Methodist Pastor Didn’t Preach About Jesus on Christmas Eve, So as Not to Offend the Local Synagogue

Moore's Corner Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:09

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast, a crazy story I'm going to report on.

00:15

So the headline says, Methodist pastor says he didn't preach about Jesus on Christmas Eve, so as not to offend

00:23

Jewish people. Yeah, this actually happened. It's a church in New York City, St.

00:29

Paul and St. Andrew's Church is described on their website as an open and affirming church.

00:35

It's led by the Reverend Doctor. There this is usually a red flag when you see the Reverend Doctor K Carp him.

00:44

So he is assisted by his co -pastor, the Reverend Leah Matthews.

00:51

That's another red flag. They have been described as a loud and proud

00:56

United Methodist Church whose progressive values are reflect not biblical values, okay, not biblical values, progressive values.

01:05

What are these values that they advocate for LGBTQ, not just LGBTQ, but LGBTQ plus what's the plus?

01:16

Well, I think we know what the plus is. It's just not legal yet, so they're not admitting it, but racial equity, environmental stewardship, you get the idea.

01:27

But during a recent sermon, the right Reverend Doctor Reverend Carp him explained how the local synagogue.

01:36

So what happened was there was a synagogue next door or down the road, and they had some damage to their building, and he decided in a gesture of goodwill and friendship, he said, listen, to this

01:51

Jewish synagogue, we'll let you use our building, but let's make a deal. We will attend one of your

01:57

Shabbat services, the Sabbath services, and you attend our

02:03

Christmas Eve service. So that happened, and the Jewish congregation attended the

02:08

Christmas Eve service, but then the pastor realized, oh, I'm going to mention Jesus. It's Christmas.

02:14

And I had planned on apparently he, you know, they still mentioned

02:19

Jesus. They don't preach the gospel, but they still will mention the name Jesus, but he didn't want to offend anyone.

02:26

So he actually decided to leave Jesus out of his sermon. Let's just listen to him explain it.

02:33

So yeah, he's, he's not going to bring up the name of Jesus. So as not to offend, listen to what he has to say.

02:40

When a section of the ceiling on their synagogue fell onto the floor, it was a terrible thing, but God was able, as God sometimes does,

02:46

God was able to turn that calamity into something good because when they gesture and soon moved in here with us for many, many years, a few years into that relationship,

02:54

Christmas Eve fell on a Friday. And so we got the idea that a bunch of us from the church could come here for Kabbalah Shabbat service, and then a group from the church and the synagogue could go next door to the parsonage where Charlene and I could feed everybody for dinner, and then finally come back in here and share a

03:08

Christmas Eve service. It was kind of a Friday night marathon. The relationship was still new and I was feeling sensitive and maybe overly eager not to offend anybody.

03:17

So I decided to preach my Christmas Eve sermon about angels. What could be less offensive than angels?

03:24

It was okay. But afterwards, one of the members of the synagogue came up to me and said, your sermon was nice, but I expected to hear something about Jesus.

03:32

Now in my defense, as you may have noticed, the whole Christmas story we've just heard read so beautifully, Jesus is never mentioned.

03:39

All 20 verses, Jesus is never mentioned by name since he doesn't even get a name until eight years, eight days later. Caesar Augustus, the

03:46

Roman emperor gets mentioned by name. Even Quirinius, the governor of Syria gets named. Mary and Joseph, of course, are named.

03:53

But even in retrospect, looking back and telling the story, Jesus is not named. Okay, now this is the crazy thing that there were actually people in the synagogue who approached the pastor afterwards and said, we thought for sure you would mention

04:06

Jesus. I mean, after all, you are a Christian church, right? Well no. And this is the key to understanding the problem.

04:13

Most modern Methodist churches, they're like the other mainline denominations, the

04:18

Episcopalians, the UCC. They're not Christian at all. Now are they a church?

04:24

The word church means assembly or congregation. So yeah, they are an assembly of people, but they are not

04:30

Christian. They are not Christian because they don't follow the teachings of Christ.

04:35

For example, Jesus said in John 14 verse six, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

04:40

No man comes unto the father except through me. Well, they don't believe that. So that's why you can leave

04:47

Jesus out because this pastor doesn't really think that Jews have to believe in Jesus.

04:56

So this is a teaching known as universalism. So these

05:01

Methodist churches, these mainline churches, they have adopted some form of universalism.

05:08

This is the idea that everyone goes to heaven or that most everyone goes to heaven, that every religion has their own path to God.

05:18

So the Jews, they have their path. They don't need Jesus. The Hindus, they have their path.

05:25

And these groups, these pastors, some of them deny an afterlife.

05:30

Or if there is a place called heaven, then it doesn't matter what you believe, everyone's going there.

05:38

Or as long as you're sincere, you're going to go there. Now, the worst thing about this, and by the way, as soon as you deny the exclusivity of Christ and say, you don't need to believe in Jesus to be saved.

05:51

Now all of a sudden you've just opened the door to other paths. And that charts you on that course to apostasy.

05:59

But these people who believe that and teach that bottom line, they don't really think

06:06

Jesus dying on the cross was necessary. And that's perhaps the worst blasphemy of all.

06:14

They don't think the cross was necessary. And here's what Paul said in Galatians 2 verse 21.

06:21

I mean, you want to talk about Jews who think they have their own way to God or, well, we're just going to keep the law, keep the

06:27

Torah. This is what Paul said, who was a Jew himself, but converted to Christ, obviously.

