False Teaching

Where do we draw the real borders of the Christian faith—and how do we stop calling every disagreement “heresy”? We open with a simple map: some doctrines are state lines where family can differ, while others are national borders that define the gospel itself. From there, we get practical about discernment, separating theological essentials from ministry methods so we stop breaking fellowship over style and start uniting around mission.

We walk through classic flashpoints with clarity and care. Calvinism and Arminianism? Both sit within historic orthodoxy, even as they debate God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Mormonism’s familiar vocabulary with foreign definitions? That crosses the border by redefining Jesus and salvation. Catholicism’s complex system? Many trust Christ and are saved, yet its most consistent soteriology clashes with the finished work of Christ. The goal isn’t scoring points; it’s identifying when the foundation shifts from grace through faith in Christ to something else.

We also tackle the messy middle where most people live: biblical illiteracy, borrowed talking points, and sincere but misguided convictions. That’s where patient correction matters. Like Priscilla and Aquila with Apollos, we open the Bible, strengthen what’s weak, and watch for fruit over time. Jesus told us to test teachers by their fruit, not their flair. So we address spiritual malpractice—manufactured “prophecy,” platform-driven hype—and explain why public wolves require public rebuke, while confused brothers need fatherly guidance, community, and discipleship.

Finally, we caution against rushing to endorse celebrity conversions. Hope is good; haste is not. The Gamaliel test—wait and see—keeps us anchored while we pray for lasting repentance and steady obedience. Our charge is simple: be Bereans, surround yourself with wise mentors, keep the Bible as final authority, repent quickly when corrected, and draw strong borders around the gospel while keeping generous state lines where Scripture allows faithful disagreement.

If this conversation helped you think more clearly about truth and charity, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who loves theology and hates hot takes.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Disagreement Vs Heresy

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hey guys, welcome to Navigate Podcast. I'm here with Justin. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Doing good, bro. Doing good. Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Ready to get after another podcast with you. Let's do it. Well, we've recently been talking about some some theology hard heavy hitters. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Every podcast is a theological heavy hitter, obviously. Obviously. That is not true. I mean, sometimes we go there. Every time we get a big thing. Most of the time, it's like it's like commercial breaks with jokes halfway through.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Never. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Um, but so specifically, we we just got finished talking about some Calvinism stuff, which if you haven't seen those, go check them out. They're pretty good. I I mean if you do say so yourself. Exactly. Exactly. Absolutely. Um, but in light of that, one of the things I'd like to talk about is um false teaching, how to recognize false teachers, and kind of this thing that happens in modern Christendom where people will misdiagnose something they disagree with as someone who's being a heretic.

State Lines And National Borders Of Doctrine

Calvinism And Arminianism As Orthodox Views

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, okay. The environment where people eat each other for having a different opinion. Exactly. That's still orthodox. Exactly. Okay, okay. Yeah, I uh this is good. Okay, so in light of our our last couple episodes that we did, kind of on Calvinism, um uh the whole acronym and everything that we walked through, it's probably good to start out by saying if you don't agree with all of that, that's okay. Uh-huh. Like the the the funny thing about all of that is is uh because salvation is by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone, you can still have some things that aren't totally lined up with some of what we're thinking, and you're gonna be okay because the gospel is true and um and Jesus does cover our sins, not because of some amazing thing that we do, but because of his finished work. He's the object of our faith, right? Um, and this is important too because oh man, I'm trying to think how to jump into this right away. I like to tell people, and I think I heard this honestly back in the day from Driscoll before I heard it from anyone else. I was like, that's actually a really helpful way to think about it. So regard this this is good. I already brought up a controversial question. We should probably do that. Speaking about here, he he talked about this. He said you have you have state lines and you have national borders. So with state lines, they're still part of the country, they're still within um the borders of the nation itself, national borders, or now we have left the faith. Now we're no longer dealing with the same God, the same scripture. We we have a whole different uh idea of of uh what you know what it takes to be saved or what the truth functionally is, what God has revealed to us. Yeah. So um when it comes to things like for, for instance, that particular topic, Calvinism, Arminianism, and that massive conversation that is going on online all the time with very vitriolic, nasty people, and then sometimes some nice people, but like stay off of Reddit, you know? Um I mean, that's just good advice in general. Uh yeah. Stay off, stay off of stay off of Reddit, everyone. It is, it is uh good advice. Um there's uh anytime you buy a systematic theology, like a um a generally decent systematic theology, it's gonna have a different uh a couple of different perspectives on orthodox orthodox positions, with um the usually the perspective that the author espouses. Yeah. You know, here's what I think is the most reasonable, here's the reason that I fall in those particular categories, these are the other opinions that are also acceptable within the faith. Here's three or four that are outside of the faith entirely. And what I've noticed is that in um environments where people deal the majority of their time with Christians, they tend to spend all of their time eating other Christians. Um, and when people are actually engaging in the Great Commission and what Christ has called us to do, they spend more time syncing up with those Christians and fighting together for the right things, uh, as opposed to uh beating each other up. Now, I'm not uh one to say that you shouldn't have iron sharpening iron and pushing each other and jabbing each other. I mean, any uh most of my friends know the more that I like you, the more of a hard time I'm gonna give you about a particular theological opinion that you may have. But there's reasons to break fellowship, and there's bad reasons to break fellowship. And um, we could even talk about Driscoll a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I was gonna say, let's let's dive right in and talk about Driscoll. Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So give a high-level overview of Driscoll for those who don't know. Sure. So Mark Driscoll was a very um famous teacher uh in Seattle for a long time, had a massive mega church, did a bunch of stuff. Uh things ended up going south. Uh he stepped down from his ministry. They ended up leaving the church because of some scandal. Um, there's an entire podcast called The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill that you can listen to. I think most people probably listen to it for the wrong reasons, not the right reasons. And by that I mean um we love watching and uh tuning into people being destroyed. Yeah. We love it. Like our even and look, this is a good one, but like the Epstein files is kind of this we're looking for people to cook. We're looking for like we have a very angry, frustrated, and bored simultaneously uh culture right now where people have too much time on their hands and uh don't have a lot of vision or purpose for what they're doing in their life. So their purpose becomes to um uh edit andor uh roast other people uh makes them feel better about themselves. A great quote I love is those who don't will always justify their inaction by criticizing those who do. Yep. And look, I uh we we went through the book of Judges earlier and we talked about the reality that God raises up messy people and messy circumstances and he gets his will done through them. And it doesn't mean that all of those people are an amazing role model. It does mean God uses those things, and I wouldn't be like, oh my gosh, that was a massive lesson in what not to do. I think it's more like, no, it was a massive lesson in God's providence, and yes, we should learn and grow and get better at things, but I'm also not a fan of roasting other people that I do believe to be Christians, even if uh at least it at least should be in a friendly manner or with some uh some decorum, might be a good way to say that. So uh when it comes to like Calvinism and Armenianism, the both of those uh perspectives historically are orthodox. You're good, you're allowed to buy either one of those positions, and you're not gonna land outside of orthodoxy. And that might drive some people crazy because if you've spent so much time debating these particular topics or getting involved in these particular topics, your goal is to try to get that person to seem like they're as far from salvation and their understanding of God as, you know, uh as a herit, like a full-on apostate is. You know what I mean? And that's not that's not healthy. That's not a good way to approach things in general. Uh the goal should be thinking what are the core doctrines of our faith that we're saying we believe? Okay, let's work from there, let's fight each other, but it should be like the iron sharpening iron, not like uh us beating each other over the head with our Bibles in brotherly love, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Now, real quick, yeah. Um, we've just done a deep dive into Calvinism and we've talked a lot about Armenianism. Do you want to give a high-level overview just in case like for something that shouldn't give it away?

