Discerning The Simon Magnus Types

Mabel Lean

Mabel Lean

Without naming names - how may we discern those who use their bully pulpit as wolves in sheep’s clothing?

What acts of their’s are evidence of their rotten fruit?

A man named Simon, who had previously practiced sorcery in Samaria and amazed its people by claiming to be someone great, is described in Acts 8:9-10. He had been performing magic arts for a long time, which were believed to be empowered by demonic forces, leading the people to regard him as the Great Power of God.When Philip preached the gospel, many Samaritans, including Simon, believed and were baptized, with Simon continuing to follow Philip and being amazed by the signs and miracles he performed. However, upon seeing the Holy Spirit given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, Simon attempted to buy the power to confer the Holy Spirit, prompting Peter to rebuke him, calling the act wicked and warning him of divine judgment. Peter urged Simon to repent, as he was in the gall of bitterness and the bondage of iniquity, though Simon later asked Peter to pray for him to avoid the consequences. The account raises questions about Simon’s true salvation, but the text states he believed and was baptized, suggesting a possible conversion, though his actions reveal a carnal and self-serving mindset.
 
What is apostasy?

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What is apostasy and how can I recognize it? | GotQuestions.org

March 31, 2010 - Christians should understand how to recognize apostasy and apostate teachers, and they should consider apostate teaching to be spiritually dangerous. Recognizing

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Apostasy and How It Happens by Sinclair Ferguson
But we cannot read the heart. Even so, we hear of friends—whose faith we never doubted—turning away from Christ. Apostasy is the old, vigorous word to describe this abandonment of Christ.
 
Matthew 7:16 Bible Hub

Berean Standard Bible
By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Cross References:

A Tree and its Fruit
15Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.…
Berean Standard Bible

Cross References
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, / gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

James 3:12
My brothers, can a fig tree grow olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

Luke 6:43-44
No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. / For each tree is known by its own fruit. Indeed, figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor grapes from brambles.

John 15:4-5
Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. / I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.

Matthew 12:33
Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.

Romans 7:4
Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

Ephesians 5:9
for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.

Colossians 1:10
so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

Philippians 1:11
filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Hebrews 13:15
Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.

Isaiah 5:1-7
I will sing for my beloved a song of his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. / He dug it up and cleared the stones and planted the finest vines. He built a watchtower in the middle and dug out a winepress as well. He waited for the vineyard to yield good grapes, but the fruit it produced was sour! / “And now, O dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, I exhort you to judge between Me and My vineyard. ...

Jeremiah 17:10
I, the LORD, search the heart; I examine the mind to reward a man according to his way, by what his deeds deserve.

Ezekiel 36:26-27
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. / And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.

Psalm 1:3
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.

Proverbs 11:30
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.

Context:

Judging Others
(Luke 6:37–42; Romans 14:1–12)

1“Do not judge, or you will be judged. 2For with the same judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but fail to notice the beam in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while there is still a beam in your own eye? 5You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

6Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Ask, Seek, Knock
(Luke 11:5–13)

7Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

9Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11So if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

12In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the Prophets.

The Narrow Gate
(Luke 13:22–30)

13Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.

A Tree and Its Fruit
(Luke 6:43–45)

15Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.

21Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’

23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’

The House on the Rock
(Luke 6:46–49)

24Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.

26But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”

The Authority of Jesus

28When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, 29because He taught as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
 
We followers of I AM indeed may have different views on certain minor doctrinal stances but there is indeed a
NON NEGOTIABLE
The Holy Name of GOD The Father and His Only Begotten Son THE WORD being I AM.

If we fail to listen to the leading of The Holy Spirit in order to discern the Simon Magnus's of the world and follow them we quench The Holy Spirit.

What is apostasy and how can I recognize it? | GotQuestions.org

Apostasy often shows up in the Old Testament. Every time Israel fell into idolatry, it was an example of apostasy (see Judges 2:11–13). In the New Testament, onetime followers of Jesus turned their backs on Him (John 6:66). Demas, “because he loved this world,” deserted Paul (2 Timothy 4:10). The Bible often warns against apostasy (e.g., 1 Timothy 4:1; Hebrews 3:12; 10:35–38; and 2 Peter 2:15).

Christians should understand how to recognize apostasy and apostate teachers, and they should consider apostate teaching to be spiritually dangerous.

Recognizing Apostasy

Apostasy comes in two forms. One is a falling away from key biblical doctrines into heretical teachings that claim to be the “real” Christian doctrine. The second is a complete renunciation of the Christian faith, which results in a full abandonment of Christ.

The second form of apostasy often begins with the first. A heretical belief takes root and grows until it pollutes all aspects of a person’s faith, and that can lead to a complete abandonment of Christianity.

In 2010, Daniel Dennett and Linda LaScola published a study called “Preachers Who Are Not Believers.” Dennett and LaScola’s work chronicled five different preachers who over time were presented with and accepted heretical teachings and now have completely departed from the faith (Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 8(1), 2010). These pastors ended up being either pantheists or clandestine atheists. One of the most disturbing findings of the study is that these preachers maintained their pastoral positions. They led their churches, but their congregations were unaware of the true spiritual state of the preacher in the pulpit.

A. W. Tozer wrote, “So skilled is error at imitating truth, that the two are constantly being mistaken for each another. It takes a sharp eye these days to know which brother is Cain and which is Abel” (That Incredible Christian, Bailey, A., ed., Moody, 2008, ch. 14, p. 53). The discerning believer—and we all must be discerning—can spot doctrines that depart from the truth.

