Who is Joel Hunter? Wolf
Report (Part 2)
Analyzing his lying 'sermons' and his
partnerships with evil
Hello brothers, sisters, and
friends,
Here at 'Foundations of
Evangelism, Discipleship, and Biblical Preaching' (FEDBP),
we try to expose both false
teaching and false teachers - that is, teaching that doesn't
line up with God's Word. Our
specific emphasis is to focus on fundamental Biblical
teaching, so that we might be
able to properly identify more false teachings, and
even more - false teachers. So,
with that said, on occasion, I intend to post ‘False
Teacher Reports’. And I really
have 2 objectives here, 2 reasons of why I’m trying to
do this. 1) We have (in the US
and abroad) so much false teaching and lessening of
God’s Word and changing of the
definitions of God’s Word that the majority of us are
losing touch with what the
Scriptures actually say and mean. And 2) Even if you don’t
know the particular false teacher
these various reports are on, I hope you will take
away from it a clearer
understanding of God’s Word as well as a sharper sense of
spiritual discernment to see
through the false teaching and/or false teachers around
you.
So, with this introductory
edition of exposing false teaching and false teachers, next I
will need to give you a little
background on who is writing this. For those of you who
don't know me, my name is Steven
Henry and I'm the main writer here at FEDBP. And
my goal here (and those on this
team here) is not simply to expose error, lies, and
where God’s Word is being
twisted. I don’t make any money by exposing false
teaching or false teachers. I’m
just an active student of the Word of God and Jesus’
teachings, and the more I study
them, the more I see His words are very true – all that
He says will come to pass. But,
false teachers prevent people from getting saved so
that they can go to Heaven, and I
want to rescue as many as possible. So, my
motivation behind writing these
is that I seek to expose some clever false teaching
and masterful and smooth false
teachers – before they destroy our more people in our
country. I also write these so
that we can all sharpen our spiritual eyesight and grow
closer in our relationship with
the “Holy, Holy, Holy” Creator, Judge and Lord, and
get ready to see Him in such a
way that we will not be ashamed at His coming or
when we stand before Him at His
Throne to give an account of our lives.
So, now what we have that little
intro out of the way, I'd like to look at the false
teaching of a local false teacher
here in FL, a man named Joel Hunter. Joel Hunter
may not seem like a big name and
in many parts of this country, his name is not wellknown,
but he works closely with the false teacher Rick Warren for a one-world
religion, 'a god we can all agree
on' (which is, of course, an idol). Joel Hunter is also
very involved in 'bridging the
gap' and 'finding common ground' between the Bible and
the Koran and other false
religions... Hmmm… Did I already mention that he's a false
teacher? I think I did. Well, in
case you missed it - he's a false teacher. Yet, with that
said, we need to remember that
false teachers do not get everything wrong when
they teach, they do get a few
things correct here and there, but most often the whole
thing is so twisted that it’s
hard to pull any clear and right understanding of God’s
Word and truth out of it. The
best false teachers (not something one should be good
at) are able to mix heresy and
Bible almost seamlessly so that the average non-Bible-reading church-goer cannot tell the difference.
One of my friends pointed out how
they will say a truth and then wrap that truth in a
lie, and then they’ll give a
little more truth and wrap that in a lie… And so on, till
they have changed the very
definition of the truth we once held dear. Satan never
comes out and says who he is or
what states his ultimate agenda for each of us, but
Jesus did: "The thief comes only to
steal, and to kill, and to destroy. But, I have
come that they may have
life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (John
10:10) Satan is a murderer, a
roaring lion trying to destroy people (1st Peter 5:8), yet
both he and his 'ministers' are
very disciplined in being as nice as they possibly can be.
They often use flattery to gain
the approval and take advantage over people (Jude
1:16). And, false teachers very
often portray themselves as Bible teachers. They
portray themselves as the good
guys. "For such are false apostles, deceitful
workers, transforming
themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For
Satan himself
transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great
thing if his ministers
also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness,
whose end will be
according to their works." (2nd Corinthians 11:13-15) ~ Satan's
best leaders do not look or sound
bad. The only way you catch them is by comparing
their teaching to the literal Word
of God and by watching what they do in the
background (what they try to hide
from the people). As Jesus put it: "Because narrow
is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find
it. Beware of false
prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly
they are ravenous
wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather
grapes from
thorn-bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears
good fruit, but a bad
tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor
can a bad tree bear
good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut
down and thrown into
the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. Not
everyone who says to
Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he
who does the will of My
Father in Heaven..." (Matthew 7:14-21...) ~
Matthew 7 is one very rich
chapter, and I just picked the several verses that are
specifically on the topic of
false teachers. Jesus' words here remind us that with
proper spiritual eyesight and by
being active in our growing in and understanding
God's Word, we can identify false
teachers by their fruit. Jesus also said to the false
teachers of his day: "Woe to you lawyers! For
you have taken away the key of
[Biblical] knowledge. You did
not enter in [Heaven] yourselves, and those who
were entering in you
hindered." (Luke 11:52) That "key" is the fear of the Lord,
based on Job 28:28 Proverbs 1:7,
9:10, etc. ~ “The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of wisdom, and the
knowledge of the Holy brings understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10)
On this verse in Matthew 7,
notice that these teachers didn't enter that narrow gate
to Heaven themselves, and they
actively worked to hinder those who were trying to
enter. How? By twisting and
lessening God's Word and working to subtly change God's
definitions. Jesus talked about
this too: "Whoever therefore breaks one of the least
of these commandments,
and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom
of Heaven; but whoever
does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the
Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 5:19) If you
study this passage carefully, you'll see
that the "Kingdom of Heaven" there is all of God's
creation - including Heaven and
Hell. So the "least" category there is Hell,
which is what God says many times, here
are just a two: Philippians 3:19,
Jude 1:4. (Verses where God warns of the hard
eternal torment false teachers
bring on themselves by twisting His Word).
And as you are reading this,
please remember that false teaching and false teachers
should be identified in 2 ways:
by both what he does say/teach about God and His
Word, and by what he does not
say/teach about God and His Word. In other words:
notice the verses he uses and
also note the verses he doesn't use. If the way he
interprets the verse(s) he does
use contradicts verses he doesn't use, take note.
