F4F | Tavner Smith and his Adventures in Missing the Point

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

If you've ever heard of Stephen Furtick or Tavner Smith, you're thinking, who's

Tavner Smith? Yeah, it doesn't matter. We'll talk about him in a minute here. Go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below.

Don't forget to like the video and to ring the bell so you can be notified when we update our channel.

We're going to be heading over to Elevation Church. Elevation Church, Elevation Worship, Stephen Furtick.

You can arguably make the case that there are few that are more popular in American evangelicalism today than Stephen Furtick and Elevation Church, but Stephen Furtick has a mini -me and it's

Tavner Smith of Venue Church. And we've noted over the past few years that Tavner wants to be

Stephen Furtick in the worst way. And I'm wondering if Tavner is paying

Stephen to be one of his coaches. Yeah, Stephen offers his services for a fee to coach up -and -coming vision casting leaders like Tavner Smith, but Tavner Smith is a guy who could not properly exegete his way out of a paper bag if you gave him a commentary, a sermon outline, and kind of explained it all to him, as well as a flashlight.

So yeah, the guy is hapless doctrinally and theologically. In fact, we've noted that he has taught in the past full -on

Mormonism. That's Mormonism, Patrick! And so I find it fascinating that what we're gonna watch here is

Tavner Smith preaching at Elevation Church, but Stephen Furtick is gonna give his 100 % endorsement for the guy, and I just think this is bizarre.

We'll listen to part of the sermon, which is supposed to be on Exodus chapter 14, and let's head over and take a look at the the desktop here.

The name of the message we'll be listening is titled The Tour is for Your Destiny.

The detour is for your destiny. So yeah, I hope you're sitting down.

Let's get to it. Here is Stephen Furtick to introduce Tavner Smith to Elevation Church.

Here, put that one in, the left one. I think this is working.

Hello! Hey, Elevation!

Happy weekend! What's up? This is Pastor Tavner Smith. He's gonna preach the word today.

Tavner looks starstruck. He is one of the most amazing...

I want to say this to you. You are one of the most amazing... And now let's build up Tavner Smith's ego, shall we?

Amazing pastors that God is raising up in the nation today, and this is our first time having him at Elevation.

I really believed in him, but in a minute you'll see that that really doesn't say anything about me, because the fire of God is on this man of God.

He and his wife Danielle pastor Venue Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, soon to be all over the nation and the world.

I hope not. Yeah, and so let me put this in here. Going back in time to March 5th, 2018,

Tavner Smith's sermon titled Dream, Hustle, Win. We will note that Tavner's theology is completely wackerdoodle, to say the least.

Let's listen in. Well, I'll fly away, oh glory. Anybody, I'll fly away.

When I die, hallelujah, bye and bye, I'll fly away.

Bad singer, good songs. Nothing wrong with the music, but it was not the end intended message that God wanted to deliver to the earth.

God's message to the earth was never supposed to be, hurry up and get back to me.

God's message to the earth was... Now note what he just said there, hurry up and get back to me.

He's teaching the Mormon doctrine of pre -existence of humans.

I'm not making that up. We didn't pre -exist, but watch what he does. It's always supposed to be, help me get heaven down there through you.

I have to back that up to hear it in context. So God's intended message was help me get heaven down there to you.

If God wanted to bring heaven to earth, he could. Oh, and by the way, Jesus will be bringing the new

Jerusalem with him on the day that he returns in glory to judge living and the dead, when he makes a new heaven and a new earth.

He's not needing our help to do that, but let me back this up just a smidge.

Hurry up and get back to me. God's message to the earth was always supposed to be, help me get heaven down there through you, right?

The Bible says that before the foundations of the world, he knew us. If he knew us, it means we were with him before we were created.

No, it doesn't mean that. If we were with him before we created, he then saw an answer the earth needed that could only be answered through you, and so he gave you a body to live in to bring the answer to the earth.

Yeah, that's Mormonism. Yeah, right there. That's Mormonism right there. So Tabner Smith is a guy who just doesn't know how to rightly handle a text, and of course

Stephen Furtick, wouldn't you know, is the one endorsing him and unleashing this theological virus, this gangrene on Elevation Church, but in Tabner's case, he may be less dangerous than Stephen Furtick.

I'm just saying. And I believe that God's going to use him in a great way today, so stand up right now at every location, put your hands together, and he's not here.

He's there. Anyway, you get it. Come on, get up on your feet, and let's show honor and love to my friend,

Pastor Tabner Smith. Come on, put your hands together. Let's get ready for the Word.

Love you, man. All right, so Tabner Smith now takes the stage at Elevation. Well, good morning,

Elevation. Now, he's going to go on and do kind of a mandatory thing.

All guest preachers at Elevation Church must assume the sycophant position and engage in activity that sycophants engage in, and so he'll go on for a couple of minutes.

So we'll fast forward to the very last part where he's giving such high praise to Stephen Furtick.

Oh, he's the best thing ever. This is not a large church. This is a move of God.

