(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, keep your place here in 1 John chapter 2 and keep a bookmark there and go back to Romans chapter 16 real quick with me. Now my sermon this evening, I don't enjoy doing these types of sermons at all. It's just part of being a pastor though I feel I have to preach on things like this from time to time so this isn't any personal satisfaction or joy that I just get out of preaching subjects like this but I may be preaching on marking and avoiding people and I'm specifically applying the scripture tonight to Manley Perry pastor of Old Path Baptist Church. You know that I don't just get involved with drama and other people you know when there's problems between other churches and stuff I try my best to just kind of stay out of things and not get involved but this problem I mean this is a church that we prayed for this is someone that I have endorsed this is a church that I have publicly been you know had supported and everything else that we prayed for so I feel it necessary when I see enough signs and when I see that there's someone that ought to be marked and avoided that I have to just come out publicly here and state that and this has nothing to do with you know you know if you follow on social media you know you could you know people are going to accuse you of oh you're jumping on a bandwagon look I don't do that okay I make up my own mind on things I had this has been a long time coming if anything I'm probably slow to pull trigger in many in many cases because I really try hard to give people the benefit of the doubt and and I do as much as I can to to reserve judgment until I feel comfortable and confident in making a judgment call and I think that's prudent I think that's wise it might be that that's the way I think that you ought to be dealing with matters especially with something that's really important if you're gonna you know put your neck out there and say you think someone's a false prophet you know you ought to have a good reason for doing so and like I said this is there's not going to be any one particular thing that I'm going to point to that's just the smoking gun this has been an accumulation over time of events that have happened that lead me to to peg this person as saying you know what I've seen this before I've seen these traits there are enough traits now they have lined up for me to comfortably say you know what this guy isn't right this guy's a false prophet this guy's an infiltrator and it may upset a lot of people I don't know but the the bottom line is and I've taught this many times even without getting specific on anyone we see warnings all throughout scripture you know apostle Paul says you know I cease not to teach and preach I warned you night and day with tears right that you got to watch out for the wolves we got to watch out for those are going to come in and be disruptive and those are gonna gonna do damage to the cause of Christ and those that are enemies we have Jude we have second Peter chapter two we're gonna be looking at both of those this evening there's many other places in scripture you've got Matthew chapter seven there's warning after warning after warning about these people and the reason why is because they look good and deceive people for a while they will creep in and and and talk the talk and walk the walk and they'll do so sometimes for years and years before they finally you know out of the abundance of their heart finally start to speak and when it comes to manly Perry you know for for years he was repeating doctrines that lined up with what our church believes which if you want to call the new IFB believes he was lockstep with the vast majority of doctrines that kind of separate us from from other independent fundamental Baptist churches and I believe at this point he was just repeating if you listen some of those servants which I mean if you could find them good luck I know he took everything down in his channel but oftentimes they sound like re preached sermons completely from other people that that are up there I mean I look no doctrine is brand new to anyone but when you listen to a sermon and then you listen to someone else preach like identically the same thing you kind of smell words words it smells like a like a copy right a carbon copy and I think that's what's been going on with him but you're in Romans 16 look at verse number 17 this is just you know just to start off why I'm even bringing this up why are we publicly doing this because Romans 16 17 says now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple there is a time to mark and avoid people and like I said this has been a long time coming and the divisions have started well over a year ago divisions amongst friends divisions amongst like minded believers and what's interesting here that might be different than a long time ago it's just easier to communicate with people so it's not always just divisions within say one particular church but it's easier to make divisions now amongst other brethren you know just kind of scattered around and the divisions that I've seen are divisions even amongst other pastors right and this is a lot of that isn't hasn't been publicly broadcast so the division here manly Perry already made a division with us and I don't think I ever publicly even mention that about a year ago because I was still trying to give him space and time thinking well maybe he'll come around you know it was a foolish decision you know maybe he'll he'll come back I had hopeful for him and look manly Perry was a friend of mine okay I had to preach I had to stand up and preach a sermon about pastor Romero when he got involved in the wicked things that he'd done that was another friend of mine so these are people that I like or have liked in the past okay it's not something that oh you just don't like him look I have no I have no reason to stand up and just call people out there's no there's no personal gain for me to call someone out the reason why I'm calling it out is to for that you could know for that everyone here can know and understand that I'm marking and avoiding this person and I believe that you should too okay and it's for your benefit not for my benefit and because I know that people travel around you go different churches you listen to