FALSE TEACHER FRIDAY – IS STEVEN FURTICK NOW TEACHING MODALISM? LEARNING THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING A BEREAN

“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.” (2 Peter 2:1)

Welcome to another post in the Category of posts that I have entitled, ‘False Teacher Friday – Learning The Importance of Being a Berean.’ Lord willing, when time allows, I will be presenting you with information that you need to be aware of concerning certain popular Christian teachers or pastors, and information concerning some teachers or pastors that are not so well known. Their teachings will be misleading at the least, and heretical at the worst. If embraced, some of these teachings will lead you to a wrong understanding of Scripture, and others will lead you away from Biblical truth and the true Jesus Christ and into the world of mysticism and the occult.

Some of the teachers that I will be writing about will not be completely false, which is why their false teachings often go unnoticed, and this is what makes them so extremely dangerous. Their teachings can be over 97% Biblical truth, but if just that little bit of error is overlooked because we are not testing what they say in light of Scripture as God’s Word shows us we need to be doing (Acts 17:11), then slowly we will be led astray because we have placed our trust in man, instead of in God and the truth of His Word.

One day we will all stand before God, and each of us will be responsible for what we choose to believe as truth. If we clearly refuse to test the teachings of those we listen to in light of Scripture and ignore the many warnings that God has given us about false teachers and how some of them would arise from among us and we end up being led astray, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Some of these pastors and teachers that I will be writing about may be at the very top of your ‘Favorite List,’ but if you truly love Jesus and the truth of His Word, then you will be willing to hear the truth as hard as it may be for you to hear it at first. I am probably going to lose some followers to this blog because of what I may be writing in the months ahead, but as a Christian who loves God and His Word and who desires to please God and not man, and as a Christian who desires to expose error and wake Christians up to the extreme importance of being followers of Jesus Christ and not being a follower of any man (or woman) and their ministry, I must speak out and not remain silent. All I ask is that you would please pray for discernment, read and listen to all the information that I will be sharing with you, and examine the Scriptures to see if what these pastors and teachers say is true or not. The decision you make next will be entirely up to you. But you can never say, “No one cared enough to warn me.”

Now for today’s False Teacher alert:

LEARNING TO DISCERN TRUTH FROM ERROR

A VERY STRONG WARNING CONCERNING STEVEN FURTICK

After seeing the above video this morning and hearing what Steven Furtick, pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, shockingly preached at his church back in January of 2020, I knew that I needed to set aside some time to write a short post so that more people will become aware of this heretical teaching of Modalism that, IMHO, Steven Furtick clearly presented more than once in his sermon entitled, “GHOSTED,” which you can watch below:

Steven Furtick is very close friends with known Modalist pastor, T D Jakes, and oftentimes T D Jakes comes and preaches at Elevation Church. As you will see from the quick capture below, T D Jakes has preached at Elevation Church twice so far in 2020 at the time of writing this post:

(SOURCE)

Yes, I will admit that Steven Furtick is a very good public speaker. However, he is supposed to be a pastor who preaches God’s Word rightly and able to discern truth from error. Clearly he is being effected doctrinally by listening to T D Jakes’ unbiblical sermons. This is why it’s so very important for us to be extremely cautious regarding the relationships that we form with those who profess to be Bible believing Christians; we must be certain that they hold to sound, biblical views regarding God, salvation, and many other important essentials of the Christian faith so that we will not be led astray.

Knowing how videos and important documented information strangely disappear when Christians begin exposing false teachings, I decided to quick capture many of the problematic things that Steven Furtick said in his sermon, mainly where he teaches that Jesus “changed forms,” — which is exactly what the heretical teaching of Modalism is — and put them together in a slideshow for you just in case Elevation Church decides to take the video down as the warnings about this particular sermon (hopefully) begin to increase.

