F4F | Hillsong Post-Mortem: What Went Wrong?

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. So, have you seen the

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Discovery Plus documentary yet on Hillsong Omega Church Exposed?

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You know, it's always galling to me when the world has more biblical discernment than people within the visible church.

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Yeah, it's kind of a mess, but let me whirl up the desktop and we're going to engage in a post -mortem today.

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We're going to do a little bit of work looking at the core problem, because the core problem,

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I'm going to be blunt, it isn't Brian Houston. It's not Carl Lentz. That's not the core problem.

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The core problem is that far too many in the visible church today, they are worldly and they want the accolades, the love of the world.

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They brought the world into the church. And the problem that went wrong at Hillsong is the same problem that went wrong with Tabner Smith, that went wrong with Pete Wilson, that went wrong with Tommy Sparger, in part went wrong with what happened with Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill.

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You get the idea here. It's the same thing that's wrong with Elevation Church, the same thing that's wrong with Bethel, at least partly what's wrong with Bethel.

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You get the idea. So if you're not familiar, Hillsong Omega Church Exposed, you need to watch this.

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I hate to say it. If you haven't watched it, you need to watch it. And you need to not sit there and go, man, what terrible people they are.

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You need to understand that there's a really good chance that you've participated in the sins of Hillsong.

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And here's what I mean by that. If you go to fightingforthefaith .com, fightingforthefaith .com,

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you'll come to our website, which is collecting a little bit of dust at the moment. My apologies for that.

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Still trying to figure out moving forward what I want to do now that I've made the jump over to YouTube.

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I still want to do the podcast, but my time, because I'm a pastor full -time, is a little challenging when it comes to podcasting.

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But all that being said, if you were to look in the search bar, Hillsong, all right, we'll just do a little search here,

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Hillsong, and we'll put a link to fightingforthefaith .com. You're going to note here, heresy hiding in plain sight,

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Hillsong United, United with Roman Catholics, Hillsong blames Trump for the Naked Cowboy.

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Yeah, the Naked Cowboy made an appearance at a Hillsong New York event,

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Hillsong's Naked Cowboy twists Acts 16. You know, and so over in a

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Bill Johnson preached at Hillsong conference, are you seeing a theme here, transfer the anointing?

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There is a Hillsong update there. I think all told, when I was doing the podcast, it was close to 60 episodes of Fighting for the

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Faith, the daily podcast, where we had Hillsong updates.

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That would include Brian Houston. It would include Carl Lentz. In fact, let me come back over here and I am going to,

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I'm going to reload my page and rather than Hillsong, what we're going to do is we're just going to take a look for Brian Houston.

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Houston. All right. Let's see here. Houston, we have a problem. Yes, I've had a problem with Brian Houston for a long, long, long time.

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In fact, Brian Houston, let's just say that his, did I spell this right? Hang on a second here.

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I'm going to reload the page. There we go. Let's just reload and start over. Brian Houston.

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There we go. And I've had a problem with Brian Houston because I've noted that he's an extremely egregious

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Bible twister, you know, from way back. I don't know why it's not showing up.

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Houston, let's just do that. We'll go that direction, see if it works. There we go.

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Preaching personal opinions. Natural resistance to spiritual responsibilities. It's beginning to rain.

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We've covered Brian Houston on our YouTube channel. And so Brian Houston's latest word, faith heresy.

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We've been covering Brian Houston for more than a decade.

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In fact, let's just be blunt. Let's go back in time here. And now that he's fallen from grace and ain't nobody defending him, you know,

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I don't see anyone out there going, Brian Houston, man, he's a man of God. Nobody's talking like that anymore.

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But you should have been able to spot it in his theology, not because he spent 40 minutes in a hotel room with a woman who wasn't his wife or because he sent an illicit text message to another woman.

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You should have spotted this a long time ago. Here's God TV. See if this rings any bells for you.

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You're watching the Christian channel, so no, you're watching the Christian channel. God TV.

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Watch what comes next is the Lord of the Airwaves. You from Pastor Brian Houston, money, there's not one person in this building who doesn't need more money.

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And if you say, well, I don't need more money, then I would say you have a very poor outlook on life.

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You'll learn why you need more money, because money is a tool that can accomplish phenomenal things.

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What money can do in your head is bless. It can help. It can build.

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It can increase. It can bring vision. It can strengthen. You'll learn money, can bring vision, how to get more money, and you'll learn how to have wealth without having a love for money.

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Poor does not have to be permanent. All the answers you say, well, you know, how do you know that?

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Because why would the scripture say, let the poor say, I am rich? Twisting scripture there.

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It's obvious now, isn't it? Yeah. So so God wants you.