Debate Culture, Fruit, And Fellowship

What Is A False Teacher

SPEAKER_00 7:42

But yeah, yeah, I okay. So Calvinism is kind of the belief that salvation is a work of God, it's monergistic. Yep, God functionally does all of the all of the lifting from your calling to your glorification, or from his foreknowledge, if you want to say it that way, to your glorification. God is the one who brings about the work of salvation and finishes that work. Uh, an Armenian perspective, Armenian perspective is going to say that um God does. I'm trying to not straw man this but steel man this. Sure. God does an amazing work, um, accomplishes uh the the work of salvation for anyone who wants to believe. And he doesn't force people into salvation, he gives them the option uh to be able to say yes or no to his grace, and they elect their portion of it. Um they say yes, I said yes to God, and because I said yes to God, that is how I have uh salvation, and that is what kind of carries me through. It also usually incorporates in there the ability to lose your salvation more readily. So if I I can think about it this way I chose God. This is God would not violate my uh autonomous free will when it comes to salvation. And therefore, if I am saved on the other side of that, he won't violate my free will on the way out either. Uh, this is um the the emphasis tends to be on the individual versus on God, and the Calvinist view tends to have its emphasis on God and less of the individual. And there's lots of good verses and reasons for why people believe those different things. Um there was these uh it was a pastor talking to a rabbi, I think, and he said, um, both of us are serving God in our own way, you're serving God in your way, and I'm serving God in his way. You know, and I I laugh at that, but you know, that's the that's the joke is we're all trying to hone in on um the fullness of what scripture is saying, bringing light to that and sharing it with other people. And we're supposed to do that. We're supposed to study the scriptures, we're supposed to work through things. And I think um there's a lot of room for error. Yeah. There's a lot of room for for margin and mistakes. And I will be the first person to tell you when I got crazy saved and I started reading the Bible and through uh I didn't know that you weren't supposed to just read straight through systematic theologies. You know what I mean? That they're topical. And if you're studying a topic, you go to it. I just blew through it. So I was like Burkhoff, I'm reading through that. Uh Wayne Grudem, I'm reading through that. I got a uh John MacArthur did a did a whole systematic theology. I plowed through a bunch of that. Like I um I really enjoyed it. And then I became uh the guy whose whole job was to check somebody else if they said anything that was even a little bit off. You know what I mean? And and I've watched conversations shut down, people stop studying because they're afraid to. Uh, you kill conversation because everybody's afraid. If I say the wrong thing, it might not be biblical, and then you become the center of attention in that room instead of God. That is not what you're looking to do. That is not the goal. And I would even say it this way: one person is walking in their faith in one place with a rudimentary understanding of uh what the gospel is. And you got other people who have been studying for a long time, have a little bit better grasp on some of the nuances and differences and different opinions. And our goal should not to be smash these people for not knowing. The goal should be how do we father people to help them learn how to grow, how to study, how to work through things, how to check their own work with other people, and and then get to better places together. And oftentimes, um debate uh can be the enemy of growth, I think, unless you have a good environment for it. Yeah. You know, where two people who are solid on what they believe and where they're at can actually do that. And man, it can get it can get messy in a hurry. Like there is a big difference between a false prophet and somebody who just disagrees with some of your theological opinions or methodological approaches. So I would I would tell you those are very different things. Yeah. Like here's your theology. This is what we believe about God, what we believe about ourselves in light of who God says that we are and what we're called to accomplish, and then methodology, how we're actually trying to act in obedience to what Christ has called us to do. And if you confuse those two, you kind of end up in messy places because you'll start thinking the way that they're doing it um is sinful when maybe the way that they're not doing it is sinful. It's just not the way that you think is best.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

So if somebody is uh doing church in a particular way and they have more of a seeker-friendly model, which by the way, I'm not a fan of, I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think all those people are going to hell because they're doing a seeker-friendly model.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

No, and certainly the Lord can even work in that to do radical salvation. Right, like right.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

So if God's going to do his work. If one's person's idea of uh filling the earth and subduing it and uh evangelism is through kids, we're gonna have lots and lots of babies. We're not planning on reaching the outside world, we're just gonna raise up a ton of kids that love Jesus and get that. Do I think that's the best method? No. But I get what you're trying to do, and I can at least understand where you're coming from that that is a way. Yeah, probably not the only way. We should be doing some other things, right? And then we get into scriptures and but I'm trying to give you kind of a a picture of how these things break down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And um so let's go a little more brass tacks. Let's bring it back to someone like Driscoll. Okay. So obviously, based on what you've kind of alluded to, you think Gri Driscoll is not an apostate. He's saved.