Because that person is either a
brother who needs to keep spiritually growing and
needs the accountability of
someone to graciously point out to him a gap in his
understanding and/or teaching, or
he's intentionally being a false teacher - teaching
some of God's Word with a twist,
not consistent with the whole counsel of God’s
Word.
In contrast, a Biblical teacher
must study diligently so that he can rightly "divide the
Word of Truth" (2nd Timothy 2:15) and
teach the "whole counsel of God" (Acts
20:27). Will genuine Bible
teachers make mistakes? Yes. That is why God established
levels of leadership - first -
apostles (the Biblical writers), second - prophets (still
around today), third -
evangelists (still around today), fourth - pastors/teachers (still
around today) [1st Corinthians
12:28] -- all of which must continue to stay
accountable to the Head, Jesus
the Christ. And when they don’t, they need to be
called to repentance, or removed
from their position of spiritual leadership, and
replaced with those who are
faithful students and teachers of the Word of God.
Accountability is the role of
everyone in the body of Christ - keeping each other
accountable, in our lives and in
our teachings.
Analyzing Joel Hunter
Okay, back to topic of Joel. For
those who don't know Joel Hunter, he is the one who
led the 'benediction' and
'prayer' at the DNC (Democratic National Convention) in '08. I
assume everyone remembers his non-specific
'prayer' ending, but if you don't, here's
the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQyXd33Y1KU
Please note this quote he said:
"... Now, I interrupt this prayer for a closing
instruction. I want to
personalize this. I want this to be a participatory prayer. And
so, therefore, because
we are in a country that is still welcoming all faiths, I would
like all of us to close
this prayer in the way your faith tradition would close your
prayer. So, on the
count of three, I want all of you to end this prayer - your prayer,
the way you usually end
prayer. Ready? 1.2. 3. *chaos* In Jesus' name, Amen. Let's go
change the world for
good." – Anyone who knows something about the Bible should
quickly notice that something is
terribly wrong with this 'closing' on Joel's 'prayer'. And
it becomes, even deeper, this
statement of Joel’s shows that Joel doesn't believe in
the God of the Bible who says
that He (Jesus) is The ONLY Way, The ONLY Truth, and
The ONLY Life and that no one
comes to the Father’s presence in Heaven except
through Jesus (Yeshua), the
Jewish Messiah. There are many verses that would show
how Joel contradicted the Bible
in that statement. Here are just two: John 14:6 and
Acts 4:12. “I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through Me.” (John 14:6) So, with that we
are left with one of two
conclusions: Joel either doesn’t
read his Bible or he doesn’t believe it to be the
Truth. Either way, he just showed
he is not a Biblical pastor. His ‘god’ doesn’t exist,
for God does not accept any
idols. “Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no
other Rock; I know not
one. Those who make an image, all of them are useless,
and their precious
things shall not profit; they are their own witnesses; they
neither see nor know, that they may be ashamed.’” (Isaiah 44:8-9)
As I hope you are starting to
see, Joel is in full agreement with the one-world religion.
What many don't know is that he's
been doing that since at least 1995. And, that's
what he's doing with the
'common-ground' talks between those who claim to believe
the Bible and those who follow
the Koran. Joel is a key member of the global Elites’
one-world religion task force. He
doesn't say these things by accident - he's actively
promoting a one-world religion.
And, as you look at and/or read his stuff, you also
have to remember that he has
different definitions of the carefully picked words he
uses. When he talks about ‘god’,
he's not talking about the God and Creator in the
Bible. When Joel mentions ‘god’,
he’s talking about the 'universalist god' - the
genie/god that we can 'all agree
on'.
Okay, now that leads me to
talking about what Joel did on June 26th, 2011 – on the
week that more than 50
one-world-religion 'churches' celebrated a new monster false
teaching called 'chrislam'. I'm sure you're just as curious as I was to see
what Joel
talked about on that day, right?
Well, I'll tell you.
(If you want to understand what chrislam is, I think this report will help you, here’s a
link: http://www.facebook.com/notes/fedbp/an-fedbp-report-onchrislam/
247441985270321)
On the week of the launch of Rick
Warren's new monster of a religion that they
blasphemously call 'chrislam' (there is nothing Christian about it - it's
one-world
religion), Joel and his team put
on quite a show. And you know what his topic was?
How we all need to stop getting
mad and get rid of the fear behind our anger. Looks
pretty good at first glance, yes?
It's not and it won’t take long till you see what I
mean. So let's dig into what he
said and analyze it through the perspective of
Scripture.
I could give you the link, but I
really don't want anyone to take in lots of Joel’s brand
of clever, deceitful false
teaching, so I don’t think I’ll post that here.. (If you really
want the link, email me.) And a
friendly caution: If you do look up Joel and his stuff,
please read as much of the Word
of God as you listen to his stuff - it's masterful and
spiritually destructive. And
please also note that his books are written by someone
else not him ~ you’ll only be
able to find what Joel believes by what he says himself.
So, in this speech (it's not a
sermon) – you’ll notice that he loves to tell stories? Not
historical stories from the
Bible, but his own stories that have a psychological
direction that fits the point he
wants to make.
So in this speech, Joel talked
about how the root of anger is fear (which is not always
the case), and how we need to
work through our fears so we can be stable people. He
also said that he has a lot of
people who get angry at him and he feels sorry for them
because they don't know him and
how nice he is. He also worked pretty hard to
craftily make all anger sound
wrong and the summed it up by saying that Jesus isn't
angry like that. To better
understand this false teacher and his false teaching, let’s
look at key quotes from this
speech, and we'll work from there. At the end of this
report, I plan to also show very
simply how Joel was working with the ‘chrislam’
agenda too. So, let’s take a look
at the subtle false teaching of this clever false
teacher.
“Joel says” versus
God’s Words:
>> "Our charge is not
just to go to Heaven. It's to make Earth more like Heaven."
>> In case you were
wondering, yes he said that with a straight face. My question to
that is - what verse was that?
