Spiritual Abuse: Are There Apostles Today?

Twelve Apostles of the Lamb. So I want to talk about this just for a minute because it is more and more coming out in Christian news, Christian media. People have more questions.

Are there apostles today? If I passed around a sheet of paper, we could have different opinions. So, are there apostles today? What we have, all we have is the Scriptures, and the Scriptures are sufficient. The Scriptures answer this question very thoroughly.

There's actually in my mind no doubt whatsoever it's that clear. So Ephesians 4, let me read this from the English Standard Version. It says that Jesus gave this to the church.

He gave apostles. He gave prophets. He gave evangelists.

And He gave shepherd pastors and teachers to the body of Christ. What is their role? To equip the saints for the work of the ministry for building up the body of Christ. So, if you disagree, find some Scriptures and let's talk about it in the future.

But I do not believe there are Apostles. There were the twelve apostles. End of story.

They were eyewitnesses to Jesus. They wrote the Bible. Don't even go there.

There's not those kind of apostles. The twelve, the twelve, the twelve, the twelve, the twelve. It's clear.

But if you take the word apostle, small a, and it says that Jesus gave the church, and there were apostles in the book of Acts. Apostles, prophet. Why did He give the church? They call it the five-fold ministry, right? Why did He do that? Because the body of Christ, to equip the body of Christ, you need all of these.

Number one, the word apostle just means sent one. That's all it means. So are there sent ones? Of course.

That's actually a church planter. Missionaries. When they go, they're operating in the gift of an apostle.

Where I have problems is when these guys put it on their business card. Apostle such and such. No, no, no.

You just, you lost me. That's arrogant. And every time I say this, I get emails from apostles.

So don't email me. I'm gonna send them to Pastor Abram. He can answer you.

I'm apostle such and such from Nigeria. How dare you say that? Well, you don't call yourself apostle. God calls you an apostle.

The people will call you apostle. Take the humble road. So anytime people have the title prophet this, apostle this, I just cringe.

Even those who walk around, I'm pastor this, I'm pastor, I'm pastor. You shouldn't do that. People will call you the pastor.

It's a gifting from God. And then because of this, weird things take place. Weird ceremonies that shouldn't be happening.

Weird, it just, we've elevated, this is an apostle to the nations. He might be going to the nations, but let's downscale that a little bit. Let's humbly approach this and let God position you.

Anytime we come up and we promote a man, I am prophet Shane. Watch, that might be turned into a five second YouTube clip. And if so, I'm gonna go after him for copyright, so that's okay.

But can you imagine? What do you do? I'm apostle Shane Idleman. That's all uppity, arrogant titles. People should not take those titles at all.

Now, it is a little bit different because Evangelist Greg Laurie, Evangelist Billy Graham, it kind of identifies what they're doing. And I know what people are, but just the weirdness that goes, because there's a lot of weird things done in the name of an apostle. Especially in Africa, too, where they'll come up and the man of God will start blowing on them.

The ushers put them back up. Psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh. Oh, deep.

And then they're like convulsing and you have this Benny Hinn approach with his jacket and just people falling over. Guys, I'm getting, the line's being drawn in the sand. This stuff is ridiculous.

And we have to take the humble approach, the humble road. We don't need huge ceremonies and inducting people because it's all built on pride and arrogance. So that's what an apostle just means a sent one.

They have an apostolic type ministry. They are sent ones. They're missionaries.

And He gives some to be prophets. Who do we see prophets in the Bible? John the Baptist. John the Baptist.

Jesus was actually called the prophet. And the prophets in the Old Testament were distinctly different than the priests. There's a different calling on them.

They're like John the Baptist. You can think of A.W. Tozer, look him up. Leonard Ravenhill, David Wilkerson.

You go back to some of the famous preachers. I think Charles Spurgeon was very prophetic. And John Wesley, George Whitfield.

It's a strong message in your face that's not quite normal. It's a prophetic gifting. That's their calling.

They wake up irritated by the things of the world, but loving the things of God. And they warn and they convict you. That's a prophetic calling.

Apostle, the church needs it. Sent one's prophetic calling to convict them and wake them up. And John the Baptist is one crying in the wilderness.

And then you have the evangelist. Because the evangelist's heart is probably more monotone and low key. You hear Greg Laurie preach? A lot different than me.

Way different. It's just monotone, evangelism. Reaching thousands of people.

They eat, sleep, and drink leading people to the Lord. And how God's designed me, I don't eat, drink, and sleep that. That happens all the time.

But my passion is to get the church back on track with God. And then because of that, evangelism follows. Because you can have multiple giftings.

You can be a sent one, and then you can be a prophetic voice, and then you can lead people to the Lord. And then he gives to the church shepherds. Those who will pastor and lead.

They don't have a strong gifting in these other areas, but their gifting is they love, for example, they love to sit and meet with people for hours in council. They're shepherding heart. And so that's why Jesus gave these different giftings to the church.

