Provoked: Evangelizing the Pews

Hey, what's going on everybody and welcome to another show of Provoked. It's been a while. Yeah. I think the last time we were together was in December.

Was it? Christmas. Yeah. And I got a kind of cool update about that. But we are the show that's just about provoking

Christians really to preach the gospel, go out and biblically evangelize, rescue babies. Innocent developing human babies are being murdered.

And so we think it's a good thing to try to provoke, wake the church up to go out to rescue those babies and destroy idols in your life because God hates idolatry.

It's all throughout the scripture. So that's the purpose of the show. And we're glad to be back. What you could do, and we say it every single time because we're so thankful for Apologia Studios that they provide this opportunity that we can hopefully glorify

God with this podcast. But what you can do as you kind of consume from Apologia, which we are so glad that you do, we're so thankful that you come on here and listen and kind of partake, but also contribute.

And that's how you go to Apologia all access, or sorry, go to Apologia Studios and become an all access member.

And on that all access member account, you get tons and tons of awesome teachings from massive different or so many different awesome teachers in their field of expertise.

You'd be able to educate your family. And of course you give back to us so we can keep these bright lights going and we can continue to get the gospel out and rescue babies and do all that we can do.

So what are we going to do today? Well, we thought we'd talk about false prophets, lukewarm Christians, things that have kind of been on our heart.

False prophets kind of focused in on many of these guys and gals that prophesied

Donald Trump would be our next president. And what do you know? He's not. So I think what the scriptures tell us to do and what even

Jesus did was beware of false teachers, beware of false prophets. We actually have to mark these individuals because they're so destructive and detrimental towards the sheep.

So that's why we do it. It's not something personal, but when somebody says, thus sayeth the Lord, they prophesy, they foretell some future event that doesn't occur.

Then we have to mark that person and say, Hey, you have nothing to do with them. And then we're also going to talk about lukewarm

Christianity, false Christianity, and really how, you know, really false prophets and lukewarm

Christians, false Christians, the segments of society around us and within the church are incredibly destructive for the church.

That's why we want to kind of expose these certain segments of society or these people groups and then warn the church, stay away, and have nothing to do with them.

But I thought we would start out with kind of in the news. Just what's been going on.

It's kind of a bittersweet day today because something cool happened and something kind of stinky.

Oklahoma, we're actually going to Oklahoma on Monday, and we're there to support Free the States and other ministries because they just presented a bill of abolition,

SB495, and it just got killed. Yeah. Yeah. 10 to zero, right?

Yeah. 10 to zero. So it got assigned to a committee and it received a hearing and they have not received a hearing for any of their bills of abolition.

They've been putting them in for six years and then it got killed at the hearing by a predominantly pro -life legislator.

Right. So zero pro -life legislators voted on it when they had an opportunity to put forward a bill that would abolish abortion and they killed it.

Yeah. So what did they do? So these pro -life legislators, they voted to keep the murder of babies legal within the state of Oklahoma.

So there's really no difference between a pro -choice person and a pro -life person at this point.

I mean, when you're looking at it from that angle, right? I mean, if you're an abolitionist, you want to abolish it, but the pro -life movement has failed us for the last 50 years.

Yeah, they have. And I think because all they do is they take the pre -born and they use the pre -born like a political football and they just kick the ball and wherever they want to, just for their own political ends.

Right. So it's only pro -life because they want to appeal to a certain constituents to get their votes, to get them into office.

Right. I mean, and you can't not say that you're not like that when you vote this way.

Right. Now you've actually, and it's a horrible thing that they killed the bill. Zachary Clint Morgan.

Yeah, I thought I'd turn it off. It's a horrible thing that they killed the bill of course. But it's a kind of a good thing that they're exposed now, that they can't hide behind the pro -life banner and continue just to feed lies into the, well, the pro -life movement we know is not abolitionists.

We're trying to actually win the pro -life movement, which is for incrementalism, regulationism, minuscule means, horrible bills that do nothing to save babies.

Right. They have saved babies. It does not putting an end to it all. Right. So the good thing is you can expose these guys.

And so the voters can attack them and we can get them out of office. We could say, do the right thing, do the noble thing, do the

God honoring thing, be truly pro -life, support a bill that would criminalize abortion in the womb, or you're out of here.

Let's do everything that we can. So even though it's horrible, it's still, Oklahoma is making progress and we're going to actually be there on Monday to help with their rally and help with their abolition conference.

Oh, good. Yeah. So that's, it stings. I'm glad there's process here.

I mean, this legislative effort to end abortion is not something that just happens overnight. Right. I mean, it's a year's long marathon rather than just a sprint.

But I feel for the guys, these guys are putting so much work and I appreciate them so much. But it's just another another phase in this whole process of ending child murder.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought, you got anything you want to talk about as far as news or?

Oh, I don't know. We're kind of just still not reeling. It's not super surprising about Biden.

It's just, you know, kind of coming in like that we're in the aftermath. What are we like, February 2nd or February 3rd?

So it was just January 20th. I just feel like there was just that huge, you know, lead up to the election and everything that crazy that happened or inauguration and all that.

And now we're kind of coming down and, you know, all of the what was all the stuff he signed off on on day one?

Yeah. 15 executive orders. Yeah. Right. He's done more than that. It's just I don't know. I just I feel like so many people right now are just kind of bracing themselves to see what happens next, you know, in our country.

And there's so many things kind of on the horizon. And of course, we're not to fear.

But I'm I'm curious to see how all of this plays out. Obviously, God is sovereign. And like I said, we don't have to be afraid.

But, you know, these times are uncertain. It's kind of it's kind of a weird time to be alive. You know, just even just going out and just like all the masks and it's just super weird.

But, you know, Christians in the past have dealt with this. Oh, right. And worse. And much, much worse.

I like somebody said, like, if you think this is the worst time to be a Christian, you obviously haven't read any church history.

