Sixteen Characteristics of an Unhealthy Church

Not every corner of the American church, but large sections are unhealthy, particularly in the Renewal Movements.

Unfortunately, this is a general warning post about the church in America, and any church worldwide that has borrowed from it.

I believe that God still speaks through prophetic persons. But what about prophets who get things wrong and are arrogant and defiant anyway? And can other leaders be deceived by their own imaginations and lying spirits?

The Charismatic Renewal is a dying movement (and it needs to die). I agree with R. T. Kendall’s thesis that it is Ishmael. We are still waiting for Isaac (a true or better revival).

I believe the charismata (gifts) of the Spirit, particularly those listed in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and Romans 12:6-8, are in operation today, so I write sympathetically and as a so-called continuationist.

Gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 and 12:28

Gifts of the Spirit in Romans 12:6-8

This post is divided into these sections:

Sixteen Characteristics of an Unhealthy Church

Possible Causes of the Sickness

Solutions

Let’s begin.

Sixteen Characteristics of an Unhealthy Church

(1) Arrogance. I see large swathes of the American church as arrogant at this time in its history. We need to repent. However, if anyone calls for repentance, then he is ignored or is accused of being negative. “Don’t rock our luxury American cruise line and love boat!” they seem to say.

And so I see no one proclaiming that the church needs to repent of arrogance, because no one seems to be able to spot it. A little self-reflection is rare with Americans generally and American Christians in particular.

These verses speak about arrogance and the antidote:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
⁶Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. (1 Peter 5:5b-6, citing Prov. 3:34)

Arrogance blinds a person from seeing his arrogance. Vicious circle / cycle.

(2) Insufficient Study of Scriptures. Just for clarity, here are samples errors in the next points, which flow from a deficient study of Scripture. American Christians don’t take the time to do this or their leaders come up with nonessential, distracting teachings, like the Jewish year, or the shape of Hebrew letters means something deeper.

(3) False prophecies. I don’t need to bring up the false Trump prophecies. This is old news now. Of course most of these prophets have not repented, but have doubled down and twisted their prophecies. Trump is reigning in heaven, one of them said. Recently I heard a prophetess predict that Rep. Jim Jordan would become Speaker of the House, during the struggle to find a replacement for Rep. McCarthy in October-November 2023 (note the timeframe). Wrong. Mike Johnson is. Did she repent or move on and pretend she did not commit this prophetic error?

(4) Churches = private fiefdoms. Clever Christian men have taken over God’s Son’s church and are treating it as their own private fiefdoms. Their quick minds are very active, dreaming up ways to keep building. It is their personal kingdom projects, as if they are real estate developers. The more campuses, the greater the status. One journalist calls them “Evangelical Warlords.” Perfect. Now they can walk around with puffed out chests when they meet with other pastors.

Further, they have almost daily control over their kingdom of campuses. The campuses log on to the video feed on Sunday (or record it and later require their churches to show it on another Sunday); then these super-leaders decree and declare their vision for the year. Result: everyone has to salute and get in line, so to speak. The super-leader writes many words for their vision statement, for their churches, even though Jesus himself already told us what his vision is for his Church. (See, for example, Luke 24:45-49, Acts 1:8; and Matt. 28:18-20.) It is arrogant to disregard his vision statements for his church.

The solution is to go down the path of Calvary Chapel or the Vineyard. Each church formed its own leadership and elders. I don’t recall Chuck Smith or John Wimber barging into the local churches with video messages or swapping out pastors to speak at another of their churches every week (or every two weeks), like the Musical Chairs for Pastors. Now the people cannot get to know their own undershepherd. Instead, Calvary Chapel and Vineyard churches were independent or quasi-independent, yet they belonged to the larger movement and shared the same theology and ministry practices and values. Regional overseers then simply encouraged the pastors or solved problems that the local church leaders could not solve. No doubt this structure encouraged Smith and Wimber not to micro-manage and to keep their sanity and stay focused on the main thing God called them to do without global or national day-to-day distractions.

As I recall, both Smith and Wimber were humble men of God. No puffed out chests and inflated egos.

