An ABSURD Sermon From Mike Todd!

Introduction to the Sermon Review

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to Fight for Truth, the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. In today's video, we're going to be talking about a sermon from Mike Todd.

Mike is the pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He's a seeker-sensitive, trendy pastor who consistently offers sermons full of hype and emotionalism each week. Unfortunately, his teaching is simply not biblically sound for much of the time, and this has caused for great concern, doctrinally speaking.

In any case, this sermon is entitled, quote, The Command with No Cap. And this is very typical of churches like Transformation. They're filled with modern, cultural buzzwords. It's as if they have a huge wheel full of words from TikTok, and each week, they spin the wheel randomly to decide which word will become part of the title of the sermon.

It won't be surprising, moving forward, if we begin to see sermon titles like Jesus is my homeboy, and that Judas guy is pretty sus, and not gonna lie, Father Abraham gives me serious boomer vibes. But I digress.

The endless desire to copy the culture's fads and trends is exhausting, and probably not worth the trouble. In this video, we're going to watch the sermon and compare it to Scripture. So without further ado, let's watch the first clip.

Watch this.

Irreverent Hype Before Preaching

Um, I have not preached in a long time, and I really do believe that I'm about to act a fool up here. So I want to go ahead and pre-warn everybody.

Now I'm not sure about you, but I am not familiar with any good, sound, biblical sermon that begins with your pastor wearing huge gold chains, as he assures you that he's about to quote, act a fool up here.

I'm not sure what this has to do with sound teaching about the Word of God, but somehow I don't think Mike was talking about the Gospel being foolishness to the world. The problem is that Mike approaches the rest of this sermon, unfortunately, with the very same irreverent posture for the sake of hyping up the crowd.

But let's keep moving and see what Mike Todd has to say on the topic of faith. Watch this.

Misusing Hebrews 11:1 to Promote “Crazy Faith”

But for some reason, I trust it. And trusting fully enough to put your weight on it. And what you cannot explicitly prove, I can't prove to you that this will work. But for some reason, something on the inside of me is telling me that I got to move with this crazy faith.

Look what Hebrews 11, one says, now faith. Everybody shout at me now. Yeah. The best time to walk in faith was yesterday, but the second best time to start walking in faith is now.

So according to Mike, Hebrews 11 begins with now faith. And this apparently means that the Bible is telling you to have faith now. It is supposedly trying to inspire you to implement what Mike Todd would call crazy faith.

Just make it happen. There's no time like the present. Get the job done. Have faith. The only problem is that this has nothing to do with what the passage is saying. Hebrews 11, one says, quote, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.

The word for now here in Greek is de, and the word is meant to transition from one thought to the next. The outline of biblical usage includes words like, quote, but, and, moreover, et cetera. In other words, it isn't saying have faith now.

It's using the word now to transition from a previous thought to this thought about faith. At this point, you may ask yourself, why does any of this actually matter? And the answer is because Mike is effectively making things up that aren't in the text for the sake of emotionalizing the crowd.

He uses the word now in Hebrews 11, one as a sort of call to action. Do this now. Have crazy faith now. But this is not at all what the passage is saying. And focusing more on the emotion of your audience than you do on the actual text you're preaching from is a recipe for false teaching.

But speaking of that, the clip you're about to watch comes just seconds after Mike's comment here about faith. Here's an example of what Mike is talking about. Watch this.

Turning Hebrews 11:1 Into a Materialistic Visualization Exercise

And God is saying that now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance, not insurance, assurance and what we cannot see. Everybody close your eyes. Close your eyes. Now, I want you to see yourself on the beach.

With the body, you won't. A shot. Todd, Todd, I bow. I want you to see and feel the water going back and forth. And I want you to know you've got enough money in the bank to stay there a month or somebody that just hit because you was worried.

But I need you to know that when you see the bank account, there's a lot of zeros in it.

So, Hebrews 11 one talks about faith and Mike Todd illustrates this by having you imagine yourself on the beach with tons of money in your bank account, a great body and a tropical drink in your hand.

And how exactly does this connect to Hebrews 11 one? Well, if we're being honest, it doesn't. So that begs the question, why bring it up then? Why go to the trouble of crafting this sermon illustration if it doesn't actually illustrate the text you're preaching from in the sermon?

The answer is that the sermon isn't about the text. It's about making the audience feel a certain way, and that's completely different. It would be great to be attractive and rich and successful and to top it all off on vacation.

That all sounds great to people. These are universally appealing things. And Mike intentionally uses them to illustrate Hebrews 11 one because he knows this. It's very effective. The only problem is that it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the scriptures here.

