Called to Expose? Hear This First

What do you do when you discern something wrong in leadership, ministry, or spiritual environments? Is every believer called to expose what they see — and if so, how should it be done biblically?

In this episode, Codie walks through the scriptural order of confrontation, discernment, and exposure, showing that biblical exposure is never driven by offense, emotion, or personal reaction, but by truth, humility, witnesses, and the fear of God.

Using passages such as Matthew 18, 1 Timothy 5, and Ephesians 5, this episode explores when to confront privately, when to step back, and when light must expose what has remained hidden.

This conversation also addresses:
• why not everything you see is yours to publicly expose
• why leadership must be handled with biblical order
• how truth must remain joined with love
• why motive matters before speaking
• how Jesus confronted spiritual error without flesh

If you have ever wrestled with what to do after God shows you something difficult, this episode offers a grounded biblical framework for responding with wisdom, maturity, and obedience.

Exposure is only holy when it is led by God and governed by scripture.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys. Alright, so today I want to speak to the people who have a conviction that they are exposers. I want to challenge you a little bit, um, see if you're in alignment with the word of God on the process of exposure and what that looks like. Last week we talked about how do we discern a fruit, how do we actually test the fruit, what that looks like. If you didn't uh listen to that podcast, I would encourage you to go back to that. Guys, our podcasts are for those um mostly in that are mature believers, okay? If you are just a new Christian, um, a lot of this can help you, but it might be a little much for you. So I encourage um you to you know take a season of being at the feet of Jesus in the word of God. Let him bring you into a place of you know purpose and reveal to you what your purpose is. But everyone has a different purpose, everyone has a different calling. We are the body of Christ, okay. Christ is the head. There are some people who are arms, some people who are elbows, some people who are fingers, toes, knees, um, backs, ribs, different things like that. Okay, so you need to seek the Lord on what is my position in the body of Christ. Um, none of us are the same, no two anointings are the same, no two callings are the same. We are each divinely created by God, as you can tell if you look at your finger. You have divinely um picked fingerprints that are only for you. So that also works in ministry. Okay, you need to ask God, what is the fingerprint of my ministry? So, this podcast today, I'm gonna talk about people who feel they're called to expose darkness. This is a different level of exposing darkness. We are all called to expose darkness. That is biblical, it's in the word of God. However, let me say this to be to be um to start. You cannot expose someone else's darkness if you have not exposed your own darkness. Okay, God will teach you how to expose, He will teach you how to bring light into the darkness in yourself first. If you have not been to the feet of Jesus, if you have not gone through a time or a season in the wilderness uh crying out as David did, search me, O God, then I would automatically disqualify you from trying to expose leadership or expose ministry. Um that's kind of one of those moments where it's like, hey, you need to sit down before you learn to stand up. So, with that being said, this is for people who have been at the feet of Jesus, they have been in a wilderness season, and they truly feel called to expose the darkness. Now, I want to start with saying that exposing darkness is a process. This is not a you see something and you go and expose it. That's not how it works in the kingdom of God. Um, you have to understand that darkness has been here from the very beginning. Okay, darkness and Satan and all of his tactics, they are not, they're very, very much older than you. Um, religion has been around a long, long time. These are demons that have they have mastercrafted patterns and strategies, and they know a lot more than you do. So, what you have to do is you have to build your relationship with the Holy Spirit to even be able to be as sly as a serpent and gentle as a dove. That should be the foundation of exposure. Sly as a serpent and gentle as a dove, as it is quoted in scripture. So, to be sly as a serpent, you must have a personal and deeply rooted relationship with the Holy Spirit. Okay, we can read all about God and we know God, and we can read all about Jesus, we can study his ministry, and we can have a relationship with Jesus, but you need to also have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. You need to take him on as your best friend, the one that you tell everything to, the one that guides you and instructs you, he counsels you. He's a spirit of wisdom and might and understanding and counsel. Uh, he has the fear of the Lord, he will always turn and glorify Jesus. Everything will always direct to back to the glorification of Jesus Christ. If you do not have that relationship with the Holy Spirit, you are not called to expose darkness. Um, so this level of darkness, we I will say that because you are called to expose darkness in yourself, and he will start small, and then he will gradually build you and teach you and train you everything that you need to know. So when he sends you on an assignment um to expose darkness, a lot of times you don't even know that you're there to expose darkness, and so you just begin to discern, you begin to see, you begin to um evaluate certain things that are they're they don't settle in your spirit, and you begin to ask a lot of questions. And so the the process of exposure is when you have these unsettlements, when you have this kind of like sandpaper against your spirit, this is sandpaper against the Holy Spirit, you're gonna feel the