Three of the top rules for false teachers exposed...

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Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. - Ephesians 5: 6-11 (ESV)

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/49979-perry-noble-calls-out-7-deadly-sins-in-the-church

Perry Noble has taken pen to paper again and it is so revealing when he does. We get a rare glimpse inside the mind of a false teacher of immense proportions. Someone who markets the Word of God but does not preach it. Someone who makes merchandise of the true sheep of the Lord. Some of you may wonder who he is but he pastors a mega church with 25,000 weekly attendees over multiple campuses. While people like Bill Hybels would equate that to divine success it is actually a confirmation of Scripture:

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. - 2Timothy 4: 3 (ESV)

Beloved we are living in the end days and when 25,000 people turn out to hear this guy you can rest assured it has nothing to do with God or His Word. It is because they want to be able to go to church and play saved while continuing in their sinful lifestyles. They like the fact that Noble curses from the pulpit and is generally inappropriate. The fact though is that his carnal success has made Noble feel as if he has leadership wisdom he can impart to other up and coming heretics as evidenced by the article found at the link above. Using the premise of the seven deadly sins, Noble lists what he thinks are the seven deadly sins for church leaders. Never mind that Perry starts the article by inferring the original seven deadly sins came from the Bible, which they did not. They came from the sixth century and Pope Gregory "the great." He tried to reduce the list of worst sins down to seven, despite the unbiblical nature of this. Sin is sin to God, period. The effects of this are still felt today as Christians routinely excuse their lesser sins by pointing fingers at other people who are engaged in some deadlier version of sin. That aside, Noble gives us his seven deadly sins for church leaders and within them are insights into how the heretical mind of the false teacher works and secrets from their playbook. Let's examine a few today and expose them for what Noble is really saying.

"Piling on. When a church leader falls and people begin to attack, one of the biggest problems in church world is that Christians seem to feel an obligation to "pile on" when they do not know the whole story ... and in reality the person who fell probably needs more people praying for them than they need another bullet in their back."

Rule number from the false teachers playbook is to protect their own. At least Perry did not pull out the "God's anointed" card. Let's clear up some of the misunderstandings here. When a pastor "falls" it is not an attack upon that pastor to say that they fell or to quote the Bible about it. What Perry and these vision casting leaders of today fail to realize is it is not about them. It is about God first and His sheep second. The preacher is held to a higher standard, not a lower one. The other stereotypical ploy here is to pretend that nobody knows the whole story, so therefore everyone should just shut up. Fifty years ago that might have been true. In the age of the Internet however, the truth is known before the liar can think of a convincing cover story. Take for example the recent fall of mega-church megalomaniac Mark Driscoll. We continue to hear the same asinine reasoning used when defending him. That we do not know the whole story. The reality is that portions we do know about, which are public record, is enough to disqualify him from ministry - period. When you steal over $200,000 in tithe monies to cheat the NY Times bestseller list I am convinced that there is no "other side of the story" that makes it OK. You know how I know that? Because the Bible tells me so. When you steal other people's work by plagiarizing every book you have ever written, there is no other side of the story. When I hear you clearly preaching gleefully about the pile of dead bodies you are leaving in your wake as you hurt the very sheep God entrusted to you, I really don't care if you can craft another side of the story. So it is not piling on or attacking. It is speaking the truth. The truly ironic thing here is that Perry Noble is so clueless he does not see his own hypocrisy within this article. Here is another of his seven deadly sins:

"Using prayer as an excuse for passivity. Many times a church leader can see a problem and realize that a difficult decision or either a tough conversation needs to take place ... but they will "pray about it" rather than participating with the leadership calling God has placed on their lives. "

So in this deadly sin, prayer is nearly mocked as a way to avoid having a tough conversation but in the previous one, the transgressor needs more prayer than they need another bullet in the back, right. The reality here is that the fallen pastor is need of a tough conversation. Right now, the enablers of Mark Driscoll need to have a tough conversation with him about his need to repent and his salvation. Not pretend he is the victim and allow him to reconstitute his ministry. Let's see what else Perry thinks is a deadly sin for church leaders:

"Majoring on the minors. When church leaders refuse to "break bread" with someone else who is a believer but doesn't line up doctrinally with everything they believe, then they do not represent Christ as He commanded us to in John 13:34-35."

