Sermon Tone Analysis

Beware of the False

I want to start a new series exposing the wolves among us or those that are false—false prophets, false apostles, false teachers, false worship, etc.—so that you are equipped to recognize these in the church I also want to show you HOW a person becomes false.

This series will be an equipping and a warning so that you can guard your own soul and future ministries the Lord will birth from you.

The Word beware means “to alert for, watch out, be on guard, beware.”

It means “to be in a continuous state of readiness to learn of any future danger, need, or error and to respond appropriately…pay attention, be on the lookout, be on one’s guard against.”

You can see that this word implies a constant state of alertness, yet, many in the church naively believe that everyone who comes to church or claims to be a Christian is a sheep.

And even more ironic, I’ve found that many of these same people are quick to label other ministers who believe differently as false ministers.

For example, if you’ve been taught that miracles ceased to exist with the apostles, that tongues are demonic, and that any supernatural is of the devil, you will then categorize any minister that heals the sick, speaks in tongues, and operates in the supernatural (which is actually supposed to be natural in the Christian life) as false and someone to stay away from.

I don’t have time to go into why believing all supernatural has ceased is worse than the unbelief the Pharisees demonstrated.

At least they knew God did great supernatural deeds but you won’t be able to find one scripture that says so.

If you think you have one, drop a comment or DM me and we’ll dissect it together.

This happened recently to my friend.

Her and some ladies wanted to start a Bible study and my friend and her friend chose a Bill Johnson book.

You’d have thought they invited Satan into their Bible study to have a human sacrifice.

Without reading even ONE WORD, they completely rejected doing that study and began to dishonor a fellow brother in the Lord.

Some might think it’s ok to do this if they “just know” the person is a false teacher but if Michael wouldn’t bring a “reviling accusation” against the enemy over Moses’ body, then why do some thing they can attack another person like some have done?

Now if you know for a fact and through careful examination of the doctrines taught and most importantly the fruit, then you can safely warn others of false doctrine and heretics as needed.

But just because you’ve “heard” something about someone doesn’t give you the right to go around using your words to disparage them.

If God came down to investigate Sodom and Gomorrah, then I believe it’s wisdom for us to investigate things as well.

TALK ABOUT HOW MOST OF THE CHURCH CALLS OTHERS FALSE BECAUSE THEY DON’T AGREE WITH REAL DOCTRINE.

CINDY AND HER LADIES.

On the other side of this, I believe one of the most important gifts that’s either used improperly or not at all in the church is discernment.

Discernment of spirits () is the ability to tell whether the Spirit of God is speaking through a person or that person’s spirit or a demonic spirit.

And, again, discernment is not based on whether you like the person, what gossip you’ve heard or anything else.

It is a supernatural gift.

Those same people that attack other ministers because they don’t agree with their methods or their teachings will sit under a religious spirit or an antiChrist spirit every Sunday not realizing that they are actually sitting under a false minister.

DISCERNMENT IS NECESSARY BECAUSE YOU MIGHT NOT SEE A FALSE MINISTER’S FRUIT AT FIRST.

With discernment, you can take note and watch.

It won’t take long.

By the end of the this series, I want you to be able to clearly see the signs of a wolf.

False prophet in the Greek means “one who claims to be a prophet and is not.”

This is the first indicator of a problem.

Anytime anyone tells me they’re a prophet, I’m immediately suspect of their claim.

And there are some crazy people out there!

I had one guy tell me he was Elijah.

Ummm…ok.

And what’s crazy is these might be able to prophesy VERY accurately.

I immediately took note in my spirit and then watched.

Sure enough, this person had all of the character traits of a false prophet—sexual immortality, divisive, and others that you’ll learn in this series.

God designed the church to recognize the gifts and callings on others not the one who think they have a gift or calling to go around proclaiming it and pushing their way into a position of influence.

There are times when you have to use your function or office title to add weight to what you’re saying.

We see Paul doing this many times when bringing correction to HIS churches not others’ churches.

“To come in sheep’s clothing” is an idiom that means “to pretend to be harmless when in reality one is dangerous and destructive—to pretend to be good, to act hypocritically.”

An interesting thing about sheep is they allow themselves to BE LED.

And already, we see three things that are important to understand:

They proclaim an office or title they do not possess.

