The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - People Leaving HILLSONG Will Be FOOLED AGAIN If They Don’t Learn This One Lesson

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.

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00:00:18.020 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host,

00:00:21.900 Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries. In this episode, I was very

00:00:25.400 privileged to have Justin Peters from Justin Peters Ministries, and we talk about the continued

00:00:32.000 implosion at Hillsong. Many of you are aware that a very popular documentary has dropped,

00:00:40.080 it's gotten a lot of attention, called Hillsong, A Mega Church Exposed. But the reality is there's

00:00:44.960 a lot more that needs to be exposed, and it needs to be exposed by those who are fit to expose it.

00:00:51.100 And I know that sounds self-serving. Maybe I'll put more of that on Justin. He's the one who's

00:00:56.260 fit. But I think by God's grace, I'm fit to expose these things too. And what I primarily mean about

00:01:01.120 that is not that Justin and I are the only Christians fit, but Christians are fit. We don't 1.00

00:01:07.440 need pagans to render judgments about spiritual matters. We don't. So Discovery Plus is a secular

00:01:15.980 organization. It's a secular group. And I'm sure that they got many things correct, that many

00:01:23.620 things are accurate in their documentary. But this is the very thing that Paul condemns in 1 Corinthians

00:01:31.060 chapter 6, where he says, you guys are going to court, taking one another to court. And Paul's

00:01:37.080 not just condemning their fleshly carnal desires that they're not willing to, you know, just why

00:01:42.040 not rather be wronged and just allow your brother to be the bigger man, right? So Paul condemns

00:01:48.540 their selfishness, their vanity, their carnality, but it's not just that. Paul condemns that they

00:01:54.680 are taking spiritual matters before the courts of pagans. He says, is there no one wise among you

00:01:59.880 to judge these matters? Do you not know that you will one day judge angels, meaning you Christians,

00:02:06.160 the church? And so we kind of want to focus in this episode, what are some of the things that

00:02:11.480 this documentary missed. And we would both argue that the spiritual matters, the most important

00:02:18.440 matters, were in large part missed, and those are the things that need to be talked about.

00:02:24.480 So, without further ado, let's welcome to the show, Justin Peters.

00:02:30.100 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:02:35.560 All right. Welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host, Pastor Joel Webman with

00:02:44.500 Right Response Ministries, and I am privileged to have, once again, returning, I believe now,

00:02:49.160 for the third or fourth time to our show, Justin Peters. Justin, thanks for coming on the show.

00:02:53.740 Thank you for the invitation, Joel. It's good to be with you again, brother.

00:02:56.480 Great. Good to see you. It looks like you're doing well. You live in Wyoming, right? Or Montana,

00:03:00.660 montana yep montana one state north that sounds sounds like a good place to be

00:03:06.480 it is it is it's it's a beautiful place we actually got a little bit of snow yesterday

00:03:13.380 and cool parts east of here got a lot of snow we were just kind of on the edge of it but no

00:03:19.240 cool we've been so you're getting snow in uh in texas where i am we've been getting tornadoes

00:03:24.500 So that's what I hear.

00:03:26.820 Snow 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.

00:03:39.340 Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to Kenneth Copeland's ministry.

00:03:44.400 Oh, did it?

00:03:45.260 I didn't know that.

00:03:46.140 Yeah.

00:03:46.740 Which is interesting because, of course, he claims to be able to control the weather.

00:03:51.120 Yeah, that's a bit of a divine irony there.

00:03:54.220 Yeah. All right. Well, that doesn't surprise me at all. Okay. So the reason I wanted to have you

00:04:02.080 on, me and you, we talked offline a little bit about this, but there was recently Discovery Plus

00:04:06.780 did a three-part series, I believe it is, but a three-part series called Hillsong,

00:04:13.820 A Mega Church Exposed. And I wanted to talk about it a little bit with you because

00:04:18.640 not even so much to intricately pick apart the documentary or anything like that. But you've

00:04:27.160 been talking about Hillsong a lot longer before it ever became cool. And you and I both were first

00:04:35.880 and foremost, we're Christians. And when it comes to judging these kinds of things, I just am

00:04:41.800 skeptical. I heard that the documentary did a good job in many regards, but I am always skeptical

00:04:47.220 of non-Christians, of pagans, rendering judgments about spiritual things, right? Same kind of thing. 1.00

00:04:55.220 Now, this might offend some of my listeners, but Christianity Today, they did the rise and fall

00:05:01.900 of Mars Hill. And I'll make my statement again, I'm skeptical when pagans render judgments about

00:05:08.620 spiritual things. I would prefer for a biblically orthodox, sound, courageous group of Christians

00:05:15.300 to give a fair shake. I think Mark Driscoll made some real mistakes, but I don't want the feminist 1.00

00:05:22.280 at Christianity Today talking about how Mark Driscoll has toxic masculinity. You know what

00:05:28.260 I mean? It's just like, who are you to... So the basis for all of this that I'm thinking about is

00:05:33.520 1 Corinthians 6, verse 4. It says, when one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go

00:05:39.480 to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you know that the saints will judge

00:05:44.300 the world. And if the world is to be judged by you, the saints, are you incompetent to try these

00:05:50.600 smaller trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more than matters

00:05:57.240 pertaining to this life? So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have

00:06:02.980 no standing in the church? And so all that being said, I'm going to give it to you. But my point is,

00:06:08.560 you know, Paul, he certainly condemns the carnal fleshly desire of lawsuits and always being about

00:06:16.680 who's right and who's wrong. So, he has that judgment to render to the Corinthians saying,

00:06:20.120 why not rather just drop it? Why not rather be wronged? But that's not the only thing that he

00:06:24.680 condemns is the fleshly carnal desire for the self. He also condemns going before the unbeliever 0.94

00:06:31.960 to render judgments about spiritual things. And so it's not that he's just universally against

00:06:40.820 courts. He's against pagan courts. We believe in ecclesiastical courts. We believe in church

00:06:47.560 discipline being rendered by an ecclesiastical court, exercising the keys of the kingdom and

00:06:52.420 rendering righteous judgments. And so all that back to the Hillsong, A Mega Church Exposed,

00:06:57.340 This documentary series has been getting a lot of attention, done by Discovery Plus, I'm sure, in God's common grace.

00:07:03.480 There were many good things, but I think there are other things that we could address as well.

00:07:08.700 What are your thoughts?

00:07:10.620 Yeah, absolutely, Joel.

00:07:11.740 Well, 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.

00:07:29.600 You're right.

00:07:30.420 I 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.

00:07:40.180 But even secular people know enough about Christianity to know that adultery is sinful, according to the Bible. 0.89

00:07:51.280 And that's what we as Christians teach, rightly so. 0.79

00:07:55.160 And they know enough to know that.

00:07:57.100 And so when there's a sex candle involving the quote unquote church, you know, they're all in there.

00:08:03.840 They jump in with both feet and they're, you know, they're fully committed to it.

00:08:07.780 Not 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.

00:08:23.560 They don't know any of that.

00:08:25.740 They don't understand it.

00:08:26.660 I don't care to hear anything they have to say about those issues. 0.89

00:08:30.100 But they know enough to know that Christians believe that adultery is sinful. 0.99

00:08:34.680 And so and they love to expose Christians as hypocrites. 0.98

00:08:38.840 So there was nothing altruistic about Discovery Plus doing this. 0.95

00:08:45.560 They they just wanted to paint Christians in general in a bad light.

00:08:50.640 But as I said, it's just it's really unfortunate.

00:08:53.280 It took something like this to get so many professing Christians to wake up to Hillsong.

