The Wolves Wear Sheep's Clothing

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Here's the question: can you recognize a false teacher, a false prophet? Sadly, so many Christians can't. And you have born-again people that send money to these charlatans and frauds and support their ministry because they think, "Well, this person, he looks the part, he acts the part." But he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. So Jude is saying, "Hey, you've got to pop the hood. You've got to see what's under the hood, what's in the inner workings here. Let's peel back the facade and see the character of a counterfeit."
Larry Nobles: Can you recognize a false teacher or a false prophet? These counterfeit Christians may appear genuine on the outside, but their hearts are far from God. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today as he exposes the traits of false believers who infiltrate the church—yes, your church—and they lead many astray from the whole truth of God's word. This lesson is taken from Pastor Jeff's new six-message series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of Jude. Now, the series is our gift to you for your support of any amount to From His Heart this month. Just go to fromhisheart.org to get your copy in the format of your choice. Here again is Pastor Jeff now to help us discover how to recognize spiritual imposters and guard yourself from their deceptions in this message, "The Character of a Counterfeit."
Dr. Jeff Schreve: So Jude, beginning in verse 4 and then we'll jump to verse 12, he says, "For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Now, who are these certain persons? Verse 12: "These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever." Here's the question: can you recognize a Christian counterfeit, a tare among the wheat? Can you recognize a false teacher, a false prophet? Sadly, so many Christians can't. And so many Christians get all caught up in this guy that seems so sensational and, "Wow, I just love the way he talks and the things he says and all these things that he does. Let's send them money." And you have born-again people that send money to these charlatans and frauds and support their ministry because they think, "Well, this person, he looks the part, he acts the part." But he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. So Jude is saying, "Hey, you've got to pop the hood. You've got to see what's under the hood, what's in the inner workings here. Let's peel back the facade and see the character of a counterfeit." Three discoveries for today. Discovery number one: the counterfeit Christian, the apostate, the person who looks the part but isn't the part—he tries to hide his true colors. That's very, very important for the counterfeits. Just like a counterfeit bill, what makes for a good counterfeit bill? It looks like the real thing, but it's not. You know, if you try and go down to the bank and you get a bunch of Monopoly money, they can tell pretty quickly that is not a real hundred-dollar bill. Well, it says a hundred. Yeah, it's not a hundred. So the counterfeiters go to great lengths to produce bills that will pass at the store because it looks so much like the original. Well, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul is calling these guys out. He says, "For some men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light." The only party Satan comes to is a masquerade party. He is never going to show you his true colors. He tries to hide his true colors, and so do the people that work on his team. Now, the Bible says 2 Timothy 3:13, "But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." You have some of those out there—they know they are lying to you, but they're doing it anyway. They're deceiving you. And then there are other people that they believe the lies that were told to them, and they just walk in those lies, deceiving and being deceived. So Jude is giving us a picture of what's really going on on the inside as you look closely, as you peel back the veneer and the facade. What do you see? Well, in verses 12 and 13, he uses lots of imagery to help us see what's going on. And he says, "These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts." So the first thing that we see is the character of a counterfeit: he is dangerous and defiling. Dangerous and defiling. He follows after his own lusts. He defiles everything that he touches because he himself is defiled. He's devoid of the Spirit, so everything he touches just produces defilement. But he's very, very dangerous, like a hidden reef. Now, anybody that is a sailor knows that as you're sailing your ship, you've got to watch out for the hidden reefs. Because a hidden reef, if you hit that, it can rip a gash in the hull and you're going to sink. These guys are hidden reefs at the love feast. There was no doubt a fellowship meal that would take place—maybe the Lord's Supper would follow that—but they would get together, the church, and the false teachers would come. And they would be there, acting like they were part of the family of God when they're far from it. They're a hidden reef: dangerous and defiling. And he is, secondly, arrogant and self-centered. What do you see in the false teacher, this wolf in sheep's clothing? Well, very arrogant. Jude has already told us about that. They speak these arrogant words. But it says that they're hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear. They don't ever feel like you're going to find them out. And so they're just without fear. They're just among you. They believe they have you so fooled and so duped. And for many, they are fooled and duped. You know, it's interesting that the book that calls out apostates is written by Jude, whose name is the full name Judah, or Judas in the Greek. And Judas is the poster child for apostasy. He was the one Jesus said, "Did I not myself choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?" That was Judas. He was speaking of Judas Iscariot. When Jesus said at the Last Supper, told His disciples, "One of you will betray Me," and they were shocked at that. And they one by one said, "Surely it is not I, Lord?" And then it came to Judas. And Judas had the audacity to say to Jesus, "Surely it is not I, Rabbi?" He didn't say Lord like the other guys. He said Rabbi, Teacher. And Jesus said, "You have said it yourself." He is at the Last Supper, just kind of fitting in with the other guys, lying his way through, just arrogant and feeling like there is no consequence for my actions, nobody knows what I'm doing. Jesus knew exactly what he's doing. And if you're here today and you're a tare among the wheat, listen: you know it and