Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast, where we're all about sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Costi Hinn, and the interview you're about to listen to is with a dear friend of mine and no stranger to you here at For the Gospel, Justin Peters. We were together at the ARC Encounter in Kentucky, and I got the chance to sit down with Justin and ask him some tough questions about false teaching, why he spends so much time calling it out, and the importance of proclaiming the true gospel. In addition, I asked Justin to provide us with wisdom of what to listen for when we're hoping to use discernment with preachers that we're hearing. And so he's going to lay out some theological red flags for you and I to be looking for as well so we can lead our homes and operate in our churches with sound doctrine. Let's jump right into my interview with Justin. This is really going to bless you.
SPEAKER_00Well, Justin, it's always good to have you on here for the gospel. Cassie, it is an honor, brother. We've done stuff together before, but I've never done uh for the gospel, so I'm excited.
SPEAKER_01I know we're glad to have you on video. Had you on the podcast and get lots of wonderful feedback from that. And so now I wanted to sit down with you for a real candid conversation about why we call out false teachers. One of the most uh debated and uncomfortable topics for people today, especially in American evangelicalism, is you know, why are you throwing stones at fellow brothers and believers? And people will say how the body of Christ can be so cannibalistic and and it eats its own and all these things. And you're no stranger to calling out false teaching and dealing with false doctrine. One of the first things I just want to ask you is why do you spend such energy not only preaching the truth, which you do phenomenally, but calling out false teachers and highlighting heretical errors?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Cossi. Well, I do it simply in obedience to scripture because we're commanded to do it. Paul wrote to Titus in Titus chapter 1, verse 9, he says, Teach sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. So it's not an either-or, it's a both and. As preachers of the gospel, we've got to do both. Yeah. And uh 26 of the 27 books in the New Testament directly warn about false doctrine andor false teachers. And the vast majority of those multiple times. Yeah. Only the book of Philemon has nothing to say about it, at least not directly. So this is a command in Scripture. It's not an option for us. We must do it. Uh now, all of that having been said, I also strive to make Jude, verses two and three, there, kind of my guiding principle in this aspect of my ministry. Jude writes to his readers and he says, Brothers, I wanted to write to you about our common salvation. In other words, what I wanted to do, my heartbeat, was to write to you about the gospel. That's what I wanted to do. But then he says, But I felt it necessary to write to you to exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith, once for all, handed down to the saints, because certain men have crept in unnoticed. So he said he felt he wanted to write about the gospel, but he felt it necessary to warn them about false teachers. And so I really try to make that kind of my guiding principle in doing this part of my ministry, calling them out. Yeah. It's something we must do, but at the same time, it should grieve us that it's a task that's necessary in the first place. And I tell people, I would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow morning and see where Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, and you know, Todd White, and fill in the blank, and your uncle, and all of them have repented. I would love that. Love nothing more than that. I wish my seminar, Clouds Without Water, was not necessary. But uh it is, and so all of that to say, I do it, and we should all do it because it's commanded us to do it. It's not an option.
SPEAKER_01It's really helpful. What would you say to someone who says, well, you know, I just don't understand why you would call out false teachers like these guys and say that they're they're not brothers or believers? You know, aren't what if they're, you know, it's just stone throwing. What do you say to people who aren't really sure, or they say, you know, why are you upset about Jolostein? Or what's wrong with as long as they're saying Jesus' name, or as long as they're putting some aspect of, you know, the gospel, quote unquote, in front of people in God's love, you know, what's it to you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, um, lots of people use these use Jesus' name, right? I mean, Mormons do, Jehovah's Witnesses do, even Muslims do. So it's not a you don't get a pass just because you use the name of Jesus and you throw in a Bible verse or two. Um the important thing is what Jesus are they preaching? You know, lots of people preach Jesus, but uh, which Jesus are you preaching? You've got to preach the right Jesus. There's a lot of different Jesuses out there, if you will. The Jesus that wants you to have your best life now, the Jesus that wants you to have health and wealth, the Jesus that waters down the gospel and easy believism and you know, no repentance, and all that because there's lots of different Jesus out there. The life coach Jesus. Yeah. So which Jesus are you preaching? And the people that I talk about in my seminar, all these false teachers, I call them false teachers because they're preaching a different Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible. They have a different gospel and they preach blatant, I mean blood-curdling heresies, blasphemies. They put words in God's mouth that he emphatically did not say. They offer false prophecies, they exploit the poor, the sick, the desperate, and the widows for personal financial gain to enrich themselves. Uh they bring untold reproach upon the name of Christ, and they are leading millions millions upon millions of people straight to hell, and they're doing it all in the name of Jesus. So that's that's why I do what I do. And I, you know, I'm not looking for someone to agree with me on every little jot and tittle of my theology. There's a number of people that I have tremendous love and respect for that I differ with on some secondary or tertiary issues. And I think John MacArthur and R. C. Sproul, he's in heaven now, but uh their friendship kind of modeled that for us, right? You know, they had very different eschatologies, even different views of baptism, but they were compatriots in the gospel and they loved each other and affirmed each other as such. So, you know, I'm not I'm not looking for unanimity on every little jot and tittle of every fine point of theology. But when you start to preach a message that uh diminishes the glory of God, diminishes the deity of Christ, deifies man, and you're you're offering dozens, if not hundreds, or even thousands of false prophecies. You're exploiting the poor and the sick for your own personal financial gain, and and you're there's no repentance from that. Then yeah, at some point you've got to call a spade a spade. Yeah. And that's why I say that these word of faith teachers, you know, Mike Todd would be another one. Um they're not converted, and that may sound judgmental on my part to say that they're not saved, and I don't affirm them as brothers, but I can't. Yeah. I can't affirm them as brothers.