Many, many times, God's Word is clear that this world is
not our home and our business
isn't to make this temporary sin-cursed Earth a nicer,
better place or to make people
nicer, but instead our charge (from our Creator) is to
call people to repentance (Acts
3:19) and to make disciples. And, even more to the
point, what Joel means by that is
teaching people to be ‘better for the society’ - be
plastic-nice, recycle, 'love' one
another (as long as their friendly back), don't offend,
don’t have radical opinions like
taking the Scriptures literally… etc. And how could
Joel forget 2nd Peter 3? “The Lord is not slack
concerning His promise, as some
count slackness, but is
longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish
but that all should
come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a
thief in the night, in
which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the
elements will melt with
fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it
will be burned up
Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner
of persons ought you to
be in holy conduct and godliness.” (2nd Peter 3:9-11)
>> "Anger is a natural
emotion... it's a defense mechanism."
>> Wait! Really? All the
time? What about righteous indignation? Good question! And,
Joel gets there and twists that
too.
>> "And then there's
righteous anger. And I just want to do a little disclaimer her
on behalf of us
all, I just want to say this to us. Most of us feel like our anger is
righteous anger. No
it's not – come on. Well you say - well God gets angry. Yes,
yes He does. The
Bible talks about God getting angry. Jesus got angry. Yes He
did. you know.
(pause) You're not Him. (audience laughs)..."
>> In case you were
wondering, anger about false teaching and false teachers isn't
wrong, despite his subtle
implications there. Now, Joel should have covered any of
the verses that talk about
controlling our anger and exercising more self-control,
letting go of wrong anger,
confessing it and correcting it, etc – but, he didn’t. You’ll
see what he did in the next
quotes.
>> "When you're angry
about something, it usually means that you're afraid of
something."
>> First off, there are at
least a couple of verses that contradict what he just said.
When we sin while angry it’s most
often not because we’re afraid of something, but
because we are fighting to get
what we want.
And we all need to have Ephesians
4:26-27 hidden in our hearts: “‘Be angry, and do
not sin’: do not let
the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.”
(Ephesians 4:26-27)
And in James 1, we see what leads
to this fall: “Blessed is the man who endures
temptation; for when he
has been approved, he will receive the crown of life
which the Lord has
promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is
tempted, ‘I am tempted
by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He
Himself tempt anyone.
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own
desires and enticed.
Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and
sin, when it is
full-grown, brings forth death.” James 1:13-15
Also, another verse we ought to
hide in our hearts is also in James 1: “So then, my
beloved brethren, let
every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;
for the wrath of man
does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1:19-20)
Okay, so Joel doesn’t cover any
of those or many other helpful and applicable verses.
If you know/knew him personally,
like we do, then you would see this next slow shift
in altering definitions away from
Biblical ones. It’s very subtle, but I’ll try to note
them in the next several quotes.
Also, you will see how he continues to chip away
people's desire to stand and even
fight for the truth, getting them to relax and ignore
it all and just become ‘kind’ and
docile. That's psychological and intentional. Yet this
response he's trying to conjure
up is far different from God who is jealous for His
people and Who is furious with
those who twist His Word. God wars against the pride
of men (James 4:6). He is angry
with the wicked every day. (Psalm 7:11) No, God
loves truth and holiness, so
therefore He hates sin/rebellion and is angry with those
who rebel against Him and truth
(taking Satan's side). Yet, at the exact same time
God loves people beyond our
comprehension and is not willing that anyone should
perish (2nd Peter 3:9), so God (our Creator
and Judge) calls all men constantly to
repent from their rebellion
against Him and to learn of Him and draw near to Him
(Acts 17:30). This God - the Creator,
Judge and Lord of the Bible, is not the one Joel
is describing. And as you
continue to look closely at his words (and this speech), I
expect you’ll continue to see
what I mean.
Just a few verses that show how
Joel contradicts what God’s Word says:
“These six things the
LORD hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud
look, a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked
plans, feet that are
swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and
one who sows discord
among brethren.” (Proverbs 6:16-19)
“Let love be without
hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.” (Romans
12:9) --- By the way, to “abhor” means literally to “utterly detest or hate”. That’s
God’s Word.
“Therefore ‘Come out
from among them and be separate’, says the Lord. ‘Do not
touch what is unclean,
and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you
shall be My sons and
daughters’, says the LORD Almighty.” (2nd Corinthians 6:17-18)
--- We should take note - God
says clearly in this verse that there are
things/actions/desires that
according to His Word are “unclean”. That is God’s Word,
not mine. And the teaching in
this verse goes hand-in-hand with the 7 things God
hates. Joel is clever here, but
these verses prove God is true and Joel is a liar. Jude
1:4 says it this way: “For certain men have
crept in unnoticed, who long ago were
marked out for this
condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God
into lewdness and deny
the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1:4)
>>> A catch-up note: Early on in this speech, Joel
clearly says that he isn’t a
counselor/psychologist. And in at
least 2 places, he states that he’s just a ‘pastor’
and a ‘preacher’. And yet,
minutes later, Joel is already twisting the verses to say
what he wants them to say, not
teaching them literally with Biblical definitions. His
presentation style is psychology
and not the clear accurate teaching of the Word of
God, as you can see. His words
were/are a clever introductory lie, but it’s a very
blatant one. Hopefully by the end
of this report, you will be able to see through many
other false teachers, Joel and
many others. Okay, back to Joel quotes compared to
God’s Word.
>>> Previous to this
next quote, Joel just misused and abused 2 verses [Proverbs 29:11
and Psalm 37:8], and then his
next quote is:
>> "Every point of
fear... (pause) You know, when you say 'Why am I angry?' The
next question is
'What am I afraid of?' The next question after that is 'What am I
not trusting God
with in this?' Because if God's in control, then somehow there is
an area of life
that we are not trusting Him with."
>> Did you notice his use
of the word ‘every’? Here again, he is trying to use
psychology and misinterpreting 2
verses to manipulate (as I mentioned above). Yet,
God tells us to “contend earnestly for
the faith which was once for all delivered to
the saints.” (Jude1:3)
I hope you will allow me to
explain a little more on this, because once I’ve explained
this, I think you will see
through his next few quotes below better. You would have to
know and/or talk to a variety of
the people whom Joel has hurt and/or driven away
from his 'church' to get them to
stop them from questioning or challenging his false
teaching – for you to really see
what Joel is doing here. Joel doesn’t like questioning,
because his teaching doesn’t
match the Word of God. And, that is why God clearly
tells us to expose false teaching
and false teachers. Here is just one verse: “And have
no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”
(Ephesians 5:11) Why does God
tell us to expose false teaching and false teachers?