You just went through Fox's Book of Martyrs. Of course, we always talk about the Covenanters and the

Huguenots. Right. These people were under immense persecution and pain. But yeah, you don't you just don't know what's going to happen,

I guess. You know, the Democratic Party has consolidated all the power and they're wielding that power now.

But we just say, OK, Lord, you know, we're going to stay faithful. We're going to stay true to you. We're going to operate according to principle and we're going to take it as it comes, but never compromise what we know to be true.

Right. And just continue expanding, continue pushing ahead. And as Jeff always says so rightly, we just continue to build.

Right. You know, the church is going to grow. Yeah. It says the, you know, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

So it's always a forward moving force. The church has to be. But you're going to take this type of mentality of a forward moving force or it's, oh, woe is me.

Look at the darkness on the horizon. And I get it. I mean, if you were to look at it, it's bleak, you know, it's daunting, it's depressing.

But we are never called or commanded to be, you know, a retreatist type of a body of people.

It's always about moving forward with the gospel, with the expansion of the kingdom. But I think when it comes to Biden, we should pray for him.

Of course. Yeah. We should. I was just thinking, man, if, you know, the only separates, the only thing that separates me from him is grace.

Right. You know, and I could string a sentence together pretty well. That's mean.

I know what you meant. And it's a good thing to be reminded of because I've been struggling with just frustration and kind of anger towards either a false convert

Christian that voted for Biden and has linked arms with unbelievers to put this man in office or they're either false converts or they're the bride who is not being faithful.

And so I'm, you know, I just want to be like, hey, you know, look at, look what you've done.

You know, this is, you've linked up with unbelievers. Not that, of course, we've always say

Republicanism and Democrat, you know, it's not, this is not

Christianity. Being a Republican is not Christianity, of course, but if you're a Christian, you're going to act and do things more in a manner that God would please

God. Right. So you're going to vote in a way that is going to be more in line with what

God's law says. So anyways, I just, I'm so frustrated with just Christians that are people that say they're

Christians that support child murder. I'm just to the point where I'm like, you're supporting child murder.

You're voting for a platform that supports child murder. What are you doing? How, how are you even calling yourself a

Christian? So that's kind of where I've been. So I need to pray more. Yeah.

Yeah. Me too. Just because, you know, I've been kind of reeling from that and wondering what the main cause, and, you know, it is the voters who are voting this guy into power.

And I think it's, you know, it's just astounding that somebody who claims the name of Christ could vote a guy in who now is working to codify or make

Roe into law with the full knowledge. The Bible even says, we know these things are happening.

So I think our response, I mean, initially is anger and frustration. Abomination is a rebuking is all a part of the process in this, but I think it's just evangelizing these types of people.

That's what I've been putting kind of on my social media and my Facebook is it's time to evangelize the pews, you know, and I think now we've talked about this in past episodes, but it's so important that we make our frustration more tactical or more productive in the sense that, okay,

I'm just not going to like rail into these people. Right. I'm going to bring the gospel to them.

And as we talked about before in our evangelistic encounters conversationally, when somebody says, I'm good, I'm a

Christian, we'll just dig a little deeper. Right. You know, are you a Christian? I mean, you're in, we're in an

American environment. You know, the American evangelical church is so compromised in so many areas and they're not preaching a true gospel.

Right. So it's just good to kind of take that frustration and let's just, you know, spend time with people who claim to be a

Christian and unravel. Are you a Christian? Right. You know, I think we need to be preaching about regeneration and what it really means to be born again.

What are the fruits like all through first John? What is a fruit of being a Christian? It's not some nominal classification.

It's not some badge I wear. Right. I'm not a Christian just by proxy or because my mom and dad are one.

So these are the type of things that we really need to hone in on. Yeah. And I think for me, confronting somebody that says that they're a

Christian, even in a loving way, which we should always be doing in a loving way, is one of the most intimidating.

I remember when I got saved like 10 years ago, I had shortly after I had like my first experience doing that.

And so I was saved, started going to church, you know, and then I had a friend, met a friend that started coming to church.

And she said she had been a Christian for a long time, but that she had stopped coming to church. So she started coming to our church again.

And so we started hanging out and I was like, encouraged and encouraged that she was coming back to church.

And then as we, you know, hung out more, she started saying some weird things.

And I'm a brand new Christian. I'm like, maybe been a Christian for six months to a year. So I'm still in like this naivety of like, if you say you're a

Christian, you're a Christian. Yeah. I just, I didn't understand. And so then she starts saying weird stuff like, you know, about aliens and just not believing in scripture and just off the wall on biblical things.

And so not knowing like how this would be taken, I just kind of said it and I was a you know, foundations of the faith, the fundamentals of the faith.

I just, I wasn't trying to be mean or harsh, but I just said, well, maybe you're not a Christian. And ooh, that was super offensive.

Like she was really mad about that. And I was like, oh, and then she went through all the judge, not who are you to judge?

You can't, you don't see my heart. You don't do this. But even as a very brand new baby

Christian, I was like, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck, right? Because we're not fruit inspectors, but if you're saying you're a

Christian, there's some just basic things that people are going to see in your life as fruit, right?

Yeah. I mean, the Bible says a good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit.

And so we're saying 2 Corinthians 13, 5, 8, you know, we're saying examine yourself to see if you're right.

Here's the gospel. This is all, you know, the gospel in totality with all of its non -negotiable essential components that you can't be removed.

This is the gospel. And this is what it means to actually be a Christian. A Christian is somebody that God has sovereignly placed a new heart in.

He's taken away the stony heart that's just totally disposed to sinning only, and he's placed in sovereignly by grace and mercy monogistically, right?

So salvation comes by grace and faith. Salvation is the Lord. He transplants a new spiritual heart within you.

And now it's awesome, this heart that once just only sinned and only wanted to disobey, nothing to do with worship of self, worship of any other

God. Now this heart all of a sudden loves God, you know, loves his word, loves his people, wants to obey, wants to, you know, get away from sin.

So it's an increasing hatred towards sin, an increasing love for righteousness. So yeah, it's... They're a new creature.