SPEAKER_01Can I ask you about that? I have two major questions now, kind of as we will keep the plane flying and then and enter our descent. Number one, there seems to be a shift from some of the names you mentioned originally. You've got my uncle, obviously Benny Hinn, who's, you know, at his peak was like anywhere between 88 and maybe $100 million a year, they're bringing in. I mean, high life. I worked for him, all that. And but now sort of a decline and just sort of riding out his days wherever he is and you know, enjoying the beaches of Florida and just on cruise control. And you've got Kenneth Copeland and these guys that are getting older, Joyce Meyer, and I would say the word irrelevant, not that they're not dangerous still, but irrelevant to a whole another generation of people that maybe are like my age and younger. Are we seeing a shift? And if we are, who are the new players that where Satan doesn't necessarily put a guy in a white suit to wave his jacket everywhere like a crazy person, or or have you know a Kenneth Copeland doing his thing, but is there a shift now to where there's a new school group? Yeah. And who are they?
SPEAKER_00There is, Costi. So with some of the um younger generation of false teachers, you would have guys like Todd White, you would have uh Mike Todd out in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's a he has had a meteoric rise in popularity.
SPEAKER_01Furtick platformed him, T.D. Jakes has platformed him, he's off to the races. Oh, yeah. It's like a LeBron James of the Prosperity Gospel World now.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. Uh but he's a false teacher. Uh so you mentioned Stephen Furtick, he is another one. And uh, of course, Carl Lentz is well, he disqualified himself morally, which is true of most of these guys. Michael Todd just hired him. But Michael Todd just hired him. So he's in the game. So he's back in the saddle, yeah, which is typical for this, for these theological circles. Um yeah. Of course, Joel Osteen, he still has a massive following. Uh, so he's kind of kind of like bridging the gap between the older and and some of the younger guys. So um, but yeah, Mike Todd would be first and foremost, I would think, Stephen Furtick, and uh anything with Bethel and Hills. Bill Johnson. Yeah, Bill Johnson is a bit of an older man. I guess he's in his 60s somewhere, maybe close to 70. But um, but he's still Bethel, as you know, has a massively huge. Very strong with young people following and very young, very young. So even though he himself is older, the followers that Bethel have uh has is very young.
SPEAKER_01But have you have you found that they've changed the strategy a little bit to where in like growing up and in our day or your day, you had the quintessential false teacher, right? So, like my uncle, they didn't share the stage with anyone, it's like their show. Whereas now the Bill Johnsons have started these schools where instead of there being one Benny Hinn, one Kenneth Copeland, one TD, there's thousands of them now everywhere. And it's sort of a millennial version. Millennials were very communal and so very social. And so now you could have you could have a thousand Bill Johnsons while not one of them makes you know famous news, they are impacting tens of thousands, collectively, millions around the world. Have you seen that with these schools? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00And Bethel's School of Supernatural Ministry would be exhibit A in that. Uh they have uh, I don't know how many thousands of students at any given time. But yeah, they're they're bringing in multiple thousands of young people from all around the world. I mean, young people from all over the world are flying in, they're moving, at least for a few years, to to Reading, California to be a part of BSSN, Bethel School Supernatural Ministry. And so they're training them in all of the lingo and all the techniques and all to do what Bethel does, you know. Of course, they're this is a fake, you know, they're fake signs and wonders. They're not really doing you know the claim is come here, we'll teach you how to basically do the miracles that Jesus and the apostles did. They're not doing anything of the sort. They're not really healing the sick, they're certainly not raising the dead. No. And and I take no joy in this, but Bill Johnson's own wife, Benny Johnson, died you know, last summer, I believe it was, of cancer. So they you know, what they preach, that it's always God's will to be healed. Just have enough faith. And if you're not getting healed, Bill Johnson says it's your fault, and he does teach that. So what they teach doesn't even work for them. And if what they teach doesn't work for them, then that ought to be a clue to them. There there might be something wrong with what they're preaching. And while I'm thinking about it, Cossi, I I heard John MacArthur say something in an interview I did with him, and it was uh i i I think it's a wonderful insight, but but but John MacArthur said of the charismatic movement that it is doubt looking for proof. Doubt looking for proof of proof. Yeah. And what he means by that is that the dirty little secret of the charismatic movement is that the vast majority of them, not all, but the vast majority, are riddled with doubts about what they profess to believe. They don't really believe it, or they're unsure they have these doubts. And so, in a way to allay these doubts and satiate these doubts, they're con that's why they're constantly searching after the next thing, the next buzz, the next experience, the next dream and vision, uh, the next miracle, sign and wonder. That's why they're constantly searching out after these things because they need to see something, they need to feel something to try to v validate uh what they say they believe, but uh deep down they really don't. And so it it's tragic. It's a it's an endless hamster wheel of people trying to get their validation from experiences, whereas biblical Christianity is you rest in the finished work of Christ on the cross and what he accomplished. Yeah. And and it's not to say you and I, you and I both affirm that God can and does still perform miracles today, but we reject miracle workers today.
