They don't like the guilt that they experience in church when they're listening to that kind of thing. So they wander from the truth and they go off into myths and accumulate those teachers that will suit their own passions.

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Now this is the judgment of God against such a person whose heart is inclined to their flesh rather than a desire to please

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God. It's not like it's a final judgment. They can still repent, and I hope they do.

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It's one of the reasons why I raise awareness about false teachers, which is one of my responsibilities as a pastor,

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Titus 1 .9, that I would hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught and also rebuke those who contradicted.

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And my obligation first is to my own congregation, teaching them to flee from false teachers.

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And then that also extends to the, when we understand the text ministry as well, preaching the truth, but also warning against these folks who distort the truth, these false teachers who distort the truth.

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Now the scriptures tell us James 3, 1, that teachers will be judged more strictly.

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James says, not many of you should desire to become teachers, my brothers, for you know that teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

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But the people who followed those false teachers will likewise be judged.

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A person doesn't follow a false teacher because in their heart, they were just kind of wandering.

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They're like, boy, I'd, I'd really like to know the truth, but I don't know what the truth is. And then this teacher comes along, a false teacher, and they listen to him and they're convinced that what that false teacher is saying is the truth.

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And so they're going, aha, I've got it. This is the right answer. And then they die and they appear before God in judgment.

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And they look at God and they say, well, I didn't know any better. I was listening to this guy. He was the one that told me, and he told me lies.

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See nobody's actually going to be able to appear before God and say that because in their heart, they were already rebellious against God.

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And that's every single one of us, all of us in our natural selves. We are rebels against God.

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All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans 3, 10 through 12.

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No one even seeks for God and no one does anything righteous. So if we're not seeking for God, nobody's actually looking out there and then accidentally stumbles into a false teacher.

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They accumulate false teachers. They want what their flesh wants. This is the story of every single one of us.

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Before we come to Christ, all we want is what our flesh desires. And it's the Holy Spirit of God that changes our hearts away from desiring our flesh.

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And instead, we desire the things of Christ. We're convicted about the sin that we've done in our flesh.

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And we beg God for forgiveness. God cleansed me from all unrighteousness.

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And the Bible says he is faithful and just to do so because Christ has paid the price for our unrighteousness with his death on the cross.

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So we turn from sin. We ask for forgiveness. We receive that forgiveness. And then we must go and sin no more.

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No longer walk in the sins of your former passions, but rather you pursue the righteousness of Christ.

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And if that desire in your heart is there, what you will want and what you will be looking for are those teachers who are teaching the gospel of Christ.

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Those words that flow from the teaching of Christ. That will be what your heart desires because the

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Holy Spirit has changed your heart to desire that. A person who has not heard the gospel, who does not have the regenerated, transformed heart is still after the things of their flesh.

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The very nature that they were born with because they're a descendant of Adam and Eve. So not having hearts that have been conformed to Christ, they are still desiring the things of the flesh.

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They listen to those teachers that appease the desires of their flesh. Celia made this reference to Jim Jones at Jonestown.

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She said, what about in specific cases like the families who were killed in Jonestown? In case you don't know,

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Jonestown was a massive cult suicide that took place back in 1978.

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And up until September 11th of 2001, Jonestown was the largest single loss of American civilian life in American history.

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Jim Jones was a real crackpot of a cult leader, although he had a lot of notoriety and endorsements from some very famous people, including

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Jimmy Carter, who was president of the United States at the time. He thought Jim Jones was a very upstanding man.

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Jones was a communist and he was looking for ways to practice his communism. And so he decided to kind of start his own religion.

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It was supposed to be a denomination at first, an offshoot of the Methodist church and also involve

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Seventh -day Adventism. But he was very charismatic, Pentecostal. He had these faith healing services that he would do and people just loved it.

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They came to be healed and speak in tongues and and stuff like that. He was also a racial integrationist.

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And so he used these things to recruit people into his cult. Make a long story short, eventually the cult was moved down to South America to Guyana and they they they opened up this compound called

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Jonestown. And a congressman named Leo Ryan had heard about some of the kooky things that were going on there at Jonestown.

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And so he went down to investigate and ended up getting shot and killed while he was there. Well, Jim Jones had been feeding his congregation with these lies for a long time about how death was a friend and we needed to welcome death and we're all going to die and we're going to go live on this paradise planet somewhere.

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And so after Leo Ryan got killed, he knew, OK, now everybody's going to come in and and arrest me and take me away.

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So he convinced his cult that they needed to drink this Kool -Aid, which was laced with cyanide, and they needed to die and go be on their other world.