NOTE: Closed caption is not always completely accurate regarding transcribing what someone is actually saying, and this is true at the 26:03 minute mark where it states that Steven Furtick said, “He didn’t leave, He changed for us,” when Steven actually said, “He didn’t leave, He changed forms.”

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Modalism teaches that God the Father changed forms/modes and became God the Son, and then changed forms once again to become God the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into heaven.

No, I’m sorry, Steven. God did not lead you to preach this sermon as you claimed that He did. He would not lead you — or any pastor — to present the heretical teaching of Modalism which denies the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity, one of the essentials of the Christian faith!

Although the word Trinity is not found anywhere in Scripture, the concept of three Persons in one God clearly is. Consider the following Scriptures below for now. (Lord willing, I will update this post by adding more Scriptures after I finish writing PART 13 in the series in which we are testing many of the teachings that can be found in the Catechism Of The Catholic Church against Scriptures in a Catholic Bible to reveal who Jesus truly is to precious Catholics).

THREE PERSONS

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”(Genesis 1:26)

“Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11:7)

“And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16,17) (Mark 1:11) (Luke 3:22)

“For in Him [Christ] dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (Colossians 2:9)

The following two verses show that God the Father and God the Son are two distinct persons:

“And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.” (Mark 9:7)

“Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” (John 12:28)

 

ONE GOD

“Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.” (Deuteronomy 4:35)

“Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.” (Deuteronomy 4:39)

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

“Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.” (Nehemiah 9:6)

“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me.” (Isaiah 45:51)

“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he ” (Mark 12:29-32)

 

RELATED SCRIPTURES

“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)

“Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again, Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.” (Acts 20:25-31)

“Do not be misled Bad company corrupts good character.” (1 Corinthians 15:33)

“Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” (1 Timothy 4:16)

RELATED VIDEOS

[NOTE: I do not endorse James White because of how he views many things from a Calvinistic/Reformed Theological perspective. I do, however, appreciate some of his debates and how he demonstrates in the above video that T D Jakes is a Modalist in spite of the fact that he was declared to be a Trinitarian by James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll during the Elephant Room 2 Conference back in January of 2012.  Hearing all that happened — and what failed to happen — during this particular session that James White shared in this video was the main reason why I left Harvest Bible Chapel Rolling Meadows after being a member there for almost 14 1/2 years. I just could not stay at a church where a pastor allows people to wrongly believe that T D Jakes now holds to a Biblical view of the Trinity when he clearly does not.]

Thank you very much for stopping by today.

God Bless You

~Mary Dalke – Living4HisGlory

UPDATE:

Lord willing, new post in the Catechism of the Catholic Church Compared to Scriptures in a Catholic New Testament Bible series coming by Wednesday evening.

RELATED POSTS

WARNING YOU WITH TEARS

WARNING YOU WITH TEARS WEDNESDAY

Welcome to another post in the series of posts that I have entitled, Warning You With Tears Wednesdays. Lord willing, at least once a month on Wednesdays I will be writing and sharing one of these posts with you so that I can make you all aware of some important information that I come across on the Internet that you may not have heard about.

Since I knew that I would soon be starting a new part-time job (and I did in June)  and that my free time would then be somewhat limited, I was trying to think of something that I could write on a regular basis that would be short and to the point (at least that was my intention). And since I am a detective-at-heart and desire to make you all aware of the importance of testing things that pastors and teachers say (and do) in light of Scripture (Acts 17:11), the idea to do these posts — as well as the name — came to my mind in November of 2014, based on Acts 20:26-31:

“For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.”

So with all of that in mind, here is what I’d like to share with you in today’s WARNING YOU WITH TEARS WEDNESDAY:

Many of us as Christians were pretty certain which pastors would continue to stand for God’s definition of marriage, and sadly wondered who would be among the first to give in to compromise after same sex marriage became legal in all of the United States on June 26th 2015.  On August 7, 2015 Christian News shared THIS REPORT concerning where T D Jakes stands. He said something very similar during the Elephant Room 2 Conference    when he was briefly questioned concerning where he stands on the Trinity since he is known to be a Modalist. (See video and articles below for details).