06:34

But Paul said in Galatians 2 verse 21, if salvation could come through the law, then

06:40

Jesus died in vain. And let me tell you, Jesus did not die in vain.

06:47

So this Methodist church, they are not a Christian church. They are an apostate church.

06:54

And Paul uses that word apostasy in 2 Thessalonians 2, where he talks about a falling away.

07:00

And that's what it is. You have fallen away from the faith. You have fallen away from the true gospel.

07:07

And I actually believe we are living in the period that the Bible talks about, that in the last days there will be a great falling away before Jesus returns.

07:19

But this church, yeah, they're absolutely apostate. They have fallen away from the true gospel, if they ever held to it at all.

07:28

Now here's why this matters. This matters because there are more and more churches, more and more pastors, more and more

07:36

Christians, people you know that at least profess Christ, they're going in this direction.

07:42

And the churches that are not going in that direction, they're going soft on universalism.

07:48

So they don't think it's that big of a deal. But I've seen pastors fall away. I've seen congregations go from Baptist fundamentalists to liberal universalists in just one generation.

07:59

That's all it took. So plenty of local evidence.

08:05

And then a national story like this, where a pastor from a large denomination actually refused to preach

08:14

Jesus and then defends it afterwards. And it's like, well, no big deal. He still has a job.

08:20

And I'm sure his fellow Methodist pastors and priestesses, you know, they all support him.

08:26

And I could give you a thousand other, you know, thousands, if I had time,

08:32

I could give you thousands of national examples, local and national examples of things happening like this just every day, every week.

08:42

So this guy, he doesn't preach Jesus. Why? Because he might offend

08:48

Jewish people. Now I want to close with talking about Satan's strategy. I told you what

08:54

I believe is happening. I think there's evidence to support that. What's the devil's strategy though?

09:01

The devil is very subtle, right? He is very, very cunning.

09:08

We need to hold to the fundamentals, okay? So we need to reaffirm and we need to preach both heaven and hell.

09:18

Like I said, denying the exclusivity of Christ and or denying hell or just, we don't want to talk about it anymore.

09:25

That's usually what charts the course for a church to go into apostasy, but we need to reinforce these basic, you say, well,

09:34

Christians know this, we don't need to preach about it. No, you do need to preach about it because here's the devil strategy.

09:41

He can do a lot of damage from the outside, but he does far more damage when the devil is able to create inside.

09:49

And that's what the devil is doing. He is now inside the churches. He now,

09:55

Satan, I believe it's not a stretch to say Satan is under the control of historic mainline

10:04

Protestant denominations. Now the Catholic church is a whole other issue. We saw a story last week where Pope Francis, he is issuing a decree or he signed some document where now open homosexuals can pursue the priesthood and people are making some jokes about that, that I won't repeat.

10:25

Yeah. But anyways, the Catholic church, we could talk about that, but within Protestant churches and even evangelical churches, this is becoming so common.

10:36

So this is the most effective tool of the enemy. Okay. I'll close with this.

10:41

The apostle Paul tried to tell the Corinthians. I don't know if they really heard them or not, but this is the most effective tool of the enemy, not to push and promote atheism.

10:52

I mean, that's a, another problem, but the most effective tool of the devil is to present himself as an angel of light.

11:02

I mean, look at this Methodist pastor. He cares so much about Pete. He just doesn't want to offend.

11:08

Now it's obvious to me and you, hopefully that him leaving out Jesus is a great heresy, but he presents himself as though he's a virtuous person and maybe he's not the best example, but this is what

11:22

Satan does. Second Corinthians chapter 11, read it. Satan presents himself as an angel of light.

11:31

So this is what the devil does. If you have a true church in town, that's preaching the gospel was

11:38

Satan will do. He'll open a counterfeit church down the road. Why does he do that in order to confuse people?

11:47

Okay. The devil wants to sow as much confusion as he can.

11:53

And he does that by having his ministers, as Paul says to the Corinthians ministers of Satan, they preach sometimes the name of Christ, but it's another

12:03

Christ. They preach the spirit, but it's another, it's not the Holy spirit. It's a different spirit. They preach the gospel, but it's another gospel, right?

12:13

This is what the devil does. He teaches false doctrine so that the person who's looking at, okay, you got the

12:19

Methodist, the Episcopalians, the Baptist, the non -denominational church, this pastor, that Pope, this, how can

12:27

I even know the truth, right? He sows so much confusion that people either are discouraged.

12:34

They give up. They just say, there's no way I can know the truth. Or, you know, they just see everyone disagreeing.

12:41

And then one guy stands out and he's convincing and they follow some Methodist pastor who cares more about people's feelings than he does about the

12:48

Bible. However, someone is deceived, whether it's just falling away from religion and Christianity altogether or being misled by a false prophet.

12:58

This is what the devil is doing. There is a solution though. You say, well, yeah, there is a lot of confusion, all sorts of different churches.

13:08

How can I know the truth? Well, you can know the truth because, well, Jesus said, seek and you will find, right?

13:15

And that's still true today. We can know the truth. Why? Because we still have the

13:21

Bible. We still have the Bible and the Holy Spirit. So if you, in conclusion, if you are really dedicated to finding out the truth, you can find it in God's Word.

13:35

Pick up the Bible, read it for yourself, test the spirits. Why? Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.