Are Discernment Ministries Sowing Seeds of Discord?

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about discernment and discord.

So the question is, are discernment ministries guilty of sowing seeds of discord amongst the brethren?

That's the accusation that some people make, that there are YouTube channels and discernment ministries that deal with false teachers and false prophets in the church, and they're just looking to stir up trouble and they're making

Christianity look bad. So I'll read from that passage in Proverbs 6 in just a moment, but let me start out by saying, yeah, there are people, obviously there are people who are just looking to stir up trouble.

Those people exist, but I'm going to argue that generally speaking, it is the false.

It's the false teachers. It's the false doctrine. That's the problem. You know, that's what's really causing division.

False doctrine, not the people pointing it out, or maybe it's not even a matter of false doctrine, but just some bad practice or questionable associations.

Are people not allowed to say anything? Well, let's get into this. First of all, if there, yes, if there is a personal matter between you and someone else in your church,

Matthew 18 is clear. If you have an issue with someone personally, if you are offended, if you have an issue, go to that person, try to resolve it.

Matthew 18 gives us the process, bring two or three, then bring it before the church. I think we know

Matthew 18 by now. If you don't read it for yourself, but if you start going around to other people, let's say you do have an issue with someone else personally in your church, and instead of going to the person, like the

Bible says, if you're just going to other people, let's say you won't talk to them, but you will go around and just run them down to everybody else.

Or maybe if the pastor says something in a sermon and you disagree with it, and instead of asking the pastor about it, you just start running the pastor down to everyone else in the church.

I mean, yeah, that would be an instance of sowing seeds of discord. Or if you are slandering someone, if you are lying about them.

And in order for something to be slander, it has to be false. So yes, if you're lying about people, you're tearing them down with false accusations and just spreading that around, that's sowing seeds of discord.

But here's the thing, when a pastor teaches false doctrine in public, if he does something unbiblical and it's just out in the open, and he's been admonished for it and he just refuses to listen to the admonition, then it's fair game to bring it up.

It's not a Matthew 18 issue anymore, or it never was. It's not personal, it's doctrinal, and there's a big difference there.

So most discernment ministries, along with YouTube channels, and this podcast is dedicated to discernment in Christian news, testing the spirits.

So here's what I don't do. I would never take a personal issue between me and someone else in the church and just start running down another church member on my podcast.

I've never done that. I never would do it. Or if a matter was private, just between me and someone else, or there was something that happened and it's secret, it's private, it's a personal matter,

I'm not just going to reveal that. I've never revealed something private on this podcast.

I talk about things that are already done in public, out in the open, a pastor teaches this or that, and everyone knows it, and I talk about it, but I'm not going to reveal private things.

I'm not going to lie about somebody I don't believe and digging up dirt on people or revealing secret things.

I've never done that. I'm never going to do that, and I'm not going to repeat something if I don't know it's true.

I've had people email me and say, hey, this ministry did this, this church did that.

If I don't have video evidence, if I don't have proof, I'm not going to get into things.

If I don't know about it, if I don't have evidence, I'm not going to get into it.

I'm very careful about that because yes, sowing seeds of discord is real, but again, let's just read the passage.

I think it'll be even more clear. It says in Proverbs 6, starting in verse 16, these six things, the

Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to him, a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift and running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies and one who sows discord among the brethren.

Notice how lying and false witness, speaking lies, that's how you do it, okay?

That's the main issue here. So that's how you would sow discord among the brethren.

It's hard to sow discord by telling the truth about something that's already public and you know, if Benny Hinn is teaching heresy and I make a video saying, okay, here's the video of Benny Hinn saying it and here's what the

Bible says. So I disagree with Benny Hinn. Well, you're sowing seeds of discord. Like that's ridiculous.

Benny Hinn is the one sowing seeds of discord by teaching heresy. So a lot of people have it totally backwards, but I was thinking about this.

What is a biblical example of someone sowing seeds of discord in the

Bible? So if you're listening on YouTube and you think of something, you know, type it in the comments section.

Give me your example. But I was thinking about in scripture when people were lying about the apostle

Paul, some people were saying that he wasn't a real apostle in his letter to the

Corinthians. He was defending his apostolic office because there were people running him down.

Most likely this was coming from the false apostles that Paul, he referred to them as ministers of Satan.

But they were lying about Paul saying he's not a real apostle. So I think this is a good example.

They were speaking lies. They were devising wicked plans to harm the ministry of the apostle

Paul. So they were spreading these lies, these rumors that he wasn't a true apostle so that people would presumably look at them as the real apostles.

So they had to run down Paul to exalt themselves, but they were lying and devising evil plans to do it.

And then Paul sarcastically, you remember he called them the most eminent apostles or super apostles.

So Paul is, you know, using sarcasm and mockery. And typically today though, if you use sarcasm or mockery, or if you called someone a minister of Satan, even if what you said is true, you would be accused of discord.

Well, by that logic, Paul is the bad guy. Paul is guilty of sowing seeds of discord because he called them ministers of Satan.

No, that's not the way it works. How do you determine all of this? You have to look at what is actually true.

Okay. That's what it all boils down to who's right and who's wrong. What's true and what's false.

