Last Look at the Bible Twisting at Passion 2013

All right, this is the last segment that we're going to do on Passion 2013. Last segment.

And the first portion of it, I'm going to do a couple of soundbites. Now, the first soundbite is actually from Louie Giglio, but it's from session number three.

And session number three was the session that Gary Hagen, H -A -U -G -E -N, he spoke at.

He's from the International Justice Mission. And you got to remember, Louie Giglio was getting a lot of attention.

And I think this particular segment was one of the things that was critical and instrumental for him being picked to give the prayer at Obama's second inauguration.

And this has to do with the topic of social justice. Now, here's the problem.

Gary Hagen, H -A -U -G -E -N, in fact, what I would recommend, go if you can get them still.

It depends on when you're listening to this. I was, I spent four days on the radio doing one hour segments with Brannon House of Worldview Weekend.

And we went through some of the weird political issues regarding Gary Hagen, H -A -U -G -E -N, however you say it, on his program.

I'm not going to reproduce that radio here. I don't like competing with Brannon in that sense. I got the thing that I do here, and he has his thing.

And sometimes there's overlap. But in this particular case, there's some stuff regarding Gary Hagen's approach to solving so -called sex trafficking and things like that.

And the reason I say so -called is because that's a weird phrase for me. I understand what prostitution is.

I get the concept. And I understand that's bad. But sex trafficking, now we're using the words that have something to do with the drug world and stuff like that.

And I'm not sure I exactly understand what that is. And maybe I don't agree with the way they're fighting it.

And the way they're defining justice and slavery, there's some pretty slipshod definitions in there that make you go, hmm, this sounds more like some of the social justice,

Marxist liberalism stuff that we get from Jim Wallace. Yes, I would say you're right.

Exactly. But there's two just quick bites that I want you to hear from session number three that made me scratch my head that as I was listening to them,

I flagged them on my program. I've got an audio program that I can actually flag segments and name them.

And so the name of this, this is actually Louis Giglio talking to the kids, session three,

Passion 2013. And this is what he told them.

And immediately red flags are going off in my mind. See if they go off in yours, but here we go.

And together we can do great things. Individually, we can do immeasurably more.

God can do more in our lives than we ask or imagine according to Ephesians 3 .20. But collectively, there's no way we can comprehend what

God can do. The way we like to say it around passion is together, say it with me if you know it, we are a force for good.

Individually, none of us can solve the problems of the world. But collectively, we become a mighty force for justice.

You know, I just, I hear a statement like that. And immediately my antenna goes trouble alert, alert, danger,

Will Robinson, this, this is the language of the emergence. This is the language of Jim Wallace.

This is the language of the political left. This is the language of those who are avowed socialist

Marxists. By the way, um, if you go to the end of the gospel of Matthew, okay.

And you know, you get to, you know, the great commission passage there, Matthew 28. It does not say this, listen carefully.

It does not say all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me, go therefore and be a global force for good in the world and change the world.

Change the world is not the directive of the church like at all.

Okay. Nowhere where you find Jesus saying, go and change the world. In fact, that's not even a synonymous statement with go and make disciples.

Okay. Now does the world change as the gospel comes into an area and people are brought to repentance of their sins and faith and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and begin to bear the fruits of the spirit in their life.

Yes. The world changes or that area of the world changes, but that is a result of the gospel, not the mission of the church.

Does that make sense? The mission of the church is to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins, Christ and him crucified to make disciples.

And as Christ brings people to repentance, regenerates them.

Okay. You think of the doctrine here regarding being born again, actually a good way of a good translation there from John is born from above, but that the idea here is, is that as you are regenerated through the preaching of the gospel, now you have a new nature in Christ and you begin to bear fruit in keeping with repentance and you bear the fruit of the spirit.

And that has an impact on the world around you. But see, that's not what he was talking about.