grieving of the Holy Spirit inside you. Um initially, this this should draw you straight to prayer, okay? This should not draw you straight to go confront somebody or talk to somebody or gossip to your you know, your ministry team or whatever. That is not the first step in exposure. The first step is your prayer closet. The first step is God, what are you showing me? God, what are you teaching me? And I see it, but what in the world am I supposed to do with this? Because we have to remember we are not the ultimate judge, okay? It does say in the Bible that we as believers are called to judge the body of Christ because this is discernment, this is evaluation. Um, we are called to test the spirits, and that's what this is. And so your first place needs to be in prayer. Your first place needs to be on your knees because I will tell you, when you are grieved by the Holy Spirit, when you begin to see darkness moving amongst a leadership or amongst a ministry, you're grieved. And that grieving, the fruit of grieving the Holy Spirit, should be a cry of apologizing to God, of repenting on behalf of these leaders, on repenting on behalf of the ministry. You begin to take on the identity of a true intercessor, and you begin to cry out to God for their freedom, for their deliverance, for their healing. Um, you don't automatically go into correction and let me give you a word from the Lord and all of those things. Guys, if you if you feel like you're called to expose, you must have first gone through a a grieving period for that ministry, for that leader. If you have not done that, you are out of alignment with the process of exposure biblically. Because if you look at every great leader, when they saw something wrong, even Jesus, they went to prayer and they cried out to God, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. If that is not your first step in exposure, I would say you're more than likely probably offended than you are called to being exposed. We've got to get that right in the body of Christ because we've got so many people, especially with the platforms of social media and YouTube and all of these different things, we all automatically want to expose people, yet we've never even been to prayer and interceded on their behalf. And um, even Jesus intercedes for his people. So we have to understand that if we want to be like Christ, we need to actually do the things that Christ did. And Christ told Peter, he said, I have prayed for you, that your faith would not fail. He knew that he was deceived, he knew that he was going to reject God, he knew all of those things, but Jesus' first step was, Peter, I have prayed for you. If you haven't prayed for this leader that you want to expose, if you haven't prayed for this ministry that you want to expose, if you haven't prayed, you are out of alignment with the word of God. So, what happens after you've prayed, after you've interceded, and I will tell you, this is not just a one-time prayer. For my case, it was a two-year intercession of prayer and continually being grieved by the Holy Spirit and discerning and taking that to prayer. Two years, guys. We need to understand the weight of exposure, the weight of that anointing, the weight of the oil to actually bring alignment in the body of Christ for an entire congregation, for an entire city, for an entire nation. You don't get to just take 20 minutes and go pray and tell God all the wrong things that you saw and get up and walk out and expect Him to move on your behalf. Absolutely not. Your heart will be crushed, you will be refined, you will be exposed. And when you go into prayer and you begin to start exposing someone else or another ministry or another leader, can I tell you that you will reap that in which you have sown? You will reap exposure. He's not gonna go straight to that leader and straight to that ministry. He's actually gonna look at you and he's gonna say, Okay, I need to expose you and cleanse you so that you can actually carry the weight and the oil of exposing this ministry or this leader. Because if not, if I don't, the enemy will attack you and he will crush you. So, guys, after prayer, then you need to sit down and have a conversation with the leader or the ministry team or however God directs you. You have to be sly as a serpent. You have to pay attention when he says have a meeting, have a meeting. When he says don't go to that meeting, don't go to that meeting. You have to obey every single step of the way for the fullness to come in because you have to remember God is bringing alignment, but you also know that the enemy is trying to keep from being exposed. So this is a war. This is a war, and their strategy in winning wars. You have to get the divine blueprint strategy from heaven every single step of the way, not just at the beginning, every single step of the step of the way. What do I say? What do I not say? What do I say now? But you don't want me to say later, or what do you want me to say later and not say now? You have to have that divine guidance from the Holy Spirit to be able to dismantle a principality like this in a congregation, in a ministry, okay? If not, it will crush you. If not, it will take you out. And not because you were doing anything wrong, but because you were out of alignment with God. Okay, you can't try to take it into your own hands. You must be patient, you must wait and you must endure through prayer, fasting, and silence a lot of times. Okay. So you start after you do prayer, then you have a private confrontation. Majority of the time, this doesn't go well. But it's just like he told Jeremiah. They're not gonna receive you, they're not gonna turn from their wicked ways, but it's your job to deliver the message. It's not your job to get them to agree with you. It's not your job to to you know open their eyes and and make them turn from their wicked ways. That's not your job. You're not the Holy Spirit. Your job is to deliver the message. Okay. Matthew 18, 15 says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.