preaching online and whatever so you get influenced by different people and I'm saying this isn't going to be a good influence for you now as I mentioned the start of it came when I had I was inviting him out and this one you know I don't want to dig get too deep in details on every single little thing but he told me I think it was at the was at the beginning of this year the end of last year I don't remember the exact time frame of the events when I was I hadn't talked to him a while I was calling him up he had released some video about kind of like distancing himself from new IFB stuff and when I saw the video it was real wishy-washy it was real like there was no clear statement made and he was like you know so I was just kind of thinking well okay if you don't want to take on a label I understand that whatever I to me that doesn't even matter like but apparently when I called him because I was I was going to see if I could schedule him to come out and preach here and then he had to say he had to come out and just say like well no I can't he's like I thought I made it clear with the video like you didn't make it clear with the video otherwise I wouldn't have been calling you if you were just saying like you had nothing to do and you know here's the thing people have might have problems with with other individuals or with other pastors but if that's some personal problem that they have that has no bearing or impact on my relationship with people I mean it really doesn't I mean it's different if it's some big doctrinal thing whatever but if it's just like some people have a disagreement with each other I mean it's just like any human relationship right it doesn't have to impact anyone else's relationships with those people right but he had this problem with Pastor Anderson and I was just like okay well whatever you know I'd I think you're you're wrong I don't think I don't see the problem with this and that was with the whole you know actually a railing accusation is calling them you know becoming ecumenical and all this other stuff which I don't want to rehash all that either but this is just if you anyone who kind of knows which most of you here I think are kind of familiar with that with those events that have transpired you know that's that was just sort of along the first steps in addition to his to him and Johnson's you know dealing with these videos under you know just more accusations weird videos undermining all kinds of good doctrine as well as just trying to bring slander on Pastor Anderson which you know is a good friend of mine anyways and just nothing good was coming out of that stuff and he at that time though he was saying well no I can't come out to your church I can't be associated with your church because you're associated with Pastor Anderson which is weird in and of itself but then he turns around and can preach at other churches where people are associated with total heretics people that have women going and preaching at their services and doing all kinds of other stuff see that's okay to go and do that but you know we are friends with Pastor Anderson so he can't come here even though supposedly there was no problem he had with with me or with our church so like I said that was the first thing that just said okay well he's already separated from us just because he didn't do it publicly doesn't mean he didn't do it so he's already marking and avoiding us but I was giving space for him to repent for him to just okay whatever I'm not going to call it out I'm not gonna make a big deal out of it even with our church whatever we'll let it go but then recently and again I don't follow all of anybody's sermons out there either so I'm not just listening all the time to what other people are preaching from time to time I mean I'm too busy for that I got I got I catch sermons from time to time but with all the stuff that's been coming up lately it's almost like a complete 180 to what he had been preaching in the past to the to the person that I knew to all the stuff that's coming up now I listen to a sermon where he's talking about the sinner's prayer and it's not that he goes full on completely clearly against a lot of these doctrines but what he's starting to do is just cast doubt on everything and this is a tactic that Satan uses this is a tactic that con men use as they try to just bring confusion and doubts to issues instead of just being crystal clear and when you go back and listen to his older sermons he was clear when he was repeating the doctrines that he's heard other people preach but now when he's getting up and preaching it's all just kinds of doubt and confusion and look I preached on calling on a name of the Lord before and I think our church should be all clear on that doctrine that it is the faith in your heart that saves that whosoever believeth is saved but calling on the name of the Lord is completely biblical in Scripture and the two pretty much go hand in hand because once you believe you you're asking God to save you you're gonna do that if there's no reason why you wouldn't do the natural step of calling on the name of the Lord whether it be verbally or whether it be in your heart there's no there's no muddiness there's that it's not that unclear it's a pretty simple doctrine I didn't even have to have anyone tell me that you know we use the sinner's prayer when we preach the gospel to people and we walk them through you know we explain the gospel make sure they understand it so that they can put their trust in Jesus Christ spend all kinds of time doing that because the importance is them understanding the free gift so they could receive it but then we lead them at the end after they say if they claim to believe all that stuff they understand it we're checking them we're asking them questions yeah they get it so just call on the name of the Lord and confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus Christ that they're putting their faith and their heart on him it's it's it's an act it's something that happens now I didn't have a soul winner at my door when I got saved okay it wasn't as clean as it is maybe for other people who do get someone to walk you through the gospel go through everything you didn't believe it before now you do now you're calling on the Lord amen that's great but I'll