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The name of the book is You Need More Money. And just in that 60 seconds, it's clear what

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Brian Houston has always been. A false teacher, the exact same kind of guy that the scripture warns us against.

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And fellows like me and others have been warning the church that Brian Houston is not somebody who teaches the

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Bible correctly. He is greedy. He teaches the prosperity heresy.

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He's a seven mountains NAR kind of guy. And other people have even made the claim that he's an apostle.

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No, he's not. He never has been. He's been a false teacher the entire time.

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And if the church were biblically literate, they would have not tolerated this fellow at all.

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But unfortunately, the church has become extremely biblically illiterate.

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In this regard, in our postmortem, we're going to do a little bit of work here. I'm going to back up to a passage

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I go to with regularity, 2 Timothy chapter 4. And when it comes to Hillsong and Brian Houston and Carl Lentz, who's to blame?

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Well, let's let the Bible answer that question. Paul writes to young pastor

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Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom.

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Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

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For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching or doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

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And that's exactly what Brian Houston is. Brian Houston was richly rewarded by evangelicalism.

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And the reason why he was richly rewarded by them is because he didn't teach sound doctrine.

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They were no longer enduring it. And they were one of the false teachers they accumulated for themselves in order to suit their own passions.

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Who's to blame for Hillsong? Evangelicalism. They're to blame. And the reason why they are to blame is because they got rid of sound biblical pastors, and they got rid of sound

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Christian hymns and replaced them with the vapid, me -centered, narcissistic praise songs of Hillsong.

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Why? Because Hillsong was scratching their itching ears, telling them that God wants them to have more money and things like this.

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So the best way I can put it is that now the evangelicalism, well, they've distanced themselves.

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They've canceled Brian Houston. Cancel. Cancel. He spent 40 minutes in a hotel room with a woman who's not his wife.

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Cancel. Cancel. Cancel. Yeah, the problem is he's been scratching itching ears the entire time.

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So they will turn away from listening to the truth. They are the ones responsible, and they will wander off into myths, you know, like the myth that God wants you to have more money.

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As for you, young pastor Timothy, be sober -minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry, endure suffering.

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That's, I seriously doubt that anybody from Hillsong is prepared to do that, to endure suffering, because that's not what they signed up for.

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They signed up to hear their purpose, to learn their dream destiny. They signed up to decree and declare and command and control and to have more money and power and influence.

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And I would note that if you watch the documentary already, then you know this, that at Hillsong, New York City, when

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Carl Lentz was king of the hill, they had a special VIP section for celebrities and people of influence and power and stuff like that.

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Consider what the apostle James writes, religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to keep oneself unstained from the world.

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My brothers show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the

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Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly and a poor man and shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, you sit here in a good place, in our

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VIP section, while you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down at my feet, have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

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Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?

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Are not the rich ones, the ones who oppress you and the ones who drag you into court, are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

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If you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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You're doing well. But if you show partiality, you're committing sin and you are convicted by the law as transgressors for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails at one point has become guilty of all of it.

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And I would note here, Hillsong is known for its partiality. It practiced it openly and no one ever connected their

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VIP section with James. But now that the world is pointing it out, how odd that a church would have a

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VIP section for celebrities. Now, all of a sudden people are going, wait a second, that may not even be biblical, you think?

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And then, uh, well, then we got this warning from James as well. So what causes quarrels?

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What causes fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?

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You desire, you do not have, so you murder, you covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel.

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You do not have because you do not ask. You do not receive because you ask wrongly in order to spend it on your passions.

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You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

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Hillsong is the world. It's not mere friendship with the world. It is whole hog, nothing but the world and the world's values.

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You know, what's missing at Hillsong? Clear biblical exposition, clear exegetical sermons, rightly handling

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God's word, law and gospel, sin and grace, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins.

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The only law they seem to be familiar with is a law regarding tithing, yet they don't even recognize that Christians are not obligated to keep the

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Mosaic covenant law regarding tithing. That's the thing they're legalistic about.

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Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

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Hillsong has been an enemy of God visibly from the word go. Or do you suppose that it is to no purpose that the scriptures say he yearns jealously over the spirit that he's made to dwell in us, but he gives more grace.

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Therefore, it says God opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

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God opposes the proud. Hillsong preaches nothing but greed and pride.

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Nothing but it. In fact, in this regard, I would suggest we spend a little bit of time considering another passage.

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Second Timothy chapter two, at least a portion of it. False prophets also arose among the people.

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Peter writes, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

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Many will follow their sensuality and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed.

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Yeah. Hillsong is also known for their sensuality. Yeah. Just look at the archives of fighting for the faith.