00:08:59.240 I 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.

00:09:25.220 and they know who they are and they sing their music anyway.

00:09:29.520 That's the real tragedy here.

00:09:31.940 I agree.

00:09:33.040 A lot of people probably have some egg on their face in this moment.

00:09:40.220 Yeah, I mean, I can't tell you the kind of blowback I got

00:09:44.020 when I did that interview with Todd Friel a few years ago

00:09:47.240 at the G3 conference.

00:09:49.260 We did a little interview on Bethel and Hillsong

00:09:52.360 and somehow it just went viral.

00:09:55.220 And I haven't looked recently, but I know it's got, yeah, somewhere between, I think somewhere between two and three million views.

00:10:02.500 And 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.

00:10:10.700 But the blowback I got was just astonishing.

00:10:15.620 And even from some people who claim to be, you know, Calvinist, to use that term.

00:10:20.860 And so I guess now they're finally saying that, oh, maybe there is a problem with Hillsong.

00:10:29.380 Sad commentary that it takes a secular news organization to bring Christians to that understanding when it should have been just obvious to anyone.

00:10:39.460 Right. And that principle, that reality that you're espousing is not unique to the particular

00:10:47.760 issue of Hillsong or biblical churches singing Hillsong music. What you're describing is really

00:10:55.160 just the reality of being a leader, right? So, Jesus says, your forefathers always killed the

00:11:01.180 prophets. Was there ever a prophet they didn't kill? But what happens though is the next

00:11:08.920 generation, they all claim to, you know, we love Moses. We love Abraham. We love Jeremiah. We love

00:11:17.260 Isaiah. Those are our guys. It's like, those aren't your guys. Hindsight is luxury. Hindsight

00:11:22.360 is 2020, right? Everybody's so concerned about being on the right side of history. Well, it's

00:11:26.520 really easy to just to read off the script once the history is already written and everyone's

00:11:33.080 already decided who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. And then you just paint yourself,

00:11:36.680 of course, I'm one of the good guys. But what Jesus is saying is, no, no, you're not. Because

00:11:41.680 here I am, the capital P prophet, the prophet of all prophets, I'm standing before you. And you

00:11:46.540 want to do with me exactly what your fathers did with Jeremiah and what your fathers did with it,

00:11:52.540 you know, just go down the list. And so my point is, you know, you getting blowback and pushback

00:11:57.440 with Todd Friel when you did that, you know, that little piece on Hillsong and not singing their

00:12:03.420 music. I think a lot of people these days, and it's kind of what you were saying, but a lot of

00:12:08.420 people, at least in our camp, they would say that as though it's common knowledge. Absolutely

00:12:14.180 common knowledge. You know, like nobody would really take, nobody's going to take offense at

00:12:18.040 that. I mean, maybe a few people, but most people listening to us right now, most of the people in

00:12:22.340 my audience and your audience, they're going to be, oh yeah, of course. But I do think it's

00:12:28.360 important that we honor leaders um you know prophets leaders you know lowercase p but those

00:12:34.840 who who actually lead the way um part of the reason why it's common knowledge today and i can

00:12:39.520 say something like that today and not get a lot of blowback is because you three four years ago

00:12:44.960 whenever it was got a lot of blowback the same with critical race theory right i mean now like

00:12:50.260 even even the the world aside from christians even the world is like this is this is madness

00:12:56.080 This is insane.

00:12:57.000 Like people are talking, there's probably going to be a red tidal wave, you know, come

00:12:59.880 November, you know, uh, in, in the voting booths and all these kinds of things.

00:13:03.280 And I believe it.

00:13:03.960 I think that's probably because people are just completely fed up and everyone, you know,

00:13:07.700 says CRT, just rattling off that phrase, CRT and intersectionality and wokeology as,

00:13:12.520 as though, as though, uh, we've been studying, you know, all this stuff for years when the

00:13:17.420 reality is none of them.

00:13:18.780 Nobody had a clue what any of this was.

00:13:20.680 a few people led the way and got, they didn't get cheers and applause. Nobody was throwing

00:13:27.760 parades. Everybody, they were having to fight on both sides, right? So they're fighting the enemy

00:13:31.560 and then they're fighting Christians behind them, stabbing them in the back, accusing them of being

00:13:35.800 harsh, you know, and all these kinds of things and divisive. And then finally, the Lord in his

00:13:42.640 mercy and providence, you know, but that's always how it is. That's extreme. You're harsh,

00:13:48.440 you're intolerant and then it becomes oh well maybe there's something to that and then it's

00:13:52.440 like oh this is common knowledge we we all knew it all along yeah and that just seems to be the

00:13:57.400 way it goes it it absolutely is yeah it absolutely is and and you know the issues with bethel and

00:14:03.660 hillsong this is not high level discernment kind of stuff here i mean this is i mean they've got a

00:14:10.660 multiple decades-long track record of bad theology, of bad ecclesiology, bad pneumatology,

00:14:19.360 I mean, bad everything-ology related to anything to the church. They've got a long track record of

00:14:27.780 this. They're notorious false prophets. They endorse false teachers, have known false teachers 0.81

00:14:36.140 speak at their conferences. They cross-pollinate with one another. This is not high-level

00:14:41.820 discernment here, so this should be, so it's astonishing. You know, I'm not surprised when

00:14:48.040 a typical kind of mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy, like a Southern Baptist church is very Arminian

00:14:57.580 and has 20-minute sermons and, you know, no church discipline. I'm not surprised when 0.73

00:15:03.680 I know that kind of a genre of a church plays Bethel and Hillsong.

00:15:07.540 It doesn't surprise me at all.

00:15:08.480 What did surprise me was quite disheartening to see so many people in our

00:15:13.260 circles defend Bethel and Hillsong.

00:15:17.380 And I'm like, really?

00:15:19.200 You know?

00:15:20.440 So, and I don't, let me say this.

00:15:23.520 I take absolutely no joy in what has happened.

00:15:29.480 Well, I actually can't say,

00:15:31.260 I started to say I take no joy in what's happened to Hillsong.

00:15:33.680 That's not entirely true.

00:15:35.420 I do in this sense that a false church has been finally exposed for being what it is, a false church.

00:15:42.280 So I guess I do take joy in that.

00:15:43.740 I don't rejoice in sin, which their whole leadership is just rife with and eaten up with.

00:15:49.720 I don't take joy in that.

00:15:51.020 But I guess I do take joy that people are finally starting to see what this movement is, what this structure is.

00:15:59.400 It's not a church.

00:16:00.660 It's not a church. 0.99

00:16:01.580 It's a goat farm. 0.97

00:16:02.500 It's not a church. 0.99

00:16:03.240 Yep. Yep. It's a goat farm. Yes, I completely agree. And it's important, I think, you know,

00:16:10.660 well, even that gets into, you know, we're constantly, everything that we talk about,

00:16:14.700 if it has any serious importance, it deals with theology. We have to deal with theology. And it's

00:16:20.420 important for people to recognize that when it comes to conversion, conversion is not,

00:16:23.560 in biblical terms, it is not a goat becoming a sheep. Goats are always goats and sheep are always

00:16:31.560 sheep. And there's another piece of the puzzle, you know, there are goats, there are sheep,

00:16:35.480 there are also shepherds and there are wolves, you know? And so there's only a few players in

00:16:39.720 the game, you know, but it's important to know the pieces on the board, you know, and to

00:16:44.920 understand their function, right? If you're going to play chess and you're going to play it well,

00:16:48.180 you need to know what a bishop does. You need to know what a pawn does, you know? And goats are

00:16:52.720 always goats. So conversion is not a goat becoming a sheep. Jesus says, I have sheep that are not of

00:16:58.620 this fold or not of this pen and he's talking about you know those the lost sheep of israel 0.66

00:17:02.480 but then there are lost gentile sheep and he said i must go and find them also you know or leaving

00:17:06.320 the 99 for the one so so when somebody comes to salvation they're not a goat becoming a sheep

00:17:10.740 when someone comes to christ um it is a lost sheep who is now being found a dead sheep that

00:17:15.420 is now made alive um yeah and so when you say a goat farm what you're saying is there might

00:17:19.880 actually be some sheep there uh unconverted sheep that need to be found um but a lot of them may

00:17:26.620 just be straight up goats oh yeah and we don't we don't determine that we you know we don't know

00:17:31.220 that but go ahead sorry no no you're fine no you're you're exactly right the vast majority

00:17:37.160 are goats the only sheep you would you would find there would be um either lost sheep who have not

00:17:44.160 yet been called to the shepherd and that's what an unconverted person is that's what a

00:17:47.840 a lost person who let me say it this way a lost person who will later one day get saved

00:17:56.280 Right. An unconverted elect person.

