What On EARTH Is Steven Furtick Preaching?

Introduction to the Sermon Review

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to Fight For Truth, the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. In today's video, we're going to be talking about a sermon from Stephen Furtick.

This sermon was entitled, quote, Devil, You've Held Me Long Enough, and it has over one and a half million views at the time of recording. Our goal in this video is rather simple. We're going to watch through some clips of this sermon and ask ourselves the question, does this accord with what the Bible teaches?

Is it biblical? Is it sound? Or is it just trendy and popular? These are some of the issues we ought to be pondering as we watch through this video of Stephen Furtick preaching at Elevation Church. So without further ado, let's get right into it.

Watch this.

Claiming a Word From God and the Test of a True Prophet

So this is the message God said to give you for the first Sunday sermon of this year. You ready? He told me to tell you just like this, the devil has held you long enough.

So first, Stephen comes right out of the gate with the whole, God told me to tell you this. In other words, Furtick is claiming to be a prophet of the Lord. It may not sound like that, but that's exactly what's happening.

You see, the prophets of old used a phrase that is virtually identical to this in its meaning. You've probably heard it before. Here's an account of God talking to His servant Moses. Exodus 4, 22, quote,.

Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, Let my son go, that he may serve me. Moses was given a phrase from the Lord to speak to Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt.

The phrase began with the authoritative statement, Thus says the Lord. In a much more colloquial and frankly misguided way, we might say this as, God told me to tell you this. That is what Stephen Furtick said.

Indeed, that is what a prophet does. They speak on behalf of God to His people. But the question inevitably rises, like a beach ball being held underwater, how do we know if a prophet is telling the truth?

Deuteronomy gives us the answer. Chapter 18, verse 20, quote,. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.

Now let's be clear. I am not advertising that we should execute all false prophets. I'm only saying that the standard of a true prophet remains the same. And it's really simple. If you say, I have been given a word from the Lord, whatever you say must be true, because the Lord doesn't lie.

Or by definition, you are lying about what God said. So given that context, let's go ahead and watch this next clip, and let Stephen flesh this out a bit more. Watch this.

Misreading John 8 and the Identity of the Crowd

They didn't believe you either. Maybe you need to say it for yourself. Let's try it like this. Say this out loud. Devil, you've held me long enough.

That felt better.

So just to recap, Stephen just had an entire room full of professing Christians in what calls itself a church. Yell out the phrase, quote, Devil, you've held me long enough. And this is cause for confusion.

Is Stephen Furtick suggesting that his entire church has been held by the devil? This is presumably a huge group of people who claim to be saved Christians. Is it possible for Christians to be held by the devil?

And if so, what exactly does that mean? In what way specifically are Christians held by the devil? Again, let's allow Stephen to tell us who he's talking about when he says they've been held by Satan.

Watch this.

The people he was talking to are people like me and you, who believe in him. But he is telling them that it is possible to believe and still not be free.

So now we understand. Stephen has explicitly said that he is talking about people like, quote, you and me. So it's fair to assume that Stephen considers himself a Christian and that he would consider the majority of his audience Christian.

So where is he getting this phrase of devil, you've held me long enough? Why is he applying it here? And why is he having the audience repeat it? In order to answer these questions, which are essential, we need to turn to the passage that Stephen is preaching from, which is at the end of John chapter 8 verses 31 and 32 say this, quote.

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So Jesus is talking specifically to the Jews who had believed him.

That's what it says. And essentially after this, Jesus and these people get into a sort of disagreement over their spiritual claims. In verse 39, quote, they answered him saying, Abraham is our father.

But immediately Jesus says, quote, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works that Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.

So all of this culminates in Jesus saying at the end in verse 58, quote, truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was, I am here. He is claiming that he is God, that he existed at the time of Abraham and indeed beyond that.

More than this, he uses the name I am, which is the name for God given to Moses at the burning bush. In response, verse 59 records that, quote, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Jesus also says before this with regard to the crowd, quote, you are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. And all of this is where Stephen Furtick gets the statement of devil, you've held me long enough.

So knowing all of this important context, let's watch a little bit of that last clip again and compare it to the scripture that we just read. Watch this.

The people he was talking to are people like me and you, who believe in him. But he is telling them that it is possible to believe and still not be free.

So Stephen says that Jesus is talking about people again, like you and me, people who believe in him, but who aren't totally free in every area. This is absolutely, completely, 100 false. And we can demonstrate this by doing a short recap of some of the attributes of the people that Jesus is talking to.

First, it did not say that they believed in Jesus, as Furtick claimed. No, it says that they believed what Jesus said. In fact, Jesus speaking directly to these very same people says, quote, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

So you see, he does not assert wholesale that they are all his disciples currently. He tells them what they must do to demonstrate that they are his disciples. And that's a different thing entirely. Even the demons believe and shudder.

In verse 43, Jesus says that they, quote, cannot bear to hear his word. In verse 44, just after that, he says that these people are, quote, of their father the devil and their will is to carry out the devil's desires.

