WWUTT 150 Q&A Is Steven Furtick Unqualified?

Last week, I took a question about the qualifications of an overseer in a church. What does the

Bible say makes a man qualified to be a pastor? Today we're going to look at an example of a man who is unqualified when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text promotes sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you Becky. I'm sorry that this episode is so late today. I actually did a lot of prep into this episode.

I don't think I've done so much prep into an episode of this broadcast before. So that's why

I'm a little bit behind. This is also going to be a little bit longer episode today. Before getting to that though,

I wanted to give you an update on where we were raising money for our roof at the church. I mentioned this a couple of months ago and I was also on Landon Chapman's podcast

In Treating Favor and we talked about it there. We have a leaky roof in our church. When we understand the text comes out of a small church ministry in Junction City, Kansas.

We have a membership that is just under about 150 and we have a roof that probably hasn't had any work done on it in over 15 years.

We had a fellow, one of our estimators who got up on the roof and did an estimate for somebody that we really trust.

We've had several estimates done, but one guy in particular said to us the last time this roof was done, it was done wrong.

And so we're prepared for there to be some damage that we're going to have to repair as well. I had an idea in my head of how much

I thought the roof was going to cost and the estimates that we've been getting have been very generous. So we are just trying to raise money to get to that point now and some folks have been very generous.

Others have been a little bit at a time. We're a little over halfway there. So for those of you who have sent in money to help us with our roof,

I appreciate that very much and we're aiming for getting it all raised by April.

The rainy season in Kansas is about May and June. That's when we get the biggest downpours. We get some heavy storms in Kansas.

I mean, you've heard about tornadoes and the whole bit. We get microbursts and hailstorms and all kinds of stuff.

So the roof has been through a lot, having not had any work done on it in 15 years. It's been leaky for a while, but this past December, when we had the ice storm that we had, it started leaking into the sanctuary.

There's only so long that I can ignore the problem with the roof when it starts dripping on me while I'm preaching. That's that's when

I know, OK, it's time to do something about this. So in raising the money to get our roof repaired, we're a little over halfway there.

And if there's anything that you can do or you would like to do to contribute to that project, you can go to our website,

First Southern Baptist Church dot org. That won't take you to a general Southern Baptist website. That really is a website for our church, the

Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas, First Southern Baptist Church dot org. There's a give tab on the top right side of the page.

If you click on that, you can donate online or if you would like to send a check. The address is

First Southern Baptist Church, 1220 West 8th Street, Junction City, Kansas, six six four four one.

And thank you so much to everybody who has given something, no matter how much it has been. It is all going toward getting our roof fixed.

So thank you very much. All right. It being Friday, I take a question from a viewer or a listener and answer it on the

Friday episode of the broadcast. And this week it has to do with Stephen Furtick. In case you don't know,

Stephen Furtick is the pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the largest and still fastest growing churches in the country.

Tens of thousands of people attend elevation services every week or at one of their satellite locations.

Furtick is a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He in fact, Elevation is a

Southern Baptist Church. He's the same age I am, which it's just kind of some things about Stephen Furtick that turned my radar in his direction.

And he's been on my radar ever since. I've watched videos of his prior to becoming a pastor. And then the year that I was ordained,

I probably watched my first full sermon of Furtick's. And he does such a terrible job twisting the word of God that he is unqualified to be a pastor.

And that's something that Dr. John MacArthur said about Furtick. There was a Q &A between Phil Johnson and Dr.

MacArthur in which Johnson asked MacArthur what he thought of Stephen Furtick. And MacArthur said that based on biblical parameters, he thought of Furtick as being unqualified.

Well, there was a video that was posted this past February in which Furtick said that his latest book,

Unqualified, was named after that statement that Dr. MacArthur said about him.

But it was like Furtick didn't even really understand the reasoning behind Dr.

MacArthur's statement because Furtick said, yeah, I am unqualified and yet God uses me anyway. Dr. MacArthur was saying that based on what the

Bible says, a man must follow to be qualified as a pastor. Stephen Furtick does not meet those qualifications and that makes him unqualified.

I had posted a video with Dr. MacArthur's comment and with Stephen Furtick saying that he named his book after that.

I posted it on Twitter earlier this week. And so somebody contacted me and asked this question based on that video that I had posted on Twitter.

So here's the question that I'm responding to today. What exactly is wrong with Stephen Furtick?

