Matt Chandler Has Jumped the Shark, and a Pirate Ship, and Some Cannons

You were the Chosen One. It was said that you would destroy the

Sith, not join them. You were my brother,

Anakin. I loved you. Automatically in my head, there's a picture of a ship, a pirate ship.

And then there's, there's like cannons on the pirate ship and there's a shark chasing the -

Well, all right, time for something a little bit out of my wheelhouse, but first a little bit about me and my background.

My background is, my family's background anyway, my parents and my grandparents, they were all coming from a charismatic background.

The Pentecostal church is very big in Latino circles and my family was no exception. And my grandparents actually pretty much still are in the charismatic circles.

And so you should know that I don't consider every charismatic an unbeliever like some of you do. And I get why you say that.

I get why you do it. I don't agree and I have nothing against you for saying it, but some people might think that that's just a cowardice on my part or just sort of a bias on my part because of my background.

And you know, you possibly could be right, but, but that's not my, my point. My point is one time I was talking to my grandfather about, he was in grief, right?

He was grieving because my aunt had passed away. And hold on a second, let me mute this.

All right. My aunt had passed away kind of suddenly and he was very, very upset about it.

And he was telling me about how he dealt with his grief. And he told me that he got a word from the

Lord. Obviously on the inside, I was rolling my eyes. But anyway, he explained this word from the

Lord to me and basically, well not basically, he did just quote scripture. He quoted the passage where Paul writes, my grace is sufficient for you.

And he was applying that to his situation, losing his daughter and things like that. So what my grandfather was doing when he said he had a word from the

Lord, he was just quoting scriptures that he had memorized over the years. He's read the Bible so often. He's prayed the

Bible so often that the words of God just come out, you know, at random times, whether he's angry or upset or sad or happy or whatever, he remembers these scriptures that he's stored up in his heart.

And he calls that a word from the Lord. That's what, that's when he gets a word from the Lord, it's scripture coming out of him. That's what he told me.

So I wouldn't call that a word from the Lord the way a charismatic would, I would call that just remembering scripture, which literally is the word of God, which literally is

God -breathed. But that's what he called it. The problem is that a lot of people have words from the

Lord that are not that, they're not scripture. And what I'm going to talk about today is Matt Chandler's sermon about private revelation, words from the

Lord. And that's very different. What he suggests that you do is you pray to God, have someone put on your heart that you want to encourage.

And then whatever you think of after that is the word from God. And it might not make sense. It might be silly, but it's, it's still the word from the

God. And eventually maybe they'll, the person will understand it. And the example he uses is something with pirate ships and cannons and sharks.

Very childish, ridiculous nonsense. Here's an example about what I mean. The kind of power that could be unleashed,

I think would blow our minds and it takes us into other spaces that are good, right, and beautiful.

And I just don't think you're ever going to offend anybody like this. And if they don't understand what's being said, then just let it sit.

Maybe in time, God will reveal it to them. What I'm asking you to do is be brave, ask, hear, step out, approach, and just say,

Hey, while I was praying, the Lord brought you to my mind. And, and even if it sounds crazy to you, just trust him.

So if you're like, I saw Danny Spencer over here and I love him, and so I'm just going to use you, Danny. Say I'm praying in the morning,

I'm just like, Lord, just bring me somebody to encourage us. I want to be used by you.

I want to pursue love. I want to push out darkness. I want to expose the lies of the enemy, and I want to use my mouth to build up your sons and daughters.

And he puts Danny Spencer in my mind. And then I don't do that. I'm like, well, is that me? Is that, gosh,

Danny texted me earlier this week, so am I, is that bad chicken? Is that what, you know? No. I'm just going, okay, Danny, let's do it.

Lord, what would you want me to encourage Danny with? And then I quiet again, trying to listen, and then automatically in my head, there's a picture of a ship, a pirate ship.

And then there's, there's like cannons on the pirate ship, and there's a shark chasing the pirate ship.

Now at that point, you're like, nope, no. Not going to happen.

Right? And here's what I want you to do. I want you to just step out, and you can even admit, like, we're growing together, and we're going to fail, and it's going to get weird.

It's going to be awesome. Like, I'm just going to go to Danny, and I'm going to be like, hey, brother, you heard my sermon.