(5) Church growth consultants. They are taking things too far. They may mean well, but pastors need to return to Bible basics. Search the Scriptures to find out how Jesus and his apostolic community grew the church–by the power of God, that is, anointed, Bible based preaching and healings and deliverances. The Book of Acts is a good start for research.

(6) Doctrinal errors. I see doctrinal errors cropping up from the pulpits of mega-pastors within their mega-ministries and mega-churches. One of them said, for example, that Jesus laid aside all of his divine attributes during his incarnation to earth. The pastor reemphasized it. All. No. Another mega-church pastor said there are three Gods. Ouch.

(7) Don’t touch the Lord’s anointed! To protect themselves, they also misapply Psalm 105:15: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm” (NIV). Or they misapply the David-Saul conflict, in which David did not want to kill the Lord’s anointed (1 Sam. 24, 26). However, Psalm 105:15 s talking about waging war and doing other physical harm to God’s ancient people. (Note the plural “ones” and “prophets.”) And David did not want to “touch” Saul, evidently a euphemism for kill.

Yet as a consequence of their misapplication of these verses, a wall of isolation is built around them now. No one can “touch” them. No meaningful correction for them. Arrogance again.

At the same time, The Julie Roys Report (to which I subscribe and which puts the wholesome fear of God in me) has all kinds of stories of pastors misbehaving: sexual abuse of children, affairs, false prophecies unrepented of, manipulative prophecies, or embezzlement.

(8) Greed. Do I need to talk about the deception of greed? Hyper-prosperity preachers try to squeeze every last dime out of the people’s salaries (out of their gross pay!) by haranguing them to give more and by making false promises.

Why Tithing Does Not Apply to New Covenant Believers

The preachers manipulate Scriptures to enrich themselves. One even boasts that he owns the biggest house in Louisiana. He’s not ashamed of it, either, and says so. Another one, after teaching about his own hyper-prosperity, actually said in front of his donors, “I’m doin’ all right!” (His donors seemed middle-class or working class, and now he is upper class.) These hyper-prosperous preachers are super-rich because they get on TV and ask for money, not because they tithe into another hyper-prosperity preacher’s ministry (as one of them falsely proclaimed), But what about their average donors? Are they as rich as their favorite TV hyper-rich preacher because they tithe into his ministry? No.

The writers of the New Testament never got rich from their Scriptures. Prove to me that Paul and the other apostles lived in a house as big as a Roman senator’s villa, or in a house that was the biggest in any Roman province. Prove to me that they bragged about it. Repeat: No writer of the NT ever got rich from his own writing or writings.

Apostle Paul Traveled on Cargo Ships

A prosperous speakers’ circuit has emerged, in which the speakers at huge conferences repeat the same sermon over and over. The richer ones even jet around in their private jets to speak at them. How much in fees or honoraria do they get for the same teaching? It must be nice to get all that money for a rehashed, half-hour to forty-minute sermon that has been on continuous loop for years. Do they seek the Lord for a word for that gathering? Years-old manna is worse than day-old manna. Complacent, jet-set preachers.

(9) Wild platform displays. Some preachers like dancin’ and prancin’, and shriekin’ and freakin’ on the platform, believing this is the anointing. The platform performers love the spotlight. In charismatic circles, the platforms speakers also allow wild displays in the audience too. However, they break the parameters that Paul established in 1 Corinthians 14, like this verse:

³³For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people. (1 Cor. 14:33)

Order and decorum should be the defining characteristic of the church service. Confusion must stop. I don’t see Jesus in the four Gospel and the apostolic community in Acts performing with outlandish displays.

And this one:

⁴⁰ Let everything be done with decorum and in order. (1 Cor. 14:40, my translation)

Paul opposed charismania in the assembly. But do these hyper-charismatics care? It seems to me that they eagerly run roughshod over the Scriptures. Repeat: I never read about Jesus doing wild displays while teaching the Sermon on the Mount and Sermon on the Plain.

What 1 Corinthians 14 Really Teaches

(10) No fear of God. Disrespecting God’s word by continuously violating it is arrogant.