I'm glad you don't think that Elevation is a church. That's how I'm interpreting it.

And so I just want to take the next 20 seconds. So he said that Elevation Church is not a large church.

It's a movement. Yeah, it's not a church. It's a movement. Works for me. God has done anything in your life through this ministry.

I want you to raise the roof at all our locations and thank God for the gift that he's given us and our pastors,

Pastor Stephen and Holly. Come on, lift your voice in this place. Yeah, God doesn't allow women to be pastors, so Holly isn't that.

So there's his plaintiff, Yop, and, you know, he's thanking

God for Stephen Furtick. Could you imagine what would happen if John MacArthur, for instance, led his congregation in this kind of behavior?

I want to jump right into the word before you sit down. Let me read, but I want to say this before I read the word. I want to tell you this, that God is going to meet you today, not at the level of my preparation.

He's going to meet you at the level of your expectation. Pseudo profound bovine scatology.

What does that even mean? God's going to not meet me at your level of preparation.

Yeah, he has prepared all the way to preparation H level, but God's going to meet us at the level of our expectation.

Where'd you get that, Tavner? I came prepared. I came ready.

I'm going to give you a word today, but how funny I am, how loud I am, how good I am has no bearing on what the word has the ability to do.

Isaiah 55 says the word will perform everything it was intended to perform. Yeah, that's going to require you to rightly handle the word and correctly give a proper sense of what it means, pointing it back to Christ, properly distinguishing between law and gospel, calling sinners to repent and to be forgiven by the shed blood of Christ.

I don't have to perform, and I didn't come to perform. All I came to do is deliver the word. Whether the word's going to change you or not does not have to do with what happens up here.

It has to do with what happens right there in your seat. So I want you right now just to raise your level of expectation.

I want you to stir your... Raise your level of expectations, folks. Get up higher, man.

Get that expectation up there, man. I don't know. Self up a little bit at every location.

I want you to get ready to lean in, not to me, but... Lean in. Okay. Lean into the

Holy Spirit and watch what he's going to do. Yeah, this is a pseudo profound pep talk here.

Because I declare before I preach, you're going to leave a different person. Oh, he declared it. It's got to be true, you know.

So Father, in Jesus' name, change us, shift us. May we leave different.

Shift us. I, you know, apparently we're all in manual transition and God has to take us from second to third or something.

I don't know. In your name, come on, everybody said amen. Amen. Exodus chapter 14 says it this way.

Now, I'm going to note, this is a great text. This is the parting of the

Red Sea. This is a big deal. And one of the major texts of Scripture.

And, whoa, I mean, talk about the biblical typologies that point us to our salvation that we have in Christ.

This text is that. And even the Apostle Paul uses this text as a, well, a picture of our baptisms.

Into Christ. Yeah, I'll talk about that in a minute. But man, I mean, great text. I'm glad you picked

Exodus 14. I hope you preach it in all of its Christ -glorifying glory.

Verse 21, Moses raised his hand over the sea and the Lord opened up a path through. This is not a good sign.

How many of you have read, you know, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings? Or C .S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia?

Or, you know, you've read a really large tome. I don't really pay attention to recent book releases unless it's theological.

And how many of you, you know, in reading these have started, you know, two -thirds of the way through the story?

You know, forget the Fellowship of the Ring. Forget the Two Towers. You're going to go straight to, you know, the last third of the

Return of the King. Yeah, that makes sense as far as storytelling is concerned to me, right?

You jump into, you're not going to know who's what or who's where or where you is and what's going on.

You're going to be lost. So here, Exodus 14, we're jumping into verse 21.

Why? Through the water with a strong east wind. And the wind blew all night and turned in the seabed into dry land.

And so the people of Israel walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground with walls of water on each side.

Let me skip down. I'll skip down to verse 27. Now we're playing hopscotch.

Okay, so we jumped into verse 21. Now we're down to verse 27. Why? I don't know.

After they get across, the sun began to rise and Moses raised his hand over the sea and the water rushed back into its usual place.

And the Egyptians, the ones who were chasing them, trying to kill them, tried to escape, but the Lord swept them into the sea.

Then the waters returned and covered all the chariots and charioteers and the entire army of Pharaoh and of all the

Egyptians who had chased the Israelites into the sea. Not a single one survived.

I want to spend the next few minutes today speaking on this subject. The detour is for your destiny.

What on earth? Huh? The detour.

It's up on the big screen and big words. The detour is for your destiny. Yeah, I know.

I have no idea what this is. It's for your destiny. If you're ready, high five your neighbors. You sit down and tell them, get ready.

Here comes the detour. Here comes the detour.

I don't usually consider those to be good things. You know, my wife and I just got the opportunity to get a brand new house and we've been moving in the past few months and we kind of ran up on a dilemma and we were getting on each other's nerves a little bit because we weren't prepared for what was coming.

There was just a lot more than we thought with the packing, the unpacking, the getting ready, the new drive, the getting used to it.