Mormonism, Catholicism, And Core Doctrines

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, he's a Christian. He's a brother in Christ. I think he's a great communicator. I think he was very young and had a ton of responsibility and a massive church that I think most people would fail at running, especially at his age and with the amount of experience that he had. So you'd even think he didn't make mistakes. No, I don't think he would even say that. No. Um, I think there was um a lot of eldership problems. Uh, and ecclesiology is a bear of its own when you're talking about eldership and how to structure things correctly and what's the best possible way to get things done. Um, you know, the uh most of the stuff is he railroaded people. He was, you know, he would be angry and say things that he shouldn't say. I mean, if you l you'll listen to the podcast, you'll get one thing after another. And and I I have a hard time because a lot of people will just line up to take shots at somebody.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

I heard Doug Wilson say this one time. He said, What happened to Mark Driscoll was a revenge of the beta males. And I thought that was one of the funniest things ever. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because if you're if you're going out of your way and you want to accomplish stuff, you want to get after it, you want to build things. Now, a lot of times the people who don't have maybe some of those same skill sets or that conviction to go get it done, um, feel hurt and frustrated and oftentimes get bitter about it, and then can become the very people later who are so excited to burn you at the stake. Um, not for the right reason, but because they at some level wish that they could have done something like that. And so we'll point out all the reasons it was wrong.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

You've used this quote before, but bold men are often called mean-spirited by weak men.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah, but yeah, bold men are often called, yeah, weak, what are you mean-spirited by cowards. By cowards, yeah. Yeah, thank you, Charles Spurgeon, for that. Yeah. There's um, and again, it doesn't make an excuse for Jeff the uh sacrificing his daughter, you know, no, right? Like not at all. Stupid decisions are still stupid decisions. I'm glad the guy still liberated that entire area and did what God called him to do in those situations. So it's it's important that when we call, if we understand it, if we're calling somebody a false teacher, what we're saying is that they're fundamentally rejecting the gospel. They're fundamental, they're rejecting a fundamental axiom of the faith, which would put them not in a different state, but in a different country entirely.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

So let's let's look at one Mormon example here.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Would be uh an easy one to shoot at, all right? So Mormons are um they love to try to hijack all the language of Christianity and uh use the same words but define them differently. So Mormons love to tell you that salvation is a work of grace, it's it's what God has accomplished for us, and it's what God is, you know, it's it's all a work of God. And what they actually mean by that is God has given us the ability. It was grace that he gave us the ability to save ourselves. I can go. Which is not biblical, which is messy. They also believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Uh, they also uh have a fundamentally different idea of what the fall is and what heaven and hell is, and uh some very strange things around, you know, like your uh your husband and wife. If you're a husband, you get your wife's secret name. And if uh he doesn't remember the secret name that he was given for his wife in their marriage, she doesn't make it into heaven. That sucks. Okay, that's a crazy belief, right? Yeah, um, like there's a there's a lot of things in there that just attack salvation, they attack the deity of Jesus Christ, the whole belief that we become gods after we die and repopulate our own planet and uh polygamy and all the things that go into that. Anytime a religion has a bunch of weird sexual undertones, it's it's a cult, just so you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Which to be frank, most religions have weird sexual undertones.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Yeah. I mean most uh most shady ones, most cults, especially. But yeah, there's there's all kinds of weird crap going on. Um, Mormonism and um Islam have a lot of striking similarities and all the things that go with that. But um Mormonism was one like here's here's a more difficult one that's um I would want to approach with a little bit more nuance. Catholics. Okay, all right. So um I believe that a large amount of Catholics are saved, they are born again, they have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, they love the Lord, they have a sincere heart, um they're walking uh by faith, by the Spirit, all amazing good things. I think if you are a Catholic that actually buys into uh everything that was done at the Council of Trent, then technically Protestants are anathema and not saved at all. Yeah. Like we're like they're literally saying, no, no, no, this is a we have a fundamentally different view of salvation and what actually happens. I mean, at the Mass, they literally believe that they're crucifying Jesus again, and that you're partaking of his literal body and literal blood again. And if you don't get those things, you don't get righteousness infused into you, and then you shipwreck your faith and it's over. Like that's a that is a very different view rather than Christ has declared us righteousness because we placed our faith in him. And now we because we placed our faith in him, we're sealed, we're bought, we're paid for, and we are uh seated with him in the heavenly places. Catholicism is uh no, you get Christ's righteousness through these sacraments if you continue to do these particular things that are administered by the church, and if you do these things in this particular way, then you will receive salvation. Not to mention weird stuff like the treasury of Mary, where it's like you can get somebody out of purgatory or get somebody out of hell um by giving enough money to the Catholic Church that they can the church then has the ability to take from the excess treasury of Mary or the treasury of Christ their amazing good works and buy somebody back out of hell to get there, which by the way, that teaching has never been bricanted. Nope. Um there's a so there's some beliefs in there that, like if you really believe you're going to a mass and we're killing Jesus again, and I'm drinking his blood and I'm eating his physical body, and this is why I have righteousness, you have a different view of salvation entirely, and I'm I'm scared for you. So I I don't think you're making it in.