The arrows mean “leads to” or “produces.”

Arrogance → no fear of God → ignoring his word → no repentance.

(11) Flashy titles and names. One example is the so-called “demon slayers.” They call themselves by this flashy title to stir up attention. They’re powerful! One problem: no human can slay demons, so already they are going down the wrong path. (They probably got the name from a video game.) One of them, a church planter, calls himself an apostle, as well. How many more will follow suit with this title? We shall see.

(12) Apostles and prophets everywhere. Leaders in the Renewal Movements are desperate to find these two ministry gifts, in order to restore and establish the fivefold ministry (as they call it), based on Ephesians 4:11-13. (Two of the ministry gifts are apostles and prophets.) And now we have all sorts of pastors and church planters eagerly declaring themselves to be apostles. But as I see things, they don’t know what they are doing. Deception thrives because they do not do a thorough exegesis of Scripture. Why would they? They have their own agenda, and biblical strictures stymy their goals. They outpace God, however, in establishing their fivefold ministries. This is arrogance of the first order.

Yes, I believe apostles exist, but now they are missionaries who plant churches in unreached, unevangelized areas, where people never heard the name of Jesus or the gospel before. If you want to see apostles in action, just read about Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13-14. They went into totally unevangelized areas.

Check Out What Two Genuine Apostles Did and How They Lived

The twelve preached in Jerusalem where the name of Jesus was known, but they stayed there after Pentecost because Jesus told them to do this and to see the people get saved and filled with the Spirit after Pentecost. They intended to establish the doctrine, formerly a mystery, that Gentiles could get saved without the markers of the Abrahamic or Sinai Covenants (circumcision), in the epicenter–Jerusalem itself (Acts 11, 15). Everyone could be saved the exact same way: faith in the Messiah, the Son of God. Eventually the apostles left and went out on their mission, just as Jesus commanded (Acts 1:8).

Planting churches in America does not qualify someone to be an apostle because the name of Jesus is known, even if people do not follow him. And most people who attend a new church plant come from other churches, anyway!

Do New Testament Apostles Exist Today?

Youtube prophets speak in vague generalities even when they say they do not. But they do. If something is about to shake the country next month or in the coming year, be specific. Tell us who, what, when, how, and where. Who will get voted out and voted in? Name them. If not, your prophecies are useless.

Other self-appointed teachers and talkers exhort us on their youtube channels. They have another rapture dream! I wonder why their subscribers don’t learn all of this in their home church. Why don’t the talkers tell their beliefs in a small group? Why go online and up the responsibility exponentially? I genuinely fear that the chatterboxes are sinning with their abundant words and consequently talking themselves into a stricter judgment (James 3:1).

New Testament Restricts Authority of Modern Prophets

Youtube ministries and talkers are popping up all over the place. Heresy hunters to the right of me and prophets untethered to a local church on my left. It is clear that three-fourths of Christian youtubers don’t know what they are talking about three-fourths of the time. Less generously, but perhaps more accurately: raise both numbers to four-fifths.

(13) Cessationism. It is a serious error. It has no support in Scripture, while its opposite, continuationism, does (and in church history). Cessationists need to repent of their deficient research and come back to a reasonable interpretation of Scripture.

It is a bad idea to stand before God at final judgment after teaching the people that they have to be deprived of every gift God has available for them to complete their mission in a tough, resistant world. I shudder to think what God must think and how he will judge them.

1. Gifts of the Spirit in Early Church Fathers

2. Healings and Deliverances in Early Church Fathers

3. Prophecies, Visions, and Hearing from God in Early Church Fathers

(14) Novelties and gimmicks. Novelty and hot trends are a huge source of deception. We live in the nation of Disneyland and Disney World (and lesser-known amusement parks), Silicon Valley, NASA, military technology, Wall Street, Hollywood, thousands of new inventions, and thousands of startups. There is nothing wrong per se with innovation in those listed areas.

