True and False Prophets

The Puritan colonists who settled in New England in the 1630s had a nagging concern about the churches they were building: How would they ensure that the clergymen would be literate? Their answer was Harvard University, a school that was established to educate the ministry and adopted the motto “Truth for Christ and the Church.” It was named after a pastor, John Harvard, and it would be more than 70 years before the school had a president who was not a clergyman.

Nearly four centuries later, Harvard’s organization of chaplains has elected as its next president an atheist named Greg Epstein. Epstein, author of the book Good Without God, is a seemingly unusual choice for the role. Yet many Harvard students—some raised in families of faith, others never quite certain how to label their religious identities—attest to the influence that Epstein has had on their spiritual lives.

Epstein said, “There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life.” He has been Harvard’s humanist chaplain since 2005, teaching students about the progressive movement that centers people’s relationships with one another instead of with God.

This reflects a broader trend of young people across the United States who increasingly identify as spiritual but religiously nonaffiliated. That trend might be especially salient at Harvard; a Harvard Crimson survey of the class of 2019 found that those students were two times more likely to identify as atheist or agnostic than 18-year-olds in the general population.

Epstein said, “We don’t look to a god for answers. We are each other’s answers.” Epstein’s community has tapped into the growing desire for meaning without faith in God. A.J. Kumar, president of a Harvard humanist graduate student group, said, “Being able to find values and rituals but not having to believe in magic, that’s a powerful thing.”

This is what is happening to our Christian institutions and Christians all over the world and we wanna keep on keeping on with the prosperity false teaching giving people false hopes and selfish ambition during a time of real lawlessness in our country, culture, and society. The irony is that we are declaring the good life that Christianity and the gospel can provide but while we do this, people and institutions are walking away from Christ in frightening numbers. We are looking for God to bless us with all kinds of material blessings luxuries, comforts, experiences and wine and pine for it … and while we do this our country, our society, our cultures our younger generations, our institutions and our churches are burning up with the worst kinds, horrid kinds, unthinkable kinds of sins that would make even Sodom and Gomorrah stand in awe of what we do. Killing, stealing, prostetution, greed, extortion, lust, laciviousness, homosexuality, tansgenderism, pornography, narcicism, violence, rape, looting, espionage, corruptions of courts, leaders, politicians, business instritutions, deception, false advertising, stealing money, property, human trafficking, false religions, witchcraft, mediums, sorcery, killing babies, mutalating minors, illegal drugs, alcohol abuse, ungratefulness, rebellious to authority, divorce, coveting, and the list goes on and on. And remember these things even happen in churches in ur country. Not only do we in our country do these things… we are leading the league in these things.

These are things that are condemned by God and we have been warned about it time and time again. Nations for centuries have been judged by God for all of this lawlessness. And do we think for whatever reason that we are exempt from His hand of correction? What we are doing today is far worse than what was happening in Israel and Judah and the horrible judgement of God is coming and today pulpits in America are preaching the good life, luxury, self-centeredness, prospertiy, health, wealth, methods of better modern living, humanistic principles, pragmatic methods, Godly greed, and that Marajuana is a sacrament.

We have been and are doing right now the same things the prophets were doing in Israel and Judah. They were trying to silence those who were preaching the truth, those who were preaching what was real, what was sober, what was the will of God and they were encouraging all the preachers of the good life, luxury, prosperity, and all that they wanted to hear to keep on keeping on. And God called them out on that… Just like He is doing today. Will we listen? Check it out.

Micah 2:6–11 NLT

“Don’t say such things,” the people respond. “Don’t prophesy like that. Such disasters will never come our way!” Should you talk that way, O family of Israel? Will the Lord’s Spirit have patience with such behavior? If you would do what is right, you would find my words comforting. Yet to this very hour my people rise against me like an enemy! You steal the shirts right off the backs of those who trusted you, making them as ragged as men returning from battle. You have evicted women from their pleasant homes and forever stripped their children of all that God would give them. Up! Begone! This is no longer your land and home, for you have filled it with sin and ruined it completely. Suppose a prophet full of lies would say to you, “I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and alcohol!” That’s just the kind of prophet you would like!