And so immediately my antenna, I get, you know, get all screwed up and I, you know, pay real close attention after I hear language like this, because having spent a lot of time researching liberal movements like fascism and the emergent church movement and things like that,

I'm fully tuned into their language, their lingo, and their shorthand. And that was nothing but liberal, sorry, um, collectivist, um, social justice lingo that I heard there.

Listen again. And together we can do great things.

Individually, we can do immeasurably more. God can do more in our lives than we ask or imagine according to Ephesians 3 20, but collectively there, there's no way we can comprehend what

God can do. The way we like to say it around passion is together. Say it with me. If you know it, we are a force for good.

Individually, none of us can solve the problems of the world, but collectively we become a mighty force for justice.

Solve the problems of the world. Yeah, that's not the, that's not the even part of the great commission.

Again, it's just weird. Okay. Now this, this next soundbite it's not very long is from Gary Hagen, H -U -G -E -N.

I'll just have to go on, go with that. Even if I'm mispronouncing Gary Hagen of the international justice mission.

And here's what he's telling all these college students. And, um, yeah, this is another one of the, just the language itself and the things that we're saying theologically it's off.

And the, the shorthand that he's using here, again, sounds collectivist leftist.

Listen. And I can tell you this, that you by God's grace can be the generation that ends slavery in the world.

That's an applause line. Apparently. So you can be the generation that ends slavery in the world.

And which you'll see, I hear something like this and I go, really, if you solve the problem of original sin, because the reason why there's slavery in the world is because, well, we're all born sinners.

You don't really believe that, do you? That applause sounded,

I'm not sure whether or not we can, but let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.

You are the generation that can end slavery, not because you're so awesome, but because there is an awesome

God of justice who is ready to move in power. If you are ready to move in obedience.

Hmm. Oh boy. Oh yeah. Don't even get me started on this one. Um, unfortunately

I'm started. Um, wow. Okay. So God is sitting there up in heaven and he's got his arms folded.

You know, this is quite a lame God. I don't, I don't believe in this God. He's got his arm folded and he's ready to move in power because he's the

God of justice. By the way, when the Bible talks about God being just, um, there's certain aspects in certain passages that make it clear when we talk about God's justice, that's the last thing you want in your life, by the way, because that's punishing you for your sins.

So God is just. Yeah. He's a God of justice. All right. But see, he's up in heaven.

Wait, he's ready to unleash his power. And you know, the generation before your generation, you, you, uh, college kids.

Yeah, they failed, but you're going to be the generation that's going to end slavery in the world because God is a

God of justice and power. And he's waiting for you to move in obedience to which

I say, um, what verse were you reading again, Gary? Cause I haven't read that in my

Bible. Do you use a different, do you have that green Bible or the social justice

Bible that's, you know, have you added things into the passages of scripture? Cause I don't, I'm not aware of those passages of scripture that say that God will move in power to end slavery as soon as we act in obedience.

Yeah. It's a complete misunderstanding of the doctrine of original sin and all kinds of stuff.

But anyway, that's, you know, red flag issues to me, these kind of fall into the red flag categories that we covered regarding Judah Smith, not just regarding the community thing, but four times

Judah Smith took God's name in vain at, um, at, uh, Passion 2013, just strange stuff.

And, you know, I asked the question, you know, still haven't got an answer. When did this become okay? When did it become okay for a

Christian pastor to take God's name in vain? Um, you know, regardless of when or where it happens.

But anyway, so now as promised, we're going to take a look, take a, our last look at, uh,

Louis Giglio's misuse of Luke 4. Okay. There's two major passages in session eight that he twisted.

And in session one, he twisted Ephesians chapter three, verse 20. And then in session eight, the last session of the conference, he completely mishandled

Ezekiel 37, but also Luke 4. This one's a little bit more subtle. You have to put your thinking cap on, but, uh, we'll, we'll start at this point in his delivery and, and we'll, you know, this kind of sets the ground.

Listen in. Jesus has taken out in the desert and put through the ringer.

