F4F | Brian Houston Paupers to Princes

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith here on YouTube. If you think Brian Huston's a solid

Bible teacher, he's not. I hate to break it to you, he's really far from that.

Go ahead and hit the subscribe button and ring the bell. We're going to have to do some work with you.

We'll start with something today that's, well, a little more subtle, but he's a very, very slick twister of God's Word, and I mean that.

What we're going to note in this message we'll be listening to, we're going to be listening to the opening portion of a sermon titled,

Kings and Queens, Paupers to Princes, and watch what Brian Huston does with the account of Jesus saying, tear down this temple and in three days

I will raise it up again. Huston will no sooner correctly identify that the temple that Jesus was talking about was the temple of his body, that he takes that passage and just stretches it super thin and applies it to all kinds of interesting things that it doesn't apply to at all, which is one of the ways that Brian Huston normally operates.

I have rarely ever seen him rightly handle a biblical text at all. In fact, he's an expert at scratching itching ears and telling people what they want to hear rather than telling them the truth of what scripture really does say.

Let's head over to Hillsong. Let me whirl this up and we will get started.

Here is Brian Huston in Kings and Queens, Paupers to Princes. Apparently, we're all royalty, who knew?

But here we go. Say amen across the church. You guys can be seated.

From Paupers to Princes, I want to start by talking about Israel and specifically

Jerusalem and specifically the Dome on the Rock and the Temple Mount, because as Christians, you go to Israel and it's awesome and you go to Jerusalem and it's so significant and where Jesus walked and talked and his disciples and so much

Bible history throughout the entire scriptures. But there's something that's vexing.

Well, actually, all the history in the Bible is

Bible history. Yeah, that's how that works for Christians.

And that is now let me back this up, OK, because apparently there's a quandary.

If you've been to the Holy Land and I haven't, I travel there using other people's vacation photos.

But he's going to point to a particular feature of the

Temple Mount area complex in Jerusalem that he says is a little bit puzzling for Christians.

But let me back it up 10 seconds so we can hear it in context. His disciples and so much

Bible history throughout the entire scriptures. But there's something that's vexing for Christians.

And that is on the temple ruins right on the southern steps where Jesus and all of his contemporaries would have walked into worship in the temple.

OK, so he's referencing the fact that south end of the temple complex that what was the temple lies in a huge heap of rubble off to the side of the temple.

The Romans literally they like took the temple and scraped it off the

Temple Mount. That's exactly what they did in 70 A .D. And so what was the temple in Jesus's time?

Yeah, it just boulders and rocks and stones and it's a heap of of ruins.

That's all it's there. Right. Apparently this is vexing for Christians. It's never vexed me and I've known about the existence of that for a long time, but OK.

It's a shrine, the dome on the rock and on the Temple Mount, also significant for Christians, sits a mosque.

I don't know about you, but you kind of look at that and I look at all the promise of the scripture and there's a whole lot of theology about that side and about Jesus' second coming.

But I don't even want to talk about that. But I do want to talk about what Jesus said about a temple that is torn down.

And it's in John chapter two, verse 19 and 21. It says Jesus said to 19.

OK, let's take a look at it real quick before he gets to it and make sure we have a proper understanding of what's going on there.

So John chapter two and he's starting at verse 19.

And let's let's just add a little bit of context. So three rules for sound biblical exegesis are context, context, context.

This is a great story, by the way. And so this will help us understand the timing. Here's what it says.

John 2, 13, the Passover of the Jews was at hand. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now, he would have been required to do so, by the way.

God's the Torah, the Mosaic Covenant requires the men of Israel to appear before God three times a year.

Yeah. And Passover is one of them. So he has to go to Jerusalem. So in the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there and making a whip of cords.

He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers, overturned their tables and told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away.

Do not make my father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written zeal for your house will consume me.

Now, a little bit of a note here. Jesus is acting like he owns the place. And when it comes to the temple of God, yeah, you better have you better be

God himself in order to pull this off. So immediately the Jews are zooming in on this because their money is being, you know, their bottom line is being impacted here because they had set up this, you know, getting into the temple complex.

You couldn't use Roman money to, you know, to make offerings and things like so.

You had to change your money into shekels. You know, if you had denarii, they had to be turned into shekels.

And of course, they were always happy to sell you, you know, spotless lambs and things like that for sacrifices and stuff, you know, at a at a premium, of course.

But so, you know, so their bottom line is now being impacted by what Jesus did. So John 2, 18, so the

Jews said to Jesus, what sign do you show us for doing these things, which, by the way, is not necessarily a bad question, because when

God sent Moses to the people of Israel, you know, Moses literally said, what if they don't believe that you sent me?

What do I do? And so God gave him his staff and gave him some miracles to perform some signs to prove that God himself had sent him.

So they're going to demand a sign here. You're acting like you own the place. This is the temple. This is the house of God.

You better show us some signs here to prove that you are that you have the authority to do this stuff.