tell you what happened with my testimony when I finally decided to put my faith in Lord Jesus Christ I had heard the gospel in the past I had to have heard it otherwise I couldn't have received it but when I decided finally was humble enough to accept the free gift of eternal life guess what I did I didn't just say great I said God save me Jesus save me I don't remember the exact words and it wasn't even verbal but it was in my heart where I called on the Lord I remember it clearly even though I don't remember the exact words that I was thinking or speaking in my heart but I know for a fact that's what I did why because it's natural because you don't even need to have somebody tell you that you should be communicating with the Lord when you put your faith in Christ it's just something you naturally do you don't need prompting to do that type of a thing but anyhow so he goes through all this stuff and it's like what are you even saying and it's just bringing confusion so it's like do we do we go through the Lord's Prayer do we not and when you see other videos he used to be real clear on that and now it's now all of a sudden it's a big confusing matter and the same thing with this you know talking about people not roasting in hell talk about a subject that is not confusing at all about souls burning in hell eternally to preach things in such a way to where it's like what are you saying what do you mean are they're burnt you know it's easy to preach against annihilationism of people just being completely burned up and consumed to nothing it's really easy to preach that clearly not doing that at all and look you say pass the person it sounds like you're nitpicking well if it was any just one thing it would be nitpicking but when you start hearing the difference in the change from the concise clear teaching to all of this stuff I mean imagine you've been coming to our church those of you become our church for any length of time if all of a sudden I just started saying a bunch of weird things just completely going against like well you know the sinner's prayer I mean it's kind of like works or you might you know you don't really have to do anything out you know and just started changing and saying things like that and then saying and then trying to teach on hell and going like yeah well you know people don't really they're not really roasting in hell and it's in and I mean you know the smoke you know it just it's confusing and one of the worst things he's done recently is splitting Jesus up into a God part and a man part where you're trying to say like well you know when Jesus died on the cross like the the man part died not the God part and all this other stuff and in backing backtracking on what he'd already preached on Jesus Christ's soul going to hell and suffering in hell and all that and look I'm not going to get into every single one of these independent topics but as you start to accumulate them based on a history with just with all the nonsense the divisions it's time to mark and avoid and we're gonna go through I do go back to 1st John chapter 2 there's just so many telltale signs that that add together those were just some of his recent preaching that you can't even see anymore because he took everything down now when you're preaching the truth you don't flee from scrutiny that's why we live stream right now that's why we post all of our stuff publicly in the past you know there's only one thing that I've ever taken anything offline for that I've already publicly stated that I had been in error about it and I felt strong enough about it to not want to have a teaching that might lead people to a bad conclusion or not being quite accurate on on their belief and I've already say that now and I'm happy to state it again and again and again that I'd made a mistake and that had to do with my understanding of the Trinity where I was making an explanation I had gone too far on Jesus Christ being God right the deity just proving a deity of Christ and using misapplying verses that would that could make you think that Jesus is God the Father right now I'd never believed that that Jesus is the Father like that oneness but the way that I've taught it can very easily be I think unfortunately it could easily be interpreted that way so it was bad enough to say yeah this just needs to come down and my understanding did change slightly so verses that I used to understand as being oh this is true because you know these three are one I didn't understand fully enough to get the intricacies of that and I've already stated that I'm not going to rehash all of that but I'm also not hiding it right there's a reason why I removed those ones I'm not fleeing scrutiny but I just had done you know I'd made a mistake on on that and corrected it and publicly would announce that I have no problem with that and I think that's the the right thing to do but when you start you know and there's so many churches now too they're so afraid of having their their sermons out there and being most of it is fear of like the world what's the world gonna do oh if you preach on the sodomites you're gonna have people come after you whatever but this is like I think they're coming down and this is my opinion because you're worried about what state people are gonna think about what you're preaching why not have it out there for the world why not you know preach it from the housetops I thought that's what we're supposed to do we're not hiding anything under a bushel let's let the world know first John 2 18 if you I look down your Bible as a Bible reads little children is the last time and as you have heard that Antichrist shall come even now are there many Antichrist whereby we know it is the last time they went out from us this is who's the they Antichrist they went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us this is talking about people Devils Antichrist that creep in that end up being sent out or going out from the group but then not continuing which is continue with us it's talking about in the same doctrine in the same faith where they start veering off and going away and going like wait a minute that's not of the same for I mean everything's gonna bring and reproduce after itself it doesn't mean you're gonna be exactly 100% in line every single little detail is gonna