16 Signs of a False Pastor: How to Spot a False Teacher: Exposing False Prophets with the Bible

• In this video, discover 16 signs that you might be dealing with a false prophet.
• Warning from God throughout the Bible about false teachers.
• Assessing individual growth versus love for large crowds.
• Understanding the importance of a pastor's accountability and lifestyle.
• Encouragement to seek more information in the linked article.

In this video I'm gonna give you 16 signs that you might be dealing with a false prophet. Hey everybody, I'm Marc from Apply God's Word dot com, a place where we apply the Bible to your life.

Throughout the Bible, we are warned by God to be careful that we are not following false teachers and false prophets. But these people aren't tricky, and it can be hard to know who really is trying to please Christ and who isn't. So in this video, I'm gonna give you 16 signs.

I also have written an article on the same topic, and in the article, I have all the Bible verses for each one of these points. I'm not going to go through each verse in this video just because it would take a lot longer. So if you really want to dive in even more, go to the description of this video, and you can look at the article as well.

Also, it's important to note that not every single one of these points automatically means that a pastor or someone is an automatic false prophet or false teacher. I would say that if you're seeing a lot of these signs, then that's something you're gonna really want to pay attention to. But no pastor is perfect, and everyone is growing. Sometimes they make mistakes and repent.

So don’t look for a perfect pastor because they’re not out there, but you also want to be guarded and making sure that you are doing your best to not follow someone who is really not trying to please the Lord.

The first sign I often see in people who are false prophets who really are trying to seek God and lead people well is that they’re great communicators but terrible expositors. Expositional preaching is really just a fancy way of saying that you're preaching what the Bible actually says. So when you preach expositionally, the point of your sermon should be the same point as the passage of Scripture you’re reading from.

What a lot of false prophets and false teachers do is take a passage of Scripture, and then they’re so eloquent and so well-spoken that it makes people feel like they’re really preachers, but they're really not. They’re just saying things in a very poetic way, and the meat of their content is just fluff and oftentimes unbiblical. So that’s one sign you really want to look out for.

Number two, false prophets and false teachers love large crowds but really don’t care about individual growth. Large crowds are the goal for a false prophet; they love being praised by people, but an individual need is seen as an inconvenience or a nuisance. If he seems like a really compassionate person on stage and then he never ever meets with anyone individually and isn't doing true work as a pastor, then that is not a good sign.

I get it, like some pastors are the teaching pastor, and they have to spend more time focusing on the message, and maybe that’s just where their gifting is. But if all they care about is large crowds and they don’t care about individual growth, that is a huge problem.

Number three, a false prophet hates being rebuked. Look, the Christian leader hopefully isn’t making tons of mistakes often, but every single one of us eventually is going to do something where we need another brother or sister in Christ to come along and say, “Hey, you know, I think you should look at that, and you might want to apologize and repent of that.”

A false prophet can never receive correction. So if someone gets really offended and basically turns you into a demon because you called out some sort of sin in their life, that's not a good sign.

Number four, all false prophets love money. When Paul was talking about the requirements of an elder in 1st Timothy 3, he made a very specific point that said these men cannot be lovers of money. When there’s a great need for material possessions and a love for finances, this is a big red flag.

I'm not saying that a pastor or a teacher needs to take a vow of poverty, but their finances should be reflective of the people that they serve. If they are serving people and their lifestyle is super lavish compared to the people that they're serving, that's a problem.

Number five, a false prophet hides family problems. So it looks like they have the perfect family life and there are no issues, but behind closed doors, there’s a lot of damage being done in the home. 1st Timothy 3:4 says that a pastor must manage his household well.

This doesn’t mean that a pastor can’t have problems in his family or that he can’t have rebellious children, or that there can’t be issues going on. The real test is, is he leading well in the midst of difficulties? It really says that people are gonna make their choices; his wife is gonna make her choices, kids are gonna make their own choices. He’s not going to be held responsible for their choices, but he is going to be held responsible for his leadership in the home.

If he’s doing something that negatively impacts his family, that’s a sign that he’s not fit to be a leader.

Number six, a false prophet is oftentimes linked with a spiritually immature spouse. Now, I'm not saying that every false prophet has a terrible spouse, and I'm not saying that if a pastor has an immature spouse, he’s a false prophet. I’m just saying that oftentimes people are linked to each other who are very similar.

In 1st Timothy 3:11, it talks about the necessity for a pastor to have a wife who is spiritually mature. So it’s not a good sign when the spouse is not acting biblically either.

