Wolves

I write this as a semi response to an e-mail that I received from a friend.

He wanted me to pass on an e-mail to my old pastor. What would make him think that I still have some sort of on going relationship with the pastor, I couldn't say. But throughout his email, my friend addressed many aspects of the pastors ministry. Aspects or teachings that I long ago became aware of as being false and have since moved away from entirely.

My friend, however, insists that this teaching is proper and therefore will not even consider leaving the system. But what I found in his own email (addressing this pastor about his ministry) was the very same language used in the bible that addresses false teachers/prophets.

I didn't understand at first why his e-mail bothered me so. I simply thought it was the fact that he sent it to me in the first place. I mean, why would I want to have anything to do with that church or that pastor? And then, after I read it several times over several days, it began to dawn on me. My friend has rebuked the pastor, actually seeing his "fruit" and yet is still eating from the tree.

I have warned him several times that it's the system of Word of Faith that is wrong and not just individual pastors. The whole thing stinks! But he has gone his own way and still listens and participates in the WOF movement. This is what makes me sad. He can see that it's wrong in this one pastor but can't see that it's the same in all of them. He can't see the forest for the tree.

By his own e-mail and his own description of what is wrong in this persons ministry he has stumbled upon the very thing that the bible warns us about ~ WOLVES. He has identified ONE wolf but has ignored the pack. I feel for him. First because he thinks that an e-mail will change the wolf. Ha! And second because he's striving so hard to make something false into truth.

Twist it all around and you can make scripture say anything you want or whatever fits into your agenda. But twisted scripture will never be truth.

(Matt.7:15-16)
15 “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. 16 You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

New Living Translation (NLT)