Ignorance, Illiteracy, And Correction

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yeah, it's it's almost like the more Catholic you are, the less likely are you to actually be saved.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, like the more consistent you are.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Yeah, right. And um, I actually heard a rather famous podcaster who happened to be pretty strong Catholic, okay, uh quite a while back, but he was talking about um the problems in this world, and and he was building it up, and his language was sounding very Christian. He's like, We need people, you know, to turn to the church. We need all these things. Like, there's this problem, there's the sexuality crisis, there's uh people who just have a fundamentally broken understanding of of you know how like property rights should work, how all this should work because of their um their collectivism and all that. And we just need people to get, and I really thought the next word was gonna be saved.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

And he said, we really need people to get baptized in the Catholic Church. Yeah. And I'm like, you're so close, yeah, and yet a million miles away. Almost, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Almost they just get baptized in the Catholic Church, everything will be fine. I and this is the it's almost an inverted problem, right? So, because you know a lot of people will call themselves Christian who deny the fundamentals of the faith, right? So, like, if you're a superficial Christian, I don't think you're saved. If you're a superficial Catholic, you might be. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's that kind of thing going on. So I I have hope, and and I like a pastor that I I love said this. He said, um, uh, a lot of Catholics will be saved because Protestants are right. When you get to heaven, you're not going to be handed a list, you know, a questionnaire on exactly how salvation works. You're going to hand it back and say, I I don't I'm literally here because of Jesus. That's it. Like that I heard Aleister Beck bring this up one time. He was talking about the thief on the cross, and he was bringing up this hypothetical scenario where the thief on the cross, you know, gets to the pearly gates and they're like, uh, who are you? And he's like, Nobody, you know, like what are you doing here? I don't know. What why why are you here? I don't know. You know, like what makes you think you're good enough to get in here? I'm not. Okay, so how did this happen? All I know is that guy said I could go with him. Yep. That's it. That like that's and that is the beauty and glory of the gospel. Is it's like it's not any of the extra mumbo jumbo. It is, did I place my faith in Jesus? Do I believe what he said? And if that is the case, praise God, we we we actually make it. We we get into heaven, we have our you know, our hearts change, our spirit change, but it's a perfect example of the guy who didn't have any kind of serious base knowledge, he didn't have a degree, he didn't have all the things that he needed to have or all the teachings on soteriology, it was I believe Jesus, and because he believed Christ, it's gonna work out, it's it's gonna be fine, you know, and and I think we need a little bit more of that. However, um, saying all of what we're saying about some of the methodological, theological approaches to things, uh, Christians eating each other, when I think that they should be way more chill. Um there is no quarter for false teachers in the Bible. Like it's pretty, it's pretty cut and dry that you should not be um giving grace to or chill with people who are wolves. Yeah, that's not something that you should do. You should not be uh you should never sacrifice truth uh like that for unity where you're actually bastardizing the holiness of God. Yeah. You are trying to make Jesus something that he's not so people can be saved to a false version of Jesus that doesn't exist. That's a nightmare, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

So just recently there was a congressman who Do you do you know where I'm going with this? Yeah, yeah. Uh, who I think he was on Rogan, but he was on a podcast, uh, and he is a pro-abortion Christian.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Um, and when asked about this stance, he made the case that, well, when the angel came to Mary to tell her um that she had been chosen by God to birth Jesus, yeah, he asked her permission, which shows that consent is important even for God to give to Mary. And so without consent, you know, it's okay to abort a child. Yikes. This guy would and still does claim to be a Christian, he claims to be of the faith. Point blank, he is not. So you say don't give quarter to people like that.

Testing Fruit Over Time

SPEAKER_00 24:54

So I even want to push back on that. Okay. Alright, so here's the deal. Fundamentally disagree with all of that. I think that's freaking terrible, and just a basic reading of Luke chapter two would tell you everything that you needed to know to know that that is just factually not the case. And I'm like, who did he hear say that? And then he just believed it without actually studying the scriptures himself. That being said, do I think somebody could place their faith in Jesus and be taught a bunch of nonsense that's not consistent with the faith and still go to heaven? Yeah. Yeah, like what beliefs did the thief on the cross hold that were still aberrant theology and nonsense? I mean, he doesn't believe any of those things now in glory, right? But like, um, I do think there's a bunch of Christians out there who don't have Christian brains that will say that. Like, I think there's a lot of people that I've met who have particular beliefs because they've just never been taught anything else or never been shown in the Bible that why we believe what we believe as Christians. And this is why you have so many people saying, I'm a Christian, I go to church. But this particular church or where they're at, I don't know what it looks like. But clearly they're not teaching on any of the topics that are going on socially. Maybe they're too afraid to bring it up from the pulpit. Maybe they're doing this, like, we'll sidestep it, and unless it has to do specifically with just these things that we can control with, you know, within these four walls, you know what I mean? Maybe that's the kind of church that that person has been at. Um, I feel for that person. That's terrible. It should be addressed, it should be called out as bad teaching and false theology. I would be careful about immediately going and saying you're not a Christian because he might be, he just might be a really stupid Christian.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

So that's they exist. That's a fair point. We might be some of them. How do we um how do we navigate the discernment between somebody who's like that who's just um ignorant versus someone who is a wolf? Yeah because that's very uh as a politician, I'm much more likely to believe that that person is not there, not there.

