Over the last several years, we’ve seen the fall of several prominent, public Christian leaders. Some have fallen into adultery. Some have been accused of pride and arrogance and loving money. Some have left the faith. Most recently, we learned that a famous apologist had cultivated a secret lifestyle of heinous, habitual sin prior to his death in May of 2020. How should Christians think about the fall of these leaders? Can we have assurance of our own salvation? Should these leaders be restored to ministry? Was it possible to recognize warning signs before these men fell publicly? All these questions and more will be answered in today’s With All Wisdom Podcast.
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Transcript
Derek: Over the last several years, we’ve seen the fall of several prominent public Christian leaders. Some have fallen into adultery. Some have been accused of pride and arrogance and loving money. Some have left the faith. Most recently, we learned that a famous apologist had cultivated a secret lifestyle of heinous habitual sin prior to his death in May of 2020. How should Christians think about the fall of these leaders? Can we have assurance of our own salvation? Should these leaders be restored to ministry? Was it possible to recognize warning signs before these men fell publicly? All these questions and more will be answered in today’s With All Wisdom podcast.
Welcome to the With All Wisdom podcast where we are applying biblical truth to all of life. My name is Derek Brown. I am pastor elder at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California, an academic dean at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary in Vallejo, California, and I am here today with Cliff McManis, pastor teacher at Creekside Bible Church and professor of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and Seminary. And today we want to address the issue of fallen Christian leaders. With the most recent revelation of Ravi Zacharias’ lurid sexual past, along with reports in the last few years of other major Christian leaders who have either walked away from the faith or who have fallen into disqualifying sin, Cliff and I have decided that for the sake of our people’s stability in the faith, we need to talk about this issue from a biblical perspective. But before we get into our topic for today, I want to draw your attention to WithAllWisdom.org, where you will find a large and growing collection of resources that will help you apply biblical truth to your everyday life. You can find past episodes of this podcast at WithAllWisdom.org, and we also have a lot of articles on various topics ranging from theology to home life to parenthood, and you can check out books that we’ve published through With All Wisdom publications, and you can listen to good theology under 10 minutes with our sound theology bites. So you want to check all those things out at WithAllWisdom.org, and with that, let’s take up our topic for today, When Christian Leaders Fall. This isn’t a very fun topic, is it, Cliff?
Cliff: No, not at all. It’s actually a sobering topic. When Christian leaders fall, for a lot of reasons. Currently, you’re a Christian leader, as am I.
Derek: True.
Cliff: And so it’s sobering, and it’s also a reality check, because we’re going to be talking about particularly men in ministry that are well-known, high-profile, who have fallen or become compromised through different areas of sin. And my first thought there is what Paul said, actually gave many warnings, and one of them is examine yourself. Right?
Derek: Yeah.
Cliff: These occasions are good. Opportunity for us to try to be objective, pull back, and examine ourselves.
Derek: Yeah, that’s right.
Cliff: Another key thought I had was what Jesus said. When we talk about Christian leaders that fall, there’s a pastoral reason that you and I are even doing this podcast on this topic, because both you and I have received, over the course of the years that we’ve been serving together at this church, questions from our own sheep, our own people, the saints, who come to us very troubled, confused at times. They had a Christian leader they really respected, whether it was a pastor or a Christian author, and then the pastor or author gets into some kind of trouble or compromise, leaves the ministry, or falls into some sin, and the saints are very discouraged by that, and they’re very confused. Yeah. And they ask us as pastors, why did this happen? And they don’t know how to interpret it.
Derek: Yeah.
Cliff: And our job as shepherds is to interpret it. And the question is, are we able to, should we be expected to? And I just want to encourage the saints out there that this should not be a surprise to us, because Jesus said in Luke 17, 1, He said to His disciples, who were going to be future pastors and shepherds, so part of His preparation for them was to warn them, and He said, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come. So that was a promise from Jesus. He was promising that stumbling blocks will come. They will come regularly. They will come routinely in your ministry. So expect them, but woe to Him through whom they come. So Jesus warned us, stumbling blocks, in this context, a stumbling block is a person. Yeah. And a person in particular who is in probably Christian ministry, or the influence of Christianity, and being a stumbling block, they will inhibit or cause both believers and unbelievers to question the validity and integrity of the Christian gospel.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: And we have to address that.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: Hence, actually, it was your idea to come up with this podcast and do that very thing. From a shepherding point of view that in light of what Jesus said, doing two main things. Number one, we need to remind our sheep that, you know what, this isn’t a surprise that this happens, because Jesus told us it’s inevitable.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: Which actually validates the truth of the Bible.
Derek: Yeah.
Cliff: Which brings us back again to the sufficiency of Scripture.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: Where the Bible actually has a theology of Christian leaders who fall. How’s your theology of fallen Christians? Do you even have one?
Derek: Right.
Cliff: And we can use that with the critics of the Bible. I just think of Bill Maher, one of the most well-known outspoken Christians. I mean, the critics of Christianity. He actually hates Christianity.
Derek: He does.
Cliff: And he will use every public incident of a fallen Christian leader to bash the truthfulness of Christianity and the validity of the Bible, which is ironic because basically what he’s saying, Oh, look at another professed Christian falling into sin. There you go. Your Bible’s not true. If I was able to talk to him, I’d say, no, actually this validates that the Bible is true, because this is exactly what Jesus and the Apostle said would happen.
Derek: Right. Right. Well, you’re right. It’s a sobering topic. And actually, you’d mentioned how some of our folks are asking questions. I had questions like the ones you mentioned early in my Christian experience, and I want to actually use it as a jumping-off point. I came to Christ in the winter of 98-99, and I was in my sophomore year of college at a school in Portland, Oregon. And as soon as after I was converted, I went to the Master’s College, which is now Master’s University, because I had a desire to study the Bible and to get into ministry to preach the Word of God. And my time at TMC was awesome. It was, overall, good. I had some rough patches, and because part of the rough patches were due to the fact that I was troubled by something I’d begun to notice among not only my friends, but also among some Christian leaders. And kind of a few of my close friends, ones who I believed were genuine Christians, started one by one to fall away from the faith. Some began to drift into deep skepticism. Others started to embrace heretical doctrine. Others began to create their own ministries that were actually against the Bible. And it was just, it was a remarkable turn of events, because these people appeared to be strong believers before those things happened. But these experiences didn’t stop in college. About six years after I graduated, I learned that a man who had discipled me for two years while I was in college left the ministry. So he was training, he was mentoring me while he was in seminary to be a pastor. And he would have me over to his home and with his wife and kids, and it was just a really sweet time. Well, I’d come to learn a few years later that he had left the ministry, and not only had he left the ministry, but he left his wife and children and married another woman. And so these experiences had a genuine destabilizing effect on my faith. My reasoning was like this. If so and so appeared to be a solid Christian and then fell away from the faith, how can I be sure that I’m a Christian?
And so these caused, it was a stumbling block, like you just mentioned from Luke. And so that’s why exactly, this is exactly why I want to address the topic today, Cliff. The fall of professing Christians, and particularly Christian leaders, can have a destabilizing effect on one’s spiritual life. When Christian leaders fall into serious sin or when they walk away from Christ, these things can disillusion us. I think that was what was happening with me. They can tempt us to wonder if we are really Christian. They can make us cynical, make us cynical towards Christian leaders. So we need some biblical bedrock to rest our feet on so we don’t get swept up in the disillusionment or doubt or cynicism, all three of which will be a detriment to our own faith and keep us from walking in joy, assurance, and Christian maturity. Do you have any experiences like the ones I just mentioned, Cliff?
Cliff: I do. There are many. I’ll just give an example of one. Probably the one of the most impacting one on me was when I was out of seminary, and the most influential seminary professor in my life. In terms of the classes that I took from him, but also personally. He took a personal interest in my life and did some discipling, and I got to know his family real well. And then maybe 10 plus years went by, and then found out that here he was in his 60s, probably, and married for 40 years, and faithful father, shepherd, pastor, all these things, and it turned out that he committed adultery. Apparently that was the first time in his life. He didn’t seem to have a secret history or anything like that. Very disappointing. And then supposedly repented, was restored, and then I guess a few years later did it again. So that was heartbreaking. That was hard for me to process.
Derek: Wow.
Cliff: I thought I knew him, thought I knew him well, thought I knew his family. It just caused me to think. So that that was probably the biggest one that I’ve ever had to deal with, closest to me in my life.