It's always been a mystery to me, God and human flesh, but it says after his baptism, the spirit, thank you again, the breath now in Greek, the

Numa same word. Let him out baptized.

And you're thinking, Hey, I'm baptized. I'm here. The dove came down. The voice spoke heaven open. This is my son.

This must be the deal. I'm I'm ready. I hear I go get out of the way. Thank you, John the Baptist. You've prepared everything.

Now I'm here. Everybody's seen the dove. Everybody's heard the voice. It's me. I'm Jesus. He's the lamb of God.

He takes away the sins of the world. I'm on. And scripture says the spirit led him out to be tempted by the devil in the wilderness.

God put him through fire for 40 days and 40 nights.

No, no, no one does great things without going through fire. No one does great things without going through fire.

Wait, I thought we were talking about Jesus. Why did we switch the subject? And that's why when

John Piper says that we can embrace the hardship, it's because we, we know take away scripture, take away

Jesus, take away church. If you don't believe all that, we know that precious things like diamonds and gold are made most beautiful under pressure and in fire.

We know this. So when fire comes, we're not glib about it.

We don't say, oh, this is great. I'm suffering today. It's so fantastic. No, we say, God, please change the circumstances.

But if you're not changing the circumstances and in the process of whatever, what process of whatever you are doing,

I'm going to embrace the circumstances, knowing that the pressure and the fire make gold and diamonds inside of me, spiritually speaking.

Like they did with Jesus when he went out into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights of pressure.

And then he didn't get some low level temptation. He got the enemy personally taunting him.

And with the word of God, he came out of that temptation without yielding to any of the foolishness that the enemy was saying to him and listen to the, we go again, foolishness.

Okay. This is one of the things, and this is kind of going to be the topic of our sermon review today. What has happened to the preaching of sin, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins?

How is it that we talk about sin or the evil work of the devil is foolishness? Well, yeah.

Yeah, it's foolish. All right. But I mean, that's hardly the worst of it. I mean, it's far more than just foolish.

I mean, granted it's foolish, but foolishness is not the only, not even the killer aspect of sin.

What has happened to our sin preaching? Last part of this, and then we'll jump to what

I've got for us. We're doing good. Verse 14, Jesus returned to Galilee.

So this is after the 40 days and 40 nights in the fire. And here's how he returned in the power of the spirit.

So when we go away with God and when we go in the fire and when we fast and when we pray and when we seek

God. Notice what he's doing. He's taking the story of Jesus and somehow making the pattern of my life in your life.

Jesus's life is not a pattern that my life follows. Okay. Number one,

I wasn't born of a virgin. Number two, I was born a sinner. Jesus isn't a sinner.

You get what I'm saying here? I wasn't baptized in what

I was baptized. Heaven didn't tear open and the Holy Spirit descend on me.

And God, the father say in you, I am well pleased. And then immediately the Holy Spirit throw me out into the wilderness.

None of that's happened to me. This is not a pattern for my life, nor is it a pattern for you.

This is a form of narcissistic. I said, Jesus reading the story and then reading yourself into it.

Stop doing that. None of the gospel writers wrote their gospels, um, in, in order to tell your story.

Nope, not one of them. Every one of the gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote their gospels to tell the story of Jesus, not you.

If we are faithful to his word, when we come out the back side of those moments, we come out in the power of the spirit.

What are you talking about? When we come out the back side of the, the Honda, you see again, the problem is, is that he's reading

Jesus's story as if it's my story or your story, but it ain't my story or your story.

Now from here, he goes on to give an illustration of somebody who's on staff or a volunteer there at this year's passion conference.

So I'll fast forward to where he finishes that story and keeps talking about this passage of scripture.

We continue. When Jesus came out of the 40 days, it says in verse 14, that he went back to Galilee in the power of the spirit and news about him spread throughout the whole countryside.

He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him. So he went up to Nazareth. Where's Nazareth town he grew up in.

You can go there and you can walk up a little bitty road in Nazareth past the church of the annunciation.