be exactly the same but that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about major things major doctrines and you can say well pastor Perry didn't come from us well that's funny because he was getting his instruction from from a whole bunch of people within the new IFB before he became a pastor he might have been sent out from one of those churches but he was attending the the pastor preparation course that that pastor Jimenez was providing and that's not public knowledge I mean I don't know what is and what isn't but I attended some of those after I became a pastor just because I was interested in what we was teaching so you say hey can I pick up any good tips any good techniques anything useful right but he was on the calls remotely as I was during those times getting all this training getting all this teaching before starting a church and then when he started church it was evident that he's repeating all the same doctrines which he did for a little while and now it's becoming obvious that you know what he's not continuing with us because he's not of us you turn if you would to the book of Jude right before the book of Revelation the Bible says that double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and at the very very best which I don't even believe this is why I'm calling on say mark and avoided he's a double minded way a dog with double minded man in the amount of flip-flops that he's had on important doctrines you say best versions you mean that no one could ever change their mind no one could ever grow no one could ever change a bleep no I'm not saying that but I'm saying this if you're a pastor of a church and you start having one after another after another after another pretty significant doctrines that you're just changing on something's wrong something's wrong you're not very settled and grounded in what you believe if you're just all of a sudden just change change change change pastors who do that they either get saved it's because they got saved right now they're starting to understand the Bible so they're changing all their beliefs which would make them a little bit more of a novice or it's because they were never saved to begin with and they're just repeating things and now what they really believe is starting to come out that's when you start to see all those changes Jude look at verse number 16 buses these are murmurs complainers walking after their own lusts and their mouth speaking great swelling words and that great swelling words is like flattery really just lifting people up these great swelling words having men's person persons and admiration because of advantage you say well how would that apply to Pastor Perry oh I don't know maybe preaching an entire sermon called why I'm an Anderson night talking about having great swelling words of having a man's person in admiration because of advantage yeah that gave him a great advantage at his church because people who are local there that listen to Pastor Anderson all went to that church because of the influence that Pastor Anderson had not because of the influence that Pastor Perry had and he's just he's throwing the flag out there going oh yep that's me and I remember when that someone came out to I was I was cringing like are you serious that's not a term to embrace you know those derogatory terms that are used for Christians like Christian itself in the Bible as you know they're called Christians that was derogatory you can embrace that though because it means I'm a follower of Christ you have a derogatory term oh you believe that once saved always saved yes I do I mean it's a biblical concept let's you know I could show you from the Bible why it's true I'll embrace that when you're trying to say that someone's a follower of just another man and you just yell you know you're a Calvinist you're a whatever you know you start putting these names and you know that's not a good thing to say that you're just this follower of this man to the point of an ite or you know I'm a Paulite I'm a you know I'm a Peter I'm a I'm of Apollos that's what the Church of Corinth did and they were carnal Christians great swelling words having men's persons and admiration because of advantage verse 17 but beloved remember you the words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time we should walk after their own ungodly lusts these be they who separate themselves sensual having not the spirit flip over to 2nd Peter chapter 2 you know Jesus warns us in Matthew 7 to beware of false prophets and he explains I'll read this for you while you're going to 2nd Peter 2 Matthew 7 15 beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they're ravening wolves you shall know them by their fruits do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire wherefore by their fruits you shall know them this is a very simple concept to understand this is Jesus's instruction and how to understand whether or not someone is a wolf okay if someone's a false prophet how will you know well you judge them based on their fruits now if someone's a wolf they're gonna dress like a sheep they're gonna try to talk like a sheep everything they do is gonna be to convince you that they're a sheep so if they say something that sounds right is that how you're gonna is that the fruit that you're looking for I don't believe so because otherwise how would the Apostles not have known that Judas was a devil Judas is scary the Bible says with the devil he was a devil from the beginning yet at the Last Supper when Jesus said that he was gonna be betrayed no one suspected Judas of being that disciple yet they spent a lot of time with him right so he was able to walk the walk he was able to say things that sounded great but in his heart he really didn't believe those things the example is you know when Mary had the brought that alabaster box of ointment right and and and wash the Lord's feet oh man why didn't we sell this and and give the money to the poor right that's what he said but you know the Bible tells us what was in his heart in his heart he didn't care about the poor he was a thief he just wanted to take his cut of the money because he had the bag but outwardly he said oh what about the poor right so he had this spiritual talk that's not how you're gonna know you know necessarily who is