They're a new creature in Christ. The old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And so if we had a corpse on this table and the corpse came alive, we would know.

So there's signs of life. So what we would say, yeah, to the family member or to the

Christian who claims... To the quote unquote Christian who claims Christ, but doesn't have these fruits of life.

And the fruits of life are fruits of repentance, really. It's like Jesus said, bear fruit in repenting.

You know, it's an ongoing process, keeping with repentance. So it's an ongoing process. So we would just say, hey, you know,

I love you. And the most loving thing I can tell you is that I would really examine your faith and your profession of Christ, examine yourself and your own heart to see if you really are in the faith.

Now people hate that. Oh, they hate it so bad. Yeah. People respond, how dare you judge me? How dare you bring into question my

Christianity? But for a Christian, regardless of their response, whether it be vitriolic or hurtful, it's the loving thing we got to do.

And so many people take it for granted. They're like, okay, you're Christian because they don't want to confront, you know, because actually it's a love for self.

I don't feel comfortable with this confrontation, you know, thing I got to do.

And so I'm just not going to do it because I'm really loving me and loving my own comfort and my own ease. And I don't want you to be ticked off at me.

And it's like also kind of the cultural climate right now is a lot of what

I would say the liberal Christian or the unconverted Christian is writing off of is, and this is a whole another topic that we're not going to go into right now, is just all this critical race theory and the cultural

Marxism. They want to be on the side that's helping the oppressed.

They don't want to be on the side of the oppressor, right? And so they're twisting terminology.

And of course, that's what, you know, we want to do, Micah 6, 8, of course, we want to do justice, but they've taken and redefined who's the oppressor, who's the oppressed.

They're not looking at God's law to come up with these definitions and not to look at God's law for justice and how do you do justice?

They've come up with their own religion. Critical race theory is its own religion. Yeah, with its own gospel, false gospel.

And so in their mind, they're thinking that they're doing justice, but it's not according to God's standards.

So it's just hard because then you confront them and all of a sudden it's, no, no, I'm the one,

I'm doing the Christian thing by being on the side, but turning a blind eye to the things that God hates, the abomination of homosexuality, abortion, stealing, you know, we could just go down the list, but that's just kind of what we're facing as Christians today, going out to evangelize is we're dealing with a ton of false converts.

And so that's kind of the disease of the nation. That's the real pandemic, right? Yeah, it is.

I think it's the most destructive pandemic. And it's sad too, because so many people are going to stand before God, Matthew chapter 7,

Lord, Lord, haven't we done all these things? You know, presenting their righteousness. It's really a presentation of their works as a means of justification is looking towards the judgment.

And he said, you know, I have never, I've never known you depart from me, you worker of iniquity. Now these people that claim

Christ, but actually they're just in dead in their sin. So we do it because it's such a destructive element.

And I think the fruit of that is this, you know, I'm a Christian, I'm going to vote for Biden. You know, it's so destructive in that sense, but it's also destructive.

And, you know, these people just going to stand before God naked, thinking that they're right with him, but all along they were lost.

Unfortunately, they had a pastor who told them, yeah, you just pray this prayer, just kneel right here, come down to this altar.

And I'm sorry for your sins. You want to go to heaven? Well, say this prayer and you'll be saved. Not talking about any of the essential components of the gospel.

So those guys are charlatans and hucksters and false prophets. We have to point out.

We have to be willing to really die to ourselves to do it. Cause it, I mean, it like makes me choke up just thinking about it, you know, cause we do, we love these people and it's not only are we sad for them, but also they're bringing reproach on the name of Christ when they go out into the public and say that they're

Christians and then they go promote this false gospel, you know, and they promote these things that God hates.

Exactly right. Yeah. And so you're right. It does take a lot of death to self, but it's something that we just got to do. And I think everybody listening to us right now has family members, has friends, you know, we all kind of deal with that cause it's just a massive populace inside of America and America's churches.

But we have to do the right thing and lovingly, and we could do it the wrong way. And we could just, you know, be very harsh or very curt.

But I think we can be winsome. We can be loving and we could be gracious about it, gentle about it, just like the scripture calls to be.

The church has to look at some situation like this when it comes to, you know, future persecution, just the plight of the nation, degradation, the state of the nation.

We have to look at it and say, okay, we need to repent. Right. That was great about in the eighties, the late eighties, in the early nineties, the church was so awakened to the

Holocaust and abortion, right. And it was, you know, they were just a massive focus on it.

I think 10 to 15 ,000 babies were saved in that, in that period of time, you know, and their tactics,

I don't want to really get into the tactics right now, but it was this huge repent with us. I mean, that's how the church was awakened to the situation because they were no longer pointing the finger out there.

They were pointing the finger within themselves and say, let's repent. Let's turn from our, you know, negligence of the command that calls us to go rescue babies.

Right. So I think we got to, we got to look at it like that and look at him like that rather than just rail against the guy.

You know, he's a wicked evil man, of course. He's a wicked evil man. But so were we.

So were we. Yeah. So were we. But the church is preparing for persecution.

How do you think persecution is going to happen? Well, I think we're seeing it kind of roll out, you know, this equality act that's coming.

I think that's going to kind of be the precursor to persecution in a way that we haven't seen it yet in America.

I think that's going to open the door to define what hate speech is. I mean,

I believe we really could be coming, could be coming up on an era where, you know, our

Bibles are going to become outlawed because they can constitute that as hate speech.

Right. Right. So. I think we're going to have a hard time with enforceability just because, you know, there's a lot of people that are just not going to kind of put up with that.

Hopefully. I mean, that's what we did, right? The war of independence. We just said, we're not going to put up with this.

Yeah. And we're going to do it where we can to make this not happen. And, you know, it's just a people who say we're not going to let the government, you know, overstep its boundaries.

Right. They're actually public servants. So they work for us. We try to get away from a totalitarian government in Britain.

Right. And so we're not going to put up with that if we're good Americans. Yeah. We should be storing up God's word in our heart though, and doing the same for our kids.

