The question was recently asked on social media, was Mario Murillo right to publicly rebuke certain contemporary prophets? The answer is NO for several reasons. First of all, he was actually rebuking himself for although he says that he “cannot compromise truth”, he has strayed from the covenant and doctrine of Jesus Christ and has followed after vain teachings of man, presenting his wisdom as if it is the wisdom of God.

Murillo’s rebuke is against certain prophets that he singled out as having transgressed against God’s established truth, yet Murillo never says what the true gospel and covenant of Jesus Christ is. That’s strike one against him as he follows the example of all those who seek to be the voice of God to reason with man, while failing to direct people to God’s covenant terms where He can be found. This is a glass that is half full (as a debtor, falling short of the glory of God, having neglected the tokens of the covenant that God provided for us to keep our vessels full).

Eddie Hyatt, in his article in defense of Murillo, echoes the same counterfeit correction and points to an extreme example to build his case. Citing Joseph Smith’s religious aspirations, he says that surely the church can agree with him that this form of revelation is not good. Then he points to the scripture and says that scripture is good.

Murillo says that “correcting false doctrine is one a sacred duty”, but he is supping at the same table of false knowledge and corrupt doctrine as the false prophets he singled out. Murillo saw the evident souring of the current prophetic movement and took advantage of something everyone has also discerned. As Murillo drinks from the cup of prophecy that’s been passed around, he says, “This wine tastes like vinegar,” and a lot of people agreed with him that the wine tastes like vinegar. Many have already said so.

Taking the consensus to stand in favor of the tasting, he decided to put himself into the position of the authority as a wine taster, but he is part of the system that produced the false prophetic movement and false preachers and false teachers and false evangelists – the false religious system. And as the Prophet Jeremiah said, “The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” (Jeremiah 31:29)

The wine (the knowledge) the church has been receiving from the cup of false stewards is this sour wine; it is the counterfeit gospel. God has made known that He did not authorize the knowledge that everyone has now tasted to have soured.

As Murillo tries to distance himself from sour knowledge, he cites scripture as his authority to do so. But man’s wisdom, wrapped in scripture is still the wisdom of man; and man’s humility, wrapped in scripture is still man’s humility. This is strike two against Murillo. This is a glass that is half empty (as a debtor, falling short of the glory of God, having neglected the tokens of the covenant that God provided for us to keep our vessels full).

Let’s talk about what God values. God values the new covenant of Jesus Christ and gave direction through His apostles to teach the covenant to direct us into His love to bond and build with Him. This is why we see it written in the book of Acts that God authorized His apostles to teach doctrine to the church and to oversee the teaching and learning of it in their direct oversight and fellowship.

Acts 2:42
And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

Why is Jesus’ doctrine called the “apostles’ doctrine”? Here we can see clearly that God identifies the source of the doctrine of Christ – it is the apostles. God selected the apostles as His authority to teach the church. God’s authority is not in scripture, it is in the living presence of the anointing in the apostolic calling.

The doctrine of Christ is the entire blueprint of truth which God set within the covenant terms for us to walk with Him. Apostle Paul identifies the tokens of our doctrine that represent Jesus Christ in His fullness. Using the tokens of Christ, He mediates on our behalf and represents us before God’s throne.

The doctrine of Christ is the knowledge of our separation from the world unto God to walk in harmony with Him. Without the knowledge of our separation, we cannot walk in harmony with God. However, tracing over scripture does not produce the same effect. Imagining what the life of Christ could be like does not produce the same effect. If you want the effect, you have to keep the terms God established in Christ for our walk to fully represent Him.

While Murillo values the wisdom of man that he fights hard to extrapolate from scripture, God values Jesus Christ and His covenant. If Murillo is not teaching the covenant of Jesus Christ, he does not represent Him – and that’s strike three against him.

There are many ministers today who want to teach the church God’s mind about reform, but they are not teaching the doctrine of Christ. The sour wine tasted in the false prophetic is not the result of prophecy gone wrong or revelation gone wrong, but rather the result of neglecting to teach the doctrine of Christ, the knowledge and tokens of our separation from the world unto God. Always remember:

1. Revelation is not the foundation of truth, nor does it save us. Dreams and visions are not the foundation of truth, nor do they save us. Pharaoh had a dream from God, but that did not save him. Pilate’s wife had a dream from God and that did not save her.

God starts to build your faith with the foundation of truth, which He gave the apostles to set within the heart of the believer by way of instruction. God will only confirm the knowledge He poured into Jesus’ covenant for our salvation.