00:17:59.840 An unconverted elect person is a sheep. They're just a lost sheep who have not yet been called to the shepherd.

00:18:07.060 But the vast majority of people in Bethel and Hillsong and any of these other similar churches, they're goats.

00:18:13.220 the only sheep you would find would be either lost sheep who have not yet been called to the

00:18:18.640 shepherd or very young, immature sheep who maybe have gotten saved, but they're young. 0.92

00:18:26.260 You know, they're baby sheep, they're baby Christians, and they don't yet have their 0.86

00:18:31.780 theological legs under them. But the thing about babies is that babies don't stay babies. 0.84

00:18:37.300 babies grow up babies mature and so uh you would find zero mature sheep in these false churches

00:18:47.180 none because by definition if they were mature they wouldn't be in a false church that's right

00:18:52.300 maturity would call them out that's right of that church and if they stayed there there either

00:18:58.000 would be again unconverted or if they are converted they would be stunted in their

00:19:02.380 spiritual maturity they would not be able to mature you know or greatly hindered um in in

00:19:08.300 their you know spiritual uh in their sanctification um so let's talk about real quick so there's just

00:19:14.560 been pastor after pastor after pastor resigning since the stuff with brian houston has come out

00:19:19.360 since the stuff so the big two you know the big hitters the two big hitters brian houston the

00:19:23.980 founder in australia and then carl lenz who was the pastor up in new york city and a lot of this

00:19:28.060 have come out you know this didn't happen last week you know so so it's been headline after

00:19:34.180 headline so it's kind of an unfolding story so we're not saying oh man this bomb just dropped

00:19:38.900 you know so some of our listeners might be did something new come out about Hillsong and the

00:19:42.420 answers not really um you know but you could probably wait three or four days and you know

00:19:48.240 it's like every every couple weeks something so it's it's kind of this unfolding saga of the

00:19:53.980 demise the implosion of hillsong and so my point is it's not just the two big hitters but but what

00:19:59.660 there's been as kind of um all the uh residual you know like there'll be a big earthquake you

00:20:05.560 know if we were speaking in earthquake terms and then there's aftershocks and there continues like

00:20:10.980 for a year it's just aftershock aftershock aftershock and uh and and part of those aftershocks

00:20:16.560 are all these other pastors resigning without necessarily being caught in in a known scandal

00:20:22.600 in terms of an egregious, clear, moral failure.

00:20:27.380 And then there's tons of people who are leaving.

00:20:30.720 And I guess what I'm getting at is,

00:20:33.240 I think there's some more takeaways,

00:20:35.800 some more pieces of the puzzle

00:20:36.900 that Christians need to be aware of. 1.00

00:20:38.920 And even mature believers are like, 0.98

00:20:40.440 well, I wasn't singing Hillsong,

00:20:41.700 I wasn't going to Hillsong,

00:20:43.160 that we still can learn from this by God's grace.

00:20:46.260 And one of those things is,

00:20:47.960 I just keep thinking about,

00:20:50.360 some of the common denominators is the fear of man, the approval of man, wanting to be cool.

00:20:56.600 So why is everybody jumping ship? I think everyone's jumping ship because there's repentance

00:21:01.360 in their heart? Probably not. Maybe. I'm not God. I don't know. Maybe in some individuals,

00:21:06.680 like we already discussed, there may be a few. But by and large, there's a ton of people

00:21:10.800 jumping ship. And I don't think it's just because they have such a strong conviction for purity in

00:21:17.240 marriage. And I don't think it's because all of a sudden they just became spiritually mature and

00:21:21.840 realize that Hillsong is a goat farm. I think Hillsong's not that cool anymore. What do you

00:21:28.600 think about that? Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. Absolutely. Because there's

00:21:34.320 been so much bad press on Hillsong now. I think people have finally gotten to the point where

00:21:40.860 they realize, yeah, maybe we shouldn't be associated with them. And it's kind of reached

00:21:46.040 critical mass, I guess, and I mean, there's no denying it now, and so, yeah, I don't, unfortunately,

00:21:54.480 my educated guess is that most of the people that are jumping from the Hillsong ship are not doing

00:22:00.520 so with the best of motives or the right motives, I'll say, not with the biblical motives. They've

00:22:05.180 just kind of been shamed into it. They've just been shamed into it, which it shouldn't take that.

00:22:12.480 I mean, it should not take that.

00:22:16.060 If 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. 0.94

00:22:28.340 So, yeah, it's a sad testimony to the lack of discernment amongst so many professing Christians. 0.97

00:22:37.360 But this is exactly what we should expect with Bethel and Hillsong. 1.00

00:22:42.160 And 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.

00:22:55.080 But one of the things that marks the life of a false teacher is sexual immorality. 0.67

00:23:02.680 That is kind of, that's common.

00:23:06.080 That's typical of a false teacher because a false teacher is not indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

00:23:14.880 And so there is no internal restraint on their flesh.

00:23:20.100 And Peter tells us that, he tells us this.

00:23:22.420 He 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.

00:23:32.840 And he says that they will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

00:23:41.100 And then he says this, and many will follow their sensuality.

00:23:45.540 Many will follow their sensuality because of them the way of truth will be aligned.

00:23:48.760 um false teachers are marked by sexual immorality so to see that to see that carl lintz was having

00:23:58.920 multiple affairs uh and to see the same thing was going on with uh brian houston i mean that

00:24:07.180 surprised me about as much as i'm going to be surprised tomorrow morning when the sun rises

00:24:12.140 in the east that's about my level of surprise yeah surprise surprise sounds good yeah oh no

00:24:19.700 just surprise my level of surprise yeah my level of surprise yeah it took two minds to figure that

00:24:26.780 out we got it though we nailed that surprise but no i hear you and that's so important i want our

00:24:31.620 listeners to hear i was hoping you would talk about that because i've heard you talk about that

00:24:34.520 in the past and and you're absolutely right because i just i think of paul's warnings to

00:24:38.220 Timothy, right? Guard your life and doctrine closely. And of course, you know, you could just

00:24:42.240 read that next to cheat and say, okay, there are two things that are very important to guard,

00:24:45.780 right? Life and doctrine, life speaking to character, morality, and doctrine. What do you

00:24:51.660 believe? Your convictions. And we can say, oh, these are two important categories. And that's

00:24:56.680 fine. But I think that we could, you know, maybe not explicitly in that given text, but when we

00:25:03.700 survey the whole of scripture and later things that Paul says to Timothy, we see that it's not

00:25:08.120 just that these are two important categories, but these are two categories that are intrinsically

00:25:12.180 tied to one another. There is an unbreakable correlation between that the life is dictated

00:25:19.380 by the doctrine and the doctrine will be ultimately shaped and compromised ultimately by

00:25:28.820 a sinful life. And part of that is because of God's design that even despite the fall,

00:25:36.280 the people, the vestige of the image of God remains. We're created in the image of God.

