Dead Men Walking Podcast: Dr. Sam Storms Responds To His Defense Of Bethel & Hillsong Worship Music

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Hey guys, yeah, we're so grateful to have Dr. Sam Storms back on the podcast.

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I know he was back on, oh geez, I think almost a year ago now. He was our, he was our first superstar.

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He was our first superstar on Dead Men Walking podcast. We talked about eschatology, but we did want to have him back on because I know we had had some people reach out to us about that.

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He had a blog post back over the summer of this, this last summer about some of the stuff in response to one of the guests that we had on just a few months ago,

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Mackenzie Morgan Holloway, talking about the theology of worship music. You know, should we be singing

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Bethel and Elevation and Hillsong songs? And Dr. Sam Storms responded to that.

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So we wanted to have him back on. Dr. Sam Storms, thanks so much for being here today. That's good to be with you. So I did want to start out with what you had said, a little section on your blog post.

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And I just want to read it for the listeners, because you were making a statement of look at, those guys might have some things

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I don't agree with, you know, Bethel or Elevation or Hillsong. But I went online and I looked at their doctrinal statement.

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And in that post, you had said, so I did just that. Bethel's statement of faith is profoundly evangelical and orthodox and consistent with the historic creeds of Christianity.

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They affirm the Trinity, the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the incarnation and virgin birth of Jesus Christ, his substitutionary death on the cross, bodily resurrection, and ascension into heaven.

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They explicitly declare that Jesus is true God and true man. They further affirm that we are saved by grace through faith in the person and work of Jesus.

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Bethel was at one time affiliated with the assemblies of God, and yet their statement on the issue of spirit baptism differs from the denomination viewpoint.

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Here's what they say to that. And then you go on to explain that. So I think where we're getting a little bit of confusion and where a few people reached out to us was, was, yeah, they say one thing on their website, or they have a doctrinal statement that they might pass out.

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But we have seen issues of the Bill Johnson's and the Stephen Furtick's and even those from Hillsong saying something contradictory to that.

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You know, when Bill Johnson says, Jesus set aside his divinity, choosing instead to live as a man completely dependent upon God and his face to Facebook on page 108, or he says,

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Jesus laid divinity aside as he sought to fulfill the assignment given to him by the Father. That's when heaven meets earth, chapter seven.

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We have a lot of examples of these pastors making statements from the pulpit that might not necessarily be in line with their doctrinal statement.

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And then, you know, we kind of look at that and go, well, is that type of theology filtering down to the worship music?

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What would your response be to that? Well, first of all, Bill Johnson has completely rephrased his statement on that.

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I think it's important to remember, with all due respect to him, he's not a sophisticated, highly trained theologian.

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He's a pastor, a revivalist. And I think he just used sloppy language.

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The fact of the matter is, I agree that Jesus lived as a man dependent upon the

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Holy Spirit to accomplish all that he did. And I've written extensively on it. I have an article in one of my books on it.

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I blogged on it. So in that sense, I would completely agree. Where he was mistaken was in saying that Jesus laid his divinity aside as if somehow he was no longer

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God while incarnate on earth. And of course, that's not true. He was fully God and fully man.

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I believe that what the New Testament teaches is that he temporarily suspended the exercise of certain attributes that would have been inconsistent with living a genuine, authentically human life.

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And he did it so that he might draw on the indwelling power of the Spirit to accomplish his miracles. I mean, he said in Matthew 12,

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I cast out demons by the Spirit of God. We know that in Acts chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, he taught his disciples through the

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Holy Spirit. There are numerous places in the New Testament where Jesus is described as, well, you know, he went into the wilderness full of the

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Holy Spirit. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness. I think he drew on the power of the Spirit to resist

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Satan's temptations. So I would agree in principle with what Johnson said, and I would go to the mat defending it biblically.

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And a whole lot of other evangelical scholars who aren't charismatic would do the same thing. He just wasn't sensitive to the theological debates and the implications of his language, probably wasn't even aware of the 19th century kenosis controversy and everything associated with it.

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So I don't think that what he honestly believes was accurately reflected in what he said.

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And I think that was just due to his own failure to think through the issue. And I've heard him speak to that.

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And he said, no, of course, I believe that Jesus was God. He would never cease to be God. But he did carry out his ministry as a human being, depending upon the power of the

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Spirit. And with that, I would completely agree. By the way, let me say one other quick thing before we go any further.