Because it makes people
uncomfortable? No. The truth may be painful sometimes, but
it’s better to know the truth so
we can work with reality and not be surprised when
we stand before God. The lies of
false teachers do lead people to Hell, from which
there is no escape. So, the main
point here is this - there are both good fears and a
good type of anger (which I
explain briefly below). But Joel is trying to craft his words
and twist the Word of God to make
it appear that all anger and fear is wrong. Just
keep that in mind as you read
these next quotes.
>> [Joel uses a superhero movie to
make this 'spiritual point'] "... and the reason I
loved it is because
that's exactly what the Devil does - he plays on your fears.
And when he can
elicit all that fear, then you're the one who gets consumed by
the evil that
follows. See? So, we've just got to.. we've just got to interrupt this
whole cycle."
>> Excuse me, but the Devil
does not feed on our fear. Satan uses irrational fears to
try to get us to do things, and
he uses temptations and pressures to get us to do what
we know is wrong. Yet, here Joel
just portrayed something totally unBiblical instead
of a Biblical perspective. And,
even more, Joel used a fictional superhero story to
emphasize his point. ~ That’s
Joel.
>> “Why do people get
angry? I got to tell ya - because it feels good to be angry.
Doesn’t it feel
good..? I mean you just… you… you… From one point you feel
helpless. And then
you feel: ‘I’m taking control’. For a moment. And it just lasts
a moment…”
>> Notice here how he plays
up the emotions a little – another example of how he’s
psychological implying that when
we’re angry, it’s a bad or wrong emotion.
And here’s the punch line
he’s been working up to:
>> “You know there are
a lot of people that yell at me. But, they don’t know me.
They don’t know me.
And so people… And I always can learn something – I can
learn better – you
know, how to come across better, I can always learn
something. You
know. But, but, honestly, I don’t take offense to that. I don’t feel
bad about myself
when people accuse me of stuff – people who don’t know me.
You know, when
people really are angry, it’s because they’re afraid. And when
people are making
all these types of… [he made some noise - essentially: blah blah
blah] and now, these
are people not really from this church. They’re from other
parts of the
country [again, some noise - essentially: yada, yada] And I’m just
thinking to myself:
‘man, sucks to be you’ [audience laughs] I mean can you –
you
have to live in
that. Holy cow. To live in that kind of anger and fear all the time
– in that type of
scenario that you’ve got to find somebody and yell at them. Oh
my goodness. So,
the point is when someone’s yelling at you, 90% of the time it’s
not about you. It’s
about what’s going on inside of them. It’s about the fear they
have inside of
them. You triggered something – had nothing to do with you. You
know that old Abbot
and Costello film ‘slowly I turned…’ So, don’t get so
offended because
even though – again, if you listen closely, you can always learn
something. This
isn’t… even things that are said to you are not about you. Are
not all about you.
It’s about what’s happening in that person.”
>> Wow – lots to dissect
here, and yes his thought was that broken – that was a direct
quote. So, I won’t even cover his
use of cuss words, which the Bible defines in this
verse: “Let there be no
filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out
of place [for followers of Christ], but instead let
there be thanksgiving.” (Ephesians
5:4)
Notice in the above quote how
Joel doesn’t use verses here – not one. Instead, he
uses subtle psychology to get us
to try to change our perspective on anger and fear as
though both ‘cycles’ are
supposedly wrong. And to make this point he uses 2 stories
and 2 references to movies (which
weren’t worth quoting), yet in doing so, Joel skips
and overlooks many verses. But,
he does that all the time, so that’s not really new,
but it is Joel, and Joel is still
wrong.
Do you remember that God has
emotions? Do you remember there are things and
attitudes and actions that God
hates? That word ‘hate’ is a strong word, and yet God
uses it to describe His view on
some things. Here’s just one passage:
We already looked at Proverbs
6:16-19 above.
>> Please again notice –
God hates these activities: a proud look, a lying tongue,
hands that murder, a
heart that devises evil plans, feet that are quick to do evil, a
false witness who lies,
and one who sows sinful discord among brothers and family.
There are things that make God
want to vomit here – there are 7 things that God calls
abominations here, but there are
others verses that talk about things God hates and
that are an abomination to Him
(Deut. 7:25 – idols; Proverbs 11:1 – schemes for
stealing; Deut. 18:10-12 –
witchcraft; Romans 1:18-32 – various rebellion, including all
forms of sexual immorality). God
is not wrong in His love of holiness and righteousness
and hatred of evil and sinful
rebellion. It is man who is wrong. “The heart is deceitful
above all things, and
desperately wicked; who can know it? I, the LORD, search
the heart, I test the
mind, even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit
of his doings.” (Jeremiah 17:9) ~ “There is a way that seems
right to a man, but its
end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12)
Now, with those verses in mind –
a question for you: Is God insecure? Does He have
some ‘fear’ of something that
drives this Holy and Righteous Anger? Or does He love
Truth, Holiness, and perfection
so much that He absolutely hates what is evil and
becomes angry with those who do
things that are evil? God’s Holy anger isn’t driven
by fear, but by a love for truth,
and a love for people wanting to rescue them from
the self-destruction of their
rebellion, as well as from the one who is bent on their
eternal destruction and
separation from God – Satan, the Devil.
And, there are healthy fears. The
fear of getting burned teaches us not to put our
hand on a hot stove and not to
get to close to an open fire. The fear of intense pain
stops us from standing in the
path of a moving vehicle or train. There are good fears –
these are just two of them. A
good fear stops us from doing something that will hurt
us, physically or spiritually.
The “fear of the Lord” is one such healthy fear. That is
why God calls it a holy fear
(Hebrews 12:28-29) and the beginning of wisdom
(Proverbs 1:7, 9:10).
More Joel quotes:
>> [notes: Joel then went on to talk
about how our whole culture is made to get us
angry and how they make all this
money and get high ratings when we get angry about
what they say – but, I’ll spare
you those quotes.]