Does this have anything to do with Exodus 14? All right, we're going to pause

Tavner there for a minute. This is such an amazing text. How can he not see what this is about?

All right, we're going to head over in our Hebrew Bible. You know, Hebrew and English.

Get the Hebrew a little bit bigger. Oh no, I made it smaller. There we go. Just in case I need to reference it.

Older eyes, I have to be able to see it. If it's small, we'll forget it. It's not going to happen. All right, so people of Israel.

Let's kind of jump, give a little bit of the context. The context is that the people of Israel, after the death of Joseph several generations later, the pharaoh of Egypt did not know who

Joseph was, didn't really care and decided he was going to oppress the people of Israel, enslaved them and then, you know, you remember he required that the male boys, the young infant male boys be put to death because he feared the power of the

Jews in his midst. And so this is how Moses came about.

Moses was supposed to be put to death. His mother put him in a basket, floated him down the Nile and Pharaoh's daughter of all people, you know, found him, brought him in and raised him.

Raised him in the palace there and called his name Moshe, which, you know, means he drew or drew out of the water.

So great, I mean, great story so far. Moses, after he grows up, he knows that he's a

Hebrew, decides that he's going to start to work to free his own people or stand up for him. Ends up murdering an

Egyptian. Pharaoh finds out about it. Moses ends up skedaddling out of Egypt, spends 40 years as a shepherd in Midian, you know, which is on the other side of the

Gulf of Aqaba. In Saudi Arabia. And then at Mount Sinai, God causes, you know,

God shows up in the form of a burning bush. Moses goes to see why the bush is burning but not consumed.

And then God commissions him, says, you know, I remember my covenant to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I've heard the groanings of my people, and so I'm going to send you to set my people free from slavery under Pharaoh.

Moses says, send somebody else. God says, no, I'm sending you. And so from there,

God sends Moses, and you know about the 10 plagues. The 10 plagues with the, you know, turning of the

Nile into blood. You got the plague of the frogs, the plague of the gnats, the plague of the hail, the plague of the darkness, you know, and then you got the locusts, and all of these plagues, you know, what's happening is that Moses is telling

Pharaoh, God says, let my people go, and Pharaoh says, no, I will not.

And finally, finally, with the 10th plague, the plague of the Passover, the killing of the firstborn, you know, every family in Egypt that didn't have the blood of a lamb over their doorposts, in their house, over their lentils, the firstborn inside that house died.

That's exactly what happened. And so we have this amazing story of God setting the people of Israel free from slavery by a mighty hand, by judging

Pharaoh and judging the gods of Egypt. And so the people of Israel now, they, you know, they march out of Egypt, and they're heading towards Mount Sinai, and they come up against the

Gulf of Aqaba, which is part of the Red Sea. And it looks like it's lights out for them, because the army of Pharaoh is behind them, because Pharaoh has changed his mind.

And so we get to Exodus 14. We'll start at verse 1, and we'll just kind of work this out.

So Yahweh said to Moses, tell the people of Israel, turn back and encamp in front of Pi -Hahiroth, between Migdal and the sea, in front of Baal -Zaphon.

You shall encamp facing it by the sea, for Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, they are wandering in the land, the wilderness has shut them in.

And then I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all of his hosts, and the

Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh. And so they did so. And when the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people.

And they said, what is this that we've done? We have let Israel go from serving us. So he made ready his chariots, took his army with him, and took 600 chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.

And Yahweh hardened the heart of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel, while the people of Israel were going out defiantly.

The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, and his horsemen and his army overtook them and encamped at the sea by Pi -Hahiroth in front of Baal -Zaphon.

When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly.

And the people of Israel cried out to Yahweh, and they said to Moses, is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?

What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt, leave us alone so that we may serve the

Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. And Moses said to the people, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of Yahweh, which he will work for you today.

For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again, and Yahweh will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.

And so you'll know, this is a wonderful picture then. This is a salvific picture. The Lord is the one who fights for us.

And the question then, of course, a good one comes up, is, you know, against whom does the

Lord fight? Answer, the Lord fights against our real enemy, our enslaver,

Satan himself. He is the king, if you would, of the dominion of darkness, the tyrant of the dominion of darkness.

And God is the one who sets us free from slavery, to sin, death, the devil. And he fights against our enemies for us, and he does this by dying on the cross.

But here we have this picture, and you'll note the text itself mentions salvation. And it says, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation.

Yeshua, of Yahweh, which he will work for you today, for the

Egyptians whom you see today, you'll never see them again. So Yahweh said to Moses, why do you cry to me, tell the people of Israel to go forward, lift up your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea, divide it that the people of Israel may go around, go through the sea on dry ground.

And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them. And I will get glory over Pharaoh and over all of his host, his chariots and his horsemen.

And the Egyptians shall know that I am Yahweh when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh and his chariots and his horsemen.

So then the angel of God, who was going before the host of Israel, moved and went behind them.

And the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel.

