Exposing Four Types of Wolves in the Church Today

The false prophets of today are very well disguised. In his parable exposing false prophets, Jesus gives an almost vague description in St. Matthew 7:15, 16 of who they are and how to recognize them. He says that they come to you in sheep’s clothing but inside are ravening wolves, and we shall know them by their fruits. Well, we do not see many men literally dressed like sheep today so we must understand what he meant by their fruit and look deeper into these men.

The fruit he is referring to are works of the flesh and can include any characteristic that is against either of the Ten Commandments or the fruits of the Spirit. Described in Galatians 5:19-21, the works of the flesh are many but do not include all of the things that are clearly against the Commandments or the fruits of the Spirit, such as covetousness, disrespect of parents, the love of money, injustice and oppression of the poor and the stranger.

In today’s church world, worshippers tend to gloss over unnoticeable false doctrine and sins committed by church leaders and are tuned in only to the doctrine and sins the church leaders emphasize. Therefore, worshippers, in a drunken state of mind, cannot see whether or not the preacher is a wolf, they can only see him dressed as a sheep. But there are sins church leaders commit that have gone under the radar that we will expose.

We have watched and studied many preachers today in their pulpits and on YouTube and found many false prophets dressed as sheep who have hundreds of thousands of followers. We have identified four of the most popular types of false prophets and preachers and the false doctrine and sins committed by them that many worshippers have allowed to escape their discernment. And these are preachers who teach Christianity from the Holy Bible, not cultic groups.

Note, these sins are not being done in their most blatant form, such as people on their knees worshipping a statue in church (idolatry) or them openly condemning Jesus Christ with a loud speaker in the streets (heresy). They are not drinking on the pulpit (drunkenness) or arguing in front of the congregations (wrath, strife), which would all be obviously noticeable, no, these preachers are committing these sins in discrete forms unnoticeable by worshippers who have been deceived. If your pastor displays any of the following fruit, they are wolves in sheep clothing:

Sorcery: Many tend to think of sorcery as a secret ritual of witchcraft practiced in dimly lit rooms by men and women dressed as medieval characters. This may be what Hollywood portrays as sorcerers, but we must understand what sorcery is and relate it to the practice in today’s world, without all the mythical imagery. Even the dictionary definition of sorcery plays on the myths of Hollywood, describing it as the practice of someone who exercises spells with the aid of evil spirits, black magic, and witchery.

But according to the Bible, sorcery is the ability to deceive people and get them to turn away from the truth and believe a lie without them realizing it. In Acts 13:6-11, Paul met a sorcerer by the name of Bar-jesus (whose name by interpretation was Elymas) who was seeking to turn away the deputy of the country from the faith. Paul approached the sorcerer in verse 10 and said: “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?”

Many worshippers must realize that sorcery means perverting the truth and ways of the Lord and deliberately lying with the purpose of deceiving the people. These men consciously find a lie that goes against the truth (and all righteousness) and teach this lie over and over to their listeners. They are consistent and confident in this lie until eventually they convince their followers they must be telling the truth.

They will even back the lie with false evidence from news articles, videos, and twisted words of the gospel. We have noticed many false prophets in today’s churches and on YouTube that do this religiously. Each of these preachers use their own lie to promote their own interest, regardless of what their interest is, and they often prophesy falsely on people and things that do not come true.

These preachers have convinced their followers that they are legitimate preachers because they quote from the Bible and teach on topics that are relevant to Christianity today, and they excite support through click bait titles and images, songful sermons and authoritative voices. However, many times they charge people for inclusion and access to that information. This is covetousness working though sorcery. Any preacher that charges for the teachings and lessons of the bible, for conferences, meetings, or any material substance are sinning under the fleshly work of covetousness. Which brings us to our next unnoticed sin.

Covetousness: Under the guise of the love of money, many preachers create excuses to make money from the word and work of God. They will justify it as support of the church and their ministry so they can spread the gospel around the world or to grow their ministry if the people want to please God and continue being fed the word. However, God has made it plain that regardless of how much money is gathered, the gospel will always be preached no matter what, and there is no need to gather money by request, but all should give willingly and not under obligation.