1 Corinthians 3:10
According to the grace of God which is given unto me [Apostle Paul], as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

The problem is that people are trying to move in the gifts and preach and prophesy and evangelize without first knowing what the foundation of truth is. God is now correcting this. I want to take two quotes from my IDCCST Course that I freely offer online just to draw a few points that God is pressing upon the minds of believers to turn their attention toward Him.

What is a foundation?

A foundation is a starting point, it is the place your mind is coming from. We might desire Jesus to be our new history and desire His new knowledge, but we may not see that our habit is to build upon old the foundations of the flesh. Your faith is according to your thinking, and your thinking won’t change until your foundation changes…

Much teaching is geared toward telling Christians how to be strong in the Lord, how to have a faith that is strong, how to be mighty, how to have deep-seated convictions about the importance of trust, and how you can learn to trust God in all things. But strength, might, and trust have not been connected to the foundation, so believers learn to expect these things without God’s due process. [IDCCST Terms Glossary]

Did you know: The Bible does not point to itself as the answer to our problems, but rather it points to Jesus Christ as the author, source, and power of our salvation…

The foundation is IN the Author – Jesus Christ. That’s why you’re learning the 12 elements. These are your new foundation stones that are IN him. (IDCCST Lesson Guide p. 111. Week 12 We Need A New Foundation.)

What is a blueprint?

We accept that God is the Divine Architect of our soul. He is also the Divine Architect of the blueprint of truth. God’s blueprint of truth is a prepared design for faith to take on the likeness of Christ, hence, it is His Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation. So then, we’re talking about God’s expectations for faith to reflect Jesus, and we’re talking about Jesus qualifying our faith by His own record.

God identifies the apostles as the “master builders” of the faith because He gives Jesus’ apostles the measure of grace to set order to His knowledge, to build faith according to His divine pattern, thus setting faith within the terms of Jesus’ new covenant.

All master builders (apostles) follow the same blueprint of truth to build faith in Jesus Christ and to set this knowledge in the hearts of believers. The church is to follow the same blueprint as the master builder to share the same mind of Christ.

We can observe God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation in the 12 essential elements of the gospel. They are God’s blueprint for faith to reflect Jesus, and therefore, they are God’s blueprint for our faith to be completed in Him.

The name of Jesus is in us by His Spirit and truth. Jesus engraves Himself in us through each element to shape our thinking of Him so that we can carry His perspective with us throughout the day. [IDCCST Terms Glossary]

2. You have to study the Bible from a covenant perspective to see Jesus. The Bible is written from a covenant perspective and must be read from a covenant perspective. And this is why Jesus said, the scriptures don’t give you life, I do. The scriptures testify of ME… I AM the new covenant.

John 5:39
Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

John 5:46
For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me.

The Bereans of Acts 17:11 were commended of God for believing the report they received from Apostle Paul, that Jesus indeed is the way of salvation spoken of by all the prophets. It says that they “received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”

They did not challenge Paul’s calling, they yielded their will to the grace of God that was present at his preaching and when they searched the scriptures the Holy Spirit opened their eyes to see Jesus in the knowledge they read, and they agreed and accepted the terms of God’s new covenant to serve Him in this new way.

The Bereans are often given a bad rap. Ministers use them to justify their indifference to God and point to the Bible as their authority. On the contrary, the Bereans show us what a ready mind is. The Bereans accepted the doctrine of Christ that Apostle Paul taught and the Spirit of God continued to confirm Christ in their faith.

They didn’t go to the scriptures to build their faith. They received instruction in doctrine and the scriptures confirmed Christ in His truth. The Bereans followed the pattern God laid out in Acts 2:42. We read that earlier and it’s worth mentioning again from the Berean window of experience, “And they [the Bereans] continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship [oversight], and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

The Bereans accepted God’s pattern, that they needed to be instructed first before they could function in their faith. We see the Ethiopian of Acts 8:27 follow the exact same pattern. As he read about Jesus from the book of Isaiah God sent Philip to unfold the knowledge of Jesus’ covenant to him. Philip asked the Ethiopian, “Understandest thou what thou readest?” In other words “Do you understand what you’re reading?” And the Ethiopian answered, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” And he desired Philip that he would come up and sit with him. The knowledge Philip shared was bringing him into God’s new covenant. The Ethiopian, just as the Bereans, did not take this experience to start his own independent ministry.

The Bereans accepted the apostolic stewardship and priesthood of the new covenant and learned to build their faith from the foundation of truth they received from God’s apostles and measured all things from this foundation of which Jesus is the cornerstone. They continued to daily read the scriptures to see Jesus confirmed and they believed in Him whom the scriptures testified – Jesus Christ.