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You'll see what I'm talking about. And because of them, the truth of Christianity has now been blasphemed.

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Christ has taken it on the chin because this is what evangelicalism put forward as, this is our best.

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This is Christianity. This is the Christianity that gets along with the world.

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We've invited the world in, we've given them the stage and we do everything according to the world.

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But here's the thing, the message they preached, the Bible twisting they gave, it's powerless, utterly powerless to produce the fruit of the spirit in the lives of any

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Christian because it's false. And so is it any wonder then that Carl Lentz, Brian Houston, and other pastors and leaders within Hillsong have had, let's just say a disproportionate percentage of moral failings than just about any other denomination that I've ever heard of.

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Now, granted there are men who rightly handle God's word, who have fallen into sexual sin and other sins and have been drubbed out of the ministry and rightly so, but you can say of those fellows, well, they were rightly handling

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God's word and preaching it and they fell into sin. But with Brian Houston and Carl Lentz and these other fellows, you can't even say that they were rightly handling

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God's word. They weren't handling it substantially right in any sense of the word at all.

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They were constantly scratching itching ears and teaching mythology, wrongly handling

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God's word, twisting it, taking it out of context. Oh, and they also fell spectacularly.

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In their greed, Peter writes, they will exploit you with false words. Yeah, it's true.

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That's exactly what Brian Houston did for a long time. And you know what? Evangelicals loved it.

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Oh, exploit us some more. We'll be willing to send in our thousand dollar seed offering to you.

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We'll be willing to pay $500, $500 to attend

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Hillsong conference. Their condemnation from long ago. It's not idle. Their destruction is not asleep.

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They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls.

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They have hearts trained in greed. They are accursed children forsaking the right way.

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They have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Baor, the prophet for prophet who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression.

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A speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. These are waterless springs.

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These are misdriven by a storm. For them, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved for the speaking loud boasts of folly.

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They entice sensual passions of the flesh. Those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

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They promised them freedom, but they are themselves slaves of corruption. But they themselves are slaves of corruption.

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That's what Brian Houston has been all along. I'm seeing news reports now that Brian Houston knew of Carl Lentz's adulteries, plural, long before he got rid of him.

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In fact, the documentary posits the idea that Brian Houston not only knew about Carl Lentz's peccadilloes, how do you want to talk about those things, knew about them and didn't do anything until he heard that Carl Lentz and his wife were getting ready to leave

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Hillsong and start their own church. Compete with the mothership, if you would.

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Then he, well, now we got to get rid of him. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption for whoever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved for if they have escaped the defilements of the world to the knowledge of our

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Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And they are again entangled in them and overcome. The last state has become worse for them than the first, for it would have been better for them to have never, never, never to have known the way of righteousness.

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And after knowing the turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them with a true proverb says has happened to them.

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The dog returns to its own vomit. The sow after washing herself returns to wallow in the mire and Hillsong has been bringing nothing but mud and mire into the visible church for decades.

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And like I said, the evangelicals loved it. They wanted more and more of it.

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Maybe we should consider some of the words of Jesus from the book of Revelation. Jesus had

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John pen a few letters to the pastors of the churches, you know, seven in particular, and so when you see, and to the angel,

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Angelos here in the Greek, that's probably referring to the pastor, not to a, you know, an angel that, you know, lives in the presence of God, but to the actual messenger sent by God, that would be the pastor.

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Let's consider some of these letters in regards to the fall of Hillsong and Brian Houston, shall we? So the church to the angel of the church at Pergamum, right?

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The words of him who has the sharp two edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is yet.

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You hold fast to my name and you did not deny my faith. Even the days of Antipas, my faithful witness who was killed among you or Satan dwells, but I have a few things against you.

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You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught

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Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel so that they might eat food, sacrifice to idols and practice sexual immorality.

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So also some of you hold to the teaching of the Nicolaitans. This is a antinomian

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Gnostic sect. We don't need to hear that law. We don't need to hear the law of God. No, no, no, no, no.

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Therefore, what does Christ say? Repent. If not, I will come to you and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

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And I would note that what we're watching with the complete collapse of Hillsong churches, leaving the movement altogether and, you know, the fall of Brian Houston and Carl Lentz and others, this has kind of all the earmarks of Christ himself warring against Hillsong.

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He gave them time to repent and they didn't. And so now the whole thing is coming down.

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It seems like. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna.

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I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except for the one who receives it.

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Next to the angel of the church at Thyatira, right? The words of the son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, whose feet are like burnished bronze.

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I know your works, your love, your faith and service and patient endurance. And the latter works exceed the first.

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But I have this against you. You tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food, sacrifice to idols.

