Universalism? Andy Stanley Says "All Are Justified" / Appears to Deny Doctrine of Hell

Here's what we're going to look at this morning. I have a clip of Andy Stanley, where in his most recent sermon, he seems to indicate to his congregation that everybody is justified, that everybody, literally every human being on earth is saved.

That's what it sounds like to me, and based on the direction Andy Stanley has been going and embracing, being inclusive towards people that are living openly homosexual and transgender lifestyles, just welcoming that into the church, they're serving full members of his church and it's all fine, it's great.

You would have to think that Andy Stanley believes that God accepts everyone, that everybody is saved.

So that's what it sounds like, that everyone is justified before God.

Of course, that's not true, right? What are we doing? Taking what people say in the name of God and comparing it to the word of God?

That's simply not true. The gospel is the good news, the

Bible says, for those who believe. A person, if they do not believe the gospel, the scripture is very clear, they will stand before the

Lord at the judgment. And to not tell people, that's not a loving thing, to not warn people of that, to not tell them the truth.

But if you want to just be popular, you're just going to say, well, you're okay, I'm okay, everyone's okay, everything's great, everyone's going to heaven.

See, that's what you're going to say if you want to be popular with the world. So the

Bible says that the gospel is good news to those who believe. And if you don't believe, you are lost and you will not go to heaven, you will be cast into the lake of fire at the great white throne judgment.

You see, that's the part that Andy Stanley always leaves out. And I think he leaves it out because he doesn't believe it.

Instead, I'm seeing more and more evidence that Andy Stanley is a universalist.

There's a lot of universalists out there, a lot more than you think, in evangelical churches, even pastors of evangelical churches.

They don't believe in hell. So in his most recent sermon, Andy Stanley, he just reaffirms all this.

I'll play the clip in a moment, but I've talked before how Andy Stanley, and I bring him up often because he's sort of the,

I think he's probably the most famous pastor in America. Certainly one of them, one of the most influential.

He is persuading hundreds of thousands of people. If not millions of people are being led astray by this guy.

That's why it matters. But I've talked before how Andy Stanley has gone through the deconstruction process.

You know, the doctrine he learned from his father, the doctrine he learned at Dallas Theological Seminary, what he's teaching now is not in line with that.

He is deconstructed. He is affirming towards homosexuality, and he's trying to lead his church in that direction.

So Andy Stanley has already been successful in downplaying the authority of scripture, so much so that his church no longer expects him to open his sermons by reading from the scripture or the idea that he's going to preach from the

Bible. It's like, yeah, that's not going to happen. So I've talked about this several times.

Andy Stanley scoffs at the idea of people who say, well, the Bible says, you know, he wants to get rid of that idea.

Once you kind of get rid of the Bible, all you have left in the church is whatever the pastor says.

And that can become cultic when it's just, hey, whatever the pastor says, that's truth.

Let's ignore the Bible and just listen to a man. That's like a cult. And really, this is what

Andy Stanley does in his sermons. He's not preaching the Bible. Listen to any one of his sermons.

He's not preaching the Bible. What he's doing, he's giving his own spin on his new love is all you need version of Christianity.

I call it the John Lennon version of Christianity. Of course, John, John Lennon hated Christianity. But if someone is a universalist, they do not believe in the true

God because that that's not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible has wrath and sends people to hell.

I believe a lot of pastors hate that God. Well, here's the thing.

They're hating the only God there is because that's the truth. Not because I say so, but because the

Bible says so. So, my friends, we have to believe the truth of Scripture.

If we are going to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, we have to believe Christ. We have to believe the

Bible, not just whatever this famous guy here saying or this pastor over here is saying.

So, in this clip, Andy Stanley acknowledges the verse that all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

Of course, he redefines what sin is. I have a video on that. But listen to what he says next.

So, he says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But listen to what he says next.

He seems to say that because of Jesus, everyone is saved. Everyone is justified.

Listen. Okay, that's not true.

All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. That is true. That's every human being who has ever lived has fallen short.

But then Andy Stanley says and all are justified. That means all are saved.

That is not true. So, in my last video, which I'll post all of this to YouTube.

So, you can go to my YouTube channel tomorrow or whenever I post it. Pastor Michael Grant on YouTube.

I'll post this. But in my last video from the series that Andy Stanley has been preaching through this series titled

The Fundamental List. That's what he calls his new sermon series, which is a play on words because Andy Stanley thinks fundamentalist

Christians who go by every word of the Bible. He thinks that's ridiculous. But in the last video

I did on this, I showed how Andy Stanley wants to get rid of certain teachings.

Andy Stanley wants to get rid of certain Christian teachings. Not least among them is the doctrine of hell or eternal punishment.

I showed how according to Andy that this is a teaching hell.

We need to leave behind. That's what he said. The idea that Jesus is going to send my loved one to hell when there's such a nice person.

Now, Andy Stanley rejects that. Listen to what he says in this clip. I don't think

Jesus is going to send my brother to hell. He's one of the finest people I know. I have, I just have to step away and think about this.

You know what needs to be left behind. And if you know what needs to be left behind, look up here. Good for you. You heard what he said.

This is pretty clear. If you reject the idea of hell, good for you.

After all, he says, we know what needs to be left behind. So this idea that Jesus would send people to hell.

Forget now that my, my God would never do something like that. So we need to leave that behind.

And then the first clip he said, all, all people are justified. Hey, this sure sounds like universalism to me.

Now, if you can find the clip where Andy Stanley says that people are going to hell or that people are in hell right now, they send me that clip.

