Another Christ

Another Jesus and the Need for Discernment

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. The title of this episode is Another Jesus. This is a very important thing to understand. There are people out there who are preaching and believing in a different Jesus.

They use His name, but the Christ they speak of is not the Christ of the Bible. For example, there is what people call the Cosmic Christ. They will say things like the Christ Spirit, you know, that Oprah Winfrey affirms.

They will say the Christ Spirit. It first dwelt in Buddha, then it dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth, then it dwelt in Muhammad, and it's supposedly dwelling in you and in some New Age teachers today. Well, they're talking about Christ.

They're using the name Jesus, but they're not talking about the Jesus of Scripture. They are using biblical language because it gives them some sort of credibility. It gets people's attention, but they take that language and twist it to fit their own.

Agenda.

So, the Cosmic Christ, or the Christ Spirit, that is supposedly dwelling in this person and this person and this person, that is the Christ of the New Age, okay? It's not the Jesus of the Bible. It's another Jesus.

And then, a classic example is the Jesus of Mormonism. Well, that Jesus is the spirit brother of the devil, and they're both offspring of some glorified man who once lived deep in outer space near the star Kolob.

My friends, that is not the Jesus of Scripture. That is another Jesus. So, those are some obvious examples, but sometimes it's more subtle. On the pages of the New Testament, Paul condemned the Judaizers who, they said they believed in Jesus, but their Jesus taught a works-based salvation.

Or the early form of the Gnostic heresy. When that's addressed in the Bible by the Apostle John, he calls them Antichrist. Well, how can you be Antichrist when you say you love Christ? Well, it's because they're talking about a different Christ.

They denied that Jesus had a human nature. They denied that he had a physical body. They said it was just an illusion. So, that's a different Jesus. And the term Antichrist, it means an imitation Christ, an imposter.

So, the false Christ that the heretics preach, it's not the Jesus that born-again Christians believe in. So, now more than ever, we need discernment. Remember, Jesus said in Matthew 7, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

False Teachers, Superficial Faith, and the Warning of 2 Corinthians 11:4

So, using the name Jesus is not enough. Obviously, everyone would recognize this if somebody said, I follow Jesus, but they're really talking about their neighbor, Jesus, who lives down the street. And when they say, I follow him, they mean I get stuck behind him in my car when I'm driving to work.

Well, like, nobody would fall for that, and it's sort of a silly example maybe, but you get the point. They use biblical terms, the name of Jesus, but they mean something totally, totally different. So, we need to be discerning.

The scripture says, let God be true and every man a liar. So, we have to be careful because false teachers lie, right? They're like their father, the devil. They are cunning. They are subtle. Paul warns in Romans 16, verse 18, by smooth words and flattering speech, they are able to deceive the hearts of the simple.

As I often remind you, we must test all things and hold fast to that which is good. First Thessalonians 5 .21. Multitudes of people out there are believing in and teaching another Christ, but my spirit has been especially grieved in recent months when I hear some of my local pastor friends say things like, well, I know it sounds like he's teaching heresy, or that is heresy, but he's not a heretic.

Or they say, well, I heard this false teacher pray in Jesus' name, so I think that means he's saved.

It's like, wow.

Another pastor said he believed one of these heretical false teachers was actually a brother in Christ because he said the sinner's prayer when he was younger. And it's just really hard to understand how you can be that naive.

So when people, the point is, when people, even when shepherds operate on such a superficial level where if somebody just uses the name Jesus, or they say some positive things about Christ, well, what are they talking about?

Is this the Christ of the scripture? Because they say over here things about him that totally don't line up. So if we operate on this superficial level, we are totally ignoring the Apostle Paul's warning in 2 Corinthians 11 .4 when he said, for if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.

And people are putting up with it right now. Now I realize in saying all of this, there's probably someone, at least one person out there listening, and you've heard my previous podcast, and you're thinking to yourself something like, okay, here we go again, you know, Mike, you keep hammering away at the same drum.

Well, you know, I know what you're talking about and you brought up this situation before and now you're talking about it again. Well, yes, and I do it for a reason. Number one, many Christians have not been taught this.

Sometimes the subject of heresy and excommunication and all of this, some pulpits, totally silent concerning this issue. So many Christians have not been taught, and we need to be taught. And it's very clear that even pastors don't know the biblical teaching concerning these matters or they refuse to apply it.

They're hearers of the word, but they're not doers. So number one, we need to be taught, and let's face it, we learn through repetition. So that's number one. Number two, it's worth bringing it up again because consider this, the Protestant Reformers, they believe that in order to be a true church, you needed to practice excommunication.

They said three things are necessary. You need to preach the true gospel, the sacraments or the ordinances must be administered. And number three, the third mark of a true church, you must practice excommunication.

Otherwise, your flock will turn into a herd of goats. So the fact that the majority of churches in the United States do not practice excommunication, what does that say? So this needs to be talked about again and again.

And if you don't like it, don't listen to the podcast. I've pretty much said what I'm going to say from the pulpit and in Sunday School and formats like that. But in this podcast, as long as this continues to be an issue, it's going to come up from time to time.

Why the Church Must Confront Heresy and Practice Excommunication

Okay, the third reason why I'm bringing this up again, because it's like we're living in Bible times. So when you see stuff like this happening right in front of your eyes, all of a sudden it becomes real.