Public Wolves, Public Rebukes

Celebrity Conversions And The Gamaliel Test

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, and I would say that's that's fruit, and you're trying to pay attention to the fruit, right? Jesus in Matthew 7 tells us that we should pay attention to fruit, that thorn bug, uh thorn bushes don't produce good, you know, uh figs, and fig bushes don't produce uh thistles, like it's it's a different or or thorns, like they're different um species. You know what I mean? There's something else entirely going on there, and you can't put the two together and say that it's the same thing. However, here's what I know about both of those it takes time to see what it's actually producing. It does. And a lot of times I think people are just silly and they don't know what they're saying or know how to think is Christian. I said this uh earlier, like um biblical illiteracy is is killing us. Yes. If so many people, like I said, who I I I think really have placed their faith in Jesus and have had that dark night of the soul or that moment where they were like, oh my gosh, I need Jesus. I I need his grace, I need his forgiveness. I believe what he did on the cross for me. I believe that that's true, and haven't gone any farther than that, or been discipled, or been taught from the word what these things are supposed to look like. You even see this in scripture with like Apollos, right? Like he's preaching the gospel, but he's leaving out a bunch of the stuff that he's not supposed to leave out. So some people pull him aside, they're like, hey, you're a great speaker. You got a lot, right? Can we fix this up? Because this is this is an issue. Like what you got going on here is a problem. We gotta, we gotta fix that. You're you're three quarters of the way there, right? And and I think we need more of that. Like father those people, talk to them, have conversations with them, try to help them understand where we're actually coming from. Now, if somebody is here's what I would say: if somebody is confronted with the truth of God's word, and uh especially when it pertains to the identity of God Himself, uh, the reality of our sin nature, um, the truth about what Christ did on the cross and that functional work, um, if the if it's those things in particular, that there's some serious issues there, and I'm probably gonna call you a false teacher. But I I do want people to understand like a lot of times somebody is saved, and I would say, I would continue to say they're saved so long as they're lining their life up with what scripture says. So if I'm confronting this person and saying, dude, you're way off here. Let's look at the Bible, let's let's talk about what it says, let's go there. And they get it, they're like, holy cow, I didn't, I didn't realize that the the point is the the the the trinity is a real thing. Like I I have to I have to believe that, or I don't believe in the God of the Bible. If somebody says they're saved and is shown the truth of what the word of God is actually saying about some of these core issues and doesn't believe them, then I'm saying then your salvation wasn't a real salvation. Your faith wasn't a real faith because we're not talking about the same God. I can't say I had faith in my neighbor Jesus, and because his name is spelled Jesus, I believe, you know, all my sins are forgiven. That's not that's not how that works. So I would say if you have faith, um that person is also going to believe the core tenets of the faith that are learned, you know what I mean, along the way as part of that. And wherever you start rejecting core tenets of the faith after your salvation, I do think tells you something about the fruit and the reality of that person's ostensible salvation, right? So if you uh say you're a Christian and you've been confronted with the truth of God's word and you're still continuing to say that uh abortion is totally fine and God thinks it's a good thing, I I would question that person's salvation. I would say, brother, I don't, I don't think we're we're even talking the same way. Like you could just ask the question, uh, if Jesus is truly God and truly man, right from the point of conception, when did life begin? Yeah, because was there a point when Jesus was not truly God and truly man? Uh you don't want to say no to that or you're actually in heresy. Yep, right now, now I've abandoned something that that scripture clearly teaches and shows us. So you gotta you gotta help walk people through, I think, uh a lot of the core tenets and beliefs of the faith that we get from the scriptures to help understand what it is that we fully believe. And somebody who begins to reject the core tenets of the faith or begins to do this syncretism thing where I believe these things that Jesus said, but I also am pouring in a bunch of other stuff that I've learned in other places and other religions, and it's all kind of the same thing. Again, now now you're giving me reason to question what you actually believe and if it was a true salvation that that happened to you, um, versus somebody who's just ignorant and just doesn't doesn't know yet. And the thing that sucks is you usually have to get close enough to that person to be able to tell which it is. Yeah, you know, um, but but it's important. Like here's um Deuteronomy 13 is one of my like favorite passages because it's just so savage. All right, I'm I'm gonna read a portion of it to you. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you, saying, Let us go after other gods whom you have not known, and let us serve them. You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall follow the Lord your God and fear him, and you shall keep his commandments, listen to his voice and serve him and cling to him. But the prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death because he has counseled rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk, so you shall purge the evil from among you. If your brother or your mother's son, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, whom neither of your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are round you, or near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end, you shall not yield to him or listen to him, and your eyes shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery. Then all all Israel will hear and be afraid and will never again do such a wicked thing among you. Okay. This passage is very heavy, very straightforward, and I think it's really important. He's saying if somebody comes who is a teacher who wants to teach you about God, maybe there's even some miraculous stuff happening. Right, but what he said, it worked. He gave me this word for my life, and I, oh my gosh, it happened, that it was amazing. God is literally saying, just because somebody is saying something, just because there's even some stuff behind it going on, does not mean that it is now acceptable or a good thing, or that you should add it in to the truth that God has given to you. This is this is not how things work. And he's so serious about it that he's like, not only are you supposed to put this person to death, you're supposed to be the first person to throw the stone. Yeah. Like you and your family. Why? Because if this stuff gets in and you start allowing this false teaching to creep in with whatever power it's coming with, that is not okay. It will be a blight on the entire society. And I love how he says this. He's like, I don't care if it's your mother, I don't care if it's your best friend, I don't care if it's your father. What is he tugging on? Our emotions. Well, here's what I know about people who tend to leave the faith or go different directions or begin to abandon the stuff that they said they believed. There's usually sin involved with somebody that they love and are close to. And then they go back to scripture. Say somebody comes out in their family and is gay. Immediately that person is like, Well, I don't know. I I think I need to change my theology to try to fit this because I don't want to lose the relationship with this person. So now I'll go back to the Bible and I'll even go back to the character of God and I'll try to appeal for why something the Bible explicitly says is a problem and a sin, and say that it's okay. And you see this with guys like Brandon Robertson, you know what I mean? He's a he's a kind of the poster boy pastor of progressivism. Yep. And he's got a master. He was bringing up, you know, he was teaching on uh John 11 and talking about how when Lazarus, you know, Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave, it was Lazarus' coming out moment. Yeah. And and really what he was doing is telling him to, he needs to come out. Like, like, go ahead, be gay. That's how you were made to be like, okay, for one, just terrible exegesis in the first place, not at all what that is teaching in any capacity, but that's the kind of thing that you have to begin to abandon. You don't, you don't get to say that the scripture is the word of God anymore. Yeah. You don't get to say that uh things about the character and nature of God, if they're not consistent with the Bible, that you have now kind of denied. Like you begin to abandon all these different things. Uh, even guys like Rob Bell, who is a universalist, uh, wrote a book. He was a very popular pastor in Michigan. Um, started out really strong. Uh, he wrote like Velvet Elvis and uh his the book that put him on the map of the wrong ways is called Love Wins. He he had been praying for years and years for his father to be saved. And when his father died, outside of the faith, he decided that a loving God would not send his father to hell. So he went back into scripture and decided to become a universalist who no longer believes that hell is for people at all. Uh, actually, God's love conquers all things, and now everyone is saved, no matter what you believe or why you believe it. Why? It wasn't exegesis, it wasn't a love for the word of God. It was, yeah, but this person that I love. And the Bible is literally saying, like, you need to be so careful about letting emotions and relationships drag you in, drag you to hell, quite literally. I mean, and I brought this up in Galatians, um, but in the past, but some of the strongest language in the entire Bible is Paul using the word anathema. It literally means um, I'm trying to say this in the way that it would, like, literally, God damned that person. And I don't mean it in the profane way that gets used in all kinds of other contexts. He's literally saying God like bring damnation on that person to anathematize somebody is to saying, uh, you are you are damned to hell. Yeah. Like, and he says, if anyone should come to you teaching, I don't care if it's an angel of light comes and teaches you something other than the gospel that you have heard from us, God damn that person. Yeah, like and and that should check our hearts. And it's ironic because uh Mormonism and um Islam and some of these other religions were oh, an angel of light came and gave me extra revelation about these particular things. Oh, imagine that. It's crazy, it must be okay now.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