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And so parents were drinking the Kool -Aid, kids were drinking the Kool -Aid. This is where we get that expression to drink the

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Kool -Aid, because everybody was duped into believing Jim Jones stick and they all followed him to their deaths.

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Over 900 people died in this camp as a result of the radically false and deadly teaching, literally deadly teaching that Jim Jones was feeding his cult members.

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And so we see something like that and we think to ourselves, well, are the people who died, are they really going to be held accountable before God?

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Won't it be Jim Jones fault because he duped them into doing that? No, everybody is going to have to give an account before God.

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Now, Jones is going to be judged with greater strictness, according to James 3, 1.

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But everybody is going to have to give an account. And the reason why those people follow Jim Jones is because he told them things that were appealing to their flesh.

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They weren't looking for Christ. They were looking to be able to do the things that Jones said they could have if they would just follow him.

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By the way, Jones claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. He also claimed to be the reincarnation of an

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Egyptian pharaoh, Buddha, Vladimir Lenin, and an African -American spiritual leader named

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Father Divine, who himself had claimed to be God. And so by claiming these things, people believed it and they followed it, even though Jesus strictly warned in Matthew chapter 24 that if somebody says, look, here is the

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Christ, do not believe it. For as lightning travels from the west to the east, so will be the coming of the son of man.

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It will be seen by the whole world. Believe nobody who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

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So I hope that answers your question, Celia. Yes, teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

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But the reason why people follow false teachers is because they sinfully desire to follow false teachers.

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But what about the children? Aren't they kind of innocent bystanders in this? We read in Matthew chapter 18, verse six, whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

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So I do believe that those parents that subjected their children to this, they likewise will be judged with greater strictness.

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And God may show greater mercy upon those children who were led into this deceptiveness by their parents and by a guy as crazy as Jim Jones was.

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But but ultimately, we have to believe that God is sovereign and he knows what he is doing and is ultimately working all things together for his glory.

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So whatever God's decision in that would be, it would be righteous and a holy decision.

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Next, we go to Ontario, Canada. This is from Henry. Hi, Gabe and Becky. Again, I'll pass on your hello.

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So I was at a prayer meeting last night and someone brought up Mark 16, 17 through 18, and he was discouraged because he doesn't see the signs that are mentioned in that passage follow anyone who believes.

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How would you respond to someone like this? This brother is a fairly new believer, maybe two years, and he's not a crazy charismatic.

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I didn't know how to respond to him. For some reason, it didn't feel right to tell him to dismiss it because of a textual variant.

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Thank you for the podcast. I listen to every episode and my wife and I and kids enjoy listening to the

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Q &A on the weekends. Well, thank you so much, Henry. Well, let's go to Mark chapter 16. Of course, this is from what is commonly referred to as the

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Marken appendix. Mark chapter 16 verses nine through 20. And in your

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Bible, unless you're reading a particularly old King James Bible, it will be mentioned in there that some of the earliest manuscripts do not include

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Mark 16, nine through 20. And indeed, I believe Mark did not write this.

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This was added at a later time. Now, we don't know who did this, but we do know where Mark 16, nine through 20 came from.

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It came from other parts of the Gospels. Somebody in the process of transmission of copying manuscripts, somebody did not like the ending to the book of Mark.

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And it could have been several scribes who got together and decided that they were going to write a new ending to Mark.

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And so they added this ending by pulling bits and pieces from the other

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Gospels. For example, it will start right at the beginning of the section. Mark 16, verse nine. It says now when he rose early on the first day of the week, referring to Jesus rising from the grave, when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.

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Now that right there is curious because Mary Magdalene was just mentioned a couple of verses before.

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Why is she suddenly being mentioned as Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons? It seems unusual for Mark to have to expound upon who

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Mary Magdalene is all of a sudden when he had mentioned her just a little bit ago. But this verse that we have right here,

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Mark 16, nine, this actually comes from Luke eight, one through three. So some scribe had pulled from Luke eight to insert this, this new part here.

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And then you have verse 10. She went and told those who had been with him as they mourned and wept.

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Well, that's almost exactly from John 20, verse 18 and then verse 11.

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But when they heard that he was alive and he had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things, he appeared in another form to two of them as they were walking into the country.

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Well, that's the road to Emmaus story. So that comes from Luke chapter 24, then verse 13.

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And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Afterward, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at table and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.

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Well, that is likewise from Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through 38, verse 15.

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And he said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole of creation.

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Well, that sounds familiar. That's the great commission in Matthew chapter 28, verse 19. And now here we get to the section that Henry is asking about verses 17 and 18.

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And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name. They will cast out demons.

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They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents with their hands. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them.