SPEAKER_01That as tragic as it is and sad as it is, it's also motivating because that means there's tons of people who genuinely want to experience a quote unquote, we'd say a move of God or like revival, like some of this revival chaos we've seen. People genuinely want to be made aware of God's truth. They want to see God move in power, they want to see people saved, they want to see their churches strengthened. And so, with that desire, what a great time to be in ministry, what a great time to be preaching the truth, and what a great time to be bringing the solution to all the problems, which is yeah, there is false doctrine, there is heresy, there is a lot of deception, but the truth always wins, Christ has victory, and you know, you're ultimately every day you wake up and you scooter around, cerebral palsy has not stopped you. Uh, one of the busiest and most tenacious guys I know, faithfully taking God's truth wherever you go. Um, can we finish with this? I want to ask you a question and just take a few minutes. What are some of, you mean like two, three, or four common false doctrines? You said these guys are preaching a false gospel, preaching a false Christ. What would be the quintessential things someone should be listening for right now who's watching or listening to this? Can you give us a little bit of a clue on what the Word of Faith movement or prosperity gospel preachers are saying?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Well, and in addition to the obvious, the health and wealth aspect of it, that it's always God's will to be healed, always God's will to be wealthy. In addition to that, kind of in a more doctrinal vein here, listen for things like making positive confessions, that I can speak things into existence, that my words have creative power in and of themselves. Uh that's one thing. Um anytime you hear a man that is in any way diminishing the glory of God, the glory of Christ, who Christ is, even in the kenosis stuff, the the um emptying of Christ, they teach that Jesus emptied himself of his deity and he performed his miracles. And Bill Johnson, this is a bread and butter teaching of his, that um Jesus performed his miracles only as a man in a right relationship with God, but not as God. Yeah, that's a telltale sign.
SPEAKER_01And the goal is that so now you can do them too. So you can do a lot of them. Come to our school, pay tuition, we'll show you how to do it. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Any other ones or any other danger signs? Uh the spiritual death of Jesus, the belief that Jesus died, that when he died on the cross, the work of the atonement had not but had not been completed, it had only begun. That then Jesus died when he died and went to hell, suffered, was tortured by demons, died a spiritual death, ceased to be God, and had to be reborn, that Jesus actually had to get saved.
SPEAKER_01I've heard that. So Kenneth Copeland, one of the oldest ones in the book, is that Jesus was born again. He was born again. He had to be born again. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Yeah. Bill Johnson is taught the same thing. Yeah. So uh yeah, the born-again Jesus, spiritual death of Jesus, the atonement took place in hell, not on the cross. Uh so that's one, and then and then all of the you know, uh make a decree. You can make a decree, you can decree things, which is a offshoot of the positive confession. Uh and then people, uh, when you hear preachers emphasizing not scripture, they don't exposit scripture. They instead they exposite their experiences. Anytime you hear a preacher, I don't care what his theology is, anytime you hear a preacher spending more time telling you stories and experiences that he's had instead of digging into the word of God, that's a telltale sign that you're dealing with a false teacher. And again, I don't care what his theology is. Um, but uh talking about the latest dream, the latest vision I got, maybe I've been to heaven, God told me this, God told me this, God told me that. Yeah, that's a that's a big red flag.
SPEAKER_01So really helpful. Well, brother, thankful for your ministry. Can people still go? Is it still JustinPeters.org? It is. You have a YouTube channel. I do you miraculously miracles happen today. You're on Instagram now. Yes, I am. I don't keep that's why I believe in miracles.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Because you're on Instagram. It's one of those, it's an eschatological sign, dude.
SPEAKER_01It totally is. Yes. Awesome, and we're so thankful for you, brother. Appreciate your ministry and glad that you would sit down with me here. Thank you, Cus. Thanks for listening and watching for loads of free resources or to learn more about our ministry here for the gospel and to partner with us with either a one-time or a reoccurring gift. You can go to forthegospel.org and all of the information about our ministry is there. As well, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel where all of our resources are available for free. And be sure to follow us on all social media channels. I will be back next Monday with another episode. For now, keep on living for the gospel.