And though, in case there's a day that we don't have access to Bibles. Yeah. Wouldn't that be crazy? Exactly.

Yeah. But it's happened. Oh, it's happened all through our church. Look at China. You know, in the history of the

Scottish people and the Scottish church in the 1500s, I mean, if you even had a Bible in your pocket and they got to a place that they suspected you had a

Bible, they're like, you know what? Your pocket looks like a shape of the Bible. It didn't even matter.

And then they would just kill you. Wow. You know, or they suspected you were at an outside worship meeting. So yeah, it can get bad.

I'm definitely not negating it. Not that we have to be afraid. Yeah. I'm just hoping if that thing rolls out, that Americans would look at their history and say, no, this is actually the government that we have with all of its checks and balances.

Everything was put in place primarily to ward off a tyrannical government and let's rise up and be the type of people that God has called us to be.

But you're right. We have to prepare for it all. Persecution though is, and I think we've said it before, is good in its refining aspect.

I mean, some of the greatest preachers and examples of faith come out of persecution.

It's something that God just uses to cleanse and to refine. It's a painful period, but really the church brings it on itself.

And the church and her negligence, the church and her just outright disobedience, rebellion brings persecution.

Again, we point the finger at the government. Oh, the government's going to be the hand of persecution as if the government were sovereign over us.

But we never, the church really is reluctant just to point the finger back at themselves like we just talked about and said, no, I think we need to get to repenting.

I think judgment begins in the house of the Lord. I think we as pastors and we as national leaders, and even within our home is,

Lord, help us to pursue righteousness. Help us to pursue holiness. Look into our lives, like the scriptures say, examine me to see if there is sin within me.

Right. Really paraphrase that. Examine me to see if there's any sin within me. These are the type of actions the church has to take.

Repentance. And of course, internally and then externally, just going out and getting the gospel. Because that's what changes nations.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So - You're going to play some of those clips? Yeah. So we're going to get in and just talk about false prophets.

As I said before, when we talk about false prophets, we call them out by name. It's not anything personal.

But it's something that you have to do because false prophets are wolves in sheep's clothing.

They are the worst on the planet. So what I want to do is just kind of play for you some clips of some false prophets, focusing on those who prophesied that Trump would be president.

So listen to a couple of these right now. Yeah. I got to watch myself and not laugh because it makes me laugh because it's so crazy, but it's actually very serious.

So - Yeah. So listen here. To what's coming up in January 20th. And so I've said this many times before, but please reserve throwing your stones at me until January 20th.

First of all, I want to say without question, Trump is going to win the election. And that doesn't mean you sit home and don't vote.

That means you get out and do everything you can to work, but he's going to win. That's, I think, a given.

Because I am speaking from the future. Yes, you are. At this moment. Right this moment.

And I am going to proclaim that President Trump will be president of the

United States. Hallelujah. Jesus name. Will it be an eight -year presidency? Absolutely.

Absolutely, we will. You're sure about that? I'm sure about that. Yeah. So there you go.

Wow. Sorry. Yeah. So this is - So you're saying, thus saith the Lord, and you're wrong.

Yeah. So what is the penalty for a prophet who is incorrect in his foretelling?

Death. Yeah, it's death. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been following these prophets and it's enraging.

But the number one thing I think that's so enraging about it is how many subscribers they have. Or they will flat out say a false prophecy,

Donald Trump, he's going to be the president. It's not going to be in 2024. It's going to be in 2020, 2021.

And all of you, you look at the comments, I mean, there's like 50 ,000 likes. One of these guys has 150 ,000 subscribers or more.

And then he gives a false prophecy and he's got 50 ,000 likes on it. So the

Christians know that it was a false prophecy, but they still subscribe and they still give and they still support.

Because it's rotten fruit. And so that's what a person that's not regenerate most likely will crave, right?

They're not going to crave biblical truth if they're not actually born again and a new creation. They're going to crave worldly things, right?

Yeah. No, I agree. So it could be indicative that these people are just not saved. Right. And that's what

Jesus said in John chapter eight, when he was talking about really the effects of sin, he said, if I were to tell you the truth or tell you a lie, you would believe me.

So he's talking about what sin has done to the mind of the unregenerate, the pagan person is that we gravitate towards lies.

I totally agree. But I do think it's also like maybe a mixture of people who are unsaved, who don't care, but they also just don't understand.

Right. Yeah. And they grew up maybe in a charismatic environment or a

Pentecostal environment, not broad brushing those groups of people too much.

But I've had my experiences with false prophets, just the dark side of this stuff.

When I was 20, Jessica and I came to Arizona, that's where we actually have the connections and why ultimately we're here is because we came out in 2020 when

I was 21. And I was an assistant pastor at a church. You came out what, 2002, you mean?

2000. Oh, did I say 2020? Yeah, no, 2002. Yeah, actually it was 2001.

So we come out, don't want to get into the story too much. And we're an assistant pastor of a church called

Bible Fellowship Church. And it's funny, you walk through the door, it's like walking into 1960. Oh, really?

Red shag carpets, but the people were sweet. Oh, yeah. One of my best friends, Kibby, I met there.

And some good times there, even though it was kind of a dysfunctional church. So we poured our hearts into it.

We wanted to see this church turn around. I remember one time I worked over 110 hours remodeling the church sanctuary.

So our hearts were into it and we wanted to really serve God there and just see what happens. We were making peanuts, nothing.

And all of a sudden this guy was just starting to let, the pastor was starting to let false prophets in the church from Nigeria.

And so this guy would come into the church and he'd be like, you know what? Revival is going to start here. And it's always about promise.

They promise you something. God's got his hand on this church and this is what you're going to do.

And he's running up and down the church. He's fasting and praying and telling people that he's going to fast with them for $100 ,000 and I'll fast with you for $100 ,000.

And then the church just declined. I mean, it was because of the shepherd really letting the door open for the wolves to come in.

