Voddie Baucham Calls Out Every False Teacher by Name

False Teachers Who Preach Another Gospel

When the numbers start to dwindle and you see Smiling Joel on TV preaching to a stadium filled with people. A lot of people today will call themselves apostles and let me say unequivocally.

Even if Jakes had come out with a statement on the doctrine of the Trinity, it would not have done anything to change the fact that he preaches another gospel.

Jesus says you need to beware, you need to be on the lookout, because these individuals will dress themselves in the uniform of my sheep. They will hide who they truly are. They will learn to use narrow gate language.

They will learn to emulate hard road living. They will learn to masquerade as small crowd people. And they will learn to trick you into thinking that they are on the road that leads to life. And yet they are false prophets.

Vodie Bauckham is unpopular among many Christians today because he unapologetically and unashamedly teaches hard controversial Bible truths, including truths about the existence of false teachers in the church.

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Jesus identifies the fact that there are first and foremost false prophets. There are false prophets. There are people who are out there who are false prophets.

There are those who speak the truth. And there are those who tell lies. There are false prophets. Truth can be violated.

Many Christians think it's unloving to identify and call out other pastors who call themselves Christians. And what makes this so offensive to many Christians is that the pastors who are identified and called out are oftentimes extremely popular, beloved individuals.

And that the gospel's enemies usually conceal their hostility and try to pass themselves off as fellow believers.

Vodie has called out Joel Osteen by name, pastor of Lakewood Church, the largest megachurch in the United States.

The Difference Between Good News and Good Advice

Actually, because we don't understand this, we don't think we need to be saved. We actually just think we need to be helped. We don't think we need good news. We think we need good advice. We don't need the gospel.

We just need 10 ways to have a happy life and five ways to reduce stress because that's our problem. We don't believe this. And this is why we say, we hear preachers say it all the time. There's a guy down my way, down in Houston, smiling Joel.

Smiling Joel says, sinners don't need to be told they're sinners. They know they're sinners. No, they don't. They don't. They don't. They look at the guy on the news who hacks somebody up and they say, that's a sinner, not me.

They don't sin. They make mistakes. You sin, but they don't. They make bad choices. They have bad patches. They have bad habits, but they're not sinners. They're not individuals who pursue their own fleshly desires at the expense of everyone and anything else, unless they can be helped in their fleshly desire.

They're not sinners who are under the influence of this world because this world is giving them exactly what they want, which is not God.

T. D. Jakes and Another Gospel

Voti has also called out T .D. Jakes by name, pastor of the Potter's House, another extremely large and popular megachurch. He has brought a charismatic, theatrical, excessive, word of faith flavor to the city that permeates many churches, especially black churches.

Even if Jakes had come out with a statement on the doctrine of the Trinity, it would not have done anything to change the fact that he preaches another gospel. Galatians 1, 8 through 9. Having studied the word of faith movement and seen the devastation it leaves in its wake, I was disinclined to stand shoulder to shoulder with the man who has been this country's most popular purveyor of this heresy in the past two decades.

And Voti has called out pastors who call themselves modern-day apostles, such as Bill Johnson of Bethel Church.

Pastor says, well, I see these people are hurting. The apostle says, well, I see this is what God is building into the earth. It's not a competition. It's together we bring the whole picture. And I just think it's necessary and beautiful.

Kenneth Copeland, who says he stands in the office of a prophet of God,.

Standing in the office of the prophet of God.

Geno Jennings, pastor of the First Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

All right, come on. This person says very quickly, apostles. How did Pastor Jennings become an apostle? I need to know because Paul was the last one.

Very beautiful letter. You're sadly mistaken. Sadly. Paul was not the last one. No.

And it's interesting. A lot of people today will call themselves apostles. And let me say unequivocally, we have no apostles today. Amen. They're gone. The age of the apostles is over. There are no apostles today.

According to the book of Ephesians chapter 2, the apostles, right, and the prophets were the foundation upon which the church is built. I don't know how many foundations your house has. Mine only has one.

Huh? The foundation is done. We do not have apostles today. The apostles have the authority to give us the scriptures. We do not have people today who have the authority to give us the scriptures.