This meant that the Bereans, after they were instructed by Apostle Paul in the knowledge of their separation from the world by the tokens of Christ, were conversant in the new covenant language. They were of a ready mind and knew how God designed their growth cycle and they willingly accepted the pattern that God set in Jesus for them to be fruitful in His kingdom.

Again, the Bereans did not start their own independent ministry but had their hand with the apostles from that point on and accepted the knowledge of their separation and accepted that the pattern they witnessed was indeed the true pattern that God ordained – apostles teach the doctrine of Christ which they were of a ready mind to receive.

We can carry this further to the new covenant priesthood and prophecy to see how the Bereans were also of a ready mind to prophesy Christ from the foundation of truth. They no longer lent their hand to the Levitical priesthood, but saw in scripture the new priesthood in Jesus according to Melchisedec. These Christians were equipped with the doctrine of Christ to function correctly in God’s kingdom and their discernment came from the bedrock of their faith – the foundation of truth they learned from the apostles.

3. Discernment takes place inside the house of God, not outside. Ministers like Murillo who find themselves outside the house of God mix their doctrine and hope to come up with a solution to the problems they created. Murillo said, “I am also contending for the reformation of the church—a moral cleansing…” But God is not performing a “moral” cleansing, but rather a doctrinal cleansing.

Doctrine = Function

Some say, “I’ll pray in tongues and tithe”, meaning, “I’ll approach God with the Spirit, but mix the tokens of Moses with Jesus and God will accept my faith because I read it in the scriptures.” This is like mixing oil and water together; oil and water don’t mix because they’re contrary to each other. You can see that as long as you stir and shake and agitate, they appear to mix, but when they settle, they separate.

You have to accept your separation from those things that are contrary to God before you can build with Him. The separation is on our part and this is what holiness is all about. God differentiates between the covenant of Moses and Jesus’ new covenant. These two covenants are contrary to each other. God differentiates between the kingdom of the flesh and His kingdom. These two kingdoms are contrary to each other.

It’s difficult for ministers who are still outside Jesus’ covenant house to differentiate between these kingdoms and covenant and ignorantly continue to mix them. Separating from certain false prophetic voices, yet continuing to mix the covenants and kingdoms is an offense to God and brings confusion to the church.

When Apostle Paul identified himself as an apostle in Romans 1:1 he said that he was a servant of Jesus Christ. Not a servant of Moses, but a servant of Jesus Christ. If he was Moses’ servant, he would be preaching the gospel of Moses. Preaching Moses’ gospel means to preach all the tokens that identify that doctrine: the physical temple, the physical tools and articles the priests handled to perform their duty to God at a physical altar, rendering to God a physical tithe.

But Paul the servant of Jesus Christ identifies the tokens of our doctrine that are placed in the house of the Lord and set within the temple of our bodies: government, truth, Spirit; the gifts, callings, and graces of God; prayer, preaching, and prophecy. All these new tokens are placed in the new temple. Jesus is now God’s temple and all of God’s tokens are in Him and He is engrafted in you by His truth. God means for you to use the invisible tokens of His kingdom that heal the soul and work righteousness as we handle Jesus. We touch Him for our redemption.

4. Evangelism does not replace the covenant of Jesus Christ. Some say, “I’ll pray in tongues and evangelize” as if evangelism fulfills the duty of faith to replace the tokens of our doctrine. Again, approaching God with the Spirit, but neglecting the covenant of Jesus Christ. Murillo, like so many others, does not preach the covenant of Jesus, nor His doctrine. He separates the calling from the vine of Christ and in so doing he breaks himself off from the Godhead. In other words, he’s fallen from grace.

He says that he’s called to evangelize and that’s what he’s going to do. Others say that they are called to operate as a prophet and that’s what they’re going to do, and others say that they’re called to “minister” so that’s what they’re going to do.

The calling is not in dispute because God has restored His spiritual government with all 5 callings operational. But you can’t function in your calling until you first receive instruction and the foundation of truth is built in your heart. God’s foundational knowledge is your starting point to function in your priesthood. You have to function in your priesthood before you can function in your calling.

You can’t bear a portion of Christ in your faith; your faith has to be fully constructed of Him in order for Jesus to mediate His covenant on your behalf.

We are not led by signs and wonders… we are not led by dreams and visions… we are not led by prophecy… we are not led by evangelism. Evangelism is not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot lay the burden of proof that you are doing the will of God in evangelism. What good is evangelism if the lost are not brought into the house and kingdom of our Savior? Our salvation is only effectual inside God’s new covenant where it is daily empowered and confirmed by His Spirit.