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They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. And so Henry's friend is struggling with this particular section because he doesn't see these signs manifest in a believer, in somebody who claims to be a

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Christian. And it's very commendable of Henry's friend that he notices that not that he's looking at somebody who's claiming to be doing miracles and then going, ah, there it is.

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There's the signs. That's exactly what I'm looking for. But he even recognizes that those who are performing such miracles are not actually doing the things that are talked about here.

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So let me read it again. Verses 17 and 18. These signs will accompany those who believe in my name.

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Jesus said they will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents with their hands.

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And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.

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So remember, having just given you evidences that what we're reading here in the Mark and Appendix is picking from other parts of the gospel.

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That's the same as this part right here. This is also grabbing parts from the other gospels.

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In Matthew chapter 10, verse 8, when he sent out his disciples, he said that they would be able to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.

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So it's from sections like that that this particular list has been constructed in verses 17 and 18.

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But this is fulfilled with the apostolic ministry that we read about in the book of Acts with the apostles being able to speak in tongues, raise the dead, heal the sick.

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The apostle Paul was even bit on the hand with a snake and he shook it into the fire. This past week,

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I did a new what video on faith healers and how the whole concept of a faith healer is actually a hoax.

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You'd have to go watch the video to understand that. But anyway, there's one particular slide in that video kind of went by kind of fast, but it included this particular fact in the book of Acts.

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Only Peter, John, Philip, Stephen, Ananias, Paul and Barnabas are mentioned by name as performing miracles or signs and wonders.

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That's it. Only those seven men are mentioned by name performing miracles or signs and wonders.

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Now, there is a reference also in Acts 512 of all the apostles doing this together.

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But we only have those seven names mentioned as having done anything miraculous or or performing signs and wonders.

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It is simply not for every single person to do. And the apostle Paul even says in 1

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Corinthians 12, do all speak in tongues, do all perform miracles, do all have gifts of healing?

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And of course, those are rhetorical questions. And the answers to those questions are no. These miraculous signs and wonders were given specifically to the apostles or those who are closely associated with them during the time that the gospel was being spread to the world, to the

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Jews and then also to the Greeks. Now, Henry, you mentioned that you didn't want to just dismiss this as some sort of textual variant.

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But I think it's important to note, because whoever it was that that gave you the translation of the

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Bible that you have, like, I don't know what translation it is that you use, but they've all noted in there again, unless you're using an old version of the

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King James, all of them note that some of the earliest manuscripts do not include chapter 16, verses nine through 20.

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It is not like any of the rest of the book of Mark. There's so much about it, several words that are even used here that Mark never uses in the rest of his letter.

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It just doesn't fit. It's very clearly not written by Mark. When you read

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Mark and then you get to this, the language, the word choices, everything looks so different from the way the rest of the book of Mark was written.

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And so it's worth noting that this was not included in the earliest manuscripts and was not written by the hand of Mark.

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Somebody added this later, and they picked and chose from different pieces of the

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Gospels to come up with this particular list. And so that's good for helping to explain the

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Bible to your friend, because it will help him in interpreting the text, but also maybe help to resolve this tension that he feels because he does not see the fulfillment of that list in believers today.

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The proof or the evidence that we have of the working of the gospel in our hearts is not that we're going to be able to do any of these miraculous things.

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It's that we turn from sin and that we grow in the knowledge of God and his son,

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Jesus Christ, that we're no longer naturally minded men and women, according to 1

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Corinthians chapter two, but that we are spiritually minded and we desire the things of God.

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We want to flee the temptations of the flesh and the sins that cling so closely.

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And instead, we want to shake them off and pursue Christ, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

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John wrote in 1 John chapter five, I've written these things to you that you may know that you have eternal life.

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We are meant to have an assurance of salvation. And so, Henry, I would encourage you to tell your friend to read 1

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John and read that one over and over again, because that's kind of the book that gets recommended to those who are struggling with belief or with wondering if they really are saved, if their hearts are sealed with the

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Holy Spirit of God for the day of redemption. This last question also comes from Canada, says,

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Hello, Pastor Gabe. My name is Stephen, and I work at a house of prayer in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

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I've lived in Kansas City for seven months during 2012 to 13, doing an internship at the

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International House of Prayer in Kansas City. I listened to your message calling out Francis Chan. This was a sermon that I did over a year and a half ago, and you talked in much detail about the new apostolic reformation.

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I have listened to many reform pastors, mostly John MacArthur, who have also talked in great detail about the

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NRA, but I have done much research on it online and have never seen any official document or statement from the

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NRA or by any of those that you and many other reform pastors claim to be associated with it.

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Could you maybe send me a link of something where some of these reformed pastors are getting this info?