Derek: Yeah, it’s heartbreaking. Challenging. It sobers you. Well, thanks for sharing that, Cliff. Now as we get into our topic, and we want to talk specifically about public Christian leaders that a lot of Christians will know about, we need to mention a few names. And I don’t take any pleasure in this. This is not fun. As I was doing the research for this podcast, I didn’t find myself enjoying walking through all the various articles that spoke of these, the revelations of these men who had been exposed and removed from leadership. But over the last 10 years, the Christian Church has seen the fall of some significant leaders, and so we kind of need to name names in order to set the context for what we’re talking about. Before we do, I just want to say one thing. You’ve already mentioned it, Cliff, I want to reaffirm it. Because you and I serve in leadership capacities at a local church and a local Christian seminary, we want to heed Paul’s warning that he says in 1 Corinthians 10-12, he says, Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. We can’t talk about this topic with any kind of pride or self-reliance or personal dismissal and kind of think, well, those men were foolish. Clearly, we can see that this will never happen to me. And that’s actually foolish. That’s a foolish approach. We need to let these things sober us and humble us and cause us to care for our spiritual lives and humility and consider our own lives as leaders. Even though these stories can cause us to be both grieved and righteously angry, and I’m going to talk about righteous anger probably towards the end of the podcast. Even though they grieve us and can make us righteously angry, which is legitimate, they also should provoke humility. And we need to be careful.
Cliff: Just to comment on just what you said there. We cannot say this will never happen to me. I totally agree. As a matter of fact, we should probably say this could happen to me.
Derek: Yeah, this could happen to me. So I need to take the appropriate precautions and grow in wisdom. So here we go. We’re going to just give the name and then a brief summary of what had happened. So Tullian Tchividjian, he’s the grandson of Billy Graham. He was serving in ministry. He was a sought after speaker. He was on the Gospel Coalition as one of their bloggers, had written some books that were pretty popular. Well, he confessed in 2015, confessed to an adulterous relationship. And then a few months later, he was divorced and remarried. And I just found out that he’s actually back to pastoring at a church in Florida. So we’ll talk a little bit about that. Then there’s Joshua Harris. Joshua Harris was a pastor and author based out of Maryland. Most people know him from his book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. After that book, which he later admitted tended towards some legalism, he nevertheless established himself as a faithful preacher and writer and actually sat under his ministry. When I was at a church in Louisville, he came as a guest preacher and I had read his blog and actually reviewed one of his books and was edified by him. In July, 2019, however, he announced that he was divorcing his wife and leaving the Christian faith.
Cliff: And he was, wasn’t he mentored by C.J. Mahaney?
Derek: He was mentored by C.J. Mahaney, yep. Then there’s Derek Webb. Derek Webb was a Christian singer-songwriter, best known for his work with Caedmon’s Call. He committed adultery. He cheated on his wife and then divorced his wife and now claims to be an atheist. There’s Art Azurdia. He was a pastor at a church in Portland, Oregon. He’s a professor at Western Seminary in Oregon. He was an author, a sought-after conference speaker. In July of 2018, after it was revealed that Azurdia had been engaged in a sexual relationship outside of marriage, he was fired from his church and from Western Seminary. Then there’s Darrin Patrick. Darrin Patrick was the founding pastor of the Journey Church, a megachurch in St. Louis, and the vice president of Acts 29, a church planting network. In April 2016, he was fired from his post at the Journey Church for, quote, domineering over those in his charge, misuse of power and authority, his power and authority, and then, quote, a history of building his identity through ministry and media platforms. He was released from his position at Acts 29. Tragically, Patrick killed himself in July of 2020. There’s Bill Hybels. Bill Hybels is the former founder and pastor of Willow Creek Community Church located near Chicago. An independent advisory group confirmed allegations concerning multiple counts of Hybels’ sexual misconduct, including, quote, sexually inappropriate words and actions in relationships with individuals, abuse of power, and position. The sexual misconduct often occurred in the context of Hybels mentoring young women. It was also reported that Hybels verbally and emotionally intimidated both female and male employees, and so he was released from his position there. So, also accusations of sexual misconduct and immorality even beyond what I just listed. Then there’s Mark Driscoll. Mark Driscoll was the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church, a large and growing church in Seattle, and he was also a well-known author. He was the founder and president of Acts 29, a church planting network I just mentioned. In 2014, he resigned from both posts due to charges of, quote, “ungodly and disqualifying behavior,” particularly in relation to his leadership, but he was never charged with any sexual sin. There’s Jerry Falwell. He’s the fourth president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was removed from his position after a series of significant revelations, first in 2019 Falwell. It was revealed that Falwell had been taking and showing off suggestive pictures of his wife and showing them to others and just talking inappropriately about his sexual life with others. In 2020, Falwell posted an inappropriate picture of himself and another woman on Instagram. He soon took it down, soon after took it down. And then later in 2020, it was revealed that he and his wife had been in a lurid affair with a young man for several years. The details I will spare you.
Cliff: Let me make a comment there, Derek, on this one. Jerry Falwell, just for the younger generation, I grew up on Jerry Falwell Sr., who was a Baptist pastor back there of a church, Thomas Rowe Baptist Church, whatever it was, and also president. So this is Jerry Falwell Jr. we’re talking about. And that is an important clarification. As far as we know, Jerry Falwell Sr. was a faithful man in terms of moral integrity. So it is very ironic that his son fell in this way.
Derek: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, thank you for that clarification. C.J. Mahaney. Mahaney was a pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland and president of Sovereign Grace Ministries until 2004 when Joshua Harris took over at the church. In 2011, Mahaney took a voluntary leave of absence because he had been charged by a former Sovereign Grace pastor for sins related to, quote, “various expressions of pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment, and hypocrisy.” He resigned from Sovereign Grace Ministries in 2013. He’s been the senior pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, Kentucky since 2012. James McDonald. He is the former pastor of Harvest Bible Church in the Chicago area and a popular Christian author. He was fired due to disqualifying sins not related to adultery, but similar to Driscoll and Patrick, but also including financial malfeasance, as we’ll talk about. Carl Lentz. Carl Lentz was the lead pastor of Hillsong NYC, and he was fired by Hillsong Global when it was revealed that Lentz had committed adultery. And then finally, Ravi Zacharias. He was a world-renowned Christian apologist who was well known for his ability to communicate the uniqueness of the Christian faith winsomely and skillfully. He died of cancer in May 2020 after his death. An investigation conducted by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries revealed that Ravi had been engaged in years and years of intentional, habitual sexual sin. Now, we can group these situations into four categories. Derek Webb and Joshua Harris are former Christians who now profess that they no longer believe in Christ. Tullian, Art Azurdia, Azurdia, Bill Hybels, and Carl Lentz fell into disqualifying sin, namely adultery, while in ministry and have stepped away from their leadership roles. However, I did mention that Tullian is now, again, a pastor at a church in Florida. Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, CJ Mahaney were removed from their leadership positions due to character issues that were related to pride and anger. James McDonald was removed due to financial malfeasance among other sins not related to adultery. And then finally, Ravi Zacharias is in a category all his own because we learned after his death that he had been involved in years and years of sexual immorality and illicit behavior despite being a world-renowned Christian apologist. So, each of these situations are discouraging, they’re troubling, they’re confusing, and as I’ve mentioned, they can cause us to question our own faith and grow in cynicism towards other Christian leaders or Christianity altogether. What we hope to help you do in this podcast, among other things, is to develop a pattern of going back to Scripture immediately after you hear of a Christian leader following into disqualifying sin or walking away from the faith so that you will remain firm in the faith and not tossed to and fro. And I hope you listeners are picking up on this pattern that what we’re wanting to do is to show you the sufficiency of Scripture and the need to constantly root yourselves in the Bible, and that is going to have a stabilizing effect on your faith.
Cliff: Just to comment there, Derek, in light of what you just said there, it’s important for believers to know these names you mentioned and the incidents are in the public domain, they’re on the public record, they’re in the headlines. So, that’s why we’re talking about it. It’s in our face, and we have to think about it properly and respond. And again, as you and I, as pastors, we’re getting the questions. What do we do about this? What do we think about it? Recently, what is the Church’s formal stance on one of these men? It’s like, well, we don’t have one, but we’re going to think through biblical principles. So, we’re not just picking on individual people because there has been discussion, if you can see it online, where some Christians are chiming in saying, oh, you can’t be talking about these men or Ravi Zacharias. That’s judgmental and this kind of thing. So, that’s not the biblical approach. But we think what we’re doing today is biblical.
Derek: True. Now, we’re going to group these leaders into four categories because each category deserves its own analysis. As you can see, Joshua Harris’s situation is considerably different than, say, Art Azurdia is, but both are different from Mark Driscoll’s and James McDonald’s, and all of them together are significantly different than Ravi Zacharias’s situation. It would be unwise to group all of them together and make some broad general statements about them. This would actually cause confusion in my judgment. In fact, I think as I’ve listened to some recent commentary on the Ravi Zacharias situation, I’ve noticed among some commentators a lack of precision at this very point so that he is compared to other leaders who have fallen, and I don’t think that’s helpful. We need to make some distinctions. So…
Cliff: Can I comment on that too, Derek?
Derek: Yeah, go ahead.