the Lord knows it. Now, there are those who are confused about salvation. That's not who Jude is talking about. He's not talking about people who are confused. He's talking about people who have heard the truth and rejected the truth, and they want to propose something else. Arrogant and self-centered. So it says they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves. That word caring is where we get the word to tend sheep, shepherding. That's what a pastor does—he tends and cares for the sheep. These people don't care for the sheep. They're hirelings. They're not true shepherds. They just care for themselves. They want you to give to them. They don't care about what happens to you. They, as Peter said, they just make merchandise out of you. They look at you as dollar signs. Totally self-centered. Watch out for the person that's always talking about me, me, me, me, me, because that is a big red flag. But not only arrogant and self-centered: empty and fruitless. So he goes on with his metaphors: caring for themselves, clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted. Now, that's empty and fruitless. Now, the bad thing about a cloud that would come for the farmer is it comes with all this expectation that it's going to bring rain. And the people in that part of the world, they were farmers and they needed rain. So a cloud comes: "Oh boy, the rain is coming!" But these false teachers, they're clouds without rain. As Peter says, mists driven by a storm. They don't produce. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and that's all they do. They promise big things, but they're totally empty. And they're autumn trees without fruit. In Israel, an autumn tree that would produce is going to be a fig tree, a date tree, olives, apples, pomegranates. They have their fall festival: September, October, November—those autumn months where they gather from those trees. But these false teachers, they're autumn trees that should be full of fruit, but there's no fruit. They can't produce fruit. Jesus said you'll know them by their fruits. They produce thorns and thistles. He said grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, are they, nor figs from thistles? The good tree produces good fruit, but the bad tree produces bad fruit: thorns and thistles. They are fruitless. Then he says they're doubly dead, uprooted. Well, as one commentator said, they are fruitless and they are rootless. They're doubly dead and they're facing the second death, which is hell. Revelation chapter 20 tells us that the eternal fire that we know as hell is the second death. And if any man's name is not found written in the Book of Life, he is thrown into the lake of fire. Empty and fruitless. And then boisterous and unstable.
Larry Nobles: Well, there's no sidestepping the truth found in God's word today from Pastor Jeff Schreve. You're listening to From His Heart, and he'll return in a moment to continue the lesson, "The Character of a Counterfeit." It's from the series Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude. It's the fourth of six messages that we're airing this month from this series, and it's designed to expose the problems that people have who don't have strong biblical convictions. They don't believe the promises of God, and their security is weak. Listen, you feel it and I feel it. The Christian faith is under fire. We live in an age when truth is constantly challenged, biblical convictions are ridiculed, and many are struggling to know what they can trust. False teachers and demonic doubters spew their vitriol to the world as gospel. Compromise is celebrated as wisdom. Yet, God's word has not changed. Jesus Christ is still the way, the truth, and the life, and God is still working. I know He is through From His Heart. From His Heart continues to reach more people each and every week—more people with biblical truth—and your support allows that to happen. And you can help us do more with a gift today of any amount. And to say thank you for that sacrificial gift, we'd be happy to send you the new series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude, as our appreciation. Would you help us today? Request it in the format of your choice when you go online to fromhisheart.org, or call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE. The need is urgent because the battle for truth is intensifying with false teachers abounding. God bless you for joining with us. And again, go to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. Now let's continue the lesson, "The Character of a Counterfeit, Part 1."
Dr. Jeff Schreve: Empty and fruitless, and then boisterous and unstable. Wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved. For a wandering star, you can't steer your ship by a wandering star. It's unstable. And these guys, they make these big claims, and they're very boisterous and they're very animated, but it's all just noise and commotion, like the wild waves of the sea. Now, there was a man that was in the news quite a lot a number of years ago, an evangelist from Canada. His name was Todd Bentley. He came to Lakeland, Florida, for a week of meetings, and that week of meetings supposedly started this big revival in Lakeland, Florida. And he was the principal speaker. He was the founder of Fresh Fire Ministries. That week of meetings took place in April of 2008, and it went on until August—a long time. And so many people tuned in, and people would come, and 10,000 people a night would come every night for this revival. God is at work. It was mainly focused in on miracles. So think of Benny Hinn and his miracle crusades that he would do around the world. And people that had hearing loss or chronic pain or back pain—things that are really hard to detect whether this person was healed or not. Joni Eareckson Tada said when she broke her neck and she was a quadriplegic in a wheelchair, she went to a Kathryn Kuhlman meeting of healing. And she said they took one look at me and put me way over in the side. "I'm not going to get up on stage. We're not messing with you because everyone can tell that you're not going to be healed. I don't have the power to heal," you know, in the minds of these faith healers. God has the power to heal. Does God still heal? Yes. Does God give a person the gift of healing like He did in the early pages of the Book of Acts? No, we don't see that anymore. And so this guy, Todd Bentley, he claimed to have this gift. Now, this guy has been discredited by everybody. He was a sexual deviant having sex with men and women. At the end of the revival, his part had to end earlier because he broke up with his wife and was having relations with other