You see a lot of people, they read the Bible and they're reading about events that happened what 2000 years ago. So sometimes for people, it's hard to relate or it's hard to see the relevance of it all.

But when the things that happened back then on the pages of scripture start happening right now in your local community, yeah, it gets real. Or when you see in the Bible, how Paul admonished the Corinthian church or the churches of Galatia, and you see how people were not listening to the apostle Paul back then, and you think, how can they not listen to an apostle?

Well, they're still not listening to the apostle Paul. Paul says in Titus 3 .10, that those who are heretics, they are to be rejected after the first and second admonition. We're on like admonition 85 at this point.

And I have asked some of these pastors, what would it take really? Just tell me, tell me this. What would it take for you to excommunicate these people? And they refused to answer. So I guess, I guess that is their answer.

Nothing.

They're just not going to do it. They are hearers of the word. They know what the Bible says. They're just not willing to do it. What is this? When the Bible is so very clear and churches and pastors refuse to do what the scripture says, what is that?

It's called sin. It's called sin. And to make matters worse, to add insult to injury, it's all being done in the name of.

Love.

Yeah, they are unhitching the definition, the biblical definition of love. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And that includes the teachings of the New Testament. So this is sin. You know, it's all being done in the name of love or in the name of just being nice.

Voddie Bauckham once said, churches today, they're following, mainly they're following the 11th commandment, thou shalt be nice. So they follow the 11th commandment and they don't believe the other 10.

The Biblical Definition of Love and the Call to Obedience

Okay.

The final reason I keep bringing this up is because I know people are listening. Whether it's some of the people in this cult group, the false teachers themselves, or the pastors who are defending them or making space for them, whatever you want to call it.

Some of these people are listening. And if I've learned anything about teaching, it's this, sometimes it takes a little time for it to finally click. So I will pray about this. I'll pray about it some more.

I'll bring it up and I'll bring it up again. And hopefully one of these days, the light will go off. Either way, Titus chapter one commands me as an elder in the church, I need to refute those who contradict.

So when heresy is being taught in a community, it's the job of the pastors. It's the responsibility of the pastors to refute the heresy. So for the word of God to have maximum impact, you need to have it reinforced.

And my ultimate goal is for there to be repentance and restoration and that unity would eventually come out of the division. But that's not up to me. That's up to other people. Because here's the thing, ignoring a problem or sweeping it under the rug, it only serves to make matters worse.

What's the title of the podcast? Another Jesus. Again, Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 11 .4, for if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.

In the early church, people were preaching a different Jesus. Some were denying his deity, others were denying his humanity. Today it's more common for people to deny his deity. Or they say, well, he was the son of God, but we're all children of God.

So they deny his unique sonship. Today the Jehovah's Witnesses deny the deity of Christ. The liberal rainbow churches deny the deity of Christ. The JWs say that Jesus is just the Archangel Michael. The rainbow churches say he was just a wise teacher, but he's not God.

Hardly anyone denies his humanity these days, but that was a problem, again, among the early Gnostics. But this can take many forms. I think the most common problem in so-called evangelical churches today is how some people have their own personal Jesus that they have concocted in their own imagination.

They don't actually read the Bible. They just deify their own thoughts and feelings. So whatever I think, that's what God thinks. I've run into this many times, where they say things like, well, my Jesus would never do that.

My Jesus would never say that. And that might be true. Your Jesus wouldn't do that, but your Jesus isn't the Jesus of Scripture. It's another Jesus. The only Jesus that the Bible talks about, the true Jesus, in Matthew 7, he says, beware of false prophets.

The true Jesus in Matthew 18 said to practice church discipline and treat the person who refuses to repent of sin like a heathen in a tax collector. That means do not keep company with them. They are to be an outcast until they repent.

The true Jesus in Matthew 19 said there are only two genders, male and female, and that marriage is between one man and one woman. Anything outside of that or that seeks to undermine that is sin. And if you say that, well, my Jesus is okay with some of these things, well, it's a different Jesus then.

It's not the true Christ, the only Christ that can save. The Jesus in John 14, verse six, who said he's the only way to God. Well, these heretics are saying that you can get to God through Buddha or some other.

False Gospels, False Gods, and the Danger of Welcoming Heresy

Method.

My friends, this is a bad situation. What else do they say? They say that the death of Jesus was unnecessary. They affirm gay weddings, many paths to God, and the Bible is just a bunch of old letters.

It's not God's word. Or that the God of the Bible is like a villain. So the God they believe in, clearly different because they're not following a villain.

You get it.

You get the point. They're talking about a different God, different Jesus. Or they pick and choose things from the Bible that they like. And all the while they are being welcomed into the churches, and in some cases they are allowed to take communion.

One Pentecostal preacher said that of these heretics, he said, we cannot turn them away.

From us.

Well, the apostles Peter and Paul said otherwise. They said, you must turn them away, Titus 3 .10. The apostle John warned in 2 John, if you welcome them in to your home, or that would include your church house, if you welcome them in, you become a partaker of their evil.

Deeds.

So that's why I'm talking about this. This is probably the, no, it's definitely the most serious error I have ever seen. There is only one true Christ, the Christ of Scripture, except no substitutes. Thanks for listening.

Until next time, may the Lord be with you and have a great day.