Did Steven Furtick Actually Say THIS?!

The Viral Clip and Why It Drew Attention

So, I made a holy nope and posted it on my holy nope channel on TikTok and it sort of blew up. Here it is.

It's the Lord's day. I got my Bible. I'm ready to hear the word.

When God said, I am to Moses, you know, my name is, I am. He was trying to get him to see you are as I am.

Nope.

So, I don't know what you think blowing up is, but it's sitting at around 220 ,000 views and inevitably it upset some people who felt that it was taking the clip out of context and so forth. So, some even reported the video in an effort to have it removed.

Nice.

But because it got so much attention, I felt compelled to address it. So, what I did is I went and I watched the whole sermon. Now, I sped it up, of course, because, you know, I've got things to do, but I listened to the whole thing.

It's called My Maker is My Mirror and I took some notes. And so, I want to show you some clips and talk about why I stand by my holy nope. So, first, I want you to hear his purpose statement. That is his main point.

He states at the beginning that his goal for this sermon is to help his hearers understand who God is in their lives and who they really are in his eyes.

I praise God in advance for the way he's going to show you today who he really is in your life and who you really are in his eyes.

There you go. Purpose statement for the sermon. It's just good for us to know that as a foundation for our discussion. So, as he gets into his sermon, he talks about God's call of Abraham and says that God will sometimes speak something over your life and you'll look in the mirror and you won't.

See it.

Abraham, Galatians 3, and Making the Bible About Self-Image

When God found Abram, this was before he had a consonant in his name, the artist formerly known as Abram. He went on to be Abraham. He was the father of many nations. But when God called him, his stuff wasn't even working anymore.

And the reason I'm telling you that is because sometimes God will speak something over your life and you will look in the mirror and not see it.

So, he inserts this random thought by which he directly correlates God's call of Abraham to be the one from whom all the families of the earth will be blessed, which Paul says in Galatians 3 .8 is God preaching the gospel to Abraham.

And he correlates that directly with God speaking over your life something and you finding it hard to believe. Here are the issues. This teaches people to think everything in the Bible is ultimately and really about themselves.

It isn't. Second, it implies that God is speaking new revelation to people. He isn't. Third, it is teaching that the reason you aren't believing God is because of a poor self-image, which is man-centered nonsense.

Now, let's jump to the 7 .30 mark immediately. At the outset of this sermon, Stephen is using language recklessly that could be taken to suggest that God's nature and our nature are one and the same. Listen to this.

Remember, let us make man in our image. God needed someone to show the world what he looked like or else he would have just been a concept. God would have been an abstract theory. So he made man and woman to reflect who he was.

He needed someone to show his nature through.

The Image of God Versus Sharing God's Nature

See, it's very subtle. There's the reflective idea of the image of God and then there's the display of the nature of God suggesting that our natures and his natures are one and the same and we will get into little God's theology in a moment.

But a lot of people in the comments said that in the clip I highlighted, all he was saying is that we are made in the image of God. That's what a lot of people said in response to my holy note. But being made in God's image does not mean having the same nature as God.

Rather, man is the image of God. We're not just made in the image of God. That's not really what it's saying. We are the image of God. The words image and likeness convey visible resemblance. So man is unique as the living resemblance or the living visible replica of God, which is demonstrated primarily in our delegated authority, control, and presence in the earth.

But that's another video. He shares God's nature, talking about the clip I highlighted in the holy note, is not what God was trying to get Moses to see in Exodus 3 .14. As one commenter pointed out on that video, people are complaining that the clip is out of context, while Stephen is here taking a verse out of context in the clip.

The name itself revealed to Moses in Exodus 3 .14 enforces God's aseity, that is, his self-existence, that he exists of himself. And it highlights, therefore, just how unlike God we are. John Calvin comments, says, This is very plain, that God attributes to himself alone divine glory, because he is self-existent and therefore eternal and thus gives being and existence to every creature.

Nor does he predicate of himself anything common or shared by others, but he claims for himself eternity as peculiar to God alone in order that he may be honored according to his dignity. It goes on, God teaches him, that is, Moses, that he alone is worthy of the most holy name, which is profaned when improperly transferred to others, and then sets forth his inestimable excellency, that Moses may have no doubt of overcoming all things under his guidance.

So Stephen talks about overcoming challenges all throughout this sermon, and we will get into that. But Stephen twists the word to say, as we will see, you can overcome anything because you are just like God, rather than because God is God alone.

Israel in Egypt, the Promised Land, and Moses at Meribah

For further proof that Stephen makes it all about you, listen to the clip at the 10 minute.

Mark.

And when you've been under something for any length of time, when you've been under the power of any influence for any length of time, that influence becomes your identity. So now your addiction speaks more to you about your potential than God's word over you, than the prophetic gift that's inside of you.

It happens to all of us. When you've been suffering from something, you can begin to take on the name of your disease or your issue, writing the name of your creator whose image you were made of. But see, it's how you see it.

It's how you see yourself.

