General Articles

False Churches: Lots of Wolves Parading as Shepherds :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10

Jeremiah 14:14, “And the Lord said to me: ‘The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.'”

2 Peter 2:1, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.”

As we get closer and closer to the return of our Lord and Savior, the ‘Christian’ world becomes more and more mirky. The separation between the world and the local church is blurred more now than it has ever been. I was recently watching an interview with a prominent rapper in the Christian music scene who admitted that he attended parties at Diddy’s home. Now, I am not accusing this brother of anything or being involved in the events that went on. However, as a Christian, should he have even been there? As a man involved in the ‘ministering’ to millions of young Christians, should he have been there? What in his way of life even made the invitation come his way?

I heard a prominent preacher on more than one occasion use the same sermon almost word for word. I have been preaching for a long time, more than 40 years, and I can tell you that I have rarely used the same sermon, and if I did, it was revamped and certainly not word for word. I have dozens of preacher friends who are just like me. Somehow, the Lord is able to give me fresh lessons each time. In the many years I have written for RR, I may have used the same lesson a few times, but always revamped, always with new things and with new insights. We study and live out the scriptures. We are always learning more, seeing more, and thus apt to teach more.

There are false churches all around us, and they are filled with unsaved persons who are led by unsaved preachers and, in many cases, self-called preachers. God did not call them, and as such, they do not have the power of God in them to be students of the Bible, to be sustained in harsh times, and they have no intention of preaching hard things.

If your church begins the service with the pastor telling you his/her pronouns, then you need to leave and run far away. Peter tells us that these men and women often bring in false teachings, destructive heresies, and even deny Jesus. They tell us that if Jesus lived today, He would be a different Jesus, and He would be more and more tolerant. Just recently, I saw someone teaching that David and Jonathan were homosexual lovers and that Naomi and Ruth were lesbians. This is heresy. Millions listen to these folks bring these ‘new’ things, and it is from the pit of Hell. Some have gone so far as to imply that Jesus and John the Apostle had a homosexual relationship. This is blasphemy. All who stay in their churches are condoning this evil.

There are churches, of course, that pervert salvation and make it of works and not a gift by grace. There are those who tell you that Jesus died for all, so all are saved. There are those who are always getting some new revelation from God. They are not. Many have died and gone to heaven and returned. They have not. These are lies, delusions, or just good storytelling, but they are not the truth.

Millions attend churches each week where the ‘worship’ is a performance and not designed to humble sinful men and prepare them for the message of Jesus. In some churches, the ‘pastor’ tells lovely, moving stories, but he never opens a Bible nor even quotes a text from it. Hundreds of ‘pastors’ do not take the Bible literally; they do not teach it as absolute truth. Many make excuses for the Bible: ‘yes, the Bible did say that women should not teach men, but Paul was a misogynistic man.’ What they are truly saying is God is the problem. You see, Paul only wrote what God told him to.

Listen, ladies, God is not a feminist. The local church is Jesus’ bride and is subject to Him; thus, the picture is of a husband-and-wife relationship where the wife is subject to her husband. This has not changed, and it won’t. God said what He meant and meant what He said. Of late, there has been this movement of ‘Evangelicals for Palestine.’ Oh, my goodness, Jesus is a Jew. He is not just a Jew; He is the King of the Jews. He is the Head Jew. One cannot say that you love Jesus and be an evangelical for Palestine. The Palestinians want Jesus and His people dead.

Jeremiah tells us that these folks are deceived in their own minds, messed up, and simply not in touch with the truths of the Scriptures. They are agents of Hell, leading millions to Hell. Some, I am sure, are doing so out of ignorance, but the vast majority know exactly what they are doing. They are the wolves in sheep’s clothing that we are warned about.

Matthew 7:14-16, “But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it. Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?”

This is a harrowing picture in these verses; the gate to Heaven is narrow. But while it reminds us that the number going to Heaven may be fewer, what is being relayed here in truth is that there is a myriad of ways to Hell BUT only one way to Heaven, and that is in Jesus. Be wary of those who tell you that you can get to Heaven by any means. Heaven does not have an open border policy; rather, there is ONE door, ONE entrance, ONE salvation, and His name is Jesus. The church world still measures success by the size of your church and not the accuracy of the Gospel you preach. As such, these false prophets get larger and larger audiences and spit their heresies further and further.

How do we counteract these evil preachers? Read and study that Bible. Know the Book, and when you hear something false, don’t be silent. You may not think anyone will listen, but God will make sure that the right person hears. Silence is compliance when we hear false doctrine and say nothing. There are many, many good preachers and teachers out there who will arm you with ways to stand up and speak the truth.