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I didn't say a word in my article about Elevation Church. I didn't, and there's a couple of reasons for that.

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Number one, I'm more concerned with the theological errors of Stephen Furtick than I am with either of the other churches.

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And secondly, I don't know any Elevation music. I don't know that we've ever sung an Elevation song here.

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So that's just not an issue with us. If that ever came our way, then

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I would probably have to address that yet again, might take a different stance. But I don't know that there's anything that either

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Bethel or Hillsong have said from the pulpit that contradicts what they have said in their statements of faith.

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If they have, someone should point it out to me, but I don't know where they have. Yeah. And we don't want to make this about a certain man or a certain church.

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I think what Jason and I were talking about offline and what a few people have brought up to us is kind of, like you just said, he was a little sloppy in his wording.

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Well, we see that time and time and time again though. And we're wondering if being a little sloppy in your wording from a sermon or a little sloppy and even the theological point of view, then trickles down into some of that worship music where we see it's a little self -centered, a little emotional driven, maybe even a little vague on the theology as well.

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So that's kind of where we wanted to have you on and say, okay, you're defending this worship music.

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But at the same time, when I sing a Hillsong song that says, what a beautiful name it is, you didn't want heaven without us.

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So Jesus, you brought heaven down. Well, is heaven heaven because we're not there or is heaven heaven because that's where God is ruling and reigning from his throne.

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So you kind of have this vagueness in these songs that feel like they trickle down from a vagueness or a sloppiness from the actual pastors in the pulpit that aren't being very clear on that.

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And I think some in the reformed camp and even not the reformed camp look at that and say, well, those songs could then be misleading or maybe not particular enough to come across on the theology that we should worship in spirit and in truth.

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Does that make sense? Sure. And I'd love a chance to respond to that.

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We sing what a beautiful name it is because I think that statement is thoroughly biblical and I'm going to prove it to you.

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The statement says you did not want heaven without us. In other words, Jesus wanted us to be in heaven with him. John 17, 24 in the high priestly prayer, father,

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I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am.

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So Jesus very clearly, explicitly in scripture expresses his desire, his want that his people be with him in heaven.

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The issue is why? Well, it's certainly not because we bring something to him that he lacks.

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It's not to shore up some deficiency in Jesus. It says it right there. It's so that I can show them my glory.

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So when we sing that line, I've even written a blog post defending that song.

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It's on my website. And I believe that Jesus longs for us to be in heaven.

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Why? So that he can show us his glory. So we read and sing that line in that song with the understanding that John 17, 24 justifies it.

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So as far as that goes, I'll stand by that one. You say there are bad theology from the pulpit that kind of slides down into the lyrics.

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I would just need to be shown where that is. And if it does happen, we won't sing the song. If there's a deviant theological notion that is contrary to the foundational essentials of Christianity, we won't sing the song.

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But again, I look back on, I've been in ministry for 47 years. Do you have any idea how many times

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I have had to change my doctrinal convictions because of something I saw in scripture, how

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I grew in my understanding? My eschatology has changed. My soteriology changed. My pneumatology has changed.

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My ecclesiology has changed. Virtually every aspect of my theology has grown and developed.

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But that doesn't mean I'm a heretic. This means that I had to grow in my understanding of scripture.

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And I would just want us to give all Christians an opportunity to do the same without denouncing them as heretics.

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Yeah. I think as well, we're going into an area of the

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American church where, you know, we have become the complaint department online, you know, or we're always fighting back and forth about worship or who's, you know, heretical or, you know, just all these different complaints.

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And I think when it comes down to lyrics, especially in worship, you know, you definitely want to glorify

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God in the best way possible, right? And I think that's where some of the me gospel starts to intertwine with some of those within worship.

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So I think that, you know, just looking at the church, like how can we, you know, change the gospel back to...

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And I am putting a blanket statement over here, Dr. Storms. I'm not trying to make that blanket statement, but the church has seemed to stray from just the worship of God and Christ, you know, and it's come back to this me gospel.

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Let's make everything about me, my breakthrough, you know, what I can get. And, you know, rather than seeking

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God's hand, we should start seeking his face, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't like that last phrase.