Cliff: That is a really important distinction because the four categories you have here, you’re really profiling these men who are in ministry who are supposed to be representing Christ-likeness and truth with integrity. This would be different. We’re not talking today about all the famous Christian music stars that we know who have disappointed us by falling, so we need to make a distinction between Bible teachers and pastors and, quote, Christian leaders versus just any other Christian and a Christian music star. Because, excuse me, to be a great Christian musician and singer, you don’t need to have any qualifications in terms of character or integrity. Like in 1 Timothy 3, we don’t know anything about that person’s personal life. You can just be incredibly talented because you sing well and be a lousy, compromised, fake Christian or an undisciplined Christian. So your distinction here focusing only on pastors and ministers of the Word is very important, and I think it’s legit in light of what the Bible says. There are qualifications to be in a formal Christian ministry.
Derek: So let’s begin with category number one. This is leaders who fall into the sin of adultery and sexual immorality. What can and should we say about these kinds of situations? Well, in the case of Tullian, Bill Hybels, Art Azurdia, and Carl Lentz, Jerry Falwell, it doesn’t appear that any of them have reputed the Christian faith like Joshua Harris or Derek Webb have. They sin mightily, but they still profess Christ as far as I know. At least they haven’t publicly denied the faith like Joshua Harris and Derrick Webb publicly have. They’ve been very clear about that. Now, we will talk about the individual faith of one of these men in a moment, but I want to say right now that it is possible for a genuine Christian to fall into the sin of adultery, genuinely repent, and be restored in their relationship with God. That’s entirely possible. So we want to be clear about that. So while it’s grievous and spiritually harmful to other Christians when evangelical leaders fall, it doesn’t necessarily imply that the leader himself is not a believer. So I got a load of questions for you, Cliff.
Cliff: Yes.
Derek: For argument’s sake, let’s assume that these men are Christians. How should we think about the sin of adultery when it comes to Christian leaders specifically? Here are your questions. One, how does this kind of thing happen? Question number two, how can it be avoided? And then question number three, should these men be restored to pastoral or leadership ministry in light of their adultery?
Cliff: Three hot potato questions. And these are the questions that the Christian community is asking, too. It needs an answer. I think the Bible addresses these. I’ll give short answers. Your first one, how does this kind of thing happen? How is it that a well-respected Christian minister such as, well, C.J. Mahaney for decades and then falls into the sin of pride, which is different than Ravi Zacharias, who after 40 years of ministry and then his adultery is exposed, how does that happen? Number one, it didn’t happen suddenly, the fact that Ravi Zacharias got into sexual sin, or even some of these guys that were caught in their adultery. It didn’t happen suddenly. In other words, when they got exposed, it wasn’t the beginning of something, it was the end result of something. And then as the more details come out, you find out they had a secret life and a secret history, and usually a long one. The patterns of behavior over at least some of these guys, I know for a fact that over the course of 30 and 40 years, you could look back from testimony and people that knew them of compromises along the way. Along the way, right. So that’s how it happens. It can creep in little by little subtly over time, and if you don’t take guard against it, you’re exposing yourself and you become vulnerable, and that’s what happened with many of these men. So that’s how it happens. How can it be avoided? I think many different ways. Number one, I guess would be, I’m reminded that here we’re talking about all these men who have been exposed, compromised in ministry, and at the same time, I think of, there are a lot of godly men who’ve lived their whole life in an exemplary manner, and they’re fantastic godly models across the board. Jay Adams, who just went to heaven, everything we know about Jay Adams in 60 years of ministry was stellar in his personal life.
Derek: Yeah, great point.
Cliff: His marriage, as a family man, as a pastor, as a shepherd, the way he treated people, our former pastor, John MacArthur, up to this point, we could say the same thing at almost 83 years old. I know his family, exemplary for 50 years even, behind the scenes. John Piper, another one that, as far as you know, has been faithful for so many years. And these kind of men, when you ask the question, how can it be avoided? How can compromise be avoided? These men took deliberate steps to avoid this, to put preventative biblical principles in place to bring accountability, to avoid this very thing. And they went on the record about it, they preached sermons on it, they wrote books about it, they modeled it in their life when they discipled men, they laid it out. I think of John Piper, who had a list of 15 questions that he encouraged elder teams, I think you gave it to me, 10 or 12 questions, to be asking each other regularly about moral accountability, sexual accountability, always confessing your sin on little compromises. So, he was very vocal about that. John MacArthur, the same thing, laying out principles about how to stay pure, taught on it consistently, and even very specifically, just practical things. Don’t ever, if you’re married, don’t ever travel anywhere, go anywhere with someone, not your wife. It’s pretty simple. Billy Graham did the same thing. So, those are examples of preventative measures that can be put in place to help us walk the path. Also, very simply, but this is by God’s design, if you are married and you’re a pastor or a minister or a Bible teacher or in the public limelight representing God in ministry, and if you’re married and a man, then it’s with your wife, clinging to your wife. Your wife should be your best friend. That’s what I’ve always believed. My wife and I believe that. Debbie and I have been married for 32 years, and I would hope that today she would, if somebody asked her, who’s your best friend, hopefully she says me. Because if somebody asked me, who’s your best friend, I’d say my wife. So, if your wife is your best friend, that is by God’s design. You are one in every area of your life. And if you’re one in every area of your life, you’re not going to have secret areas of your life that your wife doesn’t know about. We get information, we find out, Ravi Zacharias and all these guys, Bill Hybels, they had secrets in their life that their wife didn’t know about. They had friendships with females that they were cultivating that probably their wife didn’t know the fullness of. You mentioned earlier about Bill Hybels, his compromises happening in the context of mentoring young women. What in the world is a married man doing mentoring young women?
Derek: Agreed. Wow.
Cliff: And then your third question. Should these men be restored to pastoral or leadership ministry in light of their adultery? This is specifically regarding adultery.
Derek: Yes.
Cliff: So, I would say adultery, or I’d ask this question, is all sin the same? And then some Christians would say yes, and I would say no, it’s not. Is all sin and righteousness? Yes, the book of John tells us that. But is all sin the same? No, there are degrees of sin. And so, the Mosaic Covenant even illustrated that because it had different consequences for different sin. Not everything warranted the death penalty, only the more severe sins. So, all sins are not the same. Some are more severe than others, and some are even in a very special category. And Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 6 that adultery is in a unique category all by itself. And when you have sexual intimacy with someone other than your wife, when you’re committing adultery, you weren’t committing a sin like other sins that are outside the body, but it is a unique sin that you’re committing against your own body as you become one with that adulteress. And that comes with special, severe, and lasting consequences. So, adultery is just a whole different issue. I remember a pastor called me and asked me some advice about reinstating a man, maybe it was in their church, who had committed adultery. It was fairly recent. And he wasn’t sure. He’s deliberating, searching the scripture, one in my opinion, told me the scenario. And basically, he was thinking, well, the argument we’re getting on this end is that, you know, all sin is the same and it’s all forgivable. And I said, well, no, it’s not. And I took him to Proverbs 6, and he hadn’t considered that passage where it talks about the consequences of committing adultery. And at the end of the chapter, talks about the man who commits adultery basically is shattering and destroying his life, his family, his relationship with his children. And it literally uses reproach on his person or name. He is no longer above reproach. And the metaphor there is it’s like taking burning coals into your lap, who will not be burned. So, the scars will be there forever. So, when you commit adultery, you commit a sin that has lasting scars and consequences as a result. So, you can’t put it in the same category as any other sin. So, with respect to ministry, 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are clear. There are qualifications to pastoral biblical ministry. Moral sexual purity is one of those qualifications. Your relationship with your wife is a specific qualification. You have to be a one-woman man to be a pastor and leader in ministry. So, the question is, should a man who committed adultery be restored to pastoral ministry? I’d say, number one, not right away. And I’m just surprised. I mean, I knew about Tullian just rushing back into being in the limelight as a senior pastor. Like, why would you even want to do that? Why not wait a few years at least? It seems like you have no shame to do that. You don’t care about your reputation. And why does it have to be the senior pastor? Why can’t it be an associate pastoral position with accountability behind the scenes at a church if you want to be a true servant of God? Be a deacon. Why not be a deacon? There you go. So, I would say, certainly not soon and right away be restored. It’s a sin that can be forgiven. But in light of the consequences, in light of Proverbs chapter 6, 1 Corinthians 6, of how it’s a unique sin, that is one that requires much time for restoration and great care and accountability. And I don’t think any man should be thrust back into a leadership position right away or without a very long season of time.
Derek: I agree. I agree. And I think when a man in that situation wants to be, that’s itself a red flag.
Cliff: It is.
Derek: There should be a real humbling and humbling before the Lord because of what you’ve done. And so, I think to help our people think very clearly, we need to say it this way. It’s possible to commit sins that have lifelong earthly consequences. You’re forgiven by God, you’re justified, you’re going to heaven, yet you must bear with the earthly consequences for the rest of your life. That’s just something we have to reckon with.
