{"id":15381,"date":"2025-02-14T13:50:18","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T18:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/?p=15381"},"modified":"2025-02-17T13:55:28","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T18:55:28","slug":"false-prophets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/15381\/false-prophets\/","title":{"rendered":"False Prophets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

Is a false apostle\u00a0in the same kind of condition as a false prophet?\u00a0\u00a0Meaning, just as a false prophet\u00a0in the Old Testament\u00a0once had to be a real prophet to qualify to be a false one, were false apostles once true apostles who had rejected the truth for another way?<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi, Jerry.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00a0don’t think that false prophets in the Old Testament had to be true prophets first, though that was the case with some of them.\u00a0 What I have tried to convey, and perhaps poorly, is that false prophets were always men who belonged to God.\u00a0 The Old Testament\u00a0never calls the prophets of heathen nations false prophets because those prophets did not belong to God.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Likewise, the\u00a0“false apostles”\u00a0of the New Testament\u00a0were men who believed\u00a0 in\u00a0Jesus\u00a0and truly belonged to God.\u00a0\u00a0They were not unbelievers.\u00a0\u00a0After all, Paul said\u00a0they\u00a0claimed to be\u00a0apostles\u00a0of\u00a0Christ.\u00a0 An apostle is one who has been sent\u00a0 (that’s what the word means), and\u00a0even though those\u00a0false apostles\u00a0were\u00a0not\u00a0sent by God to teach what they were teaching, they had been born again.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

I was thinking about how you described Paul’s opinion of men in his day who taught lies about Jesus, versus the kindness God spoke to your father when he instructed him how to treat similar men.<\/span><\/p>\n

The apostle Paul was disgusted with the men that he described as speaking lies about Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0I wondered if those men once had the truth but preferred a lie for whatever gain or reason.\u00a0\u00a0While the man\u00a0whom\u00a0preacher Clark saw on television (that day when God told him\u00a0not\u00a0to speak evil of anyone who was speaking well of His\u00a0Son)\u00a0was perhaps giving his all out of a zeal for Jesus, but was teaching wrongly because God didn’t send him to teach and he had never really known the right way of the Lord.<\/span><\/p>\n

They sure are two different kinds of hearts.\u00a0\u00a0God is very kind to those who ignorantly do the wrong thing, but do it with their whole heart.\u00a0\u00a0I know that no one can know what God\u00a0is thinking unless he makes it known, but\u00a0that\u00a0sounds like his goodness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry D.<\/span><\/p>\n

==========<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, Jerry, that is true.\u00a0\u00a0And that may have been the case when the Lord spoke to my father.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

It is certainly true that the false apostles of Paul\u2019s day had heard the truth which Paul preached, and had rejected it, claiming instead that God sent them with a contrary gospel.\u00a0\u00a0That is very different from those who have never heard it, and God is very patient and merciful with such.\u00a0\u00a0We know that is true because we all have been in that boat.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Tell us what you think:<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/x.com\/WitnessofSpirit\/status\/1891561902615969930<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John, Is a false apostle\u00a0in the same kind of condition as a false prophet?\u00a0\u00a0Meaning, just as a false prophet\u00a0in the Old Testament\u00a0once had to be a real prophet to qualify to be a false one, were false apostles once true apostles who had rejected the truth for another way? Jerry ========== Hi, Jerry. I\u00a0don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15381"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15383,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15381\/revisions\/15383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}