unknown 14:13

Okay?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

First step is private. Actually, first step is prayer, but then private. Okay? Truth is brought directly. Exposure begins with personal obedience, not public reaction. Some of you guys are exposing people on social media and you've never even talked to the person face to face. You never even gave them a chance to repent. You never even gave them a chance to explain themselves or or tell, you know, tell you why. And a lot of times when you do that, people will begin to share, and you can actually walk them right then and there through healing and deliverance. And it doesn't have to be public. God doesn't want it to be public. That's a that's an end result, that's an end rebellion result. He wants it to be private, and not and not everybody's gonna tell you privately, and that's okay. That's between them and God. Your job is to deliver the message, okay. 1 Timothy 5 19. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. You need to have people go with you guys. Have somebody that can go with you, okay. This protects against emotional accusations, offense-driven conclusions, and isolated assumptions. You know, this helps with that spirit Leviathan that wants to turn around and attack you and make everything your fault because it's prideful and it doesn't want to uh confess that it's in the wrong. And that's okay. It's okay. And I'll tell you guys, if you're not willing to be stabbed and attacked, you don't need to be exposing anybody. Because that's the cost of the oil. You're gonna be attacked, you're gonna be exposed, you're gonna be called demonic, you're gonna be said that you know you're causing division and all those things, and that's okay. It's okay. You know, let their let their demons manifest, they're going to. You know, it's fine, but I want you to understand that there's a cost for the oil of exposure. And you gotta be willing to take some hits, you gotta be willing to get stabbed, and and you know, it's like war. I mean, literally, it's war. You gotta be willing to get hit, you gotta be willing to be on the front line and say, hey, it might it might take me out, but you know what? I'm gonna be obedient and do what God's asking me to do. Obedience is costly. That's why many people don't aren't obedient, because they don't want to pay the price of obedience. Alright, so 1 Timothy 5 20. Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all that the rest may all that the rest also may fear. Okay, if private if private correction is refused and sin remains harmful, public correction can be necessary. It's a last resort, and we hope we pray that it doesn't go to that. We pray that there will be humility and surrender, but it I would probably say majority of the time it's not. Okay, public exposure in scripture is never, never, never the first step. It is always the final step after continual refusal. What is the timing for refusal? Like, how long do we wait? Guys, I will tell you, I've I've seen God give grace and mercy for a year. I've given correction before, and the Lord said, You won't speak again for another year. In other words, you're not gonna address this issue, you're not gonna talk about it for a year because I'm gonna give them time to repent. This is what he said in Revelation. He said, I've given that woman Jezebel time to repent, and she refuses. He even gave Jezebel time to repent. You don't think he's gonna give his children time to repent? But it's his timing, not yours. After 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, you know, a lot of people who think they're called to expose are like, oh, it's time to expose them. No, I will tell you God is gracious and he's very patient. He's not in a hurry, and he will give his people time to repent. He wants public exposure to be the last resort. These leaders that you see being publicly exposed, it's because they've literally refused all the times, all the warnings that God gave them, I would say at least a year, but probably two to three years. So don't think that, you know, because somebody refused that you need to go and expose them within a month or two. You need to you need to wait upon the Lord. Don't get out of alignment. Ephesians 5 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. This is where everybody takes this scripture and they uh they call themselves, you know, exposers. Oh, I'm to expose darkness. Yeah, but you need to surrender and submit to the process of exposure. Okay, the word expose means to bring into light, it doesn't mean to attack people emotionally, guys. I'll say this if you think you're just gonna expose somebody publicly and you're gonna humiliate them again, you will reap what you have sown. So be sure be sure that there's nothing that needs to be exposed in you. Be sure because the word of God says that you reap what you sow, and God God can't always cover you when you start exposing people because you're out of alignment. Ephesians 4 15 speaking the truth in love. Guys, I wish people really understand how powerful a true heart posture of love was. The word says that love conquers all. It doesn't say love conquers some things, love conquers