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I know it's been used a lot. I disagree. God says in his word, earnestly, it is our spiritual gifts, especially that you may profit.

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He encourages us to... Well, just to clarify... His power. Yeah, just to clarify.

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Yeah, I'm sorry. Just to clarify, I was talking about like asking for a Lamborghini, asking for a big house, asking for these things, not for spiritual gifts.

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That's what I'm talking about. I'm sorry. We crossed the bridge there. No, I agree with you. I agree with you there.

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Okay, cool. We'll edit that out. I would say this. If in any of the songs that come out of any church, any denomination, any independent singer or songwriter, if it's unbiblical, just don't sing it.

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I made that very clear in my article. If you don't like it, if you don't think it's consistent with the word, don't sing it.

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There are things that we won't sing at Bridgeway. But the songs that I listed in my article, I think

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I have about 15 or so of them. I don't know anything that is amiss or unbiblical in the lyrics.

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And I trust that these are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I don't write them off as unsaved as some people do.

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And so I find making use of some of the beautiful music and the biblical lyrics that come out of there entirely justifiable.

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But again, I would say nobody's forcing anybody to sing anything. If in your church, you don't like that style, you don't like that focus, don't sing it.

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I would never tell people that just because a song comes out of a particular church, you're obligated to make use of it.

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Not at all. So it sounds like what I'm hearing you saying, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you can separate maybe the church or the preacher or the pastor with the actual song.

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You would look at the song almost individually and say, is there anything theologically amiss with this worship song or against scripture or unbiblical, and not necessarily have to say, well, because it might come from a certain group that I might not agree 100 % on on every single secondary issue, that's okay.

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Is that kind of where you're coming from? There's no group or church in the world with which I agree on every secondary issue.

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I mean, we got people in our own church, we have the freedom to disagree on certain issues that are not foundational to the faith.

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So yeah, I think my answer initially would be yes to your question, but I would want to say this. Why would

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I hold that preacher suspiciously or somewhat at arm's length unless that individual is denying some foundational truth, the denial of which would put somebody's soul in eternal jeopardy?

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So we're not talking about denial of the deity of Christ or salvation by grace or the trinity or substitutionary atonement.

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If a brother or sister affirms those, and I haven't heard anything in their teaching or preaching to deny or undermine it,

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I consider them a part of the family of God, and I might disagree as I do. As I said in the article,

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I disagree with some of the style, some of the expressions of prayer ministry that I see in these churches.

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I don't like them. We would never employ them here, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to completely dismiss that individual or that church as if they're unworthy of my love and my prayerful consideration or that I would dismiss their songs just because the songs come out of that church.

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So again, I would just simply have to say, I want to evaluate each song on its merit.

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Is it biblical? Is it true? Does it honor and exalt Christ? Does it bless his people? And if it does, we're going to use it.

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Yeah, I guess I just would politely disagree with you on the Bill Johnson issue of he has two books that deny the divinity of Christ, and then he also has a sermon that says

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Christ laid aside his divinity, and I would say those are pretty primary doctrinal issues to where if I'm a new believer...

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Well, he doesn't deny the deity of Christ. What he's saying is when he said he laid aside his divinity is he temporarily suspended the exercise of those divine attributes.

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How else are you going to account for the fact that Jesus said he didn't know the time of his second coming? I mean, this was obviously he was speaking out of his humanity.

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His omniscience was still present, but it was not an exercise. It had been temporarily laid, not laid aside, but suspended so that he could actually interact with people as another human being to show us how we are to live in dependence upon the

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Holy Spirit. So again, if I were to hear that Bill Johnson outright denies that Jesus is

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God, which of course is not what he says, and he has clarified his statements in those books, and he said, no, that's not what

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I meant. But if he were to outright deny it, then I would write him off as an unsaved man, but I don't believe that's the case.

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I don't believe he denies that Jesus is God incarnate. Okay, so you're making a distinction between him saying, you know,

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Jesus laid his divinity aside as he sought to fulfill the assignment given to him by the Father. You're saying what he should have said was he had obviously what

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Orthodox Christianity believes. There was some limited attributes of deity. Obviously, we know he was fully man and fully

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God, but always divine. My understanding of Orthodox Christianity is when

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Christ was on earth, he was fully man and fully God. So never laid aside his divinity, the exact opposite of what

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Bill's saying. You're just saying it was sloppy wording. He should have said, you know, limited in attribute. It's the problem when somebody who's, and again,

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I don't mean this to be disrespectful to him. I'm just being honest. He's probably not widely read and theologically trained in these theological issues, and he spoke out on a subject.

