What On EARTH Is Jentezen Franklin Preaching?!

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 Jensen Franklin. But first, let's give you a brief outline of who he is.

Jensen Franklin is a charismatic Word of Faith preacher who is also the senior pastor of Free Chapel, a multi -campus megachurch.

And this church is mainly centered in the southern state of Georgia. And in true Southern Pentecostal fashion,

Jensen has a powerful, energetic style of preaching that is meant to get the audience excited. But we need to ask the fundamental question, is all this emotion rooted in biblical truth?

Or is it rooted in poor doctrine? As part of answering this question, I decided to take a brief look at Jensen's YouTube page.

And some of the video titles I found had a consistent theme. One was entitled, quote,

Is Your Cup Overflowing? Another was entitled, Is It Your Dream or God's Dream? And yet another was simply called,

Your Story Isn't Finished. So as you can see, there's a pattern in the theme of Franklin's ministry.

And that pattern, that theme, is you. And Jensen recently preached a sermon at another church that is famous for this kind of ministry,

Stephen Furtick's Elevation Church. So the fact is, just by these limited facts alone, you could make a very strong, circumstantial case that Jensen Franklin is a trendy, seeker -sensitive pastor who focuses more on man -centered motivation than he does on expositing the text of Scripture.

But thankfully, we don't just have these sparse facts to make our case. As part of my analysis of Franklin, I watched one of his sermons.

This one was entitled, quote, Change Your Words, Change Your Life. And this too, you'll notice, has a man -centered flavor to it.

But besides that, this sermon is packed to the gills with false teaching. Let's see the first clip where he introduces the sermon.

Watch this. Thank you so much for joining us on Kingdom Connection today. I really believe

God is going to impact you with this powerful service we're about to go into.

This is not a normal message. This is one that I believe every person needs to hear.

Let's go right into this service. So notice that Jensen is once again focused on the emotional reaction of the audience.

I believe that God is going to impact you with this powerful sermon, he says. But one thing we need to know and recognize as Christians is that this emotional impact is not a goal in and of itself.

Emotional impact that is rooted in the truth of God's Word is fantastic. But when it is rooted in false teaching, it's very dangerous.

So as we watch this sermon today, let's ask ourselves, what is the foundation here? A bit later,

Jensen describes what is the main point of his message. Watch this. But He has not taken speech away from man.

You are now a composite of everything you've been saying. Change your words, and you'll begin to change your life.

If you want to become something different, change what you are confessing. Change what you are saying.

So as you can see, his point is that your words will supernaturally determine the future of your life.

You can change your entire existence just by changing the words you use. And this is a very powerful, albeit false, doctrine that is one of the fundamental tenets of the

Word of Faith movement. Proponents of this movement suggest that you, like God, can speak things into existence.

This also includes speaking the things you want into your life, such as money, healing, etc.

But now Jensen attempts to make a Biblical case for this doctrine using a passage from the Old Testament.

Watch this. So he is using

Isaiah 57, verses 18 and 19, which say this, I have seen his ways, but I will heal him.

I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to the far and to the near, says the

Lord, and I will heal him. So with those words and that reference in mind, let's see what

Jensen Franklin does with this passage. Watch this. I create, form, and fashion the fruit of your lips.

How do you get God to work in your life? How do you activate God's miracle power?

God said, I have linked my creative, miraculous power inseparably to the words that you speak into your life.

So Jensen says that God creates our future on the basis of what we say, and again he uses

Isaiah 57, verses 18 -19, as evidence for that claim. But as you're about to see,

Jensen is completely taking this passage out of context. First, he notes that God, quote, creates the fruit of the lips in verse 19.

And therefore, he concludes that God is bound to create the fruit of whatever your words say.

The problem is that this is being completely misinterpreted. This verse has nothing to do with speaking your ideal future into existence.

And reading this from verse 17 in its full context demonstrates this clearly.

It says, quote, I, the Lord, struck him. I hid my face and was angry. But he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.

