A friend recently shared a response she received from her pastor after asking to speak with him about Bethel Church. It was not good...

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"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, 'You shall surely die,' and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. -- Ezekiel 3: 17-18 (ESV)

The Purpose Driven Church model has created a generation of hirelings. People who sit in the pastoral role without the call, the ability, or even the basic decency to protect the flock God has entrusted to them. This is not surprising beloved as the Bible warns us exactly what a hireling is. He is not invested. He does not care about the sheep. He carries no rod to beat away those that would attack the flock. He carries no crook to guide the sheep correctly upon the straight and narrow path of the Gospel. Quite frankly, there is no fear of the Lord before him because if there was how could he read the key verses today and not repent immediately! Pastor! I have made you the watchman over the church! Whenever you hear my Word you must deliver it to them faithfully! The death to which God is speaking about is eternal and thus the message is the Gospel. In the days of Ezekiel, the message was to repent and obey the law but today we have a much better covenant! We have a covenant of grace and every pastor holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven in their hands. If they refuse to turn people from their iniquity then the blood of his listeners is upon his head. Before you go trying to make Old Testament excuses, remember that Scripture always confirms Scripture:

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.And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. -- 2Peter 2: 1-3 (ESV)

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. -- Acts 20: 26-30 (ESV)

For an overseer,as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. -- Titus 1: 7-9 (ESV)

Let us walk through these together. The Peter verses teach us a crucial but often overlooked comparison between the old covenant and the new. In the days of the old covenant, there was no Bible. There was no final revealed will of the Lord. Thus when He wanted to communicate directly to their king or to His people, He rose up a prophet through which to do so. So in the old covenant days, those that lied about what God has and has not said were considered false prophets. Peter is making a very important distinction here by saying just as there were false prophets in those days we will have false teachers as well. They will teach the Bible falsely. They will present a false Christ and a false gospel. Their heresies are destructive, in their greed they will exploit you, and they lead others to blaspheme the church of Jesus Christ. These verses are important to realize that while God was speaking Ezekiel in the key verses, He says the same thing today to those charged with guarding His flock. Just look at the Acts verses as we see Paul saying goodbye to the Ephesian Elders. Why does Paul declare he is innocent of their blood? Because he did not hesitate in proclaiming the entire counsel of God! That means the inverse is also true. Anything less than the full Gospel of Jesus Christ means you will be held to account as the watchman on the wall who did not tell the people what God has said! It is interesting that right after this declaration Paul warns us all that vicious wolves will arise from within the church itself to draw followers after themselves. The Titus verses remind us that there are actual qualifications to be a pastor within God's church and one of the most neglected roles is to rebuke those who present a false gospel. It seems most pastors today shy away from such confrontation for fear of someone shining a spotlight on what they preach perhaps. Either way, a pastor must be willing to confront what leads sheep astray or else he is negligent in his pastor role. I provide this scriptural background in order to address a recent correspondence sent by a local pastor to a congregant. It seems the congregant had sent a very nice email asking for an address so she could send the pastor a book she had read regarding Bethel Church in Redding California and also intimated that she would love to speak with him at some future point regarding it. Her email was sweet and caring and the mention of Bethel was only two sentences. His response however reveals the current state of far too many pastors in the church today. Let us reason together through the portion of the response dealing with the Bethel request. All personal information has been redacted. Keep in mind this is a real person and real pastor.

"As for the matter of Bethel church, there are some aspects of their understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit I don't agree with and I find Bethel's expression of what it means to be 'prophetic' hard to take." - Pastor X

Beloved, as many of you know, Bethel Church is a spiritual cesspool. It is led by some of the most egregious false teachers on the planet in Bill Johnson, Kris Vallotton and Shawn Bolz. They claim the false manifestations of gem stones, gold dust and angel feathers. They originated the false "glory cloud" manifestation. They operate a school of the supernatural where for only four grand a year they will teach you the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Of course they cannot actually do that according to the Bible so be careful what spirit they are engaging you in. they embrace nearly every false teaching out there today from the NAR, Dominionism, prosperity, word faith and false signs and lying wonders. They have a "dead raising team" that has claimed 15 resurrections to their credit without a shred of proof. The infamous grave sucking heresy came from Bethelites. They preach God must always heal us and downplay the sufficiency of Scripture through a full embracing of experiential Christianity. Is that enough?