Of course, the church dissolved. And my pastor at home, I told him, he's like, man, it's time to get out. And so I kind of resolved,

I'm not going to be ignorant of this anymore. I mean, these false prophets come in and they just do damage.

They have to be marked out. Right. They're coming to deceive even the elect, right?

Yeah. So we have to mark them out to try to protect the sheep. Exactly.

Because if you have a wolf and a sheep and you're not going to have any sheep, he's just going to destroy. Can I tell you a quick story about when

I, this is totally unrelated, but it was like, again, my first experience with the charismatic movement and I was a new

Christian, so I didn't have any idea like the different denominations and stuff. And so we had me and my husband,

Don, got invited to a worship night from another Christian friend and he was leading it or something.

I don't really remember. It was like 10 years ago. But so it was a worship night.

We're like, okay, that sounds good. We dropped our son off with our parents and had a little date night and we go and it's a real young crowd, kind of like a coffee shop vibe, but a lot of people there.

And we're like, okay. And they're singing some worship songs we knew. We're like, okay, this is cool. And then by the end of the, it was like really like kind of like dark and kind of like a concert and stuff, but we're like, okay, whatever.

And then at the end they start praying. And I remember I heard, this is my first time I heard somebody say, daddy,

God. So this girl starts saying, daddy, daddy, God, daddy. And I'm like, it's kind of weird, you know?

And I was like, hmm, never heard that one before. And then there was some other friends that we were new there and they're like, oh, you know,

Abba means daddy. And so they're just kind of saying it in a familiar way and familiar way. And I'm like, okay, still kind of creeping me out, but all right,

I'll, you know, whatever, keep going. So I'm closing my eyes and, and then it just starts to like get heightened.

And so I start hearing people making kind of weird noises and like kind of, I don't know, kind of making just weird grunts or something.

And some people were saying amen and hallelujah. And so I'm still not, I'm just like, this is a little weird. I've just never experienced this before.

And then at the very end, I hear somebody make a chicken noise. Like somebody was like, and I was like, we're out.

It was just, it was so weird. And I just had never experienced it before. And I'm like, me and my husband just like laughed the whole way home.

We're like, that was so weird. It's just like, you're a new Christian. You're, you just don't know. I had no idea there was this whole other world of just weird, weirdness, fleshly, just looking for attention and not spirit led, but posing as it is.

So in charismatic churches, there's good, there's good things about them. I think they're affectionate and I think they have like a desire and they're very, maybe expressive in worship.

They want to seek the Lord. There's a lot of good qualities, but there's also this quality about it where I think it's really a, it's a synthetic producing of what they attribute to the

Holy Spirit. Right. So they're saying, you know, I mean, I've been in churches where, you know, the preacher dressed up like a fireman and stood up on the speakers and he was spraying the people with Holy Spirit water or barking like a dog or flopping on their, their pews like fish.

What's happening? Well, it's, it's not the work of the Holy Spirit. So it's just, it's, the church has become so focused in on itself, not focused.

And I think this is the very root of it is they're not going out externally into the culture to preach the gospel, just to get busy with the simple evangelistic commands.

And so it's just all about production. It's just all about, let's come inside. It's all about sensational experience, emotion, something that they can grab on to.

And when you build on that, unfortunately you have to perpetuate that Sunday to Sunday. And so they're saying, this is the work of the

Spirit. And I just, it's just, it's, it's mind boggling. And I think it, it's deceives the church because spiritual leaders lead the church into that.

You know, they say, this is the work of the Spirit. And when it's not, it's something that blasphemes the

Holy Spirit. It's something that discredits, it brings reproach upon the name of Christ, like you were talking about, because unbeliever comes into the church and you're flopping on the ground like a salmon that you just caught out of the lake.

I mean, I would be like, I'm out. This is crazy. I'm so thankful we left, but yeah,

I mean, you could see somebody just coming in and that doesn't know it could be enticing, like, or why don't

I have that faith? Is this like a sign of having some sort of superior faith? Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And that's, unfortunately, what a lot of these prophets, it's, thus saith the Lord, as if God speaks to them in a special way.

Because I think these guys crave attention. They wanna be the super spiritual giants that God whispers this into your ear.

And I don't know if we wanna get into prophecy. I mean, I personally believe that prophets are not today.

The fourth telling, I think that the prophets and apostles were the foundation of the church. And I think what you see throughout scripture is that even in the early church when they would go in the shadow of Peter and then they would be healed.

I mean, massive miraculous works of healing and really manifestly the work of God.

But what I think you see in that is the validation of these men that they were God or that they're God's men.

And so it was all for the preparation of the word of God. That's why we say at the close of the canon, these things have ceased.

Because in Hebrews chapter one, it says, we've seen God has spoken in various ways to the prophets. Now he's spoken everything through his son.

Because what you see in these environments, these church environments where they are prophets, people are looking to prophets as they'll shut their

Bible and they'll turn to these prophets. And I'm gonna read to you Jeremiah 23 right here. It's exactly what

God warned us of when he's warning us of prophets. It's Jeremiah 25.

It says, I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesied lies in my name. This is all about the activity of false prophets saying,

I have dreamed, I have dreamed. And it's all these guys. If you look at their false prophecies, it's God gave me a dream.

God gave me a dream. You see the people of God put away their Bibles and now they've got... And I've even seen it before. They've got a little pad of paper and they're writing down the dreams of this guy.

That's the biggest, most destructive element. It says, how long shall there be lies in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

So it's a forgetting of God. It's a turning away from him as their source of information and turning to these false prophets.

It says, let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.

So there is prophets in the sense of foretelling. We're preaching the word of God.

This is what God said. Thus sayeth the Lord only based upon what the scriptures... So when you hear somebody say, thus sayeth the

Lord, hopefully they're reciting a scripture. But when somebody says, thus sayeth the Lord as if God is personally speaking to them,

I think people don't understand that they are making their words at that moment equivalent with the scriptures.

They're saying, my words are divinely inspired, but people don't look at that, look at it like that.