The grass wither the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever.

Be Silent

Be Not Silent

Be Saved

The first thing we will look at today is the pressure for those who preach the truth to stop from the culture and even the church. The second thing is the reality of prosperity teaching and how it is encouraged by the culture and the church. Finally, we will see the truth of the coming judgement of the Lord and the truth of how we can be saved and receive life and life more abundant.

Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world cause us to become apathetic toward the real state of our land, it is the power of the Holy Spirit and the truth of the scriptures that will cause us to see the reality of lawlessness, the need for repentance and finding the grace and mercy of Christ for life and life more abundant in Him and in Him alone.

I. Be Silent

- Don’t say such things.

A. As many years as I have been in ministry… 32 years now. I cannot count how many times I have heard people say to me… Shane don’t preach to me. Shane just keep that stuff to yourslf. That’s essentially what the people were saying to Micah.

B. In the Hebrew here though there is a bit of irony… more literally The people preach at me… don’t preach to me. Do not tell us about these things… do not preach of the coming judgment of God, it will not happen. God has a covenant with us and He will never let us be overrun. God will not let us be judged by another nation. God will not let us be conquered. We will never be put to shame.

C. This is clearly the reality today. There are tons of comments, books, videos, tape series… calling for the silence of those who preach hell fire and brimstone. Don’t support them. Don’t encourage them. All they do is make people feel bad about themselves. Shane preaches on sin all the time… this is bad for peoples self esteem. They talk about God coming to judge… there will be no judgement. They talk about Hell, there is no hell. And even if there is a judgement you wont be judged you are a member of this church. If there is a hell you wont go there because God loves you. You will not be put to shame God is love. God is mercy. God is gracious. No judgement. No hell. Nothing bad will happen to you. My God will not do anything like that… He will not be wrathful. He is love.

D. Now remember I told you I went to a conference where a popular preacher did a workshop on the blood of Christ. It was a picture of the bad system of leadership in the world. He said it was not to pay the price for sin. God does not require blood. But no… God required sacrifices in the temple as an atonement pointing to the future. No … God is love, He does not require death. The Israelites only thought thats what God wanted. There will be no judgement… Babylon attacked Judah because they are an oppressive kind of nation… God did not send them. God will not judge and God will not punish people in hell He is not that way. God is love. He is one of time magazines most important evangelicals.

E. He is not the only one doing this… Another one of time magazines most important evangelicals wrote a book called love wins. No one is going to hell. There will be no judgement, but if there is… love will win. Everybody goes to heaven. Church consultants are telling pastors who want their church to grow, do not talk about sin, judgement, or hell. If you do, enjoy having a small church. Stop doing this Shane… for the sake of your church, for the sake of their self esteem… stop doing it. Like it says in our passage today… Don’t say such things!

II. Be Not Silent

- The preacher for this people.

A. Now here come the preacher who is coming to preach about partying… right? A misunderstanding of this passage makes many in our time this has nothing to do with us. Yes if a preacher comes and preaches about partying and drunkeness then I would reject him. Of course they should be judged. But this is not talking about the party lifestyle.

B. In the Hebrew… the phrase is more literally translated - I will drip on about plenty of wine and beer. But what would this signify… not partying, but the message of wealth, prosperity, peace, and luxury. God wants us to live like kings!!!

C. Another popular preacher today actually wrote a book called “God wants You to be rich.” A preacher from a large church in California says that the Holy Spirit is like the genie from Aladdin. Just name it, just claim it, blab it and grab it, confess it and possess it. Suffering is not the will of God for you. It is not God’s will for you to be poor. The prosperity of gospel is still keeping on and keeping on today. And because of our propensity to ignore the minor prophets we do not realize the severity of what is being communicated here in our passage today.