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I mean, it's like asking me to speak out on physics. I can't do that, or rocket science, or IT technology.

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Now granted, as a pastor, he should be widely read. I would encourage him. I'd give him some very good books to read that could bring clarity to,

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I think, the lack of clarity with which he spoke, but I think from all I've seen of Bill Johnson, and I don't know him personally, and as I said, what

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I've seen in his retracting those statements and clarifying them, I think he's fully

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Orthodox in his beliefs, and there are a wide range of evangelical scholars who would completely agree.

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I'd encourage you guys to get Gerald Hawthorne's book, The Presence and the Power. Gerald was a professor of Greek at Wheaton College for 30 years.

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He wrote the Word Biblical Commentary on Philippians. He is an incredible scholar now with the Lord, and his book lays out that very thesis,

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I think, in a very persuasive way. Now again, not all evangelicals agree with it. That's all right.

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We don't all agree on eschatology either, but we do all agree that Jesus is God. Always has been, always will be.

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Right. Yeah, and I was in Romans today, actually, and read

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Romans 8 .28, and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose, and I'm sure everybody knows that verse out there, but as I was thinking about this show,

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I'm just thinking about all these different... I'll just be honest. I listen to a lot of different music, all right?

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Sometimes I throw the Beatles on, all right? I'm sorry, guys. I listen to the Beatles sometimes, all right? Not during worship.

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I listen to Mozart, okay? But yeah, as I'm just going through some of this music,

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I'm just thinking to myself, when I think of worship, and this could be something that you were just talking about,

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Dr. Storms, but how great thou art, amazing grace, it is well.

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Even Elvis's version of God's Gonna Cut You Down, that's some great tunes, right?

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But yeah, I really, truly believe that whenever we write songs, we're trying to write these for the glory of God, but again, coming back to my first initial statement of the me gospel, the only thing that I ever want to do when

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I'm listening to praise and worship or singing praise and worship to my steering wheel is

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I want to sing to God, right? I want to be singing to Christ. I want to be talking about praising him and worshiping him.

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So yeah. I agree. I mean, I was just looking at some of the songs I listed in my blog article, goodness of God, King of Kings, oh, praise the name, living hope.

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This is amazing grace, worthy as the lamb, cornerstone, seas of crimson, which we sang last

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Sunday, for the cross, man of sorrows, lion and the lamb, all hail

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King Jesus. I mean, these are incredibly Christ -centered, God -exalting songs.

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I was just speaking at a conference recently in Houston, and if you all haven't heard the song,

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All Hail King Jesus, it was written by Jeremy Riddle, who was at Bethel for so many years.

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He's now at the Anaheim venue. You ought to listen to it. It is so glorious and Christ -exalting, and I would say if any of their songs are not, if any of them are sappy and overly sentimental, don't sing them.

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I won't sing them. We won't sing them. I think we need to be discerning, but there's a legitimate expression,

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I think, of Christ -exalting, biblically -based music there that we need to take advantage of.

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But again, like I said, nobody's forcing anybody to do that. If you don't want to take advantage of it, you want to sing the others, sing the others, as long as we have a common goal of exalting

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Jesus. So as we wind this down here, let me just give you kind of my thought process and tell me what you're thinking, because I look at today's generation, and music is a very powerful motivator.

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So when I read some of the lyrics in these songs, my first thing is, you're saying no one's forcing them or a church to sing them,

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I get that. But let's say I'm listening to it on the radio, watching it on YouTube, getting it through Apple Music, wherever I'm getting my media.

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I'm a newer Christian. I look at those songs, I listen to them. You mentioned, this is

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Amazing Grace, right? There's a lyric in there that says that you would take my place, that you would bear my cross, right?

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Now to the mature believer, you might be saying, well, they're probably meaning my sin, right? Substitutionary atonement.

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But to a new believer, you know, they read in the Bible the next day that says, oh no, you must take up your cross daily,

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Jesus said. And they're going, well, wait, he took my cross. Why am I having a rough life? Why didn't I get that promotion?

