Stand Up Comedy SERMONS At Elevation Church?!

Elevation Church and the Problem of Seeker-Sensitive Comedy

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. In today's video, we're going to be talking about Elevation Church once again, but before we begin, let me establish, as always, this is not meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a Biblical critique.

In this particular clip, guest pastor at Elevation Church, Robert Madduh, is filling in for lead pastor Stephen Furtick. And wait a minute before you turn the video off, thinking you've already seen it, because I know we reviewed a different section of this exact same sermon no more than a few videos back.

But this is a new video, I assure you. In this clip, you're going to see Robert Madduh using a very common method of Bible teaching in the seeker-sensitive movement. It's really not a method of teaching at all, and we should rebuke it wholeheartedly as Christians.

The story he's preaching from is found in 2 Kings chapter 5. It's the story of Naaman, the commander of the Syrian army. Yes, it is the same story as last time. And Naaman is being healed of his leprosy through the ministry of the prophet Elisha.

After pridefully and angrily objecting at first, Naaman is washed in the Jordan River 7 times and is miraculously healed.

Fabricated Details About Naaman and Elisha's House

So with that being understood, watch this clip. So now watch this. Naaman has to go to Elisha's house now, where he should have gone in the first place. Can you see him? Bentley chariot, nice armor, going to Elisha's house.

You know Elisha lived in the hood. Oh yeah. And I can see people watching Naaman coming to town. They say, what is Naaman doing in this part of town? Gets all the way to Elisha's house. And I love it because Elisha's servant sees Naaman pull up.

Naaman's up there. Do you know how many followers he has? Oh my goodness. Elisha, he looks better in person than he does on the gram. Elisha's like, calm down, calm down.

So Robert Madu, he makes up this whole story about Naaman pulling up to Elisha's house in his Bentley chariot in the hood with all of his Instagram followers in awe of him. This is very typical in modern seeker sensitive churches.

We can't just preach the scriptures anymore. And we can't just use practical examples from everyday life to illustrate. No, everything now has to be based in cultural fads, in trends. So stories from the Old Testament somehow become stories about Cardi B and Gucci slippers and Captain America and Instagram followers and TikTok dances, et cetera.

Again, I just want to make it clear. There's nothing wrong with making a good solid sermon illustration, even if it happens to relate to a modern trend. There is a problem, however, when this becomes part and parcel of your teaching and you use it as a crutch to pander to and entertain the masses.

This is obviously what happens at Elevation Church, and people have been doing it for years. At the same time, let us recognize in Matthew 5, 14, Jesus compares his followers to a lamp, which gives light to a house and to salt.

In Matthew 7, 15, he compares false prophets to wolves who look like sheep. He also uses analogies related to a sower spreading seeds in a field, a treasure hidden in a field, a mustard seed, wheat and tares, a pearl, et cetera.

There are tons of comparisons made by Jesus to everyday items that illustrate spiritual realities. This is something we should praise him for and seek to emulate. But this is not what modern megachurch pastors do exactly.

You see, all of their analogies, or the grand majority of them, relate to fads and popular cultural trends, especially that which is popular with young people. And this is largely very obvious. On the one hand, we have a comparison between the kingdom of God and a seed from which a tree grows.

On the other hand, we have a comparison between Naaman and someone with loads of Instagram followers driving their Bentley chariot through the hood. One is a genuine comparison, and the other is a desperate attempt to curry favor with young people who are entertained by the world and to make the crowd laugh.

This looks far more like a secular comedy routine than anything resembling a biblical sermon. It's really pretty transparent. But more than this, I just want to tell you that the things Robert Maddew is describing here never actually happen in Scripture.

Just for context, here's the entire account of Scripture in the story that he claims to be telling. 2 Kings 5, 9 -10 says,. Those two verses are all we know about this section of the story. I kid you not.

Yet, Robert Maddew says, excited squeaky fangirl noises like those that happen at a Justin Bieber concert on behalf of Elisha's servant. But pause right there, because it never happens in the text. Not at all.