Cliff: And you can also be used by God, even if you’re not restored back to that pastoral position.
Derek: Right. So, you don’t need that pastoral position to be even fruitful in ministry. It’s going to be a private, behind-the-scenes ministry, but that’s glorious too. So, all right. Now, I said I was going to talk specifically about the faith of one of these leaders in order to go deeper into the question of how this kind of thing happens. I want to talk specifically about Carl Lentz because there’s more to the story than just adultery here. While it is easy to look back after an incident has occurred and say, there are warning signs everywhere, it was the case with Lentz that there are warning signs everywhere. So, I’m not just looking back with hindsight being 2020. There were genuine warning signs. And just to highlight that point, a while, in fact, a few months ago before it was revealed that Lentz had cheated on his wife with another woman, I had been meeting with one of our members here at CBC. He wasn’t a member yet, but he was one of our faithful attenders to the Young Adult Group. And he’d asked me about Carl Lentz because his friend was currently under Lentz’s ministry. And I started to do a little research on Lentz, read some articles, watched some video, looked at some photos. And I said to this young man in our group, I said, it just appears to me that this guy is the kind of person that Paul was describing in first Timothy, or second Timothy three, when he talks about there are hard times are going to come. There will be people who are lovers of self. And then he gives this long list of these kinds of people who have a kind of form of godliness, but who deny its power. And you can see the denial of the spiritual power in their life. And the way that this man, this Carl Lentz, carried himself, he just appeared to be someone who’s very much into himself. And so that was the conclusion I drew. And I explained to this member that it’s not necessarily sinful. In fact, scripture calls us to do this, to assess someone’s life and ministry and to draw conclusions about the genuineness of their confession and the health of their ministry.
In fact, here’s what’s amazing. When Paul in second Timothy three tells Timothy these things, in the last days, there will be people who are like this. There’ll be lovers of self. He’s assuming that Timothy would be able to discern who someone who is a lover of self without simply judging them. And so we need to be able to do this. And then because Paul then says to Timothy, avoid such people. So I told this member that Lentz seemed to carry himself in a way that was unfitting for a pastor. And I was basing this on his public image, the way he conducted himself in public, his lack of modesty. And to illustrate that last point about a lack of modesty, there’s a picture of Lentz floating around online with him walking on the beach with Justin Bieber, where Lentz is shirtless with his swimming trunks sitting extremely low on his waist, where he’s clearly showing off his very muscular athletic physique. And I remember seeing that and thinking, there’s nothing wrong with a Christian leader keeping himself in good shape, but this seems a little ridiculous. There’s a kind of immodesty here that just seems unfitting for a man in his position.
But it wasn’t an isolated event. Lentz portrayed himself as the cool hip pastor, clearly very interested in his physical appearance and apparel. You can just confirm this by viewing pictures and videos and so on. But it wasn’t just his outward appearance. Lentz also demonstrated that he had deeply wrong beliefs about Jesus. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, for example, Lentz, when asked by Oprah if only Christians can be in a relationship with God, he says, and I’m quoting him now from this video, no. So the question is, can only Christians be in a relationship with God? And Lentz answers, no. I believe that when Jesus said, I’m the way and the truth and the life, the way I read that is that Jesus said, he is the road marker, he is the map. So I think God loves people so much that whether people accept or reject him, he is still gracious and he is still moving and he is still giving you massive red blinking lights for chances to take a right turn or maybe you would have taken a left. But I believe that God loves people and that’s what this whole gospel is based on. It’s based on love. And so he sidestepped the question and basically opened the door for Oprah to believe that the gospel does not require the exclusivity of Christ. That, no, God is working in everybody’s life. In fact, he even said at the beginning when she said very directly, can only Christians be in a relationship with God, he said clearly, no. And then he went on to give some kind of vague answer about the love of God and the gospel and so on. So he was very reluctant to state clearly that yes, Jesus is, it’s only through Christ and those who are not Christians do not have a relationship with God by definition. And in order to come into a relationship with God, you must turn from your sin and believe in Christ and Christ alone. Well, his answer was very noncommittal, vague and so on.
Cliff: That’s just a classic false teacher over emphasizing legitimately the love of God. And categorically for the record, all you radio listeners out there, Derek and I believe the Bible clearly teaches, there’s only one way to know God and go to heaven and have your sins forgiven, and it’s only through Jesus Christ. Wow, that’s a fundamental issue that he compromised on.
Derek: It is. On the Katie Couric show, he says that he loves Joel Osteen and is thankful for men like him and that Osteen’s message of hope is similar to his. So he’s linking himself and his message with Joel Osteen, who is very clearly a false teacher.
Cliff: False teacher. I don’t love false teachers, Derek.
Derek: I do not love false teachers. I want them to repent and believe the gospel.
Cliff: And I want to warn believers about false teachers.
Derek: But he’s linking himself with Osteen, which should have been a huge red flag. But his book, Own the Moment, is a platitudinal self-help manual with Carl at the center of the story. So I couldn’t read all of it. I just couldn’t make the way through it. But he’s clearly the center of the story and he has this disclaimer at the beginning. He says, the stone-cold truth about Jesus and what he stood for and stands for is that you don’t actually have to believe he was who he said he was and who I say he is in order to benefit from his life. In fact, most successful motivational speakers simply rip off Bible teaching, they take the Bible out of it, give no credit to the author, and make a killing. What I found out is that, yes, doing what Jesus said to do can change your life on this earth. It can change your behavior and outlook. So that’s the end of the paragraph. So he’s writing this book to give people biblical principles to make their earthly life better, and he says up front they don’t have to believe in Jesus in order to benefit from his teaching. So what’s ironic is that he’s actually doing what he’s chiding motivational speakers of doing. He’s using Jesus’s teaching to get people who otherwise don’t believe in Jesus to buy his books.
Interestingly, you won’t find very many Bible verses in the book itself, which was ironic as well. So I just bring all this up to show that Lentz clearly does not have a solid grasp on the gospel. He does not understand the gospel. He does not preach the gospel of Christ alone. He does not say emphatically to those who ask that it’s only through Christ that a person can be saved. And his teaching and writing in public demeanor classify him as the kind of person Paul would have us avoid in 2 Timothy 3, 1-5, because he’s clearly a lover of self. And saying that is not necessarily sinful. It’s actually good and right to warn Christians of these kinds of people. And I say all of this about Lentz because it’s vital for our listeners to learn from this incident that professing Christian leaders don’t just fall into adultery out of the blue, similar to what you said. In the case of Lentz, we should have seen it coming. We should have seen something coming because of how he already previously conducted himself. He didn’t have a grasp on the gospel, which means he’s not going to have the Spirit helping him put sin to death. And so these incidents can rattle us because we wonder how this could happen and what it means for the stability of our faith. But in the case of Lentz, his fall was the inevitable fruit of a faulty belief in Christ and a lifestyle that fed his love of self. So these incidents shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Now let me ask you, Cliff, do you have any thoughts on this assessment of Carl Lentz? Is it too harsh?
Cliff: No, it’s not too harsh. And we’ve alluded to this, that because he was a professed pastor or minister, a spiritual position with the authority of God, supposed to be representing the Bible and eternal truth and responsible for shepherding the souls, the eternal souls of people, there are qualifications for that that are clearly delineated in Scripture. So there’s an objective assessment that is to be made. Is he qualified? Does he meet the standard? And you need to be able to make that observation. And then all throughout the New Testament, Jesus, including all of his apostles in almost every letter in the New Testament, warns the church about false teachers. And they manifest their falsehood in many different ways, sometimes with their false teaching, but also with their words or actually their behavior. And their love of self, their love of the material world is a common and key feature. So you made a good point there in Timothy that Paul, part of his warning was watch out for lovers of self, which assumes that as Christians we’re supposed to be able to make that assessment.
Derek: Yeah, make that assessment.
Cliff: So it’s not, there’s a legitimate judgment and there’s an illegitimate judgment. So earlier I said, I don’t love false teachers. Well, what about the Bible says love your enemies? Well, it depends on the context of what that means. I don’t love the false teaching of false teachers. I don’t love the damage they do when they mislead unsafe souls. I don’t love the damage they do when they mislead believers. I hate that. It makes me angry. And that’s, Jesus had the same attitude. So that’s what I mean by I don’t love false teachers. So we’re not being too harsh. As a matter of fact, probably the number two Bible verse that’s quoted in the world, even among unbelievers, number one would probably be at least familiar as John 3.16. Number two is probably, do not judge, lest ye be judged. Do not judge, lest ye be judged. Which is totally taken out of context. Yeah, it does say that in Matthew 7:1, but you read like two, three verses later in verse five. And Jesus actually said, after you do this, then go ahead and take the speck out of their eye. In other words, make a judgment. But there are prerequisites to doing it the right way, and there’s a prerequisite attitude to do it the right way. So in context, Jesus was saying, judge in a proper manner. Then you go down 10 verses to verse 15, and literally Jesus says, be on the alert, watch out, and judge for false religious teachers. You will know them by their fruits, by their lifestyle, things that can be observed, by their teaching. So contrary to people, including Christians, saying, as a matter of fact, we’ll probably be criticized for this podcast.