The one that I've written about that has inscribed above it. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

You could walk up a little lane to a place where they say, this is where the synagogue was. This is where he had been brought up.

It says in verse 16 and on the Sabbath day, he went into the synagogue as was his custom.

And he say it with me stood up to read it.

The skull scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him and unrolling it.

He found the place where it is written. So you get the picture now,

God in human flesh, God through the fire, God's ready now to begin the ministry of his son,

Jesus Christ. Not just when he was born in a manger, not when he grew up and went into the synagogues as a little boy, not even when he was baptized in the

Jordan river and the heavens opened up. But now that he's been in the wilderness and he's been under pressure and he's been through the fire and he's coming in the power of the

Holy Spirit. Now he's ready to do what he's come to do. And he walks in the synagogue and they hand in the scroll for the reading on this day.

And he takes the scroll and he opens it to Isaiah and he reads these words. The spirit of the

Lord is on me. Okay, come on. Can we just feel that for a second?

And what we too can now say because of Pentecost and the giving of the spirit of God by the son of God, that we can say the spirit of God is on us.

But Jesus even said that. Okay. Now notice what he just did there. This is kind of a hermeneutical conflating of things.

He's conflating Isaiah chapter 61 verses one and two, actually, which is quoted here in Luke chapter four.

And this is what he's just done. So because of Pentecost now we can say just like Jesus, the spirit of the

Lord is upon me because he has anointed me. Yeah. See, the problem is that Isaiah 61 verses one through two is a

Messianic prophecy. And it's one of these prophecies that has kind of a twin historical fulfillment.

So the idea is this, is that oftentimes prophecies are like paintings. Okay. When you think of a painting, there's stuff in the foreground and there's stuff in the background.

If you think in the foreground, you've got like a pot and a well, and then in the background, you've got a mountain peak, right?

Well, the idea here is that when a prophecy is given and some of the prophecies in the book of Isaiah are of this type, what happens is that there is an immediate fulfillment of a portion of the prophecy then and there for that generation.

And then the prophecy sits dormant and then the fuller portion of the prophecy is fulfilled because it was stuff that was in the background.

That's what's going on in Isaiah chapter 61 verses one through two. There actually was an immediate fulfillment there for the exiles in Babylon and a later fulfillment that applies to the

Messiah. But I have never heard anybody claim except, and this here is the except, anybody claim except social justice liberals that hear this when

Jesus says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, that somehow this then applies to me and you.

Now here's the thing. You and I are not the Messiah. Do you know what a

Messiah is? Do you know what a Christos is? We call Jesus Christ.

By the way, that's not his last name. Christos is

Greek for anointed one. We would say Jesus the Messiah.

Do you know what Messiah means? The anointed one. So here this anointing that's referred to is a messianic anointing.

And to stretch this prophetic butter so thinly that now it applies to me and you,

I think is to do violence to this prophecy. But that's what I've heard a bunch of social justice liberals do, but I've never heard anybody who is a solid

Bible teacher do this with this text. That now we're going to rip this messianic prophecy away from Jesus and put the emphasis on me and you.

Listen again. And what we too can now say because of Pentecost and the giving of the spirit of God by the son of God, that we can say the spirit of God is on us.

But Jesus even said that. Jesus even announced the spirit of the sovereign

Lord who is me is on me. I am on me. I am on me. The father is on me.

The spirit is on me. We are on now because Numa has come. Numa led me out.

Numa is giving me power and now he's on me. So look out. I am God in the body, but I'm God in the body empowered by the

Holy Spirit. Now that's crazy right there. That's crazy. So I've just add that to the other thoughts.

If Jesus needed the spirit of God to be on him, trust me, you need, and I need the spirit of God to be on us.

And what's the application? Where do I go get the spirit so I can get it on me then? You know, because he has anointed me.

Yeah, I'm not anointed in the same way Jesus is anointed and neither are you. And this passage isn't about any anointing of yours.

I'm not a Christ. You get it? I'm not a Messiah. Neither are you.

