00:03:26.820Snow would sound, snow sounds pretty good compared to, but, you know, I say that, but, you know, a year ago we had the infamous Texas freeze and we're not prepared for that.
00:03:39.340Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to Kenneth Copeland's ministry.
00:07:11.740Well, it's really sad, and it's a sad commentary that it took something like Discovery Plus, which is purely secular, to wake professing Christians up to the reality of Hillsong.
00:07:30.420I mean, I typically don't care much what a secular organization has to say about any church unless it just deals with flat-out provable fraud.
00:07:40.180But even secular people know enough about Christianity to know that adultery is sinful, according to the Bible.
00:07:51.280And that's what we as Christians teach, rightly so.
00:07:57.100And so when there's a sex candle involving the quote unquote church, you know, they're all in there.
00:08:03.840They jump in with both feet and they're, you know, they're fully committed to it.
00:08:07.780Not because they don't, Discovery Plus doesn't care, nor do they even understand the nuances of Hillsong's theology as far as them being word of faith and prosperity gospel and, you know, positive confession and, you know, secret sensitive and all that.
00:08:26.660I don't care to hear anything they have to say about those issues.
00:08:30.100But they know enough to know that Christians believe that adultery is sinful.0.99
00:08:34.680And so and they love to expose Christians as hypocrites.0.98
00:08:38.840So there was nothing altruistic about Discovery Plus doing this.0.95
00:08:45.560They they just wanted to paint Christians in general in a bad light.
00:08:50.640But as I said, it's just it's really unfortunate.
00:08:53.280It took something like this to get so many professing Christians to wake up to Hillsong.
00:08:59.240I mean, the theological problems have been there ever since its inception, and it is a truly sad commentary on the church, especially churches in our theological circles, Joel, that claim to be conservative and have a high view of the sovereignty of God, high view of Scripture, that have been singing Hillsong music for years.
00:09:25.220and they know who they are and they sing their music anyway.
00:09:55.220And I haven't looked recently, but I know it's got, yeah, somewhere between, I think somewhere between two and three million views.
00:10:02.500And so it really went out there and made a lot of, made the rounds, made, you know, threw a big rock in the pond, I guess you could say.
00:10:10.700But the blowback I got was just astonishing.
00:10:15.620And even from some people who claim to be, you know, Calvinist, to use that term.
00:10:20.860And so I guess now they're finally saying that, oh, maybe there is a problem with Hillsong.
00:10:29.380Sad commentary that it takes a secular news organization to bring Christians to that understanding when it should have been just obvious to anyone.
00:10:39.460Right. And that principle, that reality that you're espousing is not unique to the particular
00:10:47.760issue of Hillsong or biblical churches singing Hillsong music. What you're describing is really
00:10:55.160just the reality of being a leader, right? So, Jesus says, your forefathers always killed the
00:11:01.180prophets. Was there ever a prophet they didn't kill? But what happens though is the next
00:11:08.920generation, they all claim to, you know, we love Moses. We love Abraham. We love Jeremiah. We love
00:11:17.260Isaiah. Those are our guys. It's like, those aren't your guys. Hindsight is luxury. Hindsight
00:11:22.360is 2020, right? Everybody's so concerned about being on the right side of history. Well, it's
00:11:26.520really easy to just to read off the script once the history is already written and everyone's
00:11:33.080already decided who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. And then you just paint yourself,
00:11:36.680of course, I'm one of the good guys. But what Jesus is saying is, no, no, you're not. Because
00:11:41.680here I am, the capital P prophet, the prophet of all prophets, I'm standing before you. And you
00:11:46.540want to do with me exactly what your fathers did with Jeremiah and what your fathers did with it,
00:11:52.540you know, just go down the list. And so my point is, you know, you getting blowback and pushback
00:11:57.440with Todd Friel when you did that, you know, that little piece on Hillsong and not singing their
00:12:03.420music. I think a lot of people these days, and it's kind of what you were saying, but a lot of
00:12:08.420people, at least in our camp, they would say that as though it's common knowledge. Absolutely
00:12:14.180common knowledge. You know, like nobody would really take, nobody's going to take offense at
00:12:18.040that. I mean, maybe a few people, but most people listening to us right now, most of the people in
00:12:22.340my audience and your audience, they're going to be, oh yeah, of course. But I do think it's
00:12:28.360important that we honor leaders um you know prophets leaders you know lowercase p but those
00:12:34.840who who actually lead the way um part of the reason why it's common knowledge today and i can
00:12:39.520say something like that today and not get a lot of blowback is because you three four years ago
00:12:44.960whenever it was got a lot of blowback the same with critical race theory right i mean now like
00:12:50.260even even the the world aside from christians even the world is like this is this is madness
00:22:16.060If you're not going to sing Hillsong anymore simply because you're embarrassed by the bad press, then you've stopped singing their music for the wrong reasons.