It's just a prophet. And these guys who made these false prophecies about Trump, they just said, you know what?

I was wrong. I was in error. Well, the scriptures say, if you're in error, man, you gotta be killed.

I mean, that was the... That's the seriousness and the gravity of it. It's not... Yeah. Yeah. And I was actually watching a guy who did a great

YouTube podcast on this. He says, if you ever are going to say, thus sayeth the

Lord, number one, I believe, only it's in a recitation, reciting scripture. Right. Because we know that...

Never, ever say, thus sayeth the Lord. It's like, this is chapter and verse, thus sayeth the Lord. But wouldn't you think, man, what

I'm going to say, I've really got to determine if I'm ready to die for it. I mean, that's what the prophets...

I mean, this is, of course, this is the Spirit of moving them to say these things. But I just...

These prophets and self -appointed prophets and self -proclaimed prophets, I mean, if they're saying, thus sayeth the

Lord, they're putting their words on par with scripture. And if they're wrong, of course, we know that that's not

God who motivated them to do that. But I think, unfortunately, what you see with these guys who are making these false prophecies of Trump, it's just, you know what?

I made a mistake. They'll pull scriptures out of context. And that's just that,

I'm just a human. Now, think about that. If a guy can just simply say, made a false prophecy, and it's not right, but I just made a mistake.

And we're like, okay, I'll still subscribe to your YouTube channel. I'll still be a part of your church. I'll still see you as a spiritual authority.

Then there's no way you can determine who a false prophet is. That's true. There's no test. If it's not what

God has already specified in Deuteronomy chapter 18 and Jeremiah 23, then what have you?

What do you have? And so the people of God need to wake up and to stop supporting these people and remove themselves away from their influence.

And warn others about him or them. And yeah, it's crazy. Because it's just a perpetuation of these guys who do nothing but destroy the church.

And isn't it just like our flesh though? I mean, it's so enticing to the flesh, because a lot of the time they're saying stuff that you want to hear.

This is going to be your year that God's going to give you the desires of your heart. Trump's going to win for the conservative.

I mean, it's usually something people want to hear. Exactly right. Right? And always in our flesh, we want to take our eyes off of God and put it on to something else, create another idol, something that is more pleasing and tickles our ears.

But it's just a deception. Yeah. It's never about like, hey, let's fast for death to self, or I'm prophesying that I'll thankfully go through persecution and it's going to be for your own sake.

Yeah, and you're going to put that sin to death that you're struggling with. It's never anything like that. It's just anything that appeals to the flesh, just like Bishop Isaac did at our church 20 years ago.

Let's just fast because revival is going to begin with you. And of course, as a church, we want to see God move and we want to see souls saved.

And so it's just appealing. I mean, they're just slimy, snake oil salesmen.

That's who they are. They're incredibly narcissistic. And the church just becomes duped and deluded by them.

And I think that's a sign of God's judgment on the church when we have to mark these guys out and no longer have anything to do with them.

I think I said that like 50 times. But we don't, in the spirit of quote -unquote love and niceness, we don't want to say anything about them.

Oh, they're just another branch of the Christian faith. When no, these are false brethren.

They're false and they're wolves. And we have to say that they are and do everything that we could do to call them to repentance.

Now, one of these guys did. He said, you know what? I take full responsibility. I prophesied and it didn't come to pass and I was wrong.

But what that guy's got to do now is close his mouth because God's not speaking to you.

You're not a prophet. But I think what they do even in their so -called repentance is they just, they're back at it.

Yeah, just like with Todd Bentley, that same that you said, the redheaded guy that just an absolute demonstratable false prophet.

I guess he kicked a guy in the stomach who had stomach cancer.

It was terminal stomach cancer and he was in the later stages of it. And he said, you know what?

God told me to kick you in the stomach to heal you. That's wicked. And so he's called out by a group of elderly pastors or seasoned pastors say, hey, look, this guy's in all sorts of sin.

He's in sexual sin. He was in a state of sin from 2004 to 2019.

So they finally said, hey, look, you're not fit. So he steps down and now we just see he's ready to start again.

And God's called him to some 25 year mission. No, he's a false prophet.

And if that was Christianity, if that was genuine Christianity, I mean, listen to the way that these guys preach and their narcissism and their just absolute love of self and the sliminess of it.

I mean, that was genuine Christianity. If this was a genuine prophet and a man of God, I would run for the hills. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And let's say with Todd Bentley, like if all that had come to pass and then the

Lord saved him in the last year, of course that could happen. But what would his demeanor be? Freaking sackcloth and ashes.

It would be repentance. It would be just completely grieved over the damage that he's done.

It wouldn't be like, well, y 'all, I'm back at it. It's just so flippantly like, hey,

I participated in all this abominable sin, but here I'm on to the next thing.

And I don't know the man, but just from what we've seen, it doesn't seem like he's had a really sorrowful repentance over all that past sin publicly.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, maybe he was in tears. I mean, a lot of these guys are,

I mean, they're actors. That's who they are. They're putting on a performance and they have to sycophants and worshipers who, who worship their, their every step here.

Let me, let me play a clip of get old Ken Copeland and this kind of demonstrates it. This guy, he looks like a demon to me.

Let's listen to Kenneth Copeland here. The media said

Joe Biden's president. Yeah.

Wow. So that's, he's, he's crazy. Oh, it's just like this, this, this guy is so crazy.

Of course he came out with the blowing the wind of God on COVID. Yeah. I want to blow the wind of God on you to destroy you.

Of course that didn't happen. Yeah. It did, did nothing to it. You like those remixes they sent you didn't you?

So this guy's a genuine false teacher. He's not reflective of man of God.

Like you had just demonstrated a humble man of God. Yeah. But the worst thing is as much as I disdain this man and I pray, pray for his salvation.

I pray that God would get him out of the way. I pray that God would surely save him. But the worst of the people in like you guys, you guys couldn't see it, but the people just clapping and laughing and like, you know, really kissing his butt.