We have absolutely no record of that happening in Scripture. Robert Maddew is making this up to get a laugh from the audience. But he goes on, saying,. Again, we have no record in the text that Elisha ever told him to calm down or that he needed to be told that in the first place.

None at all. This entire conversation between Elisha and his servant is the product of Robert Maddew making up a Bible story to get the audience to laugh. That's all it is. But I'm sure that's just a little joke, right?

Some might say, it's not like he does this the whole sermon, right? Well, let's keep watching. So in this one, just like the previous clip, Robert talks about actual events that take place in the chapter.

He says that Elisha tells his servant to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan seven times. That's true. But in the midst of this true story, we are also given a false account. And again, this false account is only brought up for the sake of getting a laugh.

There is no spiritual point being made at all. It's just for the sake of comedy. Remember, Jesus's metaphors were meant to illustrate concepts of his teaching. Robert Maddew's metaphors are all meant for entertainment.

That's the big difference. He talks about Naaman's servant arguing with Elisha because he didn't want to go talk to Naaman. He was nervous and excited. As I read for you earlier, none of that is in the text.

Not even one comment. Robert also talks about Elisha telling the servant to go speak with Naaman because, well, he was busy watching the TV show Law and Order. In other words, Elisha is nonchalantly represented as dismissing the situation as the servant begins to freak out.

Again, none of that is in the text at all. Not even the ideas of it. The practical examples are bad enough, but not even the general ideas are in the text. All we know is that he told the servant to tell Naaman to wash in the Jordan seven times.

And that's precisely what he says. Everything else is made up specifically for the purpose of getting a laugh. And it's mixed in with the true details of the story in such a way as to make it difficult to know which events actually happened and which events are just part of the comedy routine.

It's really confusing, but who cares if we confuse people spiritually as long as they're laughing, right? Don't worry. It's just a little joke. I'm sure he'll get back to the true story any time now, right?

So let's skip ahead five minutes and play yet another clip. Let's see if anything.

Changes, shall we? Naaman had to get off his high horse, take off all that armor, covering up his skin that was already falling off. Can you see the crowd looking? Is that Naaman? Leprosy. He knows that, but he can hear them talking as he gets in the water.

I can see him fighting. His pride was fighting him all the way. And maybe that's you today. And maybe that's why you haven't surrendered your life to Jesus, because of pride. But you got to get to a place in your life where you care more about what God thinks about you than you care about the opinions.

And the applause and the accolades of other people. Yep, that's five or six minutes later in the sermon, and he's still making up the story. He says that Naaman has to take off his armor. Can you see the crowd looking?

Is that Naaman, they say? I didn't know he had leprosy. But pause here, because if you read 2 Kings chapter 5, we have no textual evidence that this interchange ever happened. In fact, there seems to be positive evidence that it didn't happen.

First, we know that Naaman had a company with him, because after he washed and cleansed, verse 15 says, quote, then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, end quote. But Robert Medu represents the company that was with him as if they were unaware of Naaman's leprous condition.

There is absolutely zero biblical reason to believe that is the case. He's just saying it for dramatic effect. He's trying to illustrate the story. So we know that after Naaman is indignant at the fact that he was asked to wash in the Jordan River, his servants talk him down.

Second Kings 5 .13 says, quote, then his servants approached him and spoke to him saying, my father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more than when he says to you, wash and be clean, end quote.

So here is definitive proof that multiple people in Naaman's company knew exactly what his situation was. In fact, it's possible that the company that was with him heard what Elisha's servant said. So they would all know what happened.

Again, that's conjecture, but it's possible. In other words, we have some indication in the biblical text that the company of Naaman knew what was going on. And we have definitive proof that more than one of them, a hundred percent knew what was going on because they approached him to talk about it.

So why does Robert Medu suggest that they had no idea and that they were all completely surprised? They had no idea at all. Well, he makes a really big point about that here. He literally says the company of people, quote, didn't know Naaman had leprosy.

