I will repeat my plea for a kingdom-wide wolf hunt, led by our best leaders, not handed off to administrative assistants, to confront and isolate wolves from within as we enter the New Era.
Elders Cannot Delegate the Hunt
Jesus says, “Beware.” Paul tells oversight leaders, “Beware.” So, most people assume the Bible asks each individual believer to determine, on their own, who is false.
To examine such a vital aspect of the kingdom with surface treatment is nothing short of a dereliction of duty for elders.
- Shepherds protect sheep from wolves.
- Evangels protect people from false announcers.
- Teachers protect people from false teachers.
- Prophets protect people from false prophets.
- Apostles protect people from false apostles.
All elders identify and isolate the false to protect the kingdom culture.
We Will Always Have False
Paul met with the oversight elders he trained, and Holy Spirit identified for leadership on his way to die. He knew he was not coming back. He wasn’t turning anything over to them because they were already functional. Paul brought closure to his apostolic oversight as the originator of a move of God.
False comes from within. Wolves come from within.
Had God not had a death in His plan for Paul, the apostle would have remained in oversight function himself.
Here’s what that meant: when I leave, the false will appear because I am no longer here to stop it. Some of you will be tempted to become false leaders, and some of you will become false. Do something about that since I’m going to be dead and cannot do something about it myself.”
We have false everything if we have authentic anything. We have what should not be if we have what should be. We have the authentic because it is valuable; therefore, we will have the pseudo because it wishes to cash in on some level.
We have false because leaders attempt to meet an internal, relationship, or financial need by manipulating a King-designed leadership role. We have the false because the authentic is valued, honored, and trusted, so the false leader wants to be valued, honored, and trusted.
This motivation is what makes a false leader false. Thus, a kingdom leader can be false while teaching good teaching, prophesying good prophecy, functioning well with the wrong motivations, using leadership values to meet his own needs.
False leaders are all wolves. The metaphor includes “devouring” to express this use of people and position to satisfy their hunger, carrying out that process by consuming. Thus, the most obvious of all false leaders are those motivated by consumerism.
The Authentics Confront the False
No, the individual believer is not “on his own” in dealing with false leadership. Telling people the Truth and leaving them to make up their own minds is not a Biblical idea. Authentic leaders have clear instructions and Biblically expressed responsibility and accountability to confront wolves.
First, authentic leaders know what is false, while people who follow leaders are vulnerable. This undeniable principle portrayed in every teaching on the false applies to all leadership relationships designed by the King.
Second, authentic leaders have the authority to confront false leaders while people who follow leaders do not.
Third, authentic leaders have the authority to clarify why the person is false to restore trust in authentic leadership.
We have a severe crisis in leadership in every one of the five oversight leadership functions of the kingdom, and these leaders are accountable for that crisis.
If It Sells, It is of God
We have allowed a pagan idea to dominate our thinking about how things work in the spirit. So, for example, we have a superstition about growth and success that blames God for the success of wolves.
Suppose a ministry does well, gains thousands of followers, publishes best-selling books, and builds a significant influence on media. In that case, we jump to the horrifying conclusion that God’s favor is behind all this.
If a ministry appears to have or does have miracles, we assume Holy Spirit would not allow miracles to happen and heal people if that person’s heart and behavior were not right. So then, we say, “Holy Spirit will police the kingdom,” as if the Bible means nothing.
Some people, of course, think any success means the leader is a sell-out. But, of course, a leader can have all these things going on or not and be authentic. However, the idea that God is the One behind these markers of success brings people to a wrong conclusion.
Wolves have appeal. Wolves do appear suitable, wholesome, and honorable. Wolves appear to be a viable alternative. Wolves appeal to sheep thinking. Wolves are successful in luring sheep away from the King’s assignments.
If wolves were not so much like authentic leaders, they would be less successful. But, instead, they successfully lure away sheep, thus bringing division, misalignments, and fatal flaws to the kingdom architecture.
The King does not shoot wolves. His representatives do.
A Season of Confrontation and Cleansing
We need to mop up the floor with wolves, confront and cleanse the kingdom of their error, protect and secure the sheep in kingdom alignments and assignments.
We need to bring order to the kingdom with bold, brave wolf hunts.
I confront wolves. In two cases of wolf confrontation, several people left the ministry because they saw the wolves as victims. As a result, I decided to be less open about the wolf behavior when I should have laid out a case before all.
Wolf hunting isn’t pleasant, fun, sporting, or appreciated. You only confront wolves because you must, not because you wish to “get them before they get you.” Wolf hunting isn’t how you isolate your critics. Instead, Wolf hunting occurs because frauds mess with apostolic order in the kingdom and reset alignments to feed their hunger.
I confronted wolves, and they immediately went to another apostolic ministry. That ministry believed the wolves without any communication with me. That ministry then gave the wolves leadership positions and access to vulnerable people. Many people respect that ministry.
The apostle who leads this ministry is a beautiful person but a poor wolf hunter. She neglected to deal with problem-solving.
I let her know her ministry handled the situation poorly, but she said, “I trust my people to deal with this.” Unfortunately, her people was an administrative assistant with no kingdom leadership expertise and experience. Here’s the problem: The people who say they are too busy doing stuff for Jesus to deal with wolves are the very people assigned to confront wolves.
Stop ignoring wolves as if Jesus will stop them. Stop treating wolves as a protected species. Stop making heroes out of wolves. And stop thinking that the wolf hunt is women’s work you can hand off to the maid.
If you are a kingdom leader and delegate problem-solving to administrative people, especially wolf identification and isolation, you ignore your assigned duties as a kingdom leader. No one else is equipped with the expertise and experience of an elder except an elder.
The elders are the wolf hunters. Apostles, prophets, teachers, evangels, and shepherds are the elders because they are the kingdom leaders with oversight. They are assigned to the people aligned with them.
The King has no strike team for wolf hunting because the people who can recognize the wolves work alongside them. The elders do not call in an exterminator to deal with wolves because they need to observe the leader securing their souls from fraud.
Once the kingdom leaders began operating with the ideas of executives in business, they started thinking of themselves as figureheads and voice boxes instead of foot-washing fathers who are near enough to the people to overhear the whispers of wolves.
Pastors were taught to have someone else do the dirty work of wolf hunting. I have been sent by the senior to deal with wolves before. The idea was to protect the pastor from looking like anything but Dr. Phil.
We should wonder what Jesus meant by foot-washing in the first place. We should understand that He wasn’t teaching humility as much as He was identifying that leaders should be in touch with the spiritual condition of people. Leaders should be involved with people enough to recognize wolf behavior.
They Come from Within
False apostles, prophets, teachers, evangels, and shepherds are not identified by message. Keeping the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses out has nothing to do with wolf hunting. Likewise, teaching people Truth to protect themselves from false teaching has little to do with dealing with frauds.
We judge behaviors, which sometimes reveals an error in teaching, but wolves are not wolves because they disagree with our doctrinal statement.
Paul says the wolves come from within, and some of the elders would become wolves without Paul’s oversight.
In summary, we should put our very best leaders on this. We need a thorough wolf to cleanse as we enter the New Era Reformation. We cannot sow the seeds of destruction the inception. We cannot ignore the cultural norms of the kingdom and the design of leadership the King provides to secure His citizens.
Our nation’s leadership is full of wolves because the kingdom is full of wolves.