However, the church should not absorb these fast-paced innovations and trends. We should influence culture morally and spiritually, not the other way around. Novelty that drifts from Scripture is wrong. The “First Church of Disneyland” is too far. Maybe we should do a new thing, which is to return to the old thing–the Bible. But it cramps their style. They ignore it, except for passages that please them.

The arrow means “leads to”:

Feverish minds → foolish, silly churches

No more so-called creative teams!

(15) Moral degradation. Pastors are endorsing same-sex marriages and relationships. If we don’t (so they tell us) people will leave the church in droves or never come. Some even assert that cross-dressing and trans-rights should be normalized. No, these people need help. The NT Greek noun for repentance means “change of mind” (metanoia). They need their minds healed and changed by the power of the indwelling Spirit and long-time discipleship.

Once again, I urge everyone to subscribe to the The Julie Roys Report. It will reveal awful things church leaders do. It will put the wholesome fear of God in sensible Christians.

(16) Biblical themes have become “hyper.”

As I hinted above, grace, faith, prosperity, charismata (gifts), and sovereignty are biblical themes. But hyper-faith and hyper-grace and hyper-prosperity and hyper-charismata and hyper-sovereignty preachers over-emphasize their favorite Scriptures and ignore the ones that contradict their one-theme Bible teaching. They do not proclaim the “whole counsel of God ” (Acts 20:27, my translation). No one seems to stop or correct them. They certainly don’t correct themselves. Maybe they are too powerful. After all, they have large churches, so God obviously endorses their teachings (or so they seem to believe). Never mind that entire religions (e.g. Mormonism or Islam, to cite two extreme examples) are built on doctrinal errors.

These popular teachers are lout of balance.

I could keep going, but you get the picture.

Possible Causes of the Sickness

Let’s look and learn from two important and long passages from the Old Testament: 1 Kings 22 and Jeremiah 23. Both are in the context of judgment.

In 1 Kings 22, God sends a lying spirit to deceive prophets and two kings, Ahab (the king of Israel) and Jehoshaphat (the king of Judah), during a time of judgment on their plans.

I use the New English Translation (NET).

The set up is that Ahab intends to take back a city, Ramoth Gilead, from the king of Syria. He calls on Jehoshaphat to ally with him. He does. Four hundred prophets said they would be victorious. But Jehoshaphat asked whether there was another prophet of whom they could enquire. Ahab said there was, but he always prophesied bad things. The prophet Micaiah was summoned. He saw a vision of God sending a lying spirit to the prophets, to deceive Ahab. In the battle, he was killed. The warriors retreated. Micaiah was right.

Jehoshaphat survived, however. The parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 18 and 19:1-3 says that a prophet named Jehu confronted Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem and rebuked him for allying himself with a wicked king.

Here’s the long passage, which I had to shorten.

[…]

¹⁵When he came before the king, the king asked him, “Micaiah, should we attack Ramoth Gilead or not?” He answered him, “Attack! You will succeed; the Lord will hand it over to the king.”^[n] ¹⁶The king said to him, “How many times must I make you solemnly promise in^[o] the name of the Lord to tell me only the truth?” ¹⁷Micaiah^[p] said, “I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep that have no shepherd. Then the Lord said, ‘They have no master. They should go home in peace.’” ¹⁸The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Didn’t I tell you he does not prophesy prosperity for me, but disaster?” ¹⁹Micaiah^[q] said, “That being the case, listen to the Lord’s message. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the heavenly assembly standing beside him on his right and on his left. ²⁰The Lord said, ‘Who will deceive Ahab, so he will attack Ramoth Gilead and die^[r] there?’ One said this and another that. ²¹Then a spirit^[s]stepped forward and stood before the Lord. He said, ‘I will deceive him.’ ²²The Lord asked him, ‘How?’ He replied, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ The Lord^[t] said, ‘Deceive and overpower him.^[u] Go out and do as you have proposed.’ ²³So now, look, the Lord has placed a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours, but the Lord has decreed disaster for you.” ²⁴Zedekiah son of Kenaanah approached, hit Micaiah on the jaw, and said, “Which way did the Lord’s Spirit go when he went from me to speak to you?” ²⁵Micaiah replied, “Look, you will see in the day when you go into an inner room to hide.” ²⁶Then the king of Israel said, “Take Micaiah and return him to Amon the city official and Joash the king’s son. ²⁷Say, ‘This is what the king says, “Put this man in prison. Give him only a little bread and water^[v] until I safely return.”’”^[w] ²⁸Micaiah said, “If you really do safely return, then the Lord has not spoken through me.” Then he added, “Take note,^[x] all you people.” […] (1 Kings 22:15-28, NET)