>> [after using another useless story
about horse racing, Joel used it to make this
point] “I tell you that for
a very important reason. You can’t win with the other
guy’s horse. We are
not to use anger and fear to win. That’s not who we are.
That’s not who
Jesus Christ was.”
>> Wow. So Joel, then what
Bible and what Jesus are you referring too? Because Jesus
said this: “And I say to you, My
friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body,
and after that have no
more that they can do. But I will show you whom you
should fear: Fear Him
who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I
say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5) That’s Jesus’ own
words. Either you agree with
Him or you’re contradicting His
Word. Oh, and by the way, Jesus brought out fear and
hatred too (Matthew 26:4) – do
you know why? Jesus accurately preached against
sinful rebellion and brought
conviction on the hypocrites, and some people literally
hated Him for it. Some hated Him
so much, that rather than repenting, when they
had the opportunity, they
murdered Him (Matthew 27:1). Yet Joel makes no mention
of that here. You see how subtle
his psychology and careful crafting of his words are
as he is leading us in trying to
make us think that all anger and fear are wrong is? Yet,
simply put, Joel again is clearly
wrong.
Remember, there are
things that God says to us that we should fear and run from:
Immorality – “Flee sexual immorality.
Every sin that a man does is outside the
body, but he who
commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”
(1st Corinthians 6:18)
Idolatry – “Therefore, my beloved,
flee from idolatry.” (1st Corinthians 10:14)
“For the love of money
is a root of all [kinds of] evil… But you, O man of God, flee
these things…” (1st Timothy 6:11)
Witchcraft – “There shall not be
found among you anyone who makes his son or his
daughter pass through
the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer,
or one who interprets
omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a
medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do
these things
are an abomination to
the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD
your God drives them
out from before you. You shall be blameless before the
LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 18:10-13)
>> God does not hate people
like we do, but He does hate sin and He hates it when
people taking the side of Satan
in rebellion against God, Who is our all-loving,
beautifully Holy, Holy, Holy
Creator and Judge. The solution to get right with God
from having been in witchcraft,
is to repent of it – leave it behind, burn the books and
never go back. That’s all God’s
looking for. If you’d like to know more, just message
me. (Steven.H3 @ gmail.com)
>> “We have to
understand that we’re here for a constructive purpose not a
destructive
purpose. We’re here to lift up, not to put down. We’re here to create
Heaven [on Earth],
no matter how much Hell we’ve been through.”
>> haha – hmm… he’s
starting to sound a lot like another false teacher with the same
first name – Joel Osteen. Yet,
God’s Word says: “Nevertheless the solid foundation
of God stands, having
this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and, ‘Let
everyone who names the
name of Christ depart from iniquity.’”
(2nd Timothy 2:19)
Yet, Jesus reminds us that if we
follow Him, those who love sin will hate us. ~
“If the world hates you,
you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you
were of the world, the
world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the
world, but I chose you
out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember
the word that I said to
you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they
persecuted Me, they
will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep
yours also.” (John 15:18-20)
“Do not think that I
came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace
but a sword… [for those who follow Christ] a man's enemies will
be those of his own
household.”
(Matthew 10:34,36)
“Beloved, I beg you as
sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which
war against the soul,
having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that
when they speak against
you as evildoers, they may, by your good works
[obedience to Christ] which they observe,
glorify God in the day of visitation.”
“You are My friends if
you do whatever I command you… These things I command
you, that you love one
another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me
before [it hated] you.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet
because you are not of
the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the
world hates you. Remember
the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater
than his master.' If
they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept
My word, they will keep
yours also.” (John 15:14, 16-20)
Those who become genuine
followers of Christ will feel the hatred of those who walk
in rebellion to God, but will be
able to find God’s grace to get through it and to find
His strength and love to show to
them, as we call them to repentance from their
rebellion against God.
>> “Jesus Christ took
the pain. He didn’t impart the pain.”
>> smooth-talking. Yes,
Jesus is the perfect example of turning the other cheek. But
He isn’t the ‘mr.
nice guy’ that Joel is portraying that Jesus was. Jesus showed
absolutely perfect love - rebuked
with perfect love, exposed false teachers with
perfect love, taught profound and
convicting truth with perfect love. That’s different
from what Joel is describing.
Remember what Jesus’ disciples said about Jesus’
teaching? “Did not our hearts burn
within us while He talked with us on the road,
and while He opened the
Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32) When God speaks, it
doesn’t make us feel warm and
fuzzy, but compelled to grow in more obedience to
Him and to become more like Him.
If the teachers we are listening to do not bring a
strong conviction of sin and
compel us to walk in more obedience, then we need to
recognize they are not faithfully
following Christ.
>> “Our family is the
one that makes it better to live in the world – not scarier.
And we have in this
congregation – no matter where you are. Whether you are
online on any of
the sites right now, you can go and I bet we would have political
worldviews that
would radically differ. I mean radically differ. Do you know
what? It doesn’t
matter. Because our unity is in Jesus Christ. That’s our identity –
that who we are.
And we may think that each other is crazy. It doesn’t matter,
we’re still family.
All those differences – all those opinions are only secondary.
Because our unity
is in Jesus Christ and we have the same mission, and that is to
extend the Kingdom
of God in this world. So, all that – you can argue all you
want, you can get
mad all you want. If you, if you need to – I don’t think it’s
constructive. But,
you know. But, I’m just saying – you’ve got people in your
family who think
you’re crazy. And you know their crazy. But, their family. Their
family. So, that’s
what we extend to the world.”
>> Notice how he takes
blood family relationship and tries to extend that to spiritual
family relationships – yet with
no Biblical references. Why is that? Because, he’s using
psychology to adjust your and my
thinking, rather than just literally teaching the
whole counsel of God’s Word. I’ll
explain more in a minute.
>> “And I’ve got to
tell you, anger is not just a dismissive, dismissed… um, um…
characteristic that
we have. ‘Ah, well you know everyone gets angry.’ Anger
causes real
spiritual and relational damage. Our job in this world is not to win.
Our job in this
world is to build relationships.”
>> Three verses come to
mind here that expose the subtle lies he just said:
“The fruit of the
righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.”