So yeah, Paul called them ministers of Satan. You said, well, that's divisive. Yeah, but they were.

So the fall again, the false apostles were telling lies. So they're the ones guilty of the division in the church of Corinth.

So they were sowing seeds of discord. Their motivation was to ruin the reputation of a brother in Christ.

Their motivation was to harm his ministry. So they told lies to try and accomplish that.

So if a modern using that as our biblical example, and then applying that to what's happening today, if a modern discernment ministry told lies about another pastor, that would be wrong.

But this is usually how it works. For example, it's usually something like this.

Remember when JD Greer preached that sermon years ago from Romans one, that Christians, he said, should be the fiercest supporters of the rights of LGBT people.

So he concluded from a sermon in Romans one that, you know, Christians should support gay rights.

Well, that's the opposite of what Romans one says. So that's what JD Greer preached. And then people made

YouTube videos criticizing his statements. And then the person making the

YouTube videos, they, they get accused of sowing seeds of discord among the brother. No, it's backwards.

JD Greer is the one sowing seeds of discord with his false teaching, his divisive teaching.

Okay. JD Greer is the one guilty in that case, not the person pointing out that what he said is obviously not true.

And then another thing people say, they said, well, these people who made videos about that, they should have gone to JD Greer directly and not made a

YouTube video about him. Well, first of all, I mean, yeah, you could, if you are in his church,

I would recommend that, but you don't have to, because it's not a personal dispute.

It's doctoral. So Matthew 18 really doesn't apply. Second, most of the time, these famous teachers are not accessible.

So it's not like you could get Joel Osteen or JD Greer on the telephone, even if you want it to.

And third, if a statement is made in public, then you have the right to address it publicly.

If it's a personal matter, handle it privately. Okay. Private matters, handle it privately, but public matters.

You can talk about it publicly. That's the way this works. So accusing discernment ministries of sowing seeds of discord, yeah, it's like saying that the

Apostle Paul was guilty of division. People say, well, you know, Jesus would never come out and say things about another minister.

Well, didn't he do that though? The scribes and Pharisees, what did Jesus say? He said all sorts of things to them.

More on that in a second, but you say, well, Jesus was all about peace and unity.

Well, actually Jesus literally said that he came not to bring peace, but division.

Jesus came with a sword in order to divide. That's Matthew 10, 34 through 36.

So God's word properly handled. The point is God's word properly handled. It does divide.

It divides truth from error, right from wrong. But with that said, God's word or God's truth cannot possibly be blamed for causing division in the church.

No, it's the false teachers or bad practice or just sin that causes division in the church.

So this podcast, like I said, is dedicated to discernment and Christian news.

So I've seen a lot of the talk, I've seen the back and forth, and I think a lot of people understand this.

Probably most people understand this, but there's some people I think who have it backwards.

So I wanted to talk about this. There will be people who get all upset because someone is disagreeing.

This is really what they're upset about. They're angry that someone is disagreeing with one

Christian, disagreeing with another in public. So that just makes Christians look bad because Christians are fighting.

It's like, have you read the Bible? We need to deal with things. We need to deal with issues and we need to debate and we need to say this is right and this is wrong.

That's done in every other setting. In government, they do that. In the school system, they talk about what's correct and what's wrong in every area of life.

We talk about the problems and how to fix them. Sometimes people disagree and we just need to grow up and accept that this is how we work through issues in the church.

Ignoring it and sweeping it under the rug is just going to make things worse. But this is what a lot of people will disagree about.

They don't like that someone is disagreeing with someone else in public and yet they will publicly disagree in the comment section or they'll make a video and it's like, well, why is it okay for you to publicly disagree but not the other person?

Okay, I think you get the idea. So hopefully, you'll realize, we'll all realize, sowing seeds of discord is a real thing.

It's absolutely wrong. The Bible condemns it and we've talked about some obvious examples of what that looks like in the body of Christ.

But usually, most of the time, this is not what is happening with discernment ministries.

They are simply doing what the Bible tells us to do in 1 John 4 verse 1. I mean, the Apostle John clearly says, don't believe just anybody.

Don't believe every spirit, but he says, test the spirits. Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

So in conclusion, what matters most is not how you feel about it.

What matters most is not whether or not someone disagreed with your favorite TV preacher and how dare they, who do they think they are?

No, what matters is what is true. What is true?

What is right? What does the Bible say? That's what matters the most. So I'll just end with this.

If I ever start fellowshipping with heretics or if I start telling my YouTube audience that in order for you to get the full blessing of God, you need to send in, you know, so your thousand dollar seed and God will give you 10 ,000 in return.

If I ever started doing stuff like that, what would happen? The people around me would pull me aside and they would admonish me.

But if I didn't listen, people would absolutely have the right to make a YouTube video playing a clip of me saying something wrong or doing something wrong and then opening the

Bible and showing why it's unbiblical. Absolutely people would have the right to do that. So if I ever start promoting

LGBT or if I ever go on Joni Lamb's program and praise her up, that's not going to happen, obviously.

But if you called me out for that, here's the point. You would not be guilty of sowing seeds of discord.

I would be guilty by, you know, my false doctrine or false practice.

So hopefully that clears things up, but thanks for listening and until next time, may the Lord be with you.