Are you aware of what “soaking” prayer is? If you think that it’s Biblical, and you are participating in this practice, or if you are among those who are not aware of what it is, when time allows, please read THESE ARTICLES  on “soaking prayer” posted on Lighthouse Trails so that you will not be deceived and led astray by this unbiblical, occultic practice. (Also see related videos below).

Many of us are aware of the ‘unity’ that we see taking place as many  ministries are beginning to merge together. Here’s some  information by Cecil Andrews of TAKE HEED MINISTRIES in a PDF file, entitled, ‘ELLEL’ & ‘NEW HEART MINISTRIES: IHOP: JOHN CROWDER: THEIR INTERCONNECTEDNESS – Ellel-Ministries 

In last week’s Warning You With Tears Wednesday’s post I shared an interesting article with you written by Pastor Anton Bosch concerning new facts on how the Vatican fulfills prophecy. This week I’d like to share his very Scriptural articles concerning the return of Jesus Christ with you that may help those of you who may be confused on this issue since there are so many who teach different views on when He will return. Please pray for discernment before you read, and be sure to get your Bible and test everything in light of Scripture. Remember this is an issue that we can debate, but we must not allow it to divide us:

PART 1 – IMMINENCE – BY PASTOR ANTON BOSCH – HERESCOPE BLOG

PART 2 – PAUL AND IMMINENCE – BY PASTOR ANTON BOSCH – HERESCOPE BLOG

PART 3 – I AM COMING QUICKLY – BY PASTOR ANTON BOSCH – HERESCOPE BLOG

If you are among the many who have been devastated and disgusted after  seeing all the horrendous videos concerning Planned Parenthood and the coldness and hardness of heart of those who were video taped as they were in the process of selling the body parts of precious babies who were aborted, here’s an article for you by Avery Foley from Answers in Genesis:

UNDERSTANDING THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD VIDEOS FROM A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

Here’s some good news to end this post with in  order to give glory to God, and to encourage all of you: After some women viewed an ultrasound of their babies at various stages of growth within their wombs, they chose life for their babies!

 

Please pray for the many women who are pregnant and fearful, or feel threatened and think that there is no other alternative than to end the life of their unborn child. Pray also for the women who have hardened their hearts and think only of themselves, their freedom, and their careers, and care nothing at all about their baby’s opportunity to live.

Pray for discernment for Christians so they will not be deceived by the many spiritually deceptive practices that are entering many churches today. And may all of us who proclaim the name of Jesus Christ never compromise with the truth that God has put forth in His Word in spite of an ever changing world that seeks to call what is evil good, and what is good evil.

Thank you for stopping by and taking time out of your busy day to read some of my posts and poems.

God Bless You

~Mary Dalke/Living4HisGlory

 

RELATED SCRIPTURES

“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” (1 Timothy 4:16)

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”         (Isaiah 5:20)

“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you.” (2 Peter 2:1)

“Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 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. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:2-4)

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.” (Proverbs 31:8)

 

RELATED VIDEOS

 

 

SOAKING PRAYER – JOHN AND CAROL ARNOTT

Detailed information by Cecil Andrews of TAKE HEED MINISTRIES on the so-called ‘Toronto Blessing‘ (in which John and Carol Arnott were a part of) so that you can clearly see that the practice of soaking prayer — which John and Carol Arnott promote —  has its roots in something that is completely  unbiblical:

MARGARET SANGER AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD

FURTHER READING FOR YOU:

KEN SILVA – APPRISING MINISTRIES – ELEPHANT ROOM 2 – MAY WE NOW REGARD T D JAKES AS TRINITARIAN AND ORTHODOX

TOM CHANTRY ON THE ELEPHANT ROOM 2 SESSION 4 TRANSCRIPT