I'm Going to Teach You How to Spot a False Teacher

I believe we are to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. But if a false teacher gets in the way, we'd better know how to recognize them. Yeah.

They don't teach you how to watch out for those false teachers. And so your whole understanding of what is a false teacher is based off the perception of someone else. You have a relationship through a YouTube channel or something like that.

There are what I like to call watchdogs out there. They're just looking for a false teacher behind every bush. I mean, it's really sad. And they're the ones that are after clickbait. I mean, this is so important what we're talking about, and I couldn't wait to get here. We're talking about Jesus's most important warning. What is it in regard to? Everybody, welcome. This is the John Bevere Podcast with Arden Bevere and John Bevere. Yes, it's good to be on with you.

I'm excited as always.

Yes, I'm very, very excited. You know, it took us so long to get out of 2 Peter chapter 1, and now we're just getting ready to go into 2 Peter chapter 2. And I think the big question that needs to be asked right now, the big, big, big, big, big question is, are we in the Church of America, especially the Western church, let me say it like that, are we ignoring Jesus's most urgent meeting? That's the big question that's going to set up what we're going to do over these next one or two podcasts or maybe even three. Yeah.

And looking at chapter 1 versus chapter 2, it's almost like it's completely two different books. It's like it's not a part of the same letter because he changes tone so significantly.

I know.

I think this is going to be another big deal.

It's almost like you're watching this. Let's just do it like a movie. You're watching this movie about love and friendship, and then all of a sudden you got this movie that's a murder mystery on chapter 2. And it's like, Peter, did you really write in chapters?

Yeah.

Why did you so drastically change? I mean, you could take 1st, 2nd Peter 1 and 2 and just put them here and go, they don't relate to each other. No, but in reality they do significantly. Do they? Do. And I didn't realize it, Arden, until I was just studying and really going through this. And I've been reading this for 45 years.

Exactly.

And God starts showing me things I've never seen before. That's why I love the Bible so much. People, you need to read the Bible because it's not boring. It's not.

God's going to keep showing you things.

You don't read it with the Holy Spirit.

Exactly.

So if you, if you just don't talk to the Holy Spirit, You're not talking to the teacher. Bible's going to be a bunch of rules, regulations, going to be a bunch of history lessons and facts and all that stuff. You have to ask the Holy Spirit to teach you. He makes it so exciting.

Yeah. And it's going to solve so many things.

Okay. So we're talking about Jesus's most important warning. What is it in regard to Matthew chapter 24? The disciples say, Jesus, what is going to be some of the things that are going to happen right before you return? Now, I'm going to tell you, everybody, I hope we get on this on this podcast someday. We, when we talk eschatology, We talk about the second coming of Jesus. You know, Arden, the Bible talks about the second coming of Jesus 8 times more than the first coming of Jesus. Isn't that amazing? Yes. Okay, so when you talk about it, listen everybody, if you don't know this, but I'm sure if you're saved more than 3 months you know this, we are on the verge of Jesus coming. His return is imminent. He could return today. Everything has been fulfilled. Fulfilled prophetically. There's nothing that needs to be fulfilled that is standing in the way. And that causes us to live godly.

Well, can I ask you, because you have a great mindset of how you live, because some people are going to say, well, if Jesus is coming back tomorrow, like, I— nothing that I do really matters.

And that's terrible.

Exactly. So can you share with how you've always taken that mindset of like, I'm going to live as if Jesus is coming back tomorrow.

I'm going to live as if Jesus is coming back today.

Today.

That's the way I'm going to live my personal life. But I'm going to plan, plan like he's not coming back for 100 years. Yeah, because he said occupy until I come, which means you don't sit around and say, oh, we know it's going to happen this month, so we're just going to run the credit cards up. We're going to run our, you know, spend all the money in our bank accounts. We're just going to have a great time. Well, actually, that's the wrong thing to do. I hope you're thinking, I got to get more people to come into the kingdom instead of running up the credit cards. But no, you gotta plan as if he's coming 100 years from now. Messenger International, we are working so hard on developing a 100-year plan, which goes past even you. It goes to your children and Addison's children and to our other son's children, right? And so, and to our team members' children because—

I mean, I love that 'cause I remember da Vinci was someone who designed things that he knew he would never even be able to see. So he would create creations that he was like, technology is not there yet, but I'm going to create this creation based off a technology that I might not see in my lifetime. And that's why he was so brilliant.