00:22:28.340So, yeah, it's a sad testimony to the lack of discernment amongst so many professing Christians.
00:22:37.360But this is exactly what we should expect with Bethel and Hillsong.
00:22:42.160And I guarantee you Bethel is the same way. And I'm not saying this. I know this necessarily because I don't about Bill Johnson. I'm not saying that. But but false teachers and Bill Johnson is a false teacher.
00:22:55.080But one of the things that marks the life of a false teacher is sexual immorality.0.67
00:23:06.080That's typical of a false teacher because a false teacher is not indwelt by the Holy Spirit.
00:23:14.880And so there is no internal restraint on their flesh.
00:23:20.100And Peter tells us that, he tells us this.
00:23:22.420He says in 2 Peter 2, he says, but false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, not maybe, but will be.
00:23:32.840And he says that they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
00:23:41.100And then he says this, and many will follow their sensuality.
00:23:45.540Many will follow their sensuality because of them the way of truth will be aligned.
00:23:48.760um false teachers are marked by sexual immorality so to see that to see that carl lintz was having
00:23:58.920multiple affairs uh and to see the same thing was going on with uh brian houston i mean that
00:24:07.180surprised me about as much as i'm going to be surprised tomorrow morning when the sun rises
00:24:12.140in the east that's about my level of surprise yeah surprise surprise sounds good yeah oh no
00:24:19.700just surprise my level of surprise yeah my level of surprise yeah it took two minds to figure that
00:24:26.780out we got it though we nailed that surprise but no i hear you and that's so important i want our
00:24:31.620listeners to hear i was hoping you would talk about that because i've heard you talk about that
00:24:34.520in the past and and you're absolutely right because i just i think of paul's warnings to
00:24:38.220Timothy, right? Guard your life and doctrine closely. And of course, you know, you could just
00:24:42.240read that next to cheat and say, okay, there are two things that are very important to guard,
00:24:45.780right? Life and doctrine, life speaking to character, morality, and doctrine. What do you
00:24:51.660believe? Your convictions. And we can say, oh, these are two important categories. And that's
00:24:56.680fine. But I think that we could, you know, maybe not explicitly in that given text, but when we
00:25:03.700survey the whole of scripture and later things that Paul says to Timothy, we see that it's not
00:25:08.120just that these are two important categories, but these are two categories that are intrinsically
00:25:12.180tied to one another. There is an unbreakable correlation between that the life is dictated
00:25:19.380by the doctrine and the doctrine will be ultimately shaped and compromised ultimately by
00:25:28.820a sinful life. And part of that is because of God's design that even despite the fall,
00:25:36.280the people, the vestige of the image of God remains. We're created in the image of God.
00:25:42.080God made man in his image, male and female, he created them. And even though creation,
00:25:50.440including human beings, are under a curse, and that image has been marred, the vestige of the
00:25:56.180imago Dei, the image still remains. And part of that speaks to, you know, it's like, well,
00:26:01.060what does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, one of those things is that the law of God
00:26:04.820has been written on the heart, even for the unbeliever. That's why they're condemned. Romans
00:26:10.1001, natural revelation, that these things about God are clearly displayed. And not just things
00:26:15.360about God, namely his attributes of his eternal power or divine nature, clearly displayed,
00:26:22.340clearly perceived, but also the law of God is written on your heart to where, you know,
00:26:27.860Paul says, you know, Gentiles, you are a law unto yourself because you say, you know, you
00:26:32.920say, do not do this, and then you do it, meaning you're breaking your own standard, and that
00:26:37.700standard is flawed, but it does ultimately trickle down from God's standard. As human
00:26:43.180beings made in the image of God, you have a moral compass. You have, my point is, you
00:26:47.480have a conscience. And so even the false teacher who is unconverted, even the false teacher still
00:26:53.620made in the image of God has a conscience. And so his life, if he has a sinful life, it will not
00:27:01.440at least indefinitely, maybe for a time, but indefinitely his sinful life will not allow him
00:27:08.220to preach a, I'll say it like this, his perverted life will not allow indefinitely for a pure
00:27:14.560gospel. His perverted life won't allow for a pure gospel because his conscience will burn and burn
00:27:22.020and burn. So eventually what he's going to have to do is make his life and doctrine will align.