Okay, so the context of what he's saying there, he's talking about Israel's suffering and enslavement in Egypt for 430 years. And what he does is he applies Israel's suffering in Egypt for 430 years to you identifying with some struggle in your life, which is totally different than the Exodus theme as it is presented in the New Testament, which clearly identifies Jesus as the greater Moses who delivers us from bondage to sin by redeeming us with his blood, not by some trivial matter in your life.

Now, he goes on to speculate that Moses didn't go into the promised land because he never really saw himself in the image of his creator. And so we are starting to catch the true theme of this sermon, which is self-image.

Listen.

The people didn't go into the land under Moses was because Moses never really saw himself in the image of his creator.

Wow.

There's a guy, he said, wow. This is pure speculation through the lens of his man-centered message. Deuteronomy 32 51 tells us exactly why Moses cannot enter the land. Says because you broke faith with me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the sons of Israel.

Now, that's interesting. You did not treat me as holy. So the text seems to indicate that rather than Moses not entering because he failed to see how much he was like God, it's because he failed to see how other God is, how different God is than himself.

Holiness speaks to God's otherness. Moses did not give God the glory by striking the stone at the waters of Meribah Kadesh. This continues for some time during the sermon. He's making his points, not really getting back to the text, which he read at the beginning very much.

But he will say things like this at the 27 minute mark, like grasshoppers, not to God.

We seem to ourselves like grasshoppers. Most people see God really big. Even those who barely believe in God see him really big. It's not how big you see God. It's how much you believe that God is in you.

Wow.

Again, you could hear the wow. It's not how big you see God. It's how much you believe that God is in you. Again, this points to the sharing of nature with God. It's not my high esteem of God and his majesty and his excellence.

It's how much of that majesty and excellence is within myself. That's what this is about. This is about determining a sense of self. It's about having enough self-esteem to overcome fill-in-the-blank challenges.

This is a self-help sermon cloaked in Bible language.

The word was with God and the word was God. My maker is my mirror. So I can't run around to people who are struggling with their own sense of self to determine mine. The message God gave me was, your maker is your mirror.

And you know what's beautiful?

You're his.

You're his. God looks at you and sees himself. Now he goes on to say that God is quote, raising you up right now in the level that you settle on is that level that you see yourself. Again, it's about self-image.

It's about self-esteem. You can rise no higher than your self-esteem. So let's make you a little God and raise it. Let's raise your self-esteem and then you can reach your full potential as a little God here on earth.

Little Gods Theology, Word of Faith, and the Missing Gospel

Now in his final application, he is referencing your insecurity. He says you won't get over your insecurity if you're looking at the mirror of Instagram. And so these are the kind of challenges that Stephen is applying the scripture to.

Your insecurity. That he is applying Exodus 3 .14 to. Your insecurity that you get from looking at the doctored pictures on Instagram. Now at the end of the sermon here in minute 36, he says that God told him that he wanted to give the people a different mirror.

And then he held up the Bible. Let's look.

And he said that today he wanted to give you a different mirror. A different mirror.

A different mirror. And what's funny is that the mirror of God's word is faithful to show us our blemishes. It doesn't boost our self-esteem because guess what? Self-esteem isn't even a biblical concept.

It does the exact opposite of the point of Stephen's sermon which is you have God in.

You.

You're amazing and you can do anything. The mirror of God's word shows us our need for Christ. But our need for Christ was absent from Stephen's sermon. Now he ends the sermon with. You've got to see yourself made of dust but touched with divinity.

You've got to be able to see yourself made of dust but touched with divinity.

Made of dust but touched with divinity. What does that mean? Well Stephen teaches something called little God's theology. This is the idea that we share God's nature and we can do the things that he can do.

Again this is not what it means to be made in God's image. Now he finishes his sermon with a prayer slash positive affirmation session about seeing victory.

I'm going to see the Red Sea part. I'm going to see the mountains move. I'm going to see it come to pass.

Powerful. Again, over what? Victory over what? It could be anything. This is word of faith by the way. It's intentionally vague. This is not biblical. By the way little God's doctrine is extremely common in the word of faith movement that I will speak into existence that I will positively affirm that which I want to see in my life and I'll do so by faith.

I will speak my faith and it will come into existence. So Stephen Furtick not only runs in the word of faith crowd but teaches word of faith himself, little God's theology and he's also a modalist but that is perhaps a different video.

Now besides the heresy, besides the man-centeredness, besides the ripping text out of context, what was missing from this sermon? Well what was missing from this sermon is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There's no gospel in this sermon. It's not here. Not our need for Christ. Not the work of Christ. Not the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. None of it. It is not in this sermon. You can watch it for yourself.

A lot of people on the comment section are like, you can't just post clips like this. You've got to show the whole video. I'm not going to post a whole sermon on my TikTok page. You do your own homework.

You can come and watch this sermon. There is no gospel in this sermon. So I'll finish by quoting Charles Spurgeon. No gospel in your sermon, sir? Then go home and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.