How can pastors embarrass themselves?
#1 Not Standing in Right Doctrine
The first way pastors can embarrass themselves is by not standing in right doctrine. He pointed to 2 Timothy 4:2: “preach the word” — that’s the pastor’s job: preaching the word, being instant in season and out of season, reproving, rebuking, exhorting with all longsuffering and doctrine. The way a pastor embarrasses himself is by failing at what’s laid out in 2 Timothy 4 — failing in doctrine.
2 Timothy 4:2-4 — “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
#2 Produce confusion in the lives of others
Pastors do NOT embarass themselves by reproving and pointing out right doctrine; being sarcastic and heavily critical of false prophets. Pastor Kim said critics like to chop up little clips of him, catching him on a bad morning, and post them to make it look like he’d embarrassed himself by criticizing some false pastor.
If it comes to right doctrine, scripture instructs one to rebuke. Pastor Kim said that Jesus embarrassed himself more than he had. In Matthew, Jesus overturned the tables, whipped people out of the marketplace, and ranted for a whole chapter against false prophets in Matthew 23. Is Jesus “embarrassing” himself?
One sees Pastor Kim sowing seeds to thousands, dealing with people who are in wrong doctrine, people coming to his church, where love and understanding are shown. One has to realize they could have been lost and damned just like those people — including homosexuals and liberals. Jesus showed the same mercy to prostitutes, publicans, and sinners, and believers have to show that to other people too.
But Pastor Kim shows zero respect to people who ruin the souls of men, women, and children. That’s why Jesus “embarrassed” himself when rebuking false prophets who ruined people’s souls with wrong doctrine — including so-called saved pastors. Such pastors might not be damning someone’s soul, but they are ruining it, judging and condemning it with false doctrines. The souls are then not properly fed, properly grown, or properly walking in the Spirit, and at the judgment seat of Christ, their works, labors, and efforts are ruined by that false doctrine. Such people should be pointed out and rebuked without hesitation, because the Lord understood that too in Matthew 23.
It is so hard to find Bible-believing truth, and people online, and people who came to his church, know how hard that was — because of wicked pastors out there who produce a confusion that leaves people like relativist atheists, believing everything is relative. Pastor Kim has zero respect for people who produce that kind of confusion.
#3 Rebuke without Right Doctrine
One can embarrass himself by rebuking WITHOUT right doctrine. It is hilarious that some false pastors out there rebuke “pastor so-and-so” and make themselves look legitimate. But how does one know if they don’t show doctrine? Unless the criticism is against the doctrine and the verses he uses, and debunks and overturns that. It is a cheap trick to point out some false prophet or heretic in an angry moment — a “Matthew 23 moment,” instead of a “Matthew 27 moment,” where Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,”. Critics never showed that rarer part of Pastor Kim’s videos; it is then an ad hominem argument.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and Pastor Kim could make ad hominem arguments about people in his own church, and they could do the same to him — everyone can make ad hominem arguments about each other, and none of them would get along.
If people get fooled by looking at people’s lives rather than doctrine, they’re in for a rude surprise — no different from people who watch news media clips taken out of context to make others look crazy and dumb. If one claims to be “truthers” and doesn’t get fooled by that kind of media clip, how can one be fooled by amateur YouTube clips? It is even more embarrassing.
According to Ephesians 4:14, it is a crafty job in pointing out a flaw and getting carried about by “wind of doctrine”. Dramatic music is added at the end of the video, making one want to cry, with dark background while the person is talking, meant to make people think that person must be teaching something wrong — when really, all such critics point out is ad hominem, not doctrine.
Ephesians 4:14 — “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”
#4 The Minority Rebuking Other Pastors
If one rebukes without right doctrine and is the only one doing it, it’s a sign of mental illness. Some people will rebuke others by repeating ad hominem after ad hominem but without a logical argument. If one does that and ends up with people all around, at school, at work, or even in the family, who feel uncomfortable and don’t agree with that person, that person might be the problem rather than everyone else. A sign of mental illness is believing everyone else out there is wrong and oneself alone is right.
Some pastors especially embarrass themselves by misusing the example of Noah to justify themselves — there were only eight people saved by the ark. It’s a bad example — just because eight people around the world agree with someone doesn’t validate their doctrine. In the days of the tribulation, it will be a minority — but a minority to the world, not a minority to Bible believers.