Number seven, a false prophet is despised by all outsiders, and they have an “us-versus-them” mentality. If you’re a Christian leader, you should have people who love you and people who don’t love you. If everyone loves you, it probably means you’re compromising on the truth.

As Christians, it’s not realistic to think that everyone’s gonna agree with us or that everyone’s gonna love us. But it’s also a problem if everybody despises you and hates you because that probably means you’re extremely harsh or doing something that is offending a lot of people.

A lot of times, a false prophet will be idolized and adored in an extreme way by their followers but really despised by those who aren’t following them. This is really because a false prophet has this cult mentality where you’re either in or you’re out, and there is no in-between. They create this distance between them and anyone who doesn’t adore them as a god.

If that’s the type of feel you get around a leader, you’re definitely gonna want to avoid that person. 1st Timothy 3:7 says, “Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace and into the snare of the devil.”

Number eight, pride is the fuel of a false prophet. It says in 1st Timothy 3:6 that an elder must not be a recent convert or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

When someone’s extremely prideful, they not only have confidence in themselves, but they actually put others down. They believe that they’re the only ones who ever have answers and they are the best at everything. If anyone else ever has a gift that they’re using well, they feel threatened—that’s definitely not a good sign.

Number nine, a false prophet knows just enough of the Bible to twist it and make people feel like they’re saying the right thing. They use a lot of biblical language, a lot of Christian ease; they know the right things to say, but it’s all masking this perverse theology that isn’t actually biblical.

Number ten, a false prophet avoids strong elders. Throughout the New Testament, the model that a church has shown to have is the plurality of elders, which means that a church is not run by one charismatic leader. A false prophet wants all the control, so they might know enough of the Bible and might need to trick the people they’re leading into having a board or some sort of elder group, but they’re gonna surround themselves with yes-men.

They’re gonna surround themselves with weak people who are just gonna do what they say. A lot of times, a false prophet will have the appearance of having accountability, but when you really get to know those people that he or she puts in leadership, you’ll see that these people are not strong leaders themselves. So a false prophet surrounds themselves with weak leaders.

Number eleven is a big one: a false prophet is ultimately a hypocrite. Their sermons might be really good; maybe this person is actually a pretty good biblical teacher, their theology lines up, and you examine what they’re saying in the Bible and you think, “Yeah, I actually agree with that.” But they can also be a false prophet if their life is full of sin.

You can say the right things, but if you’re not living the right way, you can still be fake.

Number twelve is a really common one, and it’s that they point to their past success a lot. They always point to their high points in ministry and can’t really let the past go. I think it’s because they value being seen as the expert, as the person on top, and in ministry, success by the world's standards comes and goes.

Sometimes your ministry is really big and everyone loves it, and other times maybe it’s not so popular. But a false prophet always clings to the past and clings to that moment of fame, and they’re always trying to recreate that moment of glory that they experienced in the past.

Number thirteen, a false prophet often preaches the same sermon over and over and over again. One of the reasons they do this is that they don't know the Bible very well and they just end up talking about the same things repeatedly because they’re not actually preaching expositionally. They’re just saying what they know, and they don’t know very much, so they’re gonna say the same thing over and over again.

Another reason it’s a really bad sign if somebody harps on one doctrine all the time is because you can actually become a heretic, promoting heresy by overemphasizing one truth at the expense of other truths. John Stott, for example, says, “Every heresy is due to an overemphasis upon some truth without allowing other truths to qualify and balance it.”

Number fourteen, a false prophet surrounds himself with weak-willed people. Not only does he make sure that his leaders and elder boards are pushovers, but he also makes sure that the people he’s leading are weak-willed, submissive people who basically just listen to whatever he says and don’t ever challenge him. A false prophet really loves power, so he is going to be drawn to overly submissive people.

Number fifteen, a false prophet has bad motives in their ministry. They’re usually trying to serve God to get something in return, rather than trying to do a good job or build the church for the glory of God. They try to glorify God and serve God so that they can get a big church or so that they can get a lot of money. They’re not using things for the glory of God; they’re trying to serve and praise God as a means to an end rather than letting God be the goal of their ministry.

Number sixteen, ultimately a false prophet is led by their desire to be worshipped by people. They want to be God themselves.

Well, if this video was interesting to you, I would really encourage you to click the link in the description of this video to read that article. I have a lot more information on each point that I mentioned in this video, and I list multiple verses to support each of these points.

So again, go to the description of this video and you can see that article link. And if you enjoyed this video, give us a thumbs up and leave us a comment in the comment section—what have you learned about false prophets, and what other questions do you have?

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Well, thanks for watching, and God bless.