I was praying. Danny was a pirate ship. There's a shark chasing it.

There were cannons. I'm not going to interpret that for him. I'm not going to be like, what I think that means is that maybe you're stealing some stuff from people, and Jesus is the shark, and you need to repent.

I'm not going to interpret that for him. I'm just going to go, and in a great deal of humility, I'm just going to be, does that make any sense to you?

And it's perfectly okay to go, that doesn't make any sense at all, but here's what we need to be.

But thank you for being so bold. As to step into what the Holy Spirit prompted you to step into.

I'm proud of you for even having the courage to do that, because I think. And what the reality is, is every random thought that comes into your head is not a word from the

Lord. That is insanity. That's as insane as the most insane charismatic idea that you could imagine.

Imagine if I was praying, and I said, God, who should I pray for? And then I start thinking in my head, oh, I'll pray for my co -elder,

Chris. And I said, okay, God, what should I say to Chris? And then I start thinking about Star Wars, right? I start thinking about Luke Skywalker and the character of Luke and his lightsaber and how he interacted with Ray and the last

Jedi. And I start thinking about Jar Jar Binks and stuff like that. Is that a word from God?

I mean, I'm not the kind of guy that says God won't do anything. But I can be pretty sure that that is not a word from God.

That's insanity. Because here's the thing. Any person can justify anything by saying, oh,

I've got a word from the Lord. And that's the thing. What I heard when I heard this sermon from Chandler, I heard him justifying every crazy thing that he believes.

So his affirmative action scheme. I refuted that. I said, that's showing partiality. When you say that I want black skin to be part of my qualifications for elder,

I said, well, that's partiality. That's not in the Bible. You should repent of that. All Matt Chandler has to do is, well, God put it on my heart.

I'm going to put black skin as on my qualifications for elder. How can you refute it?

Because God put it on his heart after all. And so Matt Chandler will never defend his weird idea of what justice is, his weird affirmative action scheme, any other insane thing that he says against police officers.

Because all he has to do is say, well, God put it on my heart. You see, two people can play that game. I could easily say, well, all the videos

I have refuting you, God put that on my heart. And so now what do you do with that? How can you refute me?

Well, if you open up this charismatic window and you allow that to be words from God, you can't refute me.

And here's the problem. This is all, he's encouraging his congregation and everyone on the internet to take the

Lord's name in vain. That's a third commandment violation. And it's not even an application of the third commandment. That's actually one of the primary meanings of taking the

Lord's name in vain, pretending God is speaking when he's not speaking, being presumptuous, speaking presumptuously for God.

So when you tell your little friend that pirate ships, cannons, and sharks, that's my word from God, from you to encourage you, that's a third commandment violation.

Don't do that. Don't do that. Even though Pastor Matt Chandler is popular, even though he's a smooth talker, even though he pretends to be the

Bible man, because at this point, how can you call him a Bible man? He probably reads the Bible every day.

He probably knows the Bible better than I do. But the thing is, to him, it's not sufficient. You need these private revelations to encourage people.

Why not just encourage people with Scripture? Why not just encourage people with encouraging them and not saying it's a word from the

Lord? If you think that someone will be encouraged by telling them about pirate ships and Luke Skywalker, go ahead and say it.

But let's not pretend that that's a word from the Lord. That's taking the Lord's name in vain. And so at this point, look,

I told you in my videos before, I disagree with him very much on the affirmative action thing. I think it's harmful to the church.

I think he's dividing the church. I think his rhetoric with social justice is not biblical and dividing the church.

But I still said I recommend his books. I recommend his teaching on the gospel and things like that. At this point,

I no longer do, because he says he's a Bible man. He pretends to be a Bible expositor. But once you start opening this window and allowing these private revelations to speak with as much authority as the

Scripture, which he would say he's not, he would say he's not, but I would say he functionally is. At that point, anything goes.

I cannot trust the fact that he will teach the Bible correctly, because he also teaches affirmative action.

I'm sure he justifies that by a word from the Lord. And that's just too dangerous. That goes beyond the pale.

Even many charismatics don't even say that. Like I said, my grandfather, his words from the Lord were literally Scripture.

Am I saying that Matt Chandler is unsaved? No, I'm not saying that. But here's the problem. Once you open up this window, it's open.