(Proverbs 11:30)
“Knowing, therefore, the
terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” (2nd Corinthians
5:11)
“And on some have compassion,
making a distinction; but others save with fear,
pulling them out of the
fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” (Jude
1:22-23)
“The Lord is not slack
concerning His promise [return], as some count slackness,
but is longsuffering toward
us, not willing that any should perish but that all
should come to
repentance.” (2nd Peter 3:9)
Joel ignores that there are 2
families on this Earth – Satan’s family and God’s family.
We are by choice in Satan’s
family, but God calls all of us to come to His grace,
repent of our rebellion and
become adopted into His wonderful family. Joel is trying
to blurr
the lines between these two families. Those in God’s family will be will Him
forever and ever – wonderful!
But, those who are in Satan’s family will be in Hell, not
Heaven – forever and ever. It is
those who are in Satan’s family that we need to
compel to repent and turn to
Christ away from their life of rebellion.
>> “We’ve read the end
of the book – we’ve already won.”
>> Okay very subtle error
there ~ Here are just 2 verses he just contradicted: “Not
that I have already
attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may
lay hold of that for
which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” (Phil. 3:12)
“Then one said to Him,
"Lord, are there few who are saved?" And He said to them,
Strive to enter through
the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter
and will not be able.” (Luke 13:23-24) ~ Those who do
not commit their lives to
follow Christ and are growing in
obedience to Jesus, having been cleansed by His
precious blood – have not won.
Only those who know and follow Christ can walk in
that victory over sin, growing in
purity so He can use us.
>> “And so, don’t worry
about winning. Our job is to build relationships.
Relationships with
God and relationships with each other.”
>> Please remember – this
isn’t the real God, but an unBiblical one. You have to keep
Joel’s unBiblical definitions in
mind – always. Otherwise, you’ll be confused by what
he says.
>> “So, therefore anger
absolutely sabotages relationships. It does damage to
you. It does damage
to other people. And so.. And so, for that reason, Jesus talks
very plainly about
anger in Scripture. He says in Matthew chapter 5, starting in
verse 21… This is
what Jesus says. ‘You have heard that the ancients were
told –
you shall not
commit murder. Whoever commits murder will be liable to the
court. But, I say
to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be
guilty of the
court.’”
>> Wait. Stop right there.
He carefully skipped over a very important little phrase in
that passage. Let’s look at what
it says in the NKJV: “You have heard that it was said
to those of old, 'You
shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of
the judgment.' But I say
to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a
cause shall be in
danger of the judgment.” (Matthew 5:21) Do you see what Joel left
out? One little phrase that Joel
thinks is unnecessary, but it’s in the literal Greek and
it’s is a very important little
phrase. The little phrase “without a cause” is a very
important phrase that Joel cannot
explain away. Righteous indignation is not wrong
anger. As we’ve already briefly
looked at in verses above. ~ Joel skips over
inconvenient verses and/or uses version
s of the Bible that say what he wants them to
say, often. Many times (even in
this report), we and others have caught Joel trying to
make the Bible say what he wants
it to say, rather than teaching what it says, for our
instruction and spiritual maturity.
Joel continues:
>> “… ‘whoever says to
his brother, ' You good-for-nothing,' shall be guilty
before the
supreme court…’ How many times do you hear that voice? ‘These
people’. ‘These
vermin’. ‘These traitors are destroying our way of life. They’re
destroying our
country. They’re destroying everything we hold…’ How often do
you hear that? This
is what Jesus says about that. How often do you say that?
This is what Jesus
says about that voice: ‘… shall be guilty
before the supreme
court; and
whoever says, 'You fool…’ Raca is the word here – it means ‘you moral
idiot’. That’s what
the.. that’s what the word means. [*single laugh from the
audience, so he laughs*] I know it’s
funny, but… ‘Whoever says Raca’ – You moral
idiot. You… It
says: 'shall be guilty enough to go into fiery hell.’ ”
>> He does a poor job here.
And the way he describes this is still a part of his pushing
his whole point from the
beginning – all anger and fear are wrong. And yet, he again
contradicts the Bible. And Joel
left out a word there too: the word ‘the’ in the
phrase “the fiery Hell”. That’s important, and you’ll
see why in just a minute.
Watch this next one. You remember
I mentioned that you really need to watch the
definitions of the words of false
teachers, including Joel. Here is another example of
why – Joel is about to redefine
Hell. Yes, you read that right. Watch as Joel redefines
the definition of Hell – ie. the
physical place of eternal torment that God created for
Satan and His demons (Matthew
25:41)
>> “That’s serious
business. Do you know why it’s so serious? Because that’s
exactly where it
takes us. It takes us into a Hell [points to the inside of him]
where we’re always
mad at the world. Nobody ever measures up. And, and the
direction of life
isn’t going in the right way. You’re talking about the isolating
fires of somebody
who wants to judge others, and somebody who stays alone and
disappointed all
their life. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be saved and you
won’t go to ultimately
to Heaven after you die. This means that you are in Hell
when you’re here –
if you’re angry all the time.”
>> Did you catch that?
Jesus’ words are not describing some word picture of pain and
anguish on the inside of us. Here
is one example: “But the sons of the kingdom will
be cast out into outer
darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
(Matthew 8:12) Jesus’ words are
describing an eternal physical place from which
there is no escape and in which
there are flames, weeping and gnashing of teeth and
eternal torment. Here is what God
says in Revelation: “… the lake of fire burning
with brimstone… The
devil, who deceived them, was cast into the Lake of Fire and
brimstone where the
beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented
day and night forever
and ever… And anyone not found written in the Book of Life
was cast into the Lake
of Fire.” (Revelation 19:20; Revelation 20:10, 15) Those are
just 2 of many verses in the
Bible about Hell – and Jesus talked about Hell more than
He talked about Heaven. Yet, Joel
carefully picks his words to try to twist God’s Word
to make it say that Hell is not a
real place, and in doing so, Joel contradicts Jesus
Himself. Why does Joel twist
God’s Word this way? Because he has an agenda that the
Word of God doesn’t support. This
is a key message by Joel on tolerance toward all
religions and to use psychology
to make people relax and stop being so fussy about
truth and absolutes, because Joel
doesn’t believe in absolutes. But, God’s Word is
black and white – there are
absolutes and people who twist God’s Word, like Joel, will
spend forever in Hell, unless
they repent.