It's like so many of these false prophets in their churches, you know, they're just filled with sycophants.

They're filled with people that are just perpetuating it and people that, you know, it's just a cult of personality is what it is.

Right. You know, it's just a charismatic, really bold, confident man. And then he uses his charisma, his intellect, his good communication, his speaking abilities to just completely deceive.

The problem is, is the people who continue to give continue to do it.

And you're like, what are these people thinking? But I think even that's just the judgment of God, like the blinding aspect that God even gives to those people because they continue to support a guy.

Like when he was doing the wind of God and blowing on the COVID -19 and he was repeating it, the worst thing about that was the men in the background repeating it.

And they're his support system that keeps this going. You know, these people have to wake up and say, no,

I'm going to have nothing to do with you. You're not reflective of a man of God. You know, you're a guy who's just using

God, you're religiously manipulating, simple -minded people, deceive people.

And that's not to call them dumb, but people who are being deceived, you're religiously manipulating them for your own wealth amassment and for your own self -glory and for your own desire for accolades.

That's what they do. So many people do. Yeah. And it makes me just think too, of like, when you start to get angry about it, you think about like, if there's the elect there, which

I believe there probably are Christians. There's probably actually born again Christians that are deceived, but how angry

God must be at that, you know, how much he loves his bride. And imagine if somebody was pulling the wool over on your wife's eyes, how angry you would be at her being treated like that.

You know what I mean? It's like, we should be really afraid for his soul.

Yeah. I don't even know. I think about him and Benny Hinn, who we thought had some type of contrition, and Todd White, we thought had some, it just turns out it was momentary contrition.

Because then just continue in the sin, even like Bill Hybels, who built his church, it's a very seeker -sensitive church, it's man -centered, you know, building on just pleasing man, not pleasing

God. And with all the work that he had put in for decades, he said, you know what, nobody's becoming like Jesus. A church's success is determined by whether or not the people are becoming like Jesus or not.

So that's how you know a church is successful. Again, it's not the money, it's not the popularity, it's not anything, it's the sheep becoming like Christ.

And so they did a test and he said, nobody's becoming like Christ here. And so it was a really sobering moment for them, but they just continued in it.

Just continued with their seeker -sensitive, man -centered, man -driven church. I mean, look at that.

I'm sure being in it, in not knowing or choosing not to look further into if this is right, it's probably exciting.

It's probably an adrenaline rush for these people that are part of this charismatic movement and part of that they're in this where they're blowing, they're actually thinking he's blowing wind, the wind of God on the

COVID. I mean, as crazy as it even sounds, they're just being deceived in the hype.

Yeah, they are being deceived. I mean, but it's with all the information at your fingertips now and how small the world is getting that they can just go on YouTube and type in Kenneth Copeland or Benny Hinn or Todd White, and they're going to see the truth on them.

But it's just this... And I understand some of them, that's the only church that they've ever known. Maybe they grew up in the church or that was just their only experience and this is what church is.

And so I get that they can be deceived. But when you know, which again, because of the access of information, it's hard to say they're kind of blind in it.

I think that in Kenneth Copeland, he's just all about just sow a seed, you do this and you'll be blessed.

And so they're really doing it and they're supporting it because they think his ministry and their version of God is if I act a certain way, if I'm religious enough or give enough, if I perform, then

God's going to bless me. And I think that's the heart of it. The encouraging thing too is

God's elect will come out of it. Scripture will correct their lens, their way of thinking.

You see people that follow Joel Osteen, I've heard of people that legitimately have been saved and then they're listening to somebody like Osteen.

And then as they read scripture more and more, God shows them that this is false. And so he will preserve his elect, but it doesn't mean that they're going to suffer.

They're not going to suffer and be deceived. And we still have to be...

What am I trying to say? God calls us to rebuke. Yeah, we have to be watchful. Yeah. And especially as a pastor, that's your job.

Yeah. We have to say, hey, wolf. And if we don't do that, but a lot of guys feel like that's not loving.

That's not my calling. That's not my gift. Well, if you're a pastor, yeah, that's the two biggest duties of a pastor is to protect the sheep and feed them.

And protecting them is saying, hey, we need to get away from any type of element that's going to be harmful to you.

I got to call out the wolves. I got to kill the wolves. That's what they had to do. We're not going to kill these guys. But we have to say no.

Kenneth Copeland is a false prophet. I can't remember his name right now.

Benny Hinn and Todd White. These men are false prophets, and I pray for their salvation. I couldn't even imagine guys like Joel Osteen standing before God when so many people, so many amazing men of God, Todd White too,

Bentley, so many amazing men of God have said, hey, look, you're in sin. This is where you're in sin.

This is how the scripture determines it. Look at the scriptures, and they just turn a blind eye to it. What did

Jesus say? It's better for you to have that millstone around your neck, right? Yeah, and lead my little ones astray.

Exactly right. But what they do is they just justify their activity. And we had a relative who married a false prophet.

That was even part of the Lake Land situation way back in... I can't remember when that was. 2008 or 2007 or something like that.

And so the guy even has a church now, and total false prophet. He was just an incredibly sinful man as soon as he stepped off stage, engaging in all sorts of wickedness.

Of course, he was wicked towards our family members. But I remember talking to our family member and saying, have you talked to him about all the sin that he's in?

And they said, yeah, I did. But he says, look at all the money, look at all the people, look at all the fanfare.

And so they equate that with the blessing of God when it's not. It's so destructive.

It's so destructive. Do you have any New Year's resolutions this year? Yeah. Mine's always to just lead my family better, be focused on my kids and don't get so distracted.

My brain goes a mile a minute. I'm always thinking about this. And just like so many people in our family, we're producers and we want to produce, and we just kind of steamroll ahead.

And I just want to be focused on my wife to build her up and bless her and my kids to really be intentional in their discipleship and training.

I was talking to the elders just about kind of the bleakness of the future, heading into it, even though we're post -mill and God's going to win and God's going to put all the enemies under His feet.