It's almost like Paul knew how the enemy worked. Yeah. Um but reading through these passages, hearing the Exodus one, hearing these passages in Galatians is very clear to me that we as a culture have gone so far from how serious we should be about false teaching. False teaching.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Yeah, and and false prophets.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

The the two you mentioned, uh Brandon and um Brandon Roberts, Rob Bell and Rob Bell. Yeah, yeah. Um, would you because we talked about fruit. Yeah. Would we be able to, as Christians, look at that fruit and say, look, they're not there.

Exhortation: Be Bereans And Walk With The Wise

SPEAKER_00 39:05

You know, um this is uh it's an interesting question. I am always a little hesitant saying uh that the average person or any person gets to know exactly what's going on in the heart of a person. However, when Jesus says you will know them by their fruit, he's at least making a clear statement to us saying you should be able to watch what's going on in their lives and be able to tell what's going on. Yeah. This is why we practice church discipline, right? Like if somebody is continuing to live in sin and doesn't want to change and is unrepentant, and even worse in some cases, teaching this aberrant theology to other people, you're to expel that person from among you and to treat them as an unbeliever. Meaning, our belief about that person currently is that they are not part of the fold and they are not saved. They are not in good standing. Uh, another reason for church discipline is egregious sin. So if you have somebody in your congregation, God forbid, that like murders a child, okay. Um, whatever has happened up to this point, um, at this point, um, it doesn't really matter because what just happened is so egregious and should be so foreign to a Christian and so foreign to the spirit of God that you are saying is inside of you that you have called into question everything, the everything that you have said in the past. It it doesn't really matter at this point until we see true repentance and a legitimate desire to come back into fellowship and and like real painstaking. We're watching and walking with you to see what in the world happened that you would do something like this. I mean, Rush Dooney had this great quote about uh the death penalty, and he was talking about murder. And he said, murder is such an egregious thing because it's an assault on the very image of God itself. And because it's an assault on the very image of God, our job in that moment is not to decide if that person is saved. Our job is to send them up to a higher court so that he can decide if they're saved or not. And I think that's there's a lot of weight there. Yeah, there's a lot of truth there, and he's he's getting at something that is central to the heart of what's going on, like what you would be willing to do also says a heck of a lot about you. So when Jesus brings us up in Matthew 7, beware the false prophets who will come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves, you will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles are they. So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad trees bear bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by their fruits. Jesus is telling us at some level that we should be able to look at people's lives and actually make some calls about what they say about themselves. And we we believe this in most uh every other area. Yeah. You know, like don't watch what I say, watch what I do. You know what I mean? Or some of these, some of these teachers, uh professors, heroes of philosophy, like you know, Jean-Paul Sartre and um, you know, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, um, some of these uh Simone de Beauvoir, some of these people, uh Freud. Yeah, we we have all these people who are like, oh, intellectual titans, amazing. And then you look at their lives, it's horrifying. It's awful. It's it's horrifying. Like even Buddha, right? Um, the the very first, you know, what it was it Magatma Buddha or something like that, the very first Buddha abandoned his child the day he was born, just walked out and left. Russo had all these kids, and every time he had a kid with a new girl, he would give them to the orphanage because he didn't want kids and he didn't want anything to do with it. And we're like, let that guy write our philosophy books. That's that's what I want. And this is why an elder is supposed to be somebody who manages a household well and is able to care for other people and walk these things out. Why? Because there's there's a greater weight and belief we have with somebody who's walking these things out in their life and actually doing them versus somebody who can talk all day long, but their life does not actually represent the truth of what they say. So we need to watch our walk carefully. And we should also be watching the walk of other people carefully. But again, if you begin to apply some of these false teacher um anathematizing statements from scripture to our brothers and sisters in Christ who have a different view on um, you know, the the day age theory or something or exactly how creation took place. Like, I think you can be um a uh an evolutionist at some level if you believe, oh, God guided this, you know, um, you know, evolutionary process to bring about you know what he wanted to. I'm like, I don't see that in scripture. I think you're gonna. Have a really hard time defending that with scripture. I'm not saying that you're not saved or you're not my brother in Christ. I just think you're weird and you should get your crap together. Um, I think what we should be careful about, though, is that so many times people who begin to espouse weird approaches to scripture in different areas oftentimes have an ulterior motive for why they're doing that. And when you compromise in one area, you can almost be certain that people are going to begin to compromise in other areas. Absolutely. Um, so somebody doesn't start by saying, I'm going to abandon all the things I believe. They start by slowly allowing things to shift, usually because of tension and wanting to be right with the world, or because they have an emotional relationship or some sin in their life. And uh David Wilkerson has a great, great quote about this. He says that um someone who will not forsake a besetting sin will eventually invent