people. He's got an alcohol abuse problem, all sorts of problems. But he says he's called by God. God speaks to him. Well, it doesn't match up with what the Scripture says, and it totally matches up with what Jude says. But he was telling a story, and he was saying, "Yeah, all these people were coming and nobody was getting healed. And I said, 'God, why aren't they getting healed?'" And he said there was an older lady praying at the altar, and he said the Lord told him, "Well, it's because you haven't kicked that lady in the face." And he said, "Lord, you want me to kick her in the face?" "Yeah," He said, "kick her in the face with your biker boot." And so he tells the story about kicking her in the face, and he said, "As soon as my boot hit her nose, there was the power of God." And people listened to that guy. He's still preaching today. Even in charismatic circles, they have said he is unfit for ministry. Michael Brown and some others said he's unfit for ministry. But he's still preaching today, and people are still giving him money. It is insane. Hey, a counterfeit Christian tries to hide his true colors. Secondly, the counterfeit Christian tries to poison the church. They bring in destructive heresies, as Peter said. They bring in their poison. Now, look down to verse 16: "These men are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, in the last time there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit." That is key. Don't ever get the idea that an apostate is a Christian who loses his salvation. No, no one loses his salvation. If you have genuine salvation, you have it forever. But these are ones who are devoid of the Spirit. They never had the Holy Spirit, just like Judas. "Did I not choose you the twelve, yet one of you is a devil?" Judas didn't lose his salvation—he never had it. Now, Romans 8:9 says this: that if you have the Spirit—"He who does not have the Spirit of God does not belong to Him. He is none of His," as it says in the King James. What is the telltale sign that you're a Christian? The Holy Spirit of God lives inside of you. That's the New Testament church where Jesus said, "I'm going to send you My Holy Spirit. He'll be with you and be in you." That's what's different than the Old Testament saints. The Old Testament saints, the Holy Spirit would come upon them. You can't get saved without the Holy Spirit—He's the one who opens your blind eyes to spiritual truth—but the Holy Spirit didn't live inside. He would come upon people. Remember David said after he sinned, "Take not Your Holy Spirit from me." He saw what happened to Saul when God took His hand off Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord would terrorize him. But in the New Testament, the Lord comes to live inside. As the saying goes, in the Old Testament, God had a temple for His people, but in the New Testament, God has a people for His temple. These guys are devoid of the Spirit. And they do all they can to poison the church. They secretly, as Peter said, introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them. They turn the grace of God into licentiousness. They bring sin into the church, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now, if you need more information, Jude is going to give it to us. What else do we find out about these guys? Well, he grumbles and gripes. "They are grumblers," verse 16, "finding fault, following after their own lusts." Grumbling, griping, complaining. There are a lot of people in church who grumble. The Bible says in Philippians chapter 2, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing." The word for grumbling in Philippians 2 is that wonderful Greek word that's onomatopoeia: *gongysmos*. That sounds like murmuring. *Gongysmos, gongysmos*. You know, it's just that murmur, that grumble. You're upset about the music, you're upset about this, you're upset about that. Okay, that's a different issue. He's not talking about this here. He's talking about kind of the children of Israel grumbling. That it's not just a muttering, but it's, "Why did you bring us out here, Moses? It would have been better for us to have died in the wilderness or to have died in Egypt than to come out here." Remember when they were getting ready to go into the Promised Land? "We can't go in. There are giants in the land. We need to go back to Egypt." They grumbled and griped and complained, and the Lord said, "You are grumbling against Me." Serious business when you grumble and gripe and complain. And these guys, they grumble and they gripe and they complain about God. They don't like the fact that God judges sin. They don't like the fact that there is a hell. Rob Bell, who wrote the book *Love Wins*, he was called on the carpet by a reporter. And he said, "You're teaching universalism, aren't you?" And he goes, "No, I'm not." He goes, "Yes, you are. You are. You're saying that love wins in the end and everybody goes to heaven." And he was trying to talk out of both sides of his mouth, Rob Bell. Well, Rob Bell is now—pretty much everybody understands that guy's a heretic. He defected from the faith. He's an apostate. But he started to grumble and gripe. He didn't like the idea of hell. Doesn't like the idea that God is going to judge the world in righteousness. And so they grumble and gripe about that.
Larry Nobles: Well, there's so much more to come when we have Part 2 of the message "The Character of a Counterfeit" on our next broadcast. After what you heard today, we pray that it may have opened up your eyes to the presence of false teachers and prophets in your midst and awaken you to what you can do about it. Of course, the key to that is to be well-versed in the Bible, the truth that comes from God. And when you do that, you can spot a heretic because you know the truth. Many Christians fall for fakes, too, because they are not knowledgeable and insightful about Bible truth. This series we're airing this month from Pastor Jeff, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude, will give you knowledge and insight about Bible truth. It's our gift of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount. Just go to fromhisheart.org or call 866-40-BIBLE. 866-40-BIBLE. Request the series Faith Under Fire. And thank you for being intentional about helping us and blessing this mission to reach the world with truth, love, and hope. Well, that's all the time we have for today. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting you'll be able to join us on Thursday with Part 2 of the lesson "The Character of a Counterfeit." Be with us next time when Pastor Jeff again speaks truth, love, and hope to a lost and a hurting world here on From His Heart.