I have seen his ways, but I will heal him. I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, creating the fruit of the lips, end quote.

So the first thing to note is that the fruit of the lips does not refer to the speech you are using to get what you want in life.

Rather, it refers to thanksgiving and worship. Many passages translate this as, quote, the praise of the lips or words of praise.

And the second thing to note is that God creates this praise by leading and restoring comfort to the one whom

He has forgiven. In other words, the passage is saying this, God creates the praise or the fruit of the lips by giving

His chosen people grace such that the only proper response from them is worship.

Again, the passage does not support what Jensen is preaching at all. And this brings us to problem number two.

Jensen also suggests that this passage is about how you can, quote, activate God's miracle power for your life.

But this passage isn't about getting your personal miracle. And again, the context makes that clear.

The end of verse 19 says, quote, Peace, peace to the far and to the near, says the

Lord, and I will heal him, end quote. Most commentators agree that the far off and the near refers to either the

Jews and the Gentiles or the Jews who are in exile and the Jews who are not in exile.

Either way, the fact that the passage refers to those near and far would indicate that something more widespread is happening here, rather than just the personal miracle you want to activate

God to do in your life. And more than this, the immediate context here clearly mentions forgiveness of the sinner.

But there is no statement about speaking positive things over your life to get what you want. It's simply not there.

Jensen has made a claim, but he has failed utterly to support that claim in any real way using the passage.

So again, when you look at the actual context, you can clearly see that Jensen Franklin is not actually teaching the text.

Rather, he is taking it out of context in order to advance his Word of Faith agenda. But it doesn't stop there.

What he says next is truly astounding. Watch this. I create whatever you keep speaking.

I create, I form, I fashion, I mold what you constantly, consistently pray for, confess, and praise for.

Whatever you dare to utter, the word fruit means utterance.

I create the utterance of your lips. So now, according to Franklin, when we constantly pray and confess for something,

God is bound to give us that something. This doctrine turns God effectively into a cosmic genie in a bottle who has to grant us our three wishes.

It turns God into a heavenly butler who exists to follow our every whim and who serves at our beck and call.

To put it simply, we speak it, and He must do it. But let's not forget that the emphasis in the passage is actually on the fact that God is a long -suffering and forgiving

God, one who is willing to restore and lead those who have sinned against Him. But Jensen has taken the focus off of the power of God and instead has put it on the amazing power of your words.

And this also contradicts what we know to be true about God's sovereignty. Psalm 115 verse 3 says,

Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. So He can answer your prayer if that is

His will. But make no mistake about it, God will decide what happens. You do not get to tell Him what to do by speaking it over your life.

It doesn't work that way. You see, Jensen's teaching here simply cannot be reconciled with an Orthodox Biblical view of God or of prayer.

And besides that, we've already demonstrated that the text does not actually support any of what he's preaching.

But this is not the only time that he manipulates Scripture to prove his point. It's kind of his MO. Watch this.

I create the utterance of your lips. What you speak, when you speak it, and if you keep holding to that confession.

There's a verse in the Bible that says, hold fast to your confession. Hold fast to it. Man has the power to speak, to talk, to confess.

So now Jensen says that there is a passage in the Bible that refers to, quote, holding fast to your confession.

And he's talking about Hebrews 10 .23. According to him, this passage is about how you can be persistent in confessing what you want for God to do in your life.

And if you do that, God must give you whatever you ask Him for. But that is not what

Hebrews 10 .23 says at all. Let's read it. Quote, Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

End quote. But notice here that the passage refers to hope and a promise. So what is the promise in question, and what are we hoping about?

Well, we can find that out by reading some of the text, which comes before this one. Verse 19 says, quote,

We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus. End quote.

So in context, you can see that the confession of our hope in verse 23 refers to our hope in Christ.

It does not, as Franklin suggested, refer to our hope for changing our lives through the power of our magic words.

So now he's taken another passage that clearly focuses on God's power in the gospel and has instead made the focus your personal goals and the assurance of getting them accomplished.