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Why isn't God giving me these blessings? And once again, I'm saying, are those too theologically vague for a new

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Christian? You know, let's say listening to a Bethel song, and then they go on the website or they YouTube something and they go, oh, look it, they're doing grave soaking and Christian tarot cards at their school of ministry.

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And he made a statement, like I said, that was, like you said, was a little bit muddy. My heart goes out for those newer or immature

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Christians that might not have the discernment to then say, you know, this is off a little bit, or this is a little sloppy.

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What's your thoughts on that? Well, two thoughts.

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First of all, I have personally heard Bill Johnson repudiate both grave soaking and tarot cards.

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So if those were once practices, they no longer are. Now, was he in error in ever even allowing that?

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Sure. But hopefully he's grown from that and he's learned some good lessons. The internet was breaking up when you quoted the lyric from This is

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Amazing Grace. What were you saying about it? Well, there's a lyric that just says that you would take my place, that you would bear my cross.

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And my point is, is, you know, you and I, and yeah, praise God, would say, yeah, he just didn't take my place and bear the cross that I deserved under the wrath of God.

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I have no hope. That's the gospel. Absolutely. And we all we all believe that and understand that my point was, if you have a newer

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Christian or someone who's immature or new to Christianity, to the faith, you know, they read the next day, well, oh, no, you have to bear your cross.

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In fact, you have to take it up daily, Jesus said, which then sets in their mind a thing of, well, why are these bad things happening to me?

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I just sang a song that says, he took my cross, he bared my cross. So I'm just saying, if a song is theologically or doctrinally vague, sometimes there's misinterpretation that can happen there.

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Why not be specific in those songs? I just don't think that's vague at all.

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I mean, if we can't recognize that the Bible talks explicitly about the cross on which

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Jesus died in our place, so that we wouldn't have to die there for our own sins, as over against his using the imagery of bearing your cross in daily life.

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If we can't recognize that the cross is being referred to there in two different senses, both of which are perfectly compatible, then we're not teaching our people well.

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I don't think, I can't imagine somebody hearing that song and then having not, and if they have a problem, maybe they're a new

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Christian, okay, so they see something in Scripture that says I'm supposed to take up my cross daily. What are we to do?

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We're to teach them. That's what we're here for. That's what pastors do. We're to say, hey, you need to understand that the cross is being utilized here in two different senses.

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They aren't mutually exclusive. That's what we do. We don't say, oh, well, because you might be so untaught and so young in your faith that you can't recognize the distinction, we're never going to sing that song.

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To me, I think it's massively unwise overreaction. If we did that for everything and every song, it's hard to imagine we could ever sing anything.

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Yeah. Dr. Storms, thank you so much for your time. I know we just had a quick 30 with you today, but man,

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I'd love to get you back on and talk about the state of the world, man, just the economy, the wars, rumors of wars, and the job loss and the pandemic.

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I'd love to hear you just riff on all that stuff and just give us your wisdom. We've got 30 seconds if you want to try a little bit.

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No, I would just say this. I would just say this. First of all,

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I'll just say this in conclusion. I want to thank you guys for at least providing a forum in which these views can be expressed.

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I just want people to understand, you need to keep your finger on the text of scripture, and don't ever let anybody lead you to sing a song that's contrary to the inspired, infallible, inerrant, all -sufficient word of God.

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I don't like the me orientation. I don't like the sloppy sentimentality. I do love any song that is musically and aesthetically pleasing and is also

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Christ -exalting and biblically based. So that's what my article was designed to communicate.

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And also just to basically say, I think if Ms. Morgan or whoever else tries to live consistently by the principle that drove her conclusion, she's going to have a hard time getting along in this world because there's so much in it that is wicked and evil and misguided, and yet we don't completely and utterly dismiss those products or those places from our lifestyle.

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We couldn't survive in this world in which we live. I wish it weren't the case, but it is. Yeah. And I know we can all three agree that we all, all three of us do want to worship

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God in spirit and in truth and bring him the most glory that we possibly can while we're here on earth. So Dr.

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Sam Storms, we thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Dr. Storms. And I know we just had a little bit of time with you, but anytime you want to come back on, you're more than welcome on the

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Dead Men Walking Podcast. We do appreciate it. Thank you very much. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Dead Men Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips or email us at DeadMenWalkingPodcast at gmail .com.