>> “And let me ask you
why? For what? Is it changing anything? Is it helping
anything? Is it
making your life better? More pleasant? No. So, let’s kinda give it
up. And let’s do 2
things to give it up. First off all I want you to keep track of
this week – how
often you get angry and why. And then ask yourself this question
– ‘What am I afraid
of here?’ ‘Is this something I can do anything about?’ And if
you continue to
dwell on something you can’t do anything about, you’ve got to
give that over to
God…”
>> So, did he end on a
verse from Scripture? Nope. What did he end on? Worldlyminded,
flesh-pleasing, self-centered psychology. He wants you and I to believe his psychology
that contradicts God’s Word, so he’s repeating, just so we can remember it.
However, what Joel should be quoting is God’s Word: “So shall My word be
that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall
accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent
it.” (Isaiah 55:11) God’s Word changes lives – our words don’t, and
worldly psychology only hardens hearts in sinful rebellion against Him.
Remember, Jesus said this of the
false teachers of His day: “Woe to you when all
men speak well of you,
for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26)
The word “woe” in the Bible is
actually a spiritual judgment. In 2nd Timothy 4, God
says this: “For the time will come
when they will not endure sound doctrine, but
according to their own
desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap
up
for themselves
teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be
turned aside to fables.” (2nd Timothy 4:3-4) How many false
teachings have you
fallen for? And how many false
teachers have fooled you? You can get free from them
and find the real Jesus, but
you’ve got to really want the truth so you don’t lose it
again.
Jesus explained this as His
remedy to false teachers: “For judgment I have come into
this world, that those
who do not see may see, and that those who see may be
made blind.” (John 9:39) God makes it very
clear that those who teach a false gospel
bring an actual curse on
themselves in doing so – one that will last for eternity, if they
don’t repent. “But even if we, or an
angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to
you than what we have
preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said
before, so now I say
again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what
you have received, let
him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8-9)
If this convicts you, then I hope
you’ll keep reading, because I’d like to show you
verses of Jesus’ words where He
explains how we can be saved and how we can know
100% sure we are going to Heaven.
Conclusion
Okay, first note – how does
Joel’s message here dove-tail into the ‘chrislam’
message?
Simple – Joel was trying to erode
people’s God-given cautions against false religions,
like Islam, and trying to adjust
his hearer’s thinking to believe that all our anger and
fear is irrational. Yet, Islam
(and the big bankers who sponsor it) needs to be
watched, closely. Also, in this
speech, Joel tried pretty hard to help people to soften
their love for the truth of God’s
Word, which opens people to embracing all kinds of
false teaching. So, from what
we’ve seen, Joel was working with the same agenda,
just didn’t mention ‘chrislam’ on this morning.
So, that’s a pretty good snapshot
of Joel, his story-telling, ‘feel-good, be happy’
psychology, clever false
teachings, and his unBiblical definitions. His deceptive
message is smooth isn’t it? And,
sadly many fall for it. Back to what we said at the
beginning of this report, Joel
Hunter believes that people of all religions will be in
Heaven. Did I mention that he’s a
part of the one-world-religion global leadership?
(Like ‘ecumenical church’ kind of
stuff). Yet, Joel is clearly contradicting the Jesus of
the Bible and redefining the
definitions of the words he’s using – a very subtle method
of false teaching – a little
truth wrapped in a lie. And, I hope as you’ve read this
report, that has become more and
more clear.
As you can see, studying Jesus’
actual words here will protect us from being fooled by
smooth-talking false teachers
like Joel, so that our soul’s may be saved and we may
continue to grow as genuine
followers of Christ with an active and genuine
relationship with the Living God,
our Creator and Judge. So, let’s look at some of
what Jesus said that will help us
re-establish a Biblical perspective.
In John 14, Jesus said: “‘I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through
Me.” (John 14:6) One path – through Christ – no other way. No
other way, including Muslims who
don’t repent, Mormons that don’t repent, Catholics,
Freemasons, Protestants,
Lutherans, Episcopals, Baptists, and
non-denominationalists
who don’t repent and become
genuine followers of Christ. There’s only one way, it’s
through Christ – the real Christ
of the Bible. And notice – it’s not on our terms, but on
His terms: “… but by Me.”. Let me give you the literal
translation of this verse really
quick for it emphasizes this
point even better. “Jesus is saying to Him: ‘I AM the
Way, and the Truth,
and the Life. No one is coming toward the Father, if not
through Me.’” That is where Joel errs. Joel
really wants an all-friendly ‘god’ and not
the God of the Bible. Joel wants
to explain away God’s consequences for sinful
rebellion instead of getting
ready to meet his maker one day.
And to clarify it further, Jesus
more clearly defined this narrow path through Him.
Here are 3 passages. “Enter by the narrow
gate; for wide is the gate and broad is
the way that leads to
destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because
narrow is the gate and
difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few
who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
>> Please notice 2 phrases
of Jesus’ words: “many go in by it [wide gate, broad
path]” – many go in by the wide path,
the easy path, the path that allows you to bring
all of your and my selfish
self-interests, pride – ego, our vain and short-sighted
temporary earthly wants and
pleasures, laziness and lust for whatever makes us
happy. But, notice where that
broad path goes: “… broad is the way that leads to
destruction…” Don’t go there – it leads to
eternal torment. Instead find out what
about Jesus’ narrow path that “leads to life and there
are few who find it.” Did you
catch that? Not only do few enter
it, but few even find this path that leads to eternal
life. Why? There are 2 reasons –
1) they are not looking in the right place, and 2) they
are not willing to give up their
own rebellious beliefs and selfish wants so that they
might be saved from Hell and be
in Heaven with God’s wonderful personality and
presence forever.
Okay we’ve looked at one passage,
but we need to look at 2 other passages to get
what Jesus said. “Not everyone who says
to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the
Kingdom of Heaven, but
he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will
say to Me in that day,
'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out
demons in Your name,
and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will
declare to them, 'I
never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness!'” (Matthew 7:21-23)
>> Again, please note the
word “many”. This is Jesus talking. This is still part of His
sermon on the Mount of Olives in
Israel. Just because you or I say that we know God
doesn’t mean that He knows us.