So that answers, are there apostles today? Yeah, small A's. They don't try to be a big A. Oh, did that not sound right? That didn't sound right. Yeah, I caught, I did not do that on purpose.

And so what, I'm gonna tie in now. Again, I'm still on the rabbit trail. The dangers of spiritual abuse.

Okay, and this often happens in this type of camp. Have many of you been following what's happened with IHOP, Mike Bickle, all those things? If you haven't, that's okay, but it happens in other churches too. There's spiritual abuse.

And what happens is, especially in those who claim to be apostles and prophetic voices, in the church there's a lot of God told me. And they're coming to church every week to hear from a prophet, versus hearing from Jesus and His Word. And so the church is built on a foundation of apostles and prophets.

There's a hierarchy. And you hear something, I actually started to look into the, not the National Rifle Association, but the NAR, National Apostolic Reformation. And a lot of these guys, the apostle is a big deal.

They're over the church. They're the main guy. And they actually begin to control people because of their anointing.

Or their perceived anointing. And they quote Scriptures like, do the prophet of God no harm? Do not come after God's anointed one. And they spiritually abuse the people because they use their authority as an apostle or a prophet.

Hey, God said, you're out of line, and you need to submit. And it's spiritual abuse. So the best way to correct that, one of the things we set up 14 years ago, was a plurality of elders.

So believe it or not, I'm not the main guy. I'm not the apostle. I'm a leader among equal.

I'm one of five or six elders of the church. If they all vote, I'm gone. Did you know that? Next week, I will not be here.

If we have a vote, and they all say I'm gone. They vote on my pay structure. I have no say.

And so it helps with accountability. If somebody feels they're being spiritually abused, they can go to the elders. It hasn't happened before, to my knowledge.

But they can go to the elders, and you can unpack how they feel they're being spiritually abused. And it's good for the church to talk about because I see a lot of these hyper charismatic churches who are taking the gifts way too extreme. They're apostles such and such, or prophets such and such.

You need to submit to me and my teaching and my Word. See right there, that's arrogant and that's prideful. And people get hurt by it.

And damaged by it. And they stay broken and hurt by the church. Most examples of spiritual abuse refer to a church elder or faith leader inflicting abuse on a congregation, or on their members.

Often by creating a toxic culture with the church, or a group by shaming or by controlling members using the power of their position. That's a stench in the nostrils of God. But we have to remember a few things.

Number one, spiritual abuse is not saying hard things or confronting people. That's not spiritual abuse, that's biblical. When we go and we have to confront someone and say some hard things, because things have come... That's not... We're not manipulating you.

We're not coming against you. We have to speak the truth in love. When you shepherd a church, you also have to talk about the negatives and the positives.

For example, someone comes and says, hey, my husband, he's cheating on me, he's hooked to porn, can you guys talk to him? He's not gonna like us. But we have to go and speak the truth in love. So it's not saying hard things and it's not confronting people.

That has to happen. What it is, is taking Scripture out of context to manipulate or using God told me to control others. I don't know, I'd like to know.

I don't think anybody here has ever heard me said, God told me, and I go tell you something or at you or attack you. If I believe God puts anything on my heart, I usually go and say, hey, this has been on my heart all week, two weeks, do with it what you want, but I feel and then I will share. But they will use it, because when you have the God told me card, how do you get out of that one? We've had to wrestle with this over the years.

I've had people come to me and say, Shane, God told me you need to do this. I'm like, oh, He didn't tell me. But does that put you in a pickle? God told you, oh my goodness.

Well, you must be right, because God told you. I think we need to be very, very, very careful in the church. We've had people come in here and say, God told me it doesn't happen.

We have to confront them. We will confront false things like that. That's how the church grows.

And a lot of these churches, I'm gonna start throwing names out there, and I don't do it, I pray about it, I don't do it with a negative heart, but it's one of my huge concerns with Bethel Church. There's no accountability. There's just, I mean, even when they teach on prophecy, they just say, hey, try it out.

If it works, it works. That's how you learn. No, that's not prophecy.

That's false prophecy. Now, I understand sometimes people, they're young in their faith, they just wanna share maybe what God put on their heart. It's hard to discern, is it me, is it God, and we can help them work through it.

But there's just no accountability for these people. They can say and do whatever they want. The thing right now, I've gotten into it actually with some friends of mine, that at Bethel, they've seen angel feathers fall for years, but can't produce one feather.

Where are the feathers? Say at least a couple. See, I'm not mocking. I'm saying this is wrong in the sight of God.

This is not healthy. Where's the accountability? We can't just do whatever we want because we're elevated and we got the name of apostle. And I don't wanna say anything because I don't wanna offend.

I don't wanna upset. But at what point do you say something and go, guys, this is ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous.

When do we talk to people like that? I'm broken. I hate bringing this stuff up, but if the church is to be healthy, we need to be on a healthy path, a humble path.