To do what? Set up shop and rule to do miracles and make money? To just flick

Caesar off the face of the earth and say, no. To teach great sermons and have the best podcast in the history of podcasts.

In fact, he could have invented the podcast right then and there. You go to your podcast options. Yeah. Who would have been making, you know, iPods 2000 years ago?

I don't even know what this means. Jesus. Wow. That's a good option. I'm subscribed to that. He could have just been the greatest order, the greatest teacher, the greatest ruler.

But that's not really what the spirit came on him to do. The spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor.

Notice it says to preach good news to the poor. It doesn't say give him a sandwich.

It says, preach good news to the poor. By the way, is this talking about the literal poor?

You know, you go down the street, you go to that part of the neighborhood and you know, there's those people, the poor, right?

They probably don't live in your neighborhood. They probably live outside of you. You see them from time to time, maybe on the bus or at the bus stop, right?

The poor, you've heard of them, right? Is that what this is referring to? The poor?

Absolutely not. Okay. And there's several textual reasons to absolutely see that this is not talking about the literal poor.

Okay. For instance, in Isaiah chapter 66 verse two, okay. This, this is kind of the, one of the recurring themes in the book of those who are poverty stricken.

It's stricken. It's not talking about those who are poor necessarily. Here's what it says, Isaiah 66 verse two, but to this man, well,

I look even to him that is poor. You can say humble also here. The Hebrew kind of can go either way, humble or poor, but to him that is poor and of contrite spirit and trembles at my word.

I would point you also to Jesus' sermon on the Mount, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Here's what Jesus says, blessed are the what? The poor in spirit.

These are those who know they are spiritual beggars. They are humble, contrite and penitent and beggarly before God because they know that they have nothing they can offer to the

King of Kings and Lord of Lords because he's the ruler and maker of everything. And they stand guilty before him and condemned in their sins, poor in spirit, get it.

Okay. So Jesus is coming to preach good news to the poor. This is good news for you and for me.

Why? Because with this right understanding of poverty, you and I know that we fit this description.

Jesus didn't come to, how does he say, a physician doesn't, somebody who's well, who's healthy, doesn't need a physician, but somebody who's sick, right?

And Jesus isn't talking about illness in that passage. He's talking about spiritual sickness.

Okay. This is spiritual poverty. This is spiritual slavery. This is spiritual blindness.

Jesus, the anointed Messiah, that's a redundancy by the way, has come to preach good news to you who are poverty stricken, you who are in bondage to sin, death, and the devil, you who are blind, right?

To give you sight. This isn't talking about literal sight or literal poverty.

This is talking about spiritual destitute and sickness. Okay. Jesus has come to preach good news to you.

That's what's going on in this passage, but watch what Louie Giglio is doing with this.

If you don't feel the anointing of God, it may be because you're not preaching good news to the poor. What? Backing it up.

You gotta hear it again. If you don't feel the anointing of God, it may be because you're not preaching good news to the poor.

What does the anointing of God feel like? He sent me to proclaim freedom for Rachel.

Rachel is an example of somebody who was set free from slavery at the conference there.

We will feel more of the anointing of the Holy Spirit when we go to bring freedom to the next Rachel.

You'll feel more of the anointing of the Spirit when you go to set some buddies free from the sex trade.

And recovery of sight to the blind to release the oppressed and proclaim to the whole world, to my campus, to Auburn University and Oklahoma University and Michigan State University and to the

University of Connecticut and the University of Florida and to the University of California at Los Angeles to proclaim, this is the year of the

Lord's favor. And then he rolled up the scroll. Yeah. Now he's again, notice he's complete.

He's hijacked. It's like serious. It's like if Jesus were walking down the street, okay.

Louie Giglio comes up right beside Jesus and literally just takes his elbow and goes, and then

Jesus like falls, literally falls into the street, you know? And now

Louie Giglio's hijacked this text and made it about you or me or him or whomever.