And there was the cloud in the darkness, and it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

And then Moses stretched out his hand. And I think a good way to think about this is he's stretching out his arms like this.

He's stretching out his hands, physically making a sign that looks a lot like the cross with his body.

That's kind of the point here. So the people of Israel went in. Okay, so he stretched out his hand.

And Yahweh drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.

And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

The Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea. All Pharaoh's horses, his chariots and his horsemen, and in the morning watched the

Lord Yahweh in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces, threw the

Egyptian forces into a panic, clogging the chariot wheels so that they drove heavily.

And the Egyptians said, let us flee from before Israel for Yahweh fights for them against the

Egyptians. Then Yahweh said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the

Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen. So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned to its normal course when morning appeared.

And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord Yahweh threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea and the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea.

Not one of them remained, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

Thus Yahweh, and here it is, saved, Yasha, Yahweh saved

Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians. And Israel saw the

Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that Yahweh used against the

Egyptians. So the people feared Yahweh, and they believed in Yahweh and in his servant,

Moses. Now, we're not going to end here. We're going to go a little bit into Exodus 15, but I want to show you how this is then used, and we'll take a look at two passages in the

New Testament. 1 Corinthians 10, watch what Paul does with this account of the crossing of the

Red Sea. Paul says, I don't want you, this is 1 Corinthians 10. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed to the sea and all were, and here's your word, baptized.

Yeah, baptized. They were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food, all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was

Christ. So you'll note here, 1 Corinthians 10, it makes it explicitly clear that in looking at the account of the

Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea, and even of the eating of the manna and of the drinking of the water, that this is all pointing to Christ, and the rock that followed them was

Christ. This is what is being said here. This is amazing stuff when you consider the implications of it.

All of that being said, one more text then that kind of bears this out. So Paul is using the account of the

Red Sea, saying it's type and shadow, pointing us to the reality that we have in Christ now, and now we come to the major salvific theme of Scripture, and this is one of the major ways our salvation is pictured, and it is salvation from slavery.

This would be redemption, being set free from slavery. And watch how the Apostle Paul in Romans 6 then uses slavery language, and how in our baptisms, we're set free from our slavery to sin and the devil and things like this, and watch what he does.

So what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound?

Which is a slanderous statement being made by Paul's detractors. They're saying, oh, this is what

Paul teaches. We should sin so that grace may abound. He's saying we're saved by grace through faith alone and not by our works.

Right, well, that's what he says. So they slanderously accuse him of saying that we are to continue in sin so that grace may abound.

But Paul answers the question. He says, by no means. And watch what he says. How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ, we were baptized into his death?

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk in newness of life. So you'll note here, it says, that in our baptisms, we were buried with Christ.

We were raised with Christ so that we might walk in newness of life.

So it goes on. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be, and here's the major theme, enslaved to sin.

So you'll note in the New Testament, the reality is revealed that slavery of the

Old Testament that the Israelites lived through, this is a picture of our enslavement to sin itself and each and every one of us born enslaved to the sin, death, and the devil.

So that the idea here is that Paul's saying that we've been united with Christ. Our old self was crucified with Christ.

And in our baptisms, we were united with Christ in his death and resurrection for what purpose? So that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we will believe that we will also live with him.

We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you must consider yourselves dead to sin because you are.

If you are a baptized believer in Jesus Christ, you are dead to sin. You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God.

So let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness. Instead, present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law, but you are under grace.

And then he continues with the slave theme. So what then? Are we to sin because we're not under the law, but under grace?

No, by no means. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

And having been set free, have become slaves of righteousness. All right?

So you can see what's going on here. So one of the things I like to teach the younger members of the congregations that I serve is that a good way to think of your baptism is it's just like the crossing of the

Red Sea. And now that you've been baptized into Christ, you look around the rim of the baptismal font, and there lie the dead corpses of the demons.

That's a good way to look at it. So here we've got this picture of salvation through water.

Yes, I know. Salvation through water. And because of this ultimately being set free from slavery to Pharaoh.

Now I want you to then hear how then this results in praise and worship of God.

And this is a type and shadow picture of what Christ has done for us. So Moses and the people of Israel, they sang the song after they got to the other side.

They're now on the Saudi Arabian shore of the Gulf of Aqaba. So then Moses and the people of Israel sang the song to Yahweh saying,

I will sing to Yahweh for he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and the rider he has thrown into the sea.

The Lord Yahweh is my strength and my song. He has become my salvation.

This is my God and I will praise him. My father's God and I will exalt him.

Yahweh is a man of war. Yahweh is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host, he is cast into the sea.

His chosen officers were sunk in the Red Sea. The floods covered them.

They went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, oh Yahweh, glorious in power.

Your right hand, oh Yahweh, shatters the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty, you overthrow your adversaries and you send out your fury.

It consumes them like stubble. The blast of your nostrils, the waters piled up.

The floods stood up in a heap. The deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said,

I will pursue. I will overtake. I will divide and spoil. But my desire shall have its fill of them and I will draw my sword.