I understand that he tries to appeal to the world in a way that John MacArthur wouldn't. But to my knowledge, he doesn't compromise the gospel.

Right. I appreciate the question and asking for the clarification. And I sent to this to this individual, to this young man, the blog that I wrote a few months back talking about Stephen Furtick's relationship with T .D.

Jakes. Jakes is the pastor or the bishop, rather, of the Potter's House down in Texas.

And a few months back, Stephen Furtick went and preached at Jake's church. T .D.

Jakes is a modalist. That means that he denies the doctrine of the

Trinity. He does not believe that God is three persons in one. He believes that God manifests himself in different modes, hence the term modalist.

But but he's not God, the father, God, the son and God, the Holy Spirit. Sometimes he will manifest himself as a father, sometimes as a son and sometimes as a spirit.

This is heresy. And First John 222 says that he who denies the father and the son is an antichrist.

So the Bible actually describes Jake's as an antichrist. And this is a person that Furtick has said that he wants to be like.

This is not just a simple misunderstanding or, you know, a mutual respect for one another.

Furtick has had Jake Jake's in his pulpit. Furtick has gone to Jake's church and preached at his church and has poured a great deal of money into it.

As a matter of fact, that occurrence a few months back where he preached at Jake's church, he gave thirty five thousand dollars to the

Potter's House, held up the check and everything said, here's how much money I'm giving and laid it in their money wagon and the whole bit.

I mean, it's it is ridiculous. The stuff that Furtick has said about TD Jake's and even

Jake's has said that Furtick just adores me. Furtick has said that he's trying to be like TD Jake's.

He repeats things that Jake's says he extols his greatness, attempts to emulate him.

And and it's not just Jake's. Joyce Meyer is another preacher, quote unquote, because she's not qualified to be a pastor either.

That's somebody else that Furtick has had in in his pulpit. And so, though Furtick, he himself is not a motelist, he's a

Southern Baptist preacher. So he does affirm the doctrine of the Trinity. But he doesn't think that's important because he continues to raise up men and women who deny the doctrine of the

Trinity, whom the Bible defines as an antichrist. Furtick does not have the discernment necessary for a person to be a minister of the word and furthermore, greatly twists the word in a way that God's word was not meant to be handled.

Another way, another qualification for a pastor is that he must rightly handle the word of truth.

That's Second Timothy to 15. That's Paul talking to the pastor that he had sent to Ephesus to preach there.

And Furtick does not do that. He does not rightly handle the word. And so here's what I want to do.

I want to play for you a couple of examples, a few examples of how Furtick will twist scripture so that you can also hear how he is unqualified to be a pastor.

I want to give you even quite a contrast between something that Furtick preached six years ago in 2010 and a sermon that he preached just this past Sunday.

This first sermon comes from when Furtick was promoting his book, Sun Stand Still, and he's preaching from Genesis chapter 22.

In fact, I want to go to those scriptures and I'll open with this and I'll let Furtick take it over. The clip is about seven minutes long and then we'll talk about it at the end.

So opening up Genesis 22, this is the story of a God telling

Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here

I am. He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which

I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son

Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which

God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw the place from afar.

Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and he laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife.

So they both went together and Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father. And he said, here

I am, my son. And he said, behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?

And Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.

So they went, both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him,

Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the

Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And I'm going to stop there. I'll let

Furtick pick it up and let you hear the direction that he goes with this passage. Do not lay a hand on the boy.

Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns.

He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So Abraham called that place, the Lord will provide. And to this day it is said on the mountain of the

Lord, it will be provided. The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said,

I swear by myself, declares the Lord. Who else are you going to swear by when you're God?

That because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,

I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And as the sand on the seashore, your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies and through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me.

Generations later, Joshua would lead the people into the land where the sun would stand still and it all got started because of one man's faith in the

God who will provide. I want to read one more time before I pray. Verse eight and verse 14 in verse eight, before they got to the mountain where Abraham set up to give up the thing that he loved the most for the

God that he loved even more, Abraham answered, God himself will provide the lamb.

God himself will provide the lamb. And then I want to look at verse 14. After God did provide the

Ram, the Bible says, so Abraham called that place.

The Lord will provide. And to this day it is said on the mountain of the

Lord, it will be provided. You know what? It's one thing to have faith in the

God who provides on the mountain, but real faith must be demonstrated in the

Valley of sacrifice. And father, we thank you for your word today.