But this isn't even the only passage in the book of Hebrews that he manipulates. No, just a few minutes later, he does the exact same thing to a different verse in a different chapter of the same book.

Watch this. I create, God said, I create the fruit of your lips.

And then Hebrews 13 and verse 5 says this, Therefore by him, watch this word, let us continually.

It's not that you just talk positive one day because you heard a sermon. That verse changed my life before I ever started pastoring

Free Chapel. I learned a secret. So now in support of his teaching, he points us to Hebrews 13, 15, which says, quote, through him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name, end quote. And Jensen takes this to mean that you must be steadfast in your speech.

You must constantly and consistently speak these things over your life so that God will give you what you desire.

But this again has nothing to do with the passage. Notice that the text begins saying, quote, through him, then some translations say through him, therefore.

So the passage is saying that we should continuously praise God for a particular reason, which is listed before.

And verses 12 through 14 give us that reason, quote. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come, end quote. In other words, in context, the passage is saying that we have been saved by the blood of Jesus, and now we have hope, we have a promise of being with him forever in heaven.

And therefore, as a result of all this, we should continually offer up praise to God. That's what the text actually said.

So as you can see, the word continually here does not mean we can speak our future into existence if we do it often enough.

That's Jensen's interpretation of the text, but it doesn't change reality. Once again, the passage has nothing to do with what he's talking about.

But as he preaches, he actually begins to get more and more fired up and emotional. And this doesn't just get the crowd excited.

No, according to him, he even gets excited by his own preaching. Watch this. I mean,

I believe this report. Whose report will you believe? Hallelujah.

I'm preaching myself. I feel the anointing right now, I do. I'm tired of just, you know, taking whatever hell wants to send.

Let's send it back. So apparently he is, quote, preaching himself happy, and he, quote, feels the anointing.

Again, we can see a tremendous amount of emotion and self -confidence. But here's the problem. Jensen is evidently not anointed.

How do we know that? Well, quite simply, because God doesn't anoint people in Scripture so that they can manipulate

His Word. True prophets were anointed to speak the Word of God accurately. Therefore, Jensen is not feeling the true anointing of God.

What he's feeling is the emotional state he's managed to put himself into by yelling a bunch of unbiblical statements to a crowd of deceived people.

And all this talk about emotion should bring us right back to what he said at the beginning of the sermon.

If you recall, he said, quote, I really believe God is going to impact you with this powerful service.

And indeed, there may be some people who feel very impacted through listening to him yell on stage.

But this only makes his teaching all the more dangerous. Like I said before, when emotion is rooted in the truth of Jesus, it is amazing.

When it's rooted in false teaching, it can be deadly. Just look at what we've seen from Jensen so far.

He completely manipulated Isaiah 57. A passage that was actually about praising God for His mercy was changed, and instead it became all about how you can activate

God to get your miracle. Then he effectively implied that God must do whatever we speak over our life in a way that paints

Him out to be our cosmic butler. If we speak something into existence, He lives to make it happen.

And if that wasn't enough, he completely ignored everything we read about the power of God, which was substantial, and decided to preach about the power of man's words instead.

If you add to this the fact that he manipulated two more passages from the book of Hebrews alone, you start getting an idea of how much false teaching

Jensen Franklin actually has to offer. And on top of all this, he then confidently claims that he is anointed by God to say these things.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. And the Bible has a name, by the way, for people who claim to be anointed by God while offering false doctrine.

In Matthew 7 .15, Jesus says, quote, So, with this in mind, we would all do well to beware of Jensen Franklin, as well as any hypercharismatic or seeker -sensitive ministry that teaches in a similar way.

I hope this video has demonstrated that to you in some practical way, and I pray this has been a blessing to you.

Please know this video isn't meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a biblical critique. Please, pray for this channel and for anyone discussed in the video.

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And by God's grace, let's move forward joyfully, holding to the truth of God's Word. Thank you so much for watching that video.

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