most things. No, it says love conquers all. Why do you want to expose these people? Why do you want to expose this ministry? If your heart posture is correct, it's because you don't want to see God's sheep contaminated, you don't want to see them bleeding and stabbed and deceived. And you know, you don't you want to see the person walk into the kingdom of God. You want to welcome them with arms open wide when they walk into the kingdom of God in the end days when Jesus comes back. You don't want to see them, you know, suffering in the pit of hell for eternity. That's the right heart posture. The right heart posture is I'm trying to help you, I'm trying to save you. I think about you know dogs, and you know, if you have a dog that is hurt and you go to try to help it and heal it, but the wound is painful, and you know, the spot that that they need healing for is actually hurting, what normally happens? Normally the dog will bite you. Not in a not in a way of not wanting your love or your help, but because the wound is painful and they hurt, and so they're trying to self-protect. And so I see a lot of leaders and a lot of ministries, you know, God sends them people who are there to confidently help them and help them confess and help them go through inner healing and deliverance, but they're so scared of being exposed when they don't realize that the person that is there to help them would only say good things about them, would only would never tell the things that they shared in secret. Why? Because, well, we humans we have a terrible time keeping our word. And so people are burnt by that. People they don't want to confess their sins, they don't want to um go tell their pastor because then their pastor turns around and tells their whole leadership team what that person did. And now they walk around, you know, discerning humility and shame and guilt because everybody in the leadership team knows what that person did. And it's like, that's terrible. That's why people don't even confess their sins anymore. They don't they don't want to talk about the things that um they actually need freedom for. And if they would actually just talk about them and share them with somebody that's safe that God ordained and sent to them, then they would actually receive freedom and it and it wouldn't be exposed. They they wouldn't have to go through that public humiliation. God's trying to protect people from that, but there's such a lack in trust and leadership, you know, knowing that, hey, if I tell this person this, are they gonna go tell anybody? We we don't we don't see that. That's one thing I love about my husband is he's he's very there's times where people share things with him and he won't even tell me. Like he just gives it to God, and no one ever knows what you know he what is told to him because he is so against gossip, he's so against humiliation and things like that, and we need to get better, we need to get better in leadership about that. We go and tell our friends because we're like, oh, help me discern this or help me. No, no, just go to God, He'll help you discern it. Ask the Holy Spirit, you know. There's some things you don't need to share with everybody, even your closest ministry partners, you don't need to share. So the thing is, is we need to apply Ephesians 4.15, speaking in truth, speaking the truth in love. Correction is truth. But are we speaking it in love? I love that scripture that says, love your neighbor as yourself. A lot of times we don't know how to speak truth in love because we've never even encountered love ourselves. And so that goes back to where I take every podcast. You need to have sat at the feet of Jesus, you need to have built your identity with Jesus sitting at his feet, allowing him to cleanse you and purify and bring you into the fullness of your salvation and your sanctification. If it hasn't started there, you're out of alignment. If you haven't had a wilderness season where you just pulled back and you sat with the Lord and you let him teach you all things, you're out of alignment. You're more than likely walking in a spirit of religion than you are intimacy with Jesus. Because guys, truth without love becomes flesh. We speak the truth and we use the word of God and declare that we're speaking truth. But if you don't have love, it's just flesh. I had a pastor's wife tell me one time, you don't believe that he preaches truth. And I said, I never said that. That thought never even crossed my mind. But this was a voice that she had believed and tried to give me this identity that was never mine. I never proclaimed that. But now that I look back, it wasn't that I didn't believe that he spoke truth. I believed he did. But just as in Ephesians 4 15 it says speaking the truth in love, there was no love there. And truth without love is flesh. So it wasn't that he wasn't speaking truth, but there was no love behind it. And love without truth becomes compromise. And we can't compromise in the body of Christ because that's where Jezebel gets a door, and that's where she comes in and she begins to run the church and run the ministry when we compromise. When we don't have a personal relationship with Jesus, just