In these coming moments, take this scripture and teach us about how we are to trust you in the

Valley in order that you might provide for us on the mountain where it's in Jesus name.

I pray and everybody at all of our locations said, amen. Amen. Like I told you, there's no way that I'll be able to do this text justice.

So many things I'd love to say about it. And we don't have time today. Just know that as much as this disturbs you, it disturbs me even more.

I've been studying it. I do think it's a type and shadow of the gospel. And I do think that we should know that God never intended for Isaac to die.

And the Bible actually says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 19, that even if Isaac had died,

Abraham had the faith that God could raise the dead. So with that in mind, I want to talk with you for just a few moments today on the subject of audacious faith and the

God who provides about different places in my life where God has provided for me, that the

Lord has really blessed my family. I have a wife who is better looking than you or any other person, you know,

I'm so proud to show her off. She supports me. We have a loving marriage, a blessed marriage, not a perfect marriage, and she's working on that.

And I don't mind telling you no matter how it sounds to you, and again, a few of you will take this out of context, but giving all the honor and glory to God, I'm a blessed man.

We're a blessed family. And not just when it comes to love and healthy baby boys and all of that.

God has been good to us on other levels. When I took this book manuscript to a publisher,

I had no idea what I was doing. And we hired an agent who my friend hooked me up with. And when they told me that not only would they publish the book, but they wanted to give me a sum of money to write it that was bigger than any amount of money

I'd ever seen in my life. I just want to tell you, God's been good to me. I mean,

I cashed some checks last year that I never thought I'd cash growing up in Moncks Corner, South Carolina with a dad who dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

I mean, God's just been good to me. And that's exciting on multiple levels. One, we were able to give at a level last year that far exceeded what we made from the church just two years before.

And that really blessed me. We were able to give the largest check I've ever written in our Kingdom Come campaign last

December. Biggest check I've ever written in my life by far. We were able to give it to the church. We didn't give it all away.

My wife drives a nice car. I was able to buy a car for her. I was really happy about that. A big car, an

SUV, so if she gets in a wreck, she'll win. I love the environment, but I love my babies even more.

I want them to be safe. And so God has really been good to me. That puts some of you off, but I just want to admit to you that the

Lord has really blessed me, and I'm not ashamed of it. And there have been times in our life as a married couple where we've had to make tremendous financial sacrifices, and we've had times in our life,

I remember when we were first married and I was a traveling preacher where we wouldn't know how much money we would have for that week until I saw how much they were going to pay me at the speaking engagement.

And there were times when I had to follow the church treasurer back to her office because she didn't have the check ready, but I needed to buy groceries.

And I don't mean to make it sound like it was ever a bad deal. In fact, we were talking just the other day about how we don't remember a time in our life where we ever haven't been able to pay our bills.

We don't remember a time in our life where we've ever had to go without. We didn't start our marriage with a big inheritance.

We started at zero. We got about $2 ,000 in wedding money that Holly wouldn't let me spend on bills.

She said that was her money. She went to Target with that money. And meanwhile, I'm trying to buy some beans and rice to keep us fed in the first year of our marriage.

But as I was thinking about our life and how God has blessed us, and you know, you have this image here of the mountain that's called the

Lord will provide. And as I do this mountaintop experience for me of releasing the book to you today and releasing it

Tuesday and just glorifying God for all that he's done and how he's blessed us and how he's met our needs and even given us more than enough.

I just was kind of charting out some of the different blessings that God has poured out in our lives. Okay. And that's where we'll stop the clip.

Where he goes from there is he draws this thing out, this wavy line of, you know, here's what your life looks like mapped out.

Sometimes financially you're all the way up here and sometimes you're all the way down here, but you need to be faithful in the valley of God is going to provide for you on the mountaintop, which isn't, there isn't even a valley in this story.

So he's even pulling an allegory out that isn't even there. Now you notice the pattern that he follows as he does this presentation.

When he's reading the text, there's like this light music playing underneath him and everybody's given their amens and their hallelujahs.

Uh, and he'll even say something witty in there that everybody will laugh and applaud at. Then he gets to the end of the text.

He prays. He has everybody sit down. Then he gets a very flat exegesis. What do

I mean by exegesis? Another word for this is exposition. It's exposing the text to see exactly what the

Holy Spirit means to communicate to us through what we're reading. The contrast to this would be is a

Jesus, which is imposing a meaning onto the text that you want it to say.