Matthew 24:37 — “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”
Using Noah as an extreme example: if Japheth’s wife said Noah, Noah’s wife and the other sons and their wives were wrong, and she was pointing out fellow saved believers who were already a minority to the whole world, saying she alone was right, the rest of Noah’s family would think she was being strange, since that would be a minority within a minority. Being a minority to a minority is a real problem.
The adversaries of Pastor Kim online don’t watch his whole videos. Bible believers are a minority, and the evidence is right there in his own church. Bible Believers are not a minority in the sense of the mentally unwell belief that they alone are right, with fewer than twenty churches around the whole world — especially after 2,000 years of church history, because that would be seriously wrong. Even in the tribulation, the last days like Noah’s, there will be more people than that — Revelation 7 lists 144,000, and those are said to be virgin males — yet even that is still a minority of the whole world.
Revelation 7:4 — “And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.”
Revelation 14:4 — “These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth…”
Looking at the average number of Bible-believing churches per state, that’s a small, easy-to-see minority — but if it’s one Bible-believing church covering ten states, that’s a serious problem.
#5: Moving People to Build a Bigger Congregation
A sign of a cult leader is that because the group is such a minority, people start relocating to that church because they believe there’s no other church out there except that one, and that’s how the group builds a bigger congregation.
Jim Jones, for instance, had people moving down to him, which is why he ended up with hundreds of followers. That should be alarming: a cult-like church that is such a minority but builds up hundreds of people because everyone is moving down to it is scary. That’s something to avoid, especially when such groups like to use words like “new, new, new” implying they alone are right and everyone else is wrong is mentally unhealthy and scary.
Pastor Kim’s own church could have grown bigger if he claimed to be the only one who was right. But instead, when people online ask for a Bible-believing church, he refers them to their own states, and not just within America but around the world. If the group doesn’t have a Bible-believing, non-English-speaking church available, and only English-speaking churches or churches from one particular country, that’s another sign of a dangerous cult.
For example, Korea is infamous for its homegrown cults, confined to its own nation and language — the Unification Church and similar groups. Even the Philippines has its own homegrown cults too. That’s how cults behave, and this is just common sense, backed by secular statistics. Bible-believing churches, by contrast, are found all around the world in many different languages, but still very small — often averaging one or two, sometimes none, in a given state or region — a real minority, much like in the days of Noah, a minority to the world.
The King James-only, dispensational, Bible-believing movement has a history that supports this distinction, so it isn’t a cultic pattern on Pastor Kim’s part. If someone in his own church suddenly claimed the church was wrong and that they alone were right, the normal reaction is to be scared. That’s how cults build up numbers, because members get brainwashed without being properly grounded in doctrine. It’s sad how many people follow a cult’s teachings and go down that path — and they are King James-only, fundamental, independent Baptist churches that accuse him and fellow King James-only Baptist dispensationalist preachers of being lost for hell, with followers who believe that blindly, using logic and nitpicked verses to support it. That’s a dangerous cult pattern that should be avoided.
Pastor Kim doesn’t go that far — he rebukes false prophets, but doesn’t say all of them are lost, even those badly off in doctrine; he allows the possibility they could be saved. But this pattern — of declaring others lost — is extremely dangerous, and avoiding such people is essential. The key basis is doctrine — pay attention to doctrine, not ad hominem attacks, not nitpicked clips, not the tone of music or voice, not the professionalism of the graphics. People need to ask themselves seriously whether they honestly believe there isn’t a single YouTube cultist out there, given how free and accessible the platform is — cultists take advantage of that.
Responding to the Accusation that Pastor Kim is a Cult Pastor
Some might accuse Pastor Kim of being a cult pastor. First, Pastor Kim has named many different Bible believers in his videos and even maintains a church directory referring people elsewhere, in different countries. But the main basis isn’t that — it’s how often he tells people to look at the Bible itself; he quotes verse after verse, unlike cultists who won’t do that. People should not just watch without looking at the verses, without praying, and without meditating before concluding whether they agree or disagree. That’s what cultists rely on — people just watching. Agreeing or disagreeing with Pastor Kim matters less than whether one looked at the verses first and paid attention to them — that’s not what a cultist would tell someone to do.
#6: Tell the Congregation Not to Study or Investigate the Scriptures
One more sign of a cultist pastor is that they become afraid when a church member is shown right doctrine from elsewhere, and a cult leader will pressure that person and tell them not to study or investigate the scripture. That is the biggest sign of a cult leader — and Pastor Kim tells people to look at scripture themselves.
Pastor Kim said if the above descriptions fit him, he urges the people to avoid him, or any other pastor, who shows those kinds of cultic signs.