That is pleasing to God because we are supposed to live that way. We are supposed to do business or occupy, Jesus said, until we come. So Matthew 24, the guys are looking at Jesus going, what's going to be some of the things that are going to happen before your second coming? What's the first words out of his mouth? Do you remember Matthew 24? What's the first thing he says that would happen in our day?

Yeah.

Okay. This is talking about 2024, right before he returns.

Was it, do not be deceived?

Yes. Yes. Okay. Nailed it. Do not be. And this is exactly what he said. Be careful that you are not deceived. Now, I have a saying that I've been saying for years and years and years. I'm just going to say it. If you've listened to John Bevere before, you've heard me probably say it before. There's only one problem with deception. And what is the problem?

It's deceiving.

It's deceiving. The person that's deceived believes with all their heart they're right when in reality they're wrong. That's so scary. In other words, they are self-fooled. Okay, so Jesus warns 4 times in just Matthew 24 that we be careful that we are not deceived. Okay, not only that, and what is going to bring deception? Of course, it's going to be false teachers. Which we're getting into. Jesus is not the only one that warns about false teachers. Every writer in the New Testament, every writer, Arden, I didn't know this until recently, every writer except James. Now James warns about deception, but he doesn't warn about false teachers. Interesting. Every single writer. Okay, we're talking, we're talking Paul, Peter, John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, every one of them warned about false teachers.

Which, I mean, I'm curious, why do you think that is with James? Because James was— I mean, he was the leader in Antioch. Like, he oversaw a lot of these teachers. And you would think he would be the one that's like—

I mean, he's the book that Martin Luther didn't even like. He was like, I want to remove this book and Matthew out of the Bible. And no, no, no, you don't, Martin Luther. But James is— how do I want to say it? He's pretty strong. He's pretty tough.

He is.

And yet he didn't say— I mean, to my knowledge, okay, because I racked my brain thinking, okay, he warned about deception, but he didn't warn about false teachers. But every single other writer warned about false teachers, and yet we don't talk about it. Yeah. Now here's the sad thing. There are what I like to call, um, uh, watchdogs out there. They're just looking for a false teacher behind every bush. I mean, it's really sad. Yeah. So we're not supposed to be mind conscious of we're looking for false teachers. No. And I'm going to tell you this repeatedly. Do not walk away with this. But you better— you better— it's like this, okay? If I walk into my house and my stove is on and my flame's coming up out of the stove, I'm not going to sit there and be fixated on it and go, oh, that's a place of danger. I might burn my hand. I'm gonna go about my business. I'm gonna turn that off, go about my business, right? I believe we are to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Well, but if a false teacher gets in the way, we'd better know how to recognize him.

Yeah, and then not throw out everything else. Like there was analogy that we talked about right before going live is that just because there's fake diamonds out there doesn't mean that it causes the real diamonds to be insignificant or less valuable.

Correct.

I think too many times where people are looking at, Well, there's false prophets. And so that means whole Christianity is completely a lie and we've got to throw it all out. And it's like, no, it does not. It should not devalue the value of a man of God or a woman of God bringing the word.

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Yeah.

Okay, if you're not trained, you might just accept it and you got a counterfeit. Okay, all right, so they have crept in unnoticed. So in other words, What makes them unnoticed? People have not been trained, and that's what we're trying to do in this podcast. Okay. They— another version says they snuck their way into your churches. So they don't come in saying, I am a false prophet and I'm going to give you the craziest doctrine you've ever heard.

Yeah.