Derek: Probably.
Cliff: By Christians.
Derek: Probably.
Cliff: Matthew 7:1, judge ye not, lest ye be judged. And I would just say to them, also quote John 7:24, it’s the same Jesus, and here was his command to believers. Do not judge according to appearance, that means superficially, but instead, judge with righteous judgment.
Derek: So there’s a proper way to judge.
Cliff: And that’s what we’re trying to do today.
Derek: That’s right. Very important reminder. So let’s move on to category number two. What about Mark Driscoll, Darrin Patrick, James McDonald. Mark Driscoll was removed from his leadership role with Acts 29, the church planning ministry he co-founded. Due to what leaders at Acts 29 said was quote, ungodly and disqualifying behavior. He then stepped down from his role at Mars Hill Church in Seattle amidst the controversy and was later discovered, it was later discovered that several of the elders at Mars Hill had complaints against Mark and the culture of the church’s leadership. The specific behavior was that he was domineering, proud, and combative. He was also charged with plagiarism in 2014 for his book, A Call to Resurgence. And in the same year, it was revealed that Driscoll had used $210,000 of Mars Hill’s church money to promote his book, Real Marriage, and push it to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. He used a marketing company to accomplish that. Darrin Patrick was removed from his pastoral position due to pride and abuse of authority, as we recently saw. McDonald was accused by eight former elders at Harvest Bible Church of quote, self-promotion, love of money, domineering and bullying, abusive speech, outbursts of anger, and making misleading statements. And then they go on to say, we are prepared to bring forth a host of specific examples and witnesses. And he was later fired by Harvest Bible Church in early 2019. While none of these men committed adultery, as far as we know, their conduct disqualified them from ministry. What I want to point out here is that sexual sin is not the only disqualifier for ministry.
Let’s turn to 1 Timothy 3:1 through 8. So this is what Paul says to Timothy, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone desires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore, an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive. For if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. And then in the passage in Titus 1, 5 through 9, that Paul gives to Titus regarding the qualifications for elders, he adds these qualifications to the ones we just read. Quote, he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered. He must be a lover of good, upright, holy, and disciplined. And then Peter says in 1 Peter 5 that shepherds must not lord their authority over the flock. So in the case of Driscoll, Patrick, and McDonald, these men were found to be in violation of these qualifications, particularly with regard to pride, being quarrelsome, being upright. Drisco’s use of church funds to prop his book up as an example, loving money and lording over their flock. So my question for you, Cliff, is can you just talk a little bit about the importance of these qualifications for Christian leaders and why consistent violation of just one of these qualities disqualifies a man from leadership?
Cliff: Yeah, a common denominator you have there is the issue of pride. You mentioned how Mark Driscoll, it was revealed, was using money illegitimately to promote his book. That’s self-promotion. Self-promotion, and then Pastor McDonald, by his own elders, eight of them, validating truth by the testimony of two or three witnesses, eight elders at his own church, quote, accusing him of self-promotion. Earlier you referred to Darrin Patrick of Acts 29 and what he was accused of, quote, I think from his own church, misuse of power and authority and, quote, I thought this was interesting, this is kind of unique, a history of building his identity through ministry and media platforms, which is self-promotion. So here’s three men who are in ministry, one reason is for self-promotion, which is the very antithesis of true biblical ministry. I’ll just read a passage here, probably says it all, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Here’s Jesus, the end of his life, Matthew 20, he’s been, for three and a half years, pouring his life into his apostles, who would be the first pastors of the first church. They were in seminary, in essence, and here’s one of their lessons in leadership that Jesus gave them, where the mother of the Zebedee boys came to Jesus and wanted her boys to be on the right hand and the left hand. She wanted promotion of her boys in ministry. Make sure their best-selling books go to the top, or whatever she said. And then hearing this, verse 25 of Matthew 20, here’s what Jesus said, so he was giving a lesson on leadership here in light of James and John’s mom’s comment and request that was about self-promotion. And the lesson here for leadership is Jesus said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. What that means is, you know, pagan, unbelieving leaders of all sorts, one of the main things they do is self-promotion, and they rule over the people, they lord it over the people, they domineer over the people, they elevate themselves and put the people down. And their great men exercise authority over the people, and they abuse that authority. And Jesus basically rebuked them, and He said, it is not this way among you. I don’t want you to do that. I’ve been training you for three years, pouring my life into you, modeling true biblical Christian ministry for you, and one thing is sure, I don’t want you to be like a leader in this world, because they have one way of operating, elevating themselves in self-promotion.
You will not do that. Here’s how I want you to lead. Whoever wishes to become great among you as a Christian leader shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. That is the essence of Christian leadership. First and foremost as pastors, spiritual leaders, Christian shepherds, we are not to be rock stars, we’re not to be men of renown in the eyes of the world or even of the church. We should not be seeking our fame and fortune and advancing our career, becoming known. Just the opposite. The goal of the Christian minister is to be, in terms of qualifications in light of what you just, I would summarize 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 in one qualification is you need to be a humble servant. That is the quintessential essence of what a true shepherd of Christ is, to be a humble servant. That’s the exact opposite of self-promotion. And also, first and foremost, a servant of the people. That’s what we need to be doing. Washing their feet. How can I help my sheep? How can I feed them? How can I assist to them and attend to them? And Proverbs 27:2 talks about a wise, godly person is one who he doesn’t praise himself, he lets another man’s lips praise him. He’s not about self-promotion. And bottom line, to summarize it up, I like the, I think of the John the Baptist philosophy of ministry, and I was influenced by one of my Old Testament teachers, Dr. Doug Bookman, maybe you’re familiar with him. I don’t know if you ever had met Doug.
Derek: I didn’t have him personally, but I listened to him in chapel.
Cliff: Yeah, so he gave this as a principle for ministry, and it was, you need to have the John the Baptist philosophy of ministry, which in John chapter 3, John the Baptist, upon being, you know, inquired, peppered with questions by the Pharisees asking who he was, John said, I’m just a signpost, and I’m pointing to the Savior, and that’s it. And then John gives that great phrase where he says, he must increase and I must decrease. And what he was talking about was Jesus. Jesus must become more popular. I must fade into the background. That’s what Christian ministry is all about. So, that’s a good verse to evaluate our own ministry in every area of our life. What am I doing if I’m a pastor and in ministry? What am I about? Am I truly about he must, Jesus must increase and I must decrease? What does that do to all my goals and aspirations, or am I vying to be the next, hopefully, speaker at the Shepherds Conference? You and I, this is kind of a practical application on an interesting level, is you and I have a publishing ministry with all wisdom, and we do books. And I think you and I talked about one time is that one of our policies is we are not going to put the picture of the author on the back of our books.
Derek: That is right. You’ll never see one of our pictures.
Cliff: There’s a reason for that. Hold me to that. And it wasn’t because, well, I’m ugly and I don’t want people to see me. That is corollary. But we don’t need to be promoting ourselves in the book. That’s not the point of writing a book to the Christian community. It’s to minister to them, it’s to exalt Christ, and we need to be like John the Baptist. We must decrease.
Derek: Yeah. Amen. And what’s interesting is that’s where the joy is at. Lowering yourself, humbling yourself to serve Christ’s people, that’s where I experience the joy. And it’s almost as though you think there’s going to be more joy if you can become a little more famous. And there’s no joy there. There just is no, the joy is in being a humble servant.
Cliff: If you become famous, people just say bad things about you on the internet.