My hand shall destroy them. But you blew with your wind. The sea covered them.

They sank like lead in the mighty waters. Who is like you, oh Yahweh, among the gods?

Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? You stretched out your hand.

The earth swallowed them. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed and you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

And here you can see this. You're sitting there going, wait, that sounds like salvation.

Because it is. This whole story is a picture of our salvation. This is what's going, this is the mighty hand of the

Lord saving us. And there in Exodus 15, 13, you have led in your steadfast love people whom you have redeemed.

Redeemed is to be set free from slavery, to be bought out of slavery and then made free.

You've guided them by your strength to your holy abode. And see, this is us. We've been set free from the dominion of darkness.

Christ has mightily conquered. The devil crushed his head through the cross. And he is now guiding us to his holy abode in the new earth.

The peoples have heard. They tremble. Pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed.

Trembling seizes the leaders of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan have melted. Terror and dread fall upon them because of the greatness of your arm.

They are still as a stone till your people, O Lord, pass by. Till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

You will bring them in and plant them in your own mountain and the place, O Lord, which you have made for your abode.

The sanctuary, O Lord, which your hands have established. Yahweh will reign forever and ever.

Hmm. Yeah, there's a lot more to this, but you get the idea.

This is a text that is a picture of our salvation. And Tavner what? He read

Exodus 14, 21, 22, and 27. And said that the detour is for you, destiny.

Let's go back to Tavner as he's now going to wow the crowd with his great vision casting leader chops that he learned from Stephen Furtick.

With all of that came an added stress that we never anticipated that created a little conflict in our life.

And it's not, doesn't sound like that big of a deal to you, but we. So he's regaling them with a story about his personal life.

Yeah. Really let it get in the middle of us. I don't know if you've ever dealt with this, but do you know what happened? We found out that we had two cars, a two car garage, but the house only came with one garage door opener.

Come on somebody. I think that's a first world problem right there. And so we, we'd let this get to us.

And, you know, being the amazing, you know, God led husband that I am. I just said to my wife,

I'll sacrifice. You can have the garage door opener. And I gave it to her. And I spent the next four months.

I don't know. This may tell you how dumb I am, but I spent the next four months getting to the garage door.

Getting frustrated, putting it in park, jumping out, walking up, poking the code into the little thing, slamming the thing down, mad, getting in my car, thinking every time this is ridiculous.

What does this have to do with Exodus 14? Got me frustrated. I would be angry when

I went in the house cause I had to get out of the car and open the garage door. And one day it just all boiled over and I got out and I typed in the code and it had this little lid on it.

And I literally slapped it as hard as I could. And I walked away and I was walking back to my car like this and I said to myself,

I am tired of this. And this little voice came and spoke. I'm not even saying it was the

Lord. It was probably just common sense. This little voice came to me and said, you must not be that tired of it or you would do something about it to change it.

And it was followed up by this next voice who I think might've been the Lord. That said this,

Tabner, if you want something different, why don't you do something different? And that's what

I came to challenge us today. If we want something different, how about we make the agreement today that we're gonna walk out of here and in our mind with what's going on in our life.

What if we do something different? Yeah, maybe you should do something different. Like, you know, maybe finish seminary, um, apply yourself to sound biblical exegesis cause none of this has anything to do with what's revealed for us, for our comfort in Exodus 14.

You know, because I've, I've been dealing with this personally in my own life, struggling with this like battle emotionally with social media.

You know, I wanna be more spiritual than I am and I wanna be as spiritual as you.

And I'm glad that you're applying your spirituality to social media. I'm trying my best, but sometimes y 'all,

I just mess up. I wanna wake up. That's called sin. Up and declare who

I am in the Lord and believe who I am in the Lord. And sometimes I do that. I got, I am the best husband.

I am the best father. I do. I'm good enough and I'm smart enough. And gosh darn it, people like me.

I'm anointed. I'm appointed. I'm set apart. I declare it all. And then

I turn my Instagram on and I don't feel very anointed or appointed anymore because I see everybody else who's a good husband and who's a good daddy and who, while I'm yelling at my kids on the way to school, they're at Chick -fil -A on the way to school with a big smile on their face.

And while me and my wife just had fight night, they were out on date night and now it's all over the internet.

And it just makes me mad and down and unspiritual.

And what does this have to do with Exodus 14? And I'm just going to be honest with you, like I've struggled with it.

And I've just decided recently that if I want to see something different,

I've just got to choose to see something different. Well, they do say that, you know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

So you're clearly preaching against insanity. Very good, very good.

You should. But this has nothing to do with Exodus 14. And it made me think about that as I was going to preach to you today because do you know what

I just did to you? I literally just read to you the Instagram version of this story.

Oh, he's Twicky. Oh, that wascally Tavness Smith. He tweaked us there.

Like I read to you the good part. I read to you that the part where like where I come from, where I grew up in, the organ would start playing at that part and we'd start stomping a little bit.

Some people would toss some babies and throw some wigs. Maybe somebody did a lap. You know what I'm talking about?