00:25:42.080 God made man in his image, male and female, he created them. And even though creation,

00:25:50.440 including human beings, are under a curse, and that image has been marred, the vestige of the

00:25:56.180 imago Dei, the image still remains. And part of that speaks to, you know, it's like, well,

00:26:01.060 what does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, one of those things is that the law of God

00:26:04.820 has been written on the heart, even for the unbeliever. That's why they're condemned. Romans 1.00

00:26:10.100 1, natural revelation, that these things about God are clearly displayed. And not just things

00:26:15.360 about God, namely his attributes of his eternal power or divine nature, clearly displayed,

00:26:22.340 clearly perceived, but also the law of God is written on your heart to where, you know,

00:26:27.860 Paul says, you know, Gentiles, you are a law unto yourself because you say, you know, you 0.93

00:26:32.920 say, do not do this, and then you do it, meaning you're breaking your own standard, and that 0.96

00:26:37.700 standard is flawed, but it does ultimately trickle down from God's standard. As human

00:26:43.180 beings made in the image of God, you have a moral compass. You have, my point is, you

00:26:47.480 have a conscience. And so even the false teacher who is unconverted, even the false teacher still

00:26:53.620 made in the image of God has a conscience. And so his life, if he has a sinful life, it will not

00:27:01.440 at least indefinitely, maybe for a time, but indefinitely his sinful life will not allow him

00:27:08.220 to preach a, I'll say it like this, his perverted life will not allow indefinitely for a pure

00:27:14.560 gospel. His perverted life won't allow for a pure gospel because his conscience will burn and burn

00:27:22.020 and burn. So eventually what he's going to have to do is make his life and doctrine will align.

00:27:29.840 And so he'll stop preaching against sexual immorality. He'll just, at best, instead of

00:27:35.420 introducing, well, sexual immorality is okay. Instead of teaching that it's good, in a best

00:27:39.960 case scenario, he just won't talk about sexual immorality. That'll just be absent from his

00:27:44.260 preaching you got any thoughts about that yeah no i i agree with that i agree they um even though

00:27:50.280 they're lost they do have a conscience uh they you don't have to teach them that it's wrong to lie

00:27:57.060 wrong to steal they instinctively know these things just like everybody on the planet does

00:28:02.640 that's right no those things are wrong that's why we try to cover them up when we when we commit them

00:28:07.480 So, 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.

00:28:34.760 It's something he always teaches on.

00:28:39.820 I've seen that, too.

00:28:41.580 And it's almost like a, you know, me thinketh thou doth protest a bit too much, you know, one of those kind of things.

00:28:50.140 So they either never talk about it or it's a hobby horse for them.

00:28:55.760 And it's almost like a way of of trying to distance themselves from doing something that they know full well they are themselves doing.

00:29:05.920 And they just it's like, you know, they're trying to like a cover.

00:29:10.400 Yeah, cover. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

00:29:13.320 That's all I've seen. I've seen that, too. I've seen that, too.

00:29:16.640 I'm glad you pointed that out. Go ahead. Sorry.

00:29:18.800 Yeah, 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.

00:29:40.880 And in all fairness, he was not an expositor at all.

00:29:44.460 He was just kind of a topical preacher.

00:29:47.420 But anyway, two things.

00:29:50.400 Fidelity to your wife and alcohol.

00:29:53.700 He was always harping, men, be faithful to your wife.

00:29:57.280 Be faithful to your wife.

00:29:58.600 And don't you touch alcohol.

00:30:01.260 Don't let that stuff ever touch your lips.

00:30:02.800 It turns out he was having an affair with a head deacon's wife, actually, and he was an alcoholic.

00:30:13.560 He was a drunk.

00:30:15.020 Yep.

00:30:15.540 Yeah. 1.00

00:30:16.140 And I'm glad you used the word he was a drunk, the biblical word.

00:30:20.180 Yep, he was drunk.

00:30:21.040 You're right.

00:30:21.580 You know what?

00:30:22.400 You're right.

00:30:23.120 Now that I think about it, I can think of a couple stories myself.

00:30:27.640 Yeah, I think it's the cover fire.

00:30:29.120 You know, it's the, yeah, but yeah, you're right.

00:30:33.480 So don't touch it at all.

00:30:34.880 They just don't even talk about this particular topic.

00:30:36.980 It's not in their ministry or preaching at all, or in order to try to somehow cover their

00:30:43.120 tracks, that's all they're ever addressing.

00:30:47.120 On that note, shifting gears, but just barely, you know, one of the things that I noticed

00:30:51.860 with Carl Lentz in particular, you know, he would always wear the, you know, the deep

00:30:56.200 V t-shirts, you know, and almost, you know, I can't prove it, but man, I'm, I'm, it seems like

00:31:04.280 he was getting a spray tan from time to time or something, you know, I mean, just, it just seemed

00:31:09.260 very, very, very, uh, concerning. And you see this with a lot of guys, Steven Furtick, same kind,

00:31:13.980 you know, like, like $10,000 sneakers, you know, and stuff like that. Or, uh, but it's not,

00:31:19.380 it's not just the money, right? It's not just the money, but it's, um, it's vanity. It's just so

00:31:25.360 vain. I mean, such an emphasis. And I guess my point is, I think that's a good warning to

00:31:31.980 Christians too, that, you know, sometimes we think we can manage sin instead of mortifying 0.76

00:31:37.780 the flesh, right? That we're supposed to put sin to death. But a lot of times what we do is instead

00:31:44.040 of killing it, we subdue it. I always think of Batman as an illustration. It's like at some

00:31:48.600 point it's just like, Batman, I just, I think you should just kill Joker, right? You know, 0.99

00:31:53.540 You just, you keep, you keep, you know, tying them up and subduing them or knocking them

00:31:57.900 out or handing them over to the police.

00:31:59.240 And, you know, and I mean, theologically Batman is a vigilante.

00:32:01.980 All right.

00:32:02.160 So he would need to be Caesar, but, but Caesar still use the sword by golly.

00:32:06.880 Don't, don't just, you know, it's not that God gave the handcuffs to Caesar, you know,

00:32:10.300 but, but he gave the sword to Caesar and there are things according to God's law that, um,

00:32:14.860 and so changing that from issues of social, you know, uh, societal justice, not social

00:32:20.200 justice, but justice in society, changing it from that to sin in individuals. It's the same

00:32:26.740 mentality. It's not a physical sword, but the sword of the spirit. We're called to mortify the

00:32:32.120 flesh, not just manage it. And I think sometimes we need to realize these things are connected.

00:32:37.300 There's a sliding scale when it comes to sexual immorality and perversion and vanity and constantly

00:32:44.120 you know each tuff of hair being exactly you know placed and and there's a certain level of of

00:32:50.420 caring so much about physical appearance that um i think you're you're kidding yourself you're

00:32:55.600 kidding yourself to say well i just really you know care about my my physical appearance and

00:33:00.160 and just want to be healthy have healthy practices and to think that there's that that's not flowing

00:33:05.200 at all into um lust what do you think yeah yeah no i agree 100 and uh you know you're

00:33:14.000 talking about guys like steven furtick and carl lentz when you look at them you're exactly right

00:33:18.860 they wore the the tight tee or in uh furtick's case he still does but the real tight shirts and

00:33:24.440 you know they they obviously work out and steven furtick when you look at a picture of steven

00:33:28.980 furtick from i don't know like 10 years ago i mean he was this scrawny guy now he is he's like

00:33:36.440 lou ferrigno now and um uh he he you can tell he's got i mean he's just he's he's arrogant

00:33:46.220 he shouts he rages um he's clearly bringing attention to himself carl lintz same way

00:33:55.560 brings attention to himself wearing these tight shirts and showing his muscles and all that um

00:34:00.820 I'll tell you, I guess this is anecdotal, but it's pretty interesting in a sad sort of way.

