but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!' -- Luke 15: 29-30 (ESV)
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Kris Vallotton is the second in command at the cesspool known as Bethel Church. A false teacher and prophet, Vallotton is kind enough to host a blog where we can peer into the deceitful heart of a false teacher so we might better discern the truth from error. His latest article, linked above, is breathtakingly bad in basic Bible knowledge, interpretation and understanding. Beloved realize that thousands of people follow this man and his church's teachings. The potential damage is very real. Let us reason together as we review just how badly Kris Vallotton is with dividing the word of truth:
"It's insane to me the stupid things Christians say in an effort to get people saved! In a world where believers spew judgement on entire cities, like "Hurricane Katrina is God's punishment on Louisiana for being the modern Sodom and Gomorrah. Turn now or burn!" I'm like, "What kind of idiotic thinking is that?!" If we truly understand just how much we deserved to be judged, and just how HUGE God's grace and mercy is that we are rather covered in Christ (and therefore judged by His standard of righteousness which is perfect), then maybe these idiotic statements would cease to flow from Christian mouths. If we understood that we are supposed to be the father to the prodigals, and not the elder brother, maybe then we'd start to spread the true gospel--which is supposed to be Good News, folks!" -- Kris Vallotton
Now, I agree with Kris that such statements from the mouths of Christians are idiotic. While we certainly can discuss the cost of sin, it is not our place to judge those on the outside of salvation. That judgment is God's alone. The problem in his premise here is in completely misappropriating the story of the Prodigal Son. Beloved we are not supposed to be the father of prodigals. That role belongs to God. Now considering Vallotton's warped theology often places himself in the role of the Almighty it does not surprise me that he could read this story and want to usurp what is God's. It is an astounding disconnect in that he just properly delineated that we received God's huge grace and mercy yet he cannot see that places us in the role of the prodigal in the story. We are the sinner who came home to the Father, not the Father himself. Kris now goes into bullet points to summarize his teaching:
"1 Corinthians 14 says to let two or three prophets prophesy and let the others pass judgement. So why is it that we judge people when Paul told us to judge prophecy?" -- Kris Vallotton
Sigh. Let us first deal with the fact that just because he found a verse that supports judging prophecy, that does not mean we discard any other form of judgment. Secondly, we are to test everything to make sure it lines up with the word of God. Thirdly, we are to judge righteously. When dealing with unbelievers we do not judge in terms of heaven and hell but that does not mean we are devoid of discernment! This is simply a silly unbiblical point.
"What would happen if you took an Old Testament prophet and brought them into the new covenant?" -- Kris Vallotton
We would finally have a real prophet? In the Old Testament the prophets actually heard from God. There was no wiggle room. Not speaking to my heart or I think the Lord is saying this. There was also consequence. A wrong prophecy resulted in death. The result is that few were willing to test God and lie on His behalf as so many, including Vallotton do today. In the Old Testament there was no revealed will of God. There was no Bible. Thus the Word of the Lord came through the prophets. If you brought one of them into the new covenant, they would point people to what God has said in His Word. The other major difference is that the word being brought forth would be truer and harsher. False prophets of today are in the business of selling encouragement and false hope.
"The Old Testament's ministry (which used to be based in judgement) becomes a ministry of reconciliation because the prophet moved into a new covenant!" -- Kris Vallotton
Here is where Vallotton starts to get cute. The ministry of the prophet in the Old Testament was not based on judgement. Again the issue was that there was no written word of God so this was how God chose to speak to His people and their leaders. Was a great deal of the prophecies recorded judgmental? Yes because the people were always disobedient. This gives an insight into the way Vallotton approaches his beliefs. The Old Testament was a time of judgment but now? It is all fairy tales and lollipops. Man has not fundamentally changed however. We are still as disobedient as ever. What has changed is that the final judgment will not require our eternal lives if we are found in Christ Jesus. What is Vallotton hinting at with this reference to reconciliation?
'2 Corinthians 5:17-19 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation."' -- Kris Vallotton
These verses have to do with our individual status with the Lord. We all as believers have been given a ministry of reconciliation because God has reconciled Himself to His people? How? Through the Gospel! Through His Son! Through the cross! How does one get to the point of reconciliation? By repentance for the forgiveness of their sins! What does this have to do with the ministry of the prophet? Absolutely nothing! The true prophet is still required to say what God says to His people. Just as the judgmental prophets in the Old Testament would say repent, so do the prophets of the New Testament! How about the first two prophets on the scene in the New Testament?
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." -- Matthew 3: 1-2 (ESV)
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." -- Matthew 4: 17 (ESV)