The second rule from the false teacher's playbook is that doctrine must be marginalized. If it is not, true doctrine exposes people like Perry Noble for what he is - a wolf preying upon the sheep of God. So people who expect solid doctrine are labeled "religious" or "old school." I expect this from the man who preached from the pulpit that the "jackasses in the church" are those who want to go deeper in the Word. So if you want to learn and grow into the meat and wean off of the milk, you are a jackass according to Pastor Perry Noble. This shaming technique has the extra bonus of ensuring your congregation will not realize when you are mangling the Word of God. Like Noble did here with the verses from John's Gospel:

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13" 34-35 (NIV)

So according to Noble, these verses mean we should break bread with people who do not line up doctrinally with us? Beloved, if you want a glimpse into how we will move toward the ecumenical dreams of a one world religion that will pave the way for the Antichrist, this is the foundation of it. To twist verses Christ gave us so that we would love our true brothers and sisters into a horrible caricature based on false unity. Do you want to know what God says causes divisions in the church? It is not people who speak the truth about pastors who fall. It isn't people who want to go deeper in the Word. It is caused by people who teach false doctrine:

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. - Romans 16: 17-18 (ESV)

Now I would not expect Perry Noble to understand what those verses in John actually mean. This is the man who just this year actually rewrote the entire Ten Commandments to make them less judgmental. So instead of not having any gods before the real God, Noble rewrote it to say that we don't have to live in disappointment anymore. I kid you not. To be honest it was refreshing to see a false teacher admit to rewriting the Bible for a change. One last glimpse for today:

"Declaring what we are against way more than what we are for. All too often when people hear the word "Christian" they think, "oh, those are the people who hate me and what I do." What if we, as church leaders, stopped screaming at people and actually took the time to serve them? THAT could change the world."

The third and final rule for today for false teachers is to move away from the cross. It is at the cross that we must gaze upon the ghastly visage of our crucified Lord and Savior. It is at the cross that we must face the burden of our own sin and realize we need salvation. It is at the cross where we finally recognize our desperate need to repent. None of that however is allowed in the seeker friendly church. Bill Hybels for example chooses to not display crosses in his church because his market research revealed that it offends the unsaved. Good! It is supposed to offend them!

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. - Matthew 10: 34-39 (ESV)

The Bible is a dual edged sword. It cuts. It is meant to. The Gospel will force people to look at their sins and either repent of them or embrace them over God. Now, I am not suggesting that we scream at the unsaved. We do not need to. We simply preach the Gospel and the Spirit will draw them. How they react is up to them. What Noble is advocating for here however is one of the rallying cries from the false teacher playbook. Replace the need to repent with a social works that sounds pious but has no eternal value. Those jackasses who want to go deeper? They're just religious sticks in the mud, but me? I want to serve you! What better pitch can one come up with to lure people who are unsaved to come back to your church? Don't worry about those pesky sins you hear so much about! We are here just to serve you.

Now maybe Noble is right. Maybe that would change the world. Maybe he could teach an old goat new tricks. Probably not because the nature of man is fallen. The larger point however is even if he managed to change the world, he still never addressed the real problem. The real problem people have is they are going to spend eternity in hell. They are separated from God. While cleverly couched as "what I do" in the Noble quote the reality is there is a word for that. It is called sin. It is what needs to be addressed and repented of. But not in the purpose driven mind of Perry Noble. To him it doesn't matter where you spend eternity as long as you spend next Sunday at his church.

Beloved this has been a rare glimpse into the mind of the false teacher. Noble is just a microcosm of the larger problem and that is that this playbook is what most churches today operate under. Always protect each other. Marginalize doctrine. Move away from the cross. The recipe for the false teaching mega churches of these last days. I think sometimes we get confused about them because we make the mistake of assuming we are on the same team. I am not on the sane team as Perry Noble. He is a wolf devouring the sheep of Almighty God. He will lead untold numbers down the broad path that leads to destruction while making himself filthy rich in the process. The key verses today teach us how to deal with what is false in our lives. I want to highlight three quick points:

Do not be deceived by empty words

Try and discern what is pleasing to the Lord

Expose the unfruitful works of darkness

The first lesson here is that we need to be careful to not be deceived. Sometimes we think wolves walk around with big neon signs around their neck. Granted, once someone calls someone a jackass from the pulpit, plays the ACDC heavy metal song Highway to Hell in his church, or drops the N word in a sermon - all of which Noble has done - we should be able to tell. Others however are slicker than Noble. They require stricter studying of the Word and to test everything that is said. The second lesson is that we ought to be trying to discern what will please the Lord! If He sent His only Son to die on the cross do we really think it is pleasing to Him to never speak about it from the pulpit? To avoid speaking about it in case it offends someone who Jesus died for but is still on the outside of salvation looking in? Do we think it is pleasing to the Lord to use derogatory language and profanity to describe people who want to go deeper in His Word? To pretend doctrine is a dirty word? Once we discern what is pleasing to God we should be doing those things and not doing what we discover He is not pleased by. Lastly here we are not supposed to sit idly by as the wolves tear apart the body of Christ. We are to mark them. We are to come out from among them. We are supposed to expose their unfruitful works of darkness. That is what this writing was all about. I do not feel bad for Perry Noble because he is a wolf of the highest order. I feel bad for the slaughtered sheep he is leaving behind.

Reverend Anthony Wade - June 13, 2015

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.