And just because we say that we love Jesus doesn’t
mean that we are His children or
adopted by Him out of Satan’s family into God’s
family. And just because we go to
church, sing some superficial ‘I love you’ songs, and
hear a peppy message that makes
us feel good – doesn’t mean that we are saved.
Notice these people were doing
much more than the average church-goer. They were
doing miracles and healings (real
ones, not fake like most of what Benny Hinn and
others like him do). These people
that Jesus was talking to were apparently teaching
God’s Word, probably pretty well.
And, even more, they were doing something that
almost no church-goers today ever
do – casting out demons. Most people today love
witchcraft so much, because they
can use the demons to get just about whatever they
want without consequences (or so
they think…) So, they’d never cast out demons from
people and free them from that
evil oppressive bondage. Yet, the people Jesus is
referring to here will have done
that – they will have freed people from the
oppressive bondage of
demon-possession. And yet, look at what Jesus says to them: “I
never knew you.” Ouch. And He says further: “Depart from Me…!” I believe these
are some of the most chilling
words in all of Scripture, because many walking and
talking all around us will hear
these words. But, wait. Why would Jesus say this to
them? Look at Jesus’ last few
words in verse 23: “you who practice lawlessness.”
And, there we find the catch.
These people thought they could do a few trinkets for
God and live for themselves, only
to find Jesus say to them – Depart, I never knew
you, because you practice and
enjoy lawlessness.
>> If my cautions here
cause you concern and help you to realize that you are not
100% sure that you’d be in Heaven
– good! There’s still hope for your soul! Because,
those who are genuinely saved are
growing obedience to Christ’s commands (John
14:15, 24) and they have the
confirmation of the Holy Spirit that they are saved
(Romans 8:16). “Examine yourselves as
to whether you are in the faith. Test
yourselves.” (2nd Corinthians 13:5) And don’t stop
examining yourself and praying,
pleading with God to save you
until you know you are saved, because if and when you
become saved, the difference will
be clear – not on the outside (at first) but on the
inside. “Therefore, if anyone is
in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have
passed away; behold,
all things have become new.” (2nd Corinthians 5:17) And
another verse of comfort is in
Romans 8 – “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our
spirit that we are
children of God.” (Romans 8:16) ~ Those who are genuinely saved
have the Holy Spirit inside of
them and He confirms that we are saved, as well as
teaching us daily how to be
closer to God and walk in more obedient fellowship with
Him.
In John 14, Jesus gave a quick
test for us to check ourselves by: “If you love Me, keep
My commandments… He who
does not love Me does not keep My words; and the
word which you hear is
not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.” (John 14:15, 24)
Now, with those passages in mind,
we still need to see one more passage that sums up
Jesus’ teaching here and helps
further clarify it. “When He had called the people to
Himself, with His
disciples also, He said to them, ‘Whoever desires to come after
Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever
desires to save his
life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the
gospel's will save it.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and
loses his own soul? Or
what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever
is ashamed of Me and My
words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the
Son of Man also will be
ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the
holy angels.’” (Mark 8:34-38)
Our new life in Christ has to
start with one word: repentance. “Do you think that
they were worse sinners
than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you,
no; but unless you
repent you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:5)
“Repent therefore and be
converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that
times of refreshing may
come from the presence of the Lord.” (Acts 3:19)
“For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send
His Son into the world
to condemn the world, but that the world through Him
might be saved. He who
believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not
believe is condemned
already… And this is the condemnation, that the Light
[Jesus] has come into the
world, and men loved darkness rather than the Light,
because their deeds
were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the Light and
does not come to the
Light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the
truth comes to the
Light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been
done in God.” (John 3:16-21)
Another helpful one is 1st John 1 “This is the message
which we have heard from
Him and declare to you,
that God is light and in Him is no shade of evil at all. If we
say that we have
fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not
practice the truth. But
if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have
fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us
from all sin. If we say
that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us. If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins and
to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.” (1st John 1:5-9)
So, what should you start with?
First thing is you and I have to repent of your rebellion
against God. That's where it
starts. You have to hate how you've done what you know
is wrong without caring that it's
wrong. That's both a starting point and a continual
process. And, you need to ask God
to teach you His ways and re-arrange your life -
making His Word your priority and
spending quality time in it - daily.
Next, you'll want to learn to
talk to Him about everything and work on a perspective
that includes Him in every detail
of your life - holding nothing back. And, you'll want
to find a group of believers whom
you can talk about the Bible and how to please God
in the details of life, as well
as removing friends who try to distract you from pleasing
Christ or at least diminish their
influence in your life. ~ These things will take time.
But, as you continue to grow in
these things, you will see God molding you into His
image, and you will also see that
He can use you because you, especially as you are
trying to carefully and
intentionally grow in obedience to Him and His Word -
confessing when you see you're
wrong, and starting again, doing what you know is
right.
If this encourages you, you're
welcome to share it or message me. If this false teacher
report has raised many questions
for you and you’d like to get some answers, just
email me: Steven.H3 @ gmail.com (remove spaces). I’d love to hear from you and
I’ll
be glad to help you as best as I
can. Also, a good next step for you, is for you to spend
time reading the book of 1st John. If you don’t know where
that is, check the index –
it’s one of the last books in
your Bible. Read it every day for a month. And ask God to
show you more about Who He is,
how you’re really doing, and how you can draw
closer to Him and grow in
obedience to Him and His Word.
Take care,
servants of Christ,
Steven Henry,
and the FEDBP team
***
This report was done by the FEDBP
team (Foundations of Evangelism, Discipleship and
Biblical Preaching). If you’d
like to get more of these, just email me:
Steven.H3(at)gmail.com ~ If you
appreciated this and you’d like to share it. You’re
welcome to share it, though I’m
requesting that you don’t make any major changes, if
you leave my name and contact
info on it. Also, if you’d like to see more literal Bible teaching like this,
you can find us on Facebook ~
Thank
you. ~ a growing servant/life-slave of Jesus, SH