D. God is telling us just how mockingly horrible the prosperity gospel is. Especially in our day and age. We are consumed with the prosperity that God is to give and all that is owed to me… while 700 thousand innocent babies are killed every year in our country… did you know that lifeway research stated that 7 out of 10 women who have abortians profess to be Christian? We are the 4th highest nation with murder rates we have over a million people admitted to the hospital every year because of assault. Embezzlement happens even in the church. Stealing homes, property, inheritance, by family friends preachers and our government. Suiside is now the leading cause of death in the US one happens every 11 minutes. Divorce and sexual immorality rates in the church is rising exponentially every year. 20 million women and children are trafficked in the world… and 20,000 are trafficked INTO the US every year. 8 million children are kidnapped every year… every 20 minutes a person is assaulted by a wife husband boyfriend and girlfriend. A half a million rape cases every year 1 out of 6 women. 2 million americans are arrested every year for drug crimes. 11 million people a year are victims of alcohol related crimes.

E. And we are consumed with the prosperity that God is to give and all that is owed to me… while in the church we find some of the worse abominations by church leaders and christian ministries. Christian book stores stock books written by heretics… like don’t believe that Jesus is a person of the Trinity. Book by teachers who believe that Jesus ceased to be God when he died on the cross. We sing songs written by musicians of a church whose pastor believes that Jesus was not God. We got Jesus bobble head dolls and we think its funny. Embezzelment, sexual immorality, rape, child molestations, lies, deceptions, compromise, false teaching, false doctrines, things that would make the false prophets of Micah’s time blush. People don’t want to hear the Bible. We don’t want to learn the Bible anymore. We don’t care about the Bible anymore. Christians don’t read the Bible anymore. The biblical illertacy of Christians today is an embarrassment to our Lord. And so all this makes sense

- Dr. Voddie Baucham - If we don’t know the Bible, if we don’t know doctrine, if we don’t know theology, it is virtually impossible for us to identify false prophets.

Amen Shane I agree with that… I know my Bible, I know doctrine, I know theology… But you are listening to false teachers? So I add… if you canot identofy false teachers then you donl;t know your Bible, you dont know doctrine, and your don;t knwo theology.

This passage of scripture is showing just how serious this is. This is not a game… the judgement of God is coming and it is real and it will be terrible. I cannot imagine how bad its gonna be for us… we are even worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. God was mocking them … it is serious. Are we gonna stop this… or are these the right kind of preachers for our culture? Are they the preachers for us. It sure seems like it.

III. Be Saved

- There is salvation for us.

A. But God tells us why we don’t like the truth preachers. God tells us why we want the preachers prosperity and no consequences. Why? Verse 7 - Should you talk that way, O family of Israel? Will the Lord’s Spirit have patience with such behavior? If you would do what is right, you would find my words comforting.

B. We do not find the words of the Lord comforting… because we are not doing what is right. This is the reality of sin. The reality of how far we have fallen.

John 3:19 NLT

And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.

C. This is why we do not want to hear the truth of scripture. This is why even the church is cooperating with the world to undermine the validity and authority of the word of God. We love the darkness instead of the light because our deeds are evil. Sin is real. Sin is terrible. And the wages of sin is death. We gotta snap out of it and look at our culture. Look at our world. Look at how far we have fallen. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No one is righteous no not one. There is no one on earth who always does good and never sins.

D. All the catastrophe, the calamity, the chaos… can we be saved from this? Is there hope for us? You bet… because God is love. Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. God so loved the world that he gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners.

E. The promises continue… all who call upon the Lord shall be saved. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your hearts that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved.

F. This is the suppressed truth… the world does not want it to be preached. Many in the church does not want it to be preached. But the word of God does go forth… it will accomplish its purpose. My sheep will hear my voice… no other voice will they follow. Thank the Lord… He will hold us. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to bring it to completion at the day of the Lord.