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I'm not asking you this to correct you, but I'm simply curious. Well, thank you,

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Stephen, for your question and for watching the video and sending that email. The new apostolic reformation was a term that was coined by C.

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Peter Wagner to describe the third wave spiritual movement that was taking place within many modern charismatic and Pentecostal churches.

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There is no formal statement of faith or organizational membership. So there is not like a head of the new apostolic reformation headquarters where they are determining which churches are part of this and which are not.

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It's basically churches that, well, they all associate with one another.

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They all kind of have this partnership with each other, but they believe and teach the same things. They all believe

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God still appoints apostles to govern his church today. Mike Bickel of the

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International House of Prayer has even said that these modern apostles will supersede the authority of the biblical apostles and that the apostles of the

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Bible will be lining up in heaven to shake their hands. He has said that there will be new truths that will be revealed by these apostolic men that you will not find in the

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Bible. New apostolic reformation churches also believe that believe in dominionism or something that is called the seven mountain mandate.

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And as I'm kind of running out of time in the podcast, if you go to got questions dot org and you type in seven mountain mandate, you'll kind of get a summary of what that is and how it is biblically incorrect.

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I had that information pulled up in front of me to be able to share it with you, but I'm not going to go down that rabbit trail.

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You can find information about that at got questions dot org. They also believe in extra biblical revelation, as I mentioned, supernatural signs and wonders even beyond the miracles that are described in scripture.

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And their leaders often report having personal audiences with God. Mike Bickel, Jesse Duplantis, Bill Johnson, the worship leaders at Bethel Church.

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They have all told stories about personal encounters they had with God, the father, Jesus Christ, or even encounters with the

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Holy Spirit. And you see that in video evidence from Bethel Church where you will have like the manifestation of the glory cloud and the gold glitter or the fog machine or something like that.

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They claim that's the Holy Spirit visiting them there at Bethel Church because they believe in extra biblical revelation.

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Their doctrine is always wild and unbiblical and they and often downright heretical. I wrote on a very specific false doctrine that comes out of Bethel Church.

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If you will look up a blog article entitled Bethel Church believes a different gospel, just type in Pastor Gabe Bethel Church believes a different gospel.

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And you can read exactly some of the things that are taught at Bethel Church and how it contradicts scripture.

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I mean, and downright heretical. On top of that, nine marks also did a review of one of Bill Johnson's books and came to the conclusion that he holds to a very heretical view of the

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Trinity. Costi Hinn and Anthony Wood have written what I believe to be the best book on the subject entitled

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Defining Deception, and you can find that on Amazon. Costi was formerly caught up in that movement, so he knows exactly the kinds of stuff they believe and the way that they manipulate their hearers.

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So there's some information for you, Stephen, to kind of help you out with understanding what the

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New Apostolic Reformation is and why it's so dangerous. We do need to be properly equipped against these things, being able to recognize the truth from the lie.

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But first and foremost, we need to be in the truth of God's word, because when we know the truth, when something counterfeit comes our way, we're able to look at it and go, you know what?

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I know the truth, and that's not it. Let's conclude with prayer. Our Lord God, we thank you for your word.

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What a privilege it is to live in the era that we live in now when we have such access to the word of God.

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May we hold this in such reverence that when somebody puts a Bible in our hands or when we grab the

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Bible and we open it up, we know what we're holding in our hands. What we're looking at with our eyes is the very word of God.

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It is divinely inspired. It says exactly what you want it to say. And so when it falls upon our ears, may our hearts be conditioned by the

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Holy Spirit to hear it and receive it and understand what it says that we may be grown in sanctification, shaping us more into the image of Christ for the day of Christ.

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God, I want to pray for Stephen, whose question I just answered, as he has been caught up in this new apostolic reformation, as he has done an internship at the

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International House of Prayer. I pray that the answers that I've given to him and the material that I sent to him by email will open his eyes, that he will understand the lies that are being perpetuated by some of these false teaching churches, and he will flee from the lie and he will desire the truth, cling to it, come to the knowledge of it.

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Your spirit would open his heart to receive it, and he would repent of false teaching. I thank you for Henry and the ministry he's doing with his friend and give him wisdom in how to respond in an understanding of what we're reading there at the close of Mark chapter 16.

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And thank you for Celia as well. And I pray that she would also be a blessing and a ministry to those people around her, being able to win people from the lies that they've been following in, because that's the desire of our flesh is to go after the lie.

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And instead, they'll hear the truth of the gospel and so have their hearts turned toward following Jesus Christ.

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Keep us steadfast in the faith for the day of redemption. And we pray this in Jesus' name.