Uh, Chris Roseboro has a word for Stephen Furtick. He calls him a narcissistic preacher,

Narcissus. That's imposing yourself into the text where you're not meant to see yourself.

Most common example of this is the David and Goliath story where you say, I'm David and Goliath is my problems.

Well, no, that's not the way we're meant to see that story. David represents Christ. Goliath represents sin.

No one could beat sin except Jesus. Who you are in the story is the Israelites clamoring off to the side going, he's going to kill us all.

Okay, that's who you are in that story, but you're not David. David represents Christ.

And so Furtick just has that narcissistic way of reading himself into a text that is not what the text means to communicate.

So he gives this very flat exposition and he makes it sound kind of boring. But what he's saying there is true.

This text being a type and shadow about Christ. As a matter of fact, Mount Moriah is the very place where the temple would be built and you would have been able to see the place where Christ would eventually be crucified from that very location that Abraham was being called to sacrifice his son.

And of course, as Furtick pointed out there, that Isaac wasn't meant to be sacrificed. There was something that, uh, that God was showing

Abraham and Abraham by faith knew that God is able to bring life from death.

And so Abraham did this in faith knowing that God would provide. But Furtick doesn't want to talk about that.

He doesn't want to talk about the gospel, which is happening right there at Mount Moriah. God providing for us a sacrifice in our place so that we would not have to experience the wrath of God.

That's the gospel even being displayed in this story in Genesis chapter 22. But Furtick doesn't want to talk about that.

What he wants to talk about is himself. He goes on to say, uh, and though I see this as being a type and shadow, what

I really want to talk about is how God has provided for me. And then he goes on and talks about me.

And he gives this, this money thing that Genesis 22 doesn't even talk about, even in adding examples into this text that aren't even there about valleys and mountaintops and all this other kind of thing.

And he talks about how faithful he was in the low times, but you're not being faithful in the low times.

And so God can't provide for you on the mountaintop like he's provided for me because I was faithful. It really is a chest thumping sermon about how great he was.

And so God gave him all of this stuff, even though he says in there, he's like, I mean, to give all the glory to God, he doesn't do that.

His sermon gives all the glory to himself and makes everybody else feel guilty because they're not as good as he is.

And so he gives this flat exposition, but this really exciting part about himself, his cadence goes up.

He tells jokes that are funny. You would think that maybe in six years, Furtick would have matured a little bit in his scriptural understanding and presentation.

The way that he preaches now is still exactly the same. This was the sermon that he did six years ago.

Here's what he just preached on Sunday. This one promoting his book, Unqualified.

Turn your attention to Mark chapter eight. We're in week two of a series called Unqualified. How God uses broken people to do big things.

Turn to your neighbor and say, I think he wrote this one for you. It sounds like something you need to hear.

Mark chapter eight, verse 11, Mark chapter eight, verse 11. The Pharisees came and began to question

Jesus to test him. They asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, why does this generation ask for a sign?

Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it. And then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.

And I almost didn't even mention those verses, but they're so important as I put the sermon together that I wanted to catch them before we got to 14 through 21.

But here's the heart of the message. The disciples had forgotten to bring bread except for one loaf they had with them in the boat.

Be careful, Jesus warned them, watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.

Look how bright the disciples are. They discussed this with one another and said, cause we had no bread.

Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them, why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand?

Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, but failed to see and ears, but failed to hear?

And don't you remember when I broke the five loaves for the 5 ,000, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?

Twelve, they replied. And when I broke the seven loaves for the 4 ,000, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?

And they answered seven. And he said to them, do you still not understand?

When I broke the loaves, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? Don't you remember the pieces?

I want to speak today from this subject, piece it together, piece it together.

And on your way down to your seat, ask your neighbor, do you still not get it? Do you still not get it? You may be seated.

God has a calling for your life, but you're going to have to piece it together.

And my main reaction to the text is essentially one of disbelief that the disciples could have seen all that they saw and still not see what was right before their very eyes.

I mean, don't you get it? There's not really an excuse.

I don't want to come to their defense that they're sitting in the boat with the one who just performed two massive miracles, and they're still worried about missing pieces.

Apparently somebody didn't do their job, and so there's no lunch for the disciples.

So Jesus is teaching a lesson to the disciples that he's trying to take them to the next level of their awareness and understanding of who he is, what he came to do.