Key verses:

[…] I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the heavenly assembly standing beside him on his right and on his left. ²⁰The Lord said, ‘Who will deceive Ahab, so he will attack Ramoth Gilead and die^[r] there?’ One said this and another that. ²¹Then a spirit^[s]stepped forward and stood before the Lord. He said, ‘I will deceive him.’ (vv. 19-21)

My introduction to the passage explains why God judged the alliance between Israel and Judah. Wicked king Ahab hatched a plan to take back the city, and (relatively) good king Jehoshaphat went along with his plan. It was a bad alliance. Jehoshaphat should have backed out when Micaiah spoke the true word of the Lord. It is obvious that prophets who served Ahab were deceived–all four hundred of them. The corruption of the evil king rubbed off on them. And the prophets all bowed their gift to him, so this was God’s judgment on them and the king’s evil ways. Micaiah heroically and righteously stood alone.

Now let’s look at Jeremiah 23, in a different context from the previous one. Jeremiah was prophesying God’s judgment for all the long historical and present sins of Jerusalem. Conquest is coming. But the false prophets said everything was going to be fine. They were speaking lies out of their own imagination and dreams they themselves had and did not come from God. God did not send them.

²⁵The Lord says,^[bu] “I have heard what those prophets who are prophesying lies in my name are saying. They are saying, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’^[bv]²⁶Those prophets are just prophesying lies. They are prophesying the delusions of their own minds.^[bw] ²⁷How long will they go on plotting^[bx] to make my people forget who I am^[by] through the dreams they tell one another? That is just as bad as what their ancestors^[bz] did when they forgot who I am by worshiping the god Baal.^[ca] ²⁸Let the prophet who has had a dream go ahead and tell his dream. Let the person who has received my message report that message faithfully. What is like straw cannot compare to what is like grain!^[cb] I, the Lord, affirm it!^[cc] ²⁹My message is like a fire that purges dross.^[cd] It is like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces.^[ce] I, the Lord, so affirm it!^[cf] ³⁰So I, the Lord, affirm^[cg]that I am opposed to those prophets who steal messages from one another that they claim are from me.^[ch] ³¹I, the Lord, affirm^[ci] that I am opposed to those prophets who are using their own tongues to declare, ‘The Lord declares.’^[cj]³²I, the Lord, affirm^[ck] that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies.^[cl] I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all.^[cm] I, the Lord, affirm it!”^[cn](Jer. 23:25-32, NET)

Key verse:

[…] They are misleading my people with their reckless lies.^[cl] I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. (Jer. 23:32)

The prophets went around Jerusalem saying, “I have had a dream! Peace!” They stole messages from each other. They were not hearing from God.

Both of those long passages, then, reveal that a lying spirit can deceive prophets and leaders. And many prophets are not commissioned by the Lord but prophesy out of their own imagination, particularly the ones on youtube. Both long passage come in the context of judgment, on Ahab and on Jerusalem.

Just to be clear, the two possible causes of the troubles in the American church: lying spirits and human imagination, which the speakers and listeners take to be from God.

You can also go to Ezekiel 13 and see the true prophet’s criticism of false prophets.

In any case, the root cause of excesses and deceptions: Unrepentance and arrogance.

Solutions

Let’s list them out, plain and simple.

(1) Humility

Major sections of the American church are arrogant. They need to see the problem and repent.

Recall this verse:

⁶Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. (1 Peter 5:6)

Can the arrogant see their arrogance and humble themselves?