This alone demonstrates that they cannot be Christians. Those who have been saved are adopted into the family of God. We know this. Our father is God, not Satan. Ephesians 1 .5 says, quote, he predestined us, that is, Christians, for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

You see, you cannot be a child of God and also a child of the devil. You can still sin as a child of God. You can be tempted, but God is still your ultimate father through salvation. And finally, there is an airtight proof that these people were not Christians who believed in Christ.

At the end of the passage, these very people picked up rocks in an attempt to murder Jesus. Every piece of evidence we have shows that these people had no real faith in Christ. They outright denied that Jesus was the Son of God, which is a hallmark of the Christian faith.

Yet, Stephen Furtick confidently says, quote, he's talking about people like you and me. People who believe in him, but who are not totally free. Now, you may be asking the question at this point, of course Stephen Furtick got it wrong, but why does this matter?

We all make mistakes. Well, the reason it matters is because there are only two parties in this passage. We have Jesus and we have the crowd. Furtick has managed to misunderstand both the spiritual state of the crowd and therefore the message of Jesus that he was getting across to the crowd.

He's misunderstood every layer of this story. And the end result of this can only be that whatever Stephen Furtick's conclusion is, we know what it is not. And the fact is, it is not rooted in the truth of this passage, which again is his job when he's preaching from the passage.

Thus, it is coming from Stephen Furtick's own mind and not from the text of Scripture. That's a problem. And again, remember, all of this is coming from the same person who claimed that, quote, God told him to tell you these things.

So here's a question. If God told Stephen Furtick to say these things, then why did God tell us the exact opposite things in his Word through his Son? Is God contradicting himself through Stephen Furtick?

Or is it much more plausible that Stephen Furtick is offering false revelation? I'll leave that to you. It seems rather unbelievable, really far-fetched, that someone who receives direct revelation from God cannot preach an accurate sermon about God's revelation in the Bible.

Critique of Coddled Christianity

But the next part of this video is really pretty astounding. Watch this. Okay.

People are too coddled. We have this coddled Christianity where you just come up alongside people and always just teach them that God will give you grace every time you screw up. What about teaching me how to get better so I don't screw up so much?

Huh? Is there an ax that can chop this thing down at the root? Because I want truth!

So let's get this straight. Stephen Furtick, Stephen Furtick, the pastor of Elevation Church, that's who we're talking about. He is against coddled Christianity. Again, let's review. Stephen Furtick is upset that other people are preaching convictionless sermons that don't offend anyone.

This is a prime example of the pot calling the kettle black. The lack of self-awareness here is astounding. He's in the middle of preaching an entire sermon based on an unbiblical conclusion so that he can make everything all about his audience all the time.

And in the midst of that very sermon, he is calling out so-called coddled Christianity. It's honestly incredible. This is coming from the same person who endorses TD Jakes, Joyce Meyer, and has partnered with Joel Osteen.

Again, it's really hard to respond to something that is so completely contradictory and ridiculous. But speaking of a contradiction here, let's watch the very next clip. Check this out.

Turning Sin Into a Personal Story Instead of a Moral Problem

Now, I studied all about this Scripture today that I'm sharing with you about these Jews who believed in Jesus enough to know that they were not immoral, ungodly, addicts. This was not a case of them needing to give up their sin.

It was a case of them needing to give up their story.

So let's review. Stephen Furtick is against this new coddled Christianity which lacks conviction and doesn't want to offend people's sensibilities. And then, he said that the crowd in the passage, quote, they were not immoral and ungodly people.

They didn't need to give up their sin. They needed to give up their story. So they weren't immoral people. Okay, let's see. These people were, quote, slaves to sin, verse 34. They made no room for the Word of Christ, that's verse 36.

They sought to kill Jesus, the Son of God, verse 40. And finally, Jesus himself said that they are of their father, the devil, and they actively seek to carry out the devil's desires in the world, verse 44.

And to top this all off, they denied that Jesus was the Son of God, verse 59. But don't worry, Stephen Furtick has assured you that these people are not immoral. No, they, quote, didn't need to give up their sin.

They needed to give up their story. And all of this, again, is coming from the same person who just said that he's tired of coddled Christianity where pastors withhold the truth from their congregations because it's uncomfortable.

It's incredible that Stephen Furtick can describe his own preaching in such detail and still not realize it. But the fact still remains, Stephen might say out loud that he doesn't like coddled Christianity.

In reality, he is one of the foremost leaders of that movement. In conclusion, Furtick claimed direct revelation from God at the beginning of the message. Despite this, the central point of his message contradicted the text that he claimed to be preaching from.

He then implied that genuine Christians can be, in some sense, children of the devil. And then he implied that the people who wanted to murder Jesus and who denied Him as the Son of God were actually really good Christians deep down, just like you and me.

And despite his efforts to condemn coddled Christianity, he actively preached a coddled and convictionless message in the sermon itself. All of this demonstrates even further what we ought to do. Lovingly mark and avoid Stephen Furtick as a false teacher and seek good, solid, sound biblical teaching elsewhere.

I pray that this has been a blessing to you, and please know, this video isn't meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a biblical critique. And let's pray for Stephen, that he would stop his false teaching by God's grace and turn to the truth of God's Word.

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