So it is encouraging that this pastor could properly two problems with Bethel. Notice how he still feels compelled to downplay even these two! Their understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit is heretical! They teach an experiential form of Christianity that emphasizes how we feel and then ascribes those feelings to being from the Holy Spirit. It is not a mere matter of disagreeing with them. You must rebuke them so people do not follow such blatant false teaching and begin to design their own faith following their feelings. Along these same lines we come to the Bethel definition of prophetic. They teach prophesy at their false school! The Bible says that only the Holy Spirit gives out the gifts but not in Redding California! I watched a worship leader training video from Bethel where they taught their worship leaders that all worship leaders are prophetic. No they are not. They taught them to tap into that "still small voice" inside of them and whatever comes into their wickedly deceitful hearts, they should assume is from God and they should sing it out as prophecy, understanding they may be wrong as much as 65% of the time! That is spiritually criminal! I saw this idea manifest live once at a local church when the guest worship leader just kept repeating "if you want a hug from Jesus jump in the river" for over 15 minutes straight! Here is the question for us to consider. What is the job of the shepherd who realizes one of the most popular teachings on the Holy Spirit today is false? It sure is not to merely lament that it is hard to take beloved. It requires that the shepherd take out the rod and beat back the false teaching away from his sheep. It requires a pastor, not a hireling.

"But I do appreciate they are just people, like me, trying to connect with Jesus and proclaim & live out his love." -- Pastor X

This is at best dangerously naïve. Yes Bethel is comprised of people just like us and that is exactly the point. Romans teaches us that only the Gospel has the power to save man. Matthew 7 speaks about people standing before Christ saying, "Lord Lord, did we not try to connect with Jesus and proclaim and live out His love?" To which Jesus will say away from me, for a never knew you. There is no "A for effort" and sincerity does not count. Allow me to provide an extreme example. There are small rural churches in this country that practice the handling of live, deadly snakes during worship services because they cannot properly understand Mark 16. Two pastors (father and son) actually died as a result of snakebites received yet they still believe it. I will go out on a limb here and say that Pastor X would have no problem telling these people to stop acting like fools and explain what those verses actually mean. Yet he will not do it for Bethel which is far more deadly and infects far more people. God has not charged us with trying to figure out if people are genuine in their apostasy, only if they are apostate. Beloved, you cannot "live out His love in disobedience to His Word:

Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. -- John 14: 23-24 (ESV)

If a church is proclaiming a false jesus then the love they have is false as well. The bible warns that we can believe in vain and says we ought to test ourselves. God has given us His Word for a reason! It alone is the final arbiter of what is right and what is wrong. Any responsible pastor must be a watchman on the wall, crying out to these entrusted to him to stay away from the leaven of false teaching.

"I know people at many of our baptist churches, including XXX, who are positively influenced by Bethel and these are people I worship and serve among and call my friends. So for their sake I stop at expressing any over-riding concerns with Bethel." -- Pastor X

No, no, a thousand times no. You cannot have it both ways. A little leaven ruins the entire batch. One cannot be positively influenced by false teaching! Notice what is so telling here however. It is for the sake of those he calls friends that this pastor refrains from warning them that they are in mortal danger! How in the world is that being a friend? I cannot tell you how prevalent this is today. People and pastors alike are infinitely more concerned with offending wolves than protecting sheep. This man knows that Bethel teaches wrongly about the role of the Holy Spirit and the prophetic -- which is what God has, and has not said -- yet refuses to warn anyone under the guise of friendship.

"Rightly or wrongly being a local church pastor is about going forward among a family who genuinely love God - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit but express it in different ways." -- Pastor X

Says no biblical text anywhere. Romans teaches us that true unity in the church is found only in doctrine. We cannot unify over carnal expressions and feelings. The issue is not how we express our love for God. That is biblically absurd. The church mentioned before expressed their love by handling snakes. Does it matter that they chose that expression? Of course it does! Bethel teaches a sloppy agape love where we really are idolizing ourselves and our emotions and then blaming God for them. Does that matter? Of course it does! There is only one way to rightly go forward as a pastor in God's church and that is by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not compromising it by allowing all sorts of doctrines of devils to infiltrate the body of Christ under the banner of "love." Pastor X would conclude:

XXX is a broad church with people coming together from different traditions but growing and going forward in unity. We don't always agree with each other but we do love each other and the God who unites us. Gail, that's probably a long winded way of saying I'd rather not read the book you have or enter into any discussion about Bethel." -- Anonymous Pastor

If you love me you will keep my word. This so misses the mark biblically it is frightening. We may come from different traditions and backgrounds but are unity is in Christ and His Word. This pastor acts as if the focus of Christianity is to all get along. Hardly. Jesus Himself said He came with a sword to divide families against themselves. Read the New Testament beloved. When someone was caught in the congregation outside what the Word had prescribed they were removed from fellowship! Pastor X seems so bent on unity that he doesn't care what is actually unifying them. Then to end with a refusal to even have a discussion with your congregant. Wow. What staggering arrogance. Just sticking his thumbs in his ears and screaming "lalalala." That is how dumbed down the hireling profession has become in these last days.

If gives me no joy to say that beloved. I do not know this pastor. I am friends with the congregant. She had a doctrinal question and issue she wanted to discuss with her shepherd and he said -- no. in doing so he defended heresy and the right of people to follow that heresy right into hell itself. As long as he loved them into hell that is. This is what a hireling looks like beloved. They care not for the sheep entrusted to them. They have no fear of the Lord before them. They are negligent watchmen, covered in the blood of those they refuse to warn.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- December 19, 2017

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.