False Prophets and Deceived Shepherds

Compromising Scripture to Advance Secular-Humanist Agendas

In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:15, Jesus  warns:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” 

In verses 16-20, Jesus continues to warn us and show us how we will recognize them.  

“You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

In Matthew 15:9, Jesus rebukes religious leaders who were misleading the people, stating:

“And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” 

The most renowned of Old Testament Prophets, Elijah, came during a period of widespread spiritual apostasy in Israel. This story is told in First and Second Kings. Israel’s King Ahab had married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess and worshiper of the nature god, Baal-Melkart. Jezebel, with Ahab’s consent, tried to displace the Lord God of Israel with Baal. She actually had most of the faithful prophets of the Lord killed. First Kings 18: 17-18 ESV tells us:

“When  he [Ahab] saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?”  ‘I have not made trouble for Israel,’ Elijah replied. ‘But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord God’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel.”  

The Lord God answered the prayer of Elijah to prove that the Lord God of Israel was the only God. This was a disaster for the prophets of Baal and a severe warning to any who would abandon God’s teachings.

Elijah was sometimes discouraged and doubtful, but the Lord evidently esteemed him greatly. In Second Kings 2: 11-12 we read:

^“As they [Elijah and his servant Elisha] were walking along and talking, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” The estimated date was circa 849 BC.

Moreover, Elijah, along with Moses, appeared during the Transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew 17:1-3:

“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.  And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.” .

The Prophet Ezekiel, who lived from approximately 623 BC to 570 BC and whose prophesies are repeated abundantly in the Book of Revelation gave a similar condemnation of false prophets in Ezekiel 22: 25-28 ESV.

“The conspiracy of her prophets in her midst is like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in her midst.  Her priests have done violence to my law and have profaned my holy things.  They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my Sabbaths, so I am profaned among them. Her princes in her midst are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies from them, saying ‘Thus says the Lord God, when the Lord has not spoken.”

 Warnings against false teachers and false teachings are widespread in both Old and New Testament Scripture. The Apostle Paul relentlessly warns against false prophets and false teachings rising within God’s people. First and Second Timothy alone have 13, and the short book of Titus has three.

Two more verses should suffice to make the point:

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron”—First Timothy 4:1-2.

“Elders ‘must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”—Titus 1:11a.

The battle for truth and sound doctrine in the Church, that is, among God’s people spread across many Christian denominations, in recent history has been largely over the Divine Inspiration and Truth of Scripture. Traditional orthodoxy is that Scripture is the infallible truth and Word of God, guarded by the Holy Spirit from moral or doctrinal error. This infallibility recognizes many forms of presentation common to the Bible, including figurative language.  Harold Lindsell’s 1978, Battle for the Bible, is a good primer for understanding the Scriptural issues.

The principal error of our time is to accommodate plain and straight-forward Biblical teachings to modern culture. For Example, In Romans 1, Paul clearly indicates that homosexuality is a serious sin. We can reach out to sinners with compassion and love, but we cannot dismiss sin as insignificant and certainly not promote homosexuality as desirable or normative. Accommodating clear Scriptural teaching to rapidly changing popular culture is both extremely unwise and destructively heretical.  It is a popular form of heresy encompassing many issues even in the Church, but heresies eventually destroy people and churches.  

Social Marxism is by no means the only source of moral depravity and spiritual confusion in the United States, but it has been having a huge impact ever since the Communist Party was established in the United States in 1919. Following the Bolshevik rise to power in Russia, they found that the main resistance to Communism in Russia and other European countries was Christianity. Remaking the United States into a Socialist utopia necessitated  discrediting, undermining, and weakening Christianity. Seducing churches into accommodation with seemingly innocuous and laudable but deceptive and destructive social justice agendas and liberalizing sexual morality standards were major goals. Moreover, enormous funding grants were available for seduction of vulnerable church leaders. Many church leaders and institutions have been seduced by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and others of its ilk.  

J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian seminary professor rang an alarm bell with his 1923, book, Christianity and Liberalism. Machen upset the accommodation tables in many churches and seminaries, when he asserted that Christianity and liberalism were two different religions. Machen was speaking of theological liberalism, but political liberalism in the United States has changed from Constitutional conservatism, free market economics, and reasonable tolerance to radical authoritarian social and economic Jacobinism.

Most recently, the effort to bring down authentic Biblical Christianity has concentrated on corrupting Evangelical churches and leaders. Much of the battle to defend Biblical truth against unexamined liberal accommodation to leftist political agendas has taken place in the putative strongholds of conservative Christianity—the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), for example. Other battles have resulted in the departure of conservative minorities in mainstream Protestant Churches. Over 8,000 conservative churches, at least 20 percent of the total,  have departed the United Methodist Church. Large numbers of Episcopal Churches have become part of the conservative Anglican Churches of America. LGBTQ and Trans-sexual ideology have been major flashpoints, but the issues are much wider than most realize. Certainly, Critical Race Theory indoctrination with its distortions of diversity, “equity,” and inclusion has become an ominous issue. Many Christians naively endorsed Black Lives Matter, yet the Black Lives Matter agenda is anti-Christian and anti-family.

I cannot do justice to these issues in a brief article. I strongly recommend a new book by Megan Basham that is courageous, well-informed, thorough, and amazingly comprehensive:

Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda.

In this book, Basham courageously names many of the Evangelical leaders who have compromised Biblical truths to accommodate popular leftist agendas. She thoroughly documents the evidence. Some have fallen because of naïve but negligent ignorance. But others have clearly succumbed to the temptations of fame, position, authority, power, secular media favor, and money. Basham’s book is also available on Amazon.com’s  Audible, and narrated by the author.

Basham’s Chapter One in on Climate ideology! She points out its shallow science, unbiblical moorings, and destructive results. It has practically destroyed the economies of Ceylon and Ghana, and is wreaking havoc in the European Union. Yet this Green madness is being endorsed by well-known Evangelical churches and organizations. Fortunately, polls indicate Evangelical Christians are the least gullible voting group regarding climate change ideology.  

Chapter 2 is on Illegal Immigration and how shallow economic and Biblical analysis has brought economic suffering, crime, and increased vulnerability to disease to most Americans. All Biblical analysis is ignored in favor “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.” This is actually part of at least 8 Biblical verses. The clearest is Galatians 5:14:

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (NKJV)

However, this laudable concept does not automatically erase all other Biblical morality or exempt anyone from scrutinizing its applicability, comparing it to other applicable Scripture verses, or common sense. Its shallow application, accompanied by failure to think through secondary and tertiary immigration consequences have been a shameful demagogic disaster working titanic harm on millions of American workers, families, and taxpayers. Moreover, such misapplications of Scripture have severely damaged any Evangelical reputation for moral wisdom    

Chapter 3 is entitled “Hijacking the Pro-Life Movement,” and involves misusing Pro-Life events and banners by some Evangelical leaders to push unrelated political objectives like gun control.  Chapter 4 is about how Big Money corrupted Christian media. Chapter 5 is how the government used pastors to spread Covid 19 propaganda. Chapter 6 is on how many churches adapted Critical Race Theory as Christian morality. Chapter 7 is on how churches were used to promote “MeToo feminist propaganda. Chapter 8 is entitled; None Dare Call it Sin—LGBTQ in the Church.

Every Christian who wants to protect their country, their  church and their family from false teachers and false and politically compromised teachings should read or listen to Basham’s book.

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”—Proverbs 28:13

Finally, in Matthew 16:18b, Jesus tell us:

 “I will build my church, and the gates of hell^[ shall not prevail against it.”