Derek: Right. That’s not fun. That’s not fun at all. Category number three. Well, thank you for that, Cliff. That was great. I love the focus on servant leadership. Next category, what about when Christian leaders reject the faith? All of these incidents have potential to harm the spiritual life of Christians, the ones we’ve mentioned so far, particularly new Christians and Christians who are not well-grounded in the Word of God. But this category in particular can be alarming and can really send some Christians, even mature Christians, into a bit of a spiritual tailspin. How do you make sense of someone who teaches eloquently and articulately like Joshua Harris or sings poetically and passionately like Derek Webb about the most sublime truths of the Christian faith and who gives what appears to be solid evidence for the reality of their faith and then falls away? What do you do with that? Personally, I’ve been helped by both Joshua Harris’s teaching ministry, and I used to listen to Caedmon’s Call all the time. The album 40 Acres and A Long Line of Leavers remain stays for me in my early Christian life, especially 40 Acres. Love that album. All the other members of Caedmon’s Call, as far as I know, are doing well. But Derek Webb, who’s part of Caden’s call, is the one we’re focusing on here who’s denied Christ. So here’s where we need to go deeper into our theological footing so that we won’t get blown to and fro when incidents like this happen, because let me assure you, they will happen again. Joshua Harris and Derek Webb are not the last two professing believers or Christian leaders, Christian people in the spotlight who will deny the faith. Sadly, I don’t say that with joy. I say that as a warning. They won’t be the first. So we need to go deep into our theology so that we can be well grounded. So firstly, we should grieve. I think that’s appropriate. Our hearts should sink when we see the headline. But we should not be surprised. And I think that’s vital. That’s not meant to be cynical. When these evangelical deconversions occur, as they’re called, we shouldn’t be saddened by them. We shouldn’t be staggered when we hear of it. And I don’t mean to sound jaded because I’m not. This isn’t cynicism. Why? Because Scripture prepares us for such events to happen so that when they happen, we won’t be thrown for a spiritual loop and lose our footing. Yes, those who depart from Christ will often become stumbling blocks to many Christians, but they don’t have to be. I think that’s what’s important. They don’t have to be. And that’s what we want for our people and the people listening. We don’t want these people to become stumbling blocks for you. We want you to continue to persevere. As a Christian leader falls, you’re able to continue down the road, the path and faithfulness.
Paul spoke often of those who gave convincing evidence that they are believers only to eventually leave the faith. We see that in 1 Timothy 1:19-20 and 2 Timothy 4:9. John reminds us that the departure of professing Christians from the fold isn’t a sign that they lost their salvation, but that they never had it. We’re going to talk about that a little bit. That’s 1 John 2:19. The latter days, as the Spirit tells us, according to Paul, will be characterized by apostasy. You see that in 1 Timothy 4:1-5, 2 Timothy 3:1-9. The fact that we hear more and more of these ex-evangelicals, as they’re called, or they’re calling themselves actually, is more proof that the scripture is true. You mentioned that already today. Neither Josh Harris or Derek Well will be the last high-profile Christians you hear of abandoning the faith. So, second, we need to be reminded that genuine salvation cannot be lost. Boy, did I need to hear that over and over early in college, because that was the first plank to go, because I just didn’t have a profound enough theology yet to grapple with these issues. Boy, he sure looked like a Christian, and whoa, is salvation even secure? So, this is where we need to be very clear. Genuine salvation cannot be lost, and teachers that are telling you that it can be, well, you shouldn’t be listening to them anymore, because that is one of the most profoundly damaging things that a teacher can say to a Christian, that salvation can be lost, and shows a profound misunderstanding of the New Testament. So, Jesus says this in John 10:27-30. He says, My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. So, know what Jesus says about His sheep. He gives them eternal life, and they will never perish. So, eternal life by its nature never ends, and they will never perish. The implication is that if you are a genuine Christian, you will never perish, which means you will never lose your salvation. Those are the straightforward truths and implications out of that passage. No one can snatch you out of Christ’s hand. He chose His sheep. He died for them, rose for them, justified them, gave them new life, and will never let them go. And then, to add to your assurance, Jesus tells us that the Father is holding onto Christ’s sheep, so that no one is able to snatch Christ’s sheep out of the Father’s hand. The Son and the Father are one in their essence and one in their purpose in holding onto Christ’s sheep. Jesus makes a similar promise in John 6:37-39, quote, All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me, and this is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day. So, if you have been given to Christ, that is why you believe, and because you’ve been given to Christ by the Father, you cannot be lost. It’s all part of God’s plan, a sovereign plan. Paul writes in Romans 8:31-39, What shall we say of these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Jesus Christ is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things, even the most troubling earthly circumstances that you could imagine, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, so that is absolutely comprehensive, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so, first and foremost, you need to root yourself in the truths of Scripture that teach that genuine salvation cannot be lost. Scripture is also clear that those who leave the faith didn’t lose their salvation. It was exposed that their profession wasn’t genuine. And we’re going to have to talk, we’re going to have to go even more in depth with that, because what do you do when someone is speaking so eloquently on the Christian faith? How can that happen and their faith not be genuine? But John 2:18 through 19 says this: Children, it is the last hour, and as you’ve heard the Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come, therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might become plain that they are not of us. So notice John’s words, they went out from us, but they are not of us, for if they had they had they been of us, they would have continued with us. Their departure is proof that they weren’t believers. John in no way implies that they were believers who lost their salvation, rather they left in order to make it clear to everyone that they are not Christians. So it’s actually a merciful thing that God is doing by exposing these people as not being Christians, and you can assess that and say they didn’t lose their salvation. Genuine salvation cannot be lost. Rather, what this is exposing is that they never were believers to begin with.
Cliff: So, taking Joshua Harris, who was so influential for many a couple of decades.
Derek: Right.
Cliff: And it’s first John to that verse in verse 19, if you just apply that about why did this happen to Joshua Harris or God answers that for us. He went out from us because he was never of us in the first place. And you use the word that was a gracious thing God did, exposing the truth for the sheep.
Derek: Yeah. So, these truths help settle the permanence of our salvation issue, but I think one of the reasons why these kinds of falls trouble us so much is because we wonder how it is that a person could have communicated the truths of Christianity so well and yet not have been a Christian so that’s where I want to go with this. That’s sobering. I mean, that should be sobering for every Christian leader, every Christian teacher who is currently listening to this. I hope there are a few, one or two. That’s a very sobering thing to acknowledge and it can be confusing. So, we have to answer this specific, this question specifically and that leads us to our last category. I call it the Ravi Zacharias category. The leader who is exposed after he dies. So, we’ll talk a little bit more about Ravi Zacharias here. Ravi Zacharias died on May 19, 2020. Soon after his death, people came forward to claim that Ravi had been sexually immoral in countless ways. These reports were confirmed by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries who conducted a large scale investigation into these charges and it was revealed that over the course of many years, this wasn’t an isolated event that happened here and there, many years Ravi had participated in various kinds of sexual immorality with many women. It was revealed that Ravi used his position as a minister and his wealth to coerce women to provide him sexual favors and that he aggressively pursued these sexual sins in various contexts even while he was engaged in global ministry. I don’t want to say any more about his behavior because frankly it would be defiling, but my last point is the most important. When I said he used his position as a minister and his wealth to coerce women to provide him sexual favors and that he aggressively pursued these sexual sins in various contexts even while he was engaged in global ministry. This was not a one-time sin of adultery. This wasn’t a one-time viewing of pornography. This was consistent, planned, intentionally pursued sinful activity of the worst kind. This was a man who used his spiritual authority to corner women and get them to yield to his demands. This is the very definition of a wolf. So the question we need to ask is whether or not a genuine believer can be guilty of this kind of ongoing habitual activity where he is pursuing and coordinating his sin in such an aggressive manner. So my question for you is, Cliff, how do you assess Ravi’s spiritual condition in light of these findings? Can we say that the fruit of his life indicates that he wasn’t a believer?
Cliff: Yeah, that’s a hard question. It’s a question a lot of folks were asking. I listened to some podcasts, read some articles. One of them asked the question, is Ravi in heaven? And I listened to the podcast and I thought, I didn’t need to spend 40 minutes. I can answer that one. We don’t know, right? Simple answer. We don’t know if he’s in heaven or not. But the second part of your question is, can we say that the fruit of his life that went on for decades of just gross, lurid immorality and compromise, that he was a believer? I would say the fruit of the Spirit and those kind of things that Jesus had to look for, Matthew 7 verse 15, and following the fruits of one’s life would be an ongoing regular pattern of behavior. That fruit can help you determine where they’re at spiritually, actually. And Ravi Zacharias’ own daughter, who was the CEO of the ministry and company, she went on the public record and said, yes, these things are true about my dad, unfortunately. He did these things. It’s sad. It’s pathetic. So that’s a reliable source that went on for decades and decades. And I would say that doing that for decades and decades, the kind of gross sin and compromise that went on would not be indicative of a true believer, clearly according to the Bible. So maybe Ravi wasn’t truly saved. He was a deceiver or self-deceived during all those decades. He did get cancer, so he did know for a year or so that he was dying. And it could very well be that God in his grace convicted him of his sin. He could have been saved in the last year of his life, the last hour of his life, where he repented. So is Ravi in heaven? He could be, by the grace of God, like the thief on the cross. Is his pattern of behavior consistent with being a Christian over the last 30 years? Absolutely not. That’s a helpful distinction. False teacher. Um, so that, yeah, that would be my thoughts on Ravi there.
Derek: Yeah, that’s a really helpful distinction. So let’s take the Ravi, Joshua Harris, Derek Webb. If it’s the case that these people were not believers, are not believers, how is it that they could conduct such a ministry? That is the Judas principle.