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I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. So false prophetess who is, you know,

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Christ refers to as a Jezebel. Um, what's the male version of Jezebel?

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Wouldn't that be like a Carl Lentz? He claimed to receive direct revelation from God.

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God spoke to him conversationally and yet he was, um, committing adulteries and there's stories circulating now of women who are on the volunteer team who are being hit on by the leaders of Hillsong, seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality.

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Same thing here. I gave her time to repent. She refuses to repent of her sexual immorality.

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So behold, I'll throw her onto a sickbed and those who commit adultery with her, I'll throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works.

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I'll strike her and her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works, but to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold to this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan.

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To you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden, only hold fast to what you have until I come. The one who conquers and keeps my works until the end, to him,

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I will give authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And when the earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself received authority from my father, and I will give him the morning star and he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches and to the angel of the church in Sardis.

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Well, let's see here. The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and seven stars.

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I know your works. You have a reputation of being alive, but you're dead. Oh, Hillsong worship is so lively.

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It's dead. Completely narcissistically dead. Theologically vapid dead.

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Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die for. I've not found your works complete in the sight of my

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God. Remember then what you received and heard, keep it, repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour

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I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis. People have not soiled their garments.

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And they will walk with me in white for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments.

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And I will never blot out his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my father before and before his angels, he who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.

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And the last one to the angel of the church at Laodicea, right? The words of the amen, the faithful, the true witness, the beginning of God's creation.

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I know your works. You're neither hot or cold. Oh, would that you were either cold or hot because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold.

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I'm going to spit you out of my mouth for you say, I am rich. I've prospered. I need nothing.

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Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and white garments so that you may have clothed yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen and salve your and anoint your eyes so that you may see those whom

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I love. I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent behold. I stand at the door knock.

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If anyone hears my voice opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him. And he, with me, the picture here is of Christ standing outside of the church of Laodicea.

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Hey, uh, you know, I'm supposed to be on the inside there. Would you let me in the one who conquers? I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.

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He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. So all of that being said, you know, what was missing from Hillsong the entire time, the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins,

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Christ and him crucified for our sins, uh, mortifying your sinful flesh by the power of the

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Holy Spirit, living in contrition and sorrow. Instead, they, they exchanged biblical

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Christianity for this worldliness. God wants you to be wealthy. God wants, he's going to give you a destiny and a purpose and you, you need to have influence and affluence and oh, this is the place for you.

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Oh, make sure you tithe. Oh, and, and, and tithing is only the part that belongs to God. You got to give offerings on top of that.

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Show your faith, sow your seed and all that kind of stuff. And then if you just look at the lyrics of the

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Hillsong songs, they exalt humans, not

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God, and theologically they say practically, and as a result of it, what do we say about the people who attend

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Hillsong and who sing these praise songs? They are quite narcissistically self -focused and sadly, they don't believe anything, barely anything at all.

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Yeah. A bad tree can't bear good fruit. And if the church knew their

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Bible, they would have never rewarded Brian Houston and Hillsong and Carl Lentz with the fame and the fortune that they gave them.

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But they, they don't know their Bibles. And that's the problem. They are the ones, the evangelicals are the ones who gathered to themselves, teachers who would tell them what their itching ears wanted to hear.

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And now another, yet another, yet another of their false teachers has spectacularly morally failed.

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Maybe it's time for evangelicals to recognize they don't know their Bible and that these failures are going to continue until they repent and get rid of these yahoos and these celebrities and these showmen and bring back the pastors who are willing to endure suffering, who preach the word in season and out of season, and who will teach sound doctrine and proclaim

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Christ in him crucified for our sins. They won't scratch itching ears. And rather than tell people what they want to hear, they'll tell them what they need to hear.

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So that they repent and they never hear from Christ apart from me. I never knew you because that's the thing

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I fear for Lentz and for Brian Houston. You, the damage that they've done is almost incalculable.

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And the reality is, is that the seeds of Hillsong, like the seeds of a dandelion weed, they've been blown into the wind.

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Hillsong now is practically an empty husk of what it used to be, but the seeds that it germinated, these weed seeds, they've been blown into the four corners of the earth.

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And there's little Hillsongs popping up all over the place with little Brian Houston's all over the place.

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They may not call themselves Hillsong at all, but every one of their vision casting leaders learn their chops from Hillsong, learn their theology from Hillsong, learn to be narcissistic from Hillsong, learn that they don't need to repent of anything.

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God loves you just the way you are. They learned that from Hillsong and you know what they're doing? They're setting up these little

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Hillsongs around the world and they're preaching that same false message all under the guise of this is

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Christianity. But it never was, and it never will be. Hopefully you found this helpful.

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If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description and until next time, may

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.