because you get revelation doesn't mean you have a relationship with Jesus, because it says Satan comes as an angel of light, Satan can give you revelation. So don't think that just because you get these divine revelations that you're in alignment. Because if there's no love there and there's no compassion, Galatians 6:1 says, Restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. If you don't have the ability to be gentle, if you have a bursting anger problem, if you can't control your tongue when somebody gives you a word of correction, whether it's for you or not, if you can't control what you say and how you respond with a spirit of gentleness, you need to remove yourself from the pulpit. You need to remove yourself from the stage, and you need to go back to the wilderness, and you need to take forty days and forty nights and cry out to God and let him heal you, let him restore you, let him cleanse you, let him re-baptize you in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord is calling some of these leaders and ministers, some of you leaders and ministers, to get rebaptized in the power of the Holy Spirit, because your power has been compromised. Your power has been contaminated. Your oil has flies in it, and you need to throw it out and get new oil. You need to go back to the feet of Jesus. You need to take a break from ministry. A year. And you need to go back to the wilderness. And I promise you, when you do, you'll come out with seven times greater than what you had before. Jesus confronted publicly only where influence had become dangerous. Guys, don't get to this point to where he has to publicly expose you. Because you've now become dangerous to the flock. We just saw this with Bethel. The spirit behind this leader became dangerous to the flock. Guys, remember Galatians 6 1 if you remember nothing else. Your goal and your heart posture of love should be to restore in a spirit of gentleness. That should be priority. You gotta ask yourself, am I exposing to restore? Or exposing to prove myself? Or to prove them wrong. This determines whether your flesh is involved or not. What is the reason of your exposing to restore or to prove? And I will tell you, the oil of exposure and that anointing is crushing. It's painful, and it hurts. You should not expose someone and be full of joy and excitement. When you expose someone, it should take you to your knees in tears and pain and suffering and grieving. It's not a joyful thing. And not every person who sees something is assigned to expose it publicly. Some are assigned to confront privately. Some are assigned to withdraw quietly. Some are assigned to witness and pray. I love the scripture, Dreams 3 1. Let not many become teachers. Why? Because words carry judgment. You are held at a higher level when you teach God's people. When you minister, when you lead. Everybody wants to be a leader, but not everybody understands the cost and the crushing of leading. There are many times where we have gone on mission trips, we have done special events, and during the event, we're literally in our bed at night crying, asking God, why is the cost so much? And we literally cry out to God because it's painful and it's hard to carry the weight of glory. Yes, I do believe we get stronger and we, you know, we get we go from glory to glory and faith to faith, but you don't get to go to the next glory and go to the next level of faith until you've been crushed. When the priest made holy oil, only the first drop of oil was considered holy. The rest of it they threw out and used for other things. Only the first drop of the crushing of an olive to make holy oil was considered holy. So I want to ask those of you who believe you're called to expose. Have you surrendered and submitted to the process of exposure? Have you been crushed? Have you prayed? Have you interceded? Have you cried out to God on their behalf? How do you feel after you expose? Do you feel joy? Do you feel peace? There should be a level of peace, but not an excitement of yes, I did it. Yes, they're going down. Yes, God's going to avenge me. If that is the response, you're out of alignment. Because one called to expose and dismantle the works of darkness will be crushed right alongside the leader or the ministry that is being crushed. You take on the weight of their restoration. Look at it through the Bible, those leaders, they were crushed. Daniel didn't say, God, forgive them of their sin. All the prophets didn't cry out their, their sin. No, they cried out our sin. Our. Why? Because they understand that we are the body of Christ. All of us. If your toe gets hurt and broken and bruised, the rest of your body has to suffer also. Because now you can't do the things you wanted to do. Now you can't go to the places you wanted to go. Why? Because your toe has to have time to heal so you can actually walk. Everyone suffers. Not just the leader or just the ministry that you're trying to expose. Everyone. So evaluate yourself and how you respond spiritually to exposing people. And guys, make sure you're in alignment. You need to get divine strategy from the Holy Spirit on exposure. But I will tell you the first step is prayer.