That was the good part. That was the Instagram part. Like, and that's the part that I want to preach to you.

That's the part that I wanted to come in elevation and I just wanted to tear the place up.

And whether you've run a lap before, you're all running around every campus that you're at. But I can't preach to you the

Instagram version and not tell you the whole story. Because what those... Notice here, by telling you the whole story, he's not interested in telling you the whole story of what's really going on in Exodus 14.

The whole story about what's really going on in his life. Okay. The kind of messages do is they make us leave and we want to believe

God, but we have trouble believing God because what we're living in doesn't match what we just heard. And I'm tired of me preaching

Instagram messages that don't change lives. Because the way we preach this, it's like, if it was today, you know,

Moses would have been at the Red Sea with all his people and he would have pulled the iPhone out, you know, got his selfie stick out and he would have been like, all right, y 'all look happy.

Wow. We're learning a lot about Tabner Smith. Nothing about Moses. Yeah, Moses's staff wasn't a selfie stick.

This is just... This is adventures in missing the point.

I mean, what on earth here? You know, I feel like we need to do some kind of like special type of like, you know, thing that we steer into.

Y 'all remember the Muppet Show and pigs in space.

You know, I think I need to talk to my editor about working some things out here so that when we come up with something like this, it would be...

That's what this is. And we would have looked at the picture and thought,

I've been to the Red Sea before. It never parted. Yeah, this is

Narcissus, but we've noted that there's a new version of Narcissus and there's like absurd

Narcissus. There's now new levels that this is just clueless

Narcissus. What on earth? But that's just the end.

That's... Listen to me, don't miss this. That's the culmination. It's the grand finale of a lifetime of what

God has been doing. And what Moses has got 40 years in the wilderness ahead of him.

What are you talking about? In the life of Moses and the Israelites. And what

I want to do, I want to take you a little bit deeper in the story today. You wouldn't know the direction of deeper if I made a sign for you and showed you which direction that is.

And I want to give you just a couple of principles that I think if you can really take these, not the head, but the heart and walk out of here,

I believe your head can be high. You can walk in confidence and you can know instead of being frustrated, slapping the garage keyboard of your life.

I believe God's going to give you the ability to know how to do something different, to reprogram something to where everything changes when you walk out of here.

And so I just, I'm going to preach it simple. He's going to preach it simple. I'm just a simple guy, y 'all.

I'm going to put handles on it. I'm going to give you three points. And I believe you can walk out of these and out of here and apply these to your life.

So I want to give you point number one as we look at this life of Moses and we learned that the detour is for our destiny.

I want you, first of all, to realize this, that your position is on purpose.

The entire room there is full of narcissists. The position is for your purpose.

What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with Exodus 14.

Somebody just said, it's good. That's hard to swallow, y 'all. Now I know you got your

Sunday clothes. Hard to swallow. It doesn't make any sense. It has nothing to do with Exodus 14.

And you smile on and your neighbor don't know your position right now. And so you're acting like, oh, that's a good word pastor.

But in your mind, you're thinking that guy's crazy. You don't know what he's talking about. I agree. You do not know what you're talking about at all.

Exodus 14 is a picture of our salvation. You don't know my life. But your position is on purpose.

I want to show you something in Exodus chapter 13. Let me go back a chapter and read you two quick verses.

We're going to grab two verses from Exodus 13. Well, this will prove that the way he's handling 14 is correct, right?

That when Moses was getting the people out, he's been bartering for him. He's been going to Pharaoh. He's been like, let them go.

Finally, he does. And he's getting ready. Like, let's get out of here. Let's get away as fast as we can. And when he gets to that point, here's what happens.

Look at Exodus 13, it says this in verse 17. When Pharaoh finally let the people go,

God did not lead them along the main road that runs through Philistine territory. Listen, even though that was the shortest route to the promised land.

God said, if the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.

So God led them, listen to this, in a roundabout way through the wilderness toward the

Red Sea. Thus, the Israelites left Egypt like an army ready for battle.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine being Moses? Like, Moses doesn't have the end of the story.

Moses doesn't have the Bible. And he's like, let me get ahead a couple chapters. Yeah, we're good here. Like, we're okay, follow me.

He's living this out day by day. So you'll note the fundamental assumption here is that you're

Moses. And, you know, God is positioning you for greatness like Moses.

And what Moses experienced here is a pattern that you should expect to have happen in your life too.

As you are in pursuit of your purpose and, you know, your dream density thingy.

He's already struggled with them trusting him because he's like, yeah, Pharaoh said we'd let you go. And then Pharaoh changes his mind.

Like, I'm not letting them go. And like 10 times this has happened and they've had to overcome these trust issues.

And finally, they had to overcome trust issues.

What text are you reading from again? They get to the point where now they've packed up all their stuff and they're marching out.

And they're like, we're going, we're out of here. And they're like, where are we going, Moses? Let's go left. I know that's the quickest way.

