Stop Singing THIS Hillsong Worship Song!

Fight For Truth

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real

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Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video. There are many people who say that they are genuinely concerned with Hillsong's teaching.

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And thank God for those people, we need more of them. But many of these very same individuals will also say that Hillsong's music isn't concerning to them at all.

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Their teaching is bad, but their music, it can be kind of good. I will acknowledge though that not every

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Hillsong song has rank heresy or prosperity gospel teaching or a contradiction of some major Christian doctrine in it, but I'm still concerned with much of their music nonetheless.

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Today I'm going to read for you the lyrics of a Hillsong United piece entitled Are You Ready? This song was used for worship at the 2020

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Passion Conference, which is a massive conference for young Christians to hear speakers and artists and pastors that will help them strengthen their faith and get more passionate about God and His Word.

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At least that's what they say they're out to do. Passion 2020, just for reference, had 60 ,000

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Christian students attending. And unsurprisingly, this very song that you're about to hear from Hillsong was wholeheartedly embraced and sung by the whole audience.

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This is undoubtedly having an effect on the young people of the church. There's no getting around this.

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But here's a selection of some of the lyrics of this song, Are You Ready? Quote, Come now as you are or as you want to be.

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It's all right. Take your time. If nothing else, just come. Come now. Bring your hurts, your fears, your faith, your heart.

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He's all right with your past. He's not mad at any one of us, but he waits with open arms.

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He's not moved by perfection or how well we look the part, but he's wild about the hidden stuff.

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Like he's wild about the heart. End quote. So as you can tell, a lot of this is completely unintelligible.

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You really can't understand what it means. It has some Christian words. It sounds vaguely reminiscent of some things you may have heard in some church service before.

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But there's no context given that would offer these words some sort of definitive meaning.

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This is a major problem with much of Hillsong's music and that of their contemporaries today. Their music is often so vague that its meaning is left up to the listener to decide for themselves.

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The songs are not always meant to convey something objectively and understandably true in God's word from the mind of the song's writer in a way that the mind of the song's listener can understand.

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The meaning, truth, logic, objectivity, understanding, often none of that stuff matters.

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It's all about feelings. It's all about emotions. So my point is that this song could be listened to by a thousand people and its meaning would be interpreted differently by all of those people rather easily.

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Because again, it's so vague, so sentimental in nature that you have to fill in the blanks for yourself.

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If you ever wonder why the older folks in your church may prefer hymns, older songs, this is probably why.

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As a general rule, hymns are meant to convey concrete ideas about God and about his word in a way that the whole congregation can understand collectively or at least attempt to understand collectively and say yes and amen to.

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The whole church body can sing and affirm these objectively biblical and true ideas together.

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In many modern worship groups like Hillsong and others like them, the songs are ambiguous and intentionally so, because they are not meant to convey objectively true ideas first and foremost.

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Rather, the priority is to convey subjective emotional experiences to people. Therefore, the lyrics are intentionally meant to apply to as many people in the audience as possible.

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It's so unspecific that everyone has the opportunity to make it specific to their particular situation.

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That is the tactic they use here. Now, am I saying that every hymn ever written is good and true and every modern song is false and bad?

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No, not at all. That would be an oversimplification of what I'm saying. Rather, I'm saying that generally, overall, the two bodies of work clearly exist to accomplish two different purposes in two different ways.

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In summary, linguistically structured, understandable hymns help us to worship by understanding the truth collectively.

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By contrast, modern Hillsong -type songs use catchy chord progressions and vague lyrics to produce an emotional experience.

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One starts with biblical truth, the other starts with feelings in mind. This of course does not mean that worship cannot involve feelings, in fact it often does.

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It often should. And it also does not mean that old hymns don't cause emotional reactions in people.

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Just for one example, think of how many people have been touched by the song Amazing Grace. That's a hymn.

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The difference is that you don't get an emotional reaction to a hymn most of the time because it's a catchy chord progression, or because it's accompanied by fog machines, or smoke machines, or dim lights, or peer pressure.

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No, if you have an emotional experience while singing a hymn, most of the time it's because the biblical truth in that hymn has caused you to respond with emotion.

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You see, even the emotional aspects of a hymn begin with biblical truth. That makes all the difference.

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In other words, the truth changes the feelings, rather than feelings changing the truth.

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John 4 .24 says this, quote, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth, end quote.

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If you find a song that does not directly and clearly point back to biblical objective truth in a way that is understood by those who are listening, it should not be used in church.

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It's really that simple. Hebrews 12 .28 says, quote, Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our

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God is a consuming fire, end quote. God must be worshiped with reverence, with awe.

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This means we sing about things that are true with regard to God and His Word, because it is not reverent to say something about God or His Word that is not true.

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We know that. But now let's ask the question, the all -important question, was that Hillsong piece actually biblically accurate?

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Was it reverent and true? No. And I will demonstrate that for you here, comparing it to the

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Bible. Let's start with one of the first lyrics I read, quote, Take your time, if nothing else, just come, end quote.

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Again, the lyrics here are vague, but they are clear enough to understand some portion of their meaning.

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Particularly, the if nothing else just come part is really unbiblical. I'm not familiar with any place in Scripture where you see such a trite, such a flippant view of approaching

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God and His message. Jesus' message was not, if nothing else, just come. No, the standard was way higher than that.

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In Luke 9, 23, Jesus says, quote, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me, end quote.