00:27:29.840And so he'll stop preaching against sexual immorality. He'll just, at best, instead of
00:27:35.420introducing, well, sexual immorality is okay. Instead of teaching that it's good, in a best
00:27:39.960case scenario, he just won't talk about sexual immorality. That'll just be absent from his
00:27:44.260preaching you got any thoughts about that yeah no i i agree with that i agree they um even though
00:27:50.280they're lost they do have a conscience uh they you don't have to teach them that it's wrong to lie
00:27:57.060wrong to steal they instinctively know these things just like everybody on the planet does
00:28:02.640that's right no those things are wrong that's why we try to cover them up when we when we commit them
00:28:07.480So, yeah, it's been my observation, Joel, that generally speaking, when in such a situation as you described, a preacher who is unconverted, a false teacher, he will either never talk about sexual immorality, just never, or I've seen some cases, I've seen this a few times in my ministry and my travels.
00:29:13.320That's all I've seen. I've seen that, too. I've seen that, too.
00:29:16.640I'm glad you pointed that out. Go ahead. Sorry.
00:29:18.800Yeah, no, that's okay. I'm thinking of one man in particular that I knew many years ago as a pastor. And there were two things that he was always harping on, always. I mean, almost every sermon he preached, these two things would come up in some one way or another, no matter what text he was in.
00:29:40.880And in all fairness, he was not an expositor at all.
00:29:44.460He was just kind of a topical preacher.
00:34:24.740And he was a pastor somewhere in Florida.
00:34:28.680And he claimed to be, you know, reformed-ish, I suppose.
00:34:34.000But Talan Javidjan was one of the, he had the, like, bleach blonde hair and short and spiked and really, you know, muscular and cut, I guess you would say.
00:34:46.540And every time you would see him preach, he was in these tight shirts and button open, you know, halfway down his chest and bling and just, you know, really showing himself off.
00:34:58.980Well, I guess it was about six, seven years ago, five, six, seven years ago.
00:35:06.600Anyway, Kathy and I were at the kitchen table having breakfast one morning and TBN was on.
00:35:13.840when we turned tbn on and they had toe inch vision on tbn and we were just watching him i was just
00:35:20.040looking at him the way he was kind of sauntered back in a seat in these tight shirts and his
00:35:24.400muscles bulging and all that and and he was actually known for being kind of antinomian
00:35:30.940in a sense kind of um yeah easy you know that's kind of what he was known for real quick just for
00:35:36.300our listeners antinomian just being against law yeah yeah grace grace grace but no no law right
00:35:42.200Yeah. Greasy grace, cheap grace, whatever, you know, easy believism, that kind of thing. And I was just looking at him and how he carried himself and how he dressed. And I said to Kathy, and I can remember I kind of pointed my finger at the TV. I said, he's going to be the next one to fall.
00:35:58.560i kid you not joel i'm not a prophet i'm not claiming one week later one week later
00:36:08.100it's when it the story came out made a big news that telling division was having affairs on his
00:36:15.820on his wife and wow and he disappeared for a while but now he's back kind of revamped and
00:36:21.820doing his own thing and you know i mean of course biblically he's disqualified from being in ministry
00:36:31.440And any time you see a preacher that is intentionally and obviously trying to bring attention to himself and how he looks, that's a big red flag.
00:36:41.120Yeah, so I'm glad that you mentioned all that because I wanted to bring that up and just say that, again, you know, like you said, you know, I'm no more surprised, you know, when Brian Houston and Carl Lentz, these things come out about, you know, these leaders with Hillsong.