And Moses is like, no, trust me, we can't go that way. Even on shortest, we can't go left.

Even though it will be less obstacles, we can't go straight. And I know the Red Sea's over here, but just trust me, we're supposed to go right.

God said go right. I think that's where we struggle the most.

We do? I wasn't there. Is when God says something that our minds can't make sense of.

Can you give me an example of what you're talking about here? Because here's the thing about our minds. Our minds have to make sense.

They have to take whatever's happening and make sense of the situation. And so without any information, they will go and create a story of their own to make sense of the information that is going on around you in your mind.

Well, you've created an entire story about Exodus 13 and 14 in your mind that has nothing to do with what

Exodus 13 and 14 is about. Now, thankfully, the folks over there at Elevation have given us the three points of Taberner's sermon.

Your position is on purpose. Your position is part of the process and your position is not permanent.

Which none of these points have anything to do with the text, with the verses that he ripped out of context.

Let's fast forward and sample, shall we, point number two, see where he's going to go with that.

Your position is a part of the process. Your position is a part of the process.

If I took you to Exodus 14, 1 through 4, I'm not going to read it. Go read it for yourself.

I already read it for him. Yeah, it has nothing to do with what you're talking about. It says this, that God, it says these words, planted them at the shore of the

Red Sea. It says this, it says in the last verse that after this, the

Egyptians will know that I am the Lord. So the Israelites camped there, listen to this, as they were told.

I just want you to stay here for a little while. Don't just put your sleeping bag out.

I need you to camp here. Don't stay packed up and ready.

Don't stay in go mode. You're going to be here a little bit. Isn't that what's frustrating about the process?

What? So you think this is a pattern, a principle of process that God's doing in our lives?

You've lost your mind, Tabner. This is a picture of our salvation. Scripture is quite clear on this in the

New Testament. Don't we hate the process? Maybe you're more spiritual than me, but can

I just, listen to me. I hate the process. I don't like the process.

It's how I'm wired. Okay. Where in scripture does it say that we're supposed to have a process as we head towards our density?

I mean, destiny. Like I stand in front of the microwave, watching my hot pocket get heated for 60 seconds, thinking, why don't you hurry up?

I'm the guy that goes into Best Buy, my TV went out and I want a 75 inch and I go into Best Buy and they only have a 65 and I can order a 75, but it's going to take two weeks and I'm like, give me the 65.

I'll sacrifice the 10 inches of the screen because more than what I want 75, I just want it now because there's a game coming on and I want to see it now.

And this has nothing to do with Exodus 14 either. Like I'm the guy that's in Chick -fil -A and I got my kids and I got their friends and I got eight people in the car and it takes them more than two and a half minutes to get my order for eight, right?

And to get it in my car, even though I wanted no pickle, extra pickle, no this, no that, fries well done. We're learning a lot about Tabner, like nothing about Christ, nothing really about Moses accurately either.

And all of that kind of stuff and they get it to me in five minutes, not three minutes and I walk driveway going, that was ridiculous, they took forever.

Let me talk to a manager. Aren't we like that?

Do you know why? It's not because we're bad people, it's because we hate. Actually, you're describing behavior that scripture describes as sin, as part of our sinful nature.

Yeah, that's what you're doing there and you just said it's not because we're bad people. Well, actually, that's the reason why we needed

Christ to die for us because we're all bad people, every one of us, me included. So yeah, we got some bad theology going on here too.

Hate the process because we want things to happen immediately but guess what?

When the Israelites got to the ocean, it didn't part immediately. There was a process happening.

This is the process of preaching torture. Torturing me, Tabner. And I got to thinking about it because in Genesis, the

Bible says this, it says that as long as the earth remains, this is how the earth works, seed, time, and harvest.

But because we're processed people, we leave one of those out and we quote the verse like this, as long as the earth remains, there'll be seed and harvest.

We don't like the time. So then we quote other scriptures like Galatians 6, 9 that says this, let's not get tired of doing what's good because at the right time, we'll reap a harvest of blessing.

And so do you know what we do? We quote that in time and we walk around our house. We're like, we're gonna reap a harvest of blessing. We end up quoting the

Instagram version of the verse. When the real version of the verse is not about the harvest we receive, it's the other phrase that says this at the right time.

This is mind numbingly bad. Okay, that was point two. Point three, your position is not permanent.

Let's sample from that, shall we? Your position's not permanent. Okay, cue sappy music.

Yeah, they're starting that up. This is an emotional manipulation technique designed to create the false impression that God the

Holy Spirit is now descending on the audience to get them to make a decision of some kind or another.

Not sure what the decision they're gonna be making is. The detour is where your destiny. So apparently you need to embrace the fact that your position is on purpose, that the position is part of the process, but your position is not permanent.

None of these things have anything to do with Exodus 14, which is a mighty pillar of scripture, a picture of our salvation.

But Tavner seems to be completely oblivious to that fact. Can I share a verse with you? Sure, go ahead.

John 8, 44. John 8, 44. I wanna read this to you. John 8 is like another major chapter within scriptures.