No, they come in by stealth. And what is their message? This is why I'm starting with this, saying that God's marvelous grace. So these false teachers talk about the marvelous grace of God. But what they say is God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. Wow. Okay, so here's Jude. He's saying, I wanna write to you about the beautiful aspects of salvation. I wanna talk about heaven. I wanna talk about the fact that God has delivered us, right? I'm so excited about this, but I can't because there's something much more important. Isn't it interesting? Jesus, in talking about his second coming, says the most important thing I can tell you is be careful that you're not deceived. Okay, so here's Jude saying, I wanna talk to you about heaven, I wanna talk to you about salvation, but I can't. I gotta tell you that people are gonna sneak in. These evil false teachers are gonna sneak in and they're going to turn the grace of God into worldliness, lewdness, licentiousness. It's going to allow us to live immoral lives. Now, if you look at Paul the Apostle in Colossians 1:28, he says, Jesus we preach, warning every man. Warning. Number one, warning. Number two, teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ. The number one thing Paul said we've got to do is warn. He didn't say number one thing we got to do is teach. Number one thing is to warn. Okay, so these guys are creeping in unnoticed. That's why we got to warn. How do you recognize the false counterfeit money, okay? Now let's look at Peter. 2 Peter 2:1, but there were false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. Wow. Now here's the thing we gotta talk about. But, okay, this is, The beginning of a chapter in all 24 books that I've written. And you've written 2 books or 1?

Well, 1 solo and 1 solo and 2 with a group collaboration.

All right. Did you ever begin a chapter with the word but?

No, never.

I never— I have never in 25 books started a chapter with the word but.

Yeah.

Who knows? Maybe someday I will. Why is that? Because the translators are the guys that put the chapters in and put the verses in, and they did around the 14th century. Okay, this is one letter. So what's going on here? Why the word but? Well, this word but answers why we think this is two totally different stories, chapter 1 and 2, when in reality it's a continuation of one story. Yeah, so let's talk about it. What happened in chapter 1? Okay, God has given you his marvelous promises to what? Bring out the divine nature that he has put within us. When you're born again, you don't just get saved from sin, and save from hell and save— although I don't want to make light of that. God put his nature, the nature of Jesus Christ in us. Right. And the exceeding precious promises, the word of God, what we teach, the word of God is what brings that character out. And that's why he said, hey, be very careful to add to your faith. Right. Moral excellence and moral excellence, knowledge, knowledge, self-control, self-control, endurance. Endurance was the fear of the Lord or godliness. Then brotherly kindness, and then Christian love. Yeah. He said, if you do these things and they abound in you, you're going to be very fruitful in, in your eternal work to glorify Jesus. If you don't, he said, you're going to become blind and short-sighted, which means you're going to stumble, you're going to fall. Right. And then he says, if you do this, you're going to have a grand entrance into the kingdom of God. And so then Peter says, hey, look, this is why I have always been reminding you of these things. The great and precious promises, meditate in them, develop the moral excellence, the character of Jesus, right? I've been always reminding you. He said, I'm gonna ensure as long as I live the rest of my life, you're gonna be reminded of these things. And he said, after I'm gone, I'm gonna make sure you're reminded of these things. And then he talks about the fact that this exceeding great and precious promises didn't come by the will of man, came by holy men of God when they were moved on by the Spirit of God, Right? Okay, then he goes, but there's gonna be false teachers. Now let's look at what the false teachers are saying. They're saying you don't have to live in moral excellence. You don't have to have self-control. You don't need to worry about brotherly love and being kind. You don't need to worry about having patient endurance because Jesus is your holiness, because Jesus's grace, hey, we're all human, we got needs. Wow, is that subtle? Now listen, are we human? Yes. Do we make mistakes? Yes. But John the Apostle never said, my beloved brethren, when you sin, we have an advocate. He said, if we sin. The goal is not to sin. Yeah, but what these guys do is they bring a clever message in and they communicate to people, don't worry about it, don't pursue holiness, don't, don't work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 'Hey, you're covered.' Instead of saying that God has put his nature in you and these promises will pull that nature out and you can work that nature out with fear and trembling, they say, 'Hey guys, you're covered. Your sins are all forgiven. Your penalty's been paid for. Hey, try the best you can, but you know, we are in this world and you need to enjoy this life and you need to, you know, live for the day and one day you'll get to heaven.' Yeah, it's what we talked about even before.

It's like so many people want to be a disciple without discipline.

You can't.

You can't be a disciple without discipline. My thinking too, Jon, and what I'm curious about is in a day and age where it's so much social media and all these things going on, how do we navigate this with false teachers? Because you have people that are leveraging, calling out people left and right and casting them down and putting that into their— seeing, yes, this is a wrong message, but then also like in our day and age where it's just easy to have someone get up on their pedestal and call people out, like, what do we do?