00:36:54.780No more surprise than, you know, when the sun rises from the east the next morning.
00:36:59.700And, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that.
00:37:02.320And like we said, one of the reasons is their doctrine, right?
00:37:05.300There's a correlation between life and doctrine, but then also just in their physical appearance.
00:37:11.740You know, there's just, there is a clear infatuation with worldliness, with vanity, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the boastful pride of life.
00:37:24.780And, uh, and that doesn't mean that you can't be, you know, um, a worldly prude because
00:42:08.420you got any thoughts on that yeah no i i agree 100 it it dictates what and it dictates how we
00:42:16.720are the bible has not left us uninformed joel on how to do worship god god god is spirit must be
00:42:25.420worshiped in spirit and in truth worship is our most sacred solemn and quite honestly our most
00:42:31.360joyful responsibility as Christians is to worship God, and he has not left us uninformed
00:42:37.420in how he is to be worshiped. The Bible is full on the New Testament life, and especially the
00:42:46.720New, since we're obviously New Covenant, about how church is to be done. It's Christ's church.
00:42:54.120It's his church. We're not at liberty to decide how we want to do church. Christ has told us how
00:43:00.520to do church we have a model for it in the book of acts we see a plurality of elders we see the
00:43:06.520widows being cared for we see deacons we we see um you know we we see preaching we see worship we
00:43:14.760see singing throughout the through the new testament and how about all those things are to
00:43:18.960be done we see how conflicts are supposed to be resolved right church discipline church discipline
00:43:25.240Absolutely. And as a as a little tangent, I tell people, if you want to if you want to get an idea of just how seriously a church actually does take the word of God, ask the leadership, what do you do with Matthew chapter 18?
00:43:40.560What do you do with church discipline? Because every evangelical church is going to say, oh, yes, we believe the Bible.
00:43:45.400The Bible is our authority. It's inspired and there it weren't of God and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:43:48.720you know most of these statements of faith are just cut and pasted from other statements of faith
00:43:54.020right but they would all say that but if you want to get an idea of how seriously they
00:43:57.900really take the word of god ask them what they do with matthew 18 verses 15 through 20
00:44:04.020do you do this yep and most of the reformers and puritans and john calvin especially would
00:44:09.660add that as one of the chief marks of a church right wherever the word is rightly taught and
00:44:14.280The sacraments rightly administered, and many added to that, and church discipline being practiced.
00:44:21.040There, a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.
00:45:17.660So it's that narrow, but it is intentionally broad enough to where Christians who disagree on secondary and tertiary matters could, where we would not be denying a Christian membership in our church.
00:48:47.460There's a judicial, there's a jury here.
00:48:50.900And so this isn't to be mean, oh, to the contrary, this is to be biblical, to be obedient and, and to be merciful because every church is not whether, but which every church is, is kicking people out. The question is, how are they doing it? Do these people get a fair trial? You know, what do you, do you got any thoughts on that? Church discipline is a great thing for us to talk about.
00:49:14.020And it is one of the definitive marks of a healthy church, a church that does church discipline.
00:49:21.280When I grew up, Joel, I grew up Southern Baptist, very typical Southern Baptist church.
00:49:27.460And I can't tell you how many times we had, of course, Sunday morning, Sunday night services, and we have Wednesday night prayer meeting.
00:49:33.860And I can't tell you how many times I heard growing up the preacher say, well, we're two or three are gathered together in my name.
00:49:41.160I am there in their midst. And we have more than two or three here tonight. We know Jesus is with us.
00:49:45.740I can't tell you how many times I heard that. And it always made me wonder, you know, like, what if I'm by myself?
00:49:52.600You know, is Jesus not there then? If I'm by myself, do I have to have two or three gathered together?
00:49:58.440You know, and the reason that always puzzled me because that was, you know, that's in reference to church discipline, not to Wednesday night prayer meeting.
00:50:06.820And so it's not an easy thing to do, but yet we are commanded to do it.
00:50:14.700And the goal of it is not to, you know, you don't start down that path of church discipline with someone with the hopes or the intent of, I'm going to use this to get this person out of my church.