Why False Teachers Are Hard to Identify

Vody points out that false teachers within Christianity are oftentimes very difficult to identify because in many ways, they appear very similar to genuine Christian teachers. And they may even believe themselves to be genuine Christian teachers.

The second thing we need to know is this. False prophets are not always easy to spot. Notice what Jesus says here. Look with me, if you will, again, in verse 15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

In other words, Jesus says the first word he uses that beware, be alert, look carefully because there are false prophets and these false prophets will clothe themselves outwardly in the clothing of the sheep.

But inwardly, they are not so.

Sadly, it's oftentimes the pastors of the largest Christian churches that fall into this category of false teacher. And Vody has called out megachurches who distort the gospel to achieve these large numbers.

And don't you dare back down when those who have perverted the gospel have bigger numbers than you do.

For example, megachurch pastors like Joel Osteen.

It can feel just as threatening, pastor, when the numbers start to dwindle and you see smiling Joel on TV preaching to a stadium filled with people. Do I really have to preach all of this? Do I really have to preach it this hard?

And Rick Warren. I've had the privilege for 43 years of training 1 .1 million pastors. Sorry, friends, that's more than all the seminaries put together.

If you sincerely meant that prayer, Jesus, I believe in you and I receive you. If you sincerely meant that prayer, congratulations. Welcome to the family of God. That's the gospel presentation in the purpose-driven life or the excuse for a gospel presentation in the purpose-driven life.

No repentance, no gospel, no sin, no wrath of God, no nothing. Just believe God loves you. He made you for a purpose. Jesus died for you. That's it. Really? Just like that? No, not just like that. You are a wretched, miserable, sinful creature who deserves to die and go to hell.

And unless you repent of your sin, unless you are aware of the fact that you deserve to die and be crushed under the weight of the holiness and majesty of God, you don't get it. And there's none of that there.

And Stephen Furtick, who emphasizes numbers more than doctrine. It's called kingdom multiplication.

It's what Elevation Church is all about. And over 500 people have given their lives to Jesus for the first time in this church in the last five months. That's over 100 per month. If that doesn't get you excited and you need the doctrines of grace as defined by John Calvin to excite you, you're in the wrong church.

Let me get a phone book. There are 720 churches in Charlotte. I'm sure we can find one where you can stuff your face until you're so obese spiritually that you can't even move.

If you like this video, subscribe to help spread the truth. Many Christians ardently defend pastors like these because of their great success in drawing people to their churches. The tricky thing with these pastors is that although some of what they teach may be acceptable, they have compromised and distorted so much of what the gospel truly is that they have become more dangerous than biblical.

Discernment, Judgment, and Exposing False Teaching

But Jesus puts a finer point on it here. Jesus says beware of false prophets, not because they're going to be easy to spot. They're going to be out there for you to see and for all the world to see and you'll be able to know, hey, that's a false prophet.

Jesus says you need to beware. You need to be on the lookout because these individuals will dress themselves in the uniform of my sheep. They will hide who they truly are. They will learn to use narrow gate language.

They will learn to emulate hard road living. They will learn to masquerade as small crowd people. And they will learn to trick you into thinking that they are on the road that leads to life. And yet they are false prophets.

Voti also points out that the reason why so many Christians have a problem with calling out pastors like these is because so many Christians are biblically and theologically illiterate.

Here's why it's difficult for us to identify false prophets. Because of biblical and theological illiteracy. Biblical and theological illiteracy. That makes it difficult to identify false prophets. If we don't know the Bible, if we don't know doctrine, if we don't know theology, it is virtually impossible for us to identify false prophets.

And it's exactly these kinds of biblically and theologically illiterate Christians that false Christian teachers often take advantage of. Often times in a financial manner.

And what they do is prey on individuals who are biblically and theologically illiterate. Again, it's difficult for us because false prophets are difficult to identify. They're there, but they're difficult to identify.

We're not just talking about the obvious ones who are out there. Jesus says these are individuals who have clothed themselves in the garments of my sheep, my followers. See, the false prophet that's the scary one is not the one who is out there teaching doctrine that is completely in opposition to biblical truth.

No, the false prophet who's the scary one is the one who has the meat of a lie covered with the skin of the truth.