As he does it, he uses an analogy comparing yeast, which is the self -righteousness of the

Pharisees who he just left, comparing that self -righteousness to the yeast that is in the bread and how if you allow yourself to get a little self -righteous, it's just a matter of time before it takes over every area of your life.

Well, all they hear is bread. So immediately they start to argue.

Some scholars would say that the verse is actually incorrectly translated in English. Instead of saying it is because we have no bread, they were saying something more like, why don't we have any bread?

Like Peter, Andrew, whose job was it to bring the bread? But regardless of the construction of the question in Koine Greek, I think we can all relate to the premise that life is largely about recognition.

I'm realizing more and more the importance of recognition in my day -to -day life.

Recognition of what is before you often. When we read the text, it's easy for us to almost see the comedy in it, that Jesus was trying to talk to them about the yeast of self -righteousness, and they're thinking about wheat and rye and pumpernickel.

It's really not fair for us to do that because we have a benefit that the disciples didn't have.

For one, they did not know they were the main characters in Mark, chapter 8, verses 14 -21.

You do realize that when people were writing the Bible and people were doing the things that were written about in the

Bible, they didn't know they were going to end up in the Bible. So they weren't thinking, boy, this is going to be a cool story that they're going to preach about at Elevation Church in 2016.

We see it a little differently because we're looking back on it. Have you noticed how many things look different when you're looking back on them and how difficult it is to see some things while you're going through that you can see clearly when you're looking back?

Talk to me. This is why it's so easy for you to give advice to a teenager, but it was hard for you to be one.

You sucked when you were one, but now that you have one, you can tell them the big picture.

That's the other benefit we have. The disciples were inside the frame. It's kind of hard to see the big picture when you're in the frame.

So it's easy for you to see what they should have seen when you're not going through what they were going through because they were worried about lunch.

A lot of times in our lives, I think we don't recognize the big picture because we experience life in pieces.

That's where we'll stop the clip. Notice here, six years later, that Furtick is still doing the exact same thing.

He's reading the text. There's music playing underneath them. People give their hallelujahs. He gets done reading the text.

He tells everybody to sit down, and then he gives a very flat exposition, a very unenthusiastic, unexciting presentation of what the text is actually saying.

He even says, you know, the Koine Greek, and he talks about some scholars interpreted this way. So Furtick knows what the text actually is meaning to communicate, but he won't talk about that.

Instead, he wants to give his version of it, and that's the exciting part. Everybody get in on this now and start giving me your hallelujahs and all that, and his cadence goes up, and he gets more into it.

Not the presentation of the exposition, but the eisegesis. That's the part that he gets excited about.

Here's the ironic thing about this text is that Jesus says to the disciples, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? And so the disciples still did not yet know the depth of Jesus' teaching and who he was.

Unlike the Pharisees, they rejected Jesus' teaching outright, but the disciples were slow to appreciate it, and that's what

Jesus is saying to them. And Furtick is doing the same thing.

He's doing the same thing the disciples did by not knowing who they were with and the gospel message that rescues a person from sin and death, and only

Christ had the power to save a person from the depths of hell. And Furtick won't teach that because he, like the disciples at that time anyway, he, like the disciples, doesn't perceive or understand.

And Jesus goes on and says, are your hearts hardened? And that's what scares me about Stephen Furtick, because it's clear that he knows it, and he won't teach it.

Unlike the disciples, he can even see the depth of it, and he won't even give it, which leads me to believe that this pastor's heart is hardened to the truth.

He won't even feed his flock. He is unqualified.

The word pastor means shepherd, and he will not feed his flock.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 24. This is starting in verse 45. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household to give them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, my master is delayed, and he begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day that he does not expect him, and in an hour that he does not know, and he will cut him into pieces and put him with the hypocrites.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Stephen Furtick does not give the servants the food at their proper time, and he associates himself with drunkards, men like T .D.

Jakes who deny God and scripture describes as antichrists.

Folks, stay away from men like this. Stephen Furtick, though there are times when it sounds right, he won't commit himself to the sound teaching of the word of God.

He is indeed unqualified, and he doesn't even know what that means. That's the irony of the whole thing, is that he'll even say it right, but he doesn't he doesn't even get it, and he doesn't get that when

Dr. MacArthur said of Stephen Furtick that he was unqualified, he was saying biblically according to the biblical guidelines that a man must meet to be an overseer in a church.