Oh man, a long running battle between Jesus and unbelieving Jews. And Jesus saying, if you will abide in my word, you will never die.

And they say, who do you think you are? Jesus of Moses died, the prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be, right?

It's a great text. And then you get to John 8, 58. And the big kicker is

Jesus in that text talks about Abraham as if he knows him personally.

And the Jews pick up on this and they go, you're not yet 50 years old and yet you've seen Abraham. And then

Jesus uses the divine name for himself from Exodus chapter three. And he says, amen, amen.

Before Abraham was born, I am ego in me.

And they pick up stones to rock Jesus to kill him for blasphemy. I mean, it's a great text. What are you gonna do with this?

Your position is not permanent. Oh, I'm frightened here. This is actually the beginning is

Jesus talking to the Pharisees. He says, for you're children of your father, the devil.

And you love to do the evil things he does. And then he starts talking about the devil. For he was a murderer from the beginning.

He, the devil has always hated the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, listen to this.

It is consistent with his character for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Indeed. Do you know how to know if the devil's lying to you?

If he's talking to you. That's such an important verse because it does not just describe the enemy as a liar.

It describes him as the father of all lies. Just like it doesn't describe

God as he loves you. It says that God is love. That's bigger. Because if God is love, then he can't do anything other than what he is.

So everything he does will filter through who he is. So everything he does has to be filtered through love.

Well, the enemy is the same way. He is not just a liar. He is the father of lies. That is who he is.

So everything he says and does has to filter through who he is. I wanted to tell you that because of this.

The little things he keeps whispering in your ear during this process, during this position.

I just wanted to tell you it. The devil's gonna be whispering in my ear during this process.

Regarding the position I'm in. Yeah, well, the devil's the father of lies.

And he is. Murder from the beginning. You'll note that this sermon from beginning to end is a complete lie.

None of the things he's saying have anything to do with the actual biblical text that he cites out of context.

And he's filling your heads with basic, this narcissistic idea that, oh, you're great and you're gonna have a destiny and you're on your way to it.

And that the position that you're in at the moment is on purpose, but don't worry because your position is part of this process.

But your position currently is not permanent. You're gonna rise to greatness. This is doctrines of demons right here.

It isn't the truth. Those things that he told you are not the truth. Matter of fact, last night,

I preached this and then I didn't live it out. Because I preached my guts out last night and then

I walked off the stage and I went home to the hotel room and I pouted. Because I thought that was awful.

I blew it. I didn't make God proud. I didn't do the right thing. I missed this point. I didn't say this.

I had this in my notes and I... Did you notice that you missed the whole point of the text of Exodus 14? Didn't do it.

They deserved better for me. Pastor Stephen deserved for me to do a better job being in there in his pulpit, carrying it for the greatest communicator in the world.

I should have done better. You should have done better. And I was all down. And my wife just encouraged me and she says, why don't you believe what you preach?

That if the enemy is talking, he has to be lying. So I just came to tell you real quick, if the

Holy Spirit didn't tell it to you and if the word of God doesn't say it, just eliminate it and say, get behind me, devil, because I'm only going to believe what

God says about me. Yeah, that's pretty much narcissism there.

I think you get the point. So you'll note that given a text that is a monumental text in scripture, a picture of our own salvation, referenced by the apostle

Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, and then built, you know, the themes built from this concept of being set free from slavery through a water salvation, then played out in explicit detail in Romans chapter six,

Tavner Smith thinks that what's going on in Exodus 14 is some kind of principle pattern that you should expect in your life as you are heading towards greatness and your destiny.

That's not what this text is about at all. It's about our mighty God who saves us and deliver us, who are unable to save and deliver ourselves from slavery to sin, death, and the devil.

Exodus 14 is a picture of our salvation and the praise of our mighty

God in Exodus 15. It's all about the salvation that he won, and you can see then how the themes play out in our salvation won for us by Christ on the cross.

But all of this is completely over the head of Tavner Smith because he thinks the

Bible's about him, and he is a student of Stephen Furtick, one of the greatest narcissists on the planet, if you would.

And so he's utterly clueless as to who the biblical texts are about, and he's not capable of rightly handling them, and as a result of that, he's not only deceiving himself, he is deceiving so many others, and now he's been injected into one of the most popular evangelical churches on the planet and is infecting them with this false view of Scripture as well and his inability to rightly handle a biblical text.

Yeah, this is the woeful state of Christianity today, one that we should lament and we should pray that the

Lord would open our eyes from it, but also that he would send us teachers who would rightly handle

God's word and not engage in this kind of nonsense and chicanery. Now, if you found this helpful, all the information is down below on how you can share the video, send this to other people, and of course,

I need to remind you that fighting for the faith, we are supported by those whom we serve online in our different audiences, video audience as well as podcast audience, and all the information on how you can support us financially is also down below.

You can join our crew, become a patron on Patreon, send a one -time contribution, all of that information is down below in the description, and so until next time, may

God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.