It ain't about us. It's about Jesus. And he handed it back to the attendant and he sat down and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened to him.

And he began by saying to them today. So I've read the word of God.

And now in leadership, I'm going to sit down. Now I stood to read the word of God because they would always stand to read the word of God.

I'm sitting now to bring some word of encouragement from the word of God to the people.

So everybody's looking, everybody's focused. All the eyes are fixed on him. And he says, while they're all looking at him today, hello everybody today, right here, right now.

Good day to come to church. Good day to be in the house today, because today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.

Now I'm going to point something out here. Notice the language he just preached there. This scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

The Greek is actually very helpful here. The Greek verb that's in play, the word fulfilled comes from the

Greek word, play Rao. And in this particular instance, it is in the perfect, listen to what

I said, perfect passive indicative. It's in the perfect tense.

That means it's past tense fulfilled with ongoing implications on into the future.

In other words, because the verb is in the perfect, that means it's done, done, done, done, doobie, doobie, doobie, doobie, done.

In other words, there ain't, because it's fulfilled, it's been play Raod in the perfect tense.

That means ain't you and I get to piggyback onto this thing and help continue to fulfill it.

It's a done deal and it was fulfilled back then.

It has no ongoing things that are left undone that we need to add to its fulfillment.

In other words, all the prophecy, all of the hope, everything we've longed for, it just happened right here.

And right now I am tying the knot and closing the circle between everything

God has said he was going to do when he prophesied about a Valley of dry bones. When he said the spirit of God Valley of dry bones, again,

Ezekiel 37 has nothing to do with this. It's going to come. And those with ashes, they're going to have a crown.

Those with morning, they're going to be glad. And those who are in despair and darkness are going to wear the robe of righteousness.

That's on people that is happening. That is starting right here. And right now, this scripture is fulfilled in me.

Fulfilled it's done. So we're in now we're on now and we still have, we, this is a fulfillment of a prophecy about him.

This ain't a, we, this is him. I have the opportunity to say today is the day of the

Lord's favor. And this is the year of the Lord's favor. And I go, it's the year of the

Lord's favor. Okay. I know what I want. Now listen to this. Well, what do you want?

If I said to you, or God said to you, it's the year of my favor. What would you like? Would it be anywhere in the top 10 on your list?

I want freedom for the captives. What? And I really want sight for the blind.

And I really want to say, so if you're not working for sight for the blind, what, what does that, uh, that group, that's not the rotary club.

Is it the lion's club? You know, they're, they're out there working for you for eyesight and things like that. So if you're not a member of the lion's club, um, you know, or Kiwani or whatever, you know, if you're not working for the site for the blind, well then, you know, you're not, if it's the year of your favor, it is, this is a year of your favor.

I want my sweet mate, Ronnie to see if it's the year of the

Lord's favor. That's what I want. That's what I want. Yeah. So if you're not bringing sight to the blind, you're, you're just not feeling the

Lord's anointing. I want that 12 year old girl in Cambodia who is going through hell today to be able to live a life.

That's what I want. If it's the year of the Lord's favor, that's what I want.

Yeah. You see what's going on here. He's again, hijacked. This is a complete narcissistic hijacking of a

Messianic prophecy and stretching it now that somehow it includes stuff that you gotta, you gotta get out there and help give sight to the blind and help set captives free and stuff like that.

Otherwise, you know, you're just not feeling the anointing. That's not what this text is about because this text ain't about you.

It ain't about me. Like I said, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they weren't telling your story.

They were telling the story of Jesus and what he has done for you.

This is a complete mishandling mangling and narcissistic twisting of the biblical texts.

All right. We're up on our second break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of fighting for the faith, my email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com

or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com forward slash pirate Christian, or follow me on Twitter. My name there at pirate

Christian sermon review on the other side of the break, looking at what has happened to the preaching of sin in our churches.

You're going to hear a sermon that is well kind of devoid of that whole concept, but it shouldn't be. We'll be right back.

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