00:34:07.900 You remember Tully and Chavijan?

00:34:10.760 You remember Tully and Chavijan?

00:34:13.280 So, he was...

00:34:15.440 Vaguely familiar.

00:34:16.600 Can you brief me?

00:34:18.660 So, he is like Billy Graham's, one of Billy Graham's grandsons.

00:34:23.320 Oh, okay.

00:34:24.740 And he was a pastor somewhere in Florida.

00:34:28.680 And he claimed to be, you know, reformed-ish, I suppose.

00:34:34.000 But 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.

00:34:46.540 And 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.

00:34:58.980 Well, I guess it was about six, seven years ago, five, six, seven years ago.

00:35:06.600 Anyway, Kathy and I were at the kitchen table having breakfast one morning and TBN was on.

00:35:13.840 when we turned tbn on and they had toe inch vision on tbn and we were just watching him i was just

00:35:20.040 looking at him the way he was kind of sauntered back in a seat in these tight shirts and his

00:35:24.400 muscles bulging and all that and and he was actually known for being kind of antinomian

00:35:30.940 in a sense kind of um yeah easy you know that's kind of what he was known for real quick just for

00:35:36.300 our listeners antinomian just being against law yeah yeah grace grace grace but no no law right

00:35:42.200 Yeah. 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.

00:35:58.560 i kid you not joel i'm not a prophet i'm not claiming one week later one week later

00:36:08.100 it's when it the story came out made a big news that telling division was having affairs on his

00:36:15.820 on his wife and wow and he disappeared for a while but now he's back kind of revamped and

00:36:21.820 doing his own thing and you know i mean of course biblically he's disqualified from being in ministry

00:36:28.160 But, I mean, you just get a sense.

00:36:31.440 And 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.

00:36:38.820 That's a huge red flag.

00:36:40.680 I agree.

00:36:41.120 Yeah, 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.

00:36:54.780 No more surprise than, you know, when the sun rises from the east the next morning.

00:36:59.700 And, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that.

00:37:02.320 And like we said, one of the reasons is their doctrine, right?

00:37:05.300 There's a correlation between life and doctrine, but then also just in their physical appearance.

00:37:11.740 You 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.

00:37:24.780 And, uh, and that doesn't mean that you can't be, you know, um, a worldly prude because

00:37:30.920 that's possible too.

00:37:32.280 You know, uh, there are different forms of worldliness.

00:37:35.020 There are different forms of pride.

00:37:37.220 Um, but, uh, but some of them, you know, I think of, maybe you can help me with the reference

00:37:42.000 for this.

00:37:42.900 Um, but I think of the verse, I think it's in first Timothy, but it says some sins are

00:37:47.960 more conspicuous.

00:37:49.600 Um, you know, and, and, and it talks about like some sins go ahead of them before.

00:37:54.780 judgment. Do you know what I'm referencing? I do. I can't remember the exact. Let me see if

00:38:01.480 I can Google it real quick. Okay. Go ahead, though. Do you have any thoughts while I'm

00:38:05.540 looking this up? Yeah, no. With some, it is pretty obvious. I mean, you can just tell.

00:38:11.900 As I said, that's a huge red flag when you see someone bringing attention to himself or herself,

00:38:18.860 for that matter uh our job as preachers joel is to make much of christ not much of ourselves

00:38:25.440 we should be doing everything in our power to take attention off of ourselves and put it on

00:38:32.500 the christ so um amen and i think that gets into ecclesiology also that's part of the reason why

00:38:38.140 we have the ordinary means of grace right we preach the word we pray the word we sing the

00:38:42.700 word and then i would say we see s-e-e see the word in the sacrament or the ordinance of baptism

00:38:47.720 and the Lord's Supper. And that's the only image that we have that's prescribed for corporate

00:38:52.560 worship is the image of Christ, his burial, his death and burial and resurrection and baptism.

00:39:00.380 And that's one of the reasons why I'm a Baptist. I'm about as close as you can get as a Presbyterian

00:39:05.540 in every regard, except for polity and baptism. And part of it is because I think the word

00:39:10.680 baptismo is immersion. And I think part of that is the symbolism of being buried with Christ and

00:39:15.940 raised with him to walk in newness of life. So we have, that's all that we can see though. Those

00:39:20.020 are the images. Aside from that, we don't walk by sight. We walk by faith and faith cometh by

00:39:24.860 hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, the word of God. And so we are word centric people

00:39:30.380 on the Lord's day when we gather together with the saints for corporate worship. Everything we

00:39:35.060 do is centered on the word. It's not aesthetics. It's not images. It's not the lust of the eyes

00:39:42.240 and the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life.

00:39:44.040 It's not the laser shows.

00:39:45.260 It's not the smoke machines.

00:39:47.940 It's not all those kinds of things.

00:39:50.460 It's simple worship.

00:39:51.920 And people say, oh, you know, and I'm mentioning this because I think this is important.

00:39:56.340 Right now, I mean, we have like a global game of musical chairs and churches going on right

00:40:00.000 now because the Lord, in his mercy, has providentially just ripped the veil off of every major institution

00:40:07.120 in our society.

00:40:08.080 And sadly, the evangelical church was no exception.

00:40:10.260 so legacy media politics you know the whole nine yards and and the church and so a lot of people

00:40:15.500 and we're not talking about just chronic dissatisfied church hoppers you know three

00:40:18.800 months here six months there but people who have been faithful members for 10 years 20 years and

00:40:22.960 they're like oh my goodness my my pastor's a tyrant whether it be you know tyranny with with

00:40:27.860 covid stuff or uh woke my pastor's either a tyrant or he's woke those are two of the big issues you

00:40:33.260 know and so people are checking out new churches and so i want to say this to say as you are

00:40:37.080 visiting churches if you're one of those people and you're trying to find a good church

00:40:39.800 do not chalk this up into the personal preference category. Simple church is because of biblical

00:40:49.640 reasons. There are biblical reasons for what we do. And there can be a sliding scale. We don't

00:40:54.720 want to be unnecessarily strict about these things. But there is a reason for the type of

00:41:01.660 music that we use. And more important, the lyrics that we sing and the length of sermons,

00:41:08.420 Even that, these are not just personal preferences.

00:41:11.160 Like I would make an argument for sermons being 45 minutes to an hour, and I would make

00:41:14.860 a biblical argument for it.

00:41:16.500 One of my arguments would be the book of Hebrews at an average reading pace takes approximately

00:41:22.580 60 minutes to read.

00:41:23.900 And I believe I look at the book of Hebrews as a sermon.

00:41:26.700 I think that that was a, and most biblical scholars would agree that it was one sermon

00:41:30.940 meant to be delivered and then later chopped up in terms of each portion exposited.

00:41:38.420 But first, initially, delivered, presented as one sermon.

00:41:42.340 And how long does it take?

00:41:43.220 60 minutes.

00:41:43.900 So there's my biblical argument.

