This morning in his chapel message Pastor Bartlett
mentioned that a man might be a tremendous preacher, but if he beats his family,
takes money from the church, has a girl on the side, or any combination of the
above or any other flagrant sin, he is not a minister of the gospel; he is a
false prophet.
On Monday night Andrew and I had just re-watched a
movie on that very topic - THE APOSTLE, with Robert Duvall, who also produced
it (1998). It is a fascinating study of a false prophet. It's done from a
secular viewpoint, but Duvall has the character down perfectly - as do the
other actors and their characters. Duvall must have had some experience
with this subject in order to produce this so accurately.
I was especially interested in it after growing up
in the south. The people that I knew closely when growing up were not like the ones in
the movie; however, I saw enough of the rural south to know that the
characterizations were very good.
Andrew made a great point - Sonny (the
"apostle") had a great deal of Bible knowledge and training and was
highly regarded by the people in his church/denomination. Yet he was
unconcerned that he was a womanizer, short of temper, and eventually even a
murderer. All he cared about was "evangelizing." And his
charismatic personality caused many to be taken in. However, Rev.
Blackwell, who supported Sonny's efforts to start a church in Louisiana in the
last half of the movie, did not have the education and was not as well known as
Sonny--yet even though Blackwell was also a little simple-minded and naive
about joining forces with Sonny, his much purer heart shone through very
clearly. It's all about the heart, not the head, or the personality.
Someone might read this and think "I would never be fooled by a
charlatan like that." I would suggest that you find a copy of that
movie and watch it before drawing that conclusion. I found it to be an
eye-opening account of a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's extremely easy to see the sheep's clothing and not the carnivore inside.