The word for faith in Hebrews 11 one is the Greek word pistis, which means generally speaking, quote, conviction of the truth of something generally with the idea of trust and holy fervor born of faith and joined to it.

End quote. So regarding Hebrews 11 one, again, that's what we're talking about. The question then becomes this, what are the things unseen and the things hoped for that they're talking about in the text?

What should we be having faith in? Well, as we've already covered, Hebrews 12 gives us our marching orders in response to Hebrews 11. We've talked about this in several videos. Hebrews 12 one says, quote, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

The word therefore at the beginning of the verse tells us that this comment is in connection to the statement that came before it. In light of the faith shown by Old Testament saints outlined in Hebrews 11, we ought to wholeheartedly follow Christ, run the race, and obey him, Hebrews 12.

So what does any of this have to do with imagining yourself on the beach somewhere with a great body and tons of money? That's a good question. And the answer is absolutely nothing. And it should be deeply concerning that Mike Todd makes such a materialistic connection here, especially in light of such an important spiritual truth being presented in the passage, that of Christ being perfecter and author of our faith.

This is a pretty big thing to miss. But then just after this, he quotes yet another passage out of context. Watch this.

Misapplying Romans 8:31 as a Promise of Personal Success

Do not make logical sense. And I know all my ones on the Enneagram are going crazy right now because I need to be able to plan and I need to be able to strategize. And God's saying your strategy is me.

If I be for you, then who can be against you if I...

So step one, imagine yourself on the beach with tons and tons of money, a great body, and a nice piña colada in your hand. Step two, know that if God is for you, no one can be against you. Isn't that encouraging?

Okay, let's pause here, because there's a pretty natural question that arises. What on earth do these two ideas have in common? Well, let's go read the passage and see. Romans 8 .31 says,. What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us? Notice that it says at the beginning, what shall we say to these things? So what are the things that we're saying this in response to? Let's read the previous verse and get a bit of a flavor.

Romans 8 .30 says,. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. In other words, the context of if God is for us, who can be against us is the assurance of our predestination, calling, justification, and glorification in Christ.

It's not an assurance that you can accomplish anything you want in life. It's not telling you that you can shoot for the stars as long as you work hard and have enough faith. It is specifically talking about the assurance of our ultimate salvation in Jesus Christ.

So as you can see, Mike Todd takes virtually every passage he comes across and makes it all about material or relational success for your personal life, no matter what the passage actually means. In fact, if the passage is saying something different than what he wants, he will intentionally change its meaning to one that he prefers.

So in summary, Mike starts out by misquoting Hebrews 11 .1 to get the crowd going. Then he tells them to focus on having a good body, lots of money, and being on vacation, none of which has anything to do with the passage he's apparently preaching from.

And finally, he takes a verse from Romans out of context to offer vague assurances of this message. And to top it all off, the whole thing is wrapped up in emotionalism, materialism, and just about every other unbiblical ism that you can think of.

The focus is totally off. This is the problem with his teaching, and the Bible warns us about this sort of thing. 2 Timothy 4 .3 says,. This is a prime example of what Mike Todd so often does, as well as many other modern evangelical hype pastors.

They know that you want motivation and inspiration. They know that you want to set big, grandiose goals for your life and accomplish a lot. So that's what they preach about pretty much every single week.

Give the crowd what they want. If you build it, they will come. That's the philosophy here. The problem is that when you accumulate teachers who focus on suiting your own passions, they might actually do it.

And at that point, you're in danger of being wrapped up into a system of false teaching that is perfectly designed to give you virtually everything you want. Instead, we must seek the Lord. We must seek the truth of His Word by the grace of God with reverence and respect for Him.

This is where true wisdom and encouragement and fulfillment are to be found, and praise God for it. I pray that this has been a blessing to you, and please know that this video isn't meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a Biblical critique.

And let's pray for Mike Todd, that he would stop this false teaching by God's grace and turn to the truth of God's Word. Thank you so much for watching that video. Please give us a like and subscribe so that you don't miss any content.

Also, don't forget to subscribe to our Rumble channel as well, just in case YouTube ever takes us down. The link is in the description. And before you go, take a look at this list here. These are the people who make all of the free content you see on this channel possible with their monthly support.

Today's highlighted channel supporter is Lauren W. If you also want to help and become part of the solution today, hit the link in the description. Your support keeps us independent and helps us immensely here on the channel.

So I hope you'll consider joining the Truth Army today, and until next time, fight for the truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open. Thank you, and God bless.