00:41:45.540 And I'm not going to hold that so loose or so tightly that if a guy's preaching for 35

00:41:50.080 minutes, then he's being unfaithful.

00:41:51.640 That's not my point.

00:41:52.840 But my point is, I think we have taken so much of the methods of church and put them

00:41:57.840 over into this stylistic personal preference category, not realizing that the Bible doesn't

00:42:05.020 just dictate what.

00:42:06.940 It dictates how.

00:42:08.420 you got any thoughts on that yeah no i i agree 100 it it dictates what and it dictates how we

00:42:16.720 are the bible has not left us uninformed joel on how to do worship god god god is spirit must be

00:42:25.420 worshiped in spirit and in truth worship is our most sacred solemn and quite honestly our most

00:42:31.360 joyful responsibility as Christians is to worship God, and he has not left us uninformed

00:42:37.420 in how he is to be worshiped. The Bible is full on the New Testament life, and especially the

00:42:46.720 New, since we're obviously New Covenant, about how church is to be done. It's Christ's church.

00:42:54.120 It's his church. We're not at liberty to decide how we want to do church. Christ has told us how

00:43:00.520 to do church we have a model for it in the book of acts we see a plurality of elders we see the

00:43:06.520 widows being cared for we see deacons we we see um you know we we see preaching we see worship we

00:43:14.760 see singing throughout the through the new testament and how about all those things are to

00:43:18.960 be done we see how conflicts are supposed to be resolved right church discipline church discipline

00:43:25.240 Absolutely. 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?

00:43:40.560 What do you do with church discipline? Because every evangelical church is going to say, oh, yes, we believe the Bible.

00:43:45.400 The Bible is our authority. It's inspired and there it weren't of God and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:43:48.720 you know most of these statements of faith are just cut and pasted from other statements of faith

00:43:54.020 right but they would all say that but if you want to get an idea of how seriously they

00:43:57.900 really take the word of god ask them what they do with matthew 18 verses 15 through 20

00:44:04.020 do you do this yep and most of the reformers and puritans and john calvin especially would

00:44:09.660 add that as one of the chief marks of a church right wherever the word is rightly taught and

00:44:14.280 The sacraments rightly administered, and many added to that, and church discipline being practiced.

00:44:21.040 There, a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.

00:44:24.460 Go ahead.

00:44:25.400 Church discipline is the first command that Jesus gave to his church.

00:44:29.560 It's the first command that Jesus gave to his church, and it is just as much a command as is the Lord's Supper and believers' baptism.

00:44:38.160 Just as much a command as those two things.

00:44:41.480 So, yeah, and I agree.

00:44:43.800 any church that does not do Matthew 18, then I would say that is not a real church.

00:44:50.280 It's not a true church, not as the Bible defines it.

00:44:53.060 Yep. Amen. I completely agree. 1.00

00:44:55.340 And what I would ask is, you know, so look at the statement of faith.

00:44:59.640 But, you know, so our church, we have, you know, so we are confessionally Reformed Baptists.

00:45:04.700 So we actually have two documents.

00:45:05.860 We have our general statement of faith that is intentionally narrow enough to where no non-Christian could affirm that statement of faith. 0.62

00:45:14.440 No Muslim, no atheist, no Buddhist.

00:45:17.660 So 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.

00:45:28.280 I have Presbyterians in my church.

00:45:29.520 I even have a few Arminians in my church.

00:45:31.860 And the Arminians are, they're happy to be there.

00:45:34.000 they're like, so this church isn't going to make me wear a mask and, and shut down every six months

00:45:38.820 when there's a new, they're like, yeah, I don't always like when you talk about the Calvinism

00:45:43.040 stuff, but you have a spine and we're just, we're kind of just looking for a pastor who

00:45:47.420 will preach the Bible. And, and you know what? I kind of think, I think God's going to win them

00:45:50.960 over. So I think, you know, so I'm happy to have them, you know? So, but my point, my point is,

00:45:55.640 so our general statement of faith is narrow enough to disclude any non-Christian, but,

00:45:59.460 not so narrow that it would disclude a Christian, a brother or a sister. That said, we also have

00:46:06.100 in our Bible, and all this is in our Bible, we have a specific statement of doctrine. So a general

00:46:10.720 statement of faith, and we call it our specific statement of doctrine that has to be affirmed by

00:46:14.860 the officers of the church, elders and deacons, and should be recognized. It says it must be

00:46:20.280 recognized by the members of the church. And then we define that word recognized to say

00:46:23.540 that you expect that this is the position of the officer of the church. This is what you can expect

00:46:29.040 and the public teaching, and you're not going to be divisive about it. But the members must affirm

00:46:34.080 our general statement of faith. They must recognize our specific statement of doctrine.

00:46:38.800 And our specific statement of doctrine is exactly the 1689, and we don't take any exceptions. So we

00:46:44.680 are Sabbatarian, and we would, the whole nine yards, and including, you know, the Pope being

00:46:49.980 an Antichrist. And I don't think he was the Antichrist, but there's, you know, those kinds

00:46:53.500 of things. And so all that is right there, and obviously not every member in the church agrees

00:46:58.020 with that not everybody's sabbatarian not everybody agrees on all these different positions

00:47:01.460 but that would be the offices of the church um that would be our position and my point is

00:47:05.980 in the 1689 is included um things about church discipline and in our bylaws as a church it's

00:47:13.280 step by step how someone is excommunicated from the church and um you know those and my point is

00:47:19.760 with a lot of churches you wouldn't even find that you wouldn't even be able to find that

00:47:23.260 written down right you'd have a very general anemic statement of faith right the trinity

00:47:27.520 you know and and um the bible is the word of god like what you said earlier but you wouldn't find

00:47:32.620 anything in uh in in writing and and and certainly not anything in writing that would be actually

00:47:38.340 binding um um you know on the church that would talk about um clear practical steps bylaws that

00:47:46.380 must be followed out um for how to remove someone from the lord's table for instance our church has

00:47:52.960 that. And the reason why it's clear is because our church intends to do that. Most churches don't

00:47:57.780 have it because when the rubber meets the road, they don't plan on ever doing it. And what I

00:48:01.960 always tell people is this, that's not because we're mean. Every church, one, it's because we're

00:48:08.160 trying to be obedient, but every church kicks people out. The question is how. Most churches,

00:48:13.100 I guarantee you Hillsong was kicking people out. But most churches kick people out the way a casino

00:48:18.100 would kick out someone for counting cards. They take them in a back room, nobody sees,

00:48:21.680 they break their kneecaps, they send them away, and you never hear from Fred again.

00:48:24.800 Where's Fred?

00:48:25.340 And then, you know, find a bloated corpse, you know, floating in the river.

00:48:28.680 And which means, so Matthew 18 is not just Jesus' commands to protect the church from

00:48:35.320 the defiled sinner, but it's also Jesus' process of church discipline is to protect

00:48:40.320 a alleged sinner from the potential of an abusive church.

00:48:45.580 There need to be witnesses.

00:48:47.460 There's a judicial, there's a jury here.

00:48:50.900 And 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.

00:49:13.040 Yeah, no, it is.

00:49:14.020 And it is one of the definitive marks of a healthy church, a church that does church discipline.

00:49:21.280 When I grew up, Joel, I grew up Southern Baptist, very typical Southern Baptist church.

00:49:27.460 And I can't tell you how many times we had, of course, Sunday morning, Sunday night services, and we have Wednesday night prayer meeting.

00:49:33.860 And 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.

00:49:41.160 I am there in their midst. And we have more than two or three here tonight. We know Jesus is with us.

00:49:45.740 I 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?