(2) Repentance

If they do not see the problem, they see no need to repent. But they have to. Humbling themselves under the might hand of God would lead to repentance.

(3) Acknowledge their prophecies are only in part.

1 Corinthians 13:9 says: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part” (NIV)

We don’t have complete knowledge or prophecy. This should teach all of us to be humble about prophecy.

(4) Prophets must be humble enough to have their prophecies judged in the local church.

²⁹Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. (1 Cor. 14:29)

Most prophets should get off youtube until they can prove the church commissioned them, just like the Jerusalem church commissioned Agabus and his team. He was not a lone wolf who sat in his car prophesying the same things: acceleration, new level, shift, turnaround, wealth transfer, breakthrough, favor, new thing, big changes, financial miracles, and so on. On youtube, these wonderful things are vague and scattered. But in a local church and in a home group and spoken to one person there, they can be a great blessing.

(5) Prophets must belong to a local church.

Independent youtubers put themselves in danger of deception because of lying spirits and their imagination. Their prophecies are not judged in the local church. However, there is safety in numbers. If the prophet leads the church, which is a bad idea to begin with, he too must submit to a board of godly and wise men and women, not “yes men.”

Woe to a church that is led by a prophet! A teaching pastor should lead it. He can have a prophetic gift, like prophecy or a word of wisdom or word of knowledge (1 Cor. 12:7-11; 14:1), but teaching should be his mainstay. See the sixth point.

Prophets restricted to prophesying only in the local church would solve many problems.

(6) Apostles and prophets must come back into Scriptural order in terms of leadership.

We have three epistles that tell us how the church should be governed. Call them extended job descriptions for the leaders: 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. In no verse in those three epistles can you find that prophets should lead the local churches. No passage says that apostles who did not plant the church are allowed to swoop in and take over. Paul–an apostle himself–handed the leadership of the churches he planted to the elders. He particularly praised the elders who worked hard in the word and doctrine (1 Tim. 5:17). Even Acts 20:17-37 teaches us that Paul called for the elders and encouraged them one last time. He did not summon apostles and prophets to meet him. “Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust” (Acts 14:23). In each church, they did not appoint other missionary-apostles or prophets. Day-to-day leaders consist of elders over each local church, not prophets and outside apostles.

Objection: But Paul did not establish elders in the Corinthian church.

Reply: for all we know, maybe the Corinthians did not have very many mature, homegrown believers. But who were the leaders there at various times? Paul, Prisca and Aquila, Peter-Cephas, Apollos, Timothy, Titus, Silas, Crispus, Stephanus and his household, Erastus, Quartus, Lucius, Jason, Sosipater, and other unnamed brothers. Even a woman named Phoebe was a deacon in nearby Cenchreae. I have the impression that these names are just the tip of the iceberg.

And Clement (c. 35-99 A.D.), in his epistle to the Corinthians, told the Corinthians not to allow one or two persons to rebel against the presbyters or elders (47.6). Evidently either Paul appointed elders even though he did not write about it (It may be in one of the lost epistles), or he did this later and did not bother to mention it in one of the epistles, for appointing elders was simply done. It was standard practice. Or the list of men (and Prisca) named above were the elders. Clement does mention Paul, Cephas, and Apollos, who seem to function as an early team of elders (47.1-2). Or maybe later on the Corinthians saw the wisdom in appointing elders, modeled on the practice Paul did and wrote about in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.

Therefore, it looks like Paul during his lifetime had a de facto team of elders or leaders at Corinth. And he personally oversaw the assembly for a long time.

(7) These apostles need to repent and renounce their title.

They act like the super-apostles of 2 Corinthians. They did not plant churches in unreached, unevangelized territories, but proclaimed their leadership over churches that they never planted. Instead, true apostles are missionary church planters in unreached areas, like Corinth.

Check Out What Two Genuine Apostles Did and How They Lived (It’s about Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13-14)

Paul said they were false-apostles who masqueraded as apostles of Christ. But they did not belong as leaders at Corinth.