If he said that anytime recently, I'm pretty sure you're not going to find it. This is universalism.

How do you draw any other conclusion? And here's the thing. When people deconstruct their faith.

Yet they still want to retain this label of Christian. They almost always adopt some sort of universalistic teaching.

The idea that everybody goes to heaven. Now, Andy Stanley, I'll give him this. He's a smart guy.

So he always has some plausible deniability. To the people who would want to defend him.

He always has, you know, kind of an escape. Patch some plausible deniability so that his words that all are justified.

Well, this is what the NIV says in Romans 324. Of course, that lacks context because the all, you know, sometimes when

Paul uses the word all, you have to say all of who all of what it's based on the context. Andy Stanley doesn't give that context.

The context he gives makes it sound like everybody is a sinner, which we agree. Every human being and all are justified.

So there's a yeah, the NIV does say that which I'm sorry. That's just not a good translation.

I looked at all these other Bible translations. No other translation renders it that way.

So this is unfortunate. But again, the context that Andy leaves out and the context that he supplies based on his other statements.

Yeah, again, this sounds like universalism. My Bible certainly doesn't say that.

And this is what is missing. Here's the other side of the story that he leaves out.

John 316 says whoever believes shall not perish, right?

So you have to believe. John 336 says those who do not believe the wrath of God abides upon them.

Andy says the bad news is that all have sinned. Yeah, but what's the consequence? He leaves that out.

Sin itself is not the bad news. It's the judgment or the penalty for sin. That's the bad news.

So here is some more context from that same sermon where Andy says all are justified.

Where he seems to reaffirm this idea that every he's talking about every human being who has ever lived.

Listen. That before Christ came into the world, God overlooked and was patient with the sin of every human being who had ever been born and who had ever died until he could get to the moment that he sent his son to pay for their sin in the past, our sin in the future.

So let's go back to our Bible study. Was God patient with the sin of the

Philistines when they defiled the ark? I don't think so. So what he's saying is not true.

Okay. Now I realize that if you wanted to give Andy Stanley the benefit of every doubt, you could explain this in such a way that, you know,

I get it. If Andy explained later on in the sermon that you must believe the gospel or else here is the consequence.

Okay, fine. But I watched the whole sermon. He did not do that. You know, sometimes because the whole premise of testing the spirits is to take what people say in the name of God and compare it to the word of God.

Sometimes it's not what a preacher says. It's what he doesn't say. Now with Andy Stanley, it's what he says and what he doesn't say.

But this is just more of the same from Pastor Stanley. And here is why it matters because he is so popular and because he's the son of Charles Stanley.

People are inclined to think, well, of course, he must be solid because he's Charles Stanley's son, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions are listening to this man and following him down this universalistic road.

So here's the thing. Andy Stanley is deceived and he is deceiving others.

And unless people out there, like what I'm doing now, teaching others how to spot error, taking what they say in the name of God, comparing it to the word of God, testing the spirits.

Unless we do that, unless people are warning about these deconstructionist pastors. And I've talked about how that even happened here locally.

And just dozens and dozens of people were led astray and are still messed up because of the false doctrine of these deconstructionists.

This is how they operate. You know, they talk out of both sides of their mouth. They say things that leave plausible deniability.

They know what they're doing. But ultimately, where they end up, it's always the same place.

Gay affirming. Everyone goes to heaven. Well, yeah, the Bible is God's word.

But then come the excuses. Redefining sin. More of the same.

And unless we warn people, more damage will be done. One final thing.

And this is important. At the end of Andy Stanley's message, he actually led people in the sinner's prayer.

And there are some people who would say, see, he is calling people to put their faith in Jesus. I guess he's not a universalist who denies hell after all.

False. Those ideas are not mutually exclusive. Universalism and people who are universalists have no problem telling people, hey, you should believe in Jesus.

It's good to believe in Jesus. I mean, they're running a church after all. Or what they call a church. So, it's not uncommon for them to say, hey, it's good to believe in Jesus.

I mean, after all, Oprah Winfrey says she's a Christian, for goodness sakes. And she has led people in something like an invitation to believe.

But she absolutely does not believe in hell or God's judgment. Or think that you have to believe in Jesus to go to heaven.

And that those who reject Jesus will go to hell. Again, sometimes it's not what people say.

It's what they don't say. Universalists say they believe in Jesus.

They might even encourage others to do so. But here's what they don't do. They don't tell the other side of the story.

That there is a hell. And if you don't believe in Jesus, you will die lost in your sin.

They don't tell that side of the story. Why? Because they don't believe it. A universalist either believes in some sort of second chance concept, similar to purgatory.

Or they think that when people stand before God, they will see the errors of their ways. And have a second chance and bow the knee.

And that everyone will get into heaven in the end. You know, if there is such a place. Here is what they don't believe.

They don't believe in John chapter 3 verse 36.

That the wrath of God abides upon unbelievers. Here's what they don't believe.

They don't believe that people will be excluded from heaven. Or maybe they have a quasi form of universalism that those who remain stiff -necked just cease to exist.

Either way, the one thing that doesn't happen in their estimation. Nobody goes to hell.

And yet, this is what we are warning people about. Salvation is not just salvation from sin and its penalty, death.

No, it's deliverance from the second death in the lake of fire. Even the born -again

Christian dies. They die physically. Yet, the second death is at the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20.

This is what we want people to be saved from. And if you really love someone and want them to be saved, you have to tell them that.