00:49:52.600 You know, is Jesus not there then? If I'm by myself, do I have to have two or three gathered together?

00:49:58.440 You 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.

00:50:06.820 And so it's not an easy thing to do, but yet we are commanded to do it.

00:50:14.700 And 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.

00:50:28.780 Right. No, you want the goal, the prayer, the hope is that that it will bring that person to a place of genuine repentance.

00:50:36.920 And that person is restored to a right place to fellowship within the body there.

00:50:42.700 That's what you want. That's right. And that's what it's designed to do.

00:50:47.000 And a true Christian, that's what will happen with a true Christian. 0.60

00:50:51.240 They will be brought to a place of repentance and restoration there to the church.

00:50:56.000 That's what you hope for.

00:50:58.080 But if it doesn't happen, then you know you're dealing with a tear among the wheat.

00:51:03.680 Yep, you're absolutely right.

00:51:05.460 So I did find the verse we were talking about earlier about some sins being conspicuous.

00:51:09.500 So it was 1 Timothy 5.

00:51:10.720 I was right about 1 Timothy, but I couldn't remember the chapter of the verse.

00:51:13.700 It's chapter 5, verse 24.

00:51:16.160 1 Timothy 5, 24 says,

00:51:17.640 the sins of some people are conspicuous, going before them to judgment, but the sins of others

00:51:24.980 appear later. And so what the apostle is saying is that there are some sins that in God's

00:51:30.920 providence, the nature of the particular type of sin, and then of course, just in God's providence,

00:51:35.300 he allows this individual with this particular sin to be ousted in this life. And there are other

00:51:43.800 people who seemingly, at least in the view of men, right? Men look at the outward appearance,

00:51:51.860 God sees the heart. And one day, every thought will be laid bare before him. But there are some

00:51:57.040 men that at least in the perception of their fellow man, they fly under the radar their entire

00:52:05.720 lives their lives a a great and not in a good sense but in a a a great and prominent example

00:52:14.280 of that would be ravi zacharias um you know he didn't quite make it to the end of his life but

00:52:21.000 he went his and uh right up to the end of his entire ministry and and people loved him they

00:52:28.680 thought he was great his great wonderful apologist and uh love the lord and blah blah blah you know

00:52:33.640 You know, and he was running in some of our circles, you know.

00:52:37.280 He was speaking at some of the conferences that you and I appreciate and attend.

00:52:46.560 But there at the end, the truth came out, and he was leading a double life.

00:52:54.240 That's a great example.

00:52:55.300 I have absolutely no confidence from what I've seen of what was going on with Robbie and what

00:53:02.400 he was doing, what he was engaged in. I have absolutely no confidence in that man's regeneration.

00:53:07.580 None. Where is the discipline in his life? Where's the discipline of the Holy Spirit?

00:53:14.060 Where's the growth, the sanctification? Where's the holiness? There was no holiness.

00:53:19.120 Robbie Zacharias didn't just stumble into sin. He was swimming in it.

00:53:22.840 he had a scuba suit on and yet you know as i said for so many years people thought he was great

00:53:30.920 yeah and and with that it's not it's not even there may have been some you know i i you know

00:53:39.260 you and i weren't weren't close enough to the situation if there were any clues to pick up on

00:53:43.220 but for for most people you know at a distance thinking that he was great

00:53:46.880 i just to clarify i don't i don't think you're even saying that that's particularly wrong

00:53:51.660 that's exactly what this verse is saying is some sins are conspicuous you know um that they come

00:53:56.920 out but then others appear later um there are there are some sins that um there are some things

00:54:03.740 that we miss um and we should have seen and then there are other things um that we weren't able to

00:54:10.060 see that only only god sees and i guess to bring it back to the hills my point is to say

00:54:15.120 people should have seen that one coming right when you're wearing a t-shirt you know and and

00:54:22.480 in the v is your belly button almost you know you know what i mean like it's like

00:54:27.340 yeah i think i think that guy is probably um there's a problem there yeah like he's sexual 0.95

00:54:34.260 he's he's sexual period i don't care how you slice it he yeah that's that's going on and so

00:54:41.840 So, you know, and then again, life and doctrine following suit.

00:54:44.580 If the doctrine is bad and bad and bad and bad and bad, there are going to be character

00:54:48.240 issues.

00:54:49.200 And what you said in the very beginning of this video, and this is Bible, not just experience.

00:54:56.280 You know, you do have a lot of experience with false teachers, but this is, you've got

00:55:00.300 this from scripture.

00:55:01.140 If the doctrine is bad, the life is going to be bad.

00:55:04.640 and um and and not not just in a general sense but usually particularly in the area of sexual

00:55:12.080 immorality and the bible speaks to that go ahead go ahead you were going to say something oh yeah

00:55:16.740 no it's uh yeah it was no surprise when we learned what we learned about carl lance and uh tully

00:55:23.080 and chevigian that you know that came as no surprise but the same kind of sins were going on

00:55:28.460 with ravi zacharias and maybe even on a far greater scale apparently who knows but yeah

00:55:33.600 same sins were going on with ravi zacharias and yet ravi zacharias was this you know he was always

00:55:40.300 in a suit and tie or you know he didn't he didn't have that look that carl lintz and tully and

00:55:46.380 division did but it's the same sin and uh good point yeah but there's um and a lot of that again

00:55:52.160 goes to the fear of man right because because for us and and i want to clarify this for our

00:55:56.400 listeners too, because we don't want to unnecessarily scare anyone. We want to scare

00:56:00.560 people as far as God scares people. With the word of God, there is a fear and trembling,

00:56:04.420 but we don't want to use any manipulation, man's tactics for scaring people.

00:56:10.020 The people in hell, this was so helpful for me in just growing in assurance of salvation.

00:56:15.120 The people in hell are not people who didn't have enough faith, people who had a little bit of faith

00:56:19.940 or a moderate amount of faith, or people who had some repentance, but not sufficient repentance.

00:56:24.500 that people in hell had no faith. People in hell are people who have no faith,

00:56:29.080 people who have no repentance, which means that if Ravi is in hell,

00:56:38.180 and I don't know what happened at the very end of his life, but like you said earlier,

00:56:43.460 there's not a lot of confidence from the outside looking in. So if he is in hell,

00:56:49.140 it won't be because he had some faith in Jesus, but not enough, or he had some repentance,

00:56:58.720 but not enough. It means that everything we saw in that man's life was, none of it was an ounce

00:57:06.300 of repentance, not true repentance, and none of it was an ounce of faith, which means that there

00:57:12.140 are ulterior motives. There are other motives besides godly motives. There are worldly motives

00:57:18.040 for wearing a suit and tie like you know i'm not wearing a tie but a jacket right now for for

00:57:23.160 dressing the part literally dressing the part and walking the walk and talking um and so my point is

00:57:29.520 um that was his circle that's our circle and and depending on on who you're around your sphere

00:57:37.700 there are certain codes and certain standards and those standards um if you're in in in you know

00:57:43.820 linked up with godly men, hopefully those standards aren't arbitrary and there's reasons

00:57:48.500 for those, at least biblical implications, but there are standards nonetheless. And there will

00:57:53.300 be false converts in these circles, even the best of circles, with the best of theology and the

00:57:59.540 godliest of men. There will be some false converts and God forbid, even some false teachers.

00:58:05.440 And guess what? If it turns out, we find out when we stand before God that one of the keynote

00:58:11.800 speakers from a shepherd's conference is unregenerate, was unregenerate, never born

00:58:17.140 again, well, then that person, it's not that they had some faith or some repentance, they had no

00:58:21.120 faith, no repentance, which means that they did everything they did, walk the way they walked,

00:58:27.300 talk the way they talked, dress the way they dressed, all those kinds of things, not for God,

00:58:31.640 but for men. And the particular men that they happened to be surrounded by were godly men.