I love that you said that. In other words, how do we keep from becoming watchdogs?

Yeah.

And all we're doing is looking for the bad guys. Right. And your mother and I have lived in a way for 40 years of ministry and saying that we're going to teach the truth so that the truth will expose the error. If I teach you how to recognize a counterfeit dollar, if I train you, 'cause you gotta be trained, there are some dollars out there, there are $100 bills that are so close to the real, they actually train employees how to recognize when a false one, when a counterfeit comes in. If I train you how to recognize a counterfeit, $100 bill. Do I need to be next to you when that 100 fake counter— fake $100 bill comes into your hand? No, I don't need to be there, do I? Yeah, no, no, I don't need to be saying, watch out, that's, that's, that, that right there is a, is a fake $100 bill. No, what I taught you, the way I trained you, it taught you how to recognize it for yourself. Yeah, that's what we're doing on this podcast. We're not calling out names, we're not calling out ministers, we are not going to do that.

Yeah, well, I love that because I think that's the tendency that you see from a lot of people is that they want to call out specific people. And I think, you know, sometimes that's, hey, this is, this is something we need to address. But they don't teach you how to watch out for those false teachers. And so your whole understanding of what is a false teacher is based off the perception of someone else that you don't fully know. You have a relationship through a YouTube channel or something like that, and you're basing it off of those things, and people are using it for clickbait and for opportunities to be able to grow their own following. And it's getting into this mess, which I love that they're all addressing it, but they're teaching. They're teaching how to make sure you're aware.

This is what the apostles were doing. And now, if somebody is doing something in public, You see one time you see Paul correcting Peter. He did something in public that didn't make Peter a false teacher. No, he was really wrong. He was playing the role of a hypocrite. And Paul said, you're a hypocrite. So we got 3. We got 3 categories here. We got true teachers that are right on course. We got true teachers that are off course. Yeah. And if you correct them, they're going to repent and say, gosh, you're right. Yeah, they're humble. Okay. We're going to find out in 2 Peter One of the earmarks of a false teacher is they're not humble, they're not teachable. They will— they cannot be corrected because they believe they're so right. Okay, so you have true teachers that are on course, you have true teachers that are off course, and when corrected, they humble themselves. Then you have the false teachers. Yeah. And they're the ones that are after clickbait. They're the ones that— the reason I'm ministering is I want clickbait. The only reason I'm teaching is I want— I want an offering.

And so— and I'm sowing discord. Yeah, like that's the thing God hates. This is the thing that God so clearly says, I hate. And it's sowing discord amongst brethren. And that's why we have to be so careful within that of like even in this day and age to not just be posting up these clickbaiting titles, the things that are going on, and then to not lump in those last two groups together. Because like you said, is that that one group, if they're humble, they're going to accept it. Okay, I'm misinformed. It doesn't mean I'm a false prophet. It doesn't mean I'm a false teacher.

Right.

I'm misinformed. And when you show me the correct information, when I understand in scripture, wow, thank goodness for showing me that. And I've seen you and mom engage in conversations where you might have been misinformed and you see the evidence presented and you're like, I've never seen it in that way. And you guys have the humility to be able to accept.

May I always be that way until the day I leave this earth and throughout all eternity. I want to stay teachable. I want to stay humble because, you know, Arden, I've I've lived through the disaster of watching my leaders fall and not ever recover, and they're not in ministry today. And the thing that I saw with the leaders that have fallen, not only the ones I was under, but others that we watched, is they just weren't teachable. And they had a reputation to protect. And they spent more time on the reputation than realizing, hey, I've got an opportunity right now to show people what it really means to be teachable and humble, to be like Jesus.

Which I remember the story you have of the gentleman who— there was a guy who commented on your Instagram, and I'm not trying to just throw out examples of you, but I think, I mean, Dad, honestly, it's amazing to see that the more that you guys have grown in your platform that God has given you, the more humble that you guys have become. And we've gotten to see that as sons. But I remember an example of someone on social media.

He was a pastor in England, and boy, did he come after me.

Yeah.