doctrines to excuse himself from them. And I think there's a lot of people who are walking in that kind of nonsense. I just don't want to punt on this sin that I have or this lie that I want to believe, and eventually I will come up with a way to get around it. I'll do some uh biblical origami, you know what I mean, to to try to make this sin pattern that I have okay now. And there's a there's a lot of that going on. And we should go to war with those things. Um but my goal usually, and I tell people this, is don't win arguments, win people, which means, yeah, do I eventually want to win this argument? Yeah, absolutely. It's important. Truth should reign and truth should rule. But I don't want to do it in a way where I'm uh destroying that person in the process. The goal is to help redeem that person the way that Christ would. That being said, when you're dealing with a false teacher, somebody who is a wolf, I don't think the goal of that person is like, I have to befriend this person and I have to like, you know, uh slowly and quietly integrate myself in this and try to like win their heart over. No, why? Well, because that person is actively leading other people to hell. Yeah. So public stuff like that, where people are being drawn to hell by false teaching, I think needs publicly refuted and openly, uh, openly fought against so that people would hear and see the nastiness that's going on. I mean, I don't know if you saw the stuff with uh Bethel recently that came out. This guy, Sean Bowles, was a uh prophet. Which we could get into um right off the bat. But he was using data mining. He was using data mining to get information about different people that were coming to these events, and then he would have a prophetic word where then he would use the data that he got on a particular person to be able to give a prophetic word about what was going on in their life. Smoke the mirrors. That is not prophecy, that is not biblical. I mean, it is disgusting. Yeah, and it's I heard another thing. Sean Foyt. I don't know if you know who Sean Foyt is. He's this worship leader who goes and does big worship rallies and does a bunch of stuff. Um, he was using uh AI to help write him pro write prophetic pair prayers for him, kind of in the same vein. Like, I need a good prophecy, you know, put in prayer, then I'll use AI to write it for me, and then I'll I'll say this prayer. And it's like, oh, it's a prophetic dude. That is that is disgusting. That is spiritual malpractice, it's a mess. Um, and when we see those things, we should say, that is outright wrong, man. It's just like that is not what should be happening. And when we look at um places like um uh Galatians, where you know Paul has to literally tell Peter to his face, what in the world are you doing? Uh, this should at least give us a picture of what confrontation is supposed to look like. Yeah. You are actively doing the opposite of what you're saying and teaching everybody else that you should be doing. Get your life together.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

And this isn't a case of one of them being in apostasy because it's Paul and Peter.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Right, right. So even if you take somebody like a Sean Bowles who is doing something really shady and awful like that, my first step is not going to be uh you're a demon and you're not saved. Although I'm like, you're flirting with something serious here. My goal would be get this person out of there, get him under some serious discipleship, and and seriously pray as a leadership team about the kind of people that we're allowing to come in and do some of this stuff so that we can at least attempt to avoid this in the future. Um, with this cut with these kind of things that are that are going on. And you have a lot of people that have fought, you know, like Ravi Zacharias. Always gotta bring him up, actually. You know what I mean? And it's like going out, doing apologetics, doing this stuff, and at the same time having this egregious life of sin going on behind the scenes. When you see these things, my heart breaks because it's like, man, I wish he would have been willing to ask for help. Yeah. I wish he would have had people close enough walking with him that somebody could have had that Paul and Peter moment and said, What in the world are you doing? Step down. Just step down. We don't like somebody who actually did this really well was Stephen Lawson. All right. He is um uh a very well-known um teacher, kind of out of the reformed world, part of ligonier ministry, did a lot of good teaching. His um, his series on the the character and attributes of God was honestly super helpful for me. Really enjoyed it. I would recommend it. I don't know if it's still up because I think a bunch of his stuff got pulled down. He was in an uh licit relationship with somebody that he shouldn't have been, and he stepped down, he read an apology letter, he repented, he submitted himself to the leadership of the church. He's walking through a deep process, he's removed himself from any possibility of like looking good or trying to save face. He is repenting and trying to walk through this process of getting healthy because he realizes how far he got and how messed up it was with what's going on. Praise the Lord. Yeah, praise God. When darkness gets exposed and nonsense is going on, what makes me sad, like I said, is when people are walking in those things and um living it so long or so far enough away from other people that they couldn't see those things were happening, that's so sad for me, you know? And it's like uh you just feel like a lot of this could have been avoided. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, and if if people would have walked a little bit closer. That being said, God's gonna get the glory and he's gonna do what he's gonna do. But uh, I would just tell people as we're walking through this conversation, don't think everybody who's saying something that's nonsense is just immediately not saved. They could just be stupid. Yeah. And don't assume that don't assume that uh everybody who's saying good things or even you know, sort of there is totally saved and fine either. You you know, you want to weigh fruits, you want to understand those things, and I would uh give the old gamalial test, wait and see. Wait and see. Yeah, you know what I mean? Uh we just saw uh Nicki Minaj apparently came to faith. Did you see this?

