Not everyone that preaches the gospel is telling you the entire truth. In the Bible we are warned of false prophets and false teachers that are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Matthew 7:15
These people are pretending to be Bible preachers and teachers but in reality they are teaching lies. Many people believe the lies that they hear…why? The reason is that these false preachers do teach some truth, and when you listen to them you recognize the truth that they are teaching and you believe that they are true preachers. This is where the deception comes in, since they preached something true that you recognized as truth, when they preach something that is not true you are conditioned to believe that it must be true. You may not recognize this untruth that they are teaching you but since they have taught you something that you knew to be true already you may assume that what they are teaching is a verse that you are not as familiar with. Before long this “lie” will become truth to you. It is not hard to deceive people, all you need to do is make sure that 90% of what you teach is true and then slip the lies in the other 10%. Most people will easily believe the lies because of the trust that has been built with the actual true 90%.
How can you tell which teachers are false? Well the first thing that you need to do is make sure that you are reading your Bible and are familiar with it. This way, when you hear someone teach something you will be able to tell whether it is true or not. If you are not familiar with a teaching the best thing to do is to go to your Bible and look it up for yourself. Now, just because a preacher makes a mistake, it does not mean that they are false. They are human and they do make mistakes, but this would be a sign for me to keep a closer ear on what they are teaching. You may also want to speak to your preacher and confront them in love on the mistake they made. If someone is a true Christian, they will be happy to discuss any mistakes that they have made and are willing to be corrected. A false preacher will not answer you and will not allow you to correct him.
It is not only preachers that may be false prophets, there is an entire YouTube community of “truthers” that use their channels to point out ways that society is trying to pull you away from God. Many of these channels are very good and helpful in opening your eyes to what is going on around you. But, in a similar way, you need to be careful about what they teach and what they say. Make sure that you take it to the Bible and let it prove the truth of what they are saying. There is one channel in particular that I used to listen to, much of what he said was true, but there were items that I disagreed with biblically. This person claimed that he was a new Christian so was still learning and welcomed correction and conversation. I found out that this was a lie. This person discussed something specific that I knew to be false, I remembered him saying that he welcomed correction and conversation, so I sent him a message and corrected what he had taught with Bible verses to back up my truth. He never responded to my message and as time has gone on, I have heard the same thing from others as well. Then I noticed other Youtubers started distancing themselves from this person and even speaking out against him. I stopped watching this persons videos, but recently I saw a few videos uploaded by this person explaining away some trouble they had gotten into; drinking and partying and being arrested for drug possession. Then this verse came to mind:
16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. Matthew 7:16-20
From what I am seeing, this person has no good fruit. For all their claims of being a changed person and for someone that has made all these YouTube channels about living a godly life this person really fell fast. If it had been just one mistake, it would be ok. You could chalk it up to being human, everyone makes mistakes, but this person has been doing these things over and over and then asking forgiveness. The truth is the fruit is bad. So when you take everything and put it together the only thing that I can see is that this person is a false teacher that tried to fool many people, but now his true colors are coming out.
- Teaches things that are untrue
- Does not allow correction
- Continues to do things that he did before becoming a Christian
- Being a hypocrite and talking about how he no longer does the things he used to and then being caught doing them
- Having other people that know him well come forth and telling the truth about him
Keep in mind that we are close to the end times that Jesus spoke about. Things are only going to get worse and there are more and more false teachers out there trying to fool the masses. Be very careful what you believe, always take it back to the Bible and make sure that it is correct.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. Matthew 24:11-14
We are seeing more and more false teachers arise and preach a false gospel. They preach what itching ears want to hear, not the truth of the Bible.
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Timothy 4:3
Just look at how many people follow false preachers like Joel Osteen, he preaches all about what you can get from God, a prosperity Bible. Osteen would be fine if he was a motivational speaker, but since he claims to be a pastor he is responsible for the people that follow him. There is very little that is biblical that is even preached by Osteen, when he was on the Larry King show he basically denied what the Bible teaches.
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6
Jesus was pretty clear in this verse, yet when Larry King starts asking Osteen about other religions he would not take a stand on a verse that he says he believes. Osteen will not take a stand on anything that could offend anyone. He avoided every topic that could be controversial. He does not know the Bible and actually gets what little he preaches from it wrong many times. He is not even a real pastor, he never went to seminary, he was just ordained a pastor, and he actually dropped out of college after one semester. His wife made a statement that we do not obey God for God, we do it for ourselves; God is happy when we are happy. When you come to church to worship God, you are not doing it for God; you are doing it for yourself. She is a heretic and a false teacher. The Osteen’s have turned their church into a New Age worship center, they do not teach the Bible, they teach their own twisted version of a bible where God will give you things to make you happy. How many people are the Osteen’s leading to hell with their false gospel? I will be praying that these people open their eyes and see the truth.
Bible Prophecy 