Vodie issues an important warning that even true Christians can easily be led astray by false teachers for a period of time. Especially because so many of them are difficult to spot.

But here's what you need to know. A believer can have his or her life turned upside down by a false prophet. A believer who knows God, loves God, and is following God can have his or her life turned upside down by a slick talking false prophet.

Sometimes for years, a false prophet can have a true follower of Christ twisted and tied all up in knots until they're ultimately delivered from the falsehood.

This means that all Christians need to be very careful about who and what they listen to. This doesn't mean we can't listen to any teacher who teaches any error. But we still need to use a lot of discernment, no matter who we choose to listen to and learn from.

So don't you think for a moment that just because you're a follower of Christ, just because you've been born again, that you don't need to be careful about what you listen to and that there is no danger of listening to false prophets.

There is a danger and they can do you and your family much, much harm.

And it's precisely because there is so much dangerous teaching out there that it's important for pastors like Voti to warn Christians about dangerous teachers, especially the popular ones who oftentimes appear quite Christian.

Because there are people out there who look good, who sound good. They're on Christian radio. They're on Christian television. Some of them have household names and are best-selling Christian authors.

And they're ravenous wolves. Voti points to 2 Timothy chapter 3 as one clear way to distinguish false teachers from true Christian teachers.

So in essence, Jesus was saying, one of the evidences that you are a narrow gate, hard road Christian is persecutions. Here, Paul is saying to Timothy, you know, those liars, those liars are not like me.

And one of the ways is they're not like me. Paul says what? You know my persecutions. You've seen evidence of my narrow gate, hard road, few friends life. And that's one of the distinctions, Paul says, between himself and the false prophets.

A common criticism of what Voti is saying here is that we don't have the right to judge other professing Christians in this way. But this isn't exactly what scripture teaches about judging other people.

Testing, Judging, and Contending for the Faith

Finally, none of this matters if we're not ready and willing to test and judge. None of this matters if we're not ready and willing to test and to judge. It's meaningless if we're unwilling to test and to judge.

By the way, why do I say judge? The last phrase that Jesus uses is very important. The last phrase he uses in this paragraph is the tree that doesn't bear good fruit. It's going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.

That's what you call judgment. See, none of this matters if basically we don't believe that we're supposed to test. We don't believe that we're supposed to make judgments. Again, I'm not talking about being judgmental.

Go back to the messages on the early part of chapter 7, all right? We're not talking about turning your nose up at individuals who don't like the things that you like, who don't agree with you on non-essentials.

That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about false prophets and identifying false prophets who are destructive in the life of the church. And if all we believe that we're supposed to do is read this for reading sake and not apply it, and not exercise sound judgment, and not distance ourself from false teaching, and not expose false teaching whenever we find it, then we'll have a problem.

Both non-Christians and Christians love to try to quote the Bible and say, judge not. But the Bible teaches something very different. The Bible teaches us to beware of false teachers, and it is full of examples of Christian leaders warning Christians about false Christian teachers.

Our culture says, that's mean and nasty, that's judgmental, that's not Christian. The Bible says, test the spirit, beware of false prophets, expose the deeds of darkness, refute those who contradict sound teaching.

Jude. Jude gives us this. Just while I was making every effort to write you concerning our common salvation, I felt the need to write you and urge you to contend earnestly for the faith, to agonize greatly, to wrestle.

The term is used in classical Greek for wrestlers who are engaged in combat. He says, I want you to engage in combat, to agonize greatly. The faith that was once for all handed down to the saints. Why?

Because certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly persons who do two things. One, turn the grace of God into lawlessness. That's bad living.

And number two, deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. That's bad teaching. Jude says, agonize greatly against false teachers. War with them. Those who turn grace into lawlessness and those who deny the essential truths of the gospel.

Agonize greatly in that field of combat. Wage war in that field of combat. Refute those who contradict. Expose their dark deeds. Hold firmly to that which is true.

Ultimately, we expose the dangerous teachings of false Christian teachers, not because we love tearing other people down or attacking them, but because we love the truth. And we want to protect people from the destruction that comes from distorting the truth.

Why? Because we delight in the combat? No, because we delight in the truth. There is a major difference between those two. Let us delight in the truth and beware of false prophets.