Furtick is unqualified. We're at about a half an hour here on this episode, and I actually have a couple more clips of Furtick's to play, even though I think that my point has been made.

I probably don't have to go further with this, but let me let me show you some further problems with even the clips that you'll see of Stephen Furtick.

I don't think that you should wager a judgment on a pastor necessarily by the two minute clips of his that you see on YouTube.

You should be listening to full sermons. As I've heard Dr. Al Muller say, the Internet is a bad place to go to church, so we cannot gauge a teaching necessarily on short clips.

But here's what you might see in some of those short clips from Furtick. As a matter of fact, this first clip comes from the same sermon that I just played about piecing it together.

So what happens is you get stuck on one part of your life where there's a missing piece.

We don't have any bread. One part. Bread is sitting in front of you. We don't have any bread.

You're stuck on one thing. You feel horrible about yourself, stuck on one thing. Kicking butt in 15 categories, making a

C minus in one, and all you can see is the C. You're stuck on the missing piece.

Confession time. I was not the best dad this week. Not anything bad that I did.

I slapped my kid across the room. I might have thought about it once or twice. I didn't do it. I thought about it before. I hadn't done it yet.

It wasn't like that. I was just busy. I released a book. I preached. I traveled. I preached. I trained. I got sermons and things.

I'm out everywhere. So this week, I don't feel like I was the best dad.

I don't feel like I knocked it out of the park as a dad this week. Graham had his first baseball practice for the year.

I didn't take him to baseball practice. Somebody took him. I didn't take him. He got took, but I didn't take him.

But guess what? If I don't sell a book, he doesn't have a bat. So this week,

I have to sell some books so you can have a bat, and next week I'll watch you swing it.

Tell somebody, "'Piece it together.'" I'm not going to win at everything all at once. I'm not going to be everything to everybody all at once, but my provision comes in pieces.

So I'm going to be an excellent dad this week. I'm going to take them to school at least one day out of the week.

I'm going to get that right. Here's the point that I mean to make with that clip. And again, that was from the same sermon from this past Sunday.

If you just wanted to call Furtick a practical teacher, he's a pragmatist, so he just gives you the practical application.

Even at that, he's really terrible at it. That right there was just teaching his congregation how to make excuses.

That's all that was. Furtick has a 16 ,000 square foot home.

He's rich. He is a millionaire. And he's saying to his congregation that, oh,

I was out selling books and not being a good dad because my son needs a bat to swing a bat at a baseball.

That is ridiculous. And then he jokes about how much time he's going to spend with his son the next week.

He's going to take him to school once. That's not funny. There's nothing in there that is actual practical application in providing an example for other men in that congregation how to be a father to your kids.

Instead, what he was telling dads is it's OK for you to be addicted to work because just rationalize in your mind you're providing for your family.

So it's OK. It's all right. You can be addicted to your work and not attend your kids sporting events and all those kinds of things.

And here's how you can rationalize that. Hey, at least I'm providing for my family. Piece it together. It's absolutely terrible.

In First Timothy, Chapter three, which we were reading last week, one of the qualifications for a pastor is that he must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive.

For if a person does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church?

And here you have Furtick joking about slapping his kid across a room. The man is unqualified even in the practical application, the man is unqualified.

He is not a good pastor, shouldn't be a pastor, shouldn't even be called a pastor.

My heart hurts for these kinds of things. Like my chest aches as I'm talking about this because I hope he repents.

It's very clear the guy has a huge influence and I don't even really know why he's kind of goofy.

You know, I understand who this is coming from. There was a picture of me on Twitter earlier this week in a

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles apron. OK, so this is not I'm not trying to be prejudiced against another person.

He's just kind of a goofball. There's nothing about his appearance or his delivery or his presentation in any way that really screams charisma.

But people are attracted to him. They are drawn to him. And I wish that he would point them to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus doesn't merely teach us how to piece our lives together. He saved our lives.

He died for our sins so that through him we are rescued from death and we can live forever.

And then when we preach pragmatism to our congregations, we can show them how understanding the gospel is supposed to look in a believer's life.

But it all starts with and comes back to the gospel that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and our right living then is a reflection of the righteousness of Christ that has been imparted upon us because of his sacrifice.

But Furtick never talks about that. Never. I've never heard him talk about it. In fact, here's more of the ridiculousness that he will go right on teaching.

I don't know what you're looking at in your life today that doesn't look right, that doesn't line up with the word of God.