Cliff: Yeah, that’s the Judas principle. We had the John the Baptist principle. Now, the Judas principle. Judas, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, as far as we know, walking and talking with Jesus and the apostles for three years. Doing ministry. He did ministry. He preached the gospel. He did miracles. He was entrusted by all of them as he was the treasurer of the group. And they didn’t have any idea he was a phony or a fraud. Except Jesus probably did. So there’s the Judas principle. You can do it. You can pull it off. Or the Simon principle in Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8 says Philip preached the gospel. This guy responds to the gospel. His name is Simon. It says in Acts 8:13, it says Simon believed, then he was baptized, and he continued with Philip. Then Peter runs into him and exposes him as a complete fraud.
Derek: Wow.
Cliff: And basically says you are of the devil. You need to repent. But on the surface, he looked like he had it all together.
Derek: So the Judas principle, the Simon principle, what about the Balaam principle? Can we use that?
Cliff: Tell us about the Balaam principle.
Derek: All right. So those are excellent examples, and that ties in perfectly with where I want to turn in Numbers 23. Ravi Zacharias and Joshua Harris and Derek Webb especially as well, but I wanted to focus on Ravi Zacharias now. He was incredibly well studied and articulate about the Christian faith. He could speak with convincing passion and eloquence about the uniqueness of Jesus in the Christian faith. He could handle challenging apologetic questions with skill and acumen. How was that possible? Well, Cliff has already mentioned the Simon principle, the Judas principle. Let’s turn to Numbers 23:7 through 10 to look at the Balaam principle. All of these are the same principle, really. Balaam was hired by Balak to curse the Israelites. So here’s a situation in the life of Israel. Balak is not a fan of Israel, and he wants Balaam, this false prophet, that’s what he was, he was a false prophet, the pagan prophet, to curse Israel. So he says, he stands up to curse Israel, and what comes out of his mouth? From Aram, Balaam brought me the king of Moab from the eastern, I’m now quoting Numbers 23, from the king of Moab from the eastern mountains, curse Jacob for me and come denounce Israel. How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom God has not denounced? From the top of the crags I see him, from the hills I behold him, behold a people dwelling alone and not counting itself among the nations. Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright and let my end be like his. Well, that didn’t please Balak, of course, but Balaam responds, quote, must I not take care to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth? So he is asked by Balaam again to curse Israel, but he blesses them again. And this is what the scripture says in Numbers 24:10 through 14, and Balaam’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together, and Balaam said to Balaam, I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them these three times. Therefore now flee to your own place. I said, I will certainly honor you, but the Lord has held you back from honor. And Balaam said to Balaam, did I not tell your messengers whom you sent to me if Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold? I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord to do either good or bad of my own will. What the Lord speaks, that will I speak. And now, behold, I’m going to my people. Come, I will let you know what this people will do to your people in the latter days. And then Balaam went on his way. And now you might be thinking, well, this means that Balaam was converted. He was a believer. Listen to how he talked. He said, you couldn’t give him enough silver and gold to speak something against what God had told him. Boy, that sounds legit. But here’s where we need to be discerning. Scripture makes it clear from that point on that Balaam was a false teacher through and through, and this experience did not change him. For example, in Numbers 31, when God tells Moses to avenge the people of Israel by destroying Midian, Balaam is one of the people that Israel’s military killed. Moses later in that same passage said that Balaam, quote, caused Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord. That’s in Numbers 31:16. Joshua, in the Book of Joshua, says that Balaam practiced divination and reaffirms that Moses had him killed by the sword. Then in the New Testament, Balaam is a template for false teachers. Second Peter 2:15 says, forsaking the right way they have gone astray, they have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who love gain from wrongdoing. Jude makes a similar comment in Jude 11. Then in Revelation, Jesus describes Balaam in this way in his rebuke to the Church of Pergamon, quote, I have a few things against you. You have some who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So here’s the point, the principle we need to take away. These texts taken together tell us that Balaam was able to speak the very word of God, yet he wasn’t a believer. He wasn’t saved. He didn’t know the Lord in a saving relationship. He was evil, and his experience of speaking the word of God didn’t change him. So let’s bring it all the way now to us. Here’s the frightening implication. The ability to know the scriptures with intellectual skill and to speak eloquently and accurately about what the scriptures teach and to be able to speak persuasively on the uniqueness of the Christian faith is no necessary sign that a person knows God. That is incredibly terrifying and humbling for anyone who claims to be a teacher of God’s word, for anyone who claims to be a Christian leader. But it also explains the Ravi Zacharias phenomenon or the Simon phenomenon or the Judas phenomenon. It should no longer surprise you when a publicly skilled Christian leader falls into serious sin or denies the faith or is exposed as having a heinous private life. Why? Because a successful public ministry is no necessary sign that a man is actually a Christian, or if he is a Christian that he is a mature Christian. Now I certainly don’t say these things so that you’ll be suspicious of every Christian leader who has a successful public ministry, because another thing we need to be clear about that you’ve already been cleared about, Cliff, is that there are men of integrity out there. There are Christian leaders of integrity. There are Christian leaders of integrity that you’ve mentioned, John Piper, John MacArthur, as examples who have successful public ministries. And you know people close to John MacArthur, and I’ve read a number of things from people who are close to John Piper, and as far as we know, those men are men of integrity and who have not compromised their lives. So we don’t want you to be cynical or suspicious of Christian leaders. That would be unwise and actually harmful to your soul. Rather, we say these things so that you will not be thrown for a loop the next time you hear of this happening. So my question for you, Cliff, is do you have any comments on this Ravi Zacharias phenomenon and how it’s possible to have a successful public ministry and not yet even know the Lord?
Cliff: Yeah, it can improve on the illustration you just gave from Balaam, because he’s mentioned so frequently in the New Testament. But with respect to Ravi Zacharias, there were signs, there was fruit, there was a way to make an assessment. I’ll just highlight a few. He had a secret life, for sure, that’s coming out now, has been exposed. His wife obviously wasn’t his best friend. We see evidence of that either. He was married. And many times he’s traveling by himself. He’s even traveling with someone who was a female who wasn’t his wife on a regular basis. That was a red flag. I heard of Ravi Zacharias the first time in 1987 from a fellow friend of mine. He was at a different seminary, and Ravi came and spoke in their chapel, and my friend was all gung-ho about it, telling me about it. I’d never heard of him, and he was a big fan ever since then. And so I listened to the sermon and inquired, and I just thought, my first question was, where is he a pastor? What church does he pastor? It turns out, well, he wasn’t a pastor. Like, oh wait, he’s got a ministry and he’s not a pastor? What church is he a part of? I don’t know if anybody could tell you what church he was a part of. He’s got what? Ravi’s gone 30 years, 40 years without having a home church that we know of. And the Bible is clear. There’s no real Christian ministry apart from the Church of Christ, the local church. I mean, you’ve written good stuff on this, that the legitimacy of any parachurch ministry is good insofar as it’s connected to the local church, has the accountability of the local church and the local church leadership, and fulfills the mission of a local church. So really, from a biblical point of view, there’s no real Christian ministry apart from the local church. And for 40 years, the local church was absolutely missing in the ministry of Ravi Zacharias. That’s why I just, I was never a huge fan, because I couldn’t figure that out.
Derek: That’s a really good point.
Cliff: Where is his ministry rooted? And if you listen to him carefully, he never really taught the Bible. He referred to the Bible, quoted the Bible here and there, but he didn’t actually teach the Bible. He was eloquent and did a lot of philosophizing and those kind of things. But a minister of God, first and foremost, servant of God, servant of the people, and a minister or servant of the word of God, meaning you’re truly teaching it. So, I just think there were a lot of signs that we could have been looking at to at least maybe raise the yellow flag on Ravi.