There are many who offer verses, extra-Biblical sources, and true scholarship to equip you and me to stand for the truth. We simply have no excuse; people’s eternity depends on hearing the truth. Let us be about the truth. I pray that God will help me to never be silent and to never be paralyzed by fear in the face of blasphemy.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church

How To Connect With Us

Online: https://mmbchurch.ca/

Email: seangooding@mmbchurch.ca

Join us on Zoom every Sunday (10:30 am) for Sunday Service AND every Tuesday at 8:00 pm for Bible Study: Meeting ID: 700 794 460 Passcode: 032661; https://us02web.zoom.us/j/700794460?pwd=M3NFRG91ZW5Sa2Z3amVyWkFnYXd6QT09

The Gospel of Matthew: An Introduction :: By Donald Whitchard

Published on: by RR10

Isaiah 7:14, 53:1-12, Matthew 1:1-25; Romans 5:6-11

Summary: Matthew’s account of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ was written to show his fellow Jews that Jesus was the Promised Messiah, liberating them not from the tyranny of Rome but from the tyranny and condemnation of sin. His death and resurrection freed all of us from this curse.

Dr. Frank Turek, the noted Christian apologist, said that the writers of the New Testament did not create the account of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ but that the resurrection created the writers of the New Testament. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, His life would have been lost to obscurity, becoming nothing more than an oblivious chapter of ancient history (1 Corinthians 15).

In His sovereignty, the Lord God Almighty saw fit to give us four accounts of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus, each one written from a different view. We are going to spend time in the first Gospel presented in the New Testament, written by Matthew, a disciple of Jesus and eyewitness of His ministry. His authorship was first verified by a disciple of the apostle John named Papias. This comes from Eusebius’ ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, written in 325 A.D. Matthew had distinguished qualifications to write this account of Jesus’ life:

1) He had a high literacy skill and was well-known in Graeco-Roman circles because of his previous occupation. Matthew was probably fluent in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

2) Matthew may have been a scribe for the apostles. Little is known of Matthew personally. He is listed as one of the Twelve (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13). His apostolic call is recorded in every Gospel except John.

Matthew wrote his Gospel around AD 50. This date was estimated by one of the early church fathers, Ignatius of Antioch. Other biblical scholars have dated it around AD 60. It was probably written first in Hebrew, then rewritten in Greek, and was probably the first Gospel account written. All of the Gospels were written before AD 70, except for John, written in AD 85-90. This affirmation is because none of the Gospels record the traumatic event of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans prophesied by the Lord Jesus in His Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). Why John did not record it is a topic for another time.

Matthew’s name means, “the gift of YHWH.” It is believed that he had an office on the highway from Damascus to Capernaum. His duty was to collect “toll taxes” from merchants and farmers carrying goods to the markets as well as the caravans passing through the region of Galilee. He was probably in the employ of the local ruler Herod Antipas, one of the sons of Herod the Great, who had ruled the nation of Judea from 40 – 4 BC. We will look at Herod’s life and character later. Matthew knew the value of all goods and the monetary systems of local and foreign lands. He became wealthy because he collected more than what was required from Herod and Caesar and was, as a result, considered a pariah by his fellow Jews, seeing him as a sellout to pagan rulers and customs.

After being called to be one of Jesus’ disciples, and after the events of the crucifixion and resurrection, another early church father named Clement of Alexandria wrote that Matthew spent several years ministering to his fellow Jews and then traveled to Ethiopia, Macedonia, Greece, Syria, and Persia. Ancient traditions state that he was martyred for his faith, probably by hanging while preaching in Ethiopia.

Some characteristics of Matthew’s Gospel include the great emphasis placed on Jesus’ teachings. It has the largest account of discourse material and is filled with prophecies from the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament). There are seventy-five allusions made to Old Testament events. This Gospel was written to show that Jesus was the promised Messiah of Israel through the use of genealogy (Chapter 1:1-18) and fulfilled prophecy concerning the role of the Messiah (Isaiah 7:14, 53:1-12).

According to the late Greek scholar and teacher A.T. Robertson (1862-1935), Matthew was in the habit of keeping accounts, and it is quite possible that he took careful notes of the sayings of Jesus as he heard them. At any rate, Matthew gives much attention to Jesus’ teachings, such as in the Semon on the Mount (Chapters 5-7), parables (Chapter 13), and the end-times (Matthew 24-25). Matthew wrote his Gospel not only for his fellow Jews, but for all people who desire freedom, not from material tyrants alone, but from the bondage and tyrannical hold that sin has upon our lives.

The apostle John wrote, “Jesus answered them saying, ‘Most assuredly I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore, if the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed'” (John 8:34-36, NKJV). This is the foundation of not just Matthew’s Gospel but of all four accounts.

The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ was the final payment and sacrifice that God instituted (Ephesians 1:4) before the foundation of the world in order to free us from the tyranny of sin and the consequences it brings upon us (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 5:6-11, 6:23). It is a free gift we do not deserve and cannot earn by anything we do or say in our own power (Isaiah 64:6; Romans 3:23).

In light of what is going on in the world today, you know perfectly well that we cannot make anything better, nor can we somehow create a utopia from the cesspool that the world currently swims in and is oblivious to the stench. As we go through the Gospel of Matthew, it is my prayer that you will take the time to read it yourself and see that Jesus Christ is the King of kings, Lord of Lords, and the only hope we have for peace, joy, and salvation. Why hold on to the tyranny of personal pride and sin when He gives us the keys to freedom? Surrender your life to Him today (Romans 10:9-10).

donaldwhitchard@outlook.com

www.realitycityreverend.com