It doesn't get any more clear than that, but this is a total fabrication. Why? Well, because Robert needs to dramatize the Bible for whatever reason and make it into a soap opera in order to make it more interesting and applicable and enjoyable to listen to.

That's clearly what's happening, but he continues to do this. And Robert says this about Naaman, quote, he can hear them talking as he gets in the water. I can see him. His pride was fighting him all the way, end quote.

Again, this is nowhere in the passage. We do know that Naaman had responded pridefully at first and was angry at Elisha that he had sent a servant instead of speaking to him personally. That's all in verse 11.

But Robert says that his pride was fighting him all the way through, even as he got in the water. But we don't even know that. It's entirely possible that he had already humbled himself to a great extent in order to even get into the water.

So why does Robert Medu say that he can, quote, see his pride fighting him all the way? And how can he see it? If it's not in the text, then where is Robert seeing it from? And why stop there? Can we make up any Bible story we want and say that we can see it in our mind's eye?

That sounds like a recipe for false teaching to me. Shouldn't we stick to what the scriptures say? Well, of course we should. And Robert then says that Naaman can hear the crowd talking about him. Again, I sound like a broken record here, but there's no evidence whatsoever in the text that that happened.

In fact, we know from verse 1 that it says Naaman was a, quote, valiant warrior. From verse 5, we know that the king of Syria himself wrote a letter to the king of Israel on behalf of Naaman. In other words, this is most likely not the type of person whose servants are going to be whispering within earshot behind his back.

So there's no positive evidence for this, and there is some circumstantial evidence contradicting the story that Robert's making up. But again, the details of the biblical text seem utterly unimportant at Elevation Church, as per usual.

There, it's all about how you can pump up the crowd, keep them entertained. By the way, I watched this entire sermon, which was an hour long, and Robert Maddew, he did this stuff constantly. It's almost all he did.

It was quite literally a stand-up comedy routine with a few scriptures thrown in for good measure, just so it can be legally called a sermon. There was little to no serious Bible teaching that took place at all.

The Sermon Turns to Jesus, Sanctification, and Preaching the Word

But this next clip is what it all leads up to. Watch this. So remember, this is just after making the point about Naaman's company talking about him, and about Naaman being prideful all the way into the water.

Both of those things, of course, are not actually present in the text. But just after he says these things, he takes these details that he's made up separately from the Bible, and he brings them into a message about Jesus.

Maybe you need to hear this today, Robert says. Maybe you're in Naaman's position, and you need Jesus' help. But here's the issue. The Naaman he's talking about isn't the Naaman of Scripture. It's the Naaman that he made up.

This story that he's talking about isn't the story from Scripture. It's the one he made up. And that's the actual issue at hand. How does one plan on helping people be sanctified through the Word of God, when the things that they preach are not coming from the Word of God?

Does not Jesus say in John 17, 17, sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth? This is the issue. Elevation Church does not preach God's Word. They're preaching made-up Bible stories. But it's only God's Word that is 100 perfect and true and effective.

So when we stray from that standard, all the power of your preaching is lost. This is why Elevation has become a circus for entertainment rather than a church for edification. There's a big difference.

In 2 Timothy 4 -2, Pastor Timothy is told to do this by Paul, quote, preach the Word. You see, the Word is the ultimate standard of truth. The Word can guide us as Christians. The Word can equip us for every good work, as the Bible says.

But what happens when we no longer preach the Word in our churches? Instead, what happens when we preach carefully crafted motivational speeches and stand-up comedy routines like the one you just saw?

Well, you end up with Elevation Church, a place where man is at the center of everything. And God's Word, well, that's just an afterthought. Avoid this church at all costs and tell everyone you know to do the same.

They are filled with man-centered false theology. And please know this, I do not offer any of this correction from a high and mighty position. I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ.

So let's pray for Elevation Church and for Robert Maddow that they would stop this falsehood and by God's grace that they would turn to the truth of God's Word. Thank you so much for watching that video.

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