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You see, following Jesus means denial of oneself. It's a death march here. Pick up your cross, the instrument of killing, and follow me,

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He says. He does not say, quote, if nothing else, just follow me. If you don't do anything else, oh, pretty please, follow me, please,

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I really want you to. No. This is God in the flesh that we're talking about. And to present the biblical message here as, just come if you don't do anything else, is to fall way short of what the

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Scriptures say. As Paul says in Galatians 2, 20, quote, I have been crucified with Christ.

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It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, end quote. Again, the theme is self -denial.

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The Christian life is not about just coming to God and that's it. It's about coming to God at the cost of your own flesh, of your own desires, maybe even your own safety.

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The next lyric I'd like to take a look at is, quote, He's alright with your past. He's not mad at any one of us, but he waits with open arms, end quote.

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To tell everyone wholesale across the board that God is alright with their past is absolutely unbiblical and completely contrary to virtually everything the

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Scripture says about how we stand before God. If you were not born perfect, and no one is, then you sinned in your past.

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And if you sinned in your past, God is most definitely not alright with it. God is not alright with your past if you sinned in it, which everyone has.

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In fact, it is precisely because God is so not alright with your past that He sent

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His only Son to live a perfect life and to die a brutal death to atone for the sins of your past.

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So to tell people that God is alright with their past is to give them no need for the

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Gospel. It's a serious problem. It's false teaching. Psalm 711 says, quote,

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God is a righteous judge, a God who feels indignation every day, end quote.

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This doesn't sound quite like a God who is alright with your past no matter what happened to you. This does not sound like God never gets angry.

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Isaiah 53, verse 5, it says this, quote, but He was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities, end quote.

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So I will again ask, if God is perfectly alright with your past, why did His Son have to die for it?

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If God is perfectly alright with your past, why did He call many of the things you did in your past iniquities and transgressions?

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Why is that? These are important questions that are directly related to Christ's own sacrifice for us, but they are not questions that Hillsong will have an adequate answer for.

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So in summary, Hillsong says that God isn't mad at anyone, but the Scriptures say that God is righteous and indignant every single day.

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Hillsong says that God is alright with your past no matter what, but the Scriptures say that Christ died to make you a new creation.

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That's 2 Corinthians 517. If your past is perfectly alright, then why would you need to become a new creation that is fundamentally different from that of your past?

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Why is that? Again, I want to humbly say that the reason this question can't be answered by Hillsong is because they're speaking falsely.

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That's where the confusion comes in. The last lyric I want to cover is when they sing, quote, He's not moved by perfection or how well we look the part.

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He's wild about the hidden stuff. He's wild about the heart, end quote. There are two issues with this line.

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The first issue is that they are suggesting that God is, quote, not moved by perfection. Again, this is absolutely untrue.

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Matthew 548 says, quote, you therefore must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, end quote.

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But this is rather strange. You see, Hillsong is saying that God is not moved by or interested in perfection, but there's

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God's Word right there specifically commanding all of us to be perfect. Why is that?

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But not only that, it says that God himself is perfect. So let me ask a question.

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How could a perfect God not be moved in any way by perfection? Again, the answer is that Hillsong have really no idea what they're talking about.

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And I'm not saying that to be rude. I'm saying it because you really need to know this. Indeed, if God is not moved by perfection, then why would

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Jesus need to live a perfect life for us? Hebrews 1024 says, quote, for by a single offering, he,

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Jesus, has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, end quote. You see,

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Jesus's sacrifice accepted through faith actually makes us perfect once and for all. What a biblical truth.

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And to say that God is not moved by perfection is antithetical to that beautiful truth. It is completely contrary to scripture and to God's very character.

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This is nothing short of false teaching. And guess where it's coming from? Hillsong music.

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The second issue with this is that they're conflating two concepts that shouldn't be conflated. They're conflating the idea of perfection with the idea of looking the part.

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But these are not the same biblically at all. Perfection refers to God's holy and unchanging standard of morality, which comes by his perfect and holy character.

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Perfection is the standard that we've all fallen short of, Romans 3 .23, and it's why we need

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Jesus to meet that standard for us. Looking the part, on the other hand, refers to the idea of looking on the outside as if you meet this standard, while inside you do not.

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An example of this would be the behavior of the Pharisees. They took pleasure in looking holy and devout and righteous on the outside, while on the inside they were unrighteous.

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They did not follow the law in their hearts. As Jesus says in Luke 11, 42, quote,

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But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God, end quote.

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The Pharisees looked the part, but they were not actually the genuine article. They weren't actually perfect.

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So you see, perfection and looking the part are not the same thing at all. In fact, sanctification itself is progressively aligning more with God's perfect standard.

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That's what we want. That concept is good and biblical. On the other hand, mere external legalism, that is, trying to fit the description on the outside without the heart, is not good and not biblical.

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Looking the part and perfection are not two sides of the same coin. They actually contradict each other.

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You cannot simply look the part and also be perfect before God. So to compare looking the part with the general concept of biblical perfection is unbiblical, and it contradicts

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God's Word. We should not sing worship music that distorts and conflates these biblical categories.

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So in conclusion, Hillsong music is most definitely dangerous. Yes, they have some catchy songs that can even be theologically sound, but there is also a significant amount of error that goes mostly unnoticed by Christians.

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That's the danger. This error, as I've shown you here, is very dangerous and could even contradict some of the most important doctrines of our faith.

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So my humble recommendation is to avoid Hillsong and others like them. And remember that without the grace of Jesus Christ, we would all be led astray.

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Whether through song or through empty speech, we were all once following after unbiblical falsehood with no hope, dead in our sins.

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I am no better than the people at Hillsong. I'm a wretched sinner who needs grace every day.

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So let's pray that they would stop spreading this falsehood, this nonsense, and that they would turn to the truth of God's Word.