And I sat there and I thought about what he said, and I thought, I see what he's saying. And I went back to him and I said, you know what? I see what you're saying, and I'm going to make some adjustments.

Over social media.

Over social media.

It's so easy to come back on social media behind your wall and come back and fight against it.

But you know what it did? It disarmed him. He came back and said, "Wow." I remember my assistant one time said to me, she had worked for other ministries and she said, "I can't believe it, a leader that actually apologizes." Look, I'm not trying to boast in myself. I think God has, by his mercy and grace, taught us, Lisa and I, things in the Bible that we wanna hang onto really tight, and that is humility, okay? And I want with all my heart to become more humble the older I get, not less humble. And so this is one of the indicators that's very, very clear about a false teacher is a lack of humility and stubbornness and pride. And so, you know, Arden, I think we're gonna close right there because I just feel right now that there are some people, I feel this in my heart, I feel the Holy Spirit tugging at my heart, You say, I have been under some real, some teaching, some ministry that actually I felt empowered, I felt that it was made okay for me to be able to do things in the flesh I knew were wrong, I knew were contrary to God's way, and it actually empowered me bolded me to sin, thinking I would get forgiveness after I sin. And just, I felt in your heart, you've been repenting in your heart, and I feel like God is saying, I'm hearing your heart. And so I'm just so thankful that just even us not even getting off verse 1, you realize, oh my goodness, I've bought the lie that the grace of God actually actually allows me into sin. I wanna pray with you right now because I sense the presence of God on you. The presence of the Lord is literally on you right now. And I just want you to say this with me. Say, oh God in heaven, please forgive me. I have turned the grace of God into a license, into permission to disobey. Your many commands in the New Testament. Jesus, I'm so aware that you said, go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to do whatever I command you. Jesus, I'm so aware that you said, you are my disciples if you keep my commandments. Jesus, forgive me. I see now that I bought a lie, but I humble myself. I ask you to forgive me. And I gladly now receive your grace that empowers me to live a life that glorifies you, a life that is lived in a manner that's worthy of you, Jesus. I ask that you would cleanse me with your blood and help me as I get into the New Testament, that you will show me what it means to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Boy, I really sense the presence of God. And in fact, I sense some of you actually physically, I want you to check yourself, the power of God literally came on your body and you were healed as you prayed that prayer. It's remarkable what God's doing right now. I mean, I can sense the presence of God in your life. And I just wanna say this just for some housekeeping things, can you please subscribe? This is a brand new podcast. And if you subscribe, what it's gonna happen is it's gonna come to the attention of others and others will be able to hear this teaching. If it ministered to you, you're gonna help other people by clicking subscribe. All right, that's all we want you to do. And then if you even feel to write a review, do that, okay? We're gonna start now that the podcast is in full swing, at one point we're gonna start maybe reading a review every show. The other thing I wanna say here, is there's so much we've left on the table on 2 Peter. We didn't talk about how they sneak in. We didn't talk about how to recognize them. We haven't even gotten there. And I wanna say to everybody, the next couple podcasts, this is where we're going. So please don't miss the next couple podcasts because it's gonna be very eye-opening. With all my heart, I believe you're going to see things that you've never seen before that the Holy Spirit's gonna show all of us. 'cause he's already done it with me and I've been walking with Jesus for 45 years, Arden. So we can't miss the next podcast. And the other thing I wanna say to you is we've come up with a multimillion-dollar app. It's called MessengerX, MessengerX. And you can go on Android on Google Play, or you can go on the iPhone, you can go to Apple, the App Store, just type in MessengerX and it will come up. It is absolutely free. And we have over 40 courses in English. We have, I think, 5 or 6 audiobooks. We've got so much on there, and you can actually get the podcast on there, or you can get it on YouTube. So I just wanna encourage you to do that. We wanna continue to minister to you, not just through the podcast, but the courses we've designed to make disciples out of you. And the last thing I wanna say is please get the "Awe of God" book. A 42-chapter book that will help you to understand how to walk in holiness and godliness and be able to have your eyes open to be able to see, hey, when is there a counterfeit coming across my path? Hey, we love you so very much. And until next time, this has been the John Bevere Podcast with Arden and John Bevere.