They pretend to be good.

They don’t allow themselves to led meaning they are not submissive to God nor leaders.

Inwardly means “the inner being of a person as the source or agent of thought or behavior.”

THE INNER MAN IS ALWAYS THE SOURCE OF THOUGHT OR ACTION.

That’s why it’s impossible to be evil inside and produce consistent good fruit on the outside.

Eventually, the corruption “leaks” out.

So what exactly is the core person of a wolf?

The word “ravenous” means “VIOLENTLY GREEDY, destructively ferocious, rapacious.”

Rapacious means “inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate.”

It comes from a Latin word that means greedy and is similar to “rapere” that means “to seize” and “rape.”

Greed isn’t for money only, but that is always a factor.

Power, influence, sex, and control are the dominant desire of wolves.

Wolves fig.

represents a “person who is particularly vicious and dangerous—vicious person.

fierce person.”

Of all of the beasts, a wolf was “particularly to be feared by flocks of sheep.”

Wolves are characterized by an insatiable appetite, cunningly stalk their prey, and terrorizing.

Basically, YOU DON’T KNOW YOU’RE BEING HUNTED UNTIL SUDDENLY THE WOLF APPEARS CREATING SUDDEN TERROR.

There is a deep hostility between wolf and sheep.

It’s important to note here that prophets are not just those who foretell future events.

A Biblical prophetic is a prophetic teacher or preacher that gets sheep out of ruts.

So the idea of a false teacher is included in this passage.

We know from the Lord’s warning that these individuals “seem to belong to the community, and turn this appearance to destructive ends.”

I.e. the wolves cannot be distinguished externally from sheep.

But listen to this: “Whether the sheep became a prey depended on the conduct of the shepherd.”

We’ll come back to this, but let me give you an example of what I’m talking about from the Bible.

PERGAMOS

Revelation 2:14

The two-edged sword is important and we’ll get into it.

But first, we need to understanding why the Lord points out that He’s the one coming with a two-edged sword.

The doctrine of the Nicolaitans was trying to gain traction in the churches of Asia.

The church at Ephesus has firmly resisted it, but it was spreading like a virus at the church at Pergamum along with the doctrine of Balaam.

The two-edged sword is what was called “the right of the sword,” which represented the legal authority of to execute someone for a capital offense.

It was a person who had the power of life or death like the proconsul of Asia.

He was letting the church know that He held within His hand the power of life or death.

And HE WAS READY TO USE THIS SWORD FOR SPIRITUAL SURGERY.

The word “sharp” is “oxus” in the Greek.

Although, it means sharp, it was most commonly used to refer to “the sanitizing effect of a medicinal cleanser, an astringent intended to attack infection and remove disease, or an anesthetizing wine given to patients suffering with excruciating pain.”

It was a solution given to numb a patient before a painful surgery.

Even though the solution was bitter, it had a healing effect.

Christ was prepared “to perform a radical and potentially painful procedure to remain a spiritual infection of false doctrine in the church.

I.e. if those spreading and believing the false doctrine didn’t repent, He was prepared to remove them from the church BEFORE the entire congregation.

If there was repentance, He was ready to bring healing to the church in a less painful way.

The word “sword” is “thomphaia,” is a “curved, often two-edged blade attached to a long pole that was ideal for thrashing, slicing, and hacking through densely populated enemy line.”

It “reveals that Jesus was prepared to hack and thrash through the entrenched teachings of false doctrine and errant leaders…if they didn’t willingly repent.”

Note the phrase “errant leaders.”

Listen to this:

“Spiritual LEADERS inside the church were advocating an accommodation with the pagan world around them in order to provide a respite from temporary pressure (from persecution)…they began to ask, ‘Is it really so bad to compromise?

What would it hurt to burn a little incense to the gods’…These errant spiritual leaders were beloved and well-known brothers within the Christian community, and it was difficult for the church members to see them as evil.

In addition, the fact that these individuals occupied leadership positions in the church suggest they had been long-term members of the congregation, as this would have been a requirement for visible leadership.”

(No Room for Compromise by Rick Renner).

This was a reality then, now, and will intensify in the future.

But what I want you to see is that these were LEADERS.

I’m sure there are wolves in non-leadership roles who are seeking to exploit members and even take over churches.