A crucial doctrine that cannot be compromised concerns the person and work of Jesus Christ: “Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22). In other words, Jesus Christ and His work of redemption are of utmost importance; anyone who denies Jesus’ deity or humanity or who downplays Jesus’ sacrificial death is teaching falsehood.

Apostasy can be recognized as a departure from Jesus’ clear teaching in the Gospels: “Anyone who goes too far and does not remain in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who remains in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 John 1:9, NASB).

The elements of the gospel are another litmus test in identifying apostasy. Paul defines the gospel as the good news concerning Jesus’ death for our sins and His bodily resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). As nice as they sound, the statements “God loves you,” “God wants us to feed the hungry,” and “God wants you to be wealthy” are not the complete message of the gospel. Paul warns against those who “pervert the gospel of Christ” through the addition of law-keeping as a requirement (Galatians 1:7). No one, not even the greatest preacher, has the right to change the message of the gospel. “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:9).

Recognizing Apostates

Jude was the half-brother of Jesus and a leader in the early church. In his New Testament letter, he outlines how to recognize apostasy and strongly urges those in the body of Christ to “contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 1:3, NKJV). The Greek verb translated “contend earnestly” is the source of our word agonize. It is in the present infinitive form, which means that the struggle will be continuous. So, we should expect that false teachers will put up a constant fight against the truth, and we should take it seriously. Every Christian is called to this fight, not just church leaders, so all believers should sharpen their discernment skills to recognize and combat apostasy in their midst.

Jude highlights the reason we must contend for the faith: “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4, ESV). In this one verse, Jude reveals three traits of apostate teachers:

1. Apostates are subtle in their approach. They have “secretly slipped in” to infiltrate the church. The Greek word literally means “slipped in sideways; came in stealthily; sneaked in.” Compare this with Paul’s description of false apostles as “deceitful” men who “masquerade as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13–15). It is rare that apostasy begins in an overt and easily detectable manner; instead, it starts as a small, seemingly insignificant alteration of the truth.

2. Apostates are ungodly in their actions. They commit immorality and justify it by claiming to be under the grace of God. Jude points out that this is a perversion of grace; no Christian has a license to sin. In addition to their immorality, the apostates are guilty of rebellion (verse 8), grumbling and faultfinding (verse 16), selfishness, arrogance, and flattery (verse 16), and divisiveness and worldliness (verse 19).

3. Apostates are heretical in their theology. They “deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” Either in what they say or what they do, the apostates reject Christ. They might deny His deity, His humanity, or His eternal sonship. They might oppose the teaching that Jesus is the Messiah or the only Savior. They might downplay the effectiveness of Jesus’ sacrifice or deny the need for it.

A person who falls away from the truth of God’s Word and His righteousness will eventually show his or her true colors. Apostates are adept at covering up the truth and showing a false front, but they cannot maintain the ruse forever. The apostle John says about apostates, “These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us; otherwise they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us” (1 John 2:19, NLT).

Consequences of Apostasy

Every New Testament book except Philemon contains warnings about false teaching. God does not want His people to be fooled. He wants them to be “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:11).

Ideas have consequences. Satan did not come to the first couple in the garden with a visible weapon; instead, he came to them with an idea. That idea, embraced by Adam and Eve, led to an action that condemned them and the rest of humankind. We have the command to guard against false ideas: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

Apostates face condemnation, according to Jude 1:4. “They will bring sudden destruction on themselves,” according to 2 Peter 2:1. The great tragedy is that “many will follow their depraved conduct” (2 Peter 2:2). The apostate teacher dooms his followers. Jesus called false teachers “blind guides” and warned that “if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:14).

Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard put it this way: “For it has never yet been known to fail that one fool, when he goes astray, takes several others with him” (Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Swenson, D., Princeton University Press, ch. 1, § A, “A Project of Thought,” 1936).

Conclusion

In AD 325, the Council of Nicea convened primarily to take up the issue of the heresy of Arius. Much to Arius’s dismay, the end result was his excommunication and a statement in the

Nicene Creed that affirms Christ’s divinity: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father.”

Arius may have died centuries ago, but his spiritual children are still with us in the form of groups that deny Christ’s true essence and person. Until Christ returns, tares will be present among the wheat (Matthew 13:24–30).

In fact, Scripture says apostasy will worsen as Christ’s return approaches: “Many will turn away from the faith” (Matthew 24:10; cf. 2 Timothy 3:1–2, 5).

Now more than ever, every believer should pray for discernment and “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (Jude 1:3).
 
I would love to see a healthy ( rule following ) discussion happen on this topic.
I will have a bit of spare time after today.... I am going to catch up on some of
the references you posted Mabel Lean .

CAN WE START a discussion on how to recognize a false teacher?
with the premise on apostasy. What is it... How has it affected today's modern church. etc.
 
Please consider the link postings and discuss as starter points.

I merely introduced this topic as the other previous subject matter of favorite commentators seemed to have morphed into a rather controversial personage x is a pervert etc.

A more useful tact is how to discern the characteristics and fruit of the growing number of fallen leaders now who are misleading the lambs.

Then how to escape the cultish pressures selecting a spiritually healthy assembly. It seems we have a spiritual warrior with experience in this most fraught field.

Salute to Maj!
 
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