SPEAKER_01 50:58

I saw she was super pro-Trump. I didn't know about the faith thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Pro-Trump and then like uh pro-Jesus and trying to support um, you know, like the Christians who are being murdered in Nigeria and like all this stuff. And I'm sitting there like, huh. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Like, let's just wait. Yeah. Let's see. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not. I don't know if you saw the TPUSA um halftime show. Um, yeah. Okay. Did you did you watch it?

SPEAKER_01 51:28

I didn't watch it. I heard some of the the um highlights on like Kid Rock praising Christ on the stage.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Okay, so that's what actually what I was gonna bring up. So you got a song that Kid Rock is singing, you know. Um, if you got a chance, take it, you know, and he's telling people at the end, give your life to Jesus before it's too late. Yeah, praise God. That's awesome, right? I love that. The song he's singing before that is about all his friends in the methadone clinic and going out and partying and doing all, and I'm like, I don't buy it. Yeah, like you don't get to just staple Jesus at the end of something, and everybody claps and cheers, and it's like, oh, he's he's totally saved, and he's changed his whole life. Like, we want so badly, I think, for people to be saved sometimes that we're willing to just slap a label on something that I think Jesus would potentially find repugnant. Yeah. Now listen, if that dude is just not there in his faith and recently came to Jesus and is figuring it out, praise the Lord. I'm happy for that. But I'm not gonna put a stample of approval on it immediately or say, like, totally buy it. He's totally, he's all out for Jesus. It's great. Give it time and let's see if somebody disciples him and walks with them.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Yeah, a cultural icon does not a titan of the faith make.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

Yeah, yeah, that's that it's a I mean, I wouldn't say it's always the case, but oftentimes uh we want people in high positions in different places to give their life to Jesus. And when we see like I'm excited when I see people like Russell Brand. Right. Um kind of a mess for a long time, goes out, starts teaching people about Jesus, shows his baptism, talks about reading the Bible. I see like some there's some fruit there. I'm encouraged. There might be some weirdness too. I don't know, but I am seeing consistently over the last year and a half or two years since this stuff happening, some really cool things that that I'm encouraged by. Yeah. Um, I I think uh guys like even uh Joe Rogan having Wes Heff on and this crazy Navy SEAL Calvinist who is on there sharing the gospel with them. And like, uh, do I think he's there yet? I don't I don't think he's there yet. But I praise the Lord that those things are happening. Yeah, I'm not saying we shouldn't get excited or like, hey, maybe this is maybe something awesome is happening here. I am saying be careful to put your stamp of approval on something if you haven't waited long enough to actually see the fruit. Yeah, because Christianity is not a moment where I made a decision. Christianity is 60 years of a life lived for God. Yeah, you know, and uh oftentimes we we are very quick to want something so bad to happen that we're willing to espouse a bunch of nonsense that we shouldn't in the process. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

So hope that helps. Yeah, no, that was good stuff. Um, any any other teachers or things you can think of you'd like to cover before we close out?

SPEAKER_00 54:03

I was actually going to give an exhortation. Please do read the Bible a lot. Read just read the Bible, get into it with other godly people, find other mentors. And a lot of times what I've seen is when people first get saved or um get like radically saved, they start and they're super passionate and they end up abandoning some of the mentors and people that are actually trying to help them and end up in some aberrant theology because they have a ton of zeal and just come to believe that everything was a psyop that they ever believed and are constantly in this cycle of, oh, there's more that everybody else doesn't know. And it's like if it's new, it's probably heresy, bro. Yeah. Um, get in the Bible, have people around you. I'm trying to think, is it Psalm uh or it's a it's a proverb? I think it might be 19. He says, zeal without knowledge is folly. Like you could be really passionate about something and really wrong. In the abundance of counselors, there's wisdom. Proverbs 11, right? Like we we want to be around good, godly people that are solid, where we're seeing consistent fruit in their life. I don't care if they're a zesty speaker or not. There's some really solid Christians out there who may not be amazing at communicating the word of God, but know a lot and you can learn a lot from them, and you might benefit from their lack of enthusiasm in some of these areas because you're oh they're maybe they're compensating for some of the crazy in the room because you are lit right now. You know what I mean? Like walk with solid people, read and love the Bible, don't believe everything that you see and everything that you hear, test it, be a Berean, uh, really study to see if what somebody said is the case and get comfortable with this. The Bible is right and you are not. And if you hold a conviction about something that you cannot defend biblically, that's a problem. Yeah. Change your mind. The word for it is repent. Like there's been many times in my life where I have believed something that I've come to realize is that it just wasn't a biblical teaching. I have to abandon this position because it is not true, even though I held deep allegiance to it for a long time. The Bible gets to teach us, the Bible gets to direct us and it gets to shape us. And where we stop letting the Bible be the final authority in our life, we will allow what sounds good and what is trendy or what is um uh conspiracy theory to begin to reinterpret for us what we uh believe God has said, but is not in the word. So I hope that helps. I hope that encourages people. And um, I hope you will do a better job, whoever's listening to this, of not eating people alive that might be a brother in Christ, and do a better job of not making um any provision for the flesh or for sin for those who are outright false prophets. Amen to that. Right on. All right. Thanks, everyone. Cool. You guys have a great week. We'll uh we'll be back soon.