the the false prophet the the the good tree is going to bring forth good fruit and when you talk about a tree bringing forth fruit that's reproduction who's bringing forth what are you bringing forth what are you reproducing and in a false prophet cannot bring forth good fruit it's a very basic teaching in Scripture that a false prophet you know Joel Osteen is not getting anybody saved he's a false prophet and he can't bring forth that good fruit can't do it and likewise a good tree can't bring forth a child a child of the devil all you could bring forth is other good trees you're gonna reproduce after your own kind real simple and that's how you're gonna know it's gonna be by their fruits now in his church and I don't know what the composition is right now but for a long time it was comprised of other listeners other online listeners of Pastor Anderson that all went to his church but I had to turn to 2nd Peter chapter 2 look at verse number 1 the Bible reads but they're all but there were false prophets also among the people even as there shall be false teachers among you who privately shall bring in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction so the false teachers they don't just they're not just out and clear about it they privately it means they secretly are doing this they're trying to infiltrate and creep in and insert the damnable heresies as subtly as they can because children of the devil are subtle just like their father the devil and they're gonna try to subtly bring in the confusion bring in the doubt bring in all these things that are gonna make people wonder and ultimately turn into damnable heresies and we start preaching doctrines about the who Jesus Christ is that starts to impact his deity now you're starting to introduce another Jesus verse 2 says in many shall follow their pernicious ways so we're warned again a lot of people are getting sucked into this a lot of people get sucked into false teachers who secretly are bringing in damnable heresies by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of so the right way when people are doing the right thing it starts to get evil spoken of by those people and talk about someone who's been spreading a lot of lies about you know evil speaking of the way of truth that's been going on I've seen a lot coming from from that direction jump down to verse number 15 the Bible says and because I mean this whole chapter talks about the false prophet and the false teacher and I'm not saying necessarily that you can start checking off a list of every single attribute that this chapter is talking about I'm just trying to point out ones that I'm seeing line up to make the judgment call and say you know what I'm willing to stand on this verse number 15 says which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor who loved the wages of unrighteousness but was rebuked for his iniquity the dumbass speaking with man's voice for bad the madness of the Prophet now this brings up a reference to Balaam it says Balaam forsook the right way and I think that's what he would manly Perry's doing right now is forsaking the right way he knew the right way and now he's starting to change on all kinds of things and just like Balaam said a lot of right things when you read the story of Balaam he said hey whatever God says those are the only things that I can say and I've gone through this in a sermon in the past where we looked at the whole story and all the references to Balaam and you can see in many places like wow what are you saying sounds right what are you saying looks good everything yeah because though the wolf the the false prophet looks really good in many places but then when you start digging deeper it's like oh he was an enchanter oh he cast the stumbling block before the children of Israel oh ultimately he was able to curse the children of Israel even though he didn't explicitly give the curse with his mouth he was able to subtly bring the curse on the children of Israel through teaching Balak how to cause them to stumble with the fornication with with the strange women that's how he was able to then receive the wages of unrighteousness the wolf needs to say things that sound right in order to keep their cover as a sheep flip over to Hebrews chapter 6 I already went over this passage recently but again I already brought the difference between the Apostle Paul with Apostle Paul did he went from being on the wrong side of things getting saved to being on the right side of things so even though he did some really bad things in attacking the church he he ended up going the right way but when people go from you know the wrong to the right that's understandable you can do things ignorantly when you go from knowing the right way and supposedly being the right way to just completely apostatizing and and in my opinion starting to go off the deep end that's where you have a problem and I think that's where Hebrews 6 also applies in those in those instances Hebrews 6 verse number 4 the Bible reads for it is impossible for those who are once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they crucify themselves the Son of God afresh and put them to an open shame now I don't believe this is talking about losing your salvation but what I believe this is talking about is people who get to the point of understanding they're enlightened they've heard the right way they've known the right way but then they reject it and then they fall away and then they start getting worse and worse and worse after the rejection right and then it's impossible for them to ever be renewed to repentance because they've made their choice and they become reprobate and when you have someone who's who can just say all the right things and repeat all the right things they know the right way so when you fall away and stray from that it just shows you never really fully believed those things he knew it see the Apostle Paul was ignorant he didn't know and then when he finally knew it he accepted it and got saved but people who can say the right things and answer it'd be like this I mean imagine someone being a preacher that can say the right things about salvation over and over again and then you find out later that it's like some atheist oh yeah God's not real I never you know that's not true and and they