But I can tell you something about perspective. I can tell you something about perseverance. I can tell you something about persistence.

Some of the greatest things that you'll see God do in your life will be because you went back and looked again. Some of the greatest things you'll see

God do in your life will be things that you are about to walk away from. But you came back just one more time to say, no, wait a minute.

Let me look at this differently because I was about to give up on this marriage. But I think

I see something that I didn't see last time. So let me get a different perspective. We always think that God's presence is provided to fix our problems.

But what if God's presence is more about fixing your perspective so that you have a new way to see your problems?

If I promised you today that God was going to fix all your problems the first time you went back and looked at them,

I could make the church shout. We could have a good emotional experience and we'd have 18 ,000 disappointed people when you go back home and everything you left looks just like it looked when you left it.

If you didn't make up your bed this morning, it ain't made by angels when you get back home from church.

If you didn't put anything in the crock pot before church, it's not going to be a feast when you get home.

It's faith, not sight. They're opposites. We always think that the opposite of faith is doubt.

The opposite of faith scripturally is not doubt, it's sight. So the opposite of faith is not that I have questions sometimes.

The opposite of faith is that I accept the surface answer to my question. The opposite of faith is that I don't look through it.

Because sometimes you'll look at something in your life and it'll seem like there's no way out. That's how Moses felt when he was standing at the

Red Sea. He wanted to know, what do I do about these chariots? God spoke to Moses and said, it won't be the chariots that'll kill you.

It'll be your complacency, because I can make a way through it if you look again. Now, as long as you're looking back at the chariots that are chasing you, you won't see the way that I've chosen to make in front of you.

But if you'll look again, I believe you'll see water starting to split. I believe you'll see a sign that I'm with you to deliver you.

I believe if you'll look again, you'll see something that was there all along. Look again.

Touch somebody, say, take another look. That's for every single person. That guy that broke up with you,

I know he didn't see much in you, but he needs to look again, because the next time he sees you, you're going to have such a confidence about who

God made you to be that you know that you didn't need anything to begin with. What he did, all he did is make you take another look within yourself to see,

I am something. I am special. I am valuable. I do have something to offer you.

High five somebody. Say, look again. I know I don't look much right now, but look again.

I'm coming to the back. I'm coming to the very back of Blakeney to tell somebody who's been looking at something in your life that seemed hopeless, that God brought you here on this mountain and gave me this microphone to tell you, look again.

Look again. Look again. God saved you from his own wrath, burning against all unrighteousness, the sins that you've committed, lying, cheating, stealing, idol worship, sexual immorality, adultery, hate murder.

You've committed murder in your heart against another person just by calling them contemptuous names. Jesus talks about that in Matthew chapter five, you have openly rebelled against God, and you've thought that your ways are higher than God's ways.

You know how God fixed your perspective by pouring out his spirit on you instead of his wrath.

So you would see the depths of your sins. You would repent of that and believe in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ. That's how God fixes your perspective. Jesus took the wrath of God upon himself.

He absorbed God's wrath. That's what the Bible means when it says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.

In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

First John 4 10. The opposite of faith is not sight. It's unbelief.

Hebrews 11 one says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen.

What's the opposite of that? Not being sure of what's talked about in the Bible and not feeling a conviction for the words that are spoken about there.

Instead going about doing things our way. Exactly like Stephen Furtick interprets the scriptures his way.

He even knows what the Bible says. He's been educated to know what it means and how to teach it, and he won't do it.

Insisting instead on his own way. But first Corinthians 13 tells us that love does not insist on its own way.

Isaiah 53 6 says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one of us to his own way.

That's you, that's me, that's Stephen Furtick. But that passage goes on to say, and the

Lord has laid upon him, upon Christ, the iniquity of us all.

Though we have strayed, we have openly and willingly rebelled against God. God leads us to the truth of his

Son, Jesus Christ, by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Repent of your sins, believe on his name, and you will be saved.

And I hope Stephen Furtick does the same. As he stands, Stephen Furtick is unqualified.

And I hope the man humbles himself and learns what that means. He, you and me, we are qualified for the kingdom of heaven only by the righteousness of Christ.

God teach us to be able to discern between the errors of this world and the truth of your gospel, and keep us steadfast upon the solid rock of Christ.

To him belongs all of the glory. To you we give all glory and honor and praise, now and forever, in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.