Derek: That’s good. That’s a good helpful reminder. Well, let’s close with a word to a few groups of people here. The first word is to all Christians, all Christians, those who are in positions of spiritual leadership and those who are not. What should be our impulse and practice when we hear these stories? And so, just a few points. First thing we should do is to repent of our own sin. When we hear of a professing Christian who has walked away from Christ, whether they are well known or just a personal acquaintance, or when we know of someone who has sinned grievously in their life or public ministry, our response will often include anger, frustration, and disappointment. And I just want to make clear, that’s entirely legitimate. Just as a text to consider, Psalm 101 verse 3, David says, I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away. I hate it. A similar thing is said in Psalm 119 verse 53. So, you can be righteously anger over apostasy and even grievous sin, because it really besmirks the reputation of Christ and makes a mockery of the Gospel. So, it should make us angry. But anger cannot be the only emotion. Humility must quickly follow, because immediately after reminding the Christian church of how God dealt with Israel’s sin, and we’ve talked about this verse already, Paul said to the Corinthians, therefore, let anyone thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. And he just got done describing Israel’s terrible sin of idolatry. And then he says, but take heed lest you fall. When dealing with the sins of other scriptures, say that we should quickly turn our eyes to our own weakness and propensity to evil. Let the news of professing Christians sin and departure from Christ be a means of provoking genuine self-examination and repentance in your own life. Let that be the first impulse, along with the frustration and grief. Second, cling to Christ by faith. So, we need to continue to cultivate faith in Christ and love for Christ. We need to keep ourselves in the Word of God in prayer, in meditation, in fellowship with other believers, growing our love for the Lord, making it our aim in life to treasure Christ, to treasure the Gospel, to stand in awe of his great love for us, to meditate on his word, to cut out anything in our life that dampens our spiritual zeal. And I just think of this self-promotion. Nothing dampens a believer’s spiritual zeal and clouds his faith and chokes his faith than self-promotion. And so, leaders really have to be careful of that. I just think of John 5:44. Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees and he says, how can you believe when you seek glory from man and don’t seek the glory that comes from the one and only God? So, if you are cultivating pride, you’re going to have a hard time believing in Jesus. And if you have a hard time believing in Jesus, you’re going to have a difficult time walking in the Spirit. And if you have a difficult time walking in the Spirit, you’re not going to be able to put sin to death and eventually you’re going to fall. So, pride is really at the root of remedying a lot of these issues. So, cling to Christ by faith, put to death pride and other sins. If you are near Christ, you’ll be far from apostasy. And that involves the local church, so I don’t want people thinking and start thinking individualistically here. You do need to stand on your own before the Lord, but you also need the local church and fellowship there. And Proverbs 18.1, the one who is isolating himself becomes foolish. And so, we need to be with each other. And then beware of compromise in your own life. The factors that lead to Christian deconversions are often complex. Scripture offers us a simple reminder that the road to apostasy is rarely obvious. And you’d mentioned this already. It’s a slow growth over time. We tend to slip off the narrow road onto a different path because the new path appears more pleasant, less restrictive, and easier to navigate. But spiritual compromises occur precisely because they ease the friction of running against opposing traffic. It’s hard work to put sin to death, to keep our life free from the love of money, to keep Christ in the gospel foremost in our mind and heart, to guard against encroaching desires that tend to overtake our single-minded devotion to Christ and to stand for the truth in a culture that hates the Lord and His Word. So, we just need to be aware that it’s hard. The Christian life is hard and compromises can creep in as we are looking for some relief from the difficulty. So, just to be aware of that. Cliff, I was wondering if you could give, so that was a word to all Christians. I was wondering if you could give a word to Christian leaders specifically.
Cliff: I thought your verse from John 5 was excellent. What a great summary principle that Jesus said. You don’t believe because you seek glory from others. And that’d be my word to pastors, including myself. Don’t seek glory from others, from the listeners. Gets us into trouble. And then you’ve got the cult of personality that’s always with us. But it’s twofold. To warn the Christian community to take preventative measures to guard against this thing of Christian leaders falling. We all got to do our part. So, Christian leaders got to do their part in that we can’t be seeking glory from the people. The glory belongs to God. The John the Baptist principle. And then the people got to do their part and they can’t seek to give glory to their pastors or super pastor, rock star pastor. We go to these conferences and we elevate the men. They’re up on the stage and we want their autograph and we give them adulation and they have huge massive 10 by 14 posters of themselves on the campus as you walk around the conference. And you can’t find anything like that in the New Testament with respect to ministry in terms of who the leaders of the church were. They weren’t considered rock stars. They were utterly despised. They were the bottom of the barrel. They were the dregs of society. Paul wasn’t going around signing autographs on his glossy picture of himself. So, we’ve really turned Christian ministry leadership on its head here in America. We got to guard against it. We’re all susceptible of it.
Derek: Yeah. Boy, that is a great word. That is an excellent word. And then finally, a word to Christians who are not in a position of spiritual leadership. How you should think about Christian leaders. First, as Jesus said, you will recognize true leaders by their fruit. So, Jesus, when he says that, he’s assumed that you’re able to discern these things at some level. And their fruit, as Cliff has already mentioned, is their teaching and their life. So, take note of their teaching. If their teaching sways from scripture and historic Christian faith or constantly capitulates to cultural standards, do not put yourself under their teaching any longer. Sad to have to say that, but that is a move you have to make. That’s not good for your soul to remain under that kind of teaching. Also, if you’re able to take note of their life. Now, it’s challenging, right, for public theologians and public ministers, because we’re able to have access to their ministry, although they live across the country. So, it’s hard to see their private life. But as you’re able to do, take note of their life. I’m not talking about perfection, of course, but I am talking about a definite direction of character that accords with 1 Timothy 3:1 through 8, and Titus 1:5 through 9. Second, pray for your Christian leaders. Pray for your pastors. Pray for those who do have a public ministry. You know, God has blessed some men with public ministries, and they’ve been fruitful. And we can thank God for them, but we need to pray for our leaders. Pray for our pastors. Pray first for your pastors and your shepherds and your teachers and your local congregation. Pray that God would uphold them. Pray according to their qualifications, that God would continue to cultivate in them the character required to be in pastoral ministry. Pray that God would keep their hearts humble. Pray that they would walk in integrity, that they would be cultivating a righteous, private life, a holy, private life, so that if anybody at any moment said, hey, can I search your hard drive, or can I look through your desk, you’d be like, sure, because there’s nothing to hide. So pray for your pastors. And then second, pray for those who currently have a public platform for the gospel. Pray that God would uphold their integrity, that their faith and love for Christ would be genuine, that God would protect them from temptation, that they would cultivate real holiness in their private life, that they would love their families and walk in humility. While we should not be surprised or shaken when these falls occur, we are grieved by them because they tarnish Christ’s reputation in the world. We want Christ to be seen in the world in all his glory. And when leaders who take his name fall into these kinds of sins, it can harden the hearts of many to the gospel. So pray for your Christian leaders, starting with the church and then broaden out to public leaders. Cliff, do you have any last words?
Cliff: Yeah. You mentioned earlier how this can disillusion some Christians when a Christian they know is exposed or compromised and it shakes them. So just a practical reminder in light of everything we said, and then just I’ll close with a scripture verse that I thought was good. But the practical reminder is that whoever your rock star Christian hero is somewhere out there in the world, if they’re not a personal friend of yours, you don’t really know them. So we gotta remember that. And every person has, like an onion, five areas of life that constitute who they are. And if you drew it in concentric circles, there’s their online life. If they’re a public figure, they’re online. And that’s very highly managed by that person. That’s a facade, really. And they put their best image forward. But a lot of times that’s all we know. Oh, he’s a fantastic pastor. How do you know that? You don’t know that. Because you preached a good sermon. So it’s pretty shallow. Can be, anyway. So there’s their online life and then moving into these closer circles. Then there’s their public life, which might be their professional life or you have some semblance of an observation, but it’s still at a distance. It’s a little closer than their online life is their public life. Then from their public life, you advance to their personal life. So this would be maybe a high profile, big shot pastor who you know them because you’re on the campus of the church where they are. You’re at the mega church and there’s 10,000 people, but you see them from a distance. And there’s a little more, personally, you see how he interacts or you see him at certain events or whatever, but you still, you don’t know him that well, but you know him better than people regarding his public life. And then from the online life to the public life to the personal life, then there’s his private life, what he does with his family, his siblings, his best of friends, that circle. And so that’s a little more intimate and there’s a little better exposure to who he is. Oh, he might have a short temper. I’ve never seen that before. But you’re still not there to who that person really is. And that’s the last area of his life. And that’s his secret life. Wow. And that’s the life going on in your head, your thoughts, the things you do in dark or in secret or when you’re by yourself. Even if you have a family and children and a wife and spouse and accountability partners at church, everybody has a secret life. What are you doing in your secret life? And if you’ve got compromised sin that you’re nurturing and coddling in your secret life, it’s going to grow and it’s going to get out of control.
Derek: It is.
Cliff: And inevitably it’s going to end up in your public life and you will be exposed. So that’s just a good thing to remember. We don’t really know most of these people that we idolize.
Derek: That’s a good point.
Cliff: But I would just close with the exhortation from Jeremiah who just have the right focus. And basically that’s what Derek was pointing us to in those last excellent three principles. Jeremiah tells the people of God a couple of just real practical reminders. Or God himself says in Jeremiah 17 and five, thus says the Lord, curse it is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. Number seven, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. His trust is in the Lord. So we need to have the right focus and it’s always on our Lord.
Derek: That is a great way to end it. So thank you, Cliff. Great conversation. Hard topic, but I think fruitful conversation. Thank you for your insights. All very helpful. And thank you for joining us today on the With All Wisdom podcast where we are applying biblical truth to everyday life. Please check out withallwisdom.org for a large and growing selection of resources to help you grow in your faith. And we’ll see you next time.