¹²And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. ¹³For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve. (2 Cor. 11:12-15, NIV)

Evidently, the super-apostles swept in with bluster and fake authority. It looks like an attempt at a church takeover. But in v. 15c Paul pronounces judgment over them.

In Revelation, the church in Ephesus sorted out those who claimed to be apostles but were false. Exalted Jesus is talking through a messenger:

[…] I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. (Rev. 2:2, NIV)

The elders who allow these outsider apostles to take over their church should repent and kick them out. Now.

(8) The vast majority of Christian youtubers must shut down their channels.

They have set themselves up as teachers and leaders and are chattering their way into a stricter judgment (James 3:1). They need to go back to their local churches and share their prophecies and teachings in their home group. But will they shut down their channels? No, because they believe God gave them their channels. But human imagination and a lying spirit can play tricks on their minds. There is safety in relationships, and the local church can provide it.

(9) The hyper-prosperity teachers need to sell what they have and live modestly. Judgment is coming.

Paul traveled only on commercial cargo ships. Nor did he own a horse, another luxury item. If he had taken an offering to buy either one, he would have been laughed at. The New Testament writers never got rich from their own writings by manipulating them, as the hyper-prosperity preachers do.

Apostle Paul Traveled on Cargo Ships

You cannot get hyper-rich by twisting Scriptures and ignoring others. God will judge you for this, at final judgment.

(10) We need a mighty revival. Maybe some things are stirring right now. But more, Lord, more! But more of what exactly?

After Peter was filled with the Spirit, he preached a powerful message. Here are the results:

⁴⁰With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” ⁴¹Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. (Acts 2:40-41, NIV)

In Acts 3 Peter and John and a crowd in Jerusalem saw the risen Jesus through the two apostles heal a lame man. Jesus healed him. Peter preached another anointed message. Here are the results in the next chapter:

⁴But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand. (Acts 4:4, NIV)

For revival to flourish as it did in the book of Acts, we need healings and deliverances and outpourings of the Spirit on “all people” (Acts 2:17).

But what kind of continuationist churches would the new converts join? Excessive and foolish and outlandish? Or churches with firm foundations and clear Bible teaching and a balanced use of the gifts of the Spirit? Let’s hope that God is not delaying revival because too many churches are excessive and foolish and outlandish.

(11) Raise up a new generation.

Most of the troubles in the American church began many years ago. The men who started these trends are either old or have passed on. We need to raise up the next generation, fed on the previous ten solutions, and the next one.

So with repentance and revival and the next generation, I see hope for the American church, but the journey will be long.

(12) Heed these warnings (all NIV).

¹⁹Sin is not ended by multiplying words,
but the prudent hold their tongues. (Prov. 18:19)

³⁶“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. ³⁷For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matt. 12:36-37)

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (James 3:1)

It is one thing for a young person to tell his testimony on youtube; then his judgment from God won’t be severe. He should stay in his lane and tell people why, for example, New Age is wrong and Jesus is the way.

However, he often goes beyond this and teaches more complicated theology. And I wonder: who appointed and commissioned him to be a teacher to the broader body of Christ? His local church? If so, then they should judge his teaching. If not, then he is presuming too much.

These youtubers, though well intentioned (or so I hope), do not fear God, but blithely roll along, talking about things that just aren’t so or are not biblical or could be taught in the local church, where there is safety in numbers. Scaling up their audience on social media is scaling up God’s (possible) severe judgment. Do they know this? Or do they get a fee from commercials? Do they like the attention?

Key point for the whole post: Repent! Judgment is coming and is already here!

Fair warning!

Sixteen Characteristics of a Healthy Church

Ten Characteristics of a Healthy Disciple

Basic Facts and Allegations about Joni Lamb and Doug Weiss of Daystar TV

Stop Weaponizing Matthew 18 against Victims of Clergy Abuse

Check Out What Two Genuine Apostles Did and How They Lived

Do New Testament Apostles Exist Today?

Do New Testament Prophets and Prophecy Exist Today?

New Testament Restricts Authority of Modern Prophets

Why Tithing Does Not Apply to New Covenant Believers

Apostle Paul Traveled on Cargo Ships