could claim they believe that stuff but they didn't really the Bible says that the spirit bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of God and that's a fact there's some things that believers I don't think are even capable of and one of those I think is not believing once you put your trust in your faith in Jesus Christ I think it's impossible to stop believing in the Lord Jesus Christ because you're born again because you have the spirit inside of you that is real legitimate and is there to guide you into all truth and knowledge and you can't just I mean you could you could quench the spirit if you do all kinds of things to try to combat the spirit with your flesh but at the end of the day it's still there you cannot exterminate it and when I see you know it's I'm not even saying that people can't say they're an atheist but that deep down they still believe it but I mean if you get to that point as people are just like nope and they become some sodomite or something like no you never they never were saved they knew the way but they rejected it and that's what happens in Hebrew 6 and that's what I believe is going on here flip over to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 the shorter sermon this evening but what I heard this there's this one statement that I heard and make that my jaw almost hit the floor when I heard it I thought that the dumbest thing that I was going to hear all year was we walk by faith not by facts I heard someone say that and I said that is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard look we walk by faith not by sight but I tell you what friends our faith is in fact because Jesus Christ is the truth right and every fact is of the truth so we walk by faith and fact we don't we don't separate faith from fact so that's a pretty dumb thing that I heard but again I I'm not like gonna call out a name on someone necessarily right to just to just you know I can let that go but I just that's just a statement that I heard that that really floored me okay I thought I thought that there's nothing more that I could hear that was gonna be dumber than that but I heard something dumber than that and that was that Judas had more converts than any of the disciples now there's a lot of things that you can maybe start to see and give some leeway on and doctrines and you know but you're starting to get into really weird territory when you make statements like that and nobody's perfect and everyone can make mistakes when you preach the possibilities are all there but what I think we see what I see happening is someone who's saying all these things because they never really believed them to begin with they only repeated them and now we're starting to see what's really in his heart now he said oh I can't I can't prove that from scripture that's just what I believe but what a what a what a dumb thought to believe that this is I mean and this is so basic of a print like this is not I've never heard anyone say that they believe that I mean not a Catholic not it you know not any religion I've never heard anyone say that date that they feel like Judas just had more converts than everyone else that's something new but think about this I mean look at look down your Bible you're in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 look at verse number 17 buses therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are passed away behold all things have become new and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and have given to us the ministry of reconciliation I preach others many times before promoting soul winning because it says that God has given us a job ministry it's your ministering to people you have the ministry of reconciliation what does that mean you're reconciling people to God because as a sinner you're no longer in good standing with the Lord you need to be reconciled well how are you reconciled through the blood of Jesus Christ so our job our ministry is to find these people and then help get them reconciled with God by pointing them to Jesus Christ makes sense right but let's keep reading verse number 19 to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation so God is giving a specific job to a specific group of people given unto us who do you think the us is here believers right do you think God's gonna give a job of reconciling people to Christ to people who don't even believe on him here this is your job it doesn't make any sense but let's keep bringing since verse 20 now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ said be reconciled to God an ambassador is a representative of another person this is a great way of thinking about this so if God's making representatives and saying okay I want you to be my representative because Jesus Christ when he was on this earth he could reconcile people to himself because he was physically here right he was talking and communicating and healing and preaching and doing all this stuff and he could reconcile people to God through his own words I mean through the Word of the Lord but you know it's he can do that but when he's gone and no longer here he needs people to continue to do that work so now we are representing Jesus Christ when we go out and preach the gospel which is what an ambassador is now imagine an ambassador is just there's nothing more represent imagine a representative like the person that you choose to represent you it's going to be someone that is capable of representing you let me make sense it sounds stupid right but yes that's the case you're not going to just pick someone you know the Democrat Party isn't going to choose a Republican to represent them right just put in politics or how about even more simply do you think God is going to select Satan as his representative here on earth okay Satan your job is to go out now and lead people to Christ no no so why would he choose a devil to be the ambassador and do you think it's even possible that they can start reconciling people to Christ no they're child of the devil Judas was not an ambassador for Christ yes he said some of the right things he deceived people but he was wicked as hell he's the son of perdition he's burning in hell right now do you really think that he was leading people to Christ and leading all these people saved he's a devil if how