These men relentlessly seek to justify taking money from their followers ignoring any biblical inspiration from the word that the original apostles and writers of the gospel taught, that they were all compelled by God to preach the gospel even if they did not want to, so many of them understood their mission and did not seek to profit from it. Many of these false preachers are bound to royalties and tithes so they have to maintain their profit by keeping their followers in fear. Fear of poverty, government, the devil, and other preachers seeking to steal their followers.

“For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.” 1 Corinthians 9:16-18.

Idolatry: There are many false preachers out there that we call pop culture preachers. These men and women have absorbed the popular culture into their ministries and incorporated the lifestyles of gospel musicians, rappers, celebrities, and sports stars into their messages. They are not necessarily reproving these characters of sin, though they pretend to, but they actually worship these people and seek their recognition and the attention. They look for likes, retweets, and responses from these people to impress their followers and to gain popularity themselves.

If they understood the mission of Christ and the gospel, they would simply ignore the lifestyles of these people and pray for them in secret and not openly asking for attention. They would understand that the word of God goes out in power and does not return void, and that only God can deliver and save these people from their sins. If these people wanted deliverance, they would come to them not by force or by condemnation, but willingly. Mixed into this idolatry is the sin of emulation, whereby they mimic these popular people and imitate their lifestyles through a form of glamorization and showmanship that includes unhinged crowds under the enchantments of motivational preaching.

Motivational preaching is an emulation of the world in that it includes all the passion and celebrity of flashing lights, loud music, dance praise from the followers, and VIP visits from celebrity people. Though the gospel is preached, it is preached in a distorted form that meets the itching ears of the worshippers. The word of God is watered down from new versions of the Bible and worded for the fragile in heart and spirit. Preachers behind this movement often congregate together and stage disputes, reality drama, back-and-forth among each other to attract drama-filled followers, their social media support and eventually money.

Heresy: Heretical preachers are the worse. These people are the epitome of the passage of the word that says: “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof:” 2 Timothy 3:5. They are the modern-day scribes and Pharisees and what we call academic theologians. They explain the word of God academically, using the rudiments of Greek and Hebrew words only to confuse the listener. They will travel around the definition of each word in a passage only to distort the meaning so badly that it does not make sense even to themselves.

They deny the power of God’s gift of the Holy Ghost and the existence of spiritual gifts. They deny speaking in tongues, and mock other preachers who perform spiritual acts in their churches. They draw from the most extreme and weird examples of preachers performing these acts and joke, laugh and humiliate them. Though there are many preachers that falsify the powers of God, the powers are real and these theologians are committing blasphemy when they mock God’s power and the gifts of the Spirit.

These men have a distorted view of the kingdom of God because they draw much of their understanding of God from the Old Testament. Because the New Testament is full of miracles, healing, and the gifts of the Spirit, in their refusal to believe in the power, they justify their faith based on concepts of the Law and the Greek and Hebrew languages and definitions. This is a form of mixing and mingling Law and grace, putting old wine in new bottles. All of their explanations of the Spirit realm include more scientific statements and theories other than of the actual power.

One thing all of these false preachers have in common is their stance on politics. They have undeniably taken sides with either of the political parties, mainly the Republicans, and preach from the playbook of Republican talking points rather than from the words and will of God. They have fused God and country and show a deep admiration for the 45th president and his policies where it pertains to social justice, immigration, abortion and homosexuality, and have made these topics platforms in their teachings of the gospel, while ignoring injustice, racism, warmongering, and the inequalities of American capitalism.

These false prophets have also condoned and support the use of weapons and laws to push the word and will of God onto society, another thing the Bible teaches us to avoid, violence and tyranny. The Bible and Jesus teaches believers that the governments of the world will be judged at his coming and that we as believers should not concern ourselves with the Caesars of the world but with the truth of the gospel and teaching salvation to as many as would receive him. We are here to reprove the world of sin and we are not to be consumed with the things of the world.