So even though we're looking towards these things, we're not allowing them to thwart our efforts or slow us down in any way.

But you do say, well, like you were saying, if it got bad and our Bibles were taken away from us, how can

I best prepare my kids to go through pain? Or if their daddy's out preaching at the mill or if I'm out in the streets preaching and I'm preaching and exposing the sin of homosexuality, which we do a lot.

We just had a homosexual man yesterday just berate us at the abortion mill.

And we said, turn from your homosexuality. Like you were talking about, the potential passing of the

Equality Act bill to where that's seen as hate speech and daddy goes to jail for some time.

So it's just preparing them for rough times and getting them to understand the blessing of rough times and what

God's doing. What about you? I really am asking

God to help me with my man -pleasing ways because it's like sanctification is like layers of an onion.

It just pulls back more. And I really struggle with that, even though I know that it's the loving thing to do is just speak the truth.

But I still fear it. I still fear it with people that we love or just being open about the conversations we're talking about.

Like, hey, you're saying you're a Christian, you're using all this Christianese, but here you are in this area completely denying

Christ. Let's talk about it. And for me, I'm just asking God to help me with that because I just want to put it away.

I want to be like, hey, okay, you say you're a Christian. Cool. Right on. Let's just move on to the next subject.

I don't want to be uncomfortable. Yeah, we all do that. Because I think what we do is we think even the maintenance of the most important relationship is your family.

Maintaining that is going to give you everything that you need. I think what we're making, we can make our family members false

Christ, false gods, idols. We're thinking, I can't disrupt this relationship because what if I didn't have the relationship?

When we really have to find all of our fulfillment and satisfaction, everything we need in Christ, and kind of take these people away off the thrones of our life.

Because that's what we're doing. We're afraid because of the way that they're going to think about us or view us or the fracture of that relationship.

Even if the relationship were to happen, the dissolution of the relationship were to happen because of the declaration of the truth, then it's a good thing.

You go to the family member and you say, hey, I love you, but I got to talk to you about this. They say, hey, don't ever speak to me again.

Horrible thing. It's a horrible thing to have a broken relationship with your dad or your mom or your sister or your brother, wherever it may be.

But Jesus said that. He says, I did not come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. A wife or a daughter will hate her mother or son.

He's talking about there's going to be because of that sword, the word of God, you living by the word of God and declaring the word of God, that that is going to bring division.

But the division is necessary because you're actually doing that, which is best for their souls, which is exposing sin and then giving the gospel to them.

But I do the same thing. There's so many times when God's like, I want you to share the gospel with him or I need you to call him and admonish him.

But I just don't do it because I'm in love with myself. Yeah. And it's like just really anchoring in on what is love.

And that is the most loving thing we could do, like we talk about all the time. And it's like the culture, the zeitgeist of the age is like tolerance is the most loving thing to do.

But that's not how God defines love. You know, God's truth is really the only way we can express true love.

And so to really just turn away from that, because I always struggle with, oh, am

I not? And of course, I don't want to be a jerk about it. If there is going to, there's a way to go about it that is unloving, just to be like, you're not a

Christian, you know, just to freak out and just go crazy. But telling the truth is the loving thing to do.

And tolerance and saying your sin is OK or just applauding somebody in their sin, that's the most hateful thing that we could do.

So that's my resolution. In addition to, like you said, just really trying to pour into my children and my husband more and be in the word more and, you know, fight left, be straight.

I can't just get the gospel out and say babies. Yeah. Hey, so we we hope today's episode was helpful for you as we talked about, you know, a bunch of different subjects, but primarily just false prophets.

Yeah. You know, if you are listening and you're in a church where your your pastor, the spiritual leader, whoever, maybe he's letting these type of people into the church, they're saying thus saith the

Lord, they're giving you dreams. We would just flat out tell it's time to find a new church.

Right. It's something that we do humbly. And we know that's a hard decision for you. I've I've been there to where I had to say, you know what, if I stay in this type of spiritual environment, number one, it's wrong.

This is not this is not who a man of God is supposed to be. This is not the type of things that he's supposed to be saying.

And my family is going to be going to suffer for it. So one of the one of the greatest qualities about a

Christian is loyalty. Right. That's a huge, hugely great. But you can be loyal to a fault that I'm going to stay in this spiritually toxic environment submitted to a leader who is not qualified, who's claiming to be a prophet.

And I'm just going to stay in it because I'm a loyal person. Well, you're being loyal to a fault. Your family's going to suffer for it.

So the best thing that you can do is get out. You know, what I would do is I would lovingly confront your pastor or lovingly confront your spiritual leader or your pastor if he's letting these guys in and say, this is not the this is the wrong thing to do.

This is what the scriptures say. Do that. And if they're unwilling to repent, if this activity is not going to stop, you got to get out for your own good.

We got to mark false prophets. We got to do all that we can to expose them because they destroy the sheep. So it's kind of a more of a heavier topic today, but it's something that's needed.

And we hope it was a blessing for you. We've got a bunch of debates coming up. We're really working hard to debate a flat earther.

We've actually got an atheist that wants to debate us. That's going to be in the upcoming weeks. So pray for that.

But we love you guys and we're thankful. Go out, preach the gospel, get involved with saving babies.

And as we were talking about in the start of the program, let's do everything we can to seek and pursue holiness and righteousness, getting the idols out of our lives.

So we love you guys and we'll see you next time. Yeah. And I would just add, you know, I think after going through all this and you're right, it's heavy, but we have every reason to be joyful.

So I just want to encourage you all just to be joyful too, because it can be fearful and, you know, we don't know what's coming up on the horizon, but we know, like you said,

God wins. So let's just be joyful. And yeah, thank you guys for taking the time and also go to Apology All Alexis, get signed up, listen to some of the other podcasts,

Sheologians, Cultish, Apology Radio, there's so much good stuff here. So anyways, we love you guys.

Thank you for spending your hour and however long that was. We went long today. Oh, we did? Yeah. Oh. Anyways, we love you guys.