does it would it even make any sense why would we even want to stop the false prophet and the false teacher if they're capable of getting all these people saved oh well I mean this person has all this influence let's just not say anything against them then because they're apparently getting all these people saved why would we want Judas to be exposed if he's the best soul winner why won't we just pat him on the back and be like keep it up buddy I mean it sounds like he'd be doing a great job it sounds like you'd rather have a devil doing his work saying that he could lead all these people to Christ than an actual Christian who may not be doing any of the work it's like is Judas better than than that believer I mean apparently he'd be doing a lot more work if he's actually bringing people to Christ so we'd rather we'd rather put that the lazy Christian to death than the devil it's so backwards I mean it makes it makes no sense whatsoever and to me I don't even understand how any believer can make such a gaffe can make such a misjudgment let alone a pastor unless you just got the blinders on I mean that's that that floored me when I heard that why would we even be warned about false prophets if they're just getting a bunch of people saved what's the point the point is that they were there to destroy Judas was there to destroy he was not there to do good to people first him or Titus excuse me go to Titus chapter ones last place will look Titus one Titus one verse number ten the Bible reads for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers especially they have the circumcision whose mouths must be stopped who subvert whole houses teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake it says their mouths must be stopped it's not a good thing that they're continuing to preach and talk these false prophets they need to be stopped one of themselves even a prophet of their own said the Cretans are always liars evil be slow bellies this witness is true wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith they need to rebuke not a pat on the back they're not doing any good not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth under the pure all things are pure but under them they're defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure but even their mind and conscience is defiled they profess that they know God but in works they deny him being abominable and disobedient and unto every good work reprobate they profess that they know God all the false teachers profess that all of them just like in Matthew 7 the people profess Lord Lord haven't we done all these great works haven't we cast out devils in thy name haven't you know but they're not saved there's a I don't feel like I did a good enough job of spelling everything out honestly I kind of changed what I was going to preach this evening I just wanted to get the warning out there if you if you want more information come and talk to me you know after the service I could go a little bit more thoroughly maybe through some of the things that I've witnessed I wasn't able to write down everything because I couldn't recall it all just as quickly as I needed to to get up here and you know what that that is a fault of mine so I apologize for maybe not being as thorough as I as I should have been but I wanted to get this out there for you guys and just to be aware of it and and to understand where I stand on this and you know I'm it's not something that I take lightly but I'd be happy to go over more instances with you we're talking about a little bit before the service and said not it not a pleasant sermon but it's still one that that hopefully you can learn from and look to you and and look at the scripture and be able to apply I mean it's one thing to know that people exist it's another thing to be able to make the application and be able to identify people some people are easier to spot than others right I think the Joel seems a lot easier to spot the one that's never going to talk about sin the one that's always just talking about money the one that's you know those guys are really easy to spot the ones that are harder the ones that are closer to home the ones that will say more of the right things that that look closer right it's like the you know if you're trying to pass off counterfeit money well the monopoly money is really easy to spot as a fake someone brings in the $100 monopoly bill oh yeah that's easy to spot that maybe a child wouldn't be able to spot that I don't know you know like like a really really really little child isn't gonna know the difference they might think it has value but anyone with enough sense is gonna be like yeah that's obvious but the best counterfeits are the ones that look almost identical still fake so the people that don't have the spirit they're not born again but they can be really good imitators and really good mimickers they're a lot harder to spot than than some of the others so while no we're not on witch hunts we do need to be aware of this and keep track of all of the red flags that you see especially when it comes to preachers so that you could know whether or not you're you know who you're receiving your teachings from and be able to always as I mentioned this morning match try to match what they're saying with the scripture use the the notes on the back of our bulletin write down the references sometimes we go through them real fast sometimes we don't read the whole chapter check them out and make sure and test and verify that what is being said is true or is appropriate we're all responsible for that individually let's bow our heads have a word of prayer do Heavenly Father Lord we thank you so much for the warnings that you give us Lord I pray that you please help us to all have proper discernment Lord and that we would be able to make the right judgment calls in these areas and that we'd be able to protect ourselves from the wolves and that you would help us to see those things and to be able to spot patterns of behavior and Lord just I pray that you would guide us and protect us and watch over us Lord help me as a pastor watch over our flock here and that we would be able to just continue to to serve you better and to do more to bring honor and glory unto our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray amen