00:50:28.780Right. No, you want the goal, the prayer, the hope is that that it will bring that person to a place of genuine repentance.
00:50:36.920And that person is restored to a right place to fellowship within the body there.
00:50:42.700That's what you want. That's right. And that's what it's designed to do.
00:50:47.000And a true Christian, that's what will happen with a true Christian.
00:50:51.240They will be brought to a place of repentance and restoration there to the church.
00:59:36.500I actually, I'm kind of astonished that he did have such approval with so many in our circles, Joel, because there were, quite honestly, there were, it's not that there were no red flags, there were red flags with him for the person who cared to look.
00:59:56.920You know, a number of years ago, he made some news and caused some waves when he went to a Mormon temple and made some really ecumenical kind of comments to Mormons and raised some eyebrows.
01:02:55.820You know, so I don't mean that in a negative way.
01:02:58.020But even then, it's like sometimes, you know, and right now, I'm sure you're aware, like
01:03:02.920some of the debate about Aquinas, you know, and Sproul.
01:03:06.620I think some of his philosophical tenants, um, makes him a little bit more affectionate towards
01:03:12.720Aquinas than, than I personally would be, you know? And, and so anyway, so, but the point is
01:03:18.400you got to have a text. You got to have a text. So, um, yep. So all that being said, Hillsong,
01:03:24.620you know, Ravi was under the radar. Um, Carl Lentz was not under the radar, never was under
01:03:30.300the radar. Um, Brian Houston, never under the radar and Bill Johnson, that doesn't mean that
01:03:35.120he's cheating on his wife. Um, but he might be, but, uh, but the point is that's, you know,
01:03:40.560I'm not making any claim there, but the point is he is teaching false doctrine and life and
01:03:45.680doctrine. It's, it's still one root. It's one man. Life and doctrine are both, they're two parts,
01:03:51.480but both contained in one person. And the person is the tree. When Jesus gives this parable of a
01:03:57.420tree bearing bad fruit. And, and for us to think that it's possible that we could have, um, a tree
01:04:02.680with poisoned roots, but somehow is able to consolidate all of its poisonous fruit in one
01:04:10.540branch while keeping all the other branches healthy. That's just ridiculous. But that's0.98
01:04:18.100kind of how we, you know, we, maybe we don't, we've never put into words like that, but
01:04:21.000that's what we're assuming. That's the assumption. And that's, that's a ridiculous
01:04:24.660assumption. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. Any final thoughts? I'll give you the last word,0.95
01:04:31.600But any final thoughts on just the Hillsong thing?
01:04:33.720And maybe you could give a message to if anybody happens to listen to this who is coming out of Hillsong and probably heartbroken and disenchanted and probably feels embarrassed, any message of hope for them?
01:04:45.880Yeah, Joel, I would say, and I guess I'll look at the camera to address folks.
01:04:52.340If you're in one of those churches, whether it's Hillsong-y kind of a church or a Bethel-y kind of a church, whatever kind of a church you're in, and you realize now that you're in a weak church, in a bad church or a very weak church, because you're seeing these things.
01:05:09.200You're seeing not only the inerrancy of Scripture, but the sufficiency of Scripture, and you're seeing the holiness of God, and you're seeing, yeah, Matthew 18 actually is in the Bible, and it is a thing.
01:05:19.840and we need to be doing this and plurality of elders, you know, our church doesn't have that.
01:05:26.080Then I would really encourage you to leave your church. You're not going to change it. You're
01:05:34.920not going to change it from the inside out, from the ground up. A church congregation is not going
01:05:41.760to rise to a level of spiritual maturity above that of its leadership. It's just not going to
01:05:46.960happen and you're not going to change the church. A lot of people email me and talk to me and say,
01:05:52.520well, I know there's a lot of problems. I know it's a bad church, but I want to be a source of
01:05:56.100truth, source of light. No, you need to be in a real church where you can worship in spirit and
01:06:01.280truth, where you can be shepherded, where you can be fed the word of God, because it's only in a
01:06:06.160true church where you'll be able to grow, where you'll be able to use your spiritual gifts for
01:06:10.540the edification of the saints. So don't try to change your bad church. You won't be able to,
01:06:16.020You will not be successful, I promise.