So Jesus answered them, destroy this temple. And in three days, I will raise it up.

The Jews said, it's taken 46 years to build this temple. And will you raise it up in three days?

And by the way, Jesus, that's the exact sign that he gave. He actually gave them the sign.

And so, but it says, but he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

So Jesus did give them a sign that he had the authority to cast out these money changers. And that sign was his resurrection from the grave on the third day after he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

So keep that in mind. We've now, we now know what's going on in this text. Let's see what Brian Houston's going to do with it.

Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up. That was his promise.

That was declaration. You pull the temple down. I'll rebuild it in three days.

Then the Jews said it has taken 46 years to build this temple and you say you're going to raise it up in three days.

I do find it interesting that Brian Houston didn't read the first part of that about casting out the money changers and stuff.

I wonder if that was on purpose. Anyway. And this is where it changes.

He was speaking of the temple of his own body. Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them and they believed the scripture and the word which

Jesus had said. I wonder if sometimes we have our eyes on the wrong temple.

Okay. Okay. Now he's going to correctly identify that Jesus was talking about his physical body, but then no sooner is he going to get that out, then he's going to take this temple metaphor and stretch it to include things that it don't include.

Watch what he does here. Said I can. You pull the temple down. You destroy the temple.

I'll rebuild it in three days. Of course, in the death of Jesus, that's exactly what happened.

They destroyed, crucified the temple. But three days later, he rose again.

Indeed. Indeed. Yep. See, he got that part right. Everything about the gospel message is about raising and lifting and resurrecting and building.

He takes. You see that there there's where there's where is, is like the heresy to step, right?

He, he threw down the right text, rightly identified. It was about Jesus. But then, you know, he just sashayed over to the right and then sashayed over to, yeah, he's, he's doing some sashay in here.

And how is he doing it? Cause now what he's done is he's taken Jesus's physical resurrection and made it into something abstract and made an assertion.

Well, the kingdom is all about raising dead things and stuff. Listen to what he's saying here.

And again, this is the heresy to step that we see going on here. This is closely related to, by the way, the

Macarena, but listen again. They destroyed, crucified the temple, but three days later he rose again.

Do you know everything about the gospel message is about raising and lifting and resurrecting and building about raising and lifting and resurrecting and what, what takes poppers and he makes them princes.

He said, I'm the resurrection and the life. We're told the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in us the same.

Well, yeah, that's true. The rose Jesus from the dead dwells in us.

We are resurrection people. We are life giving people. We are. What do you mean?

We're life giving people. What am I supposed to be resurrecting here?

Bold in the building of other people. Now listen, God, bold in the building of other people, huh?

Always lifts the lives of people. And I believe that God lifts the lives of those who lift the lives of others.

So, so God lifts the lives of those who lives the lives of others, you know, because Jesus said, tear down this, tear down this temple.

I'll build it again in three days. How do you figure? So now, now all of a sudden we're not talking about Jesus no more.

I think we're talking about us and we're talking about us in a weird kind of narcissistic way.

Oh, but it gets better. God always lifts the lives of those who are beat up or are broken down.

He lifts the plight of the poor. And you know, the Bible says that many, many, many times over.

Let me share just a few of them with you as we get started. In Psalm 107 verse 41, this is what the

Word of God says there. He, yet he sets the poor on high. What does he squash them down?

Does he crush them? Does he keep them depressed? Does he keep them impoverished? He's so you'll note, apparently because Jesus rose from the grave,

Christians don't experience poverty, say that to the millions of believers who live in third world countries.

Wow. I mean, because Psalm 107 41 is not a promise that God's going to make you wealthy.

It's the poor on high. I love this line far from affliction. He removes them far from their afflictors and from their affliction, from their trouble and from their challenge and makes their families like a flocks.

I'm 113. It's a promise to the poor and about becoming princes versus seven and verse eight.

I love these verses. He raises, what does he do? He, he raises the poor out of the dust and lifts.

So he's a prosperity preacher here. You know why you get to be rich and not poor?

Cause Jesus rose from the grave. So there, Oh, apparently that's in the here and the now.

The needy out of the ashy. He raises, he lifts. It's a theme right through scripture.

He raises and he lifts. He fills us with resurrection life. He raises the poor.

So resurrection life is being wealthy. No, the, from the dust and lifts the needy out of the ash heap that he may seat him with princess, with the princes of his people, he lifts people to be princes.

So, I mean, everybody knows princes are wealthy, you know? So you, oh man, crown jewels are coming your way folks.

You know why? Cause Jesus rose from the grave. Yeah. Uh, Brian Houston is a fellow who believes in and teaches the word of faith heresy and he is a prosperity preacher.

And, uh, of course his life is wealthy as he is, is held up as the example, as the testimonial that all this theology is true.

Boy, that was quite the twisting of scripture there going from the resurrection to now me being wealthy and royalty.

Who knew? So yeah, Brian Houston, avoid him like the plague because his theology is that.

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All right. So make until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.