00:58:38.020 Therefore, they walked and talked a godly part.

00:58:41.780 And that's important for us to remember.

00:58:44.300 Yeah.

00:58:44.680 Yeah, it is.

00:58:45.500 It is.

00:58:46.540 And John MacArthur himself has said that there will be many theologians in hell.

00:58:52.620 There will be preachers in hell.

00:58:55.460 I will say with Ravi, just as I was listening to you talk, I was in full disclosure, I was never a fan of Ravi Zacharias.

00:59:03.380 I never particularly cared for him.

00:59:05.440 He was way too philosophical.

00:59:07.340 So two things that I noticed, he rarely ever dealt with a text.

00:59:13.020 It was more philosophy.

00:59:16.400 That's logic.

00:59:18.420 He was very ecumenical.

00:59:20.180 And I picked up on that.

00:59:21.860 I actually wondered a lot, like, why do so many people like this guy?

00:59:25.540 I don't find him intriguing at all.

00:59:27.380 It was, well, he never dealt with a text, really. 0.51

00:59:30.500 And then he was Armenian, right?

00:59:33.640 Yeah, he was Armenian.

00:59:34.560 And he was very ecumenical.

00:59:36.500 I 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. 0.90

00:59:54.720 He was Arminian.

00:59:55.780 He was very ecumenical.

00:59:56.920 You 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. 0.92

01:00:14.300 Rightly so. 0.82

01:00:15.240 I mean, it should have raised a lot more eyebrows than what it did.

01:00:18.520 And here's another thing.

01:00:20.200 um little if any church involvement i didn't know that little if any church involvement

01:00:29.200 well there's your problem always on the on the road always on the road um

01:00:35.240 no church accountability really nothing meaningful and so yeah that's it and i'm an evangelist joel

01:00:43.720 that's i that's what i do i travel and i preach and teach but i intentionally and i know i'm kind

01:00:49.420 going off on a chasing a rabbit here. No, it's good. I intentionally limit my traveling to about

01:00:56.940 a third of the Sundays. I don't want to say this. So that you can go to church. So I can go to

01:01:04.240 church. So I can be fed. Right. So I can have accountability. Yeah. It's just healthy. That's

01:01:10.680 what I, and I do this because I want to do it. I want to be in church. I want to be fed. I want

01:01:18.620 to have that tie. So, um, I intentionally limit it. And it's a, it's always a big red flag with

01:01:24.300 me when I see an evangelist, whatever, you know, theological persuasion he is, whatever

01:01:30.840 circles he runs in. But when I see an evangelist who is never at his home church,

01:01:36.800 that's a big red flag with me. So I intentionally limit, and I say this, I don't mean it's going to

01:01:47.460 sound arrogant i don't mean it that way i promise i don't i could be on the road a lot more than

01:01:53.180 what i am um i've i've gotten more than enough invitations to go but i intentionally limit it

01:02:02.140 to about a third of the sundays yep good i think that's a great practice

01:02:07.300 yep so yeah so there there are guys like ravi who seemingly flew under the radar at least under the

01:02:14.060 radar for most of us um i'll he flew under my radar now that i wasn't watching his ministry

01:02:18.900 very closely i i you know i i knew who he was um but you know i i listened to some of his

01:02:26.180 arguments and same as you i just felt like it just you know it's logic it's philosophy you know it's

01:02:31.580 it's stories analogies it was you know but it's just i'm just like there's no exposition yeah i'm

01:02:36.960 a presuppositionalist i'm just like give me a text or sit down you know so you know i you know

01:02:42.060 I don't really care what you have to say.

01:02:44.080 You know, Sproul did a lot of philosophy stuff too, but he would always have a text.

01:02:48.720 And even Sproul was a little bit more philosophical than I personally like, although I am incredibly

01:02:54.740 grateful for Sproul.

01:02:55.820 You know, so I don't mean that in a negative way.

01:02:58.020 But even then, it's like sometimes, you know, and right now, I'm sure you're aware, like

01:03:02.920 some of the debate about Aquinas, you know, and Sproul.

01:03:06.620 I think some of his philosophical tenants, um, makes him a little bit more affectionate towards

01:03:12.720 Aquinas than, than I personally would be, you know? And, and so anyway, so, but the point is

01:03:18.400 you got to have a text. You got to have a text. So, um, yep. So all that being said, Hillsong,

01:03:24.620 you know, Ravi was under the radar. Um, Carl Lentz was not under the radar, never was under

01:03:30.300 the radar. Um, Brian Houston, never under the radar and Bill Johnson, that doesn't mean that

01:03:35.120 he's cheating on his wife. Um, but he might be, but, uh, but the point is that's, you know,

01:03:40.560 I'm not making any claim there, but the point is he is teaching false doctrine and life and

01:03:45.680 doctrine. It's, it's still one root. It's one man. Life and doctrine are both, they're two parts,

01:03:51.480 but both contained in one person. And the person is the tree. When Jesus gives this parable of a

01:03:57.420 tree bearing bad fruit. And, and for us to think that it's possible that we could have, um, a tree

01:04:02.680 with poisoned roots, but somehow is able to consolidate all of its poisonous fruit in one

01:04:10.540 branch while keeping all the other branches healthy. That's just ridiculous. But that's 0.98

01:04:18.100 kind of how we, you know, we, maybe we don't, we've never put into words like that, but

01:04:21.000 that's what we're assuming. That's the assumption. And that's, that's a ridiculous

01:04:24.660 assumption. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. Any final thoughts? I'll give you the last word, 0.95

01:04:31.600 But any final thoughts on just the Hillsong thing?

01:04:33.720 And 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?

01:04:45.880 Yeah, Joel, I would say, and I guess I'll look at the camera to address folks.

01:04:52.340 If 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.

01:05:09.200 You'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.

01:05:19.840 and we need to be doing this and plurality of elders, you know, our church doesn't have that.

01:05:26.080 Then I would really encourage you to leave your church. You're not going to change it. You're

01:05:34.920 not going to change it from the inside out, from the ground up. A church congregation is not going

01:05:41.760 to rise to a level of spiritual maturity above that of its leadership. It's just not going to

01:05:46.960 happen and you're not going to change the church. A lot of people email me and talk to me and say,

01:05:52.520 well, I know there's a lot of problems. I know it's a bad church, but I want to be a source of

01:05:56.100 truth, source of light. No, you need to be in a real church where you can worship in spirit and

01:06:01.280 truth, where you can be shepherded, where you can be fed the word of God, because it's only in a

01:06:06.160 true church where you'll be able to grow, where you'll be able to use your spiritual gifts for

01:06:10.540 the edification of the saints. So don't try to change your bad church. You won't be able to,

01:06:16.020 You will not be successful, I promise.

01:06:18.660 Leave, find a good church, join it.

01:06:21.420 And that's when you'll begin to really grow in Christ.

01:06:26.020 Amen.

01:06:27.020 Justin, thank you so much for coming on the show.

01:06:28.840 I appreciate it.

01:06:30.120 You're welcome.

01:06:30.720 You're welcome, Joel.

01:06:31.380 Thanks for the invitation to come, brother.

01:06:33.040 Cool.

01:06:33.800 Thanks so much for listening.

01:06:34.800 But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show.

01:06:41.900 This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content to as many people as possible.

01:06:49.700 Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - April 19, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - People Leaving HILLSONG Will Be FOOLED AGAIN If They Don’t Learn This One Lesson

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